Hotpot card game that plays on Cantonese slang and memes and the creators behind it, whose goal is to help preserve Hong Kong culture
- Daai Da Bin Lo, or ‘The Big Hotpot’, is a fast-paced and colourful card game intended to bring people together after the unhappiness of the Covid-19 pandemic
- The game, with its hotpot theme, highlights Hong Kong culture with memes and Cantonese slang words ‘in danger of disappearing’, says one of its creators
It may be 36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit) outside during the summer, but for a true Hongkonger, stifling temperatures are never an obstacle when it comes to enjoying hotpot.
In fact, for three creative Hongkongers, a shared love of hotpot became the inspiration for their passion project: a card game that uses a mixture of local dining culture, popular slang and delicious depictions of hotpot ingredients to get people talking.
Daai Da Bin Lo, or “The Big Hotpot”, is a new card game by Kevin Lok Tin-ki, Paul Tsang Lik-san and Joe Man Wai-yip, who all work in creative industries in Hong Kong.
The game was soft-launched in November 2021 at a pop-up event space in Kowloon’s working-class Sham Shui Po neighbourhood. The trio recently displayed their game at another pop-up at the upscale K11 Musea mall in Tsim Sha Tsui.
“Why did we do it? All three of us are actually not really people who play board or card games,” laughs Man. “But in the last three years, we’ve seen how Hongkongers have been really bored and quite unhappy. We wanted to use our creativity to build something that they can really connect with.”