As an avid sports fan growing up, my exposure to rugby was pretty abysmal. In Canada, it ranks shockingly low on our national depth chart for spectator sports, competing for airtime with coverage of billiards trick-shot challenges, competitive five-pin bowling, celebrity hold’em tournaments and even the Lumberjack World Championship.

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Bamboo Snake

Scientific name: Trimeresurus albolabris
Size: Average size 50cm, but can reach up to 90cm
Appearance: Bright green with a yellow (female) or white (male) underbelly. Reddish-brown streak in the tail. Triangular-shaped head with orange-yellow eyes.

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Our Most Prolific Snakes

“There are 52 native species of snakes recorded in Hong Kong. The five most common snakes are the bamboo snake, Chinese cobra, red-necked keelback, many-banded krait and common rat snake."

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Chief Executive CY Leung delivered his policy address on Wednesday. To keep things lively during what has for years proven to be a vapid spectacle, we spiced it up with a fun drinking game that left us nicely blackout drunk when all was said and done. We heartily recommend it for the next one.

In honor of our city’s tycoons, take a gentle sip of Hennessey XO each time “Hong Kong land for Hong Kong people” is mentioned.

In honor of your mad aunt Betty, take a shot of Advocaat whenever the “rights of the elderly” are mentioned.

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With the Oscars coming up, Hong Kong cinemas are about to be inundated with big-budget releases (a few months later than the rest of the world saw ‘em, but whatever). We’re wondering what some of these flicks would be like with a Hong Kong twist.

The Wife of Pi

Pi Chan’s wife loves shopping for designer handbags at Milan Station. On one fateful day, however, she gets cast adrift in the South China Sea. Will the Chinese military rescue her before she has to resort to eating her new Gucci purse to survive?

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2012 has been a funny year, with protests and anger at the government on a scale that we’ve not seen in Hong Kong for almost a decade. Each successive scandal has exposed just what an old boys’ club it is in our top tiers of government—but hey, at the end of the day (or year), you just gotta laugh, right? We’ve rounded up some of the most ridiculous, juicily scandalous stories of the last 12 months.

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January

Many Hongkongers are surprised to still be alive after the Mayan prophecy fails to pass. Office workers abashedly start asking for their jobs back after having upended their desks and trashed their conference rooms on December 20th.

February

The Year of the Snake begins dramatically when a video appears on YouTube of CY Leung apparently communicating with a gigantic serpent using a sinister hissing language. Leung’s camp confirms the footage, but insists it is merely his Putonghua accent. 

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’Twas the night after New Year’s, and through HK Mag,
Not a package was untapped, the sacks and the bags.
The cookies, the cakes and the sugary cheer,
The free wine gift sets and artisanal beers.

The delicious desserts, the fine sample platters,
And eating all the food was all that did matter.
Editors, writers, and interns alike,
Lay comatose in their chairs, having lost all their fights.

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Young Sarah Fung, the editor of HK,
Was sunning herself on the office terrace one day
When she found a parchment buried in the weeds
She brushed off the dirt and started to read:

“On the twenty-first day of December 2012
Hong Kong shall be doomed to eternal hell.
The streets will run red… with commie visits!
The rich-poor gap will widen to a bottomless pit!

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