The Police Station That Cooked the Crab

When Hong Kong, a Chinese territory, became a colony of a Western power—namely, the British Empire—culture clashes were inevitable. One such clash occurred at the tail end of the nineteenth century, when the British leased the New Territories.

Looking for a suitable location for a police station in the Yuen Long area, Sir Francis Henry May set his eyes on the small hill of Ping Shan, located behind a village inhabited by the Tang Clan. Little did he know that, according to feng shui principles, the hill of Ping Shan has the shape of a crab.

In Chinese geomancy, the crab is an incredibly auspicious symbol. Because it moves sideways, hoards wealth, and is highly adaptable, it ensures a village's long-term prosperity and fertility. For centuries, the Tang Clan carefully shaped the landscape to shield the crab from the "flame-shaped" mountain ranges surrounding Yuen Long.

When the British built the police station on the highest point in Ping Shan, they unknowingly constructed it directly atop the crab’s shell. To make matters worse, they painted the roof and trim of the building a standard red. To the Tang Clan, this could only spell disaster. By building a massive structure on the shell of the crab, the British essentially crushed it, while the red colour of the roof symbolically "cooked the crab," thus killing the crab and severing the village’s life force, or Qi.

The building was subsequently blamed for any misfortune that befell the village. It was only after the police abandoned the structure in the early twenty-first century that it underwent a symbolic cleansing, effectively reviving the crab.