Nectar-collecting bird
The Chinese New Year Flower (Enkianthus quinqueflorus) is used to be the protagonist of the season in eyes of foreigners, thus this name. With deforestation and the new country park legislation reinforced, the public can no longer collect the Chinese New Year Flower for their domestic decoration at the festival.
We used to see the Chinese New Year Flower during hikes as a kid. It looks like peach blossoms and winter jasmine. Numerous flower buds pop up as a result of vernalization, forming a natural scene that blossoms come before leaves in the beginning of spring, when average temperature is low. The Chinese New Year Flower we see nowadays has adapted to the environmental changes, in a way that its blossoms and leaves grow at the same time.
Has it become better or worse?
I am no prophet, and in no capacity to predict the future. As a lucky person born in the 70s, I witness the modernization of the city, its digitalization, aging as well as globalization.Along with such observation on the changes of the Earth for more than half a century, I witness those applied on the nature too: deserted country parts gradually resided with sky-climbing trees, yet the sea resources is exhausted due to over-fishing; a fire outbreak destroy lives in forests, while the ice used to seal the North and South Poles have been melting down, turning them into a new world favoring residence of tropical creatives.The nature of Hong Kong has been changing as a result of human activities, on local species, endangered species, invaded species, ornamental garden plants, and genetically modified species that gradually become the “features” of local ecology. The incapacity to read through the nature has become a “natural ecology” of Hong Kong people.The reality is like that. To iterate, I am not a prophet, I can’t tell what the future of Hong Kong will be like with such a vigorous burning flame of changes. Perhaps we can decide its future by taking reference from the past.
