Legend of the Lovers' Rock

                                                    by Bill Yim

   Has the popular and ubiquitous computer dating replaced the charm of the old Lovers' Rock?

   No, at least not in Hong Kong.

   It's five o'clock in the morning and the sun is about to rise.  While most people are still fast asleep, a group of old ladies have already climbed half way up a hill, and are busy negotiating with a prominent phallic-looking stone located there.

   The women are Taoist pilgrims, and the stone they are talking to, fondly termed the Lovers' Rock, is a legendary open-air temple rising 30 feet into the sky on the scenic hillside of Bowen Road in the Mid-Levels of Hong Kong Island.

   Most of the worshippers in the group are women in their 50's and 60's, although young girls sometimes lurk among them.  They burn joss sticks and candles.  They make offerings of roast chicken, suckling pig and oranges to the rock as they kneel and pray for a better life and marriages for their children.

   The worship ritual happens three times a month.  It takes place regularly on the sixth, 16th and 26th days of each moon in the lunar calendar. Six is an auspicious number to Taoists. It stands for eternity.

   Long before computer dating was invented, the Chinese had begun to use unconventional means of searching for their perfect mate. Consulting "the rock" is one of the methods that have withstood the test of time and maidenly patience.  To pilgrim believers, it is a magical stone that answers their prayers -- sometimes.

   The day I visited the rock recently, I overheard one old lady asking if her 40 year-old son, a truck driver, should marry a 28-year-old woman, a school teacher in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.

   It transpired that the driver had been dating her for almost a year on his trips to China. He was desperate for a wife and the girl was apparently keen on the idea of living in Hong Kong.

   To find out whether her son should marry the school teacher, the mother made abundant offerings of joss sticks, candles and spiritual money before the rock. She then picked up a box of numbered sticks, knelt and shook the box until one of the sticks dropped out.  The stick was believed to have been "picked" by the Rock God.  For an interpretation of the meaning of the number on the selected stick, the woman approached a professional soothsayer "on location" at the rock site, and paid HK$20 for the answer which came from the well-worn depths of an old Book of Fortune.

The answer was : "Go ahead!"

   How did the legend of Lovers' Rock originate?  Some people say the stone was first worshipped as a phallic symbol.  Others argue that the shape of the rock is totally irrelevant to its power.  It is a miracle rock, they insist, because the God of Love has chosen it as his domain.

   Yet another tale revolves around an English seaman and a Chinese sampan girl who fell in love a long, long time ago. He had come to Hong Kong on a merchant ship, and she earned her living by scraping the sides of the ships.  And so it was that fate made their happiness together an impossible dream.

   For the captain of the ship, on learning of the affair, refused to allow the seaman to leave the vessel in order to remain in Hong Kong.  And the girl's parents detested the idea of their daughter marrying a foreigner.

   As the ship was about to leave for the next port of call, the English seaman, with tears in his eyes, stood on deck gazing at the waterfront.  He could see that his Chinese lover was weeping too.

   Knowing that if he sailed away he might never return, the seaman suddenly jumped overboard, and swam to shore.  Overjoyed and moved by the bravery of her lover's action, the maiden decided to run away with him.

   Together the two fugitives disappeared as rapidly as they could into the hills.

   Meanwhile the captain mounted a hunt for his missing seaman and the girl's parents started searching for their rebellious daughter.

   With their trackers gaining on them the two lovers reached a tower rock.  It was there that they ended their lives together, freeing their souls from a cruel world that forbade their union.

   Some say they jumped to their deaths from Lovers' Rock.  Others believe they hanged themselves on a tree close by.

    Kowloon, on the peninsula opposite Hong Kong island, also has a "Lovers' Rock" of some repute.  Ten feet high and eight feet wide, this miracle rock is perched on a hillside of Chi Wan Shan or the "Hill of Merciful Clouds."  It is part of a nearby temple dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy.

    It was some time ago when I last visited this rock. According to a caretaker of the temple, the popular stone was discovered some 200 years ago during the Ching Dynasty of China when pilgrims went there to pray for assistance from the gods if they ran into earthly misfortune.  It was then known as the Treasure Rock.

   Years later, however, people began to call the stone Lovers' Rock when pilgrims claimed they could see images of their future husbands or wives by "looking into" the rock surface.

   First things first, the caretaker would advise the "enquirer" to visit the temple, make an appropriate offering to the Goddess of Mercy, and pray devoutly before asking the rock to play mirror to the future. The face of the future would take a while to appear on the rock screen, but when it does, said the caretaker, the pilgrim would first see a sort of light emanating from within the rock.  This beam would gradually melt into an image.

   And when you are faced with a face in the rock, what you see is what you are destined to get as your future spouse. Like it or not!

  However, he said, not just anybody could look into the stone and see his or her future love.  "You must believe implicitly or you will not stand a chance," he added.

   I heard about a middle-aged couple who took their two children to visit the temple. The children, one 10 years old and the other nine, said they wanted to find out whom they would marry in the future. "Have a look," said the father, pointing to the rock.  The children ran over to the stone and began to peer closely at its surface.  Something soon happened for the daughter. Crouching close to the stone, she suddenly cried out and sprang away."Mom," she wailed, "all I see is a bunch of ants in the rock!'

  Undeterred by his sister's screaming, the boy carried on looking into the stone patiently for almost 10 minutes, at which point, he turned around to his parents and said: "I think my wife is going to be a rock."

  Funny? Well, not everyone thinks so. As one wit puts it: "Don't laugh at the believers who beat a faithful trail to Bowen Road or Chi Wan Shan. You too might find that talking things over with a magic stone is not such a cold and sobering experience after all."