Unlucky Money

If you want to put the whammy on Hong Kongers, all you need to do is give them a lai see packet containing hell money.

Getting it this way is bad luck, because hell money is meant for one's dead ancestors.

So when 200 people at the Wong Tai Sin Police Quarters found letters with hell lai see in their mailboxes on the fourth day of lunar new year (even worse, as the number four sounds like the word for death), they were not amused. Each packet contained notes ranging in value from 1 million to 50 million "hell dollars", and each note had a slightly singed corner.

But as the packets were mass mailed, residents did not treat the incident as a case of intimidation. Some believe it might be related to an officer's love affair (the Police Training School received hell money four months ago; the officer is in training there), but the police denied the allegation.

Yet some whack job took the trouble to buy the notes, burn the corners, fill the packets, and mail the letters. If the blanket curse wasn't the work of a deranged lover, then what other reason could there be? Nothing plausible leaps to mind. Hasn't everyone who's ever had a broken heart momentarily wished their lover dead, or at least to have bad things happen?

Sending hell lai see was a blunt way to get the message across.

Keep it in mind the next time you get audited.

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