March 19, 2023

A practitioner performs a "villain hitting" ceremony on the day of "ging zat," as pronounced in Cantonese, which on the Chinese lunar calendar literally means "awakening of insects," under the Canal Road Flyover in Hong Kong on Monday, March 6, 2023. People holding a grudge may have found a way to release it in Hong Kong’s “villain hitting” ritual. To relieve themselves from a bad mood, customers paid ritual practitioners who work underneath the Canal Road Flyover in Causeway Bay, one of the city's shopping districts, and watched them bashing an image of their target with a shoe. It could be anyone — rival lovers and unfriendly colleagues, or horrible bosses and unlikeable public figures. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)