On the way to Kadoorie Farm last week, I was so excited to see signs for The Wishing Tree! I had learned of The Wishing Tree before, but assumed we would probably never see it since it is in the middle of nowhere. But it turns out the middle of nowhere is 5 minutes away from Kadoorie Farm, so we stopped there on our way home.
The Wishing Tree is located in The Wishing Square (of course) in a little village in the New Territories. For many years, people have been coming to write their wishes on paper josses and throw them up in The Wishing Tree by way of an attached orange. The higher the branch your wish catches on, the better your chances of it coming true. While we don't believe in all this, it was really fun to learn about the tradition.
The Wishing Square
Goldfish
The paper josses-- now so convenient as to have pre-printed wishes and boxes to check!
This is the current Wishing Tree in use, but it's not a real tree. The real tree was suffering too much damage, hence the fake one. But let me tell you, the fake tree and fake oranges don't take away from anyone's enthusiasm about making their wishes!
The real deal.
Time to throw our wishes-- much harder than it looks thanks to the weird fake oranges that are now used. It took us both several tries.
Made it into the tree!
I think these are more paper josses. They were everywhere.
Year of the Horse. Horses galore!
Cotton candy/candy floss!
