In what proved to be an engrossing game of snakes and ladders, as long as you were not playing, the snake brought a year with so many serpentine twists that it seemed designed to give any investors hiss-trionics. Overlapping scales rose and fell as the beloved Hang Seng rooster danced a pas de deux with a snake that now basked in the sun, and then hid under a rock to cool down. The snake cooled with a December drop in temperature and by the end of the year the Heng Seng was no more than a slightly deflated puff-adder.
A fine year for rattling investors as the taipans headed for their snake-holes. A little forbidden fruit from April to June had punters salivating venomously, but they had only bought a krait of moonshine, and the best roll of the dice for the year turned out to be snake-eyes. It is true that snakes can detect movement, and this one slithered down through the summer and into the autumn, sloughing nearly half its weight by October. A natural feeder at irregular intervals meant the rooster was left just scraps between then and the following year.
A modest beginning to the year extended right through the spring as the snake warmed to its task. A drastic plunge in early June saw confidence in the great snakes in the sky fall to an all-time low for the year. After that descent, the snake behaved itself through the rest of the calendar year in a sinuous climb back towards the warmth of the sun. From there to the lunar new year, it was like a slinky, slowly slithering down, finishing the year lower than it began.
Coiling and coiling in the widening gyre the snake could not charm the rooster. A year of zig and zag, with a hiss-toric zagging down towards the end, meant the first collaboration between the two ended with dissatisfaction weighing down the scales. A rapid recovery from that venomous bite could not viper away all our tears, and addering it up, the year closed with a fangs-for-nothing fall, amounting to little more than a load of old cobras.
Sorcerer: Dr James Greenbaum
Sorcerer's apprentice: Susan Zhang
Wand bearer: Forest Chan
Director/Editor: Yukti Vidyarthi
Translation editor: Melanie Ng
Design/Art: Lizzie Lau; Anna Lai; Elva Lau; Patrina Leung; Jon Berkeley
Web development: Paul Ngan; Timothy Wang
Video production: Alexandra Lee; Luna Deng
Thanks to: Sandy Chen Dowling; Ellen Lo
Producer: Liz Patterson