AP PHOTOS: Hong Kong's snake soup is slithering away but still simmers in a decades-old kitchen

HONG KONG (AP) — As Hong Kong prepares to welcome the Year of the Snake on Wednesday, Chau Ka-ling displays a moving serpent with practiced ease, holding it like a pet in her decades-old restaurant in the city.

As one of the last keepers of the city’s traditional snake soup industry, Chau saves three live snakes for occasional display in wooden drawers that once housed more serpents for cooking. The cuisine she makes, long cherished in southern Chinese culture for keeping people warm in the winter, is slithering away.

Founded by Chau’s late father in the 1960s, Shia Wong Hip once slaughtered live snakes for its dishes. “Shia Wong” means “Snake King” in Cantonese.

Under her father’s guidance, Chau learned to catch and kill serpents and make soup, eventually becoming known as the city’s “Snake Queen.” A newspaper photo displayed on the wall captured her success in catching an over 2-meter-long venomous king cobra in 1997 at a marine police office in rural Hong Kong at the authorities’ request.

But the restaurant, alongside most of the city's other remaining snake soup shops, switched to using frozen snake meat from Southeast Asia after a 2003 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, killed 299 people in Hong Kong. Scientists have linked the virus's origin to wild animals.

Despite the change, preparing snake soup still takes a long time. The defrosted snake meat must be boiled for at least two hours to achieve the desired tenderness. After it cools, Chau debones it with a sharpened chopstick and tears it into thin pieces by hand.

The snake bones then are simmered with chicken and pork bones for at least six hours to make the soup base. Next, the broth is stewed with snake meat, shredded chicken, ham, fungus and mandarin orange peel before finally being thickened with starch.

When a bowl of soup is served, diners usually garnish it with lemon leaves and crispy chips.

Snake meat, which has a texture similar to chicken after cooking, is rich in protein and low in fat.

During the winter, Chau can sell up to 800 bowls a day ranging in price from $7 to $11. But that figure drops to 100 or less in the summer, when the soup is less popular.

Snake soup shops have closed after the COVID-19 pandemic and as older chefs retire, leaving only about 20 still in operation.

But Chau is determined to keep her business going as long as possible, though she is pessimistic about the industry's future.

She said even if her nephews wanted to join her, she would suggest they learn to make desserts instead.

“This is not a money-making industry and so I don’t see that any young people would like to get into it,” she said.

Associated Press news assistant Renee Tsang contributed to this report.

Old photos of the family-run snake soup restaurant owner Chau Ka-ling on display at their shop in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Chau Ka-ling, owner of the family-run snake soup restaurant, sits beside a pet snake at her shop in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Customers dine at the family-run snake soup restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Waiters serve food to customers at the family-run snake soup restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Customers dine at the family-run snake soup restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

A waiter holds a bowl of snake soup at a restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Chau Ka-ling, owner of the family-run snake soup restaurant, pets her pet snake at her shop in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

A jar of snake-infused liquor is displayed the family-run snake soup restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

A waitress serves a customer at the family-run snake soup restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Chau Ka-ling, owner of the family-run snake soup restaurant, prepares snake soup in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Customers dine at the family-run snake soup restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

A handwritten menu hangs on the wall inside the family-run snake soup restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

People walk past the family-run snake soup restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Chau Ka-ling, owner of the family-run snake soup restaurant, skins a snake at her shop in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

A pet snake crawls out from the cabinet at the family-run snake soup restaurant in Hong Kong, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday.

A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.

Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.

For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.

The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”

Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners Saturday, he said.

Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

This photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, shows a fragment believed to be a part of a Russian Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile that hit the Lviv region. (Ukrainian Security Service via AP)

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left, listens to British Defense Secretary John Healey during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)