With its spiky exterior and pungent flesh, durian is, to put it mildly, a divisive fruit. Its distinctive “stank” is often likened to rotting meat, which seems strangely prophetic now that a Hong Kong woman has apparently found a worm “as big as a pinky” in her fruit.

At around 6pm on Sunday, a man surnamed Ho purchased some household groceries, including three pieces of Thai Monthong durian from the Wellcome in Chun Shek Estate. Three hours later, Ho told Apple Daily that he heard his mother suddenly shout while eating the fruit.

“She shouted that a worm had crawled out. I immediately went over to look and couldn’t believe it […] it was the size of a pinky finger, and obviously really unappetising.”

Ho’s mother then went and forced herself to vomit up some of the fruit, as she had already eaten two of the three pieces of durian from the packet.

“She threw a little bit of it up, but complained that she felt dizzy and unwell afterwards,” Ho said.

He then reported the incident to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, but said they were “indifferent”, and tried to palm him off on another department.

Disillusioned, Ho later gave the fruit and the worm back to Wellcome and got a refund, but emphasised that it wasn’t “a matter of money”. “My mum’s in her late 60s, approaching 70. This is a matter of hygiene,” he said. “The worst part is, she’d already eaten an entire two pieces. We don’t know if she ate some smaller worms, or maybe ingested larvae.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been updated.



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