“Death and taxes and childbirth!” fumed Scarlett O’Hara, “There’s never any convenient time for any of them!” Hong Kongers, who pay low taxes, would at least disagree on the other two: the initial public offering of a Chinese burial group this week has attracted the strongest retail demand since a baby product maker three years ago. Flimsy comparisons with 19th-century Atlanta belles aside, the Hong Kong surge suggests Asia’s premier new listing venue might be returning to life.

For three years until 2011, a parade of enormous Chinese state-owned enterprises helped make Hong Kong the world’s largest listings venue. This year, a flurry of smaller deals has propelled it back to second largest. Hong Kong does not need to be the biggest, but it does need to offer more excitement. If this strong investor interest holds for the deals expected in 2014, that could happen. Fu Shou Yuan, upmarket Shanghai-based cemetery operator, raised just $215m. But its importance is that it is?the?latest?to suggest retail investors are alive to new opportunities: they applied for 670 times their allocated shares. Mom and Pop are an integral part of Hong Kong listings, where they are allocated up to a tenth of deals and can claw back more of the offering if demand is strong enough. Fu Shou Yuan’s 45 per cent opening-day jump will have done the city’s animal spirits no harm just as Fed tapering becomes a reality.

Hong Kong’s problem has been that Chinese SOEs, the bulk of its new listings, are dull. Not even the biggest money manager can claim influence with the Chinese government. Still, deals expected in 2014 include Shuanghui, the Chinese pork producer buying Smithfield, while Li Ka-shing seems likely to float part of his fast-growing retail business. Alibaba might even try again. This would be a very convenient time for Hong Kong investors to regain their appetite.