The Year of the Rat

We missed the Chinese New Year celebrations this year. Back in November, everyone said that CNY is a great time to stay in Hong Kong. They said it was cool, beautiful and not crowded. They also pointed out that it's the most expensive time to travel in Asia because everyone else is. We thought to vacation during Christmas and stay during CNY, but luckily, as it turns out, I didn't have enough money for us to travel at Christmas if we were to have any presents. So we booked early to go away CNY.

Up until a week before, I was a little disappointed to miss all the celebrations. The decorations were gorgeous all over town with "trees" of mandarin oranges or kumkwats on every corner. All the little shops that usually sell stationary, plastic bowls, buckets and perhaps some twine were packed with red and gold. I suppose the paper and plastic decorations would look tawdry in ones and twos but packed into a lit shop, they were really striking.

I discovered I needed to buy CNY clothes for my kids. The students at school wear traditional Chinese clothes for most of the week before the vacation starts, so I went out one drizzly night to "the Lanes." Right across the street from H&M and Marks and Spencer, an open market is packed into two alleyways. I tried to look and buy some clothes at the stall at the top of the lane, but women kept stepping in front of me and engaging the shop keeper. I wasn't feeling like using my pushy shopper skills I picked up in Korea and refined in Turkey, so the girl and I went down farther into the lanes. There we found another stall with a great salesman. He sold three or four different outfits while I was debating, but kept up the patter the whole time to me, too: "What do you want for you? What else? I can see you have a good eye? Make your husband happy..." After I'd decided on a hot pink cheongsam dress, I asked him what size I needed. I said that I usually wear a 38 or 40, but I wasn't sure. He told me to open up my coat. So I did and he said definitively that I needed a 40. I demurred that maybe a 38 would do, but he said, "No, when you open your coat, I see your hips. Not a 38. I am honest." So I bought the 40.

But when I went home, it was too big. I didn't begrudge at all the extra trip back since I got to tell the man off for misjudging my hips. I told him I wasn't as fat as he thought I was. For a moment he looked worried that I was really mad, but then, that consummate salesman came back with, "I just wanted to see you again."

We left Hong Kong a few days before the New Year. I wore three sweatshirts and shivered walking in the rain to the bus to go to the airport. It was hard to pack because it didn't seem possible that I'd need bikinis and sarongs. I bet a lot of people here didn't even go out to watch the fireworks; and plenty of boys were freezing their heads because of their short New Year haircuts. Next year maybe I'll get to see CNY, or maybe I'll just go to paradise again.