Lowaicue
英語在香港
Christmas
Our first house in Hong Kong was a little more than halfway up an very narrow, very steep hill with precipitous drops to the jungle on one side and the main road into Kowloon on the other. We christened it The Dragon's Back.
Christmas was coming, our first. In a vain effort at English normality I took my young office manager with me, into the teeming streets of Mong Kok, to purchase presents for the staff. She did not understand my motives and said 'Why you do this?'
'Because it is Christmas. It is a time when we think of others and buy presents.'
'Hmm,' she grunted, 'you should give them money, presents no point.'
She was, of course correct. I pointed to a little furry kitten barely the size of a coffee cup, 'That is nice for Carmen, don't you think?'
Again she asked why, and explained, 'That no good. Carmen have no place to put.'
'Her dressing table?' I ventured.
'She live in three hundred foot flat with mother, father, grandmother and elder brother. Have bed with curtain. No dressing table.'
OK. Lesson learned.
And so Christmas in this strange place crept ever closer. It was to be Boxing Day with Gwendoline and Oliver, Alexander, their youngest with the latest notch on his stock, Bethany Drummond, Plantagenet without partner, Sassy the youngest of the two girls but without Leonora who was somewhere on the African continent doing good things with tribes in mud huts. Oliver knew to within a wood shot where she was but Gwendoline was more concerned with wether Alexander thought Leonora would receive the Harrods Christmas hamper ordered a month ago.
Christmas Day was to be, as was our family tradition, just us; and an enormous pine had been delivered ten days previously with the hanging tag, 'Grown and Harvested in the United States'. Could it really have been grown there and harvested anywhere else I asked the closed ears of my family.
The weather, as December ousted November, was to an Englishman lately out of the home counties, warm if not a veritable heatwave. The Chinese, determined to force the passing of the seasons onto a calendar quite unused to such things, were tied like the Christmas goose ready for the oven, in all manner of scarves and wraps.
Attila Clanfield who had a place even higher up the hill, sent as was his habit, a sheet filled with Christmas Carols to every post box on the dragon's back. With it the summons to attend the singing of carols on Chritmas Eve in the garden of Anthony (with the 'th' pronounced) Chan Li Ming, just a five minute stroll down the narrow hill.
We arrived as the little town of Bethlehem was fading into the balmy evening and were welcomed by Mrs. Attila Clanfield serving hot punch.
It was, as I have mentioned, quite a warm evening and quite unsuited for Attila's chosen form of dress which included his old striped school scarf, knitted gloves which he refused to doff despite the difficulties they brought to the turning of hymn sheets and the quaffing of punch, and a knitted woollen hat.
We sang with gusto as the various local johnnies looked on in disbelief.
A barbecue had been arranged for Boxing Day lunch at the same venue and we were to arrive at eleven. Anthony Chan had invited several of his friends and business colleagues including one rather elderly gentleman with the extremely unlikely name of Tadpole Wong. I will tell you about some of the unlikely western names chosen by the Chinese at a later date if encouraged to do so.
Now Gwendoline with whom we were to spend the evening collected frogs. Not live frogs, of course, but stone, concrete, plastic or wooden frogs. Sadly she had not invited Tadpole Wong!
And so passed our first Christmas. I was quite surprised to find, on return to the office on the twenty- seventh, that my outside staff had had no holiday at all and not only found nothing untoward but were blissfully unaware of the fesrival.
The accounts were looking good, as they had to, with the ten day holiday looming at the end of January for Chinese New Year.
Christmas was already a fading memory.
Comment if you like this - comment if you don't.
Our first house in Hong Kong was a little more than halfway up an very narrow, very steep hill with precipitous drops to the jungle on one side and the main road into Kowloon on the other. We christened it The Dragon's Back.
Christmas was coming, our first. In a vain effort at English normality I took my young office manager with me, into the teeming streets of Mong Kok, to purchase presents for the staff. She did not understand my motives and said 'Why you do this?'
'Because it is Christmas. It is a time when we think of others and buy presents.'
'Hmm,' she grunted, 'you should give them money, presents no point.'
She was, of course correct. I pointed to a little furry kitten barely the size of a coffee cup, 'That is nice for Carmen, don't you think?'
Again she asked why, and explained, 'That no good. Carmen have no place to put.'
'Her dressing table?' I ventured.
'She live in three hundred foot flat with mother, father, grandmother and elder brother. Have bed with curtain. No dressing table.'
OK. Lesson learned.
And so Christmas in this strange place crept ever closer. It was to be Boxing Day with Gwendoline and Oliver, Alexander, their youngest with the latest notch on his stock, Bethany Drummond, Plantagenet without partner, Sassy the youngest of the two girls but without Leonora who was somewhere on the African continent doing good things with tribes in mud huts. Oliver knew to within a wood shot where she was but Gwendoline was more concerned with wether Alexander thought Leonora would receive the Harrods Christmas hamper ordered a month ago.
Christmas Day was to be, as was our family tradition, just us; and an enormous pine had been delivered ten days previously with the hanging tag, 'Grown and Harvested in the United States'. Could it really have been grown there and harvested anywhere else I asked the closed ears of my family.
The weather, as December ousted November, was to an Englishman lately out of the home counties, warm if not a veritable heatwave. The Chinese, determined to force the passing of the seasons onto a calendar quite unused to such things, were tied like the Christmas goose ready for the oven, in all manner of scarves and wraps.
Attila Clanfield who had a place even higher up the hill, sent as was his habit, a sheet filled with Christmas Carols to every post box on the dragon's back. With it the summons to attend the singing of carols on Chritmas Eve in the garden of Anthony (with the 'th' pronounced) Chan Li Ming, just a five minute stroll down the narrow hill.
We arrived as the little town of Bethlehem was fading into the balmy evening and were welcomed by Mrs. Attila Clanfield serving hot punch.
It was, as I have mentioned, quite a warm evening and quite unsuited for Attila's chosen form of dress which included his old striped school scarf, knitted gloves which he refused to doff despite the difficulties they brought to the turning of hymn sheets and the quaffing of punch, and a knitted woollen hat.
We sang with gusto as the various local johnnies looked on in disbelief.
A barbecue had been arranged for Boxing Day lunch at the same venue and we were to arrive at eleven. Anthony Chan had invited several of his friends and business colleagues including one rather elderly gentleman with the extremely unlikely name of Tadpole Wong. I will tell you about some of the unlikely western names chosen by the Chinese at a later date if encouraged to do so.
Now Gwendoline with whom we were to spend the evening collected frogs. Not live frogs, of course, but stone, concrete, plastic or wooden frogs. Sadly she had not invited Tadpole Wong!
And so passed our first Christmas. I was quite surprised to find, on return to the office on the twenty- seventh, that my outside staff had had no holiday at all and not only found nothing untoward but were blissfully unaware of the fesrival.
The accounts were looking good, as they had to, with the ten day holiday looming at the end of January for Chinese New Year.
Christmas was already a fading memory.
Comment if you like this - comment if you don't.
