Today is the fifteenth and final day of Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival, and what a stretch it’s been over the past two weeks! As I probably don’t need to tell you, I didn’t add a rip-roaring international vacation to my litany of past travel adventures. I’ll have to keep coasting on memories of last year’s jaunt to Cambodia until things return to normal.
But without much choice in the matter, for only the third time since I moved to Hong Kong in 2009, I stuck around the Pearl of the Orient for the ongoing Chinese New Year celebrations. And, well, what do you expect? It was a true bash! I spent a lot of time with friends old and new, ate a boatload of incredible food, managed to explore the great outdoors and even squeezed in a rather last-minute staycation on my favorite of the outlying islands, Cheung Chau.
As I mentioned a few moments ago, Chinese New Year is technically a fifteen-day celebration, meaning it’s still taking place. That being said, it’s really the first few days—namely the first, second and third days—that are seen as being important enough to warrant public holidays that get us a break from office life.
This year, the public holidays fell on a Friday and a Monday, meaning a nice four-day weekend for the public to soak everything up. But even before that, the city had visibly begun to prepare for the coming festivities. One of the major events leading up to any Chinese New Year is the Victoria Park Flower Market, which had to be drastically scaled back this year due to COVID, but still took place in eye-catching fashion. I popped by one Sunday evening with my friend Blueky and we made a complete circuit of the sprawling space, which was surprisingly empty yet still enjoyable endearing.
As the city got ready for the season, I decided the Blind Tiger needed some appropriate accoutrements, as well. So, one day after work, I popped into a traditional shop on Wellington Street and loaded up on traditional decorations. I spent that night festooning the rooftop, and, I must say, the end result was pretty stunning. Although I usually hang a few banners, buy a mandarin orange tree and put out a Chinese New Year welcome mat, I’ve never done anything like this to celebrate the holiday before. I expect I’ve established a new tradition, because I’ve just loved sitting on the roof watching the breeze work its magic.
But things really kicked into high gear on the Thursday right before the public holidays, which was Chinese New Year’s Eve. One of my company’s finance directors, Doug, who is normally seen dividing his year between the UK, Spain, Hong Kong, Thailand and New Zealand, has decided to wait out the end of the pandemic here, meaning we’re graced with a lot more facetime with him than we usually get. That day, he suggested to Laren and me that we take the afternoon off, indulge in a delicious yakitori lunch down the street at Yardbird, and toast to the impending arrival of the Year of the Ox (or perhaps to bid a fond farewell to the Year of the Rat) with a few post-lunch drinks. And who am I to contradict a senior director?
Later that night, my friends Steph and Tan hosted a hot pot feast at their apartment in Happy Valley, before I returned to my own flat around 10:30pm. You may recall from my 2019 Chinese New Year staycation that the temple just adjacent to my home is host to a midnight ritual at the stroke of twelve on Chinese New Year’s Eve. So I invited Blueky and Serena over to witness the ceremony from the Blind Tiger. Unfortunately, with about half an hour to go, I had a small mishap while playing with Fredric. Sometimes our antics tend to get a bit rough, and, without realizing what he was doing, he wound up biting my lip, which lead to a nasty little cut.
Long story short—or shall I say, am ambulance ride, five stitches later—I was back at home, having missed the service. Heigh ho… Goodbye rat, hello Ox!
That next morning, Friday, Serena and I ran all over Happy Valley procuring the required ingredients for a little dumpling making party I dreamed up to celebrate the first day of the new year. My friend Ted is from a city near Harbin in northern China. He mentioned to me recently that he really was disappointed not be able to return home this year to celebrate with his family, and that he especially missed his mom’s traditionally pork and shrimp dumplings.
Without a sufficient kitchen in his own place, I suggested that we host the party at mine, so Ted duly sent me a list of all necessary items, and around 3pm the guests started to arrive. Ted taught us all how to make the dough from scratch, then how to flatten it to form the dumpling skins, next how to stuff it with the secret delectable mixture, and finally how to pinch them tightly shut.
I must say, with about thirty guests trying their hand at it, not every dumpling came out looking like a work of culinary art. But taste-wise it was another matter. Everybody seemed to love the bite-sized morsels, and although my flat was decidedly disordered in the aftermath of what turned into an all-night gathering, it was oh-so worth the clean-up.
The next day, Saturday, was a bittersweet occasion. Our good friend Kate, who quickly became an indispensable member of our circle of friends after we met at that Mid-Autumn Festival camping excursion back in October, came to the end of her semester abroad and returned home to Germany.
Long ago we hatched a plan to bid her a fond farewell at the Blind Tiger, so an intimate group gathered late that afternoon, as we lingered until she had to depart just after 10pm to head to the airport. I’m used to friends coming and going in Hong Kong, but every goodbye is still difficult. And I’m really going to miss having Kate around to motivate me to get up early and really make the most out of all this city has to offer. And I know we’ll stay friends for a long time.
Monday was the last of the public holidays, and with pitch-perfect weather, a group of my friends decided to head out on a hike. After a hearty French lunch at La Crêperie in Wan Chai, up we went over Wan Chai Gap Road, crossing Bowen Road and continuing along the Wan Chai Green Trail, eventually connecting with Stubbs Road, Black’s Link and Mount Cameron Road.
With the steep, strenuous portion of the climb now behind us, the rest of the hike was a leisurely meander through Aberdeen Country Park, with particularly photogenic visits to the Upper and Lower Aberdeen Reservoirs. I’ll forever be grateful to live in a city with such natural beauty right on our doorstep. True, there are more difficult, more stunning hikes further afield that are really worth the effort if you have time. But to have such easy access to the vast open spaces is something we all just come to take for granted after having lived here for a few months. And we should count our blessings.
Tuesday marked the return to the office, and, again, thanks to Doug, our team decided to incept what I hope will become a new annual tradition, by organizing a communal Chinese feast in nearby restaurant Moon Palace. It was great to gather together and catch up on how we’d spent the long weekend, and we even had a nice view out over Victoria Harbour from the window of our private dining room.
But perhaps the most memorable aspect of the meal to me was a display cabinet holding a full set of cups modeled on the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. You see, I moved to Hong Kong at the end of the last Year of the Ox, meaning that its return a few days earlier had marked the completion of my first full astrological cycle!
To have the pantheon watching over our meal added a very special atmosphere to the proceedings, and I couldn’t help but look back on all the memories of my previous Chinese New Years, both those travelling overseas and the three I’d now spent here in Hong Kong.
That same day was Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, depending on where in the world you grew up. As the last day before Ash Wednesday marking the start of Lent, many people indulge in sweets as a last hurrah, knowing they’ll forego such luxuries until Easter. I hosted a small rooftop gathering and had originally intended to make American-style pancakes to celebrate. When I realized we were out of milk—and not wanting to make another trip down the stairs—we turned to Deliveroo.
A search for “pancakes” yielded scant results, save for one Korean restaurant offering a kimchi pancake. What the heck? We decided to go for it, throwing in an order of dumplings for good measure. And although I vow to be better prepared for Pancake Day 2022, it was still a lovely evening.
My stitches came out the next morning and, I must say, I am quite impressed with how faint the scars already seem. I was quite prepared to have a gashing, obvious mark on both my upper and lower lips for a long while, but my concerns dissipated upon my first glance in the mirror upon leaving the outpatient clinic.
I squeezed in one final coffee at Happy Alley before heading to work, my last until April 4, since I perennially forego my morning java between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. I also give up swearing, keeping a log each time I accidentally slip with each instance of foul language costing me HKD 10. (I already owe HKD 70.) And, in a major decision, I also decided to give up booze, with a caveat.
You see, the doctor put me on antibiotics after stitching my lips back together and instructed me not to consume alcohol until I’d finished the course if I wanted to heal properly. That meant that five days before Ash Wednesday, I was already not drinking, with the medication continuing several days after, too. So what I decided was that, since I had a head start, I might as well keep going. But here’s my twist: since I had that five day lead time, I am giving myself five days back between now and Easter, certainly on Saint Patrick’s Day and also on four other yet-to-be-determined occasions over the next forty some odd days.
The last major highlight of my Chinese New Year staycation was an actual staycation. Because for the first time in eleven plus years, I spent the night on my favorite of Hong Kong’s outlying islands, Cheung Chau. There’s something incredibly special about experiencing a touristy, bustling locale after the madding crowd has dispersed. So to linger on the toytown island at dinner, watching the day-trippers head back to the ferry pier, and then to experience the place under moonlight and solitude was nothing short of magical.
Equally exceptional was to awake at the crack of dawn the following morning, before the arrival of the first boat. We made a beeline for the beach, where a stunning sunrise was waiting in the wings. And after the skies brightened, we killed sometime beachcombing, picking up intriguing shells and some very attractive well-weathered sea glass.
Of course, no trip to Cheung Chau is complete without seafood, and there was plenty consumed over both days, from whole steamed local garoupa to decadent scallops steamed with minced garlic and curry fish balls to deep fried salt-and-pepper squid. So, all in all, it was a fitting addition to what has turned out to be yet another wonderful installment of my Chinese New Years!
Oh! And, by the way, dinner and movies are back on my social schedule! A little over a week ago, just after the Chinese New Year public holidays, the government deemed it safe enough to allow restaurants to remain open for dine-in service from 6pm to 10pm. They also allowed the cinemas to re-open. (I’ve had dinner in a restaurant practically every night since then, and I’ve already managed to catch three movie screenings within the span of a single week.)
So Kung Hei Fat Choi from Hong Kong, and I wish my friends far
and near a happy, healthy and prosperous Year of the Ox!
