A Lesiurely Sunday Stroll

Originally, I had wanted to go home immediately after having had my favourite carp-ball rice noodles following the Sunday service. I was walking down towards Central from Caine Road. I lifted my head. All above me, I saw nothing but the purest blue. There was sunlight on all the walls of the buildings around me. Although there were any autumn or winter breezes, it didn't feel hot at all.The temperature was just right for a hike. But I didn't want to hike alone, especially when I didn't have a camera. So I decided on a compromise. I would take a stroll along the Central to Sheung Wan harborside.

I walked past the carefully laid out displays of ladies and men's fashion, shoes, watches, jewelry etc behind the shiny surface of the tall shop windows of the IFC. There weren't too many people. But you don't see the kind of tense faces, hunched shoulders and hurried steps of the people that you normally find on a weekday. There might not be smiles on the faces of all the people walking past me, at least I didn't see any frowns, or knitted brows and tight lips. It was pleasant.

I strolled lazily past the busy CitySuper with its sausages, hams, roast beef, turkey, cheeses, olives, pickles, marmalades, breads, pastry etc in a confusing assortment of colors and shapes. Once outside the IFC, my eyes were greeted by the flaming reds of rows of thorny azaleas whose flowers were waving gently upon those tentacle-like branches behind those burnished steel tubes and glass panels and dotted here and there by balls of tiny yellow and orange bouquet like flowers whose name I don't know. Below the pedestrian walkway to my right was something which you would rarely see amidst expensive commercial real estate in Central: a patch of lawn whose green displayed in silence its pride under the sun, having no competition except that in front of the Hong Kong Club, to the right of the Mandarin Hotel. I don't know why. One feels a strange, almost mysterious sense of serenity and ease whenever one's eyes meet a smoothly mowed lawn. Perhaps in days when our ancestors first climbed down from the trees in the African savannahs, the order and uniformity of a carefully manicured lawn signalled the final victory of human will over the otherwise indifferent or unruly forces of nature. Whatever might have been the cause, I felt overcome by an inexplicable sense of peace in my heart. 

When I looked towards the harbor, I noticed to my surprise a huge gift box in red whose sides were circled by curls of gold. When I took another look, I discovered that the box-like top of the pier to the island where I lived for two years after my return from the UK had been taken over for advertrisement by Cartier! A most clever idea. It was an almost perfect fit for the shape of that otherwise simple rectangular superstructure of Lamma Island Pier.

I stepped on to the escalator going down to the ground at sea level. I remember how often I stood there facing the sea amongst the shades of the palms during lunchbreaks, taking in the sea air, relaxing my eyes upon the surface of the sea,  watching the graceful figures of 8 described by the occasional sea hawks which would ride on the hot updrafts and would only give a few flaps of their wings to bring themselves up again into the air whenever they feel any loss of force in the air curents below, away from those tense and oppressive faces of the Central lunch hour crowd. Now I no longer had that luxury. Blogging is time consuming! There is a price to be paid for everything. Bloggers are not exempt!

Once on the ground, my eyes were met by an assortment of people gathered there for different purposes. Groups of Filipinas and now Indonesian maids were sitting here and there in groups of 4 to a dozen, eating their MacDonalds French fries, oily chicken wings, curries, or other special Filipino or Indosian dishes or snacks to get a brief reprieve from their homesickness, exchanging tips on where to get what at the lowest prices, displaying gifts they got from or even stole from their bosses, wearing or using discarded clothes and hangbags, purses etc, leaning against each other for comfort, grooming each other's hair or nails, playing cards, listening to songs in Tagalog, dancing or simply engaging in that universal female habit for relieving stress: gossipping. It was their day. And Central is their weekly paradise. Then against the flagstone steps with trees and flowers as background were dozens of couples in long white embroidered bridal gowns and young men in black suits, collars and bows together with their bridesmaids, best men, friends, parents and relatives, hair all gelled and even sprinkled with gold dust, all specially dressed up and managing awkwardly to walk in their unusual attires which they probably would never wear again the rest of their lives, contorting their faces into the accepted shapes of big "sunny" smiles expressly for the now almost obligatory marriage albums included as part of the all-in-one marriage celebration package whilst nearby I could see the waiting black bridal cars, with a gauze bouquet over each of the car door handles and some with a bigger gauze bouquets at the nose of the front bonnet of the car or 14 seater vans painted pink and white to take the photo party specially there for the pictures and with smaller or bigger Chinese words "double happiness" in plastic stickers stuck over each flap of the folding door of the vans. The girls were the happiest. They must look their very best. How could they not? I can imagine them poring over the photographs for hours on end with inteminable chit chats amongst giggling girls trying to figure out which to include and which to reject when the photos are ready. Then there were people waiting listlessly for the next ferry,  reading their newspapers, books, smoking, talking on their cell phones or simply feeling bored, Then finally you found those tourists who wished to see the harbor at close quarters and from the way they dress, mostly from the PRC. They were siting on the benches, a plastic bottle in their hand and some munching some snacks or other whilst others profited from the sunlight and the beautiful sea to take a few snapshots or videos. 

Further down towards the embankment fronting the sea, I could see numerous fishing rods leaning obliquely over the steel tubular bars over the parapets at higher or lower angles from the ground. Behind them, I could see their owner's little plastic pails in blue or red a short distance from where the handles and wheels touched the ground. The anglers came all prepared, each with a cloth or canvas hat or cap over their head. What's more. Each had figured out ingenious ways of covering their neck and faces to prevent being sunburnt. An old lady used a most peculiar but most economical way. She wrapped a cheap white face towel around her neck which she tucked under the collar of her shirt, with the upper edge of the towel over her entire nose, just below the level of her sun glasses, as if she were wearing a gas mask! If she were not sitting there staring intently at the sea, I could swear I would have taken her as a robber hiding her identity! One had several metal clips, the type that we use to clip one or two pieces of foolscap paper in the office together and others used staples to clip their handkerchief to the bottom rim of their caps to provide the needed cover. The most professional type of such covers I found was one used by a 60-ish man. He had the cover sewed on to the lower rim of his cap so that it looked like those handkerchiefs hanging over the back of caps to about three or four inches beneath the nape of the neck spread over their back, like those one see on the heads of Japanese soliders in those old time black and white war movies about the Japanese invasion of China. It looked a bit shiny under the sun. So I think it's probably made of plastic or plasticised cloth. From the oily black skin of some of the anglers, some of them must have been former fishermen, itching to test their skill against the cunning fishes. They could not bear to desert the sea, not for long, anyway, after having spent their whole lives doing so. It's in their blood!

It appeared to be high tide today. It's probably close to the middle of the lunar month. I didn't check. Can't be bothered. The water was clean. There were none of those foamy ribbons of tiny dirty yellowish-white bubbles on the surface of the sea nor dirty plastic bags with frayed edges floating up and down amongst the ripples of the gently swaying sea as far as I could see. The blue sky added a bit more green to the water, though to be honest, it could have been a bit clearer still. The sea still looked a bit murky. But then, one shouldn't be greedy. It was a most pleasant walk. I didn't make a turn home until after I passed the Shun Tak Centre. Before going home, I made several stops to buy some croissants, some French bread and my weekly supply of fruits.

I haven't done such a stroll for a while. I remember I used to walk all the way from Central or Sheung Wan to Wanchai and sometimes back again after a Saturday lunch or a dinner with one of my friends whom I first came to know when I was still a freshly qualified solicitor in a legal firm and he was then a trainee, then called an "articled clerk".  I saw him qualify as a solicitor, get married ( about which he had some serious reservations) after he consulted me, have his child, open his own firm. Now his son is a final year university student at the U of Melbourne and he is already happily retired in Melborune and teaching tai chi! He would return to Hong Kong from time to time because he bought several houses here for renting out as investment income. Each time he comes back, he would call me up. We would meet for old times sake and discuss everything under the sun: movies, novels, legal gossips, family life, tai chi and religion. He used to be an atheist. Now he has been converted to Christianity, whilst I am going in the opposite direction. Whilst we were still working together, we would often have lunch together every day after which we would walk to the antique shops of Hollywood Road where we would look at old jades together and had endless discussions about their authenticity and the reasons why we held the opinion we did. I don't how many we had bought. But that was a really long time ago. As I was walking, all such memories flooded back to me of their own accord. I am lucky. These are all good memories.