Hong Kong Sevens

SW15 had its sporting event this weekend, the Boat Race. We would normally have been there, on the river bank, for the start at least. What you actually see is three seconds of the race as the rowers power past before staring at a dull grey empty Thames with thousands of other people similarly wondering why they came.

Hong Kong had its sporting event this weekend too, the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens. It starts on Friday afternoon and draws to a close on Sunday night: a long slog for those who are there to watch the rugby but tougher still for bodies battered by three days of binge drinking at the city’s biggest annual party.

On Friday afternoon it rained and the beautifully prepared pitch was churned up within minutes of the start. It’s rare to see grass in Hong Kong, even rarer to see mud. Players slipped and lost their balance but it all added to the entertainment. The rain could not dampen the spirits of the crowd, however, and the atmosphere was like a carnival. Jugs of beer and Pimms slopped about and the combined smells of sweat and fried food were all around.

The antics of the infamous South Stand where dressing up, wild dancing and heavy drinking are de rigueur were beamed up to the rest of us on huge TV screens. The more there are of you in matching silly outfits, the more likely you are to attract the cameras. And the more outrageous your get up, the better. Or the less of it there is. Bare-chested or big-breasted are enduring themes. We saw bands of nuns, Father Christmases, Miss Piggies, High Court Judges, cave men, belly-dancers and milk maids. There were Superheroes, Teletubbies and mankini-sporting Borats, kings in crowns and queens in drag.

The crowd is overwhelmingly Caucasian and when China played England the supporters were all for the English. That said, the stadium crowd loved the underdog and whenever a losing team made a dash for the try line there was huge excitement and a roar of support from the crowd. The best match of the tournament was when Kenya beat New Zealand and the Stadium erupted.

By Sunday everyone has probably seen enough rugby to last a lifetime and yet you have to be there as the rugby gets better and better as the giants of the game meet and fight it out in the fast-moving 14 minute games. I read somewhere that the Sevens game fits the Hong Kong pace of life and attention span. Bite-sized nuggets of the game with 14 fit and wholesome chaps running about in tight shirts certainly suited my attention span.

The atmosphere is intimate and fun. We recognised friends and stopped for a chat, read the Sunday papers and had another coffee. Paper aeroplanes are thrown from the upper stands and a cheer goes up if one makes it to the pitch. Dance music at half time and between games gets the punters on their feet. The occasional pitch invasion is met with rapture in the stands. A Pink Panther made a dash for it and a monk was tackled in jest by a Portuguese player. A grass-skirted limbo dancer complete with coconut shell bikini treated us to a bum wiggle before being received coldly by nonplussed Chinese guards on the touch line.

Our two older boys played showcase mini-rugby games in the Stadium on Friday and Sunday before the big boys came on and all three took part in the Parade on Sunday afternoon watched proudly by parents and sister. Over 3,000 4-12 year olds play mini-rugby at different locations around Hong Kong on Sunday mornings and most of them had not turned down the chance to be applauded by a full Stadium.

It felt good to belong in Hong Kong this weekend, to have an invitation to the ultimate party. I imagine the rest of Hong Kong was noticeably ex-pat free until the Stadium emptied its contents into the bars of Wan Chai each night. Not normally a huge fan of the game, I’ll admit to finding it all highly infectious. Despite the fact that the boys from home did not even make it to the semi-finals and HK was completely trounced by Canada we had a great time. Even our four year old turned to me during one game and said with gusto, “Mummy, this is a real football match, isn’t it?” Errm, almost.

The Sound of My Day

Sometimes I hate being a mother.
It’s a difficult truth. Let me try again.
Sometimes I hate being a mother.
And once more, for those at the back who didn’t hear.
Sometimes I hate being a mother.

Brief pause while I await hellfire and damnation……

No lightning, no thunderbolts. I’ll continue.

Today was crap. The rain, damp and mist persist and no-one can go out to play. So in stead they all fight each other, squabble, squawk, shriek, yell, come crying to me (what can I do about it??) and then ignore whatever I say.

This is what my day sounded like: Turn off the telly. It’s breakfast time. Sit down. I think we have a rule about toys at the table. Yes, but you should have gone before the meal. Please don’t kick him under the table. I can’t understand what you’re saying when your thumb is in your mouth. No, I haven’t seen your German folder/maths book/spellings. Yes, I can wipe your bottom. Have you got your homework diary? Oh, please stop whining. Don’t forget your trumpet. Can you use your spoon please? No, not to poke your brother. Yes, I’ll push you in. Yes, I’ll spread it. No, I think you can feed yourself. But you haven’t finished your breakfast. You can’t be full, you haven’t eaten anything. No you can’t watch telly. Yes, I’ll get you dressed. Have you cleaned your teeth? Turn off the telly. You DO need socks. Where’s your school bag? I thought we agreed you were only allowed telly at the weekend. Why aren’t you dressed? No it’s not Show and Tell today. I said no telly! Put your shoes on. Hurry up or we’ll be late. Not those ones, it’s raining. Because you’ll get wet feet. I’m sorry you don’t like it but it’s what we’re having for lunch. Well if you don’t like it you can always go to bed. Are you eating or playing? Please get down from there. Last time you did that you fell off and hurt yourself. Please don’t play with that. Because I don’t want it to be knocked oh… Get a cloth! Have you ever heard me say we don’t play football in the house? How was school? Have you got any homework? Oh, please let him have a go. Trumpet practice? Please, just to stop him yelling? That wasn’t half an hour. He won’t break it. Only when you’ve finished your homework. Get off the table! Why is she crying now? Because we have to share. Can you come over here and say sorry please? Homework! Supper time! Look, I’ll mend it. Turn off the telly! What happened? Look you two, sort it out! Try saying that again with an empty mouth. What do you mean you left it at school? Hand in front of your mouth when you cough. There’s no need to shout! For goodness sake! Please might help. Leave him alone! Hand in front of your mouth! You have to have some veg. Because it’s good for you. But that’s life. When you’ve finished your supper. Can you put it away please? Bath time! Which part of NO TELLY do you not understand? Whoever told you life would be fair? Have you had your shower? Please pick up those books. What’s the matter now? Because I said so. Can you hang up your towel please? Why did you hit her? Teeth! There’s no need to scream. In the dirty clothes basket. Two wrongs don’t make a right. In the cupboard. It IS there. Well then I don’t know where it is. Have you packed your bag for tomorrow? No, it’s late. Lights out. Because it’s late. Good night. Yes, I’ll get you some water. No, you’ve already cleaned your teeth. Well you should have eaten your supper. Stop talking you two. I’ve read you two stories and now it’s time to go to sleep. Because I’m tired too and it’s late. No more talking now. Boys! GOOD NIGHT.

Day after bloody boring day I sound like a scratched record. I sound like a nightmare. The Pioneering Accountant has pioneered off to Beijing and I was meant to be going to Shenzhen for a day of cheap copy shopping with the girls. Then I realised my passport was at the embassy for the purpose of getting, ironically enough, a China visa. Without it I couldn’t cross the border so I had to stay at home. Stay at home, stay at home. It’s what I do. And today I didn’t like it.

What do I do?

I’ve been filling in forms. School application forms to be precise. Often times when it comes to the bit about Family Details I am unsure what to put. Name: obvious. Nationality: no problem. Occupation: this is where it starts to go wrong.

I always baulk at writing ‘Mother’ in these boxes. Is it my generation of highly-educated superwomen, or the one before us that fought so hard for women’s lib, that makes me feel this is not ENOUGH? Whilst it would be honest to write ‘Just a mother’ I am inclined to think I need another occupation.

Supermother of four? Breed mare (thoroughbred of course)? Housewife? Sorry, I draw the line at that. And anyway, with all the home help there is available in Hong Kong no-one would consider that a valid way to fill your time.

The more American ‘Homemaker’ makes it sound as though I sit around reading House and Garden type glossies, consulting with an interior designer and heading off to Pimlico to choose a beautiful piece by David Linley or some such. And what does a homemaker do when she’s finished making her home anyway? Move out and start another one? What if she liked the first? Is she an unemployed homemaker? No, that won’t do either.

Back in London there were kindly folks who would tell me, every so often when I doubted, yes even in 2008, that home was the best place for me to be. Put like that it sounded as though I might be a liability in the work place. Come to think of it, I probably was a liability in the work place.

There were a number of workplaces actually: my first job post university was with a gap year charity based on the Isle of Coll in the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. I seem to remember I was forever in trouble for giggling during meetings or for chatting when I should have been working quietly at my desk.

When I left Coll I qualified as an EFL teacher and, nervous that I would be conspicuously tall and blonde turned down a job in Tokyo in favour of one teaching English to jobless former socialists in east Germany soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unbelievable really.

I should add that this brief spell of teaching has entitled me, in the past, rightly or wrongly, to put ‘Teacher’ in the Occupation box although I never seem to be the sort of teacher that people actually want. A school I was trying to get one or other child into rang me recently to discuss the application and asked if I was interested in doing supply teaching. Are you primary or secondary? she wanted to know. Neither. Nothing as useful as that.

Still in eastern Germany I managed a side-step into a small firm producing wooden toys that needed a bilingual sales and marketing assistant. Low moments of that job involved cold-calling on Kindergartens throughout Germany with my briefcase of wares as I sold puzzles and board games around the country.

From there I returned to England to work in direct marketing for a mail order company selling historical (hysterical) artefacts with tenuous links to Britain’s past to the Germans, and other nations gullible enough to buy such tat. There was seemingly a limit to the number of Victorian nightdresses and Celtic brooches that could be sold worldwide and soon after I left to join my new Pioneering Accountant husband in our first joint overseas adventure, the company went down the pan, due, I am told, to over investment on overseas operations. Draw your own conclusions.

In Frankfurt I recreated myself as a Research Consultant for a high-end American head hunting firm and would sit on the telephone, day in day out, trying to persuade Germans that I had a better job for them in tile manufacturing or fashion design or insurance. It felt like a non-job. You have to be very charming and very good at selling. I was neither.

I continued part time and from home for a year after our first child was born but was forever being caught on my mobile in the supermarket or in the sandpit, once even with my trousers down, quite literally, in the changing room of a dress shop, completely unable to remember the details of the position I was meant to be selling to that particular candidate.

That, in essence is the story of my brilliant career. With one embarrassing admission. On arrival in Hong Kong, yet another opportunity to recreate myself, I can never resist, I was asked by my son’s teacher what I do. I’m a writer, I replied smoothly. Oh wow! She enthused, you’ll have to come and talk to the class about how you work and how you put stories together and get your work published. We’ve never had a writer in the class.
Er yes, great idea, time to go. I replied and hurried off.
That’ll teach you, said my husband as he followed me out.

But at long last a friend has thrown me a lifeline to my missing identity in the form of this so I have decided that from now on I will fill in all occupation or profession boxes of awkward, nosey and demanding forms with “Geek Mum”.

The Colour of Rain

Hong Kong rain is colour coded. This morning it was raining so hard that raging torrents rushed down normally dry drainage gullies and the steep mountain sides were transformed by the sudden appearance of multiple waterfalls. We had umbrellas but still got soaked as we waited for the nursery bus. This was Amber rain: more than 30 mm falling in an hour. The danger is more to do with landslides than any fear of getting wet. I can’t wait for Red.

The persistent low cloud and grey mist of recent weeks are getting to us all.

Last week I turned my ankle over playing tennis. More than painful. I applied ice and hoped for the best. It is now the size of a balloon and I can’t hike, play tennis or do yoga. The other foot has swollen up either in sympathy, or else because it just doesn’t like it here. It’s not a good look and I feet fat and frantic and distinctly short of the endorphins I require on a daily basis.

One option is to sit on the sofa with my injured foot raised on a cushion while I watch films and eat comfort food: I have developed an appetite for baked potatoes smothered in butter and salt, Mmmmm. This may be an unwise long term strategy when I consider my latest attempts at shopping for summer clothes in Hong Kong. When asked what size I was I replied, somewhat optimistically, S sometimes, maybe M? The sales assistant looked me up and down and replied, An Asian L. Help! I have become LARGE without even properly indulging my baked potato fetish. So unfair.

Shopping for shoes is no more satisfactory although the thought of squeezing my ugly sister feet into a glass slipper is not appealing right now. When I named my size the assistant’s reaction was, Size 39? We don’t stock larger sizes. I’ll have to call the warehouse. So now I’m an L with enormous feet. None of this is helping my self-esteem.

My skin hates this place and has rediscovered its misspent youth in the form of adolescent spots which are not mixing well with the 41 year old lines that are making themselves at home on my face. I sit in the plastic surgeon’s swanky waiting room reading leaflets on liposuction, face lifts and tummy tucks and wonder if he’ll give me a discount for a job lot. Instead he removes my daughter’s plaster, dabs ointment on the stitches before banging on a new plaster and charging me a cool HK$500. I could have done that for nothing.

That’s the physical side but mentally things are little better. I am fretting about schools. Having decided we must move our 10 year old I have fought off the boarding school debate and am left with an inadequate choice of places to send him. In London we were spoilt for choice. Here we are not and anyway most schools have a waiting list as long as your arm. We’ll have left by the time we get him in to any of them. I thought we’d decided. My husband did too. And now I’m having a major wobble of ‘the devil you know’ sort. I need my husband to talk me off this particular ledge but he is cross at the illogical nature of my concerns and thinks I have cried wolf. I have been left to stew.

The 10 year old is asserting his independence and newly discovered sense of style and has cut his own hair. At school. With a pencil sharpener blade. His first attempts were quite good but success went to his head and he tried again. Now he just looks odd.

I am forced to conclude it is a pathetic fallacy type of day. I’d better draw a veil over it and hope that tomorrow is not a Black rain day.

The Empress and I

Last week I stumbled across the Hong Kong International Literary Festival when an acquaintance mentioned in passing that she had seen Markus Zusak at the Fringe Club. How on earth did you know it was him? I asked, before waking up to the dull thud of my own stupidity.

By the next day I had tickets to see Margaret Atwood in conversation at the Canadian International School on the topic of 'Devastated Environment: Not Just Science Fiction'.

She was introduced by fellow Canadian and novelist Charlie Foran as being the embodiment of Canadian literature. What he actually said was that when asked to name a Canadian author, rather worryingly only 24% of Canadians could. Of those who could, 75% named Margaret Atwood.

The diminutive Ms Atwood reminded me, with her high cheek bones, long nose and tight little smile, of a Tudor portrait. The conversation felt distinctly stage managed and yet she was interesting and witty and despite her huge status on the stage of world literature even managed to be a little self-deprecating. After about an hour she had clearly had enough of CNIS students and their questions and the rest of us who'd paid to see her but weren’t invited to pose one. (Had I been, I might have wondered how, with all her cabin-dwelling greenness, she expects China to turn back the tide of development just as its population is sniffing the possibilities of urban capitalist wealth and live her rural idyll. Ha, Ms Atwood, get out of that one!) Instead I was reminded of a phrase quoted by the inimitable Jaywalker, “The Empress is tired. You must leave her now.”

I left in a hurry but not before trying to buy her new book. It was sold out and there I stood cursing my bad luck just as the Empress sat down at a table right beside me in readiness for a long line of book signing. She looked up and said, very slowly, as if talking to a delinquent child, Well, it’s available in the city. We stared crossly at each other and then I heard myself say in a cringe-worthy sycophantic Blackadder type way that I had enjoyed her talk and had heard her read from her newly published Cat’s Eye at Blackwells in Oxford 20 years ago since which time I had been an ardent fan. She didn’t look even slightly impressed. I might have added that on that occasion the booksellers had been a darn sight more organised and had made sure there were plenty of copies of her new book available for signing. “The Empress is tired. You must leave her now.” I left.

A couple of days later I was at the Fringe Club for 'Making a Splash’ with debut authors Janice Lee, The Piano Teacher and Rana Dasgupta, Tokyo Cancelled. They were far sparkier than the Empress and by this time I had begun to enjoy the intimate and accessible nature of the Literary Festival so much that I was back again the next night for a discussion on 'Bloggers: Should they be taken seriously?' This time it was Jeffrey Wasserstrom, an academic and founder of the China Beat blog in conversation with former CNN Beijing correspondent and scholar of the Chinese internet Rebecca MacKinnon. I think they were trying to tell us that good blogging does not all have to be about what I ate for breakfast confessional nonsense but on that I beg to differ! And I beg to inform Ms Atwood that her book is NOT available in the city. It is between editions. But perhaps her publishers were too scared to break the news to the Empress.

Shiners and Fairy Wings

My Oldest Friend has been here with her family. We never went to the same school but my Dad was her family doctor and we remember each other from Brownies and Speech and Drama classes, awkward girls reciting exam pieces with exaggerated inflection. Later came tennis coaching, discos in the village hall and 18th birthday parties of mutual friends. Then, quite by chance we both applied for the same Oxford College. I had taken a year off to teach in Africa but when I got there she was established, welcomed me in and introduced her friends. Two Essex comprehensive girls from the same village, there was an instant bond.

My Friend married an Australian and they head ‘home’ for a holiday with their three children every two years. So stopping off in Hong Kong is their logical choice and our great good fortune. I tell our youngest that her Godmother is coming to stay and she tells me she will have wings and a magic wand.

I am at the arrivals gate at Hong Kong International Airport when my husband calls to say our 3 year old has slipped off a chair, bashed her head and has a cut above her eye. Should he take her to A&E? Why does this always happen on Friday nights?

The difference from A&E at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital on a Friday night, however, is that there isn’t a crowd of drunkards with mashed faces feeling sorry for themselves in the waiting area and she is seen instantly. The only wait is when the duty doctor says he doesn’t want to operate himself, thinks a general anaesthetic might be required and calls a consultant plastic surgeon away from his Friday night dinner. This is reported to me by phone in the car as I drive our guests back from the airport. Just how big is this little cut above the eye, I begin to wonder.

All three of our boys have had spells in A&E, usually on Friday nights. They have been glued, stitched and steri-stripped back together with or without local anaesthesia and all have the scars to show for it. On one occasion after a fall I had to restrain our second son while his head was stitched up and his four year old brother looked on in horror so I don’t envy my husband’s role. We all hope he can dissuade the doctor from a general as that will mean an overnight stay for one of us when, let’s be honest, we’d rather be catching up with our friends.

We are just starting supper when they arrive home.
I was very brave. I didn’t cry, says the three year old.
She screamed blue murder, says my husband. All is well and I am secretly glad that Hong Kong feel plastic surgeons are required for little girls with gashed heads.

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We have a blast with Essex and Auz. It is not their first Hong Kong visit so we eschew the obvious sights and have a fun day at Ocean Park out with all seven children. We ride the helium balloon that rises outside our windows each and every day. We see the pandas munching their bamboo lunch, the seals performing tricks for theirs. Parents and boys ride the Raging River in their log boat while I watch them get splashed with the three little girls, my daughter and her Godsisters, as she has taken to calling them. Then we are delighted by the dolphin show before riding home on the cable car and putting seven exhausted children to bed.

Now it is our turn. We take the Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui and watch the “light show” as the water front skyscrapers flash out their coloured lights and lasers across the harbour. We drink an aperitif in a swanky roof-top bar, move on to Soho to eat Manchurian food and return to Lang Kwai Fung where open fronted bars with names such as The Whisky Priest and Post 97 spill their customers out onto the streets in the warm night air. The streets are packed and wide-eyed tourists wander by, rubber necking the scantily clad beauties who stroll past in impossibly high heels while we sip cocktails and take it all in.

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By Sunday late nights and jet lag have caught up with us all. We go to rugby for the final training session of the season. Medals and player awards are given out by the England Rugby Sevens team, here in preparation for the Hong Kong Sevens next week. They sign the boys’ shirts and when I ask our eight year old whose signature he has on his back, he tells me, He said he was Jonny Wilkinson.

And suddenly it is time for our friends to leave, for the fairy Godmother to don her wings once more and fly off on the next leg of her journey. I want to hold on to them, to the laughter we have enjoyed, to that rare feeling of being with old friends with whom one shares a past, to the news they brought from London of City gloom, of still full Islington restaurants, of mutual friends and places we loved. It has all gone too fast, a fleeting relaxed moment in this edgy place. Tomorrow morning it’s business as usual; my daughter has a huge purple shiner and my guard will be back in place.

Sickening Technology

My computer is ill. Remarkably since arriving in Hong Kong it has been serviced by remote link by the same technical wizard who looked after it when we were but a dash up the A3 in SW15. I don't really understand how it works but this incredible technology means that my cursor can be operated by a man sitting 6,000 miles away who then makes my computer better. Only this time something has gone seriously wrong. He suspects a Trojan invasion and tells me I need to find out if my hard drive is IDE or SATA and then buy a USB drive enclosure and take out the hard drive and plug it into my laptop. He might as well be speaking to me in Chinese.

Just recently I asked for party bags in a big international department store. After much explaining and gesticulating and the intervention of several other shop assistants who supposedly did understand English I was directed to a stand and shown some post-it notes. On another occasion when trying to find duvet covers I was taken to the nail scissors. I find the prospect of having a similarly baffling encounter with a mystified shop assistant when I don't really understand what it is I am after more than terrifying. Meanwhile the Trojan is busy eating its way through my files and folders, my pictures and documents.

I am like the rabbit frozen in the glare of the headlights, petrified for the loss of hundreds of files and too scared to go in search of a USB drive enclosure for fear of returning with a carpet cleaner.

We bought our first computer in 2000. In just eight and a half years my life, my communication, my ability to read the news, research a project, look up a detail and contact a friend has become dependent on this hardware/software heap on my desk. And this is the second one that has died on me. In less than nine years. Clearly they are not built to last, but where do they all go? Is there a hole in the ground (next to the one full of disposable nappies) filling up with our old computers? Will anyone reclaim and recycle it while I look for a USB drive enclosure and a new model?

In the meantime, bear with me. I may be gone some time.

The Dervish in the Toy Cupboard

I am like a woman possessed. Correction: I am a woman possessed. The amahs are tip-toeing about, lying low and, I suspect, although I don’t speak Tagalog, muttering to each other, “Keep your head down, she’s off on one!”

This morning we overslept. In the fifteen minutes that were left to get the boys up, dressed, breakfasted, packed up and out I discovered a pile of dolls’ cooking accessories and 9 birthday cards stuffed in the Chinese armoire and a paint box, complete with brush and water, tucked in amongst the shoes. I didn’t find the school form that I was searching for and nor did I find the Egyptian sundial we made out of a Shreddies packet which the ten year old needed for Science today. Should I be surprised? It’s probably been thrown away. Toys are rubbish and rubbish make toys in this house. Who can tell the difference?

Clearly it was time to act, time to grasp the principles of Feng Shui and clear the clutter. “Clutter is fear.” I read recently, “Shed your clutter and you will lose weight and attract romance and money.” Not sure what my husband would think of me attracting romance but I’m sure he’d welcome a bit of financial assistance. I asked the amahs not to use the cupboard as a residual dump for every letter, toy, unfinished painting, half-burnt candle and discarded piece of wrapping paper they find in the living room and set about putting things back in their proper places.

Before we left London I spent six months preparing for the mother of all moves. Like a swirling dervish I went through cupboards and drawers, the cellar, the shed. Consumed by a need to turn out and declutter, nothing was safe: clothes, books, toys, kitchenware and pictures all got the same treatment. Even my husband began to fear for his safety. I was spotted selling at car boot sales, lugging armfuls of stuff to the Oxfam shop, unloading rubbish at the dump.

Thus we arrived in Hong Kong. Having supervised the packing and unpacking myself I felt thoroughly in control. I had the overview and everything had its place. That was last summer. Since then Christmas and three birthdays have come our way, we’ve been here seven months during four of which the amahs have been busy putting things away in the wrong places.

And so I find myself in the Little-Ones’ room with handfuls of puzzle bits, Playmo weapons, dolls’ cooking utensils, games counters and take a good look round. Sorting the kids’ toys is something you can’t do by halves, well, this obsessive compulsive disordered person can’t anyway.

I am on my knees. I spot Playmo police in the Romans box, Vikings are fraternising with the ambulance men. It all has to come out. There is Lego in the Brio, I empty both baskets. Puzzles may be incomplete; I do them to make sure they’re not. Balls go in one box, animals in another. Stray chess pawns are returned to their comrades. The naked dolls have their dignity and rightful clothes restored to them. Fairies are removed from the knights and put back in their toadstool house. Soft toys go here, cars in there. I replace batteries, repair what I can and bin what I can’t. Do we really need 8 fluffy topped pens? Do children too young to carry keys have to have all these key rings? Where does all this plastic Chinese tat come from anyway?

I busy myself for an hour and a half and then survey my work. The room looks no different. It wasn’t really untidy in the first place but it was the internal untidiness that was bothering me. So what have I actually achieved this morning? Now, for a few days at most, everyone will be able to find exactly what they are looking for in this room by which time it will all be muddled up again. A therapist once pointed out to me that my constant need to clear out was closely related to a history of eating disorders: purge your house, purge yourself. Perhaps she’d read the same article on Feng Shui. I don’t know if I buy it but I will admit it makes me feel better to think the pirates are not socialising with the princesses.

No, if I’m honest I know that this sudden urge to purge actually has more to do with not getting on with whatever it is I’m avoiding. It’s like folding your sweaters when you should be doing your tax return. But in the meantime the big boys’ room beckons, as does the TV room and the children’s clothes, some no doubt outgrown, are winking at me from the drawers.

Dragons and Feng Shui

Back in January (shame on me!) I was tagged by my cyber friend at Paradise Lost in Translation to follow these 'meme' instructions: open 'My Pictures' on your computer, go to the 4th folder and choose the 4th picture in that folder, tell the story of the picture and then photo tag 4 others to do the same.














So, better late than never, here is the 4th in the 4th: the beach at Repulse Bay taken last Autumn when a group of mothers met there for a morning with the children. It was a hot day and the young ones ended up in the water while the mothers chatted. Not bad for October; life's a beach.

The blue building in the background is part of The Repulse Bay; a large complex of apartments, health club, shopping mall and restaurants all built on the site of the once famous Repulse Bay Hotel which was knocked down in the 1980s to make way for a more profitable development.

The old hotel enjoyed 62 years as a centre for 'charm, chic and the Charleston'. Writers such as George Bernard Shaw and Noel Coward stayed there and Marlon Brando was a guest in the 1950s. For years it could only be reached by boat and was considered a romantic hideaway.

At boarding school in post-war England where rationing was still in force, my mother had a friend whose parents lived in plentiful Hong Kong and her mouth would water in envy at the stories this girl recounted of meals out at the The Repulse Bay Hotel where Baked Alaska was served for pudding. And yet, it is Hong Kong's very nature to be constantly renewing and rebuilding itself and as a result there are few old buildings to be found.

The second blue building, just visible on the right of my photo, is the building with the hole which towers over what remains of the old hotel and is also part of the same complex.













The hole is to all to do with feng shui and is there because the building was built so close to the mountain which is where the dragons reside. On the other side of the building is the ocean and if dragons are not allowed to drink then that's not good and you get bad ch'i.

To feng shui masters the earth is a living organism and its breath is ch'i, the 'dragon vapour'. There are good and bad locations for siting buildings on hills; ideal is the south slope flanked by the arms of the hill. The dragon's tail should be avoided lest you anger the beast and it flicks the building down - practical advice in China where earthquakes are relatively common.

The principles might sound like common sense dressed up as hocus pocus but the fact remains that when feng shui was outlawed in mainland China after the revolution most of the masters of the ancient philosophy were driven across the border into Hong Kong. Today 90% of Hong Kong Chinese are believers and there are more than 10,000 feng shui teachers.

One building which is said to occupy one of the very best feng shui sites in Hong Kong is the HSBC building. Designed by Norman Foster, it is located on a dragon's vein, which runs down to the sea from Victoria Peak. So as not to obstruct the flow of the vein the ground floor was left open for public use and it is here on a Sunday morning that the chatter of thousands of Filipina helpers can be heard as they meet friends, share picnics and news from home. Its view of the waters of Victoria Harbour is important as water symbolises the inflow of money. So important in fact, that the bank gave the government money to build a park and a low-lying garage to ensure the harbour view would be unobstructed.














By contrast the designers of the nearby Bank of China got it all wrong. Whilst this bank lies on the same vein as the HSBC and was opened on 8.8.88, the most auspicious day in the Chinese calendar the design, based on triangles, is considered too aggressive. The sharp corners are like daggers: some appear to point inwards, while one points at Hong Kong's Legislative Council Building. From certain angles the building resembles a meat cleaver and the two 'chopsticks' on top of the building point upwards, like incense sticks used as a memorial to the dead. Considering the pitfalls, you have to wonder who'd be an architect in Hong Kong? And yet, given the money and prestige involved in designing one of the island's landmark buildings, I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of takers.

I'm now supposed to tag four other bloggers with this meme and yet most of those I read have done it already, with considerably more passion and flair than my own execution. I have to admit, I am not comfortable with such tasks - they smack of school essays and the words never quite seem to flow. Besides which, four is considered an unlucky number by most Chinese. We live in the fourth house in a row and yet our house bears the number five. So I think I'll just leave it open and hope that the dragon in this unruly piece is not offended. If you feel like picking up the tag and running with it, go ahead. If not, then just let sleeping dragons lie.

Thinking Outside the Box

Another Sunday. Another tournament. Here I stand on the touch-line once more, watching my boys acquire the battle scars of rugby that represent some vital male rite of passage. I won't pretend I get it but I do know when my eight year old is off-side (because he spends a lot of time there) and I know my ten year old is relatively safe because he's not in the scrum. I also know that it's cold, damp and foggy and, if I'm really honest, I'd rather be at home with the Sunday papers and a hot cup of tea.

And yet it's quite a sociable place to be: we recognize school mates who play for other clubs, people we met skiing. I chat to the mums and dads of our team mates as we cheer them on. It's what we do. It's what Hong Kong does. Organised sport, be it football, hockey or rugby, has replaced our spontaneous weekend footie games on the Common with other boys from the neighbourhood. And astroturf has replaced the muddy grass of home. The irony is not lost on me: now that I no longer have to do the laundry there is not a trace of mud to be found.

And yet today I have the feeling that organised sport has not quite ticked all our boxes. On the way home from the tournament with both boys in the back of a taxi I am inclined to believe our eight year old is trying to tell me something. I am as baffled as his older brother.

Is this supposed to be spring?

Emails from Europe bring news of snow drops. The crocuses will be out in Kew Gardens followed by the fritillaries and the daffodils. Oh how I miss those early signs of spring. That was my season: almond blossom, magnolia and flowering cherry nodding at me from front gardens as we walked to school, tiny narcissi in the garden and bluebells on the Common.

It being my first year in Hong Kong I am not quite sure what form the seasons actually take here. In the course of our seven month stay it’s been very hot and humid, slightly less hot and not humid, cool and dry, cool and foggy and now not particularly cold but very decidedly wet. The pages of our books have started to go crinkly and a friend who’s been in the tropics for years pointed out that we needed to dehumidify before the books turn mouldy. Check your clothes too, she said. And your electronic gadgets: computers hate the damp. Oh no!!! The Domestic God was dispatched to stock up on more dehumidifiers which now hum through the day gathering litres of water from the damp household air.

On a brighter note, through the cloud which sits low each day on the island’s peaks, I became aware of an unfamiliar tree which has burst into purple blossom all over the island in recent weeks. Thinking it might be a relative of the magnolias at home, I stopped the car in a passing place one day as we are descending the Peak and leapt out to pluck a single flower. Back home we looked it up on the internet.

It is Bauhinia Blakeana or the Hong Kong Orchid Tree and the national flower of Hong Kong which appears on the country’s flag, albeit in white. I am rather pleased at our discovery. I have learned a little more about this strange old place whilst the magenta blooms bring some much needed colour to a very grey season.

Alice in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Festival is on and last night we took the boys to see the English National Ballet perform Alice in Wonderland at the Cultural Centre. The building stands on Kowloon-side overlooking Hong Kong harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui and we took the Ferry there.

The Cultural Centre faces what is arguably one of the best views in the world and yet it has no windows, balconies or terraces from which to appreciate it. Could this be a reflection of the Chinese culture, that when there is so much to see and enjoy outside it remains stubbornly inward looking?

For me at least, the ballet represented a tiny oasis in a cultural desert although I did for a brief moment wonder what Lewis Caroll had been on when he conceived the idea of hookah smoking caterpillars and babies that morph into pigs. There were lots of families with young children there who, like us, had failed to get matinee or weekend tickets. Behind us three boys fell asleep early in the first act: one of them snoring gently throughout. As we got up to stretch our legs in the interval the circle was sprinkled with children curled up in their seats for whom the excitement of the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter had just not been enough.

Ours did remarkably well. The four year old was transfixed by the dancing animals and laughed outright at the antics of mock turtle and gryphon. As we applauded the final act and the conductor emerged on stage the eight year old leaned towards me and said earnestly,
You know Mummy, the conductor looks like Wayne Rooney. If he was wearing Man U kit people might think Rooney is really clever.
Now there’s a thought.

The Baby and the Bathwater

Our youngest turned three last week and, as they invariably do on the birthdays of our offspring, my thoughts returned to that cold February day in 2006. It went like this;

Monday after half term. I wake up and know this is the day. It feels like it did the day our second child was born so I do a quick calculation, tell my husband the baby will be arriving between three and four in the afternoon, that he is welcome to go to work but I’d like him back by lunchtime.

Our au pair takes the children to school and I sit down to wait. My Lovely Neighbour comes to keep me company but there is nothing very obvious going on and I’m not sure she believes me when I say I’m having a baby so in the end she wanders off.

In time the Domestic God reappears and we go for a stroll down the Lower Richmond Road where we pick up some light bulbs. I feel a twinge and we call the midwife. Walking back is quite uncomfortable.

When the midwife arrives the air is full of anti-climax. I have one contraction that makes my eyes water. The midwife exchanges a knowing look with her assistant and suggests I have a bath. I am feeling cold so I agree. She pours in the bubble bath and makes it really hot.

Comfortably submerged I feel the advent of a second contraction and cry out. My husband, who is making his way up the stairs, mobile to ear on a business call, diverts to bathroom just in time. The midwife is calling for a torch. She uses her hand to push aside the bubbles. It is 3.37pm.

The baby is flopped quickly onto my chest. I suspect the water is far too hot for a newborn.
Congratulations! says the midwife, You have a beautiful daughter. I feel certain she’s missed the vital clue.

My eyes are tight shut. I have no desire to wake from this dream. All along I’ve known it would be another boy. It’s what we do. I never allowed myself to hope otherwise and laughed when the boys spotted three magpies as we walked on Barnes Common the day before, declaring it must be a girl. I open one eye and see my husband perched on the loo seat, tears streaming down his face. I look down at my new slippery, purple bubble baby for the first time, our daughter, our little girl.

Our Lovely Neighbour has collected the two older boys from school and taken them home via the sweet shop. Our youngest son has returned from a walk with the au pair. He has slept right through the unexpected water birth of his little sister parked in his buggy downstairs. When he wakes he is not very pleased. Daddy goes and tells the older boys they have a sister. They don’t quite believe it either but bounce back over the road with their sweets, to come and see us both, still in the bath, cord still intact. They offer me Maltesers.

I am brought a cup of tea and climb in to our big bed with my new nameless daughter. We had a boy’s name all ready to go. Now we shall have to think again. So she is Baby to begin with and it sticks, right up until she is old enough to protest, I not a baby!

In the meantime we hang pink balloons on the railings outside our house to flutter forth the glad tidings. I bought both, blue and pink ones, just in case, a chink of hope remaining despite the odds stacked so firmly against us. I can hardly believe my luck.