PERSONALITY
TREND
FASHION
SPECIAL
ARCHIVES

Sylvia Khan

I expected a symphony. What I got was rap.

A view of the Hong Kong islands

I got what I wanted. I took a vacation to one of my favorite places in the world. And now, I'm back and recovering.

My husband, after much lobbying, took time off from the pressing business of what-ever-it-is-that-he-does, pretending unwillingness and immense busy-ness. The kids, a more honest generation, simply tossed their books into nearby incinerators and skipped school, oblivious of frowning horn-rimmed warnings. I, since I do nothing anyway, just tied my simple belongings to the end of a stick and was ready to go.

We were on our way to celebrate Hong Kong's last New Year as a colony, to show our oneness with a big historical moment but, most of all, to show our neighbours how much a part of the jet set we really were.

My idea of a great vacation is time spent leisurely, soaking up ambience and local color. It does not include cooking, cleaning and looking after the more unmentionable needs of sundry minors. High on the list of 'not included' is rushing frenetically from point A to point B, often for no better reason but the fact that they lie at opposite corners of an island. I cannot tell a lie, we did do a bit of the first lot and a lot more of the other stuff. But I was in a city I loved. I had memories to re-live. Life was too good to waste time whingeing.

Everything had changed. Not one for the subtle nuance, I gasped, "It's all so different!" My family turned a collective look of contempt at me. "Ma, Honkers waits for no man; it certainly won't wait for your fond memories of heaven knows what long gone days!"

Hong Kong - the shopper's paradise

Brutal but true. So there it was -- bigger, faster, higher and all kinds of other comparatives except, perhaps, better than before. Kids and co loved it. I maintained the love-hate balance for the family. I think I'm just past the age when size or speed impresses. I don't even want to begin to consider the other thing -- that, maybe, I'm simply past it!

So we did Hong Kong as tourists do, with a vengeance. Since doing Hong Kong meant doing the malls to my Indian countless-millennia-of-culture family, we shopped. This has taught me a lot. The first, and possibly most significant in the day of the credit card, is that the phrase 'shop till you drop' means absolutely nothing. Those unmentionable individuals, who have nothing to lose but their father's money, never drop.

Perhaps it's my mistake. Perhaps I've misunderstood the meaning of the phrase. Perhaps I've misheard the phrase and the full form is really 'shop till you drop your mother's credit card into the ticket till by accident'. Or even 'shop till you drop your parents off at the hotel, then go back and pick up all that stuff you can't live without.'

I've been to Hong Kong several times. I remember the gorgeous view from The Peak. I remember gazing out at the bay and being moved by the magic of fishing junk and hydrofoil and launch peacefully gliding around together. And the color. I remember color everywhere -- in the street markets, in the parks, on the roads, in fiery sunsets on the bay.

Being the kind of Wonder Mum that I am, I wanted to share all that with my children. They, of course, weren't having any. Any of all these simple pleasures of life, that is. Theirs cost money. My money. And yes, I do sound a bit like I might resent their 'thine is mine' attitude.

This is the bit where I made my other biggish discovery. My children are changelings. Bad fairies stole in when each of the well-mannered, sensitive, cultured fruit of my womb was born and switched them for these brutes.

I expected a symphony. What I got was rap. And the words went like this.

Kids Brigade: "Mama! This is just great ! Everything I wanted is here! CDs, LDs and some great games on CD-ROM."

What I say: "Very nice, sweetie. Let's see what your father says."

What I wish I had the guts to say: "Yeah, sure! Write it all down and post it to Santa Claus -- address North Pole." Sneer. Sneer.

KB: "Hey, Ma, let's get a new camera! Ours is a box compared with what's available here. It's so embarrassing to use outdated technology!"

WIS: "Very nice, sweetie. Let's see what your father says."

WIWIGS: "No problem! All we need to do is buy it on the card. Then you quit your expensive MBA program, get a job and make the payments on the card since it will be even more embarrassing to have to go to jail for not honoring your debts."

KB: "Mama, we must stock up on perfume! It's soooo cheap here!"

WIS: "Very nice, sweetie. Let's see what your father says."

WIWIGS: "CHEAP? CHEAP? Nothing is cheap here. Try multiplying everything by five and you'll know. Better still, calculate the years' supply of pocket money that I will be forced to withhold if you DARE buy more than one bottle."

While they were very briefly silenced by having to give themselves the next fix of gooey bars, the real me stood up and spoke. "It's all very nice and there's lots of lovely plastic clothes-bags-shoes. But I haven't seen a book store or a toy store that has any inspiration. Just the usual fix-its and the usual mindless death toys and the vacuous blond dolls."

"Books? What do you want books for Mama?" they shrieked at me. "You've got to move with the media, Mother!"

I moved. Away from this strange new world and shopping mall mania. I made my escape to the wide open spaces and the big silence of the several lovely islands that lie around the main island of Hong Kong. I thoroughly enjoyed myself in the many festivals that the Chinese celebrate at the start of a new year.

All that distance resulted in its well-documented tricks with my degree of enchantment in relation to my view of my family, the ravaging pack of Huns. Mother-love, which has lured women stronger than myself to their doom, welled up in me. I knew I had to save my pack from themselves.

All that was left of the innocent pleasure of shared festivities was the New Year's fireworks display. I vowed that my family will certainly be taken to see the sky explode with fire and color. They will learn that life and joy exist in simple things that don't have anything to do with shopping malls or money.

By the time I got the family to agree to this quaint idea of actually stirring ourselves into activity to watch a fireworks display, it was too late to get ringside seats at any of the restaurants and clubs that overlooked the bay. So we ended up rubbing shoulders with the lumpenproletariat they were so emphatically not a part of.

Above the rumble of the milling millions came disjointed bits of familial whingeing. "What's wrong with Mama? Is she getting prematurely senile or something? Why on earth can't we watch it on TV?"

"Ma, I'm not dressed for this. These are designer clothes, not exactly the stuff worn by the sweat-and grime-brigade we see in such painful close-up!"

"O Gawd! Rina's also in Hong Kong. Suppose she sees me? Everyone will know I stood on the road to watch this dumb Diwali display!"

They were soon drowned out by the roar of the fireworks which were truly magnificent. My soap-free rinsed and label-tagged family oohed and aahed with the rest of us as the sky exploded with color. I relaxed and enjoyed the spectacular show. I had won. I was right. It felt so good, it hurt.

Later that evening as we sat around chatting, I beamed at them, "Well? What did you think? Pretty spectacular stuff, huh?"

"Well, sure, it was pretty pleasing to the eye -- if you like that sort of thing. But, Mama, the human body is endowed with more than one sense. We could just as well have watched it on TV and saved our finer sensibilities -- and our clothes from being mauled."

Not everyone lives for the tags they wear. I had other children. I turned to them now. "Surely someone liked it? It was such a beautiful display..." I faltered.

My daughter rescued me, "Yes, Mama, it was nice. But a bit childish, don't you think? Zillions of adults standing on the road to watch fireworks? But sweet, too. Childish but sweet!" she finished triumphantly, thinking she had succeeded in mollifying me.

Wrong. I was on the brink of serious trauma. "Is there one single person in this room who appreciated that lovely display?" I shrieked. "Hey, Ma, cool it!" they urged. "Nobody said it wasn't lovely, but I think it's a bit off that Hong Kong should blow up millions on a half hour of frolic, when millions of their fellow Chinese on the mainland are probably starving."

My capitalist piglets were all socialist heart on the inside. "And what about the pollution? Can you imagine what all that did to the air we were breathing? I don't even want to think about it!"

I was impressed. Not just all heart, environmentally aware too! That wasn't all, there were other politically correct issues to explore. "Mama, you really are so naive," they said. "How do you know that there isn't one gigantic Oriental Sivakasi somewhere in China, where billions of children are put to work to make those fireworks that you love?"

We were swiftly leaving the realms of reality for conjecture and I found my own enthusiasm waning a bit. "We don't know that," I tried reasonably. "Yes, but you don't know otherwise," they countered. "Can't you see, Mama, that it's much better to support an industry that's known and transparent. Like clothing. Or even an industry that encourages tradition, like French wine-making. So you shouldn't make such a fuss when we want to do a little shopping. In fact this whole thing has been such an upsetting experience that I'm going shopping. You should come too."

They went. I did not. I just stayed home -- wondering!