Chinese new year in hong kong is like a combination of our new years and thanksgiving. All the families get together for some good eats and 99% of all the stores are closed. Going for dim sum, my friend's mom remarked that I look like I lost weight from 2 years ago when I last saw them.
Where tokyo is prim, proper and polite, hong kong is dirty and decadent. The first day was spent eating a two hour lunch at a big dim sum restaurant where the food was overflowing and the money was moving - even as a guest and stranger to some, I got tons of red envelopes with hong kong dollars in em (about 20 hk dollars equal to about 2.50 us) because i was single. After eating ourselves full, I asked where we were off to next. To another restaurant to eat some more! Err, ok. And so for another hour we ate more food - although considerably less. This took us to toward the end of the afternoon where the 12 of us converged on somebodys flat (house) and while the auntie was preparing dinner (!) we played mah jong...for the next 6 hours. Stopping only to eat again. Good think my pants are made of unstable molecules (they're stretchy), they going to maximum size.
In the chinese culture, being fat does't seem to be a big deal. Several people I have met or known are called "fat something or another". Its their nickname. So when they said I looked like I lost weight, I don't think that was a compliment. But I think they're doing their best to change that.
Posted by yumyumcha at January 24, 2004 08:09 PM