JOLTING MEMORY

You don't know how it happened. In the morning you had motored across the hill from the police training grounds and it had been lovely weather. But by late afternoon you were in Yau Tsim Mong, and when it started raining you decided to visit your auntie Poi King, who had in her willowy youth danced with troops at that place that's been closed for ages. A lively old gal, still twinkling eyes. She remembered your mom from the Christian Girls School.
She remembered you from when you were still in diapers.

A record by 張露 (Chang Loo) was on the player. Rain blattered the windows. Too horrid to go out. You would return tomorrow. Chang Loo was still alive at that time (d. 2009), but already in her fifties, and retired. A lovely voice, vibrant songs.

Auntie Poi King prepared dinner; minchi (免治), mustard green with garlic, thick noodles (粗麵). You chatted till late at night. Having listened to the records for an hour or two, you sat a while in silence while the rain came down outside. Both of you smoked. You had the Dunhill Shell Briar from the Prince's Building shop, Central, she puffed Fortunes (發財香煙).
The tea kept you up.

Minchi is more usually thought of as a Maccanese dish, consisting of ground meat ("mince", hence the name) with onions and diced potatoes cooked and sauced. The Hong Kong version is more like a ginger garlic sloppy joe sauce, with dashes of soy and rice wine, usually omitting the onions and potato. Served with a mound of rice, fried egg on top.
Greatly comforting with dollops of chili paste, especially when it's cold outside.
It's what I had for lunch with a cup of milk tea.

Smoked one of my Dunhill Shell Briars after leaving the chachanteng. It looked like rain, but the internet had assured me that it wouldn't come down much before midnight. Before I left the house for the weekly pub crawl that the bookseller and I have engaged upon since Noah landed the ark or the Hindenburg caught fire, I checked the Doppler and decided to bring my umbrella.

It did not rain while we were out and about. One regular stop was too crowded, so we went directly to the other place, where there were less than half a dozen people, all Cantonese. Some nice songs, one thoroughly ghastly one, because the businessman doing karaoke couldn't sing. Nothing in Mandarin. Mandarin oldies from the forties and fifties aren't so popular anymore. A pity.

It will probably rain most of Wednesday morning, lessening by mid-day. So two pipes in Chinatown. One after lunch, the other after shopping and tea with the old gentlemen.
Both briars in my coat pocket will be Dunhills. I shall look very arrogant and perky.



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