FIRST DOUBLE SOCK DAY

As is usually the case, the final stop was the bakery for a spot of hot milk tea and a pastry. It was peculiarly empty there. Perhaps the overcast darkness had something to do with that; many Cantonese are deathly scared of rain. Which I don't quite understand. They have umbrellas, I've seen them. They know how to use the things, I've seen that too.

Tissk, tissk, young people.

In my day we had to struggle for ten kilometres in howling rainstorms every day just to get to school in the morning. And it was colder than SF. For nearly seven hours we'd sit around the burning corpses of the least liked students, tightly clustered together, for warmth. We would weep copiously and cry for our mothers and free beer. Then slog again through the torrential downpour to get back home. Like it was the end of times. Every single day! Between the last week of October and the beginning of May. This younger generation is soft, I tell you.
Also, we didn't have umbrellas. We were men! We didn't need them!
And they were rare after the war.

Or at least that's how I fondly remember growing up overseas.
It rains a lot more over there. And it's wetter too.
Why, this weather is tropical!
By comparison.

It's low fifties F° out there right now. And the rain won't start till much later.

When I got to the bakery only two old geezers were there, within half an hour three more wandered in. Otherwise empty. Then the proprietress (called a 老闆娘 'lou paan neung' in Cantonese) came in, and spoke to one of them about a medical emergency previously, how does one hail a taxi here, he recommended three taxi drivers he knew, one of whom was a foreign ghost devil (鬼佬 'kwailo') at which point she expressed hesitation because how can one tell them where to go and in any case there were other reasons .....


Second time today that I'm more or less a fellow villager whose eccentricity is that I'm good with English. I guess the grey hair and long familiarity have softened that other weirdness (being Caucasian), and the fact that I write reasonably well further hides it.
Not entirely, of course. I have regrettable characteristics.
Which show no indication of disappearing.


It's probably like my being a smoker.
Some men, you know.


On the way over to the busstop I paused to admire a Heidelberger Degel-Automat (海德堡印刷機 'hoi dak pou yan chaat kei') which was visible through an open doorway of a print shop. Good machines. Still fully functional after half a century.


Anyhow, I know summer and the mellow part of Autumn are truly over, because it was necessary to put on two pairs of socks. Which makes a world of difference.
This will last for about four or five months.
Warm tootsies.



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