Mid-Autumn Memories

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A beautiful box of moon cakes arrived on my desk from overseas last week. As I opened the box and unfolded the pretty wax paper to find view these glossy, lotuspaste-filled calorie bombs, I was transported back to Mid-Autumn lunches with colleagues, festival markets, lanterns, fireworks and dragon dances. Somehow Mid Autumn Festival was always and still is my favourite of celebrations.?

Hong Kong... I first met you in 2006, when I arrived with tear-stained eyes behind a pair of aviators, brandishing 2 suitcases and a few hundred CDs in a Logic carry-case. An amazing boss who believed in my potential had offered me the chance in a life-time to go and build a recruitment function across Asia. Having always thought of myself as a creature of habit, I surprised myself in saying yes. I recall that I was excited to move during Mid-Autumn festival, but wrapping up a life in Paris meant I eventually landed a couple of months later. One misty December morning, I arrived at HKIA, BlackBerry in hand, a cocky 29 year old; proud of all that pan-European experience I had under my belt. As I stepped into arrivals, I was totally clueless as to the challenges that would await me.?

That December morning, the scenery en route to Central on the airport express was nothing like I had expected. I had never been to Hong Kong before. I had never been anywhere in Asia before! There was an early morning mist over the water as we passed Tsing Yi: it looked calm and bleak.? We reached Central and jumped into what would be the first of a thousand red cab rides.?

“Leido mgoi!”?

Suddenly, I didn’t know what had hit me: Time Square was swarming with people. There were bright flashing billboards, honking taxis, folks rushing around in every direction, stands lining the streets between bamboo scaffolding selling fish balls, egg waffles and fresh watermelon juice. It was an assault on the senses after seven long years of Parisian boulevards. There were no smartphones back then. Nobody was hunched over scrolling. Crowds of people rushed around speaking a language I had barely heard before. The sounds, the sights and the smells combined were overwhelming. “Oh my! What have I done?”, I thought, as I wandered around, sweating like a pig in the humidity; a white?gweilo*?face with what felt like an enormous body in a sea of slight Chinese shoppers... it was the first time in my 29 years that I’d experienced what it was to feel like an outsider.?

Jet-lagged, I foraged for food in the one international supermarket I could locate; wondering how I was going to survive if a single yogurt flown in from Australia, cost 60 Hong Kong dollars. The weather was mild but humid and I quickly realised my Paris wardrobe was going to need a refresh, if I could find anything to fit. Little did I know how depressing that pursuit would be! A blur of shop owners brandishing stretchy black trousers calling out “Missy, Missy, big size for you!”. I recall rejoicing, years later, when a handful of European high street stores finally arrived on Queens Road Central and I finally had a something resembling a choice of clothes that would fit. Then there was my hair… my hair! Yes, I spent a good nine months convincing myself that the only way to manage the effects of the heat and humidity was to invest in wet-look gel. It was a different look…

That first evening in December, I was taken to the (late) hotel Excelsior and I pinched myself as I sat drinking my first ever lychee martini with a million HK dollar view. As I sat second-guessing the decision I had made, It hadn't yet sunk in that in leaving Paris for Asia, I had set my life on a dramatically new course.

Following a stint in a serviced apartment in Causeway Bay, I soon found an apartment in Happy Valley, ecstatic at living next door to the one “Western” restaurant that served the community. It was an adjustment getting used to rice being a staple after so many years living in Europe. Such restaurants serving European fare got away with murder back then. The incredible restaurant scene today is unrecognizable to what it was back then: Strange pita bread covered in industrial sauce and fake cheese passed off for Pizza, soggy pasta, questionable fried chicken…. We took it! Weekdays, en route to the office, I longed for French bread amongst the Pineapple buns and cheung zai baos. I would have to wait another six years or so for the arrival on Ventrice Road of a famous French boulangerie, and it was probably just as well.

Those first days in Hong Kong feel like both five minutes and a million years away now. Midnight sushi at Sushi One; going for my first Chinese foot massage in Causeway Bay; walking down those steps and discovering the festivity of Lan Kwai Fong at 10pm on a Friday; taking the Star Ferry across the harbour to TST; Wednesday evenings at Happy Valley races; my first Typhoon nine day at home; weekend hikes along the Dragons Back and lazy Sundays on the beach at South Bay. I had never imagined that Hong Kong could be such a nature-encompassed, buzzing metropolis.?

I am grateful for the friends and colleagues I met in those early days that later became my Hong Kong family all over the world. Our new lives unfolded together and I recall we would sit and contrast our experiences as we learned how to work in this phenomenal city:

?“But why does no-one in my team dare to leave the office before I do in the evening?”?

“Why did they copy my boss and theirs when they replied to my e-mail?”?

“Why does my team start to laugh when I lose my temper?”

... Ah, the glasses of rosé we consumed debating these subjects. We spent Christmases together; New Years; took CNY trips to Macau and concluded that whilst it was not Vegas, the Portuguese egg tarts were spectacular. We hired out Chinese junk boats and took ferries to outlying islands for seafood suppers. We sang karaoke, had curry and quiz nights in Happy Valley, bartered for ill-fitting suits in Shenzhen, took Cantonese evening classes, danced the dozy-do at the annual Britcham Ceilidh and scoured the city for the best dim sum. We spent entire weekends in the South Stand at the HK 7s and mornings jogging along Bowen Road in the humidity. The city never slept and barely did we.

?At seven years I acquired my Permanent Residency. I knew I was accustomed to Hong Kong by then, as I simply chuckled when the lady at the immigration counter advised me bluntly I was “pretty but a bit fat”, as I collected my new identity card.? Seven soon became eight and eight became nine: the years sped by. Friends I could have happily spent a life-time with transferred to Singapore, Sydney and Shanghai, or back to Europe and the US. Such is life. Those that remained were from Hong Kong or had lived there, like me, for many years. Between us we changed jobs, got promoted, got married, had children and travelled more. Permanent jet lag and late night work calls became the norm but there were brunch catch-ups en route to business trips and holidays around Asia.?Thankfully, somewhere in between all of that, I made the time to join a band and to volunteer at a local association.

Hong Kong was, for me, an unbelievable professional springboard. Work took centre stage for much of those phenomenal thirteen years, and with each professional move came new opportunities. I was fortunate enough to work all over India, China and Asia Pacific but also across the U.S and Europe. One week I would be in Los Angeles, the next in New Delhi. Then it would be Amsterdam, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney… It kept me on my toes and forced me to constantly flex my working style. I never lost my connection to the rest of the world. Still, I wondered why I remained single! It was amazing period for air miles and for discovery; not so great for jet lag or for finding a life partner. I didn’t like to admit it, but the career choices I had made had implications.??Then, around 10 years into my journey, my now husband walked into that restaurant at just the right moment: the rest, as they say, is history.

I would do it all over again, exactly the same way in a heart beat:? the excitement, the fear, the adventure, the fatigue, the struggles. There were periods of intense loneliness in this city of 7 million people. Over those 13 years, there were times of acceleration and times that felt like stagnation, yet from each, I grew in self-confidence and in resilience. If anyone is unsure what a professional move abroad will bring you; it will likely promise a multitude of mixed emotions and uncertainties… but you will be in some way transformed from the person you were when you first left home and, if you do it right, richer in diverse friendships and in humility.?

Thank you Hong Kong for treating me to so many great experiences. Thank you to the leaders that believed in me at each professional hurdle; to the colleagues that brought me into their lives and looked out for me; to the friends that shared my laughter…. and my tears. Thank you to the phenomenal teams who were each in their own way, the “best team ever”. It’s been five years now since I took another leap towards new adventures, but I will forever feel at home the moment when I hit the Hong Kong taxi queue at HKIA and hear that warm and familiar “Hallo lady, this way please”.?

Happy Mid Autumn festival.?

*The Cantonese slang "gweilo", which translates to "white ghost", has been widely used in Hong Kong to describe (generally) a foreigner