Clothes

Growing up in a frugal family, we don’t really have much spare money to get fancy clothes. Besides school uniforms, most of the clothes that I’d back in my childhood were mostly for warmth rather than look. When I was in k-school and in primary school, most of my clothes were coming from two sources. They were either bought from some stalls in dry good market or given to me from my aunt who used to take some factory pants home to do some touch up before going to packaging and shipping.

I would say the first time that I had right to really choose what clothes to buy was back in third grade before Chinese New Year that we were supposed to buy new clothes for the new year. I was taken to the dry good market by my mom and selected a full set of dark blue sport jacket and pant, both of which with two white stripes running from neck down the ankles. Since my favorite color back then was blue, so I basically bought the same kind of clothes for the next three Chinese New Years in a row. They were all in blue as well.

In order to save money on clothes, we were taught to buy clothes of bigger size. I remember the craziest example was my pair of white sneakers which had been bought in my second grade, they were too big back then that my parent stuff some cotton at the front of the shoe inside to make that fit. Amazingly, as I only wore the shoes on the day with P.E. classes, they last till I was in sixth grade! That’s how we save money back then.

My first knowledge of brand names came when I was in my fourth grade. As my school allowed students to wear sneakers, so black leather shoes were not mandatory, students were able to buy all kinds of sneakers to wear, some of them treat that as a way to show their personality or wealth. That was then I first heard of brands like Adidas and Puma from other students. I wasn’t sure why, somehow I got my dad to buy me my first pair of brand name sneaker, a pair of blue Puma with white stripe on my fourth grade. Then, I got another pair of brown Adidas on my fifth grade after the Puma was worn out. Back then, I don’t have many pair of shoes: just a pair of sneakers, and flippers. That’s about it. That’s why shoes just worn out quickly. In subsequent years, I think I got a pair of old white Puma tennis school from my cousin, and most other shoes were not really any great brand names, maybe a pair of Lotto, and a pair of casual Yasaki shoes. That’s all that I remember.

Clothing wise, I don’t think I had ever really get into any serious brand at all. Just casual clothes that I bought in some night-market style clothing stores which were ‘rejects’ from exports. Nonetheless, I was largely fine with them. Cuz, I’ve never been into fashion. Just couldn’t afford them and neither has interest in them. I would say that pretty much summed up my memory about clothes and shoes up to my age of 18.

Childhood and my residential surroundings

In the first perhaps 15-16 years of my life, I was living in a dormitory housing complex of my father’s employer – University of Hong Kong. It was located in on a narrow steep road in Western district on Hong Kong Island. That place back then has 3 buildings with 6 floors each. Each floor has four apartments and no evaluator. We lived on the ground floor for few years and moved to second floor in my fourth grade. Before the surrounding places got new constructions, there was a private road with a cul-de-sac in front of our 3 buildings. Behind and beside our buildings, there were green hills with tall trees and bushes. Most of the people living in the complex there were poor as the complex itself was a form of subsidized housing for low-grade workers of the university, kids lived there were more or less with similar economic status without many toys to play with. There was a community culture that kids just played with each other. The one way private street, the green woods, offered us a relatively safe and free surroundings to play and explore.

We would go to the woods to catch insects like grasshoppers, dragronflies, to grow plants like tomato, to climb trees, and all those ‘wild’ things. By doing all of such, we were able to learn quite a bit about nature. Such as what plants are poison, what could cause rashes on skin, and what could make us itchy. We learned some behavior of bugs, what bite and what doesn’t. We saw how bugs mated. We saw wild fruits grew and ripen (there were papaya trees in the woods). There was a small house up in the hill that someone put blackboard and a ping-pong table in there. So, we could draw on blackboard to pretend to be teacher. We played ping-pong, not just learning the skills, but also how to obey rules to take terms and played with each other. There was a also a basketball ring at the cul-de-sac. We learned to shoot hoops and used the surrounding the play football as well. The private street also let us to play badminton, jumping ropes, or even playing hide and seek. We raced there among kids ourselves, played lantern on Mid-Autumn festival there, and many childhood group games as well. Space is just important for kids to grow. I was so glad that the community culture and surrounding environment allow me to have such childhood. Certainly, there were bruises, scars, and tears along the way, but I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything else.

Certainly, as I grew older into my high school, my life changed as things progressed. I turned into a bit introvert. I was busy with studies. Also, the green woods next to our building were turning into a construction site to build 2 more buildings for the whole dormitory complex. I wouldn’t able to see sunset from neither the balcony of our apartment or from the rooftop of our building. The ping-pong house and the basketball rim were gone. Things just changed. As I left Hong Kong for studying aboard after I finished my matriculation courses in my secondary school, I never lived there anymore.

Even after I came back to Hong Kong afterwards, I was living in another place since then. At that time, my dad and sister were still lived there for a few years. I visited my dad and sisters after works few days a week for dinner back then. But the place became quite foreign to me, the apartment was very messy like a slum inside. The surrounding of the complex had changed as well. There were tall buildings behind and not far in front of our buildings. Some tall trees were gone. Also, as people were moving out, the feeling that I’d about the place just different. But, anyway, it had been my home before. Later on, with my dad’s retirement, a new apartment was bought about 7 minutes away on another street in the district. My relationship with that dormitory complex became a truly history to me.

Comparing to my wife, who had moved from residence to another over the years during her childhood, I felt so lucky to live in the same place all through mine. It was just a quiet and safe place to be in for kids. A relatively tight community with close to none commercial activities around, it was quite a unique place to grow up in.

Number 2

When I was a kid, my favorite number is 2. I couldn’t explain that but being number 1 was never my goal or something that I aspire to do. Even when I watch those Japanese animation series, particularly those with a teams of five (for some strange reason, many of them are very similar – a handsome hero, an off-beat cool guy, a hot girl, a geeky boy, and a fat dude), I always like the number 2 good guy (in the case the off-beat cool dude) than the number one hero. That was obviously shown when I played with other kids in the neighborhood with games. I just like to be the number 2.