The Day Baby, We Got Back

First day back, baby. And my only excuse for bringing the Baby is I have a guilty thing for politically incorrect gangsta rap songs. (Baby Got Back, anyone?)

Just back from 2 weeks in Sydney I find myself peppering street and elevator conversations with a lot more Excuse Mes and Thank Yous and Sorrys all the way to get some photos printed in Times Square. Certainly hope that goes away soon, your average local passerby on the street or in the supermarket at Causeway Bay does not respond – especially in English 😀

So there Rockstar and I are at the only shop for developing pics that I can remember to get to offhand, and I realize I feel a lot more self conscious with a small child, coming back to the erm, lower indulgence/ tolerance level to Child Who Wants To Push Lift Button (And Can’t Understand Why No Matter How Clearly He Stakes Claim On Button To All Within Earshot No One Waits For Him To Do It – he finally manages to beat the Stonefaced Other People Around Us to it on his 3rd try after we let the first few rides go by).

In the shop, a blonde woman with large ungainly stroller enters after me and we exchange smiles as we wait to be served and I glance curiously at her very dark-skinned, afro-haired baby. Except after my turn a local auntie and uncle squeeze between me and her stroller and engage the swamped shop attendants.

Mum With Stroller’s mildly indignant “Excuse me?” is easily ignored.

I sympathize; I remember when Rockstar was about a year old and still deigned to sit in a stroller – people at the Peak shopping center (which btw tends to be full of Mainland tourists who come in large buses) literally squeezed past me while I was trying to maneuver the stroller in – and then hit the Door Closed button on the lift – right in front of me before I can get on.

“B*stard!” (Yeah, not my finest moment. And then I turned in time to see the mall attendants not 10 feet away at the information counter snorting in amusement, then looking away when I caught them.) No, no one moved to help me. That didn’t happen often though, just this one time really pissed me off. I hit the lift button again, waited, charged into the next lift the moment it emptied, before some other stranger could be mean.I might have rolled lightly over a foot.

You learn fast to be a Roman. Like Rockstar just learned with the lift button. I’m n-ot completely sure I’m happy with that, but this is where we live. Just… there’s another reason we try to spend a few weeks living Somewhere Else when we can – it really keeps your sense of what’s “normal” from shifting all the way to one end of the spectrum.

Last time we came back from 3 weeks in San Francisco I remember telling a girlfriend from Washington how amazed I was that people there held doors open for mums with strollers “as a reflex”- and even without the stroller, people were a lot more helpful (or maybe the word is “patient”) when we had a small child in tow. Oh hey, maybe that’s another reason so many local mums bring helpers with them everywhere here – so they can move faster with kid and stroller haha.

“Hey the Gwai Mui has been waiting a long time,” I blurt, quite loudly in clumsy Cantonese. The auntie and uncle flinch, but stand their ground and start looking defensive. The shop attendants give no indication they’ve heard. Mum With Stroller doesn’t know I spoke up about the queue cutting, she just looks really angry at the whole bunch of chaotic Asians. Cantonese-speaking me too. She probably can’t tell my Cantonese is crap either. (Or does she mind being called a Gwai Mui? Some Caucasians have told me they don’t like it, others use it all time.)

Darn I struggled to be served and understood at this busy shop counter too, and don’t feel like an angry Canto-exchange with Defensive Uncle + Auntie right after just coming back to HK. (Repeat after me Aileen, I Like Living Here, I Like Living Here, People Are Soooo Good With Kids, Parents Are Not Insane And – And – What Pollution??) I try again to make eye contact with Mum With Stroller, she’s still scowling, I give up and retreat with an already fidgety Rockstar.

So, lunch at SML (Small Medium Large) in Times Square.

I find it easy to order here, they literally have S, M, L portions. A Rockstar-and-me lunch consists of 3 x S portions (usually clam pasta and seabass) and maybe a milkshake.

Also, it’s not horrendously crowded like a lot of Causeway Bay – though when I glance around the room, I realize the majority of empty tables have “reserved” signs on them (and when we leave, they put one on our table as well).

Right next to us are a middle-aged Gwailo (whom I’m pretty sure has no problems being referred to thus) and local lady having lunch (they got Ms) – both speaking in rapid fire Cantonese and initially unbelieving we are more comfy in English. When I say Rockstar can handle some basic Putonghua, he exclaims, “WHY would I speak such an ugly-sounding language?” – in Cantonese.

Can’t believe I had a horrendously mispronounced Cantonese conversation – with a Gwailo. We break off when the food comes – he takes out one of those little bottles of gel hand sanitizer you can get at Mannings. Happily, I wipe down Rockstar’s portion of the tabletop before setting his meal in front of him (he sometimes slurps up noodles that have touched the table).

OK so, the other thing we had to get done – passport-sized photos! Because we haven’t taken any in awhile. Now I remember why. In case you were wondering why they didn’t kick us out, the photo corner was empty and the photog was this young trainee guy who thought Rockstar was hilarious (uh, go figure – at his age I might have put Rockstar in a cupboard – fortunately for him he is my flesh and blood ok) so I left it.
You see lah, this guy:

1) “This is SUCH a bore”

2) “Maybe if I try just a bit I can get off faster?”

3) “Nah… Too plastic…”

4) “Kua Si Mi” (What you lookin at?)

5) Th-iiis j-uust buh-looowwws……. Sigh.

6) “Okok how bout Evil Face Mugshot” (I told him no one likes letting Chucky into their country)

7) “Oops pushed my luck” (That’s his guilty face after you have words with him about Evil Face)

8) “What? This one still cannot?”

9) ” Sheeeee-eeeeesh.”

10) “Huh? Zzzzz…..”

11) “Ta-Ra-Ra Rockstar!”

12) “Aw Shucks, it’s nothing, really, ruining pics…”

13) FUH-FUH-FUH FINALLEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Ps: My favorite’s #11. Don’t tell the Rockstar.