Software Update 3
On the holiday season
Three months into the new(ish) year and I’ve yet to recap my first holiday season abroad. Truth be told part of it is because I didn’t really get much of a holiday season, at least during December. Part of it is because the holiday season really didn’t end until now. Regardless, now’s as good a time as any to recount what the first batch of holidays away from home wound up being like.
Regarding consolidating three months worth of holiday stuff into one mass post: I really didn’t do enough for the two big holidays to warrant two separate posts. Rewinding back to December, I mostly lost track of time until the 23rd. I’ve been operating on an academic calendar for so long that, with no winter break to speak of, I was only “passively” reminded of the holidays by the insane amount of decorations strung up starting in November. I did, however, have a lovely friend let me spend the actual holiday with them and their family (shoutout Rhys, love you bestie). We spent it as two theys in their mid-20s would: walking on a beach and watching the first two Twilight movies. This was my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean properly, not counting the glimpse I got at 5AM the day I landed. Christmas by a beach hasn’t been something novel to me—a downside of holidays always being spent with family in Florida—but a beach that’s both clean and doesn’t have Shrek-swamp colored water certainly is.
Then came Boxing Day: a holiday that I am certain nobody knows the purpose of. This is when I “celebrated” a more traditional Christmas by calling family and friends. I then set out and made the questionable choice to peruse the eastern part of Mong Kok on a public holiday. Everything was crowded, but frankly I was just grateful for another day to spend walking around outside. The “winter” weather in Hong Kong makes for great experience walking around. It’s not cold enough to be particularly painful and it’s also weirdly dry honestly, if I were a better person, I would’ve gone hiking on one of the many trails near me.
What I wound up doing was meeting up with a friend I met at a conference a few years ago. They’re finishing their post-doc on cinema in Myanmar at a university here, and we got back in touch properly when I moved. We went out for coffee and visited the Center for Heritage, Arts and Textile Museum. It’d been a few months since I did something remotely close to intellectually stimulating, and I do have a lingering soft spot for textile work left over from a childhood spent among sewing groups. Eventually, I plan to go explore the other museums here but a lovely day out with a friend was a nice way to spend a holiday.
After Christmas passed, I learned that the weird nebulous time between Christmas and New Year’s Day continues onwards for…pretty much a full month. Since January 1st is more of a formal acknowledgment, and the real New Year celebration doesn’t start until mid-February, the whole month felt like a wash. Still, it was nice having the extra day off. Texting people" “Happy New Year” on a thirteen-hour time difference was an unexpected bit of comedy: a funnier version of the age-old “I haven’t showered this year” joke.
The liminality of January gave way to a very lively February. Hints of Chinese New Year started creeping in as soon as the Christmas decorations were down: lights, horses, lai see, and zhongguo jie covered every available public service. Everything was red and gold for a solid month leading up to the official end of the Snake and the beginning of the Year of the Horse. Where I live was weirdly barren, as many families travelled back to the mainland for a few weeks to spend time with family, while Hong Kong Island was absolutely packed for festivities.
I wish I could report that I spent the first day of the Chinese New Year doing…anything, but alas I had a much-needed rest day. I slept, I played video games, and I abided by most of the superstitions that I read from the SCMP. My festivities came the day after when I went to the Central district of the island and Tsim Sa Tsui searching for whatever day parades came my way. Of course, I also took the holiday to go see my friend again on Lantau since our schedules were in sync for exactly the three days of public holiday. I also wrote the most since my move, coming in the form of a few Digital Backlog posts and drafts as well as a few other projects. Frankly, the three days for Chinese New Year was just a time for me to finally breathe and have a chance to actually put a plan in for the forthcoming year. Frankly, that’s stuff I haven’t seriously done at the start of a new year and it was oddly refreshing to do.
The next public holiday is coming up quite soon—a whole week off for Easter—as is my birthday. We’ll see if anything particularly interesting transpires; if so, of course there will be a new software update.