Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012 - (Page 31)

FA L L I N G I N L O V E W I T H … NEW YEAR’S IN HONG KONG A FEAST FOR EVERY SENSE, CHINESE NEW YEAR IS THE TIME TO ENJOY HONG KONG AT ITS MOST EBULLIENTLY AUTHENTIC. LAUREN SANDLER IS SWEPT OFF HER FEET PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUSTIN LANE T DR AGON EYE Left: Celebrants carry a giant dragon through the streets of Kowloon. “Tangerine” in Cantonese sounds like the word for “fortune.” And so people are crammed 10 deep at the plant stalls on Hong Kong’s hilly Peel Street, buying tangerine plants, known as prosperity trees, to set in the doorways of their homes. Tonight is New Year’s Eve, kicking off the most essential holiday in all of China. The expats swarm away from the crowded and lush islands that make up Hong Kong as tens of thousands of mainland nationals arrive for this electric celebration — and this place forgets all about European markets and the Dow, all about its colonial past, and becomes its most authentically Chinese self. Around the corner, in the morning sunshine, the pedestrian markets of Graham Street look like a Wong KarWai set, with crumbling Tong Lau (tenements) hanging over stalls loaded with decorations in lucky red and gold. The air vibrates as shoppers load up on ﬁrecracker-shaped garlands meant to keep demons at bay. Fishmonger stalls can’t stock enough shrimp, or ha, which sounds like laughter, and thus is said to ensure happiness. Everything in Chinese New Year has symbolic heft — every food, every ﬂower, every color — as the year’s luck is said to be determined over the holiday. It’s a lot to keep straight. But I’m determined to do my best, a naysaying New Yorker in town to feast upon these most magical of Hong Kong days. If I follow the lucky traditions to the letter, what might my own fortune yield? In the dried ﬁsh market of Des Voeux Road West, costly shark ﬁn, abalone and dried oysters (the name sounds like “good things,” and promises such) are wrapped into gift packaging; edible bird nests made from the saliva of cave-dwelling swallows are worth their weight in lucky gold. Pawnshops bustle as people carry in old wares and carry out red envelopes ﬁlled with cash. Red sounds like “hong,” which means vast, so red envelopes enclosing T H E R I T Z - C A R LT O N M A G A Z I N E 31

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012
Contents
Contributors
Editor’s Letter
President’s Letter
Falling in Love With ... Hong Kong
Design
Auto
Technology
On the Boulevards
Shopping
Jewelry
Watches
Palm Beach
Wellness
Santiago

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012