The sweetest Tai-Chi-er in Wan Chai!
When we moved into our apartment here nearly 8 years ago, all the other Kaifong (neighbours) took one look at us, twisted up their faces and said, in Cantonese, the equivalent of "There goes the neighbourhood!". However, their immediate dislike wasn't only for racist reasons. Rather, it was because these mostly elderly, retired working people knew we were paying much higher rent than they were and they could see their own landlords rubbing gleeful hands and promptly tossing them out in order to renovate and refurbish in order to bring in other higher-rent-paying Foreign Devil types ... which wasn't entirely wrong-headed because a lot of that indeed went on.
Since we started living here, our neighbourhood has become most chic and cosmopolitan and there is a lot of renovation going on, especially since the apartment above us just sold for $5 million - which had half our Kaifong cheering loudly and the other half weeping bitter tears. Seems there was a buy-option in this building back in the early 60s and only 50% took up the offer! And the 50% who didn't make the right choice back then chose to blame us for everything.
But this charming lady wasn't one of them. She was nothing but nice, nice, nice to us from the start and fought all our wars for us. We wouldn't have even known about them if we hadn't, back then, had Albert, our very chatty and charming English-speaking doorman.
Now, of course, everyone in the building always smiles and nods at us which is always the best one can hope for when you have no language in common, and we owe it all to Our Own Darling Champion!
Fighting for us could, of course, be because she owned her own apartment so wasn't afraid of eviction like 50% of the others but it could also be because she was a charming darling with a beautiful heart and a strong sense of justice and right.
I believe it was the latter.
Over the years we became good friends. We didn't have a single word of language in common, sure, but we always exchanged courtesies on our various holidays. I gave her Easter Eggs and she gave us Mooncakes; that sort of thing. And we always held the lift for each other and we always smiled and nodded to each other when throwing out the rubbish, and when our truly ugly Thai ladyboys moved in down the hall, and all the other kaifong refused to even step into the lift with them, the two of us joined forces - there's a particular sort of conspiratorial look that transcends language, did you know? - to demonstrate to the building that no one was going to catch kooties from them and so to play nice!
Oh, and there was the time a young Italian man got into the lift with us who was, sincerely, the best-looking man I have ever seen in my life. And that includes Pierce Brosnan. Both of us, with eyes widening, promptly inhaled and we both held our breaths for the entire ride, and when he got out on the floor where the Italian family had just moved in, both of us stuck our heads out of the lift door to watch him walk away, and then, weak-kneed, mimed fanning ourselves as we finally exhaled. It was hilarious how we both, without consulting, behaved in an identical way, so we both fell about laughing over how like silly-teenage-girls we'd behaved when, really, we were both old enough to have known better.
When we moved in, she was one of the very vigorous elderly Tai-Chi ladies you see every morning down in Southorn Park, practising their Fan Dancing, Sword Dancing or going through their Tai-Chi routines. But ... over the years we watched her grow frail and fragile and now this. Our good friend is no more.
It was a beautiful friendship and I'm very sad we've lost her. And I'm sad the world has lost a truly Great Soul. And mostly I'm very sad that no one told us before this because both Keith and I would have liked to have shown our deep respect and love for her by attending her funeral.
Lovely Kaifong, RIP!
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