Batgung

I write these words in a state of high excitement: after decades of being a walking insult to fashion, I am suddenly, by no conscious effort of my own, trendy.

How did I do it? It was as easy as putting on a shirt this morning. I have a nice thin cotton shirt Mrs Tall procured for me from an export store several years ago. It's made by Country Road in Australia, and it's completely unexceptionable -- except for its color. When she found it in the store, Mrs Tall in fact called me to check if it'd be all right, because it was, shall we say, a shade of 'dusty rose'. Now that it's been worn and washed repeatedly, there's no question: it's pink.

I don't know if any of you have noticed it this summer, but pink shirts are everywhere here in Hong Kong. It dawned on me just this past week, when I saw several young men on the MTR in pastel pink T-shirts.

I pointed this new trend out to Mrs Tall yesterday when we saw one gentleman in a pink shirt in Times Square, and she answered with that non-committal, patronizing murmur only a long-suffering wife can master. But then we walked out on the street and, in one glance, spotted three men wearing pink shirts within a 100 meters of each other. Ah, vindication tastes sweet, especially when it's so rare a commodity!

Later on we went into that insanely busy Giordano right at the corner of Jardine's Bazaar, and while Mrs Tall and Toddler Tall checked out the latest kids' clothes upstairs, I looked around downstairs. And what should catch my eye but a 20-ish man with a vaguely panicked look rushing to the checkout counter with a shopping basket stuffed with a couple of T-shirts, a polo shirt, a button-up shirt . . . all pink.

I don't mind pink shirts, of course, having started this trend several years ago all by myself, but it does amaze me how rapidly Hong Kong picks up on trends!