A few weeks into the New Year and HK retailers appear to be in a bit of a quandary. Typically, with Christmas over, it would be time to start selling Valentines gifts / cards followed shortly after by Chinese New Year paraphernalia.

This year, it is all a little bit pear-shaped. Chinese New Year is in early February whereas last year it was in March. It’s put the retailers in a bit of a tizz because they are only a week apart and it’s a little tricky to have storefronts advertising both occasions.

Dymocks is the only store that I have seen that has managed to cover both. Aided by a large entrance, all the Valentines cards are there whereas all the Chinese New Year bits and pieces are spread through the rest of the store, lanterns hanging from the ceiling and information about Year of the Rat on every bookcase end.

In terms of money to be made, I think Chinese New Year easily eclipses Valentines Day. Godiva Chocolates obviously believes this to be the case. Whereas I would have thought chocolate would be big as a Valentines gift, as it turns out, a chocolate hamper for Chinese New Year must be a better money maker. I’m wondering if in the week after Chinese New Year, it’s just the signs they’ll replace with “buy your Valentines chocolates” and the hampers will remain the same. Now that I think about it, these hampers don’t appear to have changed since Christmas.

After Valentines Day, I suspect that the Easter eggs will start to make their appearance (it’s difficult to find hot-cross buns here). This will be followed by the Ching Ming Festival (that’s Grave Sweeping Day) where incense and brooms are big, then Labour Day and before you know it, it’s Buddha’s birthday on 12 May. Inclusive of this day, there’s 10 public holidays before June is even reached. Most of them are spread out so the retailers shouldn’t have such an issue as they do currently.

The biggest festival of all is the one for Chinese New Year. Mr Shallot and I were on a boat in Victoria Harbour for it last year and we haven’t decided as yet how we’ll ring in the Golden Year of the Rat. I have bought a door hanging ornament of the Golden Rat so that we will be blessed by good fortune and wealth in the coming year. I’m not sure what has to be done if you want good fortune and wealth for longer than that but I suppose a year is a good start.

* Thanks to Dire Straits for the title to this post