Fiction

Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady (Part 42)

By Emily Ho

Editor’s Note: The author (email: icecreamladyhk@gmail.com) runs an ice-cream parlor on Hong Kong’s Lamma Island. When time allows, she draws caricatures and writes. The following semi-autobiographical anecdote blends fact and fiction.


The Postman Always Rings More Than Twice

As Emily lost most of her business on fruit bars to a new vendor, competition from nearby shops in the village intensified almost simultaneously. This time, the rivals focused on her core business – ice cream.

For example, a new Chinese-style dessert shop and a convenience store sold banana-splits and soft ice cream respectively. A popular coffee shop made its own ice cream. All this took Emily to the verge of total despair. Despite her ice-cream parlor’s uniqueness, it might end.

Emily offered more than one ice-cream brand (most vendors have just one brand). Her shop’s child-friendly environment, its mini-furniture, ball-tent and “Lamma Celebrities Wall of Fame” (a display of Emily’s caricatures including one of actor Chow Yun-fat), added special touches. What place appealed better to young-hearted ice-cream lovers? But in business, only earnings matter.

In just its second year, Emily’s business dangled by a thread. If she closed it, probably she’d lose all her “investments” and a two-month rent-deposit. Worse, her ambitions and dreams would fall into total failure, something she wasn’t prepared to accept.

As Emily desperately thought about how to cope, she heard a sickly “whizzing” sound from the air-conditioner. Worried, she held a hand to the air outlet, testing it, but no air emerged.

Her “controversial” new air-conditioning “system” had broken down within just over a year.