Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady (Part 2)
By Emily Ho
Editor’s Note: The author runs an ice-cream parlor on Hong Kong’s Lamma Island. When time allows, she draws caricatures and writes. The following are semi-autobiographical anecdotes blending fact and fiction.
Uncle’s Inspiration
Probably Emily’s passion for ice cream came from her uncle, the one she called Uncle Four because he was her mother’s fourth brother.
Often when Emily was little, Uncle Four took her and her sisters to buy ice cream at a nearby grocery store. Emily’s parents seldom did this. They regarded ice cream as a potentially unhealthy “cold” agent. But in little Emily’s mind, the big reason was that her parents couldn’t afford the “luxury”.
Emily and her family lived in a poor public-housing estate in the Hung Hom district of Hong Kong. Later the government demolished the estate, and now property there is worth billions of dollars for super-wealthy, real-estate developers in this former British colony.
But one thing never demolished was the sweetness in little Emily’s memory, the taste of her favorite ice cream amid the bitterness of a poor childhood.
‘I Want That Shop’
Since Emily’s school days, she had thought of starting a business. When noticing a shop closing down on Lamma Island’s Main Street, she knew the time had arrived, but still wondered what kind of enterprise to open.
As a first step, she approached the real-estate agent and asked about the rent. It sounded cheap compared to rents in the city, but less so considering the reduced traffic on outlying islands. Only about 5,500 people live on Lamma. Apparently, everything has an appropriate price.
“All successful people take risks,” Emily muttered. “Ordinary people lead ordinary lives because they lack the guts for risk.”
So she made a strategic decision: “I want that shop.”
Three Options
When signing the shop lease, Emily still wasn’t sure what kind of business she would run. But she did think of three options: a second-hand shop, a travel agency and an ice-cream shop. So she scribbled these choices on a sheet of paper:
-- A second-hand shop. That was Emily’s first choice. She’d noticed many fellow-islanders moving. Transporting family possessions to an outlying island could be inconvenient.
-- A travel agency. Well, this represented Emily’s oldest profession. Her first job had been as a hotel tours coordinator.
-- An ice-cream shop. As you know, Emily loved ice cream, especially what she tasted when patronizing ice-cream parlors in the city.
Emily pulled a blue marker from her pocket and deleted options one and two. The place looked too small for a second-hand shop and too large for a travel agency.
So she went ahead with the ice-cream shop. Yummy!
Coming soon:
Ice Cream in a Melting Pot
(more Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady).
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