Open Space and shopping for mints

Living in Hong Kong which, as everyone knows, compared to most other places in the world is actually only the size of a postage stamp.  One of the great “givens” of living here is that you trade your personal space for the beauty of living in such a vibrant city, however, sometimes the boundaries of what is acceptable become tested along with ones sense of humour.  Whilst on the MTR ( Hong Kong’s underground) one accepts this but shopping for mints?

Recently I was making a purchase of mints as is my want in a local shop called Watsons. Watsons for the uninitiated, is a chain store that sells mostly toiletries and has a limited pharmacy selling drugs over the counter.

I stood patiently waiting my turn to spend my 13 dollars on my favourite mints when I was aware of a gentleman to my left with a basket full of what I assume was shampoo.  So we began what was to be a most unusual minute of our two auras rubbing up against each other.  Not that there was anything remotely spiritual about the experience.

The man with his three large bottles of Timotei or Vossene began to stand so close to me that our shoulders began to touch.  Well not unusual if you were chasing down the wing and the half back was trying to prise the ball from your twinkling toes a shoulder challenge, shoulder to shoulder, is in football deemed a fair challenge.

However when buying mints in Watsons one begins to consider it an infringement of your personal space.  Ones first reaction of course is to pull away look at each other politely and smile as if no offence was possibly made.  Two men, after all brushing up against each other in many circumstances will cause a lot of ahrummmphing and expression of testosterone.   So ones natural reaction was to move imperceptibly an inch to the right to release the embarrassing contact. Which of course I did.

Only to find….you guessed it…. a millisecond later he was back this time more forceful than ever.  I sensed in this gladiatorial encounter the mainland Chinese man had found a weakness in the white devil and he was about to capitulate and fall on his sword. So it was time to dig in and state that England would for ever remain an Island and its shores would not be breached, so I stood fast. 

Expecting the pressure on my shoulder which was now considerable to release and a polite space once more to be allowed to establish a respectable status quo I was initially ( for a milli second) astonished to feel the mans arm across my chest clutching a large bottle of Vosseatei or what ever it was and stamp it down on the counter.

I did at this point consider, that even in my flailing Cantonese I could summon up enough “bad” words to make my discomfort felt. However, I also knew of an old Jedi Mind trick that I had learned from the encounter of Luke and Jabba the Hutt in the Return of the Jedi, I was not going to fall into the pit with the monster. Having received my change from the cashier, instead of turning to my right and walking away, simply giving the man victory and free access to the counter, I simply stepped backwards, (a version of the good old Rugby side step) thus breaking the shoulder charge and allowing the now, red in the face man to fall to his right and almost impale himself on the shampoo pump of his would be purchase.

With all the dignity I could muster I walked away from the counter wondering what on earth was wrong with my fellow shopper.  Oh if you are wondering how many people were in the line up and envisage a Boxing Day stampede at John Lewis on

Oxford Street

, then its NO! it was just me and him.

So much for personal space.