Regular contributor Mac ruminates on the world of travel & some of his adventures along the way
This time round heÂ’s reflecting on his Hong Kong experiences with tailors:-
I was stationed in Japan five and one half years in the military and my outfit made many trips to Hong Kong during this period. I think everyone should visit Hong Kong at least once. It used to be that planes were not allowed to land except in the day time because the landing was tricky but we were allowed to land at night. It always seemed that all the tailors in town knew we were arriving, how long we would be there, the name of our outfit and its commanderÂ’s name.
They always said he brought a suit off them on the last trip and was very happy with it. In the early days one could get a tailor made suit with an extra pair of pants, a shirt and tie thrown in and sometimes a free sightseeing trip of the city.
We stayed at a hotel that was used to our odd arrival and departure times and they would be there to greet us. On one trip there was a buddy of mine that had not been on these trips before and when we opened our room door there was already tailors inside. He said to me Mac who are these people ? I replied, I donÂ’t know I thought they were with you…Ha.
They would take you to their tailor shop where they promised a tailor made suit in 24 hours.
They would hand you a drink and a crew of tailors would surround you taking measurements. One asked me if I dressed left or right. I looked perplexed and my buddy said Mac they want to know which way you ding dong hangs so they can add extra cloth to hide it. I said I would have to look to see if I could find it and everyone laughed. We had had several drinks by that time.
It was a little disturbing that they knew so much about our arrivals and departures. It is possible the hotel let them know for a commission. When we were to depart that hotel desk would phone our rooms to tell us what time we should have our luggage outside our doors to be picked up to be taken to the airport. One time we got a second call and told to put our luggage out an hour earlier that first told and they added it would be picked up. Our luggage certainly was picked up but by con artists/thieves that were perhaps in connection with the hotel. There went our twenty five dollar suits, souvenirs we picked up and some military uniforms.
Then again some of the tailors used thread that was not strong and our suits sometimes fell apart before we even left town (we caught on to bring strong American thread to give them and hope they would use same).
I had one pair of tailor made shoes made. Before I left town I was walking down the street and the soles fell off my shoes.! They had glued them on instead of sewing.
Hong Kong was not only beautiful but it was fun for us GIs…
