What inspired you to write about a team of Hongkongers committed to smashing every macaron in the city?
I was on the Star Ferry with my kids one day and we suddenly wanted ice cream. We searched the Central Ferry Pier where there used to be an ice cream shop: no ice cream. We searched the nearby IFC mall where there used to be two ice cream shops: no ice cream.
While hunting for delicious and refreshing ice cream, we passed at least three different luxe shops selling overpriced macarons (HK $23 or US $3 for a cookie the size of a large coat button).
That day, dreaming of ice cream and listening to two tired children ask who had moved all the ice cream shops, I decided that I hate macarons and all that they stand for. And what do macarons stand for? High rents excluding all but luxury shops from once useful shopping centers.
That day I wanted to smash every macaron in the city, so I wrote about my fantasy. In the story I substituted chocolate cake doughnuts for ice cream because they are both season-less and more delicious.
My true snack love: Double Trouble chocolate cake doughnuts from Seattle's Top Pot. Millions of times better than macarons.
So did your children go without ice cream that day?
We did eventually find a small McDonald's tucked away on an upper level of the IFC mall and made due with hot fudge sundaes (HK $7 or US $0.90). This particular McDonald's location contains extremely cramped seating arrangements which must have been personally devised by the devil. The only way McDonald's can afford the high mall rent, apparently, is by boxing in seating and cramming in as many patrons as possible. The three of us ate ice cream in yellow box number one.
Readers are very curious about why the central character, Red Banner Sister, spends the entire story driving a red minibus. Can you explain?
The film is about a minibus full of Hongkongers going from Mong Kok to Tai Po after midnight who suddenly discover that everyone else in Hong Kong is gone.
Is there a contagious disease?
Why is that Japanese guy wearing all black and a gas mask standing in the middle of Kwong Fuk Road?
Did that CUHK student just spontaneously combust in his dorm room?
Why are the only remaining people in Hong Kong receiving morse code signals on their mobile phones that translate into the lyrics from David Bowie's Ground Control to Major Tom?
The premise pulls you in and the story has all sorts of tantalizing hints at interesting back stories. The film, however, is like the TV show Lost: lots of interesting mysteries that never amount to anything and are never explained.
If you are curious you can watch the trailer with English subtitles here.
Why would Red Banner Sister drive the minibus through the Central Harbour Tunnel when she is in a rush to get to Central? Wouldn't she use the Western Tunnel?
Well, the minibus in the film went from Mongkok to Tai Po via the Lion Rock Tunnel, so I also felt compelled to use Lion Rock Tunnel in the story. And once you take Lion Rock Tunnel from the New Territories to Kowloon, it's only natural to take use the Central Harbour Tunnel to get to Hong Kong Island.
This route does require the suspension of disbelief as Red Banner Sister (and the doughnuts) would have certainly been stuck in a giant traffic jam and would have never made it to Hong Kong Island.
Thanks very much for explaining the thought process behind the story Red Banner Sister Returns (with doughnuts). Finally what can readers expect next?
Red Banner Sister (RBS) saves all of the shoes in Hong Kong from going moldy by battling the evil of humidity.
RBS creates a Hong Kong taxi hailing app that actually works.
RBS runs some errands on a Saturday in Hong Kong and miraculously and fabulously everyone else in the city decides to stay home.
What is the point of a macaron? I do have a sweet tooth, but the appeal of macarons has just passed me by.
So glad to see I'm bit the only one. They're colourful and that's the only thing they've got going for them.
I thought City'Super IFC has ice cream but probably overpriced as with most of their other stuff. That little cubbyhole dining area reminds me of voting booths. You get maximum privacy if nothing else :). I guess you only find them in high rent cities such as HK or Tokyo.
I actually hadn't thought of that, but you're right we could have gotten ice cream in City Super (along with 400 HKD Japanese melons!).