most mom and pop shops have a cat in residence.
this cat is the hardest working employee in the shop. you can tell if they are good at their job, because the cats eat their profits.
rickety old mom and pop shops have many ways for rats to enter, and shops that sell food, herbs or provide shelter and low deep dark hard to get at areas for rats to nest are very popular with the vermin crowd.
in 1998 mc and i were at our favourite noodle place when a rat zipped through the shop. it was broad daylight. we were all so stunned we didn’t shriek. the owner smacked at the rat with a broom, and then screamed at her husband. a friend told us she said "CAT!" several times during her red faced diatribe. message obvious: time to get a cat.
during the daytimes i walk into shops and i see the cats lazily attending to their preening. they could be sitting at your feet, stretched lazily across beams above you, in a curled up ball near the warm insence, or determindly facing the wall, having a, no pun intented, catnap.
the cats come in a wide variety of colours, some have tails some don’t, but the chubby cats all have one thing in common: huge ears. usually with not a lot of hair around them. those ears are their meal tickets. their tenth grade secretarial arts teacher was wrong: fast typing skills and high word accuracy are not the key to a good job…big ears are. to kill or frighten away the rats that would be only too happy to eat a freshly typed report. rats seem happy to chew through anything.
although someone said you should treat cats in a shop like you treat guidedogs…as at work employees who must not be interrupted, i sometimes to make the cats acquaintance. not often though. for a couple of reasons:
1) fleas. shop cats usually are carting about fleas and i have no desire to have fleas. i once had to pull one out of my eye (transferred to me by a kitten we found on the street, kitten little, whom we found a great home for…he was a cute little gaffer). fleas are hard to kill and the shampoo you need to kill them is vile.
2) they’re not so friendly. i consider myself a bit of a cat whisperer, and if a cat is giving away "m just fine" vibes, who am i to not respect them?
some of them are rumbly and purry, and so i risk glares from their owners and give them a quick rub and cuddle, while hoping their breath isn’t too appalling.
cats are part of the hong kong life. they are to mom and pop shops what videocameras are to banks. they protect the premises and the assets. and they add character. and relief. it is scary to be flipping through a barrel of clothes and see something off in the distance moving. the relief of realising it is just a cat is amazing. the cats have this proprietorial air, they move about the shop if they wish, and are treated by the shop owners with respect. no one kicks the cat.
it is also a bit pathetic in a town where domestic helpers from the philippines, sri lanka, india and thailand are treated like crap, that cats are treated well. what does that say about hong kong?
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I will never understand how people can treat others less than themselves. But I really really cant understand how you can value and respect an animal more than a human!
What a shame!
while in argentina i learned that the resturant with the cat is the one you want to eat at.
A cat’s entitled to expect
These evidences of respect
So this is this, and that is that
And there’s how you ad-dress a cat
-webber
and sagan and i were the only ones dressed up.
Well said! I had forgotten about those cats until I read this and then it comes back to you. I hope that you and Mom are having a good time shopping and getting to see these cats.
Auntie P xoxo
Cool story. When we were recently in Cozumel having drinks at an outdoor restaurant there was a “resident” cat there. The lady said it showed up after Hurricane Wilma so they named the cat Wilma. And it guarded the restaurant all day every day!