Cherikoff, TTM and Ice Creams

May Mei

I read with great interest on the latest articles that were posted on the Lighters' website.

It so happened couple weeks ago; I found my old diary while cleaning the basement. Even though it started from the year after we graduated from Pui Ching, but a lot of the Lighters were still in Hong Kong at that time. Some of us were attending either Hong Kong Baptist College or Chung Chi College while waiting to come over to the US. Therefore, a lot of the entries were about the Lighters. (What a shame that I destroyed the diaries from the PC years before I left Hong Kong).

While we were at PC, one wouldn't think of speaking to the opposite sex, but once we left, we had no such worries. Shirley Lam, Lee Yim Har and I were three of the girls that attended HKBC together with Mud Tao, Albert Wong, TC Lo and others. Since we were all majored in sciences, we shared a lot of classes. During breaks, we all would hang out together. SS Lau said they did the same at Chung Chi where all the Lighters hung out which made the "outsiders" so mad at times. The one place we hung out almost daily was Mai-len, I am sure we ate lunch there everyday and we played bridge there every chance we got. We copied each other's home works and shared answers during tests. I wonder if any of them remembered we all got in trouble once by copying someone's wrong answer.

Cherikoff (that's how it was spelled on my diary) or Cherikov and the TTM at Diamond Hill were the two places that I frequented. Cherikoff was a Russian restaurant, if I am not mistaken. At that time, I thought their ox-tail soup was out of this world, besides that I don't remember much, but I must have liked that restaurant very much because that name keep popping up from my diary. 

Shirley and I helped Gina celebrated her birthday there 42 years ago, that day also happened to fall on the Chinese New Year. We went to her house in that afternoon, ate the birthday cake, went outside and had some photos taken before we went to see a rush hour movie. We had dinner at Cherikoff, and went to another movie afterwards. It amazes me that we would go to so many movies during that year (where did we get the money?) and I must have over dosed on movie then because now I have no desire to go to movies at all. A while back, I also found the photos that were taken on that day, but none of us could remember when and where they were taken. Now we know.

As for the TTM at Diamond Hill, all I can say is that it was spicy hot and it had this yummy and distinct taste that nobody could reproduce. I have been trying to find the same TTM all these years but without any success. When I went to Beijing couple years ago, I finally found a restaurant, which served TTM, but I was disappointed, that was not the TTM I remembered from the Diamond Hill.

The last time Shirley Lam and I went back to HK, Peter Ip and his wife Ada took us all over Kowloon trying to find us some coconut and mango ice creams; those together with the red bean ice cream bars were my favorites. But unfortunately, we were told, they were out of fashion long time ago, nobody makes them anymore. What a pity! However, I did get to taste one of the best mango ice creams in Manly, Australia. Go figure!

With the 2002 Reunion coming up, no doubt I would like to be able to find all the long ago favorite food or places, but I know better, things have changed, after all, that was over 40 years ago. We are no longer the teenagers we once were, so carefree and happy, not a thing in the world for us to worry about. Hopefully, after all these years, we can still find something to reminisce. With that I wish all the Lighters around the world would join us in HK for this reunion, if nothing else, just to be able to relive our youth even only for a few days. 

From reading my own diary, I couldn't believe some of the things I did, and though I didn't really like HK that much at the time, I did stress that I was having the time of my life during the last few years at PC. Wouldn't that be fun if we can all get together again at the same place where all the fun began? So this is an invitation to all those who are still undecided, please come! And for those who have found the TTM from Diamond Hill, please take me along when I come back for the reunion and if you can find those ice creams that I longed for also, I will be forever grateful!