The Storm And The Umbrella

I have lived in Hong Kong for almost two years now. My husbands job initially brought us here and even though there was an initial hesitation, leaving one's own country behind, friends and parents ofcourse--we have setteled down moderately well. The first thing that struck me here was the fluctuating weather. Sunny one day and torrential downpour the next. So on and so forth. So carrying an umbrella is ever so common here .. And the whole world ofcourse knows the history of myrid chinese umbrellas--because that's where i believe they all come from. So everyone here carries an umbrella--tiny ones that can fit into modest handbags,smaller ones that can be carried in tote bags and ofcourse the larger grandfather umbrellas that  often acts as  a cross between a walking stick for older people when the weather suddenly gets sunny or something to go under incase the sky opens up out of the blue. But the rains here is something different from that back home--being an island they are almost always accompained by strong winds.

Therein lies the problem. In the almost two years i have been here i have lost count of the number of umbrellas i went out with but while comming back home had to look for a dustbin to dispose of. The dilemma is quite simple really---with the heavy rains and extremely strong winds all umbrellas--tiny, small big,expensive or cheap---they break--unable to take the pressure from two such natural opponents. Recently ,frustrated with all my previous umbrella incedents, I paid a good deal of money and armed my self with a"storm proof" umbrella. Thus armed i decided to venture out on a slightly stormy day to test the promise made by the shop owner that this particular umbrella will not fail me.

It was fine initially but as the wind suddenly picked up and with that the rain--i found out that my umbrella is definitely "storm proof".  Unfortunately Its not  rain proof!! Because everytime there is a gust of wind the metal strips within the umbrella does not break like the previous one's--instead it folds in an upward position, which needs to be rectified by hand and in the process you end up getting drenched. But lets look on the bright side here--at least this time i came home with the umbrella intact--though thoroughly dripping as every five minutes i was busy folding back my "storm proof" umbrella.