NAME: The Musical Christmas Card (MCC).
CLOSELY RELATED TO: Santa hats with flashing light bulbs and musical options, inflatable Santas and anything else that seems like a good idea when it's thrust in your face by a Tsim Sha Tsui hawker, costs too much and breaks almost immediately.
REPERTOIRE: Silent Night, O Come All Ye Faithful, Auld Lang Syne, the 'hold' music on any cheap switchboard, and that other one that goes 'da-da-da-da/da da!/da-da-da-da!!!' but whose name escapes you.
LIFE EXPECTANCY: One day/three hours/two minutes depending on the recipient. Some don't make it past the second chorus. Others bleep away merrily until the second-hand batteries run out, someone spills beer on it or serious Christmas inebriation sets in and someone decides to stuff it in the turkey. Others have been known to make it through to Boxing Day morning, only to be swiftly stomped out of existence by hungover grouches.
BRIEF HISTORY: Emerged blinking and flashing into Yuletide Hong Kong in the mid-1980s. Initially to be found on hawker stalls or sold by Giordano and Dr Martens-clad schoolgirls. Gained a degree of respectability by insinuating itself into gift shops and now can even be found in Loft. Advanced models allow the giver to yell a message or song into the card and then listen to it repeated when recipient opens it. Possibilities are frightening.
FANS SAY: 'I mean, I know it's tacky and all that, but that's the point. It's a laugh, isn't it? And, anyway, it costs such a ridiculously large amount to buy one of the very ordinary cards elsewhere around town that you might as well get one with bells onit.' CRITICS SAY: 'Ban the Musical Christmas Card immediately. It represents a communist Chinese plan vicious in its cunning and stunning in its simplicity. It works like this: the hardliners across the border flood Hong Kong with MCCs, sold on the streets by agents disguised as hawkers and Giordano and Dr Martens-clad schoolgirls. The MCC then penetrates households around the territory where it flashes and bleeps wildly, provoking extreme reactions in all those present. 'Man-made turmoil' follows on the streetsof Hong Kong, and we all know what Mr Deng thinks about that.' WHATEVER NEXT? Karaoke cards complete with printed lyrics, reverb, coupons for over-priced drinks, and a 'pop-up' PR girl who lays her hand on your thigh. Category III cards which boast flashing starlets and are capable of giving nasty shocks.
