Travels with Rachael
By Rachael (Hong Kong)
"If I had some Mace, I could blind everyone in the shop, then escape, but then the street--no, that's stupid, it won't work! Hey, wait a minute--that's ME?" I look longer in the mirror. The deep blue of the blouse sets off the blue of my eyes nicely. And the light wool gabardine suit fits like it was tailor-made--oh, wait, it WAS tailor-made! It was the suit and blouse, and a silk dress that had gotten me into the current situation.
I have lived in Hong Kong for a number of years, and have been almost as far in the closet as is possible to be. Transgendered people do not advertise in Hong Kong, there are no support groups I've been able to find, and no clubs I know about. The only transgendered activity I've discovered is a single nightclub called Bar City that has twice brought beautiful transsexuals from Thailand for a very short show.
My wife has known about my TG nature since before we'd been engaged, over 17 years ago, but she's never approved. I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she's seen me dressed, and the longer we've been together the less she wants to know about it. I've felt the need grow, not just to crossdress, but to be out in public, accepted as a woman, and to meet in person some of the wonderful people I've grown to know and love in the TGF chat room.
Last summer I had planned to meet a couple of chat friends when I was back in the US, but before I could find a way to tell my wife, she found out and got very upset. One of the issues about which she was concerned was that I would meet unsavory characters. To assuage her fears, I cancelled my plans, but worked out an agreement that I would dress en femme with her at home when we returned in autumn.
Fall came and mostly went, and somehow the plans to dress together never materialized, so I made a firm date for Halloween. That seemed fairly safe; again, to calm her fears I would get a hotel room and change there, we would meet and then go out to a club that was having a costume party. Even if I were spotted by someone I know, as I often am, the pretext of Halloween, the high holy day for TGs, would smooth things over. Dressing in public any other day is not a possibility for me here. As Halloween approached, my excitement and my wife's interest and willingness developed an unhealthily inversely proportional relationship. She made no attempt to put together a costume for herself, and every suggestion I made was met with resistance and hostility.
"Twins" I suggested. "We've both got similar black dresses, and we could wear black hose and heels--it'd be great!"
She replied, "I wouldn't be in costume then! "Yes you would, it would be a joint costume."
"I don't want you to look like me!"
"I could never look that good! But it would be a perfectly fine costume, and people would understand that you were in costume when they saw us together. If you don't want to do that, how about you go as a guy?"
"Well, maybe."...but no effort at all was made to put together a costume, and the tension rose with every mention I made toward the coming occasion. She wouldn't say where she wanted to go, except not to a gay club. I started to become frantic, as it seemed that I had given up my chance to meet accepting people in order to gain my wife's acceptance, and I wasn't getting that, either.
A deep and very serious depression set in--the Marianas Trench of depressions, as I simply could not think of a way to better the situation. I didn't want to hurt my wife, but I didn't want to be disappointed yet again. My friends here in the TGF Chat room, especially Sally, Shelly, and Lexi, pitched in and offered me support and advice. We worked out an alternate plan that we hoped would relieve some of the tension and pressure: I would go ahead and take a room myself, and invite my wife to join me if she wished. If she did not make it by a given time, I would go out by myself.
This raised some new possibilities for me, and I started looking around at which hotels had full service beauty salons. Halloween would have provided the perfect excuse for a new hairstyle, makeover, and manicure; but instead, disaster struck. I had not realized that Halloween is in Hong Kong's tourist high season! After extensive and increasingly panicked checking, I discovered that the only room to be had in all of HK was a single suite far away from where I wanted to be, and far too close to work for comfort, available for the bargain price of $250 a night! The whole plan fell apart, like an abandoned building in the way of a greedy Hong Kong property developer.
As the rubble of my plan cleared, my ability to understand the issues cleared with it. My wife's concerns and fears are legitimate, and I have the greatest sympathy for her position, although I don't always show it. Pushing her, as I was doing, into something about which she was so clearly anxious and upset simply made her more anxious and upset. Yet, at the same time, it was, and still is, impossible for me to give up my transgendered feelings--they are as deep and constant as any part of me, and have been with me long before I met my wife, long before I chose my occupation--longer than any other aspect of what people think of and know me as now. Yet the loneliness I feel by myself is no longer tolerable, and I cannot be accepted as a woman when I am completely alone.
If dressing in public in Hong Kong is not possible, and dressing in private with my wife is not possible, then the only solution is to dress in public in another country. And so, when a business trip in April came up, I explained to my wife that I simply had to extend the trip for a few days to dress en femme and meet people that I had met here. I told her that I was trying to consider her feelings and balance them with my needs, and I reassured her that I would do nothing sexual with anyone I met. My love is for her, my commitment is to her, and she need not worry that I would waver in that commitment. She agreed that she had not been able to be with me while I was en femme and did not wish to do so, and therefore I began to prepare for my trip.
A million issues came up--who could I see, how would I have time to see people, where could I go, and of course, what would I wear? Having been closeted for so long, my wardrobe was not a big one--not enough room for me and the clothes in that closet--it's not a walk-in! On one of my two previous outing I had recognized the need for a six foot tall woman to have a pair of flats, so I did have a pair of wearable shoes, along with a number of pairs of heels, should the occasion arise. I had three dresses from Lands' End that went well for everyday wear. Two were T-shirt dresses, one black and one turquoise, that fell to the knee. The other was a longer, fuller dress, also in turquoise. All three were short sleeved, and I had no jacket, and nothing particularly dressy if I went out in the evening. It seemed to me the order of the day was to get a two piece suit, a nice dress, and a blouse for the suit.
But although HK is the shopping capital of the world, it is very hard to find anything over a size 12! Catalogues were out of the question, as the trip was fast approaching. I could do one of two things: buy outfits in America when I arrived, or go to a tailor shop in HK. I'd tried the former several times and ended up with a number of ill-fitting dresses that seemed designed to make me look like a tightly packed sausage, but I hadn't had the courage yet to try on anything in a shop. I was very anxious about the tailor's, but the idea had a great appeal, and had been lurking in the back of my mind for a long time. HK is a society based more on money than morals, and I couldn't see many shopkeepers turning away a customer with ready cash. The bigger problems seemed to be finding a place that would understand what I wanted, where the tailor would speak sufficient English that I could communicate easily, and that would treat the whole thing with discretion.
Hong Kong is a merchant's paradise, and on every street corner of the main tourist area, Tsim Sha Tsui, one is accosted with flyers for tailors and the cry of "Copy Watch?" I walked around TST gathering flyers for tailor shops and also went to the HK Tourist Association for their pamphlet on shopping in HK which lists shops registered with the association, supposedly offering some consumer protection. I looked at several of the shops listed, and some were tiny--no bigger than a six by six room opening directly on the street with no visible changing area. Others were quieter, hidden within fancy hotel shopping arcades, and seemed to exude an aura of unaffordability. I longed to go talk to the shopkeepers, who were uniformly generous in asking me if I wanted a suit, but I couldn't quite bring myself to say, face-to-face, "No thanks, but how about a dress instead?" My fears were probably irrational, but it was harder than I had imagined. So I screwed up all my courage and picked up the phone.
I started under the A's in the HK Tourist Association pamphlet, dialed the number with shaking hands, and after the HK greeting, "Wei?", confirmed that it was the shop I had tried to reach. My voice was soft and trembling as I said, "I have an odd request. Can you tell me if you make ladies' clothes for men, please?"
The voice on the other line didn't hesitate, "Yes, sir, we make ladies' clothes, men's clothes, all kinds."
Oh, no, harder than I thought! "I mean, do you make dresses for men?"
"Dresses for men?" The voice seems to be a touch confused now. "What kind of dresses?"
"Ladies' dresses." I answer, wondering how to clarify.
"Ladies' dresses? For men? I'm not sure I understand."
"Yes, that's it. Would you make a lady's dress for a man?"
And then came the Hong Kong answer that I grew to love: "Yes, okay, why not?"
To Part IV: Lasers 'n' Mormons
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