Clothes Make the Mandarin at Hand-Over Festivities

While somber, politically minded folk--dour newspaper columnists and think tankers--wrestle in their serious way with the fate of Hong Kong as it passes from British to Chinese control, others face the agonizing decision of what to wear to the hundreds of hand-over parties.

Ong Chin Huat, debonair editor of the slick society magazine Hong Kong Tattler, thinks that he will go with the blue outfit with the Mandarin collar and black cloth Chinese shoes for what he calls “the biggest night of my whole career.” Ong said he has limited himself to a mere seven parties in next week’s two days of celebrating Hong Kong’s repatriation to the motherland. He made that decision after weighing dozens of invitations.

Hong Kong fashion designer Benny Yeung said he has produced dozens of hand-over outfits costing from $1,000 to $4,000 for many of Hong Kong’s top socialites. Yeung said he will wear a simple black-and-white outfit--Chinese jacket and pants--to the three parties he plans to attend.

Hong Kong has never needed much of an excuse to party.

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The territory has celebrated Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve, Chinese New Year, Halloween and Queen Elizabeth’s birthday with equal gusto. Rare is the charity, whether benefiting female literacy or people with birth defects, that does not merit a gala ball or elegant soiree.

With years to prepare, practically every bar and restaurant in the colony-cum-Special Administrative Region plans some sort of hand-over event, some teetering on bad taste.

The Joe Bananas Club is staging a “Suzie Wong Party,” with free entry for anyone who can do an imitation of the fictional Hong Kong prostitute with a heart of gold.

Opting for a political theme, newspaper society columnist and humorist Nuri Vittachi plans to mark the historic moment with a “handcuff party” where guests will be asked to chain themselves to a partner for 24 hours.

Whatever people’s plans are, the transfer of sovereignty poses special festive challenges, a sort of sartorial and culinary schizophrenia. One minute, Hong Kong is an outpost in the dwindling British Empire, the next, it reenters the Celestial Middle Kingdom. Chinese or Western? Western or Chinese?

The elegant Regent Hotel has decided to solve the problem by going both ways.

Guests at the Regent event are encouraged to arrive Monday evening wearing costumes from current and former British outposts--India, the United States, Burma, the Falkland Islands. At the stroke of midnight, they will be asked to strip off the colonial threads and don Chinese-style outfits, such as the 1930s-era Shanghai suits designed by Hong Kong designer and marketing wizard David Tang.

Tang’s arch-hip shop, Shanghai Tang’s, has been bustling with activity as hand-over revelers get fitted for their repatriation costumes.

Cuisine served at the Regent before midnight will be “colonial”; after midnight, it will be Chinese. Los Angeles celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, who the hotel is flying in for the occasion, will start the evening serving “grilled shrimp pizza with leeks and Shiitake mushrooms”--known to habitues of his Spago restaurant--and then switch to “himachi and tuna sashimi with ponzu and wasabi vinaigrette”--familiar to diners at his Chinois on Main bistro--for the post-midnight fare.

The main event of the hand-over is a banquet for 4,000 VIPs--heads of state, British royalty and members of the political elite of both mainland China and Hong Kong--on Monday night just before the official hand-over ceremony.

The venue for both that banquet and the hand-over is the new Hong Kong Convention Center annex, a hulking winged structure nicknamed “the cockroach” by some local residents, that juts rudely into Hong Kong Harbor. It will be a high-security, choreographed affair that will be attended by Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Britain’s Prince Charles and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Details have been planned to the point that organizers have installed wind machines for the indoor event so the national flags will wave stiffly.

The invitation to the official banquet lists the prescribed dress as “lounge suit, uniform or national dress.” This, presumably, is loose enough to allow officers of the People’s Liberation Army to be comfortable.

In private homes and other venues across the territory, Hong Kong’s power brokers, charity patrons and socialites will host an array of high-profile fetes to mark the occasion. These range from a two-day, $6,000-per-couple event hosted by Hong Kong businessman and politician Henry Tang, at which the special guests will be high-ranking Chinese officials, to a wild “Climax of the Peak” charity ball atop Hong Kong Island’s highest point that appears to be mainly about fashion, dancing and magnums of champagne.

“We didn’t want to be political,” said Sally Lo, a leading socialite who arranged the $14,000-a-table Victoria Peak event for the local cancer society. “The emphasis will be on body sensuality, body parts and dancing. It should be very sexy.”

Circulating among the revelers will be 28 “very risque models” wearing outfits designed by Christian Dior, she said.

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This may be more than the late Chinese “paramount leader” Deng Xiaoping had in mind in 1984 when he reassured Hong Kong residents that “the racehorses will still run, the dancing will continue” after Hong Kong falls under control of the People’s Republic. Lo said she does not have any People’s Republic officials among the 1,000 planned guests.

Whatever their political bent, all of the events are likely to be well lubricated.

Ian Davidson, director of Riche Monde Ltd., the Hong Kong distributor for Moet & Chandon and Dom Perignon champagnes, said he has sold more than 12,000 bottles of bubbly for the hand-over--four times the normal volume for this month.

“It’s been like Christmas in June around here,” Davidson said.

Times staff writer Maggie Farley contributed to this report.