At the end of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim year, countries all over the Islamic world send out sighting committees to spot the arrival of the new moon which will herald the end of fasting and the beginning of the three-day festival called Eid al-Fitr. As Hong Kong has approximately 70,000 Muslims, it seemed logical that it would also have a moon- sighting committee on standby during the last week of November; a phone call to Kowloon mosque confirmed that, in fact, there were three.
'One party will go to The Peak,' said the Chief Imam, Muhammad Arshad. 'One party will go to Yuen Long. I myself will go to Ocean Terminal.' You might think that the inside of a mall would have fairly low lunar-spotting potential but as the Imam went on to explain, 'There is a parking lot on the top from which I have seen it before.'
So it was that in the late afternoon of Tuesday, November 25, the imam - a tall, bearded figure in a shalwar kameez - accompanied by four men, as his witnesses, carrying Watson's bags and a large cardboard box labelled 'Do Not Drop - 100 White Paper Plates', proceeded to walk, briskly, from Kowloon Mosque, through the crowds of tourists and copy-watch sellers, along Haiphong Road, across Canton Road, and up the escalators, past all the beckoning Christmas shop decorations, to the breezy, outdoor top deck of Ocean Terminal.
Moored on either side of the car-park, and rising above it like strange, glowing ice-bergs, were the Star ships Pisces and Leo; a few crew members looked down at the little knot of men walking purposefully to the railing at the end of the tarmac, but apart from them, the place was deserted. The imam glanced up at the clear, as yet moonless, sky and said, 'Seventy-three minutes is the life of the moon today. Moonset is at 18.50.' He looked at his watch: it was 17.40, a few minutes after sunset, which meant that he and the others could finally break their day-long fast.
The men unpacked the bags they'd carried, shook out a white ground-sheet, positioned it carefully across a parking space, placed four prayer-mats on top, took off their shoes and sat down. 'This is a musalla, a place of worship,' said one. 'Please join us.' He handed over a samosa, an orange and some dates, and the others fell silent while the line of Swire flags, which edged the car-park, flapped overhead in the wind. A single plane crossed the high blue arc of the sky like an arrow, glinting red and gold in the sunset.
Earlier, on the way up an escalator, one of the men had said - thinking perhaps to anticipate some awkwardness - 'After this 9-11, things have been.... ' but, in the commotion of negotiating the mall, the sentence had gone unfinished.
Paper cups of hot chicken congee were passed around, and one of the group, Noorul Ameen, remarked, conversationally, 'Instant congee they now have - I'm importing it from India. Perhaps you would like it, shall I give you my number?' While he was imparting his details ('And my restaurant in Shenzhen is called Taj Indian Restaurant, it is a Muslim restaurant, I shall give you that number also'), the iman's mobile phone rang. He began speaking urgently in Urdu and jumped to his feet, scanning the middle horizon above Sheung Wan. Then he cried out in sudden exhilaration, and pointed, 'It is there!'