Almost a week ago, I did a post about all the hustle and bustle here in town, with people out shopping and crowding the subways and the buses, and suggested that Chinese New Year — which began Monday — looked as if would be madness, here in Hong Kong.

And then it began … and the town turned into a ghost town. Well, by HK standards. (That is, you could walk down a street and not worry about bumping into anyone.) Bearing out what a veteran of 2-3 years here said, back in October, about Hong Kong and its muted Lunar New Year celebrations.

Turns out, yes, everyone was rushing around at the end of last week — because they were preparing to get out of town.

Monday was dead. Grocery stores were open, and some restaurants. And all the fast-food places (McDonald’s and KFC are very big here) and the convenience stores. (Would be downright inconvenient if they convenience stores closed.)

Streets were empty. Of people and cars. Just dead. Almost as if a neutron bomb (remember those? they allegedly killed people without damaging buildings; did they ever build one?) had gone off over HK Island.

Tuesday was only slightly better. And Wednesday, which I thought was the sort of half-hearted third day of the three-day official holiday … was about the same as Tuesday. Still far behind the normal pace of this town.

Almost all the mom-and-pop shops were closed all three days. And in neighborhoods like Wan Chai, where I live, mom-and-pop stores are about 90 percent of the total. So when they closed, the place was nearly shut down tight.

So, finally, I decided that today, Thursday, not a holiday, they would come back … but not all of them have.

It turns out, lots of the merchants here — who work amazingly long hours and nearly every day, the rest of the year — are inclined to take this whole week off. Apparently, in many cases it is the only week of the year they do take off.

And good for them, actually. Although it turns out that my daughter, who is visiting, got here for the one week of the year during which Hong Kong is the least Hong-Kongish.

I kept telling her, “just wait until Wednesday!” And then Thursday. And now maybe Saturday? To see how wild and crazy it is here! Anyway, it hasn’t returned to wild and crazy yet.

Hmm.

Well, anyway, transport was up and running, so she was able to go with me to the odd island of Cheung Chau yesterday. And we’re hoping the little jade and pearl shops are open today in Kowloon, because she went up there looking for bargains. Have to see how that went. I now fear those guys were closed, too, because they’re pretty mom-and-pop-ish.

It wasn’t a complete tourism disaster. On Monday, there was the parade, which she thought was fun, albeit a little provincial (for Asia’s self-described “World City”) and a little kitschy, too.

The huge fireworks show was a highlight Tuesday, a half-hour of some serious eruptions over the channel. My daughter also got to meet some of the English-speaking journalists in town, who had those nights off.

But, yeah, it turns out HK is not a magnet for New Year’s stuff. It doesn’t attract people — it spins them off to other places. For vacations or, more likely, returns to their ancestral homes somewhere in the interior of the mainland of China.

So, 16 weeks of madness, in this town. Then this one of sanity. Almost boring, dreary sanity.

Who knew I would miss the madding crowds? Or that someone could come visit here for a week and not see any of them?