I’m currently doing some traveling in Australia, and I noticed the following in the baggage policies:
What is a candy-striped bag? I’ve never heard the term before. In my mind, candy-striped is an aesthetic description, but I can’t imagine that multiple train operators have specific policies based on whether you’ve got plain luggage or red-and-white striped luggage. Googling turns up lots of paper bags marketed for bakeries, confectioners, and party favors, which I don’t imagine is what’s at hand here.
I’m pretty sure they’re talking about the type of cheap, nylon “luggage” that you can buy in places like Hong Kong (and also in cheap stores in western cities), and that are often a combination of red, white, and blue in color.
Here’s an example on eBay, and here is a story about this type of bag on a blog. The ones i’ve seen, though, often have broader stripes.
I’ve seen them a bunch, in Australia and in the US, but i only just realized that i’ve never had a name for them, which made it very difficult to find them on the internet. According to my second link, they’re known in Hong Kong as hung bak lam doi (literally, red white blue bag).
My guess is that it’s because they are pretty flimsy; only one step up from bin bags. We have a couple we use for carting stuff to the beach - why anyone would use them for checked baggage is beyond me.
Yup, it’ll be the kind mhendo linked to. They’re probably used as an extra bag to bring souvenirs home on the return trip. Likely to fall apart, hence the warnings.
They’re great for coats if you’re a big family going somewhere chilly(like…ooh, say the UK in winter, as we did last Christmas). You don’t want to be lugging five chunky bulky winter coats around with you all the way through melbourne airport and possible changes in Asia … but you know when you do want them, you’ll want them in a hurry, all in one convenient place.
Thank you! I was going crazy trying to figure it out - I’ve seen bags like that, but never heard them referred to (as anything, now that I think about it). I will sleep better tonight with the mystery solved.
They are flimsy and shapeless and are fine for bringing your towels to the beach, but are generally awkward to handle. They will fall to bits if subjected to the kind of handling that checked baggage gets, which is why carriers are really not keen on them.
mhendo’s ebay link is exactly the item they refer to. While that picture is a more colourful design, when that type of bag became really popular, through the 80’s in particualr, they were almost all red, white and blue stripped.
I’m not surprised if you saw that note on a long-haul train. As trains are or were highly popular modes of long distance transport for pensioners (>65 in age), because they received 2 or 3 (IIRC) free long distance train trips per year (not sure if they still do). So presumably the combination of a fixed income and a cheap bag, meant these types of bags were very popular. And of course those bags are pretty flimsy and as bob++ and UDS suggest, they fall apart easily, and in particular the handles tear off if they contain heavy objects.
Incidentally, despite having at least a couple in the house, I’ve never seem them called candy-stripped bags, so I have a name for them now at least.
