This post is based on an album I put together in 1976 or so called “Bill – The Story So Far.” I certainly have other pictures from Hong Kong in my pre-Barb days, 1971-74, but these are what was in that particular album. I will find some way to collate others as I come across them.
Arrival and our first year
On August 15, we flew from Tokyo to Hong Kong on a Japan Airlines 747 in first class. It was my first time on a 747, which had recently been introduced, and my first time in first class. I thought both were great! I got the seat in the very nose of the plane and we were one of the last planes to land in advance of Typhoon Rose, one of the strongest storms to ever hit Hong Kong. We came wobbling in through the storm clouds and by the time we broke through the bottom of the clouds you could just about reach out and pluck laundry off the roofs of buildings on the approach to Kai Tak. I loved it; I think Mom was scared to death.
We were whisked from the airport like VIPs to the Peninsula Hotel where we spent our first few nights riding out the storm. We had a very nice corner suite but at some point it started leaking and we were moved to a smaller, more protected room. We had dinner during the height of the storm (so probably the second night) at Gaddi’s, their French restaurant and one of the top places in Hong Kong. During our meal, the power went out and the restaurant went dark. Without missing a beat, waiters started flowing out of the kitchen with lit candles for every table and we resumed a very memorable and delicious meal. We were immediately impressed and overwhelmed by the high level of service we encountered at the Peninsula. Despite arriving in the midst of a devastating storm, Hong Kong for us was quickly a very easy place to like.
For our first few months, we moved into a British family’s “leave flat” in the mid-levels on Hong Kong Island. This was a pre-AirBnB concept of renting out your apartment while the family was on an extended vacation or assignment, and was a relatively common remnant of the British colonial era. The flat was a good base for us to start exploring Hong Kong, but I especially remember wearing out the British family’s copy of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Cosmo’s Factory while we stayed there.
Dad overlapped with his predecessor, Fred Westphal, for about three months and we waited for the Westphal family to move out before moving in to what would become our home at 36 Repulse Bay Road. I never knew the Westphals well but Mom and Dad became friends with them, corresponding and visiting them several times in Louisiana after they retired. Reading his obituary, I was surprised to learn Mr. Westphal was part of the US codebreaking group at Arlington Hall in World War II and lived until the impressive age of 105. I was also pleasantly surprised to find this article from the Industrial History of Hong Kong Group which details the Exxon partnership with China Light and Power and mentions Dad as one of Mr. Westphal’s successors. I learned from this article that the house at 36 Repulse Bay Road was rented from the Aw family of Tiger Balm fame. I knew it was rented, but didn’t know from whom.
The Peninsula Electric Power Company was a joint venture between Exxon and China Light and Power. Basically, PEPCO ran several power plants to generate electricity and CLP distributed it to Kowloon and the New Territories. It was a unique arrangement formulated by CLP’s owners, the Kadoories, one of the wealthiest families in Asia and also owners of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels Group which included the Peninsula and Repulse Bay hotels. We got to know the brothers Lawrence and Horace at various parties and events over the years. They were unfailingly polite and charming, at once proud of the history and wealth they represented but easy to be around. Lawrence generally ran the businesses while Horace was more dedicated to philanthropy and the experimental Kadoorie Farm in the New Territories. Laurence’s wife, Muriel (later Lady Kadoorie), was friendly with Mom. Mom saved her note below from November 1977 after a party Mom threw introducing her successor, Susan Smith.
While we’re on the subject of Exxon people and Dad’s work, PEPCO was a relatively small operation with usually only a few other expat Americans on staff. For the first couple of years of our tour there was John Laughlin, whose family we got to know fairly well. But not well enough to learn that he had quite a resume, including service in the South Pacific with MacArthur then a career with Esso in Asia starting in 1946 with postings including Beijing, Tientsin, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Viet Nam, Bombay, and New Delhi.
Following the Laughlins it was Mel Searles, whose family we were closer to, wife Andi and sons Neil and Scott. Mel went on to become the commercial attache for the US Embassy in Beijing, but I’ve lost track of him after that.
Dad’s main secretary and assistant was Patricia Lee, with whom we all became friends. Pat was an elegant and very formal lady who drove a Jaguar and somehow gave the impression that she worked for her entertainment rather than necessity. I’m sure that’s not the case, but she was very efficient and seemed to know everyone and everything about Hong Kong. I can’t remember her whole story but I think she was adopted and raised by a British diplomat. I feel bad for not remembering more about her because she was instrumental in helping us feel welcome and making arrangements for us throughout our time in Hong Kong.
Dad’s office was in the St. George’s Building in Central at the intersection of Ice House Street and Harcourt Road, next to the Mandarin Hotel. The building was owned by the Kadoories and housed their offices along with the American Club. In 1971, this was waterfront property and Dad’s office had a grand view of the Harbor. In 1972, the Connaught Centre (now called Jardine House), resembling a 52-story block of swiss cheese, rose in front on reclaimed land and blocked half the view. At the time, the Connaught Centre was the tallest building in Asia. Today, it is itself dwarfed by the nearby International Financial Centre complex. The new Star Ferry terminal and a tourist wheel sit on acres of new reclaimed land in front of the St. George’s building. So goes growth in Hong Kong.
In searching for all this, I stumbled upon the Hong Kong Heritage Project, a repository for the extended history of the Kadoorie family, which includes an oral history interview with Dad done in 2007 about his time in Hong Kong. Here is a transcript of the 38-minute interview. Our dear father is perhaps not as culturally sensitive as we would like, but it’s the most I’ve ever seen him talk about his own career. I now have a DVD copy of the interview, thanks to the Hong Kong Heritage Project.
Making a home
We moved into the house on Repulse Bay Road in October 1971. Even at that point, I recognized what lucky circumstances into which we had fallen. We were in an actual house with four bedrooms, a yard, and live-in servants Ah Chen and Ah Ying, who had their own little wing of the house for themselves and their son, Fung. Having a standalone house was a very rare thing in Hong Kong, and we were there very much on Exxon’s dime. There was actually another part of the house that was rented to a British family but we almost never saw them. There was no central air conditioning or heat, but we had window A/C units in each bedroom which became crucial in the warmer, very humid months. I effectively had a two bedroom suite at the far end of the house overlooking Deepwater Bay. It was a pretty glorious place.
Ah Chen and Ah Ying were a marvelous couple who made our years in Hong Kong extra special. Ah Chen was chef, major domo and butler. His wife Ah Ying kept the house and laundry clean. Ah Chen was especially wonderful, combining a willingness to please and easy smile with tremendous skills in the kitchen. He could cook anything, Western or Chinese, elegant or simple, appetizers, entrees or desserts. His specialties included chicken kiev, fried shrimp with paper-thin potato chips, the world’s fluffiest omelettes, Chinese dishes westernized just enough for us, curries with an array of tasty toppings, chocolate log desserts with spun sugar birds nest and birds, and elaborately carved vegetable decorations, often with little lights embedded. And that’s just the top of my memories. We were so very lucky; it often felt like it was their house and we were very favored guests.
We were also very lucky to have the services of Ah Lam, our driver, and the Exxon-provided car that shuttled us all around Hong Kong. Ah Lam was a very dedicated, reliable and safe driver in the chaos of Hong Kong traffic, and endlessly patient as Mom, Dad or I went to our various daily doings. Having a private car and driver was another real luxury, though as I got older I made frequent use of Hong Kong’s various public buses, trams and ferries (Mom and Dad, not so much, if ever) and the inexpensive taxis. At the moment, I can’t find pictures of Ah Ying or Ah Lam, which is a bit criminal. I hope to track some down soon.
We inherited the Westphal’s purebred German Shepherd, Sam (short for Samantha). Sam was given to the Westphals by Mary Ketterer, who owned Sam’s mother and bred the line of shepherds. Mary herself was part of the Hotung clan, one of the the wealthiest families in Hong Kong. Sam came with her own set of certified papers. My point is, Sam had a much better pedigree than any of us. She was a lovely and very friendly dog. Sadly, she had two shortcomings: she stank, no matter how much she was bathed, and she developed chronic hip displaysia which grew increasingly painful and shortened her life. But she was with us for several years and was mostly a delight.
For our first winter break, it was too far to go back to the states so we took an extended vacation to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. We all enjoyed this trip a great deal, especially Bangkok and Singapore. I remember staying at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore which was very new, and thinking it was even nicer than the Peninsula. We also stayed at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok which was a little older but also very nice. Why is it I nearly always remember the hotels where we stayed? We visited some Exxon people in Singapore, the Fitzsimmons, who invited me to play golf at the Singapore Country Club. The course was as lush and green as anything I’d ever seen but it was also extremely hot and humid (and it was December 27).
As a way to keep family and friends in the States updated on our activities, and a blatant attempt to get them to write to us on the other side of the world, I started a family newsletter called the Nacnud Times. I managed to find several copies, chronicling our move into the house and our trip Christmas trip to Bangkok, KL and Singapore. As you can see, my writing style has hardly progressed in nearly 50 years.
Very shortly after that trip I got a cast on my right leg to treat a chronically sore knee, which restricted my movement. In any case, soon after, I was diagnosed with what turned out to be a mild dose of typhoid fever (we blame the tour of the klongs in Bangkok, though who knows). I spent a week or so in quarantine at Canossa Hospital (I remember it was very Christian and the food was awful) and several more weeks convalescing at home. My schoolwork was brought to me and I was expected to stay caught up. Maybe this is why I don’t have many fond memories of 8th grade.
School
I attended 8th-12th grade at the Hong Kong International School located in Repulse Bay on the south side of Hong Kong Island. I don’t remember a whole lot about 8th grade other than it took me a while to get my footing and develop friends. I didn’t love the school right away but had been in new schools before and I guess I knew it would take a while to adjust. There was a lot of adjusting to get used to Hong Kong and there were a lot of things to like. School wasn’t one.
If 8th grade was maybe not my happiest, by 9th and 10th grades I settled into a routine of school, music and various sports. HKIS was the only school in Hong Kong with an American curriculum, so was a gateway to American colleges. It was operated by the Lutheran Missouri Synod and most of the teachers were from various midwestern Lutheran colleges. They were generally not an inspiring bunch and it was a rare relief to get a teacher that was not one of the Lutherans.
There were around 1,000 students in grades K-12, all in a 6-story building in Repulse Bay. There was one concrete courtyard and an indoor gym but otherwise no playing fields which cut down on outdoor sports; what few there were involved bus rides to fields in Aberdeen or Stanley. The school added a second building across the street in 1975 for elementary grades. Today, HKIS is much larger, with two campuses, many sports fields and more than 2,500 students.
My class of about 90 students was a mix of maybe 2/3 expat American business, diplomatic and missionary kids and 1/3 wealthy Hong Kong and international students tracking toward American colleges. There was a predictable mix of stoners, nerds, quiet and outgoing kids, but the class was small enough to know basically everyone, there were activities and sports where we all had to interact, and to some extent we got to know each others’ parents and families. It was, all in all, a good community of folks, banded together in a bubble of isolation and privilege. There was also a regular turnover of about 1/4 of the class each year. Hong Kong was a very transient place and most expat families were there a relatively short time, typically 2-4 years. It was common practice at that point for business and diplomatic families to regularly shuffle from post to post. The net result was that you made friends fairly quickly but not too tightly, and if you didn’t like someone there was a fair chance they’d be gone in a year or so. By the time I reached 11th and 12th grades, I was an old-timer at the school.
My academic memories at HKIS are muddy. I was basically a B-student, occasionally inspired, often bored, and sometimes resistant. I generally did better in English, history and social studies classes, worse in science and math. I took Latin for a year in 9th grade, then switched over to Spanish because it was easier. I will credit that year of Latin, though, in helping my English skills and probably bumping up my SAT scores. The school offered a Chinese language class but it didn’t occur to me to take it.
There was very little local flavor to the classes — I can recall one class called “Hong Kong Seminar” that was mostly an excuse to go to local restaurants and field trips — but otherwise no real study of Asian history or culture. Classes were largely an exercise in making it seem like we were in the States. There was a Model UN program, and according to my senior yearbook I participated in three years. That I barely remember any of them, though I think I was head of the US delegation in senior year, indicates my general level of attentiveness.
Sports
A major sport at school was basketball and I was on the junior varsity team for 9th and 10th grades, but I wasn’t better than middling. There was a short-lived baseball team, I think in 9th grade, but it dissolved after one season because there was basically no one to play. Otherwise, the school teams focused on rugby, track and swimming, none of which held much appeal for me.
Mainly, I spent many afternoons and weekends at the Hong Kong Country Club playing tennis when it was sunny, squash or bowling when it rained. The school never fielded a tennis team and I never really knew why, but there was always activity going on at the Club. I became decent at tennis and made good friends with folks like Lloyd Chao and Nick Rowan. Lloyd was a tennis buddy for years before he came to HKIS in 11th grade (to get ready for a U.S. university). We had lessons on Saturday and played on weekdays as well. It seemed we had endless opportunities to play singles or doubles with adults or with other kids.
The Club had a four-lane bowling alley and I became pretty proficient, eventually winning the Club’s inaugural junior bowling trophy, the Duncan Cup, which the Club persuaded Mom and Dad to sponsor. Mom also became a pretty good bowler, oddly enough. Bowling would later serve me well with Barb’s family on teams in Hong Kong and Virginia.
One of the highlights of our early years in Hong Kong occurred when the city hosted its first professional tennis tournament in 1973. A number of international touring pros came to town and we housed two Australian players including Paul McNamee who had won the Australian Open junior title that year. We hosted a big reception at our house which included John Newcombe and Neale Fraser (who gave me racket that I treasured for quite a while even though I could never hit very well with its small squash-racket sized head — we still have the racket in the basement, warped somewhat…a collectors item for a truly obscure collector). I was a ballboy at the tournament for several years which was actually a lot of fun except when Ilie Nastase got mad at me for being slow to toss him a ball. He rifled a ball at me just inches over my head.
For a number of years, Mom, Dad and I would play golf on weekends at the Shek O club, the lesser of the two golf clubs in Hong Kong. The course had a seaside front nine reminiscent of a downsized Pebble Beach. There were a couple of holes that criss-crossed and you always had to keep an eye out for errant tee shots. There were a bunch of old ladies in Hakka hats (and were probably proper Hakka ladies but I was too ignorant to really know) who were fixtures as caddies. We always felt bad having them carry our clubs, and deliberately got some lightweight golf bags to make it easier, but it was a living for them and they were very eager to earn their tips. The club itself was an old British institution and had some quirky traditions, including a weekend tiffin with tasty curries and little sandwiches, and a New Years Day tournament that was an excuse for everyone to come out on a cold, hungover day and get very drunk all over again. We played golf there pretty regularly for several years until I eventually got fed up with spending any more time than necessary with Mom and Dad. Ah, teenagerhood.
Music
Another consuming passion in my early high school years was music, both listening and playing. The music scene such as it was in Hong Kong was pathetic. The three biggest stars on Hong Kong’s radio stations in the early 70’s were Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and the BeeGees (pre-Saturday Night Fever version). Once a week we could listen to American Top 40 to get a sense of what was popular in the States. There were no home-grown live acts (at least not in English), only Philippino cover bands in some of the hotels. But we could get records and I started to develop a collection, most of which I still have. My tastes ranged all over the place, from rock to singer/songwriters to jazz. It was especially great when someone went to Taiwan where pirated records abounded. I would give them a shopping list of albums — they were something like 10 cents each but unfortunately you could only play them a few times before the vinyl gave out.
I started playing bass guitar sometime around 9th grade. I got a Japanese Ibanez knockoff of a Fender bass with a Gibson amp and proceeded to thump away along with any and all records of the moment. My level of competence built very slowly and I’m sure I must have driven the English family who lived below my room completely insane. I took lessons at school for a while from Mr. Koo, a sweet and tiny Chinese/Philippine man who had great patience and could play a very pretty Hawaiian slide guitar. Once in a while we had performances at school or sometimes with Mr. Koo at cocktail parties. One of the first songs I remember playing was “The Hukilau Song,” more or less based on this Mel Peterson version. Fortunately, we didn’t sing — just did it as an instrumental.
Eventually, I became part of various informal bands that rotated among the handful of kids that could play instruments. We were never very good in any configuration, and suffered from a dearth of talent and an abundance of shyness. In particular, no one was prepared to actually sing in front of other people so we leaned toward instrumentals. We would butcher various works of Santana, the Allman Brothers and the Rolling Stones, to name a few. We played a few school dances and an occasional party, but there was never a clamor to have us perform. I always seemed to have more fun and play better alone in my room along with my records.
In my junior year or so, I tried expanding to guitar and talked Mom and Dad into getting me an Epiphone 12-string and then an actual Fender Telecaster that I loved. I could make a lot more noise and could strum along to just about anything, but was hopeless at playing solos. Eric Clapton was not threatened but our neighbors suffered through a few more years of hell.
At some point during these years I bugged Mom and Dad into acquiring a Yamaha electric organ and I made an effort to play. Mom and I actually took lessons together for a while. I found it a little sad even at the time that the song Mom most wanted to play was “Autumn Leaves” a very melancholy number. I think she was going for the Doris Day version. I was shooting more for Emerson, Lake and Palmer or Rick Wakeman of Yes, but hardly got beyond learning scales and chords. I could play a few things with either my right or left hand, but never both at once…much less adding the bass pedals.
Food and Fun
A family tradition for many years was Sunday dinner at the Repulse Bay Hotel. Sunday was Ah Chen’s day off and though he would willingly have prepared meals for us, we took it as an opportunity to head over to the Verandah Restaurant at the hotel (the hotel is gone now, replaced by a mega-apartment building, but the Verandah lives on). I almost always got a steak au poivre, Dad reliably got the Dover sole, and Mom would bounce around the menu a bit depending on the specials. We often finished off with Dad’s very favorite Grand Marnier souffle (Ah Chen also made a mean souffle).
Food was generally a great thing in Hong Kong. Ah Chen’s meals were the best but we also went out frequently. It was a real treat to get steak at the American Club in the St. George’s building downtown, the same building as Dad’s office. They would wheel out a huge slab of NY strip and you would indicate in inches how big a cut you would like. We generally went for inch-and-a-half or sometimes two-inches. I loved ordering steak by the inch and for a long time figured that’s just how you do it. Jimmy’s Kitchen was another favorite, though we went there less and less over time. I fondly remember their little pickled onions on the table. We didn’t go out for a lot of Chinese food, but occasionally took guests to the floating restaurants in Aberdeen (Jumbo was the biggest but there were several others to choose from) and attended many banquets in various places. We often had meals in various hotels, especially the Peninsula, Mandarin, and Hilton, and got used to the idea that the best restaurants were often in hotels. Oddly, we rarely went out for dim sum, though when we did it was usually at a big, touristy place in a hotel right near Ocean Terminal. As a family, we were not very brave for authentic Chinese experiences, sad to say, but we hardly suffered.
A big activity for Mom was taking guests (generally the wives of guests) on shopping tours of Hong Kong. She had a handful of favorite jewelers, antique dealers, tailors, shoemakers, and others. She also enjoyed taking folks to the market streets in Stanley to do some rookie-level bargaining. I would sometimes tag along on day trips to the New Territories. The typical itinerary included a stop at a Kowloon shirt factory which sold very cheap remainders of brand name sport shirts like Nike or Lacoste. We’d often head out for a tour at the Kadoorie Farm, an experimental farm operated mainly by Horace Kadoorie to help improve agriculture and animal husbandry practices in Hong Kong. We’d also stop at the Tai Ping Carpet factory (also owned by the Kadoories) where it was astonishing to watch craftsmen hand-finish their beautiful high-end carpets.
The photos below were from a visit with Sue, who says it was at Christmas of 1976 (which meant I must have come back from Georgetown…I don’t remember doing that but, hey, maybe so).
The trip would often include a stop a hillside near the Lowu border crossing for a peek into China. The view was of rice paddies, a few distant small villages, and an occasional People’s Liberation Army border guard poking out of a guardhouse. This is the area that now, 40 years later, has become the megacity of Shenzhen with more than 12 million people, nearly twice as big as Hong Kong. It’s absolutely mind-boggling and grist for further thoughts in other posts.
Mom seemed to generally have a great time in Hong Kong. She had no housekeeping or cooking responsibilities, which she may have experienced to some extent in Venezuela, Cuba, or Aruba…but not like this. She spent a lot of time shopping and being hostess and tour guide to a fairly constant stream of visitors, mostly business folks but sometimes family and friends. She also played a fair amount of bridge, including gaining a ranking (the details of which I never understood) in duplicate bridge.
Mom tried teaching me bridge and other card games, and for a while we regularly played canasta, but none ever really caught with me. We also tried various board games, including Monopoly, Life, Risk, Yahtzee and Parcheesi. Each were fun for a little while (well, expect Monopoly which never really worked with two people).
Mom saved some highlights of her time in Hong Kong in this collection of clippings and photos.
Mom got to know the shopping areas and markets of Hong Kong pretty well, including furniture and picture framers on Queens Road East, shoemakers in Wanchai, fine jewelers and tailors in Central, favorite arcades in the hotels and office buildings in Central, antiques on Hollywood Road, cheap clothes and knick knacks in Stanley Market, Chinese goods at the Yue Hwa store in Kowloon, and more. It took a little while to get used to the idea that pretty much anything you wanted could be handmade at a reasonable price…you just had to find the right shop or know who to ask. Mom also played a lot of tennis and bridge, volunteered at the school’s Mother’s Club and the China Fleet Club (mainly to access their store for imported Western food/goods).
Mom would often be at home when I came in the afternoons for my ritual bowl of popcorn (Ah Chen’s was the best), a Green Spot orange soda and settle in our little air conditioned TV room to watch cartoons on the 5 O’Clock Club. Television was a very hit-or-miss entertainment medium. There were two English channels that only came on the air starting at 5pm until midnight or so. There was a smattering of American shows like Hawaii 5-0 but it was mostly English fare like the EastEnders. There were a few gems, however: I fell hard for Monty Python’s Flying Circus, years before it was shown in the States.
I have lots of other random memories. I enjoyed taking the #6 doubledecker bus from near our front door toward Central or toward school and the town of Stanley. I remember often going to movie theaters particularly in Ocean Terminal and Causeway Bay, especially for Hollywood films but sometimes for locally produced kung fu movies. Occasionally, Mom and Dad would try to broaden my musical horizons with nights at the Hong Kong Symphony. There was a famous horse racetrack on Hong Kong Island, Happy Valley; I never attended the races because I was underage, but I did watch them on TV and even practiced betting from time to time. It was by far the most popular “sport” in Hong Kong. Pat Lee was a member of the Hong Kong Jockey Club and we partook of some very nice banquets there from time to time.
I loved walking the the ring path around the Peak, especially at dusk to watch the lights come on. I enjoyed lots of other hikes on HK island, including clambering uphill behind school and cresting over toward Tai Tam Reservoir and Stanley. I’d occasionally take longer hikes in the New Territories, around Plover Cove or High Island reservoirs or out toward Castle Peak. There was a surprising amount of open space, even on Hong Kong Island, but it was generally only accessible on foot and usually very steep and wild. We would sometimes take ferries to Hong Kong’s other islands, especially Lantau for beaches and the Buddhist monastery, Lamma for hikes, and Cheung Chau for a small local fishing village and food.
Christmas 1975?
Mom and Dad’s 1974 China Trip
In November 1974, Dad was invited to join a group of Hong Kong business people on a two-week tour of China. Mom was able to go with him. This was two years after Nixon’s groundbreaking 1972 trip to China and one of the early tours for any American businessman beyond the Canton Trade Fair. The trip included stops in Guangzhou, Guilin, Changsha, Hangzhou, Wuxi and Shanghai. Dad wrote up a detailed report with photos which I think he presented to Exxon and the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. I’m happy to have recently found a copy so now you can see the whole thing. The report, written by Dad and prepared by Patricia Lee, happens to be the longest, most detailed example of Dad’s writing I have. The old man did a pretty good job.
Before finding the full report, I only had these few photos and postcards that Dad wrote to Susie and Pop-Pop about their stops in Guilin and Hangzhou.
I know Mom and Dad were very impressed by the natural beauty of the karst mountains in Guilin. They also commented on how poor the facilities were for tourists, and that they both learned to drink beer on the trip because it was the only reliably potable liquid.
Vacations
Another of the perks of Dad’s position in Hong Kong was additional vacation time and an expense allowance so the family could return to the States once each year. Being on the opposite side of the world, this gave us the option of traveling toward the east via Hawaii and the West Coast, or toward the west through Europe. We did it both ways in various years, meaning that I literally traveled around the world at least twice before I was 18. In later years, we tended to just go and return over the Pacific because it was easier and a little more direct.
I don’t have the photos on hand to show each trip, at least not yet, but I remember several different European jaunts through Greece, Italy, France, England and Scotland. I have memories of visiting Athens, Rome, Florence, Milan, the Val D’Osta (in honor of Valdosta), Dijon (very good food) and Paris. We toured London and Scotland, including Edinburgh, Pitlochry and Inverness, played golf at St. Andrews and saw Loch Ness (no monster).
Dad’s best fishing buddy from Coral Gables was his work colleague, Tom Fitzgerald. We had at least one fishing vacation, evidently in July, 1972 (so our first summer back from Hong Kong) in Marathon, Florida, at the Buccaneer Lodge with the Fitzgeralds, including Charlotte and daughter Colleen, and with all my sisters.
Note that Richard Molinari, Len’s second husband and Scott’s dad is in the picture above, one of the only shots I have of him. At about this time in 1972, Len, Sue and Laurie all ended up moving to Key West (Len and Richard got divorced soon afterward) where before long Len would meet and marry Mike Horne and Sue would meet and marry Tom Blythe. Sue and Tom were married in the summer of 1973 at their place on Grassy Key. I remember we were there but I don’t seem to have any pictures, except maybe this one of me waiting.
We went back through Hawaii several times, visiting each of the main islands. In 1973, we returned to the Big Island and the Mauna Kea Beach Resort because we loved it so much the first time. We also stopped in Maui where we stayed in Kaanapali and enjoyed the beach, golf, visiting Lahaina and venturing to the top of Haleakela. We also spent a couple of days on Oahu, touring Honolulu, Waikiki and Pearl Harbor. The only photo Dad lovingly captioned was of the No. 3 hole at Mauna Kea.
In 1975 (I think) we went to Kauai to round out our Hawaiian island experiences. We stayed at the Princeville resort near Hanalei, one of the toughest golf courses and most beautiful areas I can remember.
In the coming and going, we also got chances to briefly visit Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Mostly these were one- or two-night layovers; I don’t remember doing a whole lot of touring in any of them, but I recall seeing some of the basics in each town.
One summer we had an extended vacation through the Canadian Rockies, including Banff, Lake Louise, and Jasper. Dad threw his back out lifting luggage into our car in Jasper and had to stay in bed on massive pain killers for several days, putting a real damper on our touring as well as making for a miserable train ride through the Rockies to Vancouver. He recovered a bit as we toured Vancouver and Victoria Island. I don’t think it was the same trip, but I also remember going to Glacier National Park with Laurie. She and I went on a horse ride in August and getting caught in a snowstorm on the mountain. We returned to the lodge with icicles hanging from our noses.
Oddly, after our initial visit to Japan on our way to Hong Kong and our first Christmas trip to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, we didn’t travel any further in Asia as a family. I’m not sure why, other than we preferred to use our vacation time getting back to the States or going through Europe. Nor did we get to Australia, India (not counting transit stops in New Delhi) or the Middle East. Mom and Dad visited India and Australia on separate trips after I graduated high school. I have yet to get either.
A Passing Place
Aside from my own personal memories, we were constantly aware of what a unique place Hong Kong was and some of the issues it faced. There was a road sign used on winding narrow lanes, especially those that snaked up the steep roads to the Peak, where there was an occasional pull-out called a “Passing Place.” I loved those signs and appreciated it as a metaphor for Hong Kong the whole time we were there.
China was literally a looming, sleeping dragon just across the border. It was Communist, forbidden, very much under Mao’s thrall, still hung over from the worst of the Cultural Revolution when we arrived in 1971. There had been major riots in Hong Kong a few years before we arrived, and police were still cracking down hard on any hint of communist dissent or revolt in the colony. You could get communist Chinese souvenirs at a couple of sanctioned stores in Kowloon, but generally China was feared and could easily overwhelm Hong Kong at a moment’s notice.
Refugees were a huge issue. There was a daily flow of people swimming or being smuggled to Hong Kong, and housing them was a major concern. When we arrived, there were still several large areas of hillside slums equal to today’s favelas in Rio. They were eyesores, fire hazards, unsafe breeding grounds for crime, and generally miserable places to live. The Hong Kong government built an endless series of enormous housing estates — huge low-income apartment complexes that held tens of thousands of people. It was astonishing to tour these beehives as we sometimes did as students. The older ones, started in the late 1950s, were downright scary but the newer ones from the 1970s seemed almost luxurious, if you didn’t mind a few dozen 20-30-40-story towers squeezed so close together you could almost jump from one balcony to another.
Fresh water was another big issue. Hong Kong had a few reservoirs, which is the biggest reason the Island had any green space left, but it wasn’t enough to meet its needs. China controlled the spigot for Hong Kong’s fresh water and sometimes threatened to turn it off. Water use was sometimes rationed and always a concern. The situation eased a little by the time we arrived and the Plover Cove reservoir came online. That reservoir was formed by damming off a bay in the New Territories and draining the seawater. The High Island reservoir, built while we were there, was even more ambitious requiring two large dams to block off an inlet.
You had to admire the government’s ability to undertake major physical and social engineering projects like the dams and housing estates, which brings us to the matter of British colonial rule. The British may have earned a rough reputation in other parts of the world, but it seemed like they applied a lot of lessons-learned in Hong Kong. The colony famously had very low taxes on incomes and businesses, but very high ones on things like automobiles.
Honestly, we didn’t run into the British “ruling class” very often. The Hong Kong police force was largely locally run, had lots of trouble with corruption, but generally kept the peace. The British military presence was minuscule, mainly limited to some barracks and a small naval station near Central. Guns were unheard of; crimes were most often committed with “choppers” which were essentially machetes — they may have been gruesome but it’s hard to commit a mass murder with a knife. Transportation services were excellent and cheap. Dad used to quote Lawrence Kadoorie who said that he always like to hire the best: to run his hotels, he would seek out Swiss management talent; to run a government, he sought out the British.
The British 99-year lease of the New Territories was due to expire in 1997, and while it seemed over the horizon while we were there, it affected everything. No one knew what would happen when the lease expired; China didn’t even officially recognize the lease in the first place. No one knew what would happen with China, whether it would come out of it’s self-imposed exile from the world. The uncertainty fed a sense of “enjoy it while you can” in Hong Kong, bolstered for us expats by the knowledge that we were short-timers. It felt a little like cruising on the Titanic, but knowing we’d probably get off before it hit the iceberg.
One other aspect of living in Hong Kong was the tangible feeling of being a minority. A very privileged one, but there was no getting over the fact that a white, red-headed kid stuck out like a sore thumb in most areas of Hong Kong. I never felt threatened, except in maybe a few dark areas at night (but that was not a racial fear). But I got to know the feeling of an outsider in a land where I didn’t speak the language and didn’t readily fit. Living in Hong Kong made me recognize that the good old USA was not the be-all and end-all of human civilization. If anything, the USA seemed laughably young, arrogant and self-centered.
There’s a phrase “third culture kids” coined to describe the children of American citizens living and working abroad. I wasn’t familiar with the concept until much later when Laurie pointed out that we’d lived it. I agree the experience leads to an expanded worldview and sensitivity to other cultures. But I must point out that it’s not like we were raised in a Chinese or Asian culture. For me, Hong Kong culture was a European-Asian-American mix that borrowed some of the best from each but was not wholly a part of any of them. It was different than other Asian cultures, maybe closest to Singapore, but unique — it was itself a Third Culture. And it has passed. Since 1997 and control by China, Hong Kong has become something different yet again.
Postscript, July 2019: This summer, Hong Kong is going through a series of increasingly alarming protests ostensibly over a Chinese extradition bill but really more about nearing the mid-point of China’s “one country, two systems” formulation that was supposed to govern Hong Kong for 50 years after 1997. No one really knows what will come next, and the people of Hong Kong seem to realize they will have very little say in the matter. No doubt, strategists in Beijing have some long-range plans but they are not sharing them for discussion. It’s hard to see how this ends well for the people of Hong Kong. But then, who in 1976 or 1997 would have credibly forecast today’s booming sprawl of Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and the continued flowering of Hong Kong and Macau?
Hong Kong will certainly never be the same as it was when we lived there. I hope for enough wisdom on all sides to navigate toward continued prosperity without collapsing into violence. At times it seems like wishful thinking. Do democratic freedoms stand a chance of infiltrating China’s wall of control? It doesn’t seem likely. Can the people of Hong Kong be further bribed/seduced by promises of peace and prosperity (and threats of violence and chaos)? It feels like this summer is building slowly toward another Tiananmen moment where China’s hardliners squash rising democratic sentiments.
Another Postscript, April 2021: The past two years have not been kind to Hong Kong. Pro-democracy protests continued through 2019, climaxing with violent protests at several universities in November. The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 slowed the protests but gave time for Beijing to tighten the noose against the pro-democracy movement while Hong Kong and the rest of the world were distracted. Key leaders were jailed, others fled the country, restrictions were placed on voting, dissent was discouraged and at this point is pretty nearly squashed.
To the credit of both sides, things never got horribly violent, but there seems little doubt that Beijing will rule the day in Hong Kong. There has been precious little any outside forces have been willing or able to do. This Washington Post article is representative of the kind of measures that make me sad for what is happening and what is to come in Hong Kong. The Chinese government is thorough, relentless and blandly transparent in its aims.
At a personal level, I’m no longer sure I want to go back to Hong Kong. For a long time I was certain to return at least once more but now I’m much less sure. I don’t want to endorse or condone what the Chinese government has done these past few years. I’m sure the city is still vibrant and there are new sights as well as old corners I’d like to seek out, but I don’t want my tourist dollars to make it seem like nothing happened. The same is true for visiting China proper — I’m not sure I will ever go back, which is painful for me to contemplate.
With Hong Kong subdued, or very nearly so, attention is slowly but surely turning to Taiwan. Will Beijing’s success in exerting control over Hong Kong tempt it to increase pressure on Taiwan? Will the government or citizens of Taiwan take a stand for official independence and international recognition? Any Chinese move against Taiwan will place incredible pressure on the U.S., Japan and Korea to defend the island and its people. But again, what can the outside world really do to prevent China from flexing its muscles when it finally decides to do so? These are matters above my pay grade but they’re cause for concern over the coming years and probably decades. Actually, we’ll be lucky if the concerns stretch decades. One thing the Chinese are noted for is patience. If the status quo is tolerable even if it’s a bald lie, perhaps patience will prove a virtue for all.
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I’m so glad you took the time to do this, Bill. Thank you!
I think that directions sign is one of my favorite things in the whole world. I feel like my family needs one of those.
And Keri (aka Carey) was born in May 1977, so my trip to Hong Kong was December 1976. I had celebrated the bicentennial of our dear country with my second graders earlier that year.