Impressions of Hong Kong

In 1988 my wife Annette was appointed to a military post in Hong Kong, based at Osborne Barracks at Kowloon Tong. As a civilian in Child Guidance for the military schools there, she was given the honorary rank of captain.The was not quite a straight reversal for us, because for the first 15 years of our marriage, Annette was an air force wife, and I a mere sergeant. Anyway, I was by then earning my living as a full time writer and so became 'husband of' Captain Annette Kilworth. I had to ask her to get me a library ticket, could not visit the Officers' Mess unless accompanied by her and generally had to put up with being an also ran. True, I had my writing to do and could meet other husbands in similar positions for - well, not coffee mornings - but a beer in a bar at lunchtime. One of the tasks I set myself when I arrived in that exotic and marvellous place, was to keep a journal of my impressions and experiences of the colony that was to be my home for the next three years. I intend publishing in chunks in my blog those writings as I did them at the time which some may enjoy. They do not exactly rival Bill Bryson but I hope readers will find them mildly if quirkily interesting.

{Unfortunately, as you can see, changing formats has resulted in a few line jumps.)

The Crown Colony of Hong Kong

The Crown Colony of Hong Kong consists roughly of four distinctly

separate parts: the New Territories, Kowloon, Hong Kong Island and the

outer islands. Between the New Territories, which is mostly hilly

countryside and Kowloon, which is mostly skyscrapers, runs a ridge of

hills. These hills are the 'nine dragons' which gives Gow Lung its name. Between the southern tip of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island is a stretch of water which takes a few minutes to cross in the famous Star Ferry. Also connecting all main three parts are tunnels, through the hills and under the sea. Hong Kong is a land of tunnels and water, hills and skyscrapers. The outer islands, 230 of them and many

inhabited, are reached by ferries and jetfoils. Those who cannot

afford to live on Hong Kong Island or Kowloon, live in the New

Territories or out on the islands. There are around eight million people in

Hong Kong: most of them live in Kowloon and space is expensive:

Kai Tak airport is on the east side of Kowloon, a strip of runway

built out into the sea. Flying in over Kowloon, landing aircraft aim

at a giant red-white chequerboard, then bank sharply to travel down a

U-shaped tunnel of low buildings between the skyscrapers. Passengers

can look out of their windows and see people in their apartments

having supper. Those in the apartments often look back. Sometimes they smile at each other when they get just a little too close: weak, sickly smiles. When there is

a typhoon in progress, the aircraft passing our window on the 7th floor of our

apartment block flap and wobble and make an interesting spectacle. If they are going

to give up, it has to be done before the chequerboard, or they're committed to

landing on a strip of tarmac stretched out on a wild sea. We make

bets on this according to the airline. Cathay Pacific, the local airline, is a good

bet for landing in the highest winds, while others grow feathers and cluck.

The underground (Mass Transit Railway [MTR]), roughly in the shape

of an H on its side, joins Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, and reaches

the east-west extremes of both. It is clean (no food, drink or

smoking allowed), efficient (a train every few minutes with few

breakdowns) and packed to the gills. The guard, through a speaker

system, announces each station in Cantonese and English. 'Coming

station is Shep Kip Mei'. He also says, 'Mina doors’. If

there is a blocked door, he says it again, only in a more excited

voice. One more failure of the doors to close and he goes berserk in

both Cantonese and English. Kowloon is connected to Canton (just over the Chinese border) overland Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR). There is very little difference in the trains and efficiency between the MTR. and KCR.

There are ferries and jetfoils going everywhere, criss-crossing

each other's seaways like waterboatmen on a pond, somehow

missing each other. Across the mouth of the Pearl River lies the

Portugese Colony of Macau, which exists on the proceeds of gambling.

In Hong Kong, unlicensed gambling is illegal. It is my belief that the

telephone company and jet foil operators are responsible for

engineering this heads and tails situation. They must both be very

rich on the traffic between the two colonies which results from the

gambling addicts who use both methods to make their bets.

The road traffic in Hong Kong is one of the densest in the world. For

some reason, or many, there are no roundabouts and if you leave a main

road by mistake you can only get back on it by way of Peking or Shanghai. If you are on your way to work, forget it: change your plans and have a drink in some town in the New Territories you have never seen before. There is a road digging policy which says that even though a surface may still be perfect, you dig it up on a

due date and replace it. New roads, flyovers, bridges and

underpasses appear overnight, with consequent changes in road signs and

directions of traffic. Road maps are useless things which cause a

great deal of amusement amongst residents and bewilderment amongst

visitors. No driver ever knows Hong Kong. Fortunately it covers a

relatively small area and you can only remain lost for half a day

before passing a recognisable landmark (probably going in the wrong

direction). Taxi drivers shrug their shoulders when given a

location. One has to direct them, and few of them speak English,

many being immigrants from Canton. A schoolteacher friend was

taken to a pig farm in the New Territories when she gave her address

to her house on Nathan Road, Kowloon. She was not best pleased.

Street names in Chinese and English do not directly translate - beneath the words 'Rhonda Road' (pronounced 'Lon Dak Do to taxi drivers) appears the Chinese characters for 'Lotus Avenue'. When Annette first began driving in Hong Kong she found herself accidentally crossing the border into China in one morning. Since she was driving a military car, they let her through. They must have had long talks that evening about the 'blonde smiley lady' that kept doing frantic u-turns

just inside no-man's-land and waving at them as she passed back and forth.

The driving, it has to be said, is as good. as anywhere. Horns

are used frequently, but not with any malice. Hong Kong is no

Bangkok, where rules of the road do not exist. The average driver in

Hong Kong is courteous and civil and refuses to give an inch of space

only because inches in Hong Kong are precious commodities.

Hong Kong has literally changed shape over the last century, is

changing shape all the time. Much of it is built on land reclaimed

from the sea. They pinch a mountain from here and fill in a hole

there. Hong Kong has been stretched and flattened, pummeled and

kneaded, used and reused.

A Short Short Story

Thought I'd try this one out on my blog, for anyone who likes old-fashioned sf. If you guess the ending early, please let me know, because it probably relies on the twist.

The Return

a short story by

Garry Kilworth

Segna stared at the straggled line of the last of humankind. It curved away from him and into the middle distance. Most eyes were on the sunset. Probably the last they would ever see clearly. It was indeed a beautiful sight, the fiery colours of their small star enhanced by the many and various spurting geysers of flaming lava. Orange, yellow, red and hints of blue and green colours in the molten spray. Beautiful, but deadly to life. A quick killer though, quicker than the arid, dusty plains, the dry river beds, the bare mountains.

The surface of the world had become uninhabitable for mammals, birds and reptiles. Some groaned that it was end of the world, but it wasn’t, it was merely the end of life on terra firma. The world would continue, but in its present form: windswept deserts, grim mountains, waterless valleys, all decorated by earthquakes and by volcanic eruptions. Indeed there were so many volcanoes now one might have said the world was breaking out in pustules which would see its demise. Except that it was not a sentient creature like a human and therefore would survive in a new state, one of burning landscapes, skies full of fire and rocks shaped by wind and heat.

            ‘Are we almost ready?’ asked Segna of his companion, Ritili. ‘I’m finding it difficult to breathe in this atmosphere.’

            ‘I think we all are,’ replied his beloved.

            They had indeed been getting ready for this moment for a long time, aeons in fact. The mindset was more important than anything else. It was important to accept their fate, not rage against it or wail about their misfortunes. Humans had always been vulnerable psychologically. They had made wars with remarkable frequency, killed each other with consummate ease, getting better and better at it with each new era as weapons became more efficient and – yes – more terrible. But they had suffered for it, mentally, most of them. Often those who caused or manufactured a war took no part in it, while those who did came out with badly damaged minds. Often afterwards the number of suicides of combatants exceeded the deaths of those who fought and died in battle.  Those who chose to live on did so with heads full of terrible nightmares.

            And not just the wars. Even natural disasters caused embedded emotional and mental stress following the event.

            So it had been important for Segna’s ancestors to prepare their minds for this moment from a long way back in geological time. The more intelligent and visionary among them had known it was coming by the changes wrought in their physique. One does not leave the earth for an environment alien to human form without some sort of metamorphosis, some sort of mutation, taking place. The process had been age-long-slow and marvellous. There were those who had looked up to the stars and wondered about the future of their race. There were those who simply despaired because any change was abhorrent to them and this was monumental change. This was change on a scale unimaginable to earlier generations.

            As the evening slid into night, the silver rain became more visible. Meteors were falling from the sky and raising dust clouds as they hit the ground. From where Segna stood, they looked numerous, but in fact they were not so thick as to greatly concern those in the line. There were many miles between each falling piece of natural space debris, though of course it was possible that one might land exactly on the area where the humans were gathered. Haste was probably a good idea.

            However, Segna could sense a great deal of reluctance to depart. He himself felt deep unease and concern. A man or woman does not like to leave forever what they have known all their lives: the place their ancestors called home. This land, this terra firma, had been beautiful once, with trees, flowers, birds and animals. And Segna’s forefathers and mothers were the imaginative creators of beautiful artefacts and objects: wonderful buildings, parks, exquisite timepieces, brilliant artwork, poems, vast cities, many, many things that touched the soul and roused the fires of the mind. All these had gone, were naught but dust and there was really nothing to stay for, nothing to love and adore, either natural or manufactured.

All, all was a wasteland of dirt and stone.

            The moon now rose over the distant mountains, a placid golden orb. There had been a city there too, once upon a time. And one on Mars. But cities on such desolate places need sourcing. Without Earth producing and providing for their needs, the far communities withered and died, those who lived in them either staying and passing away of old age, or returning to the home planet. Ghost cities now, with punctured domes and crumbling interiors. These experiments had been exciting at the time, but were unsustainable once a horrible future began to take its toll on humankind.

            Segna took in a breath and found himself gasping.

It was time.

He signalled to the line along the beach.

Now!

They began shuffling gracelessly on their bellies down the strand towards the edge of the ocean. They wriggled awkwardly, their flipper-arms spraying sand into the choking, already-dust-filled atmosphere. At the very pale of the ocean the surf made music with shingle, encouraging them forward. However, though the fine, white spume beyond looked inviting, some were still reluctant to leave the land for good.

Finally, even the most hesitant of them began their short journey, knowing they had to return permanently to their ancient environment, the salt-water world, home of the first life, the place from whence they had come several million years in the past.

Segna waited until the last of them had entered the waves and had submerged, before joining them. The water was tepid and pleasant. He loved water, always had, just like his nearest ancestors. For some time now he and his kind had needed to be close to water, in order to keep their skins wet. Indeed they spent as much time in and under the waves as above them. They had become mudskippers of a sort, reluctant to let go of the land forever, but equally at home in the sea. Now the land had become completely untenable.

The ocean was bountiful. The cycle could begin again.

Evolution, not Man’s ingenuity, was the saviour.

On Facebook Trivia: a Poem

Sonnet 81: An invitation to lunch

Shall I invite thee to a Monday lunch?

Thou art not likely to meet Falstaff’s men.

If  Tuesday be the food of love, what then?

No doubt ‘tis taken by the one with hunch

(Alas, we knew him) who eats like a horse.

A horse! His kingdom for a salad bowl,

Dear friend and Roman - food for soul –

Yet out damned Wednes-bloody-day of course.

I sicken and so die on Fardel’s rums

Served hugger-mugger with those vasty cakes

(And something’s rotten in the Danish steaks).

Thursday? Nay, something wicked this way comes.

Cry, ‘God for Harry, England and St George!’

Let’s meet on Friday and some cheddar gorge?

Garry Kilworth

How The Seal Got Its Name

Sue and Colin Waters, friends and neighbours, own a 40-foot sailing yacht, the Hilda May. The couple spend several summer months on board and people like Annette and I are lucky enough to be invited to crew for them for one or two weeks at a time. We have done so for the past four years, despite the fact that I get seasick very easily. On a sailing yacht, however, I've discovered that staying on deck in the fresh air and finding something to do - Captain Col usually orders me to take the wheel when he sees me going a little green - does the trick of thwarting that terrible mushy head and gut feeling which eventually reaches a state where I prefer death to remaining on the wide, blue wild Mediterranean Sea.

The first year we went on the Hilda May Sue and Colin were exploring the Corinth Canal that separates the Peloponnesus from Northern Greece, but the last three years were spent in Turkish waters. The yacht is now berthed at Fethiye and from there one can reach innumerable pleasant bays surrounded by green mountains, all well away from roads and civilisation. This year was no exception and on the 4th July, while a mutual friend was dancing around his living room table celebrating his country's independence from Britain, we were in such a bay enjoying a lunch of cheese and tomatoes, followed by dried figs. Before the first fig however, Colin suddenly pointed over my shoulder at something in the water. 'A seal!' he cried. 'A seal in these warm waters!' I fancy myself as an amateur wildlife photographer and reached for my camera.

As you can see by the photos above, the seal was also eating a good wholesome lunch, but hers consisted of a still-wriggling cephalopod that eventually shuffled off its mortal coil and resigned itself to the spirit world. I took some pictures, around ten in all, and then our Pinniped visitor swam away. When we returned to Fethiye, Colin (who loves a bit of research) spent some time on his iPad and contacted a local English-language newspaper. Then things began to grow exciting as Colin was directed to SAD-AFAG, an organisation that works for the conservation of the endangered Mediterranean Monk seal and the protection of its habitat along the Turkish coastline. When the photos were examined it appeared that our seal was indeed a young female Monk seal (not a Nun seal? Oh well, semantics), one that had not been previously recorded.

There are only 700 Monk seals still in existence, their numbers having been depleted. It is sadly the same old story: deliberate killing by fishermen, pollution and loss of habitat. Around a 100 of these Monachus monachus live in caves along the Turkish coast, reached either by underwater entrances or surface openings. They eat mostly octopuses, fish, crabs and lobsters - a good Mediterranean diet minus the salad and olive oil - timid, fin-footed creatures that sadly get tangled in nets and occasionally rob the fishermen of their hard-won catches. For those interested in morphology an adult Monk seal measures from 2.2 metres to 3 metres in length, weighs 200-300 kg. and has a moustache that would be envied by any Indian army subaltern of the 1800s. It has haunting coal-black eyes but unlike other species no ear tufts.

However, getting back to the title of this long-winded, but rather educational tale (which could have been one of Kipling's Just So Stories) Colin asked Cem of SAD-AFAG if he could name the new female Monk. Given a 'yes' O Best Beloved, long after the Far Off Times when we learned how the elephant got its trunk and the camel got its hump, our Mediterranean Monk seal was christened Hilda, after the yacht from which she was seen by its captain (and that yacht named for that same captain's mother). Whether she likes her new moniker or couldn't care less what she was called, our young lunch-time visitor won the hearts of all those on board the Hilda May, especially the skipper who would not rest until she was identified and named, and had been adopted by him and his crew.

And now I must get back to practising my knots, especially the bowline which I learned in the Boy Scouts but which must be done the Captain Col way, since any other method is quite unreliable. As I fumble with the rope, I dream of Golden eagles that glide just above my head allowing me to get the perfect shot to send off to National Geographic and earn me Photographer of the Year Award.

Klondike Gold Rush

In the summer of 2003 Annette, myself, a cousin and husband, decided to leave Vancouver and head for Alaska. We flew to Whitehorse and hired a car for the drive up through the Yukon. The road, sometimes metalled, sometimes gravelled, was open and empty, and whiplashed lazily across unchanging country until we reached Dawson City at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers. Dawson is of course the town that leapt to its feet during the gold rush of 1898/9. Stories of the prospectors and the peace-keeping mounties led by Sergeant Sam Steele, are legendary. Sam acted as policeman, jailer and judge, a fair but tough man who wanted none of the violence of miners' courts and lynchings that had beleagered the California gold rush: he was ruthless with those who looked on the gun to settle their disputes and was not above jailing a man for hanging out his washing on a Sunday. Skagway, one of the gateway towns to the Klondike had decended into wild lawlessness, a barbarian enclave, and Sam was not a man to allow such a deterioration occur in his territory, despite the fact that thousands of 'gold stampeders' were thundering into Dawson's streets.

I believe the present town looks much the same as it did in 1898. The houses are clapboard, with wooden facias and fronted with boardwalks. The roads are dust in the summer and frozen mud in the winter. We were there during the long sun - darkness banished - and there was no time of the day or night when people did not walk the streets. There were shops selling the tusks and bones of mammoths, presumably found locally, and gold nuggets, and the collected works of the Klondike poet Robert Service of 'The Shooting of Dan McGraw' fame. I could not afford bits of mammoth or gold, so purchased one of the latter and have never stopped delving in its fascinating pages. I also bought Pierre Berton's 'The Last Great Gold Rush' into which I fell headfirst on the first page and did not surface until I broke through the ice at the end. A truly superb work of pen.

Why am I writing about Dawson, when there were three thousand miles of Alaska ahead of me, with bears and whales, and towns like Chicken with two dozen inhabitants, named when the founders got confused by seeing ptarmigan? Perhaps it's because it intrigued me to find there were people who lived in Dawson City all year round - through winters of subterranean darkness and summers of unrelenting light - still working gold claims. These 'sour doughs' as they are called (after the bread dough that kept the early prospectors alive) are not seeking to make themselves millionaires, but simply to make enough money to enable them to live in a place where the temperature drops to below minus sixty degrees and the only light comes from electric bulbs. Why do they do it? Who knows? They live on a different world to the other ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the human race: where days last months and nights are seemingly endless. Time must take on a different quality, work in a different way, when the clocks cannot differentiate between noons and midnights. Surely the minds of the women and men who live there are lost somewhere along scaleless ribbons of dark or light, in that place where sun and moon are barefaced liars? I am intrigued because my feelings while writing a novel take me to a similar place: to a realm and time where I see no end in sight: just an endless flow of thoughts turned into words.