Gweilo (28 page)

I was reluctant to go but my mother persuaded me with embroidered tales of the pirates. My father was enticed along by the prospect of being on a boat, which brought out the sailor in him.

At the appointed time, we stepped on to the launch in the dockyard basin and cast off. The harbour was fairly calm but we had to cross open sea which was choppy. One or two of our party of fifteen started to look green about the gills but managed to retain the coffee and biscuits that were served as we rounded Green Island.

My mother, dressed in an old shirt of my father's, a large pullover and a pair of jeans, enjoyed the crossing, as did my father, who, wearing a pair of neatly creased trousers with a cravat at his throat, persuaded the Chinese coxswain to relinquish the wheel to him once we were out of the harbour. The coxswain, assuming a naval
gweilo
would be familiar with the manoeuvring of a launch, agreed but soon regretted it when he noticed my father was heading straight for the wrong island. Not having the courage to admonish him, the coxswain mentioned it to Alec Borrie, a thin, tall, friendly man who was not only the trip's organizer but also my father's divisional superior – his Old Man.

'I think we need to go a few degrees to port, Ken,' he said quietly. 'You're on a heading for Peng Chau.'

My father looked extremely sheepish and altered course. A few minutes later, he surrendered the wheel once more to the coxswain and busied himself with his binoculars.

I noticed on these occasions that my father was often left out of the conversation and he seldom sought to join in. Sometimes, I felt sorry for him and wanted to go over and talk to him but, at the last moment, I would decide against it, knowing that I would be put down, dismissed or derided.

An hour out, we swung in to a small beach on the leeward side of a windswept, treeless island. The coxswain ran the bow of the launch up on the shore and a crew member sent out a gangplank. Boxes were unloaded and placed at the top of the beach. We all then went ashore and the launch reversed away. I felt marooned.

Carrying our boxes, we set off along a hint of a footpath across the island, coming first to an
atap
, a wood and straw hut. This was the home of Jack Shepherd, aka Jonathan Sly, of whom I had read in the newspaper. Formerly one of the managers of the Kowloon YMCA, he now lived with his wife in this hovel, making a meagre living writing short stories for the local press. As we drew near, he appeared at the door. Skinny, with short hair and a trim beard, he was barefoot and wearing an ordinary shirt with a dark blue Chinese padded silk jacket. Wrapped around his waist was a multi-hued Malay
sarong
. This was a man who had really 'gone native'. Compared to him, I thought, the Queen of Kowloon was verging on normality. He greeted us in a gruff, monosyllabic voice and closed the door.

My father looked disparagingly at the figure as it disappeared.

'He's certainly letting the side down,' he remarked to no-one in particular. 'Thank God he's doing it out of sight.'

'Frankly,' piped up one of the women who had overheard him, 'I think individuality is a trait to be encouraged.'

My father was about to remonstrate but my mother got him first.

'You do realize, don't you, Ken,' she said, looking pointedly at his feet, 'that you've got on one of your best pairs of shoes? I hope you've got some others with you,' she added, knowing full well he had not.

'Standards,' he responded, glancing at what the rest of us were wearing. 'I'm not wearing pumps or clodhoppers. Or jeans trousers, come to that,' he added: there had been an argument over those before we left the apartment.

'On your own head be it, Ken.' My mother shrugged.

My father, determined to have the last word, said, 'This isn't the Western Front, Joyce.'

'I don't think our brave Tommies in either war wore denim jeans,' my mother retorted, grabbing the last word for herself.

My father silenced, we walked on, descending into the valley between the two hills where more
atap
huts stood amid some newly tilled plots. This, my mother informed me, was the home and dream-child of a remarkable Christian activist called Gus Borgeest.

Like so many in Hong Kong, Borgeest, his Chinese wife and their small daughter had arrived in 1951 as penniless refugees, in their case from Hangzhou. A Quaker, he was a humanist, which is what had endeared him to my mother who was not religiously inclined at all. At first, Borgeest had worked for the Hong Kong government social services department and came to appreciate first-hand the plight of the thousands of squatters and streetsleepers. It dawned on him that many had been farmers in China who had lost their land and livelihoods to communization. In them, he reasoned, was a workforce that merely required a chance to rise up above poverty and contribute to society.

Agricultural land being at a premium in Hong Kong, Borgeest turned his attention to the outlying islands. Chow Kung Chau provided what he required. He took out a lease upon it from the government at an annual rent of $180, less than the average servant's monthly wage, moving there and renaming it Sunshine Island. By the time we walked into the valley, the embryonic community consisted of the Borgeests, two Chinese associates and several families of impoverished Chinese farmers.

We were all introduced to Borgeest and given a short talk on his aims and ambitions. This over, we were taken on a quick tour of the centre of the island, interrupted by such expressions as 'Here will be the piggery' or 'This is the site of the fish ponds'. All I could see was a bleak, rock-strewn, grassy hillside with, here and there, plots marked out with white-painted stakes.

Pondering on the contents of the picnic, not to mention evidence of the pirates' occupation, my day-dreaming was interrupted when two of the launch crew strode over the crest of the hill carrying shining new hoes, spades, forks and other implements of manual labour.

They put them down and returned to the launch. Mr Borrie assumed charge and briskly divided us into work parties. It was then I realized my mother had brought me to the island under false pretences. I spent the remainder of the day helping to dig a ditch, carting the soil away in a bucket. The only relief from this toil was a sparse supply of sandwiches and a bottle of lukewarm Coke. We left the island at five o'clock. My back ached, my arms and legs were sore, I had a blister on my palm the size of a ten-cent coin and another to match on my heel, which had burst.

'The strain of honest toil,' my mother remarked, rubbing the base of her spine as we waited for my father, who was limping, to bring the car. He had spent the afternoon in charge of a wheelbarrow. 'Doesn't it make you feel good ?'

'No,' I replied pointedly. It was not just that my every muscle ached. I had been duped by talk of piracy into becoming a forced labourer. 'And I didn't see any trace of pirates.'

'But think of the good you've done. You've helped those far less fortunate than yourself to start rebuilding their lives.'

Put that way, I felt smugly self-righteous.

'You have to realize this,' my mother continued. 'We do not own Hong Kong. It's a crown colony. We merely administer it. A hundred and something years ago, we stole this land from the Chinese. Because of that, we owe an obligation to the people who live here. And think. Many of them have fled here from Communism. They are refugees. We must help them. In a tiny way, that's what you've done today. And,' she went on, 'even if you don't agree with me, at least we've ruined a pair of your father's best shoes.'

She put her arm round me and gave me a hug. It hurt.

I began to range further afield than the Peak. My mother's life was filled with Cantonese classes and her usual daily social whirl. My father, of course, was engaged in his office, often not returning until well into the evening.

Having been rebuffed from Wanchai, I decided to head in the opposite direction and see what Western District had to offer.

The oldest part of the city, it clung to the lower slopes of the Peak beneath an almost sheer rock face that glistened with water in all but the hottest and driest of summers. Many of the streets were narrow, built for coolie rather than car traffic, whilst many of those that ran north to south up the mountainside consisted of steps. Those vehicular roads that ran parallel to them were very steep indeed with sharp corners that tested many a clutch and burnt out not a few. The ladder streets, as the stepped thoroughfares were called, tested the calf muscles. Along all the streets, the buildings were ancient, some a century old, with ornate balconies from which projected the ubiquitous bamboo poles of dripping, freshly laundered clothes or from which hung tresses of plants. Some were almost entirely hidden by garishly painted shop signs hanging out over the pavement.

My first visit to the area was prompted by my wish to see a famous temple which stood on the curiously named Hollywood Road. Claiming to be the son of a guest, I acquired a tourist-guide map from the concierge of a hotel and made my way along Queen's Road West. At first, the buildings were modern office blocks and stores but, gradually, as if by some strange natural metamorphosis, they changed into narrow nineteenth-century buildings.

Dodging coolies slogging up the ladder streets with full loads hanging from their poles, I reached the temple. It was roofed in green-glazed tiles with a decorated ridge of warriors, gods, dragons and demons. I stepped into the forecourt to be surrounded by a gaggle of wizened crones, with arms outstretched for
kumshaw
. My claim that I had no money – indeed, I only had my Peak Tram fare and enough for a drink – cut no ice with them. I was a
gweilo. Gweilos
were rich. They closed ranks. A few hands tugged at my shirt. Then one of them tentatively touched my hair, much as one might risk a quick stroke of a dog the temperament of which one was not quite sure. Seeing I did not react, they all started touching my head, giggling and cackling and wheezing amongst themselves.

I gave them a minute to build up their stock of good fortune, which, by their appearance, was pretty reduced, then, extricating myself from their company, entered the temple through two massive red-painted wooden doors.

Inside, it was sumptuous, rich scarlet banners hanging down with thick, black, dramatic characters upon them. The altar was pristine and the deities most impressive. On the right, just inside the door, sat an old man selling joss-sticks and candles: on the left were a table of
lai see
packets and some shelves of dusty books. The air was heavy with incense smoke. Apart from its grandeur, however, it was no different from any other temple I had visited.

I was about to leave when a voice asked, 'Do you like it?'

Turning, I came face to face with an elderly Chinese man wearing a long black robe to his ankles and a skull cap with a red button on the top. He sported a wispy beard and, in one hand, he held a closed fan. He resembled a character from a biography of Confucius. I just stared at him, dumbstruck, sure that he was either an apparition or a wizard.

'Can you not speak?' he went on. He spoke slowly, pronouncing each word exactly, as if imitating a teacher.

'Yes,' I stammered, 'and I like the temple very much.'

'But do you understand it?'

I shook my head and answered, 'No, sir. Not really.'

'So I will teach you.'

He led me up to the altar, joss-stick ash falling from one of the spiral coils hanging from the roof beams. This he brushed off with his fan which he then flicked open, quivering it in front of his face like the half wing of a huge black butterfly.

'This temple', he enunciated slowly, 'is called the Man Mo temple. Man means literature and Mo means war. As you can see, there are two gods. Man Cheung, the god of literature, wears a green robe and Kwan Yu, who is also called Kwan Ti, wears a red robe. He is the god of war.'

I gazed up at their faces. They were powerful but impassive.

'Kwan Yu', the man went on, 'was a real man. He lived two thousand years ago in the time of the Han dynasty when he was a general in the emperor's army. Now he is the saint of brotherhoods, especially policemen and gangsters.'

That cops and robbers worshipped the same god seemed obtuse in the extreme but I made no comment. China was, I had learnt well, a land of extremes and contradictions.

'Who is Man Cheung the saint of?' I asked.

'He is the god of civil servants,' the old man answered.

I bit my cheek to stop myself laughing. The thought that my father had a god looking specifically over him and his kind was too much to bear.

The elderly man then showed me the side altar to Pao Kung, the black-faced god of justice, and, to the right, that of Shing Wong, the god of the city. Elsewhere were several heavy sedan chairs used in religious processions, a huge bronze temple bell shaped like an inverted tulip and a massive drum.

'Now I must pay my respects,' the old man announced.

He walked unsteadily to the altar and bowed to the god of literature. I left the temple, wondering who he might be. He looked like one of the letter writers at the Tin Hau temple in Yau Ma Tei yet there was somehow something more to him. He seemed to have the bearing of a learned man, rather than one who merely took down coolies' dictation. Who – or what – he really was I would never know. Perhaps he was a phantom after all.