dingy section of Kawloon was the “Waltzin Matilda” Inn, and as, the name implied, it was a place frequented by Aussie soldiers and sailors.
Around midnight it was common for both the Brits and Aussies to call each other horrible names and wind up in a battle royal in the middle of the street. The coppers sirens would sound in the distance and magically, a large British Army Lorry would pull up and the less drunk guys would help their more drunken pals into the back and head out to Sekong where the army base for REME, the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, was located.
One night, I met one of the British Officers in another, more civilized place, this was in the basement of a small out of the way hotel, the Palace, where Frank Poonching had worked for years as the piano player. Frank was a Filipino musician who had been working in Hong Kong since emigrating in the early thirties. He had played for the Japanese soldiers during WW-II and was still there in 1966, twenty years later. Frank could play every imaginable song but these days he was playing things like the “Scottish Soldier” and other military ditties that were requested by the mostly British military crowd.
The officer and I met several evenings talking about everything under the sun. He was stationed in Sekong with his wife and kids and he and a few pals had just bought a thirty foot Chinese Junk but didn’t know how to sail it. Of course, like an idiot, I volunteered and one Saturday afternoon we set sail with both families and the kids. The Junk was a miserably unwieldy craft, with far too much windage and not enough keel or sail. The ancient Lanteen rig was difficult to trim and lost more wind that it held. It was great to leeward but couldn’t even hold a parallel course. After barely missing a few smaller islands and a few larger and smaller craft- I got the hang of it and thus began one of my more enjoyable pastimes whenever I had a couple of weeks out of Vietnam. Thank God the beastly thing had an engine or we might have wound up getting shot up by a Chinese gun boat.
I had to go to school to get a Hong Kong harbor pilots license. The class was taught by a retired British master mariner and consisted of him placing red, green and white dots all over a huge table covered with black felt. He would move them all over and then quiz the student on what ship’s lights they represented and who had the right of way. I passed- anyone who could fly a fade parallel range Adcock approach in a snow storm could definitely be a Hong Kong harbor pilot.
One day I was invited to help the Brits design a fitting to be welded to the turrets of their tanks to mount a light machine gun. I had mentioned that I thought I could draw up some sketches that a machinist could follow and they took me up on it. I was examining the tank for measurements in the afternoon and spent a few nights in the barracks.
Every morning there was a formation which of course I slept through. Sergeant Major Parks, who ran the troops, had been wounded in the head in Cyprus and had a great dent in his bald pate. He would look at me funny every time he saw me walking around out of uniform and not standing in formation. I had been introduced to him several times by the boys but every morning he had completely forgotten and the introductions had to be made all over again- turns out that his head wound had caused him to have memory lapses. His old memories were spot on but any new ones were day to day.
One morning, I was sleeping in when he busted into my room kicking the bed with his great boots and yelling in his loudest drill sergeants cockney voice- ”Ere, Ere, whatcherdooen in the kip yr’ lazy-lout, up yr’ goes er-I’ll have yr’ stripes.” “Yes Sir “S’nt- Major” I said and jumped to attention- what else could I say. I knew that he had forgotten completely that I was a visiting engineer and not one of his boys. The British Army has or had a remarkable loyalty for the men and anyway, the Brits just love artifacts and Parks was certainly that- they kept him on until his retirement - much kinder than his fate would have been in the American military.
I used to get over to Hong Kong every month and stay as long as I could. It made Vietnam bearable and kept me sane. In the beginning, we would stay at the President hotel, just north from the Peninsula near the docks for the Star ferry, which you could ride in those days for ten cents between Kaloon and Hong Kong island. There were signs on the Ferry admonishing the Chinese not to spit. I used to wonder about this. Turns out that spitting is a way to ward off evil spirits and, for the superstitious Chinese, the evil spirits were everywhere.
Years before, when some of the old-timers at Air America were building airports in China helping the Nationalist’s under Chan Kai Chek to escape from Mao’s army. The Chinese workers would line up on the sides of the runway and just as an aircraft was taking off or landing dashing out trying to cross at close as they possibly could in front of the propellers and landing gear. The idea was that the evil spirits chasing them would be smacked by the blades or flattened by the giant tires. Of course, a lot of workers wound up as chop-suey- their evil spirits must have laughed like hell over that.
After the first year I rented a small apartment in Hong Kong which saved a lot of hotel expense. I rented it to other pilots and friends who were visiting the island and we all got a lot of mileage out of that place.
Many of the American pilots would head over to Bangkok when they got some time off and I flew over there a few times as well. I didn’t like the place as much as Hong Kong, probably because the British colonial government ran a tight ship and the place was far cleaner and more civilized than Bangkok- or so it seemed to me. I also flew down to Singapore which I really did like every bit as much as Hong Kong.
The Raffles hotel is as elegant as the Peninsula and perhaps, even more civilized. The president of Singapore in those days was Lee Kuan Yu, who was one of the wisest Asian leaders ever. He ran the island nation with an iron hand but was fair and balanced.
He alone had taught the Chinese citizens of Singapore not to spit in the streets. Unlike the British- who were never ever able to break them of this disgusting habit, President Lee had a simple remedy- if you were caught spitting you were whipped with a bamboo rod until your yellow ass bled- usually once was enough for all but the most determined of spitters.
Singapore was, and is, the cleanest of all the Asian cities. The population is made up of Overseas Chinese, Indians, Malaysians and Europeans. The currency had a symbol of this depicting four clasp hands indicating their unity. Cleanliness and sanitation were taught and enforced. You could eat from any street vendor’s cart with no fear of getting sick- quite an accomplishment.
While in Vietnam, my roommate Glen Van Ingen we had the idea of starting our own cargo airline. With the help of a Chinese friend we lined up a meeting with a few shipping magnates in Hong Kong and were exploring a route between Singapore, Saigon and Hong Kong. I will never forget the night I first met with the wealthy Chinese in the top floor of a very Chinese hotel.
I was the only “Gawloy,” (round-eye foreign devil) at the table. Fan Meng Siang, our Chinese friend, had arranged the meeting. The dinner was set for eleven pm- late for me but it wasn’t my party. These guys had money and I needed it.
I will never forget any of it. There were four of the rich Chinese at the table. We were the only diners in the huge room. They all spoke in rapid Mandarin and my few words of “Gaundong”, Cantonese were of no help at all.
In the center of the huge table was a four foot lazy Suzan heaped with mysterious dishes. We were introduced with Fan handling the interpretation. Apparently none of these guys spoke English. The conversation went OK and a lot of questions were asked and answered. Periodically, more dishes were brought in by the staff. Oh, I should add that the Chinese gentlemen were all done up in their Confucius outfits complete with little silk hats – all very ethnic.
There was this group of small saucers set at each place setting containing different kinds of fragrant goo. The piece d’ résistance, as it turned out was inside a
