The Correspondent, November - December 2005 by The Foreign Correspondents' Club, Hong Kong

CORRESPONDENTNT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG

THE

Good Vibrations The 4th FCC Charity Ball

THE

FCC Ball: Dance, Dance, Dance

CORRESPONDENT contents

From the President

Cover Story – The 4th FCC Charity Ball

Media – Max Kolbe’s Stiletto

FCC Jazz – Puerto Galera Swings

Speakers – Lord Patten on Diplomacy – Jim McGregor on China

Club Merchandise

Hong Kong - The Greening of Central

Soapbox – Failed in Hong Kong, Try London

Photography – Central Then & Now

Region – Cambodia: Suicide Watch

FCC Golf – Teeing off in North Korea

FCC People – Heard and Seen

Professional Contacts

Out of Context – Richard Gocher

FCC Jazz: Sand, Sea, Swing, Swig

FCC Golf: Bunkers Galore

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Letters

THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel: (852) 2521 1511 Fax: (852) 2868 4092 E-mail: <fcc@fcchk.org> Website: <www.fcchk.org> President: Ilaria Maria Sala First Vice President: Jim Laurie Second Vice President: Kevin Egan Correspondent Member Governors Paul Bayfield, Keith Bradsher, Ernst Herb, Keri Ann Geiger, Ramon Pedrosa-Lopez, Chris Slaughter, Nick Stout, Hugo Restall Journalist Member Governor Mark Clifford, Francis Moriarty Associate Member Governors David Garcia, Steve Ushiyama, Andy Chworowsky, Ralph Ybema Hon. Secretary Ramon Pedrosa-Lopez Hon. Treasurer Steve Ushiyama Finance Committee Convener: Steve Ushiyama Professional Committee Conveners: Jim Laurie and Ernst Herb House/Food and Beverage Committee Convener: Dave Garcia Membership Committee Convener: Steve Ushiyama Constitution Committee Convener: Kevin Egan House/F&B Committee Convener: David Garcia Freedom of the Press Committee Convener: Francis Moriarty Wall Committee Convener: Ilaria Maria Sala General Manager Gilbert Cheng

The Correspondent

Club Notice: The Society of Publishers In Asia announces the 2006 Awards for Editorial Excellence Entry deadline: February 3, 2006 The Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) is seeking nominations of quality journalism from across Asia for the eighth annual SOPA Awards for Editorial Excellence. Conceived to celebrate editorial excellence in both traditional and new media, and in recognition of the rising industry standards, the 2006 Awards include an expanded range of categories and updated rules of eligibility to encourage greater participation and ensure fair competition. Entries can be The categories open to all publications, including websites and wire services are:

The categories open only to newspapers are: Excellence in Newspaper Design

Excellence in Public Service Journalism Excellence in Explanatory Reporting Excellence in Reporting of Breaking News Excellence in Feature Writing Excellence in Business Reporting Excellence in Human Rights Reporting Excellence in Reporting on the Environment Excellence in Opinion Writing Excellence in News Photography Excellence in Feature Photography Excellence in Special Issue or Special Section Excellence in Editorial Cartooning The Scoop Award

The categories open only to magazines are: Excellence in Magazine Design Excellence in Magazine Front Cover Design The category open only to local newspapers and small magazines is: Local Journalist Award – English Language The category open only to Chinese language publications is: Local Journalist Award – Chinese Language

For more information and an entry form please email Elizabeth McKenzie at SOPA at mail@sopasia.com or call (852) 2882 2555. A list of FAQs is available on the SOPA web site:http://www.sopasia.com/

© The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong The Correspondent is published six times a year. Opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the Club. Publications Committee Convener: Paul Bayfield Editor: Diane Stormont Editorial and Production Hongkongnow.com ltd Tel: 2521 2814 E-mail: fccmag@hongkongnow.com Printer Hop Sze Printing Company Ltd Advertising Enquiries Pronto Communications Tel: 2540 6872 Fax: 2116 0189 Mobile: 9077 7001 E-mail: advertising@fcchk.org

Contributions The Correspondent welcomes letters, articles, photographs and art-work (in soft-copy only, please, no faxes or printouts etc). We reserve the right to edit contributions chosen for publication. Anonymous letters will be rejected. For verification purposes only (and not for publication) please include your membership number (if applicable) and a daytime telephone number. Contributions can be e-mailed to fcc@hongkongnow.com. Disks should be dropped off at the Club or posted to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong and marked to the attention of The Editor, The Correspondent. Material will not be returned so please make your own back-ups. FTP is also available and is encouraged for large files. Please e-mail us for the settings. The deadline for the next issue is Jan 10, 2006.

Cover picture: Terry Duckham

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Club Activities xxxxx

> FROM THE PRESIDENT

he past two months have been incredibly busy, what with the Ball (read all about it in this issue of The Correspondent), the peak season settling in and a lot of new correspondent and journalist members applying to join while our promotion lasts, so let me just give you a few highlights of what has happened, and what we are planning to do in the near future. First of all, the Board has lost a couple of members, and acquired two new ones: Rob Stewart has joined Merrill Lynch and has thus ceased to be a Correspondent. He has been succeeded by Nick Stout of the International Herald Tribune. No sooner had we bid goodbye to Rob when Mike Gonzalez announced that he, too, was going to leave the Board – and journalism and Hong Kong – to start a new life in Washington. We invited former Board member Hugo Restall of the Far Eastern Economic Review to replace Mike. I would like to take this opportunity to thank both the out-going Board members for their work on behalf of our Club and extend a warm welcome to our two in-comers for agreeing to take on the job. Before Mike left he took the time to come with me to the Legislative Council to testify about Yahoo!’s involvement in the arrest of our colleague Shi Tao. The details have been posted on the Club noticeboard. Freedom of the press was once again on everybody’s lips after Ming Pao received a letter-bomb that injured two members of staff. It is still unclear what exactly happened, and why, and we have written a letter to the Secretary for Security, Ambrose Lee, expressing our concern and urging the government to use all its resources to make sure that this criminal case gets solved. I am glad to say that I have received a lot of positive comments on this letter, which shows, once again the commitment of our members to the community.

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Other events of note, besides some more very high profile speakers (including Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organisation, and former governor Lord Patten), our wonderful wine tasting classes have proven so popular that we are considering holding a further session in the spring for all those who could not make it the first time around. They are run by Stephen Mack of the Asian Wine Service and Education Centre who does a truly excellent job. Turning to the future, the time has finally come for us to tackle major renovation work on the roof. As a result we will have to close the Main Dining Room for about six weeks from mid-February. We will do everything possible to minimise the disruption, but I just thought I’d give everybody ample advance notice so that nobody will be taken by surprise! On the food front, we are using only imported frozen chicken in our chicken dishes to keep on the safe side regarding any possible bird flu outbreak. Soy milk is now available in addition to cows’ milk. Ilaria Maria Sala president@fcchk.org

Cover Story

K, so there was no sand. And no one actually got to hang-ten off a long board near Santa Monica. And, no, there weren’t any T-Birds or Deuce Coupes to be seen. But when the Beach Boys and the Foreign Correspondents’ Club got rocking and rolling at the 4th Annual Charity Ball, all everybody wanted to do was Dance, Dance, Dance. PHOTOGRAPHY BY TERRY DUCKHAM/ ASIAPIX

More than 900 FCC members and their guests had Fun, Fun, Fun. There were, however, a few wipe outs, though reportedly little lasting damage was done. This year’s ball was the biggest yet, with a larger venue, which gave space for an expanded dance floor, and room for more tables. For thosemembers less enthusiastic about the idea of partying in a tux, an added

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attraction was the new dress standard – beach wear. The aloha shirts ranged from the classic to the tacky – which of course with aloha shirts can be one and the same. Some more formal attendees felt compelled to wear their dinner jackets – over sandals, jams and surfing shirts. The party started off with a choir of Po Leung Kuk children singing a

couple of the Beach Boys’ greatest hits. One of the Beach Boys, Bruce Johnston, was so moved by their version of Wouldn’t It Be Nice that he was seen wiping away tears backstage. Then things kicked into high gear when the Beach Boys took to the stage and began cranking out some of the most compelling rock music ever written. There were glitches – the sound system at the start of the

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party needed serious help, and the speakers had been placed in such a way that it was hard to hear the music on the dance floor. But that didn’t deter anyone. Peoplejust moved to the area near the tables where the music came in loud and clear. To close things out, the second act of the night – David Harilela and 100% – carried on until well after one in the morning playing classics from the 1960s and 70s. On Sunday, the Beach Boys took the party to Lamma Island. While enjoying one of Hong Kong’s classic seafood meals along the shore, a couple of the band members got up and started an a capella version of Barbara Ann. The surprised diners at the packed restaurant took a few minutes to realise who was singing, and then suddenly the whole place broke out into a loud chorus of “ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-babra Ann...”. But unlike life on a beach, or on Lamma, where having the cash to buy a couple of six-packs means instant party, this FCC shindig took more than a year of planning and work. The FCC Charity Ball Committee had the venue booked in September 2004, before last year’s ball was over and the Beach Boys were signed up by early this year. The committee members met throughout the year to coordinate decorations, menus, publicity and fund-raising. Chief fund-raiser Celia Garcia was knocking on corporate doors from January, working to keep

Cover Story

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Cover Story

the ball’s partners actively involved in the committee’s efforts to help the children of the Po Leung Kuk. And educational coordinator Alan Olsen worked hard all year to build the educational programmes that are at the heart of the charity fund. The FCC staff volunteered time and creativity throughout the year to keep things moving – and on the day of the ball, many of them were at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre early to hang banners and supervise the decorating. While FCC members are infamous for partying for no particular reason at all, the Charity Ball actually provides a very good reason to dance till dawn. The money raised from corporate partners, the auction and the sale of lucky draw tickets goes to help educate disadvantaged children in Hong Kong. The FCC provides university scholarships for more than a dozen young students, all of whom are affiliated with facilities run by the Po Leung Kuk – one of Hong Kong’s oldest charities. And it sponsors a language learning centre for children in the residential care of the Kuk. The kids come from families who can’t afford the tutors and extra training to make sure their children learn Putonghua and English, as well as Cantonese, thus giving them the ability to compete for jobs in Hong Kong’s multilingual business world. So the FCC Charity Ball Committee, working with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, has developed programmes to give these primary school pupils a linguistic boost. The 2005 Charity Ball raised nearly $4.5 million – a record. Over the past four years, the Ball has generated more than $10 million to help underprivileged children. In the coming months, Dave Garcia, co-chairman of the Ball Committee, says that the committee hopes to establish a trust fund that will generate scholarships for years to come. That way FCC members and the Ball’s corporate partners will provide a lasting contribution long after many of us are gone.

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Cover Story

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Media

For more information or reservations, � please contact your travel agent or � Bangkok Airways Hong Kong Office � Tel : (852) 2899 2597 Fax : (852) 2537 4567� �

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Picture This

Media

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Media

Industry Aﬀairs

ormer Singaporean prime minister Goh Chok Tong reckons his country, which is about the same size as Auckland and matches Texas in its annual execution rate, is better off for its pro-government media industry and that a liberal press is not necessarily good for every country. “... a free press by Western standards does not always lead to a clean and efficient government or contribute to economic freedom and prosperity,” he stated. Goh’s comments should make life interesting for the former chief executive of Australian newspaper group Fairfax, Fred Hilmer, who has been named vice-chancellor of the University of New South Wales as the school prepares to open an Asian campus in Singapore. Elsewhere in the region, two Australian journalists are facing jail after being charged with contempt of court and embarrassing the government with a story about damaging leaked documents. The Australian Press Council condemned the decision to charge Canberra-based reporters Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus for refusing to divulge the source behind a story that revealed the government was planning to short-change war veterans by A$500 million (US$375 million). The journalists work for Melbourne’s Herald-Sun newspaper and refused to give evidence at the pre-trial hearing of a bureaucrat accused of leaking the documents. IN KABUL, three men have been sentenced to death for killing four journalists who covered the 2001 toppling of the Taliban regime. The journalists were Australian cameraman Harry Burton, Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari, Italian Maria Grazia Cutuli and Spaniard Julio Fuentes. MEANWHILE, ALSO IN AFGHANISTAN, a court has convicted the editor of a women’s magazine of blasphemy

STILETTO BY MAX KOLBE after complaints his articles questioned Islam, and sentenced him to two years in jail. Nasab, editor of the monthly magazine Haqoq-e-Zan (Women’s Rights), was arrested after complaints about his articles, including one which questioned the severity of Islamic punishments for crimes such as adultery. UKRAINE wants a new investigation into an April 2003 attack on a Baghdad hotel by US troops that killed two reporters including a Ukrainian national. Taras Protsyuk, who worked for Reuters news agency, and Jose Couso from Spain’s Telecinco television network, died. Three other reporters were wounded. The attack came as US forces advanced on Baghdad. A US Army tank fired on the Palestine Hotel, where hundreds of reporters from around the world were staying, but a US Army report on the incident cleared the military of wrongdoing. This hasn’t stopped a Spanish judge, acting on behalf of Couso’s family, from issuing an arrest war-

IT IS WITH MUCH SADNESS this magazine notes the tragic passing at her own hand of Elaine Chow, a young Hong Kong journalist working for HK Magazine, whose vibrance and wit would have surely delivered her a terrific career. The future of journalism lost out here.

rant for three US soldiers suspected of involvement in the shelling of the Palestine. ADDITIONALLY, THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT has said it believes the French journalist Fred Nerac, who disappeared two and a half years ago in Iraq, was killed in a firefight between Iraqis and US troops. A CAMBODIAN COURT has refused bail for a radio journalist charged with defaming the government. Mam Sonando, owner of Beehive Radio, was arrested in connection with a September interview with Sean Peng Se, chairman of the France-based Cambodian committee on border treaties with Vietnam. The charges follow a border settlement with Vietnam and a broad crackdown on anyone Prime Minister Hun Sen believes has accused him of giving up Cambodian land or selling it to foreigners. A FEMALE REPORTER for South Korean television was kicked unconscious while covering the riots around Paris. She was set upon by a gang in the northern suburb of Aubervilliers. Italian and Russian journalists were also attacked while reporting on the violence. IN NARATHIWAT, southern Thailand, the managing director of a local newspaper was shot dead. Abdulloh Mama, the 37-year-old director of the Thongtin Thai newspaper, was shot five times by gunmen who fired from a pick-up truck. Abdulloh’s killing came one week after the owner of a newspaper in the beach resort town of Pattaya was murdered. The body of Santi Lammaninin, 38, was found inside his BMW. He was killed after a night of gun battles left five people dead in Yala and Pattani provinces, hours after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra ended a visit to the region. THESE OUTBREAKS follow a grenade attack on the Manager Media Group’s offices in Bangkok. The founder of the group, Sondhi Limthongkul, happens to be the target of two defamation lawsuits brought by Thaksin who is seeking US$12 million for each.

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Club Activities

PHOTO: ANDY MALACHI

Jazz , Sun, Wind, Sail and more Jazz

PHOTO: TERRY DUCKHAM/ASIAPIX

The FCC Jazz Society and FCC reciprocal club, the Puerto Galera Yacht Club (PGYC), got together for the mother of all beach parties last All Soulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Weekend in Puerto Galera. The white sand beaches and coconut palms shook with the vibrant sounds of jazz from three continents and saw an international fleet of racing yachts take to the clear blue waters to battle it out in wind, rain and bright sunshine. Robin Lynam, Terry Duckham and Martyn Willes report.

t was the weekend that had everything: white sand beaches, sun, wind, rain, music and more music, racing yachts, celebrity chefs, talented musicians, media stars, beach babes, boat bums, major television and press coverage and the beautiful people from the FCC. It started at El Galleon Beach Resort on the Friday night. The FCC musicians and crowd had arrived that afternoon to be joined by people trickling in throughout the evening from as far away as the US, China and Cambodia. Rain and wind did nothing to diminish the party atmosphere and great music.

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Club Activities

PHOTO: TERRY DUCKHAM/ASIAPIX

Saturday saw the yachts come in, swinging around an orange buoy just off El Galleon’s pier to finish their overnight races from Subic and Manila Bay. A day of cloudy skies and only scattered sunshine failed to deter visitors from exploring the beaches and mountain views, hunching over pool tables and bars or lazing by the pool. Late afternoon saw the Manila television crews arrive, wet and bedraggled, in time for a dinner hosted at the PGYC. Then it was back to El Galleon for an evening of highpowered jazz. The Manila musicians had travelled down on the press boat and the yacht crews had dropped in for cocktails so it didn’t take long for the night to become quite lively. The Saturday and Sunday night performances were broadcast nationwide in the Philippines and world-wide on the ANS-CBN Filipino Channel. FCC stalwart Phil Whelan also recorded the broadcast and will be airing an hour-long special featuring the highlights of the FCC’s Allen Youngblood, Blaine Whittaker, Paul Candelaria, Guy Le Claire and Larry Ham-

PHOTO: TERRY DUCKHAM/ASIAPIX

mond duelling it out with Filipino jazz stars Tots Tolentino, Ria Osario and Rowena Michaels for Hong Kong listeners to savour. Sunday started with ABS-CBN’s celebrity chef Mark Hill filming a special Chefs on the Go programme in the galley of elegant cruising schooner, Star Gazer. Mark was assisted by the PGYC’s Cheryl Ramhalo who sharied her wisdom and skills gleaned during thousands of miles of cruising the high seas. PHOTO:

Then the serious racing got underway. The chef’s crew was joined by the Sports Unlimited crew and the television cameras followed the fleet, ably directed by Terry Duckham on the media pursuit boat. Gigabytes of footage was shot as the participants beat up the Verde Passage, rounded the Sabang Beach mark, proceedSTASCH RADWANSKI ed around to Encenada Beach before running back to the finish off Haligi Beach. The enthusiasm of the camera crews and media photographers was somewhat biased and centred on Alan Burrell’s Farr 1104, Rags. Rags, skippered by Kelly Zaldariaga who led an all-media crew featuring Sports Unlimited hosts Dyan Castillejo and Marc Nelson, ended in a very respectable fifth place. Other media crewmembers included the FCC’s Richard Jones, FCC past president Karl Wilson of AFP and Simon Halley who did a sterling job of driving the boat to place so well. Sports Unlimited and Kelly’s media crew have

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vowed to return next year to take line honours. The All Souls Regatta 2005 honours were taken by Dirk van Straalen’s The Judge. In second place were John Carruthers and Steve Pike aboard Surprise II, followed by Dick Morris on Salina. Sunday evening saw the party move to the lawns of the Sandbar Resort on Boquete Beach. As the sun slid gracefully behind Lubang Island far out to the west, the Puerto Galera Jazz Festival took over from the regatta party and the stars started twinkling in the heavens as well as on stage. In total 20 boats participated in the racing and some 350 people from all over the world invaded El Galleon, Sandbar Resort and the Puerto Galera Yacht Club for the music. Many more turned up just for the parties.

When sparks flew off the Verde Island Passage BY ROBIN LYNAM

“W

e’re going to do a John Coltrane number called Mr. PC, announced Tots Tolentino. Tonight its stands for Paul Candelaria.” Originally of course, it stood for Paul Chambers, the bassist on Kind of Blue and Giants Steps, along with a number of other landmark jazz recordings, and a hero of Candelaria’s – who beamed at the compliment, which was deserved. The Philippines’ own Mr PC was playing

PHOTO: TERRY DUCKHAM/ASIAPIX

The Newport-inspired mix of the worlds of music and yachting interacting in this particularly lovely part of the Philippines worked magnificently, and although it looked for a while as though the weather wasn’t going to co-operate, when it counted the sun shone through. The Puerto Galera Jazz Festival was intended to be an annual event when it was founded five years ago, and now looks as if enough momentum

masterfully, and clearly having a great time back on home turf. The occasion was the second Puerto Galera Jazz Festival, staged five years after the first, and well worthy waiting for – so long as we don’t have to wait another half decade for the next one. Most of the musicians who played the first event returned – including Candelaria, Allen Youngblood, Larry Hammond and Guy Le Claire – and they were joined by Filipino artists, pianist Ria Osorio, the country’s star horn man Tolentino, and vocalist Rowena Michaels, the last two fronting their own sets. Blaine Whittaker came up from Sydney to Puerto Galera for the first time, and a series of different mixand-match lineups of local and visiting musicians played some great music over three nights, punctuated

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has been generated for that to become possible. Many thanks to Allen Youngblood, Allan Nash and Terry Duckham for their inspiration. Special thanks also to Cebu Pacific Air for getting everyone there in such a comfortable and timely manner, the Paco Park Oasis Hotel, Staffan Logren and Asiapix Studios for providing the support and logistics. The 2005 All Souls Regatta was sponsored by Lane Removals and Storage, San Miguel Beer, the Big Apple Dive Resort, DHL Danzas, Heavylift Manila, the Paco Park Oasis Hotel, Future Trade International and the Sandbar Resort. The Puerto Galera Jazz Festival was sponsored by Cebu Pacific Air, the Foreign Correspondent’s Club, Hong Kong, El Galleon Beach Resort, Paco Park Oasis Hotel, Staffan Logren and Asiapix Studios.

by only one power cut. In the Philippines, that’s akin to a miracle. It’s always nice to see a cultural exchange working, and it made the festival far more attractive for all, attracting a substantial crowd for all three nights. There was something particularly satisfying in listening to Youngblood’s lilting Verde Island Passage performed right next to the stretch of water it’s intended to evoke, and there were outstanding performances of a number of the tracks from his Midnight Odyssey CD, on which Blaine Whittaker features prominently. Then Whittaker and Youngblood packed their instruments after the final show and headed off on a midnight boat for an early morning flight to a gig in Greece. Don’t let anybody tell you that a musical career isn’t hard work.

Club Activities

PHOTO: TERRY DUCKHAM/ASIAPIX

PHOTO: ROBIN LYNAM

PHOTO : TERRY DUCKHAM/ASIAPIX

PHOTO: ROBIN LYNAM

PHOTO: KARIN MALMSTROM

PHOTO: CHRIS DILLON

PHOTO: ROBIN LYNAM

PHOTO: TERRY DUCKHAM/ASIAPIX PHOTO: ROBIN LYNAM

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Photographs on this page by ANDY MALACHI

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Club Speakers

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB DAVIES

Back Among Familiar Faces D uring his triumphant booksigning, egg tart-munching visit to Hong Kong, Chris Patten, now girded with more titles and somewhat more weight than when we first knew him 13 years ago, stepped carefully around the debate over the pace of democratisation in his former bailiwick. But he was not quite the diplomat on a number of other topical issues. Jonathan Sharp reports We had already finished our crab bisque and poached salmon by the time Lord Patten turned up for the FCC lunch where he was guest speaker. But he was not to be faulted for being late. Blame the Hong Kong people, who, eight years after British colonial rule had ended, were turning out in impressively large numbers to collect

their signed copies of his new book, Not Quite the Diplomat, and thereby holding up our guest’s arrival. However the delay provided useful time for some in his audience to ponder the following: (a) how many former colonial governors can claim, so long after their departure, to be held in such affection by those they ruled, and (b) how many books has he managed to shift? Questioners tried, of course, to prod Patten into dropping some provocative remark into the universal

Not Quite the Diplomat – Home Truths about World Affairs By Chris Patten Published by Allen Lane ISBN 0-713-99855-5

suffrage debate, but he stuck to his cautious script, which was that he had no doubt that, sooner or later, Hong Kong would be fully democratic and all the stronger as a result. He declined to comment, whether at the FCC or in the many other interviews he gave during a punishing schedule that saw him get more media coverage than Hong Kong’s present rulers, about a timetable for when universal suffrage should occur. And he said he had not raised the subject the previous evening at dinner with Chief Executive Donald Tsang (who, of course, was Financial Secretary during Patten’s time in Hong Kong, and who accepted the knighthood bestowed upon him). One reason Patten gave for not venturing further into the debate

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by, for example, advising Hong Kong democrats how to respond to the government’s constitutional reform package, was that it might not be fair to Hong Kong’s democratic camp. “To fly in for three days, sign a few thousand books, and tell them how to conduct their affairs, I think might be difficult for the democrats.” Any intervention would simply provide ammunition to those who argue that the democratic forces are simply the puppets of the outside world. Patten did not appear to break fresh ground on other topics that were raised although, like the good trouper that he is, he somehow managed to make the same lines sound fresh. In those familiar, measured and often deceptively innocuous-sounding tones, he hoped that the neo-cons in America would be “sent packing”, and was contemptuous of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his condescending remarks about Chinese civilization. On developments on his home political turf, Patten was scathing about the apparent anointment of Gordon Brown as prime-minister-in-waiting. “There is something slightly unedifying about the spectacle of the leadership of the Labour Party behaving like members of the Qing dynasty. Who becomes prime minister depends on the electorate,

not on deals done between Mr. Blair and Mr. Brown. I think the present government looks rather squalid because of all that.” He described the present style of government in Britain as “deeply superficial”, and as for Tony Blair: “I think there are real questions about how much Mr. Blair is prepared to accept that foreign policy is about rather more than being nice to foreigners.” On the leadership race in his Conservative Party that was at that time nearing the finish line, Patten said he had backed Kenneth Clarke, who fell at the first hurdle, and he appeared to be distinctly tepid about the youthful front-runner, David Cameron. “He might be the right chap.” Finally hauled back to the subject of Hong Kong, Patten said it was sad, but predicted, that Beijing had rolled back the rather limited democratic changes made before 1997, and it was unfortunate that the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress had intervened twice on key legal decisions in Hong Kong. “On the other hand, Hong King has plainly not been lobotomized by the Chinese authorities.” Nor, apparently, has Hong Kong lost its enthusiasm for its last colonial governor.

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China:

Striving to Fly Normal

x-journalist and businessman James McGregor says the reason he ended up in China was that he was expelled from high school. “It was a Catholic high school so it wasn’t hard.” So we have that school to thank for McGregor’s new book, a highly entertaining as well as instructive distillation of the insights he acquired in 15-odd years spent in China and is now offering to those who do business in the Middle Kingdom. Jonathan Sharp reports. Jim McGregor says his slogan for today’s China comes from an exhortation he saw posted on the walls of the terminal at a Chinese airport where he had just landed after what was supposed to be a routine flight. The pilot had botched the first landing approach (by omitting to lower the wheels) and had to have a second try (successful). The slogan on the terminal wall said: “Strive to Fly Normal”. Striving to be normal is what China is doing right now, McGregor told an FCC audience in a witty but wise presentation to launch his book, One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China. But after some 25 years of reform and development of its own form of capitalism, China still has some way to go in its business dealings to become what most westerners like to regard as normal. McGregor, who was a Wall Street Journal correspondent and then business chief for Dow Jones in China before becoming a venture capitalist and consultant, said that when writing the book he had to find a way to characterise modern China. He came up with: it’s the world’s largest

Club Speakers

“The ﬁscal deﬁcit that we have, China is funding. The Iraq war is being funded by China. The rebuilding of New Orleans is being funded by China. I would propose that they should probably put the street signs in New Orleans in Chinese as a tribute to the Chinese people for helping us out.” start-up and the largest turnaround at the same time. “They are doing everything from scratch ... Why are they able to do this? Because they have 2,000 years of history, 2,000 years of people who are hard-working and very acquisitive. Basically the Chinese government just let them be Chinese people again. It’s an accident of history that this place ever became communist.” One Billion Customers, enlivened by McGregor’s great story-telling skills and acute eye, focusses on real-life case studies of the often exasperating, sometimes amusing world of Chinese business dealings. Each chapter is followed by pithy words of advice. Example: “If your Chinese counterpart wants to finalise a deal after a mao tai-soaked banquet, it is better to throw up on the contract than sign it.” One case study in which McGregor was personally involved was the attempt by Xinhua news agency to muscle in on the profitable operations of foreign news agencies, including his then employer Dow Jones. At the outset of this marathon tussle, Xinhua officials attempted a typical ploy of China’s bureaucracy, which is to divide and conquer their opponents, in this case principally Dow Jones and its chief rival, Reuters. The tactic failed. “What the Xinhua officials didn’t know is that Reuters’ China boss, a gentlemanly and intelligent Sinologist named Richard Pascoe, was one of my closest friends.” With help of a massive joint lobbying campaign by McGregor, Pascoe and their employers, the Xinhua “thugocracy”, as McGregor

calls them, backed down. One of McGregor’s conclusions: “Enlist your home government, relevant international organisations, and trade associations to fight for your cause. Show your adversaries who you are by who you know.” (Incidentally Pascoe, that “gentlemanly and intelligent Sinologist” is now Director of the China Policy Institute at Nottingham University). One of the lessons that McGregor preaches is: Never get between the Chinese government and the Chinese people. “I knew a guy who did that and he had a hard time. His name was Chris Patten. “In one of a multitude of often hilarious anecdotes, McGregor recalls Patten inviting him to Government House to get his advice on dealing with Beijing, which at the time was heaping abuse on the last colonial governor of Hong Kong, calling him, among other things, a “jade-faced whore”. After the meeting, and on returning to Beijing, McGregor came across a photograph of a Shaolin monk demonstrating his strength and endurance by hanging a concrete block from his testicles. McGregor sent the picture to Patten with the message: “I found a man in a worse position than you.” Patten loved it. Turning to others in a difficult position with regards to China, McGregor believes “China has a firm grip on the very tender parts of the American economy,” adding that George W. Bush’s recent meeting with President Hu Jintao looked rather like the US leader conferring with his banker. “The fiscal deficit that we have, China is funding. The Iraq war is

being funded by China. The rebuilding of New Orleans is being funded by China. I would propose that they should probably put the street signs in New Orleans in Chinese as a tribute to the Chinese people for helping us out.” The bottom line, he says, is that the Chinese government has a much better understanding of the US than Washington has of Beijing. “They are much better at pulling our strings than we are at pulling theirs.” And the Americans are naïve in demanding China’s rapid democratisation, McGregor believes. He cites the views of a group of Chinese entrepreneurs who told Henry Kissinger at a lunch meeting organised by McGregor that China has had a 2,000 year tradition of a top-down system, and it should not be turned around overnight. “Right now (the Chinese) are trying to hold on for dear life to keep the place tied together as long as they can, to make it as rich as they can, before its starts becoming pluralistic and inefficient,” says McGregor. “They look at the west and the calls for instant democracy in China as an attempt to destabilise China, because they believe if that you’re calling for that you must be smart enough to figure out you’re going to blow the place up.”

One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China By James McGregor Nicholas Brealey Publishing ISBN-13: 978-1-85788-358-6; ISBN-10: 1-85788-358-6

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Travel

FCC Collection Fiction

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I Love HK poster . . . . . . . . . .$250 THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

One Hand, Two Fingers

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Hong Kong

GAVIN

and the

Greening

of Central

We all know about Gavin Coates the cartoonist, illustrator and author of children’s books suitable for anyone under the age of 125. Less familiar, perhaps, is his training as a landscape architect, an expertise that he is now busy putting to good use in Hong Kong. Jonathan Sharp reports

n the late 1970s, not all that long after this writer was learning Chinese at Leeds University, Gavin Coates was down the road at Leeds Polytechnic studying landscape architecture. He chose this subject after experiencing what sounds like a somewhat chequered school career. He was good at art, but not much else, hopeless at sport, and he suffered agonies socially as the result of a bad stammer that afflicted him between the ages of 13 and 18. “It was absolutely debilitating at times. So I just focused on trees.” Free of his stammer, Gavin arrived in Hong

Kong in 1982 where his employers put his landscaping skills to work at the new towns springing up in the New Territories. One of the towns he worked on was Tseung Kwan O, formerly Junk Bay. “A lot of the trees that you see on the slopes around there are my babies.” Frustrated with office life, Gavin launched into his career as a cartoonist, illustrator and author. But he always kept a foot in the landscaping world. For example he designed the waterfall area in Hong Kong Park where many couples get their wedding photos taken. Then last year, the firm that had

evolved from his old employers won the consultancy from the Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) to produce a master plan for the greening of Central. So Gavin is now working full time on that, while at the same time continuing his cartooning in the evenings (which is why these days we don’t see him much in the FCC). The landscaping job means a lot to him. “I’ve been walking through Central for 20 years and it’s not a very pleasant experience. For the centre of a supposedly world class city there is plenty of scope for improvement, to put it mildly.”

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Gavin believes that any additional greening that can be achieved by way of planting trees is a step in the right direction. But what he would like to see, eventually, is what Seattle and Boston have done: major structures to support parkland above major highways, not only covering them but also removing them as barriers between communities and districts. He sees an opportunity for such a deck structure on Connaught Road between World Wide House and Exchange Square, creating a whole city square above the traffic. Such large-scale, long-term visions can’t be committed to by the government right now, he says, so he is looking at shorter-term environmental improvements. “At the moment I am walking around Central, with some of the government personnel that we are working with, and searching for nooks and crannies where we can get some trees in.” And suitable spaces there are, as Hongkong Land discovered when it planted 100 trees in Central in the late 1980s to mark its centenary. Gavin regards this as a marvellous initiative.

But can Central really be a viable habitat for trees? Certainly, says Gavin. “We are to some extent restricted on the species. You have to choose species that are tough enough to put up with poor ground conditions, the wind, the shade, the pollution and the rest of it.” But he says trees planted by Hongkong Land have flourished, against apparently tremendous odds. “Two weeping fig trees on the corner of Ice House Street and Des Voeux Road have done really well. It’s unbelievable how they have survived. The ground condition is appalling with a spaghetti of underground services. To find a gap where you can get a tree in at all is an achievement. For a tree to grow that well must be by the grace of God.” Gavin has also spotted a number of barren areas that would benefit from trees, for instance at ground level around Exchange Square. “The only people who walk there are lost tourists and landscape architects looking for greening opportunities.” Central may be below par as far as greening is concerned, but Gavin

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

is optimistic that the government in general, and the CEDD in particular, will deliver meaningful improvements. He said the civil servants he works with are enthusiastic about the greening project. “They really want to see something happen. They are really pushing for it and I’ve got nothing but praise for them.” Gavin also appreciates the fact that although his cartoons lambast the government, there has been no mention made of any conflict with his day job. “I haven’t been told to shut up or choose one over the other.” What people do point out to him is how wonderfully green Singapore is compared to Hong Kong. But Gavin thinks this is a shallow comparison because of the topographical differences between the two: Singapore is flat and relatively easy to green while Hong Kong’s urban areas are squeezed between mountains and the sea with far less room for open spaces. And Gavin doesn’t want to live in Singapore. “Working as a cartoonist I wouldn’t last two seconds.”

Soapbox

Failed in Hong Kong;

Try London BY STUART WOLFENDALE

ack in October, Wendy McTavish was socking it to a dinner crowd in the Main Dining Room, launching her book, Expat, an account of her Hong Kong life and times which seems to have begun somewhere around the later Ching Dynasty. The background to the book and what it took to get it published was a fearless tale of derringdo which included landing here with a husband and 100 quid and, much later, two lunches with Nury Vittachi. McTavish released a whiff of the frontier into the after dinner air. She talked about “Having a go – it’s what this place is all about,” which raised a breeze of “hear hear!” from a matey, white Commonwealth audience. She talked of a place where jack is as good as his master, people didn’t put labels on you on sight and you could re-invent yourself on arrival and slip a hyphen into your name overnight. For a while it sounded like early New South Wales. She warned against whingeing about not having a garden or a cosy neighbourhood. From the very start do not compare, she said

and she raised a strong word of caution about “going back home”. “You’ll never quite fit in,” she warned. “There are networks and obligations of decades that are not yours.” So, it was with some interest and irritation that some of us read in the last issue of The Correspondent an article from absent member John Miller who, after about 20 years in Hong Kong as a barrister and legal assistance administrator, abandoned Wendy McTavish’s wagon train along with with maid and jacuzzi and returned to live in the United Kingdom. Showing that he is a little out of touch with the Club’s younger, jackthe-lad clientele, Miller wrote that he did not wish to “deplete the Jurassic gene pool of the Main Bar” but claimed that, inside the dipsomaniac dinosaurs, there is “a quiet voice that tells us that enough is enough.” His article seemed to encourage at least the Brits amongst us to acknowledge a defeat we did not even know had been delivered and return forthwith to a country where the networks and obligations are by now all but incomprehensible.

What miseries pend for we baffled, boozed-up Brits? According to Miller, the Hong Kong climate and alcohol take their toll, we are wedded to impossible dreams, we are kept here by “financial exigencies” and personal ties and we lack the will to move. That would seem to adequately account for most people living in the Hampshire suburbs. However, one is glad to learn that he has won whatever battle with alcohol he was having, has got over his fantasies, paid off his debts and summoned up the considerable will to get on a plane and return to place of freezing winters where night falls at 4pm. In his article he recalls old friends, whom he had discovered from this magazine, are now dead. Joshing, he wonders whether I might have been among them. Given the prospect of returning to live yards from where I was brought up, or spend hours of the week in the London Underground, and try to fit into a society of victims and caregivers as he has, I feel the alternative of Eternity might warrant cautious consideration. Miller shares with us some personal reasons for his repatriation. He

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

I would bite my lip over a few pushy grannies down in the MTR in preference to the confused, fungicidal mess of buses and trains which may or may not get him to his ofﬁce with “its view of St. Paul’s Cathedral and other Wren spires.” discloses that he had been striving to reach a goal which had been removed in a “single line letter of rejection.” It seems that the goal had been a place on the Bench. Given his sharing of his views with a certain expatriate High Court judge included comments about how remarkable it was that dull and undistinguished solicitors from the Midlands could rise so rapidly up the Hong Kong judiciary, it was surprising they bothered to reply at all. Miller remembers with distaste “the battle for public transport” in Hong Kong. I would bite my lip over a few pushy grannies down in the MTR in preference to the confused, fungicidal mess of buses and trains which may or may not get him to his office with “its view of St. Paul’s Cathedral and other Wren spires.” I once worked with a full view of Buckingham Palace but after a few weeks of commuting, the picture postcard angle in London didn’t cut it. He also recalls, “the desperate fight to make a dollar”. Well, if you are thinking back to a world in which offices with well-tuned and disposed executive staff almost ran themselves, long criminal cases with multiple defendants regularly adjourned for the day at lunch time, and when yes, a time when one could buy a flat one month and sell it the next with a profit in excess of Lesotho’s GDP, yes, it was all pretty desperate. It is not so desperate in England, where earning a living is more like receiving grants in aid. Fortunately our correspondent had never told the Lord Chancellor a thing or two at a party and has been recruited onto a tribunal. Tony Blair’s England has more tribunals in it than Elizabeth I’s. Miller’s is meant to vet “asylum seekers”. Afghans and Yemenis who want

to go to Britain and also enjoy the right to sit on a tribunal. This provides the “chance to obtain a government pension before hitting “seven-oh”. That, boys, is the “quiet voice” that we are not hearing loudly enough. Miller said he would return on a visit late this year. I hope he is not too disappointed with the place. He probably won’t be. After all, the Sze Chuan Lau, The American, Gunga Din and The Gaylord remain in business. Anyway, he plans to pass the time telling us how to manage this back to Blighty bit and get in the mood for “home” – ie order lots of lager, don’t go back to work and if you do go home, beat up your spouse or if you’re divorced , don’t pay maintenance. Look around you and realise that in Hong Kong you have “accumulated so many fair-weather friends”, as opposed to all those loyal and steady mates you are going to make in British pubs. Remember you are a victim. You also have a permanent disability, if you hadn’t noticed, and the UK government owes you an allowance, a sinecure and a pension. Get your estate agent onto buying you a two bedroom semi for half a million quid near Harlesden, remind yourself that to simply greet a woman is sexual harassment and that you must never acknowledge that someone is of a different race unless they say you can. You too can prepare. Get the Club staff to stop calling you “sir” or “madam”. In Blair’s Britain, expressions of respect or deference are frowned upon unless they are to Cherie. Now, go to the loo, do a line, go back to the bar, get good and pissed and mull the intracies of how to survive back “home”.

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Photography

Then

Now

The changing face of Central. Both these photographs were taken from the same spot in Pedder Street by Bob Davis. The picture on top dates back to1973. The lower was was taken earlier in 2005.

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Region

Suicide site stokes furore in Cambodia An American is facing possible expulsion or imprisonment for creating a web site inviting suicidal people to die in Cambodia, reports Richard Ehrlich

oger Graham, a former California resident, says he made no money from his morbid venture and did it after failing to convince a California town to legalise euthanasia. “I did not start this to make money, I did it because I believe in a person’s right to choose the time, place and manner of their own death,” Graham said in an e-mail interview from his base in Kampot, a a tourist-friendly, coastal town about 80 miles southwest of Phnom Penh. “I have made zero dollars off my web site,” Graham wrote. “I am semiretired at 57 years, although I do operate a small coffee and internet cafe in Kampot, Cambodia.” Graham said before moving to Cambodia, he lived in Paradise, California, where he ran an antique shop and sold on eBay, the Internet auction site. “While in Paradise, California, I founded the Assisted Euthanasia Society of Paradise, and made an attempt at having the city council of Paradise pass an ordinance authorizing a peaceful and painless death. They declined.” Cambodian authorities said they do not want their nation to gain a reputation as a great place to die. “To take the web site down now is too late,” Kampot Provincial Governor Puth Chandarith told the German news agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur. “We will continue the case before the court. We believe the web site destroyed the honour of Kampot by being there at all. “Whether he is made to leave the country, or go to

jail, is up to the court, but the case is at the court now and it must be heard by the court,” the governor said. Asked about the number of suicidal people who arrived in Cambodia after viewing his site, Graham replied: “I have assisted no one with their self-deliverance. I have had maybe 100 or so people e-mail me with requests for info, but no prearranged arrivals.” Graham created the web site about a year ago because “I live here, and it [euthanasia] isn’t illegal. Expenses involved have been minimal. Listing with Google ‘adwords’ at about 30 (US) dollars per month, is most of it.” After his site, www.euthanasiaincambodia.com attracted complaints from Cambodian officials, Graham replaced it in November with a page which said only: “This site is under construction.” But Google allows searchers to access a “cache” of the original site, displaying Graham’s

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

effort to convince people to die in Cambodia. “If You are Considering Taking Control of Your Life by Choosing the Time, Place, and Manner of Your Death Then I Would Like to Recommend that You Visit Cambodia,” the web site said. “You are going to die anyway, so why not in Cambodia?” He advised against killing themselves immediately upon arrival. “There are many pretty girls here and they’ll actually speak to you and be honestly glad that you will speak with them,” the site said. Grittier advice includes: “Please do not take an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol. It is a slow, painful, agonizing, and uncertain death.” The site allows the on-line purchase of Derek Humphrey’s Final Exit and other books, plus a PayPal link for donations “to Euthanasia in Cambodia”. Graham says he does not assist with suicides. “If you come to visit me here in Cambodia, I am not going to pull any switches. If all you want to do is kill yourself, do it at home. I am offering you an alternative endof-life experience, not a suicide pact,” his site said. “I will help you to enjoy what is left of your life. I will help you to visit local Buddhist monasteries and pagodas. I will help you to find the right place for you to be cremated and I will see to the dispersal of your ashes.” His help costs money. “I will expect you to be able to contribute at least 25,000 U.S. dollars to a local charity, aid organization, or directly into the local economy. Other expenses should be expected,” he told viewers.

Club Activities

North Korea Survives FCC Golf Society Visit The FCC Golf Society made its most adventurous trip ever in August – to North Korea. Convener Julian Walsh tells of a memorable tour.

ne of the more astonishing aspects of the visit, which was choc full of curiosities, was the fact that there is a golf course in North Korea (just the one) and that it was absolutely first class. There are 40 players in the country so the course is not used much, and like most things in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its existence, upkeep and everything about it is a mystery. The day before we flew to Pyongyang we had a warm-up game in Beijing which was memorable for Richard Castka’s caddy throwing Richard’s golf bag into a lake. We also had a glimpse of things to come when dark horse Philip Bowring managed four pars in the first six holes yet scored 115 overall. That’s FCC golf for you. On to Pyongyang. About 30 seconds before the wheels of our not-so-new and not-so-quiet Russian plane touched the tarmac, the flight attendant stood up and collected our health declaration forms from us. She stuck earnestly to her task as we landed and taxied to the terminal only to find the arrival and departure boards were empty (ours was the only plane that day, or maybe that week). The airport procedures were less strict than we had imagined but at least we didn’t have to queue to hand in our medical forms. Our mobile phones, however, were confiscated. This is odd since there is no network there anyway. We were assured that we’d get them back on departure (they knew who and where we were) and we did. We were met on arrival by John

Handley (and his two minders). John had not been brave enough to face North Korean airlines so had come in by train overland from China. The hotel was tall, and had a nonrevolving revolving restaurant at the top. We solved that technical problem by walking round it instead. The first striking observation was that the city at night was pitch black. No lights, no vehicles, no traffic lights, no street lights and certainly no neon. But there was beer in the hotel so we were okay. Later that same evening we experienced a mass games gala – a spectacular dance and gymnastic show put on every few years by countless thousands of performers. The scale of the event was mind-boggling and the synchronisation of so many thousands of performers quite astonishing. A theme of the show included the eventual reunification of North and South, and the thousands of dancers representing the two nations finally coming together was delicately and emotionally handled. Earlier scenes of thousands of soldiers thrusting with their knives at an imagined enemy (guess who?) were less subtle.

Next day we went to the border (described by Bill Clinton when he was newly-elected President as the scariest place on earth) and it was indeed odd to be staring across an open area not much bigger than the FCC bar to see South Korean guards staring back at us. Not surprisingly we were shown little evidence of any military presence or activity in the border area but it was suggested that there were one or two soldiers around. The five-km or so deep strip of no-man’s land that divides North and South is an area of great ecological interest given that few people have set foot in it for 50 years. Mercifully, both sides have now stopped blasting their respective propaganda messages across the border so it was quiet and peaceful and whatever wildlife exists there can hopefully get on with reproducing etc without the distraction of incessant noise. That evening some of the hotel staff gave us an impromptu performance of Korean folk songs. They had angelic voices, were most accomplished and it was a charming performance. We were then invited to sing for them. We were truly shocking. Fuelled by copious quantities of local beer all we managed was the first line or two of several songs

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

followed by lots of humming. Martin Kleger and Andreas Mueller made a brave, but not very accomplished, attempt at an unseasonable version of Stille Nacht, and Philip Bowring danced (a sort of a jig as far as we could make out) for the group. We finished with a tuneless and seemingly endless version of Hey, Jude! At least the humming-bit was somewhat justified (la la, la la la la, laaaaaaa etc, interminably). Goodness knows what the locals thought of us, but it can’t have been good. Once the local staff had gone home (no doubt convinced that all they had been told about foreigners was true), we played charades into the night. I am told that my own failed attempt to convey the simple word “cat” was memorable – the closest anyone got was unicorn. How did I know at that stage of the evening that cats don’t have horns? We were, thankfully, the only guests in the hotel. The next morning some of the more hung-over of us joined the hotel staff in their callisthenics session to get us moving again before our trip back from Kaesong to Pyongyang. We visited the USS Pueblo – the American spy ship captured by the North Koreans in 1968, and considered a great military trophy. We were shown round by one of the

seven Korean sailors who, we were told, had been in the raiding party when the ship was captured and he was happy to sign autographs for us. Near the ship, we saw a bunch of female soldiers reciting something in front of a statue. The chant ended rather vigorously (clenched fists punched in the air, that sort of thing) and I asked our minder what it meant. His rough translation was something along the lines of “down with the sworn enemy of the Korean people, the American aggressor.” But they seemed friendly enough and didn’t even look at us. We went to the national library which was supposed to have 30 million books, but the ones we saw were all written by the same person. We then went to pay homage and place flowers at the foot of the statue of Kim Il Sung, the late Great Leader. As one of our guides said; “Whatever you may think, this is a place of considerable significance for all (North) Koreans and we hold the Great Leader in the greatest respect – so we ask you to show respect since you are in our country.” Seemed fair enough. The next day was the golf. We were whisked to the course along a 10-lane highway, a 45-minute trip each way during which we saw not one other vehicle. The 2nd and 3rd best players in the country joined us (the best player of course was running the country that day) and they were charming and friendly guests, but didn’t say much. The course was mature, natural and very challenging. And was absolutely empty apart from us. Having had a

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glimpse of variable greatness in Beijing a few days earlier, it was not such a great surprise that the winner of the first (and only?) FCC Pyongyang golf championship was Philip Bowring with 32 Stableford points. At all times in North Korea we were accompanied by two guides; we were not allowed to wander about on our own, or go anywhere other than where they wanted us to go or take photographs without permission. However the guides were as friendly and as helpful as they could be given the constraints of their job and they made major efforts to make our visit as fruitful as they could. They did offer some interesting interpretations of historical events concerning the Korean peninsula which were at odds with some of the things that we thought we knew, but this was not the sort of visit which leads one to spend time engaging in political debate. We returned to Beijing by train. It was a 24-hour trip and must be one of the great train journeys of the world. The train was comfortable and clean and, once we got into China, had a great dining car. Crossing the border was quite a serious and slightly complicated affair and took a while, some two hours in fact. In order to get his passport back, John Handley, he who had arrived by train, had to admit to being English, which for a Scot must be one of the hardest things he has ever had to do. But even Handley realised the expediency of the situation. This was not the time or place for discussing the finer points of the 1707 Treaty of Union. All told, we had a memorable trip. It was made possible by the people at Koryo Tours. Nick Bonner is well known to the FCC and his colleague, Simon Cockerell, came with us on the trip. Their web site is koryogroup.com and anyone thinking of a trip to the Hermit Kingdom should look them up. Go before Starbucks beats you to the punch.

FCC People

FCC Charity Fund volunteers and scholarship winners gather for a celebratory meal in the Main Dining Room.

PHOTO: HUGH VAN ES

PHOTO: BOB DAVIS

Heard at Bert’s: Russian jazz violinist Matvei Sigalov.

Farewell to Gonzo (again). Mike Gonzales is forsaking journalism to join the SEC in Washington DC.

David O’Rear and Bonny Landers tie the knot at a ceremony at Lake Tahoe on a ﬁne fall day.

Friends gather to wish Anthony Lawrence many happy returns on his 93rd birthday.

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

FCC People

PHOTO: HUGH VAN ES

Heard at Bert’s: Blaine Whittaker from Sydney.

PHOTO: STEPHANIE WONG

Seth Meixner gets an iPod and a send oﬀ from Hong Kong before heading to Cambodia to run the AFP bureau. PHOTO: HUGH VAN ES PHOTO: HUGH VAN ES

THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Former Asia correspondent for Stern Magazine Erich Follath, his wife Marianne and son Tobias on a visit from Germany. Erich and Marianne, who joined the Club 25 years ago, were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.

Heard at Bert’s: Paolo Carcano from Italy with Allen Youngblood.

Professional Contacts FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHERS BERTRAND VIRGILE SIMON — Editorials and corporate brochures Tel: 2526 4465 E-mail: info@red-desert.com.hk Website: WWW.RED-DESERT.COM.HK RAY CRANBOURNE — Editorial, Corporate and Industrial Tel/Fax: 2525 7553 E-mail: ray_cran bourne@hotmail.com BOB DAVIS — Corporate/Advertising/Editorial Tel: 9460 1718 Website: www.BOBDAVIS-photographer.com HUBERT VAN ES — News, people, travel, commercial and movie stills Tel: 2559 3504 Fax: 2858 1721 E-mail: vanes@netvigator.com

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THE CORRESPONDENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

Travel

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Out of Context

At Home Where the Buﬀalo Roam

What members get up to when away from the Club

Lantau Islander Richard Gocher waxes lyrical about rural living

or years, FCC member and former advertising executive Richard Gocher was a confirmed townie. So his move from the city to the relative tranquillity of the southern Lantau village of Pui O in 2003, raised some eyebrows among his friends. And how is he getting on far from the bright lights of Hong Kong island, where he had lived for more than two decades? He loves it. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, as he chatted to The Correspondent, he enthused about the kingfisher he’d just spotted. This former self-confessed “suit” has found a niche in a place where piles of rusting and wrecked cars may blight some of the landscape but where water buffalo wallow in nearby mud-flats and his beloved mountains are close by. Last year, Richard bought the flat he had initially rented, gutted it and transformed it, and acquired (or was acquired by) a handsome Golden Retriever named Little Bear who accompanies him – sometimes – on his treks up, down and around Lantau’s hills and peaks. Why move? In 2002, Richard explains, he was at a cross-roads. The small advertising agency and design studio built up in conjunction with now absent member, Mitch Davidson, was sold and he now felt it was time to strike out into something new. He did not want to return to the mainstream advertising industry he knew so well. “I’d have been working with people 20 years my junior,” he says, and anyway he had spent all his working life in advertising. He had started out in his native England, been posted to South Africa for six years and then to Hong Kong in 1981. During his time he worked for the big guys, Ogilvy and Mather and Leo Burnett, for Star TV in its early days and then

for his own boutique company. Another retiree from advertising introduced him to an interesting concept, a franchise operation offering sophisticated business-to-business training for managers. ”I’d done a lot of training here during my advertising days.” So he set up The Knowledge Company and bought the Hong Kong franchise from Crestcom for management and leadership training programmes in 2002. He had the material translated into Cantonese, and

Central every day. When a couple of friends mentioned they had found their ideal house in Pui O, he visited and was hooked. Within a year he had moved across. The idea was that he would spend a couple of days each week in Central and operate from his rural retreat for the rest of the time. Broadband made that feasible. But it hasn’t quite worked out that way. Surfing the web, he came across another intriguing franchise-based opportunity. He could not resist it. This specialised in training teenagers about money and finance. In September this year, he acquired the rights for Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore (http:// www.youngbizhk.com), is now busier than ever and enjoying it immensely, even if it does mean spending more time than he’d envisaged away from Pui O. So would he move back into town? “No. Not now. I love living on Lantau, living in a village. It’s a real community. I like it out here.”

The idea was that he would spend a couple of days each week in Central and operate from his rural retreat for the rest of the time. Broadband made that feasible. But it hasn’t quite worked out that way.

opened for business. He ran the Knowledge Business out of his own flat, then in Shui Fai Terrace, and as many in Hong Kong do, resented paying high city rents when there was no real need to do so. He no longer had to commute to

THE CORRESPONDENT

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

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