CORRESPONDENT
SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG
THE
Rocking On: The FCC Charity Ball 2008
THE
CORRESPONDENT
contents TERRY DUCKHAM/ASIAPIX
The Seventh Annual FCC Charity Ball
FCC Charity Ball
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Hard Rock 2008
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Media Myanmar after the cyclone Bruce Cheesman: a maverick of a hack
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Max Kolbe’s Stiletto
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The Ramon Magsaysay awards 52 Pat Oliphant and the US Elections
Region China: the dangers of hair spray About the FCC The compradors and the Club
Books
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A US wake-up call Photography
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Central then and now
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Obituary
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Peter Mackler
Music Warren Wills
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Watering Hole
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Last Word
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The editor bids farewell
Cafe Tortoni, Buenos Aires Music
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Cover photo by Terry Duckham/Asiapix
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
John Creighton Murray
72 Letter President’s Message Professional Contacts
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Letters
From Jamie Roads Westbay, Chester VA, USA I would like to thank The Correspondent and David O’Rear for the recent obituary for my father. Although my father had
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: Ernst Herb First Vice President: Tom Mitchell Second Vice President: Kevin Egan Correspondent Member Governors Keith Bradsher, Bonnie Engel, Anna Healy Fenton, Jim Laurie, Kees Metselaar, Christopher Slaughter, Stephen Vines, Douglas Wong Journalist Member Governors Francis Moriarty, Jake van der Kamp Associate Member Governors Andy Chworowsky, David O’Rear, David Garcia, Steve Ushiyama Club Secretary David O’Rear
spent the later part of his life in Hong Kong, he still had family in the United States. In addition to his wife, he is also survived by two daughters, including myself, three grandsons, Matthew Warner Westbay, R. Clay Westbay, Joshua James Westbay, and a brother, Kenneth Roads. He maybe gone from his world and we all grieve for that, but we rejoice the extraordinary life he led. Thank you again for the tribute.
Finance Committee Convener: Jake Van Der Kamp (Treasurer) Membership Committee Convener: Steve Ushiyama Professional Committee Conveners: Tom Mitchell, Keith Bradsher House/Food & Beverage Committee Convener: Stephen Vines Wine Sub-Committee: Chairmain: Bonnie Engel Charity Fund Committee Co-Chairmen: Andy Chworowsky, Thomas Crampton Freedom of the Press Committee Convener: Francis Moriarty Constitution Committee Convener: Kevin Egan Wall Committee Convener: Chris Slaughter General Manager Gilbert Cheng
The Correspondent © 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 Conveners: Kees Metselaar, Anna Fenton Editor: Diane Stormont Editorial and Production Hongkongnow.com Ltd Tel: 2521 2814 E-mail: fccmag@hongkongnow.com Printer: Printing Station (2008)
Old Hong Kong (and FCC) Hands at the annual Brighton get-together chez Julia and Gavin Greenwood. Standing from left: David Thurston, Mike Rothschild, Sumiko Davies, Bill Barker, Steve Fallon, Mayumi Potter, Gavin Greenwood, Neil Farrin. Crouching from left: Minda Barker, Derek Davies, Lincoln Potter.
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Club Activities
> FROM THE PRESIDENT
Y
ou may remember the time, not too long ago, when fast growth, buoyant markets and stable prices were all taken for granted. We’d jump on a business class flight to Vancouver or London for $6,000 (yes, Hong Kong dollars!) and not think a thing about it. Those were the days, my friends! But, all good things must come to an end, as did the markets and Oasis Airlines. You might catch a glimpse of one of its planes next time you’re out at Chek Lap Kok, and if anyone feels the need to try again, you might get a good deal on it. Despite all that, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club is still in business. We feel the pain of higher prices just like everyone else, but for a long while we had been able to balance the weak dollar against the reduced import duties without tightening out belts. No more. The price of a pint isn’t what it used to be. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Food & Beverage Committee for their efforts in recent months to balance out the business and “club” sides of the FCC, and to offer my admiration and respect to the magicians on the (everso-slightly misnamed) Wine Subcommittee who even managed to trim a dollar or two off the price of some of our house wines. Alas, if you like your beer with more than a hint of taste, it might cost
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more but cheaper alternatives are readily available to those counting pennies. Our founders ensured that those after whom our Club is named would remain in control, and we have to be very careful not to price ourselves out of our own market. Media people have for many years felt the pinch bankers now feel in the form of stagnant or even falling wages. So the Board very reluctantly agreed with the recommendation that we raise many of our prices. I’m sorry that it had to happen under my watch, but it was necessary to keep our finances sound. Because we held the line for so long, some items may rise by up to an outrageous 50 percent, while others will hardly budge. If you want to help fight inflation, have a look at the menu and drinks card and switch your brand. It will undoubtedly confuse our fine staff, but I’m sure they are more than capable of coping! *** Each of us has our own reasons for joining the FCC. I became a member upon arriving here in January, 2003 because I wanted to meet fellow journalists and socialise with professionals from various sectors. One member who has been a journalist a bit longer than I, and who has been a particular inspiration, is our own Clare Hollingworth. The grand dame of the FCC, who broke
the story of the 1939 invasion of Poland and start of World War II, celebrates her birthday each October 10 (sharing not only the date but the year with the founding of the Republic of China), and you can be sure that once again we feted her in a manner that does her and us proud. She is often in the Club. Drop by and give her your best wishes, when you have a moment. *** One change following the Olympic Games is a relaxion in visa requirements for foreign correspondents accredited on the mainland. These were introduced more than a year before the Games as temporary rules. The Chinese authorities have now converted these temporary rules into standing regulations. Foreign journalists based in mainland Chinese cities can now travel all over the country, with the exception of Tibet and Xinjiang, without applying in advance for permits. For those of us residing in Hong Kong, not much has changed. We still cannot obtain multipleentry visas. The FCC will continue to lobby for this rule to be relaxed. For the moment, even small steps would help, as we have suggested to our friends from the Office of the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs. The bureaucratic process, for example, could be streamlined, so that it would become a quick, one-step process. Another possibility is that after receiving a number of single-entry permits, correspondents would become eligible for multiple-entry visas. Ernst Herb president@fcchk.org
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Charity Ball
Rocking the Night Away 10
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
Charity Ball
BY ROBIN LYNAM
T
he 2008 FCC Charity Ball was the seventh event of its kind, and given that it has been held without interruption since 2002 with considerable continuity of personnel on its organising committee, it was almost to be expected that everything this year would run smoothly. THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
Not quite, as it turned out. Mick Fleetwood and his band had been booked to perform a set of old Fleetwood Mac tunes, but cancelled at the eleventh hour. Four fifths of the line-up that made that band’s best-selling albums had agreed to reform for a new CD and tour, and Fleetwood’s contract precluded his playing the songs that would have been the core of his own group’s set. (He has since announced a solo tour with a small group playing the blues, as Fleetwood Mac did in the 1960s, which is presumably a way of keeping a side project going while steering around the problem).
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Charity Ball
An alternative had to be found quickly, and Fleetwood suggested a band nobody on the committee had heard of called World Classic Rockers. They turned out to be an almost certainly superior substitute, with a more varied repertoire of broader appeal, but more of that in a moment. The evening started in the now traditional manner, with guests being greeted by the children from the Po Leung Kuk who benefit from the funds the ball raises. Equally traditionally the sponsored wine and spirits flowed freely, and I personally got into the mood of the evening with the assistance of several generous pours of 18-year-old Glenlivet, much of the last of which my partner, Karin, helpfully redistributed over my
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dinner jacket. Given that this was a night of heavy rock, possibly denim would have been more practical. The earlier part of the evening, compered with his usual verve and good humour by Master of Ceremonies Andy Chworowsky, introduced FCC President 1st Vice President Tom Mitchell, Po Leung Kuk Chairwoman Pauline Ngan, and the co-chairmen of the ball, Dave Garcia and Thomas Crampton, after which cheques made out to the FCC Charity Fund were presented on behalf of sponsors JP Morgan, Prosperity Holdings Hong Kong Ltd, Asia Motor Racing, and Merrill Lynch, followed by the first of two charming performances by the younger children in the care of the Po Leung Kuk. As dinner â&#x20AC;&#x201C; catering on
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Charity Ball
this sort of scale is seldom spectacular but as usual a respectable enough job was done – was served, the auction began with jockey turned TV presenter Mark Richards giving a characteristically ebullient performance as auctioneer at the pace and in the manner of an over-excited racing commentator. He managed to keep the bidding fast and furious with a range of items signed by prominent figures in the world of sports and entertainment ranging from the Boston Red Sox team, which won the 2007 World Series, to Elvis Presley, Carlos Santana, and all four original members of Led Zeppelin. Also auctioned – alongside a plot of land in California – were a guitar signed by Bruce Springsteen and all members of the E Street Band and a photo signed by the cast of The Sopranos, so Miami Steve Van Zandt’s signature was up for grabs twice. It was, however, the World Classic Rockers performance that made the evening. I have attended several FCC Charity Balls, but not all of them, so I can’t say with certainty that this was the best band performance to grace the event to date, but I would be very much surprised if that were not the case. Anchored throughout by one of the best rock drummers in the world, Aynsley Dunbar, and by the rock steady bass of band leader and Steppenwolf founder Nick St Nicholas, the group, completed by Michael Monarch, also of Steppenwolf, on guitar, along with session pros David Coyle and Mark Hoyt backed singers Randall Hall from Lynyrd Skynyrd, Greg Walker from Santana, Fran Cosmo from Boston, and Fergie Frederiksen from Toto through those bands’ greatest hits, plus tunes from Journey, of which Dunbar was a member. The hard rock/AOR mix meshed perfectly with the demographic of the crowd, who filled the dance floor to Black Magic Woman, Born to be Wild, Rosanna, Sweet Home Alabama and many more.
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Charity Ball
In most cases the vocalists were not the singers on the original recordings of the songs, but they have all put time in on the road, performing them with the bands that made them famous, and the many years of experience the members brought to bear on a sort of jukebox set list of one hit after another showed in the professionalism of the performances. They were obviously also having a terrific time, and the set went over very well indeed with the people on the dancefloor. By the end the band and the audience were exhausted. It had been a great night, and at press time also looks to have achieved its financial objectives. According to Chworowsky, at press time figures had yet to be audited, but the ball has grossed pledges of about HK$10 million in direct donations, auction, ticket, and raffle ticket sales, and the net return is expected to beat last year’s record figure of more than HK$6 million. The money will fund this year’s scholarships, and contribute to the Po Leung Kuk Language Training Programme, which the FCC Charity Fund also supports. Plans for next year’s event are currently being made, and there is a possibility that Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band, who played a successful charity performance for the fund in Hong Kong in January this year, may also return in the interim. That would be another night to look forward to.
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Media PHOTOS: REUTERS
The Irrawaddy Delta town of Bogalay, four days after cyclone Nargis swept through.
The Loneliness of a Myanmar cyclone town BY DOMINIC WHITING
W
He had lifted them into a tree as the cyclone roared in on May 2, along with the head-high wall of water that shredded the matted bamboo and thatched huts of his seaside village.
e drove seven hours to Bogalay, in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta, to try to show the world the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis. But it was the people there who needed news. Having waded through water littered with the bodies of friends and family, they were desperate to know if food and water was on its way. “Is anyone coming to help us?” asked Kyaw Way. His wife, 10-year-old son and sevenyear-old daughter lay huddled together asleep on the muddy Whiting videos children gathering to collect bank of a creek. donations, Twante township, south of the capital.
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
His other two children, a girl of 8 and a boy of 6, were swept away. A dozen fishermen, all with harrowing stories of death and survival, crowded round as a medical volunteer translated for me. “We’ll starve to death if nothing is sent to us,” Zaw Win, 32, pleaded. He had survived by clinging to a tree trunk. Now he just cried, knowing his wife and two children had drowned.
CHECKPOINTS A photographer and I had latched on to a local medical team’s five-vehicle convoy as it rumbled along a stony track and over creaking wooden
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bridges, hoping the army would wave us all through. As journalists, we weren’t supposed to be in the army-run country at all – let alone in a spot where foreign aid workers were being denied entry. It was a nerve-racking drive. But apart from two thinly manned checkpoints and army trucks parked up in a couple of towns, our route was almost entirely free of soldiers – an ominous sign for the people of Bogalay. The former Burma’s army, in power since 1962 and frequently accused of using forced labour, has never been known for love of the people. Nargis, one of the worst cyclones to hit Asia, seemed to have brought little change to that. On the way to the town, we passed pockets of flooding where children splashed in front of piles of bamboo, wood and reeds – all that remained of their homes. Earthenware urns, plastic stools, cooking pots and clothes were still lying in the fields. People now sat in tents of bamboo and leaves, trying to dry out their rice stocks on the road. But nothing prepared us for what we were about to see.
DEATH AND BIRTH As our car crossed a humped bridge over a canal into Bogalay, a town of 50,000 people, the driver gasped. “There’s nothing left,” he said, aghast. Winds of 190 km per hour had blown roofs off almost all the houses, blasted holes in wooden walls, and reduced half a dozen streets to matchwood. Around 10,000 people had perished. At the soccer ground, the wooden stands had flipped backwards on to the road, where electricity pylons lay tangled with trees. A dozen empty army trucks sat idle in a schoolyard, the soldiers milling around doing nothing. Our convoy of 30 health workers wound its way to the river’s edge, and within minutes set up a makeshift clinic in a two-room concrete building. Five men carried in Than Win, 41
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A boy stands in the remains of his house in Bogalay, May 7, 2008. years old and eight months pregnant. She had grabbed on to a tree as the sea surge hit, killing seven of her 10 children. Two hours later, under the dim light of a chugging kerosene generator, she gave birth to her eleventh child, a son. As she lay resting on the floor, I asked his name. “You choose one,” she replied. “How about Chit Oo Mg,” one of the nurses suggested. “It means First Love,” she added to me. Than Win nodded, then smiled.
NERVOUS LAUGHS That night, the medical team leader, an affable neuro-surgeon from Yangon, told us we had to register with the army. We wanted to stay with what seemed to be the only aid team in the area, so we went to show our passports to the local army chief, who had commandeered the sturdiest building in town. It was an edgy moment. Our driver said we were tourists who had come to help. He was met by a stern look. The soldier turned to us. “Do you speak Burmese?” “Ce-zu tin-ba-deh,” my colleague stuttered. Thankfully, his mangled
“thank you very much”, picked up from the Lonely Planet guidebook, drew laughter. We shook hands and promised to leave the next day. Near the makeshift clinic, the village headman had cleared space for us on the floor of a wooden house untouched by the cyclone. He boasted that he paid for a concrete bridge over the creek that had saved 2,000 lives as the waves washed in. While the fishermen slept, I began writing by torchlight, noting their grim tales on a scrap of paper. Faced by their desperate stares, I’d told them governments around the world had promised millions of dollars of aid. Help would come, I said. But as night fell over the ruined town, lit only by the stars, Bogalay felt the loneliest place on earth. Born in Bangkok and raised in Britain, Dominic Whiting has had a long attachment to Southeast Asia and has visited Myanmar several times. He once called on pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi at her house, where she is held under arrest, and helped to report on Myanmar from the Reuters Bangkok bureau. Now based in the Hong Kong bureau, he arrived in Myanmar two days after cyclone Nargis hit and reported from the Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon for three weeks.
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
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Student protesters battle riot police in Seoul
AFP
The Seoul correspondent who wound up in
Abu Ghraib
Michael Breen and Donald Kirk recall the antics of a true journalistic eccentric
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n the cast of journalistic characters that have postured on the Korean scene in the past 60 years since North and South Korea proclaimed themselves sovereign states in 1948, none has provoked such controversy as an English wanderer with a flare for sensation and a healthy suspicion of whatever he was told by plutocrats and bureaucrats.
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Although the size of the “foreign” press corps in Seoul has hovered at around 200 for the past 20 or 30 years, the vast majority are Koreans working for foreign news agencies. Generally fewer than a dozen Westerners, cameras and notebooks in hand, fill the bill as full-time “foreign correspondents”. For seven years Bruce Cheesman was one of them, a freelancer or stringer who made a living filing for newspapers and magazines, relying on a monthly retainer from London’s Daily Telegraph for a basic guaranteed income. Bruce was in his late 20s in 1987 when he showed up in Seoul. Not an image of classic good looks, Bruce was short, bespectacled, his thinning sandy hair combed back to disguise a prematurely balding scalp. He had, however, a powerful physique, pumping iron daily, never smoking and seldom drinking. A favourite pastime was to “kill the hill,” that is, to jog up Namsan, the imposing forested landmark in central Seoul with a sweeping view of the capital region from the top. Bruce said he’d been a boxer as a student in England but had left the ring after deciding he didn’t like beating people up. Mike Breen and Don Kirk both came to know Bruce as a friend and colleague at the height of his Korean days in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Mike was working with him as a correspondent for the Guardian, The Washington Times and others, and Don was researching a book on the Hyundai empire and its founder, Chung Ju-yung, and filing for foreign newspapers, notably USA Today, for which Don worked for eight years in Washington and overseas. There was an honesty and vulnerability about Bruce that attracted women to mother and take care of him. He was a study in that simple adage that the key to stability lies in being able to control your money and your love life. He could do neither. The women Bruce dated most seriously were air hostesses whose jobs took them away from him all the time. Someone once said that the reason a man places a woman on a pedestal is to afford himself a better view up her skirt. In
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Bruce’s case, it was so his own hands would not touch them. He had a Madonna-whore issue. The closest he allowed himself to get to one girl in nine months of dating was a peck on the cheek as she was leaving the taxi. His most enduring relationship was a platonic affair with an airline employee who was separated from her husband and raising a daughter. A devout Catholic, she did not plan to divorce. She and Bruce would sleep side by side without touching. Money was a constant problem for Bruce. He never earned more than a couple of thousand or so US dollars a month, and he would throw it away erratically. One habit, for example, was to fly first class (which was how he picked up air hostesses). Thus he was always broke. Bruce was undoubtedly the most colourful among several Westerners who turned up in Korea during the buildup for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. By the end of that year, the numbers were back to normal with Europeans or Americans at the main news agencies and a few other outlets like The Financial Times, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Far Eastern Economic Review, ABC News, and The Washington Times. Bruce hung on. For two years from 1989, he and Mike had a stringing partnership. The agreement was simple. The two already wrote for two newspapers each. They kept those separate, and the payment for everything else, regardless of who wrote what or whose name went on it, was split 50-50. Bruce fancied himself in the legendary Fleet Street tradition. He loved a juicy scandal, and every now and then he found one, regaling friends and editors with irreverent views on the news. For Don, these conversations provided comic relief during the frustrating process of researching his book on Hyundai and its founder. Educated in the British school of journalism that places entertainment ahead of accuracy, Bruce had a keen eye for a story and could write well and fast. He would pick up a lot of his material from the local English-language papers and make the necessary calls to turn them
Money was a constant problem for Bruce. He never earned more than a couple of thousand or so US dollars a month, and he would throw it away erratically.
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into his own. One morning Mike came into the office in the Korea Press Center to find him typing excitedly. Mike: “What’s up?” Bruce: “Oh, this is great,” he said, chuckling to himself. Mike: “What?” Bruce: “It says here that 25 percent of Korean riot police are nuts.” Mike: “Are you sure?” Bruce: “Yeah, they’re being treated. Not just stress. They’re actually mad.” This was an interesting claim. At the time, the Molotov cocktail-wielding student protester and the tear-gassing riot policeman in Darth Vader gear were everyone’s image of Korea. Mike picked up the paper and took a closer look. Reading it through, he found that Bruce had mixed up a statistic. Mike: “Bruce, it says here that 25 percent of the riot police who request counselling are referred to psychiatrists. But that’s a fraction of a fraction.” Bruce’s fingers were racing furiously over the keys. Mike: “It works out at less than one percent.” Bruce: “No, it doesn’t.” Mike: “It’s not true.” Bruce, suddenly angry: “I don’t give a shit. I’m writing it anyway.” Mike: “But you can’t.” Gradually, his accuracy meter took over, and he conceded, reworking the story accordingly. The common wisdom then as now was that Western papers could not handle more than two ongoing Asian stories. With democratisation and the Olympics, South Korea had had a good run. But with the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989, we fell off the map. Mike, as Pyongyang had partially lifted restrictions on European tourists, decided to focus on North-South Korean relations. He made his first trip North in April 1989. Bruce and Mike pooled resources and wrote for whomever they could. Their identity came from their respective newspapers, but their bread and butter was a host of obscure business monthlies with titles like Asian Printing and Asian Property.
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Bruce was very confident and energetic in securing commissions. One time, in a portent of trouble to come, he took a call from a well-known finance publication. “Two thousand words on BWs?” he asked the voice at the other end. “I see.” As he listened, he mouthed, “What the fuck are BWs?” Mike shrugged, “No idea.” “Fifteen hundred dollars?” Bruce asked into the phone. “OK, I can do that. What’s the deadline?” Discovering that BWs meant “bonds with warrants”, Mike and Bruce never did understand what they were exactly. Three days later, however, they turned in the story. That was all very well, but the authorities got fed up after Bruce wrote a feature for his main string, The Daily Telegraph, a conservative, quite serious up-market paper, about dog meat-eating timed for President Roh Tae-woo’s state visit to London in November 1989. No sooner had the story run in the Telegraph than the downmarket Fleet Street tabloids picked up the scent. Leading the pack, the garish Sun screamed across the front page, “Ma’am, Lock up the Corgis,” the beloved breed on which the Queen and other members of the royal family lavished much loving attention. That story and other assaults on taste were too much for the appetites of the doyens of the Presidential Blue House. They formally protested but, reluctant to make a media hero of Bruce by expelling him, were slow to act. Bruce remained in Seoul on tourist visas, reporting as he wished for several more years. In 1990, Mike went to North Korea with (absent FCC member) Ron McMillan, a photographer who had been on the trip the year before. Bruce tagged along, which turned out to be a mistake. North Korea is hard at the best of times. You soon get over the exhilaration of being a rare foreign visitor and start to get annoyed by the lies and restrictions. Ron was so witty that he made the experience a joy, but he had a low tolerance for nonsense and a quick temper. The chemistry with Bruce, though, was all wrong. His intolerance, extending to fussy editors who asked for rewrites, cost us commissions. Bruce once flared up over something and later apologised,
That story and other assaults on taste were too much for the appetites of the doyens of the Presidential Blue House. They formally protested but, reluctant to make a media hero of Bruce by expelling him, were slow to act.
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explaining that he had eaten chicken that day. Apparently, chicken set him off. He joked that in North Korea he planned to shake off the ubiquitous guides in search of the allegedly remote location where Pyongyang was reported to send physically handicapped citizens. He had already dubbed it “the dwarf village”. Once in the North, Bruce didn’t handle the frustration of dealing with the guides, and one morning exploded angrily at one of them in the hotel lobby and stormed off. He was, he said, going to find the dwarves whether the guides liked it or not. Actually, he went to his room, missing the obligatory “tourism” schedule. (We had visas as tourists, not journalists.) It was up to Mike to smooth over the problem with the requisite excuses and apologies. Ron had a similar explosion on the way back to the east coast port of Wonsan from Mount Kumgang, a few miles south near the line with South Korea, when he disobeyed an instruction not to photograph the coastline for some “national security” reason. The North Korean driver
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swerved all over the empty road to prevent Ron from getting a steady picture, and Ron, in the back seat, flipped out and started screaming. When tempers cooled, the driver complained that in 25 years of taking foreigners around he had never had such an unpleasant experience. The week seemed like a year. Mike was grateful that Bruce didn’t write up some story about his foiled quest to find the dwarf village but promised himself never to go north with Bruce again. That summer provided the excuse. In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and a US-led coalition began a build up of troops to pressure the Iraqis to leave. As the likelihood of war increased, Bruce started talking about going to Baghdad. When a reporter starts dreaming of getting on the front pages, he doesn’t want a double byline. “How’s about you have Iraq and I’ll have North Korea?” Mike suggested at a timely moment. Bruce agreed. He went to Iraq and, as the war drums started banging loudly, he and Mike developed a work
Iraqis gather outside the walls of Abu Ghraib prison
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The words “God help me” are scratched on a cell door in Abu Ghraib prison
rhythm whereby Bruce would call and dictate the story for Mike to write up and send to client papers in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. In the end, it was the Iraqis who did what the Koreans, in a different age, under different leadership, would have loved to have done. They put Bruce in jail – to be precise, Abu Ghraib, the prison that was to gain infamy years later as the place where US soldiers tortured Al Qaeda suspects. Don had gone to Baghdad toward the end of 1990 to cover the Gulf War from there for USA Today. Bruce joined him two or three days before the American bombing in January 1991, staying in an extra bed In Don’s room in the Al Rashid Hotel to which correspondents were by then confined. Together they went to the local race track, watching Anglicised Iraqis bet on the ponies, oblivious to the hell that was about to descend on the city. That evening Don and Bruce drank bottles of terrible Iraqi beer while watching Egyptian belly dancers at a sleazy nightclub. The next night, the Americans were to begin bombing the Iraqi capital. Hours before the air raids started, Don was on the phone from the abandoned US embassy, making overseas calls to editors on a line left open for journalists by the departing American diplomats. When Don’s patiently waiting driver
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got him back to the hotel as the sound of exploding bombs and long-range missiles echoed through the darkened capital, guards were at the gates of the sprawling hotel compound keeping all those inside from leaving. Don had expected to see Bruce where he had left him in the hotel lobby, but he was nowhere to be found. In a bomb shelter beneath the hotel, Don asked the Iraqi foreign information chief if he knew where Bruce was. The information honcho looked startled and worried. The next day, the Iraqis ordered all reporters, except for Peter Arnett of CNN and a Spaniard, out of the country, forcing them to hire taxis for the risky five-hour drive to the Jordanian border. Don shared a taxi with two other journalists, speeding by military installations then under air attack just a few hundred metres from the highway. Arriving in the Jordanian capital of Amman, Don spread the word to wire reporters and appeared on CNN showing Bruce’s passport and the suitcase that he had carried from Baghdad. Mike feared Bruce had been killed in the bombing but tried to keep his parents’ and clients’ hopes up with reassuring calls. Don was confident, however, that his conversation with the Iraqi information chief would get Bruce out of trouble. If Bruce had been wounded or killed, the Iraqis would have publicised the deed as proof of the evil committed by the Yanks. After Don publicised Bruce’s disappear-
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ance, the Iraqis said they knew where he was, and Bruce a week later was dropped off at the Al Rashid. Mischievously, Arnett refused to let him use his CNN satellite phone, then relented for a brief call to his parents. (Arnett wrote disparagingly of Bruce in his subsequent book. Told about it, Bruce, not one to hold grudges, said he didn’t care, that was history.) The Iraqis, meanwhile, saw Bruce off in a taxi for the long ride to the Jordanian border. Nearly 14 years later, in August 2004, when Don was back in Baghdad on assignment for CBS News, he found the old Iraqi foreign media chief working as analyst and interpreter in the CBS bureau. He told Don that Bruce had been held in Abu Ghraib, a detail that he hardly thought vital since that was where any prisoner in the capital region would have gone. Don got Bruce at his parents’ home in Perth, Australia on the phone from the CBS bureau and put the former information chief on the line. After Don had reported Bruce missing, the ex-chief said he had gone to work to find where he was and get him out. As explosive devices reverberated in the latest war for Iraq, the one-time Iraqi foreign media honcho chatted about old times in the Gulf War -- and confirmed, as Don listened, “You were in Abu Ghraib.” No doubt about it, for Bruce the ordeal had been a high. Don, in Istanbul by the time Bruce had got to Amman, had called him at his hotel. As the journos were being herded into the Al Rashid’s basement, said Bruce, he had slipped behind a curtain, climbed out a window, raced across the Al Rashid courtyard, climbed up the wall and then jumped off, a 20-foot drop to the street. He had found a taxi and asked the driver to take him to the American embassy several miles away where he knew Don was on the phone calling editors. When the taxi driver not unreasonably said he would drive there when the bombing stopped, Bruce decided to walk. Bombs were falling several hundred meters away. As he was going past what he later learned was the air force intelligence building, he was nabbed. Interrogators rejected Bruce’s story on the grounds that no hack journalist would
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be capable of making the drop from the walls surrounding the Al Rashid. They were convinced he was a downed pilot, presumably American, but his physique and facial appearance made them think at first he was Israeli. They held him naked and blindfolded and knocked him around to make him confess. He said he got to the point where being shoved around by guards was better than the loneliness of his cell because, one way or another, it was human contact. Bruce’s expulsion from Iraq was his great moment of international glory. Besides writing reams of copy on his heroics, Bruce was interviewed by Ted Koppel on ABC’s famous Nightline programme, the high point of his journalistic career. At the end of that year, Mike lost the budget for the Korea Press Center office, and Bruce and Mike parted ways. The next year, Bruce and two colleagues asked for advice about how to get to North Korea. They followed Mike’s suggestion of applying at the North Korean embassy in Beijing, but their applications were denied. Just after this, The Washington Times asked Mike to join the editor on a trip, swearing him to secrecy. The result was only the second Western interview with the dictator Kim Il Sung. Bruce was convinced Mike had sent him in the wrong direction for the sake of his own scoop. They didn’t speak for a year. The silence ended one afternoon in the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club when Mike walked in, saw him there and said, “Hi Bruce.” He got up to leave but turned around, said, “Oh, fuck it,” and came over and gave him a hug. Bruce, meanwhile, had picked up in Seoul where he had left off before his adventure in Iraq. Don was in the Astoria Hotel, working on his book, when Newsday, a major newspaper on Long Island, New York, called one morning in July 1994 to say the wires were reporting the death of Kim Il Sung. Don turned on his TV, saw the story all over the tube, and called Bruce, who at first thought he was joking. Together they spent a day or two filing news and features. Bruce was consumed by an animal-like intensity as he rushed about getting quotes. At one stage, Bruce
They held him naked and blindfolded and knocked him around to make him confess. He said he got to the point where being shoved around by guards was better than the loneliness of his cell because, one way or another, it was human contact.
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told Don not to bother him about some detail. Don had to remind Bruce he’d tipped him off on the whole thing. In 1991, on a Saturday afternoon, Bruce was covering a protest outside Yonsei University when a woman set herself on fire. That night, he wrote a first-person account for a newspaper describing how the circle of onlookers watched impassively as she burned to death despite his own heroic efforts to beat out the flames. Bruce’s claim that Korean students had coldly stood by created an uproar in the Korean media. A local newsmagazine mocked him in a cartoon. The paper’s foreign news editor began to doubt his reporter but resisted demands for a retraction. Some weeks later, Mike was with the correspondent for TV Asahi, one of the Japanese networks, as they viewed the footage. There was Bruce flailing at the flames with his shirt. Two Koreans were doing the same. In the desperation of the moment, Bruce had failed to notice them. Bruce was convinced that he had made a mistake - though, sure enough, most people were staring, doing nothing. In any case, as time passed, the matter quieted down. Bruce’s keen eye led to some fine contributions to the annals of foreign reporting on Korea. It was he, for example, who dubbed a serial killer operating in Gyeonggi Province, surrounding Seoul, the “paddy-field rapist”. In a story on the people who lived off the city’s Nanjido garbage dump (before it was greened and turned into the World Cup Park), he coined the concept, “Scavenger City”. Bruce was a shrewd journalistic operator. He later edited an English-language business monthly in Korea, writing half the stories himself, but he was impetuous and self-destructive, his own worst PR agent. Like other journalists who didn’t speak Korean, many of his ideas about what to cover came from The Korea Times and The Korea Herald. But these newspapers had to be read critically. It was not just a matter of government pressure. Local standards of reporting were less thorough than required for international newspapers that are serious enough to want their own reports from overseas. Bruce developed a reputation for shameless lifting of stories from the local papers,
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not so much because he did so but because he bragged about it. “I did three stories today thanks to The Times and Herald,” he would say, shocking the more fastidious members of the press corps. His relations with colleagues were often strained, to say the least. One year he was asked to edit the newsletter of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Bruce, who had fallen way behind on his dues, dove in, revealing, in the one issue he got to edit, that the club president was also in arrears. Bruce had come to look with equal contempt, often justified, on Korean factotums and visiting correspondents alike. He forgot all about an invitation that he had accepted from the director of the Korea Press Center to dine at a fancy restaurant with a couple of Korean press officials. Bruce wasn’t concerned – the man who had invited him was “a waste of time”, he assured Don. Maybe, but the man had suffered a grievous loss of face. He got his revenge when a friend at the Korean embassy in London contacted Bruce’s foreign editor at the Telegraph and told him about the missed lunch, among other affronts. The Telegraph, fed up with Bruce stories, cut off his retainer. Bruce by then had had pretty much enough of visiting correspondents taking over stories when they got to town. He had refused to answer calls from the Washington bureau chief of the Telegraph when he arrived covering the first President Bush on a visit to Seoul. As Bruce told Don, “I’m not going to waste my time licking his boots.” At around the same time, during the presidency of Kim Young-sam, inaugurated in February 1993 as the first civilian to hold the post since Park Chung-hee seized power in a military coup on May 16, 1961, Bruce got a commission from a publisher to write a critical biography. Bruce had already upset authorities with a story that Kim, a Protestant, had ordered removal of a Buddhist artefact from the Blue House grounds. Eventually Bruce formed a relationship with a woman who was estranged from her husband. Together they flew to Tokyo to interview a Japanese couple who were said to have raised a girl fathered by Kim. His girlfriend’s husband, who thought she
Bruce was a shrewd journalistic operator. He later edited an Englishlanguage business monthly in Korea, writing half the stories himself, but he was impetuous and self-destructive, his own worst PR agent.
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was on a business trip, received a mysterious call saying that his wife was shacking up with a foreigner in a hotel. When they returned to Seoul, Bruce found his home had been burgled. In the end, the publisher rejected the manuscript, which had been envisioned as a more or less positive account of the return of civilian leadership. By now filing for Australia’s Financial Review, Bruce believed he should have a regular residential visa. At the FinReview he finally had an editor who appreciated his talent, who could handle his idiosyncrasies and who knew that underneath the chaotic exterior beat a heart of gold. Thus bolstered, Bruce decided to apply for a journalist visa to be the newspaper’s Seoul correspondent, a move that would have ended his seven-year stint of operating illegally, tax-free, on a tourist visa. Bruce waited in vain. The consulate in Australia where he applied delayed approval for several months, and Bruce declared that he was being expelled from Korea. The title of Kim Young-sam’s official biography was Crusader for Democracy, said the Economist report on Bruce’s travail. “But when a British journalist began writing a less than rosy account of Mr. Kim’s life, the limits of the president’s tolerance were quickly reached. After reporting from Seoul for nine years, Bruce Cheesman of the Australian Financial Review was abruptly refused a visa extension ... ” Truth to tell, Korean authorities had never expelled him and had never stopped him from filing on a tourist visa. In March 1996, however, the justice ministry confirmed that Bruce would not be getting a residential visa. The reason for denying the visa was assumed to be the book that he hoped would expose Kim Young-sam’s family scandals and other peccadilloes. Technically, Bruce could have returned on a tourist visa, but his editor stood by his expulsion claim and sent him to Taiwan. There he took to frequenting discos popular with local Filipina maids. The last time Mike or Don saw him, he had three on the go. Unaware of the others, each thought they were his girlfriend and would come to his home on their day off to clean, do the laundry and provide other services. Park Jin, an Oxford-educated assis-
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tant who wrote speeches for “YS”, as Kim Young-sam was known, seemed less impressed when Don dropped by his office in the Blue House office complex after Bruce’s visa was rejected. He preferred to focus on Korea’s “glorious revolution” and “reform policy” and “dynamic democracy” in the English accent that he had picked up at Oxford and in three years teaching political science at Newcastle University. He envisioned Korea, he told Don, “as a dynamic democracy which would transform itself”. Such noble words, Park made clear, did not translate into tolerance for Bruce’s reporting. Later to become an outspoken conservative member of the national assembly, Park told Don there had been no reason to grant Bruce residential status after all that he had written. It wasn’t that anyone was fearful of whatever Bruce was writing, said Park, but the Blue House had never managed to digest that dog-eating story concerning Roh Tae-woo’s call on the Queen. Bruce moved on to Bangkok where he boasted of living on the cheap in a luxury apartment with a swimming pool, working a few hours a day for the Financial Review. Korea had left a bad taste in his mouth, and he never visited again. The foreign press was reminded of Bruce when colleagues from Taipei and Bangkok came in. Word filtered in that a Hong Kong paper had refused his stories after learning he was lifting from Bangkok’s English-language press. And, yes, Bruce was working on an expose of the Thai king, a sacrosanct figure. It was reassuring to know Bruce was in good form. Finally, Bruce gravitated to Perth, Australia, to care for his aged parents. For a time he continued to write for the Financial Review but then dropped it. When Don tried to call him in 2006 for a piece for the 50th anniversary book of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club, he wound up talking to his mother. Bruce, she said, had taken up golf – and had won a local tournament. Fit and athletic as ever, he was on the links whenever Don called but asked his mother to pass on the message: He had “retired” and wouldn’t be contributing.
Bruce moved on to Bangkok where he boasted of living on the cheap in a luxury apartment with a swimming pool, working a few hours a day for the Financial Review. Korea had left a bad taste in his mouth, and he never visited again.
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plitting up, breaking up, it may not be that hard to do after all. Across East Asia and the Pacific the media game is changing. The takeover of Reuters by Thomson is obviously having an enormous impact and was particularly felt down under where the Australian Associated Press (AAP) with Clive Marshall at the helm has ended its long-standing and exclusive arrangements with Reuters after the British-based agency upped its prices. It was an historical decision, given that AAP led the syndicate made up of Commonwealth wire services that bailed Reuters out of bankruptcy at the end of World War II. The New Zealand Press Association, South African Press Association and Canadian Press were also in on the initial deal that paved the way for Reuters’ enormous success, stock market float and the eventual busting of the bubble as newcomers like Bloomberg made their presence felt. The new Reuters, it would appear, wished to sell exclusively to newspaper groups in Australia as opposed to dealing through AAP. A terse statement was released. It said: “From today AAP wire copy provided to newspaper groups Fairfax Media and News Limited will not include any Reuters stories. After Reuters increased its price, AAP dropped the contract and the newspapers have chosen not to buy the service directly.” As one insider put it: “Clive Marshall is, I’m told, furious.”
Vietnam, and now Cambodia, have put the Australian on the football field where goals can be kicked. “I don’t like all the rules, I abide by them,” he recently said about operating under a junta in Burma. ***
STILETTO BY MAX KOLBE editor and has gone on a hiring binge, much to the displeasure of the folks who run the Cambodia Daily. Dunkley, who has faced critics for operating newspapers in Burma and Vietnam, is well aware of the PPP’s reputation and has a battle plan, along with some deep pockets. Speculation includes a possible Khmer edition, and development of radio and television interests. But for the critics Dunkley has one piece of advice, “you can’t kick goals by screaming from the sidelines.” At least, he says, his interests past and present in Burma,
At least he’s there. No points for the Australian film crew who so badly wanted a journalist visa stamp for Burma on their passports they actually applied for one – as hacks were tripping over each other while trying to get in after the cyclone ripped through the heart of the country. The lame Aussies were actually miffed when told they would have been granted a visa if they listed anything other than journalist on their application forms. They never made it in. The decision to take PPP daily was also timed to coincide with national elections. As a once in every five year event, Cambodian polls have a habit of attracting die-hards and are as popular as five-year Vietnam War reunions among the more seasoned hands. Former DPA hand Pat Falby returned from New York and the Canadian has taken up Meixner’s old job at AFP. Brian Calvert and Chris Decherd were back from the PHOTOGRAPH: LUKE HUNT
*** Old allegiances rarely count these days although one exception remains The Phnom Penh Post, often described as “the best little newspaper on the planet”, has dropped its fortnightly format and gone daily. This was made possible after founder and publisher Michael Hayes sold the paper to a group of Australian businessmen headed by Ross Dunkley. Hayes will remain editor-in-chief while Seth Meixner has left his position as Cambodia bureau chief for Agence France-Presse (AFP), taken up the reins as managing
Peter Starr entertains Kiwi Ellie Ainge Roy at his Cambodian estate
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US with Voice of America, and freelancer Liam Cochrane rolled in from his digs in Nepal, as did the documentary makers Bradley Cox from Loud Mouth Films, and James Gerrand and Paul Roy of Iguana Films, all of whom enjoyed a nosh-up of fresh catfish at Peter Starr’s village estate on the banks of the Mekong River. Roy’s daughter Ellie hung out with dad and wrote for newspapers in New Zealand while the roll call, or party line-up, also included Jim Pringle, Seth Mydans, Patrick Barta of the Wall Street Journal and Luke Hunt who has gone freelance after 19 years on wires, and was last spotted at a beach on Borneo. *** Across the Pacific and American journalists Guy Taylor of World Politics
Review and Dan Boylan, an occasional contributor to the South China Morning Post over the years, have turned their talents to film-making and recently made their debut at Cannes where two shorts were, as one critic put it, “warmly received”. One character includes Nib Nedal, a terrorist struggling to make a name for himself, which apparently raised a belly-full of laughs. It helps if you spell his name backwards. There’s talk of a screening in Hong Kong, if an appropriate venue can be arranged.
compared to the situation before. We hope that they will continue,” he told reporters on the final day of the Games. Chinese rules for foreign journalists are supposed to allow them freedom to conduct interviews with Chinese people as opposed to first seeking government permission while also being able to move freely outside of the capital. One senior correspondent was heard to respond: “woopy doo!”
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A final stop in Indonesia where all eyes are planted on the new publication Jakarta Globe which is initially being put together by a team headed by David Plott, but his deputy chief editor Joe Cochrane deserves an accolade or two after announcing his pending marriage to Ana.
In China, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge seems to think Beijing has enabled greater press freedoms for foreign media due to the Olympic Games. “The regulations might not be perfect but they are a sea-change
***
The Ramon Magsaysay 2008 Awards
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even individuals and one organization from India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Sri Lanka were awarded this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award. The prize winners are: Grace Padaca, from the Philippines, for Government Service, for “her empowering voters in the Philippines’ Isabela province to reclaim their democratic right to elect leaders of their own choosing, and to contribute as full partners in their own development”. Center for Agriculture & Rural Development Mutually Reinforcing Institutions of the Philippines, for Public Service. It was honoured for “successful adaptation of microfinance in the Philippines, providing self-sustaining and comprehensive services for half a million poor women and their families”. Therdchai Jivacate, from Thailand, for Public Service, for “his dedicated
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ESTABLISHED IN 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award celebrates the memory and leadership example of the third Philippine President, and is given every year to individuals or organisations in Asia who manifest the same sense of selfless service that ruled the life of the late Filipino leader. The eight 2008 Magsaysay awardees join 263 other laureates to date. This year’s Magsaysay Award winners each received a certificate, a medallion bearing the likeness of the late President and a cash prize. efforts in Thailand to provide inexpensive, practical, and comfortable artificial limbs even to the poorest amputees”. Prakash Amte and Mandakini Amte, from India, for Community Leadership, for “enhancing the capacity of the Madia Gonds to adapt positively in today’s India, through healing and teaching and other compassionate interventions”. Ahmad Syafii Maarif, from Indonesia, for Peace and International Understanding. He was honoured for “guiding Muslims to embrace tolerance and pluralism as the basis for
justice and harmony in Indonesia and in the world at large”. Akio Ishii, from Japan, for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts. He was recognised for “his principled career as a publisher, placing discrimination, human rights, and other difficult subjects squarely in Japan’s public discourse”. Ananda Galapatti, from Sri Lanka, for Emergent Leadership, for “his spirited personal commitment to bring appropriate and effective psychosocial services to victims of war trauma and natural disasters in Sri Lanka”.
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Oliphant’s Dominatrix cartoon is for sale at US$400.
No Rest for the Satirist Bangkok-based correspondent Richard S. Ehrlich caught up with political cartoonist Pat Oliphant in San Francisco and discovered there’s much to keep a satirist busy.
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at Oliphant, who wields ink to warn and ridicule, hopes US presidential candidate John McCain “would disappear” and fears vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is “obviously not ready to be the leader of the free world”. “I would rather McCain would disappear,” Oliphant said while discussing the upcoming election during an interview. “What worries me is Mrs Palin, for the obvious reasons. She is obviously not ready to be the leader of the free world. I always collapse in laughter, and then tears, to think of that. “It could happen. Nobody ever lost money betting on the intelligence of the American public, and I’m learning that more and more after being here about 44 years,” said Oliphant.
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The famous political cartoonist was born on July 24, 1935, in Adelaide, Australia, but is now a US citizen based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “Nobody has been in control except on the evil side, for eight years …” in President George W Bush’s White House, he said. Republican Party candidate McCain, “is part of the same group”. “I’m just developing a new symbol for the GOP. It’s not an elephant any more. It’s a pig with lipstick.” White-haired Oliphant is not optimistic, though he is intrigued by Barack Obama. “I’ve been drawing him as sort of a spindly silhouette, and letting him develop. I don’t know what he’s about either. “But these criminals who have
RICHARD S EHRLICH
Pat Oliphant signs a copy of his new book
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been in the White House for eight years are already thinking, ‘Maybe we can get away with this again. We can beat this rap’ – and give us 12 years, for God’s sake. “This will be destructive to the country. Very, very bad.” Oliphant was signing copies of his new book during the interview at San Francisco’s Meridian Gallery, where scathing art works critical of the Bush administration, the U.S. war in Iraq and other American policies, were on display. “My book is (titled) LEADERSHIP: Oliphant Cartoons & Sculpture from the Bush Years, which is intended in full irony – ‘leadership’ being the operative word,” he said, laughing. “We haven’t had any leadership for a long time. But as the cover shows you, the big old horse represents the country. Cheney is leading him, carrying an inevitable shotgun. “And our fool of a president is sitting up on the back of the horse. With any luck we will get rid of all their influence soon, but one wonders,” he said. “The crime is that they led this country into a war (in Iraq) that was totally phoney.”
Despite the gloom, America’s political plight makes for good satire, he said. “That’s always been the great thing about this country, anything can happen. It’s very good for cartoonists. It’s not very good for the country, but very good for cartoonists.” Oliphant now focuses much of his attention on America’s future, and its international image, which he said needs correcting. “We will have no chance, if we elect (McCain), at repairing all that damage that was done overseas, to our reputation, by the Bush crowd. Not only the psychological damage, but the actual damage, reputation-wise. We are no longer the leader. We no longer have the authority we used to have. “It’s very important that that be repaired,” he said. “It’s a very hairy time for this country right now. It’s McCarthy times almost.” In the early 1950s, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, and others, investigated Americans suspected to be communists, resulting in blacklists, paranoia, suicides, and a 1954 Senate censure against the disgraced McCarthy. Three full-size reproductions of
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Oliphant’s original cartoons were on display at the launch and were for sale at US$400 each in the gallery’s “Art of Democracy: War and Empire” exhibit. These included his cartoon titled Dominatrix showing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dressed in black, with black gloves and boots, brandishing a bullwhip. “The United States doesn’t do torture!” Rice yells in Oliphant’s cartoon. “Do I make myself clear?” Another exhibited Oliphant cartoon, titled Iraq Pieta, portrayed Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney approaching a dying US soldier. Bush says in the cartoon to the collapsed soldier, “Would it make you feel better to know we had inaccurate intelligence?” Richard S. Ehrlich is the Bangkok-based special correspondent for The Washington Times and international media, and has reported news from Asia since 1978. He is co-author of the non-fiction book of investigative journalism, Hello My Big Big Honey! Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews. His website is http://www.geocities.com/ asia_correspondent
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Region PHOTOS: CECILIE GAMST BERG
My Stab at Sabotaging the Olympics A sojourn through China’s wild, weird west. By Cecilie Gamst Berg.
“Y
ou have broken the law of China.” For any citizen of The People’s Republic, these words can have an ominous ring to them. But for me, a Hong Kong “compatriot* with a Norwegian passport to fall back on, they are just another joke in a series of jokes uttered by this stony-faced policeman on the night train from Urumqi. Instead of shaking with fear, I break out in incredulous, derisive laughter. Because frankly, I’ve done worse things, both morally and legally, than the transgression I’m now being accused of: possession of hairspray. The bloody Olympics. On my train journey from Guangzhou to Urumqi the hairspray and I must have gone through about 25 X-ray checkpoints unscathed, despite the heightened security everywhere. Yes, yes, so one shouldn’t argue with, and certainly not laugh at, the long arm of the law, in China or any other country. But now I feel compelled to point out that we’re going the opposite direction of Beijing, and
does he really think I’m going to turn north-east again, hide out under a bush for a couple of weeks and spray the Olympics down? Calling for backup, the policeman tells me that I should have known that possessing hairspray is a serious offence and that he must take it, and possibly me, away. “It’s for your own safety.” “For your own safety” has become this century’s best control mechanism. “Don’t fly kites on the beach! It’s for your own safety.” “For your own safety, don’t walk on the grass!” “For your own safety you can’t have a three year visa to China before 2030!” For your own safety. It’s right up there with “Arbeit macht frei.” At the next station two policemen come into the cabin, one of whom is laughing his head off and, it appears, ribbing the hairspray-detecting cop. But now it has become “an incident” and amid much giggling from Nice Cop (who’s also young and handsome) I docilely knuckle down to another two hours of filling in about 16 forms
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and being fingerprinted. Just as I’m settling down to the beer I was so rudely taken away from and which is now flat, Bad Cop calls me into the cabin again, pointing to my Hong Kong Identity Card. “Which minority do you belong to?” “Eh?” “Yes, in China we have 54 ethnic groups. Han, Mongol, Hui, Uyghur...” “Well, in Hong Kong we only have one group. People. So just put me down as Han.” Now Nice Cop is truly pissing himself, especially as I offer him my hairspray as a remedy against Hat Hair. And really, they all have awfully flat hair. As do I for several days of the journey until I find some inferior hair mist in a hairdressing salon in Qiemo, just on the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert. The edict classifying hairspray as a deadly weapon must have reached even this, the furthestflung region of China, formerly a barbarian wilderness to which people used to be exiled, because it’s all but impossible to find anywhere.
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My trusty travel companion Richard and I have one goal on this two week epic journey from Guangzhou to Xinjiang and back, namely to travel through this infamous stretch of sand the size of France. It used to be that Taklamakan meant “If you go in you can never come out,” but now even that’s been debunked along with The Great Wall being the only man-made structure visible from the moon. We went in and, after some very hot boredom, came out, dusty and with sand between our teeth. No, it should be: “When you go in and come out, you can’t go any further.” For there really is no transport south of the desert, like the locals had been telling us with escalating urgency. Right, we have no choice but to hitchhike, another goal of ours. Like a mad dog and her Englishman we rock up at the highway at the height of the midday sun, sticking our various limbs out. But there isn’t a single car. Are they having lunch? After 25 minutes we are starting to hallucinate when two Uyghurs in a beat-up pick-up truck take pity on us. We’re whisked away to a hovel where a beer drinking party is in full swing. Yes make no mistake: Uyghurs are Muslim but they drink like the parched desert itself. They also dance with members of the opposite sex and generally behave like they can well afford to wait for the heavenly pleasures promised their more jihadoriented brethren, preferring to take them here on earth instead. But when we see the way Muslims drink, we realise they might as well be Koran-thumping fundamentalists. We are 11 people with at least 20 bottles of beer, but only two glasses between us. And this is the drinking etiquette of the indigenous people of Xinjiang, which would have been East Turkestan if the Chinese hadn’t suddenly remembered that the place is, has always been and will always ... (etc).
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The leader pours the two glasses full of beer, points out which two lucky bastards get to drink, and they then sluice it all down amid much shouting of kosheh! (drink!) Richard, I and our driver seem to get the lion’s share of the warm liquid, and it’s maybe just as well, because one of our hosts falls asleep at once and the others sit there with heads lolling. With several litres of beer sloshing inside us we set off down the ruler-straight road at 120 km an hour, screaming through the desert in a car held together with string and sticky tape and with a windshield which can’t have been cleaned since they bought the car around 1992. But hey, we don’t really need to see anything – the only vehicles on that road are the ones we’ve already been in. We cover almost 400 km that day in eight hours including a long beer break, which was good going seeing the next lift we get is with a hay truck going at exactly 50 km an hour. Even here, three days’ drive from Beijing, the blasted Olympics holds sway. At a police roadblock we are flagged down
and with many polite explanations, searched. That is to say, the smiling policeman runs his hand through the pocket on the inside of the driver’s door – there is no searching of the several tons of hay which could have held all sorts of explosives, nor our bags. Perhaps the train cops have sent out a communiqué saying we are now clean. Then again, if that hay truck had indeed been full of contraband going to sabotage the Sacred Olympics, it would have reached Beijing on August 8, 2009. In the next town there is actually a bus, and we get tickets to Delinghe in Qinghai province, a mere 14 hours haul. But as we board the bus, the driver shouts that Delinghe is off-limits to foreigners. Dumbfounded I forget to point out that I’m a Hong Kong “compatriot”* and we docilely exchange our tickets for ones to Xining, making the bus trip 21 hours instead of 14. At Delinghe we get a one-hour break and I flag down a police van asking how it could possibly be that we can’t be here, seeing we actually are here. The cops have never heard of this edict and neither has anyone else. Could it be because of the Olympics? Back in Lanzhou I google Delinghe and it turns out the place is allegedly a nuclear missile site. At last something is really done for us to “protect our own safety”. Even I know this nuclear stuff is bad for you; yes, possibly worse than The Sacred Olympics. *Hong Kong compatriot: If you hold a Hong Kong Identity Card, you are allowed to stay in hostels and other dwellings where they tell you ‘foreign friends are not allowed’. Just wave your card and shout Wo shi Xiang Gang tongbao! (I’m a Hong Kong Compatriot!) and you’ll be all right. Cecilie Gamst Berg can be contacted via her blog: www.chinadroll.com
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About the FCC
Compradors Club
second rank) by the Qing government and awarded the prestigious peacock plume. Mok Sze-yeungâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second son, Mok Cho-chuen (1857-1917), entered the family business when he was just 14. He became chief comprador of Butterfield & Swire, Hong Kong in 1890, a post he held until 1917. This was a challenging period for the British company. It rapidly expanded its domestic China shipping fleet, and started its dockyard, insurance and sugar refinery businesses. Mok Cho-chuen not only proved himself a skillful comprador, he also ran businesses of his own at the same time he First Opium War of 1839- in philanthropic work, and served as including Tai Cheung Chan, Tung Li 1842 ended the trading monop- the Chairman of the Tung Wah HosChan and Tung Li Soy Factory in olies held by the Hong mer- pital in 1872 and 1878. In both Canton Guangzhou. He was an eminent and chants of Canton (Guangzhou). Into and Hong Kong he was recognized as benevolent gentleman who served the vacuum stepped the compradors, a successful businessman and a comas Director of the Tung Wah Hospital or middlemen, who smoothed trade munity leader. Mok Sze-yeung was in 1901 and Director of the Po Leung between the local and Western mer- appointed Grand Master for Assisting Kuk in 1905. Mok Cho-chuen was also chants operating on the China coast toward Good Governance (Mandarin awarded the same Qing official title in the 19th century. as his father. These Cantonese compraHis oldest son, Mok Kondors formed a business elite sang (1882-1958), succeeded in the early days of colonial him as chief comprador of Hong Kong. Indeed, many of Butterfield & Swire, Hong their descendants still do. Kong, serving from 1917 to Among them were the Mok 1931. Upon retirement as family from Xiangshan (modcomprador, he was actively ern-day Zhuhai), who served involved in public services as the Butterfield & Swire and served as Director of The compradors for three sucSun Company, The Kowloon cessive generations, tallying Motor Bus Company and also almost six decades of relathe Kai Tak Land Investment tions. Company. Mok Kon-sang was The relationship was forged appointed Grand Master for by Mok Sze-yeung (1820-1879). Forthright Service by the Qing He had served an apprenticegovernment (Mandarin fifth ship in the China trade with rank) before the 1911 Revoluthe Tong Shun Hong, one of tion. the Thirteen Hongs (tradHe was a Director of the ing houses) in Canton. From Tung Wah Hospital in 1917 1850, he was comprador of and together with Au Tack Augustine Heard & Company (Chak Mun) founded Munsang in Canton and Hong Kong. He College in Kowloon in 1920. became the chief comprador Mok Kon-sang was appointed of Butterfield & Swire, (moda Justice of Peace in 1921. ern-day Swire), Hong Kong in He also endowed the Swire 1873, and established his own School of Mechanical Engifirm, Wo Tai Hong, to run his neering at the University of own business in south-north Hong Kong and was appointtrade. He showed great care ed a life member of the Court for the community, especially Mok Sze-yeung (1820-1879) - Mok Family Collection of the University in 1923. He
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Kellyon Chan recounts the history of the Mok family who built the grand Conduit Road mansion that the FCC called home for almost a decade.
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THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
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About the FCC
The Fairview, by Alfred Lane, dated 1926 - Mok Family Collection was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) posthumously in 1959. In 1911 Mok Kon-sang built The Fairview, a palatial residence with gardens at 41 Conduit Road, Mid Levels. Besides the grand architecture with giant stone pillars, Italian marble fireplaces, cupolas on the roof, verandas and a terrace with breathtaking views overlooking Victoria Harbour, it was the first private dwelling in the colony to be installed with an elevator that lifted people from the street-level garage up to the courtyard. The FCC, which took out a 10-year lease on the building in 1951, was offered the opportunity to buy the property for a mere HK$125,000. Yet with the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, the uncertain political situation of the 1950s deterred the Club from accepting the offer. Nonetheless, members of the FCC and many other people enjoyed amiable and convivial times on the premises with a wonderful ambience, particularly on Saturday nights and special evenings when alfresco gala
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Mok Cho-chuen (1857-1917) and Mok Konsang (1882-1958) - Mok Family Collection
dinners took place on the lawn. For visiting journalists the big rooms upstairs provided a haven of tranquility. The Fairview was a popular site for filming. Love is a ManySplendoured Thing, directed by Henry King and set in 1949-50 Hong Kong, tells the story of an American reporter, played by William Holden starring with Jennifer Jones. In 1960, however, the owners decided to sell. In 1961, the FCC moved to Li Po Chun Chambers midway between Central and Western districts. The Fairview was re-sold in 1966 for a reputed HK$13 million and was demolished to make space for
redevelopment in 1970. Realty Gardens now occupies the site. The Moks have fostered within the family a love of Chinese art and culture, born out of their own rigorous scholarship and deep understanding of Chinese aesthetics. These twin elements have evolved over time into a profound love of Chinese art and a grand tradition of collecting. Their rich collections are widely acknowledged in Hong Kong and China. Installed in two galleries, an exhibition entitled Timeless Legacy: The Mok Family Collections is currently on display at the Art Museum at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It presents art and antique objects in the possession of three generations — the late Mok Konsang, MBE, JP, his son Dr Mok Hingyiu and the Cheng Xun-tang and the Edrina collections of the grandsons. There are bronzes, ceramics, jades, paintings, calligraphy, objects for the scholar’s studio, furniture as well as Ming and Qing imperial costumes. The exhibition continues until late November.
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
About the FCC
PHOTOS: HUGH VAN ES
Ab Fab Phil Wheelan, who booked Warren Wills’ acclaimed recent FCC performance, discourses about the man, his music and the Hong Kong scene.
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’m sitting in a bar in Wanchai with pianist and composer Warren Wills. We are talking about our favourite Broadway show lyrics, each have a glass of wine in hand, and we are using the word “fabulous” way too much. “He kept a shop in London town. Of fancy clients and good renown, and what if none of their souls were saved, they went to their maker impeccably shaved,” recites Warren. “That’s got to be it, Sweeney Todd,” he says. The best I can come up with at this point is: “I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I’ve information vegetable, animal and … damn I forgot”. The reality check is just seconds away. I mention that I had just read an article about the star of Mel Brooks’ Broadway hit The Producers, Nathan Lane. Nathan was asked if he is gay. His reply was: “I’m 40, single and I like show tunes. You do the math.” Very amusing for a few seconds until we both realised: “I’m 40, single etc”. Silence! Quick uncrossing of the legs, no more “fabulous”, turf the wine and “two pints of Guin-
Wills: another in a long line of internationally acclaimed musicians who will find any excuse to perform in Hong Kong
ness please love”, to the barmaid. There isn’t much point to that little story other than I just found it funny. It does, however illustrate that Wills is another in a long line of internationally acclaimed musicians who will find any excuse to perform in Hong Kong, often working for what we call “mates rates” and beer. It’s hard to describe Warren’s niche in the music business with one word. Originally from Melbourne
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
he’s an award-winning composer and arranger of several musicals including The Penelopead for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Ella and Marilyn, which documents the unlikely but true relationship between these two iconic women, and he is in the process of working with the Melbourne Theatre Company and the legendary “unapologetic, unashamed madame” (as he describes his now friend) Xaviera
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About the FCC
Warren Wills performs his Giants of the Piano musical journey at the FCC Hollander on a musical version of her life story, The Happy Hooker. On top of all of this he’s a pianist who’s been described as “dazzling and electrifying” (Guardian), possessing “haunting power” (Financial Times) and was praised for “sending the audiences away in a state of perplexing yet sublime euphoria” (Sunday Times). Praise indeed, but certainly worthy. On September 10, Wills played to a packed FCC dining room in a programme called Giants of the Piano. A musical journey taking the audience, well, all over the place. With warmth, wit and a technique to die for, Wills gave members and friends a great evening of what is called in serious music-speak “the real deal”. And, with one of the world’s virtuoso snappers photographing the event, how could the maestro go wrong? Wills has more Hong Kong engagements in his diary for the next few months and he hopes to bring with him the likes of singer/ actress Caroline O’Connor who sang
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starring roles in the movies Moulin Rouge and De-Lovely and Peter Straker whose West End and Broadway credits are too numerous to mention. One is notable, though: his portrayal of Hud in the original West End production of Hair in 1968. These and other musicians have developed a strong liking, maybe even a love, for performing in Hong Kong, but something doesn’t quite add up here. The press is full of ads for concerts by famous orchestras, jazz gigs by the likes of Al Jarreau, George Benson, McCoy Tyner etc, all the popular theatre shows currently doing the rounds and some of the world’s most famous singers and classical soloists. More importantly, the amount of local talent in all areas of the arts is very healthy and growing daily. Despite this we still get to listen to the average Hong Kong naysayer wobbling on about how “this place is a cultural desert”. I’m left scratching my head. Actu-
ally, just like that other empty Hong Kong slogan, “Asia’s World City”, it just doesn’t make sense. Literally speaking how can something that is desolate, empty or forsaken be in the slightest bit cultural? Unless, I suppose, they play the odd Mozart CD in the office of the people who invented … “Asia’s World City”. Maybe all we need to do is just get over it and realise that despite Hong Kong’s diminutive stature, times change and this town has a whole lot more going for it than just shopping and eating: an inexplicable magnetism. Let’s face it, the best things in life are often the hardest to fathom. Wills has been to Hong Kong twice already this year and on this, his third trip, he puts the answer to this little bit of curious magic down to “… clearly much more of a young, get-up-andgo, innovative spirit here; an entrepreneurial fetish if you like”. And of course, “the greatest happy hours in the world”!
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
Watering Hole
Café Tortoni: The ceiling itself is part glass, an interesting decorative feature that lights up the interior
Café Tortoni, Buenos Aires
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here can be no denying this is a place of considerable charm and character. Walking in through its heavy wooden doors with their scroll-like brass handles and well-curtained glass panes is an occasion, especially when you’ve had to queue up outside for entry. It has that sort of status, writes absent member Michael Mackie. Once inside there is something reassuring about the rows of polished square tables and the sturdy wood and leather chairs under high ceilings supported by solid columns. The general atmosphere is one of reliable comfort with a bit of old and well cared-for glamour thrown in. Fitting for an establishment founded in 1858. The ceiling itself is part glass, an interesting decorative feature that lights up the interior. It also gives some rather frisky individuals an opportunity to amuse themselves and their friends by taking pictures while lying prone on the floor. Tourists of course!
The main bar is wood with a brass rail although, unlike the FCC, it is without barstools. The banter, the discourse and the chat occur at tables served by a team of swift, whiteaproned waiters. The waiting staff, while looking suitably Iberian and haughty, were pretty decent, waving away our attempts in Spanish in good-humoured English. Like the city itself, Café Tortoni has style – yet it all seems just a little out of place. This Art Deco gem, lovely as it is, is more reminiscent of Vienna or another grand European city far from South America. Just like BA. To me, the Argentine capital gives the impression of a stylish European-type city built far away by those hankering for the more settled world they left behind. A city of regrets. Despite the fiery eroticism of the tango, the city’s hallmark, the energy expended does not quite fill all the gaps: there is a sense of yearning, loss, a wish for something more. Whatever my perceptions, it has certainly attracted an eclectic bunch
THE CORRESPONDENT september-november 2008
of patrons over the years. Writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), who specialised in surrealist short stories, was a regular at Café Tortoni. So was the Spanish poet and dramatist (and everyman) Federico García Lorca (1898-1936). Today, American film director Francis Ford Coppola, who is currently in BA filming his new movie about Italian immigrants, is a regular, as is actor Robert Duvall who lives nearby. In addition to tourists (frisky or otherwise) BA’s old money is well represented, particularly in the form of conservative, expensively dressed but low-key matrons who gather to sip the wonderfully sharp coffee served here. It has to be said though that the menu itself is best branded as affordable and rather plain.
Café Tortoni is on the main thoroughfare twixt the Congress and the Pink Palace, slap bang in the middle of Buenos Aires, at 825 Avenida de Mayo. Telephone: 54-11- 43424328.
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About the FCC
The Fairview, by Alfred Lane, dated 1926 - Mok Family Collection
Mok Cho-chuen (1857-1917) and Mok Konsang (1882-1958) - Mok Family Collection
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THE CORRESPONDENT september-november 2008
Music
PHOTO: DAN GROSHONG
Violin Virtuoso BY ROBIN LYNAM
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ntroducing John Creighton Murray to a sold out FCC Main Dining Room, Stuart Wolfendale recalled hearing him for the first time in Berkeley, California around seven years ago, having been enlisted for the evening as a “roadie” by John’s friend Bonnie Engel. “I was moved in a rare way. I was lifted up – which is not easy. I had never heard a violin make those sounds before. I had never seen a musician fuse with his instrument like that,” he recalled. A couple of years after that performance John paid his first visit to Hong Kong where he played at the FCC, after which he was made an honorary member. The audience on that occasion was similarly affected. In the course of that visit he also
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performed at several other venues and conducted master classes. This time – he is now 87 – he decided to confine himself to one performance at the Club. Fortuitously his regular accompanist in his home city of San Francisco, Maria Lee, had earlier moved to Hong Kong and their recital, during which she also played solo, marked her Hong
“I was moved in a rare way. I was lifted up – which is not easy. I had never heard a violin make those sounds before. I had never seen a musician fuse with his instrument like that.”
Kong public debut as well as John’s eagerly awaited return. John, as Stuart also pointed out, studied under men who had studied under Tchaikovsky and Brahms and played with Grieg, and the performance offered a rare opportunity to hear a man who embodies a direct link to that “golden age” of classical music. The passion of John’s playing remains entirely undiminished by age, and both musicians played with grace, virtuosity and absolute commitment to the music in a programme including pieces by Bach, Mozart Mendelssohn, Elgar and Wieniawski. A rapt audience applauded them to the rafters before joining a man rightly described on the programme as “one of the world’s greatest violinists” for drinks in the bar, to which he was a regular and welcome visitor throughout his visit.
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
Books
The US – A Wake-up Call Michael Mackie reviews Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World
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n terms of an opening sentence this book is up there with the best of them. “This is not about the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else,” it begins in a succinct and attention-grabbing tome of 260 pages of politics, history, economics and projections. Zakaria’s basic thesis is not so much that America is going to come a cropper and sooner rather than later – a possibility he never really contends with – but widespread economic growth will mean other countries have more of the pie. In the light of this the USA’s central role will shrink substantially over time. Wise enough not to become too involved in quantifying this, all the author allows himself is the comment: “It is easier to define what it is not than what it is, easier to describe the era it is moving away from than the era it is moving toward.” Nicely put, as is most of this book, but not the exact compass some would like. Such wisdom though is limited. At the end, the weakest part of the book in my opinion, he outlines a six -point plan for the US to deal with its reduced geopolitical circumstances. The basic idea is that the US should become more of an honest broker and reconnect with the rest of the world as a sort of genial older-partner-stroke mentor rather than the current and much harsher global policeman role it currently adopts. This is, I suspect, very much an Obama book – not too heavy on details and analysis but looking forward and doing so with some realism. As was said, the weakest part of
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the book. Not only are suggestions a dangerous game but it reveals a sort of optimism about America that many won’t identify with. Or recognise. Nor is it the only weakness. While it is a well written book drawing on many impressive sources, occasionally its eclecticism makes it meander and lack the requisite gravitas. The section on China “The Challenger,” rather underlines this. These passages read somewhat akin to those tediously gung-ho speeches from a CEO desperate to get into China, an executive in thrall to the place while knowing it so little. Although Zakaria does acquit himself with a good exposition of the problems Beijing faces you do wonder how much he exactly knows and understands. Worryingly he also accepts the elitist view that democratic development impedes rather than accelerates development. Luckily he’s even-handed in this and argues later on that politics have complicated America’s problems, although his view that it is “highly dysfunctional” seems off the mark especially when the alternatives are laid out before us. Still for those who prefer their non-fiction on the lighter and accessible side this is a decent enough volume. And those who prefer theirs heavier won’t be too badly served either.
The Post-American World. By Fareed Zakaria HB; 288 pages Published by W.W. Norton ISBN-10: 039306235X / ISBN-13: 9780393062359
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
Photography Media
Then
Now
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THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
The changing face of Hong Kong Central in 1977 and Today. Left: The low-rise Murray Barracks in the upper photo was dismantled in 1983 to make way for the Bank of China Building shown in the lower picture. The former quarters for British officers was reassembled in Stanley in 2000. Right: The Hilton Hotel on the left of the upper photo was owned by tycoon Li Ka-shing and licensed to the American hotel group. In 1995 Li bought out the contract and demolished the hotel to make way for the Cheung Kong Center (lower picture).
© Bob Davis. Web: www.bobdavisphotographer.com. E-mail: bobdavis@netvigator.com
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
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Lives Remembered Books
Peter Mackler (1949-2008)
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ormer FCC member Peter Mackler, a veteran of Agence France-Presse who covered wars, elections and was the driving force behind transforming the agency’s English-language service into a global powerhouse, has died at 58. Mackler died on June 21 after suffering heart problems at work in Washington DC, where he had served as AFP’s chief editor for North America since 2006. “One of the agency’s best journalists has died,” said AFP chief executive Pierre Louette. “He was for most of us a source of inspiration, a model.” “I know he had a total passion for the agency, a desire for it to be great and remain in the top rank,” Louette said. “We will miss him terribly.” Mackler, an American who spoke French fluently, joined AFP in the United States in September 1979 after starting his journalism career at a rival agency, UPI, in New York. Over his nearly 30-year career at AFP, he played a key role in developing the multilingual agency’s anglophone service from Paris to the Middle East and Hong Kong. He was also a passionate and energetic journalist who relished the big stories. As a reporter or editor, he wrote and oversaw stories that have defined recent history: from the Gulf War in 1991 to the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and George W. Bush’s presidency. In the past year, he steered the Washington bureau’s coverage of the marathon presidential nomination race with his usual vigour and focus in the face of intense competition from rival news agencies. But between his long hours at the office, Mackler had also dedicated his time and energy to lending his vast experience to journalists working in developing countries. In 2004, Peter Mackler set up Global Media Forum, an international media
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AFP
training programme, that grew out of work he had done for underprivileged children at Duke Ellington High School in Washington. For the last year, he had worked with the AFP Foundation, a non-profit organisation, and had been preparing a training project for journalists in Lebanon that had been requested by the United Nations. “Peter Mackler was a man of many parts but to his colleagues he will be chiefly remembered for three outstanding qualities: his uncompromising commitment to the highest professional standards; his deep loyalty to his friends and colleagues; and his dedication to teaching young journalists,” said AFP deputy managing editor Robert Holloway. Born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn on August 22, 1949, Mackler graduated with a degree in psychology and began working as a psychologist for children in his neighbourhood before joining UPI in 1973.
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
Tough love and cans of beer: Former AFP correspondent Luke Hunt remembers Peter Mackler
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he glint in Peter’s eye when he had his hands on a story destined for the front pages of the world’s newspapers was as marvellous as it was memorable. His bearded smile had all the cheek and gusto of a man in his prime, as he struggled to contain himself, for just a few minutes, long enough to hammer out the words faster than the competition. In Iraq during the 2003 invasion, he was in his element pretty much every day. For an outsider, the race to cover fire fights, massacres and the everyday bloodshed of Iraq might sound macabre. But what stood out amid the mayhem, absurdities and the sheer nastiness of conflict was Peter’s moral fibre. It was refreshing. Nobody had to get hurt for us to have a story. That included the Iraqi civilians, the insurgents, invading soldiers and no more importantly, AFP staff. Not every journalist who works in a war zone is like that and Peter was tireless at ensuring our security was as good as it could be and that the sensitivities of locals were always respected. He even gave me an afternoon off once, after a 12-year-old opened fire with an AK-47 as our car stopped at a junction.
After starting at AFP in the United States in 1979, Mackler moved to Hong Kong in 1982 and went on to become the bureau chief in first Sydney and then Singapore. In 1991, he was dubbed “General Mackler” for his sure-handed organisational skills during the Gulf War as he helped AFP correspondents arrive in Kuwait City hours before the US Army. After working in Brussels, he had his first stint as chief editor in Washington in 1994 before becoming the bureau’s deputy regional director.
THE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 2008
The kid’s inability to handle the recoil meant bullets were landing everywhere except on target: us. Pete’s response was what he called “Tough Love” which meant take the rest of the day off, have a few cold beers but don’t miss the morning editorial meeting. That was good enough for most of us. War stories were a dime a dozen and this was where Tough Love was not without foresight. After the invasion was complete Peter took the lead and shifted the focus of coverage from shoot ‘em up war stories to economics. He knew America’s future in Iraq – success or failure – would largely hinge on rebuilding the country’s infrastructure. At the time many people wanted more flashy, bang-bang yarns. Others like Peter wanted to tell the sombre truth and that included stories about education, health and transport. How people lived mattered. Peter Mackler was a brave, stubborn and proud man who preferred to rate his peers by how and what they did in the field. I liked that. And he died where he had passionately lived, on the job. He will always be remembered as a reporter’s reporter, an honourable man and to many of us, a friend.
He was then named senior reporter based at AFP’s headquarters in Paris to cover terrorism, a job that took him back to New York to cover the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and to Pakistan for the war that followed in Afghanistan. He returned to Washington in 2004 to cover the State Department before being named chief editor for North America two years later. — AFP He is survived by his wife of 31 years, Catherine, and his two daughters, Camille and Lauren.
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THE CORRESPONDENT september-november 2008
The Last Word
Correspondent Editor Diane Stormont’s assistant bids farewell
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elegation she calls it. You’d think she would have the grace to pen her own farewell, but nooooo, she leaves it to me. And don’t be fooled. I may be her Girl Friday but I’m down on the company books as security. Not that her accountant would let her get away for a minute with putting down Pedigree Chum as an expense on her tax form. Nope. You can claim for ankle-biters and wrinklies but when it comes to family members of real value, we’re discriminated against by the taxman and by this Club that seems to hold so many otherwise sensible tinopeners in thrall. Beats me why. All they do is stand around that bar thing howling at the night. Waste of a good wooden upright in my opinion. Better than a Hong Kong lamp post any day and worth the monthly fee alone. Yet the Club excludes me and my valuable companion animal ilk yet lets in those non-productive members of society. Rug rats, that is, not accountants. We hold most accountants, particularly our very own Club-member accountant, in high regard. We have to. You should see the state of my editor’s accounts. I keep telling her, log it as it comes in ... simple you’d think. Humans! [Get on with it – Ed] – Whoops. Sorry. I’m having to do this from memory having eaten my notes. My editor would like to thank everyone who has done the real work in putting out this magazine in the past eight or so years. And so she should. Honestly, I cannot understand what she does all day, sitting there staring at a
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screen (or should I say gazing out the window), surrounded by unproductive cats (even worse than pint-sized humans IMHO), instead of getting out into the fresh air and rolling in fresh Lantau buffalo dung. But I digress. It’s Patrick Dunne (patrick. dunne@gmail.com) who did all the hard part. He’s the designer and producer who held the magazine together, laying it out, tweaking the photographs and dealing with the production side and the printer. And he’s a dab hand at editorial being a former hack. Not bad for a cat-lover. Mind you, I’ve never had a cover shot, unlike that Dunne moggie, Spike. Preening herself she was for weeks over the tin of Whiskas she was paid for the January-February 2006 edition. Queen!
Paul Bayfield. That’s another name I can make out from the masticated notepaper. Without Paul’s advocacy, the magazine would have folded years ago. Imagine that: a journalists’ club known throughout Hong Kong clubdom for not having a publication. My mind would boggle were it not the size of a walnut. Strange beings, humans. Then there is the meticulous, utterly charming and brilliant Jonathan Sharp, writer, editor and proof-reader extrodinaire. Woof, Jonathan! Contributors. They have my editor’s undying gratitude. She hopes their bylines will continue to appear in this magazine after her hand over to those fine chaps Richard Cook and Tilly Johnson at WORDASIA (http://www. wordasia.com). They have already picked up the files and unpublished stories. I just hope that that box will survive the ministrations of their randy otter hound Basil and his oversized sister Long Long. Mind you, Basil attempts to roger me once more and he’s a poodle. Then there is a pawful of names she describes in terms that no crossbred bitch (with a hint of sharpei) should ever repeat. The words are heavily chewed so I can only guess at the heading. Something about what she’d like to do to the green ink brigade. Feed them to me, I think. OK, that’s 600 words @ one dog biscuit per hundred words. So it just remains to say thank you all and farewell.
The Girl Dog Friday PP Diane Stormont, outgoing editor, The Correspondent
THE CORRESPONDENT
september-november 2008