The Correspondent, March - April 2009

IN REVIEW PULITZER PRIZEWINNER PORTRAYS HIS NATION

BI-MONTHLY • MARCH-APRIL 2009

FIRST LADY WHY THE SNAPPER GOT SORE WHEN GRACE HIT KOWLOON

ASSIGNMENT TRIAL LAST CHAPTER FOR KHMER ROUGE?

MEDIA RELAXEZ-VOUS:h AFP CHILLS WHILE MARKETS BURN

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong

THE BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE PUBLISHED BY THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG

MARCH-APRIL 2009

press freedom 6 FIRST LADY OR FIST LADY?

In January Richard Jones tried to photograph Grace Mugabe while on assignment for The Sunday Times, as the First Lady of Zimbabwe shopped in Kowloon.

She then attacked him and has since been granted immunity from prosecution. After being front page news across the globe, Jones tells his story to The Correspondent

feature

10

SIXTY YEARS AND COUNTING

club lunch

14

WE WILL SURVIVE

media

16

RELAXEZ-VOUS!

17

CHINA BRIDGES

the wall

in review 22

In the first of a series commemorating the FCC’s 60 Years in Hong Kong, Arthur Hacker writes a succinct social history of the Club David Eldon, former Chairman of HSBC Asia Pacific, talks survival AFP does lifestyle with its new “relax news” service Chester Ong spans China with a stunning “China Bridges” exhibition CHINA, PORTRAIT OF A COUNTRY

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Liu Heung Shing has delivered a book that is a total triumph, writes Jonathan Sharp

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THE CHINA LOVER

travel

28

OPEN PASSAGE

assignment

30

THE LAST KR CHAPTER?

press freedom

34

STILETTO

36

THEN AND NOW

38

DAVID WONG AND GILBERT CHENG

meanwhile

club tie

Ian Buruma’s deft blending of historical fact and artistic imagination makes his latest novel a stimulating read, writes Isabel Taylor Escoda Cameron Dueck is about to leave the FT to lead the Open Passage Expedition and traverse the Northwest Passage in a 40-foot yacht Luke Hunt and Richard S. Ehrlich examine different aspects of the UN’s Khmer Rouge Tribunal Max Kolbe with more miserable tales of dead and wounded hacks Bob Davis looks at Lamma in 1979 and 2008, plus cartoons from Harry Harrison and Arthur Hacker David retires after 31 years while Gilbert stays married… to the Club

Cover: Harry Harrison

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel: (852) 2521 1511 Fax: (852) 2868 4092 Email: 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, Thomas Crampton, Steve Ushiyama Club Secretary: David O’Rear 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: Steve Vines Wine SubCommittee Chairman: 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 FCC MAGAZINE The Correspondent is published six times a year. Opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the Club.

Publications Committee Conveners: Anna Healy Fenton, Kees Metselaar Editor: Richard Cook, produced by WordAsia Limited, Tel: 2805 1422, Email: fcc@wordasia.com www.wordasia.com

33

Feature

Club News

From the Club President

Dear Members, Those of us who make full use of our memberships might have noticed slight changes in the behaviour of some of our fellow members.

People you almost recognize suddenly cross the room to engage in meaningful conversations. Even better, the number of people at the hustings (formerly known as the Main Bar) willing to buy a round of drinks seems to have at least doubled in recent weeks. What’s going on?

Fear not, your beloved FCC isn’t turning into a fern bar or tea society. ‘Tis the season for politicking, and that bundle of high-denomination bank notes (Zimbabwean, unfortunately) is just one of the gimmicks used to attract your vote. Yes, the 14 seats on the Board of Governors are once again up for grabs. The late May elections are one of your chances to make a difference in your Club, either by standing for office or by sitting around and complaining that no one wants to run for Associate / Journalist / Correspondent Governor.

German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck probably didn’t say, “Club politics are like sausages. If you like them, don’t ask too many questions.” But, fortunately, our own functional constituency system has long confirmed that politics is alive and well in the FCC. Despite all that, we have enjoyed 26 years “on Ice” and 60 years in Hong Kong and shall be celebrating both, in style, later in the year.

But on a more serious note, as the economy enters what the pundits are calling the worst period since “the last time”, the Club faces a series of challenges you can help master. How should we respond to members who find it difficult to make ends meet?

Are our prices competitive with 2

THE CORRESPONDENT

April in the FCC

German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck probably didn’t say, “Club politics are like sausages. If you like them, don’t ask too many questions.”

But, fortunately, our own functional constituency system has long confirmed that politics is alive and well in the FCC

the likely alternatives, or out of line with reality? Where should the Club be putting its efforts in the coming year? These and other issues are ones that the new Board will inherit, and which I invite you to help solve.

As you know, the FCC is not just a social club, but also an important international press club. On your behalf, the Board has been making its voice heard, and getting results. For journalists covering other parts of China, visas are now much easier to obtain.

Relations with the local diplomatic community, usually quite congenial, are improving further. Also, the Hong Kong PRC Foreign Ministry Office (McDonnell Road branch) has extended a hand that we have accepted in good faith.

In February, we celebrated the 95th birthday of veteran journalist Jimmie Yip, and nearly as many for the equally venerable Keyser Sung. Tony Lawrence, Clare Hollingworth and others remind us of the very strong and direct ties this Club has with “the old days.”

And, so, in June we will mark 60 years of the FCC in Hong Kong.

Plans are under way for a broad celebration and so a special call is going out to those of you who might have memorabilia such as past issues of The Correspondent from the days before we moved to Ice House Street.

We would very much like to very carefully borrow your treasures so as to include them in the festivities.

So, see you at the party!

Ernst Herb President Foreign Correspondents’ Club

The Wall

The FCC Wall Committee is widening the scope of its exhibitors by inviting Asiabased photographers and photographers who regularly work in Asia, who are not members of the FCC, to submit portfolios for consideration.

The exhibit is normally on The Wall for a month, starting the first week of each month.

The public is welcome to enter the FCC to view the exhibition from 0900 – 1800 daily. The Club will offer an opening night to introduce the work (and the photographer, should he care to be present) to the members and the public.

The Wall Committee is determined to make The Wall at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club one of the most prestigious venues for photographic exhibits not only in Hong Kong, but in Asia as well.

We hope that you will consider submitting your work.

In February on The Wall the FCC presented the work of Documentary Photographer Michael Coyne from his book

Robin Moyer

on Jesuits around the world.

Currently The Wall presents an interesting and well-seen set of pictures of ancient Chinese bridges by FCC member and photographer Chester Ong. We are planning an exciting exhibit of vintage pictures by Larry Burroughs, Hugh Van Es, Kyoichi Sawada and Eddie Adams for later this year. And many more.

For more details please contact Christopher Slaughter, Wall Committee Convener, email: fccwall@fcchk.org.

The Correspondent – old issues?

Do you have any old issues of The Correspondent? The Club’s Wall Committee is planning a “60 years in Hong Kong” anniversary exhibition on The Wall and plans to gather together as many Correspondent magazine covers as possible. If you have a copy you are willing to loan the exhibition, please contact Christopher Slaughter, Wall Committee Convener, email: fccwall@fcchk.org

Up and coming Club food and beverage promotions include a South African Wine Tasting Dinner on Thursday 2nd April, an Asparagus promotion that runs until April 4 and a family Easter buffet on Sunday April 12.

The South African wine evening, held in the Main Dining Room, kicks off at 6.30 with a wine tasting which is followed by a themed dinner at 8.30. The Asparagus promotion, that offers an extensive selection of white and green asparagus dishes – from appetizers and soups to mains – starts on March 23.

The family Easter Buffet promises an Easter Egg-making workshop, an Easter Egg hunt and a special holiday buffet that includes unlimited drinks (soft for the children, wine for the slightly more mature).

For more details on any of these events or to make reservations, please contact (852) 2521 1511 or email concierge@fcchk.org

Happy Birthday

Harve James (Jimmie) Yapp celebrated his 96th birthday at the Club in February. One of the oldest journalist members, Jimmie, who was the first ethnic Chinese editor of the China Mail and Assistant Editor of the SCMP, was awarded an MBE in 1977 for his contribution to journalism.

THE CORRESPONDENT

3

What’s on

Club News

Obituary FCC Golf Society

Great Value F&B

Bearing in mind the growing economic woes of more or less everyone the FCC is planning to do its bit by launching a series of great value food and wine promotions.

We will start with some great fantastic wine offerings from Chile and move on to wines from other parts of the world. Also Chef George is working on a number of menus that will offer really tasty food at impressively low prices.

Meanwhile a serious review of brandy and liqueur prices is underway that will knock out the anomalies highlighted by members and give rise to the introduction of some new brands that offer lower priced alternatives. And just to prove that the FCC is really serious about price fighting we are planning a cheap beer promotion – how much better can it get than that?

New Coffee Era

Few subjects generate more controversy than the standard and taste of coffee.

The time has therefore come for the existing coffee beans served at the FCC to be replaced by new varieties which, after intensive tasting, should provide a better cup of the brown liquid.

The new beans, for all varieties of coffee, will be introduced as existing stocks are exhausted.

In addition an Italian semiautomatic coffee machine will be introduced in Berts very soon.

Machines of this kind invariably produce better coffee than fully automatic machines, so in future serious coffee aficionados should descend to Berts for a fix.

Steve Vines Chairman House F&B Committee

Staff Party

A Night with Celebrities was promised at the annual staff party Saturday held on February 7 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. And it certainly was, with President Barack Obama (FCC President Ernst Harb) in a fetching wig and mask, vying with Fred Flintstone (Club General Manager Gilbert Cheng) for the best costume.

The real talents of the night were Jack Tang from the main bar, who together with Jeff Tong and Kinki Chan, brought the house down in with their slinky leotard dance.

Imperial Empress Bonnie Engel and Red Guard Carson Yu raised the tone, which was just as well, since the beer drinking relay threatened to get out of hand when nasty long pink straws were introduced at the last moment.

It was congratulations to Carson Yu and Gloria Lai who received 20 year long service gold medals, and to Chan Hoi-lo, Best Leader in Year 2008. It was a sad farewell to David Wong, who retired at the end of February.

He was presented with a trophy and prize by President Ernst Herb. Thanks to the efforts and enthusiasm of the Club staff, a great night was had by all.

Anna Healy Fenton

4

THE CORRESPONDENT

The FCC Golf Society plays golf the third Friday of every month, usually at one of the Jockey Club Kau Sai Chau public golf courses in Sai Kung.

All three Kau Sai Chau courses are on the FCC Golf Society agenda for 2009 – in April of last year, a third New East course was added in addition to the North and South Courses and its proved popular and is often booked solid.

The Society also plays the courses in Zhuhai which are just an hour’s ferry ride from Hong Kong and present a different set of challenges and enjoyment.

To join in the fun, contact Russ Julseth at russjulseth@netvigator. com. The next events will be April 17 and May 15.

Magazine contacts Richard Cook The Editor The Correspondent The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong 2 Lower Albert Road Central, Hong Kong email fcc@wordasia.com

Rudy Kleinhout

When Rudy Kleinhout died on 18 January 2009, a bright shining light across many social scenes was blown out, writes Vaudine England.

F

or his friends, long used to the swept back hair, the beaming charm of his smile and his sheer joie de vivre, his passing is still hard to believe.

How can the life of the party suddenly be gone?

It took just three months from diagnosis of a brain tumour, for the aggressive, malignant growth to kill Rudy Kleinhout.

Along the way, his friends gathered at the hospital, admired his courage, brought food and gossip, shared jokes, as he bravely worked through three operations and a range of treatments.

His wife Christine was supported by her children Dominic and Melanie who flew in from Thailand to help, and by Rudy’s daughter Kirsten and partner Leon who flew over from Holland.

Typically, Rudy lived life to the end, leaving not a dry eye at the FCC New Year’s Eve party.

With his piratical head scarf and wheelchair, he was still the soul of fun, and when the Auld Lang Syne bag-piper came to play, it was hard to imagine this would be Rudy’s last bash.

Rudy’s life began on 14 June 1952 in the Dutch city of Haarlem.

By the time he was 10, he had started to play in a marching band with his brother Rob, going on to play the saxophone in a jazz band.

Who now cannot hear the songs Delilah or Summertime and not hear Rudy singing them?

He joined the army at the age of 18, and was stationed in Germany.

“Drinking he learned there, he always told me,” remembers one of his oldest friends and business partners, Ben Kemperman.

Image: Vaudine England

Then he entered the leather industry and around this time he married Rineke, and fathered Kirsten. During school holidays he was working at Laimböck, the leather goods firm he later joined as a salesman, travelling a lot to Brazil and Italy, learning about and buying leather before travelling to the Far East, firstly to Korea.

In the early 1980s he came to Hong Kong with his mentor in the trade, Aad Gozeling, who introduced Rudy to the business world in Asia.

He was a quick learner and, already divorced, he met Christine.

They met at the bar at the Holiday Inn in Tsim Sha Tsui in 1992.

“He came to Hong Kong in 1994 to join me, and to work in our company, developing lines as a junior partner,” said Christine.

They married in 2001.

“Markets were changing so also Rudy kept on moving,” notes Ben. “I knew Christine already a long time, and she asked me if Rudy could work for us, or do something for our company in the Far East.

Later on we cooperated and worked until he died, always together.”

All who have enjoyed being with Rudy at the FCC, or scooped up Christine’s great cooking at their sprawling home parties, knew he had always either just come from or was just going to China.

“When we stayed in Shanghai we always went to a bar downtown where a top Filipino band plays,” says Ben. “Those guys became really good friends. When they heard the first time about his tumour, they played a special song for him. I told him that later and he was really impressed. Emotional I can say.

“He was a big man with a small heart. Really. But I also must say that it was not only fun. Hard working too - waking up early, hurrying to be on time at the airports again,” continues Ben. “Sometimes very stressful. But we always said let’s make the best out of it.”

“He never failed to get the crowds singing along in Hardy’s,” remembers Elise Heuvelmans. “At the [Rugby] Sevens, he could be found year in year out, sitting just to the right of the South Stand, again getting everyone fired up and singing along. He was a man who loved to chat, loved to sing and loved to laugh,” she said.

“Rudy always worked hard.

When he believed in something he went for it for more than 200 percent,” remembers his brother Rob and sister-in-law Connie.

At the wake, held in Bert’s at the FCC on 23 January 2009, a huge cross-section of people turned up to drink to Rudy. It helped to make things feel a little bit better, Christine said, knowing how deeply loved her man still is.

THE CORRESPONDENT

5

Press Freedom

First Lady or Fist Lady?

In January Richard Jones tried to photograph Grace Mugabe while on assignment for The Sunday Times, as the First Lady of Zimbabwe shopped in Kowloon. Mugabe attacked him and the Hong Kong Department of Justice has since said she has immunity from prosecution. Here is Jones’ story.

I

got called by The Sunday Times photo editor on Monday night. I was in Tokyo with my family. He asked me if I could be in Hong Kong by the next day. I asked him what the story was and he said he couldn’t tell me. All he would say was that it was “big”, that it had to be me on the job and they wanted me to fly to Hong Kong immediately.

This intrigued me. I work a lot with The Sunday Times – they use me a lot because they trust me; they know I will get something – and as such I have a very good relationship with them. But this was a first.

They have never not told me who I was meant to be photographing.

I got into Hong Kong the next day and it was then that I found out it was Grace Mugabe. Sure, I was happy. I knew it had potential to be a great story.

On Wednesday morning I met up with the paper’s journalist, Michael Sheridan – again, it’s someone I know well and have worked with on many occasions.

We had been told she was staying at the Kowloon Shangri-la so we waited in the coffee shop, where we had a clear view across the lobby and out to the main doors. I had only seen wire pictures of her so I couldn’t be sure of what she looked like. Whenever you do this sort of work your mind plays tricks on you and throughout the day I kept looking at people that

THE BODYGUARD STARTED TRYING TO WRESTLE THE CAMERA FROM ME AND I WASN’T GOING TO LET HIM HAVE IT AND THEN SHE APPEARED, FROM NOWHERE, AND STARTED RAINING PUNCHES INTO MY FACE. SHE WAS NO SLACKER – CLEARLY SHE HAD USED HER FISTS BEFORE 6

THE CORRESPONDENT

I soon realised were not Grace Mugabe. We waited in the coffee shop all day Wednesday. Drinking coffee and waiting. You always keep your cameras hidden and make sure you are well dressed. The trick is to make sure nobody knows who we are.

On Thursday morning we were back in the coffee shop early. I had called in another photographer, Tim O’Rourke, who often does work for my agency, Sinopix, as I felt I might need back up. And then I saw them. Two people came down from the lifts and I realised one of them was her. I went into the lobby and knocked off a few frames before Michael Sheridan approached her. For the paper, I had to get a picture of Sheridan approaching and talking to her. He said “I am from The Sunday Times’’ and I photographed that. Mugabe looked surprised, stunned even and, very quickly, what I guess was a bodyguard approached me and told me to delete the images. I made a point of showing that I was doing just that but I had already backed the images up. I have all my camera systems configured to always auto back-up.

They – Grace Mugabe, the friend and the bodyguard – then came out of the hotel and made their way down Mody Road and then went into a shopping arcade and we followed.

Tim and I split – he went one way and me the other. I then saw her again about to cross a street and by now I was one hundred percent positive it was her so started to takes pictures again. She started pointing and instructed the bodyguard and he chased me at full tilt for about 40 meters before catching me from behind. He grabbed me and clearly wanted to get my camera. “Why are you taking photographs,” he said.

I said something like, “I am entitled to take pictures here. This is a public place. If this person feels I am not entitled then we should call the police,” although I can’t remember the actual detail of what was said.

The bodyguard started trying to wrestle the camera from me and I wasn’t going to let him have it and then she appeared, from nowhere, and started raining punches into my face. And she was no slacker – clearly she used her fists before. It was a blur. A crowd gathered and she was gone, she disappeared. And then three other guys

Press Freedom

came out of the crowd towards us, one of whom looked really nasty. We left and went back to Sheridan’s hotel room and I FTP’d all the images Tim and myself had taken over to my agency office. By then I thought, “I’ve had enough of this. I think I’ve earned my day rate,” so I jumped in a cab and took it round the corner to the Peninsula and, with a bloodied and battered face, I sat in the lobby café and had a coffee.

Yes, it did hurt but I wasn’t in that bad a condition and I always keep a low profile so initially I didn’t want to go to the police. But afterwards my mood increasingly changed to anger. The more I thought about it the more I could not believe what a First Lady had just done to me. That evening when The Sunday Times confirmed it was her, I felt I had to go and make a report and on Saturday I went in and did so.

Put it like this, the police were not exactly expecting me but they weren’t surprised to see me. They spent five hours taking a statement. When I went back for a second statement, they wanted to know everything.

That’s when I thought I should get a lawyer.

The police were polite, they treated me well but it was it was all frustratingly slow due to an ineffective translation process. Although generally they were professional and very courteous one officer did say to me, while he was laughing, that it wasn’t assault. I said, “Okay then. If it’s not assault how about I take you outside and ask my mate to hold you while I punch you ten times in the face.”

I wouldn’t say the police wanted to cover anything up, more that the tone was, “You are wasting your time, this will go nowhere. Its too diplomatic, too political.”

I pointed out the CCTV cameras on the street where it happened – there are four – and I gave witness details and all the photos, including one of Mugabe leaving the scene with blood on her hands.

The story spread quickly and I was called by papers, radio and TV from all over the world. It soon got tedious, they all asked the same questions but some old school friends also got in touch, which was nice.

After I gave the second statement I heard nothing, until I got a call from a UK journalist telling me that the Hong Kong Justice Department announced she has diplomatic immunity from prosecution. Okay, I’m not surprised but I am bitterly disappointed. Clearly it’s an abuse of diplomatic immunity. Is immunity really designed to protect someone who has committed a criminal act? Of course not. And the bodyguard, what is being done about him? So what I now want to know is what happens if she comes back and does it again?

The more I think about it, the more outrageous it becomes – that someone of her position can do this in broad daylight. It shows the disdain she has for the press and gives a clear indication of how she normally treats people. If she does that in a busy street in Hong Kong, what would she do in Zimbabwe?

As told to Richard Cook 8

THE CORRESPONDENT

Press Freedom

Richard Jones, after the attack. All photos: Sinopix

I THOUGHT ‘I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS. I THINK I’VE EARNED MY DAY RATE,’ SO I JUMPED IN A CAB AND TOOK IT ROUND THE CORNER TO THE PENINSULA AND, WITH A BLOODIED AND BATTERED FACE, I SAT IN THE LOBBY CAFÉ AND HAD A COFFEE THE CORRESPONDENT

9

Feature

Sixty years and counting

In the first of a series commemorating the FCC’s 60 Years in Hong Kong, Arthur Hacker writes a succinct social history of the Club... and remembers almost everything.

H

aving spent over half my life propping up the bar of the Best Little Watering Hole in the World could be the reason why I was asked to write a social history of the first 60 years of the Club in Hong Kong. As the old song goes: “We’ve been together now for 40 years, An’ it don’t seem a day too much...”

I was introduced to the FCC by Paul Dougherty, a colleague of mine at Government Information Services. In those far-off days GIS stood for “God is Speaking” and editors of the local newspapers actually knew the name of the director. Paul edited the government annual report for three years. GIS would not allow him a credit, so he surreptitiously slipped one into the index. Paul suggested that we dropped into the FCC for a couple of swifties and “rip off a few drunks at poker”.

The dealer’s choice rule inspired one berserk inebriate to shout “double blind baseball” when everyone was completely blotto. The winner, “Lucky” Kev Sinclair, had an unlucky day because nobody ever paid him a cent. The FCC then occupied the top floor of the Hilton and was about to move to Sutherland House. I joined in 1968 after it moved.

Before the Club moved, for a while there was no FCC so the poorer members patronised the Blue Sky Bar in the Wanch that unwisely gave journos credit.

SOME SCENES FROM “LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING” WERE SHOT AT CONDUIT ROAD. THE FCC REJECTED THE OFFER BY THE OWNERS TO BUY THIS SPLENDID MANSION FOR A MODEST HK$125,000. THIS MEANT THAT A FEW YEARS LATER THEY WERE KICKED OUT OF THE OLD BUILDING, WHICH FETCHED HK$10 MILLION 10

THE CORRESPONDENT

The majority of these hacks worked for The Star, a scurrilous rag, and spent their evenings in the Sky inventing tomorrow’s news stories. If they didn’t pay up on time, bargirl Brandy Nancy would storm into newsroom and demand payment.

The Star was owned by the explosive Graham Jenkins, formerly of Reuters, who was a Board member when the club had its first permanent home at 15 Kotewall Road in 1949 where the 11 founding members set up shop. They were joined later by Liao Chien-ping, who was with the Club in 1943 when the first FCC opened in Chungking, and Ronnie Chow (Chiao Chin-chen), barman from the Shanghai days.

Post-war the FCC had been based first in Nanking and then Shanghai where it occupied the top six floors of Broadway Mansions. When Shanghai got dangerously jumpy the club packed its bags, sold its assets and retreated with dignity to Hong Kong.

Kotewall Road soon became too small and in 1951 the old Mok stately home at 41A Conduit Road became the clubhouse. Former president David Roads married his beautiful wife Pacita in one of its numerous rooms. He described this era as the heyday of the club.

It was David who scooped the other journos with the “Human Yo-Yo” story of Michael Patrick O’Brien who stowed away on a ferry from Macau to Hong Kong. Not allowed to land in the colony and also refused entry in Macau he bounced like a yo-yo ‘twixt the two ports for 11 months. Throughout this saga patriotic Irishmen demanded a fair deal for this unfortunate son of Erin, until it was revealed that O’Brien’s real name was Stefen Ragan, he had been born in Budapest and deported from the USA after serving seven years for armed robbery. The movie “Ferry to Hong Kong” is based on this story.

Some scenes from another film, “Love is a ManySplendored Thing”, were shot at Conduit Road. The FCC rejected the offer by the owners to buy this splendid mansion for a modest HK$125,000. This meant that a few years later they were kicked out of the old building, which fetched HK$10 million.

The less said about Li Po Chun Chambers – the next venue - the better. The club went broke. It was President Guy Searls who moved the FCC to the top floor of the newly opened Hilton hotel. His timing was perfect. Foreign hacks were arriving en masse

Club Vistas: The “loo with a view” – the gentlemen’s toilets in Sutherland House in the 1970s (above, photo: Ian R. Lloyd) and the terrace of 41A Condiut Road in the mid-1950s.

Feature

Feature

PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS SLAGGING A MEMBER ONE END OF THE BAR COULD BE PICKED UP BY THE VICTIM AT THE OTHER END. THIS RESULTED IN SOME SPECTACULAR PUNCH-UPS as Hong Kong had suddenly become newsworthy because of the 1967 riots and the Vietnam War. Journos squandered so much of their R and R money on booze in the FCC that the club was able to hire a couple of floors in Sutherland House.

The bar was womb-shaped and private conversations slagging a member one end of the bar could be picked up by the victim at the other end.

This resulted in some spectacular punch-ups. The 15th floor dining room was where an unusual selection of celebrities performed including the likes of Dame Edna, Muhammad Ali and George Bush Senior.

Harold Macmillan’s forthcoming visit inspired Chris Minter, whose nickname was Superman, to invite me to witness him confronting Super Mac. Chris had once been a colonial District Commissioner in Africa.

“We will both wear dinner jackets,” he insisted, “out of respect for the best prime minister since Winnie.”

I duly turned up in my monkey suit; but Minter’s memory had partially failed him and he arrived sporting a grotty safari suit. Predictably it was a long lunch. My boss stormed into my secretary’s office and demanded to know where I was. “He’s having lunch with the prime minister,” she replied.

It was President Donald Wise who first asked Governor Sir Murray MacLehose to let us have an old government building as a new clubhouse. Donald – a River Kwai railway survivor – never gave up and the club moved into the North Block, of the old Ice House in 1982. It was built in 1913 by Dr. Joseph Whittlesey Noble, the American taipan of The Dairy Farm Company. At the time Noble also owned the Hongkong Telegraph and the South China Morning Post. Historians tend to ignore this fact, preferring to describe him as a dentist who owned Hong Kong’s first motor car.

Hubert van Es was the first president of the new Club. The oldest member at the time was Pat Patterson a former Royal Flying Corps pilot who taught newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst to fly.

Pat flew planes for Howard Hughes in his film classic “Hell’s Angels”. He came to China and helped Chiang Kai-shek set up an airline. He was an original member of the Chungking FCC. The youngest member of the club changed almost daily, but the different generations made an interesting mix.

There was sometimes a little friction. David 12

THE CORRESPONDENT

Bonavia loathed TV and was constantly switching it off; so the FCC Board employed a man whom David called “The Doctor” because he wore a white coat, whose only duty was to switch it on again. A bar frequented by gargantuan lawyers with big bums and bumless anorexia-prone ladies remains an unsolvable barstool problem.

Dick Hughes invited me to join Alcoholics Synonymous which meant getting drunk every Saturday. I never joined because I don’t like having hangovers in my own time. Fortunately a cultural society, The Geebung Polo Club, held its lunchtime orgies on Fridays. It was dedicated to the Oz poet Banjo Patterson. Everyone had to recite a poem or sing a song. John McDougal, the founder, knew everything Banjo ever wrote. The doyen of the FCC, Charlie Smith, was a non-performer; but Walter Gerrard frequently sang “I belong to Glasgow” accompanied by the unforgettable Larry Allen who also thumped his joanna in Bert’s jazz club. Another irregular gathering was called the Red Lips, a feminist drinking club named after the Red Lips Bar peopled by decrepit bargirls in darkest Kowloon.

Note: Most of what I have written must be true because I read it in The Correspondent.

Facing Page: Dr. Joseph Whittlesey Noble, who built the Ice House in 1913 (top); visitors to the FCC in the ‘70s included Harold Macmillan (left) and Sir Murray Maclehose, pictured with Club President Bert Okuley and Manager Liao Chien-ping (right).

This Page: The 40s in Shanghai (top); the ‘70s in the Hilton (above right); in the ‘60s in Sutherland House (above, showing a wonderfully young Gilbert Cheng) and in 1982 the current building opens (right).

THE CORRESPONDENT

13

In Review

In Review

“We Will Survive” For some unfathomable reason, David Eldon, former Chairman of HSBC Asia Pacific, had never before spoken at an FCC lunch. But what better time, in the midst of the financial crisis, for this eminent banker to serve up an extra-large helping of plain, ungarnished common sense? He didn’t disappoint. Jonathan Sharp reports.

D

avid Eldon brought along with him to his FCC luncheon a stage prop in the form of the 2009 edition of a page-a-day calendar of The Stupidest Things Ever Said. (Sample: for a synagogue fund-raising campaign, a rabbi’s catchy slogan was: “I upped my pledge. Up yours.”)

Eldon noted that in the past, numerous economicrelated comments could easily have qualified for inclusion in the calendar. “The outlook for this year is that we can expect many more such unwise utterances.”

He took to task, among many others, the media for making calendar-qualifying utterances about the current crisis, in particular the claim that it is the worst “since the Great Depression”.

“I Googled this phrase the other day and these four words were used together more than 7,000 times in the last week alone.

“The reality is that the world has suffered many madnesses in its history, economic and/or otherwise, madnesses which if we stop to think about it make the current economic turmoil seem rather sedate in comparison. The Second World War is a case in point.”

Eldon stressed he was not 14

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trying to suggest that the present economic ills were not painful and difficult. “The point I want to make is we all need to maintain some perspective. We will survive.”

But while dismising the overly pessimistic forecasts, Eldon also says he expects to hear in 2009 reports and statements that are too optimistic, for example, in predicting that the bottom of the downturn has finally been reached.

“The reality is that it’s very difficult to anticipate when and where bottoms will show up.”

He said that, to be fair, there were many in the media who were not blindly adopting the worst-oftimes mantra. However he clearly did not think much of the London Daily Mail headline: “Welcome to 2009 – heads we lose, tails we’re screwed.”

Speaking on the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th U.S. President, Eldon noted the surge of optimism felt in America following the Illinois senator’s election – the “Obama effect”.

Eldon was less sanguine about Obama’s possible impact.

“Personally speaking, I am less than convinced that the Obama effect will be so quick and so significant. After all, as others have pointed out, when the first New Deal (for which President Franklin Roosevelt took credit) was launched in the 1930s, the worst was already largely over.” He also noted that Obama himself had gone to great lengths to dampen expectations of a rapid recovery.

(In a subsequent entry on his blog, Eldon sounded an aggrieved note that the only part of his speech subsequently to see the light of day was in The New York Times which quoted what it said were his “negative” comments about the Obama effect. Commented Eldon: “Thank you guys!”)

Eldon also forecast that 2009 would see people trying to assign the blame for the crisis to one single source. Already there was much finger-pointing with economists blaming credit-addicted American

AFP

consumers, consumers blaming irresponsible banks, investors blaming inattentive analysts and greedy investment bankers, bankers blaming over-eager mortgage brokers and lax credit rating agencies, and academics blaming careless regulators.

“The reality is that all should take a share of the blame. That said, the real danger in 2009 and beyond is not necessarily a continuation of the blame game, but rather the notion that some seem to have that all can be fixed with a single solution – the single solution being more regulation everywhere...

“The reality is that with any regulation, no matter how well intended, there is always the risk of unintended consequences.” A case in point, Eldon said, was the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in the U.S. which was intended to bring additional corporate discipline in

JUST LIKE IN THE PAST WE CAN EXPECT THE RECOVERY TO BE UNEVEN. SOME ECONOMIES WILL RISE FASTER THAN OTHERS; SOME WILL TURN OUT IN BETTER SHAPE THAN OTHERS

the wake of corporate scandals such as that involving Enron.

However the Act became far more complex than intended. The original document was threeand-a-half pages long. Now, just one clause in the Act runs to 300 pages.

There were good aspects to the bursting of economic bubbles, he said. “Good because they clear out excesses that build up over time, good because they result in consolidation, good because they reinforce the importance of good business fundamentals.”

As for the recovery, Eldon made the following forecast: “Just like in the past we can expect the recovery to be uneven. Some economies will rise faster than others; some will turn out in better shape than others.

“And a select few – perhaps Hong Kong is amongst them – will have the ability to do both.”

Eldon said that in Asia generally, lessons had been learned from previous slumps, and while manufacturers were finding life tough, the financial structures “don’t seem to be too bad”.

“I think Hong Kong is one of those places where, looking around the market place, I don’t see too many cracks appearing at the present time.”

Eldon’s final forecast?

“I predict that this year will prove to be a very bountiful time for those who are in the business of collecting and distributing silly utterances from others. In other words, for journalists at least, the outlook for 2009 looks pretty bright!”

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Media

The Wall

Relaxez-Vous!

It might sound a bit strange, even foolhardy, to launch a global newswire devoted to leisure and lifestyle pursuits at a time of global financial crisis. But a Paris-based organisation called relaxnews together with Agence FrancePresse are out to prove the doubters wrong. Jonathan Sharp reports.

E

ven Eric Wishart, AFP’s very un-French Asia-Pacific Director, acknowledged at a champagne-drenched party at G Bar that what is being called the world’s first international leisure news agency sounded like “a bit of a strange animal”.

But he insisted that it’s an animal with sound financial legs and definitely fills a need right now.

“What we really have understood in recent years (is that there is) more and more of a demand for lifestyle news, fashion, health, science, entertainment – enormous demand for it.”

Whereas is past years news about leisure, health, science and entertainment was confined to newspapers’ inside pages and weekend supplements, such as in the Financial Times and Le Monde, now it’s front page news, Wishart noted.

“And that’s why we are very proud to announce a partnership with relaxnews, which is based in Paris but has a global reach.”

Thirty percent of the content of the service, which is being marketed under the relaxnews brand, will be provided by AFP correspondents, photographers and TV reporters. Relaxnews itself, supplying 70 percent, has a team of 10 English-speaking fulltime journalists in Paris overseeing the content of the service, plus a network of 30 correspondents, including four permanent correspondents in New York, Dubai, London and Hong Kong.

AFP and relaxnews had a survey conducted by OpinionWay in 10 countries in October last year which backed their belief in the future of their newswire . This survey showed that 95 percent of Indian, 87 percent of Chinese and 85 percent of Japanese people say that lifestyle issues are important in their lives. Moreover, amidst the current economic turmoil, 84 percent of Indians, 93 percent of Japanese and 95 percent of Chinese say they want to dedicate the same amount or even more time to leisure activities, Four services are proposed in the newswire: relax news (80 stories a day, with pictures); relax events (100 cultural events around the world); relax slide shows (two slide shows a day, each with at least six captioned pictures); and relax videos (one AFP video report per day).

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Exhibition: Chinese Bridges At the end of March, The Wall exhibition space in the Main Bar was home to the “Chinese Bridges: Architecture over Water” series of photographs

by A. Chester Ong. This stunning work speaks for itself.

C Asia regional director Eric Wishart (C) speaks as Pierre Doncieux (left), the co-president of French agency relaxnews, and Jerome Doncieux, CEO of relaxnews look on during the champagne-drenched party at Central’s G Bar in February.

The newswire has four categories: Well-being: beauty and cosmetics, nutrition, health and fitness, sport; House and Home: DIY and gardening, interiors and design, environment, technology, fashion, household consumption; Entertainment: art, shows and exhibitions, movies, video games, books, television and media, internet; Tourism: cars and motorbikes, gastronomy, hotels, destinations, transport.

Now available in English and French, the newswire will soon be provided in Arabic and Spanish as well.

AFP and relaxnews hope to earn 15 million euros in revenue by 2012.

A total of 100 journalism schools around the world, including Hong Kong Baptist University, will receive a free subscription.

hester Ong’s “Chinese Bridges” Wall exhibition was compiled for the book “Chinese Bridges, Living Architecture From China’s Past”, an imposing record of ancient bridges from across China that is illustrated with more than 400 images – Chester’s photography is combined with archival images, woodblock prints, historic images, paintings and line drawings.

The book is written by Professor Ronald G. Knapp who has been carrying out research on cultural and historical geography in China’s countryside since 1965 and who has worked on more than a dozen books on China.

The book is an impressively hefty tome. It runs to more than 272 pages and it is the first time a comprehensive study in English has been carried out on these Chinese architectural wonders that form a significant part of China’s world-class architectural, engineering and aesthetic heritage.

While the book is in colour, Chester reworked his images for the FCC Wall exhibition into a series of immaculate fine art black and white prints. The images speak for themselves. Chester’s work is timeless, sublimely expressive and beautiful.

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER A. Chester Ong, born in the Philippines and currently based in Hong Kong, has photographed widely throughout Asia. His photography appears in magazines, exhibitions, as well as books, including China Modern, Chinese Houses and China Living.

“Chinese Bridges, Living Architecture From China’s Past” by: Ronald G. Knapp Photographer: A. Chester Ong Price: HK$410 ISBN: 978-0-8048-3884-9 Available from all good bookshops Tuttle Publishing (www.tuttlepublishing.com)

Left: The Lugou bridge, Beijing, described by Marco Polo in 1280 as “perhaps unequalled by any other in the world”.

Above: The Luoyang bridge, Fujian, showing a Buddhist stupa complete with Buddhist prayers and images.

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Media

This page: The Bajiang “Eight Rivers” bridge in Sanjiang, Guangxi (top) and the Luanfeng bridge in Shouning county, Fujian.

Facing page: The Jingxing bridge with the Qiaolou Hall temple complex perched above it, in the Cangyan Mountains, Hebei.

Overleaf: The “twin sisters” Jiemei bridges in Anxian, Sichuan.

All images: A. Chester Ong

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In Review

In Review

Liu’s Long March Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Liu Heung Shing has delivered a new book, “China, Portrait of a Country”. It’s breath-taking in its scope and it’s a total triumph, writes Jonathan Sharp.

I

came to know, respect and like Liu Heung Shing in Beijing in the early 1980s when he was the Associated Press photojournalist there. That spell in China inspired his excellent book of images, “China After Mao”.

For his new, far, far more ambitious book, “China, Portrait of a Country”, Liu spent four years travelling the length and breadth of China, talking to fellow photographers, poring over hundreds of thousands of their negatives and prints. These were sometimes stored in dusty shoe boxes, and sometimes handed over only with great reluctance by photographers, who like the rest of China, were wary of being whipsawed by the nation’s often violent political cross-winds.

The book’s more than 400 images by 88 photographers, as well as ones by Liu, are remarkable glimpses of China and its people from 1948, the year before Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China, to 2008, when China is said to have taken its place among the great powers by hosting the Olympic Games. As James Kynge says in a typically perceptive introduction: “There can be no more immediate – or enjoyable – way of accessing 22

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Portrait of a Country: The book carries more than 400 images by 88 photographers, and features Liu’s own work: including his images from Tiananmen in 1989 (this page) and the Cultural Revolution (overleaf)

the tumultuous history and understanding China’s multiple transformations than through this excellent book.”

The images can be horrific, such as a shot of the execution in 1968 of eight criminals and “counter-revolutionaries”, pictured face down in the dirt with hands tied behind their backs and watched by a small crowd. There is also a particularly striking image of the hardships many Chinese still endure: naked men hauling a boat upstream on the Yangzi

– naked to protect the few clothes they possess.

One of my personal favourites is a picture of Mao relaxing on the beach in the company of his daughter and the modestly swimsuited children of other leaders.

More familiar images are of China’s cautious opening to the world, including Premier Zhou Enlai meeting American pingpong players in April 1971 (an event I covered for Reuters). Mao himself is said to have acted as photo THE CORRESPONDENT

23

In Review

editor in choosing the photographs of the historic handshake in 1972 between Zhou and Richard Nixon.

And there are also images that Beijing, even today, would doubtless prefer not to be published, especially those depicting the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. By enormous irony, one of those pictures, taken by Liu of rickshaw drives and residents rushing two Tiananmen victims to hospital, did actually appear, albeit briefly, in the Chinese press last year.

As Liu recalled in a presentation at an FCC lunch last year, he was astounded to see the picture published in a tabloid newspaper, Beijing News. Captioned simply “The Wounded”, the photograph accompanied a profile of Liu. Within hours of publication, the photos and article were removed from the newspaper’s web site. Authorities also ordered that day’s newspaper recalled from news stands, the newspaper’s editor came to see Liu and said the publication of the photo was simply a mistake by a young editor who, apparently, didn’t realise that the image was political dynamite.

At the FCC lunch, Liu described the book as a celebration of Chinese photography at its best. “I hope to present a balanced narrative of contemporary China,” added Liu, who, although Hong Kong-born, spent part of his childhood in China where he witnessed some of the horrors of the catastrophic Great Leap 24

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In Review

Forward, a Mao inspired act of lunacy that cost tens of millions of lives.

Liu’s new book is monumental in size as well as scope, not least because the text is in French and German as well as English but not, interestingly, in Chinese. Liu said at the FCC that publishers Taschen had no intention of publishing s Chinese edition, although he said it could become an underground best-seller, like his earlier work.

But perhaps not so underground: an exhibition of photographs based on the book was held in Beijing’s Today Museum, and the staff there told Liu the exhibition broke all attendance records.

The exhibition is travelling to Barcelona and Madrid, and other museums are preparing to have the show as 2009 marks the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The book has also been selected by The Sunday Times as 2008 Best Picture Book, and Hong Kong Timeout has named it 2008 Best China Book.

China - Portrait of a Country Edited by Liu Heung Shing Published by Taschen (www.taschen.com) ISBN 978-3-8365-0569-7

AT AN FCC LUNCH, LIU DESCRIBED THE BOOK AS A CELEBRATION OF CHINESE PHOTOGRAPHY AT ITS BEST. “I HOPE TO PRESENT A BALANCED NARRATIVE OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA”

Footnote: After toiling over his labour of love for years, Liu has taken a new position as Group Editorial Director for the Modern Media Group (www. modernmedia.com.cn). As such he says he’s on the lookout for bilingual journalists/editors. “We need to hire some new staff,” he says.

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In Review

In Review

The China Lover Ian Buruma’s deft blending of historical fact and artistic imagination, achieved through his intimate knowledge of Asian cultures and politics, makes “The China Lover” a stimulating read, writes Isabel Taylor Escoda.

T

he West’s love affair with China has been going on for a long time, one that’s become almost an obsession today. At the start of the new millennium, some pundits declared that the “The Chinese Century” was replacing the earlier American one.

Indeed, books reflecting a fascination with that vast country have proliferated. “The China Lover” by former Hong Kong resident Ian Buruma has followed on the heels of “The Man Who Loved China” by Simon Winchester, who also once lived in Hong Kong.

Ian Buruma’s journalistic and literary career was launched even before he worked in Hong Kong in the 1980s as the Arts & Society editor of the then weekly Far Eastern Economic Review. His books have spanned a wide range of cultural and political subjects, with Japan and China (whose languages he has mastered) as his particular areas of expertise.

Now the Luce professor of Human Rights, Democracy & New Media Studies at Bard College in New York, Buruma, whose mother was British and his father Dutch, recently received the prestigious Erasmus Prize from Dutch Prince Willem Alexander.

The theme for the prize was “The New Cosmopolitan”, an apt description of Buruma whose far-ranging travels and sharply insightful works have appeared in publications like the New 26

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IT IS A FICTIONAL ACCOUNT OF THE INTRIGUING LIFE OF SINGER/ACTRESS YAMAGUCHI YOSHIKO AND IS WRITTEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THREE DIFFERENT MEN… MISFITS WHO BASK IN THE HEROINE’S REFLECTED GLORY Yorker, Spectator, Guardian and New Review of Books (to which he’s a regular contributor). He has also received the Shorenstein Journalism Award, jointly sponsored by Stanford University and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

His twelve earlier books include collections of essays on his Asian travels, a study comparing Germany’s war guilt vis-à-vis Japan’s, non-Westerners’ attitudes towards “Occidentals”, the European view of Britain’s exceptionalism, the brutal murder in 2004 of an anti-Islamic personage in Amsterdam, and profiles of Chinese dissidents abroad labelled by Beijing as “Bad Elements” (the title of his book).

His earlier works deal with Japanese culture and films, products of his years spent in that country as a student and his youthful stints in photography and film reviewing.

In the mould of his first historical fiction, “Playing the Game”, a wittily satirical novel about legendary cricketer K.S. Ranjitsinhji, “The China Lover” is a fictional account of the intriguing real life story of singer/actress Yamaguchi Yoshiko.

It spans some 50 years of Japan’s tumultuous modern history, written from the perspective of three different men, misfits living by their wits who bask in the heroine’s reflected glory. Their characters (two Japanese, one American) appear during different stages of her life and Japan’s history, each playing the role of narrator.

Born in Japaneseoccupied Manchuria in 1920, Yamaguchi became a teenage singing celebrity and later a popular actress.

As Buruma’s romantic description goes, “She didn’t look typically Japanese, nor typically Chinese. There was something of the Silk Road in her, of the caravans and spice markets of Samarkand.

No one would have guessed that she was just an ordinary Japanese girl born in Manchuria… [She was] like a delicate flower, just before its moment of bloom, radiating a childlike innocence as well as a kind of exotic elegance not normally seen in Japanese girls.”

Yamaguchi caught the eye of a Japanese official in charge of wartime propaganda and was hired to star in films promoting Japan’s plans for a Greater East Asian Co-

Prosperity Sphere. Given the name Ri Koran (or Li Xianglan), she was launched into a film career that ensured her fame. Her rendition of the song “China Nights”, from the movie of that name, captivated listeners in the region who were touched by the tale of a Chinese orphan rescued by and attracted to a Japanese official. It also repelled many Chinese who, after the War, accused Yamaguchi of being a traitor. She later fled to Japan to escape persecution, when it was revealed that she was actually a Japanese national.

The novel’s three male characters who orbit around the star are sharply fleshed out, but Yamaguchi’s persona remains elusive. Was she a talented flibbertygibbet who was manipulated by domineering males during various stages of her life, or was she basically a calculating female with her eye on the main chance, an individualist at a time when women were traditionally treated as chattels?

Her marriage to the avantgarde Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi may have been the catalyst that made her finally confront the issue of national identity. Noguchi’s demanding ways made her divorce him, after which she reinvented herself by going to the U.S. where she had a brief career in Hollywood in the 1950s (renamed Shirley Yamaguchi). On returning to Japan, she hosted a TV programme, then turned to serious journalism.

NOW 88 AND MARRIED TO A DIPLOMAT, SHE IS CALLED OTAKA YOSHIKO. SHE HAS SERVED AS A MEMBER OF THE UPPER HOUSE OF THE JAPANESE PARLIAMENT AND IS A MEMBER OF THE ASIAN WOMEN’S FUND. SHE GRANTED BURUMA SEVERAL INTERVIEWS, SO IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO LEARN WHAT SHE THINKS OF HIS BOOK

Travelling to Vietnam and then Lebanon, she became involved with a Japanese Red Army terrorist siding with the Palestinian cause.

As Buruma quotes her telling an admirer about her foray into journalism, “All that theory is too difficult for me. I just think of all the human suffering. The politics is for academics. A journalist must show the lives of real people, their bravery, their love, their dreams.”

That sentiment makes her admirer remark, “Poor, poor Yamaguchisan. All her life she had been exploited by cynical men who used her for their own nefarious ends. . . . (They) exploited the very qualities that made her so special: her sincere wish to do good, her internationalism, her purity. . .”

Now 88 and married to a diplomat, she is called Otaka Yoshiko. She served three terms as a member of the upper house of the Japanese parliament and is a member of the Asian Women’s Fund.

She granted Buruma several interviews, so it would be interesting to learn what she thinks of his book.

Buruma’s extraordinary blending of historical fact and artistic imagination, achieved through his intimate knowledge of Asian cultures and politics, makes “The China Lover” both intelligent and stimulating.

“The China Lover” by Ian Buruma Published by The Penguin Press www.penguin.com ISBN: 1-59420-194-3

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Travel

Travel

OFTEN CLIMATE CHANGE IS TALKED ABOUT IN DATA AND EVEN THOUGH THE NUMBERS ARE INCREDIBLE YOUR EYES DO START GLAZING OVER AFTER A WHILE... SO I WANT TO SHOW THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN VERY HUMAN TERMS. I WANT TO COME BACK WITH THE STORY SO PEOPLE CAN SAY, ‘SO THIS IS WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS ABOUT. THIS IS THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE’

Open Passage

Hong Kong-based Financial Times Assistant Editor Cameron Dueck is about to leave the desk to lead the Open Passage Expedition and traverse the Northwest Passage in a 40-foot yacht. He tells Mathew Scott why.

C

ameron Dueck is not sure what drew him to the sea but he thinks it might have something to do with his childhood.“I’d never been on a boat in my life until I was in my 20s,’’ explains the Canadian, who grew up on his father’s turkey farm, a few hours’ drive north of Winnipeg and a long way from any substantial body of water.

“But I just fell in love with it when I did. I think maybe it’s because when you are out on the prairies you can see forever and when you’re out at sea it’s a similar thing.’’

Dueck started sailing after moving to Chicago, at 21, to start a career in journalism that has taken him through New York, Singapore and, most recently, to the Financial Times’ Hong Kong desk.

The 34-year-old is about to put that career on hold, though, as he sets off in early June to chart one of history’s most romanticized stretches of water – the Northwest Passage through the Arctic climes found at the very tip of Canada.

Along the way, Dueck will also trade simply

ESSENTIALLY, THE OPEN PASSAGE EXPEDITION IS DESIGNED TO DRAW FURTHER ATTENTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE EFFECT IT IS HAVING ON OUR PLANET. BUT DUECK IS HOPING ALSO IT WILL SHED LIGHT ON THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE WHO DWELL IN THE FAR REACHES OF THAT CONTINENT, AS WELL AS BEING A RIGHT ROLLICKING SEA-FARING ADVENTURE STORY INTO THE BARGAIN 28

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reporting on the story for becoming part of the story.

Essentially, the Open Passage Expedition is designed to draw further attention to climate change and the effect it is having on our planet. But Dueck is hoping also it will shed light on the lives of the people who dwell in the far reaches of that continent, as well as being a right rollicking sea-faring adventure story into the bargain. . He hopes to file reports while away, document the adventure on film, and produce a book when it’s all over and he has returned to Hong Kong.

“Often climate change is talked about in data and even though the numbers are incredible your eyes do start glazing over after a while. It can be hard to get your head around it,’’ he says. “So I want to show the effects of climate change in very human terms. I’m sure there are some cases where climate change has even made life easier to live for some people too.

“I want to hear the stories from them, whether it is good or bad stuff. I just want to come back with the story so people can say, ‘So this is what climate change is about. This is the face of climate change’.’’

The notion of the voyage first came to Dueck after he’d taken a sabbatical in 2004. He’d sailed from Thailand to Turkey, and spent a summer in France and the United Kingdom picking up his captain’s license. He had also sailed from South Africa to the Caribbean.

“I wanted to do something like that again but I wanted a purpose,’’ he says. “That was around 2005 and there was a lot of talk about climate change. It was quite clear that the Arctic was a place where these changes are noticeable and measurable.’’

The Northwest Passage was one of human history’s last great challenges, remaining uncharted until Norway’s Roald Amundsen fought his way through on the 47-ton Gjoa in 1906 after a trip that took three years. There had been numerous tragic attempts before as it was thought the passage would open up new shipping lanes. But you still had to factor in the weather, the sometimes shallow waters, and the ice.

So the irony now is that the very thing Dueck wants to highlight – and thereby help to combat – is also the very thing that is allowing the expedition to take place.

Open Passage Expedition “Fundraiser Party”, Thursday 2nd April in the Philia Lounge, Arbuthnot Rd, Central. For more information on the fundraiser or on the trip, see www.openpassageexpedition.com

Climate change has meant the passage is now open during the summer months whereas in the past it was impenetrable.

“Since 1906 only about 35 private yachts have done it and only about 15 to 20 of those have been sailboats,’’ says Dueck. “It’s becoming more popular every year so I’m not doing something for the first time.

Having said that though it’s not like going sailing in the Caribbean, these are pretty extreme conditions.’’

Much of the remaining preparation time is being spent on fitting out Dueck’s 40ft yacht Silent Sound – which he purchased last year for C$50,000 – looking for one more crew member to join Dueck, Singapore’s Elaine Chua, a top open sea racer, and the expedition doctor, Tobias Neuberger, who is based in Germany.

There’s also the matter of chasing sponsorship. “It doesn’t fall neatly into any category,’’ says Dueck. “It’s not an ‘I did it first’ trip. It’s not a scientific expedition.

So we are finding our niche and are still talking and looking around.’’

For the moment, Dueck is pulling most of the budget out of his own pocket and he admits he probably could not have picked a worse time to walk away from his job anyway, given the state of the world’s economy.

“But if you get an idea like this and you are really passionate about doing it there’s no good time. You just have to do it,’’ he says.

“What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen to me? I’m pretty sure I’m no going to die. No one has died sailing through there in a long time. So the worst thing that can happen is that my boat sinks. Put that against sitting there and knowing that you never went after your dreams and it’s a no contest.’’

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Assignment

Assignment

The Last KR Chapter?

When Luke Hunt attended the first, mainly procedural, sessions of the trial of the now elderly former Khmer Rouge torturer and interrogator, Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as Duch, it brought back a lot of memories.

I

t was a hot February day, the first month of my final year at school and we were walking across the football oval at Springvale High School, in the outer suburbs of Melbourne.

This day was slightly different.

The kids were agitated. Our government had decided to continue recognising Pol Pot as the head of state in Cambodia.

My family, like most Australians of that time, had been reared on a television diet of the Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island and the Vietnam War. One friend of the family had died when his helicopter was blown to bits – John Gillespie would become an Australian byword for MIA – and now the Vietnamese 30

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had invaded Cambodia and laid bare the crimes of the Khmer Rouge, their brother Communists who had performed admirably in trying to outdo the Chinese with their own cultural obliteration.

The decision to support the ultra-Maoists as they fled Phnom Penh in early 1979 was beyond comprehension for young Australians. And it would irritate me over the decades to come.

For Vietnam, one era ended as the Communists annexed the south in 1975. Then as the Cold War neared an end in 1989, Hanoi withdrew from Cambodia and ditched her Soviet allies. Reforms followed, as did WTO membership and a country has arrived.

It was an evolution that swept across Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and even Africa where the end of the Cold War helped push apartheid into the pages of history.

Luckless Cambodia, however, was perhaps the only sovereign nation to miss out on that party.

Fully armed with the compliments of the US, China and Thailand, Pol Pot’s henchmen continued the fight until 1998 before final capitulation. It was only then that Prime Minister Hun Sen could ask the UN for an international tribunal aimed at delivering justice for the third of the country that were killed off in less than four years of Khmer Rouge rule.

Real-politick shenanigans in Phnom Penh, Beijing, Washington and at the UN meant a bumpy ride and it would take another 10 years to get to the start gate.

If someone had said to me on the footy fields of Springvale that 30 years later – almost to the day – I’d be standing outside an international court in Phnom Penh witnessing the start of the final chapter in the Khmer Rouge saga, I would have said: “That’s a bit bloody rough.”

As efforts to put the surviving leaders in the dock for the deaths of at least 1.7 million people lurched from one crisis to the next, there has always been a band of journalists that have persistently stayed with this story.

Like most Cambodians, many correspondents see the tribunal as a must and as a chance for closure on an era that has gone far beyond its use-by date.

However, there are concerns.

“Politically and legally, the tribunal lost a lot of credibility already during the negotiation process, when member states continued to push the UN to hand over more and more control to the Cambodian government,” Danish journalist Anette Marcher said.

“On a more emotional level, if this whole process has helped some Cambodians come to terms with what happened to them during the Pol Pot regime, then it has served a certain purpose. And of course, there is also the fact that at least some former Khmer Rouge leaders got to spend some time in custody.

It’s just too bad it happened too late for people like Son Sen and Pol Pot himself.”

Australian freelancer Liam Cochrane said the tribunal should

There is no question that Cambodia has changed for the better since the 1990s but I think the kickbacks and nasty politics inside the tribunal are giving the international side of the court, and perhaps the UN in general, a better insight into the true workings of modern Cambodia

Images: AFP

Left: Foreign journalists line up outside the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia in Phnom Penh in February. The Khmer Rouge trial will open formally later in March.

Above: Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as Duch, sits impassively during the opening stages of the trial.

be a no-brainer.

“It should be a positive thing – although long overdue. But I’m not convinced that Cambodians have been engaged by the process.

Generally, I have very mixed feeling about the tribunal.

“There is no question that Cambodia has changed for the better since the 1990s but I think the kickbacks and nasty politics inside the tribunal are giving the international side of the court, and perhaps the UN in general, a better insight into the true workings of modern Cambodia.”

Managing Editor of the Phnom Penh Post, American Michael Hayes, has followed efforts to try surviving leaders for more than 10 years and said that the high emotions felt on the opening day were understandable.

“I’m supportive of the tribunal, I’m glad it’s happening I don’t’ believe it’s too expensive and I’m glad it’s under way. I think for the people who are here I’m sure it’s a very emotional day.”

Freelance journalist Rob Carmichael drew comparisons with the truth and reconciliation commission in his native South Africa, which helped uncover what happened during apartheid.

“I think it’s widely felt that the reconciliation commission did a good job, and all the Cambodians I have spoken to want to know the answer to one question: Why did it happen? However, whether putting a few surviving senior members on trial will KR achieve much remains to be seen,” adds Carmichael.

As “recovering journalist” and restaurateur Hurley Scroggins put it, Cambodians are as entitled to human rights as much as anybody else, and that includes justice.

THE CORRESPONDENT

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Assignment

Assignment

Unearthing more than memories

The UN Khmer Rouge Tribunal that started in February reminds us that there are an estimated 1.7 million corpses rotting in Cambodia’s “killing fields”, including two Americans from California and Minneapolis writes Richard S. Ehrlich.

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Cambodian government document found in the National Archives of Cambodia revealed that “an American, Michael Deeds, was taken to the notorious Tuol Sleng S-21 prison, tortured, and then executed during the last days of the Khmer Rouge government regime in Cambodia in 1979,” wrote American investigators connected to the US Defense Department.

“He was then buried behind Tuol Sleng,” said the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), which searched among dusty files in 2000, unable to find further leads to determine what happened to the Americans.

Deeds, from Long Beach, California, was seized along with others on a boat near Cambodia’s coast. He was travelling with James William Clark of Minneapolis, who was also interrogated in Tuol Sleng and died.

The burial ground for Tuol Sleng’s victims includes 100 mass graves and skeleton-packed pits on the outskirts of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, not far from where the UN Tribunal began its longawaited hearings by displaying the elderly former Khmer Rouge torturer and interrogator commonly known as Duch. Facing judges, lawyers, survivors, investigators and others, Duch stared wideeyed and mostly expressionless while the court went through dry preparations to hear Duch’s testimony, expected in March.

Duch operated Tuol Sleng where victims suffered horrific abuse, according to former prisoner Vann Nath, who later documented the acts in gruesome paintings.

Duch has partially confessed, and his testimony would provide

valuable details about what went on when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975-79.

Duch, however, may not be able to offer much help in locating the remains of the Americans, or anyone else, because when Tuol Sleng’s 16,000 tortured victims were dragged away, they were shoved by other Khmer Rouge cadres into unmarked graves.

The document about Deeds was described by the DPMO team as requesting “the disposition of Deeds, while in Tuol Sleng prison in late 1978, before the Pol Pot regime had him executed.

“Deeds was one of four Americans allegedly killed while possibly smuggling marijuana from Thailand, when their ship went off course and ended up in Cambodian waters, where they were boarded by Khmer Rouge,” said the US team.

“Michael Scott Deeds, 29 years old, male, spy of Americans,” reads a brief identification tag dated 1978, according to a separate Tuol Sleng Catalogue of Confessions compiled by Cornell University.

Tuol Sleng’s interrogators extracted confessions from people who were tortured until they

They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in our way.

We are prepared to improve relations with them.

Henry Kissinger in 1975

spouted the names of relatives, friends, associates, officials, strangers, and anyone else they could think of.

In agony, victims told whatever incriminating stories they thought would please their tormentors – apparently hoping to end the pain or escape execution.

To prove their rapid, conveyor belt system of interrogations was efficient, Tuol Sleng’s officials presented them as fact.

As a result, other Khmer Rouge believed the confessions, and brought in more innocent victims.

They, in turn, incriminated others in an increasingly absurd and vicious spiral which quickly decimated the government and its supporters.

America was castigated as Cambodia’s worst enemy, and frequently appeared in confession statements. But Washington was secretly covering up, and trying to improve, America’s relations with Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime.

“You should also tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them,” U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Thailand’s political and military officials in Washington in 1975, seven months after Pol Pot seized power.

“They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in our way. We are prepared to improve relations with them,” Mr. Kissinger said according to declassified US. State Department transcript.

“Tell them the latter part, but don’t tell them what I said before,” Kissinger said – three years before the confessions were extracted from Deeds and Clark at Tuol Sleng.

In 1989, Michael Deeds’ brother travelled to Tuol Sleng, but was unable to find his remains.

Image: Richard S. Ehrlich

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THE CORRESPONDENT

33

Press Freedom

Press Freedom

Stiletto By Max Kolbe

Hacks remain targets Authorities around the world have again proved unfailing in their inability to tolerate those going about their daily routine as a reporter. There are exceptions, however, with a minor miracle in the Philippines where a suspect – a police officer – has been charged over the killing of a journalist.

The Committee to Protect Journalists wants Israel to return confiscated news footage of its navy allegedly firing on and boarding a ship which Tel Aviv says never happened. There were also journalists on board and they’re not happy, saying they were beaten up and had their equipment confiscated during the latest adventure into Gaza. Among those on board was Al-Jazeera correspondent Salam Khodr who reported the boat was boarded by the Israeli navy and diverted to the port city of Ashdod.

Kazakhstan Kazakh journalist Bakhytzhan Nurpeisov, 19, who works for the independent newspaper Public Opinion has been seriously beaten by unknown assailants, Max has seen pictures of their handiwork and if you’re into brutality then this was impressive. According to reports, the attackers did not touch his money, but took his tape recorder, camera, and media identification. He was hospitalized with head wounds and a fractured cheekbone. Kazakh Journalists’ Union Chairman Seitkazy Mataev said the beating of journalists in Kazakhstan has become a trend.

Nurpeisov is also the nephew of opposition activist Marzhan Aspandiyarova.

Activists and journalists on a ship seized by the Israeli navy gesture upon their return to southern Lebanon. They said they sought to deliver aid to Gaza.

Police and thieves

Kenya Press campaigners have condemned the killing of a Kenyan journalist whose decapitated body was dumped in a forest.

Francis Kainda Nyaruri was discovered with his hands tied behind his back and deep gashes on his body. Nyaruri was reported missing after writing about alleged corruption for privately owned Weekly Citizen that highlighted financial irregularities within the local police. “We call on the police to pursue all possible leads and ensure that the perpetrators of this hideous crime are brought to justice,” said Tom Rhodes, the Africa co-ordinator of the Committee for the Protection of Journalists.

Hacked down

Slush puppies

Authorities around the world have again proved unfailing in their inability to tolerate those going about their daily routine as a reporter

Malaysia Malaysia’s Information Ministry has denied making any payments to journalists covering the Kuala Terengganu by-election. The press secretary to the Information Minister, Hisham Abdul Hamid, said the ministry had never directed any of its officers to make such payments. “This has never been the practice of the Information Ministry,” he said. The Mandarin version of the Malaysiakini portal reported an Information Ministry officer had given envelopes containing money to journalists covering the by-election. Two journalists from Merdekaview.com lodged a police report saying they had received money from a media centre officer.

Khyber farce

Editor dies from blast

Iraq An Iraqi sports editor has died of shrapnel wounds suffered in a roadside bombing. Majid al-Sakr had been in a coma since the November 28 attack in Baghdad.

The head of the Iraqi Journalists’ Union, Mouyyad al-Lami, says the 51-year-old journalist of the privately owned daily Al-Bayana was survived by a wife and five children. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says 136 journalists and 51 media support workers have been killed since the US and its allies invaded Iraq in 2003.

Timor text editor Police killing?

Philippines Philippine prosecutors have filed murder charges against a police officer in the killing of a radio journalist. Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor said arrest warrants were issued for Inspector Redempto Acharon and alleged accomplices after charges were filed in connection with the August 2008 slaying of Dennis Cuesta, programme director of Radio Mindanao Network in General Santos city. In the image above, a group of the dead journalist’s friends and colleagues place candles on the spot in General Santos City where he was shot.

The officer charged has denied any involvement.

East Timor As Southeast Asia’s youngest country, East Timor is catching on quick with regional customs.

The editor of the investigative newspaper Tempo Semanal is being sued for defamation by Justice Minister, Lucia Lobato, for publishing a story suggesting she was awarding contracts to refurbish a prison to her husband’s company and her own associates.

The minister argues the editor, Jose Belo, violated her privacy and journalists’ ethical code by publishing text messages between the minister and her business associates. This has rights groups worried as the minister is using criminal laws imposed by the country’s former occupier, Indonesia, to charge a journalist and threaten media freedom.

Pakistan The Khyber Union of Journalists and the Peshawar Press Club have condemned the abduction of a journalist associated with a private TV channel and demanded the government find him. Noor Hassan was on his way from Peshawar to Swat when he was abducted. KhUJ President Muhammad Riaz said threats to the lives of journalists were increasing.

Radio silence

Somalia The National Union of Somali Journalists has demanded clan elders of a “known attacker” to punish him for stabbing radio director Hassan Bulhan five times in the stomach and heart.

The attack occurred three days after gunmen killed Said Tahlil Ahmed, director of independent HornAfrik Radio in Mogadishu.

The attacks also come after the top United Nations official in Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, compared the role of Somali media with the infamous Rwandan radio station that helped incite the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Hassan’s funeral is pictured above.

Murder mission

Nepal A visiting media mission made up of 15 international organisations has asked the Nepalese government to conduct a impartial investigation into the murder of journalists Uma Singh, J.P. Joshi, Birendra Sah and Puskar Joshi.

All Images: AFP

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THE CORRESPONDENT

35

Meanwhile in the Main Bar

Then and Now

Yung Shue Wan valley in 1979 and 2008. Images by Bob Davis

1979:

Traditionally, a network of smallholdings across the outlying islands and the New Territories, including these ones on Lamma Island, supplied the markets of Hong Kong with a daily supply of fresh vegetables.

2008: Since the 1980s, farmers have been allowed to build on their garden plots. This, combined with a sharp increase of produce coming into Hong Kong from the mainland, means few market gardens exist today. Š Bob Davis. www.bobdavisphotographer.com

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THE CORRESPONDENT

THE CORRESPONDENT

37

Club Tie

Club Tie

David Wong – retires after 31 years David Wong, who was, for as long as most of us can remember, the ever-present face of efficiency behind the Main Bar, retired in February after 31 years service at the Club. Cammy Yiu catches his memories.

D

avid Wong, for once, is sitting on the “other” side of the bar. As he sits, being interviewed for this article, a string of people come up to shake his hand and wish him well. This display of affection makes David smile.

“I hear you have left?” said one woman, clearly a little upset. David reassured her. “The boss said I can come back, part-time, whenever I want,” he says. “Maybe in June?”

David says he didn’t really want to leave the best job he has ever had.

“The staff and management took such good care of me.” But lately his health has become an issue so, reluctantly, at age seventy-two, he took the advice of his family and decided it is time for a long break.

“My son said ‘Dad, we have a home, we have enough to eat and to live on. Why not rest?’ After a while, I listened to him.”

But a life of rest will not come easily for a man who started working and earning a living when he was just ten years old, when he followed his uncle, who was a purser on a cruise liner, out to sea.

“We didn’t have much at home, so I decided I should work. I worked as a bellboy and a waiter on cruise ships. They were good jobs. I had food, a place to live and some money to spend too. I also saw the world: Australia, Japan, Africa, Vietnam, New Zealand, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore…”

David came back to Hong Kong, in 1975 when he says he “thought it was about time I found a wife”. During this period he 38

THE CORRESPONDENT

Image: Bob Davis

worked in a variety of members’ clubs and various restaurants and hotels, before coming to the FCC. David remembers it well.

“I was introduced to the FCC by a friend. The Club was in the Sutherland House then. My first day was on 15 October 1978.

“I was working at a restaurant, but the boss went dancing every night, spent all his money and had nothing left to pay us. So I looked for another job. I found work at a hotel but it took me an hour each way to get there and I wanted something closer to home.

“On my way home from the hotel one day, I bumped into an old work mate at a TST bus stop, and I asked him if he knew where I could find a job. He was working at the FCC and said he would introduce me to ‘Sammy’ the bar manager.

The next day I went to the FCC and spoke with the manager. He asked if I could start the next day.”

David worked in the bar and only served a few kinds of drinks: gin and tonic, whisky and soda or beer. “No one drank cocktails.”

He says there are so many memories and faces that to remember specific anecdotes is difficult. But his recall remains incredible. “Richard Hughes,” he says. “Member number 27.”

The most amazing night of his career was, he says, the evening of the handover, in 1997. “The bar was full. There was a sea of people.

Everyone called for me: ‘David!

David!’ It was crazy. It was the busiest night we have ever had. It was a happy occasion.”

David was born in Hong Kong and his earliest memory was when he was three or four years old. “My father was almost beheaded by the Japanese. We had some land in Happy Valley that my father used to grow vegetables and my mother would take to Wan Chai to sell.

One day, the Japanese dragged my father away because they thought he was protecting criminals. I ran crying to my relatives saying that the Japanese were killing my dad.

But he survived, somehow. Instead of killing him they made him haul wood for them.”

David doesn’t plan to travel now as he says he has already seen enough of the world. He will stay in Hong Kong and spend time taking care of his five dogs at his home in Yuen Long, listening to good “old-style music” like Nat King Cole, visiting friends and relatives, buying groceries and preparing home-style family meals.

Above all he is determined to stay busy. “I need to have things to do.” And that might mean a few more stints behind the Main Bar.

Gilbert Cheng, wedded to the FCC Veteran journalist Vernon Ram, who joined the FCC in 1964, first met current Club Manager Gilbert Cheng more than 30 years ago, when Gilbert was an apprentice waiter. In February these old friends met and chatted, for The Correspondent, about the past… and the future.

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very time Gilbert (Tiger) Cheng flashes past me at the FCC, I pinch myself in wonder. I cannot quite reconcile the image of this confident and self-assured executive with that of the extremely shy and nervous bus-boy, the term for an apprentice waiter, I had encountered over three decades ago at the now defunct Sutherland House, the former home of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club.

In the years since, Gilbert Cheng, fondly nicknamed Tiger, has risen step by step from the lowest rank to become the first Chinese General Manager of one of the most celebrated press clubs in the world. In the process, he has become a unique success story himself, an iconic legend not unlike some of those elite figures among the Club’s past presidents.

This is hardly surprising, given the fact that Cheng’s role model and mentor was the celebrated Liao Chien-ping, barman extraordinaire of the FCC since its halcyon days in Chungking, Shanghai and Hong Kong – over four decades – until 1977.

“Papa Liao taught me everything I know, from table-setting, mixing drinks and remembering names and membership numbers of every person, male or female, I served at the Club,” Cheng recalls adoringly.

Not only that, but this is also one lesson the proud pupil has since passed on to every new recruit in the past few decades. As a result, members are constantly surprised when waiters appear able to

Image: Bob Davis

recognize them the instant after they check in or take their seat in the bar or table.

Cheng’s own memory and recall of names are phenomenal.

Two among his favourites from old times are the late Edward (Eddie) Tseng of Taiwan’s Central News Agency and Edward Wu of the Baltimore Sun. They were FCC presidents in 1968 and 1973 respectively. Another name Cheng recalls fondly is the legendary Marsha Prysuska who used to dictate her China Mail column from the bar at Sutherland House.

Cheng combines in his persona the twin capabilities of a super concierge and a master maitre d’ to be able to tackle all chores and challenges of a working day from morning till midnight, and sometimes even past that hour.

These are skills he acquired over the years when he supplemented his working day at FCC by enrolling in advanced courses at night in catering and banquet management

at the Polytechnic and five-star hotels like the Sheraton.

The hard work and training paid off in December 1999 when Cheng was offered the job of General Manager of the FCC. He hasn’t looked back since as the Club’s business and membership have boomed as never before.

Though his old colleagues like Sammy have retired, there are still reliable and experienced hands like Stephen, Andrew and Anthony who keep the well-oiled engine rolling day after day. Cheng has also promoted bright young women like Shirley and Dilys to take up senior positions, paving the way for younger ones to follow suit.

To the quip that he spends all his time at the FCC because he is married to his job, Cheng replied: “Of course. My wife Helen (Chow) was front office secretary when we first met and I proposed to her.” The Chengs now have two daughters: Angela (24) and Doris (20) who lives in Toronto.

THE CORRESPONDENT

39

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