COVER STORY
T H E O F F I C I A L P U B L I C AT I O N O F T H E F O R E I G N C O R R E S P O N D E N T S ’ C L U B
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HONG KONG
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STOP PRESS: Hong Kong’s renowned Foreign Correspondents’ Club – respected forum for local and international speakers, champion of press freedom and everyone’s favourite watering hole – notches up 40 years in heritage building.
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CONTENTS COVER STORY
18 40 YEARS ON ICE Long-time member Philip Bowring casts a discerning eye over what has gone on in the FCC, and the city it calls home, since it took up residence at Lower Albert Road. Logo design: Noel de Guzman Cover images: FCC Archive and The Dairy Farm Review Front Cover (clockwise from top left): Clare Hollingworth; sports fans; Dick Hughes; charity ball revellers; Lee Kuan Yew; Zhu Rongji; Handover night; Maria Ressa; Chris Patten; live band; Conduit Road; Mahathir Mohamad; Main Bar crowd; Hugh Van Es; Martin Lee; Old Dairy Farm building; Tung Chee-hwa. Back Cover (left to right from top left): Melinda Liu; Lower Albert Road; Feng Chi-shun; Kevin Egan; black tie night; Nick Danziger; Martha Reeves; The Jacksons; Kerry McGlynn; Johannes Chan; Robert Elegant; happy trio; David Tang; Gina Chua; Tim Huxley; Jasper Becker; CY Leung; PJ O’Rourke; Mervin Nambiar; Regina Ip; Keith Richburg; party animals; FCC staff; Human Rights Press Awards.
UPFRONT 2 From the President 4 Editor’s Letter 5
ta ro le ‘Thirty-three years and counting’ pretty much sums up Fanny Chan’s day-to-day existence since she started work at the club in 1989. 6 Wine & Dine Associate Member Paul Hicks lets his thoughts and taste buds roam around the club’s kitchen and dining rooms, from soup to nuts and everything betwixt and between. 10 Member Insights Meet the Gokals: grandfather, father and son – all Associate members and huge fans of the FCC.
SIGN UP Signing up for the FCC website (fcchk.org) Members’ Area takes only a moment and allows members to manage their account and check their statements. Call 2521 1511 for assistance.
THE CORRESPONDENT
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FEATURES 12 Dining Room Expo A colourful cavalcade of images provides a veritable, immensely enjoyable saunter down Memory Lane.
32 Club egends Morgan Davis lines up a mini Who’s Who of members and speakers who have so greatly enlivened the club’s existence.
24 Past Covers A kaleidoscope of covers from The Correspondent supplies 32 snapshots of what’s been at the forefront of members’ minds since Edward Youde donned that eyecatching plumed hat.
36 ail to the Chie s Rather amazingly, some Correspondents have gamely signed up to be President more than once. Rather less amazingly, almost all of them have some very vivid memories of their time in office.
26 Architecture and Heritage The club’s housed in one of Hong Kong’s most striking listed Victorian buildings – but what was its genesis and how to keep it looking pristine? Clare Hollingworth Fellow Amy Sood has the scoop.
40 Corporate ocial esponsibility Clare Hollingworth Fellow Hillary Leung surveys the work the club has done, and continues to do, for a host of good causes.
30 Staff Photo Let’s do the Time Warp again: staff dress up for the traditional masquerade for the second time this century. Bravo!
44 yewitness on Asia Published in 1997, the FCC’s coffee table book was one of a kind. Mark Jones assesses how it’s stood up to the test of time. 48 arry arrison Our cartoonist in residence embarks on a spot of humourous time travel in the Main Bar.
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FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear FCC Members, This special commemorative edition of The Correspondent marks 40 years at the club’s current location, 2 Lower Albert Road. But any celebratory mood is clearly overshadowed by the harrowing COVID-19 outbreak in Hong Kong that, as of this writing, was seeing daily case counts, hospitalisations and deaths at distressingly high levels. Some of the stories and scenes have been heartbreaking. In February, infected patients were forced to wait outdoors in hospital car parks, in chilly, rainy weather while lying on gurneys or slumped in plastic chairs because all the beds were full. Overwhelmed healthcare workers were running short of protective equipment. Rapid test kits were in short supply. Domestic helpers who tested positive were fired from their jobs, some forced to sleep in public areas, on rooftops or in a car while waiting for help. The scenes from Hong Kong at the start of 2022 resembled what we saw during the earlier wave of the pandemic in northern Italy and New York City in March and April of 2020.
PHOTO: SUPPLIED
For the first two years of this awful pandemic, I thought we were fortunate to be in Hong Kong. Sure, there were the inconveniences of the sporadic, temporary closures of bars, gyms, movie theatres and barber shops during earlier waves. We all hated wearing face masks, especially in the humid, sticky summer months. And many of us chafed at having to endure the world’s strictest quarantine for incoming travellers – 21 days locked in a costly hotel room for most returning residents. I haven’t travelled since 2019. And of course we all remember the on-again, off-again 6 pm closing of the club, the long absence of live music in Bert’s and the forced cancellations of our luncheon talks and other events. But for two years, COVID-19 cases were low and there were relatively few deaths. The inconveniences seemed a reasonable price to pay to avoid the nightmare afflicting the rest of the world. Looking back, it seems Hong Kong was lulled into a sense of complacency. Then the more highly contagious Omicron arrived and upended the equation. There will be plenty of time in the future to debate why Hong Kong was caught off-guard and unprepared for this brutal fifth wave. There will be plenty of blame-laying and finger-pointing – the elderly for not getting vaccinated, the government for sending confusing messages, families for gathering at Chinese New Year, aircrew for flouting home quarantine rules, young people for not trusting the authorities and sowing disinformation. Future investigations into the calamity can determine where the fault really lies. For now, though, in the midst of the crisis, the focus should be on doing what we can to help. And the FCC is doing its part.
For now, though, in the midst of the crisis, the focus should be on doing what we can to help.
In February, the club began donating three meals a day – breakfast, lunch and dinner – plus water to around three dozen domestic helpers in need, through the local NGO known as HELP. Domestic helpers are Hong Kong’s unsung heroes, and the hidden backbone of our local economy. They are also among the city’s most marginalised residents, and when this latest pandemic wave hit, many were left homeless and struggling. I’m glad that at the FCC we could do our small part to help.
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The club also began providing food, rapid test kits and face masks to residents of the China Coast Community, the retirement home for elderly Englishspeaking residents and one of our longtime partners. We also appealed to our members to individually help out where they could, either by donating funds or their time to any of the NGOs active during this crisis. We’re helping out because we saw a few small places where we could make a difference. And also because since arriving in Hong Kong in 1949 – relocating from mainland China at the end of the civil war – the Foreign Correspondents’ Club has become an integral part of the Hong Kong community, following its formal establishment in 1952. The first word of our title is “Foreign”, but that is in some ways a misnomer, since we are very much a part of the fabric of the local society. We have been here in Hong Kong through the territory’s ups and downs, and its many transitions. We were here during the 1967 anti-colonial riots that left more than 50 people dead. We were here during the influx of Vietnamese refugees in the 1980s and the Tiananmen Square incident that prompted a mass exodus and a flood of mainland escapees arriving through Operation Yellowbird. We were here during the Handover, bird flu, the Asian financial crisis and the SARS epidemic. And of course we were here during the most recent upheavals, the 2014 Occupy Movement, the 2019 protests and then the ongoing pandemic. For more than seven decades, the FCC has been here – in several different locations but for the last 40 years at Lower Albert Road – a stable, reliable presence in our ever-changing city. We’ve been here as a place where people of widely divergent politics and viewpoints could meet, debate, exchange ideas and imbibe. We’ve hosted colonial governors, chief executives and prime ministers. I have no doubt Hong Kong will emerge from this current crisis stronger, because this city and its people are resilient. And the FCC will be here, too, as we always have been.
For more than seven decades, the FCC has been here – in several different locations but for the last 40 years at Lower Albert Road – a stable, reliable presence in our everchanging city.
We are Hong Kong, and together, we can make it.
IMAGES: PETER PARKS / AFP, HARRY HARRISON
Keith Richburg Hong Kong 18 March 2022
THE CORRESPONDENT
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The Foreign Correspondents’ Club 2 Lower Albert Road Central, Hong Kong Tel: (852) 2521 1511 Fax: (852) 2868 4092 Email: fcc@fcchk.org Website: www.fcchk.org
THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB HONG KONG
EDITOR’S LETTER
The Board of Governors 2021-2022 President Keith Richburg First Vice President Hannamiina Tanninen
Dear FCC Members, There was no flashing neon sign outside Sutherland House, declaring this to be the fabled home of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, as immortalised by John le Carré etc etc. But gargling my first pint – nobody forgets their FCC baptism – in nineteen-eighty-something, I got the distinct impression that I had wandered into somewhere special. It’s a sensation that’s persisted down the years – especially now, given that this issue of the magazine celebrates four decades at the club’s current location – years that are shot through with a clutch of vivid memories: Clare Hollingworth, with a teabag poking out of her jacket pocket, stoutly declaring that all the workroom needed was some good reference books, not computers and this new-fangled internet; the muted round of applause that greeted the televised lowering of the Union Jack on Handover night; Nate Thayer gliding modestly into the Main Bar shortly after publishing another exclusive interview with a Khmer Rouge apparatchik; barman David (I’m cudgelling my brains to recall his surname) responding to my order with “five-seven-five-six” – a statement rather than a question – even though I had been away on my travels for nearly a year; lunchtime speaker Ronald Harwood, president of PEN International, working himself into a fury at the iniquities of various despotic governments around the world. It’s not just me: a couple of decades on, American guests I entertained in the Dining Room one evening are still a little awestruck. As indeed they should be. The frisson of rubbing shoulders with hacks just back from the front line has largely dissipated, but the FCC’s cosmopolitan, clued-up membership makes it a stimulating place to linger. If Michelin starts handing out awards to clubs, prepare for a minor avalanche of stars. There is no question about where the FCC stands on press freedom. And it is also poster boy for Hong Kong heritage preservation, having transformed a tumbledown go-down into one of the most welcoming locales in the city. The following pages should reinforce the message that the FCC has few rivals anywhere on the face of the earth. Let’s keep it that way.
Second Vice President Tim Huxley Correspondent Member Governors Lucy Colback, Jennifer Hughes, Jennifer Jett, Kristie Lu Stout, Iain Marlow, Shai Oster, Austin Ramzy, Dan Strumpf Journalist Member Governors Clifford Buddle, Zela Chin Associate Member Governors Genavieve Alexander, Liu Kin-ming, Christopher Slaughter, Richard David Winter Club Treasurer Tim Huxley Club Secretary Jennifer Hughes Professional Committee Conveners: Hannamiina Tanninen, Iain Marlow, Austin Ramzy, Keith Richburg Finance Committee Conveners: Tim Huxley, Lucy Colback Constitutional Committee Conveners: Jennifer Hughes, Liu Kin-ming Membership Committee Conveners: Jennifer Hughes, Clifford Buddle House/Food and Beverage Committee Conveners: Hannamiina Tanninen, Genavieve Alexander Building - Project and Maintenance Committee Conveners: Christopher Slaughter, Liu Kin-ming Press Freedom Committee Conveners: Dan Strumpf, Hannamiina Tanninen, Austin Ramzy, Keith Richburg Communications Committee Conveners: Genavieve Alexander, Iain Marlow Wall Committee Conveners: Kristie Lu Stout, Dan Strumpf General Manager Didier Saugy Editor Ed Peters Email: edapeters@yahoo.com Publisher: Artmazing! Noel de Guzman Email: artmazingcompany@gmail.com
Ed Peters Get in touch: editor@fcchk.org
Printing Elite Printing: Tel: 2558 0119 Advertising Contact CC ront
fice: el:
The Correspondent ©2022 The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong
PHOTO: ED PETERS
The Correspondent is published four times a year. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the club.
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STAFF PROFILE
‘It’s like a big family’
PHOTO: BEN MAR ANS PHOTOGR APHY
Accountant Fanny Chan Yuet Ying – the club’s longest serving employee – drops the occasional hint that she rather enjoys her job. Clare Hollingworth Fellow Amy Sood gets some tips on balancing the books.
And of course I’ve enjoyed it – or else I wouldn’t have stayed over 30 years.
When did you join the FCC? Fanny Chan: I started here all the way back in 1989 – unbelievable, right? I was born and raised in Kowloon and have always lived there. Before the FCC I was working in a merchandising and trading company, but my mother always wanted me to find a new job. When we saw the advertisement for this job, I applied immediately. You’ve spent 33 years in Accounting at the FCC – were you always interested in this eld FC: Honestly, when I first started, I had very little idea about accounting. I took up a course at the Hong Kong School of Commerce – and then through studying and work experience, I learned so much. I was also lucky to have guidance from the people I worked with. What’s your secret for staying at the FCC for as long as you have? FC: The most important thing is that you have to enjoy what you do, and you have to enjoy the people you work with. And of course I’ve enjoyed it – or else I wouldn’t have stayed over 30 years. You should always be happy, and forgive and forget any minor problems. And honestly, once you join this place and once you become a part of it – you don’t feel like you want to leave. It’s like a big family.
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How has the FCC changed in the past 30 years? FC: My team has moved to a new building, we have our own warehouse; all of these changes have been amazing. And so much at the club is new too – the main bars, the kitchen, the veranda. When I first started here, there were a few hundred members and now there’s more than 2,000 – it’s such a big change. But I love it. The place has really grown. What are your favourite memories at the FCC?
FC: The Charity Ball events, for sure. We raised so much
money in donations, and we had nearly 1,000 guests at our last one. I feel so happy we helped so many children with scholarships through our donations. What does your work-day look like?
FC: First thing I do is check emails (I can’t believe there
was a time before we had emails) and I reply to members’ queries. I also check payments for suppliers, issue cheques, settle payments and more things like that – it is quite a routine. How about your downtime?
FC: I love hiking. My favourite trail is the Shing Mun
reservoir. My husband and two children also love hiking in the Kowloon area. My other hobby is watching Netflix – lots of Korean dramas.
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WINE & DINE
BROWSING AND SLUICING WITH GUSTO Come the four corners of the world and we shall assuage their appetites. The club has burnished its reputation for fine dining and drinking over the years. Paul Hicks supplies a gut-felt tribute.
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food showcases that General Manager Didier Saugy and or quite a small venue, we have half-a-dozen his 70-strong F&B team – with the help of a string of dining spaces and many more types of cuisine: guest chefs – have laid on for our enjoyment. the old-school Dining Room and the adjacent conservatory-style enclosed terrace The Change is good Verandah, a separate Chinese dining space Naturally there have been some changes over in the Hughes Room which links to the the years. For instance, did you know that The Burton Room, the congenial Main Bar & Lounge and the discreet downstairs The Main Bar menu Verandah was once a separate restaurant with bistro bar Bert’s. We also have absurdly now reads like a long, an open-fire grill and great sizzling steaks and jumbo prawns, until it was pointed out comprehensive menus which collectively comforting, wellthis contravened various licensing regulations embrace Indian, Chinese, Western, grill, thumbed, 30-year-old and had to be shut down? Or that the Indian pub grub, burgers, sandwiches, pizzas and address book. kitchen, a culinary highlight of the FCC, pastas, Asian favourites and very many only got going in 2000 with the appointment more. Pretty much every type of cuisine of Chef Pardeep Kumar Ray and his team. But perhaps most from around the world is in some way represented in remarkable is the extent to which large parts of the menu the club’s extensive menu, and if it isn’t then you can be have barely changed at all for decades. pretty sure it will pop up eventually on a weekly special, In most restaurants, chefs are free to refresh the menus blackboard dish or national food promotion. Sichuan, at will. The worst that can happen is they may lose one or German and Korean are just some of the recent popular
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two customers. But here, any attempt to alter the menu Former President Steve Vines is well known for his has to be engineered with great skill and diplomacy. Woe support of the democratic cause in politics. Equally, as F&B betide any new chef, general manager or F&B committee Committee Convenor about a decade ago he found himself busybody who comes in promising a radical new approach playing the role of food champion of the people. Faced with to our food. You might think that people who come to dine some rather strident demands from new members to remove at the same place several times a month for many years “undignified” menu items like Shepherd’s Pie to boost would crave some changes to the menu. Oh, no. All of the the reputation of the club, he suggested a more populist F & B Committee members I spoke to, present, past and approach, asking then General Manager Gilbert “Tiger” distant past, say the same thing. The biggest challenge Cheng for sales records of the club’s best-selling dishes. over the years has been trying to remove old items from The records showed they were almost exactly the ones the the menus, because our members tend to newbies had wanted to remove. Flourishing resist. Everyone is fiercely protective of their democracy won the day, and since then, the favourites, and while they might be happy to F&B Committee has always been furnished try something new once in a while, they’re with regular reports on which are the bestvehemently opposed to losing the tried-andThe late Robin Lynam selling items, so as to ensure members’ tested. That’s why the Main Bar menu now favourites are maintained. wryly recalled ‘none reads like a long, comforting, well-thumbed “One of the biggest challenges is not of us had ever met a 30-year-old address book of everyone you only to keep our members inspired by the vegan, and vegetarians menus, but to keep our chefs inspired too,” got to know and like over the years, but were still considered with none of those you haven’t seen for ages says Saugy. “They’ve been here for years rather strange’. removed. Any F&B professional will tell and do a great job, but they also need to do you it’s nothing short of a miracle that one new things from time to time to stay fresh. kitchen can churn out such a plethora of dishes. That’s another reason why it’s important to bring in guests chefs who they can learn from, and to run monthly specials A oc sh and a hard place so they can get creative.” Not that people don’t try to remove things from time to Over the past few years, I think it fair to say that time. One example is the classic FCC Rockfish Soup, the team has done an exceptional job in meeting these which was first ladled out back in 1978. In the 1990s, new challenges: evolving the club’s cuisine, and adding new chef Stephen Warren dismissed it from the menu as he dimensions, while still preserving the classics we all love. found its method of preparation rather unsophisticated. The backlash from members was instant and brutal. It was it s green it must be Monday swiftly put back on the menu, and has remained there ever One recent innovation is the introduction of Green since. Lynn Grebstad, a F&B Committee member in Mondays – special menus encouraging members to sample the early 1990s, recalls that once there was even a revolt a variety of plant-based cuisine. “We decided to push over the introduction of “skinny” French fries. “Bring ahead with this despite some initial opposition because it’s back our fat chips”, was the battle cry of the day. something we believe in,” says Saugy. This is something Nowadays, members can opt for either variety. that would have been unthinkable 40 years ago, when as
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WINE & DINE
former F&B Committee Chairman the late Robin Lynam wryly recalled “none of us had ever met a vegan, and vegetarians were still considered rather strange.” Even in the past two difficult years, the Club’s F&B team have staged more than 20 themed lunches and dinners and eight special wine-pairing dinners, which have proved enormously popular. “Members love these and it’s easy for us to get support from the wine trade as soon as you tell them it’s an event at the FCC – they know with our members it’ll be worth their while,” Saugy says. “Our wine socials, when we invite members to come and taste a selection of wines and decide which should be added to the list, are also very popular,” says F&B Committee Convenor Genavieve Alexander, who also came up with the idea for the Around the World in Flavours series, bringing exotic tastes and flavours to us while travel restrictions have made it difficult to go to them. Also popular has been the introduction of the monthly special blackboard items, which allow the team to expand their repertoire without tampering with the sacred core
menu. And dim sum weekends, complete with a pukka dim sum trolley, have been quite a hit too. What’s next for the club? “We’re in the process of bringing in an FCC Masala Chai and aspiring to develop our own tea brand,” says Alexander. “We’re also evolving a second version of our FCC beer label Byline Brew, developed in collaboration with local brand Yardley Brothers.” Cheers to that, and cheers to the FCC’s team of culinary miracle workers.
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The FCC cellar holds 88 labels, with eight champagnes, a leavening of rosés and dessert wines, and reds outnumbering whites 47-28. Suffice to say it’s a marked change from earlier times, when the choice was more or less limited to one colour or the other and the corkscrew was sometimes nowhere to be found. F&B Manager Michael Chan, who was admitted to the Hong Kong Sommelier Association in 2012 and joined the FCC four years ago, says. “One of the most popular innovations of late is the Wine Tasting Group, made up of the sort of members you might expect, who pick their favourites, which we then promote strongly. Wines that don’t sell so well are removed from the list, so it is constantly evolving and moving with the times.”
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Wines that don’t sell so well are removed from the list, so it is constantly evolving and moving with the times.
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FCC TOP SCOFF The two long-running favourite dishes that currently head the top taste-bud lists are Chicken Tikka Masala (selling over 400 a month) closely followed by Hainan Chicken Rice (225 monthly). The FCC Rockfish Soup is still right up there as the best-selling soup (153 bowls a month) and after 40 years on the menu Singapore Noodles is a persistent club favourite (though there was a very brief and unsuccessful attempt to drop it in the 1990s). Wonton Soup Noodles is another “touch-me-not” classic. Some swear by the Beef Stroganoff, while others come especially for the Calves’ Liver and Bacon. All are classics that are not necessarily easy to find elsewhere nowadays.
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MEMBER INSIGHTS
Three cheers for the Gokals: hip, hip… Mahendra Gokal has been an FCC stalwart since 1990; his son joined in 2006, and his grandson got his membership card last year. This could well be the start of a long-running dynasty, says Tiffany Leung. Like father, like son, and his son too: (from left) FCC members Jitesh, Mahendra and Kunal Gokal.
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PHOTO: TIFFANY LEUNG, SUPPLIED
favourite – or to entertain friends and business associates. ifty-three years separate Mahendra Gokal and “I get a real sense of diversity listening to everyone’s his grandson, Kunal Gokal; bridging the gap, different opinions, whether they work full-time in the city and playing the twin role of son and father, is or – in the days before so many travel restrictions – they Jitesh Gokal. Not surprisingly, they are the club’s only were journalists from overseas just staying for a short time,” members to span three generations and, again, not overly he adds. surprisingly, each of them finds something Mahendra’s memories stretch from different to enjoy about the FCC. watching correspondents reacting to While many first-time visitors to the messages pumped out by chattering Telex club comment on its historic ambience, One of the reasons the machines in the early 1990s to more recent Mahendra was struck by the opportunities it FCC has been such a days of networking, be that on social media offered in getting to know people. success and has such or, in its more traditional guise, at the bar. “It immediately came across as a a special atmosphere He’s also become aware of a different breed convenient and friendly place,” says the is down to the years of of member in recent times. 78-year-old managing director of Gokal thoughtful conservation, “The club has taken on even more of a International, who formally joined in 1990. revitalisation and social atmosphere,” he adds, noting that not Mahendra had been based in Fiji, trading stewardship. only bankers, lawyers and media types make extensively with Hong Kong and China, but up the club’s membership but there are also decided to conduct a reconnaissance in 1966. – Jitesh Gokal more “honest-to-goodness” professionals He liked what he saw and set up his family trading company four years later, when Fiji, which had also drawn from a huge variety of backgrounds nowadays. “It’s not just somewhere to eat and drink but a place to been a British colony, gained its independence. Nowadays, Mahendra usually goes to the club three build up long-term cordial relationships.” Mahendra’s personal and highly favoured perch at the to four times a week to eat with his family – garoupa and broccoli ragout with bean sauce in a clay pot is a firm club has long been the far-right corner of the Main Bar,
One big happy family – Kamlesh Gokal celebrated his wedding at the FCC in 2012.
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where he avers he can always find a friendly crowd. And he Unlike his grandfather, who prefers to flip through The regards the club as much an ideal social venue as a business Correspondent at home, Kunal has found himself gripped by hub, making a point of celebrating major milestones there. the webinars that have become the mainstay of the club’s Jitesh Gokal, Mahendra’s 55-year-old son, who has been speaker programme since the world was overtaken by the with the club since 2006, describes the FCC as a “cool” pandemic. place that enjoys a stimulating mixed culture. “I research the topics a bit beforehand, which always “It’s a good place for entertaining our clients, especially makes them extra interesting, and I find what the speakers those who like places with a bit of a Western feel,” says have to say highly valuable, which makes the club a really Jitesh, who is joint managing director of good place for informed discussion and Gokal International. debate,” he says. “My brother Kamlesh held his wedding In less restricted times, Kunal – rather reception here in 2012, so the club has very “The longer you spend in than dropping in on the jazz sessions at special memories for us and is very much a Bert’s, which is his elder relatives’ preferred Hong Kong, the harder family tradition. for you to decide to leave recreation – used to be drawn by the “One of the reasons the FCC has been such pleasures of the next-door Health Club. a success and has such a special atmosphere is More than half a century spent in Hong – Kunal Gokal down to the years of thoughtful conservation, Kong has granted Mahendra time to look revitalisation and stewardship. back over his memories, to the times when the skyscrapers “But it’s not just the atmosphere – the staff are courteous were not quite so high, there were rather fewer people and and are prepared to do anything they can to make your plans nobody addressed him as “grandfather”. Some things are work out well.” constant, though. Bringing up the rear, or, to put it another way, the “New ventures, new enterprise, new ideas, new folks face of the future, 25-year-old Kunal Gokal signed up for kept coming to the city,” he says, adding that the unique the FCC last August, though it was by no means a novel system in Hong Kong created better opportunities in his experience as birthday treats at the club had been a regular trading business. fixture of his childhood. “The longer you spend in Hong Kong, the harder for you Having spent less than a year as a fully fledged member, to decide to leave,” adds Kunal. Kunal has been taking full advantage of the chance to reap All three generations of the Gokals say they are looking the benefits of older members’ experience. forward to spending more time at the FCC despite the many “Many of the people I’ve met here have such a rich history, changes Hong Kong has gone through in recent years. it’s almost like walking into a movie set,” says Kunal, who is a “I’m not exactly sure what will happen to the FCC, but relationship manager with HSBC Global Private Banking. we are sure it will remain,” says Mahendra.
‘MOST CLIENTS HAVE TIN EYES’ When the late Arthur Hacker was asked on the 30th Ice House Street anniversary how he devised his much-admired FCC logo back in 1982, this is what he wrote:
PHOTO: FCC
“The art of designing a successful logo is to come up with a pretty design and work out the rationale afterwards. Most clients have tin eyes and all they really want is a logo that is conversation piece with an original concept that they can claim was their idea in the first lace “Sometime in the early 1960s, one of Randy Feltus’ [Hacker’s schoolboy sense of humour never deserted him] artists designed a coat-of-arms for the FCC. It had a strange shaped shield with a compass in the middle and a pen attacking two broken sabres pictured right. I felt at the time that the concept that a single pen was mightier than two swords was a bit of journalistic self-aggrandisement. Above the shield was a Chinese dragon. The design broke just about every law of heraldry. “When the FCC moved to Lower Albert Road, I was asked to design the menu for the Dining Room. This gave me the opportunity to adjust the Feltus coat-of-arms. I eliminated one sword, and ut the dragon crest on a hel et with so e curlicue ourishes a o e a tilted shield. The drawing was envisaged only as a design for the cover of the menu. It was never actually meant to be a logo. “The inside of the menu was decorated with old Illustrated London News wood engravings of Hong Kong. One of the more interesting things about the menu itself, as opposed to the cover, is that in those days you could get a splendid three-course meal for only HK$25, and an Irish coffee cost a paltry nine bucks.”
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EXHIBIT
A Technicolor Nutshell How best to cherry-pick 40 years’ worth of rambunctious club goings-on? From February, the Dining Room’s walls supplied a very good answer with a medley of photos, drawings and magazine clippings.
S
omewhere amid the Brazilian glories that characterise the environs of Kwai Chung in the New Territories stands a warehouse whose inner recesses are given over to a veritable Aladdin’s Cave of ephemera. Photos, contracts, manuscripts, minutes of meetings, memos, fading magazines, yellowing newspaper clippings, routine letters and vital notes inscribed on beer mats – all are encased in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club archive, a veritable time capsule of the seven decades that it has thrived in Hong Kong. Here it was that over last Christmas Kristie Lu Stout, ably abetted by Jenn
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Hughes and Joanne Chung, started truffling about looking for suitable items to go up on the walls of the Dining Room in February for the Heritage Wall Exhibition, which was subtitled “FCC: 40 Years on Ice House Street”. “We wanted to bring together a selection of memorabilia that told the story of the club’s history and heritage,” says Stout, who was also assisted by Mark Ralston, Dan Strumpf and Hannamiina Tanninen. “Unfortunately, photos from the 1980s and 90s and early 2000s were generally of poor quality with no negatives readily available.
That said, we were able to collect enough additional archival material to paint a picture of the club’s transformation from 1982 to 2022. And Mark was able to use his Photoshop skills to transform shoeboxes of old photos into collages of club history.” One of the rewards for the “posterity posse” as they trawled through a mountain of shoeboxes to assemble their Technicolor nutshell was realising just how many famous names had graced the club’s premises over the years, while the “Zorro” staff photo from 2003 (see pages 30-31) was another eye-opener. Searching computer records and
PHOTO: FCC
Sketch of the FCC club building in 1982 by Murray Zanoni.
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The club from Wyndham Street, 1960s (reprinted from Gwulo.com).
PHOTOS: FCC
hen o ernor Edward oude o ficially o ened the ce House Street re ises in November 1982 with FCC Board members Robert Delfs (L) and Hugh Van Es.
historical websites yielded other gems. “It was fun flipping through back issues of The Correspondent as part of the research for this project,” says Strumpf. “The issues from the 1980s in particular read like a slightly unhinged, gonzo student publication, with descriptions of visits from eminent speakers running alongside
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Singapore PM Lee Kuan Yew “enjoyed himself so much” that he extended his appearance by half-an-hour. (The Correspondent, November 1990).
gossipy reports about members and accounts of barely remembered drinking sessions. “Once in a while I would stumble on an account of some famous journalist or political figure paying a visit to the club and it would be like finding a piece of treasure in the sand.” Stout adds: “First-time visitors to the FCC often comment about the
historic ambience and feel of the club. “That special atmosphere is the result of years of thoughtful conservation, revitalisation and stewardship that earned the FCC, originally the Dairy Farm building, Grade 1 historic status in 2009. This is an achievement that should give the club, and its leadership over the years, good reason to be proud.”
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EXHIBIT
PHOTOS: FCC
“An Old Ice House is Transformed” from The Correspondent, September/October 1982.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the FCC played host to speakers of note, from former Prime Ministers to familiar faces in the media.
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Michael Palin with his longtime photographer and FCC member Basil Pao (The Correspondent, September 1993)
“Oh what a lovely mess – but not for much longer.” Bert’s renovation made the cover of The Correspondent, June/July 1996.
PHOTOS: FCC
In 1996, the Club carried out extensive renovations (just part of the job of looking after a historic building).
ter the
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illenniu , the clu continued to showcase international figures who s arked de ate and ele ated con ersations
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EXHIBIT
PHOTOS: FCC
Renovations in 2002 revealed the original mosaic tiles in the Main Bar and breathed new life into the heart of the club.
The FCC, originally the Dairy Farm building, was listed as a Grade I historic building in 2009.
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The FCC we know and love today.
or the first ti e since it was uilt ore than years earlier, the roo was replaced in 2006 to reduce stress on the building’s structure. “Known to many as the best bar in the world.” – Financial Times.
PHOTOS: FCC AND CARSTEN SCHAEL
40 Years on Ice: An Appreciation
he ining oo is a ha en or fine dining and a favoured venue for noted speakers.
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Of all the images in the exhibit celebrating the club’s tenure of its current location, it’s the 1960s photo of Wyndham Street that resonates most strongly. Witness the pleasing absence of high-rises, the hotchpotch of signage, the hawker with her wares yoked across her shoulders: although it was taken a while before the FCC took up residence, little had changed by the 1980s. As has been recorded elsewhere, the building was a tad dilapidated to start with. Once it had been made habitable, it wasn’t long before the Foreign Correspondents’ Club became a name to conjure with. Neither stuffy nor overly expensive, and a definite cut above some of the other establishments which had declared themselves “clubs” to get round licensing laws, it was somewhere people wanted to join, and – as evidenced by the Who’s Who of speakers – get their point across, whether their celebrity status was political, or theatrical or somewhere in between. Two other photos, both by Carsten Schael, show just how far the FCC has progressed over the years. The shot of the Dining Room is pure epicurean luxury: and who isn’t tempted by the bird’s eye-view of the Main Bar to order a drink and plunge headlong into the merry ambience? Ask any summer pedestrian. Wyndham Street has got no less steep since 1982. But as this expo makes very clear, the club at the top has blossomed and flourished – and continues to do so.
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40TH ANNIVERSARY
THE VIEW FROM 40
PHOTO: CARSTEN SCHAEL
Philip Bowring joined the FCC in 1975. He takes a long, measured and thoroughly affectionate look at all that has befallen the club since that time.
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I
t is hard to believe, but the FCC has now been the custodian of one of Hong Kong Island’s oldest and bestknown landmarks for more than one third of the building’s life. Of course, we must thank the government, and in particular the then governor Sir Murray Maclehose, for providing us with the initial lease over the main portion of the elegant brick structure on Lower Albert Road, a lease now many times renewed. But those of us who remember this abused shell of a building when we took it over back then can perhaps be forgiven for congratulating ourselves on how we initially restored its fabric and preserved its identity, and have since maintained it to high standards while upgrading its facilities. It is now easy to forget the time and money that went into the rehabilitation which enabled the club to re-open at this new home in 1982. And we should not forget that upkeep of the fabric currently costs up to HK$1.8 million annually, in addition to government rent, which at present is HK$7.8 million a year. Meeting these costs is only possible because the club has become one of Hong Kong’s most-admired meeting-places, thanks to a combination of its central location, its architecture, its atmosphere, the diversity of its members and the even greater diversity of their guests. There is no way to compress these past 40 years into 1,500 words of history. But a few names from the early days here need acknowledging. Firstly, Donald Wise, who
Governor and ‘fairy godfather’ Murray Maclehose.
personally interceded with the governor for the FCC to acquire as its home one of the several historic but unused or ill-used buildings it then owned. Secondly, Mike Keats, who oversaw the conversion of a warehouse crammed with ice-cream carts into the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Thirdly, Richard (Dick) Hughes, whose fame as a journalist and author of Borrowed Place Borrowed Time (and also as the model for Old Craw in John le Carré’s rollicking novel The Honourable Schoolboy) helped give the club a distinct local cachet.
PHOTOS: FCC
The FCC thus cemented itself as a place to which important figures came to speak.
Dick Hughes was rarely at a loss for words, Your Eminences.
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40TH ANNIVERSARY
Asiaweek and the FEER were just two regional publications that thrived during Hong Kong journalism’s heyday.
Dick managed to put away plenty of Russian water at the club before his death in 1984. He is commemorated by the bronze bust at the entrance to the main bar. Another member of a somewhat younger age group, Bert Okuley of UPI, is memorialised in the name Bert’s. A veteran of Vietnam who died far too young at the age of 56, his many talents included music and extensive knowledge of the Macau gambling scene. Of a similar vintage, Arthur Hacker was a government designer turned writer and historian; he also devised one of the club’s logos (see page 11).
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Regional nerve centre From being a comfortable place from which foreign journalists set out to cover wars in China, then Korea, then Vietnam, the FCC prospered with Hong Kong functioning as the nerve centre of regional as well as international journalism, playing host to publications such as Asiaweek, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review and others, as well as becoming an editing centre for wire services, radio and television. The FCC thus cemented itself as a place to which important figures such as prime ministers Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia came to speak. This was also a time when mainland China was beginning to open up but Hong Kong remained key for much gathering and analysis. A great deal of coverage of the fall of the Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986 was done by FCC members, most notably Sandra Burton of TIME, who had also been present at the murder three years earlier of opposition leader Benigno Aquino. The Burton Room at the club was named after her when she died. Hong Kong itself hit the headlines in the run-up to the 1997 Handover, when many journalists arrived from overseas expecting a bigger story than the rainsoaked ceremonies which took place that day before the last British governor Chris
PHOTO: KIMIMASA MAYAMA / POOL / AFP
Watershed: Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Britain’s Prince of Wales on Handover night in 1997.
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HONG KONG 1982 - 2022 1982 FCC moves to 2 Lower Albert Road; Edward Youde becomes Governor. 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration signed. 1987 David Wilson appointed Governor. 1990 Basic Law proclaimed. Visiting speakers played to a packed house, with brisk and lively Q&As to follow.
PHOTOS: FCC
Patten sailed away on the Royal Yacht shortly before midnight on 30 June. Asia in u Asian news since then has mostly been dominated by China so it is easy now to forget the other events which occupied us in the run-up to the new millennium – the Asian Financial Crisis, the collapse of the Suharto regime in Indonesia, the removal of the old regime in South Korea and the emergence of new democracies there and, more briefly, in Thailand. Meanwhile Taiwan under Lee Teng-hui progressed from martial law and KMT domination to party politics and the direct election of the president. Things gradually changed at the FCC too. As President, Peter Seidlitz of the German newspaper Handelsblatt, a live wire and connoisseur of fine living, was the driving force behind the establishment of the glass enclosure next to the Main Bar, which was known at first jokingly as the Fuhrer Bunker, and later officially as the Bunker. For many years the club was also homefrom-home for two famous journalists who both lived to be well over 100 years: Daily Telegraph veteran Clare Hollingworth and Anthony Lawrence, a BBC correspondent who reported from Asia for four decades. Over the years, membership balance has changed. Correspondents nowadays more often sit at editing desks than travel to wars and earthquakes – especially since COVID-19 curtailed travel. The new Correspondent members are more likely to be covering financial markets and commodities than coups, as
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organisations like Bloomberg now maintain the largest media offices. There is also diminished demand for professional photographers and cameramen, just as print media has partly given way not only to electronic but to unfenced terrain called social media. But the FCC has remained a place where good journalism of any sort is recognised and the walls of the Main Bar feature a constant renewal of exhibits of some of the best photography in the world. The percentage of Associates has increased and with it not only diversity (not just lawyers!) but expectations of higher standards of catering. And behaviour? Well, hopefully, that’s a bit better. And well-known people such as shipping magnate and later Chief Executive Tung Chee-wah were members before they became public figures. There is no club in Hong Kong with such a diversity of
1992 Chris Patten becomes last British Governor. 1997 Handover. Tung Chee Hwa assumes post of Chief Executive. Asian Financial Crisis looms. 1998 Chek Lap Kok opens. 2003 SARS breaks out. 2005 Donald Tsang becomes Chief Executive. 2008 Hong Kong hosts Equestrian Olympics. 2013 CY Leung takes over as CE. 2014 “Umbrella Revolution”. 2017 Carrie Lam replaces CY Leung. 2019 COVID-19 erupts. 2020 National Security Law passed. 2021 Legislative elections held.
Names to conjure with: Anthony Lawrence and Clare Hollingworth.
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40TH ANNIVERSARY
The walls of the Main Bar feature some of the best photography in the world.
The new Correspondent members are more likely to be covering financial markets and commodities than coups.
members, whether viewed by profession, nationality, gender or age group. As for gender balance, the record is not bad, at least relative to other originally male-dominated clubs. The first female president was Vicky Wakefield of UPI, who defeated Derek Davies, later president for two years, by one vote in 1979. Later came Diane Stormont (whose photo hangs above the main bar) Kate Dawson, Ilaria Maria Sala, Anna Healy Fenton, Tara Joseph, Juliana Liu, Florence de Changy and Jodi Schneider. ust managing During these 40 years the Club has had six managers. Three of them did not last long, so I will focus on the three who have left a long and positive impact. The first was Heinz Grabner, who held the post from the time of our move to Lower Albert Road until 1993, when he left to start his own restaurant. Originally from Austria, he helped make the club a place to go during his tenure, whether
for lunch, drinks or dinner. After three not-so-successful appointments, in 2000 management was handed for the first time to a local, Gilbert Cheng, who was promoted from the number-two position. “Tiger”, as he was nicknamed, had joined the Club in Sutherland House and worked his way from barman to manager, where he remained until reaching retirement age in 2018. Having been at the club for 47 years in various positions, Gilbert knew the membership like no one else. He was succeeded by Didier Saugy, who brought with him not just the highest standards of a Swiss hotelier but then exhibited impeccable judgement in the face of the cascade of events which followed almost immediately after he took office: the 2018 lunch which led to the expulsion from Hong Kong of Financial Times correspondent and FCC vice-president Victor Mallet; the months of demonstration in 2019 when Hong Kong was again the centre of world attention and tear gas wafted through the streets of Central; and then
Associate Member Governor Genavieve Alexander reflects: Correspondents and journalists are the FCC’s backbone – yet the lion’s share of members are an eclectic mix of Associates, a category I am proud to fall into. Drawn from an array of specialities, professions and organisations, they fill the clu with at os here and energy, and contribute to the club’s diverse membership. Personally speaking, over the years they have brought business opportunities, new passion projects and many have become great friends along the way. On a typical night (in less unsociable times), the ain Bar is filled with an orchestra o talent and tales – everything you could wish for under one roof, from entrepreneurs to artists, sportswomen to authors, lawyers and even a comedian. Together with the club’s mix of
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corporates and diplomats, they import more than a touch of excitement and expertise to day-to-day goings-on. Everyone has something to add and the club’s vibrancy thrives on it. A casual glance around the room will likely lead you to some sort of expert or other, or someone who knows someone with the answer. After all, it’s what belonging to a club, especially the FCC, is all about, and what attracts so many people from so many backgrounds together in this club of conversations. Flick to page 10 to read about three generations of Associates. Stay tuned for our upcoming FCC podcasts, where we will be in conversation with other fascinating members and speakers at the club. Recommend a new associate to join and receive an HK$1,000 F&B voucher.
PHOTO: FCC
A CLUB OF CONVERSATIONS
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THE NUMBERS ARE IN At the end of January, the FCC counted 236 Correspondents, 140 Journalists and 1,492 144 Silvers Associates in its ranks; 39 Diplomats and 147 141 Honorary members Corporate members swelled the roll to 2,054. 16 Lifers Sixteen Lifers, 141 Honorary members and 144 147 Corporate members Silvers brought the grand total to 2,355. And it’s fair to say the sun never sets on the 39 Diplomats membership, with 42 countries represented among active main card holders. Brits (759) hog the biggest share of the pie, followed by mainland Chinese (259) and Americans (224). Hong Kong was close behind with 212. From a global perspective, Africa and Oceania remain fairly slim, America counts 350, Asia 641 and Europe, notwithstanding Brexit, topped the league with 904. PS: Roughly three-quarters are male, the rest female, in case anyone was wondering.
the Main Bar being repositioned. The Dining Room was also reconfigured into its present design with the raised stage. Other physical changes included re-designing the downstairs bar as Bert’s and the creation of the quiet corner, which became The Bunker. Less noticed but costly major improvements over the 40 years include the air-conditioning, the sound-proofing and the electronics – notably valuable since COVID-19 and the need for Zoom events. Other changes are also in the wind: Hong Kong’s status as an international financial centre is being increasingly challenged by Singapore, while the city is also being gradually brought into the mainland’s Greater Bay Area embrace. Such shifts are bound to have repercussions for our club. So the FCC today is associated with the building where we have been for 40 years. But the FCC is still an institution, not a building, having had four earlier locations since being set up in Hong Kong in 1949. The FCC will exist so long as Hong Kong remains an international hub that’s open to all nationalities, hopefully still flying its flag at 2 Lower Albert Road.
PHOTOS: FCC
the two years since then of COVID-19 and ever-changing rules on drinking, dining and vaccination levels, plus the need to keep costs down but retain a large and loyal staff. Managers also had to get used to the regularly changing boards of governors, who did not always have much experience of leadership or financial realities, and attempt to guide the more wayward ones towards practicalities. Some saw it more as badge of status than a responsibility. Boards themselves also had to face the fact that there was, inevitably, sometimes friction between the priorities of Correspondent and Journalist members, and the Associates who formed the majority but had only one vote each compared with 10 for Correspondents. Indeed, Associates did not have a vote at all until the mid-1980s, when for tax reasons they had to be given one. Since the original renovation, the building has seen two significant changes. The most important was the creation of The Verandah, taking advantage of the only place where it was possible to expand. The second was the major renovations which resulted in, among other changes,
Gilbert Cheng
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Didier Saugy
236 Correspondents 140 Journalists
1,492 Associates
2,355 Total
The FCC is still an institution, not a building, having had four earlier locations since being set up in Hong Kong in 1949.
Philip Bowring has been based in Hong Kong since 1973. He has edited the Far Eastern Economic Review, written for both the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune and is co-founder and contributor to www.asiasentinel.com.
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RETROSPECTIVE
Read (almost) all about it Thirty-two covers ranging over some of the most turbulent years in Hong Kong’s, and the FCC’s, history don’t quite tell the full story, but they do provide a provide a fairly aromatic amuse-bouche.
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January 1983
March 1983
July 1985
August 1985
February 1988
March 1989
July 1989
October 1989
January 1990
November 1990
July 1991
October 1991
October 1992
December 1992
May 1994
August 1995
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March 1996
July 1997
December 1997
June 1998
September 1998
October 2000
December 2002
April 2004
January 2006
July 2006
March 2012
September 2012
March 2013
March 2014
March 2015
October 2018
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HERITAGE
STONE WALLS DO NOT A CLUBHOUSE MAKE
PHOTOS: THE DAIRY FARM REVIEW (1919)
Few would argue that the FCC lacks aesthetic appeal. But getting it that way, and maintaining it, takes a Herculean effort. Clare Hollingworth Fellow Amy Sood reports.
When trees grew on Wyndham Street: the Dairy Farm building in the late 19th century.
T
James Walker was Dairy Farm’s manager from 1890 to 1920.
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he FCC moved across four cities and several homes before settling down in its current premises at the junction of Lower Albert Road and Ice House Street. For the last 40 years, the FCC has called this charismatic brick building – built over 100 years ago and currently more solid than ever – its home. And for a lot of members, it does feel like home. Despite undergoing major renovations over the decades, the historic ambience of the building has persisted, and remains a distinguishing aspect of the club that’s celebrated by its members and visitors alike.
Dairy Farm Beginnings Digging into the building’s past reveals a sumptuously rich history. Originally built back in 1892 as a central depot for the Dairy Farm Company, the building was used as a milk distribution centre. In the years that followed, the premises were extended to include a delicatessen, a butchery and a retail store, as well as an apartment for the company’s general manager. The building also featured an iceretailing depot, storing and distributing ice imported from North America, thus granting the building its ice house moniker.
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James Walker’s inner sanctum also boasted a ceiling fan.
Transport was more eco-friendly a century ago.
The Dairy Farm’s German butcher and his staff.
PHOTOS: THE DAIRY FARM REVIEW (1919)
Wyndham Street with nary a motor vehicle in sight.
As for how the building fits into Hong Kong’s architectural heritage, architect, planner, urban designer and founder of Urbis Limited, Peter Cookson Smith, says buildings at the time were inspired by architectural patterns prevalent in Britain in the late 19th century. These patterns were then imbued with designs that would stand the test of Hong Kong’s climate, he adds. “A number of older and sadly demolished buildings in Hong Kong were designed through these auspices, and localised to meet local climate concerns,” he says. “Hence the wide incorporation of verandas, colonnaded lower storeys and louvered windows.” The Dairy Farm building was listed as a Grade 2 historic building by the Antiquities Advisory Board in 1981, and was promoted to Grade 1 in 2009. 1980s: Ice House Street In the early 1980s, after the FCC had hopped around several locations in the city, then president and former Daily Mirror war correspondent Donald Wise wrote directly to Hong Kong’s then governor, Murray MacLehose, about seeking a new spot for the FCC, thereby neatly sidestepping any bureaucratic
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hurdles that may have blocked his path. The governor suggested the depot on Ice House Street, whose North Block the FCC would subsequently rent from the government in 1982. Sarah Monks, now a communications and marketing consultant, was a journalist member of the club at the time, as well as a member of the relocation committee. She recalls the excitement surrounding an old battered metal safe that was found during the renovation of the building. “Could it be that the FCC was about to inherit forbidden treasure from another era?” she remembers wondering. “There was much anticipation.” After an eternity of ear-splitting drilling with heavy-duty tools, the contents of the safe turned out to be nothing more than a heap of damp, mildewed papers. UPI’s Michael Keats was also tasked to play a role in the club’s design and construction, though at the time he noted that working both with a tight budget and no original plans of the building, “the renovations were made on a day-to-day, ad hoc basis”. Millennium: Major renovations The club embarked on some more, muchneeded renovations in the late 1990s. Hernan Zanghellini, of Zanghellini & Holt
Peter Cookson Smith
Sarah Monks
When you get to work on an iconic building like this, it’s an amazing opportunity – Hernan Zanghellini
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HERITAGE
Improved WiFI and audio-visual systems have been introduced, and the ceiling was opened up to let in natural light.
Hernan Zanghellini
Associates, an architectural and interior design consultancy, was closely involved in renovations at the FCC between 1998 and 2006. “When you get to work on an iconic building like this, it’s an amazing opportunity,” he says. “You don’t say no, no matter what.” Zanghellini worked on Bert’s in 1998, and then the Dining Room between 1999 and 2002, as well as the health club, reception area and toilets in the years following. He recalls that the vision he and the renovating team had for the club was to create spaces that felt timeless. “Things in Hong Kong tend to be temporary for many reasons, whether it’s short leases or short work contracts,” he says. “But I think it’s always important to design places that are long lasting, especially when you are in a historical building like the FCC.” Major changes were made to the club’s interior design, and Zanghellini recalls that a large part of the renovations involved highlighting the building’s natural design. “We opened the ceiling, we started illuminating it and we exposed the natural
brick, and that gave the place an authentic feel,” he says. “So all we really had to do was expose everything that was already there and work on the lighting.” Another big change renovations was the placement of the main bar, something Zanghellini found excited strong passions among some members. “I remember people being very passionate about the design of the bar and its placement,” he says. “There were many angry letters I received, and some of them were quite threatening.” “It was like their home changing, so that was a challenge, but I think we managed to make it work well.” Excellent stewards Working to maintain this century-old building’s architecture, while concurrently running the club’s operations is – unsurprisingly – a big task. Christopher Slaughter, co-convenor of the Building-Project and Maintenance Committee and twice FCC President, says they focus strongly on “catering to keep ahead of the elements”, which offer a unique challenge in Hong Kong’s subtropical climate.
15 Kotewall Road
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The FCC pinballed its way around Hong Kong in the years leading up to 1982, sometimes gloriously cloistered in a Xanadu-like mansion, at others no more than temporarily billeted in the slimmest of accommodations. In the late 1940s, members gathered in the Gloucester Building lounge or the Dairy Farm Restaurant, both of which were demolished to make way for what is now The Landmark. The club then moved up in the world, taking over 15 Kotewall Road (and hiring several former staff from Shanghai) before reaching the dizzy heights of Conduit Road in , a colossal, heroic ile with talian ar le fire laces, a wide lawn and iews to ake an estate agent drool. However, the good times were not set to last, 41A was put up for sale, and the CC headed ack into the city in , o ing first to Li Po Chun Cha ers and then to a function room in the Hilton, which closed in 1995, to be replaced by the Cheung Kong Centre – which is unkindly nicknamed The Box That Contained the Bank of China Tower.
PHOTOS: BEN MAR ANS PHOTOGR APHY
WHITHER THE FCC?
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MAKING THE GRADE
Front and centre and the club’s solar plexus – the Main Bar.
PHOTOS: BEN MAR ANS PHOTOGR APHY
“Wear and tear are extremely damaging to a lot of old structures, and so the building and maintenance committee is really about fighting entropy,” he says. “We’re looking at everything from the roof to the carpets, and all the things in between.” Slaughter adds that the committee has also benefited from drawing on expertise from members and volunteers who work in architectural and facilities management to guide them on best practices. Similarly, General Manager Didier Saugy says one of his primary focuses is to maintain the building’s functionality and physical appearance, but also ensuring its safety. “We have employed a handyman for the last 18 months, and he does great
Aethetically pleasing, simply beautiful Main Bar tiles.
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work – now we have the luxury of having someone here to fix things in the building immediately,” says Saugy. With an older building, having someone focusing on preventative maintenance daily makes a huge difference, he adds. Another main goal for Saugy has been bringing the club up to speed tech-wise. “I’ve always really liked gadgets – it was important for me to bring a lot of modern technology to the building, including improving WiFi and the audio-visual system,” says Saugy. “These aren’t things people see, but it makes a lot of difference, especially now when we have online events.” According to Slaughter, all the aforementioned renovations as well as ongoing work on the building have required extensive planning and consultation with the government. “We’ve taken our responsibility to maintain the building very seriously,” he says. “It’s a big undertaking, but I think we can say with pride that we have been excellent stewards of the building, not just tenants”. Though the renewal of the building’s lease is due by year’s end, Slaughter says the committee remains optimistic that they will remain at Ice House Street. “We believe very strongly that the FCC, as an institution in this visible location, is a wonderful statement that Hong Kong makes to the world about the role that a free press plays in Hong Kong society,” he says. “Not only have we been good stewards of the building, we have also been a good part of the wider community.”
The Old Dairy Farm Building, aka our home ro ho e, finds itsel in good company as far as Grade 1 historic status is concerned in Central and environs. Heading the list of obvious suspects are our near neighbour, the Bishop’s House at 1 Lower Albert Road, the Catholic cathedral, Man Mo temple, the old Bank of China and The Cenotaph. Then there is the synagogue on Robinson Road, City Hall (greatly admired by Sir Terry Farrell, who designed MI6’s headquarters in London), Jamia Mosque and Eliot Hall at HKU. Ladder and Pottinger streets must have been shoo-ins, ditto the old Peak Cafe. However, while the onetime owners of the Italian Classical Revival pile at 28 Kennedy Road would no dou t e gratified to find their or er a ode duly honoured, perhaps they would raise an eyebrow or two at finding their Ser ants Quarters sharing similar space on the list.
Amy Sood is an FCC Clare Hollingworth fellow and a digital erification re orter at AFP in Hong Kong, monitoring misinformation in India and Indonesia. Prior to her current role, she was an intern at CNN and NBC News.
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STAFF PHOTO
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE Festooning themselves in front of, and on top of, the FCC looks set to become a staff tradition.
PHOTOS: PETER PARKS & GR AHAM UDEN
There’s perhaps no better illustration of history repeating itself than this brace of FCC staff photos taken some two decades apart. The snappers are perched in precisely the same spot outside His
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Excellency’s abode, praying for a gap in the clouds and the traffic; some valiant souls have mounted a ladder to reach the podium above the main entrance, more are teetering on the roof; and every single
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person’s face is obscured by a mask – staving off SARS in 2003 and COVID-19 this year. No need to say “cheese”. Yet that some things have scarcely changed a whit is a cause for merriment. The exterior of the building, with its delicate Neoclassical and Arts and Crafts influences, spiced with polychromatic “bandaged” brickwork, is as redoubtable and as aesthetically inspiring as ever. Likewise the staff
– chefs and cleaners, managers and bean counters, waiters and tech wizards (numbering 100 in 2022, a handful of whom remember the club’s arrival in the old Dairy Farm Building) – who remain one of our chief assets. Infinitely professional, endlessly obliging, superbly skilled and tirelessly efficient, they’re part of the FCC’s DNA, and just as valuable as the bricks and mortar at 2 Lower Albert Road.
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LEGENDS
A CAVALCADE OF HEROES Journalists and jailbirds, politicians and photographers – Morgan M Davis conducts a random sampling of some of the famous names who have crossed the club’s threshold.
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Melinda Liu
Mervin Nambiar
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hroughout its time in Hong Kong, the FCC has maintained an important position in the city. The meeting of minds that often takes place at the Main Bar is also reflected in the club’s speaking events. Club members have represented the crème de la crème of international journalists, as well as leaders in a variety of other professions. The marks they have left on Hong Kong are almost as great as the marks the city left on them. Clare Hollingworth, the First Lady of Wartime Scoops, is arguably the FCC’s most legendary member. She was also recognised for her reporting in Asia, becoming the Daily Telegraph’s first Beijing-based correspondent in 1973, before moving to Hong Kong, where she died in 2017 aged 105. Few can aspire to the prestige that Hollingworth reached in life, but the FCC’s members, past and present, have reported on a number of important events around the region, making Asian stories palpable for readers around the world.
Award-winning correspondent Melinda Liu, for instance, has been at the forefront of reporting in China, covering the country for three decades. In 1980, Liu opened Newsweek’s first bureau in the country since 1949. She covered China’s rise and modernisation, as well as the Tiananmen Square massacre. Liu’s reporting also took her to Afghanistan, Kuwait, Somalia and Haiti, as she covered some of the biggest events in recent years. After some time reporting in Hong Kong and Washington, DC, Liu returned to Beijing in 1998, where she has since worked as the Newsweek bureau chief. Another regional legend, Malaysianborn Mervin Nambiar, spent years at Agence France-Presse, starting as a journalist and eventually becoming the director of sales and marketing in Hong Kong. Nambiar played a key role in AFP’s development across the region, with his efforts leading to him being awarded France’s Légion d’honneur in 2013.
PHOTOS: SUPPLIED, FCC
Renowned Hong Kong academic Professor Johannes Chan was one of many speakers over the years not given to mincing his words.
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to write a number of novels. The Edgar Award-winning author is best known for his Imperial China trilogy, which comprises Dynasty, Mandarin and Manchu, and takes an epic view of China’s history. But the FCC is more than just its journalist members. The club would not be what it is today without the contributions of Hong Kong’s lawyers, financial professionals, diplomats and similar highflyers. Allied trades Australian Kerry McGlynn, for instance, made his way from journalism to public affairs, working for the Hong Kong government in various capacities for many years. Most notably, McGlynn was a spokesman for last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, during the Handover negotiations. After 1997, McGlynn continued to play a key role in the city, and was one of the main architects behind the campaign to dub Hong Kong “Asia’s World City”. Feng Chi-shun first made his way from Wuhan to Hong Kong, then on to the US and back to Hong Kong in the years leading up to the Handover. A skilled and highly respected pathologist, he was a regular feature in the club before his 2019 death and also a talented author. He penned best-selling books that reflected on his time in the city, including Hong Kong Noir and Diamond Hill: Memories of Growing up in a Hong Kong Squatter Village. The adventures of many journalists are put to shame by polar explorer and researcher Rebecca Lee. The only woman to accompany the China National Antarctic
Gina Chua
Kerry McGlynn
Chris Patten
PHOTOS: SUPPLIED, FCC
Game-changers The FCC has prided itself as a base not only for some region’s best journalists, but also those who are changing the industry and the world for the better. Few embody that better than Gina Chua, whose career has embraced being editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post, executive editor at Reuters and a lengthy stint at The Wall Street Journal. Chua’s career successes reached a global spotlight when she transitioned genders in 2020, becoming one of the most senior transgender journalists in the industry. Her openness about her transition will pave the way for others in the field. Just as this issue was going to press, Chua was named as executive editor of a new, US-based media start-up which will deliver unbiased journalism to a global audience. Journalism may be at the heart of the FCC, but many of the club’s notable writers have plied their craft to write best-selling books that shared their Asian stories. Jasper Becker, the British author and journalist, is one such writer. In addition to establishing Asia Weekly magazine and writing commentaries and features for a number of international publications, Becker is the author of such books as Made in China: Wuhan, Covid and the Quest for Biotech Supremacy and Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine. With nearly three decades’ experience in Asia, Becker has become a go-to expert on China. The writing talents of FCC’s authors span fiction as well. Anglo-American writer Robert Elegant drew from his experiences as a journalist in Asia, including time spent covering the Korean and Vietnam wars,
Rebecca Lee
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Robert Elegant
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LEGENDS
Kevin Egan
Dr Feng Chi-shun
Jasper Becker
Expedition in 1985, she went on to become the first person from Hong Kong and the first woman to visit all “three poles”: the North Pole, the South Pole and Mount Everest. Ace Australian attorney Kevin Egan was a regular at the FCC after joining the club in 1980. He moved to Hong Kong after serving as director of public prosecutions in Papua New Guinea, where his work included prosecuting justice minister Nahau Rooney for contempt. Egan’s colourful career included his own legal battles with anti-corruption enforcers, which landed him in Stanley Prison. While his conviction was quashed in 2009, Egan spent a productive time behind bars, helping inmates draft appeals. He had a reputation not only as an outstanding litigator, but one who would snap up an
underdog case and adjust his fees for clients who couldn’t afford his counsel. Jonathan Mirsky was another legend in the journalism world, one known for his coverage of China and in particular the Tiananmen massacre, for which he received a beating at the hands of the police. The New York native’s interest in China started early, leading him to visit the country for the first time in 1972. Eventually his coverage of China, and especially his criticism, got him banned from entering the country. Mirsky’s talents for writing and reporting were unmatched. He had a reputation for getting to know his sources deeply, leading him to become friends with such diverse people as the Dalai Lama and Chris Patten. The FCC would be nothing without the occasional power couple, like Don and Ann Morrison. The Morrisons had long careers in Asia, with Don editing the Asian edition of TIME in Hong Kong and Ann editing Asiaweek during the Handover. While they are now based in Europe, they have returned to Asia since, including time guest teaching at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. Speaking out While the club’s members keep it alive, the FCC’s vocal participation in Hong Kong has spanned well beyond its doors as it has also brought attention to key issues in Asia through visiting speakers and guest events. Speakers have included medical professionals sharing information about COVID-19, documentary film makers, outreach experts working with
ROOM TO ZOOM
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PHOTOS: FCC, SUPPLIED
COVID-19 and new technology have combined to radically alter the audience or the clu s guest s eakers nce retty uch confined to the nu er o u s that could e fitted onto the ining oo s seats, these highly popular events – sometimes referred to as “gobble and squeaks” – are now broadcast on Zoom and uploaded to the club’s Twitter account to amuse and inform thousands around the world. Of course, employing Zoom also means that speakers don’t need to be physically present in Hong Kong. The top speakers who led with their key opinions over the past year included the likes of food writer Fuchsia Dunlop; journalists Marianna Spring and Fareed Zakaria; high-profile locals Henry Litton, Regina Ip, Li Shan and Cheng Huan (who had a fair amount to say about the National Security Law); Barkha Dutt and Rana Ayyub on the COVID -19 crisis in India; and Hans van de Ven, Professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of Cambridge. However, far and away the most popular, if YouTube rankings are to be taken as a guide, was feisty Shanghaibased venture capitalist and political scientist Eric X Li (right), whose 143,985 views (and counting) added up to more than all the others’ put together, and then some.
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‘YOU ARE A DENTIST?’
PHOTOS: SAMANTHA SIN / AFP, NICK DANZINGER, FCC
P J O’Rourke – who spoke at the club in 1992 and again in 1997, and was one of its most articulate devotees – died in February at the age of 74 as this special issue of The Correspondent was being compiled. Pretty much everyone who has ever read his rapier-like prose has a favourite quote (“Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba; that’s all you need to know about communism”). John Giannini, who worked with PJ on a number of assignments in Asia, recalled a not atypical incident from 1991: “We were transiting Bangkok, coming off a long road trip in Vietnam for a Rolling Stone story. The Burmese military was doing a round of ethnic cleansing in the Arakan, forcing the ohingya o ulation to ee Sound a iliar “We convinced the editors in New York that the situation had to be pretty dire if refuge in Bangladesh was the only option. For PJ, the Cox’s Bazar dateline was a bonus. “Our return was via Chittagong airport. Passing through security, PJ was in front of me. The security man found his Swiss Army knife, the standard version with a couple of blades and a corkscrew. PJ said: ‘If you think that’s big, you should see his.’ The security man stiffened and gave me a hard stare. ‘You are a dentist?’ “PJ and I were both a bit stunned by this, but I played along. ‘Yeah, sure I’m a dentist,’ I said. he security an then stuck his figure in his outh to show e his a scessed tooth Without hesitation, we rummaged through our bags and found two Tylenol with codeine. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘take one now and one tonight. Then go see your dentist in the morning.’ “And with that, he smiled and waved us through.”
Nick Danzinger
Sir David Tang
Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers and politicians who both fall in line with and challenge the status quo. Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, for example, has been a regular speaker at the club, sharing her experiences as co-founder and chief executive officer of Rappler, as well as her broader experiences working in media in the Philippines. Her talks have brought attention to the challenges to press freedom in Asia, a consistent topic of interest for the FCC. Other speakers have included Nick Danziger, a photojournalist who offered a unique look at North Korea through his
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Maria Ressa
photos and stories of his travels; the late Sir David Tang, founder of Shanghai Tang and the China Club in Hong Kong, Beijing and Singapore, who discussed the future of China; and Ying Ma, a senior adviser at lobbying firm Avenue Strategies, who advocated on behalf of former US president Donald Trump. Despite the challenges the club has faced in recent years, the FCC remains an essential part of Hong Kong, as a social and intellectual hub. The many people who walk through its doors will help shape the community as the city finds its footing in the new world.
Morgan M Davis is the bonds editor at IFR Asia and a lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University. The Illinois transplant moved to Hong Kong six years ago by way of New York City, with her trusty sidekick Gizmo the Yorkie.
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PAST PRESIDENTS
THE FCC BUCK STOPS HERE
PHOTOS: SUPPLIED, FCC
Presidents from the last four decades recall first pints, a gallimaufry of internationally respected speakers, boardroom coups and romantic encounters, plus all the associated fun and games that went with the unpaid post.
Mike Keats, formerly of UPI, was one of three-dozen correspondents who have courageously assumed the post of President since 1982.
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Neil Western
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ike the man said: “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”. It’s something that might strike a chord with every one of the correspondents who have been elected to the Board’s top slot over the past 40 years. Witness Neil Western: “Being FCC President is a full-time job on top of a fulltime job.” Or Ernst Herb: “It’s a lot more challenging than being at the helm of an ‘ordinary’ club.” And Kate Pound Dawson (who presided during SARS): “My one regret is that I never got to break up a fight at the bar.” Apart from a couple who have gone off radar – and one who stated the experience had been so traumatic that it forbade any
recollection whatsoever – most of the club’s ex-Presidents since 1982 have delved into their memory banks to come up with some historical gems from their time at the top. Now read on. Some past Presidents’ most significant memory comes from before they assumed their role. Mike Keats: “When former world boxing champion Mohammad Ali visited the club in the early 1980s, Victoria Wakefield – the first FCC woman President – told a packed lunch crowd: “Our speaker needs no introduction – ladies and gentlemen, Mohammad Ali!” Whereupon Ali jumped to his feet and shouted: “What sort of introduction is that? What about the greatest boxer ever seen? The prettiest
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Juliana Liu
Steve Vines
Kate Pound Dawson
PHOTOS: SUPPLIED, FCC
fighter of our times?” The laughter went on statesman Lee Kuan Yew’s lunchtime for some minutes. speech, which had been greeted with rather Philip Bowring’s memories of those anodyne questions, with a wry smile. “He days are even more poignant: “Hanging finished off by saying that he’d been warned around the bar in October 1980, I met a that he was walking into a lion’s den – but reporter on her first assignment for the they’d all turned out to be pussycats.” Hong Kong Standard. Claudia Mo and I Steve Vines, who had to cope with were married two years later. We are still British Prime Minister Edward Heath, married but at the time of writing she, says: “Heath never listened but liked a member of the Legislative Council for to speak, a trait shared with Clare nine years, has been on remand in jail since Hollingworth, who he knew of old. In February 2021 charged with many others combination, they were a gas. Heath was a under the National Security Law with marvellous gossip and avid foe of Margaret Conspiracy to Commit Subversion.” Thatcher. And as a keen advocate for Unsurprisingly, more Beijing, he had a low level than a few remain struck by of tolerance for anything the number of high-profile approaching criticism.” visitors to the city who were Anna Healy Fenton all too keen to get up on their welcomed the last remembers not just the hind legs and spout in front governor Chris Patten big name speakers but of a club audience. other events in the Dining “I welcomed the last Room, such as a “convivial – Juliana Liu governor, Chris Patten, who Diplomatic Cocktail attended came to promote his memoir by Chief Executive Donald in September 2017,” says Juliana Liu. Tsang, and the wake for my dear friend and “He’d first visited in 1979 as an MP former President Diane Stormont.” and he was still a huge draw – the turnout Three one-time Presidents recalled even included former Financial Secretary events which were by no means routine. John Tsang, who had been Patten’s former Eric Wishart relished running the FCC’s private secretary.” Journalism Conference (since paused by Jodi Schneider oversaw the introduction COVID-19) – “Donald Trump had just of Zoom speakers – “What a list: Noam taken office as US president and was using Chomsky, Garry Kasparov, Maria Ressa “fake news” as a cudgel to attack the media, (who went on to win a Nobel Peace and it is an epithet that is still being used Prize)” – while Tara Joseph lunched with by governments and others to discredit democracy activists Joshua Wong and unfavourable reporting,” he says with some Nathan Law. “It’s a stark reminder of how asperity. For Hans Vriens, keen to honour much things have changed,” she says. and support journalists’ work, it was the Karl Wilson recalls Singaporean elder establishment, together with Amnesty
Philip Bowring
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Hans Vriens
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PAST PRESIDENTS
BAR WARS
Thomas Crampton
Thomas Crampton writes: Hell hath no fury like a correspondent whose barstool is moved. My term as president (2002-3) took the club through SARS – but that paled in comparison to the furore surrounding the renovation of the Main Bar, which needed an upgrade for sanitary and practical reasons. We determined that to make space for more tables and increase service e ficiency, the ar should run across the width o the roo rather than along the le t hand wall. A small but highly vocal portion of the membership did not think the bar should move or even have an upgrade at all, with some threatening to “come with baseball bats” to defend their beloved watering hole. Then General Manager Gilbert “Tiger” Cheung showed his stripes: renovation works started a week earlier than publicly announced, and the old bar was removed in under an hour early one Sunday. To ease the pain for long-time members, Gilbert diplomatically distributed souvenir slivers of wood from the old bar. While a few die-hard opponents of the renovation remain disgruntled, others have grown to appreciate the space, style and the unexpected discovery of the building’s original mosaic tiling that we exposed and preserved at the entrance to the bar.
Tara Joseph
A FAN WRITES A friend brought me to the FCC as soon as I landed in Hong Kong in August 1982. The Ice House Street premises were still unfinished and re e er the sight of the bar under construction. My membership was approved in September and my wife, Paula, and I were soon propping up said bar with colleagues and friends. We will have been members for 40 years as of this September. Steve Lazar 3771 Chairman Buchanan Capital
International, of the Human Rights Press Awards. “We couldn’t have foreseen that they would be going strong 25 years later,” he says. And John Giannini recalls laying out the welcome mat for visiting journalists in the run-up to the Handover. “I felt the FCC should be best thing about their Hong Kong sojourn: not everyone agreed.” Disagreements were hardly unknown at the club. As First Vice-President in 1999, Chris Slaughter had to chair a stormy Extraordinary General Meeting that aimed to oust Phil Segal as President. “We called it The Revolt of Associates, but Phil survived.” Two of the sharpest recollections point to the FCC’s unique role in Hong Kong. “We organised a lunch talk with Sandra Burton and Jonathan Mirsky and other journalists who had been in Tiananmen Square in June 1989,” says Philip Segal. “They told us what they had seen and their
accounts indicated the propaganda was simply untrue. We recorded that lunch and I hope the recording still exists – it should be copied and put on the Cloud for safekeeping.” And Douglas Wong says: “Whatever happens next, we mustn’t forget that in 2012 Carrie Lam would tell us, as a matter of course, that the FCC is “a very valuable asset for Hong Kong”. Others have more colourful memories: “Besides introducing what was audaciously described as a ‘cheese platter’ on the menu, handling peace negotiations with the right wing of the bar that was planning a palace revolution and fixing chronic beer leakages, the recruitment of Didier Saugy as General Manager (who had spent time in the military, as well as running a large Australian zoo) was my greatest achievement,” says Florence de Changy.
Several former Presidents did not contribute to this article for obvious reasons. They include photographer Hubert van Es, Far Eastern Economic Review editor Derek Davies, BBC correspondents Jim Biddulph and Anthony Lawrence, Daily Telegraph stringer Diane Stormont and “the bestknown German east of Suez”, Handelsblatt’s Peter Seidlitz. Perhaps most remarkable of all was China Central News Agency’s Edward E P Tseng, who apart from covering the Korean and Vietnam wars pulled off a sensational scoop at the start of his career by wangling his way aboard the USS Missouri in September 1945 to witness Japan’s formal surrender, which brought the second world war to a close.
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Derek Davies
PHOTOS: SUPPLIED, FCC
REQUIESCAT IN PACE
Jim Biddulph
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PAST PRESIDENTS
Eric Wishart
Chris Slaughter
Diane Sormont
2021-2022 2020-2021 2020-2020 2019-2020 2018-2019 2017-2018 2017-2017 2017-2017 2016-2017 2015-2016 2014-2015 2013-2014 2012-2013 2011-2012 2010-2011 2010-2010 2009-2010 2008-2009 2007-2008 2006-2007 2005-2006 2004-2005 2003-2004 2002-2003 2001-2002 2000-2001 2000-2000 1999-2000 1998-1999 1997-1998 1996-1997 1995-1996 1994-1995 1994-1994 1993-1994 1992-1993 1991-1992
PHOTOS: SUPPLIED, FCC
1989-1990 1988-1989 1987-1988 1986-1987 1985-1986 1984-1985 1983-1984 1982-1983
Keith Richburg Keith Richburg Jodi Schneider Jodi Schneider Florence de Changy Florence de Changy Juliana Liu Eric Wishart Tara Joseph Neil Western Jitendra Joshi Tara Joseph Douglas Wong Anna Healy Fenton Anna Healy Fenton Tom Mitchell Tom Mitchell Ernst Herb Christopher Slaughter Christopher Slaughter Ilaria Maria Sala Matthew C. Driskill Kate Pound Dawson Thomas Crampton Jim Laurie Anthony Lawrence^ Karl Wilson Philip Segal Diane Stormont^ Keith Richburg John Giannini Hans Vriens Simon Holberton Carl Goldstein Philip Bowring Stephen Vines Peter Seidlitz^ Paul Bayfield Sinan Fisek Derek Davies^ Derek Davies^ Jim Biddulph^ Philip Bowring Edward EP Tseng^ Michael Keats Hugh van Es^
^ (deceased) Douglas Wong
Jitendra Joshi
Jim Laurie looks back fondly on getting the Health Club renovated (“Some members felt that lifting a pint provided sufficient exercise”). Matthew Driskill’s classic moment was witnessing a barman automatically serve a couple of long-absent members with their favourite drinks (“that told me I was in the
right place in Hong Kong”). Jitendra Joshi has the final word: “I remember vividly my very first pint at the bar, in 1997, surrounded by legends who’d retreated from the Vietcong but weren’t willing to surrender on a free press. That must remain the club’s guiding mission.”
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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
‘IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT RAISING MONEY, IT’S ABOUT GIVING TIME’ As a buzzword, ‘corporate social responsibility’ gets a fair bit of use. The FCC has been suiting its action to the words for many years passed. Clare Hollingworth Fellow Hillary Leung reports.
JOLLY GOOD FELLOWS It’s perhaps no great surprise to record that all the Clare Hollingworth Fellows past and present are not just gainfully employed in their chosen profession, but absolutely thriving. Who knows, perhaps one of them will be drawing up The Correspondent story list in 2062, celebrating 80 years in Ice House Street. Jennifer Creery (@creery_j) is Curated Content Editor at the Financial Times in Hong Kong, overseeing the paper’s flagship newsletter FirstFT Europe/ Africa. Mary Hui (@maryhui) works as a reporter for Quartz, specialising in China and its industrial policies. Hillary Leung (@hillary_leung) is now very much on the front line at Hong Kong Free Press after a spell with Coconuts. Tiffany Leung (tiffanyleungym@gmail. com) covers business, local news and Hong Kong-China relations for the South China Morning Post. Jessie Pang (@jessiepang0125) is a correspondent for Reuters in Hong Kong, covering politics and general news. Amy Sood (@amysood2) is deeply engaged in Digital Verification at AFP.
Mandy Fung: ‘It really opened my eyes’.
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networking events at the FCC, mingling with the sort of professionals she aspired to become. “It really opened my eyes – back then, I rarely went to Central, much less had the chance to enter an exclusive club,” says Fung, who is now in her late 30s, and works as a regulatory lawyer for an international bank. “The FCC gave me more than just financial support.” Much has changed in Hong Kong over the past 40 years, and the club’s members have come and gone. But whether it’s supporting young reporters, organising journalism conferences or raising funds for charity, one thing has remained the same: the FCC’s commitment to making an impact across the community. Fung was among the six students who received a club scholarship in its inaugural year in 2003 – and among the 180 who, over the programme’s 11 years, benefited from the initiative. “The idea came in 2001,” recalls Celia Garcia. “My husband Dave and another Associate member, Thomas Crampton, who were both on the FCC Board, often hung out at the club. One evening, they decided, ‘Hey, instead of just having drinks at the club, let’s do something for Hong Kong’.” The trio discussed ways to raise money and which causes seemed most deserving. Different groups – like the elderly and cancer patients – came to mind, but ultimately, they decided on supporting children. “They are our future,” Garcia says. Protecting the young and the innocent Po Leung Kuk (literally “protecting the young and innocent”), which operates more than 100 schools in Hong Kong as well as its Causeway Bay orphanage, was chosen as the club’s beneficiary. The FCC Scholarship Fund was established to support Po Leung Kuk students while studying at university.
PHOTO: SUPPLIED
I
t’s pretty safe to say that the Foreign Correspondents’ Club is one of Hong Kong’s more recognisable architectural landmarks, whose global reputation embraces conviviality and professionalism in equal measure. But two decades back, as far as Mandy Fung Ka-yan was concerned, it was an institution that was foreign in more than name. A top secondary student on the cusp of graduating, Fung had never heard of the FCC until she was nominated by her teachers to apply for a scholarship run by the club. The scheme, which supported students at an orphanage or studying at schools under the charitable body Po Leung Kuk, offered funding for university tuition. Having been born into a low-income family in Tsuen Wan, Fung used the scholarship to enrol at the University of Hong Kong to study a social science and law degree. And thanks to a visiting membership, Fung could attend talks and
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PHOTOS: TERRY DUCKHAM, FCC, SUPPLIED
It was 20 years ago today, the FCC came out to play! Motown diva Martha Reeves struts her stuff at the inaugural 2002 ball.
In 2002, the FCC organised its first fundraising ball at the Conrad Hotel before later moving to the Wan Chai Convention and Exhibition Centre. The star-studded event – held for 14 years – was known for its show-stopping musical entertainment, with international stars like The Supremes, Blondie and Tears for Fears gracing centre stage. Ernie Szeto, who received a scholarship in 2007 for her Associate degree, and again in 2009 for her Bachelor of Science at the University of Hong Kong, is now a business manager at a multinational medical device company. Mentorship programmes with Macquarie and UBS, which were part of the scholarship, left a lasting impression. “We learned about personal branding and how to face challenging environments – it’s been more than 10 years, but even now that I’m out in the workforce, I still remember,” Szeto says. The money raised by the FCC also went towards the opening of three Po Leung
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Kuk learning centres for underprivileged children. Garcia credits the success of the events to the FCC team. “The former general manager Gilbert Cheng and his staff donated their spare time to help throughout the years. Without the staff, the events would not have been nearly so smooth,” she says. When the FCC wrapped up its last ball in 2015, Elaine Pickering and Timothy Huxley – who were both Board members – founded the charity committee the following year. After the club’s decade-plus support of Po Leung Kuk, one of Hong Kong’s largest charities, the committee shifted its focus to smaller organisations which had slipped under the radar. The committee opened the floor to members, asking them to nominate charities worthy of support. Following some fairly rigorous vetting, the committee picked China Coast Community, an elderly home for English-speaking senior citizens, as their beneficiary for 2016 and 2017.
Business manager Ernie Szeto
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A little goes a long way: youngsters at the Po Leung Kuk Orphanage.
The FCC’s annual Human Rights Press Awards is now in its 26th year.
Refugees in Hong Kong are legally barred from working. - Jennifer Jett
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Hong Kong Remembers A party held at the FCC in 2017, called Hong Kong Remembers, was a night of fun, nostalgia and goodwill. The club was decked out with street hawker stands and other relics of times gone by. Naturally, the century-old building lent itself to the theme. Over HK$200,000 was raised that night, allowing the home to afford specialised beds and occupational therapy programmes. “We visited the Community in Kowloon Tong, and I brought some FCC members along to talk about books they had authored,” says Pickering. “We also invited the residents to have tea in The Bunker once or twice a year. “It’s not just about raising money. It’s about giving time.” Over the next two-year cycle, the club supported Branches of Hope, a charity serving the city’s asylum seekers. Specifically,
the FCC raised funds for the charity’s K3 – or Keeping Kids in Kindergarten – initiative. While schooling is free for children of asylum seekers, parents must pay for ancillary costs such as textbooks, uniforms and extracurricular activities. “Refugees in Hong Kong are legally barred from working,” says Jennifer Jett, a former convener of the charity committee. “So the small costs can really be a barrier to children going to school.” Riding on the success of Hong Kong Remembers, the charity committee organised another event to raise funds for K3. At the On Assignment: Yesteryear’s Foreign Correspondent party in 2019, various corners of the FCC were transformed into news hotspots of the past century, from Vietnam to Beirut. Members turned out in their Correspondent best – there was no lack of fedoras and trench coats – to raise more than HK$200,000. With the money, K3 funded a stack of miscellaneous schooling costs for seven refugee children, Jett says. Meanwhile, the club has stuck to its mission of supporting journalists, and not just those who are members. The FCC’s annual Human Rights Press Awards, now in its 26th year, recognises local reporters, those working for foreign media and freelancers across Asia for their impactful journalism. Alongside the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post, Hong Kong media outlets including the Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News won titles for their hard-hitting reporting. (All three local outlets have since closed under the pressure of the National Security Law.) In 2016, the club launched its first journalism conference, welcoming reporters and news leaders from abroad to the FCC for a day of workshops, talks and questionand-answer sessions. Covering everything from disinformation to press freedom, the sessions prompted lively discussion on pressing issues in the industry today. The club held the conference until 2019, after which it was paused due to COVID-19. But while the club hosts talks by some of the world’s most seasoned journalists, it also realised the value in taking younger, budding reporters under its wing. Starting as you mean to go on Three years ago, in honour of late renowned journalist and longtime FCC member Clare Hollingworth, the club created a fellowship programme for early-career reporters in the
PHOTOS: FCC, SUPPLIED
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
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trailblazer’s name. The fellowship is awarded to two young journalists annually, granting them a year’s membership and free access to the club’s events. “Getting young people into the FCC is critical for the future of the club, so we thought, why don’t we come up with a fellowship both to honour Clare’s memory and, at the same time, lift up some young reporters?” says Enda Curran, a former Board member who was instrumental in setting up the programme. And when pro-democracy protests swept the city in 2019, the FCC organised free workshops open to non-members in the media, covering topics from cybersecurity to legal matters to first aid. “The principle of the club is press freedom and freedom of expression, and helping journalists improve professionally is part of that,” says Eric Wishart, who was the FCC’s president from 2016 to 2017. “The idea was to provide a service to the journalism community to give them the tools to do their job safely. Unless you work for a big organisation, you don’t usually get these opportunities, particularly for freelance journalists.” The elephant in the room, of course, is COVID-19. Perhaps no single episode in recent times has so upended everyday life, and the FCC has spent the better part of the past two years navigating a new normal. While in-person events have been largely paused since 2020, the club has continued to engage with members. Zoom talks about pandemic misinformation and dealing with the physical and mental challenges of COVID-19 helped people
No mere talking shop: the FCC’s journalism conferences supplied expert practical advice.
better understand the health crisis. Across 12 time zones, journalists and writers around the world spoke virtually to FCC members on topics like Black Lives Matter, US-China relations and attacks targeting Asians during the pandemic. Looking ahead, the FCC’s work has never been more important, and difficult, than it is today. With press freedom hampered under the National Security Law, the city’s media environment is a far cry from 40 years ago, when the club moved into its historic building on Ice House Street. But the FCC is no stranger to the challenges of change. Its commitment to supporting journalists has stood the test of time – and if history is any indicator, the FCC will continue to make waves in the community and beyond.
Getting young people into the FCC is critical for the future of the club. – Enda Curran
HELPING THE HELPERS
PHOTOS: FCC, SAR AH GR AHAM, SUPPLIED
The FCC has a history of helping out people in need. So at the end of February, when club member Avril Rodrigues – who is heavily involved with the charity HELP – flagged up that a number of domestic workers had tested positive for COVID-19 but had nowhere to quarantine and were desperately hungry, the kitchen stepped up to the plate, as it were. From the start, it has been a neat little operation. Starting first thing, kitchen staff readied 105 meals – enough to feed 35 at breakfast, lunch and dinner – which were then despatched by delivery van, together with a supply of bottled water, to HELP’s shelter in Stanley. Meals on wheels, and then some.
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EYEWITNESS ON ASIA
1997 And All That
A quarter-century on, Mark Jones casts a thoughtful eye over the heroic tome – part photo album, part time capsule – that the FCC put together at the most significant moment in Hong Kong’s history.
T
he cover of the 1997 FCC coffee table book, Eyewitness on Asia, is a plain green-tinged grey (though the tinge may be the consequence of it having sat on a Lantau bookshelf for 25 years). There is a clever hologram in the centre which allows the Union Jack and the Chinese flag to alternate according to how you hold the book. The book, so far as anyone can tell, is the FCC’s only foray into coffee-table publishing: a collection of essays, memoirs and op-eds written by members as Hong Kong approached the Handover. The book was designed and produced in Germany. The graphic design has a Bauhaus austerity that is somewhat at odds with the content. I haven’t counted the number of alcoholic units consumed in the writing of its 228 pages, but it’s one pretty heavy session. If this book were a bottle, it’d need to have a health warning in big, bold type. The chapters are full of hacks yearning for grog, scouring Asia for grog and, in passages that bring tears to the eyes and a sympathetic twinge in the liver region, ultimately finding and dispatching said grog in heroic quantities. Here is Al Kaff, going home “to nurse his disaster with a bottle of gin” after being refused a visa as America’s
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table tennis team arrives in Mao’s China. Here’s Claire Hollingworth, polishing off a crate of champagne gifted by a friendly French consul as they flee Poland in 1940. Here are some thirsty WW2 hacks in Kevin Sinclair’s piece, awaiting crates of whisky being flown over the ‘Hump’ (perhaps by the men who would go on to launch Cathay Pacific) in the first incarnation of the FCC, “a ramshackle collection of buildings that had once been a middle school” in Chungking. They made do with Sichuan vodka. “If the Japanese don’t get us,” those early members dolefully noted, “the FCC cocktails will.” Well, it is a book about and by a club, and the point of a club is to meet, talk – and drink. But even in 1997, there were gloomy premonitions about a more buttoned-up and sober future. Australian reporter Tony Clifton pens a coruscating essay headed “Why are Today’s Young Journalists so Damn Serious?” as he reminisces about evenings “around the dying embers of a traditional whisky bottle”. But this was 1997: the urgent question you ask of this aged, if not quite venerable tome, is simply this: who got it right? Who saw what would unfold in Hong Kong and beyond in the succeeding decades? It’s no surprise to learn that the most far-sighted insights
PHOTOS: FCC
A murmuration of Board members contemplate the Main Bar in the run-up to the 1982 opening.
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PHOTOS: FCC
A many splendored club: Conduit Road premises in the 1950s.
also the satisfaction that they got whenever they managed are from the younger versions of Stephen Vines and to get to where the action was – to witness, file, do their jobs Philip Bowring. Vines, now exiled from Hong Kong, was well and earn that glass, or bottle, or more, of whisky or already depressed about the city’s media freedom and the whatever they could get their hands on. kowtowing of the wealthy owners to the incoming Chinese As for the FCC itself, it might feel as if it has always propagandists. He notes how the clothes shops owned by been in its present, ideal position, looking in one direction Apple Daily’s Jimmy Lai were hit by a mainland boycott. to the dignitaries at Government House and, out the back, Bowring sets out a definition of “success” for the to the somewhat less dignified activities in Lan Kwai Fong. Handover signatories. For Hong Kong’s people: that their But of course it has only been there power over their own affairs be more since 1982. There’s a glorious picture than a slogan. For China: “how easily of the then committee inspecting the Hong Kong can be absorbed by the building site that would become the motherland”. present headquarters. In those prePerhaps most prescient of all was What every contributor fails to the BBC’s James Miles, who asked, predict is how their trade is about Health and Safety days there is not “who can say for sure that the political to be sent reeling by the internet. a hard hat between them; but every hand clutches a glass of something and social forces that triggered as they try out the bar for size. It’s Tiananmen are bottled up forever?” clearly a serious business; but then It’s a question well worth asking they knew they would be spending a fair proportion of their again as the stopper on that particularly intoxicating bottle is adult lives in that very same spot. jammed down ever harder. You look aghast at the picture on page 11 of two members What every contributor, without exception, fails to predict being served a drink on the terrace at the stately former is how their trade is about to be sent reeling by a new form of premises on Conduit Road, with the harbour and the verdant stimulation: the internet. hills of Kowloon beyond. It’s the 1950s and you can’t help We did have the internet in 1997: I remember it clearly. wondering which idiots on the committee let that fabulous Not that you’d know it from this book. There are only three place slip through their hands. mentions of this new thing. They are all at the bottom of ads, Ashley Ford has the full story. The sugar merchant who for Time, the tourism board and CNN: in tiny type, timidly owned the building was willing to sell it for a small down suggesting they could be found via something called the payment and little more than the money the Club was World Wide Web. paying for the lease. The members who wanted to buy were There is only one picture of a computer: a huge cuboid outvoted, and the FCC lost the chance to acquire a site thing being looked at earnestly by a BAT employee. Also an that’d be worth billions today. And there’d be no landlord to ad. I bet they paid the full page rate. worry about either. As for we damn serious younger journalists, we realise with a pang that these yarning, hard-drinking hacks lived The club holds a single copy of Eyewitness on Asia. As in the golden age of reporting in East Asia. They were there BookDepository.com et al make very clear, second-hand copies for Vietnam and Cambodia, when Suharto fell and Nixon evoke comparisons with gold dust. visited. The pages are full of nightmares and hangovers, but
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EYEWITNESS ON ASIA
AN EDITOR WRITES Putting together the FCC’s first and so far only coffee table book was almost a labour of love, writes former BBC staffer turned author Vaudine England.
PHOTO: KEES METSEL A AR
I
n the run-up to 1997, anyone living in Hong Kong soon grew weary of being pressed by outsiders about what was going to happen after the Handover. There was no doubt, however, that the ceremonial moment would be a major media event. The question naturally arose of how the soon-to-be-ex British colony’s journalists should mark the occasion. The late Stefan Reisner – longtime correspondent for Der Stern and a noted children’s author – came up with a novel idea: a coffee table book, centred on the FCC but looking at its work in the region as a whole. Reisner started calling for contributions early in 1996, having teamed up with a publishing partner back in Germany, Kai Reschke. Four of us, in return for “volunteer rates”, pulled it together – myself, veteran editors Paul Bayfield and Saul Lockhart and the late photographer Hugh Van Es. We took over what’s now the Burton Room – named in honour of the ground-breaking foreign correspondent Sandra Burton – for weeks on end. Tables were covered in pictures and printouts as doing things online was in its infancy then. A lot of the time it was fun but, judging by a few laments I’ve since discovered, it was also a bit of a nightmare. Getting well-travelled hacks to deliver on time was a struggle; many were the promises made at the bar never to be acted on in daylight. Editing hit a wobbly when Lockhart started changing things to his American argot; I tried to change it all back. Bayfield came and went but Van Es was rock steady and somehow it all came together.
Clockwise: Vaudine England, Paul Bayfield, Saul Lockhart, Hugh Van Es, publisher Kai Reschke and driving force Stefan Reisner.
The result – Eyewitness on Asia: The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong Up to 1997 and Beyond – was launched in early 1997, priced at $368. The book opened with a gripping tale of how FCC members in Shanghai literally saved a colleague’s life, rescuing Graham Jenkins of Reuters from being shot at dawn back in 1949. It’s an extreme example, perhaps, of that truth about how this club has been, for many of us, a life-saver. What we wanted to show with the book was how that came about – combining the best reporting and photography on Asia from over half a century, all contributed by FCC members and with photos bringing it to life. Above all, it celebrates our club’s basic values of fine journalism, protection of press freedom and its practitioners, and the stimulation of pithy, even provocative, debate.
PROFESSIONAL CONTACTS PHOTOGRAPHERS CARSTENSCHAEL.COM – Award-winning Photographer. People - Corporate - Stills - Food Architecture - Transport. Tel: (852) 9468 1404 Email: info@carstenschael.com JAYNE RUSSELL PHOTOGRAPHY – Editorial People - Food. 18 years Fleet St, London experience. Tel: (852) 9757 8607 Email: jaynerussell@me.com Website: www.jaynerussellphotography.com
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THE ONE AND ONLY H HARRISON, ESQ
SEE ANYONE YOU KNOW? Rather than bothering with 1,000 words, Harry Harrison – a man who’s clearly fond of his dinner and not averse to wetting his whistle – sketches a time-travel portrait of the FCC at its most convivial.
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