Hong Kong

After flying for a couple of years I received a one-week vacation and decided to visit Hong Kong. As we landed, I stared out the window and saw thousands of shanties a hundred feet beneath the plane’s wings. Flying close to the tops of these metal shacks, I realized why Hong Kong International was considered one of the most dangerous airports in the world.

Notorious for its hazardous approach, pilots made dramatic drops down steep mountainsides and battled violent crosswinds over crowded slums. Once the wheels touched down, they immediately slammed on their brakes. The short runway covered a peninsula that protruded into Kowloon Bay, and any mistake meant landing in water.

Besides the frightening approach, my flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong was also personally daunting. As a vacationing passenger, I knew none of the crew. No one would be at the airport to greet me and my initial plans were uncertain.

On arrival I decided to spend my first night at a top-rated hotel and then move to a youth hostel. While waiting for a customs inspector, I asked a nearby passenger, a white-haired man with a German accent, if he knew of any public transportation to the Hilton Hotel.

He replied, “My car is going right by the hotel. If you would like, I’ll drop you off.”

He introduced himself as Mr. Gregg and his business associate as Mr. Cutler. The three of us walked through the airport to his waiting limousine. On our ride to the hotel district I mentioned that I was an international stewardess, but that this was my first time vacationing in Hong Kong.

Mr. Gregg inquired about my evening plans and asked, “Would you like to join us for cocktails and dinner?”

“Yes, I’d enjoy that,” I replied with a smile.

His driver, Yang-fu, picked me up at the Hilton’s entrance about an hour later and drove me to a high-rise apartment building. He escorted me through the lavish marble lobby and waited while I cleared security. The elevator carried me to the fifth floor, and when the doors opened Mr. Gregg was there to welcome me.

His small but opulent apartment overlooked the city, and provided a pleasant retreat for him and his wife whenever they were in Hong Kong. I sat on a striped armchair near Mr. Cutler and a Chinese maid handed me a glass of wine. She wore a black uniform with a white, ruffled apron and passed a silver tray of hors d’oeuvres, bowing slightly as she handed me a linen napkin.

After a comfortable hour of visiting, Mr. Gregg said it was time to go. Sitting in the backseat of the black limo we headed into downtown Victoria, the capital of then British-controlled Hong Kong and the center of trade, finance, and government. It was also a major destination for tourists who came to buy duty-free cameras, custom-made clothes, and jewelry.

“Why are so many people wearing pajamas?” I asked, noticing the crowds strolling on the sidewalks.

“Two or three families share one apartment. When one family sleeps, the other family either works the night shift or walks the streets,” Mr. Gregg explained. “High land values create high rents. Local wages, however, are extremely low.”

In due course we arrived at a well-known Mongolian restaurant. The buffet-style establishment had an unusual assortment of Asian dishes. I tried almost everything, except for the sheep’s stomach lining. I also passed on anything that looked like bugs or an animal’s private parts. We sat on floor cushions around a small table and ate with chopsticks while discussing local politics.

Near the end of dinner Mr. Cutler said, “I’d like to turn in early. I’ve had a long day of traveling, and we have an important meeting tomorrow morning.”

“Bobbi, do you want to see more of Hong Kong?” Mr. Gregg asked.

“If you have time, sure,” I answered.

After dropping Mr. Cutler at the apartment building, we continued around the island, stopping to visit the Floating City in Aberdeen Harbor. Almost a million people lived in this city, inhabiting homes erected from small barges. A water taxi propelled us from the mainland to a restaurant ship near the middle of the harbor.

The ship, decorated with countless white lights on its railings and riggings, looked like a Christmas ornament. Their reflections shimmered across the waves. After a brief time at the circular bar, Mr. Gregg suggested we see Hong Kong from atop Victoria Peak.

The ride up the mountain, narrow and twisting, was too dark and obscured by trees to offer any view. Once we reached the summit, however, the scene was spectacular.

While Yang-fu waited, Mr. Gregg escorted me to a rock face high above the city. We sat on a bench and surveyed the breathtaking view before us: the sparkling lights, the boat-filled waters, and the surrounding mountains. Slowly, he put his arm around me and pulled me closer.

Mr. Gregg clearly had romantic intentions, and I, in my innocence, had been oblivious. Sitting next to a relative stranger in a foreign country, I panicked and burst into tears.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I have cancer,” I said, crying even harder. “I only have a few months to live. That’s why I’m traveling.”

A few years earlier I had had a cancer scare. Needing to improvise, it was the first thing that popped into my mind.

He arose, took my arm, and gently led me back to the car. We continued down the mountainside while he patted my hand and wished me luck with my health.

When Mr. Gregg dropped me off at the Hilton, he asked, “Would you like to have my limo for a few days? I’m leaving tomorrow and would enjoy doing that for you.”

“Really? Thank you very much.”

The next morning, Yang-fu arrived at the hotel as instructed and we drove north to the Chinese border. I couldn’t believe my good luck. Here I was, traveling on a shoestring, and I had been given a chauffeured limousine to use for sightseeing. Along the way I saw a young hitchhiker by the road and requested Yang-fu to stop.

“Where’re you going?” I asked.

“Anywhere you are,” he answered and tossed in his backpack. For the next few hours I had the company of Jim Bronson, a sandy-haired Canadian, and together we toured the farmlands of Hong Kong.

From our passing car we saw only women field workers. They wore loose-fitting khaki tops with pants that billowed in the breeze. On their heads were large-brimmed, pointed straw hats. They squatted as they harvested the crops, chopping sideways with their sharp sickles. Most vegetables and flowers for Hong Kong’s population grew in this flat land near the Chinese border.

Returning to the south, we spotted metal and wood shacks everywhere…on steep hillsides, in gullies, and under bridges. Their tightly packed roofs overlapped each other, yet provided minimum shelter from the unrelenting monsoon rains. This was the dense mountainside slum of Kowloon that I had flown over when my plane first approached Kai Tak Airport.

Yang-fu dropped us off at an open-air market, and we spent an hour crushed between crowds of customers who, like us, were inspecting vegetables, fish, and poultry. Jim and I stood out because of our height and light hair, but otherwise we blended with the other shoppers, all wearing Western clothes. We negotiated easily, as Hong Kong’s official languages are both English and Chinese.

We took the ferry from Kowloon to Victoria, the normal mode of crossing for thousands of harbor commuters. Leaning on the rails, Jim and I looked across the bay and saw several sailing ships, known as junks. Designed over a thousand years earlier, they had sectioned hulls and paneled sails. Consequently, junks were resistant to cloth and hull ruptures and could sail safely over ocean seas. For centuries, Hong Kong junks transported goods from one country to another throughout all the lands of Asia.

I checked out of the Hilton Hotel and transferred to Jim’s youth hostel. I thanked Yang-fu, gave him a few dollars, and released him from his service. Jim and I later met on the inn’s veranda and several guests joined us for dinner. They wanted to know why we had arrived in a limousine. I told them about the awkward situation with Mr. Gregg.

With much laughter, they marveled at my story: “You could have been raped or killed. Instead, you end up with a chauffeured limousine. Boy, an angel’s watching over you.”

After a few days of sightseeing and shopping in Hong Kong, I said good-bye to my newfound friends and flew back to the States.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-27