The Benefits of Gin and Tonic

The Building Committee of the Lutheran Church of Hong Kong for which I served as chair made a mistake. We hired a construction contractor to do the site formation for Saviour Lutheran Church and School on Tai Po Road. He was a fraud on many counts. I did not know that when we had the first of many “unfortunate incidents”. He was blasting away a rock hillside to create the level building plot. He had erected a huge bamboo screen to contain the blasted rock. Then one day he used entirely too much explosives. One of the rocks flew over the screen. It landed on and shattered the front windshield of the Rolls Royce parked there. The owner: The Chief Justice of the Hong Kong Supreme Court.

By the next morning I had the official notice from Crown Lands. “All site formation at said site is herewith terminated until further notice.”

I knew that I did not have a strong case when I went in to make my appeal for another chance. For over a month all work on that site was suspended.

Through the kindness of the Director of Kodak International, a wonderful Lutheran layman from the USA, I had been accepted into associate membership in the exclusive Royal Hong Kong Golf Club and I regularly made use of that privilege.

Since only British citizens had the right to full membership, we associate members did not always interact with those with higher status. But one day after a round of golf one of “them” invited me to join him on the veranda. I offered to buy the first round. We made our introductions. When he learned of my work with Lutheran schools he asked me if I had any connection with that new building planned for the Tai Po Rd site next to the new court building. I confessed that I did indeed have some responsibility. He informed me that he was the person responsible for all blasting permits in Hong Kong. His next sentence was unequivocal “Well, blasting at that school site will continue on exactly the same day hell freezes over !” I hastily ordered another round of gin and tonics which I offered as apology for his having to deal with a very upset judge.

And so we commiserated: my problems with greedy contractors, my deep desire to get that school built and open for the poor children of the community and his having to respond to people living near construction sites and all their unreasonable objections and complaints. One more round of gin and tonics and we might be able to endure!

Exactly ten days later I received the registered letter on official crown stationery. “The blasting permit for the site on Tai Po Road is herewith immediately reissued.”