90th Birthday Celebration in Hong Kong Part V: Places and People

I did not go to Hong Kong to go sightseeing or to explore places. I went there to be with people and to celebrate schools and churches. But the place of Hong Kong continues to be amazing. Now considered a part of China if is classified as being part of one country-two systems. Hong Kong is no longer a manufacturing center. All of that is either in the Mainland or in Vietnam and other Southeastern China countries. Nevertheless it is a bustling never go to sleep business metropolis of some 7 million energetic, ambitious, success driven people. Its business is business. All the major finance companies of the world have offices there. It is a favorite place for shoppers from the Mainland to come and secure both ordinary and luxury goods. Wherever we went over the weekend we were engulfed by people from the Mainland carrying suitcases full of stuff to take home.  And they all spoke Mandarin, not the local Cantonese. When we visited both the Chinese schools and HKIS it was stressed that while English is an important language there is now an emphasis that everyone also needs to learn to speak Mandarin

When I lived there 50 years ago it had no bridges or tunnels to connect the Kowloon peninsula with island-now there are three massive tunnels flowing with tens of thousands of cars. The underground metro system is inconceivably efficient, clean and economical. Where rice patties or steep hills formerly lay we now find high-rise after high-rise.

Hong Kong is expensive It is on par with Manhattan. Housing is unbelievably costly and people cram into very small spaces and often struggle to afford that. Even families with more than one wage earner may live in less than 800 square feet of home space.

The Hong Kong Peak, which Tim visited, has not changed much, but the scenery is very different. The harbor keeps getting filled in with massive high-rise structures now standing where we used to catch the ferry. But the faithful Star Ferry is still there and Tim and I rode it even being lucky enough to be there on free ferry-ride day”

Nathan Road in Kowloon is not much changed. We went to the old section of Hung Hom with its bustling clogged streets, looking very much like it did 50 years ago. The Peninsula Hotel with the Bentley and Rolls Royce cars sitting in front remains unchanged. The Hong Kong Golf Club where I got in 18 holes of poor golf now allows pull-carts though my host insisted I use a caddy.

Macau is an entirely different world from what I knew. It is the Las Vegas of the Orient with all the Vegas Gambling Casinos and Hotels reproduced and even done up more ostentatiously than in Nevada. When we stopped for cocktails in the Wynn Casino it felt like Vegas.    

PEOPLE: It’s the people of Hong Kong generally and those whom I got to know personally that most inspire me. This time more than ever many of them grew nostalgic. Over and over and over they recalled the early days, the days they were newly arrived refugees and my students. They lived in squatter huts. They lived in stairwells. They slept on the corridors of huge resettlement estates. They got burned out. They went hungry. They had no shoes. When they got sick they could not afford medical care. The had T.B. They had skin diseases. Even teen-agers lost hair due to malnutrition. I heard those stories over and over. And now they are well fed, they may be crowded in small apartments but they own them. They are teachers, principals, money managers, medical doctors, nurses, attorneys, fashion designers, newspaper writers, pastors, and professors. It was all incredible. And one after another after another came and told me their story and expressed heartfelt thanks for the opportunity to go to school and get an education.

One of the most moving moments of my whole trip came on Sunday after worship. Four different older women came up to me. Each one of them told me that that their only opportunity to learn to read (they were very poor) was to come to a special evening school we had started that charged only 50 cents month tuition. One of them came to me just before I left. She pressed into my hand a tiny very, very low cost piece of plastic /glass beads. “These are for you, with my thanks!” she said and quickly stepped away. That is the most wonderful way for me to celebrate my 90^th that I could ever imagine.

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Birthday Celebration in Hong Kong Part IV: Gifts

Birthday Parties mean Birthday Gifts! And for the celebration of my 90^th in Hong Kong GIFTS is spelled in capital letters!

Birthday Parties mean Birthday Gifts! And for the celebration of my 90^th in Hong Kong GIFTS is spelled in capital letters!

It all began when a former student and teacher on my staff, Margaret, heard that I was turning 90 this year. Her immediate response, “You must celebrate in Hong Kong and I will pay the air fare for you and Jane to come.” This was followed by a message from her husband David (also a former student), “And I will pick up the hotel bill!” Who can turn down an offer like that? Well, actually Jane could and did. She knew what the pace of activities would be in Hong Kong and she knew what it feels like t take that 14 hour non-stop flight from San Francisco to HK and return. So she wisely chose to celebrate only vicariously and that turned out to be just the right decision. Our son Tim decided to go and the hosts said, “No problem. We will pick up all his expenses” and they did. Just to make the air flight a little easier, a couple from my home church, Calvary in Solana Beach, upgraded out flight to Economy Plus!

Public transportation in HK is excellent but we were going all over the place with a very tight schedule. So immediately another female graduate, Tam, spoke up. “I am making available my Mercedes and my full-time driver. She will take you wherever you need to go at whatever time you need her.” We grabbed that opportunity.

When we got off the plane the driver together with Tam and friend John were waiting at the airport in the chauffeured car. We had barely sat down when each of them handed me envelopes. Inside was cash both US and HK dollars to cover expenses and a so-called “Octopus Card” which provides access to all forms of public transportation. And when we got out of the car at our hotel we were loaded down with 4 bottles of outstanding French wine!

As indicated in an earlier BLOG all our meals were more than covered, some by the persons already mentioned above, another by Heman, the Oxford graduate attorney son of Margaret and David and by Paul who hosted a major dinner in Macau with Tam, of course having purchased the firs=class ticket on the hover-craft that provided passage between HK and Macau.

At the first birthday party each table gave a gift, which ranged from a pen, through a lovely little statue of the goddess of longevity, to more little red envelopes, each of which contained cash. At the end of our visit the Concordia School principal presented me with a wonderful photo album plus a remarkable flash drive wrist band which, when plugged in my computer carried complete photo coverage of my entire visit plus photos of the history of the school, including shots of me with the graduates for each of the years I was there. The church at which I spoke gave tee-shirts with the Luther words, “Here I Stand’, and appropriately logoed umbrellas, photo albums and a new Chinese Bible. During the previous day another pastor had given me a book stand in which the Chinese characters of the 23rd Psalm had been beautifully etched.

Naturally, gifts of jewelry, purses and wads of cash were sent along for Jane.

The evening before we left I totaled up the content of all those envelopes. The combined total HK and USA dollars was astounding. The total was not in the hundreds of dollars but was in the thousands! I sat there alone for a few minutes but then sang out loudly in both English and Chinese the immortal words of ”Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow!”

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90th Birthday Celebration in Hong Kong Part III: FOOD

Chinese and food: These two are inseparable. So at my 5-day birthday celebration among Chinese friends this held true to tradition every day. I ate very, very well in Hong Kong which might just be the best place in the world, to eat, even surpassing Paris.

It began with breakfast. My hosts knew that the manager at the Regal Hotel at which we stayed had been her former pupil. So, of course, she arranged for an-up graded room on the premier level with full access to the special afternoon tea, evening open bar , late night  complimentary cocktails and full breakfast.. Since HK is so international it was obvious that the breakfast counters featured not only traditional bacon and a form of hash-brown potatoes, but also all kinds of hot and cereals, porridges, congee, steamed buns, fish, Japanese dishes hot and cold beyond count., bagels and lox, fresh fruit of great variety. trays of pastries etc, etc,

One of the features of dining in Hong Kong is that it is done in private clubs. So I was elegantly hosted  for food at The Chinese Club, The Hong Kong Golf Club and the Bankers Club. I will here go so far as to actually list the specially prepared (and carefully printed out, personally dedicated menu) provided by Tam Kim Chu and her husband at the Bankers Club.  Here it is: Barbecued Whole Suckling Pig, Sautéd Scallops and Prawns with Vegetables, Deep-fried Crab Claws with Minced Cuttlefish, Braised Birds’ Nest Soup with Fish Maw and Seafood, Steamed Sabah Giant Garoupa, Roasted Crispy Chicken, Fried Rice with Shredded Chicken in Cream and Tomato Sauce, Braised E-fu Noodles with Mushroom and Abalone Sauce, Sweetened Red Bean Cream with Lotus Seeds and Lily Bulbs and Chinese Longevity Buns. Yes, that was one meal, all accompanied by outstanding, appropriate wine for each course!

Lunch at the Chinese Club and at the Hong Kong Golf Club were on a somewhat lesser scale but dinner at Hu Tong in Kowloon, overlooking the harbor and at Guincho A Galero in Macau were also at the very top of any list of fine dining. In Macau it was wonderful to enjoy Portuguese sausage as it can only be made in that former colony of Portugal..

There were two large birthday party meals each attended by over 100 and each featured wonderful more traditional Chinese food. At the alumni dinner the meal actually started with a huge birthday cake which was served before the rest of the meal. The meal was not served in traditional Chinese style with dishes in the center of the table and then on individual plates. Rather each entry was a separate serving brought to each guest on a small plate with just that one item. This went on for 12 courses, most of which I did not have time to eat as I busy posing for photos with guests from the respective tables.

I was greatly surprised by the sumptuous catered noon meal served at Concordia Lutheran Church after services on Sunday. It again featured a vast multitude of traditional Chinese dishes served cafeteria style. Two menu items were especially interesting. The first was actually proudly brought to me. It was a large bowl of charred mashed potatoes. This would never be seen at a traditional Chinese feast but the hosts figured I was an American and so they asked this dish to be specially provided for me and it was brought to me with great flourish and humor!

The other feature of this meal was the birthday cake, actually three of them. At a ceremony in the church after the regular worship service the ushers brought up 2 rather small and beautiful cakes which they asked Tim and me to ceremoniously cut. It was then served later at the dinner. However, at the dinner they brought me another piece of cake in a somewhat “messed up” condition. They explained to me: ”This piece comes from the big beautifully decorated cake we had ordered for you to be presented after the church service. However-on the way to church there was “an accident”. The whole top of the cake with all its decorations was totally ruined. ”They did salvage some of the cake and wanted me to at least have a little piece of that, too.

In between all this Tim and I were ready for a simple dish of noodles from a street-side stand. So we asked David Tzang to help us locate one. Well, that did not work out as planned. He and his wife knew of an old-fashioned noodle shop that had become so famous that it was listed in the Michelin Guide. It was so popular that the waiting line stretched half a block and the wait could be an hour or more. So Margaret had gone early, stood in line and in we marched immediately, sat in the crude wooden booths and with waiters whizzing by enjoyed our noodles-accompanied by wonderful pig knuckles which Tim enjoyed so much that it was later announced that he had eaten three portions of them.

90th Birthday Celebration in Hong Kong Part II: Site Visits

It was to establish and support Lutheran Schools that took me to Hong Kong back in l956 so it was high on my agenda to visit a few of them now 52 years later. Therefore the morning after we arrived we were off to Concordia Lutheran School in Kowloon. The school had started with just a couple middle school grades housed in a storefront. Then we received a grant of land from the government and a $100.000 grant from the Lutheran Women Missionary League to build a stand-alone structure. That was my first assignment upon arrival those many years ago. We built a Kdg-12 school, later added classrooms, added an evening school and enrolled some 1,500 students by the time I left. I was principal of that very large operation completely staffed by Chinese personnel. It was a premier school with the highest rate of successful takers of school government-sponsored high school leaving exams in the history of Hong Kong.

Things have changed dramatically. It is now only a Grade 6 to 12 school. The evening school is no longer necessary. It is completely funded with government grants. It continues to have high standards and a tough academic program. Its enrollment is 750. It has a new US$7 million campus complete with all kinds of science and language labs etc. etc.

The faculty and staff were eagerly awaiting my visit. Together they had arranged for a group of top students to meet with me and tell me about their school. Their presentation was all in English, fully illustrated with computer-generated projections. The students told me of current things that were never on the table in my day: optional sequences for high school students, courses in tourism and hospitality, courses taught in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. The students proudly told me of academic teams, sports programs, religious clubs and musicals, sports teams, inter-school visits with schools on the mainland of China and on and on. Very impressive.

They had a carefully prepared session in which I was interviewed. I was pleased to respond to their questions regarding original visions and dreams and about differences between then and now. Finally the interviewing student said “Just one more question, “What is your opinion of President Trump?” That was the question they really wanted to ask!

The next school we visited was Saviour Lutheran School for Special Ed. What a treat. It had always been a dream of mine to reach out to this neglected portion of the population. I was there to help find the site, raise the construction money and get the building started but had to leave before completing the construction and I had never seen the final product. Now there has even been an addition to the building. Kids with special needs ages 6-16 are enrolled. The program is excellent and professionally conducted. A group presented a short musical program for me, including the singing in English of “Jesus Loves Me This I Know For the Bible Tells Me So.” I left emotionally overwhelmed.

Then primarily for son Tim we went to the site of the home where he lived from birth to age 5. Of course that building has long ago and been torn down and replaced with higher density housing. The squatter hut village just a block away has been replaced with high-rise apartment buildings.  But Tim tried to look over the fence to find where he had played on the slide and climbing bars.

A quick trip to where Tim had been born: St. Teresa’s Hospital. All replaced. Good thing as when Jane went there for his delivery the labor room was on the third floor, there was no elevator and we woke a night watchman to let us in. Jane’s water broke on the way up the stairs and Tim arrived before the Dr. did. But he survived very well and the new building is helping many others do the same today, but I bet there are none named Tim.

The next day I was off to Hong Kong International School. This is another school which I planned, got approved, designed, and was building when a family medical emergency forced our family to leave. Now it is one of the top schools in the world. The recently dedicated lower school is THE BEST I have ever seen anywhere. It even has a full-size swimming pool with a bottom that can be raised or lowered automatically so children can be in water ranging in depth from 1 inch to 8 feet. There is a full-sized kitchen for children to learn, all play equipment is specifically designed for this school. The entrance features an incredible tiled mosaic with tiles made in Italy and laid in place by the kids. It meets all the demands of parents who pay up to $25,000.00 in tuition for their children to attend!. It blows my mind and while everything else that I designed has been replaced the startling cross in the center still sends a message of love and respect for all.

When I spoke to some of the staff on the theme of excellence and learning they announced that the bursary to allow teachers from all over to come and learn here had been named in my honor.

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