HONG
KONG CHILDHOOD - Maggie Black
I
was born in India, moving at an early age to China, and at three to Hong
Kong. I absolutely loved Hong Kong and was sad when my parents moved when
I was sixteen, although before that, at the age of nine, I had to leave
school and go back to boarding-school in Scotland – and was heart-broken.
Maybe there was a better education there a hundred years ago, but no longer.
My sole memory of India, more a feeling, reinforced by old snapshots and
my relatives’ recollections and periodic stops at hot airports, is
of dark skins, tenderness, thick vegetation and palm trees. The only one
of China is of my pet cat getting stuck in a tree in our (expatriate’s)
compound.
But Hong Kong! Aaah! It was a magical childhood, partly because my parents
moved in a circle of ex-pats, who seemed to do everything for the children
without spoiling them. At eleven I was winning golf tournaments –
not because my golf was so good, but because the par was doubled!
I particularly remember ‘launch picnics’, when a group of six-ten
adults with all their children would sail away to one of the nearby islands.
We would anchor there for a few hours and – if we had friends who
had a speedboat, we could surf or water-ski as well. It’s really nerve-wracking
skiing over a jellyfish! The crew were on the constant lookout for jellyfish:
if one was spotted a sailor would row out to it in the dinghy, grab a handful
of sand from a bucket and sprinkle it on the jellyfish which made it sink.
I once got stung by a loose tentacle – boy, did it hurt! It’s
painful enough to remember 50 years on!
The view from our house was of the harbour from one side, and of the fishing
village of Aberdeen from the other – well, not quite, but nearly,
but anyway of many small dark-green islands on the blue sea.
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Aberdeen was a bustling, crowded, noisy fishing village, but oh! so
picturesque. Whole families would live aboard small sampans, mothers
and babies, and small children playing. Sampans were about the same
size as the boats below, but without the masts. |
Every
two years we would move house. As my father was promoted so we would
gain by moving higher up the Peak, the main hill in HK. My school
was on the Peak itself, and I was happy there. Life was safe, the
Chinese loved children, and I used to catch the Peak Tram, a steep
funicular railway, to go to school; the steps on the station platform
were wide and deep; fun to jump up and down for six–year-old
legs. |
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Near
the top of the Peak Tram was a café, it has been completely
refurbished now, and is a super luxurious restaurant, but years ago
school children used to hang out there with coke and chewing gum.
I sometimes used to walk our dog along Lugard Road, a delightful,
quiet, jungly path starting from the Peak Café. A thick canopy
of differently shaped green leaves and tree trunks flanked the path
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both sides. But because it was quiet and jungly my imagination worked
overtime, I used to have terrifying dreams of warriors and snakes,
so I hardly ever went on my own. Those dreams – or ‘day-mares’,
as I would always be fully conscious, but ‘drifting’ and
powerless to prevent them, kept recurring for years.
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