REVIEW
9
the funeral of a woman who kept a Dickensian-type workhouse in Macau where he had been brought up. He had been sold by his Hong Kong mother who lived in poverty. He did outwork from the age of four. Yet, he said, with tears in his eyes, the workhouse keeper was the only mother he ever had and loved.
Prostitution at that time was rife. The Central District of Hong Kong was crowded with them at night. They were often mothers trying to keep families together when weaker-willed husbands threw in the sponge. I knew one son who had a hang-up about his mother from having seen her with a strange man. But that woman sent her children to school and eventually buried her drug-addict husband. All her children had to hurry home from school to do outwork, then run with it to the factory before it closed to get enough money to buy their meagre evening meal. Yes, that man with a hang-up still runs as he works.
Another I sometimes have tea with told me he came from Shanghai as a small boy. His father joined a secret society, hoping for a short-cut to material well-being. The boy was initiated into the secret society at 13 years. He learned kung fu and bullied and extorted for a living. Once when I tried to point out the error of his ways he told me if he couldn't make a decent living, then he would do it the criminal way. I know he had many brushes with the law. But finally he did put his kung fu to good use. Today he is a movie stunt man and a kung fu actor and assistant director, wholly immersed in the choreography of kung fu. I know he runs as he works.
I knew another who claimed he was a Black Hand. He was sold by his destitute widowed mother for $3,000 to a secret society. He was taught to attack drug-pushers who didn't pay those higher up in Mr Big's heroin distribution network, pushers themselves often being addicts and unreliable. Armed with a butcher's knife he would chop the razor-sharp blade into his victim's bony shins a couple of times. If that wasn't sufficient lesson to elicit prompt payment, then next time my Black Hand friend would chop off half a foot. Today, that fellow is a cook, making those Chinese delicacies we all know as dim sums. He runs as he works.
On a happier note, I knew one Chinese family in Hong Kong for many generations who helped by taking in a boy from a destitute family. He did household chores and messages for his keep and his schooling. Today that man is a branch manager of a well-known bank, has a wife and family and is paying off his house. I saw him weep at the funeral of the old man who gave him shelter and a career. He runs as he works.
I don't know how many people work in our government who began life in Hong Kong in a squatter hut on some hillside. But, I do know, whoever they are, they must be well-experienced civil servants. Who could have a better understanding of Hong Kong's classless meritocracy? I have heard of people who began that way, now in quite high places. They had poor but sensible fathers and mothers who understood the way to the top was by development one's own human resources. Not merely passing examinations, but winning scholarships.
The Pressure-cooker Product
I sometimes wonder what the heart-scarred in the Hong Kong population think when they read of well-meaning pressure groups advocating the abolition of all examinations? What their reaction is to psychologists who talk about future shock as old buildings are torn down to make room for commonplace skyscrapers? And what they think of psychiatrists who suggest a high incidence of mental illness among tenants in cramped public housing estate quarters? Quarters that they see as a bargain and a stepping-stone to the development of one's human resources.