Laos (RUN seat &
Formosal
FIRST LABOURS OF HERCULES
ward Capynghrby warrangemans vath the Manchester Guardian
THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1981.
Stigma of the
Tout II
THEY FLEECE OUR GUESTS
Of all the harm that touts are capable of doing to Hongkong, the worst is the stigma they leave behind on the excellent repute of the Colony as a tourist centre.
-And are
strangling
This is the problem that looms largest before one of HK's the Hongkong Tourist Association and all honest traders, who go as far as to prediet that it could,
if not brought under control, spell the doom of most vital tourism in the Colony.
Sald Major It. F. Stanley. Executive Director of the Tourist | Association: "Hongkong is one of the best shopping centres in the world. It has practically every=} thing to offer in varicly and at the right prices.
Added on
"Our visitors are almost al and unsus WASS pen-minded pictuss. They trust the people There.
industries...
"And look at what we offer. N At the airport, wharves, wher- ever
vre.
the tourist dikembarks, fixed-in advance-raies of com- there are the touls walling and Inission for introducing custom- eager to vlclimise the visitor.
"The prople to under the pretence that they are rendering service, but they certainly are not giving their services away
Each one, us he for nothbag. waits at the airport or at a duck, has connections with certain es- tablishments with which he has
REMARKABLE-FROM THE DAY HE
F
WAS BORN
DEAN Rusk began to be remarkable,
in an unheralded kind of way, on the day he was born. He weighed 11 pounds (overage U.S. male weight: 7 lb.
and he 10 oz.)
was delivered by a veterinary surgeon.
One day, early last month, he stood tall and balding and middle-aged in the Florida sunshine: a plain enough citizen, but with a kind of super- gleam in his eye. He stood by the side of John F. Kennedy, and he was introduced as the next Secretary of State.
Yet rom now that was IPOR quite
It was really musel it,
Things ke his quiet, atvad-
intleed
Bike being pudiced. Out of this a devotion to the job In hat, for all that mort American End, that permitted him to be
known him,
beaver very busy You could almost hear the without ever becoming a per- pagger rutting as the people senally eager one. His social thumbed through their refer genially, that never obtruded unce Looks to check on David Dean Rusk.
They found facts right; Imprezive enough in bulk and content to set them wondering all nye again. Why batt Huy long a little of this man?
Jack Kennedy had puzzled a thile, ton, before he stepped our into the Palm Beach sunahtar
questing intellectual toughness. His swift, logical thrusting to the heart of J problem.
Reminder
Wien Dena Rusk was
Dn
A cant Secretary of State he kept in his desk a big yellow sted
to produce hits Tribest rabbit minder pad in which lie
from his presidential hat. For
all the seventy or eighty job-
a novice, it had not been the lem that ought to be bothering easiest of tricks.
11:
fer rsonal preferencn
Lim.
Now, assuming The awesome
This top Cabinet job of such network of responsiblity that
<3
uweronze status had been y he once described as "almost he faces the Ina with ready-made impossible", Patiozai repulation; ma solemn realisation that the way Bike Senater William Fulbright he handles any one of those
Arkument (hnd not his items could change the regregationist background ex
tain courses of man's destiny. chule him).
Best man
But unknownniesg
the was
Ancer-
Care, antiefpation. precision: cach of the lowering probicans on Dean Rusk's yellow and will get its share of these.
There is
By Simon Kavanaugh
This commisston is not paid to the tout by the establishment, but is added on to the price of the article old to the tourist. In other words, the tourist is fleeced In order to cover the cost of the tout's commission."
Logically, the biggest and most damaging result is this: Prices are climbing and will continue to climb unill one, of Hong- kong's biggest assets as a tour- ist centre, that of being the best shopping city in the warld, will be narrowed down to a point where the tourist will no longer And it to his advantage to shop here. He could do just as well in Tokyo. Manila or anywhere else.
Linked
this are con- sequences that affect the whole
irist structure of Hongkong: “Shops which attempt to keep prices down under the burden of paying exhorbitant commit slons, are forced to substitute gets of poor quality under the guise of the genuine an expen sive article. This applies, in par- ticular, to smaller establishments which endeavour to bent their bigger rivals by offering more commission to touts.
Forced out
by
DAVID LAN
China Mail reporter
ing the visitor to pre-arranged practically nil,” he said with con- commission-paying shops.
cern.
There is rivalry among touts themselves. And at times they light it out in free-for-ails out- nice some hotel.
"Finally, here is the Impres- sion that the tourist takes away with him and spreads to others in his country-an impression of puerly-mude, il-fting clothes; Sometimes, disgruntled tailor high prices; bad service; con- shop managers also take part stant pestering and intrusions in the fisticuffs Hiving vent to un privacy.
their pent-up grievances, What inakes a tout a tout? What calises tuti intelligent, quicl-wilted peram-for a suc cessful
must have these quailties-t tura fram the search for a secure, repertable job and ilee from day, tổ day in the hopes of uncertain profils
tout
One obvious answer Hes in the fact that Hongkong has some 3- 000,000 people crowded into Just under 400 square miles and faced with an overwhelming scurcily of employment. The difficulty of obtaining a job drives a lout to live by hit wits rather than Bud more orthodox employment.
Big money
Also, it is easy work. A tout needs only exert as much effort as he wishes to make a living. Such is the keenness of com- petition among shops that boats are offered bitter stad tor easily-corned commissions In the hope of attracting business.
Tourists visiting a place for the first time, normally feel a Bite "last" in strange sur roundings, and are ripe for the friendly advances of à tout,
Touting in Hongkong la pure- ly a post-war outcrop. It dest came to light on an appreciable scale in 1954, when tourisin showed its first sign of promise here.
Since then. It has been grow- Ing by leaps and bounds, parallel to the ever-expanding "tourist
trare in Hongkong.
Major Stanley said the num- ber of touts fluctuales.
Shopkeepers estimate the total of touts, free art employed, at about 200 of which the majority are Chinese. They many regular travel employers."
Include
bereau
Toits are sul confined to the airport. "You can and them on the whorls, jottles, ferry plees, in the hotel lobbles, streets, res- laurants and, in fact, wherever tourists congregate."
They have infiltrated the bus- news establishments for tailoring. curios, jewellery, jades, furul- fure, enrpets, cameras, watches, eateries, restaurants and hotels,
One shopkeeper went so for ng to say that ""there are few shop: Hongkong that do not have conicthing to da with tonts."
Major Stanley told me that a The great tonting districts aro really smart tout could make Tsimshatsui, Hongkong Central anywhere between 94,000 and and Wanchal.
$5,000 a month. "We've heard of But the leading district is, of fouls demanding 30 per cent course, Tainushatsui where RO Commissions on the vahe of
per cent of the tourist trade is goods sold!" he added.
done,
*Touts, who already have a big say as to which establistudents should be favoured with tour- ists, will in the tang run wield an almost monopolistic power over merchants. Even today. taking advantage of competitkin for the tourist trade, they di vert business from one shop to the other in order to squeeze vent."
Remedies
"And here have even been cases when touts have demanded and received-60 per cent of the profils on sale, leaving 10 per cent to the merchant.
"In the case
Several of Major Stanley's T- of hotels, the regular rate of commission for medies to meet the situation are: bringing in a customer is 10 per Organisation and creation of cent, but now some hotels have associations-ruch as the Heng- id to push this up to 20 per kong Tourist Retail Merchants Association, Hongkong Tourist bigger commissions for them- So touling, contrary to popular Hetol Assoclution, Hongkong selves. Legitimate and honest bellef, can be pretty
Tailors Association, lucrative. Tourist, shopkeepers who refuse to bow Grateful tourists have been Hongkong Tourist Jewellers As- to the touts' threats and de- known to give touts
several sociation.
Joiting shopkeepers and hotel mends, are driven out of busi- hundred dollars in tips. This,
added to purchase commissions keepers awake to the danger- "Hotel space. a serious prob- (amounting easily to thousands so that they will realise that it tem in its own right here, in be- of dollars), hotel commissions, is not to their benefit, in the long kg seriously interfered with by restaurant commissions, all come run, in co-operate with teula by touts who make this segment of to a tidy little profit with prae- paying theni commlasions. Hongkong's tourist trade a spe- tically na overhead expense ni cinity,
Inces
all.
Pent-up
One tout who started out as n boy, has today made enough money in five pents to bay himself a house, a fleet of five cara and has set up a frgiti, mate tourist agency with a full stug.
Getting the Police to keep a closer watch-The police can be of rent assistance in prevcating accosting. soliciting or pestering tourists, which constitutes a dis- turbance and intrusion upon pri- vacy. The police should keep track of the habitual touts with photographic records,
More careful segregation at the points et arrival - such as the airport entrance, the wharf gate, hotel lobbles....
"He collects some $15,000 n month in commisalons, and even gets regular 'salaries' of $1,000 to racks,
arrangements,"
An auti-tout campaign through the pubile medja of the press, TV and Redifusion-to
This is the operation: A visitor books rooms at nhatel before setting out to visit the Colony. The tout, getting an advance tip on his arrival, will make the rounds of the hotels offering to "introduce" a customer. Mure rooms are booked as the tout visits hotel after hotel, and nego- lations are often continued until the moment of the luurlat's nr- rival. In the end, the out will present bimself at the airport and smoothly inform the arrival that his or her original hotel $1,500 a month from shops with arowe the public attention to booking has either been cancel which he has
the menace of touting to the led or given to someone else, salt a shopkeeper.
tourist Industry In Hongkong. Then, whisking the bewildered On touts wars at getting rich Major Stanley plns great visiter away in a car, the tout quick, by estimated that on the hope on the co-operation and un- takes him or her to a hotel of basis of two customers a day, derstanding of the local com- his cholee and where he has on buying between them US$5,000 munity, particularly of the shop- "arrangement." The other re- to US$10,000 worth of goods, the keepers themselves, served rooms are wasted. tout will ret-if the rate of com- "it is up to the shops them-
Legitimate To his now job, his friends
lourist axencies misalon is 20 per cent-some- selves to realise that it is to their say, Rusk brings the tremendous are being slowly forced out of where from US$1,000 (approxi- own mutual benefit to limit tout- advantage of knowing the score. their share of the trade. Touts, mately $0,000) to US$2,000 Ing activities in the Colony." There will be nothing disturb who manage to buy or borrow (about $12,000) a day.
stressed. on free "Most fouts can get business "If sufficient shops could get Ingly new for him in the Stato cary, take the visitor
He will be able to sight-seeing trips, make reser- every day," he added.
together and agree not to pay Department.
vations and tako uver almost pitch light in.
"If touts are allowed to con- commissions, bui to maintain a First, into Jute what?
fa fair our at that) all the functions normally hand-tinue unchecked, in two years' one-price
time, the regular tourist trade polley, touting will be eventually rather frustrating internal slug-led by reputable agencles, in re- gishness,
in Hongkong will trickle down to wiped out in ffongkong." those same friends turn for the privilege of escort- He did it, too. They neary Marshall, Rusk landed in 1947
Things have Rone predict. oul during the at the desk newly vacated by in Gcorgin, wearing veals inade Rhodes selection interview, Alger Hiss, in charge of the tle statle around the State
of Special Political Department since Dulles died.
Then, say the not-quite-ro- reconciled his brilliant school Affairs. Rusk has a way of being that. picking along the railway that when they asked him how he Offee
in winter.
Two years fater, Secretary friendly, Rask has still to show But if Dean' Rusk. The 11-
record as an officer-cadet with
ls tough his hope of studying towards Acheson eocked a snook at elvil that his authority pretention eltzen diplomat,
service seuiority to whisk Dean enough to take a litle nudgingt Ilved
world peace, for
51 years and
Job: from two men who both looked grown to 0.1 in. without the
Bui Busk was diplomatically Rusk into a brand-new
in Under Secretary equal.
then. Had
to become Kennedy's Secretary not Deputy
est State themselves: Adial papers finaling out about it, the
America's eagle two claws? Did charge of policy co-ordination. 1.f
For the same simple reason. Stevenson and Under-Sceretory Brutment
not our hold an olive branch,
Here was the best man for the Chester Bowles. brought a murmur
ul delin something better than tailor and the other errow? from the quarter that it mot
job. From Oxford, during the De- give young Rush: to
the conetras: the State Tepartmen!,
Slogging away behind school he raced pression doldrums of 1934, Rusk
scenes, he preved it all the Dean Rusk of the hattered idealism. At
No man had more to do weekend bag and the anstriped ahead, became president of this became a palliical relence pro-
and that, and startedl up fessar at California's Mills Col. way. trouser is known dre
lege. It was only after his with the momentous birth of
of Nato acceptance right. He has been for a long SHEs in Greek.
the Marshall Plan Twiftly-cabled time. And like).
attitude towards the Republie of China or with working oul the intricacies of the Japanne Peach Treaty,
m that anyone could hold ngsitat Dean fusk the dropped the "David" years ago.
no dramatically easy substitute for any of them, he believes;
than personal any more
**- cointers between world leaders
replace patient,
skilled alplematy.
And
van
when Kennedy was asked why
Ito chose him at last, his reply. was compact:
He grew up in near-poverly throw hlm "He seemed to me to be the best man avail-
Extr."
W
▾ True. years now
from Hour-sucks and coal-
Cultured
But his parents, though poor were cultured. They had
vesta
CVER
No regrets
Ang at twelve he was busy that job that he discovered Mills witir clarifying America's it is more than eight druwing up a schedule tip to be a school for girls.
le for cutlined "What I Plan To Do since he the sull-deeper obreunity of With The Next Twelve Years Presidential
* The Or My Life." It involved Rockefeller Foundation But completing high school, Anding there were things about Ruk, a job for two years to pay for during his Truman yeNTA in college, studying at Davidson the Slate Department, that College in North Carolina, then Professor Rusk never regretted stuck with all who ever know reaching Oxford on, a Rhodes. He found his wife there, him there.
Scholarship.
Just Fancy That!
[/HEN ■ U.8. Navy holloopter landed
WH
on
an "uninhabited"
island near Bamoa, a naked New Zealander popped up and offered the pilot gin. That was fast November.
On the way back from the Antarctio the pilot again took off from the Icebreaker Glasier and called at the lonely falund,
The naked man popped up again. Have some pin,” he said. "I've got quite a stock.” He said his namo was Tom, and he had been on the island, ali alone for two and a half years, Kving on surtle" eggs, water melone, and'Entektene, ̈·
Much said
il
Both have said much, and have much to say, on issues of foreign polley. Stevenson's at- tiltide
to nuclear tests and Bowles' views on Formosa will be two tricky early Items for De Rusk's new yellow pad. When Communist troops in-
But, big and balling, and re- the on Rut young, already-balding vaded South Korea
Citizen/ night of February 25, 1950, taxed as ever, Plain was Rusic whose prompt alarm- Secistory of State Rusk shows no alarin. Hempt through inlsing got things moving by
before the next morning towards historie his fitness hearing.
Senate Foreign Relations Ccm- military intervention.
mittee n if it wore another Rhodes selectlau,
War turned him overnight in to an infantry oflicer; but not for long. A War Department card- Indexing machine threw up his Oxford
-background; ami he found himself in Washington, in
.1
Not alone
rit alone Jn.hts
In the endless labyrinth of forcizn affairs, he is sure, there
the British Empire Section of And in 1952, when the is more than enough dimeuit the Office of Strategie Services. Rockefeller Foundation needed work tur all; there need be no working with Rṛlph Bundle, inety president, John Foster rating in anybody else's way.
is "The President Then, as a colonci on General Dulles w
charge Stillwell's staff in India, he conviction that he knew the of the raw power of the State," fourt hiraselt Involved in reht man for the job.
he says in the ease volen that trickily diplomatie war-effort
Ank t with the Britisis negotiations
waa Deon flusk, carries still a trace of Georgia. And I depend on careful and the Chinese. He ended his without fanfare, who moved in war as deputy chief of staff for 10 organize silent and unseen briefings. I don't play husches." China, Burma and India,
(the distalination of, 9350 million The Dean Risk America deco Afterwards, catching the yo phonin the Warishe needy in not know will take 55 up from of secretary of Elite George eight years.
there.....
"He was stooping down to check one of the
machines!"