SPEC
ECTION FOR HONGKO
Club member Hanifa Din writes an editorial for today's The 17-21
club section for all "17-21ers" to think about
GOOD
CITIZENSHIP Club's
In a crowded city like Hongkong it is important to have good citizens. Good, clean citizens co-operate to form a good, clean city. How is this possible? It will be A possible if each of us takes care to do our part well. Little things mean a lot. If one person throws a tiny piece of paper on the street, other people will see it. If one person can litter the streets, others can do so too. Children do what grown-ups do. So it is important to see to it that children are not influenced by the bad habits of adults.
When getting on a bus, people are often seen pushing one another just to get on first. Where are the manners that we learn at school and at home? Now is the time to put them in good use.
Sometimes, if you do not push people, people will push you. If only everyone of us would stop and think, there would be so much discipline.
Spitting is another very bad habit that everyone must
get rid of. Despite the many warnings that anybody found spitting in public would be fined heavily, not many seem to heed these warnings. Children should be advised not to do so.
However, if we should find it necessary to spit, we should
It
use a piece of tissue paper to be burnt later, or even five rules
a handkerchief.
good citizen never does anything against the laws of the city in which he stays nor will he go against the laws of any city he goes to.
is easy to pick up a bad habit but difficult to develop a
good one.
The Hongkong Police are trying their utmost to lessen as many accidents as possible but it appears that the citizens here are not very co-operative. Traffic policemen are assigned at most crowded places to
ensure the safety of crossing roads. Every day at about the same time, when there are most
people in the streets as during the “rush hours”;; policemen with their loudspeakers in hand will re- quest the pedestrians to cross by means of the pedes- trian crossings, which are meant specially for users of the roads. It is up to us to listen.
Accidents are not pleasant, so if we do not intend to be a victim one day, it is important that we do what the Hongkong Police think is good for our safety. The duty of good citizens is to obey the laws of the city and to carry them out to the best of our ability.
Credit card to Hanifa Din, Causeway Bay.
A
The choice I face 4 ZOO IN
my books or my friends
By A H. AHMED
REVERSE
In Africa there is a zoo where the animals are free to roam anywhere and the people are kept indoors.
These zoos are immense game
travellers visiting the zoos must drive through in cars. In the centre of the zoo is a building may live and
Books are a hobby of mine; reading them, that is. I'm quite proud of my collection.preserves where the animals I possess works of Somerset Maugham, Omar Khayam, Bernard Shaw, Peter are protected by strict laws, and Cheyney, Agatha Christie, and P. G. Wodehouse; to name a few. But, in my opinion, that is no excuse for friends and acquaintances to regard my where scientists
home as a free library and myself as a leading librarian. Whenever a visitor arrives, their eyes immediately dart to the three book-cases and I observe a gleam in their eye.
After a few minutes of chit- They invent fantastic excuses letters on the title page of every chat, they very politely ask if for not returning them, such as; volume, Surely they wouldn't they may borrow a book. They "I'm reading all six at once, so retain a book which quite ob- make their way to the book that I won't get bored, you un. viously didn't belong to them. case and after standing on their derstand," or "My husband is But they did! It seemed to add head to see the titles, seize half reading it,”
to their delight.
a dozen books, while muttering- such innane remarks as favourite author.”
FANTASTIC
"My
They promise to return them, of course, but in point of fact, that is the last that I ever see of them. Books, that is not friends.
My treasured book probably has ended up on the lap of a grubby toddler who wantonly scribbled on the pages with. coloured crayons.
I thought that I had found a splendid solution to the prob- lem of the disappearing books when I wrote my name in large
THE EDITOR FROM
TO ALL MEMBERS
This is something I want all Club members to read.
Today's front page of the Club supplement is, with the exception of this message, devoted to your efforts.
There are some illustrations, inside, as well, but these represent the total contributions for one week.
Hardly enough to keep the supplement going. If the Club is to continue, it is essential for every one of you to make an effort either with your draw- ings (but do them in Indian ink, please), your letters, your essays or your poems,
It is impossible to believe that with such a large membership as the Club now has that three articles, one poem and one or two drawings are all we can expect in one week.
You are awarded credit cards for every contri- bution published. Ten credit cards wins a valuable book or record-token. -
Let's have your contribution, immediately and we shall try to use as many as possible.
THE EDITOR,
AUDACITY
study.
Membership in the 17-21 Club is open to aff within that age group.
• Contributions`and all ac- tivities of the Club wil be limited to members only.
Contributions may consist of quything that is publishable articles, letters, stories, photo- graphs, drawings, verses. But only the best will be printed.
All contributions MUST be original.:
Written contributions should not consist of more than 350 words, photographs and draw- ings will only be accept- ed in black-and-white.
I look forward
to the
City Hall
MY
home is in Englend, just outside Löndón. Almost any week of the year can take a train" either to the South Bank or to Ken-
Within just one of these zoos are mountain forests, tropical forests and grassy plains and rivers. On a chart ride you can see dozens of different wild sington to attend concerts animals, Elephants, Hons, hip at the Festival Hall or the popotamuses, antelopes and "Proms" pt the Royal Alpert cobras can all be seen living in | Hall at which some of the their wild homes.
world's best orchestrus and conductors play..
Unsally the animals pay little I doubt if such people ever attention to the cars that travel enter a bookshop. Why should the jungle roads or cross the they buy books when they can grassy plains, but visitors are borrow mine. The very idea!! | advised to say in their cars for
Some people have the auda- | their own protection. city to borrow a volume before I have read it myself.
would be to refuse my visitors A solution to the problem
with an irate "No."
This, my friends would dwindle, but my book-shelves would swell, I could eyen indulge in those marvellous little leather backed books · editions, instead of paper-backs which I have been driven to buy.
IRRATIONAL
MEMBERSHIP
Fill this in and send it to the China Mail, 1-3 Wyndham Street, Hongkong.
Name
Age
Address
my visitors Occupation
But to refuse would be irrational; one requires friends in addition to books,
Confusing, isn't it?
STREETS AT NIGHT
I look out from my little window,
Through the pale, milky moonlight,
At the quiet street stretched below,
Where bright lampa fit up the gloomy night
So silent and so uncannily still,
1 ask myself, "if this is the same Where people seemed to roam at their will,
Or were they driven away by the chili?"
I look at this empty quiet,
1 'marvel at it's stillness
Where, reigns peace quite untifed,
That I wish the dawn"would never come.
Credit card to Peter Lee,
-- Patérson-st, Hongkong.
It is the one big thing I have. missed since coming to Heng- king, but I am glad to see that the City Hall on the Star Ferry Concourse is now nearing completion, because there will be a concert hall in it which might encourage not only our own local orchestras to give more frequent concerts in more-central location than the Loke Yew Hall, but it
may persuadé touring orchestras to make it worth their while to vist Hongkong.
crchestrà "is being sent out by the British Council for the opening of the Cty Hall axi year and I hope that mas than just the local notables will be able to hear them.
People talk a lot about giving a stimulus to arts and culture by the building of a City Hall. And undoubtedly this is necessay. If the City Hall means giving a few more people the - delights that music, and also plays, have given me, then every dollar we spend on it is well worth wälle. Hongkong is so culturally barren "and I find that mésë at the poople concerned with its promotion are fanatles. This is not so - in London, where the | live theatre is much-mers popular than the cinema and where-every-concert is crow to such an extent that ped stand in the side aisles to the music:
--Somehow, I just can't see this ever happening in Hongking.
Credit card to -Annette' Mow- | drey," Korvioon.