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In the 1960s, Hong Kong was filled with crooked lanes, hawkers, street markets, sampans, junks and the clatter of rickshaws and double-decker trams, affectionately called ‘ding dings’. The harbour was wider than it is now and the waterfront gave one a feeling of space. There were few gleaming skyscrapers, and the skyline on Kowloon-side was low because of the airport a few miles away.
One of my favourite buildings was a grand striped red-bricked Edwardian construction on the junction of Des Voeux Road Central and Pedder Street, which served as the General Post Office. It had been built on newly-reclaimed land in 1911, apparently by mistake, using plans which were intended for the General Post Office in Nairobi. Whether this was true or not, it felt a rather curious building, different and quite magical. It was demolished in 1976 to make way for the construction of the Mass Transit Railway. I also remember how special we felt about the two buildings of City Hall, opened when I was a toddler. It was our first multi-purpose cultural complex on Edinburgh Place, and had safe walkways dotted with plants and unobstructed views of the famous harbour. City Hall low block had an outstanding concert hall where we sang in school choir competitions and watched Christmas pantomimes; high block housed our first public library where my father worked, and with its twelve floors, was one of the tallest buildings in Central District when I was growing up.
Nearby Statue Square was built entirely on reclaimed land, to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Many of the original statues were taken abroad to be melted down by the occupying Japanese forces during the Second World War. However, the statue of Queen Victoria survived and was moved to its current location in Victoria Park, close to the hospital where I was born. Thankfully, the two bronze lions, so beloved of young children, were also returned to their place outside the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Headquarters, at the prestigious No 1 Queen’s Road. The shrapnel damage is still clearly visible. I so enjoyed touching the lions’ paws, climbing onto their backs and entering the banking hall, its mix of classical and art deco design adding to a sense of awe and adulthood. Being the first building to be air conditioned in Hong Kong, it was also such a welcome treat from the intense heat of the Hong Kong summer. Demolished after I left Hong Kong, it was replaced in 1985 with an expensive steel and aluminum construction. This ‘bank of mirrors’, with its unobstructed views of the harbour, a spacious ground floor atrium seemingly without walls and the absence of an internal supporting structure to the building, was certainly expertly designed with good feng shui in mind. The cenotaph, a memorial to those who had died during WWII, stood at the northern end of the square, and in the mid-1960s, with the addition of plants and fountains, the square became a beautiful little oasis of calm and tranquillity amongst the increasingly hectic bustle of modern Hong Kong life.
I loved visiting Statue Square and the surrounding areas around City Hall and the Star Ferry pier. There were memorial gardens in classical Bauhaus style with clean lines. There was safe space to run around, water to play with, low ledges to climb, columns to hide behind, cool benches to sit on and shade from the midday sun. When it got too hot, we would pop into the adjacent Prince’s Building to cool off in its luxurious air-conditioned arcade of shops. My parents or grandmother would allow extra time when we were travelling in the area for us kids to play, more often than not on our way across the harbour.
One time, I must have been about five or six, and was playing tag and chase with my younger sister, who was four at the time. It was a blissful afternoon, and we had so much fun. And then she fell. She tripped, scraped her knees and started crying. Boy, did I get a telling off that day. It was all my fault because I was running too fast. I should have known better, being the older sister. I should have slowed down to let her catch me.
Later that year, 1966, large scale riots erupted. Originally a minor labour dispute, it soon escalated to massive, violent confrontations between pro-Communist demonstrators and British colonial rule. My beloved Central District was transformed into an ugly ‘no go’ area for us children. The Bank of China, so close to Statue Square, bristled with loudspeakers inciting revolution as they broadcasted pro-Communist rhetoric and propaganda. It stood out as a Maoist citadel in the heart of a capitalist Central District, and yet we knew from newspaper and television coverage that in the cricket ground across the road, cricketers continued to play on regardless. It was as if such chaos and tensions were a normal part of everyday life, or perhaps it was to give this impression to the outside world. It felt chaotic though, and at times frightening. Crowds of protesters shouted ‘blood for blood!’ as they thrust copies of Mao’s Little Red Book into the air.
I think it was around this time that I was taken to the cinema to see ‘The Red Detachment of Women’, the most famous Chinese ballet, produced at the height of Chairman Mao’s ‘Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’. It tells the story of a woman’s journey into the People’s Liberation Army. Instead of fragile women dressed in tutus, women were depicted in military uniforms with rifles. Instead of soft, elegant movements, they had strong arms and clenched fists and danced with vigour and strength. It shook the entire foundation of bourgeois art. I remember the posters and billboards vividly.
Rumours began to circulate that China was preparing to take back control of Hong Kong. Emergency restrictions and a curfew was imposed. The Leftists retaliated, resorting to terrorist tactics and planting fake and real bombs in the city. Members of the press who had voiced opposition to violence were threatened and murdered. As children we were warned not to step on loose sheets of newspapers lying on the road, nor to pick up toys in our path. Explosives were often found in innocuous-looking objects, and they caused considerable injury. A seven-year-old girl and her two-year-old brother had been killed by a bomb wrapped like a gift and placed outside their residence. To this day, I do not relish walking through a pile of autumn leaves; nor do I step onto anything I cannot see. It might explain why I would rather contemplate sky diving than jumping into ocean waters when on holiday.
The police raided a bomb-making factory in my local Western District, and had tracked down a number of Communist schools in which the students and their teachers were also making bombs. Returning home one late afternoon with my grandmother and sister, I could see as we approached our home street that it had been cordoned off by police, and no one was allowed to enter. As usual, a crowd soon gathered – and then a bomb disposal van arrived, and we were all told to remain calm, and that everything would soon be over. It did not take long. I remember the sound of the muted explosion, and the young bomb disposal man, who lost his right arm as he attempted to make it safe. The media reported his return to duty, prosthesis in place. Living, modern heroism – not just in the annuals of history but in the street where I lived.
The waves of bombing subsided in October 1967. In all, the dispute lasted 18 months and became known as the Cultural Revolution. It ceased only when Zhou En Lai gave orders for it to stop. I’ve since read that during that time the police and British military defused over 8,000 home-made bombs. Statistics show that one in every eight was genuine. As a result, laws were passed prohibiting fireworks without the permission of the government. The Queen granted the Hong Kong Police Force the privilege of the Royal title, still in use after the 1997 handover of the colony back to China. Apart from the human toll, it caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage and confidence in Hong Kong’s future declined. As many sold their property and moved overseas, HK tycoon Li Ka-Shing amassed his fortune by buying property at rock-bottom prices at the height of the riots.