Candidates must be between twenty-one and twenty-seven years old, well proportioned and pleasant to the eye. Vision must not be impaired. Conversational in English. Hold a British passport. No coloured nail varnish to be worn to the interview. Hair must be natural colour. Extreme fashion should be avoided. It is regretted that no reason can be given for rejecting an application.
Theresa finishes reading aloud the glossy three-colour leaflet, then grins and waves it excitedly at her sisters. She is twenty-one, only just able to apply. ‘Clara, Mary! This is our chance, sisters. This is our opportunity to really go places. If I can get in, when you’re old enough I can help you do it too!’
In the golden age of flying, air hostesses have one of the most glamorous jobs in the world, in the same league as actresses and models – and the prestigious international airline British Overseas Airways Corporation, known as BOAC, is in town for its first Hong Kong recruitment drive. Hundreds of excited young women in the colony are busily getting ready as Theresa unfurls rollers from her hair. She sprays the curls in place and pins an unruly clump behind her ear.
Ng Yuk scolds her as she leaves. ‘Western clothes, no good. If you wish to be respected, you should wear your cheongsam.’
Theresa gives her mother a wistful smile; she is not going to let Ng Yuk get her down today.
When she arrives, the queue seems endless. Young ladies of Chinese and British descent are waiting mostly in shift dresses or tailored suits, though some do wear traditional attire. Most will be scrutinised, interrogated and turned away, with only a lucky few to be corralled into a second waiting area, asked to fill in additional forms and come back in a couple of days for the next round. Theresa joins the line stretching around the block.
Although she holds herself with a confidence and poise beyond her years, today Theresa is anxious. This could be her big break, and she doesn’t want to blow it. She has prepared written references from a few friends in high places, the professor for one. Oh, how she wishes she had practised her Rs more. What will the panel think of her speech?
The queue moves as one by one candidates reach a registration desk, handing over their applications to an officious and immaculate woman in a BOAC uniform. She is wearing glasses – so she mustn’t be an air hostess, thinks Theresa, as the pamphlet stipulates ‘perfect vision’.
Nervous girls file into the first room to wait for their names to be called. There aren’t enough chairs for everyone, so most of the hopefuls stand, speaking in low voices, trying to pass the time and muster their courage. Everyone weighs up the competition. A couple of older blonde candidates snicker under their breath at the other contenders. ‘Just look at her nose. She’ll never get in.’ They are striking and overly confident they’ll take home the prize. It is very much like being behind the scenes of a beauty pageant: an intimidating environment for the uninitiated.
‘Theresa Kwa.’ A uniformed woman emerges with a clipboard. ‘Theresa Kwa,’ she repeats, looking around at the assembled women.
Soon Theresa is standing at the centre of a carpeted room before three adjudicators seated in gilt armchairs behind a long table. It’s like an audition but no singing or dancing is required. The two men and one woman are in their forties. They are not in uniform, instead elegantly suited, their expressions giving little away. They assess Theresa’s every move and take notes as she answers their questions. She has no idea how she is going.
‘A very impressive list of references, Miss Kwa,’ one panellist says.
‘Yes, I love meeting new people. I find it easy to make conversation with strangers. We have an expression in Chinese: Chen mo shi jin. It’s a bit like your own King James Bible expression: “a fool’s voice is known by a multitude of words”. Meaning that it is better to be a good listener than a good talker.’ Theresa pauses. ‘Although I’m also a good talker,’ she quickly adds. Keep smiling, keep smiling, she thinks.
The panellists smile back.
Theresa runs in through the front door. A maid is cooking rice on the stove, Ng Yuk is reading a Chinese newspaper, and Francis is studying at the dining table.
‘They want to see me again! Mary, Clara, come, come.’ The girls come out to greet their elder sister, their eyes wide with excitement.
Ng Yuk goes back to her paper, pretending to read. ‘What will they pay you?’ It’s the first sign of interest she’s shown for the idea.
‘Mama! It will pay to support you and the family. It is more than enough. We need to pray they will choose me. They have selected forty of us to go back again, but they will only choose six from that group.’
The family gets out the joss sticks and gives them a workout. Kwa ancestors and gods look up from their mahjong games, listening intently.
The BOAC board agrees unanimously on hiring Theresa. She will be the world’s first Chinese BOAC hostess. Having been born in a British colony, she has the same advantage of a homeland passport as the other five successful candidates, all from English expat families. The new recruits look forward to becoming firm friends while they crew long-haul flights together for the rich, powerful and famous. ‘It’s not all glamour, you know,’ they are informed. ‘There will be British boarding-school students returning home between terms, as well as household servants following their employers.’ But to the inductees, those things are hardly a downside. There is no downside! They are going to be air hostesses, which is more than most mid-twentieth-century girls could ever dare to dream.
There are endless safety and security drills to learn, along with ranks and titles, and what one may and may not say or suggest. Finally, the day arrives for the most important training component of all: hair and make-up! The women cheer. It’s time for Elizabeth Arden. A crack team of professionals give step-by-step instructions on how to achieve an approved list of styles – well, not just achieve them, own them. The young women savour every moment. When Theresa has her first high-end haircut, she’s on cloud nine and may never come down.
Not long into the job, Theresa becomes BOAC’s Hong Kong pin-up girl. She poses holding a basket of fruit, looking like a movie star on billboards and buses. She feels like one.
It’s the era of aviation glamour and sophistication, and Theresa Kwa is at the centre of it. She struts through airports in capitals around the world, she and her gang of crew members walking behind their captain. People stare at the immaculate group as Theresa holds her head high, her smile dazzling, broad and deeply satisfied. The world is her oyster, and she is bringing home more money than she could ever have hoped for. It covers her siblings’ schooling and her mother’s cigarettes. It pays for the maids. Theresa buys a car and adds a driver, and Ng Yuk stops selling off her jewellery.
Theresa crews flights of fifteen passengers at full capacity, bringing them drinks and engaging in polite conversation. During the many hours spent confined with them, she befriends some of the world’s most powerful and interesting people.
Her sincerity wins over even the most austere guests. Across miles and miles, Theresa smiles and smiles. Her travellers cannot help but be intrigued by her beauty and gentle, familiar manner that puts everyone at ease. She is both diplomat and counsellor to her frequent flyers: lords and ladies, prime ministers and their wives. Queen Elizabeth II invites Theresa to a garden party at Buckingham Palace.
One passenger, Hilton, is a blue-blooded aristocrat and the first of Theresa’s many suitors. He falls for her at first sight, mesmerised by her casual charm and impressed with her worldly knowledge. He wants to make her his bride. They attend fabulous events in London, and she meets his family, who immediately disapprove of him courting a foreign ‘chink’. They not-so-secretly hope it will come to nothing and that Hilton will meet a local – white, blue-blooded – girl. He ignores them and continues to write to Theresa when they are apart, hanging on to the happy memories they have created. He is chivalrous and wouldn’t dream of overstepping the mark with his oriental sweetheart, but he is growing impatient, hoping that she might reciprocate his love with the same level of intensity.
Theresa, on the other hand, is relishing her unprecedented access to the world and enjoying her global citizenship. Moreover, she is acutely aware of BOAC’s requirement that its air hostesses remain unmarried: to wed would be to give up her coveted position with the carrier, and she is not about to do that. She has seen death and destruction firsthand – freedom and family are her number one priorities.
My dear Hilton, she writes. If only our worlds aligned. I am deeply sorry, I am not ready for a life of marriage. Besides, there are far more worthy contenders than me for your hand. With much love, Theresa xxx
Hilton is the first in a string of broken-hearted eligible bachelors who vie for Theresa’s affections. By now she has moved from Hung Hom to the Island side of Hong Kong, purchasing her own apartment at Peace Mansion on Tai Hang Road, just above Causeway Bay.
One day a German magnate pays a visit, accompanied by his security detail in a convoy of vehicles winding its way up Theresa’s narrow street. Her cook just about has a heart attack when she pulls the curtain aside to see the visitors. Paparazzi follow the train of cars up the hill. Once the cook realises they are not all coming in for tea, she heaves a sigh of relief.
The German gentleman, Jacobsmuhlen, is good company, and Theresa is flattered by his attention and fond of him. A photo of them together on his yacht appears in newspapers around the world, as he is a well-known eligible bachelor. ‘Who is that girl?’ the press wonder, but they don’t get another opportunity to find out. Theresa is not interested in living through a European winter. Her answer to Jacobsmuhlen is a tactful no.
Theresa throws everything into her career, graciously declining multiple proposals of marriage. Clara has been in a courtship with a British police chief in Hong Kong ever since Theresa introduced them. Mary has no interest in having a boyfriend just yet and longs to follow in Theresa’s footsteps in the air one day.
When Theresa is home in Hong Kong, she keeps a watchful eye on Francis. She is as invested in his future as she is in her sisters’, and scolds him if he fails an exam. Despite her misgivings, she will keep paying for his education. She will never give up on him, for he is Kwa.