Oliver's Story

I don't remember much about Hong Kong. Except it was the last time I saw Marcie Binnendale.

We departed Tuesday morning from New York, and stopped just once — in Fairbanks — to refuel. I was anxious to try Baked Alaska on the scene. Marcie wanted to go out and have a snowball fight. Before we could decide, they called us back on board.

We slept as best as possible across three seats. In our festive mood, we joined what swingers call the Mile-High Club. Which means we furtively made love while other passengers enjoyed Clint Eastwood gunning down innumerable baddies for a fistful of dollars.

It was early Wednesday (!) evening when we touched down in Tokyo. We had four hours to change planes. I was so zonked from twenty hours of assorted flying that I not-too-ceremoniously crashed right on a couch in Pan Am's Clipper Lounge. Meanwhile Marcie, ever effervescent, had a conference with some guys who'd come to meet her from the city. (This was in our deal; she'd have four days of duties, then we would take two weeks of screw-the-world vacation.) By the time she woke me for the final leg, she'd worked out all details for exchanging chic boutiques with Takashimaya, the Japanese purveyors of consumer elegance.

I slept no further. I was too excited, looking forward to the lights of Hong Kong Harbor. At last they sparkled into view as we descended just about the midnight hour. It was even better than the pictures I had seen.

John Alexander Hsiang was there to meet us. Clearly he is Number One for Marcie's matters in the Colony. He was late thirtyish, his outfit British and his accent U.S.A. ('I went to B-School in the States,' he said.) He punctuated everything with 'A-okay'. Which did indeed describe all the arrangements he had made.

For, less than twenty minutes after we had landed, we were crossing Hong Kong Harbor from the airport to Victoria, where we'd be staying. The conveyance was a helicopter. And the view spectacular. The city was a diamond in the darkened China Sea.

'Local proverb,' John Hsiang said.' "A million lights shall glow." '

'How come they're up so late?' I asked.

'Our New Year festival.'

You asshole, Barrett! You forgot why you were coming! You even knew it was the Year of the Dog!

'What time will everybody go to bed?'

'Oh, maybe two, three days.' Mr Hsiang smiled.

'I could last about another fifteen seconds,' Marcie sighed.

'You mean you're tired?' I remarked, amazed that Wonder Woman would confess such things.

'Enough to cancel tennis in the morning,' she replied. And kissed my ear.

I couldn't see the outside of the villa in the dark. But it was lush as Hollywood within. The place was halfway up the Peak. Which meant almost a mile above the harbor (higher than our 'copter flew), and so the backyard vista was incredible.

'Too bad it's winter. Just a bit too cold for swimming,' John remarked. I hadn't even noticed that the garden had a pool.

'My head is swimming, John," I said.

'Why don't they have the fashion show in summer?' Marcie asked. We were simply chatting while the staff (an amah and two houseboys) brought in our stuff, unpacked and hung it up.

'Hong Kong summers aren't very pleasant,' John replied. 'Humidity is quite uncomfortable.'

'Yeah, over eighty-five percent,' said Barrett, who had done his homework. And was now awake: enough to quote from it.

'Yes,' said Mr Hsiang. 'Like August in New York.'

Evidently John was loath to grant that anything in Hong Kong wasn't' A-okay'.

'Good night. I hope you will enjoy our city.'

'Oh, no question,' I replied with grand diplomacy. 'It is a many-splendored thing.'

He left. No doubt enthusiastic: at my literary reference.

Marce and I just sat, too far beyond fatigue to go to bed. Houseboy Number One provided wine and orange juice.

'Who owns this pleasure dome?' I asked.

'A landlord. We just rent it by the year. We've got a lot of people coming in and out. It's more convenient if we keep a place.'

'What do we do tomorrow?' I inquired.

'Well, in just about five hours, a car will come to take me to our offices. Then scintillating luncheon with the Moguls of Finance. You could join us … '

'Thanks. I'll pass.'

'John will be at your disposal. You can see the sights with him. The Tiger Gardens, markets.

Maybe you could spend the afternoon out on an island.'

'Just with John?'

She smiled. 'I'd like to have him show you Shatin,'

'Yes, the monastery of ten thousand Buddhas. Right?'

'Right,' she said. 'But you and I will go to the Lan Tao Island by ourselves and spend the night there in the Polin monastery.'

'Hey. You really know this place.'

'I've been here many times,' she said.

'Solo?' I inquired, unable to disguise my jealousy. I wanted this entire trip to be our special property.

'Not just by myself,' she answered, 'desperately alone. The sunsets do that to you.'

Good. She was a neophyte to sharing sunsets. I would teach her that.

Tomorrow.

Naturally, I bought a camera.

John transported me next morning to Kowloon and in the massive Ocean Terminal I got loads of photographic apparatus at a steal.

'How do they do it, John?' I asked. 'The Japanese equipment is cheaper than in Japan. The French perfume is cheaper than in Paris!' (I was buying Marcie some.)

'That is the secret of Hong Kong.' He smiled. 'This is a magic city.'

First I had to see the flower markets in their New Year glory. Choy Hung Chuen, exploding with chrysanthemums and fruits and golden paper images. A Technicolor banquet for my newly purchased lens. (And I bought a big bouquet for Marcie.) Then back to Victoria. The ladder streets. A narrow San Francisco and a spiderlike bazaar. We went to Cat Street, where the vendors in the red-draped booths hawked everything — the wildest potpourri imaginable.

I ate a hundred-year-old egg. (I chewed and swallowed trying to avoid a taste.) John did explain that actually these eggs take only weeks to make.

'They treat them with arsenic and they cover them with mud.' (This after I had swallowed!) We passed the herbalists. But I could not be tempted by the seeds or fungi or the dried sea horses.

Then the wineshops selling … pickled snakes.

'No, John,' I said, 'not pickled snakes.'

'Oh, it is very useful,' he replied, enjoying my dismay at the exotic. 'Venom mixed with wine is very popular. It works wonders.'

'For example …?'

'Good for rheumatism. Also as an aphrodisiac'

Hopefully I needed neither at the moment.

'I'll keep that in mind,' I said, 'but now I've had it for today.'

And then he drove me to the villa.

'If you can get ready in the early morning,' John remarked as we pulled up, 'I can show you something interesting. Of sport.'

'Oh, I'm into sports.'

'I'll pick you up at seven, then, okay? There's shadow-boxing in the Botanical Gardens. Very fascinating.'

'A-okay,' I said.

'Have a lovely evening, Oliver,' he said in parting.

'Thanks.'

'Actually, it's lovely every evening in Hong Kong,' he added.

'Marcie, it's a goddamn dream,' I said.

Half an hour later we were on the water. As the sun was sinking. We were riding in a junk to Aberdeen, the 'Floating Restaurants'. Illumination everywhere.

The proverb says a million lights,' Miss Binnendale replied. 'We've only started, Oliver.' We dined by lantern glow on fish that had been swimming till we chose them. And I tried some wine from — are you watching, C.I.A.? — Red China. It was pretty good.

The setting was so storybook, our text inevitably was banal. Like what the hell she did all day.

(I'd been reduced to 'Wow' and 'Look at that'.)

She had lunched with all the bureaucrats from Finance.

'They're so freaking Eng lish,' Marcie said.

'It is a British colony, you know.'

'But still — these characters' big dream is that Her Majesty will come to open their new cricket field.'

'No shit. How jolly good. I bet she even does.'

They brought dessert. We then discussed the Great Escape, now merely two days hence.

'John Hsiang is cute,' I said, 'and he's a stimulating guide. But I won't climb up Victoria till I can hold your hand on top.'

'I'll tell you what. I'll meet you there tomorrow just to watch the sunset.'

'Great.'

'At five o'clock,' she added, 'at the peakest of the Peak.'

'A toast to us with Commie wine,' I said.

We kissed and floated.

How to fill the day till twilight on the top of Mount Victoria?

Well, first the shadowboxing. John knew every move. The sheer restraint of strength was just amazing. He then suggested that we see the jade collection at the Tiger Gardens and have dim sum lunch. I said okay, as long as there's no snakes.

Fifty-seven Kodacolor pictures later, we were drinking tea.

'What does Marcie do today?' I asked. I tried to make it easier on John, who, after all, was an executive, not normally a tour guide.

'She's meeting with administrators for the factories,' he said.

'Do Binnendale's own factories?'

'Not really "own". We simply have exclusive contracts. It's the vital factor in our operation. What we call the Hong Kong edge.'

'What sort of edge?'

'The people. Or as you say it in the States, the people-power. U.S. workers get per day more than a Hong Kong man receives per week. Others even less … '

'What others?'

'Youngsters don't expect a grown-up's wage. They're very happy just with half. The end result's a lovely garment, f.o.b. New York, at a fraction of American or European price.'

'I see. That's cool.'

John seemed pleased that I had grasped the intricacies of the Hong Kong 'edge'. Frankly, people-power wasn't mentioned in the tourist office blurbs, so I was glad to learn.

'For example,' John continued, 'when two men want a single job, they can agree to split the wage.

This way they both get work.'

'No shit,' I said.

'No shit.' He smiled, appreciating my American vernacular.

'But that means each one works full time and gets half pay,' I said.

'They don't complain,' said Mr Hsiang as he picked up the check. 'Now, shall we take a drive into the country?'

'Hey, John, I'd like to see a factory. Would that be possible?'

'With thirty thousand in Hong Kong, it's veiy possible. They range from fairly big to family size.

What would you like?'

'Well, how about a mini-tour of Marcie's?'

'A-okay with me,' he said.

The first stop was a Kowloon neighborhood you'd never find on any Hong Kong postcard.

Crowded. Dingy. Almost sunless. We had to honk our way through mobs of people clogging up the street.

'Station Number One,' said John after we'd parked into a courtyard. 'Making shirts.'

We walked inside.

And suddenly I found myself back in the nineteenth century. In Fall River, Massachusetts.

It was a sweatshop.

There is no other goddamn word. It was a sweatshop.

Cramped and dark and stuffy.

Crouched over sewing machines were several dozen women working feverishly.

All was silent save for clicks and hums that signaled productivity.

Just exactly as it was in Amos Barrett's factories.

A supervisor scurried up to welcome John and me, the Occidental visitor. And then we toured.

There was so much to see. The sights were maximal although the space was minimal.

The supervisor chattered in Chinese. John told me he was proud of how efficiently his ladies could produce the goods.

'The shirts they make here are terrific,' John remarked.

He stopped and pointed to a female figure feeding shirt sleeves swiftly to the jaws of a machine.

'Look. Fantastic double-needle stitching. Highest quality. You just don't get that in the States these days.'

I looked.

Sadly, John had picked a poor example. Not of workmanship, but of the worker.

'How old is this little girl?' I asked.

The moppet sewed on deftly, paying us no heed. If anything, she picked her pace up slightly.

'She fourteen,' the supervisor said.

He evidently knew some English.

'John, that's utter bullshit,' I said quietly. This kid is ten at most.'

'Fourteen,' the supervisor parroted. And John concurred.

'Oliver, that is the legal minimum.'

'I'm not disputing the law, I'm simply saying this girl's ten years old!'

'She has card,' the supervisor said. He had a working knowledge of the tongue.

'Let's see,' I said. Politely. Though I didn't add a 'please'. John was impassive as the supervisor asked the little kid for her I.D. She looked in panic. Christ, if only I could reassure her that it wasn't a bust.

'Here, sir.'

The boss waved a card at me. It had no picture.

'John,' I said, 'it has no photograph.'

'A picture's not required if you're under seventeen,' he said.

'I see,' I said.

They looked as if they wanted me to move on by.

'In other words,' I then continued, 'this kid's got an older sister's card.'

'Fourteen!' the supervisor shouted once again. He gave the little girl her card back. Much relieved, she turned and started working even faster than before. But now taking furtive glances at me. Shit, suppose she hurts herself?

'Tell her to stay loose,' I said to John.

He told her something in Chinese and she worked on, no longer glancing at me.

'Tea, please,' said the supervisor, and he bowed us toward the cubicle that was his office.

John could see I hadn't bought the number.

'Look,' he said, 'she does a fourteen-year-old's job.'

'And gets how much? You said they pay the "youngsters" half.'

'Oliver,' said John, unruffled, 'she takes home ten dollars every day.'

'Oh, fine,' I said, and added, 'Hong Kong dollars. That's a dollar-eighty, U.S. bucks, correct?'

The supervisor handed me a shirt.

'He wants you to inspect the workmanship,' said John.

'It's fine,' I said. 'That "double stitching" stuff is really-class (whatever that may be). In fact, I own a few of these, myself.'

You see, the shirts they made here bore the label Mr B, And guys, it seems, are wearing them this year in sweater combinations.

As I sipped my tea, I wondered if a million miles away in New York, Miss Elvy Nash knew how they made those fine-as-wine creations she was pushing.

'Let's go,' I said to John.

I needed air.

I changed the conversation to the weather.

'It must be pretty brutal in the summer months,' I said.

'Very humid,' John replied.

We had run this gamut, so I knew the right riposte.

'Just like New York in August, huh?'

'About,' he said.

'Does it … slow the ladies any?'

'Beg your pardon?'

'I didn't notice air conditioning back there,' I said.

He looked at me.

'This is Asia, Oliver,' he said, 'not California.'

And on we drove.

'Is your apartment air-conditioned?' I inquired.

John Hsiang looked at me again.

'Oliver,' he calmly said, 'here in the Orient the worker lives with different expectations.'

'Really?'

'Yes.'

'But don't you think that even here in Asia, John, the average worker's expectation is to have enough to eat?'

He didn't answer.

'So,' I then continued, 'you agree a dollar-eighty's not enough to live on, right?'

I knew his thoughts had long ago karate-chopped me dead.

'People work much harder here,' he stated very righteously. 'Our ladies don't read magazines in beauty parlors.'

I sensed that John was conjuring up his private image of my mother lazing underneath a dryer.

'For example,' he then added. 'The young girl you saw. Her whole family works there. And her mother does some extra sewing for us in the evening.'

'At her house?'

'Yes,' John replied.

'Oh,' I said. 'What labor law calls "homework", right?'

'Right.'

I waited for a sec.

'Johnny, you're a B-School graduate,' I said. 'You should recall why "homework" is illegal in the States.'

He smiled. 'You don't know Hong Kong law.'

'Come on, you fucking hypocrite!'

He slammed the brakes and skidded to a stop.

'I don't have to take abuse,' he said.

'You're right,' I answered, and I opened up the door. But damn, before I stormed away I had to make him hear the answer.

'Homework is illegal,' I said softly,' 'cause it gets around the union wage. Guys who have to work like that get paid whatever the employer cares to give them. Which is usually zilch.'

John Hsiang glared at me.

'Oration over, Mr Liberal?' he inquired.

'Yes.'

'Then listen for a change and learn the local facts of life. They don't join unions here 'cause people want to split their pay and people want their kids to work and people want the chance to take some pieces home. You dig?'

I wouldn't answer.

'And for your goddamn lawyer information,' John concluded, 'there is no minimum wage in Hong Kong Colony. Now go to hell!'

He gunned away before I could inform him I already was there.