Adventures in Hong Kong

   In 1962 - 1979 I made several short visits to Hong Kong. During this time Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony so at each visit we followed the rules of the Royal Navy and enjoyed a few days of shore leave. Thinking back, each visit seemed to show an ever more modern and affluent face. 

   My first view of Hong Kong was the sight of hundreds of people who were obviously homeless and living on the streets. I was told this was the result of people fleeing from the mainland of China due to the poverty in the People’s Republic of China. One thing that I recall is that the International Red Cross had a large tent set up on the pier, where they gave a “Pint for a Pint”. This was popular with the sailors who had been at sea for a while - it took just a few minutes to give a pint of blood, and then we had a pint of Guinness to hydrate.  A few years later (about 1969) Hong Kong was even more crowded but seemed cleaner and more affluent. 

   My first visit included a very personal mission that my Mother had wanted me  to visit my “Aunt” Elizabeth. Elizabeth Bernard (1890 - 1971) was not a blood relative but was very close to my Mother’s family. The Martins and Bernards were Texans who grew up close to each other and maintained close ties over the years. “Aunt” Elizabeth had stayed with my family briefly in Los Angeles when I was about 5, and I don’t remember that stay, but when I consider her life it was quite a privilege to be hugged and kissed by her. Elizabeth Bernard’s biography is something like Mother Teresa’s, and it is available on the internet: google: [ “Ah Wing’s” Elizabeth Bernard Forty Years among the Chinese]. This biography is hardly great literature, but it does indeed cover most details. 

   Elizabeth enlisted in the U. S. Army as a nurse in WW1. I have not found any official documentation of her being “gassed” but in 1920 she was medically discharged with a small pension because her eyesight was irreparably damaged. In any case she spent the rest of her life as a Medical Missionary for the Church of Christ, mostly in China, and living on her small pension. She never married, but was joined for several years by her widowed mother Stella (who was a close friend of my grandmother). Elizabeth started a small orphanage for blind children in Guangzhou and things went well until the Japanese invaded; in 1938 she moved the children to Hong Kong and then stayed ahead of the Japanese (by way of India) until she returned to the U. S. in 1944. There was a 1958 film “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” based on a young woman rescuing Chinese orphans ahead of the invading Japanese. The film was loosely based on a particular

young English woman, but in fact there were several similar situations. The star of the film was Ingrid Bergman, and I can attest that Ingrid Bergman did not look anything like Elizabeth Bernard.

   In 1947 she returned to Guangzhou to re-establish her orphanage, but by 1949 the communist revolution forced her to move her establishment to Hong Kong where she remained active until 1967. She died in Hong Kong in 1971.

   When I met her in Hong Kong in 1962 she was semi-retired and was taking care of a small group of blind teenagers who had been with her for most of their lives. I had shore leave on Sunday so I went to church with Elizabeth and the kids. After church I offered to take them all to dinner; I had no idea if I could afford the tab but I went ahead anyway. I asked Elizabeth where we should go, and she led us to a very small restaurant on the floor above a tailor shop. We sat on cushions around a circular table and there was no menu. Rice was passed around, then several vegetables, and some fish. There was plenty to eat and it was very good. I was relieved when I got the bill and I have forgotten the exact cost, but it was about $3.00 U.S. I also left a “generous” tip.

   I met Elizabeth once more in 1970, when she was living in Tai Po which is a very rural section of Hong Kong. She was living with a family from her church who were taking good care of her. She was an esteemed elder and was revered. She still had a sense of humor, and she was known as the only person who spoke fluent Cantonese with a Texas accent. She died the following year.

   In 1979 Donna and I visited Hong Kong. My ship (the TARAWA) was in the Philippines for routine maintenance and was scheduled to go to Hong Kong in a couple of weeks. Nothing much was going on, so I took some leave. Donna flew into Manila and we spent a few days on Luzon Island and then flew to Hong Kong (Our adventure on Luzon is worth another story). In Hong Kong we stayed in a very nice hotel and did some sight-seeing, especially on Lantau Island. Lantau is roughly 10 miles long and 5 miles wide, and is very rural with a monastery and several very old fashioned villages. We decided to walk across the island casually, and it was quite scenic and peaceful. However as we were walking up a hill, there was an unusual sound “clickety-clack” which was getting louder as we got closer to the top. As we got to the top of the hill we saw that the sound was coming from a large number of tables in the open where a crowd of people were all playing MahJong. The tiles were moving faster than we could see and money was changing hands as fast as the tiles were moving. Donna plays MahJong with a group of ladies, and I play occasionally but it’s nothing like the real thing. 

  When we returned to our hotel, the typhoon warning was out. Our room was one floor below the penthouse, and as I recall it was on the 12th floor. Our view of the city was great, and we could look down to the narrow busy street and see part of the ferry landing. We hunkered down in our room and watched Typhoon Helen approach bringing a mix of rainwater and sea which flooded the street below. A taxi came floating up the street as the eye of the typhoon was arriving overhead, and after a brief calm the winds reversed and the cab came floating down in the opposite direction. A passenger ferry (perhaps the same one we had taken to Landau) was washed aground. There was certainly significant damage, but I don’t recall any deaths, and by the next day it was business as usual.