Gweilo

by Martin Booth

  Our destination was the balustraded building I had visited on my first excursion into the Walled City. We entered it, passed through the downstairs room, still devoid of occupants although I could hear the noise of snoring emanating from upstairs, went behind the screen, out through a door into what might once have been a flagstoned courtyard and down some steps to a semi-cellar about thirty feet square. At the bottom of the steps was an old wooden door secured by a large padlock. Lau produced the key and we entered.

  There was a small table in the centre of the room, the walls of which were lined by benches similar to those used for gym lessons in the KJS school hall. Upon the walls hung various pennants and banners in red with serrated black borders and black writing upon them. Opposite the door was an altar bearing a small idol of a male god with a fierce-looking face, one candle alight before it.

  'God Kwan Ti,' Lau explained. 'This my god.'

  Yet it was something other than the banners and Kwan Ti that caught my eye. Hung between the banners were macabre, sadistically ferocious-looking weapons. One was a chain with a ball set with spikes at one end; another chain culminated in a spear-point blade. Balancing in a wooden rack were a number of metal six-pointed stars of varying diameters. From their shine, the points were clearly well sharpened.

  'What is this place?' I enquired.

  Lau made no attempt to explain but said, 'Gweilo no come here. You uew'y lucky boy I show you.'

  Taking the chain with the point on it, he gave it a quick flick. The blade flashed through the air, faster than the eye could follow, and embedded itself in the rear of the door. It took both Lau's hands to dislodge it. Once the blade was free and hanging back on the wall, he took down one of the smallest stars. With a brief twist of his wrist, it spun through the air and also lodged itself in the door timbers.

  'More good gun,' Lau said. 'No boom boom.' He ushered me out. 'You no tell you see here,' he added as he locked the door. 'You tell, plenty trouble for me. Plenty more for you.' He made the sign of a knife slicing across his throat. 'You, me,' he said pointing from me to himself.

  I nodded and we went back the way we had come. As we moved through the big room in the building, a boy of about my age descended the stairs carrying a tray upon which there was a small lamp, several minute bowls, a number of metal needles and the most bizarre pipe. My grandfather always smoked a simple-looking Dunhill with a wooden bowl; my father, on occasion, smoked a swan-necked Meerschaum. This was very different. A good fifteen inches long, the stem was made of bamboo, the mouthpiece of milky-coloured jade or soapstone. The bowl was a curious device for it had nowhere that I could see in which to put the tobacco: indeed, it appeared to be a virtually sealed container. All there was in it was a tiny hole in the top.

  'Nga pin?' I asked tentatively.

  Lau stared at me.

  'How you know nga pin?'

  'I know,' I shrugged, still not knowing exactly what it was.

  He took me by the hand and led me up the stairs.

  'No talk,' he whispered.

  As my head rose above the first-floor level, I saw half a dozen men lying on the kangs. All but one were asleep on their sides, their hands tucked between their drawn-up legs or under their necks. One snored, another intermittently moaned softly, the only other sound was their breathing. The air had a strange and familiar perfume to it and it was at least a minute before I recognized it as the scent of the rickshaw coolies' pipes on my first night in Hong Kong.

  The man who was awake had by his head one of the little lamps, the flame contained within a thick glass funnel. The boy moved past us, giving me a quick and puzzled glance. He went to the man and impaled a small bead of something on one of the needles, starting to revolve it in the lamp flame: then, very adroitly, he placed it over the tiny hole in the pipe bowl, passing it to the man who lay on his side and sucked evenly on the pipe. After doing this three times, the man lay down and closed his eyes. The boy removed the pipe and blew out the lamp.

  'We go,' Lau murmured.

  Once we were outside, I asked, 'What was that man doing?'

  'He smoke opium,' Lau answered. 'Get dream, go good time-side.'

  'Can I smoke nga pin?' I suggested.

  'No,' Lau said emphatically. 'No good for gweilo. Only for Chinese people.'

  As I went to leave the walled city, Lau escorted me. Passing a very big shack indeed, I glimpsed a large pig through the wide door. Its feet were tied together. A man in a pair of bloodied shorts stepped up to it, grabbed one ear and yanked it back. The pig squealed, an eerie, unearthly sound. The butcher ran a sharp knife under its neck and slit its throat, stepping smartly backwards. The pig fell on its side, thrashing about and gurgling obscenely. Blood sprayed from its neck.

  Lau put his hand on my shoulder in an affable manner and said, 'You talk you see, maybe you like this.'

  He pointed to the pig, its lifeblood soaking in the earth floor of the shack. And I knew he meant it.

  The row of old buildings stood to the eastern end of the walled city. One day, as Lau and I were walking through the hutongs, the heavens opened. We ran for cover under one of the balconies. Standing on what must once have been the arcaded raised side of a street, I somehow sensed in a daydream the ghosts of history walking by: a mandarin in his fine brocades, a peacock feather in the jade finial of his hat, his retinue behind him; a Chinese soldier with an axe-bladed pikestaff; a British naval officer in a cocked hat accompanied by a platoon of marine ratings, bayonets drawn.

  The rain fell in torrential sheets, curtains of water moving inexorably across the shacks.

  'What you think?' Lau asked.

  'I think long time before Kowloon Walled City,' I answered, his question snapping me back to the present. 'See people walk here.'

  'You see ghost,' Lau replied matter-of-factly. 'Plenty ghost Kowloon Walled City-side.'

  I accepted this without question. England had hardly any ghosts but China was steeped in them. Wherever one went, it seemed, there were ghosts, demons, devils, spirits and gods to ward them off.

  'I show you ve'y old place,' Lau said. 'All same like China long time before.'

  He turned, walked ten paces along under the balcony, from which rainwater was pouring down, and knocked on a narrow double door. Once again, my heart fluttered and thoughts of evil men with wicked intentions momentarily filled my mind, but I had now been into two buildings – the nga pin house and the half-underground house – and had come through each time unscathed.

  'You come,' Lau beckoned.

  I stepped over the characteristic high lintel to find myself in a small entrance hall. To one side, seated at a tiny desk, was an old woman. Lau greeted her and they spoke in quiet voices until Lau stepped aside to reveal my presence. The moment she saw me, the woman cackled asthmatically and entered into a conversation with Lau that was filled with much suppressed hilarity and sidelong glances at me.

  Feeling I was being made the butt of their humour, and not quite knowing how to react, I looked down. It was then I saw the old woman's feet projecting out from under the desk. They were minute, encased in scuffed brocade slippers no bigger than a baby's knitted bootees. The toe end was squared off like the ballet dancing pumps girls wore at school.

  'Lotus foot,' Lau said, following my line of sight. 'Long time before, China-side, men say tiny foot on lady ve'y . . .' he paused, searching for a word '. . . booty full. Like lotus flower.'

  I nodded sagely but could not see how, with the wildest imagination, a foot could resemble a flower.

  After the obligatory caress of my golden hair by the old woman, Lau led me down a corridor of dark wooden panelling, passing a number of narrow doors split like those of a stable. At intervals, dim bulbs provided the minimum of light. Towards the end of the passageway, Lau stopped at a door and knocked. The top half opened and a pretty Chinese woman looked out. She wore an imperial yellow silk cheongsam, her hair piled up and held in place by a soapstone pin. As they spoke in subdued voices, she did not take
her eyes off me for an instant. Needless to say, she still reached out to touch my head.

  There was the sound of a pulling bolt and the bottom half of the door also opened to reveal a panelled cubicle lit by a red lamp in front of a tiny shrine. The only furniture was a wide kang raised higher than normal from the floor and a Chinese-style chair. Upon the kang were a tangle of quilts and a Chinese paperback book on the cover of which were portrayed a man and a woman kissing. On a shelf below the shrine was a row of Chinese scent bottles.

  'You go in,' Lau instructed. 'Sit down.'

  I perched on the rim of the kang. The young woman sat next to me, talking to Lau through the door but all the while watching me. The air – and the young woman – smelt of orange blossom slightly tainted with sweat.

  'You know this place?' Lau enquired at length.

  'No know,' I admitted.

  'This old place,' Lau continued. 'Maybe more one hundred year. Long time before place for rich man come jig-a-jig. Fam'us place. Man come long way from Canton jig-a-jig here. Fam'us girl stay here long time before.' To lend meaning to his words, he put his thumb between his index and middle finger and wiggled it. The young woman giggled. I was lost as to the meaning.

  'You lo know jig-a-jig?' Lau asked.

  I shook my head.

  'Lo ploblum,' he replied dismissively. 'Come! We go now.'

  He said goodbye to the young woman. I added my own choi kin. She burst into a peal of giggles, put her hand demurely to her mouth to stifle them and closed the doors on us.

  Whenever I visited Kowloon Walled City, Lau was always there, ready to guide me around, drink tea with me and talk. When, after a few months, the place started to lose its appeal and I stopped visiting, I never saw him again.

  It was some years before I realized that he and Ho had been Triad members – Chinese mafiosi – infamous for their utter ruthlessness, whose secret fraternity ran the opium dens and brothels, and held Kowloon Walled City in its thrall. The semi-subterranean room had been their meeting place.

  My growing penchant for reading gave me a new reason to seek permission to range farther afield than I had previously. Both my parents agreed that I should be permitted to go to Tsim Sha Tsui where, in the next street to Mr Chan's jewellery and curio company, there stood the Swindon Bookshop. The only stipulation placed upon this extension of my legitimate borders was that I did not, under any circumstance, take the Star Ferry to Hong Kong island.

  Tsim Sha Tsui was a completely different world from Mong Kok. The latter was the world of dai pai dongs and whole roast pigs whilst the former was camera-toting, rubber-necking tourist country, banker and briefcased businessman territory.

  I had been there on a number of occasions with my mother. Indeed, my first night in Hong Kong had been spent there, for the Grand Hotel was in the heart of the district. However, apart from Tkachenko's, Hing Loon and the bookshop, I hardly knew it and savoured discovering it on my own.

  Using Hing Loon as an informal Coke-provisioning station, I wandered the streets. Here, the shopkeepers stayed behind closed doors. If they were jewellers, their doors were sometimes guarded by bearded, be-turbaned Sikhs in old British military uniforms and carrying blunderbusses or shotguns. The only vendors to appear on the pavement were Indian tailors vying for custom. The Chinese tailors viewed this flagrant touting with distaste. They were never so pushy and their workmanship was far superior.

  Apart from the tailors' window displays of lengths of cloth and suits hanging off mannequins, every shop window was a glittering tableau of expensive watches, men's and women's jewellery, pens, cameras, lenses and binoculars.

  I knew I could not just walk into one of these shops so I worked the obvious ploy, waiting until a tourist couple entered and tagging along camouflaged as their child. It worked time and again and I got to study – close up – such marvels as Audemars Piguet, Longines and Vacheron et Constantin gold watches, emeralds as green as still water and as big as peas, and Rolleiflex and Leica cameras with a shutter movement so silent you could not hear it. All of these I gazed at with the avidity of a magpie. At times, the palms of my hands actually itched with temptation and desire.

  Yet the crimes of Tsim Sha Tsui were not conducted by me but by the wily shopkeepers and even more artful pickpockets.

  One of the shopkeepers' scams was brilliant in its simplicity and succeeded because of the arrogance and gullibility of, particularly, American tourists. Be they civilians or sailors on shore leave all were open to it, from well-heeled world cruisers and senior United States Navy officers down to ratings and stewards off the liners. The first time I saw it happen was in a watch shop. I was lingering by the counter when I overheard a conversation that went something like this:

  'OK, buddy, I'll take this one.' (Tourist)

  'V'wy good choice. Suit you good.' (Shopkeeper)

  'How much is it?'

  'Fi'e hund'ed dollar.'

  A few minutes of haggling followed, culminating in an agreed price of $450, the shopkeeper declaiming with a disarming smile, 'You too cleffer for me. Beat me down too much. Now my p'ofit only small.'

  At this point, it must be appreciated that all the prices were shown in Hong Kong dollars and the price label on the item marked up by at least 100 per cent over the wholesale buy-in cost.

  Then came the question bolstered by a belief in the universal power of the US greenback.

  'Say, buddy, is that American or Hong Kong dollars?' Hong Kong was always spoken with a slight air of condescension.

  The shopkeeper, after a brief pause as well timed as the best comic actor's, would always reply, 'Ame'ican dollars.'

  Out would come the wallet of American Express traveller's cheques, the customer grinning broadly at his bargaining skill.

  In 1953, when I first saw this trick pulled, the foreign exchange rate was approximately HK$6: US$1. Even my elementary school arithmetic, at which I was a resoundingly poor pupil, told me the customer had paid HK$2700, over five times the original, and already much inflated, asking price.

  I could never feel any sympathy for these dupes. In my puerile opinion, they asked for it. Besides, I was a gweilo on the shopkeepers' side. With the victims of Tsim Sha Tsui's other tourist crime, who could be of any nationality, I felt considerable empathy but, whereas I could have exposed the exchange rate scam, I could do nothing about their plight.

  The pickpockets of Tsim Sha Tsui must have been the slickest in the world. They mostly operated in pairs, keeping in the crowds. Once a worthwhile target had been spotted, they would move in, one bumping hard into the victim, knocking them slightly off balance. The other, with lightning speed, would slip their hand into bag or pocket, grab a wallet, purse or billfold and immediately pass it to the barger who would disappear in the crowd. This was a failsafe. If the victim found they had been pickpocketed, had a suspicion who had done it and accosted him, he could plead innocence. The proof – the wallet or purse – would already be three streets away and moving fast towards a fence who dealt in traveller's cheques.

  Another form of theft was considerably less clandestine. A number of urchins would accost a target under the pretence of begging. Once the target's attention was distracted, one of the urchins would produce a pair of very sharp tailor's scissors, slide a blade under the victim's leather watch strap and cut it free, catching it and disappearing in the crowd. If the target was aware of what had happened, they could not give chase for the obstruction of the throng.

  Only one class of person was completely pickpocket proof: the US Navy ratings who carried their wallets folded over the front of the very tight waistbands of their uniform trousers. They were in full view of any pickpocket but not one could pull a wallet clear without the owner knowing.

  Although these kinds of street theft must have ruined many a holiday, I could not bring myself to condemn them. The perpetrators were often boys even younger than myself, street urchins, the children of squatter shack dwellers and pavement sleepers. They were doing the best they
could to stay alive and I could not help wondering whether some of their fathers had owned cars and horses in China and were now reduced to sweeping out offices or serving in restaurants. Or worse.

  Despite their criminality, I felt at one with them. They were expatriates who had made their home here. So was I. There were even moments when I wondered how I might join them in their illegality, but I realized I would not have had the stomach for it. And that was the difference between a gweilo and a Chinese: we were bound by the rules that ruled the rulers and they were not.

  One sweltering day, the humidity over 90 per cent, my mother and I went shopping, our mission to buy a wedding anniversary gift for my paternal grandparents.

  Under normal circumstances, I would have strenuously attempted to avoid this outing. Traipsing in my mother's wake round shops containing little of interest to me, in streets I had explored and which were now fairly sterile to me, was not my idea of an ideal morning. However, I wanted to take part in the choice of a gift for Grampy.

  With a military methodology, my mother went up and down the streets, traversing Tsim Sha Tsui in a mental grid, but she could find nothing suitable. It was either tourist tat or too fragile to post, or too expensive and therefore likely to cost my grandparents inordinately high customs duties. Finally, having exhausted most of Tsim Sha Tsui – and me – we had a Coke each at a pavement stall and headed up Nathan Road at a brisk pace. My shirt clung to my back: through my mother's sweat-soaked blouse I could see her bra strap and felt very embarrassed that it was so prominent. None of the Chinese women seemed to be even lightly perspiring.

  My mother's intention was, if she could find nothing in an area catering mostly for European taste, she would have a go in that providing for the Chinese. Turning into Shanghai Street, we started to patrol the shops selling crockery. It was utilitarian stuff but one variety caught my mother's attention. Known as rice-patterned ware, neither of us could understand how it was mass-produced. Each dish, bowl or cup was made of white porcelain with a patterned blue border and base, between which the porcelain was speckled with what looked like rice grains fired in the matrix. If the bowl was held to the light, each grain appeared translucent.