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Our cabin staff were billeted at a hotel
in Kowloon, while we cockpit crew were limousined through the Cross-Harbor
Tunnel, under Victoria Harbor, to the Excelsior Hotel on Hong Kong Island. Which was a five-star hotel with 34 floors
and 884 rooms, standing on Cloucester Road at Causeway Bay.
At twelve noon three events occurred simultaneously at this hotel: The Noonday Gun was fired. Causing the hotel’s Noonday Gun Bar to open on the second floor.
While in the basement the Dickens Pub opened;
serving an extraordinary curry buffet luncheon.
This tradition, as the story goes, occurred in the 1860‘s when a newly-appointed, senior British naval officer became annoyed. Jardines, a trading house, maintained its own militia, and whenever one of its tai-pans arrived by ship it would fire off a salute by cannon.
Since this was a courtesy reserved for
government officials and senior officers of the armed services, and not “Hong
Kong Boxwallahs,“ a fine was levied on Jardines in perpetuity. Every day Jardines was required to fire their
cannon, announcing the arrival of twelve noon.
Believe
it or not, dear reader, Jardines is still firing their gun to this very day. The Brits and their nutty traditions!
And speaking of “nuts,“ while driving from
Hanoi to Saigon, Noël Coward wrote in his head (without pen,
paper or piano) a song based on the Noonday Gun:
“In Hong Kong, they
strike a gong, and fire off a Noonday Gun.”
“But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.”
Noël Coward’s “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” was first performed at the Music Box Theater, in New York, on 1st June 1931, by Beatrice Lillie.
As bizarre as this British
tradition was, dear reader, yours truly naturally had to get in on “the action.”
On
one of my many layovers in the future, I couldn’t resist zipping down to the
Excelsior’s car park in the basement, then passing under Gloucester Road via
the tunnel, and finally popping up alongside the stone block platform
containing the Noonday Gun. It turned
out to be a former naval Hotchkiss three-pounder, which saw action at the
Battle of Jutland during the First World War.
I was greeted by a courteous Chinese gentleman, in a Jardines’
uniform replete with service cap, whom I assisted in removing the gun’s
cover. Upon producing a generous tip in
Hong Kong Dollars, it was agreed that he’d take my photo as I fired the
gun. Consulting his time piece, he gave
me the nod. I pulled the lanyard. He snapped my photo as the gun went off; producing
a huge cloud of fire and smoke! At which
point I was totally stone-deaf in the booming report’s aftermath!
Dammit! I forgot to bring my ear plugs!
On
another of my numerous Hong Kong layovers in the future; I would have my heart broken.
To the east of the Noonday Gun rests the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter and its breakwater. Residing inside this shelter were hundreds of live-aboard sampans and junks.
Picking a clear winter’s day, I hired a
little old Chinese lady’s sampan, which scarcely fit the two of us. I sat in the bow – armed with my Nikon and
250 mm zoom lens – while she stood at the stern sculling and steering the
vessel with a single oar. Thankfully it
was a slow, smooth ride - enabling me to capture some amazing in focus shots –
as she threaded her way through this incredible village of vessels.
Afterward, as we stood on the embankment, and I settled up my bill, she
asked me if I knew of a particular American Marine. The name didn’t ring a bell, and I admitted as
much to her. Undaunted she smiled,
moving a hundred weathered lines on her face, then reached inside her worn,
patched, quilted jacket and, to my surprise, pulled out two metal dog tags from
around her neck. I stepped closer and
held them in my hand to examine the name on them. As I did so, she explained these belonged to
her boyfriend from long ago; who promised to come back for her. She asked me if I knew him - because she was
still waiting for him – despite the fact she was in her late sixties. I discovered the metal to be paper thin;
obviously they had never left her body while rubbing against one another.
I asked her if I could take a photo of them. She agreed; holding them in both her
weathered, calloused hands. It was
difficult to get them in focus; my eyes kept filling with tears. This sweet, munchkin-like, old Chinese lady
broke my heart.
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