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                                                                         HONG KONG

                                                             My Hong Kong home - 1973

Page added:  2022-01-10

I have lived many different places in Hong Kong - - -

Usually not of high standard, - always very small,- and sometimes even without windows, - and if my room had a window, the view was typically straight into a gray concrete wall of the neighbor house, - very close, - and very dark, - because the sun never had a chance to find its way into the narrow spaces between the buildings -

But I did not care - - -

I just had fun and excitement, and my room was only a private place to store my suitcase and to sleep, - sometimes -, until the telephone rang, and I had to go back to sea again - - -

Under normal circumstances I would not submit pictures of my living place, since I presume that it is not interesting to anybody!

However in this case it is actually interesting, because how many of the millions of tourists that pass through Hong Kong every year, actually see and experience how an average Chinese family lived in the seventies?

Usually the tourists prefer to stay in the big hotels which are the same sterile things all over the world, but to get close to the local population and learn about their lives is a completely different experience,- interesting and very, very rewarding!

So one fine day I moved in with the Wong family in a high rise building in Tsimshatsui!

Only Mr. Wong we did not see very often - - - He was one of Hong Kong's many seamen and was always away, so I had the privilege to be the only man in the house.

Anytime I wanted, I could join the Wong family for dinner. Mimi Wong considered it an honor and a great privilege to have a European living in her house and there were always plenty of food,- VERY good food -, so actually I was the privileged one to be able to enjoy the services and cooking of Mimi Wong!

An extra bonus arrived one day from mainland China!

A relative of the Wong family had avoided the soldiers guarding the Hong Kong/China border, and managed to cross the border illegally!

She arrived very tired, dirty, scared and hungry and with her naked feet and legs bleeding from wounds and scratches she suffered from the rough trip across the country side to the border-

And when she saw me, she stiffened, looked very scared and had no idea what I did there - a big "foreign devel" - but she soon learned, that I was harmless, - and she was clearly very, very happy that she was alive, - and had finally succeeded to reach freedom in Hong Kong!

What a story she could tell - -

And very interesting for a foreigner like me to get so close to an event like this!

So I stayed for a long time with the family Wong in their small Tsimshatsui apartment. Besides the living room, there were two more rooms, - and a toilet and a kitchen -, and that was it.

Since both extra rooms were rented out,- one of them to me -, the Wong family slept in the kitchen, where they arranged the beds on top of each other in order to get enough space!

Therefore,- if you have never heard about a kitchen-bedroom,- you have the chance to see one now!

Family dinner, - part of my Chinese "family" at one of those gorgeous dinners

Left to right: The illegal Chinese refugee, just escaped across the border from Red China, - then Lisa Ng, - small ToTo Wong and my girlfriend of that time - Ko Lai Yi - 

(Lai  Yi !  If you see this, I hope you have been doing fine! As for me, - I am VERY happy, - living in peace and harmony at a very beautiful place!)

Take note the small "table" besides the red chairs!

It is the house altar for the spirits living here!

The kitchen is to the left,- and the door to the left of the toilet behind is the door to my private room.

In Asia it is normal to assume, that spirits live everywhere in nature, - and that might cause problems if for example you want to built a house or something else at a place that already might be occupied by a spirit.

In order to avoid that sort of trouble, you built a small "house" for the spirit, so that it is not offended by your presence.

And of course you take care, that a good relationship to the the local spirit is maintained in the future, by offering small gifts and burning some incense.

Take note of the small package of food on the floor in front of the altar.

If you have never, ever heard about a "kitchen-bedroom" before,- you have now, - and this is what it looks like!

This is where truly wonderful Chinese home cooking was produced in abundance, - and where the Wong family slept in the bunks to the right, because their two small bedrooms were rented out!

My room - small, - but the best in the apartment, with everything I needed -

And in spite of the small bed, - at a certain occation - we were actually 3 people in it - - -

Lai Yi had a visitor - one of her girlfriends -, and in order to be the perfect host, I offered our guest - and ourselves - a glass of Portuguese rose wime - Matteus - and that suited the girls very well - - Too well I should say - - -

Soon I had to go out to get another bottle Matteus Rose - and that "disappeared" as well -- -  Ok - out to get one more - and so the party continued and it became late, - very late - and the girls became drunk.

Lai Yi's girlfriend asked if she could sleep in our room, because she was too drunk to go home - and she was very tired - - -

But we had no extra bed, - and very little space on the floor - and no extra blankets and pillows - - -

Obviously I saw myself as being confined to the floor for the night - but no space - no extra blankets - - hmmmmm - what to do?

But Lai Yi solved the problen!  We all sleep in the bed - me in the middle - and one girl at each side, - provided that I would promise to keep my big fingers away from Lai Yi's girlfriend - - -

And so it happened, - and needless to say, - I hardly slept one minute that night - but the girls went straight into "Dreamland". 

But I kept my promise:  No touching of Lai Yi's girlfriend!

Yes, - sometimes unexpected things happen on the China coast - - make you smile - - -

- A final look, - with a picture of a crane bought in China, - and my Third Engineer's uniform -

Do I still have that uniform?

No - it ended up in a maritime museum in Denmark - Aabenraa Museum - where it is on display in it's Chief Engineer configuration - with 4 gold stripes - and 3 red stripes inbetween, and that's where I can go and look at my old Jebsen uniform  - as a museum piece! - - - And feel VERY nostalgic - - - :-)

But it is the same uniform you see on above picture - about 50 years earlier - - 

Little To-To looking at her strange "gwei lo uncle" from Denmark - (Strange to imagine, that she must be a grown up woman close to 50 now.)