{"id":14,"date":"2016-05-10T22:30:11","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T21:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/?p=14"},"modified":"2024-06-22T16:56:48","modified_gmt":"2024-06-22T15:56:48","slug":"oh-s-were-going-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/?p=14","title":{"rendered":"Oh S*** We’re Going to Die!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hong Kong<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Picture the scene if you will. The year is 1991. Operation Desert Storm was in full swing in the gulf and Boris Yeltsin was elected president of Russia. However, Hong Kong hasn’t been handed back to the Chinese yet and I, along with a work colleague, have been taken through dark, foreboding, alley-ways in that former UK territory and have been left in a dingy room with paint peeling from the walls, an empty mold-ridden fish tank in the corner, and a battered old sofa, that looks like a relic left over from the Opium War, stuck in the centre. The room is illuminated by a single 100W light-bulb hanging, shadeless, from the ceiling. The bulb sways gently in the breeze that’s coming in through the glassless window, and casts sharp, ominous, shadows that sway to and fro in syncopation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the only thing that’s going through my head at this point is the thought, “oh s*** we’re going to die!”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Now permit me to lighten the mood a tad by using a film clich\u00e9 and to cut to a scene of a Cathay Pacific airplane landing at Hong Kong airport with the caption, “12 hours earlier …”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it would help, here’s a picture of that very plane before boarding at Heathrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"My
Cathay Pacific Airplane<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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This is my first time in Hong Kong. This is my first time outside of Europe and, to claim a hat-trick, that Cathay Pacific airplane is the first flight I’ve ever been on. The culture-shock coefficient of this trip was off the scale. (To claim another first, that first flight was also the first time I flew Business Class and so I thought that on all flights you got restaurant service and wide, comfy, seats. Boy was I in for a big disappointment!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bit of background to the trip. At that time my job title was Control Engineer, which meant that I designed the electrical and electronic circuits and wrote the software to control industrial processes. I’ve worked on projects for British Nuclear Fuels, British Steel, Rank Hovis McDougal, to name a few. On this trip I was on my way to Shanghai to help with the commissioning and testing of a new control system for a flour mill. I was a last minute replacement for a colleague who, because of family issues, couldn’t make the trip. I’ve lost contact with the colleague and so can’t get permission to use his name so I shall refer to him as Alfred. The conversation went something along the lines of,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My Boss: Richard, Alfred has a family issue to deal with, will you take his place commissioning the plant in …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: YES!!!!!!!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Boss: … China.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To continue with the cheesy film analogies, insert here a montage of the six weeks before I leave. Basically, it would show me in various hand-over meetings with Alfred, interspersed with scenes of me almost bricking it whilst my backside and arms are being used as pin-cushions. I was, and still am, squeamish when it comes to hypodermic needles and the amount of vaccinations I had to go through didn’t help matters. The montage ends with me on the plane landing in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m travelling with another colleague, one of our salesmen, who I shall refer to as Bartholomew. I’m to partner Bartholomew for a few weeks of sales meetings in Beijing as the “technical expert” before heading off to Shanghai as Alfred’s replacement. We have to stop over in Hong Kong for a few days to get visas organised. Or, as I saw it, a three day, all expenses paid, holiday in Hong Kong!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the other ‘firsts’ about this trip is that it’s the first time I’ve been in a place where tipping is expected. No one told me about this, and my first two encounters with this phenomenon were embarrassing to say the least. They both occurred within an hour of each other and both were at the hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Encounter #1<\/strong>. We arrive at the hotel, the Excelsior on the causeway, and before I know it hotel porters had taken our luggage and showed us to reception where we duly checked-in. They then took the keys off the receptionist and took us, and our luggage, to our respective rooms. When I got to my room the porter diligently showed me around explaining things, in intricate detail, before giving up and just blatantly standing near the door in a state of silent expectance. I, on the other hand, was totally dumfounded and it wasn’t until the silence grew to deafening proportions that it occurred to me that he was wanting a tip. The following interchange then took place:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Me: I’m really sorry I don’t have any Hong Kong currency yet [this was true as all I had was a wad of traveller’s cheques.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Porter: That’s ok sir, I accept British pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: Er .. I don’t have any of those either. All I have is about 20 pence. [Also true as I’d used up what I had in the duty free at Heathrow.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Porter: {doesn’t say anything but looks at me in disgust before leaving and slamming the door}.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Encounter #2<\/strong>. I’d taken a shower to try and shake off the jet lag and wake up. My room was on the 25th floor (I can’t remember the exact floor but I do remember it was high up – the picture at the start of this post was taken from the room), and I was eager to view this strange and wonderful land that I’d found myself in. So I thought that I could stand at the window drying myself, taking in the view, without the fear of someone seeing me stark naked (please say I’m not the only one that’s done that!) There was a knock on the door and before I could say, “hang on a minute” and get the dressing gown off the bed, the floor manager opened the door and came in with a tray of complementary tea and snacks, which were dutifully put on the table before she (yes the floor manager was female) turned to me with that expectant look on her face. It seemed like an eternity to me, standing there wearing just an embarrassed grin, when in reality it probably only took about a second or two, before she realised she probably wasn’t going to get a tip and made her excuses pretty quickly and left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to the main plot …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I meet up with Bartholomew in the hotel reception and we head off in to town to get something to eat and to see the sights. This is not B’s first trip to Hong Kong and he has a shopping list. So we head off in to a crowded market where we’re accosted by people hawking their wares. I’d seen pictures on the TV of Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve but that seemed like nothing to me compared to crowds in that market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually Bartholomew took a liking to one of the many hawkers that were shouting in our faces, “you want copy watch?” and asked the lucky candidate what he had. And so we end up following the hawker through the alley-ways to the aforementioned dingy room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where he promptly left us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B was fine about all of this. I found out later that he’d been through this many times, but for an inexperienced traveller such as myself it was sh** scary I can tell you. After a few minutes a wizened old Chinese gentleman with a wispy fu manchu moustache and beard (I kid you not!) came in to the room armed with a couple of photo albums. In the albums were pictures of every watch you could imagine: Rolex, Gucci, you name it there was a picture of it. Bartholomew decides on two watches, I forget which ones he chose, and asked how much. The wizened old gent replies, HK$ 300 each. B decides that this is too expensive and puts forward a counter offer of HK$30 for both the watches. This prompts, what I can only describe as, a round of aggressive bargaining, with both sides getting more, and more, heated. Whilst this is going on I’m trying to blend in to the background in the hope that when the violence starts I won’t be noticed. I find out later that this is part of the game, but at the time I was almost at the point where I wished I’d brought a change of underwear out with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end they agree on a price and Bartholomew hands over the money and gets his watches. The original hawker re-appears and leads us back to where he met us. Where, much to Bartholomew’s amusement, I almost feint with relief!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that was how I spent my first 12 hours in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

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Picture the scene if you will. The year is 1991. Operation Desert Storm was in full swing in the gulf and Boris Yeltsin was elected president of Russia. However, Hong Kong hasn’t been handed back to the Chinese yet and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richardbroadley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}