Will We Find Each Other?
Margie and I hadn’t been together since February when I left for a 13-month unaccompanied tour with the Marine Corps in Okinawa. I took leave at Christmas time 1975 and Margie flew from Charleston, WV to Tokyo to meet me for the holidays. I went to the airport to meet her only to discover that her flight had been cancelled. Remember, there were no cell phones, e-mail, or texts. The airline didn’t know if she had been rescheduled or not or when she might arrive. After waiting through the last flight of the day, I decided to come back for the first morning flight.
I arrived at the airport the next morning to wait for the San Francisco flight. The Tokyo airport, like everything else in Japan, was very crowded. I was wondering how I would find Margie in that crowd, but it turned out not to be a problem. She was six feet tall and was literally head and shoulders above everyone else in the arrival area. I could see her from across the terminal.
Transportation In Japan
Fortunately, I had the hotel’s name written in Japanese on a piece of paper. I’m not sure we would have made it to the hotel had I not been able to show that paper to the cab driver. It was difficult to find a driver who spoke English. The cab ride to the hotel was fascinating; as we were absorbing the sights, the driver pointed to a McDonalds, then newly arrived in Japan, smiled, and said, “Big Mac-San.”
When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by the doorman who was wearing a top hat, white gloves, and a morning coat. He opened the door and smiled and said “Hi ya Joe”. That was the only thing he ever said to us in English the whole time we were there. He was about the right age to have been a young boy during the American occupation right after World War II. I suspect that’s where he learned that phrase and it was probably the only English he knew. But I don’t even know that much Japanese.
Japanese public transportation was also quite an experience. There’s no lining up to get on or off buses or trains. As soon as the doors open everyone rushes in or out. Margie is always trying to be polite and to let other people go ahead. I tried to tell her we would never get on if she kept deferring to everyone else. When the doors of the train opened, I got behind her and just pushed her on board.
I found this behavior by the Japanese to be strange given what I thought was excessive politeness about everything else and every other encounter we had in Japan. We even had a salesclerk apologize to us because we thought the price was too high on something we were considering. The only thing that I can think of is that public transportation was not a one-to-one personal encounter but was more of a group event and didn’t require the same degree of civility.
An Unusual Photo Op
There was one interesting thing about being so tall in Japan. We were walking together when a Japanese man came up to us with his camera, pointed to it, and said something. I thought he was asking us to take his picture. But he quickly turned around handed his camera to a friend and then, stood between us to have his picture taken with the big, tall Americans; his friend followed suite. It’s nice to think that our pictures are somewhere in a Japanese family’s photo album.
Christmas, Japanese Style
Christmas is a big deal in Japan, but it has no religious connotations. It is strictly a commercial holiday. Neon snowflakes and candy canes and Santa Clauses were everywhere. Needless to say, we did a little Christmas shopping while we were there.
This was the most unique Christmas Eve we have ever spent. We had dinner in a French restaurant in a Japanese hotel. After that we went to a movie in a Japanese theater. We saw the Steven Spielberg film “Jaws”. It was in English with Japanese subtitles. They don’t have popcorn in Japanese movie theaters (at least they didn’t then). We had Tangerines and sushi rolls.
On To Hong Kong!
From Tokyo we flew to Hong Kong. We stayed in a little more upscale hotel than I had on my first trip; on my second trip I stayed on board ship. I was determined that our reunion trip was going to be first class and we stayed at the Hong Kong Hilton. It was a beautiful place and had a Rolls Royce fleet parked in front. Of course, they weren’t there for our use. Apparently, a lot of very wealthy people stay there.
Shop ‘Till You Drop
Hong Kong was literally a shopper’s paradise. You could go bankrupt saving money! The exchange rate was about six Hong Kong dollars to one U.S. dollar. It seemed to us that things were really cheap; we just divided the price by six. You bargained for everything, even a pack of gum. We bought a lot of gifts and souvenirs and thoroughly enjoyed this new (to us) style of shopping.
Finally, a potential major purchase caught our fancy. While window shopping at a carpet store, we noticed one of the most beautiful rugs we had ever seen and maybe the most beautiful we will ever see. It was a deep crimson hand-woven rug known as the five-dragon rug. There was a large dragon in the center and a smaller dragon in each corner. We stood there looking at it and trying to figure how we could fit it into our living room. The price on it said $5000. Thinking it was Hong Kong dollars, we decided if shipping wasn’t too much, we should just go for it. We went in and asked the clerk exactly how much the price was in U.S. dollars to start the bargaining. He looked back at me and said “$5000 US, firm”. (Just to put it in perspective, my annual salary at the time was $9500.) So, of course you know there is no five-dragon rug in our living room, although I still regret not having figured out some way to make it work.
Eating Out And A Lesson Not Learned!
Despite my experience with bitter melon and pigeon, we decided to try for a real Chinese dinner. (I can be a slow learner.) We were advised to look for a restaurant where there were few or no westerners in the dining room and where the women were playing mahjong.
We found our restaurant and it looked good. Most of the restaurants where we had eaten served ala carte where we ordered dishes individually and they were served in small bowls that we shared. The menu had very little English and none of the typical Chinese restaurant dish names that we recognized. We found out much later that such staples of western Chinese restaurants as Chop Suey and General Tso’s Chicken were not actually of Chinese origin. Our most popular “Chinese” dishes would be a mystery in China.
There was one waiter who spoke limited English. I would point to something, and he would explain it to us as best he could, and we would decide whether or not to order it. We ordered a number of dishes expecting they would all come in small bowls that we would share.
We should have been suspicious when the waiter came and set up a folding table beside us. He then proceeded to load the table up with several large serving bowls. It seems this restaurant served family style.
Each bowl held enough food for somewhere between four and six people and we had seven bowls. As if having all this food on a table beside us wasn’t enough, the staff then lined up behind the table to watch the big Americans eat. Well, we gave it our best effort, but we couldn’t get through even a small amount. We took a little sampling from each and left most of it. (We both hoped that someone would be able to use the leftovers.) We had several more days in Hong Kong but never ventured into another Chinese restaurant.
A Trip Ending Too Soon
Reluctantly, we parted in Hong Kong. Margie flew back to West Virginia and her classroom. Fortunately, her return trip was less eventful than coming over. I headed back to Okinawa for the rest of my tour. We had a wonderful two weeks and would be together again in three months. We are both thankful we never had to be apart that long again.
We hope you also have wonderful memories of bygone trips and adventures. And, there’s more yet to do!
Travels of a West Virginia Boy Part I, Hong Kong
By John Turley
On February 20, 2023
In Commentary, Travel
The first time I left the United States I was 21 years old and on my way to Vietnam. In one of those little ironies of life, I would visit Hong Kong three times before I ever made it to New York City. Growing up in West Virginia, my family thought a trip to Myrtle Beach was the height of travel. It’s still the destination of choice for many West Virginians and I still love the South Carolina low country and fried sea food.
My first trip to Hong Kong was in the spring of 1970. I was serving on the USS Sanctuary in the coastal waters of Vietnam. I had my R&R (Rest & Recreation) trip planned to Australia later in the summer. However, I received orders ending my tour early because I was to report for a training school in San Diego in early June. This meant if I wanted to go on R&R it would have to be soon. The only R&R destination available in my time frame was Hong Kong. I knew next to nothing about Hong Kong. The closest I had come to Chinese culture was chop suey at the New China Restaurant in Charleston.
R&R was basically a five-day vacation that the military gave you when you were serving in the Vietnam area. It was something you looked forward to for the first part of your tour and then you would dream about it for the remainder.
Even flying into Hong Kong was an exciting experience. The old Hong Kong airport was almost in the middle of the city. The flight path carried you down between the buildings. I remember looking out the window of the plane and into the window of an apartment building. There didn’t seem to be enough room for the wings in between the buildings, but somehow the plane landed without incident. That initial look out the window may have been one of the most surprising things that I have experienced.
When we first arrived, we were given the typical military orientation lecture that included warnings about venereal disease with a large map that showed us the areas of Hong Kong we should avoid. Of course, for many of us that meant those were the areas we were going to head to first. They also gave us a list of hotels we could afford without spending all our R&R money.
Hong Kong was like nothing I had ever seen before. I spent the first day wandering around the crowded streets watching the people and trying to sort out the multitude of sights and smells. There was an odd combination of delicious, exotic and downright strange. Street food was everywhere and so were street vendors. The first day I was determined to sample as many different foods as possible. They varied from delicious to inedible. I’m sure that was just me, because the Chinese people seemed to most enjoy the food I couldn’t eat.
I also looked in a lot of shops trying to decide what I should buy. The shop people were friendly and spent a long time answering my often rambling questions. I had been advised to be very careful about negotiating prices. A Chief Petty Officer who was familiar with Hong Kong (his wife was Chinese) told us, “The Chinese people are basically honest. They won’t steal from you, but if you’re a bad negotiator, they are glad to let you pay three times what it’s worth.” In Hong Kong you even bargained over the price of a pack of gum, a skill I never really developed.
I eventually decided I would have a suit made because I had never had a tailor-made suit. I also had some shoes made. I’m sure that because of my poor negotiating skills I paid more than I needed to, but I was happy with the price and that was all that mattered to me. I thought I was pretty fashionable, but looking back I probably could have done better in my selection of material. The shiny shark skin material that looked so cool on Frank Sinatra didn’t do anything for me. The shoes were nice though. I wore a size 14 narrow, and it was nice to have a pair that actually fit.
The second night in Hong Kong as I was leaving the hotel, I ran into an Australian sailor who had been to there many times before. He said he’d show me the “real action” in Hong Kong. As we walked along, he turned down a narrow and dark side street and then into a basement level bar that had a big neon sign that said “Club Red Lips” with a big pair of neon lips underneath it. The place was dark and crowded with a lot of Australian sailors and Chinese women. It smelled of stale beer, cigarettes and sweat. After two beers my new friend turned to me and suggested getting out of there and going someplace where there would be some better action.
We started down the street and as he was ready to turn in to an even darker and narrower alley, I suddenly remembered I had someplace else to be. The “real action” was starting to seem a little too risky to me.
I begged off and headed back to a better lit part of town to have dinner and drinks with other American sailors. I suppose it was something he was accustomed to, but it was a little too much for a West Virginia boy to deal with. It turned out I was not as rowdy as I thought.
Most of the rest of my R&R was spent doing the typical tourist things and riding tourist buses. I didn’t venture down any more dark and narrow side streets. But I really did have a good time.
My next trip to Hong Kong was in May of 1975. By this time, I was in the Marine Corps and was an infantry officer. I was part of a Marine Amphibious Force that was embarked on Navy ships. We had recently completed support of the evacuations of Saigon and Phnom Penh and the recovery of the merchant ship SS Mayaguez. Our ships anchored in the harbor in Hong Kong for liberty call for the sailors and the embarked Marines.
Since I was one of the few officers in our battalion who had been to Hong Kong, I was tasked with briefing the troops on the things they could do there. I spent quite a while going through the ship’s library to find a few things about Hong Kong and then doing my best to remember some of the things that I had done during my previous visit. Of course, there was no internet to check.
I was happy that I had come up with a quite detailed list of sights to see and places to go. I gave my briefing. I told them where they could catch buses and where they could catch the ferry and where there were good places to shop and where there were good places to eat. When I finished, I ask for questions and the first question was, “Is it true that there’s a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Hong Kong?” Yes, it was true.
While I didn’t have any fried chicken in Hong Kong my friend Walt and I decided to be a little adventurous. We went to a “non-tourist” restaurant. Walt ordered pigeon, thinking it would probably be Cornish Game Hen and I ordered beef with bitter melon thinking how bitter can it really be, after all it is melon. Well, Walt’s pigeon was pigeon, and it came complete with head, beak, eyes, and feet. My melon was so bitter I couldn’t eat any of it.
Our stay in Hong Kong lasted four days and then we were back onboard ship to return to our home base in Okinawa. I knew I would be returning to Hong Kong in a few months when Margie joined me for Christmas leave.