Hong Kong Before and After the Cultural Revolution

The year 1967 was a watershed of my Hong Kong experience. When I arrived two years earlier the colony was still, to a large extent, a transit camp for the thousands who had fled communism and were awaiting their chance to begin new lives overseas, in America, Australia, Canada or Britain. Local leftist sympathisers, emboldened by the Cultural Revolution wreaking havoc on the mainland, made the grave mistake of believing they could provoke a general uprising against colonial rule, instead of which they enraged the local community with their bombs and assassinations. The result was a general recognition among the public at large that Hong Kong was something of value. Encouraged by this sudden curiosity about the way Hong Kong was run and where it was headed, the colonial administration responded in kind, instituting closer ties with the populace through the City District Officer scheme. It was a sea change that might never have happened without the threat, held narrowly at bay, of Red Guards spilling across the border and running amuck through Hong Kong streets.

[@charlescbarden2380]

Join me as I sit on the veranda of an old majestic bungalow at my computer to which it seems to be getting on in age, as I reminisce the past and placing it on paper as this could be off interest to some, but for the immediate family a sense of Braden & Phillips history. "Reminiscing" is a 1978 song written by Graeham Goble, and performed by Australian rock music group Little River Band. This part of the story is twenty years of reminiscing from the land of my birth, 1948 to 1968, in the comforts of my adopted country Australia (OZ) this is what Idée imagined it would be like, if I were still in India in one of those many postings that my father would have been in. Its evening now and the sun has begun to dip in the horizon, turning the sky to flame with long shadows lie across the garden, the evening is turning cold and whilst the birds in the trees squabble the cattle drift past our home back to the farms in the villages as we would have been stationed just outside the CBD, the "brain-fever" bird-a harbinger of summer-fills the dusk with its repeated questing call which builds to a maddening crescendo and then falls suddenly silent. Parrots streak like emerald darts between the gulmohur trees and as the darkness thickens, fireflies flicker through the mango groves. The heavy scent of mogra and rath-ki-rani blossoms flanking the driveway mingles with the smell of wood smoke borne on the breeze from the cooking fires in the servants' quarters at the rear of the compound. The bungalow is older than I am, it has known many seasons: the searing days of May when the paint on the roof bubbles and blisters and ceiling fans creak through the drowsy afternoons; crisp winter mornings where the sunshine is mild, and fat chrysanthemums and heavy-headed dalhias nod in the shade of neam trees; the onslaught of monsoon storms when rain blurs the windowpanes, and the earth smells strong and sweet. We go through life walking along our path and when we finally get to our destination we look back along the road and realize that there were a lot of people we met lived with or just passed by and often wish that maybe we should had stopped and talked a while. Stimulating and reminiscence of our unique past is so crucial in reminding the present day youth especially those born out of India to understand the glorious traditions that are theirs to claim and be proud off.

[@petermoss4600]

Beautifully expressed Charles. Thank you.

[@charlescbarden2380]

 TWO CULTURES; Growing up in two cultures of two decades and jumping the prickly fences of two societies one being Indian, other being British, like “pish-pash” a mushy but tasty mix of South Indian rice and curry on a banana skin leaf with a stainless steel cup of pepper water and curds (yoghurt) to cool the pallet, then the culture change to English stew and pepper stake across the country. I have enjoyed the mixture of both cultures as a child being grateful to my parents and ancestors for giving us the unique background and derivers in cultural and taught us the values that was shaped by centuries of visitors and invasions that creating a richly textured and diversified from the snow-capped Himalayas in the north to the lush jungles of the South India. I am drawn to India - its food, culture, music and dance among other things. I have been fascinated by the Taj Mahal, pink city of Bangalore, mesmerised by Assam, delighted by Delhi and thrilled by a tiger dancing during Holey festivals. While the high-tech towns like Bangalore are fast becoming the world’s IT centre crunching numbers on computers here with not a calculator in sight.

[@frankieleung2215]

I am nostalgic about Hong Kong.