Letter from London|Clubbable Hong Kong
The eminent 18th century English literary figure, Dr Johnson, a widower and conversationalist, enjoyed the society of friends and exchange of ideas at his club, and coined the word “clubbable” to describe people like him.
I’ve attended a few fashionable London clubs in recent years, as a guest, but the one I joined and used most, for business and social reasons, was the Institute of Directors (IOD) in Pall Mall. I particularly enjoyed it as an elegant base for meetings and work to do in central London, as my day-to-day working office was way out in the suburbs. As well as up-to-date business facilities, the IOD offered meeting rooms, venues for events and a decent restaurant. The latter was situated in a room steeped in history, as it was supposedly the place where the Duke of Wellington planned the campaign against Napoleon. I don’t know if the story was true, but the club’s building was certainly once part of the Foreign Office and had huge portraits of 19th century military figures on the walls. I enjoyed hosting guests there as these austere figures gazed down on us in an intimidating way.
Having lived and worked in Hong Kong for just over twenty years, I was comfortable with club life. For in expat based there in the two last decades of the 20th century, clubs played a central role. Historic grand clubs like the Hong Kong Club and Jockey Club were originally colonial outposts, but were by my time becoming more open, while still expensive meeting places for the wealthy. The Hong Kong Club was founded way back in 1846 as a retreat for senior colonial officers and head of the trading hongs. Still today a place for the privileged few, it only has some 1500 members and was always way beyond my humble budget.
The Jockey Club, on the other hand, combined a privileged membership club with mass appeal through horse-racing to the gambling-mad Hong Kong people. Yet, uniquely, on top of this, the Club, deploying its huge profits milked from its monopoly on gambling, played a society-wide philanthropic role, financing schools, hospitals and social centers. I was never much of a gambler myself, but soon learnt that an evening in a private box at the Happy Valley Races for an atmospheric flood-lit event, with excited crowds roaring their encouragement, was a sure way to delight my business clients. I even won at 70 to 1 once!
Other clubs catered for what I might call the middle class. Not so expensive to join, but nevertheless offering excellent facilities by international standards, they provided a handy, close-at-home refuge from the turmoil of the city. I’m thinking of venues like the Ladies Recreation Club, United Services Club, the Country Club and Aberdeen Marina Club. One of my favorites was the American Club in Tai Tam, for the simple reason that my wife and I held our wedding party there, celebrating with nearly a hundred friends and family, while overlooking a calm South China Sea on a velvet-dark, balmy evening three decades ago. How lucky we were! It truly was romantic.
For expats, in some ways, clubs represented a home from home. While coping with the transition and challenges of making a new life in a foreign city, and working in a hectic business environment, newcomers found a kind of refuge in the weekend oases these communities offered. When I first arrived in Hong Kong, back in the late 1970s, there was a degree of colonial elitism at work in many of the clubs. It was rumored, but hopefully not the case, that my chosen club – the Hong Kong Football Club, founded in 1886 – had once displayed a sign saying “No dogs or Chinese”.
I chose HKFC for the simple reason football was the game I played. My modest talent was enough to secure me a sports membership more suited to my modest income at the time. For a single young Westerner living on his own, the club was a family substitute. As well as enjoying my sport, I readily made friends and had no time for homesickness. There were always a few mates around the bar to share a beer with, along with good humor and profound philosophizing.
During my Hong Kong years the HKFC developed and evolved in tune with Hong Kong itself. The most traumatic infrastructural change came about in the mid-1990s, when the Jockey Club decided it needed to extend its race course in Happy Valley to meet international requirements. This meant physically moving the Club and Sports road a couple of hundred yards in the Causeway Bay direction. In return for agreeing to this takeover the HKFC made a plumb bargain – they got the new Club of their dreams, with purpose-built social and sports facilities. These even included an indoor, air-conditioned artificial bowling green. Luxury indeed!
Over the years I was there, the community also became considerably more inclusive and cosmopolitan, with Chinese members matching their expat fellows in number. But the essence of the club remained its sociability and democratic culture. It didn’t matter who you were, or your job, or your income, you could find a place there.
When I returned to Hong Kong, after a ten-year absence, I naturally headed to Sports Road, to seek out old friends. On entering the bar, I was greeting by a familiar face, that of one of the long-serving bar staff. His name, unforgettably, was Rambo Wong. He was the most unlikely candidate to be a Rambo, but a cheerful and helpful soul.
“Hello, Mr Wilson,” he said. “Have you been on holiday?”
It made me remember how much Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Football Club meant home and real friendships for an important “clubbable” part of my life.
(The writer lived in Hong Kong for more than twenty years, arriving soon after the death of Mao and leaving after the handover of the territory to China. He experienced the seismic transformation of Hong Kong on its journey from plastic flowers and T-shirts to global front runner in trade and high finance.)
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