Hong Kong, December 22 - 23

Tuesday 22nd

I'm up early to meet up with Russ Joyce, grandson of Leading Seaman Les Barker, to head over to Aberdeen for a recce of the Holy Spirit Jesuit Seminary, where we'll be holding an afternoon of talks tomorrow. I feel as though I know Russ quite well from our months of planning together on the HERO committee, but this is the first time we've met in person. Father Peter Choy offered HERO the use of a lecture theatre for our introductory program, and the Seminary is perfectly situated: the historic Chinese buildings (above) are set in lush gardens overlooking the very spot in Aberdeen Harbour where Admiral Chan Chak and senior British officers (including my father) took to the water in a small launch to begin their escape after the fall of Hong Kong. It's hard to imagine in this oasis of calm that on Christmas Day 1941 the Cornflower launch was quickly put out of action by a barrage of Japanese fire from nearby Brick Hill. Two men were killed, others badly wounded and the survivors had to swim across the Aberdeen Channel under heavy fire to the rocky and inhospitable islet of Ap Lei Chau.

Today, Russ and I finalize arrangements for the talks, with help from the Seminary's technician. We then scope out viewpoints on Brick Hill for tomorrow's minibus tour, and get back to Central by noon. C H Tung, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong SAR following the 1997 handover, has invited some of the Committee and our spouses to a private lunch at the Hong Kong Club. For many months, he has quietly encouraged our efforts to stage the re-enactment and over an elegant lunch he applauds us for remembering and honoring our forebears in this way. It's a wonderful reminder, amidst all the logistical headaches of planning long-distance for events in HK and mainland China, of the real reason we're here.

After lunch, I make a brief stop at Shanghai Tang to buy Mike's Christmas present - practically the only chance I'll have for shopping. Central is busy with Christmas shoppers but that ex-pat favorite Shanghai Tang is oddly quiet.

The whole Committee gathers for an early evening drink in the bar of the Marriott - pictured here are our President Donald Chan, son of the Admiral, and Russ Joyce. The first event of a week-long program is tomorrow, but much remains to be thrashed out, particularly for the mainland China portion of the program. We have an agreement with Chinese partner organizations to assist HERO to achieve our goals, but even at the eleventh hour we're still negotiating over the mainland itinerary. One of our major requests has been denied by the Chinese authorities: we had hoped to get permission for our group to land by boat at NanAo on the coast of Guangdong province, where our fathers landed in 5 MTBs in 1941. But this is not a standard entry point to the mainland, and we are required instead to cross a land border in the New Territories. Even that is not straightforward: we'll go back and forth with our partners until the morning of our departure for China on 26th about which border crossing we'll use, and who'll provide the onward transport.

Nonetheless, it's terribly exciting to finally gather (the first time the whole committee has met in one place) on the eve of our great adventure. The only sadness is that Donald's twin brother Duncan, our Vice Chairman, lost his battle with cancer six weeks ago and hasn't lived to take part in the events he helped bring to fruition. I was glad to have met him, with Donald and some of their family, in Hong Kong last year.

Mike and I and the girls go off for an excellent dinner at a Shanghainese restaurant with TIME's Asia editor, Zoher Abdoolcarim and his wife Shi-ying.

Wednesday 23rd

I take an early morning walk in Hong Kong Park, a favorite spot when we lived in Mid Levels, and sketch out my introductions for this afternoon's speakers. I've press-ganged Mike into giving one of the talks - about the battle for Hong Kong - and he's busy preparing it. At 1pm we come down to the lobby of the Marriott, and there's a throng of people there - our group, gathering for our first event.

We've arranged minibuses (two from the Marriott and one from the other group hotel, the Metropark in Causeway Bay) to take people to the Holy Spirit Seminary, following the route of the original dash from the Gloucester Hotel in Central via Pok Fu Lam to Aberdeen. The drive along Queen's Road is slower in today's traffic than it was on the day of the surrender, but we get into the spirit of re-enactment by telling tales of our fathers' wild ride. They were a dozen men, the core escape party, riding in Ted Ross' Buick and a soft-top Austin. Ted's son, Warwick Ross, an Australian film maker, tells how Ted spotted a notorious English bodyguard named Two-Gun Cohen on Queen's Road, offered him a ride but was told that he'd rather take his chances in Hong Kong. Warwick has a film crew on the bus, and will film our whole trip to produce a documentary about the escape and its re-enactment. Everyone quickly gets accustomed to having his cameraman and sound man around, unobtrusively finding the best shots.

We arrive at the Holy Spirit Seminary and get the afternoon's

program underway. Russ welcomes the group and snappily introduces each committee member. I introduce our three speakers: historian Philip Snow on "The Escape: a Historical Context", followed by Mike on "The Battle for Hong Kong" and HERO consultant Tim Luard on "The Men of the Escape". The three talks are a good mix: Philip, who wrote the standard work "The Fall of Hong Kong", explains the build up to war and why Chiang Kai Shek sent one of his trusted lieutenants, Admiral Chan Chak, to help the British defend Hong Kong. Chan put an extensive shadow government in place to help the British covertly, especially in suppressing uprisings among the local Chinese population. This paid off, though Chan was frustrated that the British wouldn't provide arms for his men until the eve of the surrender. Philip described the gentleman's agreement whereby the British command agreed to help Chan escape in the event of surrender - he needed the British to provide transport for a break out. This was the rationale for the Christmas Day escape which saved all of our relatives' lives. Philip notes that Chan was already in contact with guerrillas in Guangdong province, so he knew where the MTBs should land on the China coast.

Mike gives an overview of the three phases of the battle, as a segway to Tim's talk on "The Men of the Escape". Tim brings the cast of characters to life, showing wonderful period photos, and describing how the escape party came together and how they got away on Christmas Day. He talks about the role of Z Force (a division of the SOE) in planning and guiding the escape - Tim's father-in-law was Colin McEwan, a key member of Z Force and author of a diary on the escape.

We have a little time for questions, then it's on to look at the views down to the Aberdeen Channel from the Seminary gardens (pictured above), and to get back on the buses for a short drive along Nam Long Shan Road on Brick Hill. We stop along the narrow road near a bridge so that everyone can see where the Cornflower launch was disabled.

The shots came from a Pill Box (by then held by Japanese) a few hundred yards from our viewpoint. Despite the urbanization of Ap Lei Chau island, we can imagine the long and dangerous swim that the men took to reach its rocky shore, and their despair at ever finding rescue.

View from Brick Hill to Ap Lei Chau at site of swim

The buses get us back to the hotels around 5pm, in time for us to meet old Hong Kong journalist friends for dinner at the legendary Foreign Correspondents Club: Robyn Meredith of Forbes magazine, Guy de Jonquieres, ex-FT, and his wife Diana Fortescue, fellow-researcher into HK's wartime history (her parents and brother were interned in Stanley), and columnist Steve Vines. Our family enjoys the FCC's traditional Christmas menu, knowing that we'll be eating Chinese on 25th.

New York, December 20, 2009

It's 4am, and we're due to leave for Hong Kong in less than 7 hours. I'm very relieved to hear the front door open: Mike and Roxana have retrieved Gina from Penn Station, where she arrived at 3 in the morning after struggling up from Washington in the worst blizzard in years. Gina, a freshman at Georgetown, had an exam that didn't finish until 6pm yesterday. She trudged through two feet of snow with her backpack to the metro and caught the first train heading north for a long, slow journey to New York so that we could catch our Sunday flight to Hong Kong.

We're heading off for a long-planned Christmas in Hong Kong to commemorate my father, Max Oxford's escape from the fallen colony on Christmas Day, 1941. For the past year I've been working as a founder member of the Hong Kong Escape Re-enactment Organisation, or HERO, to plan a museum exhibition and a week's worth of events in Hong Kong and China to mark the 68th anniversary of the miraculous escape of 68 men right after Hong Kong's surrender to Japan. With members on four continents, our executive committee of 7 has exchanged daily emails and met via Skype with increasing intensity as the reunion approaches. From small beginnings, we've attracted a group of eighty fellow descendants to travel to Hong Kong for the events over Christmas. We represent four generations, ranging from a 90-year old widow of the commander of one of the escape vessels, to great-grandchildren as young as two.

Our family - my husband, Mike, plus our daughters, Roxie (a senior at George Washington University) and Gina (the Georgetown freshman) - are foregoing our traditional Christmas in Devon to be part of the re-enactment. After snow delays, we land three hours late the evening of 22nd, but we are among the luckier travelers - snow in Europe causes havoc for everyone coming from the UK and some reach Hong Kong as much as 48 hours late. We're pleased to reach our very comfortable rooms at the J W Marriott above Pacific Place in Central, and to run into some of our friends from the MacDougall family.

Election night

I was in a state of nervous excitement all day yesterday. To distract myself from the wait for election results, I made apple chutney from my mother's recipe - a favorite task at this time of year. I went to Yonkers to renew my driver's license, figuring that most people would be at the polls - which they were, I was in and out of the licensing office in fifteen minutes. And of course I voted, the first time I've had this privilege in over twenty years of living in the United States. 

On Sunday, I'd driven down to Pennsylvania with two Bronxville neighbors to help get out the vote for Obama in a hard fought corner of Philadelphia. It struck me then that new Americans like us might help tip the balance on election day. As we went door to door, we found Obama's most vigorous supporters among extended families of Indian and Middle Eastern origin, upwardly mobile new Americans who had populated a neighborhood of spanking new semi-detached homes. In nearby streets of older houses and shabby apartments, we saw as many lawn signs for McCain as for his opponent, and even the registered Democrats seemed much more equivocal. I haven't seen figures on how new citizens voted, though we know that the Hispanic turnout was much higher than usual and more Democratic, and this must have included many naturalized Americans. I hope that we had some impact, underlining Obama's appeal across so many ethnic and social groups.

The other kind of new voter is the young voter, and my daughters' generation turned out in droves for Obama. Young people haven't gotten this involved in an election since the 1960s. Some persuaded Republican parents to support Barack. And young people led the way in celebrations last night. Roxana, who's a student at George Washington University in the heart of DC, sent me this photo of the crowd outside the White House at midnight. Thousands of students streamed off the GW campus to Lafayette Square a few blocks away for a totally impromptu celebration of Obama's epic victory. Our younger daughter, Gina, who's on a gap year in Australia, insisted that we texted her the minute we knew who the next President would be, and she followed up with an excited phone call.

For Brits, accustomed to snap elections, American presidential campaigns seem interminable. But last night's astonishing result leaves me a believer in the benefits of a lengthy process. It is a process of education, not only of the candidates, but also of the voters. After months of traveling the country and meeting its people, a new President takes office with first hand knowledge of almost every corner of the United States. In this watershed election, we've also needed the time to change the political landscape - to register voters who hadn't turned out before, to test the candidates, to discuss the issues and above all, to energize the electorate.

Now Barack has done that - and the hard work really starts. But it's fantastic that he comes to the White House with a decisive and historic victory behind him, celebrated by the rest of the world as much as by Americans.

Home for Halloween

I've been back home in Bronxville, our small town in the New York suburbs, for nearly two weeks. This is a particularly beautiful autumn - sunny days showing off the fall colors, and roses still in bloom alongside the Halloween pumpkins. At the school field, a stone's throw from our house, three or four different teams jostle for space every afternoon as the fall sports season reaches its climax - football, soccer, cross country and field hockey are all taken seriously here. It is strange to recognize fewer faces now that both our daughters have graduated from the Bronxville School. (It's 4:10 on Halloween day and I've had my first trick-or-treater at the door - they get earlier, and younger, every year).

Of course, this fall there are only really two topics of conversation: the election and the economy - and the effect of one on the other. I left New York in September, a week before the financial crisis hit home. Returning six weeks later, the mood is palpably different. Kurt Andersen wrote in New York magazine (October 27th) that for New Yorkers the economic bad news of the last two years - the bursting of the housing bubble and the sub-prime mortgage crisis - was something happening elsewhere. "Our chronic New York exceptionalism was nicely affirmed by the fact that our super-prime housing wasn't losing value". Now Bronxville's local news website is running barely reassuring articles about how Bronxville real estate is relatively safer than that in Connecticut towns like Greenwich and New Canaan (hundreds of spec MacMansions unsold), and about how this compares to the last housing bust (took 3 or 4 years to recover). And we daren't look at the state of our retirement savings accounts. People are losing jobs, canceling vacations, or looking for cheaper restaurants when they eat out. Our cleaning lady has been laid off by one of her other families, for whom she's worked for twenty years. Everybody fears that this is just the beginning of a dire recession - the Wall Street job losses will multiply, affecting the whole economy of the region (for, as Kurt Andersen says, in New York Wall St is Main St). 

On the other hand, many of us are cautiously optimistic about an Obama victory at the polls next Tuesday. Friends and neighbors who usually vote Republican are so disenchanted with George Bush, and dubious about the McCain/Palin ticket, that they are voting Democrat for the first time. Not that New York is a swing state, but on Sunday I'm off to help canvass for Obama in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.

A couple of days ago, I was glad to have a break from today's twin obsessions by refocusing on Chinese history. I attended a discussion at the Asia Society on "Assessing the Lasting Legacy of China's Cultural Revolution", moderated by Orville Schell, director of the Society's Center on US - China Relations. Among four panelists with varied perspectives there was more of a search for understanding than any outright condemnation of Mao for leading his people into the Cultural Revolution. There was consensus though that this history is not taught in schools in China - there is 'official amnesia' - and the country has not come to terms with this aspect of its recent past. One Chinese panelist reminded us of a moralistic slogan popular with the Red Guards in the early days of the Revolution: "Doubt everything". Perhaps a good motto for these dizzying times.

Beijing

And on Friday morning we begin our homeward journey, reluctantly leaving Ringha, where a crunchy frost heralds another blue sky day. We are flying to Beijing, via Kunming, for our last weekend before returning to New York. My heart sinks when I see the haze of pollution from the window of the plane - a stark contrast with the clean mountain air we've just left. We've booked into the Cote Cour, a new boutique hotel in one of Beijing's hutongs - the ever-scarcer neighborhoods of narrow lanes and old courtyard houses. My heart sinks lower when one of the reception staff drops Mike's computer bag with a thunk - not a good first impression. The hotel has carried out a painstaking, chic renovation of an ancient courtyard house, which is quite an achievement in Beijing, but for us it never quite lives up to its promise - or its price tag of over US$330 a night for the best rooms. We're staying in one of the largest of the 14 rooms, a superior suite, but it's not exactly vast and, annoyingly, is missing basic amenities, such as a kettle to make tea or coffee, or information packs for guests. Our room faces the main courtyard, whose focal point is an attractive goldfish pond, and guests can sit out here (at least until it gets dark, because there's only the dimmest of lighting).

Fortunately, we're soon heading out to dinner. Taxis don't like driving along the hutong, either to pick up or drop off, so we walk for a few minutes down the lane to get to a main road. If you don't mind the inconvenience, you certainly get an insight into old Beijing life by staying in a hutong - all around, people are getting haircuts, having clothes and shoes repaired, and (in housing without modern sanitation) taking their chamber pots to communal restrooms at either end of the lane. This particular neighborhood isn't within walking distance of Beijing's main attractions, but we're on our way to another hutong district which is near the Drum Tower. There we meet up with an English friend, Lewis, to eat at Dali, a celebrated restaurant which is run by his girlfriend Vivian. This has a magical setting - another restored courtyard house - and we eat outdoors under strings of red lanterns. The food is Yunnanese, but beats most dishes we've eaten in Yunnan hands down. A dish of crispy greens lightly fried with shrimp is my favorite.

On Saturday morning, one of Mike's colleagues has nobly volunteered to help us buy a rug and she leads us to an obscure but wonderful warehouse which is a treasure trove of carpets from inner Mongolia and other distant provinces. We choose a dark blue and beige rug with an abstract but distinctly Chinese pattern, which we'll put in our dining room. Mike (also nobly) agrees to carry it home in his luggage, and later we negotiate at a local hardware store by means of theatrical gestures to buy a checkered plastic sheet and tape to wrap the rug - Mike will travel looking like a bag lady.

But first we dress up for an evening at The Legation organized by Simon Elegant, TIME's Beijing bureau chief. The Legation Quarter is a cluster of ultra-fashionable restaurants and bars in five stately stone mansions, originally built around 1903 to house the American Embassy. When American diplomats withdrew from China after the Communist victory in 1949, the complex languished. Recently, it was completely renovated - not for the diplomats, who long since returned to a new embassy, but as a uniquely grand social quarter. We begin with drinks at a rooftop bar, overlooking the elegant mansions and just a stone's throw from Tian'anmen Square. Then we go next door for dinner at Maison Boulud, opened this summer by Daniel Boulud - the first global celebrity chef to try his luck in China's capital. Simon has put together an amazing group of Chinese and Western Beijing friends - artists, politicians, publishers, academics. We dine at a long table in a high-ceilinged room with a polished tile floor - certainly a setting fit for an Ambassador. The free flow of conversation (not to mention delicious food and wine) is a small indicator of how far American/Chinese relations have come in the last thirty years, since diplomatic recognition of the PRC in 1979.

It is a wonderful finale to our month in China, but of course a far cry from the desolate villages of Guizhou or from the urban poor, living right next to our hutong hotel and throughout the country. I've delayed posting this until days after our return to daily life in New York, wanting time to reflect on all we've seen. It was all, to borrow my mother's words, 'absorbingly interesting', and yet how to make sense of a country as vast as China? I may come back to this in later posts, but just say now that it's impossible to exaggerate the huge disparities between rich and poor, urban and rural in today's China. Reading a New York Times article on October 23rd, I'm reminded that in this land of 1.33 billion people, 800 million are still classified as peasants and 500 million live on less than $2 a day. This year China has celebrated not only the Beijing Olympics but also the best thirty years in

 its modern history, in terms of peace, stability and economic growth. The soldiers are no longer dead and dying by the side of the road, as witnessed by Max and Audrey. The elderly villagers of Guizhou eke out a living on the land, while their children work as migrant laborers in the cities, but many of the grandchildren (who are being raised by those grandparents in the villages) will be going to college.

Ringha

We have one more day at Ringha, and begin it by watching the final Obama/McCain debate on TV over breakfast in our room - bringing us back to a dose of reality. Then we take a leisurely walk around the ancient Ringha monastery, which is surrounded by highly colorful prayer flags and inhabited by two Buddhist monks, sent out by the larger Songzhalin monastery in Zhongdian. It's another picture perfect day, and we explore more of the nearby villages and pastures, enjoying the glimpses of the age-old rhythms of Tibetan daily life.

We also enjoy a superb hot-stone massage at the Banyan Tree spa to ease the aches and pains of trekking, and another evening at the resort's restaurant. Since we're not keen to go into town, we are rather tied to this (a complaint some people have had). The Thai dishes on the menu are the best bet, and there's enough variety to keep us happy for three days. We will be back in cities soon enough.

R&R in Shangri-La

On Tuesday we part company with Max and Audrey's trail and take an early morning flight up to Zhongdian, an ethnic Tibetan town in the mountains of northern Yunnan province which is China's official Shangri-La. We visited the region in May two years ago, on a cultural tour from Hong Kong, only to be disappointed that we had so much wet weather that we never saw the peaks of the mountains emerge from the clouds. This time we're much more fortunate. On the short flight from Kunming we glimpse the snow-covered peaks that rise to over 14,000 ft. - the closest we'll get to the sensation of flying the Hump - and a spectacular sight.

We bypass Zhongdian (with its phony 'old town' developed for tourists) and head for the Banyan Tree Ringha, about 30 minutes from the airport. We're spending three nights here, our indulgence after a week on the road. The Singapore-based Banyan Tree group opened this luxury resort three years ago, naming it Ringha after an 800-year old Buddhist monastery which sits on a nearby hilltop - Ringha means 'five wisdoms of Buddha' in Tibetan. The remote valley is an inspired choice of location for complete relaxation. We're booked into a 'Tibetan Suite', one of 32 two-bedroom lodges and one-bedroom suites which make up the resort, and quite the largest hotel room I've ever stayed in. Each suite is part of a reclaimed, traditional Tibetan farmhouse and is on two floors - the upper floor is a vast bedroom/living area with a balcony overlooking the river valley (see photo), and the lower floor (where Tibetans used to keep their livestock) is a bathroom and dressing room, leading out onto a private terrace. The farmhouses, which were disassembled and moved from local villages, are exquisitely restored and adapted, with wide plank floors and carved wooden shutters. But with a lot of dark wood, and underpowered lighting, the rooms could be gloomy in poor weather - we are very happy to wrap up in the chilly air and sit out on the balcony for a pre-dinner drink, watching the sun set over the hills.

We've earned our glass of Chardonnay by taking a long walk along the valley on our first afternoon, passing yaks, cattle, pigs and village houses. This is just a warm-up for our major adventure the next day - we've arranged to take an all-day trek from the resort base at 3300m to nomadic summer pastures at a daunting 3800m. When I booked this, I was warned that the altitude and the possibility of light snow on the ground could make the trek pretty challenging - but I was relieved to discover that we'd be followed by horses in case we got tired! We wake to a thick mist in the valley, and a hard frost ( no snow at least), but thankfully by the time we set off about 9:30 the sun has burnt off the fog and it promises to be a gorgeous day. Our guide is a young Tibetan, who speaks good English and is great company. Two local women, with bright pink headscarves, follow along leading our horses. For the first hour, we climb gently past the monastery and through a valley bordered by yellow-leaved aspens and pine trees - it could be Colorado in the fall, except that both the animals and the local people are more exotic. Then we begin a stiff climb along a beautiful wooded trail, and I take a couple of breaks on horseback, which is great fun, though Mike valiantly makes it to the top on foot (benefiting from all that running he's been doing!). By midday, our vista opens up as we reach a high alpine plateau. This is the summer pasture for yaks, as well as a common crossbreed of yak and bull, and sheep. The plateau is dotted with the rangers' wooden huts, and we find some are still in residence with their livestock - including a very friendly old woman. We wander across the plateau (think a Chinese Brokeback Mountain), and our guide sets about colonizing an empty hut and lighting a wood fire to cook our lunch. As the Famous Five said, food tastes better in the open air, and we savor a plentiful picnic of soup, beef stew and dried bananas sitting around the camp fire.

Then it's time to head down, and we take a different trail which is a logging road. We meet a guy whose pair of yaks are pulling three large tree trunks downhill - villagers are allowed to fell trees to use in building their own houses, which may explain why houses in this area are much larger than those we've seen elsewhere. The views are still superb, the air unbelievably clear and the sky a deep blue. Apart from hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (thanks, Willkies) this is the most unforgettable trek I've done. We make it back to the Banyan Tree around 2:30 - impressively fast, according to our guide, but then the horses did help. And we are definitely ready for hot baths in our room's huge antique wooden tub.