Fabulous

My friends back home used to ask me about port calls, and what my favorite place was. Well, here it is. As Westpac sailors, Hong Kong was a touchstone for us – I went there six times, and every port call was better than the one before (well, maybe Perth might be an exception but for different reasons which I can’t get into here). They asked me how to describe I, and the one word that came to my mind was fabulous, it just was. Now watching the turmoil and street carnage going on over there right now, I am downright depressed about it all – and not more than a little pissed off at the stupid fucks in Beijing making it happen. They were then and now afraid of Hong Kong and for good reason – it is the epicenter of capitalism,
supremely organized urbanism, and a threat to their vision of social order. Forget Taiwan – I knew then that if they allowed Hong Kong to thrive, that ultimately its culture would take over mainland China, and remake it into one incredible country. The building blocks were there, but the politics were not. It’s too fucking bad, and I don’t have any answers to offer except to advise Xi and his pack of criminal cronies and thugs to let it remain Hong Kong. They won’t do that, of course, since they are on some sort of crazed course to 2049, after we are all long dead. So those fucking assholes are going to blow it up. Here’s how good it was back in the day.

I had the conn during the 04-0800 watch the morning we arrived for my first visit. I drove the Kitty Hawk at 12kts up the shipping channel into the harbor, leaving Lantau Island to port, and Lamma Island to starboard. For once, we didn’t have a pilot onboard. At three miles from the anchor point and at the behest of the gator, I applied several knots of sternway to the 85k ton beast, slowed the ship to bare steerage, and then adjusted course for our anchor point. We dropped the anchor just before 0800 in 120 feet of water about three miles west of the city, with a swarm of liberty boats awaiting our arrival. After shifting colors and being relieved by the day watch, I hauled ass down below to get ready for a long-anticipated, fabled port-call.

The liberty boats were awesome – all made of teak wood and skippered by some really good captains. There was a conga line of them coming and going to and from the carrier. It was emblematic of the city that I was soon to discover – impressive in its simple complexity.

Hong Kong itself is made up of two major parts – the Kowloon Peninsula south of Shenzhen on the mainland, and Hong Kong Island itself along with lots of smaller surrounding islands. Our point of debarkation was Fleet Landing, home of the Brit-established China Fleet Club, with a ready series of vendors and even a Navy Federal Credit Union outlet. Yeah, that place was set up to take your money.

The best way to navigate between Hong Kong and Kowloon was to take the Star Ferry – a constant shuttle going back and forth between the two. There were two classes of passengers for the five-minute journey – 50 HK cents for 1stClass and the upper deck, so you could take into wander the beauty of the collective city. The best rides were at night.

We had a squadron admin established in the Holiday Inn on the right-hand side of Nathan Road, aka the Golden Mile. I was a man on a mission. My uncle Guy had also been a Westpac sailor back in the 50s and 60s who had made port calls in Hong Kong, and had asked me to find his tailor to obtain for him a couple of his trade-mark and favorite white-duck cotton shirts. After dumping my day bag at the admin, I sought out to find his tailor shop, which was fortuitously located just downstairs in the basement arcade below the main hotel lobby – Harilela’s, and it became mine.
I went down and found the under-assuming storefront just off of the escalator, and met the majordomo, Albert – a big, bluff Indian from Bombay. I told him who I was, that I was there to get some shirts for my uncle Guy, and was interested in buying a couple of suits. He gave me the once over, and then said:

“I remember Commander Richardson, let me find his measurements.”
Sure enough, he consulted his vast file index of 3×5 cards of client statistics, pulled out the right one, and said he could deliver the shirts before we had to depart – then, he turned to me:
“What would you like for yourself, sir?”
I thought for a moment, still knocked out by his ability to re-collect someone he had met more than 20 years before.
“I’d like a James Bond-style three-piece Goldfinger suit with vest, another dark gray pin-striped suit, a blue blazer, a Harris Tweed sport jacket with some tailored shirts, and a couple of pairs of matching pleated pants with cuffs.”

He nodded in agreement, and then brought out a dizzying array of fabrics from which to choose from – I selected the best and most expensive ones, since I remembered what my roomie, the famous Harry O used to say:
“Don’t ever go cheap, since it only costs a little more to pay for 1stclass, and you will never regret it.”
Bespoke clothing is addictive, and I indulged my habit even more two years later during my second visit to that wonderful place. Albert recognized me right away when I walked back into his shop:
“How did the suits me made for you work out?”
“Great so far – I’m here for more.”

I ordered up five more suits, a tuxedo, shirts, and a winter overcoat – again choosing from the most expensive bolts of fabrics. Fucking junkie I was.
Obtaining bespoke clothing requires at least two fittings. The initial one is the most important, as it allowed the skilled Chinese tailors to go beyond what you get off-the-rack. After the initial fit was done, Albert came up to me and whispered in my ear:
“Mr. Harilela would like to meet you, and invites you for dinner tonight.”
What else could I say but yes. He told me a car would meet me at the Holiday Inn. Little did I know that I was going to enter into a family complex that was built exclusively to keep outsiders just that – out.

Hari Harilela immigrated to China in the 1930s from Hyderabad, India to avoid the increasing violence there from the tumult of that land which would later become Pakistan after the partition. He established himself first in Canton, just up the Pearl River, but later sought final refuge in the more hospitable British protectorate of Hong Kong. He started out in the antique business, but then started his signature tailor in Hong Kong – he invented the concept of mail-order suits. From there, he branched out into real estate and became later became a major hotelier. He owned the Holiday Inn where we were staying. At the appointed time, I met my awaiting Mercedes Benz limo, and was whisked to the family compound – home of over 90 members of the extended Harilela family. I had no clue about what was going to happen next – I was just enjoying the ride.

Unlike their Muslim bothers in Pakistan, the Hindus love to drink. Upon entering their sheltered world, I was offered a champagne cocktail by a charming bow-tied waiter, and then welcomed as a member of the family. I met and toasted with Hari, his wife, and then their many sons and daughters who were in attendance. Looking back, I was the guest of honor for the night – go figure. There were about thirty family members of all ages there for dinner, which was a sumptuous Chinese feast. Thank God I had already mastered the use of chop sticks so not to appear like a fool.

It was a bright and lively crowd, and they were more than interested in their American guest – I wasn’t as interesting then as I am now seasoned as I am, but I did my best to provide them with entertainment. As a natural-born horn-dog, I was looking for female companionship, and found it in the person of Hari’s youngest daughter, Santi (aka Sandee). Apparently, she was looking too, since she arranged to sit beside me during the communal dinner to play knee-sees with me under the table. Yikes! Touching was an accelerant – it was a case of love at first sight, or at least enchantment.

Because of my fixation, I sort of became the guest who stayed at the party too long, as we had retired after dinner to a private couch to have more drinks and talk – like until daybreak. Sandee was mysteriously entrancing – slim but well-figured, dark soulful eyes, possessed with a great sense of humor, wit and charm, spoke English flawlessly, and was down right, drop-dead gorgeous. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her or help myself from being drawn into the exotic mystery of her soul. One by one, the other members of the family made their farewells and drifted away – it was just us at the end of the evening. I learned that she had been married and had a child, a son that I had met at dinner, but had been recently divorced. Whoever her husband was, he was a fucking dumb ass to let that jewel of a woman slip from his hands. To this day, the memory of her still haunts my dreams.

We wound up making out on the couch, under the watchful eyes of the household body guards, but then it was time for me to go. Riding in the limo back to the Holiday Inn as the sun was rising, I was still reeling from that experience. We exchanged letters for a while, but mutually agreed that it was something that was never ever going to be. In doing my research and performing my due diligence, I Googled her picture this morning and it took my breath away – she is just as beautiful as I remember. This was my revelation and dredging the bilges of my memories and trying to put all of today’s Hong Kong chaos in some sort of perspective – I made out with a billionaire’s daughter. I just didn’t realize it until now.

Hari retired as chairman of his empire in 2012, and passed away in 2014. By necessity, they have had to sellout the family principles to their mainland Chinese overlords. This had to be a return to the nightmare of the British and Indian rule they had to endure for years before – their financial empire, properties, and family are again at stake. I’m sure that they have a massive family NEO plan to escape to Vancouver or wherever in the US and Canada where it is safe. If I was a betting man, I’m sure that they have heavily-armed Sikhs and Gurkhas guarding the family compound in Kowloon Tong – it is a big target, and Sandee and her son may be in there somewhere. It has to be horrifying for them given what is going on in what was once upon a time a bell-weather port-call for us Westpac sailors.

Coda: A decade later, my wife would join me during Hong Kong port visits after I was stationed at Atsugi and deployed onboard Ma Midway and the Indy. My favorite moment was when we were drinking beer with my pal Garth in Delaney’s Irish Pub on Nathan Road one night. John McEnroe, yeah that tennis player guy was there, was in town for a tournament. A bunch of us Midway sailors were there for happy Hour, fresh off the good Gulf War, and some Brit rowdies started to give us some shit, which got pretty close to a bar brawl. Johnnie Mac joined us in the Mexican standoff, ready to take on anyone dissing the USA – great and funny guy.

Of course, I took my wife to Harilela’s, and let her indulge in my bespoke addiction. Albert was there, and had his armada of skilled male and female Chinese tailors ready. We had bought some fancy embroidered material in Bangkok to make into an evening dress, and she selected a ruby red raw silk fabric to fashion into her vision of a little black cocktail hour number that turned out to be totally killer.

I took my wife to all of my favorite spots, to include Jimmy’s Kitchen, the horse races in Happy Valley, and on an evening boat out of Aberdeen with the local Naval Attache to Lantau Island for a fresh-caught seafood smorgasbord. Man, I miss that place. Magical, it was – even fabulous.

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