Editor’s Note: Pt. Loma’s piece on Hong Kong really brought back memories from salty old WESTPAC sailors. The events this week in Hong Kong- ten dead, so far- makes these recollections that much more precious. I personally was skewered for failing to mention famed Jimmy’s Kitchen in Central was snubbed. Not true. Just visited on another trip. There will be another note to make it a quartet. I have the cookbook and the bar-tab is paid.

The significance of the Soong Dynasty- and it is rightly called one- spans the generations of Chinese leaders who, with American influence, made this brave new world. Couple that with the three sisters whose traits were described nicely as “One loved money, one loved power and one loved her country”.

This is an account of our Left Coast Attorney’s adventures during the Vietnam era:

The Soong Dynasty

Sorry I missed Vic’s post about my visits to the Soong’s in Hong Kong in 1968 and after.

John Soong, Jr. was my classmate (’67) and Charter Club clubmate at Princeton. (I haven’t seen John Jr since ~1974 when I started law practice in San Diego, and John was a resident at Harbor General in Los Angeles.)

John Sr. and Mrs Soong were great Princeton supporters and incredibly gracious to any Princetonian who found himself in Hong Kong. 1968 was Vietnam War time for us, I joined the Navy and asked to go to WESTPAC, and my ship– the 7th Fleet flagship– visited Hong Kong several times.

John Jr said to be sure to call his parents when I was there, so I did. Mrs. Soong invited me to dinner and said to bring “4 or 5 of my fellow junior officers.” I think I brought 3. John Sr. said to wait on the pier at HMS Tamar, the Brit naval facility where we were moored, so we stood there and a huge black Chrysler Imperial limousine with a chauffeur in kit showed up and took us to the top of Victoria Peak, where the Soongs lived it a Victorian-like mansion which had previously been the HK Governor’s home at an earlier date.

We were joined by John Jr’s sister Lydia and her husband Tom whose family owned HK-Shanghai Bank back in those days.

We were served a delicious Chinese dinner at the large round table with a lazy-susan holding all the delicious dishes. Mrs. Soong laughed because my favorite dish was a Chinese peasant dish of bean sprouts and soy sauce.

Mrs Soong introduced us to John Sr’s tailor, and I and several others had suits made there. I have been in Hong Kong many times 1968-1992, and saw the senior Soongs several times during those trips. They were always extraordinarily kind and generous. And I remember John Sr made Mobil Oil HK very profitable with their real estate development in the New Territories.

The last time I saw John Sr. was when there was an oil producers’ convention at the Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego around 1986. It turned out that a law pal’s neighbor had been Gen’l Vinegar Joe Stillwell’s ADC in China in WW II, and John Sr had been Gen’l Marshall’s ADC there at the same time. We got them together for dinner, which was historically fascinating, and despite the documented friction between Stillwell and Marshall, their two ADCs were happy to see each other and the dinner was a great success.

Even funnier, at the dinner the subject came up about how Mobil Oil executives in Shanghai were treated by Mao when he took over in 1949. John said they ordered all their families out of China, and placed all the executives, two-to-a room, in a Shanghai hotel. I mentioned that my Uncle Victor Butoff apparently was in Shanghai at that time. John Sr almost dropped his fork, stared at me astonished and said “Victor Butoff was my roommate in the Shanghai hotel during that period! I’ve known you for 18 years and you never mentioned this!” That was a shocker, and shows what a small world it is.

The Soongs were very kind to me and my friends.

And I’m sorry I have no photos. My ex-wife destroyed all my navy-time photos.

Regards,

Your Left Coast Attorney

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