BOOK ONE:
A DASH TO THE FAR EAST
CHAPTER ONE:
A Chinese Manhattan on Malibu
On final approach, Kai Tak Airport
British Crown Colony of Hong Kong - 1968
After puddle-jumping across the Pacific for thirty-six hours, our Trans Oriental Airways flight arrived in Asia.
Apparently just in time to crash.
When the jetliner rolled and dropped into a sudden nosebleed plunge all the other passengers roared out, but I was too shocked to utter even a peep. I just silently tingled and locked my armrests in a death grip while the hair on my arms and neck stood straight out like porcupine needles.
It all seemed totally surreal, almost impossible. I mean there I was, just a kid on my first plane flight ever . . . and now only seconds from fiery death? Some kinda crazy bullshit.
Yeah, crazy bullshit. We kids had been using that expression all summer long for anything weird or amazing. It was handy and multipurpose (could be serious or ironic) and it just felt cool to say.
For example, take that evening a month ago when Dad came home from the tractor company and announced, just like that, that we were moving to God-knows-where in Asia. Hong Kong? Yeah, that b.s. was seriously crazy.
Or like last week at my combination happy birthday and farewell party. With the stereo cranked up high, all the kids were dancing to Van Morrison belting out Brown-Eyed Girl. That’s when Becky Miller came over, grabbed my hand and led me off behind the garage for a totally unexpected and personal good-bye. My first kiss and a little more.
Talk about crazy bullshit: before that, I didn't even know she liked me, at least not that way. Seemed like an all-timer, never to be topped on the CBS meter. But boy, was I wrong.
Because compared to one’s impending death in a bloody aviation disaster, everything else shrinks to the importance of about a fly turd, you know?
It seemed we’d been flying just about forever on our family relocation flight to Hong Kong when the aircraft abruptly began to fall. It bounced with a thud off the bottom of an air pocket, shuddered and then continued to fall. During this steep descent I peered out the window and saw the billowing cloud cover open up, revealing glimpses of a great green hillside wall, rising up and barreling straight toward us.
I felt Mom grab my hand and I squeezed back.
A bell chimed through the cabin hiss as the plane began banking hard right and increasing its dive.
I fought nausea and disbelief as I stared out the tiny Plexiglas portal and saw hulking gray cement apartment buildings whiz past our wing tips, looking close enough to touch. Thousands of bamboo poles stuck out from those balcony windows with laundry flapping like flags, making the sad buildings resemble monstrous pin cushions.
I braced for the inevitable crash, just moments away, and even the infants on board all knew something was wrong. They wailed their complaints in a high-pitched chorus while their stern-faced mothers tightened their seat belts. Some said prayers.
Fighting to keep control and stave off panic, I found myself focusing on how surreal this all was. I’d hardly started out in life yet and was about to perish in a bloody plane crash.
I could picture the banner news headline in the Bluffs Daily Gazette, back home in rural Illinois: Asian Air Disaster Claims Local Family!
You know all that stuff about life flashing before your eyes? Seems to be a lie. Or else maybe I was just too young: not yet enough footage in the can for a quality instant mental documentary.
Whatever.
Seconds later came the impact. I was holding my breath when the jetliner's wheels slammed into the tarmac with an actual sound like blam! and the captain jammed on the brakes. He reversed engine thrust and passengers lurched this way and that.
The aircraft bounced and skittered down the runway, seeming barely under control. Random overhead bins and poorly-secured storage cabinets began to pop free and send briefcases, make-up bags and kids' toys clattering down the center aisle. Bathroom doors rattled and flew open.
And for that final special touch, an overpowering stench began to fill the cabin as we taxied to the far end of the runway.
Unable to breathe, I peered out the window for my first look at Kowloon. That's the part of Hong Kong that hangs off mainland Asia. It looked unfriendly, like a cold cement fortress, alien and intimidating.
And we’re supposed to live here?
Flight attendants jumped up and scurried about, doing whatever it was they did after landing. A relieved murmur washed through the cabin and me, I just looked across the aisle at Dad, who just sat there looking amused.
"So, son, welcome to the Mysterious East."
That was just like him, always being outrageous and facetious. But his humor didn't really help much, just now.
He smiled and folded his newspaper. "Pretty cool, huh? Maybe I forgot to mention about that hairy Kai Tak Airport landing. Must’ve been a fun surprise for you. It’s like that every time! Tight fit here, squeezing an airport into this cramped harbor on a peninsula. So the landings between the hills are always dramatic. But big fun, no?"
"I guess, Dad. But what the heck's with that smell?”
He chuckled.
"Well, son, you got a million Cantonese flushing their toilets into the Hong Kong harbor every day. Think it's gonna smell like roses? Just be glad you're not a fish in there." Then he looked down and unfolded his South China Morning Post. Discussion time over.
So I tried my mother. "You know, Mom, this place feels kinda weird. You sure we're gonna be okay?" She stroked my hand as I leaned a little closer, big tough teenager playing grade schooler for a little sympathy. She twisted a handkerchief and dabbed at her forehead.
Why was she sweating? It was freezing in there.
She patted my hand. "Just trust in God, dear. He has a plan."
Maybe so, but I didn't much care for how it was shaping up so far.
"By and by, everything will be fine, dear. By and by."
But her face denied those words and telegraphed worries perhaps even greater than mine. Was she freaking out too? Oh boy. Wonderful.
The plane taxied toward the terminal and my father's voice boomed across the aisle. "Okay, look at you two! Nervous Nellies. Where's your sense of adventure? Enough with all your worry and melodrama." He huffed and shook his head. "Think of it! Here we are at the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. Gateway to Asia! Start of a great Bonaventure Family adventure. Thank your lucky stars. You don't know how blessed you are."
Easy for him to say. After all, the entire family was being transplanted to the far side of the planet for his benefit, to accommodate his career, his promotion at the tractor company. Lucky break for Dad, sure, but what about me and Mom? All I knew was that instead of starting high school in Moderate Bluffs, Illinois, I'd been uprooted and slingshot across the Pacific into a mysterious void. Everything familiar and comforting in my young life had disappeared.
And upon landing at Kai Tak back in 1968 there was no way for me to know how this move to Hong Kong would change the rest of my life and trigger all that was to come.
The Kai Tak terminal was a buzzing mass of humanity. People milled all about, yelling, burping and jostling. Great inexplicable gobs of phlegm lay on the ground. Pretty gross. And every so often I heard people hacking up new ones, too.
Over at the baggage claim a short, fat perspiring man in a dark suit and black glasses bowed and smiled as he greeted Dad. Then he turned to me and Mom and clicked his heels, I think, and barked out something in a growling low voice. It sounded like "Joe Sun blah blah blah rahkeetam, ha!" His grin was fierce and unsettling. Sweat stuck strands from his bowl haircut to his forehead.
Dad grinned. "Family, this here's my right-hand man. Stallion's first hire in Hong Kong."
"Pop, I heard him say his name is Mr. Joe Sun. Right?"
My father waved off the comment like a pesky fly. "No, boy," he chuckled, "Joh-sun is how the Cantonese say good morning. This fella here's Rocky Tam, a very handy local -- you name it, he gets it done. We been real busy last couple months, all my visits here while you two were luxuriating back home in Illinois." Dad patted Tam on the shoulder and the plump man looked grateful and laughed a bit too hard.
Then he abruptly sprang into action, perhaps to demonstrate his industriousness. He barked out something in Cantonese, an alien-sounding language with harsh tones that sounded like anger to my young Western ears. He waved at a skycap and the man in a blue uniform sprinted over and loaded our bags onto a large wooden cart, inside a cage of fat green pipes.
We followed the squeaking cart down a wide black rubber ramp to the curb out front.
Dad narrated as we walked through the sea of people, crowds held back by only thin yellow plastic ropes on either side. "Last couple months," Dad yelled over the din, "Tam and I been setting everything up. Signed a lease for the new Stallion-Asia office and found us a great house, dear, in Stanley Village. And Dash, Tam pulled strings and got you admitted into the new international school. Not an easy matter." Tam nodded, so happy. "By the way, you start next week."
Next week? I'd barely just landed. I was hot and dizzy and could hardly concentrate, tired from the long trip with all those layovers and connecting flights: Chicago to LA, then Alaska, over the pole to Japan, to Taiwan and finally Hong Kong. And now the August humidity in Hong Kong was thick enough to stir with a spoon and killing me already. If I leaned back, I was sure it would hold me up. So Dad dropping that school next week stuff really caught me by surprise.
Two sleek limousines idled at the curb, their air conditioners running full blast. When we approached out jumped both chauffeurs, in caps and militaristic uniforms complete with epaulets. One rushed to open the passenger doors while the other popped the trunks.
We needed two cars to handle all our luggage. We brought six large suitcases, two for each, crammed mainly with clothing plus any essentials we'd need. Everything else we owned -- furniture, my bicycle and baseball card collection, Mom's kitchen stuff, the lawn mower, our car, everything! -- had been put into storage, back in Illinois.
"The Stallion Equipment Co. can't just piss money away," Dad lectured, "by shipping entire households around the globe. No need, especially not for a short three-year posting like ours. Understand? Plenty of furniture and anything else we need can be bought here." He smiled at Mom. "And Honey, just wait till you see the hand-carved rosewood furniture they sell here in Hong Kong. Silk curtains, too."
The limos were Rolls Royces, one a creamy yellow and the other black, both with windows tinted black as midnight. Even as a kid, I was impressed. "Hey, Dad, nice going. Classy rides." He shrugged but I could tell he liked my saying that.
We rode in one car and filled the other up with luggage. Mom and I sat in back while Dad and Tam squeezed in front with the driver. Riding in cool comfort and sinking deep into luxurious brown leather seats, we cruised out of the airport through Kowloon and headed toward the tunnel under the harbor, over to Hong Kong Island.
Just beyond the limo glass I saw the streets of Kowloon teeming with shoppers, workers and tourists. Expensive cars jammed the roads. Garish commercial signs in squiggly Chinese script stacked up and crowded each other, all fighting for attention.
This vibrancy and activity softened what at first had looked to me as only gray, concrete and frightening. Everywhere I now saw color. There were brilliant neon signs, bright red or blue double-decker buses, the azure harbor, green hills behind us and on Hong Kong Island across the harbor.
Green-and-white Star Ferry shuttles cut criss-cross paths over the narrow channel, all the while chattering putt-putt-putt-putt. The vista of Hong Kong Island thrilled me with a world-class vision of towers that clustered and crowded right to the shoreline, with stunning Victoria Peak imperiously hovering overhead and topping the island with green grandeur.
We disappeared into the cross-harbor tunnel and when we emerged the Rolls veered onto an elevated ramp. The road headed inland and began a climb toward the green hills at the center of Hong Kong Island.
"Quick," Dad said, "look now, before we get too far inland!" He pointed over to the right, down the island shore at a teeming metropolis. "That amazing city over there is Central District, as glorious as a Manhattan in Asia. Famous for the world's best hotels and restaurants. Prime business and banking center. That's where Tam and I set up our office. It’s basically New York City but without the crime. Plus everybody's Chinese 'cept the bloody Brits, of course. The Cantonese let the Poms think they run this place."
Central looked as dense and urban as Kowloon, but somehow a bit classier. More of the people flooding the sidewalks on this side wore dark business suits like Mr. Tam.
Tam nudged Dad and pointed off to the left with his chin. They both chuckled.
"Rocky wants me to show you something. See down there? That's Happy Valley. Many a Cantonese fortune made or lost there." What we passed just looked like an old horse race track to me, nothing special. But when Dad explained the enormous betting pools generated there by gambling-crazed Hong Kongers, even I was impressed.
"Why do you keep calling them Cantonese, Dad??"
"Them's the locals, Dash. Hongkies." Both men chuckled again. "This part of South China was originally called Canton."
The engine groaned when the driver downshifted and we began a steeper climb. Hey, nobody told me there'd be any mountains in Hong Kong. Ascending the ramped highway, we passed a cramped Chinese cemetery that was all angles and concrete tiers, running up the hillside like stairs.
The road was an asphalt ribbon that wound and rose up through a lush, forested landscape. Mansions flashed by, just off the road, precariously perched and part-hidden by foliage. Occasional vistas of deep blue ocean, far away, burst through gaps in the trees below.
We were quite high now and just when I feared the car might overheat, a roadside board announced Wong Nai Chung. "It's all downhill from here," joked Dad.
Tam knitted his eyebrows in deep concentration and then spoke carefully, in English, in his deep and guttural voice. "Wong Nai Chung -- Chinese word mean 'gorge where yellow mud gushing out'."
Huh? "Okay, great, Mr. Tam. Thanks for telling me that." Actually, Tam seemed like a real nice guy. Trying hard. Dad just shot me a wry smile and shrugged.
The descent started abruptly, with no warning. It was like suddenly going over the top of a roller coaster and taking the plunge.
Heading down toward the backside of the island, a parade of impossibly dramatic views staggered us. Even Mom, silent and wringing her hands up till now, erupted with a thrilled "Oh, my!" Vistas washed over us and spectacular scenes surrounded us. Deep green hills ran off in every direction, down toward the brilliant blue ocean below, dotted with boats and small islands with grand white estates. Our eyes drank it all in like a delightful hallucination that we didn't want to stop.
"So," Dad said, sweeping his arms across the grandeur, "it seems the Cantonese have invented time travel or the ability to teleport."
Mom made a tut-tutting sound and mumbled, "Now, Dashiell, be serious ..." She always called Dad by his full name. And even though I was Dashiell Xavier Bonaventure II, there was never any of that junior stuff for me, just Dash. Dad liked to joke that he was Dash #1 and I was Dash #2.
"I am being serious, honey." But he stage-winked at me. "This is Cantonese teleportation and time travel. Just now, we drove from New York City (that’s Central District) and then up through the green Appalachian hills and are already now speeding down toward Malibu -- and all in about a half-hour. Am I right or am I right?"
I laughed. "Good one, Dad."
Mom just shook her head.
Soon we were back at sea level and following a road that ringed a large semicircular beach beside a small village backed by undulating green hills. A signboard we passed announced Repulse Bay. Funny name, this place was the opposite of repulsive.
"So this is where you'll spend most of your time, Dash."
Wow, cool. "We gonna live here, Dad?"
He chuckled.
"No, you goof. Your school is here. Hong Kong International School. HKIS is brand new, just opened a year or so ago." But before I could see much of the set-up (mainly a multistory building and outdoor courtyard, above the far end of the beach) the road exited the Repulse Bay area and climbed back up into thick hillside woods.
We drove on, rising and descending through more forested hillsides of astonishing beauty, sprinkled with impressive homes. Finally we turned off at a small intersection and veered down onto a charming peninsula.
"Almost there now." Dad squeezed Mom's hand. "We've leased a fantastic house here at Stanley Village, honey. Just look at this setting! You're gonna love it here." Tam nodded vigorously.
Though dizzy and tired, I began to see his point.
We reached a cute village center at the tip of the peninsula near a beach and an outdoor market, plus cafes and shops popular with tourists. An ancient, primitive-looking blue truck blocked the road as it noisily backed up to make a delivery.
I stared idly out from the limo at "downtown" Stanley and spotted a stunning Chinese girl, chic and beautiful and about my age, with several feet of dark, silky hair hanging down and gently swaying. She cocked her head at an oh-so-cute angle as she studied an item on a table in front of a shop.
Her frock was simple but shimmering and cut above the knees. She looked to me like a Bond girl, in a stylish beret-style cap and oversized sunglasses. I couldn't help but stare, having never seen anything like this exotic goddess back in Illinois. She looked better than any model I'd ever seen in any magazine. And before this moment I never even realized I might find Asian girls attractive.
Then just like that, with her hair still glistening and swaying, she takes off her sunglasses and stares right back at me through the glass and flashes me a million-dollar smile. Our eyes lock and -- boom! -- my heart stops. A jolt of electricity raced through me, as powerful as if I’d stuck my finger into a light socket. Just fifteen, I'd been struck dumb in a sneak attack by a mysterious, exotic and overwhelming animal magnetism.
I sat back in the limo backseat, confused and perspiring, euphoric and covered in goose pimples.
The blue truck finally began to move so we could drive on and head for the house. And only then did I start to recover. Finally able to breathe again, I suspected that maybe -- just maybe -- this place was going to be okay.
