First Few Months in Hong Kong

About two weeks after arriving in Hong Kong, we temporarily moved to the Centre for the Society and Religion, or CIRC, which is located within the Maryknoll Convent School compound. It is a red-brick building on a small hill at the corner of Boundary Street and Waterloo Road, diagonally opposite St. Teresa’s Church.

We were preparing for the IYCS Asian Session, or Asian Council as they call it now, a gathering of members from over ten Asian countries who would analyse, deliberate, and decide on the key objectives for IYCS Asia for the next three years. This meeting would also decide who would carry on the coordination of regional activities for the development of this student movement in Asia. They needed a team to do this, which they called the Asian Team.

On the first floor, we had rooms with metal bunk beds. Some of the first persons to arrive there were me and a member from the African team, a tall Kenyan. A team of Hong Kong students was helping to organize logistics. This was when I first met Fr. Joseph Naliath, a Salesian priest from Calcutta. He was probably in his late thirties. My first interactions with him were friendly and pleasant. We got along. He and I somehow knew we were to become the first members of the Asian Team.

The outgoing team, Lek, Zita, and Fr. Chalerm, had plans to leave the Team. Lek was to get married in October. So they needed someone to take over the work. Their plans for a full team to succeed them right after they left did not work out well. While Victor and Fr. Joe were the confirmed members, yet to be further confirmed during the Asian Session, Victor from Bangladesh was not going to be present during the Session. I was the odd one. I was the replacement candidate.

But I was the only lay member ready to start the work right after the Asian Session.

The theme of the session was Up Up with People. A white T-shirt with this logo in green was prepared for this meeting. And there was a song entitled Up Up with People to go along with it. During this Session, we all learned two songs, Up Up with People and I Have a Dream by ABBA. Fr. Chalerm loved the latter. So, all of us, whether we liked it or not, kept singing these two songs over and over again, until some of us were quite sick of them. But everyone put on a brave and happy face and sang along.

It was during this period that I first travelled to Central, the central financial district located on Hong Kong Island. We all took CMB, or China Motor Bus 101 (need to check this), from Waterloo Street, which soon arrived at the Cross-Harbour Tunnel. Soon the bus entered the tunnel, and we were crossing Hong Kong Harbour under it towards Central. I was trying to imagine the structure of this tunnel under the sea. Is it strong enough? Will water come in? All sorts of thoughts came to my mind.

When we arrived in Central, we visited key landmarks in this busy district, which even then, on that Sunday, was filled with Filipina domestic helpers. We were given money for lunch. It was the first time I was buying my own lunch. Prior to this, I was eating at home or with someone else who was providing meals. We were at the Maxim’s Fast Food across from Exchange Square. I saw that the price of a set meal was 16 Hong Kong dollars. I quickly calculated and realized it was a lot of money in Sri Lankan rupees then.

It was one of the hardest decisions I had to make that day: to pay that sort of money for lunch.

At the end of the Asian Session, Victor was “elected” in absentia to the Asian Team. Joe Naliath was elected as the Chaplain. There was a small deliberation on me. Rosy and Shevan, representing Sri Lanka, fully backed me and lobbied on my behalf. The Indians, Pakistanis, and Nepalis backed my nomination, and at last I was elected in a very awkward manner. I was elected because no one objected to me being elected. In fact, no one really voted. It was an election by consensus.

It was one of the most awkward moments in my life. The outgoing Asian Team did not really back me. Nor did they oppose me being elected. They just wanted the participants of the Session to take responsibility for me being elected. It was a relief for me. I could at least plan my life now.

Soon after the Session, Fr. Joe Naliath left for Calcutta. A few weeks later, Lek left. Gradually, all of them would leave. I formally lodged my application for an employment visa at the Immigration Department Tower in Wan Chai. Irene Mak from Hong Kong always accompanied me to Immigration to help me. She did most of the talking on my behalf. Irene was a former YCS member who, upon graduating from the Chinese University, had started working as a teacher.

Irene was also a member of the Board of Directors of IYCS Asia Limited, the legal entity in Hong Kong. So, in that capacity, she accompanied me to those painstaking and uncomfortable encounters with bureaucratic immigration officers at the Immigration Head Office in Wan Chai.

On 14 October 1988, my visitor visa expired. My employment visa application was still pending, and I had to leave Hong Kong for the closest logical location: Bangkok.