Extra! Extra!

James Koo

The HK reunion committee has invited, and Gina Mok has accepted to be the honorary advisor to the committee! All Lighters should be happy about this as the success of the HK reunion is more assured. Now the only thing to make it a success is for all of us to register and come to the reunion.

First we should thank Peter Tong. He first pointed out the importance to have the fair sex on the committee. I understand in an environment when there is no woman (such as South Pole expedition) men quickly revert back to barbarians. That includes housekeeping, clothing, table manner, language, or even personal grooming and hygiene. Even there is only one woman present; everything is back in order. Now we have a woman, and a woman with experience and expertise on the committee. I will wear a tie to the next meeting though Gina will be in Toronto. Her spirit will be with us.

Now here is the inside (and more interesting) story of how did the reunion committee do the inviting. The committee took Peter's advise, and decided it will be a fantastic idea to have a woman and Gina in particular to join or advise us, but who will have the honor to do the inviting? Suddenly all the committee members start to study the traffic on the street, the patterns on the dishes, the tealeaves, or even the light fixtures. Regretting all the opportunities missed, got bolder and reckless in old age, I volunteered, and got commitments that once Gina accepts, either or both CC Luk and WT Pang will extend an official invitation as I am not a committee member. 

So I wrote and Gina graciously accepted and volunteered Stephen, her other half, will help also, and he before retiring, was a senior executive at Canadian Airlines for automation-the first benefit of asking a woman to join us-when you ask for one, you get a pair, when you seek talent in one area, you get talent in another area as the icing on the cake. Good things come in pairs as we Chinese would say.

As WT was on a tour, I asked CC Luk to issue an invitation. Five days went by, nothing. Under pressure, CC confessed it is intimidating to write to a beautiful woman. I assured CC that Gina will not bite and otherwise I will bite his ears off. Ok, ok, he will write. Two more days went by, still nothing. He said he would need to get Shirley, his wife's OK (what an excuse!). So I went with them on a 3-hour hike even my ankle was swollen (hurt playing Ping Pong with them), and Shirley said no problem. Finally CC agreed to write an introduction and will wait for WT to do the honor. While some will walk a mile for a Camel, others will walk extra mile, I walked more than 2 extra miles for getting Gina and Stephen on board. CC must be stressed out when he wrote to Gina. Shown here is the title of his email to Gina: Subject: LINGTERS REUNION HOTEL BOOKING.

Ted Hsieh of Chicago came to visit HK, and we welcomed him with a get together dinner on Tuesday (3/12). Allow me to digress a little, I really enjoyed reading his articles reminiscing the olden days, sharing his feelings with us and living in a dream world of the past like I often do-Winnie says only women do that, and Ted is a he-man (think I am in trouble when I begin to doubt if Winnie is always right). At 6:30PM, the specified dinnertime, out of 11 of us, only three were there: Ted (Chicago), Lawrence (Australia), and me (California). CC (HK) was 35 min. late and the last couple (HK) came 1:10 min late. Now am I fellow Lighters' keeper? No more on this subject, but you all be on time at the union! 

At the dinner, WT reaffirmed his commitment to write to Gina. Attached is the photo at the dinner-now WT is stressed out. I understand he has first asked CC's email to study. As of today, do not know if he has written. I have purposefully refrained from telling him what Gina said: "forget about these formalities, no need for invitation"-just want to show Peter how things are (or not) done in HK. I have been trying hard to transplant a little "Californianism" to HK for all of them to write on the website. If you study the Lighters web, you probably will notice that left alone, those rootless, iconoclast, Californian immigrants: Prof. SS Lau, Bob Chen, Larry Wan, Tony Kwok, and I wrote the most.

So all the Lighters please join me to thank Gina and Stephen for their gracious offer to help, and then come to the reunion!