Turn on The VCR in My Head

James Koo

First wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Just came back from a trip to Shanghai spending the Christmas with our son and his girlfriend from U.S. During the trip, I tried to remind myself that this should be one of the happiest occasions that we should savor. But I did not experience the exhilaration while we were there. After coming back, then I felt these were one of the best times and happiest moments of our family life. And I kept on reminiscing the trip. While not remembering where we were, what we saw or visited, looking at the watch, I will “see” what we were doing at this time a week ago. It is like hitting the re-play button on a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) in my head that caused me to live in a dreamland (I often do). I bet many of you who have come to the HK reunion would experience the same feelings and illusions. 

Talk about reunion, due to work, I only attended the two weekend sessions of the reunion, the welcome tea party and the gala dinner sessions.

A short time before the tea party, Prof. SS Lau called me while I was walking in the streets and asked if I can help to guide the Lighters at Salisbury Hotel to the Yau Yat Cheung Club via MTR (subway). I somehow thought it would be only a few friends of his, and readily accepted. 

When I got there, surprised to find out it is for all the Lighters and their spouses stayed there, approximately 30 people. Most of them are not familiar with HK subway system built after they left HK, or the location of Yau Yat Cheung Club. Many issues immediately came to my mind. What if I lose them before we get to the subway (it is easy to do so in the crowded streets in TST of HK)? What if they do not have the exact changes to buy the subway ticket? What if all of us cannot get on the same train? What if they failed to change the train and where should we change the train as we can change either at Yau Ma Tei or at Mong Kok? What if we got separated then where should we gather in case we got dispersed? What if should I tarnish the image of the reunion committee for a well-planned event? What if, what if … … . Still a stranger in HK myself, with poor Cantonese, I wondered why Prof. Lau asked me, among all the HK Lighters, to do this and with such short notice. The proverbial saying of the misinformed leading the misguided flashed across my mind.

Also, the smarter the group, more alternatives and suggestions; more capable, there will be more independent outcomes. Luckily only Gina Mok, and Bob Chen made some very constructive and necessary suggestions, and there was only one small group of 3-4 Canadian Lighters took the alternative of riding a taxi instead. Until saw them at the tea party, I thought I irrevocably lost them to the streets of HK. How am I going to explain this to Prof. Lau? And to their loved ones back in Canada? I consoled myself that if they can find the way to Canada and back, they can find a way to Yau Yat Cheung Club even if it takes another 40 years. Sure enough, we were all there. Guess “tia ha bun mo si, yung zun tsi u tsi.”

At the tea party, I was embarrassed by the fact that while most Lighters called me by my name, but I often failed to reciprocate the same. Anyway, I was glad to see all of them are healthy, seems happy, and time appeared to have stood still for them—they have not changed since I saw them in Toronto. Some of them even looked better—Bob Chen for example. To avoid repeating myself, I will refrain from commenting about female Lighters there. They always have made me proud. Of cause, Maryknoll girls are very pretty also.

In addition to let all Lighters get acquainted again, the tea party of informing the itinerary of the reunion went smoothly without a hitch belied many hours of preparation by the members of the reunion committee. For lack of experience, they made up with efforts; for lack of budgets, they made up with personal commitments. Shown here is a photo of one of the many planning meetings. In that particular meeting, the banner statements were carefully scrutinized. The alternatives of “two thousand and two” versus “two thousand two” consumed almost an entire hour of discussion in addition to offsite research of Chinese literature and history. The only surprise was that one Silicon Valley Lighter, who was with a leading hi-tech firm, asked for a printed copy of the itinerary. What happened to those armies of “red guards” from Silicon Valley waving the floppy disks of Chairman Bill Gates proclaiming the “paperless” culture revolution? Did the next wave washed them away?

After the tea party on the way back to Hotel, a female Lighter thanked me for giving her my copy of the yearbook some 40 years ago after I described where she lived then, as I delivered it to her doorstep. For 40 plus years, she did not know why or how she came across with two copies, and was surprised to learn that she had a classmate called Ku Tak Yun. I embarrassingly accepted her belated thanks 40 years later for the gift that I asked back, and thanked her for preserving and returning the yearbook to me at Toronto. I neither remembered what we had at the tea party, nor understood what these Chinese banners said (too advanced for me), but these small incidents like that made my attendance of the reunion truly enjoyable and memorable. It turns on the VCR in my head again and again. What about you?