Sai Kung at night Photo: Peter Lam
My wife and I moved to Sai Kung with two dogs a quarter century ago. It has been good times and bad times. We realised Sai Kung is by far the best place to live in Hong Kong because of its buzzing town, not too big and not too small, and lovely location between the sea and the mountains. On the dark side, we’ve seen a murder, a strange drowning, terrible accidents, umpteen burglaries and loss of too many good people.
Sai Kung in 1988 Photo HKU
Twenty-five years ago Sai Kung had the best and worst pubs on the South China coast. There was a windowless, dingy-grey horror of a place called something like the Neptune on what is now the Starbucks site. It was run by a well-endowed young woman who could out-swear any sailor. There was also the Duke of York, bigger then with a pool table. It was a rip-roaring success, especially when England was playing a big soccer game. Sandy started the DoY and is said to have died in wife Una’s arms of asthma. She continued to run it later hooking up with Mike, a former British Army officer, who’s business was abseiling while cleaning windows. But Mike found running a pub was much more fun and whisky was a temptation. “Demon liquor” as my former pastor would say was his undoing.
Anna Chan (blue dress), Alan Cheng (snake t-shirt) Vicky Hamilton and Bowie
The same fate befell Ulf who bought the Duke with his retirement pay from the Polytechnic University. Ulf, a Swede, had a pet cockatoo. He would say after he’d had his fill of whisky, ” I’m going home to my Cinderella”. One day Cinderella escaped. Ulf was bereft and three months later dead. Now the pub is operated by Anna and Alan, who works hard at looking like John Lennon.
The wife and daughter of a Chinese University professor were found unconscious in the parked Mini Cooper and later died. Photo: Edmond So
The gas ball murder transfixed Sai Kung. A jogger passed a yellow Mini-Cooper parked at a bus stop on Sai Sha Rd noticing two women inside. Twenty minutes later he ran back and saw the women had not moved. This is suspicious, he said to himself, and called the police. A professor of anaesthesiology at the Chinese University, Khaw Kim-sun, was convicted in 2018 of murdering his wife and daughter by putting a yoga ball leaking carbon monoxide in the Mini-Cooper’s boot. It was speculated that he killed his daughter accidentally; she was off school unexpectedly. His motive the court was told was that he wanted to be free to be with his young girl-friend at the university. Now he’s in Stanley prison. I watched him at the trial. He was strong-jawed, hard-faced and throughout the trial inscrutable. Last November, the Court of Final Appeal ruled Khaw should face a retrial.
Irina Smolina
A Russian woman scientist was drowned seven years ago at Three Fathom’s Cove. Irina Smolina was a beautiful mother of two. Her dog Max stood guard over her body. Irina had a PhD from the Russian Academy of Science and lectured at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Within two hours a detailed explanation of what had happened that morning went up on social media. It was a strange tragedy.
Another sad event that is painful to think about a year later occurred on Clear Water Bay Road. A mother was crossing the street with her boy, about eight, and a girl, four years old. The mother was distracted, playing mobile phone. The boy was old enough to have road sense, but the girl wasn’t. She ran out at the wrong moment. That lovely little kid will never see her fifth birthday.
George Ng Sze-fuk
Throughout the quarter century King George has strolled regally around his fiefdom. Chinese name Ng Sze-fuk, George owns two Michelin-starred restaurants in town, Sing Kee and Loaf On, and umpteen properties. George was Sai Kung District Council chairman for 25 years. In 2019 Buzz called on him to step down to make room for new blood and fresh ideas. “As Hong Kong’s longest serving district chairman, he naturally invites questions about why he hangs on so long. Is it the more than $98,000 salary and benefits, the smart office in Tseung Kwan O government building, cementing of control of local councils in favour of Beijing, the enjoyment of power and influence over the spending of a $25 million budget, or is there something more? Touring the district with the secretary of development or the secretary of transport and housing must be very interesting.”
Steve Vines
Steve Vines, a Pak Tam Chung resident, was one of the finest journalists Hong Kong has known. His criticism of the Government was scathing. Phil Whelan interviewed him regularly on RTHK. One day after hearing Steve shred our bureaucrats yet again I asked Phil to try to get Steve to say something nice about the Government. Phil said, “It would be like asking a scorpion not to sting you.” After the 2019 riots and the coming of the national security law, Steve realised the first English journalist to be arrested was likely to be him. He shipped his dogs off to the UK and followed. Perhaps you have noted that another one of Hong Kong’s best political writers, Philip Bowring, has gone quiet. His wife, Claudia Mo, is in jail.
Man Yee Square, Sai Kung
After twenty-five years it is striking how the people you see in town have changed. Sit outside a Man Yee Square restaurant with your beer or coffee and watch the passing parade. So many of the faces are new, few oldies are seen. Have they left Hong Kong because life here is so expensive? Perhaps they don’t like the negative shift in politics. Some will have died. Many good people have been lost plus one or two dodgy ones. John Warham was alternatively charming, sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth, a constant mannerism, and irascible, if he decided he didn’t like you at that moment. John’s vast intelligence was matched by his tenacity. One of the 49ners, fired by Cathay Pacific for working to rule to try to force the management to raise their pay, John led the pilots’ fight through just about every court on every continent except Antarctica. He wrote a book, ” The 49ners”, which is a good read.
Frankie Hollywood and the Tiki Birds Photo: Catherine Lumsden
We lost the popular musician Frankie Chitembwe to cancer. He was a consummate musician who played at Tikitiki Bowling Bar and later 28 Restaurant. Chris and Aneet of 28 did well holding tributes to Frankie Hollywood, his stage name. Graham Eckersley, dubbed by Buzz the Unofficial Mayor of Sai Kung, died at 82. No expat was more popular in Sai Kung. Graham behaved like a politician running for office. He talked to almost everyone he met on the street favouring them with his warm smile. Tony White was regular man about town. For many years a patron of the Duke of York pub, playing chess with odd tactics; initially he attacked only with pawns. Tony didn’t want to be thought of as a gentleman but he was. In 2020 there was a tragedy when Columbian Benjamin Restrepo while riding his bicycle was mown down by a runaway fire engine at Pak Sha Wan. Ben didn’t want to be here, but covid had stopped him leaving.
Australian Wayne Parfitt founded Castelo Concepts, several in Sai Kung. Photo: scmp.com
Another loss to cancer was Wayne Parfitt, probably the most successful restauranteur Hong Kong has ever seen. A big man with enormous energy Wayne owned with partners an incredible 90 restaurants at the time of his death. More than 40 were here, the rest in Vietnam. Henry B. Thiel, a Danish entrepreneur who founded delicatessens in Hang Hau and Sai Kung and a restaurant called Lardos, died after many years of struggling with kidney dialysis. Russell was a lovely man who wore corded sweaters regardless of the weather and succumbed to smoking. So did Reg Maynard, a former yacht club commodore. Reg lived in a boat at Hebe Haven. He cultivated an old sea dog image and was always wreathed in pipe smoke. Cancer of the oesophagus got Reg. Smoking too undid a former Gammon laboratory boss. Highly intelligent, John Fowler could not kick tobacco addiction and ended up having his legs amputated above the knee because of gangrene. Immediately afterwards I wrote a story that drew criticism. I gave John a pseudonym, Mark, and wrote the article as a warning to others who keep smoking while knowing the potential consequences. I put no empathy in the article — the victim was not identified — and that was why I was criticised. “We know who it is. You got it wrong”. Guilty.
There has been no sadder case in the last 25 years than what happened to an Australian couple who lived on a large catamaran at Hebe Haven. Thirteen cats lived with the friendly couple on the boat. Typhoon Mangkhut wrecked the catamaran rending it uninhabitable. We saw the man take the cats to the vet to be put to sleep. Thirteen of them, one by one.
BUZZ’s Concert for the Animals was one of the highlights of Sai Kung’s year
To close this memoir on a happier note, Sai Kung hosts marvellous social and charitable events. The 24-Hour Dinghy Race at Hebe Haven Yacht Club is a much anticipated event every year. Kids race around a circuit on the sea while people party in the colourful Race Village nearby. Everybody who is anybody in Sai Kung attends. The Concert for the Animals was staged three times successfully, latterly at the Tikitiki Bowling Bar. Frankie Hollywood (mourned above) Hudson Hornet, James and the Potato Heads and Village Dogs are some of the bands that had the crowd dancing and singing in aid of dog and cat charities. Buzz is proud to say we created the Concert for the Animals.
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