Tuesday 16 July
Don has invited RB and his friend Denis, together with me and my friends, Huang Yun Yu, and Tseng Yu, out to dinner. The discussion soon turns to the tramway workers’ strike, which has resulted in major disruption in central Hong Kong. Denis would like the strikers to be whipped back to work while Don argues they are being paid a miserable wage and he has actually contributed to the strike fund. Denis counter-attacks, “ Good luck to the man who has money & keeps it – why give any to the lazy bs who won’t work?” Don’s nose gets sharper and his face tightens. He says in his thin Australian voice that one must give, for one’s own sake - to have a right relationship with one’s fellow-man.” Denis: No-one’s ever given me anything. Why should I give? Don:” But it is artistic to give.” I catch a sudden glimpse of Don as he sees himself, of what makes him hand out money to strangers and let beggars sleep in his car. Huang Yun Yu meanwhile has whipped paper pen and ink out of his bag and is capturing Don’s intense, ravaged face with a few strokes as Denis replies, “ But who wants to be artistic?”
Time to go home and Don says he would take me if he could remember where he’d left his car. RB accuses him of affectation – never knowing where his car is. Don murmurs something about hysterical reaction – that he’s so afraid of driving there’s the overwhelming need to keep putting off the evil moment. It is RB who drives me back to the University on his motorbike and says, as we part, that I must beware of Don with his impossibly charitable view of mankind. He’s not the saint you might think - he swears all the time at pedestrians when he’s driving, and he can be very cruel about people.
The Tram Strike
Mr. RB
Among the group of friends who came to know Tseng Yu and Huang YunYu was an expat electrical engineer named Mr. RB. My first meeting with Ron was on the bathroom floor at a party thrown by Dr. Elizabeth Tang (better known later as Han Suyin, author of the novel A Many Splendoured Thing). It ws thought he was drunk and might cause trouble, so Elizabeth asked me to go and Œdo something).
In fact, far from being drunk he was in a mixture of distress and bad temper - a mood I became very familiar with later on. It seems his girl-friend had dumped him that evening at the party, and he was taking it out on the bathroom floor.and an unfortunate clergyman who had offered to help him. He was by now calmer, we chatted, and he finally drove me home to the University on the back of his motorbike.
At that time, in colonial Hong Kong, it was considered infra dig for an Englishman to get about Hong Kong on a motorbike, so you can imagine that for an English woman to ride pillion was downright scandalous. RB - from a a feet-on-the-ground Lancashire background - had not taken HK social norms into account when deciding to buy a boat rather than a car. After that, he
could only afford the motorbike. Well, I was a Lancastrian too, and not even aware till very much later how having Chinese friends and riding on a motorbike.made me increasingly "not one of us".
RB and I became firm friends and many of my students, incuding Tseng Yu, had enjoyable days out on his boa.t. This was how RB - and later his friend Don - became part of the circle around Huang YunYu.
A SNATCH OF CONVERSATION
Tseng Yu talking about RB: "Mr. RB is very nice but, I can't explain it - there is something missing.. ...., mmm......he has no fantasy. Mr Huang has, you have, and I have....but not at all Mr. RB." I think for a moment then say to TY that he has more than anyone. This pleases him immensely. He laughs and says "It is a big lack in Mr. RB," then adds joyfully, "especially if you are thinking of marrying him."
Huang Yun Yu's Miao Woodcuts
This woodcut of a Miao girl riding along merrily on horseback is one of a series which I bought at Huang Yun Yu¹s first Hong Kong exhibition in January 1951.
Miao Girl Dancing
Dear Brother Yu, 20 May 1952
Here is the letter from Huang Yun Yu to Tseng Yu, which I have kept safely in my archives for over 50 years. The translation is by Xu Liying, a very good friend of mine, now living in Shanghai.
Dear Brother Yu (translated)
Dear Brother Yu,
I was told that you are busy with your exams and we missed you very much and talked about you everyday as you have not been here for some time now.
I did a many paintings and carving and hope that you can come and see.
There are few more days before the exhibition, I am preparing to send the invitation out and please go to Mather and asked her to print out the name list of her friends and bring it to me within two days. I am working on this big oil painting right now (it was smaller than the last one, but is much better than the last one), so I don't have time to visit you.
Looking forward seeing you.
Wang Yuan Yu
2nd Floor 120 Kenndy Road, Hong Kong
The Greek Nose
I ask Huang Yun Yu and Tseng Yu to dinner to meet some friends who I hope will be interested in buying pictures at Mr Huang¹s next exhibition. When Tseng Yu comes to confirm the date, he says with great self-satisfaction, "I have told him to have his supper first because you always give such bad food".
However, as it turns out, everyone including TY and HYY seem happy enough with the meal (colonial English style as interpreted by my lovely amah, Ah Yau) and afterwards Yun Yu entertains us by doing cartoon drawings of us all (see later postings). My picture causes great hilarity. Yun Yu says I have a Greek nose, so he¹s made me look like a Greek Needless to say, I was NOT wearing either ear-rings or a pearl necklace he says he has added these for effect! Cherry (a university colleague) says it is quite clear from the picture that I have just been marking exam papers and giving the students a bad time! We end up with much laughter and mutual compliments. Yun Yu says it has been a great evening in which the most intelligent man in Hong Kong (himself) has enjoyed the company of the most interesting woman (myself).
Visiting Kwan Ho Ki
Before moving on from Paris to Rome, Tseng Yu came to London and we visited our good friend - a former Hong Kong University student - Kwan HoKi and his wife. I was now working for The Marconi Company and had just acquired this 1932 Sunbeam Talbot sports car. We are seen here in Hyde Park - but who on earth took this photo?
Peasant Spinning - by Tseng Yu
The Blogger Blushes
This unfinished study of a corner of Tseng Yu's room in Paris comes with deep blushes from the blogger: not about this blog but about the gaffe in the blog below! My Paris Room was NOT sold at the one-man exhibition – only the oil painting ! Worse follows in previous blogs: none of them are about MY Paris bedsit or MY landlady; I was quoting from the letters of Tseng Yu, as of course you, dear sensible reader, would possibly have realised.
