Chasing the Dragon (15 page)

When I discovered what that job was, I found myself unable to praise God for it at all. He was employed by one of the dens as a
tin-man-toi
(weatherman). Each night from midnight until 8
A.M.
, he sat in the street of the illegal dentists guarding one of the entrances to the Walled City. In his cigarette pack was concealed an electric plug. Should he spot a police raiding party, narcotics bureau spy or an alien Triad, his duty was to fix the plug into a socket built into the crude wall. This set off an
alarm bell in the various vice and drug dens so that by the time any intruder approached, business had stopped and they were ready to repel invaders.

For these labors, Ah Mo was paid HK $15 a day—enough for his heroin requirement, but not enough for rice.

Each day, I found Ah Mo and took him a little food. I had learned my lesson about not giving money. He slept in an alley behind the Kowloon City public lavatory, paying HK $15 a month for this privilege to another street sleeper who was the self-appointed “king” of the street. Most days I sat and prayed with him, although he was usually half asleep when I left my offering in a plastic bag.

I was thankful that the drug den watching did not continue for long. I could not justify it morally, nor could I suggest an alternative. Ah Mo eventually went to the center, came off drugs and, in one month, gained 20 pounds in weight. One more dragon bit the dust.

I continued to send messages to Goko after Winson’s miraculous cure. I wrote notes, sending them with various
sai lo
; I called in at gambling dens and left my name; I spoke to the look-out man outside Goko’s favorite opium den; I talked to his wife. Eventually he agreed to see me—as the accumulation of messages suggested that I had an important matter to discuss.

Winson was dispatched with an invitation inviting me to tea at the Fairy Restaurant outside the city. It was a Chinese cafe selling Western food and usually out of my price range. As I made my way past the street letter-writers ponderously scribing their missives, I wondered what Goko would be like. I knew that he was tall and big and had been a great football player before his deterioration through opium. I had heard how he lay all day in his own den while his younger brothers fed him with opium. This dependence was in sharp contrast with the power he wielded and the dread his name inspired. He had carefully brainwashed his followers: Heroin was forbidden, but opium was merely the continuation of an old social custom no more harmful than drinking brandy after a meal. He was an older
Triad boss and prided himself on keeping the rules, such as being responsible for the funeral arrangements of a murdered gang member and assuming financial care for his dependants.

Goko recognized me first, as I was the only Westerner to enter the restaurant. He was in his mid-30s, respectably dressed, sitting alone. He courteously gestured to me to sit down. Looking him fully in the face for the first time, I could see that the opium had drawn lines of dissipation on his strong features. He seemed to have shrunk within his large frame like an old man. He smiled at me and showed teeth rotted and stained with fumes from his opium pipe. While I was with him, he smoked cigarettes continuously, puffing and inhaling too frequently.

Politely, the ruthless leader of corruption asked me what I would like to order. I drank coffee, he drank Horlicks, and we shared pineapple buns.

We carried on conversation-class pleasantries until I blurted, “I wish you wouldn’t be so polite; please, let’s stop pretending. You and I have nothing in common. Why are you being so kind to me?”

Goko paused. “I believe you care about my brothers like I do.” He was not using idle words; he was famous for the care he took of his followers.

“Yes, I do care about them,” I agreed, “but you and I can have no union. I hate everything you stand for, and I hate what you do.”

It was strange, but now (as in future meetings), the more bluntly I spoke the more Goko responded. He dropped the polite frills and began to speak straight.

“Poon Siu Jeh, you and I both understand power. I use this way,” he clenched his fist, “and you use this way,” he pointed to his heart. “You have a power that I don’t have. If my brothers get hooked on drugs, I have them beaten up. I don’t want them on heroin, and I’ve found I can’t make them quit. But I’ve watched you. And I believe Jesus can.” He paused to light a cigarette while I marveled at the significance of what he had said.

“So,” he continued, “I’ve decided to give the addicts to you.”

“No,” I replied quickly, “you can’t do that. I know what you want to do. You want Jesus to get them off drugs, and then you want them back to work to fight for you. But Christians can’t serve two bosses; they have to follow either Christ or you. I believe you love your brothers, but you and I are walking different paths and can have no meeting point. I have no intention of helping your brothers off drugs only for you to take them back. They will certainly go back to heroin if they follow you.”

Goko stared down at the tablecloth covered with crumbs from the pineapple buns. He looked up slowly.

“All right, then. I give up my right to those who want to follow Jesus.”

I could hardly take in what he had said. The Triads never released their members; once you became a Triad, you remained a Triad for life. Even the Hong Kong law courts accepted that Triad membership was binding forever. To try to leave was to invite savage punishment or even death. There were stories of rebellious members who had their cheeks raked or were quietly stabbed one unsuspecting night. Yet here was Goko volunteering to hand over some of his brothers. Never before had I heard of such an offer … he interrupted my thoughts: “I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll give you all my rotten brothers and I’ll keep all the good ones for myself.”

“Fine,” I said. “Jesus came for the rotten ones anyhow.”

So that was our strange pact, and from that time onward, Goko sent me addicts to cure. When he heard what happened to Johnny, he said, “I’m watching. If he lasts five years, I will have to believe for myself.

9

GROWING PAINS

W
inson was in difficulties. He came to me full of excitement. “Poon Siu Jeh, I have to praise the Lord,” he said. “I was in the opium den last night and someone invited me to have some free opium. I did want to, but I prayed and God gave me strength, so I did not take it. Instead I knelt down and sang songs about Jesus for everyone to hear.”

I was furious with him. “That’s not ‘praise the Lord,’ Winson; it is tempting Him. It’s not clever of you to ask for protection in a drug den—you shouldn’t be there in the first place.”

The problem was not easily resolved. I found out that Winson had no other place to sleep. At the time he was converted and freed from his drug addiction, he was living in this opium den, which was a favorite haunt of his 14K brothers.

I had told him to leave his gang and follow Jesus, but it was the same in practical terms as patting him on the back with a “Go, I wish you well; keep yourself warm and well fed”
¹
and doing nothing about his physical needs. Although they had become Christians, both Winson and Ah Ping were still involved with the Triads by the very fact of living in the Walled City. They faced a dilemma when a brother was attacked. Their instinct was to defend him, as they had been raised in an atmosphere where loyalty to a brother excused violence to the point of murder. It was very hard for them to turn away from those they had grown up with and cared for. I also felt that even if they themselves no longer took an active part in crime, their very presence gave tacit approval to Triad affairs.

Ah Ming likewise encountered difficulties. “Before I became a Christian, I was well-known for my command. If I said, ‘go,’ my followers went; if I said, ‘stab,’ they would stab. I didn’t have to think at all; I was without pity.”

He reminded me of the centurion Jesus had met. “But now,” Ah Ming continued, “when they come to me with grievances, I have to stop and think. I can’t tell them to fight, because I’m a Christian. For the first time in my life, I consider the feelings of attacked victims. When my brothers see me hesitate, they lose respect for me, and this hurts me.” Behind his fear of losing face, he was growing a conscience, a sensation alien in the Triad world.

As I walked around the Walled City, I kept on running into ex-addicts and Triads who had expressed a serious desire to change. Clearly they had to be removed from their evil environment, but like Winson, they had no other place to live. They could not survive the constant temptations with their meager spiritual knowledge. So I hunted for homes and Christian hostels only to find that all of them were for the respectable Chinese—tenants were required to have a job or to attend school, two pastoral references, a month’s rent in advance, plus a deposit. Since none of the just-converted gangsters I knew had any one of these qualifications, they were effectively excluded.

To every Westerner I knew, I had at some time or another attempted to have one of my boys live in that person’s house. (Chinese families never had any extra room, having enough problems housing their own relations.) Yet this was not satisfactory in Winson’s case, as he needed more watching and discipline than an English family could give. Besides, most people found it a strain after a while having a gangster, albeit a converted one, living in the
amah’s
room.

Mary Taylor burst into tears when she first saw our flat in Lung Kong Road. True, the walls were crumbling, there was a hole in the roof, we only had night soil buckets in lieu of a lavatory, and there was no electricity, but in my opinion it was a godsend. I really could not see why my old school friend was so
upset, because we had prayed about getting a place into which I could shepherd my sheep. As far as I was concerned, this was it.

I found my flat when enquiring at a street stall just outside the Walled City whether there were any apartments available in the vicinity. A very well-dressed lady who was shopping there took me straight away to this derelict place. By Chinese standards it was enormous, having more than 900 square feet inside, and stairs leading up to a roof, which had been partly covered with corrugated iron to make an extra room. She offered it to me at a very reasonable rent, saying that she had kept it vacant for a year, waiting for Christians to occupy it. She herself was a Buddhist.

I was so excited when I saw it that I could only see the possibilities. Mary, being more pragmatic, could only see its drawbacks; she may have been right, for it needed an incredible amount of work to make it habitable. Walled City boys helped in the renovation by lending their skills and non-skills. It is doubtful if this method was really cheaper than employing professionals, as they were keen on soft drinks and meal breaks in exchange for their services.

On the principle that work is done more quickly if one is on the spot, Mary and I moved in amongst a heap of rubble, no lights and a dubious water system, camping in one room while partitions came down and ceilings went up around us. Our greatest asset was the roof garden—once we had exchanged the heaps of old bicycle frames and bedsteads for begonias, cacti and climbing vines. These were carefully arranged so that we would not be overlooked by the Mahjong School opposite us, which catered to off-duty policemen who were very amused to see us sunbathing.

I needed to decide whether to share my house with girls or boys, since so many of each were homeless. If I took boys into my home—which I thought rather unsuitable in my single state—it would necessarily rule out the girls, as I could not mix them. But the decision was made for me when Ah Ping and Ah Keung had to leave the temporary home I had found for them
and had nowhere else to go except back into the Walled City or Lung Kong Road.

Our new family was then joined by Joseph, the original Youth Club president. Winson left his den for us, and we arranged for Ah Ming to live with friends. We were forming a Christian community and helping the boys to grow up in Christ. I felt how nice and neat it was with this one here and that one there.

However, I still had much to learn. I did far too many jobs. I cooked for the boys, fed them, clothed them, cleaned the house and got them to work or school. I was also opening the Walled City room nearly every evening and visiting vice dens and brothels whenever there was a contact. When at last I got to bed, I was frequently awakened by drug addicts ringing on the doorbell, wanting to hear about Jesus. Prostitutes rang me from police stations, detectives appeared on the doorstep seeking information, and prison or probation officers referred cases to me, as ours was one of the very few places in the colony that housed delinquent boys. I did not fancy the idea of meeting a policeman in my nightgown, so from that time I adopted the habit of sleeping in my clothes. I was always ready to dash out of the house in an emergency.

One such event occurred when a young man phoned me at 4
A.M.
to say that he had had an argument with his wife and that she had fallen out of the top bunk in their resettlement room. He had run away in panic but asked if I would please go to his home and check to see if she were dead or not.

Our flat eventually became mixed after all. Another night there was a knock on the door and when I opened it, there stood a little teenage girl holding a baby on one arm and an enormous suitcase on the other. Behind her crouched her younger brother and two little sisters. “Poon Siu Jeh,” she whispered, “we’ve come to live with you.”

I had first come to know these children some three years previously and had many dealings with them since. Their addicted father had not only harmed himself but had also caused his
family dreadful suffering. The history of the Chung family was appalling. They all lived on a double bed. There was no space for anything else in the room, since it was only the roof of someone else’s shack and had to be reached by a wooden staircase.

Their own roof was a plastic tarpaulin that sagged in the middle when it rained; every now and again they prodded it with a pole and emptied the rain into buckets to prevent it from flooding their little room. The children learned to walk on this bed; they slept on it, cooked on it, played and did their homework on it. All five of them were painfully shy, and when I went to visit the family, they turned to the wall, pretending that they were not there. There was nowhere else to hide.