 exciting to be here, and I'm connecting you with a conversation about Hong Kong from a voice from the past. I mean, when I say that because there are memories. Hold on there. Let me introduce you properly. I'm so honored to have a retired governor, Neil Abercomie here with me because governor used to be in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, and has stories about that. Now I am not going to preempt anything. I just want Abercomie to come in and share the reasons and how you got to Hong Kong, what it was like during that time, how you broke boundaries in that era in the late 60s, early 70s, and giving us context to a world that many of us don't know because this old Hong Kong is gone and it's been exoticized. And if you don't mind me saying kind of eroticized by images of like the world of Suzy Wong, if that is anyone's context to it. So again, Governor Neil, welcome to our show and so excited to hear your stories about how you ended up in Hong Kong and what you were doing there. Thank you because yes, I got to Hong Kong just about the time you were about five years old. Well, thanks for, you know, but yeah, about 69, 70, right? So as a little child, and by that time, I was just ending up my third year of traveling around the world, backpacking around the world with my buddy and lifelong pal and the best travel companion ever, Pakhe Zane, Andy Zane Pakhe. So because everybody knows your legacy as governor, working with, you know, the politics for many, many years and even at UH, getting your master's in sociology and sociology in 64. Then I was a probation officer for three years in California and Marin County, San Quentin prison. Then back to Hawaii, back to Hawaii to team up with Pakhe Zane and we set off to go across the United States to the march on the Pentagon and the commission on violence in America and New York and then on to Europe for six months. Was your purpose to just do the whole youthful exploration or was it a political motive because you were already into politics then to end up doing these groundbreaking events? It was a combination, obviously. It's difficult for people now who have not experienced the Vietnam War. I mean, for example, the war, one of the principal war we're focusing on at the moment is Ukraine and we're all four, three cheers. Let's back them up. But in the 60s, what it was was the Vietnam War that we were all opposed to and working every day to try and end as well as the civil rights movement. Just yesterday, Martin Luther King's speech, Martin Luther King gave a speech in Washington and that was celebrated if you will, just yesterday. And in remembrance, that his son was speaking at the Washington Monument at the Lincoln Memorial. So that was the era. I mean, politics wherever. And there was a draft. That meant when you were 18 years old, you were likely to be drafted to go over and fight in Vietnam. So the immediacy of political activity was there in a very visceral way, seven days and nights a week at that time. So were you not of age to be drafted at that time? Or is it because you were in the university? Because I was in my 30s by that time. Okay. Also, you went to Hong Kong when you were in your 30s. Oh, yes. And that's one that was also one of the motivating factors in us leaving was that if we were going to do it, we wanted to see the rest of the world, if we wanted to see if the ferment we saw going on in Hawaii and the ferment political ferment we saw going on across the United States was actually a phenomenon that was was coursing across the world. We wanted to see it. We wanted to be a part of it. We wanted to to to not just observe it, but participate in it. So we thought we didn't go now. When when could we and it may seem again, there's a bit of a surreal element to this, because we didn't have a lot of money. We we backpack. I mean, we got we got our motorcycle boots. We got our our our Levi's. Um, I I literally lived out of a backpack for three and a half years. And believe me, I know how to I'm sure your hair was down to your knees. Well, that's the other thing what we decided on one of the things we decided. Um, uh, uh, I decided that I decided that we would we would grow our hair and grow our beards and not not shave or cut our hair until we got around the world. No, I did it in three and a half years. Okay. It took 11 years to get back home. Okay. Well, you know what? This is that's another story, because I want to get together to have a visual storytelling for our next show. How about that? But can we need to get in? Yeah, we'll get in. We'll get back and we'll get together. And I would love that. Let's do that with the whole crystal among other things. He's an ace photographer. Okay, great. He's a wonderful photographer. So we'll do that. We'll do a story journal next time. But today with a limited time, let's come back to Hong Kong because I'm here now. And let me just give everybody a little backdrop of Wan Chai in Hong Kong. So again, I mentioned earlier that Susie Wong was the only marker of this place and era, which is kind of unfortunate because it just really hyper sexualized the the image of Hong Kong and that all the women were prostitutes. It was an impoverished place that was kind of saved by these white saviors, if you will, who came over like in the movie who came over and just kind of was enamored by this idea of the orient at the time. Now, when you came over, let's talk about that. What was your first impression of Hong Kong and how did you end up in Wan Chai, which all the brothels, kind of the nightclubs and girly bars, which they still are today. I wanted to tell you, you still have some bars, but it's become a trendy place for young people. They have this thing called Wan Chai Wednesdays now here, where all the young clubbers used to go to Lang Kui Fong will go on Wednesdays to go for cheap drinks in Wan Chai. So it's still a thriving bar hopping kind of an area, but it doesn't. I mean, some of the like little girly bars are still there, but not to the extent of when you went in it. So that's right. Lighten us. What was it like? What was your first impression? Believe me. Believe me. I wish I was I don't know. So I wish I could say otherwise. I actually don't. But I was an observer when I was there. I was I was a participant observer. Let me put it there. More, more correctly. I was an observer participant and I'll tell you why I said that and how I got there and why that is the right description. Please. In the midst, as part of this trick around track track track, yeah, there were some tricks all right about it, but this track around the world, Europe to Africa and including seeing our good friend Barack Obama senior, whom we went to school with and at the University of Hawaii in 1959 and 60 and on then to India and in India we decide I decided I was going to continue on through Asia and and back to Hawaii because I was I was going to start my PhD at the University of Hawaii in the fall of 1970 and a pocket decided once we got to Calcutta that he was not ready to come home yet. So he backtracked from Calcutta back through Afghanistan, Pakistan and so on back to Europe and became a very prominent participant in the in the fast lane life of Amsterdam for many years before he came before he came back to Hawaii and and began Antiques Alley over on Queen Street. Go over there, see, everything is there. He knows everything about it from his worldwide trip. So I went from Hong Kong, excuse me, from Calcutta then to Hong Kong, Tokyo and and then back to Hawaii. The reason was Asia part yourself. You were traveling by yourself at that time at the time I left Calcutta by myself. Okay, for the first time in three years and very reluctantly believe me. But looking forward to getting back to UH and that fall of 70 and the fall of 70. Now, the reason we're able to do it crystal because here I'm telling you, if we backpacked around the world three and a half years, how could you do that? Well, you know, were you rich? You know, have we stolen money? Yeah, it was it I simply saved money. I did it for about four thousand dollars, four or five thousand dollars. The whole three years. The whole year because in those days, in those days, you literally could go to Europe, for example, there was a book by Arthur Frammer called Europe on Five Dollars a Day and we did it. We we actually slept in the sixties. So, give or take. I don't know what that is today. You could do it. Oh, today it's Europe on fifty dollars or five hundred dollars a day. I guess. I don't know. Well, you can still do cheap. So, let me tell you. I want to explain. I want to explain something about it on the road also. It wasn't just us. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of people on the road. Everybody read on the road, Jack, Jarowak and so on. There was thousands of people backpacking, thousands of people staying in youth hostels, thousands of people staying in pensions all around the world and all communicating with one another. Letting you know, there's no emails, there's no messages, there's no iPhones, there's nothing. It's all word of mouth and and and underground newspapers and and people you met on the road who told you where to go, who to see when you when you get to Berlin, here's what you do when you get and so on and so forth. That's who you see. It was fabulous. It it it people people were good to one another. Women, there were thousands of women on the road just like there were thousands of guys on the road. Oh, really? I always thought it was going to be mostly male dominated. No, no, no. It didn't work that way. You can say anything people can say all they want about so so called hippies and and flower children and so on but but the the ethos attached to that the the values attached to that it pervaded the people who were traveling on the road. I suppose there were some some people who were you know sociopathic or something that are out there. I suppose you can find stories of of of people who were assaulted or something like that but believe me it was rare. The we met and of course part of the other thing was this. We were from Hawaii. We were from Hawaii. Here's this. Here's Eric the red my beard. You know, I think we we we made a vow not to cut our hair or shave our beards. So, of course, he's got a full man shoe beard because he could grow up for a hundred years and that's only a little strangly beard but he had the most magnificent beautiful black air cascading down his back. We need these photos. We need these photos so don't waste it. We're going to do that. In 1962, 1962, I had gone to Lahina. I'm just speaking of Lahina now. I just broke my heart to hear. I went to Lahina for the first uh uh Wailing Days contest. They had the Wailing Days in Lahina. I slept under the under the uh the the bandion tree and was was rocking in a in a chair on the porch of the pioneer in. I won the captain's beard contest and that's great. That's great. So, my beard was my beard was like down to here and my hair was I still had I had hair on the top of my head. My hair was grown but and it was red. Red is brown. So, I look like Eric the red, you know, like the Viking and and we look we look like Genghis Khan and so the two of us walking along they're thinking who the hell are these two guys together. So, wait. Okay. Sorry. So, okay. So then uh we we were telling them from we're from Hawaii and it was magic. It's magic. You know yourself even in Honka. You say you're from Hawaii. Everybody wants to talk. Yeah. Everybody's got a story to tell. Every just being from Hawaii was automatic entree to meet everybody to talk with everybody to be invited everywhere and so when I left uh when I met people in India uh one of the women that I met uh and in uh in New Delhi uh when when when I was there she had been with uh with a Buddhist non-profit in Vietnam and she said, oh are you going to go and I said, yeah, we're going to travel. I'm going to uh I want to go to Vietnam. I want to go to Cambodia. I want to go to all these places and then on back to Hawaii. She said, oh, you can stay in my place and uh in Sholan and uh in in Saigon. I got there and I've got the show on and sure enough there was the apartment. I got it. She said, and you uh you gotta go and stop and see the four guys in the four psychological operations. John Steinbeck, the author's son is there and they'll they'll love to see you, which I did and and they they of course everybody was strong. Everybody uh and and and none of the GIs who are out fighting could stay in Saigon because if they saw what was going on in Saigon, they'd have completely revolted. So everybody was strong and everybody went on an R&R. Everybody in in order to keep keep the the GIs most of our teenagers fighting, they gave everybody an R&R for rest of recreation and they all went to Hong Kong. Got it. Okay. They all went to Hong Kong. So when I got there and met all these guys, they said, oh, you're gonna go to Hong Kong. You've got to see Pearl. You've got to see all these all these English names for girlfriends and sailors and they did. They wrote one another. They had letters. They gave presents to them. I took presents. I took perfume. I took I took letters. I took money and and all in my backpack and when I got to Hong Kong then I went right to the address and that's how I got to Hong Kong. I stayed with everybody who worked on the street, who worked the hotels, who worked the clubs because I'm not half a dozen or more than that, but there was about half a dozen who took me in. So you state, wait, wait, wait, let's clarify. You stayed at the brothels. No, I stayed at the apartment of the of the sex workers of the prostitutes. Yeah, but you know I'm not trying to be dating about it. It wasn't like that. This was this was their work. This was how they were supporting their kid brothers, for example. This is how they were supporting their families. It's not like, you're right, Hong Kong was poor. Let me tell you, in those days, there was the the the tiepans, you know, there was the rich side, a commercial side, but once I and Hong Kong itself, if you were female and you weren't born into a class that was prosperous and so on, let me tell you, it was tough. But the money that came into Hong Kong then, through the GIs, because they spent everything. They didn't know whether they want to be killed when they went back. And so they literally had girlfriends. That's what I wanted to say. Yes, prostitution was there, sex working was there, but the relationships that I connected with, the women that I connected with, they were the girlfriends of these guys. No, they maybe had 27 boyfriends, you know, in rotation or something, but that's the way they thought of it. That's the way they thought of it, by the way, and that's the way the men thought about it. They were their girlfriends. There was, I never heard, I never heard a word of sarcasm or or or condescension or or crudeness from any of the GIs that I connected with, with the women that they had. It was not. But it's still worth transactional though, right? Oh yeah, of course it was. So they knew their place. They basically knew it was a short-term relationship. They wanted to both mutually enjoy each other, who are human, in a place when the world is crumbling and you want a little love. That's right. And the ones who didn't, who couldn't do that, in Saigon, there were, believe me, this isn't that written up about, as I say, I'm working on a book on this, of the GIs and I met some, they connected with Vietnamese girls. Yeah. They connected with Vietnamese and they, they, they went AWOL. And they, they went, as what people said, they went native. In Saigon, and they were all protected. And every, every GI that was there in Saigon protected all these guys. Never ratted them out, never said where they were or anything else. And let me tell you something. The, the, the authorities, one of the reasons, again, that Vietnam was such a farce and the lies got told about it are incredible. The authorities didn't search for them. They didn't want to search for them because they didn't want that coming out. And it was interesting to say that the media didn't. So anyway, that's who, that's who, that's how I got to Hong Kong. That's where I stayed. And the way I earned my key, yeah, when I, when I went to see them, I stayed, so I stayed in the apartments. Yeah. And, you know, and the girls, the girls, what would they be, you know, trying on dresses and doing makeup, helping each other, supporting like the one particular one where I stayed the most. She was, she was taking her money and she was supporting her teenage brother who wanted to be a musician. She was paying for his music lessons and all the rest with the money sharing all the way. And what I reason I said I was a an observer, participant observer is my relationship with all of the girls there was as the messenger from their boyfriends. Right. And that's kind of why you had the safety of being able to stay there and you're just a neutral character. Yeah, I was neutral and by choice too, believe me. To me it was very, it was, it was formidable. But wait, were you not attracted to any of the girls? Oh, sure. Yes, I was. Because I got to know them as human, you know, as people too. Yeah. Yes. Yes, I was. But I had long since made up my mind not to, only once was I ever in a position. It was a time in India where I thought I wonder if I want to stay here with this lady. And but no, because they were professionals after all. And so it may sound strange, I was, I was never, I was never stimulated in that sense. Okay, okay. For a pretty good reason. What they asked me almost right away, they were very polite to me and so on. Oh, Neil, you know, Jerry, he's my good friend and I'm so happy with him and so on. And I just wonder, you know, maybe you could accompany, would you like to go with me? You know, to the hotel, one of the big hotels and so on. One day and I thought, well, I said, but I don't have the clothes. You know, I didn't have my dress jeans with me, right? And so on. She said, no, no, no, that's all, that's all right. That's fine. You, I said, really, I don't know. She's good. It was the Cheongsam, you know, the I mean, gorgeous. It was a sign of the time. They're talking about, wait a minute, you know, I'm sorry. People could talk about Suzy Wong, you know, Nancy Kwan and Suzy Wong and so on. Well, let me tell you something. You got to be pretty cold-hearted or have something wrong with you if you run into Suzy Wong and you say, oh, okay, right? I mean, it's impressive. So here I am in my, my leave. I've got, I've got, I've washed my shirt, you know, I kind of brush my beard, put my hair into a ponytail and so on. And I go out and I thought, oh, my God, how the hell are we going to even let us in the place? Well, what happened? So you did go out, you did go out with the girls. Yes, almost every day. Have them in their arms and took them out. In the late afternoon, you know why? Because they couldn't get into a hotel or the big restaurants without a male escort. They had to have a male escort. And I was a male escort. So I would go into the hotel with them and, and of course they, they had their arrangements with the dwarf men and so on and so forth. But I could, I went and when I went in, I escorted them into the bar or into the lounge or whatever. Wasn't that I left? Because they were making their resignations and so on at that time. Right? So during the day, during the day, they took us over. Oh God, I ate. I would get the fairies over to. What is it? Lantau? What's the island? Yeah. Yeah. Lantau or Lama. There's several. Yeah. And all for the restaurant. So you had, you enjoyed the flavors of local food and all the local little side alleys and the fairies and all the stuff that was wonderful in that time. I could go there. I was the only holiday. I, everyone was the only GIs. You know, clearly on our. You're the only non-GIs. I was the only Holly because I was with the ladies knew everybody. They knew everybody there. And where they, wherever we went, it was, oh, hey, you know, this thing. And, you know, I was obviously the GIs contact for them. So I think we went everywhere, including the clubs at night. Oh, come on. I don't know what they're doing. So you're talking still Wanchai. You're still talking the Wanchai district or were there clubs in different areas? No, no, no. We went during the day, we could go different places, you know, because during the day, they didn't dress up. But do you think people, if you were not what, if you're not Holly, you're not a white guy, they wouldn't have treated you the same way? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. This was strictly because I was Jerry's a friend or I was Roy's friend or I was John's friend. And I was their connection back to them. And they were happy. They were happy that they were remembered. You know, that it was, I know it's hard to try to get across. Everybody has their dignity. Everybody, everybody, it was not nice to post people to say, no, no, you're seeing what you want to see. You don't want to see the degradation and all the rest of it. But that's not the way they look at. And I'll tell you, it's not the way the GIs looked at. Well, tell me this, because we only have a couple minutes left. Oh, sorry. You could give an impression, just to paint a picture of something that was etched in your mind of that era. Just present us with an image. Oh, of course, China was ours on my mind. We had tried to get into China from Egypt, for example. We tried to get a visa. Everywhere we want, we try to get a visa to go into China. And we never could get, never could get, never could get it. And when it got to Hong Kong, we went up to the border. We had took day trips, you know, up to the border and so on all around. And, of course, you're dealing with Mao Zedong, you're dealing with the Red Guards, you're dealing with all this kind of context that's disappeared out of people's consciousness now. And I thought to myself at the time, of course, I met the British police, who ran Hong Kong, because they would go to these countries. It's a colonial, very colonial place. Oh, you know, there were a club where it was kind of an unwritten, you've probably heard of this. It was unwritten that white men and women and Hong Kong folks could go to the clubs and they were listening to Aretha Franklin or whatever it was and dancing and so on and so forth. And then when they left the club, you know, then it was back to the division. It's called the Kai-Tek Agreement where actually a lot of expats would go over to a lot of Southeast Asian places and bring girls or go with, but it was the mum's the word, it was coded, you know, it was Kai-Tek Agreement. You're exactly, I didn't remember the phrase, but you're exactly right. And of course, I got into it, people, because I was, because I would come in with these gorgeous women, right? And I said, who the hell is this guy? Because I didn't have a suit, I didn't have a tie. I obviously wasn't one of the cops. I didn't say they were corrupt, so let me put it this way. Everybody had a kind of understanding, right? And as long as the girls weren't hustling in the club and so on, then I met police lieutenants and colonels and, you know. Neil, this is the brilliant thing about your position, kind of like occupying this liminal space. You were like, you want a GI, you weren't a local boy, or you weren't an Asian female who was susceptible to a certain type of work because of the opportunities at the time, but I want to say that you brought us pictures and portraits of a time that we really often don't get to hear. So really, really appreciate this. And it was very limited. It was very limited because it was limited, literally, to the Vietnam War. Right. And that ended, it all ended. No. It's so complicated during that time that you just, you were there at an era that was so significant and complex and safe and dangerous at the same time. And I just love that you had that freedom and the free spirit to do this. And I, you broke boundaries back then, and you're still breaking boundaries, being a region of the ULH system right now. I'm sorry, we don't have any more time, but we're going to do this again. Please, come back and talk, okay? We'll get Andy's name, we'll get Pakeh's name, we can get Pakeh's name, we'll do that, okay? Thank you so much for your sharing. You're the best, Crystal. Thank you very much. Aloha. Aloha. Ché Ché.