This was my conclusion when at last we were back again in the modern age on the American ship Silver State bound for Hong Kong; we had comfort, hot water, baths, heard the softness of the little chimes as the steward went through the corridors announcing meals. It was almost with a sense of awe that I asked for any service. After being some time in the Orient you were a bit embarrassed by having an American wait on you. Soon, however, the plumbers, the carpenters, the painters who kept the vessel trim, the sailors who swabbed down the decks at night, gave me a feeling that in the Western countries we had gone far towards dignifying manual labor.
Chapter Twenty-eight
THE WORLD IS MUCH THE SAME EVERYWHERE
A favorite sales promotion method of astrologers is to send partial readings to people whose names appear in the papers, in the hope of piquing their curiosity to the point of demanding fuller details regarding their future lives and conduct. From time to time I used to receive these and paid no attention. But just before I had sailed from California a friend of birth control had sent me one based upon arrests and prison. This forecast told me I would have a great deal of difficulty in starting, and that on a certain day in May the same signs would prevail over my House as at the Town Hall Meeting—that I should, therefore, be prepared for police interference.
While packing in Shanghai I was looking through my briefcase and happened to note that the date was one on which the Silver State would still be at sea; she was not due at Hong Kong until the next day. I laughed to myself and said, “Here’s where I prove it wrong.” As it turned out, however, the ship was ahead of her schedule and arrived in Hong Kong twelve hours early.
We were steaming up the long reach towards the Kowloon piers when, to my utter surprise, the immigration officer who had come on board handed me a notice instructing me to visit the Chief of Police.
“Is this a special invitation for me, or is everybody included?”
“Only for you, Madam,” was the smiling response.
The harbor was crowded with junks and fishing boats. Children in sampans were holding out nets for whatever might come overside, fishing up each bit of refuse from the water. Adjoining ships were being coaled by women coolies, hundreds of them, their faces strained and bodies stringy as though made up entirely of tendons. They carried their two baskets on bamboo poles across their shoulders, and clambered like ants in their bare feet over the barges—not singing as the men coolies of the North, but making much wallah-wallah—jabbering and shouting.
After settling Grant in a hotel I took a chair from around the corner, because police headquarters was part way up the Peak, and rickshas could not negotiate the steep ascent. The Chief was not there. I inquired whether anything were wrong with my passport. Since my British visa was perfectly correct, they said there must be some mistake; they had no information about any summons. I left my card.
The next day the Chief called at my hotel but we missed each other because I was out with Grant ordering his first pair of long trousers. When I returned I found a calling card and another request to come to headquarters that afternoon. Again I obeyed, and again I found no Chief and no message for me. I left another card and the officials whom I had seen before laughingly reiterated they still knew of no complaints.