Word: kbgc
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...Gawler, an avuncular, semi-retired flight engineer, is navigating my journey into deep childhood, starting with the shrubbery behind Hong Kong's Kowloon Bowling Green Club (KBGC). Gawler is one of its longest-standing members. "The fa wong [gardener] had a house here and a well," he says. "All the kids used to play here, remember...
...remember. My parents were members of the KBGC in the 1970s. The gardener's house with its pitched roof and two windows and the well in front of it (a real well, with a bucket on a rope) seemed as pastoral as an illustration from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Those were halcyon days, burnished by Coppertone and spent in the amiable narcosis of beer, Bensons and too much ice cream...
...wasn't always this way. Until recently, clubs like the KBGC were the beckoning centers of daily colonial life. Karen Penlington, raised in Hong Kong and the daughter of a judge, remembers them well. "Darling! Do I have memories! I practically grew up in the Ladies' Recreation Club [LRC]. We joined in 1969, and I would go to lie in the sun and get a tan with chums. We used to have great tennis parties and get tiddly on martinis. And I had my first crush on a fella there?an Argentine...
...Another indicator is a sign at the KBGC. Instead of hectoring members to switch off their mobiles, it simply asks for phones to be put on silent mode. No Chinese will be parted from his cellular, so that one small sign tells a long story of cultural accommodation. "I mean no disrespect to the locals," says Gawler, "but they're not really as sociable as the expats. They don't get drunk and that. A lot of them come in here, pour themselves a glass of water, read the paper and go away again...
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