This time round Mac recalls time in Hong Kong & Macau…

“I made several trips by boat to Macau from Hong Kong and when I was there they had several casino boats for gambling but no elaborate casino or hotel…

There was a “noodle” priest in Hong Kong that from donations of flour from the US & Canada he had noodles made by I believe Canadian nuns in Hong Kong. It was better to give noodles to the poor in Hong Kong rather than sacks of flour as they could just dip the noodles in hot water.

On our trips to Hong Kong I volunteered to help pass out these five pounds of noodles.  Someone would canvas the poor and give them a ticket & told to appear at such a place – then I or some volunteer would give them a five pound sack in exchange.  It got to be quite the social in thing for Ambassadors wives etc to be a volunteer for this duty.

One time it was the Ambassador from New Zealand who had a small girl and the three of us did the duty. The girl had taken a Chinese name like Ming Ling which means beautiful and she would answer her Mother only if the Mother called her Ming Ling. I was doing the lifting in the hot sun and I fainted which was embarrassing as here is was this well fed Caucasian handing out these sack of noodles to these thin people !

I did this several trips until the priest (I think maybe he was Italian) invited me to go to Macau where they made the noodles. He had a motor scooter and took me all around Macau on his motorbike and to the border of China where Chinese soldiers were looking over at us. He said they sometimes fired their arms in the air to let us know they knew we were watching them through binoculars.”

The night in Macau made it look more like Las Vegas than I experienced it but maybe it has been built up since. One time getting on boat to go Macau the Chinese lady next to me got sea sick and was ill on me..we hadn’t left the harbour yet.

Macau must have changed since I was there but then the whole world has.  Hope you get a chance to enjoy the wonderful Chinese…