Henry J. Neils’
Travelogue of 1959 Great World Cruise
Henry J. Neils was a businessman from Minneapolis. He wrote a daily diary of his voyage on the 1959 Great World cruise. Presumably, the 30 faded typewritten sheets had been duplicated for distribution to his employees.
The transcribed document now forms 25 pages of the Timeline, accessible from links on the January, February, March and April 1959 month pages. This was the first special feature to be added to the Timeline as it entered its 2nd year of being on-line.
Henry's quoted text throughout the site start with this indicator: H.J.N.…
Henry J Neils’ Travelogue 27-31 March 1959
Hong Kong
H.J.N.…
Cloudy, Temperature: 70°F.
At 8.00am on this Good Friday, the Caronia entered the Hong Kong harbour. Even at this early hour the harbour was busy
with ocean vessels, freighters, war ships, junks, sampans and ferry boats carrying passengers and trucks and cars.
There was more traffic in this harbour than any other, reminding us very much of New York.
The Caronia docked in Kowloon which is on the mainland. It has very good port facilities for loading and unloading cargo vessels. It handled thirty million tons of river and ocean shipping in 1958. The Island of Hong Kong does not have these port facilities.
[Left:]
Street map of Hong Hong
H.J.N.…
The ferry service from Kowloon to Hong Kong is superb. A new truck and passenger car ferry, put into service last year,
will take approximately twenty cars (depending on size) in one load.
They shuttle back and forth twenty-four hours a day and load and unload rapidly. The run is approximately two miles and takes about fifteen minutes. You may remain in your car while on the ferry or stand at the bow from which you can view the sights of the harbour and take pictures.
Approaching Hong Kong you face a panorama of buildings standing on the steep hillside, one seeming to stand on top of the other like building blocks.
The narrow streets running up the steep slope look like trenches until you examine them closely. Then you see they are filled with teeming thousands, busy buying and selling or engaged in other activities.
H.J.N.…
The Island of Hong Kong is only eleven miles in diameter with a land area of thirty-two square miles. The highest
elevation, about 2,000 feet, is called the “Peak.” This is reached by a very good road laid out by British
engineers.
A grand view of the capital city of Victoria and other parts of the Island is had from here. Unfortunately there was a little fog in the air, which may affect the pictures taken from this vantage point.
The drive around the Island proved very interesting. You see the new section of Hong Kong called “North Point”.
Tall modern buildings, small villages in every bay, bathing beaches such as Repulse Bay, attractive residences tucked away in the hills, the fishing village of Aberdeen, with an estimated 8,500 junks and sampans.
H.J.N.…
The tide was out as we toured this section. For miles, the junks and sampans were sitting on the muddy and dirty bottom
of the bay. They are lashed together in an endless chain.
Theoretically, You could walk from one hull to another and cross the bay, but you may be intruding on someone's parlour, dining room, kitchen or bedroom in so doing. They are all in one.
The floating population (not in the sense we use the word, but actually afloat when not resting on bottom) is estimated at 120,000. They are born on these craft, grow up, live and die there, but are buried in the ground.
Plumbing is no problem as the tide moves in and takes all the sewage and rubbish with it. How so many people can live in such close quarters without getting into each others hair is a miracle. It has been explained that you can get used to almost anything if you have been doing it for thousands of years. Maybe!
H.J.N.…
The British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, with Victoria as the capital on the Island of Hong Kong, is made up of the
Island, Kowloon Peninsula, and the New Territories. The Island was ceded to the British by China in 1831.
In 1860, two square miles of the mainland was acquired. In 1898 the British leased the area known as “New Territories” for ninety-nine years. This borders on Red China about twenty miles from Kowloon.
H.J.N.…
The entire area of Hong Kong is 391 square miles. The total population is 2.8 million, most of whom are Cantonese,
South China.
It is estimated that about 10% of the population is Christian. The predominant religion is Buddhism, although you see fewer temples here than in other Asiatic countries.
H.J.N.…
Toward the end of the dry season, October through to March, there is always a water shortage. The Colony depends
entirely on rainfall for its water supply.
Even the hotels dish out water in pitchers. There's no running water in the lavatories or rooms, even though all the fixtures are there. Large reservoirs retain the rain in the wet season.
From these the water is pumped into the city mains. People are lined up at wells and taps waiting their turn to get a supply of water, and the women do all the carrying.
A five-gallon tin hangs from each end of a bamboo pole and a woman, strong, straight and resolute walks away with the load. She may even have a baby on her back for good measure.
The babies get rides even on the backs of their five and six year old brothers and sisters.
H.J.N.…
Since re-occupation from the Japanese in 1945, the Colony has grown from 700,000 to 2.8 million. Besides the new babies,
the influx was from Red China.
The people, risking their lives leaving everything behind (may not have been much), come over the border seeking freedom. They could not be kept out in spite of fines, punishment or any other measures.
Now they are squatting in the streets, on the hillsides and on top of buildings. It is impossible to imagine such a conglomeration in shelter of paper, tin, wood, palm leaves or any other material.
It presents a big problem. Government housing projects have been completed, and more are under construction, but the population multiplies so fast it is difficult to keep abreast of the problem.
H.J.N.…
New buildings are going up everywhere. They are of modern designs and reinforced concrete construction. Incidentally,
one local company is doing a good business buying up old steel ships, scrapping them and melting the steel to be rolled
into reinforcing bars.
The scaffolding used in the construction of these new buildings is built of bamboo poles, tied together with fibre rope. There are no material hoists. Sand, cement and other building materials are carried up the ramps by hod carriers.
Some of them women, using a bamboo pole over the shoulder and a basket tied to each end. This kind of work may keep a person in good muscular condition, but I would not want to be a hod carrier.
Aluminium store fronts and windows are used. I could not find the manufacturer's name, but I am sure they were not “Flour City!”
H.J.N.…
There are 5,000 factories in the Colony, employing 180,000 persons. Besides these there were hundreds of thousands of
individual proprietors carrying on their business, whatever it may be.
The tailoring business is world famous for the speed and quality of this craft. You can get a suit of clothes made to order in twenty-four hours, but it is well to allow a little more time, in case of an alteration.
H.J.N.…
The leather goods manufacturing, and especially the shoe business, is tremendous. They will take your measurements,
make a list and deliver shoes in two days. You should not wear them until they are fully dry, which is four days.
The prices for these custom built items are fantastically low compared with USA. Cheap labour and productive capacity combined with will, is the answer.
H.J.N.…
We were fortunate in meeting Judge Tam and his wife. They were dinner guests of our friend Eleanor Denny aboard ship.
He and his wife are Chinese and well educated.
We asked them many questions and were given well-informed answers. It appears that Red China could take Hong Kong any day (Where have I heard this before?) if they wanted to. This would be a big mistake!
This Colony is now Red China's outlet to the world other than Russia. It is very much more important in the rôle it is playing now than if the Reds controlled it. This is not true of Formosa or the Island of Macao, a Colony of Portugal forty miles from Hong Kong.