I arrived in Hong Kong from the UK 40 years ago, in June 1963. My employers arranged accommodation for me in the YMCA, just two minutes walk from the Star Ferry in Kowloon, at the reasonable rate of HK$17 daily for a single room.
The South China Morning Post cost 30 cents per copy and the residents generally had a financial arrangement with the staff attendant who served the entire floor of 20 or 30 rooms. For a monthly 'gratuity' of HK$30, 'Sampan', as this genial, chubby, personage was called, would clean and tidy the rooms and deliver the Morning Post to each resident - at no extra cost.
At seven o'clock on the morning of 23rd November in that year, Sampan entered my room with an uncharacteristic, serious expression on his usually cheerful face. 'Master,' he said, 'very bad news!' The two words in extra large letters in the newspaper headline said: 'Kennedy Assassinated.'
