Remembering Hong Kong journalist Peter Moss, champion of the Lap Sap Chung campaign
- Indian-born Moss, who died recently in Manila aged 83, called Hong Kong home for more than four decades
- The best years of his life were spent in Malaya, however
Fluidity of identity – “the art of being many people in one” – was something that journalist Peter Moss, who died recently in Manila, in the Philippines, aged 83, richly embodied in his life and work. Hong Kong was his home for more than 40 years, and he wrote about the place extensively in various memoirs and popular histories, yet he never really settled here.
Of Anglo-Indian descent, Moss was born in Allahabad and educated in Calcutta (now Kolkata) before moving to England in 1946, aged 11, the year before Indian independence. Cold, foreign England was never home and after a few years as a junior reporter on regional dailies, as well as National Service, he travelled overland from London to Calcutta aged 22.
Job opportunities there were limited, so he journeyed onwards, arriving by ship in Penang a few days after Malayan independence, in 1957. The next eight years – “the best years of my life” – were spent with the Malay Mail, based in Kuala Lumpur.
When the Malayan Emergency officially ended, in 1960, Robert Thompson, who as the country’s defence secretary held significant sway over the media, recruited Moss to write a series of roving reports for the Malay Mail. Over the next four years, this assignment gave him an opportunity to travel throughout Malaya – “mostly driving alone in my Triumph Spider sports car” – producing whatever stories interested him, and was an early introduction to the subtle art of information gathering.
A sociable, easy-going manner meant he mixed freely with all kinds of people; to the end of his life, Moss enjoyed an extraordinarily wide circle of friends of all genders and ethnicities.
Difficulties with work-permit renewals – “I’d never have left otherwise” – eventually made it impossible for him to remain in Malaysia. In 1965, he applied for a job with Hong Kong’s Government Information Services (GIS). In those years, Hong Kong was a nearby, next-best alternative for numerous ex-Malayans such as Moss who – “somewhat reluctantly” – moved to the last remaining British colony to continue (or re-establish) their earlier careers.
Over the next three decades, Moss was mainly responsible for producing public information campaigns; the most memorable of these was the Lap Sap Chung anti-littering effort, first launched in 1972, with a jolly green rubbish-eating mascot that has become a much-loved part of local folklore.
During the 1967 communist-fomented riots, Moss was based at Sek Kong, in the New Territories, where he coordinated the PolMil (combined police-military) public relations response to dramatic events elsewhere in Hong Kong. On one memorable occasion, he was landed by helicopter on the roof of a building in North Point used for manufacturing improvised explosive devices to take photographs.
A deep-seated detestation for the inner workings of the communist mindset, first honed in Malaya and further hardened in 1967, remained throughout his life, and closely informed his later work with the GIS in terms of countering unproductive anti-government activities and sentiments.
Natural charm greatly enabled this work – “it was all about getting information by giving it out” – and contributed to his being honoured with an MBE in 1994.
Moss’ childhood in India, and young adulthood in Malaya, remained an essential component of his identity. After some years of active “retirement” in Ma Wan, he returned permanently to Malaysia in 2010, and divided his time between his home near Kuala Selangor, friends in the Philippines and annual visits to Hong Kong. In a partial return to his Indian roots, his ashes will be scattered at his grandmother’s grave in Tollygunge Cemetery, in Kolkata, later this year.
