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Martin's
Huckleberry Finnish adventures began with a whiff of opium inhaled
on a balcony overlooking a rickshaw taxi stand on the family's first
night in Mong Kok, a seedy neighborhood of sailors, bar girls and
cheap restaurants. Martin's blond hair was his ticket to enter the
bowels of Mong Kok - which he did on his first night while his amah
was occupied. Stroking yellow hair was thought to bring good fortune
to the stroker (as well as irritation to the strokee). Before the
end of the book, Martin had everyone from a leper to the Governor
of Hong Kong pat his head. Seeing Mr. Booth's photo in later life,
one has to wonder if this near-constant stroking contributed to
his baldness.
His sponge-like ability to soak up the tonal language surprised
more than a few natives and shocked his father who feared his son
would "go native"- a fate worse than death. Quartered in a transient
hotel until his father (a Royal Navy supply bureaucrat) worked his
way up Victoria Peak, Martin was befriended by bellmen, coolies,
amahs and waiters who guided him through what was an Asian version
of Alice's Wonderland. In Martin's case, it was not a dream although
the characters met were just as colorful as Alice's.
Martin's father, a pompous bigot who yearned to be a "real" naval
officer instead of a chandler, looked down on all Chinese, except,
perhaps, the family's servants (who might have poisoned him). Martin's
mother Joyce took to Hong Kong like a fish escaping from a goldfish
bowl takes to a pond. While his mother swam in higher circles in
the pond, Martin explored the muddy depths, learning street Cantonese
from the many refugees escaping the then-recent Communist takeover
of China.
A comparison to Tom Sawyer is inevitable. Tom Sawyer and Martin
were cut from the same cloth of curiosity and both wore the pattern
of "rules-are-made-to-be-broken." The book also compares to the
Pulitzer Prize-winning (but fictitious) Travels of Jaimie McPheeters,
by Robert Lewis Taylor.
Martin's palate expanded as rapidly as his vocabulary and he often
drew a crowd at street stalls where he tried to eat while passersby
patted his head. The family was finally given an apartment on Victoria
Peak (which was then housing for military dependents). Martin then
learned to wheedle sodas from American servicemen who were on leave
from Korea.
His mother's charitable day trips (one to an island leper colony)
are remembered in great detail, as well as an earthquake, a typhoon
and Martin's attendance at the elaborate 1953 bicultural Coronation
celebration of Queen Elizabeth.
His explorations brought him to places the police avoided and while
Martin wasn't the first boy to explore old battlefields hoping to
find relics, his prodding for spent ammunition one day unearthed
a gruesome relic from the Japanese invasion.
Sadly, the book ends with the reader knowing there is never to be
a sequel. One is now curious as to his mother, who is mentioned
in the dedication as being "an old China hand" - a honorific that
is hard-earned. Booth did write several novels based on stories
within Golden Boy and his nonfiction book on Opium is considered
to be the definitive on that subject.
Other than his father's unpleasantness, the book is a fascinating
and extremely humorous look at bicultural foibles and faux-pas in
a place far away from boring old England (as it was described by
the author).
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