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ublished monthly as an organ of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong, Offìces at l5th Floor, Sutherland House, 3 Chater
hesident Bert Okuley
É'Ê,fdâ¿år4¡#+F
Road, Hong Kong.
First Vice hesident Jack Worth
Second Vice President
Martin Bishop Treasurer
Martin Bishop Secretary Ken Kashiwahara
Editor Don Ronk Photographer Hugh Van Es
Advenising Nida Cranbourne
5-237734
Cables: CORCLUB HONG
Our Cover:
he fìrst visited Hong Kong in 1949, and, in his words has been leaving Hong Kong "finally" ever since - "on the average of every four years" Because
Keith Kay refused to commit himself this time. More, lovely
Michelle's parents and brother grandparents and uncle to the two Kay children, Debbie and Warren - remain in Hong Kong. That will require some "home leaves." Keith has been dragged "upstairs' by CBS television as Bureau Chief in Paris, a decided promotion and one no colleague has been heard
to
and
Tel: 5-233003.
object to.
KONG. Address all corresto: Editor, Foreign Correspondents' Club of pondence
Viet Nam (reunified)
revisited: No smile in Saigon By Bert Okuley
Hong Kong, l5th Floor, Sutherland House, 3 Chater
Colín Hoøth and lan WíIson ol CBC do a Viet Nam stand-up in front of Viet Nam war relics
Road, Hong Kong. Advertising: Nida Cranbourne, First Floor, 30 Ice House St., Hong I{ong. Tel: 5-248482
There are few happy faces visible Saigon these days, but the city has undergone no outward physical changes since the communists took
in
OI Designed and produced .¡ by IMPRINT, r7, Thomson Road, I lth Fl., Hong Kong.
Tel:
5-271298. Prinfed by Kadett Printing Company, Hong Kong.
over 16 months ago.
"People don't trust anybody, believing they could be informers to the government," says Iarr Wilson, back
in
Hongkong after a th¡ee-week visit to Reunified Viet Nam.
Wilson was filming a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) documentary with correspondent Colin Hoath and Ottawa producer Don
Itisntt
Dixon.
thepeople
wholrinkit.
In
Hanoi, however, there
smiles beneath the pith helmets and THE status symbol is an expensive wristwatch. "They couldn't take
their eyes off Dixon's
There is a common opinion that all gins are the same. It may be true of some. But not iper. dients differences to the taste of our gin.
{i {riÞ
The actualdetails are of course a secret. But the results are not. Gordon's is the best selling gin in the world. Need we say
more?
GORDONS The in drink for generations
@trICItrTIMELL
are
digital,"
Wilson said.
the big railway yard is still in ruins.
Palace Hotel is entirely fenced in,
1975 still litter areas around the runway, and the adjacent former
foreigner is allowed past the hotel's
- At Saigon's Tan Son Nhut air- "with elbow-toelbow soldiers port, the wreckage of planes and sitting around in fìlthy conditions helicopters destroyed in May of drinking soda," Wilson said. No American military headquarters just outside the base "is just twisted grrders.
,,
taken over by a representative of
The middleclass resident of Saigon wants to get out, and the
-
going rate for getting smuggled onto a freighter from the central coast is US$5,000, in gold or American currency.
-
Communist officials say they
will move 1.5 million people out of Ho Chi Minh City and into the New Economic Zones in the countryside within the next year. "Everybodywe knew was gone," Wilson said of Saigon. "We passed
Wilson, who was UPI photo in Saigon at the height of American military involvement there and subsequently as a network cameraman, made these other
and we didn't look for them because we didn't want to cause them any
observations:
trouble."
chief
-
The Government in Hanoi is
convinced that the American wire services and television networks are government-owned and controlled "and there was no way we could convince them otherwise." - Hanoi is still 30 years behind the times, not having changed since
the French-Indochina war more than two decades âgo, while "Saigon is almost the city ìrve once
knew but sadder and drearier." - No bomb darnage existed at the places the CBC team visited around Hanoi, but at the port of Haiphong, a half-day's drive south, The Correspondent, August 1976
entrance, Across the street at the Caravelle Hotel, the old CBS offìce has been
the word we
lrvere there and
people wanted
to
if
see us we'd talk
to them. But nobody showed up
-
the British
Embassy
in
Hanoi.
Cadres and government high-rankers
now occupy the rooms once fìlled by foreign joumalists. The old Puegeot mini-taxis have all but disappeared from the wide boulevards of Saigon and Wilson said he'd "be surprised if there a¡e more than 20" remaining of the
hundreds which once
clogged
downtown streets. Because of the severe fuel shortage, foot-powered pedicabs and cyclos have proliferated.
The CBS team took a circuitous
route
to
Vietnam, travelling from
at the Majestic Hotel on the Saigon River. (The elevators still don't work properly.)
Hong Kong to Canton by train, then by air to Peking where they picked up their visæ. A Russianbuilt Chinese Airliner carried them into Hanoi (with a stop in Nanning) just two days prior to the massive earthquake which struck China. The most impressive site in Hanoi, Wilson said, was Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, a marble and
Nguyen Hue is still going strong,
Bank of China building here,
The CBC crew was accompanied
of their journey by communist cadres, except for dinner excursions from their ¡ooms during most
The Atterbea restaurant on
but Ramuncho's is shuttered, as is the L'amaral. The Viet My below old UPI bureau still bears the same
name (meaning
Vietnamese-
American) but it is now a "people's restaurant". The terrace of the Continental
granite structure half the size of the and
built by the Russians. Uncle Ho's remains are in a glassenclosed coffin flanked by a 24-hout honor guard, Wilson said. Ho died in 1969 and his remains were preserved in the sarne manner continued on page 1l 3