PrË))
EOPLE IS a little less mirth around the Yantze tables in the lower bar these days. It is not that the members have lost their taste for Yanlze, that heart-quickening Eastem form of poker, played with dice. It is that they miss Eddie Tseng, a former stalwart of the table, who is ill in hospital in Tai-
THE wonders ofnew technology
wan.
computer of Ian McCrone, a formermember ofthe FCC. He performs a little editing magic on
THERE
will never
in this region for a magazine called C'est Bor, published by FCC member C.P. Ho, are snaking down intemational telephone cables to an off-the-beaten-track home in a sparsely populated region of New Zealand.
There they run into
Tseng, board chairman of Taìwan's Central News Agency,
andFCCpresident during 1968 and again during 1984-85, was recently diagnosed - as he was about to leave on a trip to Singapore andlstanbul - to havean incurable and inoperable form of
theKMT". Not surprisingly considering his popularity, Tseng has also had streams of friends and well-
wishers, all bearing flowers. "My room is like a flower shop," he wrote.
Until
of the different
time
Without your Yantze money,
I'll miss Your whinging and groaning, The Nabis and Syme Winders, All that bitching and moaning. T hou gh p e ac eful wi t hout
you,
It's not quite the same, For you always added That nuisance value to the game.
I have no-one to kick around And call him a bloody Chink, Or he called af**ing Indian, Before I order another drink. Tseng's Yantze companions also senthim the latest score card as a memento.
22 THE CORRESPONDENT JULY
1988
Hahn ffi'onr ) with Bary Wain, managin g edito r of The Asian Wall Street Journal and Graham Jenkins, formerly of Reuters and founder of The Star. Above: McCron e (centre) with (L to R) FCC president, Derek Davies; Irmgard, wife of former BBC correspondentAnthony Lawrence; C.P. Ho, publisherof C'est Bon; freelance journalist Nancy Nash; China affairs editor of theSouth Chína Morning PostDavidChen; Anthony
Top :
Lawrence ; an d, editor-in -chief of luncheon hosted by Ho.
Te
xtile A s ia, Ka iser Sun g at a
of sold the house on Conduit Road, the currentmembers were born- we went broke. The club had hejoined in 1957. Bom in Scot- about 90 dependents, and ir was land, his family moved to New the fact that we wanted to look Zealand when he was a child. after them that we went broke. Among his toughest early assignIn 1966, McCrone was disments as a reporter was to cover patched to the Reuters head office the Korean war for Reuters and in Fleet Street, London, but he theAustralianAssociatedPress. describesitasapenance. "I was club way back before some
FCC
At the time ofjoiningthe sent there for six months, and in the 1950s, he was rhe fulfilledthattothe day," hesays.
Reuters bureau chief in Hong Back in his beloved Asia, Kong as well as the AAP man in McCrone became area news-
which became
B usiness P
RC, and
recently launched C'est Bon fnagazrne.
"He had been on to me to stringforhimfor C'est Bon and other outlets, and I decided to say
67. "I'm
yes," says McCrone,
Hong Kong, but now lives
COMMERCIAL Radio's direc-
McCrone stayed in thehot
Hahn, an ex-Reuters man who in true Hong Kong fashion decided to settle in Vancouver, Canada. His daughter Laura¡ne graces the TV screen in Hong Kong. C.P. Ho, McCrone's current Hong Kong connection, is also well known in the territory. Now a magazine publisher in his own rightas well as amemberof
spondent for AAP," he said. But
Ifnotfor your sake, Do itfor mine,
Bill Gasson, formerly a Reuters man, and There's
ÀT srM.
Lochie McDonald, who used to be the UK's Daily Mail man in
resigned. "I had two children at high school age, soI wentback to New Zealand and became staff coffe-
Just hang in there buddy, Let the life's clock tick.
RTHKinHongKong.
YOUMIND TALKNI4. IMTO TtfrS ?
LruD çucss. TAI(E À LOOK
zones in the world, and move the world editing base toAsia for the period when night fell in the west. The scheme was a great success, and was refined to produce today's structure, where the world editing centre for Reute¡s news is in Hong Kong during certain parts of the 24-hour cycle.
seatfrom 7967 to 1969, and then O dammit Eddie, Who asked you to get sick?
New Zealand Press Association in Wellington. Many will know his daughter Sally, a mainstay of
llornD
wsre
\
vantage
Suresh Sharma, was moved to write apoem to his playmate. Not intended as a work of great literary achievement, but as a simple expression offeelings it read, in part:
FCC
Another Yantze player,
\\
coincided with a major departure lrom the then current practice for Reuters. It was decided that the organisation should take ad-
Tseng
I never thought
member Vicky Liu visited Tseng and Betty recently. She says he is under chemotherapy and not allowed visitors, but she was told by Betty that he was responding well to treatmentand has begun to regain the weight he lostrecently.
H0I^/D0 YOU KNO!/?
manager for Singapore. This stint
McCrone, whom you may have glimpsed in the club recently, was a mainstay of the
and an oxygen bottle. "I silently laughed when I compared myself to a monkey on the leash of a
herbal medicines, many of which are said to help cancer sufferers.
honourable one possible: the coffers were emptied to give decentas-possible payoffs to redundant staff. "When they (the landlord)
says nearest city is
phones, it's really very simple."
I can't afford to dine.
As well as all that science can offe¡ Tseng and his wife Betty are studying Chinese
Kong.
the office, but with computers a¡rd
recently he was "leashed" to his bed with tubes
music man," he wrote.
since strayed. And the reason the
club went broke was the most
puterandtheonein the office are compatible - that's the secret. It may seem like a long way from
He wrote recently to a num-
secretarygeneral's wife, the governor of the central bank and what he describes as "other bigwigs from
Them,andZapl - off they go down
McCrone. "The
his 70s, is in fine spirits, and visitors report that he is bearing his burden very well.
territory. His duties were managerial as well as those of a correspondent, so he quicklygot to know many correspondent faces in Hong Kong through the late '50s and'60s. McCrone says that he had the dubious honour of holding the club's purse strings when it went bankrupt. But the changes made at that time put the FCC on theroad to financial health from which, thankfully, it has never the
the phone lines back to Hong
four hours drive, but my com-
But Tseng, who is now in
the presidential
the
"I live in the wilds,"
lung cancer.
ber of FCC members, who were amazed at his ability to laugh at life even in the middle of a very serious illness. He is in Taiwan's best hospital, the Veterans'Hospital, and has had a stream of important visitors, including the foreign ministe¡ the defence minister,
cease. Words produced
BEnÇo c Ae€y
he has never been one for the quiet life, and has never been able to stop working.
His conversation is filled with the names of former members - many now inNew Zealand - who
will
be fondly remembered
by long-memoried members.
There's Derek Round, currently working
as
editor of the
in
Auckland.
Another famous name is that of Monty Parrott, cunently
living in Omokaroa,
Taurenga,
New Zealand.
Then there's Jimmy
already on my fourth retirement!"
tor of English programming, Mike Souza, and DDB Needham Worldwide's executive
creative director, Hans Ebert, have good reason to be truly proud of the work they do. They helped Commercial Radio win
a
goldmedal at New York'slnter-
national Radio Festival last month ahistoric feat in Hong Kong broadcasting.
of three one-minute
MikeSouza
public affairs programmes had general affairs managercontrolling not only news and public affairs but also public relations, community services, sports and intemational relations. Later, following a short stint as deputy general manager
at RTV, which became ATY he
founded Business Pleasure,
-
1
It competedinthe Public Service Campaign category with entries from about 20 countries including Britain and the United States. I Read The News Today was also a finalist at the ClioAwards. Another Commercial RaLove Of All.
Leaving Reuters in 1967, Ho joined HK-TVB as head of news and public affairs division. During his time, TVB's news and rating as an audience grabber. Later he became TVB's
spots
Read The News Today, Sign O The Time s -C ondo m and T he G r e at e st
the Guangdong committee of the Chinese People's Political Consulrarive Commirtee (CPPCC), he is a former Reuters hand.
top
HansEbert and produced by Souza, consisted
And
if
the two men feel
also that the gold they have won
glitters a little brighter than all othergolds, there is areason for that too. The winning entry, the station's Help Fight AIDS cam-
dio entry, Le t t e r fro m H on g Kon g also was a imalist in the editorial/ vlewpolnt programme category at the New York Festival.
paign, had earlier failed to score
Commenting on the victory, Ebert says: "Winning the gold was good. It proves that we are not some third-world also-
points
rans."
at
Hong Kong's 4A's
Awards!
The campaign
The creation of the prize-
commercial, created and written by Ebert
winning commercial resulted from Ebert's personal desire to
JULY 1988 THE CORRESPONDENT 23