Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Mirs Bay and Tung Ping Chau

Whicker interviews some of the Marine Police responsible for patrolling the northeastern waters of Mirs Bay. Some of the interview covers a newly erected watchtower on the Chinese side of the border. This location (seen in image 2) is actually in the low hills directly north of Tung Ping Chau close to what is now the Shenzhen Kuifong Residential District. In fact the low hills just mentioned are right next to Diefuwan. Image 1 below shows the view looking northeast from the centre of Mirs Bay. The pointy hill in the middle is located near to Yantian on the Chinese mainland side of Starling Inlet.

The rest of the interiew takes place on the beach (Tai Tong Wan) on the east side of Tung Ping Chau where the Marine Police launch has berthed at the pier.

Looking NE towards Yantian area.

The watchtower overlooking Tung Ping Chau

These last 4 images are a panorama of the view looking east from Tai Tong Wan looking towards Mainland China. I believe the original border (from 1898) ran right up to the coastline in the distance but was since redrawn somewhere in the middle. However, I may be mistaken so please feel free to comment.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

As Whicker narrates about the 25 year countdown towards 1997 (and now it's coming up to 26 years since the handover, doesn't time fly!?) we are presented with some rather cool footage of a plane landing at Kai Tak.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Lo Wu Border Crossing, Sheung Shui

As well as footage of the Man KamTo crossing, The Freedom Swimmers also has a brief shot of the covered railway crossing at Lo Wu.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Man Kam To, Sheung Shui

The next installemnt of Whicker's Orient is called "The Freedom Swimmers" and focusses on those from the Mainland who make the often dangerous crossing from China into Hong Kong. The episode starts at the border at Man Kam To where Whicker interviews Superintendent Stanley Flowers and explains to the viewers the reality of the border between Hong Kong and China. 

You can compare the views below with those shot for Spearhead from the same watchtower around a decade later.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - 24 Repulse Bay Road, Hong Kong

Another interview undertaken by Whicker is of K.T Woo, a local newspaper editor. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to find much about him so if anybody reading this can point me in the right direction, please feel free to leave a comment. What's interesting from a location point of view is that the interview looks as though it is being undertaken from the verandah of an old building that used to occupy #24 Repulse Bay Road. Sadly, I don't have anything other than slightly blurry aerial images to confirm the location but at one point the camera is pointed to the nearby house (still around) at #28 down the road. Another part of the interview, regarding illegral immigrants, is conducted in The Freedom Swimmers episode.

Deepwater Bay, Brick Hill, Shouson Hill and the Deepwater Bay golf club in the background.

#28 Repulse Bay Road can be seen in the background

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - R.M.S Queen Elizabeth

Next up on the tycoon checklist is C.Y Tung. Tung is still famous, even now, for not just his noble but ultimately futile attempt to turn the former Queen Elizabeth cruise ship into a floating university (called Seawise, a play on his initials) but also because one of his children, Tung Chee-hwa, was the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong following the handover in 1997.

Anyway, Whicker interviews the old man on a boat as they head over to the ship and Tung talks about the cost and his hopes for it as well as telling Whicker about the problems he has had with the labour force. You can view the episode yourself on Youtube, but to summarise - his shipworkers were all controlled by a Communist labour union. The workers insisted on taking their lunch on shore EVERY DAY, which meant that out of an 8 hour working day, 5 hours were spent going to and from shore to eat lunch. It's important to put this into context because the relations between Tung and the labour unions have often been cited as a possible reason for why the ship eventually caught fire under "mysterious circumstances" and was left to rot in the harbour for several years (and went on to become another film location). The ship was destroyed about a month after this episode was first broadcast, so I think the lower images of it burning were added in for later showings.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Deepwater Bay, Hong Kong

The first interview Whicker does with one of Hong Kong's shipping tycoons is Y.K Pao. Pao was famous for partaking in a daily swim in Deepwater Bay not far from his home and this is where Whicker has to go in order to grab a short but sweet interview with the hardworking fella. It might be this love of swimming that triggered the naming of Aberdeen's public swimming pool complex after the old man. For a reminder of what I am talking about, it was one of the locations seen in Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon. Look carefully in the background of the images below and you'll see the VRC building. It's a very similar angle to this one filmed around the same time.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Lo Fu Ngam Estate/Lok Fu Estate

Whicker interviews Elsie Tu, who was a long time supporter of Hong Kong's poor and needy. As a member of the now long defunct and partially democratically elected Urban Council (one of the reasons the Govt had to get rid of it) she used to run a political surgery from one of the blocks in the Lo Fu Ngam Estate. So it's no surprise then that Whicker's interview takes place on the roof of one of the old estate blocks. Judging by the fact that Block 19 can be seen in the background, this means the interview was being conducted from the roof of Block 13. In the background you can see part of the old Upper Wong Tai Sin Estate. Both Block 13 and 19 no longer exist. The Lo Fu Ngam Estate was redeveloped into the current Lok Fu Estate and the area where these two blocks were located are now incorporated into the Lok Fu Estate Recreation Ground.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Tolo Harbour, Tai Po

During the initial segment of the film, despite most of it going on in Aberdeen, there is a brief moment where the editors have inserted some footage from another location. This is as Whicker goes on to interview a boatman but the guy is a bit shy about revealing his face and keeps it covered with his hat. If you look in the background you can see that this takes place off the coast in Tai Po because Pat Sin Leng can be seen in one image (top) and in the second image you can see the north slope of Ma On Shan (bottom). It was most likely filmed near to the Tai Po Kau pier given the angle on the hills in the middle image.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Aberdeen Harbour

My UK friend and significant supplier of footage for this blog, AP, pointed me in the direction of the three episodes of Whicker's World, filmed in 1972 in Hong Kong and were broadcast under the title Whicker's Orient. I'm not averse to documentaries on this blog as you will have seen by my inclusion of both Kung Fu Killers and Powaqqatsi amongst these many pages, so why not look at Alan Whicker's interesting (if a little patronising) venture into Hong Kong. First up is the episode called The Boat People where he talks to people involved with the Tanka boat dwellers of Aberdeen harbour before moving on to the other end of the spectrum with a variety of shipping tycoons.

For those interested, the full episode is available on Youtube for the time being. Anyway, first up is a very nice aerial view of Aberdeen that moves from east to west following the harbour.