PeterRS

A strange thread title, I agree, but one that is I believe quite apt. A few days ago Italy's Silvio Berlusconi died. A media mogul with an outside personality whose businesses had made billions (€s or $s makes little difference) and who owned one of the country's top soccer teams, was attracted to right-wing politics. In 1994 he was elected to the first of his four separate terms as Italy's Prime Minister. Despite many scandals with young women (some being hookers and at least one alleged to be underage), continuing to own and run 90% of national television broadcasting whilst in power, alleged links to the mafia, a plethora of legal actions against him and his companies which saw him convicted several times for abuse of office, false accounting and bribery of judges - with the outcome in at least six occasions being politically altered to "no conviction", and a host of other scandals, he was always able to keep the public on his side. He was very much a model for Trumpism. Like Trump he liked to give his critics nicknames. Britain's Economist magazine was one of his sternest critics. Berlusconi called it The Ecommunist. The magazine was also taken to court. No doubt Trump watched and noted what was happening in Italy. Another avid viewer must unquestionably have been Britain's now disgraced Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Having lied to parliament years after he had lied massively to the British public when he led the campaign to get the country out of the European Union (an act that has seen the UK economy with the highest rate of inflation in Europe since the oil crises of the 1970s and the country's economy suffering badly through loss of jobs with the transport, farming and hospitality sectors particularly badly hit, stalled investment spending and a host of new export and travel regulations infuriating many), he had to resign as Prime Minister last year and has in recent days been forced to resign as a Member of Parliament. His ruling Conservative Party is about to go to war over whether he will be permitted ever to stand again for election as a Member of Parliament. He did not set himself up as a model. But Berlusconi certainly started the rot now eating away at US and UK politics.

No! Not even in coutries around the region.

I think Rogaine is named Regaine in the UK. I remember a friend checking it on line with a well-known UK on-line pharmacy and being somewhat horrified at the price. Seems it has to be applied twice daily. He also told me it only promotes growth on the crown of the head and has little effect on premature balding at the front. Also heard that there are Regaine/Rogaine pills. But from what I have read minoxidil (the ingredient of Rogaine/Regaine) does not stop hair loss or encourage its regrowth. It merely reduces the rate of hair loss. Can anyone confirm?

I just discovered it is indeed a pic from a movie about the boys being at school - although nearer final year. The three starred in two 'school' movies - Encore and On Trial. On Trial is avaiable on youtube - but it's a typical low budget early 1980s Hong Kong film. The nice thing is that the long trousers the boys wear are all quite tight fitting over their cute asses! Also there is a scene when they are playing some sort of game with very short white shorts! Danny Chan had become famous as an actor and singer a few years before Leslie. Indeed he was probably Hong Kong's first pop idol. I liked his voice a lot and thought it was marginally better than Leslie's singing voice. There is one gentle ballad number he sings in the film - it starts at 1:24'25". He also sings the song during the closing credits. He liked fit gay young westerners and always had a group around him. Unfortunately he started on drugs quite early. In his last years he used to frequent a little known mostly gay club on Ice House Street just down from the Foreign Correspondents' Club. It was there one evening that he collapsed and fell into a coma presumed to be a result of combining narcotics with alcohol. His parents kept him alive for 17 months before finally allowing him to die. I frankly find little difference between the physiques of Hong Kong and Taiwanese young guys. I guess it's where you go and where you tend to see them. Certainly both can be incredibly attractive and handsome!

To whom are you responding? Certainly not me. Quoting from that member would help others understand your response, the more so given that the last post was mine and it was around 8 months ago!

And did @vinapu snatch the King or the Queen 😵

Taladafil which we know under the generic Cialis was discovered in August 1991 and approved by the US FDA in November 2003. To my understanding, with patents lasting 20 years, doesn't this mean the price of genuine Cialis should plummet by the end of the year?

My concern was that putting the entire article under one thread would just make it far too long for the average reader. By listing the Part numbers, I think it becomes clear that it is a series of posts and readers can dip in and out if they wish. With few posts under this section of the Board, I am not concerned about readers losing the plot, as it were! Please also remember Leslie's first major international movie Farewell My Concubine which won the Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. In 2005 TIME magazine listed it as one of the Best Movies of All Time. Leslie is marvellous and the tragic ending often brings tears. Happy Together is a totally different type of movie. Two lovers travel to the Iguazu Falls in Argentina (only because in their tiny Hong Kong apartment they had a lampshade with a picture of the Falls) in an attempt to save their relationship. It is dramatic, gritty, violent and frequently moving. It was nominated for the Palme d'Or and its director Wong Kai-wai won Best Director at the 1997 Cannes Festival. Leslie's death was a complete tragedy. On the surface he had it all. A superb actor and singer, he once played 33 concerts on consecutive nights in the 10,000 seat Hong Kong Coliseum. Jean-Paul Gaultier designed some of the costumes for his last ever mega-concert series. It was at these concerts that he announced he was gay and had a long term partner. That relationship was by all accounts very important to him. What hardly anyone knew was that he suffered from and was being treated for severe depression. That one with so much talent and so many gifts should elect to take his own life shocked much of the world. In a 2010 CNN poll Leslie was voted the Third Most Iconic Musician of all Time after Michael Jackson and The Beatles. In a short suicide note he thanked his family, his lover and his psychiatrist. He added, “I can’t stand it anymore . . . In my life I have done nothing bad. Why does it have to be like this?” Had he lived he would be 66 this year. On a tangent, some time ago I found this photo on the internet. Can you imagine three cuter young Hong Kong guys? Actors Danny Chan, Leslie Cheung and Paul Chung in the 1981 Hong Kong movie On Trial. Danny and Leslie were closet gays at the time. All died tragically young. Danny of a drug overdose aged 35. Paul like Leslie committed suicide aged 30.

That certainly seems to be my experience when travelling in the region. Am I complaining?? 🤣

In my dozens of visits to Taipei I have never been to a massage shop. I have heard of lots of individual masseurs who come to your hotel. Most are available for appointment on Line. I have heard of these shops below. Not many twinks it would seem, but then most going for massages are after a proper massage with guys with a bit of weight on them. It also seems (although not sure) that afters consist almost exclusively of HJs if you have a massage on the premises. If you have a massage in the hotel, anything goes according to the masseur's agreement. I also believe professional massages are a bit more expensive than in Thailand with NT$2,500 (US$82) being the minimum plus tip. https://www.muddan.com/master-team https://kingsmanspapro.weebly.com https://www.theroyalspa.com.tw/en/team

I do not know - and am not asking - how old you are. But as you tell us you are not retired, I am a little surprised you find getting hard (or at least suggest it might become difficult to become hard) as you get older. Certainly this is true for some guys, especially those who might have medical issues. Since the brain plays a part in erections, I very occasionally used to find it hard (sic) to get hard. I once tried viagra and decided never to use it again. I found the blood pulsating in my temples very prominently and did not enjoy it. On the other hand, after a friend recommended cialis, I never had a problem. I use it rarely but whenever I do it works a treat - and goes on working for at least the 36 hours the makers claim. I have never felt a need to be a bottom and the guys I am with, including my partner, do not wish me to change from being a top.

Thank you @reader. I have written you a PM in the hope of resolving our differences.

As suggested, that was his persona. He kept it up pretty well for quite some time but occasionally let his guard fall and it became obvious he was neither Asian, in his 20s, nor did he run a company in Sydney as he claimed. I don't think any other poster uploaded photos of hotels where he had allegedly stayed but had blacked out everything in the rooms that could possibly identify him!

Years earlier I would occasionally visit Amsterdm on business. I was persuaded to try one of the saunas - would it be Night Thermos? I was surprised at the number of Asians and ended up having a great time with a young Indonesian.

We all have choices. You could do as I did (although I did it for business reasons), leave Europe and resettle somewhere in Asia. Not easy to do, I know, but it's surely a question of priorities. What is more important to you? A nice apartment/house in The Netherlands, a decent job (I assume), healthcare (I assume), pension to follow etc. or a plethora of gay venues and an abundance of young gay Asian men? As a UK citizen, when I start to draw down my pension the amount is frozen for all time - even if as recently inflation has been around 10%. I paid all the contributions up to age 62 (the maximum) to give me continuing access to the UK National Health Service. That benefit has now been withdrawn. But I choose to continue living in Asia. Just a thought. Is there no possibility of finding a nice young Asian boyfriend in the Netherlands or elsewhere in Europe and prepared to relocate to The Netherlands? I have a friend who will soon relocate to Munich for a post-graduate degree. He wants to find a nice middle-aged man there and has started looking on apps. There must surely be Asian students in The Netherlands? No?

There is no need to be so childish!

i seem to recall - and I am sure someone will correct me if this is incorrect - several years ago there was a poster here (whom I shall not name) who was infected with HPV which had become cancerous. He had written a post lauding the treatment he had received at the King Chulalongkorn Public Hospital across from Lumphini Park. Sadly he was only in remission and the cancer returned. But this time, though, he had no funds left to pay for further treatment. Friends put him up on their sofa where he soon died. Looking at the Cancer Council website, HPV is responsible for 90% of anal cancers. https://www.cancer.org.au/what-is-hpv#

You know Tweed Harris? You have met him? You have conversed with him? Had drinks with him? If not, then how - in your wisdom - do you know for certain which is accurate - what was reported in that news item or in @gayinpattaya's personal observation of him? Yet again, you make assumptions! Clearly it is your trademark!

Yet again, you criticise. And when your criticism is demolished, you backtrack. What about your own wisdom which you post virtually daily here, I wonder - or should I say the wisdom of the media which you post here?

Why do you always get assumptions about what i write wrong and then misquote? Point 1. You accuse me of "being old and trying to share my wisdom with others. He'll, man, you do that all the time." Response. My age is nothing to do with you and you have no idea of my exact age. Yes, I do try to share wisdom (if by that you mean knowledge) with others and I enjoy doing that. Given the number of 'likes' these posts attract, clearly this "wisdom" is appreciated by many. No doubt they are in considerably greater number than the likes you receive for your cut and paste news articles. But then you have said you enjoy posting these. Surprise! I also enjoy making my posts! You are not alone! And since you clearly have some reason for disliking what I write, why do you even bother reading my posts? I am not going to cease writing about my travels and others issues that i hope may be of interest to more than a few members here. So you had better get used to it. Point 2. You accuse me of accusing that expat of "spouting drivel". Response. What rubbish! Do you not read responses to your own threads? I was merely quoting @gayinpattaya's response to your post! Since you have clearly forgotten what he wrote, this is the relevant post. Oh, and you forgot that @gayinpattaya called him "offensive". Is that not important to you? Point 3. You accuse me of discussing the "evils" of a poster on another chat room. Response. I was not persuading you of the "evils" of anyone by trying to persuade us of the evils another old man is sharing on some mystery website you follow Why do you have to make things up? I was again responding to a post by another member here @Londoner and in particular a man he had met in Pattaya whose wife had just died and turned to gay young men for companionship. That was the starting point of my response. The issue of how often I look at that other chat room is yet another of your assuptions that are wrong. I do not follow it. Inever stated anywhere that I follow it. In fact I visit it only occasionally as I have pointed out in another post. And I visit the site for its Travel section! Since you now criticise almost everything I write, perhaps you will put a warning sticker on your next complaint so that those with absolutely no interest in your nonsense can avoid it.

The Impact of MacLennan’s “Suicide” The tragic circumstances of MacLennan’s death are unlikely ever to be known – or at least made public. Could it possibly have been suicide? Was he indeed murdered, as so many continue to believe? Several books and articles have been written on the subject. The latest “A Death in Hong Kong” by Nigel Collett was published early last year. I have not read it. Based on its reviews, though, Collett places the suicide/murder in the context of the times, something not generally well known now and which I have also tried to explain above. As the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong’s primary daily English language newspaper) reviewer noted, many homosexual and bisexual men had arrived in the 1970s to take up official positions in Hong Kong where, despite the law, the city was more open to gay behaviour than Britain where it had actually been decriminalised. That relatively casual approach to homosexual affairs all changed after Richard Duffy was jailed and opened the Pandora’s Box which revealed a degree of sleaze and corruption that shocked many to their core. There can now be no doubt that that one act inevitably led, albeit indirectly, to much of what followed, including MacLennan’s death. It is also unlikely we will ever understand how MacLennan’s death and the resultant utterly shambolic attempts by the RHKP and the government to keep it quiet had such an impact in changing what were allegedly entrenched beliefs about homosexual behaviour amongst the Chinese population in Hong Kong. I suspect the vast majority of the Chinese population had never given much thought to it. With most being an immigrant population fiercely determined to work hard and make lives better for their families, homosexual behaviour was well down their list of priorities. After a thorough examination of facts, Collett concludes that MacLennan did commit suicide. Before his death last year, I spoke to Peter Moss who had been a friend for decades, a former Deputy Director in the Hong Kong Government Information Services Department for my first dozen years in Hong Kong. Peter was then living in retirement in Malaysia where he had served the colonial government prior to independence. I asked for his views. Collett had consulted him when drafting his book and Peter agreed with the suicide theory. I, though, have three reasons for doubting Collett’s conclusion. First, Collett did not arrive in Hong Kong until 1984. He therefore had no first-hand knowledge of the events he describes. I lived in Hong Kong for 25 years from 1975 and witnessed the events as reported at the time. Second Collett’s main occupation had been as an officer in charge of Gurkha regiments. In 1994, he formed a company Gurkha International Manpower Services Ltd. He has written only two books but contributes to a number of publications. Through his company he had links to law enforcement in colonial Hong Kong. There is therefore the possibility, however remote, that his views might have been swayed in favour of the RHKP. Third, in 2014 he wrote Firelight of a Different Colour, a biography of the extraordinarily talented gay Hong Kong superstar actor and singer, Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing, who committed suicide in 2003 aged 46. I worked with Leslie on two occasions, I had known his manager, Florence Chan, for many years, and I knew in detail the background to an offer made to him by the London impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh which could have led to his appearance in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. I knew because I was in Leslie’s dressing room at the Hong Kong Coliseum when the offer was made by Sir Cameron’s Managing Director, Martin McCallum! I did not know Leslie well but admired him immensely both for his amazing talent and his total modesty. InFirelight Collett relies on a vast amount of speculation and few specific sources – understandable, since Leslie’s family did not want the book written. The Phantom episode Collett describes is totally wrong. When one book gets this and other alleged “facts” wrong, I hear alarm bells when another book allegedly based on a reconstruction of “facts” appears by the same author. We all love conspiracy theories and most of us believe – or want to believe – that we know better than official versions. I believe I know who killed John F. Kennedy and how, based on facts that keep emerging as time goes on, it is not what the Earl Warren Commission wanted us to believe. But I will never know if my theory is correct. Equally I believe I know that John MacLennan could not have committed suicide – not given the background of the times and by shooting himself five times in the abdomen. That to me defies credibility. As he had told Elsie Elliott, MacLennan still was in possession of a great deal of information about the homosexual activities of many people in high places. Most, if not all, of these prominent individuals would not wish that information to become public. I accept that MacLennan came from a small town in the north of Scotland where his life would have been massively different from that he enjoyed amidst the bright lights and temptations of a teeming international city like Hong Kong. It was known he had a girlfriend in Scotland whom he planned to marry and that he had fooled around with at least three mistresses on various occasions during his time in Hong Kong. Yet, I also accept it was perfectly possible that he was in some way enticed to try sex with one or more male prostitutes. I do not believe for a moment that makes anyone a homosexual. It may at best have illustrated a tendency towards his being bisexual. Yet, given the determination of his superiors to “set up him”, even that must surely be open to more than considerable doubt. Would the very huge psychological pressure he was under, given the detailed knowledge he had obtained whilst working for Special Branch, the knowledge that Brooks and Quinn were out to “get him” and the further knowledge that the planting of evidence by the RHKP was well-known within the Force – would that have been enough to unhinge his mind and pressure him towards suicide? The resultant publicity of a trial would have unquestionably brought unbelievable shame to his family in Scotland. He must also have realised that the vague chance of an acquittal could not undo the public damage to his reputation and the almost certainty of his never being able to work in any police force again. There can be no doubt that he would not on that evening have been capable of particularly rational thinking. But does all that explain his actions on the night of his death? Can it possibly explain the reason for attempting to commit suicide with five bullets to his abdomen with the gun pointed in an unnatural direction for firing? If indeed it was a suicide, why were so many outright and provable lies told in the subsequent investigations? Why did the Governor through his aides and the Attorney General do all in their power to keep the case under wraps? Taken all together, it indicates at least to me that there was much more to the MacLennan affair than we know even today. And so I and the few friends I still have who also lived in Hong Kong at the time of MacLennan’s death refuse to believe that it was suicide. To us it was a botched murder to cover up a great deal of sleaze and sludge in a filthy little swamp. I wish I could prove it! All I know is that that death of one very insignificant member of the police force contributed in no small way to a major ‘clean up’ of the forces of law and order in Hong Kong. At the start of the millennium an opinion poll was conducted amongst Hong Kong people to name the most significant events in 150 years of Hong Kong history The establishment of the ICAC was voted as the sixth most important. Equally, MacLennan’s death was eventually to result in Hong Kong becoming a much more tolerant, open and free society for gay men and women. If only for these two reasons, Inspector John MacLennan should always be remembered. Sources 1. https://unhabitat.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/GRHS.2007.CaseStudy.Crime_.HongKong.pdf 2. Hong Kong welcomed the ICAC. In 1999 the people of Hong Kong were polled about the most important events since the founding of Hong Kong. The establishment of the ICAC was voted as #6 3. https://www.thecrimevault.com/exclusives/what-was-it-like-as-a-brit-in-the-royal-hong-kong-police/ 4. In an article about MacLennan’s death, the following appeared in Scotland’s National newspaper on 16 January 2018. Writing after the inquest in 1981 [see below], the investigative journalist Duncan Campbell, who inquired into the death of the Scot, wrote: “MacLennan’s death is a savage reminder of the style of operation of the notoriously corrupt Hong Kong police. At the centre of the affair is a police campaign against homosexuality: MacLennan was about to be arrested, it was said, by a Special Investigation Unit which hunted down homosexuals. But the police campaign is more a means of stabilizing police power in the colony, than an actual piece of law enforcement. “In this enterprise, the police have collaborated with the Triad, criminal syndicates procuring youths, and have thus ensnared several government officials in compromising circumstances. “The police venture had two objectives: first to pursue minor offenders against Hong Kong’s repressive sexual laws; and second to render more highly placed officials liable to pressure – from the police. Those who complied were secure. One person who did not give in to this racket was an English lawyer Howard Lindsay. As a result he was put on trial for sexual offenses last year” 5. HC Deb 11 March 1983 6. The Hong Kong government had established the Urban Council in 1883. Its functions were primarily to look after local issues like waste collection and hawker control. Eventually its portfolio would include arts and entertainment facilities. Council members were appointed by the government. In 1952, two seats were offered for election and by 1956 the number increased to half, although there were major restrictions re those entitled to vote. The Council became an autonomous body in 1973. A social activist who had arrived from England as a missionary in the early 1950s, Elsie Elliott (later Elsie Tu) had been an elected member since 1963. She was a passionate advocate for the ordinary men and women of Hong Kong. She was a thorn in the side of authority but loved by most Hong Kong people. 7. Ken Bridgewater “Open Verdict: A Hong Kong Story” 8. Paragraph 12.22 on page 135

Public Anger following the Inquest There was an immediate public outcry with calls for an independent inquiry. On May 23 the recently appointed Attorney-General John Griffiths announced there was no need to reopen the inquest as the overwhelming body of evidence pointed to suicide. Griffiths himself had held two concerns prior to taking over the post of Attorney General less than a year earlier: homosexuality and the molestation of underage youths. He was determined to address both, but in his zeal tended to forget that there was a very marked difference between the two ‘crimes’. With new details of the MacLennan affair daily appearing in the media, he was well aware his own credibility was on the line. On June 1 Inquest Jury Foreman Tony Pannell stated he was not satisfied with the Attorney General’s statement and itemized many points where the jury had disagreed with the evidence. The RHKP attempted to reinforce their failed case. On June 4 they coerced four male prostitutes to claim that MacLennan had been one of their customers. Indeed so regular was he that – quite ridiculously given the ease with which payments could have been tracked, but no evidence found – they suggested he had been permitted to pay by cheque rather than cash! On June 18 Elsie Elliott delivered a public bombshell. She revealed that as early as November 1979 the Attorney General had been made personally aware by his Crown Counsel, Howard Lindsay, of the plot against MacLennan - two months before his death. Her statement referred to the comments made to her by Inspector Michael Fulton (see above). On July 2 Fulton himself went public and confirmed he had been asked by members of the SIU to set up MacLennan. As public anger continued to mount, the Attorney General and Police Commissioner remained silent. On July 3, the Foreman of the Inquest Jury, Pannell, publicly called for the resignation of the Attorney General. Elsie Elliott repeated her call for a formal Inquiry into MacLennan’s death. The government again stated there would be no fresh Inquiry. On July 7, Elsie Elliott compounded the government’s problems by announcing she was willing to help raise funds to sue both the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner. For as long as she lived, Ms. Elliot never fully accepted the suicide theory, insisting that McLennan’s death had been a case of murder, but adding that the pressure on him was so great that there was a slight possibility that he might have been “pushed to killing himself”. Government establishes a Royal Commission of Inquiry By this time public opinion, particularly in the large and influential Chinese media outlets, had become so great that the government had to reverse course. It agreed to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by a respected Supreme Court Justice (and later Chief Justice), T. L Yang. Evidence was heard from 110 witnesses including senior government and RHKP personnel and male prostitutes. This Inquiry was the most expensive in Hong Kong’s history. It came to the conclusion that MacLennan had indeed committed suicide. Yet again this verdict was ridiculed in public. It was eventually to become clear that some evidence had been deliberately withheld from the Inquiry and its work greatly hampered by severe restrictions to its terms of reference. One piece of information never reported to the Commission was the fact that MacLennan had a mistress. The lady was never publicly identified. Nor was it ever reported that on the night of his death she had lent him her Volkswagen which he had parked in the car park below his apartment block. Following his death the car was towed away by the police. Within hours, this lady was visited by two members of the police force and sternly warned not to talk to anyone in the media. Her story only came to light because she knew the broadcaster Aileen Bridgewater. Government Considers Possibility of Changing Law on Homosexuality Behind the scenes the government was clearly extremely concerned by the impact of the affair on the Chinese community. Prior to the announcement of the T. L. Yang Inquiry, on June 14 1980 it officially but quietly requested the Law Reform Commission to consider the following topic: “Should the present laws governing homosexual conduct in Hong Kong be changed and, if so, in what way?” On July 5 the Commission appointed a high level Sub-committee “to research, consider and then advise it upon aspects of the said matter.” After three years of deliberation, the Sub-committee made a number of specific recommendations and provisos, the most important of which was: “We recommend that the law should not prohibit consensual sexual conduct in private between two males provided both are 21 or more years of age [8].” One controversial recommendation was the proposal that the age of consent be 21 for males whereas it would remain at 16 for females. Government Action following Publication of the Commission’s 1983 Report Following publication of the Law Reform Commission Report, the government did precisely nothing! It was in the midst of extensive discussions with its masters in London regarding the future of Hong Kong after the expiration of the 99-year lease on the New Territories (by far the largest part of Hong Kong) on June 30 1997. Even after the December 19 1984 signing of the Joint Declaration between China and the United Kingdom on Hong Kong’s future, homosexual law reform remained on the back burner. It took several more years of pressure before the government finally realised it could procrastinate no longer. Before becoming a Special Administrative Region of China with many rights exclusive to Hong Kong citizens, Hong Kong would need to enact further legislation covering the international rights of its people. Hong Kong Bill of Rights The Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (HKBORO) was enacted into law in June 1991. This empowered local courts to rule on cases regarding the violation of the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as applicable to Hong Kong, and to provide redress through HKBORO for cases where violation had been proved. As regards homosexuality, the government’s stated position up to this point had always been that Chinese society would not accept homosexual behaviour. This stood little scrutiny given a tradition of acceptance of such behaviour stretching back millennia and there being no law on mainland China banning homosexual behaviour. Although the former Governor Sir Murray MacLehose (see above) had believed the old British law should have been changed, this concern about public opinion was a primary reason for him, his successors and senior officials making no moves to effect any change. The requirement for a Bill of Rights brought the matter of homosexual law reform back into the discussion and inevitably the MacLennan case came again to the fore. The Bill finally enabled those proposing a change in accordance with the Law Reform Commission recommendations to make that change. The government decided not to challenge that view. The law against homosexual behaviour was immediately repealed. Unequal Age of Consent As a result of a lawsuit later brought by human rights groups, Hong Kong’s Justice Michael Hartmann ruled in the Supreme Court in 2005 that the unequal age of consent was unconstitutional under the HKBORO. His decision was upheld in the Court of Final Appeal. From 2006 the age of consent for males was brought into line with those for females. Both became 16 years of age.

Sorry that is not quite the case. I did have Hepatitis A in my early 20s. I was around 38 and in Asia when I was infected with Hep B. As you suggest there is no cure, but most of those westerners infected quickly develop antibodies so they are no longer infectious. That was the case with me within 3 months. That said, Hep B is virtually endemic in Asia. In December 2021 the Contagion Live website estimated that nearly 300 million people in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific were infected chronically with the Hep B virus. Worse, roughly 87% of those with chronic Hep B remain undiagnosed. Thanks to vaccination, the numbers are slowly dropping, but you have a much higher chance of infection by close association with SE Asians than westerners. Vaccination is definitely recommended.

More than a decade ago there was a post here about a famous suicide/murder in Hong Kong that reverberated through the gay community and how the general community reacted to it. Given the interest that has been expressed in a thread recently in learning more about the gay history of Bangkok, I thought some might find an expanded version of the events in January 1980 in Hong Kong of interest. This long article was written by a prominent gay expat journalist and author based in Hong Kong for several decades. Before he sadly died, he asked me to assist him with some research for the following article which he hoped would be published in one of the international gay magazines. It was written in mid-2019 to commemorate the events of mid-January 2020. Sadly no magazine was interested. So the article was expanded to its present form. It illustrates a number of issues - police corruption in Hong Kong (almost worse than here in Thailand), major official attempts to root out homosexuality, the confusion between pedophilia and homosexuality . . . and how it was that the 19th century British colonial law making sodomy between men illegal came finally to be repealed in 1991. Unfortunately, this is not posted on any website so I have to post the full article. Given its length, I will split the article into several posts. Was It Suicide? Was It Murder? Whatever The Facts, It Changed Hong Kong’s mid-1800s Anti-Gay Law Forever Introduction A young Special Unit detective is found, fatally shot five times in his abdomen, the night before he is to appear in court on a charge of abusing a teenage boy. His hometown girlfriend was planning to join him in his distant posting for their announcement of engagement to marry. Neither she nor his family could accept the suicide report or homosexual slanders about him. His drinking and partying friends in the police force also refused to believe that he was a closet homosexual or paedophile. The suspicious death of an overly curious detective prompted a seemingly endless stream of scandalous reports, manipulated official inquiries, and revelations reaching the top heights of the Government and its police force. But might the detective also have been a closet gay? Was he also a secret spy for the federal police authorities? Was the local government covering up hidden affairs in its own ranks? Was the community suddenly made aware of a host of expatriates in senior positions who had to hide their emotional attachments to younger Chinese men? Those five bullets in an abdomen ricocheted through a community rife with corruption, prostitution, racism, political uncertainty and exploitation. Nothing was what it appeared to be ... or what people wanted to believe. The Death On the morning of January 15 1980, five gunshots rang out. In bustling, over-populated Kowloon preparing for the day ahead, no one seemed to hear those shots above the noise of the rush hour traffic below. In the source of the shots, a government flat, a young expatriate police inspector lay dead in his bedroom. It was a scene reminiscent of an Agatha Christie or John Le Carre novel. Five bullets had pierced his body – but not his heart or head. A police revolver lay by his side. Allegedly the door and windows to the room were all securely locked from the inside. Had anyone taken a snapshot of that body, the conclusion would almost certainly have been one of murder. As the events leading up to this death ever so gradually became public knowledge, they were to resound for years and lead to the uncovering of a secret world where the gleaming, glistening facade of prosperous Hong Kong would be shown to be no more than surface deep. As layer upon layer of the undergrowth was exposed, an incredulous public was shocked. No one on that January morning realised it at the time, but these events would ultimately lead to a change in a law that had been on the statute books for more than 100 years. Gay men would finally be able to lead much more open lives. Background Under British rule following the two Opium Wars in 1841 and 1860, Hong Kong in 1980 with its 236 islands and the Kowloon Peninsula is situated on the southern mainland of a China that is just starting to recover from the murderous decade of the Cultural Revolution. That decade from 1965 had all but destroyed the very fabric of Chinese society, its education and legal systems and, above all, the family unit. Hong Kong’s economy had for some decades been built by and expanded through immigrant labour from China. Its population had grown from 600,000 after World War II to over four million by 1966. After the Cultural Revolution, the stream of migrants increased. By 1980 the number of small shantytowns visible on many Hong Kong hillsides had increased. To accommodate the inflow, the Hong Kong government commenced what at the time was the largest urban development programme in the world, creating vast new housing estates and four New Towns that would each eventually accommodate over 500,000 people. With a land area of just over 400 square miles, Hong Kong was the most densely populated part of the planet. By the 1970s, Hong Kong’s economy was in transition from a “sweat shop” producing cheap goods for export to an international centre of trade and finance. Hong Kong’s freewheeling capitalist economy was attracting much international praise and investment. Local Chinese entrepreneurs who had hitherto headed small to medium scale companies began to take over long-established international British colonial conglomerates (known locally as “hongs”). Criminal Activity in Hong Kong Underneath its glittering surface, though, there was much the world did not see and which the all-powerful British colonial administration did not want it to see. The Hong Kong Governor, always British and usually a senior civil servant who had spent time in Beijing, was appointed by the United Kingdom. He wielded far more authority than the British Prime Minister. Hong Kong’s legal system was based on British Common Law. Maintaining order in the British colony (the British preferred to call it “Territory” whereas the Chinese claimed it was “Chinese Territory temporarily under the control of the British”) was the Royal Hong Kong Police (RHKP), a large body of Chinese whose senior officers were almost exclusively from Britain and its former colonial outposts. Rampant and endemic corruption and triad-organized crime activity were rife at all levels of society. With the Cultural Revolution had come a period of considerable instability in Hong Kong, including riots. Maintaining civil order became a key objective of the RHKP. The crime rate in Hong Kong had been rising rapidly. Official statistics show the violent crime rate had risen from 48 per 100,000 of the population in 1963 to 477 in 1976 [1]. It was also known that the percentage of violent crimes reported to the police was almost certainly a small fraction of actual numbers. Another well-known fact was that corruption within the RHKP itself was rife and had reached epidemic proportions. Bribes were expected equally from businesses and individuals. Worse, many of the senior police were in the pay of the triad bosses whom they were supposed to be suppressing. In 1974 the then Governor Sir Murray MacLehose (the longest-serving Hong Kong Governor from 1971 to 1982 and much admired by all in Hong Kong for his achievements) decided the time had come to get rid of corruption. The previous year Peter Godber, a Police Chief Superintendent, had been discovered to have assets of HK$4.3 million (at that time approx. US$860,000) in bank accounts in six countries. It was suspected his wealth had been accumulated through corruption. Given a week by the Attorney General to explain the source of this wealth, Godber managed to slip out of Hong Kong and fled to England. The result was a public outcry in Hong Kong with students spearheading a mass rally condemning the government for its failure to tackle corruption. (Godber was extradited from England in 1975. He was convicted of corruption and sentenced to four years in jail.) Following Godber’s escape, MacLehose established the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) with its own police force and separate Judiciary and answerable only to the Governor [2]. In essence, anyone accused of corrupt activity was thereafter basically guilty until proven innocent. Immediately a number of high-ranking officials fled Hong Kong. The ICAC itself was not a total panacea in solving Hong Kong’s problems. One police officer at that time, Stephen Griffiths, claims in an article that many policemen suggested the initials stood for “I Can Accept Cheques” [3].

Homosexuality in Hong Kong In 1967, the government in Westminster had decriminalised homosexuality. The law had been on the UK statute books since 1861 and immediately became law in all British colonial possessions. The repeal of the law was initially confined to England and Wales, although later confirmed also in Scotland and Northern Ireland. By 1967 Britain had already relinquished power in almost all of its former colonies, but the homosexuality law in these countries had not been repealed. It therefore remained – and in close to forty countries still remains – as law, including Hong Kong (eventually repealed in 1991 – see below), Singapore, Malaysia, Jamaica and Uganda. It was known that despite the law there were many homosexual men in Hong Kong, some in the higher echelons of the government, the Police Force and the Judiciary. More than a few had steady Chinese boyfriends. Yet during the 1960s homosexuality rarely appeared on the radar of law enforcement in Hong Kong and police made little attempt to enforce the law against private homosexual conduct. This was to change towards the end of the 1970s. Some incidents involving homosexual blackmail and even murder occasionally appeared in the Hong Kong media. In October 1980 a noted Australian antique dealer and homosexual, Ian McLean, was found dead in his expensive Peak apartment. His Filipino servant discovered his naked body lying on his bed with an arm and leg bound together with an electric cord. He had been suffocated. His home had been ransacked and his car stolen. It was later discovered he had taken two young Chinese youths back to his home for the purpose of sex. They had murdered him. Worse for the authorities, two years earlier in 1978 33-year old Richard Duffy, a prominent English lawyer practicing in Hong Kong, pled guilty to charges of “buggery and gross indecency” involving four 15-year old Chinese boys. He was sentenced to three years in prison. In a petition for clemency, he named many “highly-placed” men in Hong Kong who were homosexuals, gay prostitution rings some involving young boys in their early teens, and the triads who ran them. So well-looked after was Duffy in prison by his triad acquaintances that he continued to enjoy so much sex he contracted a venereal disease! Howard Lindsay was a highly placed lawyer in the Attorney General’s chambers. He had been threatened with prosecution for “buggery”, refused to bow to police pressure but was soon charged and appeared in court. As he later told the broadcaster Aileen Bridgewater, “In court I was confronted by male prostitutes of very questionable integrity, whose evidence was full of loopholes. The magistrate found no case to answer and I was duly acquitted [4].” Lindsay was eventually dismissed and left Hong Kong to recover from what for him had been an extremely trying time. It quickly become very clear that the government was desperate to ensure that the claims made by Richard Duffy in his appeal for clemency be kept totally under wraps. Partly as a result, in August 1978 the Hong Kong government set up another division – the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of the RHKP. Its main function as described to parliament in London was “to investigate cases of homosexuality which may involve procuring or the abuse of young people or in response to complaints made by members of the public [5].” The penalty for homosexual behaviour could be from two years to life in prison. The new policy to ‘out’ and prosecute homosexual men was given the name Operation Rockcorry. In pursuit of this new policy, triad gangs were consulted and young male prostitutes questioned to provide evidence that would ensnare key government officials. At this time, despite the law, Hong Kong did have a thriving underground gay community. It also had two bars/clubs that catered almost exclusively to homosexuals – Waltzing Mathilda in Kowloon and Dateline in a basement in the Central District of Hong Kong, and a mostly gay nightclub Disco Disco in the increasingly popular Lan Kwai Fong entertainment district also in the centre of Hong Kong. Waltzing Mathilda was known as a hangout for gay men and not a few rent boys. One of the barmen, Dick Stanford, himself gay, was also an informant for the police. A different means of identifying clients at Dateline was chosen. Access to the basement bar was by a long set of steps down from Wellington Street. These steps were brightly lit by a floodlight placed above and behind that entrance on Wellington Street. This light was less to do with assisting patrons to down the steps. It was there only because in a rented apartment on the opposite side of the small one-way street the SIU had set up a camera to photograph everyone exiting Dateline. Fearing a witch-hunt, a number of academics, lawyers and social workers began to criticize the SIU and the laws that it sought to enforce. In mid-1979, 424 individuals petitioned the government to bring Hong Kong into line with England and Wales and decriminalize homosexual conduct between consenting adults. The petition had no effect. Inspector John MacLennan In 1973 John MacLennan, a young 22-year old Scot, flew to Hong Kong to join the RHKP. After passing through the police training academy, he was posted to the area of Kwun Tong in Kowloon. With a close friend, a fellow Scot and member of the RHKP Christopher Burns, MacLennan spent much of his spare time trawling the girlie bars and low-life nightclubs. Burns assumed his friend was a womanizer. It is known that he frequented occasionally with female prostitutes. He also enjoyed longer relationships with three women including a Filipina maid. It now seems as though Burns might have been mistaken – if only in part. It has been alleged that MacLennan was either bisexual or even a closet homosexual. On his nightly meanderings he had discovered the city’s underground gay scene and met a triad pimp named Molo Tsui. Tsui, it was alleged, found young Chinese men for him. It was also alleged that MacLennan was a regular at the Waltzing Mathilda bar. Towards the end of his tour of duty, MacLennan was temporarily transferred to the Police Special Branch (a different RHKP branch from the SIU and comprising almost 1,000 officers). Special Branch was considered a highly professional security apparatus, pursuing anti-corruption and anti-triad duties in addition to intelligence and counter-subversion operations. Leaving for a vacation back in Scotland and with a new contract in his pocket, MacLennan knew he would again be transferred to Special Branch on his return. Digging through police files in his new assignment, he was shocked to discover that Special Branch had been building cases against likely gay men for at least a decade. Many were in prominent positions in Hong Kong including in the RHKP. He was later to tell a City Councillor, Elsie Elliott [6], that the files he had seen were “political dynamite that would blow the lid off the territory.” Many civil servants, senior and junior, were named in the files. He was thus able to confirm much of the information provided earlier by Duffy. One, named by his gay friends as “Brenda” with a penchant for underage youths, was none other than the territory’s Chief Justice, Sir Geoffrey Briggs. Briggs very quickly left Hong Kong. Another on MacLennan’s list was his boss, the new Police Commissioner, an unmarried fellow Scot, Roy Henry. Police Commissioner Roy Henry On leaving the British Army in 1948 aged 21, Roy Henry had joined the Colonial Police Service as an Assistant Superintendent in the Malayan Police. After several promotions and the award of the title “Datuk” (the equivalent of a knighthood in the UK), he left the new Malaysia to serve as Police Commissioner in Fiji. In 1973 he again moved, this time to Hong Kong as Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Operations. The following year he was promoted to Deputy Commissioner. He was named Commissioner in March 1979, taking over a Force that was plagued by corruption scandals, a breakdown of discipline and a lack of public confidence. By all published accounts, he was known as a steadfast, upright man who transformed the force into a modern, efficient and sophisticated law enforcement agency. But there might have been more behind that mask. As he tackled the major restructuring and “clean up” of the Force, he maintained his former ties in Malaysia. He shared his home with old friends from his days in Malaya, Jack and Eileen Cradock. He is also alleged to have travelled for weekend trips to Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Although the majority Muslim population and Malaysian law were anti-homosexual as a result of the old English Colonial “sodomy” Law, Kuala Lumpur had always had an active homosexual underground. Its one openly gay bar, Blue Boy, was packed every evening, especially at weekends. Whether Henry visited the bar on his Kuala Lumpur trips we do not know. But it would have been a convenient and – in terms of his Hong Kong career – a virtually anonymous venue for trysts with Malaysian youths. It was also known to insiders that he had a Chinese boyfriend in his mid-30s who lived on the island of Penang. Adding to the suggestion that Henry might have been homosexual, the journalist Aileen Bridgewater (whose husband Ken had written one of the first books about the MacLennan affair) later met him in Kuala Lumpur where he lived in retirement after leaving Hong Kong in March 1984 aged 57. Aileen was conducting seminars in the city. As Ken wrote in his fictionalized version of the events in Hong Kong (thereby adding considerable doubt to the following quote): “Roy Henry retired to Malaysia and lived openly as a gay [7].”