Chaplin Chang

Beyond the Blockades: a Hong Kong Sailor's Stories Chaplin Chang

Although only 10 stories here yet they interestingly revealed how the writer at his teens, handicapped with limited education and funds, was forced to cheat his way into Chinese and British Navy to become a sailor and later worked as chief officer on freighters running through the blockades; how he dealt in Communist China when confronted with Communist's irrational teenage cadres and what happened when Nationalist's special-agent wanted him to hyjack the ship to Taiwan. Then what did he do when seeing a lady jumping overboard which also brought out another story about a man stopped at the brink of jumping down the tallest building in Canton and started a new life in Macao. The writer also recorded his long, unfulfilled secret love affair that spilled out the thousand-year-old inhuman tradition in China; the effect on a man when nepotism and the closely-circled territory before and during early nineteen forties in the old Chinese Navy; how a British sailor sacrificed his opportunity to join his ship in order to help an unknown Chinese sailor in England; then in Hong Kong, the power-struggling for the control of a ship and her 'human-cargo' (soldiers) during the civil war in China. Fascinating and informative stories.