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Sun, 07/24/2016 - 19:57

I arrived in HK in May 1971 and was met at Kai Tak and taken to the Bank Mess on the 14th floor of the building in the photo. I was told that I was to work in the Computer Sept on the first floor as a computer operations officer on shift. The following morning, I met my new boss, Reg Laville, the Computer Manager. Chartered Bank had bought in 1969 an NCR 315 system consisting of 3 computers which ran current accounts, savings and fixed deposits. There was a team of 3 operators and a shift leader and me. We worked one week of days, a week of evenings till 10pm and then 9pm to 6am. I formed a good bond with my shift and we kept in contact on my subsequent tours in HK. Actually, Chartered Bank was the first bank to computerise in HK and very quickly had over 30 branches.
On night shifts, the Chinese operators, brought in their rice cooker and I gradually got introduced to Chinese dishes, such as red bean soup etc. After 6 months, I moved to the Bills Department and saw the huge trade that HK companies did in all sorts of commodities. One suprise was Chicken feet. I had never really thought about this particular subject until I saw a set of documents relating to the import of them from USA in 1972. The Americans don't eat them, but Chinese do. As I was to learn, Chicken feet are consumed in Huge quantities in HK in Soup and also pickled. Likewise huge quantities of live pigs entered HK daily from China.

Date picture taken
1 Jun 1972
Author(s)