Hong Kong: Visiting one of Ian Fleming's Thrilling Cities

A trip to New Zealand gave me the opportunity to visit one of Ian Fleming's Thrilling Cities en route. Hong Kong was the first city Fleming visited on his Sunday Times-sponsored tour of the world in 1959. Time didn't permit me to follow in Fleming's footsteps exactly, but I could match him in two aspects at least.

My flight to Hong Kong was rather more straight-forward than Fleming's. Today, one takes a direct flight to Hong Kong from Heathrow. In 1959, Fleming's flight took him to Beirut, Bahrain, Delhi, and Bangkok before landing in Hong Kong. Without in-flight entertainment, Fleming needed a good book. He took a proof copy of Eric Ambler's 1959 novel, Passage of Arms. I took Fleming's lead and read the book on my flight too.

Passage of Arms, set in Malaya, Hong Kong and Singapore, follows the movement of a cache of arms, hidden by Communist insurgents, discovered by a clerk of a rubber plantation estate, and sold on to Indonesian revolutionaries through two Chinese merchants, brothers Tan Siow Mong and Tan Yam Heng, by a naive American tourist looking for adventure.

The novel is a thrilling tale of tension, excitement, comedy, well-drawn characters, vivid descriptions, torture, and a hint of lesbianism, and it's no surprise that Fleming thought the book wonderful. In the descriptions of the Tans, I was reminded of the Foo brothers with whom Major Smythe trades his stolen gold in Fleming's short story, 'Octopussy', written in 1962, and wondered whether Fleming was inspired by Ambler in this aspect.

Once in Hong Kong, Fleming's guide, journalist Richard Hughes (immortalised in You Only Live Twice as Dikko Henderson), insisted that Fleming experience an authentic Chinese meal. They visited the Peking Restaurant, where Fleming had shark's fin soup with crab, shrimp balls in oil, bamboo shoots with seaweed, chicken and walnuts, and roast Peking duckling.

I couldn't find the Peking Restaurant (does it still exist?), but did go to the Peking Garden, a cavernous and smart-looking restaurant on the third floor of an office block. It had everything that Fleming ate on the menu, including shark's fin soup with crab, but looking at the prices, I quickly realised I wasn't going to be able to replicate Fleming's meal entirely. I did, however, order the Peking duck. As with much of the food in the Bond books, Peking duck is no longer as exotic as it was in Fleming's day, but to me the dish remains special, and was delicious.

I just had time before making my way to the airport for my onward flight to visit the Peninsula Hotel, which briefly appears in the film of The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). Alas, I didn't see any of its famous green Rolls Royces. Still, I'll have another chance on the return journey. Watch this space! 

More ideas in the Bond books that originated with Thrilling Cities

In a recent post I wrote about an idea or meme that emerged in a James Bond novel, in this case the phrase 'quantum of solace', and reappeared in Ian Fleming's Thrilling Cities (1963). The process was more common in reverse. This is evident particularly with the chapter in Thrilling Cities on Tokyo, a city which provided Fleming with a wealth of material that would subsequently be used in You Only Live Twice (1964). But there are other examples.

In his chapter on Geneva, written in 1960, Ian Fleming describes the fields around Noël Coward's chalet in the Swiss Alps as being thick with flowers (it being summer and the time, Fleming notes, of the Narcissus Festival, which celebrates the flowering of the narcissus). In passing, Fleming wonders when an alp becomes a berg. It was a question, slightly modified, that he later gave to Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963). “What is the difference between a piz, and an alp and a berg?” he asks Irma Bunt. Not much, it seems, a piz being a local name for a peak, but an alp and berg both being used to describe mountains.

Then, in West Berlin, Ian Fleming enjoys a schnapps with a beer chaser known as Molle und Korn, or a 'boiler-maker and his assistant'. James Bond has the same combination (described as Molle mit Korn) when he's in Berlin ahead of his rendezvous with 'Trigger' in 'The Living Daylights', first published in 1962.

Oyster crackers, enjoyed both by Fleming and Bond

The short story '007 in New York' was originally published in 1963, three years after Ian Fleming's report on his visit to New York appeared in The Sunday Times. In that piece, Fleming claimed that creamed oyster stew, served at Grand Central Station with crackers and a Miller High Life beer, was the only dish that had maintained its integrity in New York. James Bond expresses similar views in the short story, musing about the “best meal in New York – oyster stew with cream, crackers, and Miller High Life” at Grand Central.

Anyone interested in the origins of ideas and memes in the later Bond books would not have to look very far in Thrilling Cities before finding them. Some of the experiences Fleming had while visiting cities around the world he would give to Bond. After all, the thrilling and intriguing aspects of Fleming's visits were natural material for Bond. But the experiences Fleming had, which he recorded with his journalist's eye, also give the Bond books a sense of reportage and reality that still make the books so compelling to read.

References

Fleming, I, 1963 Thrilling Cities, Cape
Gilbert, J, 2012 Ian Fleming: The Bibliography, Queen Anne Press

Ian Fleming's alternative Quantum of Solace

What does Quantum of Solace mean? In Ian Fleming's story of that name, written in 1958 and published in For Your Eyes Only in 1960, the Governor of the Bahamas tells James Bond that relationships can survive many things, infidelity, money problems, criminal activities, and so on, so long as there was some degree of basic humanity between partners. He calls this the Law of the Quantum of Solace. If the humanity of one partner towards the other has gone, then there is no Quantum of Solace, or amount of comfort, and the relationship cannot survive.

Fleming was pleased with his phrase, and it appeared again in Thrilling Cities (1963). This time, however, Quantum of Solace had a different meaning.

In the late 1950s, Britain's high-earners were feeling the squeeze from the government's tax burden. In fact, the level of tax had been falling after the Second World War, only rising again during the 1970s (the top rate hitting 83% in latter part of the decade). But still, the level of tax in the late 1950s, particularly the top rate, was regarded as punitive.

Playwright and Ian Fleming's friend, Noël Coward, was among those who left the country to become tax exiles. Coward took up residence in Switzerland in 1958 at Les Avants, and in 1963 was looking to make a formal arrangements with the Swiss government with regard to his tax liabilities. “It will mean my financial life will be far less complicated,” he wrote in his diary in November that year.

Ian Fleming sympathised with Noël Coward's plight. When Fleming explored Geneva in the summer of 1960 as part of his Thrilling Cities tour for the Sunday Times, he visited his friend, and in his subsequent piece on the city, complained about the UK's tax regime that was driving the great and the good out of England.
 

Cover of first edition of Thrilling Cities (1963)

In the piece, Fleming proposed that tax relief be given to those who, through their artistic and creative endeavours, and as judged by an independent tribunal, have contributed in a significant way to the pleasure of the nation's citizens. Potential recipients of this tax relief might include actors, writers, musicians, sports people, and even politicians. The measure would encourage creativity and keep creative ability in the country.

Fleming called this proposed amendment to the tax laws “the Quantum of Solace Clause,” being, presumably, the amount of comfort that British artists and creative people give to their fellow citizens.

It is curious that just four months after his story 'Quantum of Solace' was published in book form, Fleming would mention the phrase again, but with a new meaning and without reference to its original use. Possibly he felt that his fine-sounding phrase deserved wider application, and so wished to dissociate it to a certain extent from his short story. Or possibly the use of the phrase was a subtle means of giving the original story – and For Your Eyes Only – a bit of publicity.

In any case, his piece on Geneva was not the first time that Ian Fleming had alluded to the perceived unfairness of the tax system. In his piece, 'If I were Prime Minister,' published in the Spectator in October 1959, Fleming attributed tax-dodging, expense accounts, and other “fiscal chicanery” to taxation, and called for, among other things, a reduction in income tax. Fifty-six years on, as politicians and commentators wrestle with the issue of tax avoidance, Ian Fleming's views continue to resonate.

References

Clark, T and Dilnot, A, nd, Long term trends in British taxation and spending, Institute for Fiscal Studies Briefing Note No. 25
Fleming, I, 1963 Thrilling Cities, Cape
Gilbert, J, 2012 Ian Fleming: The Bibliography, Queen Anne Press
Payn, G and Morley, S, 1998 The Noel Coward Diaries, Phoenix Giant