Memoirs of a Music Man-Part Fifteen - Examining in Hong Kong

After my baptism of fire as an overseas examiner in Malaysia I am not sure what kind of summary comments were entered on my file back at Portland Place-perhaps best that I never found out- but to my surprise I was engaged again, this time to join a group tour to Hong Kong in late autumn 2003, following my retirement as Director of Music at Marlborough College.

So it was, along with a motley assortment of fellow examiners, that I set off for my second visit to the Far East, courtesy of Cathay Pacific, known purveyors of excellent in-flight service and quality free food. Hong Kong is 6,000 miles by air from London, a flight of eleven and a half hours. Six weeks far from home and friends is a challenge, and as I sat in my hotel suite on the fourteenth floor close to the Star Ferry short of a night’s sleep it felt like a rather bizarre dream, from which there was no short-term escape, reviving memories of my incarceration in Kuala Lumpur.

But there were many features that made this and subsequent visits to H.K. a pleasure, despite the many hours spent behind a desk in air-conditioned studios.

There were innumerable candidates and therefore many fellow examiners with which to share the experience, as many as 75 during the busiest periods. It must have been a candidate’s nightmare to enter the lift at the Marco Polo Hotel ground floor only to find 14 examiners already jostling for space inside!

It was a time to renew encounters with former Directors of Music and enjoy exchanges with high-level performers and lively teachers from the various conservatoires. Friendships were formed and evenings whiled away in noisy groups in the many nearby restaurants, sharing tables and sampling international cuisine-Indian, Chinese, Thai, Mongolian- and the noise and bustle of street-life was intoxicating. It was unnerving when a nearby pimp muttered from behind you “do you wanna lady?” just quietly enough to deny saying anything if challenged.

Maybe some succumbed to the temptation, for there were examiners away from their wives for long stretches if they were undertaking consecutive foreign tours. The Chief examiner back in London told a story about one gentleman who was clearly feeling the strain. It was not unusual to comment on a marksheet about a string candidate’s use of “vibrato” in a performance (the rapid fluctuation in pitch produced by the wobbling of the left hand on a string) and its suitability to the period-Baroque, Classical, Romantic. Our colleague was concerned about the excessive amount of vibrato a young violinist had used when performing Vivaldi: a fair point no doubt, but he had unfortunately written: “You showed your passion and commitment in this performance, but with rather too much use of the vibrator.” Oh dear me!

Many of us had our spouses joining us for part of the time, and with our de-luxe accommodation both in the Marco Polo and in subsequent years at the Intercontinental East Tsim Sha Tui it was great to share these tour experiences together. Hong Kong is a shopper’s mecca and some of the wives went on joint missions to buy jewellery, watches, perfumes and clothing at bargain prices. It amused us to find an illuminated sign in Harbour City which, in the absence of one of the O’s in the word Goods, read “GODS OF DESIRE”, for somehow in this city shopping WAS a kind of Religion!

Meanwhile the examining week began, in a variety of studios and musical centres in the Kowloon Peninsular and on Hong Kong Island. A studio rep would be waiting in the Hotel Lobby bright and early to lead you to your centre: a walk to the MTR station, a couple of stops to the north, then a change of line, three more stops, a five minute walk, up two escalators into a Plaza, into the lift, up to the third floor, get out, turn left, Bingo- studio at the end of the corridor-easy! The next day you were on your own….

There, printed on the waiting room window was your biography, sure to impress the parents: sound bite words such as London, Oxbridge, M.A Cantab and L.R.A.M. was what they liked to see and a selling point for The Gold Standard. A sample Mark sheet or two, hopefully fairly readable, was further evidence of our good works.

Exams were only held twice a year, so it was important that a student was ready and up to scratch, for failure often meant retrying (with the same music) six months later. For the parents of what was usually a single child the pressure for achievement was often written on their anxious faces in the waiting room: in one case a sobbing child desperate not to take the exam was being forcibly propelled into the exam room by both parents. On such an occasion I needed to recall Sir Hugh Allen’s advice: “a golden voice and a bedside manner, coupled with unwearied patience…”

Often the pieces and the scales attracted good marks, but the Sight Reading and Aural tests brought the total down to a scraped pass. When I asked about this disparity one steward told me the parents paid a high price for the basic 45-minute lesson in the studio, but often couldn’t afford the extra fee for the teaching of the subsidiary skills.

One had to be prepared for anything in the course of a week: cancellations, a changed order of play, Typhoon warnings and last-minute extra candidates appearing out of the blue, trying to cheat the system.

One cellist, a six-year old girl with a miniature instrument came in with an entourage: there was the cello teacher tuning the instrument, the accompanist arranging his music, the parents, a brother, and the grandparents too! With her tiny hands and inadequate instrument her playing was hard on the ear, but she had prepared well and got her pass.

A precocious girl from the H.K. American School was just about the only candidate that made me lose my temper in an exam room. She professed to be ill-prepared and preferred to talk rather than play, already predicting her failure. She begged me to tell her the result and when I said she would hear it in a few weeks’ time she asked me to pass over her music, which was still on the piano. As I did so, she ran to my desk to look at the mark-sheet. I managed to cut her off, cover the sheet and say: “I think it is time you left now!” She had achieved a Pass by one mark, but I wished I had failed her!

It was the occasional star performer that lit up the days and the weeks. One viola candidate was playing Brahms or Bruch to me and it was so good I just closed my eyes and listened. Here was someone who appeared to know all about love, loss, sadness and loneliness…yet when I opened my eyes I saw that the performer was a 14-year-old girl, and could only marvel at her natural connection with the music.

Then there was the boy who swept into the room at 9.30 a.m. in a tuxedo which appeared to be entirely made of cardboard, bowed deeply, and with a “Good morning, Mista Nelson!” jumped onto the piano stool and played everything from memory. One of his pieces was called “Mozzie”, which concludes with a sudden low note produced as the left hand crosses the right, a representation of the mosquito delivering its bite. He took a little leap into the air before bombing the low note with the left-hand index finger. Terrific!

The standard of examinees was highly variable, sometimes very good, but with the occasional “sadly”-the nickname for a candidate registering a mark so low that no meaningful marks could be awarded, thus: “Sadly, on this occasion etc.”

The borderline candidates were the most difficult: one wanted to pass them but it was not always possible. Many were in the Grade 1 to 5 category: I learnt that a good score at Grade 5 Piano carried merit points when junior children were applying for a place in a High School. One girl blew hot and cold in her Grade 5 exam-a good solo, then a shaky one, and sketchy scales too. As we came to the final Aural Test I reckoned she was very close to the danger zone. I had heard enough flashes of musicality to want to give her the benefit of the doubt. I played a sentimental passage from a Chopin Prelude and asked the stock question: “is this music Baroque, Classical or Romantic, putting an enthusiastic stress on the word Romantic. She paused and then said “I think this song is Romantic song” so she passed, with exactly 100 marks. It was the last exam of the day and as I packed my bag I said “Now you have done Grade 5 what do you hope to do next with your piano playing?” She smiled and replied brightly “My parents say-if I pass exam I can give up!”

Come the end of each week the batch of mark sheets needed to be carefully checked and submitted to the Coordinator who passed them on to another examiner to read through and make little comments or corrections with “post-its.” Then it was gin and tonics with colleagues in the coordinators room and time to plan the next two free days. A pleasant option was to visit one of the islands: Lamma was a popular destination and one could walk from one ferry drop-off to another the other end of the island, with fish restaurants either end featuring huge tanks of live fish, clams and lobsters.

Further afield was Po Toi via the ferry at Stanley. Given the close and sometimes clammy conditions in Hong Kong a visit to an island guaranteed some fresher, cooler air, at least on the boat, and for me the chance of seeing some exciting birds. On Po Toi I would link up with the local bird enthusiasts, often more preoccupied with their cameras than their binoculars, saving identification till studying their pictures later. Some of the species were exciting: Paradise Flycatcher, Dollarbird, Blue Rock Thrush, Crested Serpent Eagle and the enormous White-bellied Sea Eagle.

A trip to Po Toi took up the whole day in travel and time on the island, and the return journey sometimes included a stop off at the Stanley Market with its promise of cheap bargains, though not everyone was fooled by the genuine leather handbags which in a good light were clearly mostly plastic. Happy and tired, it was almost dark by the time we got back to the hotel hot and dusty, ready for a bath and some relaxation. A tap on the door and a hotel man arrived to do “bed-turning down service”- a curious ritual that we never felt was entirely necessary!

If it wasn’t drinks with colleagues there were Old Marlburians and their parents to look up. Dear Warren Lee, who had been such a star scholar was married and starting a family, forging his career as a solo pianist and teacher, and forming partnerships with some first-class players from the H.K. Philharmonic Orchestra. On one of the several tours I undertook I needed to find somewhere to continue composing my Cantata “Brunel’s Kingdom”, due for a performance the following year. Warren offered me the use of his glass-surrounded studio in Star House, overlooking Victoria Harbour: it really was far too nice, and my sessions there were fitful, limited by the stunning location and tiredness after a day’s examining.

Doctor Too, father of two girl scholars, was keen to entertain us on my first tour, and his wife served us delicious Peking Duck in their house in St Stephen’s College, where he was Headmaster. There were other treats: a meal at the lookout restaurant at The Peak, after earlier counting in excess of 40 Black Kites circling above, and reunions in other locations.

Perhaps my best release from the endless procession of examination candidates were the bird-watching expeditions. Mai Po Nature Reserve, which borders Deep Bay in the Northern Territories is a RAMSAR site close to the Chinese border. A journey by KCR to Sheng Shui, then a ride in a Green Taxi (I would hold up a sign in Cantonese saying Mai Po Reserve and waggle my binoculars) and then you were at the Reserve Reception Centre. You paid a fee, showed your passport, put down a deposit and took your papers to the reserve entrance. If the upcoming tide was 2 metres high or above you were guaranteed outstanding views of all the shore birds from one of the hides overlooking Deep Bay. It was here that I had so many memorable days with the birds-30 wader species in one visit was perfectly possible, in various plumages and constantly on the move: then there were the kingfishers, herons and egrets. I was lucky enough to see endangered species such as the Black-faced Spoonbill, the Dalmatian Pelican and the dainty Saunders’ Gull, but it came at a cost: the heat is quite a feature of hide-life and so are insects-a family of hornets one time! A break for lunch with a temperature in the mid 70’s and humidity levels averaging from 75-85 % made sure that my chocolate bar had turned liquid and my ham sandwiches were hot, curling up and moist. Looking across to China and Shenzhen Shi, was I dreaming or was I looking at the Eiffel Tower? -a replica in fact, along with others in homage to Western icons.

Then there was Tai Po Kau, Hong Kong’s largest secondary forest, the planting of which dates from the 1920’s, a better location if I wanted shelter from the heat. Leaves gently fell to the forest floor at whatever the season….no sense of Spring or Fall. My best time there was in April when the Orange-bellied Leafbird was in full song, as well as three or four species of cuckoo. Grey chinned and scarlet minivets were moving about in flocks but if I put my picnic bag down to watch them I needed to keep an eye on the rhesus macaques barking in the high foliage, only too ready to steal any visible items of food.

After a long day at Tai Po I returned to my hotel, already late for a party in a colleague’s room. Somebody had bought a box set of The Ring Cycle at a bargain price, someone else a trouser press with a built-in coat-hanger feature. “Whatexcitingbirds did you see today Robin?” my host asked.“ Nothing much” I replied, smiling into my glass of Gin and Tonic. “Only a Rufous-necked Scimitar Babbler.” And he thought I was joking!

It was much-needed therapy to hear high-quality music after a day’s examining. Angela Hewitt performed the whole of Bach’s Well Tempered Klavier over two evenings and a few of us were positioned a row above a group of teenage girls. They each had a tablet, a note-book and a pencil, making detailed notes on her fingering and interpretation, bar by bar. Impressive! A concert performance of “Der Rosenkavalier” was notable for the accompaniment, provided by the full forces of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, rather than a pit orchestra. In a note-perfect recital Leif Oves Andsnes gave us “Pictures at an Exhibition” in the original version, for solo piano.

Back at the hotel after sedentary work, a few drinks and a late-night meal it was sometimes difficult to get to sleep. One night I sat up suddenly feeling wide awake and checked the time: it was 3.30 a.m. and I realised that at exactly that time back in the College Chapel at Marlborough the Fine Arts Brass were performing my “Gambian Sketches.” No recording was made, so I never heard this one and only performance. Another reminder of the U.K. came when I found a message on the hotel phone from Simon Eliot, Headmaster of Sherborne School. It seems he urgently needed an inter regnum Director of Music and had tracked me down via the route Marlborough College/ Associated Board/Hong Kong Examining Authority. Might I be interested?

It turned out to merit another chapter in my musical memoirs…..

But there were many features that made this and subsequent visits to H.K. a pleasure, despite the many hours spent behind a desk in air-conditioned studios.