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Hackney Chinese Youth Club

Introduction

How does a short, fat, ugly Scotsman end up working in a Chinese youth club for over 8 years? Well, although it may seem improbable, it is possible – because I was employed as a youth worker in one of the very few Chinese youth clubs in Britain from September 1997 until Saturday, May 13th 2006. Because our group UNIT quite simply would not exist had it not been for Hackney Chinese Youth Club, it behoves me to chronicle the time I spent there. In any case, I doubt there are many essays, even on the Internet, that concern themselves purely with what may appear to be such an arcane topic.

Hackney Chinese Community Services is a purpose built single storey premises in Ellingfort Road, Hackney, that was formally opened in 1986, with the aid of an annual grant from Hackney council. It is supervised by a management committee comprised primarily of Christian Chinese professional men and women of Hong Kong origin although there are also Vietnamese members involved. Initially the centre was designed to serve the needs of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants in the Hackney area of London. Certainly there was a need for such a service because, in the 1980s, the Chinese and Vietnamese communities tended to avoid overt integration into the general population. When I was employed as a youth worker in other youth clubs, a complaint voiced by many younger people was that ‘the Chinese don’t mix, they keep themselves to themselves’. Another more vociferous comment I often heard was that the Chinese were ‘snooty and arrogant’. Their desire for privacy was often erroneously construed as an inclination for separatism and secrecy. In fact, this apparent exclusivity is generated from an aspiration to preserve their culture rather than any manifestation of cultural snobbery. Certainly the Chinese and Vietnamese rarely insist on such overt separatism as is evident in, for example, orthodox Jews.

Note: there is a common misconception that Chinese and Vietnamese people can be regarded as being so similar that they are interchangeable. This is analogous to stating that, for example, Britons and Germans are so similar that they are interchangeable. To many occidentals anyone from south east Asia can be lumped together as orientals and leave it at that! This is hardly fair and in any case it ignores the cultural differences (subtle though these may be) and national pride of both sets of people. However, in one respect, there is a similarity: the majority of immigrants from south east Asia are all refugees from the disgusting tyranny of communism and for that reason alone, they deserve our compassion and support.

HCCS identified specific target areas for their work and they soon developed a mental health service, an elderly luncheon club, an outreach home help service and a language section for translation of documents and teaching English to their members. Only after the centre had been in operation for a few years did the youth club commence operations in the early 1990s. The decision to include a youth club as part of the set of services provided by the Chinese Centre was not unanimous – right up until the eventual closure of the youth club early in 2007, certain members of the management committee considered the club a waste of time and resources. However, this did not inhibit these same management committee personnel from using the youth club members as a source of unpaid labour whenever social functions were held and arduous manual work was required, moving heavy furniture and so forth.

Due to the circumstances that governed my own eventual involvement in the youth club, I came to know certain members of the Chinese Centre fairly well while other key workers in the place remained a mystery to me. I mention this because my description of various personnel who worked hard to maintain the high level of services offered by the centre is therefore skewed and biased toward those with whom I worked on a regular basis. It is not my intention to exaggerate the importance of certain workers at the expense of other equally essential personnel. In the 12 years in which I was involved in Hackney Chinese Community Services, my work remit meant that I came into contact with the mental health workers Melissa Li, Lai Yuen Lung, William Wong and Karen Kwong, the manager Ian Yau and the youth workers Richard Chan and Ben Lau. Most of the management committee remained unknown to me.

In common with most other mixed youth clubs, HCYC featured an unfortunate gender bias such that boys tended to outnumber girls by at least 5 to 1. That there was never a female youth worker there was a major contributing factor although to be fair to both Chan and Ben Lau, they tried hard to involve girls in youth club activities. Chan and Ben both worked at the club on Thursday evenings. My involvement was therefore not crucial but I attended every Thursday anyway to lend a hand where ever necessary. On Saturday afternoons, Chan would play basketball with the older lads in Haggerston School while Ben ran the youth club itself in the Chinese Centre, with assistance from myself.

Anyone who, being a middle class socialite raised on a diet of The Guardian and Channel 4, seriously believes Great Britain is a wonderful example of multiracialism in action, should have spent a few years working in youth clubs with me. Human beings are naturally racist – accept it. Don’t run away from it like some wimp of a socialist. Accept it and face it – then rise above it. That’s what most of the lads and lassies at HCYC did. Oh yes – I saw racism raised to the level of an art form during my years at HCYC, but only occasionally with myself as the recipient. However, their real contempt and spite is reserved for homosexuals. In this case, I was most definitely the recipient.

In the mid 1990s, Dave Fanning (who was then still a member of UNIT) had become interested in making films. When he discovered that I had been asked to create a means by which to celebrate world mental health day on October 10th, he thought of an intriguing idea: a short musical film that incorporated a lyric written by one of the current patients of Homerton Psychiatric Hospital. We were both avid enthusiasts of Chinese and Hong Kong cinema at this time although our interests diverged – he preferred the old fashioned kung fu sagas typified by the Shaw Brothers along with ghost and vampire films. I much preferred the Triad funded action films and those stories based around social commentary and political intrigue. We realised that it would be possible to combine our love of south east Asian cinema within the mental health remit and thus I approached the Chinese Centre with a proposition: if we could have access to the youth club on a regular basis over a 6 week period, to film some of their members engaged in martial arts exercises, I would ensure that the Chinese Centre received due credit in the film and I would further pay each of the boys and girls involved in it. Ultimately no girls appeared for the simple (but regrettable) reason that none made themselves available for filming. By this time our roles were consolidated: Dave was the director and I was the producer.

Because Ian Yau and Richard Chan had already become acquainted with me through my involvement with their mental health project, their agreement was immediate and the next weekend we hired a van, drove to Epping Forest and commenced filming of the lads as they practised Pak Mei forms and other martial arts moves. Over the next few weeks we filmed various other lads doing their stuff, much of which was unsuitable since they were clearly playing up to the camera – which was entirely understandable – but it did mean I came to know some of them fairly well. It also made me realise that there was another film project on offer here, one that I wished to direct: a celebration of Hackney Chinese Youth Club itself. Suffice to say, the film by Dave was completed and, while only 15 minutes long, it remains one of the very best examples of his cinematic work and is a credit to everyone involved even if the mental health aspect is virtually submerged underneath a welter of Chinese vampires, white bewigged martial arts masters and young lads giving each other bruises. Who am I to be critical?

The First Generation

Excuse me if I start at the end: to date, the film I planned was never finished. This is most uncharacteristic behaviour for me but the matter was taken beyond my influence or control since in 2006 I was sacked from the Chinese Centre in general and banned from the youth club in particular. Under these circumstances, my enthusiasm to complete the film project tended to diminish somewhat. Now let us return to the start. I purchased a professional video camera, tripod and studio lights from the proceeds of record royalties and my own savings. I then commenced regular filming each Thursday and Saturday. They played snooker, pool and table tennis – I filmed it. They practised kung fu moves – I filmed it. They played badminton and tennis outside – I filmed it. They practised their lion dance – I filmed it. They ate, drank and smoked – I filmed it. They went to the toilet – I stayed in the back room and changed film tapes.

I should also add that their consent was always given to every film shoot I made. Besides, whenever I sought specific scenes to be shot, I paid the participants out of my own limited funds. During the latter half of 1997 and the early part of 1998, my relationship to HCYC changed. The amount of time I spent filming the club decreased in direct proportion to an increase in my involvement with the club activities themselves. In fact, I had become an unofficial volunteer for the youth club, providing assistance to Chan and Lau when required or requested. By the summer, this role became officially recognised and I became (probably) the first non-Chinese worker employed in a Chinese youth club. However, such a brief account provides the impression that I was unanimously welcome – predictably, this is far from the truth.

Even before Dave’s film was complete, it had become patently evident that Ngo Aminh strongly resented my presence at the club and never did he make any attempt to disguise his utter contempt for me. Other HCYC members thought he actually hated me but that was inaccurate. For him to hate me, he would have been obliged to consider me sufficiently important to merit such an emotion whereas in reality he dismissed me as an irritating irrelevance, in which case he only need pepper the air with insults and ridicule every 15 minutes in order to ensure that I could never claim that every evening or afternoon at the club was entirely pleasant. Despite my Herculean attempts to ignore his attitude, on one occasion I asked him if such incessant stupidity was really necessary. “I’m entitled to my opinion.” He smirked. “Yes, but it’s your assumption that the rest of us are also entitled to it that’s tiresome.” I replied – pearls before swine, of course.

As the months slowly trundled along, I was gradually accepted as a regular if somewhat eccentric part of the social fabric that constituted HCYC. This in itself reveals an attitude of tolerance among the youths since they did not generally share my hobbies and studies. Well, hang it all, how many Chinese youths can there be who display a fascination with astronomy, science fiction, zoology, political theory, classical Greek culture, cricket and avant garde classical music? When I once showed some of them the issue of Smile magazine that featured my essay on fiction in the Ming dynasty, it cannot truthfully be claimed that any of them interrupted what they were doing for long. To be honest, the repeated trajectory of a small white sphere projected by flat wooden bats across a table provided them with rather more cause for concern than the evolution of the novel in 14th century China.

Even those interests where one would expect a degree of sympathy were fraught with barriers. On learning that I had studied shotukan karate and attained an orange belt for my considerable efforts elicited little more than snorts of derision. “Oh karate isn’t a proper a martial art.” One of them remarked. “Then what is it?” I responded. “Unarmed combat for thugs who can’t be bothered to learn a real martial art.” When questioned for further information, I discovered that a ‘real martial art’ was one that originated only in China. “What about tae kwon do then?” I countered, in a feeble attempt to be clever. “That’s simply Shaolin kung fu with all the useful bits removed.” I had to admit defeat – although I would dearly like to have been able to introduce a karate 4th dan black belt from Japan at that moment and invited them to continue the discussion which up until then had been somewhat biased. I suggest the ensuing debate might have been rather lively.

My love for and knowledge of Hong Kong cinema created a more favourable response although even here I soon discovered that what I valued most highly in Chinese films was regarded as being of only superficial interest by the HCYC clientele. What mattered to them were the martial arts moves used and the body count. I think their attitude toward cinema would have been immediately comprehensible to Dave Fanning. They were impressed by my knowledge of the films, the original Chinese names of the actors and actresses and those of the directors. However, while I considered Hong Kong cinema to be in a torpid state of decay by the late 1990s, they disagreed and found, for example, the intrusion of Japanese manga comics into the content of Chinese films an interesting development. Gen X Cops, Shaolin Soccer and the Young & Dangerous trilogy were about the only 5 films on which myself and the rest of HCYC agreed – that is to say, we found them absolutely ripping!

There was one factor concerned with the social interaction of youths at this club that was highly unusual. Certainly in the previous youth clubs in which I had worked (Oaklands, Highview and Elizabeth House), the attitude of the boys towards the girls was frequently prejudiced by an attitude silly socialists would no doubt call ‘sexist’. This was not the case in HCYC where, on the contrary, the girls were treated as equals and accorded a degree of respect rarely found elsewhere. It came as no surprise to learn that the primary teacher of martial arts in the club was a woman, namely Keiko Tsukioka. All the same, very few of the girls ever participated in the martial arts lessons themselves. Incidentally, check out the song Woman From Tokyo by Deep Purple. It’s a silly song by a silly band but it was famous, it was released as a single and it is a favourite among all the sad and wretched fans of that funny little group. The song was written about one specific Japanese woman: Keiko Tsukioka, the same Peko who taught kung fu at HCYC.

La Lesoi – one of the older lads, Lesoi was primarily associated with his skill on skate-boards (and indeed anything on wheels). Along with Bobby and B, he was one of the very few lads who openly expressed his support for me and spoke in my defence after ‘The Letter Incident’. (This refers to a sad and sorry saga that I describe later in a separate section.) Despite being very conservative in his attitudes, this didn’t stop him being friendly to me after I was sacked from HCYC – which itself makes him one of a very elite club indeed. Bobby Lam – the joker and humorist of the club, Bobby was known for his conceit and arrogance but this was always displayed with such elegance and sheer style that any level of pure impertinence could be tolerated! Along with Lesoi and B, he was one of the very few lads who openly expressed his support for me and spoke in my defence after The Letter incident and still acknowledged me in the street after I was sacked from the youth club. Ngo Quang – the middle brother of the Ngo triumvirate, B (as he is always known) was ‘Mr Cool’ – every youth club has one of these – and displayed considerable ability as an actor as well as a sportsman. Along with Lesoi and Bobby, he was one of the very few lads who openly expressed his support for me and spoke in my defence after The Letter incident. He also once visited my flat with his girlfriend and gave me £100 ‘as an investment’ to put towards UNIT. Like Lesoi and Bobby, he met me outside the psychiatric hospital where UJ and I work and was as friendly as ever. I make a big deal out of this because among HCYC members, such decent behaviour is so depressingly rare.

Ngo Aminh – every youth club needs someone like Aminh. His ability to create a vibrant, enjoyable atmosphere in a crowd of previously apathetic youths is a skill not many people possess. It is unfortunate that he always resented my presence at the club and expressed this frequently and volubly in as insulting a manner as possible! He made no secret of his hatred for me and, despite my efforts to address this, he remained stridently hostile toward me throughout the time I worked at the club. It seems likely that he was the prime suspect for being the author of The Letter although this has never been proved. Personally, this is one of very few mysteries I’d prefer never to solve. Luong Gia Jing – a minor athlete, Jings’ primary skill (for which he achieved considerable recognition) was for being allegedly unbeatable at jokai (Chinese chess). He continued to win the Chinese schools competition for many consecutive years. He once invited me to his house to play chess all night. However, after The Letter incident, he refused to have anything further to do with me.

Lang Kin Tung – known as CK, he was the first of the Chinese youth club lads to join UNIT in 1999 – quiet and, besides being a competent musician, displays the most versatile computer skills I have ever witnessed. I watched him create a lethal virus that would have caused serious problems had it been inflicted on a web based computer network; he then destroyed the same virus and all this in a matter of minutes. After The Letter incident, he left the group although he did make amends in 2006 when he attended our second live radio session to stand in for Trung who was (as usual) absent without leave. Gieng San Man – the third HCYC lad to join UNIT, San Man was unusual in that he chose not to adopt Pak Mei as his kung fu style (the form most closely linked to HCYC through its teacher, Sifu Tang); instead he practised Mantis, one of the animal forms taught by specialists in this country. He was the one most closely associated with all the fuss and furore over The Letter. During recording sessions for Fire & Ice he left the group the day after he learnt that I was queer (before the album was even completed) and later, when the album was pressed, he refused to own even a single copy of it, so disgusted and embarrassed was he by his involvement with me. It would be a further 4 years before he would ever speak to me again. Ngo Achoi – the youngest of the 3 Ngo brothers, Achoi hardly needs any introduction if you are an enthusiast for the work of UNIT. He joined the group in 1999 and remained as a highly active member until 2007. After The Letter incident, he was the only one of the original ‘Chinese trio’ to stay with the group and also one of the very few lads who still spoke to me. The quietest and most restrained of the brothers, Achoi is (in my biased opinion) one of the nicest, most decent people it has ever been my pleasure to meet.

After 2 years of regular involvement with the club I was called upon in 2000 to film the National Chinese Youth Club Sports Day held each year. I arrived on this Saturday morning in May (early, as usual) to meet Mr Chan and the lads. A coach had been booked to take us all to this huge school in Chiswick where the event used to be held. This was the day I met ‘the other white boy’. A disparaging term of mild abuse used by some BBCs (British Born Chinese) toward their integrated brothers and sisters is ‘banana’. This denotes a BBC who has become so assimilated into British culture that he or she has a yellow skin but a white soul. A corresponding term for black people is coconut or choc-ice. Well, Rikki Morris was the opposite: he had a white skin and a yellow soul – inside he was more Chinese than certain Chinese people I’ve met! He knew as much about Chinese cinema as did I (well, almost) and he certainly spoke the language with far greater proficiency than I. In fact, within the next 4 years he mastered Cantonese and now speaks it like a native.

During the Jokai (Chinese chess) rounds, our resident hero Luong Gia Jing was, for the first time in the 4 consecutive years he reigned as undisputed British champion, under threat – from a precocious 10 year old boy who remained singularly unimpressed by the reputation or age of his adversary. Long jump, high jump, triple jump and track racing were all captured on film. The exception was the tug of war – for this, Mr Yau took charge of the camera as, for once, my fat frame served a purpose other than of door stop or draught excluder. I pulled on the rope along with the rest of our team – but we still lost the bout. Oh well, you can’t win them all. It was on this day I realised how different were our crew to those from the other Chinese youth clubs around Britain. All these other lads and lassies seemed so quiet, reserved, polite and well behaved. I was proud to represent HCYC then – evidently I belonged to the best crowd. We were a loud, brash and unruly rabble. However, we also won the majority of the medals and prizes that day. This is no idle boast – I can prove it – I filmed the award ceremony.

Luong Gia Jing was the first of the lads ever to invite me round to his house – primarily to play chess. I never did take him up on the offer, because I knew that my feelings toward him were neither healthy nor desirable and therefore it was essential that he be protected from such filth. Let it be stated quite clearly that while I knew he was perfectly safe from me (the only time I have ever touched another man is to hit him), I still believed it prudent to avoid complications and subsequent events were to prove this prescient. Since martial arts formed a major aspect of the club and since boxing and wrestling were indulged fairly frequently, physical contact with the lads was inevitable. However, I am proud to be able to state that there were only 2 lads there whom I found physically attractive and not once did I ever engage them in any form of physical contact at all – had I done so, I might have gained a perverted form of pleasure from the encounter which would have been an insult to them and an admission of weakness for me. All this has to spelt out quite plainly now so it can place in correct perspective what occurred later.

Every Saturday morning Keiko Tsukioka (known as Peko, after a popular Japanese confectionary brand) taught Pak Mei kung fu at Haggerston School. Most of the students were not regular HCYC members. Among these was her son, Jubei and his friend Peter Wah. Jubei Tsukioka – an accomplished martial artist, Jubei is the son of Keiko (known as Peko), the Japanese woman who taught martial arts at the club every Saturday. He formed a friendship with Peter Wah and they spent much of their time sparring; in the time I knew them, they exchanged enough kicks and punches to fill a dozen Hong Kong kung fu films and then some. Peter Wah – yet another lad who worked in his parents take-away food shop, Peter was from Taiwan and, despite his apparently thin stature, was a capable martial artist. Like me, he found it difficult to make friends and this is why I always went out of my way to spend time with him. Besides, I found him pleasant and amusing company. He was also one of the few lads who still acknowledged my existence after I was sacked from the Chinese Centre. They engaged in regular sparring matches of often alarming vigour. How they avoided frequent serious injuries remains a mystery. Later I discovered that Jubei’s father was Les McKeown, one time lead singer with 1970s Scottish glam rock boy band The Bay City Rollers. Whatever crap you may read in contemporary newspaper accounts can safely be ignored – he’s a thoroughly decent chap which is actually a source of amazement. This is because had I been consistently abused and ill-treated by the press, the media and my record company in the manner to which he was subjected for so many years, I think I would have become a full time psychopath long before my 40th birthday.

It was at these morning kung fu sessions at Haggerston School that I first met UJ. I learned that his father was considered one of the best students of Sifu Tang who founded and ran the Pak Mei school at which Peko taught. In a military analogy, if Mr Tang was the general then Peko would be the captain. So UJ simply followed in the footsteps of his father in this respect although by this time Mr Tang rarely gave lessons himself. It didn’t take long for me to realise he was rather more intelligent and politically aware than most Chinese teenagers and when he joined UNIT in 2002, the whole world changed – the rest is history. The Class War starts here. I was allowed to film many of these classes although in fact scant footage exists because I preferred to be a participant rather than an observer. This pleasant situation soon deteriorated when the tedious old wind-bags who ran the school invented ever more ludicrous reasons to raise objections to our presence there. Ultimately our patience was depleted and we arranged to continue the morning kung fu sessions at the Chinese Centre provided someone could be found to open up the building. I volunteered my services immediately. I was given keys to the premises and finally, in 1999, I realised I had arrived: I was now a registered key holder for the Chinese Centre. My position was secure – or so I believed.

At this time Gieng San Man, Lang Kin Tung (known as CK for a reason I have never discovered) and the youngest brother of B and Aminh, Ngo Achoi, all became regular members of the club. Anyone familiar with our group will know that late in 1999, CK, San Man and Achoi formed the foundation for what would become the definitive format of UNIT with Dave Fanning and I. This was indeed a welcome relief after Dave and his pals had wasted time with nearly a decade of previous false starts and artistic cul de sacs while I wasted time faffing about with ecstasy, smiley badges and shell suits at rave clubs. It is accurate therefore to say that UNIT was actually formed one Saturday afternoon at Hackney Chinese Youth Club, in the main hall, as a result of a long discussion between myself and CK. Within a month he secured the services of San Man and Achoi although even that constituted a rather eccentric exercise. I wanted Achoi because he was a flute player but Achoi would only join UNIT if his pal San Man could join, too. “What instrument does he play?” I asked, nervously. “Oh, nothing yet, but you can teach him the guitar or something.” Achoi shrugged his shoulders and decked me with that reply. I closed my eyes in trepidation: the guitar ‘or something’. It was The Apostles all over again. “Right – let’s do that then.” I muttered, grimly resolved to persevere with this absurd proposition. Had some local prophet informed me then that this unlikely quintet would record nearly 3 whole albums over the next 2 years, I’d have placed him on a mental health section immediately.

At this point I must insert a brief digression because it adds colour to any comprehension of my own importance in UNIT. Before Achoi joined the group, CK secured the services of a Chinese lad called Vinh whom he had met at the college he attended at the time. This chap was an absolutely ripping guitarist, it is true, but unfortunately we discovered that he was utterly abysmal as a human being. He attended just two rehearsals but on the second of these he demanded that all the music be transcribed into guitar tabulature because he was unable to read conventional music notation. Thus I spent many hours first learning how to read and write guitar tabulature and then I was obliged to transcribe all our music into this obscure format for his benefit. Imagine my reaction, then, when he failed to arrive for the next rehearsal and we further discovered that he had changed his telephone number so we were unable to contact him. Later still I learned that while he grudgingly agreed to tolerate being in a group with a white man (myself), when he realised our bass player (Dave Fanning) was also a white man, he considered that to be unacceptable. However, he possessed neither the politeness nor even the basic decency to inform CK of his decision not to continue with the group. As a result, a further 2 weeks elapsed before CK elected to ask Achoi if he would be interested in joining our enterprise.

CK was the most intellectual member of the trio – indeed he displays a technical expertise on computers that is formidable. However, in common with many academically precocious people, he was scatter brained and possessed a somewhat whimsical notion of time. Surely it was only ever by accident that he ever knew the year. If you asked him to meet you at LV on Wednesday at 8 pm, he might conceivably travel to LV but it is likely to be the previous or following Wednesday and equally likely to be 8 am instead. He was one of these people who were unafraid to try anything at any time. He taught himself to play keyboards and guitar, the latter with minimal assistance from myself. Perhaps the most frightening example of his potential power was revealed the afternoon I called at his flat to deliver a copy of The Prisoner Of Azkaban to Jing, his younger brother. There was CK as usual in front of the computer screen, typing well over 150 words per minute, never looking at the keyboard. “Hey, do you want to see how a virus is made?” he asked me. Inwardly I shuddered. It was as if some slightly psychotic army major had discovered the location of the button responsible for launching a tactical nuclear strike on North Korea and wanted to share his delight with the rest of us. There was a brief flurry of fingers and clatter of keyboard. “See this? It’d reformat any hard drive I sent it to. Mind you, it’d take a couple of hours.” I was seriously impressed. The anarchist warrior inside me was reawakened. “Find the BBC website and send it NOW!” I yelled, beside myself with excited anticipation. The thought of the BBC being crippled beyond repair was almost painfully beautiful. “Better not; someone might be able to trace the source. Anyway, now here’s how you destroy it.” He quipped. A few seconds later, the strange coalition of characters he had created gradually dissipated from the screen.

Poor San Man was not, shall we say, so much of an intellectual. In fact, he was not especially brilliant at anything although he compensated for this by being kind, generous and decent. Actually, I don’t think I ever heard him ridicule or slander anyone else in all the years I have known him. When he first started to attend HCYC he was initially subjected to the almost constant barrage of insults and derision that most new members were obliged to face. This happens in all youth clubs – it’s the initiation ritual. If you tolerate it for a couple of weeks (rarely longer), you are considered to have passed the test and are accepted. Unusually, San Man studied Mantis kung fu, the only lad in the club to do so, at least while I worked there. On one occasion he decided to create, as a birthday present for his mother, a giant swan constructed from specially folded lottery tickets. Naïvely I offered to assist him in this enterprise. That evening I went home with a sack full of blank lottery tickets and spent most of Friday folding these infernal slips of paper into bizarre shapes so that San Man could then fit them together to form the paper aquatic avian he so earnestly desired. I met him with some of the other lads the next day at this horrible Japanese restaurant in Gerrard Street to present him with the sack crammed full of folded paper. My fingers still ached from my first and last venture into production line origami. Never again – no wonder the Japs are so weird.

Out of Aminh, B and Achoi, it was Achoi who was the quietest of the three Ngo brothers and yet he has also proved to be the most successful of the trio, at least by my standards. Whereas Aminh spent most of his energy desperately trying to impress people (an exercise at which he ultimately failed) and B honed being cool and trendy to a fine art (an exercise at which he ultimately succeeded), Achoi didn’t need to waste any time on any of those shows – with Natalie Ngo as a (usually) faithful companion for over two years, he quietly went about his business, some of which included showing CK and San Man how to behave properly in a pop group, i.e. how to treat other people with respect. Later he found himself a job as a croupier in one of the casinos near Chinatown and even though eventually he left UNIT as a performing member of the group, that didn’t stop him advertising our work and being largely responsible for having our tracks played on the radio (Resonance 104.4 FM).

Natalie Ngo – Natalie was one of the few girls who regularly attended the club and ultimately became a stalwart supporter of it through her association with Achoi for many years. She was an ebullient personality who helped other girls to feel welcome and involved in the club. After she eventually broke up with Achoi (after a relationship that lasted over 4 years), I lost contact with her but I sincerely hope that in whatever enterprise she is involved that she is successful. Valerie – for a while we regarded Valerie and Natalie as a duo since they tended to hang out together, at least as far as HCYC was concerned. However, Valerie (who was 13 when she first joined the club) soon changed her relationship to the world around her: she ran away from home and struck up a repartee with a triad gang in Chinatown. That was the last we ever saw of her. Our song Too High Too Soon (on the album Fire & Ice) is our response to her life and I sincerely hope that whatever she does and where ever she is now, that she is healthy and happy.

When we ventured into Waterhouse Studio in Stratford, arms full of instruments, accoutrements and the sundry items associated with musical paraphernalia, we were accompanied by Luong Gia Jing, the chess champion and recipient of many less than kind jokes about his slightly small stature. Actually this was unfair because Lesoi, B and Bobby were unusually large and heavily built, especially for their age. In my experience, Chinese youths spend more time in gymnasiums than any other racial group. Maybe this is motivated by a subconscious desire to dominate the world – a desire that, in 2009, would appear close to fruition. Anyway, within a couple of hours it soon became apparent that CK possessed more musical ability than the combined talents of the other two lads. We recorded the album Sons Of The Dragon in what I perceived to be an atmosphere of joviality, ebullience, amusement and enthusiasm. However, I believe it was from these recording sessions that Dave derived a desire to depart from music in general and from the group in particular. From this time onwards, his involvement diminished and his interest waned.

Li Minh – the first of the new Vietnamese contingent, I first met Minh in hospital. Later I met his father, a most accomplished exponent of Wing Chun. The perennial Mr Cool, Minh took over from where B left off – in spades. Like B, his excessive self confidence and apparent arrogance was tempered with humour and self deprecation when required. A proficient martial artist (but inferior in ability to his brother, as he was always the first to acknowledge), he was also a competent hair dresser, a fact that was incongruous with his physique. He also played the guitar with a degree of facility unusual for a south east Asian. Li Viet Anh – the younger brother of Minh, Viet Anh was almost obsessively quiet yet, what most people perceived as a surly indifference was actually a shield to protect him from social interactions that often made him uneasy. He was a gentle soul and a thoroughly decent chap. I’d like to say that he suffered from having an inordinately inflated opinion of his skills and abilities, but that wouldn’t be entirely true – he never allowed his extreme conceit and self confidence to cause him any suffering whatsoever.

Michael Nguyen – the youngest of the Nguyen trio, I don’t think Michael liked me very much – certainly I recall waiting at a No.38 bus stop on Essex Road one afternoon when he and (I presume) a college friend stood there and giggled at my appearance. Well, I can’t be too critical – someone with my extreme ugliness must expect a degree of ridicule now and then. Lucy Nguyen – older sister of Michael, Lucy was academically intelligent, formed a brief partnership with Jubei and attended the club fairly regularly before she disappeared for years – it turns out she studied at a university where she obtained a first class degree. This comes as no surprise. Helen Nguyen – the other sister and the girl I came to know rather better, Helen spent a while as the youngest volunteer to work for the Patients Council at Homerton Hospital with UJ and I. She too vanished for a few years to a university where she also obtained a first class degree. She will also be familiar to fans of UNIT for her brief appearance on a trio of songs on Dare To Be Different.

I can thank Achoi for introducing me to the dubious delights of ice skating. One Saturday, he and Natalie had decided to go to this dreadfully squalid little ice skating rink in Clapton and he invited me along, too. We linked up with San Man and his girl friend (whose name I forget – she dumped him soon afterwards, which I have always considered was grossly unfair) and trolled along to this grotty establishment hidden away, no doubt in shame, somewhere along the barren waste of Lea Bridge Road. My desperate attempts to remain vertical once ice skates had been adhered to my feet would have provided many pages of material for a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Achoi and Natalie were, of course, superb and they sauntered across the rink, hand in hand, with such aplomb that I swear their skates never actually touched the ice. San Man and his bird were fine, too, but I was more concerned with my imminent ability to cause chaos even when falling over (again). It seemed that when ever I landed on the ice, some other skater would be in the vicinity and either be required to perform an Olympic standard jump to avoid collision or simply accept the inevitable and come crashing to the ground with the rest of us. What exacerbated my murderous mood was this old, fat Chav ensconced in a little cubby hole above the rink who played some odious 1980s pop music at armour piercing volume so people had to yell at each other to make themselves heard. When we stopped to partake of the comestibles on offer in the café, I discovered to my absolute horror that not only did they not serve tea but they did not allow smoking anywhere in the building. This dual affront to my sense of western civilisation was the final insult – thus if you enjoy ice skating then I urge you, in the name of decency, to avoid this particular establishment at all costs.

The Chinese attitude toward western public holidays is analogous to that adopted toward those disgusting Christian missionaries who tried to invade China during the 19th century. The vast majority of Chinese people simply selected the few useful or amusing aspects of the new religion and attached it to their own (generally Buddhist) belief system which remained secure, impervious to corruption. So Easter, Christmas and Guy Fawkes night merely supplemented the traditional calendar of events. On this particular Thursday evening in 2001, Richard Chan had spent a small fortune on grand and impressive fireworks. ‘We’ll make sure this evening goes with a bang.’ He quipped. These were to prove prophetic words with which to tempt the lords of chaos. I was, as usual, armed with my film camera and I was so intent on calculating f numbers and light exposures to capture the bright sparks and colourful splashes against the black sky that I ignored the wind that had begun to impose itself on the proceedings. Suddenly, just as Chan stepped back to admire the 6 rockets he had ignited, an abrupt gust overturned all half dozen plastic bottles in which the incendiaries were housed. The rockets were now aimed directly at the assembled club members. I was squinting through the view finder so I was utterly perplexed by the sudden scream of terror to my left. Then I was shoved to the ground and trampled on by a flurry of scampering feet as nearly 20 terrified youths sought to escape the flaming enfilade that assaulted us in a psychedelic mortar attack of multicoloured sparks. Miraculously there were no serious injuries although my rare 1970s Puma track suit suffered multiple burn holes.

Late in 2000, Richard Chan decided the Chinese Centre ought to have an Alsatian dog permanently on guard to deter burglars. This was no frantic whim generated by neurotic paranoia on his part – on the contrary, the premises had suffered five or six burglaries in as many weeks prior to this and the last two attempts were made in the early afternoon when the elderly luncheon club was in operation, i.e. when the premises was filled to its maximum capacity. The sheer audacity of the criminal might in other circumstances almost warrant a grudging kind of admiration but not here – this merely displayed a total contempt by the burglar for the people who occupied the Chinese Centre. It was probably the same young West Indian man each time – he had been seen before, doing what they do best – running away. I had taken to calling on the centre at odd hours during the early morning or late evening on random days, opening up the place for half an hour or so, in an attempt to deter this bastard from infecting our private space with his disgusting presence. Although this seemed to be working so far as the night time visits were concerned, I could hardly account for the day time incursions into our territory. Equipment had been stolen and the insurance company had given up any pretence of patience. So, enter Sai Lai, the Alsatian puppy.

Now anyone reading this who is unfamiliar with Labour Party policy toward crime ought to prepare themselves for a shock. The police informed me on one occasion that if I caught the miscreant in the building during one of my visits, on no account would it be legal for me to beat him up, tie him up or even hurl heavy objects in his general direction. ‘Can I shout abuse at him, then?’ I quipped, unable to contain my fury. ‘Yes, but only provided you avoid racially abusive terms.’ The police officer replied – he was actually serious. So drug addled burglars have more rights and privileges than industrious, hard working people. ‘I promise you, if I catch that bastard here, I’ll make sure he’s unable to rob anyone else.’ I said. ‘Then we’d have to arrest you.’ The policeman replied. ‘Go ahead – and we’ll see how that looks in the newspapers and the courts.’ I think it was at this time that I finally lost the last vestige of what scant respect I had, until that time, managed to retain for the police force in this country.

At this time I was employed in an additional capacity as a caretaker for the Sunday God Botherers. These were a gaggle of miserable African obsessives who would dress up in their gaily coloured gear, brandish bibles and hurl ridiculous praises to an imaginary deity from 11 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. Before and after this lunacy it was my job to open up and close up the centre. I also had to be available in case of emergencies (for example, to provide cardiovascular resuscitation for those coons who’d fainted away as a result of witnessing the second coming). I’d sit in the back room with a Manowar CD, a cup of tea and a cigarette while Sai Lai enjoyed herself chasing balls, eating bones and generally being pampered. To me it seemed faintly offensive that a Chinese Centre should be used each Sunday for a bunch of brainless African bible bashers but they paid a handsome fee to Ian Yau for use of the premises so who am I to be critical? In retrospect she’d have been a crap guard dog because we had all turned her soft. She was wonderful with people. She was wonderful with children. She would probably have been wonderful with burglars too. Ian Yau and Richard Chan arranged for her to be sent to some training establishment for 2 weeks – a kind of military boot camp for dogs – at a cost the Chinese Centre of over £500. She returned a fortnight later as daft and as disobedient as ever.

My life seems to have been beleaguered by lords of chaos intent on depriving me of any long term companionship, particularly when it adopts a canine form. After 11 years of being bullied, ridiculed and intimidated by my filthy shit of a stepfather, he parted company with my cowardly slut of a mother and they each went their separate ways – during this decade our two dogs, Bruce and Waffles, were my only friends. This is no exaggeration: I had no friends at school – ugly, fat and clumsy children are never allowed to forget their characteristics. All the bright, beautiful boys and girls make damned sure of that. So both our dogs were driven to the vet and gassed to death. Neither my stepfather nor my mother actually wanted me but, having to choose between a male weak, pathetic, coward and a female weak, pathetic coward, I opted for the latter on the basis that at least I stood less chance of being physically abused any more. Anyway, enough of this. During the 1980s I frequently adopted dogs as companions – Tina, Leo and James were the most notable examples. They all started life belonging to other people who, unable or unwilling to honour the commitment owning for a dog entails, ended up in my care. All of them were either stolen or disappeared, never to return. So when I called to collect my wages at the Chinese Centre early one Tuesday afternoon, it came as no surprise to be told that Sai Lai had run off across London Fields and vanished.

The Letter Incident

The recording of our album ‘Fire & Ice’ shall forever be indelibly etched into my memory as a continual horror. After the release of our previous album ‘Sons Of The Dragon’, we had received letters from a few Japs who informed us in no uncertain terms that they’d not be buying any more of our works. The majority of the other Japs simply ceased all further communication with us. Until this period, we had enjoyed healthy CD sales in Japan as well as regular correspondence with many of these buyers. Evidently, being Chinese was unacceptable – not sufficiently cool and trendy – as far as the Nips were concerned. They were probably still frustrated that they never did conquer China in the 1930s – that and the fact the Russians seriously kicked their arses out of Manchuria in 1940. Anyway, this formed the basis for some fairly sour, cynical lyrics. Then San Man and his friend Kwong were assaulted and robbed one evening on London Fields by 7 niggers. Oh yes, 7 onto 2, typical Hackney odds – and even then, two of the black boys had to carry knives. That also found expression on the album. San Man once brought to HCYC one of his friends from school, a lad of West Indian origin called Jason and a most pleasant chap he was, too. Why should people like Jason have their race and cultural heritage insulted by such filth as that septet of sickening offal who attacked two unarmed Chinese teenagers at knife point that evening?

Ah but the best was yet to come. Two tracks had yet to be recorded for the album: The Boy From Beijing and When We Were Friends. The former was originally a very short acapella vocal piece while the latter had not even been composed at this time. However, while recording Forbidden Love, an autobiographical account of what happened to me when I was 16 and discovered I was queer, I noticed a sudden change of attitude in CK and San Man – neither of them were as enthusiastic about the project as they had been only a few days previously. The next Saturday, San Man told me he had left the group and wanted nothing more to do with it. CK, to his credit, at least stayed long enough to finish the album before he, too, vacated the band. For a brief period it looked as if Achoi might also form a triumvirate of ex-members of UNIT and this was probably due to peer group pressure, of that I am in little doubt. Certainly Aminh will have tried his damnedest to persuade Achoi to avoid me like the plague.

The next week, I received an unexpected visit from CK and San Man with Luong Gia Jing – now this was unprecedented. The lads never visited my flat in the evenings. Inwardly I thought ‘hello – this bodes umpty’. Luong had recently passed his driving test and, to celebrate the arrival of his new second hand car, he called on San Man to inaugurate this test drive by whizzing down to my flat. On the way, they had seen CK on Mare Street who flagged them down and then asked to come with them; unable to think of a plausible reason why they should refuse, they let him join the party. I was not convinced by this story when Luong recited it to me, especially since it had clearly been rehearsed yet was still spoken with a complete absence of conviction. However, that they clearly did not want CK around was proved to be factual because there followed the CK pantomime – how to be rid of CK so they could conduct their business without interruption or embarrassment. Luong gave CK money to go and buy a take-away – which in itself was strange, since Chinese people rarely purchase food from Chinese take-aways. It became so obvious they that wanted CK out of the way, I actually smiled at their desperation. To their blessed relief, he eventually agreed to go. Once the front door had slammed shut, then the fun began.

Note that during this whole charade, San Man said not a single word to me. He didn’t even look at me. Then Luong removed his spectacles. Evidently he could see well enough to do what he wanted to do. “So how many people live here?” he asked me. “Three – myself and the two Vietnamese chaps.” I replied, wondering where this was leading. He nodded thoughtfully. “Are they here now?” he responded. Suddenly I realised with crystal clarity why they had driven to my flat. “Yes, they’re always here in the evenings.” I lied. The look of extreme disappointment and frustration on their faces was a perfect picture. Question: suppose I had told the truth and said ‘No, they’re both out at the casino, I’m alone here’ – what would have happened then? The idea of either Luong or even San Man picking a fight with me is hardly a major cause for concern. Luong can fight but he isn’t a fighter – he doesn’t possess the killer instinct. Unlike Luong, San Man had the size to do damage but again, he simply isn’t aggressive or nasty enough to do the business. However, the idea that I should have to defend myself against both of them most certainly was a cause for concern and, I admit it, I did not fancy my chances. Well, CK returned and the other two stood up to leave. “What about your food?” CK asked, perplexed. “You have it.” Luong snapped. “Well, can’t you wait while I eat this?” CK asked, plaintively. “Oh, eat it in the car, man” Luong growled as they ambled toward the door. That was the last time I ever saw Luong Gia Jing.

The very next Thursday evening in May, 2002, I entered the club as usual, called into the office to let Chan know I’d arrived. ‘Oh, Andy, there’s a letter for you.’ He said, absently, while working at the computer. I picked up this small brown envelope that had evidently been delivered by hand earlier in the day since there was no stamp on it, merely my name written in large block capitals with a thick black felt tip pen. I wandered up the corridor to the games room at the back and opened it. Inside was a sheet of folded thin green card. I flattened it out and read the message, also written in block capitals with the same felt tip pen.

‘We don’t want queers in our club so **** off and don’t come back.’

I distinctly remember two prominent reactions as I sat there by the freezer, staring at this green and black abuse. First: I was, in a strange sense, relieved – because I always suspected that one day I’d receive this kind of reaction either by telephone, e-mail, letter or face-to-face confrontation although this latter option would be unlikely since that is not the Chinese method of addressing disputes. The culturally specific preferred method of punishment for a crime tends to be a metaphorical stab behind the back. Second: I was deeply hurt by the possibility that the letter may have been written not merely to satisfy the personal vindictiveness of one lad but rather on behalf of all the others. In which case, I had no immediate clue as to whom I could trust. The term ‘Chinese whispers’ had suddenly become stark reality.

Sheng Wai Leung – an accomplished singer, William (as he was known) even managed to sing on 2 numbers of our album Fire & Ice (2002). We decided a couple of lines could be improved if he sang them again – however, when I approached him at the club that Thursday evening to ask him about this, he completely ignored me. Evidently one of the others had told him I was a raving queer and must be avoided. After this he, like Aminh, San Man, Jing and others, was one of the many lads who boycotted the club as a response to my presence there. To be fair to all these lads whose attitude may appear excessive, it must be remembered that Chinese homosexuals simply do not exist so they can hardly be expected to comprehend the bizarre freak of nature with which I was afflicted.

To his credit (or so I erroneously believed at the time), Richard Chan expressed his disappointment that any HCYC member could behave in so repugnant a manner and he asked me to sit in the office while he took the letter into the main hall and showed it to everyone in order to gauge their reactions to it. Obviously none of them claimed any previous knowledge of either the letter or its author but that’s what I expected anyway. When Chan returned, I actually offered to leave the club if he thought that’s what the lads wanted. I’m frankly amazed (and rather disgusted) that I was prepared to accept defeat so easily. I can only absolve my abominable initial reaction on the grounds of emotional instability, i.e. that I was too distraught to think rationally. In any case, I soon changed my mind profoundly: I resolved to stay at the club no matter what ensued and that, furthermore, the only way I’d ever leave in future would be if the entire membership physically ejected me from the building. As the water rises, so does the boat.

When I emerged from the black despair of the office and returned to the heat of battle (which was how I now interpreted the main hall), I received a further shock as Lesoi, Bobby and B all approached me to offer their sincere sympathy and support. My surprise resulted not from any real expectation of hostility from them but because I had always assumed their opinion of sexual deviants was similar to that one would normally reserve for something unpleasant stuck to ones’ shoe. Bear in mind that on this Thursday there were more people present than at any time before or since – indeed the number of HCYC members present on the evening I received that letter exceeded all previous records and remained the highest attendance rate in the club history. I cannot believe this to be a coincidence, especially since the next Thursday witnessed the lowest attendance level – just 3 lads arrived. In fact, the membership for both Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons remained woefully low for the next few months. It transpired that a significant number of the lads had elected to boycott the club in response to my presence there.

The ‘Fire & Ice’ album was finally completed with the 9 minute progressive rock track When We Were Friends which many people think is purely about San Man but actually it describes my feelings of utter desolation with regard to Luong, San Man and all the others who treated me like a social leper once word had spread around the club that the white boy was a queer. All those weekends of late night parties, fun and games on the sports fields and flag days during the New Year celebrations were suddenly snatched from my social life and relegated to history. So that’s the kind of life I could have enjoyed had I been a normal, healthy, heterosexual man. In any case, no matter how much San Man, Jing, William and all the others despised what I was, surely they should have been grateful? I mean to say, hang it all, it’s me to whom it happened, not them. It’s bad enough being a freak of nature as it is – I don’t need their prejudice and hatred to make it even worse. So, their feeble overtures of intended friendship proved to be so many empty gestures. Why was I surprised? I should have known better. An account of the visit by Luong & Crew was inserted (rather clumsily I now think) into The Beijing Boy and that was it – the most relentlessly cynical, grim and depressing album we ever recorded.

The Second Generation

I first tried alcohol when I was 16. Before my 17th birthday I had discarded it as an unnecessarily expensive form of self poison. I dismissed indulgence in any form of consciousness alteration as a futile exercise since I wanted to experience more of life, not less of it. Late in 2002 I started to buy bottles of ice cold lager, primarily German. Maybe this was a subconscious attempt to re-establish some tenuous link with my own racial heritage? Then again maybe it was merely a desperate attempt to become blootered. I only purchased this crap on Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Exactly: this became the only way I could summon sufficient fortitude to endure what had previously been the 2 best days of the week. I expected a derisory comment, a shouted threat or perhaps even violence, every time I entered the doors of the Chinese Centre. Let it be known and understood that not once was I ever incapable through sheer inebriation. If ever I was required to perform first aid or supervise an event, I remained sufficiently sober to do so. All I required was for my edges to be slightly blurred. I regret it now, because I should have been strong enough not to need an alcoholic prop. Still, that’s what white people are supposed to do, isn’t it?

Regular attendance at the youth club only recommenced once the next generation of lads and lassies were introduced to the place. One of these was Michael Hoang. When I lived in 124 Fellows Court, one of those really horrible tower blocks for which Hackney council is infamous (at £80 a week rent on the 9th floor), I used to order my food from this Chinese take-away on London Road near Bethnal Green. Chau ‘Tony’ Hoang worked there as a delivery man. Michael Hoang was no direct relation to Tony so far as I am aware. His dad was the chef and his mum was the owner of this establishment. It was unusual because the quality of the food was extremely high – indeed, it was the only Chinese take-away ever frequented by Chinese and Vietnamese people as customers. He soon became a stalwart member of the place and introduced many new people to it, especially girls. A highly competent musician, Michael has threatened to join UNIT for nearly 3 years but he still seems unable to do so, despite frequent encouragement from us. Diane Hoang – older sister of Michael Hoang, Diane has remained a thoroughly decent and friendly presence in the club and her support over The Letter incident was highly gratifying.

I met Mrs Hoang on Mare Street one Thursday evening at the bus stop opposite Ellingfort Road after I had left HCYC and she had Michael with her. Ever diligent in my duty, I shamelessly advertised HCYC to her and, sure enough, a week later, Michael started to attend. Within a year he had begun to introduce new people to the club, especially girls, for which I was grateful. Richard Chan took him for granted and to my knowledge, Michael has never to this day received any recognition or acknowledgement by either Chan or the insipid management committee for his devotion to the place. To be brutally honest, the management committee only ever used the youth club members as unpaid and unappreciated labour whenever chairs, tables and furniture had to be moved. The HCYC lads were frequently used at large scale social events such as traditional dance evenings and old time song contests for the older members – when these events were documented in the annual report for the Chinese Centre, the sterling work contributed by the youth club members was never even mentioned by these selfish, spoiled, odious, middle class bastards. These are the same people who sanctioned my dismissal from HCYC in May 2006 and who never even replied to a single one of my letters in which I merely asked for an explanation of this insult. I spit upon them in my contempt.

Among those people Michael brought along to the club were Jan Dinh, Helen Dinh, Linda Hong, Tommy, Eric, Simon, Manh, Vietnamese Allan and (most importantly for me) Luc Tran. Other new members included Andrew Ha, his younger brother Stephen, his cousin Bill Luu, Bruce Chong, Billy Luong (younger brother of Luong Gia Jing), Lang Jing (younger brother of CK), Philip Lu, Duc Hai and Wong Yin Kit (a.k.a. Richard). Now Jing had left the club (partly in protest at my continued presence there), the Jokai champion award was passed to Duc Hai, who, unlike Jing, was even more proficient at Chess. Indeed, during the brief time this quiet Vietnamese lad was at the club, I never saw a single person beat him. Up until then the two strongest chess players were Ben Lau and I. Neither of us could beat him – we couldn’t even hold him to a draw. He was one of these lads who always comes top of the class in all his subjects – a typical school swat and teachers pet, he tended to avoid having to speak to me unless it was essential. All the same, he was never rude or insulting to me – for which I should be grateful I suppose but, to be honest, a bit of feisty behaviour would at least have proved he had the bare rudiments of a personality. A year later I walked past him on Well Street early one rainy afternoon – he saw me but quickly looked away and ignored my friendly greeting without saying a word. This set a precedent for what was to become common behaviour among many other HCYC members over the next few years.

It was at this time I realised the management committee had a real problem with Ben Lau. Now Ben was, I believe, a devout Christian. I’ve never understood how any Chinese people, with all those centuries of civilisation behind them, could adopt such a grim, sad and wretched concoction of fairy tales fabricated by a bunch of privileged Jews when they had their own equally absurd but far more civilised religious lunacy to follow, namely Buddhism. Still, Christianity does have far more sex and violence in it so I suppose I can understand the attraction. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, Ben was a thoroughly decent chap and a pretty good youth worker despite his occasionally old fashioned attitude toward discipline which, to be honest, is not always to be frowned upon, especially in 21st century Britain. In fact, most of the HCYC members thought highly of Ben and respected him even though they found Richard Chan far more amenable on a social level. I see that as an advantage – every youth club needs that useful combination of talents and for me, when Ben and Richard were working in tandem at an event, the club was at its most successful.

Ben started to bring his young son along to the club and it was interesting to see this almost excessively shy lad gradually open out and start to enjoy the company of others. To his credit, Ben was fully aware of my severe hostility toward religion in general and Christianity in particular, yet not once did we ever argue about or share fractious words over the subject. However, fractious words definitely were apparent during a special management committee meeting one Sunday afternoon. Now in traditional Chinese cooking there is this dish that takes nearly a week to prepare if you do it properly. God knows what it’s called, I forget now, but it basically contains a rich and varied mixture of meats and vegetables enrobed in a delicate shell of material not unlike some kind of thin pasta. Well, on this autumn Saturday I placed a couple of lagers in the fridge (as had become usual) and noticed this huge bowl of gear sat on the top shelf underneath the freezer. “Jesus, what a waste – all that stuff just left there to go rotten.” These were more or less my words. Now Ben loved his food and if anyone adhered to that old fashioned tenet ‘waste not, want not’ then it was he. I was certain this huge bowl of gunk had been left behind by the elderly luncheon club for anyone who wanted to finish it. Being a strict vegetarian I didn’t touch it but Ben, no doubt due to his Christian beliefs, had no such scruples. He tucked into it with relish and I derived no small degree of satisfaction to see him enjoy his feast.

The very next Thursday I was called into the office by Richard Chan and asked about the amazing disappearance of the huge bowl of (Cantonese name). I didn’t want to land Ben in any trouble but I’m a hopeless liar so I simply related the content of the previous paragraph although, regrettably, not in such colourful language. I thought that perhaps if I shared the blame then maybe Ben would not suffer such severe stricture from the MC. However, it was evident that Chan found the matter highly amusing and only with extreme difficulty was he able to maintain an expression of sombre concern. Apparently this huge bowl of (Cantonese name) had been lovingly prepared with meticulous attention to culinary detail over the previous 7 days for the special management committee meeting that Sunday. At the conclusion of the business section, the inauguration of new members was to be heralded by the production from the fridge of this huge bowl of (Cantonese name), as a surprise. Well, the element of surprise at least remained intact. Faced with the flattened remnants of this previously regal dish, the meeting broke up in disarray amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Now I know what absolute cunts most of the MC actually are, I really hope they were deeply upset – it’s what they deserve.

Jan Dinh – one of the younger HCYC members who was introduced to the club by Michael Hoang, Jan was feisty and had character – she was never one of those silly giggling animated wallflowers that you tend to find in ordinary youth clubs. Helen Dinh – younger sister of Jan, Helen was also introduced to the club by Michael Hoang. Although quieter than Jan, she radiated a marvellous sense of fun and made extremely pleasant company. Unusually, she spoke Mandarin as well as Vietnamese and English. Linda Hong – a close friend of Luc, Linda formed a trio with Jan and Helen – indeed they always seemed to be together although they frequently went places with Luc and Michael, most notably the Turkish pool hall on Kingsland Road near Shoreditch.

Bill Luu – as Ngo Aminh stopped attending the club it seemed that Bill had been drafted in to take his place and fulfil the role of ‘white man hater’. Certainly he continued to make sure I and everyone else knew how much he hated me although, unlike Aminh, he only occasionally went out of his way to be unpleasant to me. After I was banned from the Chinese Centre, he was one of the many lads who refused even to speak to me in the street. I congratulate Mr Chan for performing his role as character assassin with superb celerity. Andrew Ha – he was the first of the ‘new wave’ of HCYC members to welcome me and extend a friendship which lasted right up until I was evicted from the youth club on those fabricated charges whereupon he showed his solid support for Mr Chan by avoiding all further contact with me. So what is the price of friendship? About 50p in this case. Stephen Ha – younger brother of Andrew, Stephen was also one of the more friendly and decent types who attended the club in its last days. He was a devoted and regular student of the Saturday morning martial arts school run by Peko. It is not known how he reacted to the Chan character assassination as I’ve never seen him since I left the club.

Stephen and Andrew were very different characters. Stephen was the more serious of the two lads. He devoted himself to the Saturday kung fu classes and was most assiduous in his training. If Stephen was adept at throwing punches, Andrew was adept at throwing parties. He was able to create a loud, ebullient ambience on even the quietest of Saturdays and was soon joined by the others in their ability to turn a boring, flat afternoon into a fun filled frolic – breakages were an unfortunate prerequisite to this of course. The one unsolved mystery with Andrew was his irrational hatred of Jews. I’ve met Palestinians who hate Jews less. Even I don’t hate Jews as much as Andrew does and my own stance against ZOG is renown.

Simon, Vietnamese Allan & Manh – I don’t know the full names of these lads but they provided a lively, vibrant contribution to the youth club, especially on Saturday afternoons which could otherwise often be rather dull and insipid. However I must say that, while they were friendly enough to me throughout 2004, 2005 and the first half of 2006 when they attended HCYC semi-regularly, after I was sacked, I actually met them (at different times) on the D6 bus – and on each occasion, they pretended not to see me or simply ignored me. Those lads have no idea how close they came to having their snooty noses busted.

Philip Lu – one of the more colourful characters from HCYC, he was one of those 13 year olds who was taller than I (although I am well below average height) and most people thought he was 16 or 17. He always seemed to be engaged in a permanent war with Michael Hoang although this never resulted in fisticuffs. An unlikely friendship developed with Luc Tran; this was awkward since Luc is also a close friend of Michael Hoang – ah, the internecine drama of social relations. My solution is really much easier: just don’t have any friends. Anyway, Philip still speaks to me whenever I see him in the street, unlike 90% of the other HCYC members, so he’s safe. Eric – I can’t remember his full name. Eric was Mr Gangsta Rap. Outside HCYC, many of his friends were black. Always very shy and reserved with me, he was never actually rude or ignorant – I think he just found me too weird to tolerate! On one occasion I was walking to work and I saw him chatting with 3 of his black friends outside Tesco on Morning Lane. He pretended not to know me. However, I don’t hold this against him. Physical appearance is very important to many south east Asian people and because I look unusually ugly and somewhat deformed I can imagine it would have caused him considerable embarrassment had I approached him in front of his pals, so I simply carried on walking past him, no doubt to his considerable relief.

Lang Jing – younger brother of CK, Jing inadvertently introduced me to the Harry Potter books in 1999. He had reading and writing problems at school and was deeply embarrassed by this. CK asked me if I could help him out. I was aware that this Joanne Rowling had written a couple of very popular books about a young wizard that satirised the English public school system so I took the plunge and bought the latest copy, The Prisoner Of Azkaban. I read it myself first to see what all the fuss was about – and before I had even finished it, I rushed out and bought the first two! Jing also started to learn the drums in school and became quite a proficient boxer, too. Sadly, when I was sacked from the Chinese Centre, he was one of the lads who immediately took Chan’s side and assumed that version of the matter to be accurate – as a consequence, he avoided all further contact with me.

Lee Viet Duong – Lee was one of the ‘new wave’ of HCYC members who was always somewhat reserved toward me during the time I worked there but, surprisingly, went out of his way to show support and friendship after my forced removal from the club. Lee was always going to be one of the more successful lads, as his intelligence and college record prove. Bruce Chong – one of the less frequent visitors to the club (he spent much of free time working at his parents’ take-away on Morning Lane), Bruce was quiet but very likeable – after I was sacked from the club, he met me in the street outside Tesco and chatted to me while I waited for the bus. This in itself was highly unusual since the majority of the youth club members refused even to look at me in the street and certainly never spoke to me afterwards.

Billy Luong – younger brother of Luong Gia Jing, Billy formed part of the new wave of youth club members who brought a welcome change to the place. His main interests seemed to be acquiring girls and boxing – in both of which he excelled. Most unusually, Billy did not simply follow his older brothers’ attitude toward me but was one of the very few HCYC youths who continued to acknowledge my existence after I was ejected from the club and continued to speak to me when we occasionally met by chance in the street. Unfortunately he was also one of the only lads able to turn Luc Tran into an enemy (usually an almost impossible task) so frequent association with him on my part was not advisable. Wong Yin Kit – one of the youngest lads to join the club, a cousin of the Ha brothers, Richard (as he was known) was foul mouthed and frequently involved in activities of which no youth worker would approve. Never frightened of a scrap, never two faced and never cynical, he was one of the best people it has ever been my fortune to meet. The world needs more people like him in it. Luc Tran – Luc, a friend of Jan, Helen and Linda, was yet another person introduced to the club by Michael Hoang. Notoriously industrious, famously decent and notably generous with both his time and his money, Luc tends to be liked and respected by everyone who encounters him (unless they’re called Billy Luong). Luc regularly attends Thai boxing classes so if he and Billy ever do decide to have a grudge match, don’t ask me to break it up – yes, that’s me over there, hiding under that table.

From the moment all these youngsters began to arrive at the club I made damned sure I didn’t repeat the same error I made with the older crowd: I appeared as Jupiter when I was able to summon sufficient energy for the deception; on days when I was unable to find a sufficient number of goats to sacrifice, I settled for Rab C Nesbitt. In any case, so far as all the lads were concerned, I was most definitely not queer. I wasn’t about to go down that road again. So I decided to make a concerted effort to find out precisely what I could do for them in order to make their Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons more enjoyable. If this occasionally meant staying out of their way, so be it. When I did participate in events and entertainments, I elected to be open and honest about my hobbies and interests, even when those were likely to appear utterly absurd to them. With the older crowd I had tended to exaggerate those hobbies and interests that I believed would be relevant to them and this was, possibly, a mistake.

There was one intriguing difference between this generation of younger brothers and sisters and their older siblings: this crowd tended to be less ethnically exclusive in their choice of friends. They mixed with Bangladeshis and black youths in addition to the usual Chinese and Vietnamese people of whom their parents would approve. One of them (the horror, the horror) even had a white friend. However, the age difference between us occasionally provided delightful confusion in their minds as they tried valiantly to grapple with the fact that I used the play station with a passion and enthusiasm equal to their own. Well, let’s face it, given the opportunity to play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas when it first came out was simply irresistible. When the cheats disc was issued with PS3 magazine a couple of months later, it was often difficult to persuade me to allow the others access to the game. The fact that I bought both San Andreas and The Getaway even before they did must also have caused them some consternation. However, they could console their wounded pride with the knowledge that their success rate in both games vastly exceeded my own. This was just as well since on one occasion I spent nearly 3 solid hours trying to kill enough rival gang members and avoid being shot to buggery by the police in order to enter the next island while an ever growing crowd of lads waited with thinly veiled impatience to have a go on the game.

When they realised that I regularly went into Redchurch Studio (a local recording studio) to work on music for our group, they became immensely curious, especially when they discovered UJ was also in the band. They knew UJ had a father who was highly respected by Sifu Tang and that UJ himself was reasonably proficient in Pak Mei kung fu and so, by their logic, if UNIT was good enough for UJ to lead then it was cool enough for them to develop an interest in our work. Then they heard the actual music. I encouraged their interest, not so much for egotistical reasons but because I wanted to see if any of them possessed any musical ability. Sadly, not one of the girls revealed any capacity in this field. This was disappointing. However, once we had taken a few of them to the studio one afternoon and they watched me play guitar, bass guitar and drums with apparent ease (oh, if only they knew just how much I struggled), a small group of them wanted to learn how to play instruments, too.

Now, I knew that this was likely to be a temporary state of affairs, a love affair with creativity that would become sour once they realised precisely how much effort and sheer hard work was involved in trying to master a musical instrument. Still, Richard Chan offered to provide a small fund to enable us to troll down to J&J Music Shop in Dalston one Saturday afternoon and purchase 3 acoustic guitars and a small electronic keyboard so I could commence a music workshop each week. For the next 2 months I taught basic guitar technique and music reading skills. Their desire to read and write music diminished to zero in less than a month. The guitar class retained their interest and enthusiasm for rather longer although its longevity was hardly impressive: for the first few lessons my class consisted of 6 students – Andrew Ha, Michael Hoang, Michael Chu, Viet Lee Duong, Stephen Ha and Richard Wong. By the end of the month that had been whittled down to 4 – Andrew, Lee and the 2 Michaels. The lessons, which had been of 2 hours duration, now broke apart after barely an hour. By the end of the second month only Lee and the 2 Michaels remained and the lessons rarely exceeded 45 minutes. Half a year after that, only Michael Hoang continued with the music and he has since taken it up seriously at college level where he now studied with a diligence that has probably surprised his family.

It was during the latter third of my brief career as a youth worker at HCYC that I suffered the highest number of cuts, abrasions and bruises. Because I had a reputation for bravery, reckless courage (or, if you prefer, plain stupidity) and never refused the offer of a sparring match with anyone, I frequently became involved in wrestling matches, boxing bouts and kung fu contests that usually resulted in injury to me and immense amusement to my sparring partners. On one memorable occasion, 4 of the lads (Richard Wong, Eric Lu, Andrew Ha and Stephen Ha) picked me up by all four limbs, dragged me into the back room and hurled me into the giant refrigerator; they then slammed the lid shut on me and sat on it. There was I, crushed on my side, staring straight into the glaring dead eyes of a dozen frozen fish. After a few minutes they elected to free me from captivity – it was one way to stay cool on during that hot summer afternoon I suppose.

Pugilism of a distinctly more unpleasant nature featured on one sunny Saturday afternoon when the lads trolled along Ellingfort Road from the Turkish chip shop on their way back to the Chinese Centre. At this time, road repairs were under construction which meant that most of the pavement on one side of the road was cordoned off with scaffold and bollards. The group of lads therefore had to walk partly in the road since the other side of the road was cluttered with cars parked on the pavement to allow sufficient space for traffic to use the road. A car drove swiftly past the lads in the opposite direction (i.e. toward Mare Street) and this young Vietnamese woman yelled obscenities from the car window as the young chap driving it had to swerve to avoid the boys. Had he been driving with less haste, he’d have had sufficient time to see them, of course. Andrew Ha and Hui shouted an angry response which, under the circumstances, although understandable, was hardly appropriate.

Now the situation moved into Yuen Woo Ping territory. The car screeched to a halt, the young woman leapt out of the vehicle and attacked Andrew and Hui with a wooden stick of some kind. So shocked were the lads by this outrageous behaviour that they merely tried to dodge the blows and move away from the frantic assault. They ran into the club and told Ben what happened. Ben, to his credit, left me in charge of the club while he accompanied the lads down to the bottom of the road where he found the car had parked. He then approached the driver and engaged him in what appeared to be a calm, polite discussion. He apologised for any foul language the lads may have used and the man appeared mollified. To me this was absurd since it was this snotty nosed excuse for a man and his screeching neurotic slag of a wife who should have apologised profusely not only for their behaviour to the lads but for their mere existence in a world that already has penicillin.

Ben and the gang returned to the centre, relieved that a difficult situation had been avoided. Being a hot day, most of us sat outside the building by the railings, laughing and joking. I held the famous keyboard that is now used by Luc on all UNIT recordings. It was about half past four so the club was due to close in 30 minutes. Then the car driver, a Vietnamese man in his mid twenties, appeared on the corner of Ellingfort Road and Mentmore Terrace opposite the youth club. He beckoned Andrew over to him in what appeared a nonchalant, even friendly manner. I stood up and saw Andrew, followed by Hui and young Paul (who was a recent addition to the club, being little more than 12 years old), amble over to the man. A second later, the man whipped out a large meat cleaver and slashed out at Andrew who was able to leap back and avoid being sliced by the blow. He ran – the man chased after him – then he tried to lash out with the cleaver at Paul who was stood on his left. The next blow caught Andrew in the back and I heard the lad yell more in shock than pain as the blade sliced through his jacket and gouged a 5 inch groove in his back. I yelled some inanity, dropped the keyboard and ran towards him, accompanied by Vietnamese Alan, Hui and Paul but it was to no effect. The man dashed off down Mentmore Terrace and turned left. He must have taken refuge in one of the houses for he had vanished from sight.

The police were called immediately and we had to wait until 7pm to be interviewed by senior officers to give detailed accounts of what happened while the whole street was cordoned off. An ambulance arrived and Andrew was carted off to Homerton Hospital. What I did not realise at the time was that both Bens’ children had also been standing outside the club and witnessed the whole incident. Jeremy was 7 at the time and his sister (whose name I still can’t remember) was only 5 I think – both were seriously disturbed by what they had seen. The girl remained trembling and in tears while Jeremy kept unusually quiet and subdued. To make the matter worse, it was decided not to open the club on Saturdays for the next month, ostensibly to avoid any reprisals from the Vietnamese couple. Reprisals, is it? Surely it was us who deserved to enact revenge for the disgusting manner in which we had been treated? I called up my own crew (it is useful to know lads who belong to the 14K) to investigate the shops on that block of Mare Street, all of which are owned by the Vietnamese, since some of them at least would have known the 2 miscreants concerned.

Well, sadly, we never were able to track the two rat-bags down. Therefore I elected instead to enact revenge by stealth. When Ben initially chatted to the man, the woman was seen to enter the large shop next to Fang Cheng restaurant and he didn’t see her leave again. I assumed, therefore, that both people were known to the workers in the shop. Binh and Chau (my 2 Triad pals) later confirmed that these people occasionally stayed in a room above the shop. In a fit of inspired genius motivated by my rage at what had occurred, I wrote a brief piece of music, in the style of a hip hop piece but with more interesting harmonies (obviously) to accompany a text I wrote together with Luc Tran, Richard Wong and Philip Lu. I booked the studio at the earliest opportunity and myself, Luc, Richard and Philip did the business. UJ wasn’t able to attend the session so Luc played virtually all the instruments on it while he, myself, Richard and Philip took turns to recite the text which to this day remains one of the angriest raps I have ever written. Luc and I wrote the English text while the Cantonese sections were lovingly created by Richard and Philip. I called the piece Ngya Gue which is an insulting term used by the Vietnamese that is reserved only for filthy, lazy slobs who contribute nothing to their families or their country. We recorded it in one day and Luc and I then mixed it the very next Sunday. On leaving the studio, well pleased with our results, instead of going home, we marched over to Victoria Park where all the rest of the crew (including Andrew) had assembled and we then managed, with commendable diligence, to avoid providing any details of what we had been doing in the studio.

You see, we had already decided it was going to be a surprise present for Andrew so, as far as he and the rest of the gang were concerned, Richard and Philip had merely decided to sit in Redchurch Studio in Tudor Road to watch Luc and I record our strange rock music. As soon as we had finished the post production on my computer at home, Luc delivered a copy of the CD to Andrew – no clue as to its contents were given on the disc other than the epithet ‘For Andrew – Revenge’ scrawled on the disc itself. Then I delivered a copy (marked ‘Revenge’ in both English and Vietnamese on the disc) to the Vietnamese shop and, just for good measure, I delivered copies to Fang Cheng, the tattoo parlour and the two other largest Vietnamese supermarkets nearby. The discs were carefully enclosed in padded envelopes with ‘revenge’ written in Vietnamese on the outside. Well, it made me feel better – but what really satisfied me was the response from Andrew who was clearly deeply moved by the gesture (and perhaps a little embarrassed). Little did I realise then that in less than year I would be banned from the youth club and that most of these youngsters would never speak to me again.

After Richard Chan had persuaded the management committee to ban me from the Chinese Centre on May 13th 2006, I discovered during the next 2 months that most of the lads – and I refer to the vast majority of them – had either been persuaded or had decided for themselves to sever all further contact with me, even to the extent of ignoring me in the street. This is not exactly how I would have chosen to celebrate the culmination of my 8 years work at the Hackney Chinese Youth Club and yet, in another curious sense, it does seem horribly commensurate with every other relationship I have ever endured. I derive absolutely no joy whatsoever – and certainly no satisfaction – from the fact that now I am forced to admit the British National Party are probably correct when they claim ‘multiracial society doesn’t work’.

Andy Martin © 2009.

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