I sailed with both Hong Kong and mainland Chinese crews from the Peoples Republic of China (P.R.O.C.) in the mid 80's for about 3 years under the Hong Kong flag. A lot of the Hong Kong seamen had been born on the mainland and had fled over the border to H.K with their parents/next of kin during the mass exoduses of the 50's and 60's. I found the majority of them good professional seafarers and a lot of them had served on various U.K. shipping companies in the different departments onboard and really were reliable and competent. If I remember rightly they all had to be members of the Hong Kong Seaman's Union and have the correct certificate of competency. They were to become like U.K. Seamen, a victim of their own and Hong Kong's success. As wages and other benefits increased in the colony and on board ships the economic benefits of employing them became less and less. A lot of the Hong Kong shipping companies at this time were looking for preferential treatment to obtain charters from the various provincial and national companies in the P.R.O.C. The company that I worked for was a management company and decided to try to do the same. A lot of the initial crew had never been to sea in their lives and a few had never even seen the sea. The first ship I was on like this had an electrician who was supposed to be a lecturer on the subject from some University in shanghai. Theoretically He was great, in practise He did not have a clue. There were seaman who could not steer and a cook who was not capable of cooking any reasonable variety of Chinese cuisine let alone any thing else. Maybe ashore the lack of knowledge and incompetence could be bypassed in time onboard it was down right dangerous. All of these men came through a manning agency in China and initially the communes that they came from decided which guys got the jobs. They were all payed in U.S. $ with a percentage of their basic pay going back to the commune and they kept the rest plus there overtime which made them quite wealthy. They all flew out to join the ships through Hong Kong and after completion of the voyage (1 year) flew back to Hong Kong where they were entitled to a 3 day stay at the Mariners Club Kowloon, in dormitory accommodation to shop for all those capitalist luxuries that they could not obtain in the P.R.O.C. and were then flown to their home towns and cities from where they had come.Quote:
Originally Posted by j.sabourn
I also remember the difficulties of trying to feed different cultures with Northern Chinese used to eating wheat and mutton and things like steamed rolls with heavy use of Soy and black bean sauces for breakfast etc. while Southern Chinese were used to more chicken, pork rice and noodle with delicate flavourings and congee for breakfast etc. A lot of the men from central China seemed to eat anything as long as it had mouth numbingly amounts of chili and spices. Throw into the equation some British and other European officers plus a set feeding cost limit and at times I was close to pulling my hair out. Eventually a compromise was reached with the crew on this ship having a feeding similar to what you had. The Bosun/ Commissar/ Crew Committee would decide who cooked and what amounts. Some bright spark came up with what we called 'Chop Stick' feeding which meant I would advise the crew of the cost of produce like meat etc. In say Oz (Cheap) if we were loading there but say expensive in Japan. They would then decide what and how much they required. I would then order what ever was required. What this meant was that the feeding costs were within the budgets allowed. Any food costs that were not used went back to the crew as a bonus. This also meant that whenever the ship was at anchor/alongside the crew were always fishing (Free grub) which also led to problems . But that is another story.
