(Submitted on May 2, 2017)
I was very young, but still remember well the day that my family first toured the Aberdeen Marina Club in Sham Wan, Hong Kong. We had recently relocated to that magnificent city for my father’s job and were all adjusting to the unique experience – really a step back in time – of life as “expats”. For my father, who would travel constantly throughout Asia for five years, this meant acquiring a bazillion frequent flyer points and being treated with an absurd degree of deference which he had never known before and has not known since. For my mother, it meant coming to terms with the idea of having a “domestic helper,” a concept which she initially opposed (as many expats do), being a modern woman who frowned on such things, but to which she finally succumbed (as all expats do). For my brother and I it meant taking in all the marvels of the Aberdeen Marina Club.
One of the rites of passage for expats in the big cities of Asia seems to be joining a “Club”. I guess that many of the families that relocate are leaving behind suburban living and houses with grassy yards, and the move into the high-rise, congested lifestyle of a city like Hong Kong must be sweetened with promises of a place that will offer the comforts of home. Only better. And more luxurious. And not even remotely like the local Y. For my family, no such enticement was actually necessary as we were moving from a dark, cramped apartment on the Upper West Side of New York. We had the ground floor of a brownstone and did, in fact, have access to the rear “garden,” a brick courtyard that my parents had thought might be a good place to put a sandbox for me. Unfortunately the sandbox was rarely used, other than possibly by rats, thanks to some neighbors in the building next door who used our little garden as their personal trash can. They used to toss all of their leftover food straight out the kitchen window. Chicken bones, half-eaten baked potatoes. Charming. But I digress.
Club membership was part of my dad’s employment package and neither of my parents were going to turn that down. As I’ve said, I was very young when we made our first trip to the Marina Club but I feel absolutely certain that, from the minute we stepped through the doors, we looked like those families one sees in ads for a Disney cruise – our eyes opened wide and our jaws dropped. Perhaps I’m reminded of those ads because the main entrance and lobby area did have somewhat of a cruise ship feel. To my eyes, it was absolutely stunning. To my mother’s eyes, it veered perhaps towards gaudy. But who cared? We signed in and commenced a tour through the floors of restaurants and game rooms and finally to the outside terrace from where we could see “paradise”. The Tropical Pool. A huge meandering swimming pool surrounded by palm trees and exotic plants, complete with an island, a waterfall and the most perfect water slide ever created. Beyond the pool one could see a boating marina and the “Jumbo” floating restaurants. I now think of the restaurants as a tourist trap, but back then, they seemed like the holy grail of dining out, huge and ornate and, I repeat, floating.
The wonders of the Marina Club unfolded to me over the next five years. It turned out that there was another large swimming pool that was covered with a “bubble” and heated during the winter months and it was here that I learned to swim. For children there was every conceivable activity on offer from martial arts classes to gymnastics to badminton, golf and tennis. There was a bowling alley, a movie theater, a candy store that offered goodies from all over the world and a games and adventure room that had to be seen to be believed. There was even an ice skating rink, which was very much a novelty for Hong Kong in those days.
Unsurprisingly, the Marina Club was the “go-to” place for birthday parties and my brother and I spent countless hours enjoying all the amenities that the club had to offer. It was where we all learned the expression “put it on the tab,” a phrase that has literally disappeared from my lexicon in the years since leaving Hong Kong. It was indeed a luxurious, and by that I mean totally “over-the-top” experience that would leave any out-of-town visitor questioning, while slightly envious of, the opulence. For young children, it seemed quite literally to be heaven on earth.
When my family left Hong Kong and returned to the U.S. and life in the suburbs, we left behind the Aberdeen Marina Club and the lavish lifestyle of the “expat” that it represented. And, while we all loved living in Asia with the opportunities it afforded us, I don’t think that any of us felt worse off for not being surrounded by such luxury. But it was fun while it lasted.
Manhattan Dreaming 