Mr. Woo

The phone call would go like this.

"Mr. Woo?"

"Yees? Hey Georgie! How are you?"

He had again recognized my voice.

"Go to airport tomorrow."

"What time?"

"Three thirty."

"Half past three. OK"

If he had been driving when I called, he would call back to double-check. And he would be there on time.

Mr. Woo has been driving me to the airport from Clover Lodge for nearly 10 years now. He's one of those individuals I look forward to seeing.

Mr. Woo's English isn't perfect but we manage to carry on a conversation during the drive. Before he sets off, he makes sure that I have my passport and the airline ticket (the latter somewhat superfluous now). Then he asks about my parents, although my mother passed away four years ago. I ask about his mother, who, at 94, used to live in a remote "mountain village" in Guangdong. Mr. Woo would visit her regularly. He says that the fresh mountain air and the clean water enabled her to live long. She had a fall recently and passed away.

Mr. Woo has told me his life story a number of times. He says his father was a Kuomintang General (for all I know he may have been a foot soldier), so, when the Communists took over, Mr. Woo swam to Hong Kong knowing that his future would be bleak under the Communists. He couldn't swim, so he paddled "like a little dog". He came with two friends but none of his siblings followed, and Mr. Woo lives the immigrant's dream, eventually buying a taxi and educating all his children. Two of them live abroad, if I recall correctly.

Each time I travel with him, I feel that Mr. Woo is getting more feeble and wonder if I would see him again. He no longer drives long distance at night.