Chasing the Dragon (8 page)

Whatever was going to happen next was obviously meant to be a very emotional experience. My heart began to bump a bit, because I was not at all sure what to expect. Then I sat down, and the couple laid their hands on my head, saying over and over again in pidgin English, “Now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking.”

But nothing happened; they thought I was going to burst into “the gift of tongues,” but it had not worked.

Some of the West Croydon group had spoken in tongues, and I had heard of other friends who had received this gift, but no one had ever been willing to discuss it. The idea of a new language in which you could speak fluently and express all the thoughts of your heart to God was wonderful.
²
But I thought that it was something that you had to be rather advanced and
spiritual to get. I shut my mouth firmly. If God was going to give me this gift, He was going to do it, not me.

“Now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking.”

I was acutely embarrassed and began to get cross with them. I felt hotter and hotter and more and more uncomfortable. Here I was not speaking in tongues, and they were going to be so disappointed that nothing had happened. They need not have prepared the wet flannels and the oranges—they were not going to need either plate. Eventually, I could not stand it any longer, so I opened my mouth to say, “Help me, God.” And then it happened.

As soon as I made the conscious effort to open my mouth, I found that I could speak freely in a language I had never learned. It was a beautiful articulate tongue, soft and coherent in that there was a clear speech pattern with modulated rise and fall. I was never in any doubt that I had received the sign that I had asked for. But there was no accompanying exultation. I had imagined being lifted up into praise and glory, but it was a most unemotional experience.

The Chinese pair were delighted that I had spoken, although a little surprised that I was not in a flood of tears. However, they cried to make up for it, and their old mother had a good weep too. I still felt extremely embarrassed and left their house as soon as I could. I was very glad that this experience had not happened to me in front of British people.

As I got to the door, they said, “Oh, you can expect the other gifts of the Spirit to appear now.” At the time, I did not understand what they meant.

Every day for the next week or so, I waited for the gift of healing or the gift of prophecy to pop up. These were the only other gifts of the Spirit I had heard about, although I now know there are nine.
³
I knew that in England two of the ministers I most respected used these gifts, and they certainly were most effective in their ministry. I also knew that there was an MP’s wife who had the gift of healing. They followed Bible teaching carefully, so there was no doubt in my mind as to the rightness of the gifts or
their usefulness, but I did not know how you knew when you had received them. How do you know if you have healing?

I remained puzzled, too, that I was still very cool about this great spiritual event. I had read books like
They Speak in Other Tongues
, which left me with the impression that this experience should make me walk on the mountaintops or sit on a cloud brimming over with love. I wondered if I had not got the right thing; maybe it was all vastly overrated, anyway. I went around Hong Kong trying to find someone who would talk to me about it, but no one would. Missionary friends said darkly, “Something very dangerous happened in China and there was a split between the groups.” Even more surprising, the Pentecostal churches would not talk about it. I went to their services—they still retained the noise, the handclapping and the repeated
amens
and
hallelujahs
—but the gifts of the Spirit were absent. The Pentecostal missionaries explained that they had made a pact with the Evangelicals not to discuss these things because they could not agree about them. They agreed to talk only about Jesus. But I could see that the gifts were in the Bible; they came from God, so how could they be dangerous?
⁴

As months passed, I began to dismiss the whole subject. This experience had not patently changed my Christian life; in fact, if anything, life became even more difficult about this time. I was still rushing around the Walled City, going to some kind of Christian meeting every night, trying with every ounce of my being to help people, but nobody seemed to have been helped. I felt cheated.

Who do they think they are?
I thought when I first heard about the Willanses. An American couple, their young daughter, Suzanne, and companion Gail Castle had just arrived in Hong Kong and were going to start a prayer meeting.
What a cheek! Hong Kong doesn’t need another prayer meeting. I’m already going to one of these every day of the week. Anyway, they’ve only just come—they should wait to see the church situation first
.

It was two years since I had left England—and a year since I had supposedly received the “gift of the Spirit.” I felt that I was quite an authority on prayer meetings in the colony. But my clarinet pupil’s mother, Clare Harding, urged me to go to the meeting, saying that it would be “charismatic.” This new term described a meeting where they expected the various gifts of the Spirit—charisma—to be manifested.

“Well, I’ll just go for a few weeks until I’ve learned all about it—then I’ll go back to the other meetings,” I told Clare. And so I was introduced to Rick and Jean Stone Willans.

“Do you pray in tongues, Jackie?” I was shocked by Jean’s American forthrightness. No English person would be that direct.
⁵

“Well, no actually,” I replied. “I haven’t found it that useful. I don’t get anything out of it, so I’ve stopped.” It was a relief to discuss it with someone.

But Jean would not be sympathetic. “That’s very rude of you,” she said. “It’s not a gift of emotion—it’s a gift of the Spirit. You shouldn’t despise the gifts God has given you. The Bible says that he who prays in tongues will be built up spiritually, so never mind what you feel—do it.”
⁶
Then she and Rick made me promise to pray daily in my heavenly language. They insisted that the Holy Spirit was given in power to the Early Church to make them effective witnesses to the risen Christ.
⁷

Then, to my horror, they suggested that we pray together in tongues. I was not sure if this was all right, since the Bible said that people should not all speak aloud in tongues at the same time. They explained that St. Paul was referring to a public meeting where an outsider coming in would think everyone was crazy; we three would not be offending anyone and would be praying to God in the languages He gave us.
⁸

I could not get out of it. We prayed, and I felt silly saying words I did not understand. I felt hot. And then, to my consternation, they stopped praying while I felt impelled to continue. I knew already that this gift, although holy, was under my control; I could stop or start at will.
⁹
I would have done anything
not to be praying out loud in a strange language in front of strange Americans, but just as I thought I would die of self-consciousness, God said to me, “Are you willing to be a fool for My sake?”
¹⁰

I gave in. “All right, Lord. This doesn’t make sense to me, but since You invented it, it must be a good gift, so I’ll go ahead in obedience and You teach me how to pray.”

After we finished praying, Jean said she understood what I had said; God had given her the interpretation. She translated. It was beautiful; my heart was yearning for the Lord and calling as from the depths of a valley stream to the mountain tops for Him. I loved Him and worshiped Him and longed for Him to use me.

It was a language so much more explicit and glorious than any I could have formulated. I decided that if God helped me to pray like that when I was praying in tongues, I would never despise this gift again. I accepted that He was helping me to pray perfectly.

Every day—as I had promised the Willanses—I prayed in the language of the Spirit. Fifteen minutes by the clock. I still felt it to be an exercise. Before praying in the Spirit, I said, “Lord, I don’t know how to pray, or whom to pray for. Will You pray through me—and will You lead me to the people who want You?”
¹¹
And I would begin my 15-minute stint.

After about six weeks, I noticed something remarkable. Those I talked to about Christ believed. I could not understand it at first and wondered how my Chinese friends had so suddenly improved, or if I had stumbled on a splendid new evangelistic technique. But I was saying the same things as before.

It was some time before I realized what had changed. This time, I was talking about Jesus to people who wanted to hear. I had let God have a hand in my prayers, and it produced a direct result. Instead of my deciding what I wanted to do for God and asking His blessing, I was asking Him to do His will through me as I prayed in the language He gave me.

Now I found that person after person wanted to receive Jesus. I could not be proud—I could only wonder that God let me be a small part of His work. And so the emotion came. It never came while I prayed, but when I saw the results of these prayers, I was literally delighted.

I began to get to know the Willanses better, and they became wonderful friends and counselors. The bonds of Christian conventions burst and I found, once more, the glorious freedom to live that we have in Christ Jesus. At my conversion, I had accepted that Jesus had died for me; now I began to see what miracles He was doing in the world today.

6

THE TRIADS

H
ai bin do ah?
Where do you come from?” The slight, sallow-faced youth stared terrified as four members of the famed 14K Triad advanced menacingly toward him. In gang parlance, they were asking him to which black society he belonged. He could not reply; he was trembling and his breath came in short gasps.

“M’gong?
Not talking then?” Ah Ping, the spokesman, jeered at him and stepped closer until he was at kicking distance. There was no escape—the boy and his tormentors all knew what was coming. He was trapped down one of the Walled City alleys with the wall behind and the gangsters in front. They taunted him—teasing out his fear, advancing in ghastly slow motion. They were enjoying their captive’s terror, his cringing body.

The first blow came with amazing speed and ground into the boy’s ribs. Chinese boxers are skilled, their movements supple. Their kung-fu training affects a litheness and economy of action that is precise and lethal. The victim fell to the ground as more blows rained on his stomach, his chest, his groin. He moaned, doubled up in agony, but still he did not speak. So they drove him along the street and kicked him while he crawled and then limped away. He would not be back. He had learned what happened when you walked down enemy territory unprotected.

This made the Triads feel good. They were secure and superior in their own streets. They controlled what went on and who was allowed through their turf. Before long, I found that the room I had rented for the Youth Club was right in the middle of the 14K patch.

I had just watched the sickening scene, but I did not yet know how inevitable this beating up was according to Triad tradition.

“Why did you do that?” I demanded. “Why? What has that boy done to you?” I suddenly felt rather unwell.

Ah Ping shrugged. “Probably nothing,” he conceded, but the corners of his mouth turned down disdainfully. “He could not identify himself or show his reason for being here, so we got to teach him a lesson. He perhaps from our enemies the
Ging Yu
, and we got to let them know who’s in power down here.”

I was learning.

H. W. E. Heath, one of the former police chiefs in Hong Kong, wrote in 1960, “Triad activities have been noted in the official law and police reports of Hong Kong for the past one hundred and sixteen years. For the past one hundred and thirteen years special ordinances and related legislation have been created in attempts to deal with the problem. The Triad Societies are still with us.”

In its earliest phases, the Triad Society was a Chinese secret society whose members were bound by oath to overthrow the foreign conquerors of their country and restore the ancient ruling house of China, the Ming Dynasty. Today, the historical Triad Society has degenerated into hundreds of separate Triad societies. All claim to be part of the Triad tradition, but in fact they are mainly criminal gangs who use the name and rituals as covers for their own evil purposes.

To join the original Triad Society, it was essential to go through certain rituals. These included learning poems, handshakes and hand signs and shedding and drinking blood. Sacrifices were laid down; when you entered the Triad Society, you swore to follow your “brother” forever. He became your
daih lo
or big brother; you became his
sai lo
or little brother, and you were then related forever. If you proved yourself, an aspiring Triad would ask to follow you, and you became his big brother. Thus, the Triad Society was a pyramid of relationships. Inside each gang there was a complicated hierarchy of ranks
and duties. The officers had colorful names like Red Pole, White Paper Fan and Grass Sandal. At other times, these officers were known simply by their numbers—as 489, 438, 426 and 415. Ordinary members were called “49 boys.”

All over Hong Kong the Triads inspired terror, which made it easier to run protection rackets. The Walled City was the perfect place for them; they took the fullest advantage of its uncertain sovereignty. Two main gangs operated there, divided geographically by a certain street. There was a tacit understanding between the groups regarding territory and business. The
Ging Yu
controlled all the heroin dens, both the selling points and the smoking dens. They also ran protection rackets and controlled prostitution east of Old Man Street.

Far more feared were the brothers of the 14K, which was a relative newcomer amongst the traditional Triad societies, having been formed in China in 1949. It derived its name from No. 14 Po Wah Street, Canton, where it was organized to support the Chinese Nationalistic cause. It was reputed to have 100,000 members worldwide at the time; 60,000 in Hong Kong alone. I understood that it controlled all opium
divans
, gambling, blue films, child brothels, illegal dog restaurants and protection rackets on the west side of the city.