Sandstone Press

Seoul, Saigon & Sauchiehall

Posted by Ron McMillan on 1st October 2009

In thirty largely itinerant years, I have been blessedly free from misfortune of the criminal variety. Until today, I could say I had never had anything stolen, and that, so far as I could tell, I only twice suffered attempts to divest me of belongings. Yet there has been something of a symmetry to the occasions, one each in the 1980s, the 1990s, and, as of today, one in the ‘noughties’.

The nightlife district of Itaewon in Seoul in the mid-80s was a pleasure-seeker’s bonanza of restaurants, bars, nightclubs, bars, cathouses and more bars besides. The action on the road leading up to the main nightlife area was a never-ending brew of hedonistic street theatre, yet one where the gravest threats posed were surely of the sexually-transmitted variety. Only once, while walking across that bustling stage, did someone try to dip my pocket, and even then, it required the benefit of hindsight to recognise the threat for what it really was. It took the form of a jarring collision with another pedestrian. My first instinct was towards anger, as the other half of the collision was a Korean man who had surely veered into me, but when I saw the partly crippled character stuck with his sad, tilted gait, I quickly made my apologies and moved along. Only later, when I watched him seemingly suffer precisely the same jarring bad fortune with another Western nightlife stroller, did I grasp that he was a working grifter, and that my escape had been no less fortunate for being completely unwitting. To harness the cliche, I put it down to experience - and saved it for an as-yet unpublished work of fiction, where it lies to this day.

Almost ten years later, 1994 found me in Saigon, in the company of two others - a bear of an Australian called Tony and a tall Hongkong friend - Basil Pao, the photographer who so wonderfully illustrates all the Michael Palin travelogue books (and who so kindly designed the cover of my Shetland book, BETWEEN WEATHERS). As we left our very swank hotel for the first time, in high spirits and looking forward to the delights of world-renowned Franco-Vietnamese cuisine, we were accosted by three peddlers selling souvenirs and trinkets. We didn’t slow, and they gamely persisted, as is the way with people in that profession, to tempt us with their goods by shoving them in our faces while they hurried backwards. My would-be salesman had a big glossy coffee table book full of photographs of Vietnam, and with one hand he pushed it against me, right under my chin. Two could play at that particular game, and I surprised him by quickly bringing my hand up beneath the book and clamping a solid grip on his other hand, the one that was, with two inverted fingers, tweezering the (worthless) contents from my shirt pocket. A tense moment ensued before Basil and Tony made sure I didn’t thump the guy with my raised right fist; to do so would almost certainly invite twenty tough street-wise colleagues to materialise from the shadows and give us all a proper pasting. Another lesson learned, then.

And on to the noughties, and specifically to Glasgow’s very own Sauchiehall Street, and to a fine Chinese restaurant, one of the best in the entire city for real but simple Chinese fare (for those interested: Hongkong Express, on the south side of Sauchiehall, near the Charing Cross end). I met with a friend who had to return to me a quite considerable sum of money, which came in an envelope. As the restaurant was nearly empty, with not another diner within twenty feet, I put it temporarily in the inside pocket of my jacket, which was hanging on the back of my chair; l-o-n-g before heading out onto the street, so the plan went, I would make sure it was buried deep in a front trouser pocket.

While we ate and blethered, another customer came to the adjacent table, and sat in the chair immediately behind me. You can guess what comes next. I felt a little jostling, but (stupidly, of course), did not want to dive into my own pocket accusingly when in all likelihood he was just a guy who was clumsy with his seat, so I did nothing - until he stood up and headed for the door, having ordered nothing. I instantly dipped my own pocket - empty - and went for him (still worrying that I might be doing the poor man a terrible injustice). I shouted at him to stop, and to my eternal surprise, he did precisely that - but only for long enough to pull MY envelope full of readies out of HIS pocket, slap it on a table top - and run like a frightened rabbit out the door and into the crowded street.

Cue an adrenalin rush that clouded my entire afternoon with the fizz of a persistent headache.

Three decades, three countries and three near things - but none so nearly disastrous as today’s in a restaurant a bare handful of miles from ‘home’.

If the next episode is another decade away - and just as fruitless for the would-be grifter - I’ll be perfectly content. And maybe a little bit the wiser. Again.