Because mother had to go out to work
and couldn't afford to have anyone take care
of the children and couldn't afford to send
her to the nursery, so they looked after
the babies.
And I thought, well, Lord, I could have
a nursery and look after those children.
And then there were the teenagers, and they
couldn't afford to go to high school because
their parents needed the money to take care
of the other children in order that they
could go to school.
So they began to work when they were
very young, and all the money they gave
to their parents so that they could support
their family and pay the rent.
But there were still more.
There were those that slept in the middle
of the road.
They slept in the partition, going down the
road, because they had no homes at all.
There were still many of them.
Some of them make little shacks, and many
of them have nothing, just a plastic bag
with their identity card and their other important
things in, just a little plastic bag.
And as I saw these people, I said,
well, God, maybe if I stayed in this
street, maybe if I spent my whole life
here, I could just about love this street.
I could just about understand it.
You see, my mind isn't very large.
My heart isn't that big.
But maybe if I stayed here a whole
life, I could just about love them.
I could do something about this street.
Oh, but the awful thing is, in Hong
Kong, you walk out of one street and
into another, and there's more faces and there's
more people.
And then you walk into another, and then
you walk into another.
I said, no, God, that's too much.
I can't understand all of that.
Would you please show me?
What's my bit?
And he showed me a place called the
Wall City, which is a strange area.
It's peculiar because, although it's in Hong Kong,
it's outside British rule.
And this was because last century, when Britain
and China made their arrangement between them, they
left this bit out, because this bit said
that it always had its own Mandarin governing
it, so it refused to come under British
rule.
For some reason, she was allowed to retain
this special arrangement.
And later on, Britain tried to change it
and said, well, after all, we want the
Wall City.
But China wouldn't change it.
So from last century until now, even though
it's been right in the middle of Hong
Kong, British territory, it's been unadministered.
And China says it's really hers, and Britain
says it's really hers.
And meantime, it's been a wonderful place for
criminals to hide, because police never used to
go in.
They do go in now, but when I
first got to Hong Kong, they didn't go
in, except every now and again to make
a patrol.
I didn't know where I was going when
I arrived.
A missionary took me in, and she said,
would you like to go to the Wall
City?
And I said yes, and she said, would
you like to help in my school?
And I said yes.
And I thought I was going to a
quaint sort of Chinese village, you know, and
it would be poor, but quite sort of
quaint and sweet.
And I was surprised that we got there,
because it was just a street of false
teeth.
Maybe you call them dentures.
And the whole street was dentures, and everything
smiling at you.
And we squinted in between two of these
denture shops, and the missionary said, we're here.
And that's because all these dentists are illegal.
They've learned from daddy or someone, and they
don't have a license to practice, so they
all have their shops on the edge of
the Wall City.
There's no wall now, because Japan took it
down during the occupation to build the runway
of the airport with it.
So, the only way that you would know
how to get in would be if somebody
took you.
There were, at that time, about 32 what
they call teamantois, or watchmen, weathermen, who guard
the outside of the Wall City, because the
triads, this is the gangsters that operate it,
employ these weathermen or watchmen to make sure
that policemen in disguise or narcotics agencies or
other gangs, they're called triads, don't go in.
So, they didn't look very like guards.
They're just sort of old men or young
thugs with sort of bats or bricks or
something sitting around the outside, and they would
stop you going in.
Anyway, I went in, and it was dark
inside.
That's because the streets are just two or
three feet wide, and there are open sewers
beneath your feet, and it's better to look
down anyway, because the buildings are built so
close together that you can't see any sunlight.
Above the first level of houses, they built
them so that they nearly touch, and they
can hardly open the windows from one to
another.
It's just as well anyway, because as there
are no toilets in there, when people open
the windows, things fall down, and you have
to be very careful where you walk.
And the missionary led me down this little
street, and she said, there's a drug addict,
and I didn't know what you did when
you met drug addicts, whether you jumped, you
know, or held onto your purse or whatever,
but this one just looked sad, and he
was putting his fingers through a refuse place
near the open sewer, just seeing what he
could get out.
And then the prostitutes, and they were really
sad.
I mean, they're not pretty, they're not glamorous,
they don't even try.
And they were sitting on boxes in the
street, old ones, because they keep the girls,
the little ones, prisoners.
And they're not free to come out.
I found out later they were, some of
them, 12 or 13, and they'd been raped
by their boyfriends, or invited to parties and
seduced and then sold.
And sometimes they were sold by their parents.
And I began to go in there more
and more and more.
It was a strange thing, because although it
was a dark place, it's called a city
of darkness, although some people think it's a
frightening place, although outsiders are told never to
go there, and indeed Hong Kong people don't
want to be seen in it, because they'll
get a bad name.
I was really happy.
I mean, it was not hard for me
to be there.
Every time I went in, I felt like
singing was quite unreasonable.
And I very much wanted to share with
the people how Jesus loved them.
I just wasn't sure how to do it.
I wanted to tell them, He's the one
that came for you if you're poor.
He's the one that came for you who
are hungry.
He loves you.
So I learned how to say it.
And it's very easy.
It goes here.
So oiny.
Jesus loves you.
And the reason I thought that this would
work was because I'd read the Cross and
the Switchblade.
And in the Cross and the Switchblade, you've
probably read it, this is what this pastor
from New York went up to a gangster
and said, Jesus loves you.
And Nicky Cruz, he was the name of
the gangster, his heart cracked, you see.
So I thought, if I learn how to
say Jesus loves you in Chinese, maybe their
hearts will crack.
So I picked my victim.
He was a tin man toy.
He was a man who sat outside the
gambling dens.
And they're all illegal gambling dens.
And they're really swinging around about three or
four in the morning.
And I went up to him.
And I said to him in my best
Chinese, Jesus loves you.
And he said, 關我咩事呀?
What does that have to do with me?
And I was quite upset it hadn't worked.
So I thought, you've got to put your
heart into this.
So I said with feeling, 真係, but he
really loves you.
And he said, 你快啲走啦,不如你搵第二個好冇呀?
Run along.
Go find someone else, please.
Tell someone else.
I was really upset that it hadn't worked.
And I didn't know why.
So I thought, well, the next one I'm
going to touch.
You know, I really want to show it.
So I found a little prostitute.
I didn't know how old she was, but
she was always squatting over a sewer.
And there was nowhere else to squat, you
see, because the little room that she used,
well, all it had in was a bed.
There was nothing else.
So she squatted all day outside her room.
And she couldn't read.
And she hadn't got a radio.
So that's all she did was to squat
over the sewer.
And when the men came out of the
Blue Film Theatre, which is just a shack,
she used to pull them in.
Oh, I knew all about the God of
Love.
I knew that he'd died to save me.
I knew that he gave up his life
for me.
I knew that he made me fall.
But what did she know?
I went up to her and I touched
her.