The great septic tank malfunction

One of the more unusual features of the new factory, was a properly designed ablution and toilet block, this feature probably stemmed from the fact that the company owners were Australian and the facility was naturally considered as part of the overall design. From experience in South East Asia I was aware that such conveniences held a fairly low priority in the local scheme of things! Apparently the actual design and planning was carried out by a local firm, and as such, pretty much followed such installations in hotels and such in Hong Kong and Kowloon but hidden in the plans was one vital flaw, very vital in fact! I was fully occupied in getting the plant machinery into production and the ablution block being built hardly came to my notice as a local contractor carried out the work. It wasn’t till actual production started, and was going well with an influx of local workers, that I faced a memo that was well outside my sphere. The new septic system had suddenly turned critical and was pushing up inspection hatches, and raw sewage was flooding the immediate area! There was also a small adjoining flood plain between us and the local village that appeared to be enlarging into the adjacent paddy fields.

It didn’t take me all that long to verify with the aid of level sticks that surrounding levels of water were indeed fluctuating, being quite low on Monday after the weekend shut-dawn, but rising as the week progressed, this together with the more obvious visual evidence pointed to a drastic error in construction somewhere under the expanse of concrete. This led to the recall of the building contractor responsible, who turned out to be an elderly Chinese who spoke no English, but from the moment of arrival, proved to be extremely excited and voluble in his native tongue and waved a sheaf of the original plans. Through an interpreter I soon gathered that his original objections to the plans, though loud and insistent, had fallen on deaf ears, and he had been instructed to get on with the job forthwith. I already had a fair idea of where the fault lay, and at his insistence the plans were laid out and he was pointing at one particular detail and more or less laughing his old Chinese head off! It was only moments later that I joined him in laughter! There it was, a vital U-pipe drawn upside down in the surrounding concrete, and so the mystery was laid bare, but what to do about it? The error though simple in itself, demanded a massive operation to correct as water levels in the entire system would be way out once the correction was made.

The usual management of sewage disposal was carried out in China in the time honoured method of crop fertilisation and fish farm nourishment, so after consideration I proposed that the local village downhill from the site be approached to see if they were interested in disposing of the now massive and ever increasing lake of untreated sewage, at least until the problem could be sorted out properly! But the answer to this was a very sharp ’No!’ from the top brass.

My time on the job was now finished with the start of full scale production and this was really no problem of mine, though it was pointed out that had I been drawn into the original argument, it would never have happened as it did! In fact, my overall job apart from assembling machinery, was to help sort out dozens of such problems that lurked in inaccuracy of the drawings and general specification! So I shortly returned to Australia and a Christmas break, never expecting to see Hong Kong again, but fate intervened in the New Year and Barbara and I found ourselves once more in Kowloon, working for a different company, the newly formed Jaques International, which at that early stage consisted of no more than my mate the boss, myself and a Chinese office girl. We were little more than a South East Asian outpost of the parent Melbourne company but expansion was eminent, and my contract was for one year with a further extension if I agreed to it.

After settling into our flat in Wanchai on the Hong Kong Island – right in the middle of the red light district – we proceeded to set up a depot and workplace at Quarry Bay adjacent to the Kai Tac airport runway across the bay. As a workplace it was strictly illegal as the whole area was one of Godowns, a local name for the huge multi-story storage buildings that dominated the area. Any form of factory or manufacture was strictly forbidden in the area but we succeeded in ignoring the regulations with ongoing eviction orders being circumnavigated in various ways for the full 12 months that we occupied them – we even took in two small non-related companies to help pay the rental and bolster our claim to be a storage firm rather than manufacturing!

A humorous sidelight to this activity took place when one of the resident companies after constructing a large suite of offices and storage shelving in one corner of the cavernous building, reaching almost to the roof, suddenly became insolvent, and my mate (the boss) decided that our office would be moved from the tiny expensive floor space in an upper floor of Austin Building, a prestigious Kowloon business area, to the now coveted large office space that we now found ourselves with. The insolvent owners had pointed out that they would be willing to sell us the entire structure at a very reasonable figure, but were quick to add that if no cash was forthcoming they would dismantle it and move it elsewhere! I personally felt that they were offering us a great deal, as I had eyes on the storage shelves and booths which we lacked, and in a matter of hours I had negotiated a deal at even less than the original asking price, this news was conveyed to the mate, who rubbed his hands together and said ’Forget it, they are over a barrel on this one, just tell them no deal and they will just leave it and move out’. Within minutes of this ultimatum the next day, a large workforce descended on the office block and proceeded to dismantle it and cart it into a ’Godown’ close by where it was reconstituted within a couple of days and we were left with the steel frame work that we had constructed as part of the original deal, so ended in minutes our idea of a large cheap office block!

Once I had settled into the job there was spare time at the weekends and the use of the company rented car, and on one of these occasions we decided to drive up to the Chinese border area and visit the old job and see how it was running. We had barely passed through the entrance gates when old employee friends recognised us and were rushing to greet us both, including one old Chinese woman labourer with whom I had enjoyed good rapport, despite the insurmountable language barrier. She had a full set of gold filled teeth and a great willingness to work, it didn’t take long for some of the English speaking employees to arrive, and after we had exchanged pleasantries and inspected the factory I found time to ask about the reconstruction of the septic system, to which there was much laughter and cries of ’All fixed Hammo!’ (Hammo was my Asian nickname) and an invitation to view the area.

The adjacent noxious swamp had disappeared, a ditch now connected the toilet block with the village down the valley, and a hole had been knocked through the reinforced concrete of the main holding tank!
Local technology had won through once more!