Jardines & The Noon Gun

Hong Kong, Old & New

I am sure that most of vast audience that reads these posts know that what we call Hong Kong is really made up of three major parts, Victoria Island (which is what most of us call Hong Kong), Kowloon and the New Territories.  Each of these different areas have their own history and story but let's save that for some future post.  For today let's just say that we happen to be on the Hong Kong side near the uber crowded shopping magnet called Causeway Bay.  Let's also say that it is mid day.  Depending where we are the chaotic noise of diesel taxis, gear grinding trucks and high decibel Cantonese shouts and curses is suddenly overwhelmed by what can only be the sound of a cannon.  This is not the result of too many San Miguels last night, it really is a cannon's roar.  And not only that, it happens every day.

How Come?  Well, what we are hearing is the sounding of the Noon Gun.  Made famous by an old Noel Coward song and by yarns spun by Old China Hands there is something that is either the world's most drawn out punishment or a habit that has become a tradition.

It Must Be Noon

On the waterfront, right next to the venerable Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, a group of two or three smartly uniformed fellows bustle around an antique but well polished and maintained British deck gun.  I think it is a 6 pounder for the old salts in the audience.  They pull off the canvas cover that protects the gun from the elements, open the breech, slam a round filled with high explosive powder into the chamber and close the breech.  They then stand back, the Officer in Charge consults a trusty pocket watch and begins to count off seconds to go to the gunner's mate holding the firing lanyard.  At precisely 12:00 noon the order to fire is given and the Old British Hong, Jardine Matheson & Co. once again fulfills the penalty laid upon it over a hundred years ago.

What did Jardines do that was so wrong that they are still paying daily penance over a hundred years later?  What they did wrong in the early 1900's (even an Old China Hand like me is not sure of the exact date), as any old boy having a few at the Captain's Bar at the Mandarin will tell you, was to offend the powers that be.  It seems that an over eager Jardines employee saw the Towkay's vessel arriving in port and he immediately fired off a cannon salute.  Well, even if the Boss of one of the two most powerful British Trading Companies in the Far East was coming to town, cannon salutes were reserved for the Royal Navy.

Commodore Hong Kong (yes, even in the 60's & 70's you didn't have to use the name of the highest ranking royal Navy Officer, he was Commodore Hong Kong), promptly called the company to account and decreed that henceforth Jardines was obliged to fire a cannon every day at precisely 12:00 as punishment for such an egregious violation of protocol and decorum.  So there.

Ever since then if you are near Jardines Steps at noon you will be treated to what must be the world's best known, longest living, symbolic "I'm Sorry".

Now, don't let a spoiler tell you that the reason for sounding the Noon Gun had to do with letting all of the ships in the Fragrant Harbour know what time it was in the days before satellites, phones or radios.  That is too pedestrian for an old story teller like me.

Jardines' Steps Seen From Above