Undiplomatic Brian

When Brian was a junior at Xavier, he secured an internship with a toy company in Hong Kong. As his father, I was in the toy business and was often in Hong Kong as well. Brian took to Hong Kong like a duck in water and was enjoying himself (I know that is hard for anyone to believe).

I arranged for his brother Matt to pay a surprise visit to Brian there. Brian was stunned by the surprise, but quickly recovered and undertook to show his big brother "the town."

Lots of stories there, but one of the best took place on a hot summer day in Hong Kong when it was really pouring down rain. Matt and Brian were walking down Mody Road towards the hotel in the rain. Each had an umbrella and they were going against the traffic of about 10,000 Chinese, each with his own umbrella, that were heading the other way. They were dodging back and forth as these little guys were pushing forward and they were trying to evade the horde of oncoming umbrellas that were literally in their faces.

Brian was 6' tall and his brother is 6' 4". Everyone knows that Matt was more polite than Brian, and Brian showed that by illustrating to Matt just how to handle this "umbrella problem." Brian had had enough of dodging them, and proceeded to show Matt that pounding his own umbrella on an oncoming one of some smaller Chinese fellow, drenching the other guy in the process, invariably caused the other guy to swerve out of his way. Soon, both Matt and Brian were making much better progress down Mody road, bopping umbrellas about every five feet of the way and creating a wide path for them to continue towards the hotel. None of the bopped Chinese said a word to them, they just saw these two tall Irishmen heading the opposite way like halfbacks going through the opposing line.

It was very effective, but not diplomatic, but you know how Brian was. You will have to ask Matt about some of the other stories like the beer cans.

Boy, we miss you!

The General