Now Hear This and Then Smell This

    THOUGHTS ON THE LONG VOYAGE HOME:  The things you remember most are the sounds and the smells of the Orient.

    The sound, in Japan, of women's voices, subdued but constant, like the chattering of a million delicate, well-bred mice . . . The wailing pleas of Hong Kong women begging the price of a bowl of rice for the gaunt infants they carry strapped to their backs.

    The mysterious, resonant crash of temple gongs . . . The giggling of immaculately uninformed, well fed Japanese school children as they surround tourists and try out their first grade English by shouting, "'allo, goo' bye" . . The almost deafening silence of ragged, grim-faced Hong Kong kids as they surround tourists with their hands outstretched.
   
The exotic click-clack of wooden sandals in the Gion section of Kyoto every evening at 6 as the elegantly kimono'd and powdered geisha girls walk to work.

    The sounds of traffic — blaring horns of the reckless Tokyo cabbies who have been indignantly labeled "Kamikaze drivers" by editorials in the Japanese press . . . The warning bells of bicycle delivery boys precariously balancing luncheon trays on their heads . . . The shrill curses of the Kowloon ricksha boys.

    The whispered invitation to vice by the low bowing Japanese gentleman who stops you on a street corner and asks if you'd be interested in making the acquaintance of, "Nice girl.  College graduate."

    The woman train callers in Tokyo station who announce arrivals and departures in a breathy, intimate murmur . . . The raucous cries of the Chinese sampan girls in Victoria Harbor.

    And the smells — The incense of the temples and shrines . . . The rich odor of tempura frying in a thousand tiny restaurants . . . The overpowering whiffs of Korean cabbage . . . The subtle perfume of the Japanese girls . . . The fish slowly, odoriferously drying in the noonday sun . . . The incredible smell of humanity in decay at Aberdeen where 2,000 families of eternally hungry, dirty, Chinese live on a sea of mud aboard rotted, leaky junks that have been condemned by the British authorities.