A New Club Mix

Rob Gawler, an avuncular, semi-retired flight engineer, is navigating my journey into deep childhood, starting with the shrubbery behind Hong Kong's Kowloon Bowling Green Club (KBGC). Gawler is one of its longest-standing members. "The fa wong [gardener] had a house here and a well," he says. "All the kids used to play here, remember?"

I do remember. My parents were members of the KBGC in the 1970s. The gardener's house with its pitched roof and two windows and the well in front of it (a real well, with a bucket on a rope) seemed as pastoral...