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While May and her parents rode home with Robert, Archibald and William followed close behind in the taxi. It had been a busy firstfull day in Hong Kong, so it didn’t surprise William when Archibald nodded off just before the taxi arrived back at Jade Place.
    After saying good night to the Chen family, Archibald headed up the stairs to his room. For the second night in a row, he was asleep within ten minutes of closing his bedroom door.
Classes Begin
    With the exception of a brief trip to Happy Valley to visit Marymount Secondary School, where the SLAP classes would begin the following Monday morning, Sunday was spent relaxing at Jade Place.
    During the twenty-minute car ride with William and his father to Marymount, Archibald learned that the all-girls school, originally named Holy Spirit School, opened in 1927. The school was closed during World War II, and re-opened in 1948 as Maryknoll School. The school’s name had just recently been changed to Marymount Secondary School. The Columbian Sisters ran the school, and they’d graciously made several of their classrooms available for the SLAP faculty and students for the past five years.
    After listening to William’s advice on the best way to get over jet lag, Archibald resisted the temptation to take a nap after he returned from Marymount Secondary School. In fact, he made it through dinner and all the way to nine o’clock in the evening before he retiredto his bedroom and finally closed his eyes. For the third night in a row, he was sound asleep within ten minutes of closing his bedroom door.
    Archibald slept soundly through the night, opening his eyes exactly one minute before the alarm clock went off at six thirty in the morning. The routine that day would be, with few exceptions, the same one he would follow each weekday for the next seven weeks.
    After his Chinese breakfast, Archibald walked several blocks to the bus stop where the SLAP motor coach arrived at seven forty-five. He, along with the other SLAP students who were picked up along the way, arrived at Marymount Secondary School in time for their first class that began at eight thirty. After SLAP classes ended at three thirty in the afternoon, he boarded the same motor coach and was driven back to The Peak bus stop.
    From a little after four o’clock to about six o’clock in the evening, Archibald did his homework. Then he relaxed with William and May until dinner was served at half past seven. By ten o’clock, he was back in bed.
    While Archibald enjoyed all of his SLAP courses, he liked the Hong Kong History and Culture class and the Chinese Literature class the best. Excellent teachers made both classes very interesting. Mr. Goodfellow, a transplanted history teacher from the outskirts of London, taught Hong Kong History and Culture, while Mrs. Wang, a Hong Kong native, taught Chinese Literature.
    Even though Archibald knew that Hong Kong was under British rule, he hadn’t known how or when the British took control. It turned out that the opium trade sparked a conflict, referred to as the First Opium War, between Great Britain and the Qing Dynasty. Resolution of that conflict ultimately led both parties to sign the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. Under the treaty, Hong Kong Island and its harbor were ceded to Great Britain “in perpetuity”—or in other words, forever.
    Two other important treaties were later signed between the Qing Dynasty and the British Crown. The Convention of Peking, signed in 1860, resolved the Second Opium War. This treaty added part of the Kowloon Peninsula to the land that the Qing Dynasty had already ceded to Great Britain. When the British wanted to fortify their defense of Hong Kong in 1898, they signed the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, under which they obtained a ninety-nine year lease for the area later referred to as the “New Territories.”
    Mr. Goodfellow explained that for the past twenty years, the Chinese government had been pressuring the