On Monday this week, Barbara Anslow gave a talk at the annual dinner of the Hong Kong Society in London. It was a fully booked event. In the photo above, she is signing copies of her book Tin Hats and Rice, which is the story of her time as a prisoner of war in Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945. [...]
Join us at Bleak House Books in Kowloon on Saturday, November 24, for the launch of Hong Kong Noir -- an anthology of crime/mystery fiction set in different neighbourhoods throughout the city! Contributors Susan Blumberg-Kason, Jason Y. Ng, Marshall Moore, Christina Liang, James Tam, Ysabelle Cheung and Shannon Young will be talking about how they chose the locations for their [...]
In this excerpted chapter from Hong Kong Confidential, author David T. K. Wong recounts his time as Hong Kong’s deputy postmaster general in 1980, and explains what scheme Special Branch were operating in the basement of the GPO. Chapter 16 The Q List When I was installed as the Deputy Postmaster General at the General Post Office at Connaught [...]
Sunset Survivors: Meet the people keeping Hong Kong’s traditional industries alive By Lindsay Varty, with photography by Gary Jones When: Thursday, September 20, 6-8pm Where: G.O.D., 48 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong Who: All welcome. Drinks will be served! Sunset Survivors tells the stories of Hong Kong’s traditional tradesmen and women through stunning imagery and candid interviews. Covering a myriad [...]
This photo from Barbara Anslow was taken in December 1941, just hours before Hong Kong surrendered to Japan in the second world war. But the roll of photos was only developed in 1945, when she was released from three years and eight months of captivity in Stanley camp. Barbara tells her story in Tin Hats and Rice: A Diary of [...]
Here we present a chapter from Chinese Ghosts, Charles Emmons' cornucopia of ghost stories and experiences he collected in Hong Kong in the early 1980s. He updated the book for a new edition last year. Chapter 9: Anatomy of a Legend This is a very interesting case that helps illustrate the social processes involved in rumor, and sometimes eventually [...]
In this excerpt from Street Life Hong Kong, Aberdeen harbour fisherman Kwok Shu-Tai talks about his life and work in his own words. The interviews in the book were carried out by Nicole Chabot and are accompanied by photographs from Michael Perini. I KNOW EVERYBODY IN ABERDEEN and everybody here knows me. They call me by a nickname – ‘Ah-Q’, [...]
In the 1980s, Bruce Aitken became one of the world’s most successful money launderers. What started innocently enough, by answering an ad in the newspaper, turned into a globe-trotting lifestyle of moving money – huge sums of money – for some of the world’s most notorious and shadiest characters. From the jungles of Vietnam to the money capitals of the [...]
The Peak is one of the most exclusive areas in Hong Kong. Here the affluent enjoy an idyllic lifestyle in mansions sited amongst the tropical vegetation which has grown up around them. It was not always like this and when the British took over Hong Kong the Peak was just one section of a “barren rock”. No one bothered with [...]
A former senior Chinese Administrative Officer has at long last lifted another little corner of the veil of half-truths and anodyne official releases which hitherto shrouded many of the decisions and evasions under the long Hong Kong governorship of Sir Murray MacLehose. David T. K. Wong — who started working life as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant at the [...]
A message arrives from David Nunan, author of Other Voices, Other Eyes: Expatriate Lives in Hong Kong... I’m sitting in a restaurant that featured in Other Voices. In the book, it’s described as follows: The restaurant, a Spanish tapas bar, is run by a father and son team from Katmandu. Actually, the restaurant largely runs itself while the father and [...]
Our new book The Peak: An Illustrated History of Hong Kong’s Top District has just been reviewed in the South China Morning Post. The area’s evolution is brought to life in The Peak through the use of an impressive 140 pictures, including early paintings showing The Peak towering over the young colony, photographs of the first Peak mansions such as The [...]
From Other Voices, Other Eyes by David Nunan Chapter 4 One for the road Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, she became a butterfly. — Barbara Haines Howett She was feeling the strain before they left Yung Shue Wan Main Street. They had left the Central Ferry Pier late, all because of Howard, who had been detained [...]
Why do people come to Hong Kong, and why do they often plan a stay of three weeks and then stay for 20 years? David Nunan has interviewed 74 residents to try to get an idea of what they have gained from Hong Kong, and how it has changed them. These were 38 men and 36 women, ranging in age [...]
Share If you cannot view this email, please Click Here to view an online version. Unsubscribe/Update Profile | Share With Friends | Subscribe Blacksmith Books, Hong Kong NewsletterMarch 2018 New book: The Peak: An Illustrated History of Hong Kong’s Top District The Peak: An Illustrated History of Hong Kong’s Top Districtby Richard J. GarrettPart of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong [...]
Why did they come? Why do they stay? How did Hong Kong change them and their view of the world? What did they gain and what did they lose? David Nunan has interviewed 74 Hong Kong residents of a wide variety of ages and nationalities. Every one of them has a story. To find out what he discovered, simply come [...]
Both the English and Chinese editions of PEN Hong Kong's anthology Hong Kong 20/20: Reflections on a borrowed place are now available at Kubrick bookshop in Yau Ma Tei! The Chinese version, titled 香港二十, will be launched at Kubrick at 4pm on Saturday March 3. The bookshop is next to the Broadway Cinematheque on Public Square Street. Find out more here.
Come to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum at 4.00pm on Saturday February 24 and hear Patricia O'Sullivan tell the little-known story of the Hong Kong Naval Dockyard Police Force. The history of the force doesn’t suffer so much from lost documentation as from the lack of any in the first place. At some point in the 1850s it emerged by [...]