Listen to author Jonathan Chamberlain reading from his memoir Wordjazz for Stevie.

More US media coverage. Tom Carter’s photo book has been reviewed by Mike Revzin of the Christian Science Monitor:

In China: Portrait of a People, Tom Carter shows us that there are actually dozens of Chinas.

The American photojournalist spent two years traveling 35,000 miles through every province of China by bus, boat, train, mule, motorcycle, and on foot.

What he found is a country with dramatic regional differences. There are 56 major ethnic groups, each with its own language and customs. The climate ranges from the bitter cold northeast – near North Korea and Siberia – to tropical areas adjacent to Vietnam.

Carter’s photos and descriptions capture everything from stunning scenery to the warmth of family life to the sleazy sex trade to the growing discontent with government policies.

In Hubei Province, for instance, an anti-development protest banner declares that the locals “won’t give their land to rich people.”

Pictures from Tom’s book were also featured this week in Flavorpill’s Daily Dose.

There’s a great interview with Alain Robert — daredevil author of With Bare Hands — at Sabotage Times:

As Robert ordered his first glass of champagne, a storm moved over Paris. Lightning flooded and split the night sky, and heavy rain hammered the high windows. Suddenly, the Eiffel Tower was no longer visible. Robert knew that if the rain continued into the morning, his ascent would be postponed. Still, there was no use worrying. He ordered foie gras.

“Why do I climb these buildings?” he asked himself, in his easy, unpolished English. “For me it is a job, yes, but also a passion.” Passion is the interesting word. It connotes joy and suffering. Robert has known both.

When I met Robert, he was 47 years old, and an extraordinary sight. He likes to wear leather, and is rarely seen without his favourite tan cowboy boots. Physically, he is tiny, at 1.64m tall and 52kg, and his hair is long, wild, and balding at the crown, like a dissolute monk’s. Meanwhile, his crazy nose, which has been battered out of shape by a series of accidents – most remarkably two falls onto rock from more than 10 metres in 1982 – makes him appear constantly inquisitive.

The same slips that rearranged his face have shattered his heels, pelvis and his arms. His left forearm is “completely smashed… like a wine glass”, and his right wrist has been cracked so severely that he cannot turn it in certain directions. To add insult to serious injury, he is also prone to occasional epileptic episodes, and suffers from vertigo. His regular surgeon, Gerard Hoel, is baffled at how Robert can still walk, let alone climb: he calls his most famous patient a “medical enigma”. Indeed, the French government consider Robert to be “up to 66% disabled”, which he finds amusing, given his profession.

Robert does not like to talk about his injuries – in fact, he is sensitive about my mentioning them. “I only think about what I can do, not what I can’t do,” he explains. Indeed, during our conversations, he was unwilling to countenance any kind of insinuating questioning, real or imagined. When you are talking to Robert, his defensiveness can sometimes grate. But after our meetings, I can see its purpose. For an athlete for whom any significant failure is terminal, a wholly optimistic worldview seems not only helpful, but necessary. As Robert says, he feels he is able “to influence the elements by simple force of positive thoughts.”

Indeed, talk to him about his career highlights, and he is luminescent. Robert began climbing skyscrapers in 1994, when he was offered a part in an extreme sports documentary. The director wished to contrast the red cliffs and peaks of the American southwest with the “glass mountains” of an American city. He asked whether the Frenchman would be willing to climb an office block. Robert thought it would be “pretty cool,” even if training at home in Pezenas – the docile Languedoc village where he still lives with his long-suffering wife, Nicole, and his three sons – was tricky. The tallest building in town was three stories high. Still, six weeks later Robert had scaled Chicago’s Citicorp Centre. His life, he remembers, changed “dramatically and irrevocably” at that moment.

Before his Chicago coup, Robert was already one of the world’s best free solo climbers – that is to say, he had made some of the toughest ascents without ropes or assistance of any kind. He started solo climbs when he was 12 years old, and his decades of training have strengthened his sinews to superhuman levels. Even in middle age, he can still perform pull-ups using only one finger.

Read the full article by Ed Caesar at Sabotage Times.

We’re proud to announce that our books will be available as of next month in Australia and New Zealand, through Central Book Services of Melbourne. If you’re located down under, please ask for our titles in any bookshop, and if they’re not in stock they will be able to order them in. Our Australian-Chinese author Liza Chu is already planning a Dim Sum book signing in Sydney!

Two new interviews with CHINA: Portrait of a People author Tom Carter have just appeared. First, CNNGo stopped Tom before his talk at Shanghai’s Glamour Bar to get some insight into his “beautiful and groundbreaking 600-page photo collection”.

CNNGo: How do you think photojournalism gives people a deeper understanding of China than traditional journalism?

Tom Carter: … I believe that words and images are the yin and yang of reporting; a good story about China should have both. Too often journalists don’t have the page space to physically describe in detail the people and places they are reporting on. Even novels about China tend to gloss over how Chinese people physically vary from region to region in their facial features and their skin coloring and their body size. For instance, once I had a fan email me saying their favorite about China was Peter Hessler’s “River Town,” but that after they saw my photographs they finally had a better sense of the people Hessler was writing about. So that fan went back and read “River Town” again, with “China: Portrait of a People” nearby as a visual reference.

Sunday’s print edition of China Daily contained another interview with Tom, and a review of the book:

Part of the strength of this book is its independent spirit. It’s not a travel guide showing China dressed in its Sunday best, or a photojournalistic approach documenting the underbelly of the country, but rather a peek at the sights Carter has seen and a corrective to both the glowing promotional images and negative Western media shots that we are all familiar with. For instance, if you were to make a pilgrimage to Mount Tai for the sunrise you would likely be one of many thousands doing the same and this is the image Carter presents – hordes of people dressed in green army overcoats – not the typical picture postcard view.

His snaps of sleeping construction workers, the “pink light districts” of barbershops and dirty washing being aired in Shanghai put off the state-owned publishing house he first approached. So, he sought out a Hong Kong publisher instead. There are, of course, beautiful pictures, such as a white horse grazing under the watchful eyes of a near-naked man with long hair. It’s like an image from a fantasy novel, all the more powerful because it is an unchoreographed scene from real life, of a tea caravan in the wilds of Tibet.

Click the links to read the full articles.

For Immediate Release

USA Pavilion Sponsors an Afternoon of Photography and Sound at Two Cities Gallery

[SHANGHAI, 4 August, 2010] – The USA Pavilion proudly presents a joint show by two published American authors, Tom Carter and Terence Lloren, that portrays modern China. The show is scheduled to run at the Moganshan Road Art Centre’s Two Cities Gallery beginning at 4:00P.M. August 15, 2010.

“The USA Pavilion works to promote cultural exchanges between Americans and Chinese,” said Martin Alintuck, President and CEO of the USA Pavilion. “By juxtaposing photography and sound, the American Art displays a modern China of unique experiences. The event also provides an opportunity for Chinese audiences to appreciate their American friends’ intimate memories of Shanghai and connections with China.”

Tom Carter, author of China: Portrait of a People and Terence Lloren, author of Growing up with Shanghai, both have intimately captured the faces and lives of local Chinese. Through a narrative of photos and sounds, Tom and Terence tell their stories of two Americans living in China, developing understanding of China’s heritage, culture, and people.

With an Olympus C4000 digital camera in hand, Carter built a bridge of snapshots between local Chinese and himself by exploring China’s many facets. With a recorder in hand, Lloren captured the intimate memories of local Shanghainese from the 1980s to the present day. The series of dynamic and emotional presentations will give our Chinese visitors a new way of perceiving their once-familiar homeland from the eyes and ears of two foreigners. (more…)

Pictures: Ellen Woodall

Two friends and I were the only foreigners present at a protest in Guangzhou on Sunday to defend the city’s native language, Cantonese, from government policies to replace it with Putonghua (Mandarin).

It was the first demonstration I’ve seen in China, and it almost didn’t happen: the organizer was placed under house arrest the night before. The event was officially banned. But news of it spread online and by word of mouth, and by the time we arrived at the Kong Lam Sai metro station just after 5:30pm, hundreds of people had already gathered in the street, chanting “Cantonese, Cantonese!” and holding up banners. Every now and then, someone would shout something to the crowd — “Guangzhou people speak Guangzhou language!” — and everyone would cheer. An Apple Daily journalist with us estimated the crowd at 1,000. Most were young, in their 20s and 30s, and almost everyone was recording the event on cameras or mobile devices.

We were quickly surrounded by hundreds of riot police who then formed a chain to stop more people joining the protest. By this stage the entire intersection was filled with people, all in high spirits. “Do you know what this is?” I was asked dozens of times, as if we just happened to be standing in this southern suburb and the protest had started around us. My own Cantonese is very limited but I was able to say yes, we knew about the event and that’s why we had come. A lot of people were very eager to explain why they were demonstrating.

The background: Guangzhou is hosting the Asian Games in November, hence the traffic jams that plague the city, as old neighbourhoods are ‘improved’ (i.e. demolished) to present a modern face to the world. (The same happened before the Beijing Olympics). Ji Kekuang, a politician, wanted to take this further: he suggested that Guangdong Television stop broadcasting in Cantonese and implement a Putonghua-only policy, to ‘promote harmony’. This enraged local people, who already feel their Cantonese identity is under siege as their province is flooded by Mandarin-speaking migrants from inland parts of China. To add fuel to the fire, a statue of Yuen Sung-wun, a local Ming-dynasty hero, recently had its plaque, featuring his battle cry — well-known Cantonese curse words — removed.

After an hour, the police decided to clear the street and we were all herded away from the metro entrance (very politely — one policeman in full riot gear said “Excuse me, this way please”.) The crowd started to yell “F*** off, Mandarin!” But there was no violence on either side, and the protest eventually ended peacefully.

According to anthropologists, a language dies somewhere every two weeks, and with it a culture and a unique way of looking at the world. Putonghua is a useful lingua franca, linking millions of people across China who speak different mother tongues, but these regional languages and dialects are rich in heritage and don’t need to be extinguished. In the case of Cantonese for instance, it is far older than Mandarin, and closer to the classical Chinese of the Tang dynasty.

On my way back to Hong Kong the next day, I made a detour to Wai Chau, an attractive city of rivers and lakes, and then to Ping Hoi, an old walled town on the coast whose inhabitants have traditionally spoken a mix of Cantonese, Hakka and Chiuchow. “If you have lived in Ping Hoi, you can travel anywhere,” goes a local saying. If three languages can coexist in one small town, then surely there must be room for Cantonese to prosper in Guangdong?

Tom Carter’s photo book CHINA: Portrait of a People is the cover story for this month’s Shanghai TALK Magazine.

After two years teaching English in Shandong and Beijing, Tom Carter still felt like he didn’t know the “real” China, so the self-proclaimed nomad put his camera and life savings into a backpack and began an epic trek through the Middle Kingdom. Two years, 33 provinces, 56,000 kilometres and several run-ins with the law later, Carter had seen every corner of China and taken over 10,000 pictures of the people who make up the world’s most populous nation … With the international release of his book this summer, the rest of the world can now tag along on Carter’s eye-opening journey through China’s biggest cities and far-flung regions and discover what China really looks like. TALK sat down with Carter to find out how he managed to finagle his way into the hearts and homes of China’s people, and take the pictures to prove it.

Tom will be speaking about his travels and photography at M on the Bund in Shanghai on Sunday August 8th, at 4:00pm. RMB65 includes a drink. Call (+86 21) 6350 9988 for enquiries.

That was Caroline Chan’s question to author Liza Chu and I on her Connect2 programme on Radio 3. And what personality issues are involved in the development of a book? Find out by listening in at the RTHK website.

Tom Carter’s CHINA: Portrait of a People — with a new cover for its US release this month — is leading its Photography/Travel/Asia category on Amazon. Thanks to everyone who has bought a copy of this great little photo book.

From Liza Chu’s new Dim Sum: A Survival Guide!

Not all the dishes in the book can be called true dim sum, but you’ll find them on the menu in dim sum restaurants nevertheless, and this little book shows you what’s in them and how to order them. Click the pictures to enlarge.

In 1986, Jonathan Chamberlain and his wife Bernadette had their first child, Stevie, a daughter. Stevie was immediately diagnosed with Down’s syndrome. A few months later it became clear that she had a serious heart defect that required a ‘hole in the heart’ operation. Something went wrong during the operation and Stevie suffered a momentary lack of oxygen that left her severely brain-damaged. For the remaining seven-and-a-half years of her life she was blind, epileptic and unable to sit, let alone walk. She was profoundly handicapped.

Wordjazz for Stevie is the story of Jonathan’s life with Stevie and the deeply beneficial impact she had on his life. It is a story of great love. It is also the story of how this almost overwhelming surge of loving energy led Jonathan to found first the Hong Kong Down Syndrome Association, and then later another charity to take into China the same idea that the key to supporting children like Stevie is to support their parents – and to see the problem as one involving the whole family.

The story that Jonathan tells is made even more poignant by the fact that it deals also with his wife’s unsuccessful battle with cancer. In the end Jonathan is left to bring up his son Patrick as a single father.

This is a short book but intense and deeply moving. “This may be the most moving story you will ever read,” said Britain’s Sunday Telegraph.

Jonathan invented the word ‘Wordjazz’ for the title as a shorthand to express a complex of ideas. “I wanted a word to convey the sense of celebration – this book is a celebration of Stevie’s life,” he said. “Through me, Stevie has changed the world. That needs to be celebrated. And at the same time I want to give a sense that this book is not a straightforward linear telling of the story. It is simply the only way I could tell it. It is a story from the heart. I doubt I will ever write anything better. This is the core and essence of my experience with Stevie and Bernadette.”

Wordjazz for Stevie is available in bookshops in May 2010 (Asia) and November 2010 (UK and North America).

A new book on the financial crisis considers children’s advice for preventing the next one! May Moon Rescues the World Economy also helps children learn about the causes of the recent recession.

The new book follows May Moon and the Secrets of the CPAs and How to Raise a Money-Wise Child which were published in 2005 as part of the Hong Kong Institute of CPAs’ “Rich Kid Poor Kid” financial education programme.

In the new book, our young heroine May Moon makes a huge leap from coping with pocket money and personal finance to tackling the financial crisis head on. Bestselling author Sam Jam — also known as Nury Vittachi — places her in a village experiencing economic problems typical of recession-plagued towns throughout the world. There, she works with other children to find solutions to economic problems.

“We began the May Moon series to help children learn money values and we are continuing it with this volume,” says Institute Chief Executive Winnie Cheung. “The new book helps children learn broader economic concepts as we emerge from the recession. As professional accountants, this is a real value we can bring to Hong Kong families – sharing our special knowledge in a way that connects us to them.”

The book is the newest addition to the Institute’s “Rich Kid Poor Kid” community outreach project in which more than 200 volunteer CPAs go to primary and secondary schools to teach students lessons about money values. Since its beginning in 2005, the project has reached more than 33,000 students and won the Asia Pacific PR Awards “Corporate Social Responsibility Campaign of the Year” in 2007.

Vittachi is a columnist, lecturer and TV host who writes for children and adults. The Institute invited him to write both books. He says he spent a lot of time talking to Hong Kong pupils about money before writing the book. “Getting a handle on money is difficult even for adults and yet children have no training in school about this subject,” says Vittachi. “I hope through reading about these issues, children will develop healthy attitudes towards money from an early age.”

May Moon Rescues the World Economy is on sale in bookshops now for HK$65. Details are available here or at the Institute’s website: www.hkicpa.org.hk.

Will you be near Suzhou this weekend? Travel photographer Tom Carter, author of CHINA: Portrait of a People, will be meeting readers at the Suzhou Bookworm and speaking about his two-year backpacking adventure across the 33 provinces of China.

Saturday May 29th 2010, from 7:00pm – 9:00pm, at The Suzhou Bookworm. Address: Gunxiufang 77, Shiquan Road, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.

If you haven’t done so already, take a look at RTHK Radio 3′s great book club website Bookmarks — it features audio interviews with all the authors who have recently visited the Naked Lunch studio, including Graham Earnshaw (right); plus readings, recommendations of Chinese literature and book news.

How long would it take to walk across the world’s most populous country? Graham Earnshaw is finding out. The long-time Hong Kong and China journalist is making a journey into China’s heartland, away from its surging coastal cities, where the ripples of prosperity are only just beginning to be felt and many find themselves left behind. Through his conversations with the people he meets along the way — never backing away from sensitive or uncomfortable topics — the Chinese-speaking Earnshaw paints a portrait of a nation struggling to come to terms with its newfound identity and its place in the world. Come and hear the story of his new book, The Great Walk of China.

“An on-the-ground portrait of what China is really like, away from the bright lights of Shanghai and Beijing. Engagingly written, it stands out in the fast-growing stock of writing about a country that is still too little understood,” says Jonathan Fenby, author of The Penguin History of Modern China.

Join us on Monday May 3rd, 5:30pm, at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Central. More details at the FCC website.

Update: You can listen to this event thanks to Matt Driskill’s podcast. Graham’s radio interview on the same day is listenable online at RTHK, about 30 minutes in.

Mike Rowse’s No Minister & No, Minister: The True Story of HarbourFest, which came out last November, has been adapted into Chinese and will be published next week under the title 問責 不 問責 – 巨星滙的真相. More details by the weekend.

Why limit yourself to the English menu when ordering dim sum? Cantonese teacher Liza Chu has a part-time career as a Hong Kong dim sum guide, and she has distilled her knowledge of Chinese cuisine and dining etiquette into a practical guidebook to eating out. Each photographed dish is identified with Chinese characters and pronunciation, and icons alert those with special diets.

This month’s prize is a copy of Liza’s new Dim Sum: a survival guide — your ticket into a world of adventurous and delicious dim sum.

All you need to do is answer this simple question: What drink is most closely associated with dim sum?

Send your answers to me at pete(at)blacksmithbooks(dot)com, and three winners will each receive a book. Asian mailing addresses only. Dai ga sik fan!

As someone who makes a living partly from writing guidebooks, I was a natural choice to show a friend of a friend around on their brief stopover in Hong Kong recently. She was only in town for a few hours, so I met her at her hotel on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront and planned to take her on a brief tour of the district before going for lunch.

We had barely stepped out of the hotel before we got lost in an underground shopping mall which was the only way of crossing Salisbury Road. Narrow escalators, piles of merchandise, unmarked doorways, anti-intuitive routes out and a lack of exit signs made me suspect that a quick passage from one side of the road to the other was not the main purpose of this underpass.

We spent 15 minutes searching for the right exit from this subterranean maze. I could see my guest wondering whether I had ever been to TST before, let alone lived there and written articles about it. I made some explanation about it being part of a new network of subways. But really, removing zebra crossings is just an easy way for the government to hand street space over to cars while funnelling pedestrians — sorry, consumers — through a series of commercial malls owned by their developer chums. The same plans are in store for other districts.

Tsim Sha Tsui has been wrecked over the past decade by bad planning and endless roadworks. This is bad enough for local residents, some of whom complain frequently through the SCMP letters page, but it’s an added shame that it’s the part of Hong Kong most tourists see. As an example of poor planning, the old railway station next to the Star Ferry pier was demolished in 1975 and moved to Hung Hom. Then, less than 30 years later, it was found necessary to extend the line back again, requiring years of disruptive construction work with all the attendant noise and air pollution. Who are the fools who make these decisions? They can’t all be taking kickbacks from construction firms or lining up jobs after retirement with developers.

An interview with local WWF chief Markus Shaw in last week’s HK Magazine matches my thoughts:

… frankly, we are making a mess of our city. We’re not planning our city for people, we’re planning it for the big property companies. We’re not trying to make it pleasant for ordinary Hong Kong people.

The feelings toward our heritage are stronger among young people because they are the ones inheriting this city. For people growing up in the 1960s, their life’s ambition was to move into a high rise. Today, this is the only life most people have. It’s all big estates and people are starting to think that maybe they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives in shopping malls.

We have huge projects such as Kai Tak and West Kowloon right now. They will determine the future of Hong Kong, so we have to get them right. Government ministers have begun to speak the right language—but they don’t necessarily understand what people want. They don’t use public transport, so they have no idea how hard it is to cross Salisbury Road.

Hong Kong needs political reform. Not only to give voice to a broader range of people, but also to make our government work more efficiently.

Amen to that. My vote goes to the pro-democratic camp here, if only because without elections, we have no way of voting out the idiots who are ruining Hong Kong.

If you were unable to attend the Beijing Bookworm Literary Festival in March, all is not lost: City Weekend magazine has uploaded podcasts of their talks. Thanks to them, you can listen to Graham Earnshaw and Jack Leblanc talk about their China books. Thanks also to James Chau for moderating Jack’s session.

Stephen Greer’s new Asia business memoir Starting from Scrap has just been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal.

Greer arrived in Hong Kong in 1993, a recent college grad with no financing, scant experience, and only a notion of starting some kind of business. Fourteen years later, his company Hartwell Pacific was a $250-million enterprise and a player in the global scrap-metal recycling trade. Along the way he encountered cultural roadblocks, ruthless and sometimes unscrupulous competitors, and learned critical lessons in what makes a young business thrive. His remarkable rags-to-riches story is chronicled with humour, suspense, and keen insights into Asian business.

Here’s an excerpt from Starting from Scrap.

Chapter 3: Hartwell Pacific is born

After the predawn epiphany in my bedroom at No. 8 Robinson Road, I got down to work. What’s the first thing you should do if you are going to start a business: Develop a concept? Write a plan? Analyze your resources? Understand the needs of your customer? Don’t be silly. Incorporate. For most people, incorporating a company is a clerical task, but for me it was monumental. In coat and tie, I marched down to the offices of McDonald and Murray, an accountancy that specialized in incorporations. Its formal conference room with thick carpeting, a walnut table, and walls lined with prints of nineteenth-century sailing ships was suitable for this great moment. Despite the upscale decor, the partner who helped me was disheveled and appeared utterly exhausted.

He explained through a thick Irish brogue, which had me guessing at times, the positives and negatives of Liberian, Tongan, British Virgin Island, Cayman, and Hong Kong companies. “With British Virgin Island companies there are no required audits,” he enthused.

I imagined board meetings in the Caribbean under palm trees. I was disappointed to learn that you never actually had to go to the Virgin Islands. In the end, I opted for a plain vanilla Hong Kong company.

It was with great pride that I incorporated Hartwell Pacific on May 21, 1993. I used Hartwell, my middle name, so that people couldn’t guess that I was a one-man band. I was so proud of that incorporation certificate. It meant more to me than my university degree, when in fact all I’d done was spend a couple thousand dollars on a nice little piece of paper. The registered office and mailing address were in a business center/shared office in the prestigious Prince’s Building, not far from Morgan Stanley.

Hartwell Pacific’s incorporation and registration process was incredibly easy, taking only a couple of days. There aren’t many places in the world as efficient as Hong Kong. I then went down to HSBC (Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation) to open an account.

“I am here to open a corporate account,” I announced.

“Very good. May I see your reference?” the girl behind the counter asked demurely.

“Reference? I don’t have a reference. I’m here to give you money and business, not take a loan!” I shot back, blood rushing to my face.

“Unfortunately, you need to have a reference from someone who has a corporate account here,” she apologized.

“Then I’ll take my business elsewhere!” I finished, storming past the other customers waiting in line. I limped next door to another, smaller bank, which accepted my $500 and issued me a checkbook in the name of Hartwell Pacific. I assured the clerk, who couldn’t have cared less, that there would be much larger deposits in the near future.

With checkbook in hand and officially incorporated, I was ready to begin my journey as an entrepreneur.

Next, I bought a phone/fax machine for my home office and signed up for a pager.

Communication is key! I thought.

A mobile phone in those days would’ve been a lavish expenditure, and they were the size of a brick. I instead chose New World Telecom’s pager service because it was noted for reliability, and more importantly the salesgirl Maggie was a knockout.

Let’s see: corporate setup, prestigious office address, bank accounts, communications, dinner with Maggie on Tuesday. What now? Yes: business planning! (more…)

There’s an interesting article in today’s Sunday Morning Post about Wang Jingwei, the wartime Chinese leader who collaborated with the Japanese to set up a puppet government in Nanjing, and who has been reviled by Chinese ever since as a traitor. Indeed, his very name carries the same derogatory associations as ‘Quisling’ in the West. It seems that Wang’s calligraphy and artworks, shunned since his death in 1944, are now becoming collectables for the first time.

Peter Hui — the subject of our book King Hui: The Man Who Owned All the Opium in Hong Kong — had a different view of Wang. Hui saw Wong Ching-wai (in the Cantonese pronunciation) as doing his best to ensure a stable life for the Chinese under Japanese occupation. Of course, Hui was a collaborator too. Here we print an excerpt from King Hui covering the fall of Hong Kong in 1941.

————————

As soon as we knew the Japanese were going to invade we thought there would be chaos and looting. It seemed inevitable. But nothing like that happened. The first thing everyone thought of was to get money out of the banks and to buy food. By the time the Japanese invaded everyone had prepared themselves as far as they could. Now, we just waited. We didn’t know how long the battle would last or how long. I think we all knew the Japanese would win but we expected the fight to be very hard and long. Actually, Hong Kong fell very quickly. The sound of explosions stopped. We waited. We had no idea what was going to happen. Most of the people hated the British but they also hated the Japanese. Maybe the British were better. Maybe the Japanese were better. Who could say? On the one hand the Japanese were Asians like us. On the other hand, they were famous for being very cruel. The massacre at Nanjing was still a recent memory. What would they do to us? Everyone stayed indoors and waited to see what would happen.

On Kowloon side the Japanese quickly pushed the British back. The Peninsula Hotel was the command headquarters for the British generals. But there were many civilians there too. My brother-in-law’s colleague, Tsui Tim, was the Chinese superintendent of the hotel. As soon as he saw the situation was getting worse and that the fighting was getting closer he ordered the British flag to be pulled down. The British commanding general was furious. He ordered Tsui Tim to put it back up again but Tsui refused. He told the general: “If we have the flag up the Japanese will aim their guns at this building. There are women and children here. Also I am responsible for the safety of the hotel staff. I think for everyone’s sake this is the sensible thing to do.” And so the flag stayed down. That’s why the Peninsula Hotel was not damaged by gunfire.

The Japanese rode into Central a few days later on horseback. They immediately took over the Hong Kong Hotel as their headquarters and put the staff quarters under their control as well.

For the majority of the people of Hong Kong food became the big problem. Some people were starving on the streets. The poor people had nowhere to live and no money to buy rice. But it was no problem for my family. My brother-in-law was the Superintendent of the Hong Kong Hotel. Naturally, we had access to all the food supplies in the hotel. We had caviar, salmon, steak, lobster — anything we wanted. We just went into the food store and took it. My father and the rest of my family didn’t like western food so much so he would choose food to make Chinese dishes. And there was plenty of wine and brandy. My father was always a heavy drinker and by this time so was I. Every night we had a feast. Each of us drank two or three bottles of brandy a day. My father liked Hennessy. That was the best in those days. The brand he liked had an axe-head on the label. I remember that. As soon as the invasion started, Ho Tim had closed the hotel up and told all the staff that because of the emergency they were all being made unemployed immediately. There was no possibility of paying them off because there was no money on hand. He told them they were welcome to stay as long as they wanted at the staff quarters but from now on they would have to find their own food. If they ate in the canteen they would have to pay for it. He advised them to go back to China. What else could they do?

China was better for two reasons. First it was under the control of the puppet government of Wong Ching-wai which had been set up by the Japanese. It was therefore more stable and it was possible to do business there and get work. Also, if anyone went back to their home village in the country they were always certain of getting some simple food at least. Anyone could plant some sweet potatoes. Hong Kong was just a port. It had little food supply of its own: some vegetables and pigs. All the rice and most of everything else had to be imported. So, gradually, over the next few months, the staff quarters emptied. Not all at once as some couldn’t afford to go straight away and others wanted to wait and see what would happen in Hong Kong. We expected violence but there wasn’t any. (more…)

… you’re probably in the

As part of the “Ten Slow Days” exhibition at Hong Kong’s Fringe Club, a group of writers, publishers, designers and editors will be discussing what books mean to them, and how they go about creating them.

Saturday 13th March, 2:30pm, Fringe Studio. Free admission. Enquiries: 3106 4010.

In advance of Graham Earnshaw’s talk at the Beijing Bookworm on Saturday, here’s a chapter from his brand new book, The Great Walk of China. After crossing flat country for most of the distance from Shanghai, Graham finds himself in the Dabie Mountains of rural Anhui Province.

Chapter 2: Drinking Games

The day’s walk was over and I returned to Chashui for dinner. I called Teacher Xu, who asked me to come to the school gates at 5.30pm. Arriving promptly, Teacher Xu led me inside to a conference room where I found a delegation of five men waiting for me, three of them in suits. Leading the delegation was Mr. Cheng Zhihua, secretary of the Qianshan County Communist Youth League, who looked about thirty-five years old. Accompanying him were his assistant, Mr. Huang, Teacher Xu and two vice-headmasters. Headmaster Chen, I was informed, was not available.

Mr. Cheng formally welcomed me to the mountains by saying, “This region is poor.”

“I think it is very beautiful,” I replied.

“We welcome people from all over the world,” he responded, so I asked how many other foreigners had passed this way. “There was an African man from Cameroon a few years ago, but apart from that, you’re the first foreigner to visit the region.” I said it was my honour.

“We are looking for investment – investors – and maybe you would be interested?” he asked.

“I am just walking through,” I replied. “I am not here looking for investments. But I do think the mountains are beautiful and there should be big potential for tourism in the long term.”

“We think so too,” he said. “There are several local hotel projects under construction, but not high class. There is no foreign investment in them.”

I suggested they should be cautious about developing lower level hotel projects to avoid the kind of damage to the scenery and environment inflicted on other places such as the once beautiful town of Guilin.

“Mr. Yan referred to a six-star hotel idea?” prompted Teacher Xu.

“I think such an idea would be great in theory, though in practice it would require a lot of patience and money and support from the local government. Outside investors are convinced about the future of China tourism, but the Dabie Mountains are very remote, and there would be a reluctance to invest.”

“Thank you for your frankness,” Mr. Cheng said. “Now it is time for dinner.”

“My treat,” I said. “Let us go to a local restaurant and have a simple meal.”

“I have arranged dinner at the best restaurant in town, a banquet for two hundred and fifty RMB,” Teacher Xu announced.

“Wow, two hundred and fifty RMB!” I said. “You have a Grand Hyatt here? I had dinner the other night for just forty RMB including beer.”

“Only forty RMB? Impossible,” Teacher Xu said.

“Our treat,” Mr. Cheng pushed.

“No no,” I said.

“Yes yes,” they said. (more…)

In related developments, Hong Kong residents are taking to the hills in record numbers — at least, if sales of this guidebook are anything to go by.

Other Asian cities don’t have such spectacular mountains and beaches so close at hand, so we’re lucky to have such a wonderful natural resource. Check out some of the photos in this book if you need convincing.

Michelin Guide? Pah — high peaks are in greater demand this week than haute cuisine.

With students at Chinese colleges accused this month of conducting cyber attacks on US businesses in and outside China, plus the alleged Mossad involvement in the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, I’m reminded of Paul Ulrich’s spy thriller Saudi Match Point, in which Chinese and American spies compete to seize control of the Saudi oilfields. An excerpt below.

Chapter 6

“WAIT A MOMENT, MUSTAPHA. Pull over.” Nick instructed the driver to bring the consulate’s vehicle next to a beat-up car with its hood propped open and a man in Indian dress bent over the engine, peering inside. Nick had noticed the same broken-down sedan on the roadside of Dhahran twenty minutes before while en route to the commissary.

“Can we give you a lift?” Nick called out.

A bedraggled man straightened himself and wiped the sweat from his face with a dirty sleeve. “Thank you, that is most kind, good sir, but I do not wish to leave my car. I think the battery has died.”

“Hold on, we’ll help you jump start it.”

First, at Mustapha’s suggestion, they tried the easy way, seating the man behind the wheel, shifting the car to neutral, and pushing. But the engine still failed to turn over and catch. They then opened the back of the consulate’s vehicle to fish out some cables for a jump start. As Mustapha and the stranded driver began attaching them, with Nick looking on, a second SUV pulled up.

“Nick, what are you doing in this heat?” It was Ma Ling, unveiled, in the front passenger seat. “Get in. We’ll give you a ride.”

“I’m trying to help out this fellow. . . .”

“Your driver seems able to handle it. You haven’t forgotten our game, have you?”

“No, Mustapha was going to drop me at the club. I suppose your taking me will save time and leave him with one less thing to worry about.”

Nick grabbed his bag, climbed into the back seat behind Ma Ling, and gave his driver some final instructions. “If the cables don’t do the trick, please stop at the nearest service station and have them send a tow truck for this guy.” Mustapha did not reply but cast a bemused look at Ma Ling and back at Nick.

As they pulled away, Nick asked, “Ma Ling, don’t you think this might seem improper?”

Ma Ling turned with her elbow propped on the front seat. “Oh, you are an old ninny, Mr. Hansen. I always sit up front. We Chinese are egalitarians.”

“Not just that. I mean, driving with an unrelated man…”

“Who? You or Mr. Huang?” she said, looking at her driver who was decked out in a tan cap, matching gloves, and loose-fitting Mao-style jacket. “That is one of the local inconsistencies, isn’t it? If the religious police found me alone with you—a non-related man—they could take me away to be whipped as a prostitute. But I’m not allowed to drive, so must have this unrelated man take me all over town. Of course, with Huang Lei, no one would dare insult me in such a fashion. Please introduce yourself. He’ll be amazed to hear you speak Chinese.”

Nick greeted the silent driver, whose broad bulk and close-cropped, gray hair reminded him of a calmer Ambassador Gewalt. Huang’s face lit up in a big smile. He looked at Nick in the mirror and replied in a deep voice that Nick couldn’t understand. Ma Ling translated. “His accent is very strong, so you won’t catch much of what he says, but he follows you perfectly.”

Nick said, “If it weren’t for that driving outfit, I’d think he might be a bodyguard.”

“And you’d be right! Oh, you are clever!” Ma Ling laughed. “I tell Huang the gloves are a bit much, but he is too vain about the scars on his hands.” (more…)

The Beijing Bookworm — the city’s best known bookshop — holds its Literary Festival again from the 5th-19th of March 2010, and two Blacksmith authors are among the 70 writers taking part.

First, on Saturday 6th March, Graham Earnshaw will be talking about how many pairs of shoes he has worn out during his epic westward trek across the People’s Republic. His new book, The Great Walk of China, will be launched at the festival.

Then, on Monday 8th, Jack Leblanc — author of Business Republic of China — will be sharing his insights on how to square the differences between Chinese and Western business thinking. He’ll be in conversation with James Chau, newsreader from CCTV in Beijing.

Both Graham and Jack are Chinese-speakers with many years of residence in China, and plenty of stories to tell. Book your tickets — 50 RMB each, including a free drink — directly at the Bookworm.

How long would it take to walk from Shanghai to the edges of Tibet? Long-time China resident Graham Earnshaw is in the process of finding out. His westward trek is described in his new book, The Great Walk of China, out at the end of this month.

Through his conversations with the people he meets along the way, Earnshaw paints a portrait of a nation struggling to come to terms with its newfound identity and its place in the world. Our wandering guide never backs away from sensitive and sometimes uncomfortable topics, and captures the essential kindness and generosity of the Chinese people with brilliant clarity.

We have three copies to give away to readers who can answer this question: Which city beginning with W is the capital of Hubei province?

Send us your answers, but Asian mailing addresses only. Good luck!

High ridges, sparkling waterfalls, lush feng shui woods and ancient fishing communities nestled in rocky harbours. Your mind refreshed, your limbs exercised, and your senses intoxicated, you wonder at the fact that only a few miles separate all this from one of the world’s most crowded cities.

The Serious Hiker’s Guide to Hong Kong — the bestselling guidebook to the SAR’s four long-distance hiking trails — is back in the shops in its sixth edition, with a new cover. Describing the Lantau Trail, Wilson Trail, MacLehose Trail and Hong Kong Trail, it’s been updated for 2010 and is profusely illustrated with maps and photographs. Available in all local bookshops or directly from the FormAsia website.

We’re now on Facebook, so you can find us there and sign up for our regular updates. It’s also your chance to write “i luv bookz lol” FB-style on our fan page. Thx!

What to believe? The story of Google’s threatened exit from China has occupied a lot of column inches over the past fortnight. On one hand, its stand has been lauded as principled by many people. On the other, it may just be a well timed PR stunt for the company; its reputation has been receiving a hammering lately from authors, publishers and even governments over its proposed book rights registry.

It just so happens that January 28th is the last day on which publishers — at least American ones, though bookselling on the internet makes such distinctions moot — can choose to either opt out or object to the impending Google Book Settlement.

What is this? For anyone who hasn’t heard about it, Google has been scanning books in American libraries over the past few years in order to establish an online database of all the world’s information. It presents this as a noble aim, but its actions are driven by the bottom line: it will make billions from adverts displayed beside these books, or portions of books, online. It also reserves the right to print these books on paper at some future time and sell them directly.

But even leaving money out of the equation, there is an obvious problem with this: it’s the world’s greatest-ever theft of intellectual property. It overturns the fundamental principle of copyright, which is that no work may be reproduced without the express permission of its author. No authors were asked whether it was OK for Google to copy their work, put it online and sell ads beside it. Many of them will never even know about this scheme. It seems that Google took a look at the publishing industry, a fragmented sector made up mostly of small and medium sized enterprises, and decided it could wade in and take over. (more…)

Can common ground be found on the divisive issue of Tibet? First, it’s necessary to find out what the people involved think, and why.

Chinese-speaking journalist Annelie Rozeboom worked as a foreign correspondent in China for ten years. During that time she was able to interview numerous Tibetan people inside and outside Tibet, as well as Chinese and Western observers and the Dalai Lama himself. The focus of the interviews, which became a book, was on the life stories of these individuals. As they tell their stories, it becomes clear to the reader why they think the way they do. The book also shows how history washed over this remote kingdom and how the Tibetans and the Chinese came to take such opposing positions.

Waiting for the Dalai Lama: Stories from all sides of the Tibetan debate is available from April 2010. Here we print an excerpt.

Introduction: Pictures of the Dalai Lama

The old woman in front of the Jokhang temple shows two brown teeth. She mutters incomprehensibly and holds out her hand. Another beggar, I think. In Lhasa they follow you around; kids with home-made wooden musical instruments which they play for two seconds before asking for money; monks with a plastic bag full of change who want a contribution for their monastery, and now this old woman in front of the temple. Behind us, pilgrims throw themselves to the ground. First, they stand upright, hands crossed on their chests, and muttering prayers. Then they let themselves drop like planks. Their hands land on small rectangular pieces of cardboard, which slide forward producing scraping noises as their bodies fall.

I sigh and find an old five-mao note in my bag. According to the Lonely Planet, this is the acceptable amount. “Give just as much as the locals,” was the stern warning. “You don’t want beggars to think that Westerners give more.” But when I stuff the dirty note in her hand, the woman gives me a bewildered look. What am I doing wrong, I ask myself. Not enough? Has there been inflation? Then a man next to me starts laughing. “She asked you for a picture of the Dalai Lama and you gave her money,” he chuckles.

(more…)

Today, several thousand Hong Kong people marched from Chater Garden in Central to the Chinese government’s liaison office in Western District to protest a number of causes: foot-dragging on the introduction of universal suffrage, and the existence of ‘rotten borough’ functional constituencies, among them. For me it was heartening to see the great number of placards also demanding freedom for Liu Xiaobo, the mainland dissident sentenced last week to 11 years in jail for speaking his mind.

As it prepared to host the 2008 Olympics, China pledged a more open society, with respect for dissenting voices. It broke those promises almost as quickly as it made them, and if anything, China has only become more repressive since then. Liu’s heavy jail sentence seems calculated to send a message: that opposition to one-party rule will not be tolerated in China, and the protests of foreign governments and human rights groups — let alone the ordinary people — can be waved aside.

No peaceful demonstration is possible in China. It falls to Hong Kong people to stand up in support of their compatriots over the border, and today they did.

In the publishing trade, we are nothing without the right of free speech. So my new year’s wish is for the release of Liu Xiaobo and all the other people imprisoned for their views, and looking further ahead into the new decade, a more mature China which feels secure enough to allow opposing voices to be heard. Is it possible?

Singapore’s beautiful Raffles Hotel hosted the launch of Lorette Roberts’ latest book: Sketches of Singapore. (Thanks to the hotel for the complimentary Singapore Slings!) Razor TV filmed a three-part interview with Lorette, which includes lots of illustrations from the book. Watch below or directly at the Razor TV site.

The book has been reviewed by Time Out Singapore and Expat Living, who say:  “Aside from the quality of the art – shophouses, hawker food and gardens are all delightfully rendered – there’s a wealth of quirky history and trivia in the accompanying handwritten notes, which wrap like tendrils in and around her pictures. This is more than just a visual feast.”

For Hong Kong residents, don’t forget that Lorette’s 2010 desk calendar, Sketches of Hong Kong 2010, is still in the shops. Happy new year!

Feng Chi-shun’s Kowloon memoir Diamond Hill has been in the shops for a few weeks and has gained good reviews in the South China Morning Post, Time Out Hong Kong, Cairns Media Magazine and now The Correspondent, whose reviewer writes “The book finishes only to leave the reader wanting more — it’s a good read.”

Click on the following link to read a free chapter — Thugs and gangsters — from Diamond Hill.

With Bare Hands: back cover

I’m delighted to say that our titles will be available through bookshops in the United States and Canada as of June 2010. Our books will be handled on the other side of the Pacific by National Book Network.

First up for the American market is With Bare Hands, since daredevil author Alain Robert has made a point of annoying the US authorities by climbing skyscrapers from San Francisco to Philadelphia. Now, when Alain gets arrested climbing his next New York building, at least he can sign copies of his book for the cops.

Liza Chu

You may enjoy a few helpings of siu mai, char siu bau and har gau at your local dim sum restaurant. But did you know some places have up to 60 dim sum dishes on the menu? If you don’t read or speak Chinese, you’re sometimes stuck with ordering from the tourist menu, and this is far more limited.

Liza Chu teaches Cantonese and local culture to newly arrived expats at the American Women’s Association. She’s now distilled her knowledge of Chinese cuisine and dining etiquette into a little photo guidebook to dim sum. Each dish is identified with Chinese characters and a pronunciation guide, and icons alert those with allergies or special diets. There’s a special listing of dim sum dishes most popular with children. Dim sum chefs explain their cooking methods, and even the art of tea drinking is covered in detail.

The book — Dim Sum: a survival guide — appears soon, but in the meantime, here are some shots from the photo shoot.

If you were unable to attend the FCC launch of Mike Rowse’s tell-all book No Minister, have no fear — the former civil servant will be signing copies at two Hong Kong bookstores in early December.

Mike will first be at Dymocks in Prince’s Building, Central, at 1:00 pm on Thursday 3rd; and he follows this up with an appearance at Kelly & Walsh in Pacific Place at 5:30 pm on Wednesday the 9th. Drop by to meet Mike and hear “the true story of HarbourFest”!

Veteran Hong Kong and China journalist Graham Earnshaw — who is currently engaged on a series of walks from Shanghai to Tibet, picking up each time from the place he left off — was interviewed this week for Shanghai Urbanatomy’s Why I Write column. His latest book, The Great Walk of China, will appear in early 2010.

Graham will also be speaking about his China writing and publishing career at the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai on December 8th. All details at the RAS China website.