Our publications - Page 3 of 6

South China Morning Blues

HK$118.00
USD: US$15.06
CNY: CN¥109.04
GBP: £12.09
EUR: €14.07
AUD: AU$23.21
CAD: CA$20.57
JPY: ¥2,331
There’s no place quite like it. From Guangzhou to Hong Kong, the booming megalopolis of the Pearl River Delta has endless stories to tell. South China Morning Blues is filled with these tales of the postmodern East: depraved, rapidly changing, and never boring.

Just what kinds of people find themselves in 21st-century China? There’s Marco, a crooked businessman with a penchant for call girls; Danny, a culture-shocked young traveler; Sheila, a local club girl caught up in family politics; Amber, a drug-fueled aspiring model; Terry, an alcoholic journalist; and Ting Ting, a lovable artist with a chip on her shoulder. Their lives intertwine in unexpected ways as they delve deeper into their surroundings and in the process learn more about themselves.

China may be leading the world into the future, but its inhabitants will have to make sense of the present if that future is ever going to arrive.

Look inside this book
Click on the following links to view sample pages from South China Morning Blues. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Prologue: Shenzhen Monkey

Add to basket Details
Kitchen Tiles: A Collection of Salty, Wet Stories from the Bar-Rooms of Hong Kong

HK$118.00
USD: US$15.06
CNY: CN¥109.04
GBP: £12.09
EUR: €14.07
AUD: AU$23.21
CAD: CA$20.57
JPY: ¥2,331
The Cantonese call anyone lecherous, and anything salacious, harm sup — literally salty and wet. And the code word for all things harm sup is "kitchen tiles." Anyone who has stepped into a Chinese kitchen knows it is like a war zone, with broth and condiments spilt all over the place; hence the tiles are deemed salty and wet.

Kitchen Tiles looks at the lascivious aspects of Hong Kong society. These 50 stories of gamblers, drinkers, masseuses and millionaires are based on the real-life experiences of Feng Chi-shun, author of Diamond Hill. Names and circumstances may have been changed, but the sentiment and spirit remain authentically Hong Kong.

Look inside this book

Click on the link to read pages from Kitchen Tiles. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Contents

Add to basket Details
Hong Kong Unveiled: A journey of discovery through the hidden world of Chinese customs and culture

HK$118.00
USD: US$15.06
CNY: CN¥109.04
GBP: £12.09
EUR: €14.07
AUD: AU$23.21
CAD: CA$20.57
JPY: ¥2,331
Hong Kong Unveiled is an "access all areas" pass into Chinese culture and customs. Though written with a Hong Kong slant, it applies to any Chinese community worldwide.

Invited to a Chinese wedding or business function and don’t know the correct form? This book will lead you through the minefield where an innocent mistake could see you lose your friend or your business connection. Want to change a run of bad luck? Or are your jokes falling flat with your Chinese friends? Find out how and why in this far-ranging book – which also explains how many seemingly strange customs came about.

Look inside this book
Click on the links to read pages from Hong Kong Unveiled. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Introduction Mistranslations At the restaurant

Add to basket Details
The Tiger Hunters of Tai O

HK$118.00
USD: US$15.06
CNY: CN¥109.04
GBP: £12.09
EUR: €14.07
AUD: AU$23.21
CAD: CA$20.57
JPY: ¥2,331
Hong Kong, 1954. The British colony was not yet ready to hear about a Eurasian policeman having an affair with the police commissioner’s daughter. Twenty-two-year-old Simon Lee tasted swift punishment. He was banished to the outer fringes of the territory, to the far tip of a wild and distant island a stone’s throw from mainland Chinese waters — to Tai O, the ancient and murky trading post where fishermen, salt-farmers and refugees were thrown together with spies, pirates and triads. Pink dolphins swam the waters, eagles fished the sea, and some still believed that a tiger prowled the hills at night.

It was a place haunted by history, where corpses had floated in the bay just a decade earlier when Japanese troops occupied the police station, and everybody had a secret about what they did during the war.

Life was unpredictable for the band of beer-swilling misfits that staffed Tai O Police Station. Some said they needed reining in. But when a stranger was murdered on a beach, accused of being a Communist spy, Lee found himself on an unexpected collision course with his own masters in Central. Who had the dead man been working for? What did the secret agents know? Why was Central so eager to brush the execution aside? And who or what really was the ‘tiger’?

Add to basket Details
The Slightest Chance

HK$118.00
USD: US$15.06
CNY: CN¥109.04
GBP: £12.09
EUR: €14.07
AUD: AU$23.21
CAD: CA$20.57
JPY: ¥2,331
In war, you can pretend to be someone you’re not. Yet, in war, people find out who you really are.

Hong Kong, 1941. Anglo-Australian civil servant Dominic Sotherly’s colonial sojourn in Hong Kong becomes complicated by his double life in both war and love. Enigmatic Englishwoman Gwen Harmison possesses secrets of her own – plus an unrelenting desire for liberty. Inscrutable Eurasian Chester Drake is but one of Gwen’s secrets.

From gaiety at the Peninsula Hotel to persecution both inside and outside of internment, the story journeys from war-ravaged Hong Kong to war-weary China.

From real history, meet the one-legged Chinese admiral who led Hong Kong’s daring ‘Great Escape’ and the Japanese Christian soldier who risked his life for the enemy. And, uniquely during the occupation of Hong Kong, discover how one Englishwoman made history in her defiance of Imperial Japan.

Add to basket Details
Forty Nights (Eating Smoke #2)

HK$118.00
USD: US$15.06
CNY: CN¥109.04
GBP: £12.09
EUR: €14.07
AUD: AU$23.21
CAD: CA$20.57
JPY: ¥2,331
The stand-alone sequel to the international bestseller Eating Smoke

Former commando Chris Thrall returned from a year in Hong Kong suffering severe psychosis from crystal meth addiction. The medical profession said recovery was unlikely and recommended admitting him to a psychiatric hospital.

“There’s nothing wrong with me!”

Chris refused all intervention and his life descended into a chaotic cycle of drug use that almost killed him... until salvation came in a surprising form.

In this long-awaited follow-up to Eating Smoke, Chris tells a harrowing yet refreshing and often hilarious account of addiction and one gutsy journey to recovery.

"After the harrowing events in Eating Smoke, if you thought Chris Thrall departed Kai Tak bound for a life of cream teas and Little England 'normality'... then you've likely not experienced the depravity and horror of drug addiction. In Forty Nights, Chris continues to confront his demons with his usual engaging honesty, side-splitting Royal Marine humour and storytelling at its finest." – Phil Whelan, RTHK

Add to basket Details
The Kowloon English Club

HK$118.00
USD: US$15.06
CNY: CN¥109.04
GBP: £12.09
EUR: €14.07
AUD: AU$23.21
CAD: CA$20.57
JPY: ¥2,331
Asia, 1996. What do you do when you have failed to find the meaning of life in India, your money has run out, your girlfriend has gone, and prospects at home are limited? Go further east, young man!

Meet Joe Walsh, a backpacker who is determined to put a wayward life behind him and make it big in Hong Kong, where fortune still favours the British and opportunities are there for the taking. In the final full year of British-ruled Hong Kong, tourists and hordes of transient workers are exploiting the economy as well as the occasion.

Arriving almost penniless, with issues in love and life, Joe decides to make the most of this opportunity: he discovers one of the world’s most exciting cities, finds challenging new jobs, makes friends with an extraordinary cast of characters, and dates local women. He finds himself absorbed into a vibrant social scene through the communal existence of a travellers’ hostel, where drink, drugs and casual sex are a way of life. A stint selling sandwiches gives way to an English-teaching job, where he can at last start to live out his ambitions.

But an already stressful existence worsens after a night out goes wrong. As personal relationships sour and the pressures of long hours, minimum pay, classroom clashes and abject living conditions mount, Joe is forced to confront people he wishes he’d never met, and answer important questions that cannot be put off a moment longer.

Add to basket Details
Out of stock
No Minister & No, Minister: The True Story of HarbourFest

HK$125.00
USD: US$15.95
CNY: CN¥115.51
GBP: £12.81
EUR: €14.90
AUD: AU$24.59
CAD: CA$21.79
JPY: ¥2,469
In the depths of the 2003 SARS crisis, Mike Rowse (盧維思), a career Hong Kong civil servant, was handed the poisoned chalice of HarbourFest – intended to be (and which in many ways was) a psychological and commercial shot in the arm. Politics, as it often does, took precedence over sense, and Rowse was scapegoated for the perceived failings of this attempt to pull off a world-class entertainment festival in only three months.

Rowse endured disciplinary hearings and ended up taking the Hong Kong Government to court. He won.

This true story of HarbourFest is not just an insider’s account of the workings of the Hong Kong Government; it is also a thoughtful treatise on the drawbacks of the Ministerial Accountability System, a system which failed HarbourFest and Rowse, there being No Minister who ever took responsibility.

Details
Hong Kong Noir (Akashic noir series)

HK$125.00
USD: US$15.95
CNY: CN¥115.51
GBP: £12.81
EUR: €14.90
AUD: AU$24.59
CAD: CA$21.79
JPY: ¥2,469
Edited by Jason Y. Ng and Susan Blumberg-Kason

Published in association with Akashic Books

Akashic continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighbourhood or location within the city of the book.

Hong Kong Noir features brand-new stories by Jason Y. Ng, Xu Xi, Marshall Moore, Brittani Sonnenberg, Tiffany Hawk, James Tam, Rhiannon Jenkins Tsang, Christina Liang, Feng Chi-shun, Charles Philipp Martin, Shannon Young, Shen Jian, Carmen Suen and Ysabelle Cheung.

What will Hong Kong look like in five years, ten years, or thirty years when the “one country, two systems” promise expires? It’s impossible to foresee. Hong Kong’s future may be beyond our control, but some things aren’t. We can continue to write about our beloved city and work our hardest to preserve it in words.

When we asked our contributors to write their noir stories, we didn’t give them specific content guidelines other than to make sure their stories end on a dark note. What we received was a brilliant collection of ghost stories, murder mysteries, domestic dramas, cops-and-robbers tales, and historical thrillers that capture Hong Kong in all its dark glory. The result is every bit as eclectic, quirky, and delightful as the city they write about.

Look inside this book
Click on the following links to read pages from Hong Kong Noir. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Contents and Introduction

Add to basket Details
Year of Fire Dragons: An American Woman’s Story of Coming of Age in Hong Kong

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
In 2010, bookish 22-year-old Shannon follows her Eurasian boyfriend to Hong Kong, eager to forge a new love story in his hometown. But when work sends him to London a month later, Shannon embarks on a wide-eyed newcomer's journey through Hong Kong – alone.

She teaches in a local school as the only foreigner, explores Asia with other young expats and discovers family history in Hong Kong, all while trying to hold on to her thwarted romance. The city enchants her, forcing her to question her plans. Soon, she must make a choice between her new life and the love that first brought her to Asia.

Look inside this book
Click on the following links to view sample pages from Year of Fire Dragons. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

One Two

Add to basket Details
No City for Slow Men: Hong Kong’s quirks and quandaries laid bare

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
with illustrations by Lee Po Ng

Author and blogger Jason Y. Ng has a knack for making the familiar both fascinating and funny. Three years after his bestselling début HONG KONG State of Mind, the razor-sharp observer returns with a sequel that is bigger and every bit as poignant.

No City for Slow Men is a collection of 36 essays that examine some of the pressing social, cultural and existential issues facing Hong Kong. It takes us from the gravity-defying property market to the plunging depths of old age poverty, from the storied streets of Sheung Wan to the beckoning island of Cheung Chau, from the culture-shocked Western expat to the misunderstood Mainland Chinese and the disenfranchised foreign domestic worker. The result is a treatise on Hong Kong life that is thought-provoking, touching and immensely entertaining.

Look inside this book
Click on these links to read pages from No City for Slow Men. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Introduction Horo-Logic The Storm Cometh

Add to basket Details
My Private China

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
What do normal people in China look forward to when they get up in the morning? What is the mentor of Lang Lang like? What about the personal friend of Chairman Mao – and how does his granddaughter relate to him after the murderous Cultural Revolution? What do the numerous evangelical Americans really think of the Chinese? How does the One Country, Two Systems paradigm work for Hong Kong?

For the last 73 years, American Book Award winner Alex Kuo has travelled back-and-forth between America and China. These letters and essays portray the private China, and provide indispensable cultural information for anyone interested in the People’s Republic in the 21st century.

Look inside this book
Click on these links to read pages from My Private China. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Introduction Counting The Re-Taking of Hong Kong

Add to basket Details
Don’t Joke on the Stairs: How I learnt to navigate China by breaking most of the rules

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
China – what’s not to love?

Join longtime Hong Kong resident and Cantonese fundamentalist Cecilie Gamst Berg as she ploughs through the non-stop surreal-fest that is today’s China, stopping occasionally to ruminate about the travails of trying to make Cantonese a world language, and how the Chinese have invented a new English: Manglish.

In this book you’ll find answers to everything you wanted to know about China, such as:

What does “the slippery are very crafty” really mean?

What’s the etiquette for hitch-hiking in really small cars?

What’s the best way to gatecrash a Ketamine party?

Indeed, what is modern party etiquette in China? And:

How do you win a fist-fight with a hotel security guard?

Travelling by horse, train and sleeper bus from the deserts of Xinjiang, across the mountains of Tibet and Sichuan to the water buffalo fields of Hong Kong, Cecilie shows you how China is not only the most happening place on Earth, but also the most fun.

Look inside this book
Click on this link to view sample pages from Don't Joke on the Stairs. You will need a pdf reader to view this excerpt.

Smile Comes Before a Fall
Add to basket Details
Out of stock
Dragon Bones: Two Years Beneath the Skin of a Himalayan Kingdom

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
Wedged deep in the Himalaya between India and China, the secretive kingdom of Bhutan guards its independence while around it, Sikkim and Tibet have been swallowed by the giants and Nepal is rife with unrest. Bhutan markets itself as the last Shangri-La, but a closer look reveals the turbulence that accompanies its efforts to join the Western world.

Murray Gunn and his French wife came to love and better understand Bhutan while living there for two years — but risked their marriage in the process. A travel memoir of discovery and change.

Look inside this book
Click on this link to view sample pages from Dragon Bones. You will need a pdf reader to view this excerpt.

11-19

Details
The Great Walk of China: Travels on foot from Shanghai to Tibet

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
What kind of people would you meet if you decided to walk across the world's most populous country?

The Great Walk of China is 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, 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. 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.

Look inside this book
Click on the following link to view sample pages from The Great Walk of China. You will need a pdf reader to view this excerpt.

Prologue

Add to basket Details
Collected Hong Kong Stories

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
For an arresting mosaic of the great and complex metropolis known as Hong Kong – and an insight into what the people of the city live by and die for – a reader need look no further than the Collected Hong Kong Stories of David T. K. Wong.

Wong, a native son of this once British Crown Colony and now Special Administrative Region of China, has drawn upon his own experiences as a journalist, educator, government official and businessman to assemble a range of memorable characters for his tales. They range from barmen to labourers, from jockeys to expatriate bureaucrats, from scholars to tycoons, and each is infused with insights into the collective soul of the edgy, anomalous and perplexing place he finds himself.

These 18 stories are carefully crafted in the grand tradition of O. Henry, Maugham and Saki. Each has been individually published in a magazine or broadcast over radio in Britain, the United States, Hong Kong or elsewhere. They can be dipped into and savoured separately or feasted upon all in one go. Either way, the result can only be satisfying.

“David T. K. Wong is an exceptionally fluent writer whose compelling stories cover a wide range of themes. His talent sparkles, inveigles and mesmerizes.” – Sylvia Tankel, Editor of Short Stories International

Look inside this book
Click on the following links to read pages from Collected Hong Kong Stories. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts. One Two

Add to basket Details
Farewell, My Colony: Last Days in the Life of British Hong Kong

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
20th anniversary edition

In the heart of Beijing, a large digital clock marked off the seconds until July 1, 1997, when the red, five-star flag of China would be hoisted over Hong Kong – and the grand but untried idea of “one country, two systems” would be put into practice.

Farewell, My Colony is a real-time journal of the end of an era by an objective observer. American journalist Todd Crowell captures a unique moment in history as Britain stoically soldiers through the last months of its 156 years of colonial rule, China waits restlessly to resume its sovereignty, and Hong Kong buzzes with endless speculation.

He tells how Hong Kong’s Chinese and expatriates, taipans and cagemen come to terms with the impending change of rule. He mingles with the rich and famous and common people alike. A long-term resident, he votes in elections controversially called by Governor Chris Patten. He then follows the selection of a rival legislature, and of Patten’s successor, shipping magnate Tung Chee-hwa, as the first chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The city’s pulse is charted by his pen, through to the pomp, circumstance and partying of the day of handover itself. Now, 20 years later, Crowell has updated this valuable historical record with reflections on what has happened to Hong Kong since 1997.

Add to basket Details
香港二十 – 反思回歸廿載

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
香港筆會編 (Go to English edition)

1997年，香港從英國殖民管治順暢轉變成「一國兩制」下的共產黨管治。然而二十年過去，主權移交的真正衝擊方才降臨：香港與大陸經濟近乎全面融合，大陸遊客大量湧至，跨境衝突局勢緊張及自由被高速磨蝕。

眾聲喧嘩力則剛，香港筆會於是邀請本港最優秀的作者來反映香港殖民地時代後的轉變，以散文、詩歌、小說及畫作去為這歷史時刻留下印記。

Michael Braga · Mary-Jean Chan · Jennifer S. Cheng · 鄭嘉怡· Kris Cheng鄭樂捷· 周漢輝· Larry Feign方南理 · Harry Harrison · Gérard Henry敖樹克 · Louise Ho何少韻 · Oscar Ho Hing Kay何慶基 · Tammy Ho Lai-Ming · Sarah Howe · 羅樂敏· Arthur Leung · Leung Ping-Kwan梁秉鈞 · Louisa Lim林慕蓮 · Shirley Geok-lin Lim · 呂永佳 · William Nee倪偉平 · Jason Y. Ng · Margaret Ng · Timothy O’Leary 柯天銘· Michael O’Sullivan · Ilaria Maria Sala · Mishi Saran沙美智 · Shahilla Shariff · Shen Jian · 蘇美智 · 鄧小樺· Eddie Tay鄒竹文 · 陶傑 · Stephen Vines韋安仕 · Marco Wan溫文灦 · Wawa · Kate Whitehead · Joshua Wong黃之鋒 · 黃裕邦· Xu Xi 許素細· Marco Yan · Chris Yeung楊健興 · Douglas Young 楊志超

Kevin Lau Chun-to 劉進圖及Timothy Garton Ash 為本書作序。

「香港是國際一大都會。在未來一個世紀，香港都會成為政治及學術討論的中心。我的推測是香港多元人口的成就會帶領本城跨越任何障礙。閱讀[《香港二十》的]文章讓我確認這個看法。」

- 彭定康，末代港督

Add to basket Details
Great Leaps: Finding home in a changing China

HK$128.00
USD: US$16.34
CNY: CN¥118.28
GBP: £13.12
EUR: €15.26
AUD: AU$25.18
CAD: CA$22.32
JPY: ¥2,528
In Great Leaps, Colin Flahive explores China’s rural-urban migration against the backdrop of his own transition from Colorado to southwest China. There, in Yunnan province, he partnered with three friends to open a café that became much more than simply an outpost of Western cuisine in a far-flung corner of the world.

Over the course of a decade, Salvador’s Coffee House became home to more than fifty young women from mountain villages in the surrounding countryside. Most knew nothing about coffee or Western food, but they moved to the city to work at Salvador’s and earn their independence.

Great Leaps follows the challenges faced by Colin, his partners and his employees as they leave their old lives behind to make a new home in a foreign land. They encounter unlikely successes, endure heartbreaks and nearly lose everything. But by taking the leap together, they all find their own places in the modern Chinese dream.

Look inside this book
Click on the following link to read pages from Great Leaps. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Chapter 1: From the Countryside

Add to basket Details
Storm Whale

HK$130.00
USD: US$16.59
CNY: CN¥120.13
GBP: £13.32
EUR: €15.50
AUD: AU$25.57
CAD: CA$22.66
JPY: ¥2,568
Illustrated by Jane Tanner

Shortlisted for the 2018 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award, Children's Fiction

A captivating and beautifully illustrated story about three sisters who find a stranded whale on a windswept beach and try to save it.

Bleak was the day and the wind whipped down
when I and my sisters walked to town ...

With a powerful, poetic text, wonderful to read aloud, and illustrations full of life and movement, Storm Whale celebrates the majesty and vulnerability of nature and our place in it.

"A story of the sea and the possibilities of interactions between humans and other creatures… a story of human kindness and hope" - Magpies

Ages 4 to 8

Add to basket Details
Remembering Bruce Lee: And Jon Benn’s Other Adventures

HK$138.00
USD: US$17.61
CNY: CN¥127.53
GBP: £14.14
EUR: €16.45
AUD: AU$27.14
CAD: CA$24.06
JPY: ¥2,726
“Kung Fu?” The Big Boss Loves Adventure

Even four decades after the passing of Asian martial-arts superstar Bruce Lee (1940-73), his achievements still attract adoration from millions of movie fans. The biggest fan of all may be Jon Benn, who befriended the high-kicking hero while playing “the Big Boss”, a villain in Lee’s acclaimed 1972 movie The Way of the Dragon.

In Remembering Bruce Lee, a tell-tale autobiography, Jon reminisces fondly about his experiences with Lee and a lifetime of other adventures. From facing Lee’s fists of fury to riding in a cowboy posse, from almost starting the Third World War to a nude scene with sex symbol Bo Derek, much has happened to Jon for the sake of appearing in movies.

But that’s not all. From exploring ancient Mexican temples and falling into a volcano to eavesdropping on communists in Cold War Europe, from doing business with former Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos to girls-in-hot-pants waving Passports to Pleasure, one heck of a lot has happened to Jon away from the cameras too.

Look inside this book
Click on the link to read pages from Remembering Bruce Lee. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Contents & Introduction

Add to basket Details
Paper Tigress: A life in the Hong Kong government

HK$138.00
USD: US$17.61
CNY: CN¥127.53
GBP: £14.14
EUR: €16.45
AUD: AU$27.14
CAD: CA$24.06
JPY: ¥2,726
Rachel Cartland came to Hong Kong in 1972 as one of just two female expatriates in the Hong Kong Government’s elite administrative grade.

Before she retired in 2006, her life was shaped by the momentous events that rocked Hong Kong during those action-packed years: corruption and the police mutiny, the growth of the new towns, the currency crisis of 1983, Tiananmen Square, the change of sovereignty and the devastation of SARS. The backdrop to her story ranges from Kowloon’s infamous Walled City to Government House to the rural New Territories.

Paper Tigress is full of humour and incident and, at the same time, an accessible account of modern Hong Kong and the forces that shaped it.

"Rachel’s remarkable recollection of an exciting era in Hong Kong not only brings back 40 years of shared memories, but is a fair and often amusing story of how colleagues in the Administrative Service worked together to build up this modern city – and, in the process, injected core values that hopefully will stand Hong Kong in good stead for years to come.” – Shelley Lee Lai-kuen, GBS, OBE, JP, former Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs

Look inside this book
Click on the link below to read pages from Paper Tigress. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Early Days in Hong Kong

Add to basket Details
Walking the Tycoons’ Rope: How ambition drove a poor boy from Ningbo to compete with the richest men of Hong Kong and Singapore

HK$138.00
USD: US$17.61
CNY: CN¥127.53
GBP: £14.14
EUR: €16.45
AUD: AU$27.14
CAD: CA$24.06
JPY: ¥2,726
Robert Wang fled the Chinese civil war at the age of five and came to Hong Kong with nothing. The colony was a harsh place in the 1950s and 1960s. But he was determined to rise to the top – and through hard work and resolve, he got there. The law firm he founded grew into the city’s fifth largest.

With the clock ticking towards the handover of Hong Kong to China, and no one knowing what the end of British rule would bring, Robert hatched an audacious scheme to safeguard the fortunes of Hong Kong’s richest tycoons. He would convince Singapore to take them in.

At last, he was walking with kings: dealing one-on-one with the most powerful businessmen and politicians of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. It was an exhilarating experience – but climbing so high has its dangers. After unwittingly offending the wrong power brokers, he was cast aside and left to defend himself against the damnation of corporate rumours.

Robert’s rags-to-riches story offers a rare look inside the unimaginably wealthy world of Hong Kong’s property tycoons; but also, as he tells the tale of four generations of his family, we learn that it is the traditional values of tolerance, filial piety and loyalty which endure.

"A riveting read." – Sir Run Run Shaw, Founder, Shaw Prize

Look inside this book
Click on these links to view sample pages from Walking the Tycoons' Rope. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

One Two Three Four

Add to basket Details
Eating Smoke: One man’s descent into drug psychosis in Hong Kong’s triad heartland

HK$138.00
USD: US$17.61
CNY: CN¥127.53
GBP: £14.14
EUR: €16.45
AUD: AU$27.14
CAD: CA$24.06
JPY: ¥2,726
Chris Thrall left the Royal Marines to find his fortune in Hong Kong, but instead found himself homeless and hooked on crystal methamphetamine.

Soon he began working for the 14K, Hong Kong’s largest crime family, as a doorman in one of their nightclubs in the Wan Chai red-light district.

Dealing with psychosis, conspiracy and the ‘foreign triad’ – a secretive expat clique which, unbeknown to the world, works hand-in-hand with the Chinese mafia – he had to survive in the world’s most unforgiving city, addicted to the world’s most dangerous drug.

“A triad-controlled nightclub is not a clever place to work if you’re addicted to a drug with a tendency to induce horrifying paranoia. A lot of bad stuff is going to happen and it’s very easy for an Ice-addled mind to imagine that even worse stuff is also going on. This is at the heart of Thrall’s nightmare and it’s a narrative device that makes Eating Smoke work so well.” – South China Morning Post

Look inside this book
Click on this link to view sample pages from Eating Smoke. You will need a pdf reader to view this excerpt.

Excerpt 1

Add to basket Details
Master of None: How a Hong Kong high-flyer overcame the devastating experience of imprisonment

HK$138.00
USD: US$17.61
CNY: CN¥127.53
GBP: £14.14
EUR: €16.45
AUD: AU$27.14
CAD: CA$24.06
JPY: ¥2,726
Does a man need a stint in jail to complete his life experiences?

From Stanley Prison, corporate high-flyer John T. Hung recounts his life in a sweep of Hong Kong history over five generations – from his family roots in the 19th century through World War II to the present.

The story tracks the richness of his mixed heritage and upbringing, his steady rise and precipitous fall from the pinnacles of corporate Hong Kong to the life-destroying court case and heartbreaking incarceration.

With wry and subtle humour, Hung describes his colourful yet volatile life, interwoven into the social, commercial, political and sporting tapestry of Hong Kong and South East Asia.

Master of None is a soulful exploration of human achievements, frailties, resilience in the face of adversity, and above all, the importance of family support in overcoming whatever fate may deal us.

Look inside this book
Click on these links to view sample pages from Master of None. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.

Chapter 1 Chapter 32

Add to basket Details

Subscribe to our mailing list