Our publications - Page 6 of 7

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Dragon Bones: Two Years Beneath the Skin of a Himalayan Kingdom

HK$128.00
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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.

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11-19

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Explore Macau: A walking guide and history

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Walking is the best way to get to know any city, and Macau — the former Portuguese colony returned to China in 1999 — is made for walking. Only seven miles square, one can easily walk from the Border Gate to the A-Ma Temple at the tip of Macau in a day.

This guidebook describes eight routes around the urban peninsula and its outlying islands, sufficient to explore and understand this fascinating old city and its unique blend of European and Asian architecture, cuisine and cultures.

“An invaluable pocket guide that is perfect for the first-time visitor as well as old hands.” — South China Morning Post

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Walk no. 3 - From Lilau Square to Barra Point

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Waiting for the Dalai Lama: Stories from all sides of the Tibetan debate

HK$118.00
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Why does the issue of Tibet rouse such passions on both sides? And is there any way to find common ground?

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 residents, Western observers and the Dalai Lama himself. As these people explain their life 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 is a uniquely valuable book which approaches the emotive issue of Tibet from all angles.

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Chapter 1

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HONG KONG State of Mind: 37 views of a city that doesn’t blink

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with illustrations by Lee Po Ng

Hong Kong is a mixed bag of a city. It is where Mercedes outnumber taxi cabs, partygoers count down to Christmas every December 24, and larger-than-life billboards of fortune tellers and cram school tutors compete with breathtaking skylines.

HONG KONG State of Mind is a collection of essays by a popular blogger who zeroes in on the city’s idiosyncrasies with deadpan precision. At once an outsider looking in and an insider looking out, Ng has created something for everyone: a travel journal for the passing visitor, a user’s manual for the wide-eyed expat, and an open diary for the native Hong Konger looking for moments of reflection.

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Kowloon Complex

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Lama of the Gobi: How Mongolia’s mystic monk spread Tibetan Buddhism in the world’s harshest desert

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Danzan Ravjaa (1803-1856), officially known as the Fifth Noyon Incarnate Lama of the Gobi Desert, is perhaps Mongolia's most beloved saint. The Fourth had caused so many scandals that the Manchu Emperor banned his reincarnation. Consequently, when the young child was enthroned as the Fifth, the Emperor issued an edict of execution on the boy and all associated with the event. The child was only saved by the personal intervention of the Panchen Lama and a letter of appeal from the young Ninth Dalai Lama. Their efforts proved well worthwhile, for the boy went on to become one of the greatest mystics and creative geniuses of 19th-century Mongolia.

Lama of the Gobi is an investigative account of the life and times of this extraordinary man. It takes the reader on a journey through Mongolian history, Tibetan Buddhism and the traditions of nomadic culture, to generate an appreciation of the man and the legends that surround him. This revealing story winds its way from Danzan Ravjaa’s mythic past until the present day – as the people of the Gobi Desert still faithfully maintain his cult-like status.

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Preface & Introduction

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

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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.

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Prologue

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Wordjazz for Stevie: How a profoundly handicapped girl gave her father the gifts of pain and love

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by Jonathan Chamberlain 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. Look inside this book Click on the following link to view sample pages from Wordjazz for Stevie. You will need a pdf reader to view this excerpt. Pages 7-35

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The Eurasian Face

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No one represents diversity better than Eurasians – those individuals with a mix of Caucasian and Asian heritage. Once a source of shame, the Eurasian face has become the face that sells. It is the face with which everyone can identify. In an ever-shrinking world, the search is on for a one-size-fits-all global image. Eurasians have become the world’s poster boys and girls, much sought after as actors and models. Taking advantage of increasingly tolerant times and the growing commercial and cultural exchanges between East and West, Eurasians have gained prominence as entrepreneurs, professionals and athletes. This book of interviews and black-and-white portraits reveals how seventy Eurasians of diverse backgrounds see their place in the world today. Kirsteen Zimmern is a photographer of Chinese and Scottish ancestry. She has always been fascinated by the tell-tale signs of East and West in the faces of fellow Eurasians, and has found this fascination to be widespread: few days go by without strangers examining her appearance to discern her ethnicity. She lives in Hong Kong. Look inside this book Click on the below link to view sample pages from The Eurasian Face. You will need a pdf reader to view this excerpt. Pages 48-59

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Whispers and Moans: Interviews with the men and women of Hong Kong’s sex industry

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Hong Kong has a bewildering range of sex businesses offering services to suit all imaginable tastes: from the glitzy nightclubs of Tsim Sha Tsui East, through the saunas, karaoke lounges and one-woman brothels of Mong Kok, to the streets and short-time hotels of Sham Shui Po.

Chinese-language sex magazines print reviews of individual prostitutes, and promote an ever-widening array of bizarre sexual practices. Even mainstream newspapers engage pimps as columnists. Business appears to be booming – but there are hungry newcomers to this underground economy. How do local prostitutes deal with the ruthless competition posed by an endless supply of girls from mainland China?

To find out, Yeeshan Yang spent a year gaining the trust of the city's sex workers, interviewing 50 hookers, hostesses, toy boys, transsexual prostitutes, mama-sans and brothel owners. The result is an eye-opening book which shows the human side of sex for sale. Whispers and Moans contains tales of easy money, financial ruin and hopeless love affairs – and rare first-hand insights into Hong Kong's huge but hidden sex industry.

Film adaptations: Director Herman Yau has brought this book to the big screen in two movies: Whispers and Moans, which had its premiere at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, and True Women For Sale, for which Prudence Liew won Best Actress at the Golden Horse Film Awards.

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A rose by any other name

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Diamond Hill: Memories of growing up in a Hong Kong squatter village

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"Diamond Hill was one of the poorest and most backward of villages in Hong Kong at a time when Hong Kong itself was poor and backward. We moved there in 1956 when I was almost 10. I left when I was 19. Those were the formative years of my life. It’s a time that I remember well and cherish.”

This memoir of a native son of a Kowloon-side squatter village – the first book ever on Diamond Hill, in either Chinese or English – presents the early days of a life shaped by a now-extinct community. Penned by a high-achieving Hong Kong professional, Feng Chi-shun’s sharp recollections of his humble upbringing contain warmth, humour, and an abundance of insights into a low-income Hong Kong neighbourhood that no longer exists – but remains close to the hearts of many who lived there.

Diamond Hill will invite comparisons with Martin Booth's Gweilo. If you enjoyed the latter, you will likely find the former similarly absorbing, because the young Feng was, for many a “gweilo”, the inaccessible yet intriguing face of an altogether edgier Hong Kong.

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Thugs and gangsters

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Dim Sum: A Survival Guide

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Siu mai, har gow, jar leung, sin jok guen. These are all types of dim sum. But do you know what they look like, and what’s in them? Can you pronounce their names in Cantonese, or recognize them on a menu? Can you confidently order dim sum for you and your friends — especially if any of them have dietary restrictions?

Australian-Chinese writer Liza Chu has a part-time career as a Hong Kong dim sum guide. She has distilled her knowledge of Cantonese cuisine and Chinese dining etiquette into this practical guidebook to delicious dim sum. Each photographed dish is identified with Chinese characters and a pronunciation guide. Icons alert those with allergies or special diets, and there’s a special listing of dim sum dishes most popular with children. Master chefs explain their cooking methods, and even the art of tea drinking is covered in detail.

Take this book to your nearest dim sum restaurant and let Liza show you how to yum cha like a local!

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Sketches of Soho

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In this full-colour book illustrating life in the colourful area south of Hollywood Road, Hong Kong, Lorette Roberts paints the town red – and orange, and yellow, and green, and blue…

There is a centre foldout of the rainbow-hued Staunton Street restaurants; elsewhere you will find the crimsons and pinks of tiny boutiques and musicians playing live in a purple bar. And those Soho-ites – from uniform in their working clothes to bright and exotic in their street party costumes – they are all there. You might even see yourself!

Yet there is more: the reds and golds of the temple and lantern shops, the muted ochres and turquoises of the old shophouses, the green trees and busy street market in vivid colour and, last but not least, the silver of the Mid-Levels Escalator which leads us to this vibrant district.

A fold-out map at the back of the book will guide you through the less familiar streets. And don't forget to check out the connections between each page and find the ubiquitous snails.

Part of a series of best-selling books by this well-known artist, Sketches of Soho is the perfect gift item for residents and visitors alike.

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The Tale of Rhonda Rabbit

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Illustrated by Harry Harrison

It’s 221BC, and the mighty Emperor Qin Shi Huang is not amused. Somebody or something is stealing from the royal vegetable patch! Enter Rhonda Rabbit, one very bad bunny, with extremely annoying habits and an appetite to match! Will the Emperor save his greens, or will Rhonda Rabbit live to crunch another day? Find out in this funny and fabulous Chinese Calendar Tale!

Features the mighty Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the Great Wall of China and the Legend of the Rabbit in the Moon.

Age range: 7 to 12

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No Minister & No, Minister: The True Story of HarbourFest

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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.

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Sleeping Chinese

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We hear news reports of the rise of China and its sleepless economy, often with sinister undertones supposed to alarm us. The reality can look very different.

German photographer Bernd Hagemann has long been fascinated by China and its people. He carries his camera at all times, because on every street corner you can find people napping in the strangest positions and situations, even snoring in deep slumber.

“When China wakes, she will shake the world,” warned Napoleon. This may be true. But let’s not forget that hardworking people need their sleep too.

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Apologies Forthcoming: Stories not about Mao

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Winner of the third annual Tartt Fiction Award

It was some decade. The universities were closed. Students were at war. Poetry was banned. And the word “love,” unless applied to Mao, was expressly forbidden. Artists were denounced, and many opted for suicide. This is the time — its madness, its passion, its complexity — that Xujun Eberlein brings vividly to life in Apologies Forthcoming, her moving collection of short stories about the millions who lived during China’s Cultural Revolution.

An award-winning writer who now lives in Massachusetts, Eberlein has nothing to apologize for. Her stories are electrifying. About half of the stories take place during the years of the Cultural Revolution; the other half in its aftermath. How many come from personal experience is hard to say. Eberlein, who lived through the Cultural Revolution’s decade as a child and teenager, had a sister who died as a Red Guard, and that event seems fictionalized in one of the stories.

Apologies Forthcoming shines a revealing light on some of the people whose lives were changed forever by the ten years that turned China upside down. Eberlein does the great service of illuminating the interior lives of a peculiar generation, many of whom are now leading China’s phenomenal awakening.

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Men Don't Apologize

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The Tale of Temujin

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Illustrated by Harry Harrison

Temujin the Tiger is the Terror of the East. He’s wrought a trail of destruction and fine dining from Mongolia right up to the gates of the Grand Imperial Palace in Beijing! But Princess Precious is pretty awful as well, with a talent for tantrums and an ear-piercing scream! Watch what happens when two irresistible forces collide in this hilarious rhyming tale for kids of all ages!

Features Genghis Khan and the Imperial Palace in Beijing.

Age range: 6 to 10

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詠春善戰者–葉問的私徒

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(Go to English edition)

梁紹鴻，Duncan Leung，詠春善戰者。由兒時好友、已故電影巨星李小龍介紹去學詠春功夫。1955年，年僅十三歲的他以「三跪九叩」之禮，拜詠春第六長門代葉問為師，成為葉問的「第一私家門徒」。

1955至1959這四年間，葉問親自上門，悉心教導梁紹鴻，傾囊相授，跟他練習，還傳授「實踐」詠春的秘訣。梁紹鴻天天練武、練功六小時；要學以致用，他就上街打架、上武館「講手」，實踐所學。他對中國武術各門各派的打鬥經驗可謂獨一無二。

1964年，一次行俠仗義令梁紹鴻有緣遇上一位老人。那老人教他「空手入白刃」、「貼身搏擊」、「無聲殺敵」等技巧。

1974至1976年，梁紹鴻在美國紐約設館授徒。中、外習武者上館挑戰可謂無日無之，他未嘗敗北，因此應付外國武藝的經驗也相當豐富，可謂世上絕無僅有。

1976至2002年間，梁紹鴻在美國弗吉利亞灘（Virginia Beach）定居，受聘於美國海軍海豹隊（U.S. Navy Seals）、美國聯邦調查局（ FBI ）及美國特警部隊（SWAT）。

2002年8月，梁紹鴻接受可能是他有生以來最大的挑戰：要在兩年內，培養六名中國少年成為世界級職業「散打」拳手。於是，他到了中國去完成這能人所不能的使命。

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Wing Chun Warrior: The True Tales of Kung Fu Master Duncan Leung, Bruce Lee’s Fighting Companion

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(Go to Chinese edition)

Duncan Leung was introduced to Wing Chun Kung Fu by his childhood friend, famed screen star Bruce Lee. At the age of 13, after the ritual of ‘three kneels, nine kowtows’ in the traditional Sifu worship ceremony, he became the formal disciple of sixth-generation Wing Chun master Yip Man. Between 1955 and 1959 he studied with his Sifu at home, where Yip taught him how to apply Wing Chun to actual fighting. Leung trained six hours a day, seven days a week for four years, and used this knowledge fighting in the streets and martial arts studios of Hong Kong.

In 1964 Leung befriended an old man who taught him rare secrets of close fighting, including the art of disarming a knife-wielding opponent, and silencing an opponent barehanded. When he opened his Wing Chun studio in New York City in 1974, he was challenged by martial art practitioners of every school but remained undefeated. Since moving to Virginia Beach in 1976, he has taught US Navy SEALs, members of the FBI, and various SWAT teams.

In 2002 he accepted perhaps the greatest challenge of his life: to train six Chinese teenagers to become world-class professional fighters within two years. To this end, he returned to China to accomplish what many considered an impossible mission.

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A Mysterious Old Man Bruce Lee and I Beaten

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Pelma’s Tears

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and Francis Ng

"Tears? What are they?" asked Pelma, a little nun who lived on an island at the heart of a salt lake. Everybody laughed at this naïve girl who had carelessly damaged the convent’s precious thangka painting.

Pelma was sent to shore to find a high lama to repair the thangka. New friends and mischievous spirits joined the young girl on her journey. She learned about deception, greed and cruelty, as well as human warmth and kindness. She came to taste all kinds of tears.

But nothing could prepare Pelma for the hardest decision of all: destroying the thangka that she had taken such trouble to repair…

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Authors' notes Prologue

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CHINA: Portrait of a People

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with foreword by Anchee Min and epilogue by Mian Mian

The Beijing Olympics focused the world's eyes on China. But despite increased tourism and rampant foreign investment, the cultural distance between China and the West remains as vast as the oceans that separate them. The Middle Kingdom is still relatively unknown by Westerners.

China is in fact made up of 33 distinct regions populated by 56 ethnic groups – and American photojournalist Tom Carter has visited them all. This little book is a visual tribute to the People's Republic of China, with an ardent emphasis on the People.

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Gansu Hainan

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The Dragon’s Back

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by Theadora Whittington

Chinese fung shui tells us there is a dragon inhabiting every green valley, protective of the mountains and its route to the sea.

Hiking into the hills of Hong Kong for a weekend picnic, Luke and his parents suddenly find their path blocked by a forest fire. Can the friendly mountain dragon help? Or is the mythical creature equally at risk from the actions of careless human beings?

With original painted art, and a cut-out dragon for children to make themselves, The Dragon’s Back sends a gentle message of caring for the environment.

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With Bare Hands: The true story of Alain Robert, the real-life Spiderman

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Overcoming vertigo — and countless injuries which have left him officially disabled — the 'Human Spider' has scaled nearly 100 skyscrapers worldwide: from the Petronas Towers in Malaysia to Taipei 101, from Chicago's Sears Tower to the Golden Gate Bridge. Reward and punishment have been received in equal measure — the flamboyant Frenchman has gained international fame and raised thousands of dollars for charity, but has also been arrested, beaten and prosecuted.

Many people ask whether it is madness to undertake such perilous ascents without the use of safety equipment. But in Alain's view, it is madness not to follow your dreams! This is the inspiring story of a man who has conquered fear and exceeded his own limits: the world's greatest urban climber.

"For Robert, tall buildings are his mountains. He eulogises the views from their summits and (police permitting) revels in the freedom." — The Guardian

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Prologue The Hatchling

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Beijing: Portrait of a City

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and Lucy Cavender

Beijing: Portrait of a City is the shared work of some of the city's finest writers who lead us through ‘hutong’ alleys, antique markets, artists' communities, gay bars, parks and the nostalgic streets of memory. They beguile with poems, amuse with camel anecdotes and thrill with two murder stories – one a genuine antique, the other a fictional contemporary. They take us back to the often-ignored Mongolian roots of the city and project forward to ask whether spectacular modern architecture will suffice to return Beijing to what it sees as its ancient place at the centre of the world.

The book interweaves its written work with a collection of wry and telling photographs of different aspects of the city, creating a compelling portrait of Beijing.

The contributors – including Zhu Wen, Adam Williams, Roy Kesey, Ma Jian, Alfreda Murck, Tim Clissold, Catherine Sampson, Peter Hessler, Karen Smith, Paul French, Michael Aldrich, Hong Ying and Rob Gifford, all published authors and experts in their field – have spent many years living in Beijing and know it from the inside. Their individual contributions combine to leave a highly original and unforgettable impression of one of the world’s oldest and most fascinating cities.

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Hong Kong On Air

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As the Hong Kong handover boom fizzles into the Asian economic bust, a young American couple's marriage and careers tumble into a maze of television news, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie.

TV news veteran Muhammad Cohen's engaging, often hilarious novel captures the mood ahead of the July 1997 handover when Hong Kong reigned as the centre of the universe, a multicultural melting pot bubbling with pure gold. As the Asian crisis abruptly ends the party, mainland China emerges, eclipsing Hong Kong. For everyone whose job or business falls under China's lengthening economic shadow, Hong Kong On Air presents a fresh angle on how it all began. For media watchers, Hong Kong On Air broadcasts the backstage secrets of television news the way The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay illustrated the dark side of comic books.

For newspaper reporter turned TV producer Laura Wellesley, the morning show at Franklin Global Networks Asia means going to bed before dark and swallowing the first rule of broadcast news: the anchor is always right, especially when it's American-born Chinese egomaniac Deng Jiang Mao. The station's fortunes and Laura's outlook improve with the arrival of Peter Franklin, the 28-year-old son of FGN's billionaire founder. But Franklin's eye falls on mainland-born graphics drone Pussy, Laura's control room nemesis, and a butterfly emerges from the web he spins.

For Laura's husband Jeff Golden, the production line for his Golden Beauties lingerie runs through a cagey mother minding their stores on Long Island, cookie tins stuffed with cash smuggled over the border, and hot tubs in Hong Kong's Jewish Community Club and mainland brothels. Cut out of his own multi-million dollar deal, Jeff's consolation prize is Yogi, a Japanese banker with a yen for "Jew food" and men raised on it.

During Hong Kong's pre-handover boom, FGN Asia becomes a hit, a star is born, and mistakes are easy to overlook. But the economic crisis ripens relationships for treachery, creates opportunities for revenge, and moves China centre stage, triggering a great leap forward for some, a long march to failure for others.

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