Paper Tigress: A life in the Hong Kong government

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By Rachel Cartland

 

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

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Description

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

“Rachel Cartland was just 22 and fresh out of Oxford University when she arrived in Hong Kong in 1972 as one of only two female expatriate civil servants. Now 63, she has written a tell-all tale, Paper Tigress, about her 34 years in the civil service, which stretched into the post-handover years. But as she looks at the city today, she hears an echo of her early years in Hong Kong. ‘The city today reminds me of Hong Kong in 1977 when the community was so tense because of corruption; it is yet again at a real crucial turning point in its history,’ she says.” – South China Morning Post

Rachel Cartland was interviewed for Stuart Beaton’s podcast.

Susan Blumberg-Kason featured a story by Rachel Cartland describing how Paper Tigress came about.

See pictures from the book launch (a Facebook photo album).

Additional information

Weight 400 g
Dimensions 140 × 216 mm
Pages

304

Binding

Paperback

Illustrations

colour photographs

About the author

Rachel Cartland graduated from Oxford University in 1972 and joined the Administrative Grade of the Hong Kong Civil Service where she worked until her retirement in 2006. Her first posting was to the New Territories Administration Headquarters. During her time with the Government she served in a variety of senior posts and gained wide exposure to policy formulation processes, management and the Hong Kong political scene.

As Deputy Secretary for Recreation and Culture, she oversaw the legislative framework for the introduction of cable and satellite TV, and the setting up of the Arts Development Council, among other things. As Assistant Director of Social Welfare (Social Security) she had responsibility for an annual budget of HK$25 billion and about 2,000 staff, and for delivering a socially critical service of high political sensitivity, impacting all sectors of grassroots Hong Kong.

Rachel now undertakes public sector consulting. Her current voluntary activities include membership of Hong Kong University SPACE’s Academic Committee for the Higher Diploma in Social Security, Vision 2047, the Tender Committee for the Remaking of the Fringe Club, the Scholarship Committee of the Oxford & Cambridge Society of Hong Kong, the Development Committee of the China Oxford Scholarship Fund (Co-Chairman) and the Women’s Foundation (Board of Governors).