My ex-husband is in town to visit our son this weekend. He brought us these bags of snacks from Shanghai.The Chinese characters on three of the bags translate to "I'm happy. I'm healthy".The bag on the bottom left has candied walnuts. The bags on the bottom right and … [Read more...]
Waterloo Road–then and now
Several years ago I stumbled upon Martin Booth's memoir, Golden Boy (Picador, 2004), also known as Gweilo (Doubleday, 2004) in the UK--about his boyhood in Hong Kong.As a young boy, Booth lived in the Fourseas Hotel and roamed the streets of Kowloon on his own in the early … [Read more...]
R&R at Kai Tak Airport
In the 1960s and 1970s, Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport teemed with soldiers on rest and relaxation from Vietnam.But there were others who traveled through Kai Tak on their way to or from Saigon.In the mid-60s, my uncle was at Kai Tak waiting for a flight out after a trip to … [Read more...]
Jimmy’s Kitchen, Hong Kong
When I lived in Hong Kong, I rarely went to Western restaurants. I was on a student budget for my first three years there and when I had the luxury of going out, it was to small noodle and congee stalls--the kind that cost less than $2 for a full meal.After I entered the … [Read more...]
Book of the week–Burmese Days by George Orwell
All this talk about Southeast Asia got me thinking about literature written during the British Raj. So last week I read Burmese Days (Harcourt, 1934) by George Orwell.In college I used the reading period before finals not to review my class notes, but to read novels. And they … [Read more...]
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