Last week my friend Karen sent me a postcard from Shanghai. It was her first trip to China, and while she saw a Shanghai and Beijing quite different from what I visited 15-20 years ago, she encountered one thing that hasn't changed.It's damn difficult to find a postcard … [Read more...]
An evening with Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
To kick off Chicago's annual Printers Row Lit Fest, I attended a fabulous reading and dinner last night with Cheryl Tan, author of A Tiger in the Kitchen (Voice, 2011) at Town House Books & Cafe.With my 12 year-old son Jake in tow, I introduced myself to Cheryl as a … [Read more...]
Along the Kowloon-Canton Railway
I love train travel. One of the train systems I've frequented the most is the Kowloon-Canton Railway.The KCR, as it's known in Hong Kong, opened 101 years ago in British Hong Kong. A year later, it linked up with a line in China to the city of Canton (present day Guangzhou … [Read more...]
Remembering the Kowloon Walled City
Weeks ago I gave my son Martin Booth's memoir, Gweilo (Bantam, 2005) about growing up in Hong Kong in the 1950s. He just reached the part when Booth ventures into the Kowloon Walled City. When he asked about the Walled City, I rushed over to my bookshelf and plucked out a … [Read more...]
TST through the ages
To the untrained ear, it's the most difficult name to pronounce in Hong Kong.Tsim Sha Tsui. Or Tsimshatsui.Many call it Chim Sha Chewy. Or TST. Some just abandon the name and refer to it as Kowloon. (In my bad Cantonese, I pronounce it as Jim Sa Joy, slurring the last … [Read more...]
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