The biography by May Holdsworth (2022) is noteworthy in two aspects. Firstly, she highlighted that Ho Tung was the person who put forward the idea…
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Tag: Hong Kong History
Sir Robert Ho Tung
This is an excellent biography. Highly readable based on the personal papers of the man himself. Ho Tung was a self-made man. His dad was…
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HK University Press bookstore
If you are keen on HK history, a good, albeit small, shop to browse is the Hong Kong University Press (HKUP). It is located on…
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Majie – Part 1
Majie, in Cantonese, means “mother and sister.” The term refers to unmarried women who migrated from a small locale in Guangdong, China, to work as…
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A Modern History of Hong Kong
Published in 2004, it is clear from the preface and Chapter 1 that the author is an Anglophile, despite his protestations that his intent is…
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Canton Elegy – Part 2
In this note, I make 2 propositions. The first is that if not for the Japanese invasion of China, China would have remained a democracy.…
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Journeys to the East: Robert Bickers’ Insight into British China
These 2 books by Robert Bickers explore the presence of the British in China. Britain in China narrates the British presence from 1900 to 1949.…
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Rare Books on Chinese History in Malaya
The Chinese in Malaya by Victor Purcell was published in 1948. It was presented to me by my firm’s senior partner CYC in 2014. It…
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China: The Republican Era
The era between Imperial China and Socialist China is called the Republican era. From 1900 to 1949 the ordinary Chinese sought to improve their lives,…
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The Age of Openness
The Age of Openness – China before Mao explores the Republican era from 1911 to 1949. Frank Dikotter in his long essay of 102 pages…
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