By: Malcolm Jack
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Malcolm Jack was brought up and schooled in Hong Kong before returning to university in the UK. As a child, he learned Cantonese at the same time as English. He has had a career both as a public servant and a writer. His writing includes books, articles, reviews on history, literature, philosophy, and politics, as well as travel works on Portugal, and most recently, on South Africa. He is a frequent visitor to Hong Kong.
As an old Hong Kong inmate, born and brought up there in the fifties and early sixties, I found Malcolm's book particularly relevant. It is an interesting and fascinating synopsis of writers' works about the colony and its people of that period and before and after. A must read for anyone who would like to delve into this world and achieve a fuller understanding of it. My only criticism would be, is the omission of a chapter on the poet and writer, Edmund Blunden, whose observations of the colony during the many years he lived there, are unique.
One of my abiding regrets in life is not to have travelled to Hong Kong before the Chinese hand over. Having visited for the first time in 2019 as a tourist and having been a peripheral and co-incidental spectator to a couple of the democracy protests there, I wondered more than once what the colonial times were like. How marvellous then, it has been to read My Hong Kong. Not only does Malcolm Jack have first-hand experience of colonial times from his early days there, but he also has a keen eye for assessing the Hong Kong Chinese people. He sees them and expatriates through his own analytical prism as he relates via the writings of well-known authors about Hong Kong from the Second World Way onwards. He charts the social lives (colonial and Chinese) in different walks of life, rampant change, the ever present shadow of mainland China and then life as the hand over progressed. The views of Chinese Hong Kong about British colonials, foreigners and outsider immigrants from mainland China are fascinating too. This book is both enlightening and very readable. Congratulations Malcolm and thank you for another literary success!
Beautifully written portrait of his much loved city, vividly captures his own personal experiences as well recreating this unique place, which is ever evolving, through his fascinating perception. Thanks Austin Macauley for sending the book so promptly and to the author Malcolm Jack to bring us this most wonderful book.
Simply delighted to receive my copy from Austin Macauley that arrived earlier this week. A most enjoyable contemporary review written by well known author Malcolm Jack. It has transported me to Hong Kong and the wonderful vibrant city that where East and West mingled. With an assured style Malcolm described the diversity of life in this buzzing metropolis. Malcom has a wonderful sense of place and sensitivity to the ever changing world of the privileged as well as the population who live in dire poverty on squatter camps. Affordable and well produced . Essential reading!
What a treat it is to read Malcolm Jack’s “My Hong Kong” published by Austin Macauley and to be taken back to the 1950’s to capture the magic atmosphere of the vibrant, bustling colony that was Hong Kong. Life on the Peak in the 50’s was in stark contrast to the lower regions in the harbour areas where poverty ruled the day. Jack shares some wonderful personal memories about his upbringing in an entirely “open style” which enabled him to participate in the Chinese culture in that era and British colonial life too. Reared in English and Cantonese is a great asset that the writer possesses in combination with knowledge of both cultures to enable the reader to get a good insight and become involved in Jack’s “Hong Kong” when the handover to the Chines authorities in 1997 seemed a lifetime away!
An interesting and insightful account of life in Hong Kong. Well written, easy to read and a colourful blend of east and west relationships.
From the vantage point of his perspective of a childhood in Hong Kong in the 1950s and his many subsequent visits to the city and through an analysis of the narratives of a group of writers in their memoirs and in their fiction drawn from their own experiences of Hong Kong, Malcolm Jack has crafted a rich tapestry of life in Hong Kong between the immediate post war period and the handover of the colony to China in 1997.
Its depth, which is built steadily over the time span covered by each chapter of the book, with every one devoted to a single author, ranges over the period. It includes descriptions of the sights, sounds and smells of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, of Chinese customs, values and social mores and of the diversity of the social structures of the population from the expatriate colonial elite and the wealthy Chinese community, through the position of the Eurasians, the refugees from the mainland - the Shanghainese and the working people and poor of all communities.
Through the interweaving of the themes developed by each of the authors whose work is explored by Jack, life in Hong Kong is brought into focus, not least by the shared memories that emerge across the chapters. Thus the descriptions of the lived experiences of the protagonists in each chapter are reinforced and will resonate with all who have resided in, worked in and even visited Hong Kong. They address that which has changed and that which tenaciously endures in the society they depict.
The authors whose work is explored in “My Hong Kong” are variously British, Chinese, Eurasian, Korean, American and Russian Jewish. “Their Hong Kong” is deeply personal. It involves family and relationships, love, loss, riches and poverty, a sense of belonging and of alienation too. The personal is expressed in the contribution of the amahs in so many families and homes, in the languages spoken, the food people ate and the conjuring up of the distinctive memories of Hong Kong that endure in the mind’s eye. For some that is the view from the Peak District, of the city and the harbour, be it night or day, for others crossings between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon on the Star Ferry and for yet others street life and perhaps the accompanying squalor.
This is, above all, an evocative book and is a felt contribution to the history of a time and of a place in the great trading and port city of Hong Kong.
Before reading this book, my idea of Hong Kong was 19th-century, romantic and ill-informed. After reading it I have a much better notion of the city, better founded in fact but every bit as positive as before. A good read. Well printed, nicely put together (unlike some titles I could mention) - well done all round.
