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.
Malcolm Jack's book 'My Hong Kong' is a fascinating read. I like the central device of the book, exploring the culture and history of Hong Kong through a selection of the novels on Hong Kong and the lives of their authors. The prose style is impressive and the exploration of the literature is a creative and original literary contribution in its own right. I think that this book would be enjoyed by those who know Hong Kong well and serve as a first class introduction to the place and the literature.
Understanding China and the Chinese is a formidable task for most of us, one never more vital than now. Malcolm Jack's exquisitely drawn narrative, rooted in growing up in Hong Kong and speaking Cantonese, uses good books to take us part of the way. He draws from the work of acclaimed writers to reveal how intricate aspects of life in that great city were during the 20th century within and between groups of Chinese and Europeans. He tells us how the writers became able to tell stories that embraced emotional, political, ideological, societal and racial aspects of the lives and affairs of Hong Kong's poorer villagers, illiterate fishermen, colonial civil servants, doctors and journalists and rich city folk alike. As author and compiler Malcolm Jack's touching introduction authenticates his points of view too. Is he one of the few Europeans to understand the social histories of one small part of China as well as many Chinese? I can't help feeling he is.
The Chinese-American journalist Jianying Zha once said that China is 'way too big a cow for anyone to tackle in full'. A similar thing might be said of Hong Kong - the small but densely populated city perched on the eastern side of the Pearl River Delta, whose transition from British colony to special administrative region has long inspired a fascination with the question of its complex political, social and cultural identity.
Malcolm Jack's elegant solution is to tackle it through the diverse perspectives of those who have written about it. Through a thoughtful collection of the writings of British, Chinese, Eurasian, Korean, American and Russian authors, Jack charts the shifting identity of the city and its inhabitants from the 1950s to the 1997 handover. Each individual portrait combines to form a vivid tableau of life in Hong Kong from the rarefied cocktail parties of the colonial elite on the Peak, to the chaotic alleyways of the Kowloon shanty towns.
For many of Jack's writers, the cultural intermediary, vital in helping to bridge the (often superficial) divides between Western and Chinese, crops up again and again. Opening with a rich account of his own childhood in Hong Kong and weaving his experiences throughout, Jack expertly performs this role for his reader, bringing humour, historical commentary and deep insight into the work of his assembled authors.
The result is a stunning evocation of a Hong Kong now receding from view. Highly entertaining and informative, 'My Hong Kong' is a must read for all those wanting to immerse themselves in the recent history of the Fragrant Harbour.
The clever weaving together of childhood memories and the thoughts of local writers from the same period leaves the reader with a sense of what Hong Kong was like in the middle of the last century. Lots of food for thought, especially in the light of events since, and a real insight into what has been lost.
Malcolm Jack’s reflections on a well chosen collection of twentieth century writing on the currently highly challenged ex-colony give an authentic sense of its richness. Jack grew up in the city in the 1950s and his knowledge and affection for ‘My Hong Kong’ very soon makes it ‘our’ Hong Kong.
Extremely readable and recommended.
Malcolm Jack’s book is beautifully written. Marvellous, evocative descriptions of places in HK that I know so well. Like Malcolm, I was also born and brought up in HK. You may leave HK, but HK will never leave you. A welcome addition to recent books about HK in the glorious Colonial days. Highly recommend this superb book. Iain Leighton.
Malcolm Jack’s new book is an intimate and very personal memoir. It is an affectionate record of someone who grew up in a British colonial family in Hong Kong in the 1950s and written with a curiosity to understand the human meaning of all he has experienced there, in childhood and in later life; but it is also a rich and deeply informed collection of commentaries, anecdotes, and literary biographies devoted to a sequence of travellers, colonists, cosmopolitans, novelists and other writers who found versions of Jack’s own fascination with the mesmerizing cultural mix of life in Hong Kong in the crucial years of change from the ‘50s to the handover in 1997. Precisely because of Jack’s personal touch the work challenges and demolishes many common misconceptions and popular myths about the Chinese character and has appeared at a time in geopolitics when this really matters. The idea of the Chinese within the Westerner and the Westerner with the Chinese is a central theme of this volume and anyone attempting to understand the complex political, linguistic, commercial and historical consequences of Britain’s precarious, shifting relations with this singular part of China today, with its hierarchical and historical divisions, its riches and destitution, will find many rewards. The human particularity of Jack’s approach to time and place, and the understandings available through the literary imagination, means there is much welcome food for thought about Hong Kong’s future.
Jack has executed his task with pleasing lucidity. The book is composed in a most engaging, available style and with a sharp sense of the comedy of human life and its opportunities for common ground between cultural strangers--the individuals sent out to administer the colony, and those administered by them. Jack’s format allows his personal voice to come through; but this is never at the expense of his subjects' perspectives: the sometimes astonishing, talented and resourceful people he foregrounds. This is a homage to Hong Kong, but also to the many writers who, like Jack, have made the life of the colony so much a part of their own.
Philip Smallwood
Malcolm Jack’s new book is an intimate and very personal memoir. It is an affectionate record of someone who grew up in a British colonial family in Hong Kong in the 1950s and written with a curiosity to understand the human meaning of all he has experienced there, in childhood and in later life; but it is also a rich and deeply informed collection of commentaries, anecdotes, and literary biographies devoted to a sequence of travellers, colonists, cosmopolitans, novelists and other writers who found versions of Jack’s own fascination with the mesmerizing cultural mix of life in Hong Kong in the crucial years of change from the ‘50s to the handover in 1997. Precisely because of Jack’s personal touch the work challenges and demolishes many common misconceptions and popular myths about the Chinese character and has appeared at a time in geopolitics when this really matters. The idea of the Chinese within the Westerner and the Westerner with the Chinese is a central theme of this volume and anyone attempting to understand the complex political, linguistic, commercial and historical consequences of Britain’s precarious, shifting relations with this singular part of China today, with its hierarchical and historical divisions, its riches and destitution, will find many rewards. The human particularity of Jack’s approach to time and place, and the understandings available through the literary imagination, means there is much welcome food for thought about Hong Kong’s future.
Jack has executed his task with pleasing lucidity. The book is composed in a most engaging, available style and with a sharp sense of the comedy of human life and its opportunities for common ground between cultural strangers--the individuals sent out to administer the colony, and those administered by them. Jack’s format allows his personal voice to come through; but this is never at the expense of his subjects' perspectives: the sometimes astonishing, talented and resourceful people he foregrounds. This is a homage to Hong Kong, but also to the many writers who, like Jack, have made the life of the colony so much a part of their own.
Philip Smallwood
I have never been to Hong Kong neither have experienced that generation, but Malcom Jack paints an evocative picture of his life in Hong Kong. The characters are absolutely wonderful, some are quirky and amusing to follow and to learn how they made such a strong impact on Malcolm Jack's life.
A fascinating view of life in Hong Kong from multiple perspectives. Would highly recommend.
Sir Malcolm's evocative survey provides a most enjoyable introduction to the impressive clutch of authors who in their memoirs or autobiographical fiction recorded the last fifty years of colonial Hong Kong.
In "My Hong Kong" we are taken on a whirlwind tour from the lofty fortress of the Peak to the noisy bustle of the back streets of Kowloon. Through the eyes of Malcolm Jack's chosen writers the vibrant, sometimes seedy city comes to life in its splendour and its squalor. Highly recommended read from the author who was brought up in Hong Kong.
I found this a charming and instructive introduction to Hong Kong. With a deceptively light touch, Malcolm Jack traces developments in Hong Kong through the voices of various writers. Each figure is introduced to us and then a work is explored for what it has to tell us about the city. The result is a dazzling range of perspectives. An additional virtue of the book is, of course, that it introduces us to an enticing bibliography of further reading.
My Uncle Malcolm's book is his unique experience and this insightful. Nostalgic and romantic- love, loss and everything in between. A historic slice of Hongkong and it's complex history and people jump out of every page. The reading list and quotes use bring home the complex identities of those who lived and left this magical place. I am relishing every page and it's helping me with my own identity - Eurasian. This is my family's experience, and it is in part dedicated to my Grandmother Olga who encouraged me to paint. I am so inspired by this book I am currently working on a series of paintings. This book is comforting, intriguing and close to my heart. Bravo, outstanding, a must read. The proceeds go to the homeless of Hong Kong.
This very readable and atmospheric book is a survey of “how writers have seen Hong Kong and struggled with its identity from the 1950s to 1997”. It aims to capture the colourful reality of the Fragrant Harbour through considering a series of fictions depicting the “complex criss-cross pattern of relationships across the ethnically mixed colony”. Among the questions raised are ‘What is it to be Chinese?’ and ‘What is it to belong?’. ‘My Hong Kong’ is part literary criticism, part social history and partly perhaps an oblique autobiography, as Jack grew up in Hong Kong in the 1950s. It is an appealing introduction to the world of Hong Kong, coloured by nostalgic reflection.
Hong Kong is, or at least was, one my favorite cities, so anytime I find something intriguing to read about HK I buy it.
Mr. Jack grew up in Hong Kong, and unlike so many other authors that write about a plethora of subjects on a purely theoretical basis, he lived through the times he describes. The author takes us through a journey as viewed through the lens of other contemporary authors between the 1950s to the end of the British colonial period in 1997. It reminds me of a few years ago when I went to Hanoi, in that it is like stepping back into time.
Oddly enough, Mr. Jack mentioned that some people had their doubts (back in 1997) as to whether or not a "One Country Two Systems" approach could work and we now know clearly that it cannot.
Malcolm Jack ha dato un taglio originalissimo alla sua rappresentazione di Hong Kong, scegliendo di dedicare ciascun capitolo del libro a una scrittrice o scrittore che hanno eletto il ‘porto profumato’ a ispirazione delle proprie opere. Della realtà complessa, ibrida e affascinante, frutto dell’incontro tra Oriente e Occidente, Jack è la guida ideale. A Hong Kong è cresciuto, conosce la lingua e la cultura del posto e all’indomani del trasferimento di sovranità del 1997 ha prestato pure opera di consulenza presso il LEGCO, il consiglio legislativo della città, in qualità di esperto istituzionale di procedure legislative dell’ordinamento britannico. La sua Hong Kong è la città novecentesca che vive nell’attesa del ritorno alla Cina. È un libro essenziale, che meriterebbe una traduzione italiana.
This is a wonderful book for anyone seeking to understand the historic, latter 20th Century identity of Hong Kong through the eyes and experiences of real people whose lives and experiences crossed multiple boundaries in a very complex society in many ways. Dr Jack’s writing style is as dramatic as a Mahler Symphony, and draws one into each person’s life as if you were there. and then one can weave all this together in a collage of understanding a land and society in a way that would otherwise be unknown to the visitor of today. Read this book first, and then anything else about HK!
My Hong Kong è il lavoro di raccolta di Malcolm Jack dei punti di vista di autori di varie nazionalità che hanno vissuto nella Hong Kong tra gli anni Cinquanta e il 1997, anno della fine del controllo britannico. Ogni capitolo è dedicato ad uno scrittore diverso tramite cui vengono mostrate tutte le sfaccettatura della Hong Kong del tempo, dal lusso della Victoria Peak fino alle stradine vivaci di Kowloon, e, in particolare, sorge la questione della identità ibrida della città.
In My Hong Kong Malcolm Jack captures the essence of Hong Kong through the eyes of an eclectic group of authors, as well as his own experiences in that metropolis. This book has wide appeal and will be enjoyed by those with a passion for travel and those with a passion for literature alike. A most enjoyable read.
GC, Toronto.
Review of “My Hong Kong” by Malcolm Jack
How important are our first recollections? I personally remember the double-decker trams that trundled around the corner of Theobalds Road in London and into Kingsway via the tunnel that still remains to this day though no longer used for trams. Imagine my surprise, when visiting Hong Kong in 1996, to find similar modes of transport trundling through the streets there.
Malcolm Jack’s experience was altogether more exotic than that of most of us who have had the good fortune to learn Cantonese Chinese in Hong Kong at the knee of his Amah although this was not the more prestigious Mandarin Chinese, which perhaps touches on the theme of racism that keeps cropping up through the book. Nevertheless, the book also picks up that sense of excitement, dynamism and energy which would have infused the life of a young European lad.
The race issue comes across as the Mandarin Chinese speakers feel themselves to be superior to all other groups and all Chinese people look down on the Europeans. Surprisingly for a group of people considered to be inscrutable, the Chinese are more openly emotional than their British counterparts. Behind closed doors, British diplomatic elites look askance and make their asides about everybody else whilst keeping their emotions to themselves behind their stiff upper lips. Worse still is the broad contempt for the Eurasians by everyone else.
The 99-year lease of Hong Kong makes the period of the book quite unique - I don’t suppose the Chinese will lease it to anyone else in the near future now that it has been returned to them. Moreover, the book gathers stories from people with a complete gamut of backgrounds all of whom have been directly involved with the place in some way or other. There are those in diplomatic employment in Hong Kong, native Chinese who have always supported the Chinese way of life and those who have taken the opportunity to seek alternative lifestyles in the West. His writers come from periods throughout the tenure of the British 99-year lease but the racist attitudes seem the same no matter what the background of the writer or when they were writing.
As has been written, at the end of the day, Hong Kong is essentially Chinese (at least 95% of the population being so) and this has been the case throughout Britain’s tenure. The Hong Kong populace will gradually be absorbed into the “Chinese Empire” despite Britain’s efforts to try to dilute that effect. Whilst the Cantonese inhabitants may be more "devil may care” than their Chinese cousins further North, they are nevertheless Chinese not European or even “worse!” Eurasian. Race rears its ugly head in every place and in every walk of life. It seems to be inescapable whether in China or anywhere else in the world.
As I have said Malcolm Jack’s book draws on the experience of writers and commentators from all backgrounds but out of this he provides us with a nostalgic view of Hong Kong, clearly heartfelt, which has affected the most formative years of his life. A good and enlightening read.
Malcolm Jack’s book on Hong Kong is innovative, charming and compelling. Through his curious and sympathetic approach, the reader discovers a multicultural and multifaceted vibrant city. The various authors become part of a masterly crafted narrative, creating a rich tapestry of a fascinating city. It’s a very personal book, but, at the same time, with all its warmth, the reader is captivated and makes it somehow part of his own experience. I guess this is what a great book really is: a bridge between different worlds. And this is a very fine one!
It was a great pleasure to be transported back by Macolm Jack's book to the Hong Kong of my youth in the 50's and 60's. Reading the names of familiar people and places so evocatively described, my memory went back over the years, recalling the sights and sounds of busy streets, the aromas and flavours of different foods, the strange encounters with unusual people; remembering the annual celebrations of seasonal occasions, always accompanied by the rapid stutter of strings of fireworks; in short I relived the happy years of a childhood so enriched by the cosmopolitan nature of the colony. I have often struggled to describe those early experiences to friends and family in later years, but somehow the description never quite comes off. Unless I was talking to one who had been there and shared the experience, it has been well nigh impossible to convey the wonder and the excitement of that time, the rare friendships, trips to the beaches, weekly visits to the cinemas, the everyday stumbling upon new and unexpected places as one roamed about different districts in Hong Kong and Kowloon.
Now I shall be able to put "My Hong Kong" into their hands and say, "Read this and it will give you some idea of what it was like". From the careful selection of books about the Hong Kong of those years, Malcolm Jack in his comments has succeeded in conjuring up both a history of the times as perceived by the different communities who came to the colony as businessmen and bankers, shopkeepers, fishermen, colonial officials, refugees and migrants, expatriates from around the globe, all playing very different parts, the very rich and the very poor. At the same time the references to particular places, Wanchai, the Peak, Repulse Bay, Aberdeen, Nathan Road, Kowloon Tong and many others, each invested with their own charcteristic associations that he so accurately recounts, gives the receptive reader a vivid picture of the kaleidoscopic nature of those years. The Hong Kong of that time has long passed, but thanks to this book, as aide-memoire for those who were there, or, for others as an evocative account of a wondrous time and place in the middle of the twentieth century, it remains an indelible vision of what once was.
“My Hong Kong” by Malcolm Jack is a delightful read.
The quotes and stories from other books add to the pleasure and depth. This makes one want to re-read or read these books as no one has a better perception of the backdrop that they were set against.
It is a pity that there is not much about Malcolm Jack’s experiences in Hong Kong as to what happened after he attended school in England and returned for holidays. It would be nice to learn more about his enlightened parents and why they went against the colonial norm by allowing Malcolm to learn the local vernacular.
Another matter that would be a delightful episode to include is how in later years he went in search of his beloved Ah Lan.
Reading this book brought back many memories of my childhood in colonial Hong Kong. The writings captured in its pages reflect the complex attitudes of people living in a place that was a mélange of cultures, identities, and histories. The book is a vintage documentary of a bygone age, a lovely time capsule.
This is an important and entertaining book not only for those who are familiar with Hong Kong's history and civilisation, but also for those who know little about this extraordinary place. The author draws colourful and informative portraits of people whose life and work made what Hong Kong had became: one of world's great centres of commerce, civilisation and culture.
Malcolm Jack is doubly qualified to write this book. First, he spent his childhood there, but more importantly, he had maintained and cultivated a life-long relationship. Even after he had retired as Clerk of the House of Commons, he shared his extensive expertise of knowledge of democratic governance to the younger generations - until this was possible. It is the current political changes which lend this book its urgency and importance. As the history of Hong Kong is going to be-written, this book remains a faithful testimony of the world of yesterday.
With colonization increasingly declining, it is a relief to read Malcolm Jack’s superb collection of essays based on his, and fellow authors' experiences of growing up and living in Hong Kong. This last of Britain’s colonies is a rich source of material; of fascinating insights of a bygone era. Malcolm Jack must take full credit for this beautiful and timely book.
I very much enjoyed "My Hong Kong".
It took me back to a place I knew well in my young days but in a different way through the eyes of Malcolm Jack's chosen authors, some of whom were familiar to me and some new.
A very original and entertaining read.
This is an instructive and entertaining read, particularly for those of us who grew up in one of the far corners of the 'colonial' Anglosphere. In his warm review of both his own and various others' experiences of Hong Kong, he communicates the deep affection of the wide variety of personalities making up this fascinating place during its British years. His account vividly counters the current automatic negativity related to all things 'colonial', and leaves the reader in no doubt as to the hugely positive contribution that the colony made to so much that was good about the 20th century.
