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Hong Kong
In its last days under British rule, the Crown Colony of Hong Kong is the world's most exciting city, at once fascinating and exasperating, a tangle of contradictions. It is a dazzling amalgam of conspicuous consumption and primitive poverty, the most architecturally incongruous yet undeniably beautiful urban panorama of all. World-renowned travel writer Jan Morris offers the most insightful and comprehensive study of the enigma of Hong Kong thus far.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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754 people want to read
About the author
Jan Morris
166?books462?followersJan Morris was a British historian, author and travel writer. Morris was educated at Lancing College, West Sussex, and Christ Church, Oxford, but is Welsh by heritage and adoption. Before 1970 Morris published under her assigned birth name, "James ", and is known particularly for the Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, notably Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong, and New York City, and also wrote about Wales, Spanish history, and culture.
In 1949 Jan Morris married Elizabeth Tuckniss, the daughter of a tea planter. Morris and Tuckniss had five children together, including the poet and musician Twm Morys. One of their children died in infancy. As Morris documented in her memoir Conundrum, she began taking oestrogens to feminise her body in 1964. In 1972, she had sex reassignment surgery in Morocco. Sex reassignment surgeon Georges Burou did the surgery, since doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and Tuckniss divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do at the time. They divorced later, but remained together and later got a civil union. On May, 14th, 2008, Morris and Tuckniss remarried each other. Morris lived mostly in Wales, where her parents were from.
In 1949 Jan Morris married Elizabeth Tuckniss, the daughter of a tea planter. Morris and Tuckniss had five children together, including the poet and musician Twm Morys. One of their children died in infancy. As Morris documented in her memoir Conundrum, she began taking oestrogens to feminise her body in 1964. In 1972, she had sex reassignment surgery in Morocco. Sex reassignment surgeon Georges Burou did the surgery, since doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and Tuckniss divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do at the time. They divorced later, but remained together and later got a civil union. On May, 14th, 2008, Morris and Tuckniss remarried each other. Morris lived mostly in Wales, where her parents were from.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
July 27, 2021
Free for Audible-Plus members. Narrated by Wanda McCaddon / Nadia May.
Don't miss this, if the history of Hong Kong as a British colony interests you. It takes you up to about a decade before 1997 when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule.
I learned much about Hong Kong's colonial history. I learned about the diversity of its residents and the atmosphere, the tone of life on the island, the peninsula and the territories starting from the 1830s. Above and beyond the straight history learned, I particularly enjoyed getting a sense of how life is lived, the tempo and mood of the inhabitants, a sense of their ambitions and dreams and what makes them tick. I appreciate imbibing the cultural atmosphere of the place and how this has changed with the passage of years.
In my reading, I was often interrupted. Life is hectic at moment. My review, due to lack of time, is cursory. I want to have said that the book is well worth reading. History and culture are blended, and this is to my taste. I Ideas and thoughts are well formulated.
The book does NOT cover the actual 1997 transition of power to China. I wish a chapter on the transition had been added to the later editions.
The narration by Wanda McCaddon / Nadia May, with her strong British accent, suits the book perfectly. She speaks clearly. I like that she pauses a second or two after each sentence. This gives the reader tine to think and absorb and analyze what has been said. Four stars for the narration.
Don't miss this, if the history of Hong Kong as a British colony interests you. It takes you up to about a decade before 1997 when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule.
I learned much about Hong Kong's colonial history. I learned about the diversity of its residents and the atmosphere, the tone of life on the island, the peninsula and the territories starting from the 1830s. Above and beyond the straight history learned, I particularly enjoyed getting a sense of how life is lived, the tempo and mood of the inhabitants, a sense of their ambitions and dreams and what makes them tick. I appreciate imbibing the cultural atmosphere of the place and how this has changed with the passage of years.
In my reading, I was often interrupted. Life is hectic at moment. My review, due to lack of time, is cursory. I want to have said that the book is well worth reading. History and culture are blended, and this is to my taste. I Ideas and thoughts are well formulated.
The book does NOT cover the actual 1997 transition of power to China. I wish a chapter on the transition had been added to the later editions.
The narration by Wanda McCaddon / Nadia May, with her strong British accent, suits the book perfectly. She speaks clearly. I like that she pauses a second or two after each sentence. This gives the reader tine to think and absorb and analyze what has been said. Four stars for the narration.
November 1, 2019
My second book this year was Jan Morris's Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere and I enjoyed that one so much that I vowed to read another of hers about some distant city each forthcoming year. But only one a year! I figured this would take me to the end of my days.
And I almost made it to next year. But then I started reading about ongoing riots in Hong Kong and how even LeBron James had to scold an executive of a basketball team for not being "educated" about Hong Kong (the executive apparently voicing support for human rights). So I thought I would start to get educated. Conveniently, Jan Morris has written of Hong Kong; and, well, it is almost next year.
This book was written in 1988, which is important because that is exactly nine years before Britain would turn over Hong Kong to China. So it's a very interesting perspective. There is the history (how Hong Kong got British in the first place) as well as a look around at the state of things before the lease expires. This allows Morris, then, to ask And now what? What issues will there be? And so we can read today's news as a tableau, better informed and almost educated.
Morris explains all this very well, with recognizable wit and charm. Although it did almost get tedious. Here are some Morris insights and reflections:
-- The later Victorians built Victorianly, regardless in their confident way of climate or precedent.
-- The beauty is the beauty, like it or not, of the capitalist system. More than a usual share of the city's energies goes towards the making of money, and nobody has ever pretended otherwise.
-- An old tale tells of the Chinese gentleman who, watching a pair of Englishmen sweating away at a game of tennis, inquired why they did not hire coolies to play it for them.
-- An American airline pilot once told me that he never made the landing without a clenching of the stomach, so demanding is the flight path, and no passenger who has ever flown into modern Kai Tak, especially at night, is likely to forget the excitement of the experience, as the harbor unfolds itself around one's windows, as the myriad of lights glitter, as first the mountains, then the skyscrapers rush by, and one lands mysteriously on the runway among the waters, the deep blue of the seas on either side, the starry blue sky above, as in the middle of some fabulously illuminated bowl of glass.
-- Many of the British themselves could not contemplate the existence of Hong Kong, however dazzlingly it spoke of British enterprise and even of British benevolence, without some tremor of vicarious shame. Most of them knew very little about Hong Kong, but they did know there was something disreputable about its possession. Wasn't it something to do with opium? Weren't the police supposed to be bent? Hadn't they read something in the Guardian about a disgraceful lack of democratic rights?
-- The taste that Hong Kong leaves behind will be the last taste of the Pax Britannica.
-- And if they fail, and the people of Hong Kong remain to the end powerless to govern their own affairs, vulnerable to anything that may come out of China? Then the British will leave behind them, if not a sense of betrayal, at least a sense of disappointment. They will have missed the chance to give Hong Kong the one quality it has always lacked--nobility, the balance of purpose and proportion that the geomancers strive for.
It's just a start in my education. It's always so. I learned that Hong Kong and "the new territories" were just a bunch of rocks. But people built there, first to sell opium, and later to sell bonds. It flourished so that countries and religions and governments would wink away the niceties of contradictions. As will champions today, who have something to sell.
And I almost made it to next year. But then I started reading about ongoing riots in Hong Kong and how even LeBron James had to scold an executive of a basketball team for not being "educated" about Hong Kong (the executive apparently voicing support for human rights). So I thought I would start to get educated. Conveniently, Jan Morris has written of Hong Kong; and, well, it is almost next year.
This book was written in 1988, which is important because that is exactly nine years before Britain would turn over Hong Kong to China. So it's a very interesting perspective. There is the history (how Hong Kong got British in the first place) as well as a look around at the state of things before the lease expires. This allows Morris, then, to ask And now what? What issues will there be? And so we can read today's news as a tableau, better informed and almost educated.
Morris explains all this very well, with recognizable wit and charm. Although it did almost get tedious. Here are some Morris insights and reflections:
-- The later Victorians built Victorianly, regardless in their confident way of climate or precedent.
-- The beauty is the beauty, like it or not, of the capitalist system. More than a usual share of the city's energies goes towards the making of money, and nobody has ever pretended otherwise.
-- An old tale tells of the Chinese gentleman who, watching a pair of Englishmen sweating away at a game of tennis, inquired why they did not hire coolies to play it for them.
-- An American airline pilot once told me that he never made the landing without a clenching of the stomach, so demanding is the flight path, and no passenger who has ever flown into modern Kai Tak, especially at night, is likely to forget the excitement of the experience, as the harbor unfolds itself around one's windows, as the myriad of lights glitter, as first the mountains, then the skyscrapers rush by, and one lands mysteriously on the runway among the waters, the deep blue of the seas on either side, the starry blue sky above, as in the middle of some fabulously illuminated bowl of glass.
-- Many of the British themselves could not contemplate the existence of Hong Kong, however dazzlingly it spoke of British enterprise and even of British benevolence, without some tremor of vicarious shame. Most of them knew very little about Hong Kong, but they did know there was something disreputable about its possession. Wasn't it something to do with opium? Weren't the police supposed to be bent? Hadn't they read something in the Guardian about a disgraceful lack of democratic rights?
-- The taste that Hong Kong leaves behind will be the last taste of the Pax Britannica.
-- And if they fail, and the people of Hong Kong remain to the end powerless to govern their own affairs, vulnerable to anything that may come out of China? Then the British will leave behind them, if not a sense of betrayal, at least a sense of disappointment. They will have missed the chance to give Hong Kong the one quality it has always lacked--nobility, the balance of purpose and proportion that the geomancers strive for.
It's just a start in my education. It's always so. I learned that Hong Kong and "the new territories" were just a bunch of rocks. But people built there, first to sell opium, and later to sell bonds. It flourished so that countries and religions and governments would wink away the niceties of contradictions. As will champions today, who have something to sell.
July 13, 2021
I started this book as I truly appreciate travel narrative genre, but would classify the material strongly as history here, although Morris does give an incredibly strong sense of place in terms of setting and description. We get a look at the early (western) settlers first, a surprisingly American lot as it turned out, as well as the boom years of the early 20th century, and a good feel for the Japanese occupation. Naturally, for a story written between the 1984 agreement and the actual 1997 transfer, the author focuses on what Hong Kong "means" in terms of British history, as well as the thorny issue of whether the city is more Chinese or western (similar to whether Turkey is Asian or European)? Conclusion contains a warning (prediction) about freedom-of-speech restrictions, including a reminder of the provisions in the treaty giving Britain the status of "interested party" until 2047 in terms of creating issues with China over that, if they feel it necessary (though unlikely).
Five stars for brilliant writing (no surprise there) as well as the perfect audio narration that definitely enhanced the text. Highly recommended as addressing the question: "Who are Hong Kong people (including long-term westerners)?"
Five stars for brilliant writing (no surprise there) as well as the perfect audio narration that definitely enhanced the text. Highly recommended as addressing the question: "Who are Hong Kong people (including long-term westerners)?"
May 2, 2024
Even though the cover of the edition I have sports the subtitle ¡®Epilogue to an Empire¡¯, the correct subtitle to Jan Morris¡¯ Hong Kong is ¡®The End of an Empire¡¯, more accurate in that even this 1990 updating still long preceded the handing over of the colony to mainland China in 1997, a truer encapsulation of the eclipse of Empire. What this revision does do, however, is to take into account the social and cultural repercussions of the Tiananmen Square massacre which took place in the year which intervened between hardback and paperback, an inauspicious augury for the run-up to 1997 which Morris discusses in the closing pages.
I had two justifications to read this book, if any were needed. One was because I enjoyed Morris¡¯ foray into fiction, the two instalments that comprise Hav, in which she visited an imaginary Mediterranean country in her guise as a travel writer; into this she poured her experiences of commenting on many places worldwide and distilling the essential character or personality of each geographical entity, thereby successfully evoking the otherness of so many unfamiliar locations. The second reason was because, having myself spent a decade as a child in Hong Kong, I was curious to know both the changes which had taken place in the half century or so since I had left and to see if the impressions I¡¯d acquired as that child under ten had any bearing on reality.
It was an unsettling read. Alongside many fleeting memories prompted by smells, sights and sounds that Morris hints at in passing she relates more uncomfortable historical facts largely concerning the forcible annexation of the island and adjacent territories, albeit by treaty, and multiple examples of misgovernment ranging from ineptitude to arrogance, occasionally mitigated by a kind of benign dictatorship. As well as more historically distant distressing episodes in the colony¡¯s history, I was largely unaware of the nature of the Japanese occupation which had ended less than five years before I was first taken to live there, on the Kowloon peninsula, at the tender age of less than two years old.
I was however fascinated to have much of what I took for granted put into context: streets named after influential individuals, Hong Kong¡¯s significance in geopolitics and commerce, the isolated nature of the ex-pat community and the unique relationship that existed between native Chinese and transient British. I also had an inkling of why post-war Hong Kong itself felt transient, not just because populations and economies were growing, but because there was an uneasy stand-off involving Britain, Communist China and the United States, whose cultural sway was then much more prevalent than I understood.
I did find this a tough read: two or three times I put it aside, not because Morris is not an engaging writer (she certainly is, with the enviable ability to confidently intersperse dispassionate observations with personal anecdotes) but because the information she packs in is dense and, even for one with a little experience of the island, bewildering. Have no doubt about it, she writes with authority as a frequent visitor, a widely-read researcher and an experienced commentator, but I was often confused as to whether this was primarily a history, a social critique or a travelogue. Of necessity this is told from the viewpoint of an interested outsider; there is not much reflection of the views of the ordinary Chinese people, and it would be wrong to criticise the book for not so doing: after all, the clue is in the subtitle of the book.
There is a fine bibliography going up to the eighties when the book was first published, several sketch maps to help the reader navigate around the island and its hinterland, and a detailed index, though I would have also welcomed a short glossary of terms such as hong which frequently re-appear in later pages after only a passing definition which it is easy to miss or forget. And of course much has changed in the interim, meaning that the few select photographs can only literally give snapshot impressions of life in the Pearl of the Orient, and that inadequately. But nowadays in the world of the internet a wider variety of images are almost instantly available so as to render the paucity of pictures irrelevant.
I had two justifications to read this book, if any were needed. One was because I enjoyed Morris¡¯ foray into fiction, the two instalments that comprise Hav, in which she visited an imaginary Mediterranean country in her guise as a travel writer; into this she poured her experiences of commenting on many places worldwide and distilling the essential character or personality of each geographical entity, thereby successfully evoking the otherness of so many unfamiliar locations. The second reason was because, having myself spent a decade as a child in Hong Kong, I was curious to know both the changes which had taken place in the half century or so since I had left and to see if the impressions I¡¯d acquired as that child under ten had any bearing on reality.
It was an unsettling read. Alongside many fleeting memories prompted by smells, sights and sounds that Morris hints at in passing she relates more uncomfortable historical facts largely concerning the forcible annexation of the island and adjacent territories, albeit by treaty, and multiple examples of misgovernment ranging from ineptitude to arrogance, occasionally mitigated by a kind of benign dictatorship. As well as more historically distant distressing episodes in the colony¡¯s history, I was largely unaware of the nature of the Japanese occupation which had ended less than five years before I was first taken to live there, on the Kowloon peninsula, at the tender age of less than two years old.
I was however fascinated to have much of what I took for granted put into context: streets named after influential individuals, Hong Kong¡¯s significance in geopolitics and commerce, the isolated nature of the ex-pat community and the unique relationship that existed between native Chinese and transient British. I also had an inkling of why post-war Hong Kong itself felt transient, not just because populations and economies were growing, but because there was an uneasy stand-off involving Britain, Communist China and the United States, whose cultural sway was then much more prevalent than I understood.
I did find this a tough read: two or three times I put it aside, not because Morris is not an engaging writer (she certainly is, with the enviable ability to confidently intersperse dispassionate observations with personal anecdotes) but because the information she packs in is dense and, even for one with a little experience of the island, bewildering. Have no doubt about it, she writes with authority as a frequent visitor, a widely-read researcher and an experienced commentator, but I was often confused as to whether this was primarily a history, a social critique or a travelogue. Of necessity this is told from the viewpoint of an interested outsider; there is not much reflection of the views of the ordinary Chinese people, and it would be wrong to criticise the book for not so doing: after all, the clue is in the subtitle of the book.
There is a fine bibliography going up to the eighties when the book was first published, several sketch maps to help the reader navigate around the island and its hinterland, and a detailed index, though I would have also welcomed a short glossary of terms such as hong which frequently re-appear in later pages after only a passing definition which it is easy to miss or forget. And of course much has changed in the interim, meaning that the few select photographs can only literally give snapshot impressions of life in the Pearl of the Orient, and that inadequately. But nowadays in the world of the internet a wider variety of images are almost instantly available so as to render the paucity of pictures irrelevant.
September 23, 2017
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September 28, 2015
This book is a mix of history and some contemporary portraits of colonial Hong Kong. The book focuses almost exclusively on British personages and mundane colonial details and really never gets around to exploring the Chineseness. I was really disappointed by this. The book is also dated, curiously fixates on arcane and somewhat random details and quotes and does not shed much light on the actual people of Hong Kong (aside from the aristocracy and business elites). Barely got through it on my trip to Hong Kong and was constantly wishing I had a different book. A more balanced and nuanced history would make for a better travel read.
January 8, 2025
I found this book somewhere in Bedstuy near our first apartment 4 years ago. Someone talked me out of reading it but I always kept it in my room, even as we moved two more times. Who knows, maybe I was supposed to read it right now for some reason but I really liked this book. I realized I knew little to nothing about Hong Kong aside from the name itself. I had no idea that British colonized HK in the mid 19th century. And that they were apart of the opium trade/wars. They were one of the last colonies of the (failed) British Empire. Although Britain did industrialize Hong Kong, which in turn eventually helped HK become one of the top financial centers on the globe. I wasn¡¯t aware of Japans occupation of HK during WW2 either. The interactions with Japan, Taiwan, Pakistan, India, Britain, Canada, America, Singapore, Australia and more are very interesting to me. The varying religious practices including Buddhism, Daoism, Animism, Christianity etc. The question of Communism and how far it will go in China. So many things led to Hong Kong becoming what it is today. Another piece of the world¡¯s development over the past 200 years. Victorian Era Britain was really onto something. Too bad she passed, maybe she was their good luck charm. Hong Kong was given back to China but it seems to be semi-autonomous. That still confuses me but if they like it I love it.
April 29, 2013
Jan Morris called Britain's handling of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong "sufficiently stylish". I think that's meant to be faint praise.
Funnily enough, that's the exact phrase I'd use to describe her book. But my praise isn't faint.
Morris has a lot of love for word-play and a lot of love for Hong Kong. The prose is luxurious and the history enlightening.
A powerful strain of colonial nostalgia pervades the book. Morris never lets us forget, though, Britain's exploitative history with China, and that's definitely to her credit.
Reading it now, this attitude of the British expatriate in Hong Kong seems impossibly distant. Almost unrelatable. In 2013, with Shenzhen looming large in the north, it's hard to imagine Hong Kong as a European outpost. For me, though, that was part of the fun of this book -- it's an interesting relic.
I recommend "Hong Kong" for people who live there. It will definitely strengthen your sense of place, and will help you appreciate the historical moment that you find yourself in one of the world's great, complicated cities.
Funnily enough, that's the exact phrase I'd use to describe her book. But my praise isn't faint.
Morris has a lot of love for word-play and a lot of love for Hong Kong. The prose is luxurious and the history enlightening.
A powerful strain of colonial nostalgia pervades the book. Morris never lets us forget, though, Britain's exploitative history with China, and that's definitely to her credit.
Reading it now, this attitude of the British expatriate in Hong Kong seems impossibly distant. Almost unrelatable. In 2013, with Shenzhen looming large in the north, it's hard to imagine Hong Kong as a European outpost. For me, though, that was part of the fun of this book -- it's an interesting relic.
I recommend "Hong Kong" for people who live there. It will definitely strengthen your sense of place, and will help you appreciate the historical moment that you find yourself in one of the world's great, complicated cities.
July 9, 2015
Morris interposes descriptions of Hong Kong's founding with the status of Hong Kong in its waning years as a colony in the late 1980s. Many of the descriptions and speculations are necessarily dated, but the early wrok examining the origins of the colony (my reason for reading the book) were still quite good.
July 31, 2019
More relevant than ever before.
March 8, 2025
Jan Morris writes well about Hong Kong. It has the whiff of the British myth of benevolent colonialism, along with a sense of distaste for traditional Chinese culture and Communism. It¡¯s told with subtlety but you get this flavour, and it is explicitly stated near the end. Nevertheless, Jan, formerly James¡ªI want to read her book about this transition¡ªdoes mostly write evenhandedly and in fact you do also get the sense that she likes Chinese people and clearly sees the unfairness of how Hong Kong was taken, and how many were treated. But ultimately, to her, it¡¯s the British who left Hong Kong with the beginnings of democracy, just as they were packing up. She doesn¡¯t convey any cynicism about this. But clearly the British never wanted it to be democratic while they were in charge.
Anyway, it¡¯s well written. There¡¯s a sense of pace, narrative (not easy when you¡¯re writing about a city). She read a lot and this information gets shared liberally. It¡¯s probably a master class in how to write about a city.
One thing I learned is that actually Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were largely taken by force, theoretically to be held in perpetuity. It was the New Territories (deeper into the mainland towards the to be built Shenzhen), and the surrounding islands and rocks (over 200 of them), which were supposedly leased for 99 years. Obviously they were all ¡°unequal¡± treaties and agreements, when China was at a low ebb of its power and the Empire at its acme of strength and aggression.
It¡¯s always possible to argue that they were all doing empire back then (obviously not literally all), that that was the old battle ground between great powers, like A.I is now. Some will then think that Britain was almost necessitated to partake in the plunder. I imagine people think like this. Perhaps this is Jan¡¯s deep down understanding. Given this, then to her, Britain took a rocky island and transformed it into something magnificent before returning it to China. This latter idea of a positive transformation she clearly conveys, seeming to write positively of Chris Patten, the final governor, and the final state in which Hong Kong was handed back.
The mostly accurate and insightful aspects of the book include the fact that Hong Kong has been reliant on the mainland for food and water for probably the majority of its existence. It was therefore China¡¯s compliance which allowed the colony to survive and flourish. At any time it could probably have been taken back. One reason that it wasn¡¯t, beyond reasons of diplomacy, is that Hong Kong has benefited both sides as a gateway to China, and a conduit for business and trade.
Ultimately, what do I know in the infancy of my knowledge on such things? I don¡¯t think this book is readily available here in China, which isn¡¯t too surprising considering some of the later statements in the book. It¡¯s decent, barring a few sensitive issues and that pungent British myth making.
Anyway, it¡¯s well written. There¡¯s a sense of pace, narrative (not easy when you¡¯re writing about a city). She read a lot and this information gets shared liberally. It¡¯s probably a master class in how to write about a city.
One thing I learned is that actually Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were largely taken by force, theoretically to be held in perpetuity. It was the New Territories (deeper into the mainland towards the to be built Shenzhen), and the surrounding islands and rocks (over 200 of them), which were supposedly leased for 99 years. Obviously they were all ¡°unequal¡± treaties and agreements, when China was at a low ebb of its power and the Empire at its acme of strength and aggression.
It¡¯s always possible to argue that they were all doing empire back then (obviously not literally all), that that was the old battle ground between great powers, like A.I is now. Some will then think that Britain was almost necessitated to partake in the plunder. I imagine people think like this. Perhaps this is Jan¡¯s deep down understanding. Given this, then to her, Britain took a rocky island and transformed it into something magnificent before returning it to China. This latter idea of a positive transformation she clearly conveys, seeming to write positively of Chris Patten, the final governor, and the final state in which Hong Kong was handed back.
The mostly accurate and insightful aspects of the book include the fact that Hong Kong has been reliant on the mainland for food and water for probably the majority of its existence. It was therefore China¡¯s compliance which allowed the colony to survive and flourish. At any time it could probably have been taken back. One reason that it wasn¡¯t, beyond reasons of diplomacy, is that Hong Kong has benefited both sides as a gateway to China, and a conduit for business and trade.
Ultimately, what do I know in the infancy of my knowledge on such things? I don¡¯t think this book is readily available here in China, which isn¡¯t too surprising considering some of the later statements in the book. It¡¯s decent, barring a few sensitive issues and that pungent British myth making.
April 4, 2024
It covers a lot of ground and Jan Morris writes in her usual style, conjuring up all the romance that she found in the British imperial story. The Hong Kong Chinese are treated as almost from another world in this book - Morris appears to have had very little to do with the people directly and seems afraid of them. She criticises the old British ¡®redneck¡¯ racism of the earlier colonial period - while using racial language which would have been offensive when this was written in the late 1980s. Orientalism - published 10 years earlier - seems to have been taken by Morris as a challenge to stereotype and other. Her Pax Brittanica series were some of the first history books I read as a kid - found lying around in my dad¡¯s stacks of books - so not my first encounter with Morris. I suppose for students of colonialism understanding the adventurism that people like Morris found in these histories is important, the stories of the retreat from Kabul or Rourke¡¯s drift... In this book, a colonial comfortably assures Morris that it was British prudent administration and laisse faire capitalism that had created the marvel of Hong Kong. [the application of these methods in the Irish famine or in Bengal seem easily forgotten]. She also sees no irony in setting up an image of Chinese vice in the use of opium in the city. The millions of refugees whose labour had built the city are kept to the margins. This book seems to find a quiet delight in the idea of pink maps, prudent paternalism and clever colonial administrators. ¡®That poet of China long ago foresaw the city glittering with lights like the star of heaven and his prophecy has been fulfilled.¡¯ Thanks to ¡®the vigour and enterprise of the British¡¯. Hmmm. Well she writes nicely I guess...
August 27, 2024
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[ review ]
from a historical perspective, an absolutely fascinating read, detailing life on hk from the moment the british struck down their flags to the anticipation of their departure in 1997 (this book was written a few years before). a comprehensive history of how hk has survived and exceeded its status as a colony. from an anthropological perspective, frustratingly stereotypical in terms of descriptions of people:
so I¡¯d definitely take morris¡¯ ethnographic descriptions with a pinch of salt. the narrative is heavily focalised on the imperial perspective and can unintentionally slip into segregating that of the chinese.
[ ? 4.5 stars ? ]
[ review ]
from a historical perspective, an absolutely fascinating read, detailing life on hk from the moment the british struck down their flags to the anticipation of their departure in 1997 (this book was written a few years before). a comprehensive history of how hk has survived and exceeded its status as a colony. from an anthropological perspective, frustratingly stereotypical in terms of descriptions of people:
¡®a couple of local toughs bear themselves like characters from a kung fu drama, long-haired, sit-eyed, heavily muscled around the shoulders'
so I¡¯d definitely take morris¡¯ ethnographic descriptions with a pinch of salt. the narrative is heavily focalised on the imperial perspective and can unintentionally slip into segregating that of the chinese.
[ ? 4.5 stars ? ]
August 3, 2019
I love Jan Morris's writing but this book has passed its "use by" date. Times have moved on beyond the looming 1997 return to China and recent events suggest that everyone's worst fears may yet come to pass. (Purchased at Skoob Books, London.)
April 23, 2013
Greatly enjoyed this book especially since I read this right before a trip to HK.
April 16, 2014
Beautifully written. Easy to get through. Liked it a lot.
July 15, 2016
Pretty good book summing up the history and development of Hong Kong since it's establishment up to year 1997. From it's start, it's been a business oriented place, shameful as it were, from the despicable practice of British Empire's opium trade to the modern financial centre, it's always been a special place, distinct from any other British colonies, while seen as a unjust theft by the China.
While a really good writeup on development of Hong Kong, objectively examining the causes of it's change and growth, the lack of follow up after the year 1997 made me give it four stars. The style is also a bit difficult, sometimes with long, winding sentences.
Some selected quotes:
While a really good writeup on development of Hong Kong, objectively examining the causes of it's change and growth, the lack of follow up after the year 1997 made me give it four stars. The style is also a bit difficult, sometimes with long, winding sentences.
Some selected quotes:
Almost nothing seems built to last. It is said that no city in history has grown so fast as has Hong Kong in the past thirty years, and the place has little time for posterity.
Everyone is trying to move on ¨C to bigger apartments, to better-paid jobs, to classier districts, often enough out of the territory altogether. The national flower of Hong Kong is the Bauhinia, a sterile hybrid which produces no seed.
It is an abnormal city. Until our own times it has been predominantly a city of refugees, with all the hallmarks of a refugee society ¨C the single-minded obsession with the making of money, amounting almost to neurosis, and the perpetual sense of underlying insecurity, which makes everything more tense and more nervous.
Great Seal of the colony, designed in 1844 by the Queen¡¯s own medallist-in-chief, depicted beneath the royal crest a waterfront piled profitably with what might have been tea-boxes, but were generally assumed to be opium chests. In 1844 the Governor himself declared that almost anyone with any capital in the colony was either in the Government service, or else in the drug trade.
Yet all too often Hong Kong depressed its visitors ¨C ¡®like a beautiful woman with a bad temper¡¯, thought Lawrence Oliphant, who went there in the next decade. Was it just the climate? Was it the cramped and improvised environment? Was it the lack of any higher purpose or ideology, such as inspired the imperialists in other parts of their Empire ¨C Raffles of Singapore, for instance, who hoped the British would leave a message for posterity ¡®written in characters of light¡¯? Or were the colonists of Hong Kong even then, consciously or subconsciously, overawed by the presence of China beyond the harbour, so enervated and contemptible in the 1840s, but surely so certain, one day, to come mightily into its own?
Bear in mind that just across the bay, on Stanley Beach in 1943, thirty-three British, Indian and Chinese citizens were beheaded for alleged High Treason against the Japanese occupying Power! The Japanese association with Hong Kong has been ambiguous indeed. On the one hand their armies were the only armies ever to invade the colony, on the other for many years their foreign trade was largely financed by the colony¡¯s banks. On the one shore the children merrily bathing, on the other the bloodied heads falling on the sand.
True feng shui had nothing to do with magic, although in the old China it used to be given an esoteric mystery by magicians in yellow robes. It was a matter of harmony between man and nature, and was concerned with location, with colour, with proportion. As he scribbled some illustrative diagrams in my notebook, and considered the question of whether feng shui was an art or a science (a philosophy, he rather thought), he told me that he was never short of geomantic business.
They are extremely lively, extremely neat, extremely polite and engaging young people. Talking loudly, laughing a lot, with their bright blue rucksacks, their sneakers and their Walkman radios they look thoroughly modern, and if you engage them in conversation you will find that they are liberated in their emotions too. They may seem to think more practically, calculate more exactly than their counterparts in the west. They are still, as a rule, far more devoted to their families. But they are certainly not interested only, as the old Hong Kong canard has it, in money, and they are noticeably not respectful to the old Confucianist ideas of a rigid social order. They are just as idealistic, no more, no less, than young Europeans or Americans, just as concerned with a proper balance of life, between the necessary making of money and enjoyable ways of using it. Some are power-hungry, some drop-outs, some honest plodders, some dreamers. All in all, they are as likeable and normal a generation as you will find anywhere in the world, freed at last from the burdens and inhibitions of the Chinese condition.
The proximity of Portuguese Macao, neutral in time of war, jolly with food, wine and gambling halls in peace, has always been an inescapable fact of Hong Kong life. Sometimes it has been politically convenient to go there, sometimes it has been economically handy. Villains have fled to refuge, unmarried couples have found solace, escaped prisoners have been succoured, and in the early years of Hong Kong rich merchants still possessed pleasure-houses in Macao, as they had in the day of the Guangzhou hongs. Even during the Second World War the Macao ferries still sailed.
...by the 1970s Hong Kong industry was relatively respectable, and the colony was no longer an underdeveloped country with a sophisticated entrepreneurial superstructure, but one of the world¡¯s great productive Powers. The 418 registered factories of 1939, the 1,266 of 1948, had become by 1986 148,623. It was the most phenomenally rapid of all the world¡¯s industrial revolutions. Now Hong Kong stands, they say, sixteenth among them all, exporting, with its 6.4 million population, more than India¡¯s 880 million. Its average wages are second only to Japan¡¯s in Asia. Critics say it is still too improvisatory or even amateurish of method, too dependent upon cheap labour and traditional management, and that there is a growing shortage of sufficiently advanced technicians. Nevertheless the territory shows no signs of falling back.
Hong Kong is the world¡¯s largest exporter of textiles, toys and watches. It prints books in every language, and makes more films for the cinema than anywhere else except India.
The chief strength of this economy has always been its flexibility. Because it has been relatively free from Government interference, it has been able to switch easily from idea to idea, method to method, emphasis to emphasis. If it is frighteningly changeable sometimes, it has proved resilient too, swiftly recovering its poise after wars, revolutions, riots, share collapses and even treaties about its future.
Hong Kong enjoys absolute freedom of speech and opportunity, but no freedom at all to choose its rulers.
In 1966, at a time when Triad infiltration of his force was rampant, Hong Kong¡¯s Commissioner of Police admitted that there was corruption in virtually every walk of life, but added cheerfully that ¡®in terms of money the police force is probably not the worst¡¯.
The Hong Kong Tramway Company is the only surviving builder of wooden double-deck streetcars (though it does not exactly build them, but rather maintains them as palimpsests, constantly replacing parts, adding improvements, so that none of its 160 vehicles are exactly the same, and none can really be dated).
Hongkong and Shanghai Bank is in effect the Central Bank of Hong Kong, one of the very few non-Governmental concerns to fulfil such a role in the modern world. It holds the colony¡¯s reserves, and together with the Bank of China and the Chartered Bank, which is part of a London-based conglomerate, it issues all the colony¡¯s notes in denominations of ten dollars and above; they are ornamented with pictures of the Bank¡¯s offices, and signed by the Chief Accountant.
August 21, 2024
Jan Morris¡¯ book on Hong Kong is an unusual book. It was written prior to the 1997 handover in 1988, when Hong Kong was theoretically returned to China after being a British colony for more than 100 years. However, the complete authority for China is not to ¡°officially¡± happen until 2047. However, there have been some issues before then-including the 2019-2020 pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong. I chose to read this book while visiting Hong Kong in the summer of 2024. It is something of a chronological look at the city interspersed with observations about the city throughout the book. For example, Chapter 6 1880s: The Compleat Colony is followed by a chapter entitled 7 Means of Support in which the old economy of the city is investigated through shorter titled sections such as, 1: Harbourage the first purpose of Hong Kong. The Other chapters are as follows: 1 Prologue, 2 Chronology, 3 Impacts and Images, 4 1840s: On the Foreshore, 5 Peoples, 8 1920s: Dogdays, 9 Control Systems, 10 1940s: War and Peace, 11 The Landlord, 12 The Final Edition, 13 Reading List. Even though the book is somewhat out of date it was well-written and researched and has lots of historical tidbits that are still interesting today in the context of the legacy of the city/state.
August 20, 2024
As a Hongkonger, I was impressed by the author's extensive research on the city, despite a few factual inaccuracies, and I learned a lot, especially about the early history of Hong Kong from a British perspective. The book is somewhat challenging to read for non-native speakers with limited prior knowledge in history, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and finished the last chapter in tears. Considering what has happened and is happening in recent years, it's hard to believe this book was written in 1996, before the handover¡ªalmost like a prophecy.
November 21, 2013
Jan Morris is my favorite historian, in this travel book she visits Hong Kong shortly before 1997 when it is about to be turned over to the Chinese government. Morris is a great historian of the British empire, many of her books focusing on Queen Victoria's 1897 diamond jubilee. Which Morris repeatedly argues was the very high point of the Empire, where the institution reached its peak. If this is true then 1997 with its turnover of Hong Kong to Red China might be seen at the end of the Empire.
Unlike her Pax Britannica trilogy this book isn't a history book in the strictest sense, it is a travel book. But as even if Morris visits Hong Kong in modern times, through her journey we will be filled in on all the important events in the history of the territory.
The book is great but not quite as good as her Pax Britannica trilogy, which I can't recommend enough.
While reading this book I had some thought of Hong Kong and individual freedom that I thought I could share here if anyone is interested. Morris writes a great deal of the absence of democratic elections in the territory, where all political authority is placed in the hands of the governor. While this lack of democracy in one sense makes the inhabitants of Hong Kong less free, it is also true that they enjoy or at least enjoyed a great deal of political freedom in the form of near absolute freedom of speech, freedom of organization, freedom of thought etc. Equal or greater than that enjoyed in western democracies. But then you have the other aspects of individual freedom such as economic freedom, which in many ways for the individual is more important than something like free elections. Here Hong Kong had the edge over most western democracies, with its largely unregulated economic life and for all but the rich nearly non existent taxation. So it it not necessarily true that the imperial subjects of Hong Kong were less free than their imperial masters back in Britain, it might actually have been the other way around.
Unlike her Pax Britannica trilogy this book isn't a history book in the strictest sense, it is a travel book. But as even if Morris visits Hong Kong in modern times, through her journey we will be filled in on all the important events in the history of the territory.
The book is great but not quite as good as her Pax Britannica trilogy, which I can't recommend enough.
While reading this book I had some thought of Hong Kong and individual freedom that I thought I could share here if anyone is interested. Morris writes a great deal of the absence of democratic elections in the territory, where all political authority is placed in the hands of the governor. While this lack of democracy in one sense makes the inhabitants of Hong Kong less free, it is also true that they enjoy or at least enjoyed a great deal of political freedom in the form of near absolute freedom of speech, freedom of organization, freedom of thought etc. Equal or greater than that enjoyed in western democracies. But then you have the other aspects of individual freedom such as economic freedom, which in many ways for the individual is more important than something like free elections. Here Hong Kong had the edge over most western democracies, with its largely unregulated economic life and for all but the rich nearly non existent taxation. So it it not necessarily true that the imperial subjects of Hong Kong were less free than their imperial masters back in Britain, it might actually have been the other way around.
May 8, 2020
This is a an excellent historical autobiography of Hong Kong, written in a flowing and enjoyable style, by an accomplished writer, who has an affection for the place she is writing about.
This book was originally written about 10 years before the hand-over of 1997 and my edition was written in the early 1990s. For ninety-five percent of the book, this is not important, but the anticipation of the hand-over from Britain to China permeates the book, especially as, unlike other colonies, it did not gain independence when the British left, but was returned to what is a Communist state (and a very poor country at that time). There is a 2001 edition, which I have not read, but which I feel is probably the one seek out because that will cover the immediate pre- and post-handover period and rounds off Hong Kong's colonial history nicely.
Naturally, the book focuses very much on the colonial governments and foreign trading companies. While there is no question that the contribution to the wealth of the colony, by the Chinese was invaluable as the yang to the British ying, they were very much bystanders in terms of influence. Government was always in the hands of the British colonial administration, while policy was driven by the interests of British big business, known as Hongs, up until the hand-over. Much has subsequently been debated as to why the local Chinese were not given more of a democratic say to run their affairs as in other former colonies, which they were at district level, but the sad truth is that the communists insisted that the instruments of power transferred 'as was' to ensure total control post 1997.
This book was originally written about 10 years before the hand-over of 1997 and my edition was written in the early 1990s. For ninety-five percent of the book, this is not important, but the anticipation of the hand-over from Britain to China permeates the book, especially as, unlike other colonies, it did not gain independence when the British left, but was returned to what is a Communist state (and a very poor country at that time). There is a 2001 edition, which I have not read, but which I feel is probably the one seek out because that will cover the immediate pre- and post-handover period and rounds off Hong Kong's colonial history nicely.
Naturally, the book focuses very much on the colonial governments and foreign trading companies. While there is no question that the contribution to the wealth of the colony, by the Chinese was invaluable as the yang to the British ying, they were very much bystanders in terms of influence. Government was always in the hands of the British colonial administration, while policy was driven by the interests of British big business, known as Hongs, up until the hand-over. Much has subsequently been debated as to why the local Chinese were not given more of a democratic say to run their affairs as in other former colonies, which they were at district level, but the sad truth is that the communists insisted that the instruments of power transferred 'as was' to ensure total control post 1997.
April 25, 2019
I am a big fan of travel books and if this were 1995 and if I was planning to travel to Hong Kong I would have found this book invaluable. It's an interesting and well written snap shot of Hong Kong during the 1980's with a brief mentions here and there of what happened in the past as background information for what is happening at the present. All from a British POV. But as a reader looking for a comprehensive picture of Hong Kong this book falls short.
What this book does is give the reader is a sense of what colonial Hong Kong was like for the British which is almost exactly what it was like for the British in India. They created their own self absorbed little bubble and life outside that bubble only existed as it related to them. Interesting but no surprises for the reader there.
Where this book falls sadly short is the part the Chinese played. The Chinese made up 96% of the population, but are described repeatedly as a mysterious, superstitious mass. Energetic and hard working but whose motives and culture were unfathomable to the westerner.
When I finished this book I had more questions than I had when I began and I'm off to find a real picture of Hong Kong. One that includes the years after 1997 to now.
6
June 7, 2014
Is there any better travel writer than Jan Morris?
Reading the first chapters of this book before I travelled to Hong Kong was exciting - all the sights and sounds I could anticipate... and all that history I was absorbing before I walked those streets.
But then reading the middle of it while I was there was even better. I was in Hong Kong through work, and was at many meetings discussing HK's history, and how the Scots had influenced and moulded it. Although there is little in JM's book on this precise subject, there are plenty references to Jardines et al.
The final chapters were read on my return. I had thought that once I was back I would want to abandon the book and move on to something else, but she draws you in and keeps you reading.
This book is wonderful. It gives you a real sense of the place, and was perhaps particularly interesting to read about the lead up to The Handover in the context of Scotland's forthcoming referendum - we are a country on the brink of deciding whether or not we will become independent.
Reading the first chapters of this book before I travelled to Hong Kong was exciting - all the sights and sounds I could anticipate... and all that history I was absorbing before I walked those streets.
But then reading the middle of it while I was there was even better. I was in Hong Kong through work, and was at many meetings discussing HK's history, and how the Scots had influenced and moulded it. Although there is little in JM's book on this precise subject, there are plenty references to Jardines et al.
The final chapters were read on my return. I had thought that once I was back I would want to abandon the book and move on to something else, but she draws you in and keeps you reading.
This book is wonderful. It gives you a real sense of the place, and was perhaps particularly interesting to read about the lead up to The Handover in the context of Scotland's forthcoming referendum - we are a country on the brink of deciding whether or not we will become independent.
April 14, 2019
I got this book because I thought it was a travel book, but it reads more like an in-depth history book. It gives the history of Hong Kong from the start of British colonial rule to the near end of Britain's 150 years of control. The book was written in 1987 giving unique insight into what at least one expat (Jan Morris) wondered about the future of Hong Kong as it was a mere 10 years till the city would be returned to China. It is a look into a history as it looked into the future. This historical wondering about a Chinese Hong Kong is only reflected on in the last chapter. Earlier chapters delve into Hong Kong rich and wild history. It's very detailed and gives some insight into how Britain viewed it's colonies. Jan gives her native country some praise, but also offers criticism and discusses Britians often cruel and dismissive treatment of the Chinese people who lived in Hong Kong.
October 19, 2022
Jan Morris is one of the best travel writers that has ever lived. She knows how to make you feel like you're in the place she is writing about. With Hong Kong, I could feel myself being transported back to Hong Kong before 1997. I used to visit Hong Kong very often when I lived in China and reading her book reminded me of Hong Kong back then--taking the train to Lo Wu, getting off and then walking across the border to Hong Kong before getting on the train or bus to Tsim Sha Tsui. The diapaidangs, the amazing English newspapers, breakfast at McDonalds after living in China for months, English language bookstores, double-decker buses, the best subway system I've ever been on, the skyline of Hong Kong Island, the Star Ferry.
May 30, 2020
I meant to read this on a flight from DFW to Hong Kong in November, but I unfortunately forgot to pack it and only just got around to reading it now. Jan Morris is a writer and person I admire very much (she easily tops my list of living people with whom I'd most like to have dinner). Amongst many other things, she has been one of the most readable (if not the most scholarly) historians of the British Empire and a fantastic travel writer. She wrote this just before the Handover in 1997. Now, I fear that I'm reading it at the end of a truly autonomous Hong Kong, which adds an inescapable sadness to it all.
January 3, 2013
I wanted very much to like this book because I adore the author, but it just wasn't a hit for me. It's a bad sign when I find myself reading the New York Times health page to get my reading fix, instead of opening my current book. The best thing about this book was also the worst thing: too much detail. In certain places the level of detail was exciting, bringing the feel of Hong Kong right into my head. In far more places it made my mind wander, and was quite effective at putting me to sleep at night.
October 5, 2020
Jan Morris' weird book exoticizes the ethnic Chinese living in Hong Kong while spending most of her time talking about the British in Hong Kong. I was stunned that she ignored most of the people who live in Hong Kong while writing a book about the city. I was stunned that, as late as the 1990's, people were getting away with writing this kind of orientalist nonsense.
This is a fairly shitty book that offers little, though Morris occassionally does a good job of dealing with history.
Made it 25% of the way through before I had to give up.
This is a fairly shitty book that offers little, though Morris occassionally does a good job of dealing with history.
Made it 25% of the way through before I had to give up.
July 11, 2017
Very slow-moving (in a good way), extensive look at Hong Kong. There are some gaps, I would say; I would love to read more about the Chinese population, for example, maybe by someone belonging to that culture ¨C but Jan Morris can grasp the way a place feels like nobody else. I know that I will be coming back to that book, dipping in to read a section or two at a time. What a great journey, I really enjoyed it.
November 20, 2017
In preparing for my move to Hong Kong, I looked for book recommendations, both fiction and non-fiction, and this book by Jan Morris came up on every list. I listened to the audiobook, which was expertly narrated. It was a great history lesson, made more interesting (though perhaps also somewhat biased) by its narrator. I look forward to reading the book again after we have settled in Hong Kong and I have more context for understanding the places and history she references.
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