When author Xu Xi was in her early 20s, she considered giving up on the city of her childhood.
'I kept thinking I wanted to turn my back on Hong Kong and a part of me wanted to write away from Hong Kong,' she says. 'Back then a part of me was desperate to get out of Hong Kong. I was so annoyed at the British colony set-up; the inequity between local-hiring firms and expatriate-hiring firms. I was a real sort of firebrand in those days, I found so much to be angry about in Hong Kong.'
She attended college in the United States and earned a master's of fine arts in creative writing. Then, while back in Hong Kong working in international marketing and management, she wrote Chinese Walls, Daughters of Hui and Hong Kong Rose, which were published in the years leading up to the handover. In 1998, she became a full-time writer.
'I found as I kept writing that Hong Kong would not let me go. The subject chose me rather than me choosing the subject,' says Xu Xi. The handover became the subject of one of her short stories. Insignificant Moments in the History of Hong Kong, which takes place from June 30 to July 1, 1997, tracks characters in two settings: an exclusive club and a restaurant under the Central escalator.
'Most of us did not think that we would go to sleep one night and wake up one morning and, 'Oh my God, disaster would reign'. But that's the way it was portrayed, especially in the western media. They made it sound like, 'Oh, the PLA [People's Liberation Army] is coming, Hong Kong is going to have a crackdown'.
'The most notable changes were tiny, superficial ones. One day we flew one flag, the next day we flew another flag.'