Where Asian values really hit home
There is highly topical local interest in Development Appraisal of Land in Hong Kong by Li Ling-hin (Chinese University Press, $230). The author, a lecturer in the University of Hong Kong's department of real estate and construction, says it is the first attempt in 20 years to study how land value should be calculated, in terms of not just the initial purchase but changes during development.
Half Hong Kong's population is the subject of a book edited by Dr Fanny Cheung Mui-ching, head of the Equal Opportunities Commission. The book, Engendering Hong Kong Society: a Gender Perspective of Women's Status (Chinese University Press, $230), grew out of her leadership of the Gender Research Programme at Chinese University, and is based on papers given at an international conference in 1991, since updated.
It purports to be the first attempt at an academic overview of vital gender issues in Hong Kong, covering women's treatment in work, by the Government and at home - which often means more work. Concern groups and cultural attitudes are considered, and appendices include the Government's report to the 1995 Beijing women's conference and an alternative report by the group Women's Coalition for Beijing.
Social Policy in Hong Kong, edited by Paul Wilding of the University of Manchester, and Ahmed Shafiqul Huque and Julia Tao Lai Po-wah from Hong Kong's City University (Edward Elgar Publishing, $765) seems very expensive despite its claim to be the first critical overview of the Hong Kong Government's policies on health, education, housing and so on.
Precious Cargo: Scots and the China Trade, by Susan Leiper (National Museums of Scotland Publishing, $200), is a thin paperback describing Scottish involvement in Canton, Macau and the establishment of Hong Kong. William Jardine is a well-known name, but others in this group are less famous. The book contains some fine illustrations of the sorts of goods traded and engravings of life in China and Hong Kong during early British rule.
Other books of regional relevance include Oil in Asia by Paul Horsnell (Oxford University Press, $670) which considers the booming Asian market for energy from oil and is likely to be of immense interest to businesses despite the off-putting price. And China: the Consumer Revolution (Wiley, $250), by Li Conghua, a management consultant with Deloitte Touche Consulting Group, considers what the new middle-class mainland Chinese wants to buy, fads and companies' dos and don'ts to new market entrants.