'FROM A DISTANCE,' says Jan Morris, octogenarian, historian of empire and travel writer, wrapped up in bed at 10am with a cup of tea on a winter's morning in northern Wales, 'and not having thought an awful lot about it' - it being the direction Hong Kong has taken since 1997 - 'it seems to be going about as well as we could have expected.'
Morris, whose 30-odd travel books during the past 50 years are concerned with people and impressions rather than politics and economics, has been writing about Hong Kong since at least 1963.
The then James Morris was taken by the potential of a city where 'even the frogs have twelve legs apiece and lunge about with such comic and irresistible vigour'. She went on to explore the city in Hong Kong (1989) and in subsequent editions until the colony reverted to China.
With much of her life spent 'free as air', Morris, who underwent brain surgery twice last year, now stays closer to home - a book-filled stone cottage in Llanys-tumdwy, north Wales - but she's venturing forth for the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival.
An incentive may be to see what has become of the city, but it just may be possible she has another reason that relates to fellow guest Gore Vidal.
Morris, who is a champion of Welsh culture and has been elevated to the elite Gorsedd of Bards, chose Vidal as the first US ambassador to her imaginary Republic of Wales, which she conjured in A Machynlleth Triad (1993).
