A lack of fresh produce as well as hygiene concerns meant most meals were made from processed imported foodstuffs that would then be jazzed up with chutneys, mustard, pickles and any manner of relish.

From the camera-gear-laden Japanese to loud-mouthed Australians, tourists always stand out no matter how hard they try to blend in

Hong Kong provided temporary refuge for the author, who arrived in 1949 after the communists assumed power in China, before he relocated in Malaya and eventually settled in Singapore.

While Western-educated émigrés from China were viewed with suspicion, local Portuguese women and the ‘fishing fleet’ from Britain were highly sought after as executive secretaries in 20th-century Hong Kong.

A sense of impermanence pervaded colonial life in tropical Asia, and was reflected in interior decor and dress choices.

A tranquil, tropical haven, or ‘a material and moral rubbish heap’? In the former Portuguese settlement, sentimentality and reality collide.

Graft is entrenched in Hong Kong society; just the face has changed from low-level bribery to high-level venality that’s virtually impossible to uncover.

Amid the countless short-lived affairs between Western men and Asian women during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there is one that stands out

Those who use the cloak of religion to gain personal advantage have long found friends among Hong Kong’s pious.

The popular wall coverings were initially conceived to insulate rooms during the long, cold winters, and, on account of its humid climate, Hong Kong almost didn’t catch on.

The absence of extradition agreements between Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China and Taiwan have made them safe havens for the corrupt and the criminal.

First stored in stoneware jars, carbonated drinks became available to the masses with the manufacturing boom of glass bottles – and Hong Kong became a key exporter of popular pops across the region

Appealingly commodified by the heritage marketing industry, imperial culture, whether British or Japanese, is eulogised by those who did not live through it.

Writer Bella Woolf Southorn, whose brother married Virginia Woolf, found fulfilment in more intellectual activities than those demanded from formal functions

By the mid-19th century, glass – once a novelty and a status symbol – had become ubiquitous in the city, effectively killing demand for the product previously used for window-glazing purposes

A must-have for newcomers to Hong Kong, customised dinner plates found their way from China, to Europe, and even the Virginia plantation of one George Washington

Indian-born Moss, who died recently in Manila aged 83, called Hong Kong home for more than four decades but the best years of his life were spent in Malaya

Philippine-Hong Kong relations run deep, with the British colony having been a safe haven for revolutionaries, illicit funds and designer shoe brands

A complete ban on fireworks was lifted in 1975 to allow government-organised displays but, in complete disregard of the law, colourful firecrackers have been lighting up the New Territories skies every Lunar New Year, as authorities look the other way

Recent viral video of school assault puts spotlight back onto the perennial problem; failure to address the issue is down to city’s culture of condoning, encouraging and cultivating passive-aggressive behaviour.

Discernible by their language and dress, Southeast Asian-born and Californian expatriate Chinese ‘uncles’ were often the butt of jokes

Much of our foundational understanding of local and regional customs and connections has come from enthusiasts, rather than those who occupy scholarly positions of authority

As history has shown again and again and again – from Russia and Iran to the Philippines and Japan – a national downturn is just a matter of time.

Missionaries introduced embroidery to the Chiu Chow, helping a poverty-stricken region and endowing the diaspora with a distinct profession

The city’s education chief says China never lost sovereignty over Hong Kong. English essayist George Orwell wrote of sinking ‘to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men’. Hong Kong has reached that point.

Like Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, who pretended to be a milkmaid on her fake farm on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles, the affluent in Hong Kong are sheltered from the harsh realities of life

Wartime relics reclaimed from Hong Kong’s long-ago battlefields could hold vital evidence that would allow those whose remains were never accounted for to be given proper burial.

Fuel-gathering villagers stripped the countryside of trees before planting programmes and the proliferation of immigrant species transformed the land

Long before Crazy Rich Asians there was sex symbol Sessue Hayakawa, a Japanese actor in the silent movie era who had hordes of women — mainly white – swooning over him.

Best known for his biography of Queen Mary, the 20th-century Anglo-Irish writer didn’t mince his words after a brief stay in the city