The former colonial chief secretary’s genuine friendships with Hong Kong Chinese baffled many a European, with a Hong Kong governor, David Trench, once exclaiming ‘Whose side are you f***ing on?’

During the Vietnam war, regular press conferences were held at the roof terrace bar in Saigon’s Rex Hotel when a breakdown of the day’s hostilities, casualties and ‘successes’ were given

Days on the water are the perfect setting for discreet dalliances but beware – once you’ve set off, you’re stuck with whoever else is on board.

Hong Kong-based New Zealander Brian Brake shot images of Peking between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, including candid photos of Mao Zedong, but it was his Indian monsoon series that became his best-known work.

While tycoons cried racism, their ships were breaking the UN embargo on trading with China – and their mainland families were under threat.

Japanese linguist Cyril Wild and Anglo-Irish poet and translator Arthur Cooper helped monitor signal traffic throughout the Pacific from Allied wireless facilities in Hong Kong and Singapore.

The draconian laws being mooted to deal with Hong Kong’s civil unrest were first enacted by a competent leadership – unlike that of today.

The practice might seem like a relic of the past, but it is still fairly common in many parts of the world, including Hong Kong and mainland China.

The two instances when China opened itself up to criticism were swiftly followed by a crackdown on critics who stepped forward, something Hong Kong needs to be wary of.

From Lennon Wall equivalents to a largely absent leadership, there are several striking similarities between the 1967 riots and the current unrest in Hong Kong.

Kenelm Digby sought solace from early-uttered, ill-considered words in Asia, and then New Zealand, but could never completely escape the nightmares of the past.

The prolific British writer who spent three decades in Japan as well as a brief period in Hong Kong is infamous for the poem behind the last successful prosecution for blasphemy in Britain – The Love that Dares to Speak Its Name.

The force is faces a serious crisis of confidence as public trust plummets. But who is really to blame?

More than 50 children were born in Stanley internment camp during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, showing connections were made even under the most trying circumstances.

Fear of curses, spells and the ‘dark arts’ land Southeast Asian women in the dock.

Scandals surrounding the deaths of Lord Erroll in Kenya, Pamela Werner in Peking and John MacLennan in Hong Kong continue to resonate.

Though the Mao outfits and cold war-era vocabulary have gone the way of ‘the red menace’, the Communist Party’s totalitarian grip on China is as tight as ever

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