Stuart Heaver

Originally from Kent, England, former Naval officer and entrepreneur, Stuart Heaver is a full-time freelance writer and features journalist living and working in Hong Kong. He loves his job, the sea and his family but not necessarily in that order.

Sarah Driver, then Whitehead, and her brothers in Stanley Market. Picture: Sarah Driver

Long Reads

‘Wonderfully wild and free’: growing up on Lantau in the ’60s

1 Oct 2018 - 2:42pm 1

John Fleming at the gates to Stanley Prison, where he served as a hangman in the 1960s. Picture: SCMP

Long Reads

Seven-times married former Hong Kong hangman’s first noose nerves

25 Sep 2018 - 12:37pm 4

Seven sailors died when a Chinese gunboat attacked a Royal Navy launch 65 years ago. The latter’s commanding officer was blamed – but was he a useful scapegoat?

Long Reads

Blame for deadly 1953 Pearl River gunboat clash still disputed

8 Sep 2018 - 3:18pm 1

The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department carries out anti-mosquito prevention measures against dengue fever on Cheung Chau, in Hong Kong, on August 27. Picture: Winson Wong

Short Reads

Dengue fever response on Cheung Chau scarier than the disease

7 Sep 2018 - 8:15am 3

Hong Kong has been slower than some Chinese ports to trumpet its role in the history of East-West maritime trade, but a new exhibition at Hong Kong’s Maritime Museum shows the importance of places such as Tuen Mun and High Island to ancient mariners and is a timely reminder of the broader benefits to society of trade

Arts & Culture

When Hong Kong was a way station on China’s Maritime Silk Road

4 Sep 2018 - 12:38pm

Powered by online booking sites, hospitality entrepreneurs in China are pioneering a new range of small properties that offer links to the local community and culture that are often missing at large, corporate chains

Travel & Leisure

China’s new wave of budget inns a far cry from the nightmares of old

26 Aug 2018 - 6:36pm 1

The police fire tear gas at protesters in Admiralty after Occupy Central was officially launched in September 2014. Photo: Sam Tsang

Lifestyle

Has excessive punishment made Hong Kong lose its will to protest?

13 Aug 2018 - 8:51pm 18

The Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui – the city’s Anglican church – wants to build a 25-storey private hospital in the grounds of its historic Bishop’s House compound in Central. The priest leading the project responds to critics

Health & Wellness

Does Anglican Church hospital plan put real estate over religion?

26 Jul 2018 - 8:55am 2

China restricts reclamation but Hong Kong ploughs ahead with proposals to concrete over more natural seabed; scientists warn of a price to pay, and voice alarm at the cumulative impact of reclamation on the Pearl River Delta

Lifestyle

Land reclamation: ‘theft from the sea’ or a Hong Kong necessity?

30 Jul 2018 - 1:51pm 15

The wreck of the Fronde in 1906 after the infamous typhoon hit Hong Kong. Photo: HKO

Lifestyle

Hong Kong monument for French naval tragedy gets restoration job

19 Jun 2018 - 7:34am

Despite being on Hong Kong traffic lights for half a century, the green man is still routinely ignored and thousands are prosecuted for jaywalking every year. Perhaps the city should look to China to see how it is dealing with offenders

Lifestyle

Hongkongers still ignore the green man. Time for another tactic?

6 Jun 2018 - 11:39am 11

Maya Bay, one of Asia’s most beautiful holiday destinations was shut to visitors on June 1, as drastic measures were implemented to fend off environmental catastrophe

Long Reads

Overtourism forces closure of Thai beach from Leonardo DiCaprio film

1 Jun 2018 - 12:13pm 11

Three balangay boats, of a type dating back to at least AD320, succeed in hazardous pilgrimage from Manila to Xiamen

Long Reads

Primitive sailing vessels retrace Sultan of Sulu’s 1417 voyage to China

25 Jul 2018 - 12:43pm 5

Hong Kong’s shipping industry is hoping to increase public awareness through the Nautic Quest programme. Photo: Felix Wong

Lifestyle

Hong Kong shipping big shots out to restore industry to former glory

10 May 2018 - 7:39pm 4

Cihmu Bridge over the Liwu River in Toroko National Park, Taiwan.

Travel & Leisure

Why you should visit post-earthquake Hualien in Taiwan

24 Apr 2018 - 7:01pm

Viet Cong prisoners and American soldiers in Vietnam. Photo: Derek Maitland

Culture

When Hong Kong was base for famous Asia war photographers

19 Apr 2018 - 11:16am 1

Mainland Chinese yacht maker Heysea says to get business in China, one needs to build superyachts. Photo: Handout

China Business

China’s yacht makers make comeback by selling superyachts

8 Apr 2018 - 11:02pm 1

Dinghai harbour on Zhoushan Island, where British ships mounted their attack on the city during the first opium war in the 1840s. Photo: Stuart Heaver

Travel & Leisure

Zhoushan, the Chinese island that was very nearly Hong Kong

7 Apr 2018 - 6:33pm 6

Image of the Ocean research vessel Tara, a large sailing vessel and the French scientists who are on an epic voyage of discovery, docked at Central Pier in Central. 14MAR18 [FEATURES] SCMP / Jonathan Wong

Lifestyle

Why Hong Kong has the toughest coral in the world

28 Mar 2018 - 8:43pm 1

Hotel Icon, opened by Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is a test bed for hospitality innovation, a highly respected teaching facility, and among the best places to stay in Hong Kong – so why does city’s tourism industry largely ignore it?

Travel & Leisure

A Hong Kong tourism success story: teaching hotel among city’s best

15 Mar 2018 - 7:30pm 4

The city of Quanzhou was the eastern terminus of the historical sea trade route between China, the Middle East and Europe. Looking around, it’s not hard to see that it was shaped by multicultural openness and religious tolerance

Travel & Leisure

The kebab shop at the end of the Maritime Silk Road

27 Feb 2018 - 12:14pm 2

The Bund promenade in Shanghai, China, mixes both the old and the new. Photo: Alamy

Lifestyle

Lessons for Hong Kong in Shanghai’s conservation of old buildings

12 Feb 2018 - 8:35pm 9

A silver sycee ingot bought at an antiques market in Quanzhou, Fujian province. Photo: Stuart Heaver

Lifestyle

How Mexican silver dollar shaped China and Hong Kong’s mint

7 Feb 2018 - 8:04pm

City was badly damaged by fierce urban warfare that followed North Vietnamese Army’s surprise lunar new year attack in January 1968, but there’s still much to see of citadel from where emperors ruled for 150 years

Travel & Leisure

What to see in Hue, 50 years after Vietnam war’s Tet offensive

30 Jan 2018 - 9:03pm 1

A student gets down to some coding at the Koding Kingdom iD Tech Camp 2017 at Hong Kong University. Photo: Stuart Heaver

Lifestyle

Coding crusaders see tech camps for Hong Kong kids taking off

29 Jan 2018 - 7:08pm 1

Political experts say there is much to be learned from the warship crisis 50 years ago that brought the Korean peninsula to the brink of a second war

Long Reads

USS Pueblo’s 1968 capture by North Korea offers lessons for today

25 Jan 2018 - 7:16pm 5

No 6 Gresson Street after the shoot-out in 1918. Picture: courtesy of Patricia O’Sullivan

Long Reads

Hong Kong crime files: the Gresson Street siege of January 1918

5 Feb 2018 - 4:31pm

Aboard their restored wooden junk, Rex Law and Sarah Yip offer trips to Tai A Chau in the Soko Islands, a thriving farming and fishing community 40 years ago, then a home for Vietnamese boatpeople, but now reclaimed by nature

Travel & Leisure

Enterprising couple running junk tours to Hong Kong desert island

3 Jan 2018 - 7:37am 6

Few in the colony or elsewhere knew or cared about the horrors being unleashed on civilians in the former Chinese capital by Japanese troops; only decades later did the true scale of the atrocities receive widespread publicity

Long Reads

The Nanking massacre: how Hong Kong partied at height of atrocities

30 Dec 2017 - 9:46am 7

British geographer, author and unofficial wall ambassador who lives nearby urges visitors to get fit, rise early and take in the wilderness at weekends

Travel & Leisure

How to enjoy the Great Wall’s wild side: tips from an expert

23 Dec 2017 - 6:36pm 1

After a series of near misses, Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department is criticised for inadequate staffing and a failure to follow incident-reporting guidelines

Long Reads

Flaws threaten Hong Kong air safety, claim aviation experts

21 Dec 2017 - 3:44pm 3

The 10-piece band have played with ska stars, including Neville Staple from The Specials and Prince Buster’s son Sultan Ali, in front of tens of thousands at festivals in Asia, and have just released an album, ‘In the Ska East’

Music

Ska in Hong Kong: how Red Stripes are driving the emerging scene

19 Dec 2017 - 8:31pm

In a city addicted to banking and real estate, jobs in science and technology can often be overlooked by students, but when STEM is predicted to be the backbone of the city’s future, experts say more needs to be done to not be left behind. Photo: Bloomberg

Lifestyle

Ramped-up STEM education key to Hong Kong’s ‘smart city’ plans

18 Dec 2017 - 6:30am 1

Former police chief inspector Richard Cresswell at the scene of the murder near Fanling, in Hong Kong’s New Territories, on what in 1952 was a military road. Picture: Stuart Heaver

Long Reads

Murder in Hong Kong: troops’ death sentence for woman’s 1952 killing

15 Dec 2017 - 12:04pm 4

Out of nowhere, China has become the Asian leader in marine archaeology, a quest that serves both a cultural and a political purpose; there’s no such impetus in Hong Kong, despite its own long maritime history

Culture

Why China pours money into finding shipwrecks and Hong Kong doesn’t

29 Nov 2017 - 7:39pm

Kept secret by the British government, the disappearance of sailors who’d braved German U-boats through the second world war left many Eurasian children to grow up not knowing what happened to their dads

Long Reads

Why did 300 Chinese fathers vanish from Liverpool in 1946?

4 Dec 2017 - 11:32am 36

Formerly called Coffin Island, the restricted area can only be visited with a special permit and its voluntary drug rehabilitation centre is home to 200 recovering male addicts

Lifestyle

Changing times at Shek Kwu Chau, Hong Kong drug rehab island

30 Oct 2017 - 7:15pm

Most tourists and locals in Hong Kong avoid the great outdoors, concentrating on urban activities such as shopping. We meet some of the people trying to change this by offering a compromise: camping with extra home comforts

Travel & Leisure

Why Hong Kong’s glamping scene is gaining ground, but slowly

28 Oct 2017 - 8:16pm

Inside Hong Kong’s Crown Wine Cellars. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Food & Drink

Hong Kong’s wine cellar with a machine gun emplacement

19 Oct 2017 - 7:24pm

Hongkongers donate generously at times of natural calamity, less so to help victms of silent disasters such as protracted conflicts. The Red Cross is aiming to change that by bringing the ‘war’ to them

Long Reads

Why Red Cross wants to show peaceful Hong Kong the realities of war

21 Sep 2017 - 6:52pm 3

Dr Jason Cheung at a shoe shop on Fa Yuen Street, also known as Sneaker Street, in Mong Kok. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Health & Wellness

Best and worst of Mong Kok’s Sneaker Street: we shop with an expert

19 Sep 2017 - 12:24am 6

The Confucius Temple area in Nanjing, China’s capital in the Ming dynasty and under Nationalist rule after the 1912 revolution. Photo: Shutterstock

Travel & Leisure

What to see in Nanjing, China’s ex-capital, and why now’s the time to go

6 Sep 2017 - 4:24pm 4

Dolphins perform at Ocena Park’s Ocean Theatre. Photo: May Tse

Travel & Leisure

Ocean Park: dated and fake, or a conservation champion?

20 Sep 2017 - 1:03pm 6

Hong Kong’s Central Market is waiting to be revitalised by Urban Renewal Authority. Photo: David Wong

Lifestyle

Mystery surrounds Hong Kong’s Central Market development

21 Aug 2017 - 4:10am 10

“Greening” fence panels at a CEDD site in Ice House Street in Hong Kong. Photo: Stuart Heaver

Lifestyle

Why Hong Kong is scared of trees: the fight for urban forestry

8 Aug 2017 - 9:04am 4

While Bao Dai, who died 20 years ago this week, enjoyed the high life in Hong Kong and elsewhere, he did try to play his part during Vietnam’s most violent and troubled years amid the two Indochina wars

Long Reads

Playboy, bon vivant and the last emperor of Vietnam: Bao Dai

30 Jul 2017 - 9:15am 3

The University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital in Shenzhen. Picture: Edward Wong

Long Reads

How HKU hospital in Shenzhen has changed that city’s health care

29 Jul 2017 - 8:15am 12