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SCMP Reporter

There’s no time like the enforced rest a typhoon brings Hongkongers to get stuck into some of those long reads you meant to dive into but just didn’t have the time for. So we scoured our archives for a few you may have missed.

1. Hong Kong’s Waglan Lighthouse: the light’s on, but nobody’s home
It’s probably a good thing this lighthouse is no longer manned, given the waves Typhoon Hato is likely to whip up today. The lighthouse and the buildings surrounding it comprise Hong Kong’s most remote monument.

2. How a Chinese-Jamaican’s family history quest led her to Hong Kong
A British-born, American-raised, twentysomething of Chinese and Afro-Jamaican ancestry travels to China to better understand her compli­cated family history.

3. Hong Kong’s Dried Seafood Street demystified: the smells, what sells, and the ways it keeps you well in Chinese tradition
Des Voeux Road West has been home to seafood vendors since the 19th century and is the place to go for dried abalone, sea cucumber and fish maw, as well as cordyceps fungus and other dried mushrooms

4. The story of Hong Kong’s newest old junk, built by hand the traditional way in China
The scarlet-sailed Aqua Luna has gained a sister vessel, built at one of the last shipyards still with the skills to assemble a wooden junk by hand – skills Hong Kong itself has lost

5. Shanghai Metro: keeping world’s longest mass-transit rail system on track
We talk to some of the 28,000 staff who keep the trains running on time on the city’s ever-expanding network, and find out why it wants to be like the MTR in some respects, but not in others.

6. Homegrown Hong Kong: the wholesome story of Vitasoy
Started in 1940 as a way to fight malnutrition among Hong Kong’s growing immigrant population, Vitasoy has gone from strength to strength, and remains a quintessential part of the city’s identity.

7. The Hong Kong half-brother I never knew, and the life I owe him
“You were two sons rolled into one,” his mother told Ian Gill the first time they visited his half-brother’s grave in Stanley Military Cemetery. But for little Brian’s death in 1944, the author might never have been conceived.


Seven long reads to see you through Typhoon Hato, from family sagas to sea cucumbers

Judith Hugh-Goffe, Tao Leigh Goffe and Gaia Goffe with their newfound Hong Kong relatives Yau Tang-kwong (left), Yau Hing-lung (rear) and (right) Pang Kwok-hung, village chief of Fan Leng Lau, Fanling. Photo: Bruce Yan

--ONE TIME USE ONLY-- Evening train maintenance, at the Shanghai Metro, China on July 20, 2017. Location is Line 8 garages at the end of the line, near Shendu Highway. The line is actually expanding to another three stations. [13AUGUST2017 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE ] CREDIT / Zigor ALDAMA

Aqua Restaurant Group's authentic Chinese heritage junk "Aqua Luna II " at Victoria Harbour during the official media preview, Hong Kong. The 2,000 sq ft vessel, offers tours to Stanley, Lamma Island and Cheung Chau. 18APR17 SCMP / Sam TSANG

First tetrapak design of Vitasoy in 1975.

Shop owner Leung Wing-chiu (red shirt) at Tung Hing Tai Kee seafood store in 178-180 Des Voeux Road West, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. 18APR17 SCMP / David Wong

---POST MAGAZINE HAS FIRST USAGE RIGHTS-- The light house behind an abandoned building, at the Waglan lighthouse compound, on Waglan Island, Hong Kong on June 07, 2017. Located 5.4 nautical miles south-east of Stanley village on a forbidding rocky island, one of Hong Kong’s 114 declared historic monuments. The Waglan lighthouse compound marks the southern approaches to Victoria harbour and was constructed by China’s Imperial Maritime Customs and completed in May 1893, when the island it stands on was not (yet) part of British colonial Hong Kong. It is a rare example of a 19th-century pre-fabricated cast iron lighthouse from an era when lighthouse technology and the engineers who developed them were revered in the same way NASA might be today. It is a precious part of the city’s history and until it was automated in August 1989, this remote island complex was home to a small team of dedicated lighthouse operators, assistants and technicians who manned the light and kept it burning 24/7

(L to R) Tao Leigh Goffe, Yau Hing-lung, and Gaia Goffe, pose for a photograph at Yau's house in Fan Leng Lau Village. They're same generation. The girls are Jamaican Chinese. 16MAY16 SCMP/Bruce Yan [31JULY2016 FEATURES POST MAGAZINE]

This image shows the gravestone of Brian Gill, who was the son of Louise Mary 'Billie' Gill, at the Stanley Military Cemetery, Hong Kong on August 26, 2016. Brian Gill was found drowned at the beach near the Stanley internment camp on May 09, 1944. The grave is marked Brian Gill 31 May 1940, 9 May 1944 RIP. 02AUG16 [11SEPTEMBER2016 FEATURE POST MAGAZINE] SCMP / Antony DICKSON

How Hong Kong' s James Reynolds made chasing typhoons a career

Typhoon hunter James Reynolds near the erupting Mount Sinabung, in Sumatra, Indonesia, in January last year.

Storm chaserJames Reynolds. Photos: Martin Williams; James Reynolds

Mark Thomas shows the injury he sustained during Typhoon Haiyan, in Tacloban, in the Philippines, in 2013.

Reynolds near the erupting Mount Sinabung, in Sumatra, Indonesia, in January last year.

Sinabung's pyroclastic flows.

Krakatoa erupting in 2010.

A volcanologist abseils into a crater on Ambrym Island, Vanuatu, in 2010.

Waves in Taiwan during Typhoon Soudelor, in August.

The aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, in Tacloban.

A mattress doubles as a floating stretcher during the typhoon.

Reynolds films the eruption of Sakurajima, in Japan, on February 1.

Reynolds in Miyakojima, Japan, during Typhoon Goni, on August 23.

Lifestyle

Forced to stay at home and unable to work? It’s the perfect opportunity to catch up on some reading – so we picked seven of our recent favourites for you to sink your teeth into while the wind howls outside
