Stuck in Hong Kong quarantine, a father painted a Star Ferry travelling the world and turned it into a children’s book. Next up is a tram

Olivier Nowak’s rediscovery of a childhood love of painting while locked up in Penny’s Bay sparked a children’s book series on local transport roaming the world

The flautist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra says he has no plans to give up his day job yet

Reading Time:3 minutes

An illustration from Oliver Nowak’s second children’s book on Hong Kong public transport travelling the world, this time about a tram. His first book focused on a wandering Star Ferry. Picture: Olivier Nowak

Published: 7:15am, 8 Feb 2022Updated: 5:48pm, 9 Feb 2022

One wouldn’t expect to go to the austere Penny’s Bay government quarantine centre in Hong Kong for artistic inspiration, yet flautist Olivier Nowak rediscovered his childhood love of painting when he was locked up in the facility without his instrument. Now he is in the middle of producing his second illustrated storybook for children based on Hong Kong’s public transport.

In October 2020, the Frenchman and his wife, clarinettist Lau Wai, faced a terrible predicament when they and fellow members of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra were suddenly ordered into quarantine after a colleague was found to have contracted Covid-19. Their son, Leonard, was only three years old and Lau was six months pregnant.

“We were worried we would pass it on to our son if we’d caught the virus, but we couldn’t work out how to leave him at home either because he might have been exposed already. So we took him along to Penny’s Bay,” Nowak says.

The family all tested negative and now look back on their experience at Penny’s Bay as the time when they found a new way of spending time together, without music, the internet, books or usual daily routines.

Oliver Nowak with his wife Wai Lau and son Leo inside their room at Penny’s Bay in October 2020. Photo: Olivier Nowak

A Hong Kong tram crosses the Australian Outback in Nowak’s forthcoming book. Picture: Olivier Nowak

Nowak and Lau both left their instruments at home because they knew they wouldn’t be able to practice when confined with their son in a small space. Instead, they grabbed fairy lights to make the room more welcoming, and painting materials.