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I grew up in the New Jersey area. I lived in England. I went to school in Utah and Colorado. I lived in San Francisco for 15 years.
I was working for an events company. My biggest stint was 12-13 years with Apple as my client. I worked on every trade show and product launch. I launched the Newton.
Apple was not a cool company then. If you had a Mac, you had to defend yourself.
I wanted to shake things up. I sold my houses and cars, quit my job, ended a 15-year relationship and moved to Hong Kong.
If you go through the countries in Asia: Singapore at the time felt like it was for beginners, Japan was really expensive, Taiwan was very industrial, and China was too much of a wild west. Hong Kong had the right mix.
I had a stint in modeling and did some TV commercials. I didn’t start until I was 30.
I worked for Pico, an events company. I was the only gweilo sitting among 250 people in a factory in Tai Po.
Later on, the dot-com crash happened. People moved back to where they came from. I refused to leave. I started my own marketing company, Spark.
Like everyone else, I hadn’t saved much. I had one suitcase and one laptop. When you start companies, you have to bootstrap.
I ran the company out of a public library. When the phone rang, I would run to the men’s toilet to take calls.
In 2003, the co-founder of HK Magazine Steve Freeman bought Spark. We merged it with his custom publishing business and created Splash.
When HK Magazine first started, it was an expat publication. Now, a whole generation of Hong Kong kids have spent time overseas and come back. They are used to coffee culture and nice wines. At the same time, local kids have learned more about the world.
HK Magazine still gets pigeonholed as an expat publication in Lan Kwai Fong, but actually, westerners have become a minority of our readership. We have 65 percent Hong Kong readers. That’s a powerful demographic.
When Splash was sold, [co-founder] Gretchen Worth asked me to take HK Magazine from loss to profit and sell it.
One of the biggest tasks for me was to turn it into a new media company.
In Hong Kong, there’s a love of print products. I don’t see that going away at all.
Daily news is becoming more difficult. The only way for newspapers to survive is to put good journalism out there, something beyond “What happened yesterday?”
One of the reasons why I think HK Magazine is successful is because we write that—like heritage protection, pollution or the development of West Kowloon.
I’m looking at becoming a Chinese national. I have a family here, my life is here and I enjoy Hong Kong.
I’m fascinated by Asia, and my affection for the US is just not there.
The biggest changes in Hong Kong I’ve seen probably happened in the last three years.
Figuring out who you are is a struggle. Hong Kong has an identity issue that needs to be sorted out.
Don’t sit there and freak out over what may or may not be possible.
Hong Kong is like a kid who was adopted. “Do I want to have a relationship with my real parent or not? My foster parents were wonderful to me for years.”
At the same time, China is also figuring out what to do with this kid. Sometimes a parent won’t listen enough to build a relationship.
What was cool about my job at HK Magazine was being able to work with diverse people. What I value the most in life is people.​


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Greg Crandall

Magazines

After over a decade at HK Magazine, Greg Crandall is stepping down as its publisher—a role he’s held since 2012. He tells Andrea Lo about his early days working in the US, modeling in Hong Kong, and the biggest changes he’s seen in the city.
