The long story: our 10 best reads during coronavirus lockdown
- Lose yourself in some of Post Magazine’s best features. From a disgraced Hong Kong socialite to a pet serial killer and a corrupt police force, there is plenty to keep you occupied.
1. The rise and fall of Hong Kong socialite Azura
Beautiful Azura Luna Mangunhardjono cut a swathe through the city with tales of her royal ancestry, vast wealth and charity work. But as the stories began to unravel and debts piled up, her ex-lovers and former friends came together to bring her to account.
2. How a corrupt Hong Kong police force became ‘Asia’s finest’
Set up in 1974, the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s early years were marked by tumultuous relations with police. Following an infamous incident in October 1977, the corruption-riddled force was gradually transformed.
3. How a remote Chinese village kept a courtesan’s secret for centuries
One of China’s great beauties, Chen Yuanyuan was born to a peasant family, orphaned and sold as a prostitute. She later became consort of Wu Sangui, a great general and despised traitor. What eventually became of her was never known.
4. The pet serial killer of Hong Kong: a 30-year-old mystery
Hundreds of dogs – including a Norfolk terrier belonging to the city’s last governor Chris Patten – have been poisoned in an affluent area of Hong Kong down the years. Despite regular patrols and one suspected sighting of the perpetrator, the killer remains at large.
5. Meet Simu Liu, the actor playing Marvel’s first Asian superhero
The Chinese-Canadian plays a martial-arts master in 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which Marvel hopes will be an Asian Black Panther, offering Asians mainstream representation and selling a few tickets to China’s cinema-going millions in the process.
6. Cambodian city loses bet as money for Chinese casinos dries up
Thousands of Chinese construction workers were left unpaid and stranded as work on half-built Chinese casinos shuddered to a halt following a ban on online gambling. We hear from those affected by the fallout.
7. View from a third-class seat: China’s poor riding slow trains
China’s high-speed trains are a gleaming testament to its rise, but in the shadows is another world, one documented by a hotel worker with a second-hand Nikon. Qian Haifeng set out to see country on the cheap, and began photographing his fellow passengers.
8. China’s traditional villages fall victim to its global ambitions
Photojournalist Wang Xiaoyan’s pictures of a vanishing settlement in Shanxi’s Taihang mountains reflect the fate of thousands of similar villages in China. Intangible cultural heritage is being lost in the relentless pursuit of economic growth.