Short Reads
There’s hardly a man or woman in Hong Kong who doesn’t have happy memories of childhood expeditions to the beach, and it’s just the sort of liberating break that kids need now.
Shamus A’Rabbitt was one of the genre’s more talented writers, who penned poems in which readers would recognise their times, places, circumstances, and most particularly, themselves.
Ma Kit-chee ‘cut him into chunks with a saw and put the bits into a cooking pot and boiled them dry’, according to South China Morning Post reports in 1988.
Speedskater Fiona Fong had only taken up the sport a year before the schoolgirl was called up to join Hong Kong’s first ever Winter Olympics team.
The once ‘unlovely’ New Territories village has become popular with Hongkongers thanks to its Instagram-friendly murals, craft markets, self-pick farms and more.
Originally from Greek, the word’s current and figurative meaning was reintroduced into English in the 18th century.
One of the most famous coups in Chinese history, the Chenqiao mutiny, occurred with minimal fighting and bloodshed and marked the beginning of the nation’s reunification.
The ox has a special claim to fame in the English language for its plural form – oxen. Do you know why?
Despite the catch-all predictions hawked by soothsayers, a look through Chinese history reveals that those who shared the same Chinese zodiac sign were not all alike.
Hongkongers got their first Lunar New Year fireworks display in 1982, after a government ban aimed at curbing ammunition supply to communist bombers in 1967 put a halt on such shows
Piecework was commonplace during the city’s post-war industrial boom, allowing families to earn extra and their employers to sidestep safety and labour regulations.
In February 1991, an employee of the Holiday Inn Golden Mile Hotel, in Tsim Sha Tsui, opened a parcel he believed to be from his wife. It exploded in his face.
Early imperial China was not without its extravagant characters, such as Si Chong and Wang Kai who were perhaps best known for trying to outspend each other.
In the post-war period, the humble refrigerator took pride of place in living rooms across the city, until it eventually became too commonplace for comment.
The meida should stop putting celebrities on age-defying pedestals and instead celebrate their wrinkles and grey hair.
Businessman So Chak-tong was kidnapped as he left his Kowloon Tong home but abandoned hours later, when police closed in on his captors.
For two millennia, scrolls were the main repository of written texts in China, until the invention of printing.
When a fire ripped through Tsim Sha Tsui’s Top One karaoke bar, in 1997, the police suspected it was the result of a Triad turf war. The truth was even more tragic.
The recent ‘dance-hall cluster’ has thrown a spotlight on the hitherto respectable tradition of ballroom dancing.