https://www.scmp.com/rss/327107/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Chris Dobson Chris Dobson I’M ONE OF FOUR SIBLINGS and the only one born in England, in 1972. My sister was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, my brother was born in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and my other brother in the Philippines. My father was in tobacco, so he travelled all over the world. He met my mother, who was with the Foreign Office in Bangkok. Then they lived in Chiang Mai, Kaohsiung, Tanzania and Manila. My grandparents met in Hong Kong at the Happy Valley racetrack in the 1930s, so I have a family history of being... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3333046/dominic-johnson-hill-started-hong-kong-art-walk-he-was-star-chinese-television?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3333046/dominic-johnson-hill-started-hong-kong-art-walk-he-was-star-chinese-television?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Nov 2025 02:00:11 +0000 Chris Dobson Chris Dobson From a darkened first-floor shop window, the zoom lens picks up the lean, sallow-faced figure loitering on the opposite pavement. Seemingly invisible to passers-by and shopkeepers, he is a magnet for solitary, middle-aged men who approach in silence, holding HK$10 notes. No words are exchanged, but between meetings, he disappears into an open staircase and returns within moments to discreetly hand off small paper packets to more customers who then drift away. This is repeated, again and again,... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3308763/peter-yungs-system-rediscovered-gem-hong-kong-new-wave-cinema?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3308763/peter-yungs-system-rediscovered-gem-hong-kong-new-wave-cinema?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 May 2025 03:00:13 +0000 I was born in Nantes, Brittany, in 1968. My father was an electrical engineer and my mother was at home. I had one brother and one sister. It was a regular childhood in terms of school, work and friends, but I always oriented towards working in art. I think my interest with sculpture, stone and architecture came as I was going to college at Saint-Pierre in Nantes. It was attached to the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul, a beautiful Gothic cathedral I passed through every day. So I guess my... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3226900/french-sculptor-working-rodin-restoring-louvre-and-his-hong-kong-exhibition-got-people-sit-down-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3226900/french-sculptor-working-rodin-restoring-louvre-and-his-hong-kong-exhibition-got-people-sit-down-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Jul 2023 23:15:10 +0000 The sun beat down from a blue autumn sky onto the patient crowds crammed into Tiananmen Square. Hundreds of thousands had come from the country­side by trucks and trains and were camping throughout the city. The banging of drums and the blare of bugles had ensured they had all been awake since dawn, waiting for the grand parade and the patriotic speeches to celebrate the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. My father, Christopher Dobson, had arrived a few days earlier from his base... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3030522/how-beijing-celebrated-10th-anniversary-founding?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3030522/how-beijing-celebrated-10th-anniversary-founding?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Sep 2019 21:00:07 +0000 What’s the story? Perched on high in the Blue Mountains town of Katoomba, the hotel opened in 1883 as the Great Western, becoming the first resort-style hotel in Australia’s first tourist destination, north­west of Sydney. It was renamed The Carrington in 1886, in honour of the then governor of New South Wales, Charles Robert Wynn-Carrington (or simply Lord Carrington to the hoi polloi), and is the only 19th-century grand resort hotel still operating in the state. For the majority of that time... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/2157814/explore-australias-blue-mountains-carrington-hotel?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/2157814/explore-australias-blue-mountains-carrington-hotel?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Aug 2018 04:34:03 +0000 Pit stops I was born in Enfield, in North London, in 1966, and come from a lower-middle class/working-class back­ground and went to the local comprehensive school. My father worked for the Greater London Council. When­ever anyone wanted to dig below a certain level or build a new tube (underground rail) line, they had to consult him because he had maps marked with all the original plague pits (in which victims of the 17th-century bubonic plague were buried). Everywhere else in the world, tube... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2146571/bestselling-beijing-murder-author-turns-shanghai-1930s?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2146571/bestselling-beijing-murder-author-turns-shanghai-1930s?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 17 May 2018 10:30:00 +0000