https://www.scmp.com/rss/521346/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Gavin Yeung Gavin Yeung I WAS BORN outside Philadelphia and I lived a typical American East Coast suburban childhood. My grandparents had a business selling African violets, so we would help out in the greenhouses on school holidays. It wasn’t so much art, but it was very much about putting something beautiful into people’s lives. I WENT TO an all-boys’ Jesuit high school in Philadelphia, then I went to Duke University, in North Carolina, as an undergrad. My major was literature and history, but I started to study... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3348136/philip-tinari-his-journey-through-art-and-culture-and-tai-kwuns-potential?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3348136/philip-tinari-his-journey-through-art-and-culture-and-tai-kwuns-potential?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:00:12 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN IN LONDON, but my father got a job in the Hallé orchestra as a clarinettist, so we all moved up to Manchester. My childhood was spent mostly in the town of Wilmslow, Cheshire, and I went to a specialist secondary school called Chetham’s School of Music, in central Manchester. My parents were both professional classical musicians, so I had a very bohemian upbringing. People sometimes ask me where I get my discipline from. I guess it was from that school, where we had to practise for... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3345711/jane-houng-her-dedication-womens-safety-after-murder-her-daughter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3345711/jane-houng-her-dedication-womens-safety-after-murder-her-daughter?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 12 Mar 2026 07:00:07 +0000 Lavender Au Lavender Au I WAS BORN in Guangzhou in 1979. In the 1980s and 90s, Guangzhou was a relatively special city in China. Many of my classmates had relatives in Hong Kong. It was more open, more connected to the outside world. People generally valued profit and were practically minded. The direct comparison with Hong Kong coupled with the continuous transmission of a kind of folk culture means that Guangdong has always had a very secular society. Even during the political movements of the 50s, 60s and 70s,... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3342638/author-hu-anyan-work-writing-and-overcoming-inferiority-complex?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3342638/author-hu-anyan-work-writing-and-overcoming-inferiority-complex?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 Feb 2026 07:00:09 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN IN a small city in the north of Mozambique called Nampula in 1962. My parents were living in Mozambique. My father was a soldier and the capital was called Lourenco Marques (present-day Maputo). It was, of course, a colony of Portugal. We moved to Portugal when I was four. My father became a merchant and he travelled a lot, so I seldom saw him. I stayed with my grandparents in Porto and then lived with my mother again in Lisbon a few years later. By then, she was separated from my... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3341202/ricardo-pinto-covering-macau-through-decades-and-launching-literary-festival?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3341202/ricardo-pinto-covering-macau-through-decades-and-launching-literary-festival?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Jan 2026 09:00:10 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I GREW UP IN A theatrical family. My mother was also on the stage and had just begun to really make a name for herself when she married my father (Leslie Sarony). Then we saw a little bit of his true character because he said, “There’s only one star in this family,” and she was told she couldn’t work any more. We used to go to wherever my father was playing summer seasons. He was half of The Two Leslies, which was the partnership that he began in, I think, 1937. I grew up watching them on stage.... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3339357/meet-neville-sarony-hong-kong-barrister-who-also-writes-acts-and-sings?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3339357/meet-neville-sarony-hong-kong-barrister-who-also-writes-acts-and-sings?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Jan 2026 07:00:12 +0000 Charmaine Chan Charmaine Chan I’M A FIRST-GENERATION Chinese-American. My parents left Shanghai in 1948 to go to grad school at Cornell. When I was born (in 1949), my grandfather gave me a Chinese name that my mother (a biochemist) said sounded like Billy. She didn’t like its meaning because it was too flowery, so she gave me a Chinese name that basically means “good money”, which is not very romantic. But to respect my grandfather’s wishes, she gave me the American name Billie, which is unusual even in America. I GREW UP... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3335700/architect-billie-tsien-identity-fear-and-doing-duolingo?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/design-interiors/article/3335700/architect-billie-tsien-identity-fear-and-doing-duolingo?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Dec 2025 07:18:12 +0000 Andrew Sun Andrew Sun MY HONG KONG CHILDHOOD was very typical. I’m the oldest of five girls. From a young age, I carried the responsibility of helping my mum look after my sisters, so I developed a big sister mentality. That sense of looking after people is deeply rooted in my personality. Hospitality was introduced to me through one incident at my first job, selling advertising for a woman’s magazine. I met the PR manager of a hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. I was very young and my first impression was she’s so beautiful,... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3334742/peninsula-hong-kongs-first-female-general-manager-rainy-chan-burnout-and-joy-reinvention?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3334742/peninsula-hong-kongs-first-female-general-manager-rainy-chan-burnout-and-joy-reinvention?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Dec 2025 07:15:08 +0000 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 Karen Cheung Karen Cheung I WAS BORN in 1974, and grew up in Kwun Tong. I attended Sam Yuk Middle School (now Hong Kong Adventist College), a coed boarding school in Clear Water Bay. My father is an alumnus. It’s a Christian school in a red brick building, and the meals were vegetarian. Sometimes, after lights out at 10pm, my classmates and I would leave our beds and snack on cans of twice-cooked pork. WHEN I WAS 12, I was listening to The Checkers, so I would wear checked shirts I had bought from the Ladies’ Market. I... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3331128/experimental-hong-kong-musician-nerve-his-fearless-approach-sound?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3331128/experimental-hong-kong-musician-nerve-his-fearless-approach-sound?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Nov 2025 02:00:11 +0000 Andrew Sun Andrew Sun I GREW UP IN a traditional Chinese family in the Philippines. My dad was a businessman working with his brothers. My mother was a homemaker, but in true Chinese fashion, if there was a shortage of staff, she had to help out. When a new business opened, she worked alongside my aunts. THE FAMILY BUSINESS grew and now we’re the biggest snacks and drinks producer in the Philippines. We also have shopping malls, digital banking and some media. That’s where I trained to run a media company and be an... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3330060/journalist-art-investor-how-kitty-go-built-her-second-act-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3330060/journalist-art-investor-how-kitty-go-built-her-second-act-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 Oct 2025 02:00:14 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans MY PARENTS WERE married in Hong Kong in 1949. My mother, who is 98 years old, was also born in Hong Kong, in 1926. I was told by my grandfather that his wife, Tehmi Pheroz Pavri, was the first Parsi married lady to live in Hong Kong on a permanent basis. Prior to that, all married Parsi women were left in Bombay (Mumbai). For some reason, my grandfather, who was already in Hong Kong with his father, brought her out from Bombay after marriage. I think she was all of 17 or 18 years old when she... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3329648/jimmy-minoo-master-life-fourth-generation-parsi-hongkonger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3329648/jimmy-minoo-master-life-fourth-generation-parsi-hongkonger?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Oct 2025 10:15:13 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN in 1967 in Caloocan, just north of Manila, in the Philippines. I have three siblings. I’m the eldest. My father had a much bigger clan, 10 siblings. Imagine the reunions we have on my father’s side! My family went into different kinds of businesses: textiles, poultry, restaurants. At one time we were an egg distributor, so we gathered them from nearby provinces wholesale and retailed them in the city. Whenever my dad had a new venture, I’d be there observing and sometimes I’d be the... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3328771/noel-de-guzman-painting-fire-and-silent-power-smile?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3328771/noel-de-guzman-painting-fire-and-silent-power-smile?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Oct 2025 10:15:08 +0000 Aidyn Fitzpatrick Aidyn Fitzpatrick AT BOARDING SCHOOL in the UK in the mid-1970s, a fellow pupil asked me, after I had told him I was born in Beijing, whether that meant I was Chinese. “Oh yes,” I said, “that means I possess a Chinese soul.” OK, in my defence, I was nine. My father (Alan Donald) was a British diplomat, posted to Beijing three times during his career, and ended up British ambassador there in the late 1980s. I don’t remember anything of China as a baby – we left in 1966 at the start of the Cultural Revolution, when... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3327804/angus-donald-wild-parties-war-zones-and-finding-love-through-psychic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3327804/angus-donald-wild-parties-war-zones-and-finding-love-through-psychic?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Oct 2025 04:45:08 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN IN Hong Kong in 1962. My dad was Filipino, my mum Chinese and, if I’m not mistaken, they were introduced by the wife of (legendary Cantopop composer) Joseph Koo. That would have been about late 1960. My father was Bading Tuason, music director of the Hongkong Hilton. My father’s side was very musical. A couple of my uncles also played instruments. They played in the Philippines but would earn only a small amount of money. So, they had to go abroad, to Japan and the United States... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3327320/andrew-tuason-his-hong-kong-music-career-alongside-cantopops-biggest-stars?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3327320/andrew-tuason-his-hong-kong-music-career-alongside-cantopops-biggest-stars?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 30 Sep 2025 05:15:07 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN in 1955, in Liverpool’s Sefton General Hospital. I grew up on the Wirral (in northwest England). My dad was in the Royal Air Force and after that he was a chemical engineer with Dunlop. They used to make golf balls and things. I know that because we had golf balls all over the house. I have a sister and a brother. When I was 13, I went to Wellington School (a private day school) and I spent a lot of time studying all the wrong things. I joined the Army Cadets at a young age. I enjoyed... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3326077/steve-vickers-50-years-battling-hong-kongs-criminal-underworld?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3326077/steve-vickers-50-years-battling-hong-kongs-criminal-underworld?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Sep 2025 07:15:09 +0000 Andrew Sun Andrew Sun MY GRANDPA CAME to Hong Kong in the 1960s. My dad followed suit in the 70s. I was born here in 1985 so I’m a third-generation Hongkonger. We lived in Hung Hom then To Kwa Wan, two very grass-roots districts. I’m of Indian descent but have never lived in India. I’m a minority even among Hong Kong Indians; they are predominantly northerners. We come from the south. I speak Tamil, I have darker skin, plus I’m a Christian. I WENT TO a segregated local school. Growing up, the discrimination I saw... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3325814/jeffrey-andrews-turned-teenage-arrest-life-advocacy-and-change?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3325814/jeffrey-andrews-turned-teenage-arrest-life-advocacy-and-change?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 17 Sep 2025 22:15:07 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN IN 1949 in Kent, southeast England. I have a twin sister, Pamela, and an older sister, Jenny, and our playground was the orchards of Kent. So trees are everything for me. There were a lot of apples, peaches and pears. We picked them for the farmers and received some for free. My twin sister and I, we don’t look like one another. We’re the complete opposite. MY MOTHER WAS a nurse and my father was in local government in Kent. My twin sister studied botany. My older sister became a... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3324823/botanical-artist-sally-grace-bunkers-journey-garden-england-hong-kongs-countryside?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3324823/botanical-artist-sally-grace-bunkers-journey-garden-england-hong-kongs-countryside?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Sep 2025 04:45:08 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN in Kwong Wah Hospital in October 1983. I have a sister, Melody Hau. She’s eight years older than me. She’s always been more of a second mother than a sibling. She’s actually my manager now. We have different fathers and she didn’t come into my life until she was 11. She was brought up by my (maternal) grandma and then she joined our family. That’s when I realised I had a sister. I was three. My mum was a businesswoman and she would fly a lot. So I saw my sister a lot more than my mum... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3323058/mariah-carey-korn-and-making-hong-kong-radio-dj?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3323058/mariah-carey-korn-and-making-hong-kong-radio-dj?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Aug 2025 22:15:06 +0000 Andrew Sun Andrew Sun I’M FROM A VERY humble family. My mother was a tailor, but what she did was more like the work of a designer. In addition to measurements, she had a good sense for numbers. She was basically a one-woman home factory. But at that time, in the 1960s, there wasn’t the concept of a designer. OUR HOUSE HAD several sewing machines and a huge table. My mum would use it to cut fabric, and we always had a lot. My father and I would help make exact measurements. We had six brothers and sisters all... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3321936/what-tailoring-and-book-publishing-have-common?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3321936/what-tailoring-and-book-publishing-have-common?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Aug 2025 07:15:11 +0000 Andrew Sun Andrew Sun I GREW UP IN HONG KONG. My father was an interior designer, my mother a housemaker. I went to St Mary’s Canossian College for most of my secondary schooling, until transferring to King’s College for the last two years. Although it’s an all-boys school, for a brief period they accepted girls and I had the privilege to study there during that time. I was a bit of a nerd, a straight A student, good in math and science. I didn’t do much except focus on my exams, but I was never too sure what my... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3319554/film-producer-jessica-kam-engle-talks-disney-john-woo-and-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3319554/film-producer-jessica-kam-engle-talks-disney-john-woo-and-more?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Aug 2025 23:00:08 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN in February 1970. An Aquarian. They’re dreamers, they’re not practical, but they’re charismatic and people like them a lot. I have four siblings, so with my parents there were seven of us living in a 220 sq ft flat in Lower Ngau Tau Kok Estate. It was a typical Chiu Chow family. Chiu Chow people love to have small businesses. We had a si do, a corner shop, and that was pre-supermarket days, so it was always busy. I remember the whole family had to work in that shop. My responsibility... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3318730/cabaret-star-rick-lau-his-journey-chiu-chow-corner-shop-stage?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3318730/cabaret-star-rick-lau-his-journey-chiu-chow-corner-shop-stage?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 24 Jul 2025 01:30:09 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN IN 1942 on a small farm in the west of Ireland. We were poor; no toilet, no electricity. We did have animals, cows and pigs, turkeys and hens, but it was hand to mouth, because we were a big family. There were 12 children and I was No 12. We sold milk and eggs. It was a village called Snugboro, near Castlebar in County Mayo. Castlebar is the county town and there was a La Salle school there and that’s where I went. In Primary Six, a recruiter (for the Catholic La Salle order) came in... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3318097/former-la-salle-college-principal-his-tenure-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3318097/former-la-salle-college-principal-his-tenure-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 16 Jul 2025 23:00:10 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN in 1961. I’m the middle one. Our family base was in Salisbury (in southern England) during some of my primary years. I travelled around with my father, who was in the armed forces. His name was Jim Ades. So much of my childhood was spent seeing my father either coming back or going away to do something somewhere in the world. The only place we went that was a little bit dodgy was Bahrain. We went when I was about three. There were actual hostilities going on and, in the end, my... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3316935/hong-kong-head-fauna-conservation-ecology-region?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3316935/hong-kong-head-fauna-conservation-ecology-region?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 09 Jul 2025 23:15:07 +0000 Kate Whitehead Kate Whitehead I WAS BORN in London in 1965 and adopted by a couple in Leicester as a baby. My dad was an economist and lectured at the University of Leicester, and my mum was a dispensing optician. In 1972, dad got a job with the United Nations and was seconded to Bangkok. His speciality was public utilities, energy and water. I remember flying kites in Lumphini Park and weekends in Pattaya. I went to a school run by American nuns called Ruamrudee International School, which probably helped to inform my... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3315218/david-webb-speaking-truth-power-and-life-terminal-cancer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/passions/article/3315218/david-webb-speaking-truth-power-and-life-terminal-cancer?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Jun 2025 05:00:11 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans ROWENA? I think it’s an English name; there’s supposed to have been a Queen Rowena in English history. My parents came on a boat from the Philippines in 1947. My mother was five months pregnant at the time, with my second brother. So you can imagine how hard it was for her. My dad was a jazz musician, Avelino Cortes, an alto sax player. He was the musical director at the Mandarin Oriental hotel for many years. He also did studio recordings for Diamond Records. He had a band with four of my... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3314587/rowena-cortes-her-life-and-working-elton-john-and-leslie-cheung?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3314587/rowena-cortes-her-life-and-working-elton-john-and-leslie-cheung?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 Jun 2025 09:45:08 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN IN 1963. When I was six years old, Dr Yip Wai-hong (the late composer and music educator) asked me to join the Hong Kong Children’s Choir. It was the first children’s choir in Hong Kong and at the beginning there were 20 kids. But they rehearsed on a Sunday, so I had to choose between going to choir rehearsal or joining my dad, Calvin Wong, when he did his television programme for kids on Rediffusion. (Wong opted to join his father.) It was called Happy Birthday and he was “Uncle... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3313376/wonderful-life-radio-host-musician-and-educator-harry-wong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3313376/wonderful-life-radio-host-musician-and-educator-harry-wong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Jun 2025 06:00:13 +0000