https://www.scmp.com/rss/6002/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com 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 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 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans Lawrence Osborne wrote The Ballad of a Small Player – his acclaimed 2014 novel, now adapted into a Netflix film starring Colin Farrell as a high-rolling fraud whose luck is running out – at a time when he was down and out. “We exalt winners and we despise losers, but, in fact, most of us are losers,” says Osborne. “For most of my life, I felt absolutely down at heel and unable to make money. This is the writer’s lot. “When you’re in that condition and you have no backup or safety net, it drives... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3333524/how-childhood-scandal-and-macaus-shadows-shaped-lawrence-osbornes-anti-hero?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3333524/how-childhood-scandal-and-macaus-shadows-shaped-lawrence-osbornes-anti-hero?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 26 Nov 2025 04:00:09 +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 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 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 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans Focus your eyes, there, across the road, at layers upon layers of cream paint on the opposite wall, and don’t blink. See that hint of green? It’s the remnants of an old advertisement for Green Spot, a glass-bottled soft drink once available at every family-run shop in town. These kinds of sightings have become less common in Hong Kong, but once you’ve seen one, it’s hard not to see, and seek out, other examples of these palimpsest survivors of humidity, rain or repainting. They can be small or... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3321209/ghost-signs-resurrect-bygone-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3321209/ghost-signs-resurrect-bygone-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 08 Aug 2025 10:00:10 +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 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans Children tend to glimpse little fairies, men start to cry, some see mountains, valleys, Asian temples, the sweep of a dragon, rivers and rainfall. Others perceive their own memories, a vision of themselves, a portal into their soul. The work of London-born contemporary artist Jessica Zoob summons multiple reactions and emotions in viewers of her evocative paintings, created over a number of years, often with around 40 layers of oil paint. On the same canvas have been multiple paintings often... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3315146/jessica-zoob-wants-you-connect-her-art-her-hong-kong-studio?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3315146/jessica-zoob-wants-you-connect-her-art-her-hong-kong-studio?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Jun 2025 01:00:12 +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 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I GREW UP THE THIRD YOUNGEST of four boys in Tin Hau Temple Road, Causeway Bay, in the 1950s. For a Chinese family, my parents were very Western. We never had Chinese music at home. Growing up, my father loved Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra, so we listened to swing, big band, that kind of music. My parents were always so supportive. By the time I was 12, we already had a band room with drums, bass and guitar so we could jam. I never studied, never had lessons, just banged on the drums. At the... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3311516/tin-hau-new-york-ted-los-extraordinary-jazz-journey?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3311516/tin-hau-new-york-ted-los-extraordinary-jazz-journey?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 May 2025 23:00:08 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans MY FIRST MEMORY of Hong Kong is not even my own memory. It’s a story I’ve been told so many times that it’s become a memory. And it’s of Kai Tak airport. We had just arrived, and my memory is me running down the ramp at Kai Tak, straight into my father’s arms. And he told me this story, that it was the first time I had ever met him, because my parents had an arranged marriage in Mumbai, India, and a few months after they got married, my dad had the opportunity to move to Hong Kong to work for a... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3310597/how-mirchandani-family-went-poverty-major-players-hong-kong-book-industry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3310597/how-mirchandani-family-went-poverty-major-players-hong-kong-book-industry?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 20 May 2025 06:00:14 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I WAS BORN IN Tidworth Military Hospital (in southern England) in 1956. My father was a medical orderly during the 1956 Suez Crisis and I was conceived on a rooftop in Benghazi (Libya) and flown back to England to be born. My father was doing his National Service. He later went to London Bible College. My maternal grandparents had a wonderful little house in Flitwick, Bedfordshire, where my brother and younger sister were born. Much later, in 1974, my youngest sister was born. My father... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3309691/radio-dogs-body-big-mover-and-shaker-hong-kong-disco?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3309691/radio-dogs-body-big-mover-and-shaker-hong-kong-disco?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 13 May 2025 22:30:09 +0000 Annemarie Evans Annemarie Evans I was born Duc Thanh in Saigon in 1957, a baby boomer! My father worked in a hotel. He was educated by the French but sent me to a Chinese kindergarten. My mother was from China but grew up in Hong Kong and Macau, and she told my father, “Hey, send our babies to learn English, because they might go back to Hong Kong or Macau or go to the West.” So, me and my three younger brothers went to the English institute. I grew up in Chinatown, where there are still many old French colonial buildings. My... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3308531/refugee-music-entrepreneur-wake-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3308531/refugee-music-entrepreneur-wake-war?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:00:14 +0000 Reinaldo Maria Cordeiro, better known to his legions of listeners as “Uncle Ray”, has died peacefully in a Hong Kong hospital aged 98. He died on January 13 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Medical Centre surrounded by his closest friends, with the singer Joe Junior leading the singing of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, the committee arranging his funeral said. A constant on Hong Kong’s airwaves for 70 years, “The World’s Most Durable DJ”, an accolade awarded to him by Guinness World Records,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3206817/worlds-most-durable-dj-uncle-ray-cordeiro-warm-voice-late-night-hours-generations-hong-kong-dies-98?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3206817/worlds-most-durable-dj-uncle-ray-cordeiro-warm-voice-late-night-hours-generations-hong-kong-dies-98?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Jan 2023 04:02:52 +0000 The Tony Carpio Big Band was a regular fixture at the Dickens Bar in Causeway Bay’s Excelsior hotel from the early 1980s until 1995, playing on the first Sunday afternoon of each month. The 20 musicians worked through three sets over three hours, from 3pm to 6pm, under the direction of the namesake Filipino bandleader and composer, who died on October 17, age 82. Tony Carpio inspired many in Hong Kong to take up a career in music, particularly in jazz, and during his career, America’s best jazz... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3198438/how-hong-kong-jazz-legend-tony-carpio-inspired-citys-musicians-eugene-pao-ted-lo?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3198438/how-hong-kong-jazz-legend-tony-carpio-inspired-citys-musicians-eugene-pao-ted-lo?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 06 Nov 2022 05:15:09 +0000 Hong Kong philanthropist Anne Marden, who was a key advocate for the rights of children and marginalised communities, has died at the age of 96. Marden, who was a pioneer in special needs education at a time when there were almost no facilities for children and adults with disabilities, died on Tuesday in her home in Shek O. In later years, she also gave financial support to the now-suspended Human Rights Press Awards. On Wednesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor expressed deep... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3180051/hong-kong-philanthropist-anne-marden-who-advocated-rights?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3180051/hong-kong-philanthropist-anne-marden-who-advocated-rights?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:03:52 +0000 In 1943, the late American socialite and gallery owner Peggy Guggenheim defied cultural norms and art critics by putting together an exhibition called “31 Women” in New York. The exhibition showcased art from women of 16 nationalities, including that of Frida Kahlo, at a time when surrealist male painters were feted and women artists not so much. Hong Kong gallery 10 Chancery Lane has adopted the “31 Women” concept almost 80 years on to show the work of 31 women contemporary artists working in... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3178049/art-exhibition-celebrates-31-female-contemporary-artists?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3178049/art-exhibition-celebrates-31-female-contemporary-artists?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 17 May 2022 08:45:12 +0000 Pilates instructor Corinne Clifford moves around the room assisting students in a private class. With one she corrects inward-turning toes, the other she tells to slow down the movement. She places her hand under my spine – too much space, she says, I need to use my abdominal muscles to push my body flat on to the mat. With BASI (Body Arts Science International) Pilates, Clifford is continuing an exercise format created by a German boxer and circus performer, who was placed in an internment camp... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3132589/macau-showgirl-turned-pilates-instructor-how-exercises?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3132589/macau-showgirl-turned-pilates-instructor-how-exercises?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 May 2021 05:15:08 +0000 Liu Rushi’s poem A Walk in the Rain on Broken Bridge includes the lines: “If a courtesan’s life is slated to be a cold blustery dream / Won’t you, wind and rain, be kind and swaddle me in warmth?” Liu was a published poet at the age of 17. By the time she was 25, four collections of her work had been released in China and she was an established name, as well as a well-known painter. These were extraordinary achievements for a woman sold as a concubine at the age of 13 in the mid-1600s, the last... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3121750/sold-one-man-another-3-chinese-women-central-cultural-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3121750/sold-one-man-another-3-chinese-women-central-cultural-and?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 Feb 2021 02:45:17 +0000 A popular scene in 1980s police crime dramas features a lead detective slicing open a bag of suspected heroin, dabbing his finger inside and tasting it as though it was sherbet. Utter rubbish, it would never happen, says former police officer Rod Mason, the principal undercover investigator on a major international drugs case in Hong Kong in 1988. “Police are taught about risk assessment, and you should never do anything that is unknown,” Mason says from his home in Scotland. “A packet of white... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3120655/heroin-smuggling-subterfuge-and-adventure-sea-historic-drug?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3120655/heroin-smuggling-subterfuge-and-adventure-sea-historic-drug?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Feb 2021 00:15:21 +0000 In 2006, when Briton Dennis Morley came to Hong Kong on one of several visits later in his life, there was talk of making a movie about the World War II sinking of the Japanese freighter, Lisbon Maru. He had been on the ship with hundreds of other prisoners of war when it was torpedoed by a US submarine en route from Hong Kong to Japan. Morley also visited Japan in 2006, a country that in modern times surprised him. He enjoyed spending time with Japanese youngsters and had been impressed when,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/3119405/last-survivor-world-war-ii-prison-ship-tragedy-dies-aged-101-his-life-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/3119405/last-survivor-world-war-ii-prison-ship-tragedy-dies-aged-101-his-life-and?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Jan 2021 06:45:06 +0000 Wild tales of gold discoveries lure Li Yu and Li Chang to embark on a life-changing journey in September 1854, leaving the poverty of their peasant agrarian life in Southern China’s Guangdong province to board a ship to San Francisco. In this apocryphal tale, the brothers look to make money to send back home to their families and to later take home themselves. At 16 and 26 years old, they are ready for adventure. Chinese Brothers, American Sons, by US author Ed Shew and published by Earnshaw... https://www.scmp.com/culture/books/article/3108031/chinese-workers-america-and-prejudice-they-faced-1800s-looking-gold?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/books/article/3108031/chinese-workers-america-and-prejudice-they-faced-1800s-looking-gold?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Nov 2020 18:35:18 +0000 Paper shredder: I was born in Chaozhou, Guangdong, in 1974. My home village was a six-hour drive from Shenzhen. We lived in a traditional village house with my grandparents. I am the eldest of six girls and one boy and I helped look after my younger siblings. My mum was a housewife, my father a businessman. He had a bicycle and would travel from village to village selling fish – I think that’s where my love of fish comes from. I went to school when I was about eight, quite late. For part of my... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3103812/atmosphere-so-tense-hong-kong-now-says-artist?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3103812/atmosphere-so-tense-hong-kong-now-says-artist?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Oct 2020 07:45:17 +0000 Hong Kong bound: I was born in Guangzhou in 1949. When I was just a few weeks old, my parents decided to escape to Hong Kong. My father used to work with a company affiliated to the Kuomintang, so they felt it was better to leave communist China. We escaped by boat from Guangzhou. My brothers told me the boat was fired on by the army trying to stop people leaving. In the chaos, my five-year-old sister was pushed down and trampled, breaking three of her ribs. A missionary doctor from New Zealand... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3097247/how-artist-and-activist-evelyna-liang-kan-brings?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3097247/how-artist-and-activist-evelyna-liang-kan-brings?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Aug 2020 07:00:06 +0000 Love letters: My mother, Jean, met my father, Jack, just as he was going to war as a junior in the Royal Air Force. It was literally one night at a dance hall and then they wrote letters to each other. After the war they got married straight away. I was born in Sunderland, in the UK, in 1951. Because my father was in the military he got out of the north of England and was able to travel with my mum. When I was seven years old they went to Germany on a tour of duty and I had to stay with my... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3096324/how-john-culkin-became-voice-hong-kongs-english?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3096324/how-john-culkin-became-voice-hong-kongs-english?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Aug 2020 07:15:12 +0000 There’s a drinking fountain at a school in Copenhagen where, as pupils bend down to sip the water, they can cast their eyes up at a marble plaque that names former students killed in World War II. Retired Danish detective chief superintendent Frode Olsen was a pupil at the school, and as a boy he sometimes glanced at the plaque before running off to play. Eight years ago, the school celebrated its 100th anniversary, and Olsen had a longer look at the plaque, focusing on one man’s name – Kaj... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3086924/king-and-country-not-so-danish-volunteer-soldiers-world-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3086924/king-and-country-not-so-danish-volunteer-soldiers-world-war?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Jun 2020 04:15:11 +0000 In a photograph taken in the mid-1930s, a young woman in a striped swimsuit sits in the shallows of a river near the Russian city of Sverdlovsk, which reverted to its original name of Ekaterinburg in the 1990s. Her hair is short and curled up around the back of her head and ears, in keeping with the European fashion of the time. One hand is stretched out to cover that of a young, tanned and good-looking Chinese man. It’s her husband, Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of China’s Kuomintang leader Chiang... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3084026/mysterious-russian-wife-chiang-kai-shek-son-and-former?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3084026/mysterious-russian-wife-chiang-kai-shek-son-and-former?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 May 2020 04:15:06 +0000 It’s 1911 and six men are posing for a photograph. Their collarless shirts are buttoned to the neck, and one’s high-waisted trousers are held up by braces. Another wears a pinstriped waistcoat, while two standing at the back are in T-shirts. All have close-cropped, British Army-issue haircuts. The sign at their feet indicates they are at Mount Davis, on Hong Kong Island, and would have been building a battery and emplacements to house five 9.2-inch (233.7mm) anti-ship guns. In the foreground are... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3064785/old-photos-hong-kongs-harbours-show-citys-vibrant-maritime?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3064785/old-photos-hong-kongs-harbours-show-citys-vibrant-maritime?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Mar 2020 23:15:15 +0000 In 1894, a middle-aged British woman, independently wealthy from her work as a travel writer, took a course to learn how to use a camera. She planned to use one while travelling around Asia, in what would be her final trip to the region. The trip was an opportunity for Isabella Bird to hear and see the rapids of China’s untamed Yangtze River, observe the country’s dainty women with bound feet and relish the architecture of arched bridges, temples and the Forbidden City. The ailments that had... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3051522/captivating-old-photos-1890s-china-famed-travel-writer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3051522/captivating-old-photos-1890s-china-famed-travel-writer?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Feb 2020 06:00:12 +0000 Should you ever encounter a tiger in Hong Kong, run downhill. The big cat’s front legs are shorter than its hind limbs, its descent will be awkward and give you the edge as you escape. But since the last sightings of the South China tiger in Hong Kong were in the 1970s, that’s unlikely to be necessary. Villagers minding livestock or cutting grass on hillsides, however, would likely have grown up heeding that advice passed down from older generations. Author and graphic designer John Saeki... https://www.scmp.com/society/when-tigers-used-roam-concrete-jungle-hong-kong/article/3049786?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/when-tigers-used-roam-concrete-jungle-hong-kong/article/3049786?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Feb 2020 10:46:04 +0000 Should you ever encounter a tiger in Hong Kong, run downhill. As the big cat’s front legs are shorter than its hind limbs, its descent will be awkward and give you the edge as you make an escape. But since the last sightings of the South China tiger in Hong Kong were in the 1970s, that’s unlikely to be necessary. Villagers minding livestock or cutting grass on hillsides, however, would likely have grown up heeding that advice passed down from older generations. Author and graphic designer John... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/3049464/when-south-china-tigers-roamed-hong-kong-maulings-devoured-livestock?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/3049464/when-south-china-tigers-roamed-hong-kong-maulings-devoured-livestock?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Feb 2020 23:30:12 +0000 There’s a picturesque, historic village in northeastern Hong Kong that was once a flourishing community. More than 300 years old, Lai Chi Wo used to be one of the more affluent villages in the area. It was home to the Hakka ethnic group, who migrated from northern China to the south of the country hundreds of years ago. The Hakka – whose name means “guest families” – is a major group in the global Chinese diaspora. By the 1950s, however,  the village had become so poor that parents could not... https://www.scmp.com/arts/hong-kong-band-artists-make-art-celebrate-rural-village-life/article/3044319?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/arts/hong-kong-band-artists-make-art-celebrate-rural-village-life/article/3044319?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 02 Jan 2020 11:32:10 +0000 There’s a ferry that heads out of the Tolo Channel, past a police checkpoint and floating barrier, and on into a geological park and some of the most dramatic scenery in Hong Kong. It’s a world away from high-rises, although a Shenzhen container port suddenly looms on the horizon. There are a few other ferries, a couple of fishing boats, egrets and other bird life, red rock formations and then, a little over an hour later, we see the pier from which a path leads to the historic village of Lai... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3043666/artists-celebrate-ordinary-hong-kong-hakka-village-show?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3043666/artists-celebrate-ordinary-hong-kong-hakka-village-show?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Dec 2019 06:00:10 +0000 The Tolo Channel, a waterway from Ma Liu Shui and out to Mirs Bay in Hong Kong’s northeastern New Territories, is the perfect habitat for smugglers, with a succession of narrow inlets and hidden jetties offering safe havens for loading up contraband and speeding it across the water to mainland China. In the late 1980s, “big fliers”, or dai fei – grey fibreglass boats specially made to move electronic goods and luxury cars to mainland China and smuggle people into Hong Kong – were the vessels of... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3037913/hong-kong-smuggling-sea-battles-car-condom-case-and-saving?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3037913/hong-kong-smuggling-sea-battles-car-condom-case-and-saving?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Nov 2019 10:00:07 +0000 Walk along Hong Kong’s Hollywood Road, past its many antique shops and those selling Chinese fans, Mao souvenirs and other paraphernalia, and you’ll find the Liang Yi Museum. Behind an unassuming door, the museum is a dedicated space for the antiques collection of millionaire and collector Peter Fung Yiu-fai. The museum was set up five years ago and houses a collection that incudes four-poster beds, scholarly articles, paintings, screens and a permanent collection of ladies’ ornaments, which are... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3030966/imperial-beauty-china-japan-explored-hong-kong-show-salute?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3030966/imperial-beauty-china-japan-explored-hong-kong-show-salute?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Oct 2019 05:15:10 +0000 The French chart follows the Pearl River estuary to the city of Canton. Printed in 1844 as an aid to ship navigation, it’s a chart made for practicality, not aesthetics – to be rolled out on a ship bridge, pored over, a forefinger tracking a route, used in tandem with a sextant – and the basis for a quick discussion with the captain and instructions given to the crew. At the time it was made the British colony of Hong Kong was just three years old. There’s a city plan of Canton (now Guangzhou)... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3026662/when-island-was-called-he-ong-kong-collectors-400-years?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3026662/when-island-was-called-he-ong-kong-collectors-400-years?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 12 Sep 2019 07:00:07 +0000 Her eyesight failing, Liu Kam-lan sits, hands clasped together, in San Uk Tsuen, a village in Hong Kong’s rural New Territories a few miles from the border with mainland China. Around her, other elderly women chat and laugh. She is asked to sing. In a lilting voice, she begins a “bridal lament” in the disappearing dialect of the Weitou people, who settled in the area during the Song dynasty (960-1279). The song is one of sadness, and tells a story dating back more than 60 years. Like other young... https://www.scmp.com/society/chinese-weitou-women-forced-arranged-marriage-sing-bridal-laments/article/3010482?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/chinese-weitou-women-forced-arranged-marriage-sing-bridal-laments/article/3010482?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 May 2019 09:11:34 +0000 Her eyesight failing, Liu Kam-lan sits, hands clasped together, with social workers from the Caritas NGO in San Uk Tsuen, a village in Hong Kong’s New Territories a few kilometres from the border with China. Around her, other elderly women chat and laugh. She is asked to sing. In a lilting voice, she begins a “bridal lament” in the disappearing dialect of the Weitou people, who settled in the area during the Song dynasty (960-1279). The dialect is still spoken by elderly people in the old walled... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/3010261/hong-kong-arranged-marriage-heartbreak-bridal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/3010261/hong-kong-arranged-marriage-heartbreak-bridal?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 May 2019 00:15:09 +0000 Candyfloss and sandcastles I was born in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, in England’s North Yorkshire, in 1943. My child­hood with my older sister, Margaret, was candyfloss and building sandcastles. My mother was one of the first women to go to university in Britain, in the early 1920s, and to vote, in 1928, but she suffered from deafness, so she was a home­maker and never worked for economic gain. My father, Ralph Patterson Longstaff, was commodore of the Ellerman Lines shipping company. I went to the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2164088/she-took-tobacco-industry-and-taught-city-about?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2164088/she-took-tobacco-industry-and-taught-city-about?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Sep 2018 03:00:45 +0000 Rarely operated today, dragon kilns have been a part of China’s landscape for at least hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Archaeologists have discovered remains of these stoneware ovens dating back into 1600 BC, and they were called dragons because they're typically long and thin, and snake upwards the side of a slope. And when they're fired up to 1,300 degrees C (2,372 degrees F), the raging, brick-built kilns glowed red, like massive, fire-breathing dragons. This dragon design remained the... https://www.scmp.com/travel/last-dragon-kiln-hong-kong/article/2158692?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/travel/last-dragon-kiln-hong-kong/article/2158692?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 Aug 2018 12:15:15 +0000 Inside the long, narrow chamber of the dragon kiln, Hong Kong sculptor and ceramicist Louis Lo Sai-keung crouches next to stoneware pots called saggars, traditionally used in pottery to protect clay items – perhaps bowls, jugs, plates and decorative figurines – before and while they are being fired. Rarely operated today, dragon kilns have been a part of China’s landscape for at least hundreds – and possibly thou­sands – of years, and are so named for being thin in shape and undulating long... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2157993/last-its-kind-kiln-made-pots-post-war-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2157993/last-its-kind-kiln-made-pots-post-war-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Aug 2018 08:30:30 +0000 War baby I was born in Crewe (in northwest England) in 1941. My father, Harold John Finch, was born in about 1910 and was in insurance. He was in the British Royal Air Force during the second world war and he divorced my mother when I was about five, so I didn’t know him at all. I met him once, many years later. My mother, Olive Elaine Finch, was a cashier in a butcher’s shop and we lived in Stoneleigh, in Surrey. I had one brother. He died some years ago. Call to action I went to Glyn Grammar... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2136391/headhunters-malaysia-fighting-chinese-terrorists?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2136391/headhunters-malaysia-fighting-chinese-terrorists?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 09 Mar 2018 00:48:37 +0000