https://www.scmp.com/rss/6099/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Joan is Okay By Weike Wang, pub. Random House It may even be intentional. The title design on the first page of Weike Wang’s second novel, Joan is Okay, drops a tiny magnetic “is” within the embrace of a large “O” so a reader’s scanning eye might easily catch and see instead a question: Is Joan Okay – which is also the novel’s investigation into its protagonist, Joan (Jiu-an), a competent, Harvard-educated daughter of Chinese immigrants who returned home. Joan is a woman who buries herself in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3168510/chinese-immigrants-collision-america-and-meaning-home?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3168510/chinese-immigrants-collision-america-and-meaning-home?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Feb 2022 11:15:19 +0000 NOT LONG AGO, a man jumped out at Yang Erche Namu and begged to be allowed to buy her dinner. 'No,' said Namu. 'OK, at least a cup of tea, then,' the man asked. 'Why?' It turned out that the man was overcome with gratitude because of Namu's latest book - her 13th - To Be Beautiful is Not to Live a Beautiful Life, which was published in Chinese at the end of last year. 'He wanted to thank me because I saved him a pot of money,' says the 41-year-old author, who hails from China's minority... https://www.scmp.com/article/585420/lady-lake?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/585420/lady-lake?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Mar 2007 16:00:00 +0000 Geraldine Brooks, fresh from winning this year's Pulitzer Prize for her novel March, and fellow author Melina Marchetta arrive in Shanghai looking only a shade bewildered by the city's bustle. Mainland readers are set for a double dose of raw Australian literary talent as the People's Literature Publishing House releases Chinese versions of Brooks' Year of Wonders and Marchetta's Looking for Alibrandi. Under the high beams of the Glamour Bar at M on the Bund, the pair talk about... https://www.scmp.com/article/557623/double-dose-divergent-storytellers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/557623/double-dose-divergent-storytellers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Jul 2006 16:00:00 +0000 LITERATURE AND POLITICS are hopelessly entangled in the Korean peninsula, so when a North Korean detente appeared on the horizon during the summer, a softly spoken literary critic from South Korea decided to take the opportunity to cross the 38th parallel to meet writers from the North. 'This is the first time North and South Korean writers will get together,' says 64-year-old Yim Hun-young in the dingy Ma Po Holiday Inn coffee shop on the day before he's due to leave for Pyongyang. It's... https://www.scmp.com/article/512983/ink-and-drink?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/512983/ink-and-drink?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0000 HONG KONG'S swelling unemployment and doubts over job security amidst general economic gloom will curb home buying and hit property companies' bottom lines say analysts, who see results taking a hit following a tumultuous week. Property companies have slashed prices in a bid to attract customers, a move certain to hit profits. 'Prior to the announcement, Henderson [Land Development] saw 4 per cent off 1998 and 7 per cent off 1999(earnings) and that will be the case across the board, although... https://www.scmp.com/article/241937/wary-home-buyers-set-hit-property-earnings?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/241937/wary-home-buyers-set-hit-property-earnings?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 May 1998 16:00:00 +0000 WHEN was the last time you laughed about money? Did you even realise it was possible to do so? To people in this city, where money is taken terribly seriously, John Rothchild's A Fool and His Money: The Odyssey of an Average Investor (John Wiley & Sons, US$19.95) adds a welcome light touch. Ostensibly writing a book about personal finance, Rothchild (a journalist who has written several books with Peter Lynch, former manager of Fidelity Investments' flagship Magellan fund) has whipped up a... https://www.scmp.com/article/240136/healthy-scepticism-goes-well-good-laugh?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/240136/healthy-scepticism-goes-well-good-laugh?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 May 1998 16:00:00 +0000 WHAT has Southeast Asia's economic crisis done for foreign investment in the relatively stable, big markets of India and the mainland? Not very much, according to the experts. India and the mainland, both comparatively unscathed by the regional crisis, have not particularly benefited either, they believe. For one, both countries have been tarred with the same brush as the Southeast Asian economies. 'Asia as a whole is being viewed by international investors as a pariah,' Callum Henderson,... https://www.scmp.com/article/239286/mainland-india-see-no-benefit-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/239286/mainland-india-see-no-benefit-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 May 1998 16:00:00 +0000 MOONLIGHTING can be immensely lucrative. So much so that one entrepreneurial plumber decided the topic deserved a book to itself, and then went ahead and wrote it. Roger Woodson - plumber, landlord, photographer, direct marketer, business consultant and now author - has produced a handy compendium of ideas in Modern Moonlighting: How to Earn Thousands Extra Without Leaving Your Day Job (Contemporary Books, US$14.95). 'Moonlighting has changed,' he writes in the introduction. 'There was a... https://www.scmp.com/article/239289/creativity-can-help-cash-your-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/239289/creativity-can-help-cash-your-time?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 May 1998 16:00:00 +0000 TAKE a serious minute for some sorely needed self-assessment. Are you slothful, inefficient, disorganised? Do you procrastinate hopelessly until tomorrow stretches into three years? If your desk bears paper on a Himalayan scale and your computer is more enemy than friend, then Kerry Gleeson's The High-Tech Personal Efficiency Program: Organizing Your Electronic Resources to Maximize Your Time and Efficiency (John Wiley & Sons, US$16.95) could be just what you need. This is a text Microsoft... https://www.scmp.com/article/235966/ways-get-your-life-back-order?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/235966/ways-get-your-life-back-order?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Apr 1998 16:00:00 +0000 CALLUM Henderson's newly published tome marks the start of what could become a deluge of books penned to explain the Asian financial crisis. Hong Kong seems particularly adept at spawning financial writers, and it does seem a coincidence the region's economic journey has been bracketed by two books with echoing titles: Jim Rohwer's Asia Rising: The Economic Miracle in East and Southeast Asia and Why the West Will Profit (Touchstone Books, US$14) and, now, Mr Henderson's Asia Falling? Making... https://www.scmp.com/article/235055/hong-kong-author-leads-way-examining-regions-financial-fall?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/235055/hong-kong-author-leads-way-examining-regions-financial-fall?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Mar 1998 16:00:00 +0000 A GOOD personal-finance book is tailored necessarily to the peculiarities of a country's banking, insurance and financial systems. The two books reviewed here provide general pointers for people in Hong Kong and Asia, but are vital tools for anyone battling with the United States and British systems. The United States-orientated guide is called Smart Questions to Ask Your Financial Advisers (Bloomberg Press, US$19.95). Its no-nonsense author, Lynn Brenner, writes a weekly personal finance... https://www.scmp.com/article/234176/guides-raise-questions-answers-lost-hk-readers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/234176/guides-raise-questions-answers-lost-hk-readers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Mar 1998 16:00:00 +0000 THE rumbles of reform echoing in Beijing's corridors of power eventually will filter through to mainland companies listed in Hong Kong, but the process could take a while, according to analysts. 'We can't expect a strong increase in H-share [prices] as the restructuring will take several years and the benefits will be seen at the earliest in 1999,' said Gary Chiu, investment analyst at Amsteel Securities. Part of the problem is that nobody quite knows what form the changes will take now that... https://www.scmp.com/article/233338/beijing-reform-efforts-seen-gradually-giving-h-share-firms-boost?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/233338/beijing-reform-efforts-seen-gradually-giving-h-share-firms-boost?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Mar 1998 16:00:00 +0000 A NEW breed has mushroomed in the business world: men who suddenly sicken of lucre, run headlong into mid-life crises and declare that money is not everything. These briefcase philosophers then put pen to paper, clamber on to the lecture circuit and churn out chapters on how society would be so much better if the business world was kinder and gentler. They quote African wisdom, sprinkle their books with poems from West Indian playwright Derek Walcott, as well as snatches from United States... https://www.scmp.com/article/231616/philosopher-capitalists-look-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/231616/philosopher-capitalists-look-more?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Feb 1998 16:00:00 +0000 IF YOU found yourself at dinner next to an affable gentleman who proceeded to tell you his life story - all 94 years of it - spiced with kindly bits of advice, it would be a lot like reading this book. As the reader learns in this gentle autobiography - So Far, So Good: The First 94 Years (John Wiley & Sons, US$29.95) - when Roy Neuberger was born in 1903 in the United States, Teddy Roosevelt was president, the Wright brothers were preparing for their epic flight, and the first trans-American... https://www.scmp.com/article/229855/witness-century-says-art-and-health-beat-wealth-long-run?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/229855/witness-century-says-art-and-health-beat-wealth-long-run?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Feb 1998 16:00:00 +0000 SOME Indian expatriates could have reason to smile at tax time next year as their home country forges ahead with its own version of perestroika. A new income-tax bill, which would supersede the antiquated Income Tax Act of 1961, has been tabled in the Indian parliament and now merely awaits a new government to take the reins of the world's largest and possibly most chaotic democracy. Some overseas Indians might see their tax liabilities slashed under the proposal's simplified structure, but... https://www.scmp.com/article/226893/indian-expats-win-reason-smile-tax-rules-change?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/226893/indian-expats-win-reason-smile-tax-rules-change?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Jan 1998 16:00:00 +0000 IT is one of those little ironies that 1998 is the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese lunar calendar. While some of Asia's so-called economic tigers might become extinct or tamed beyond recognition, a trapped Hong Kong looks nervously over its shoulder at the local currency's peg to the US dollar. To be sure, Hong Kong appears positively perky compared to food riots in Indonesia and popular calls for President Suharto to buzz off, but dinner table conversations all over the territory about... https://www.scmp.com/article/226896/stability-mainland-dictates-peg-must-stay?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/226896/stability-mainland-dictates-peg-must-stay?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Jan 1998 16:00:00 +0000 IF there is something inexplicably fascinating about the super-rich and super-famous, there is nevertheless an awful seediness in the details of their money matters. So a book that digs into how a particular sports celebrity, chef, fashion designer - or even a business person - handles his or her millions elicits a queasy mix of curiosity and grimaces. The Rich and Famous Money Book: Investment Strategies of Leading Celebrities (John Wiley & Sons, US$19.95) yields an odd harvest of people... https://www.scmp.com/article/225199/celebrity-money-matters-provide-tedious-tales?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/225199/celebrity-money-matters-provide-tedious-tales?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Jan 1998 16:00:00 +0000 'TIS the season to be jolly - or at least do your best to appear cheerful as you tighten your belt and revise profit forecasts downwards, particularly if you happen to be a Hong Kong retailer. 'Overall sales in the fourth quarter are definitely slower compared with the same period last year, the whole retail climate has weakened and sales are sluggish,' Marks & Spencer's marketing controller Louisa So Wai-yung said. Ms So's store is not alone in facing the doldrums. Hong Kong's retail... https://www.scmp.com/article/222972/no-festive-cheer-retailers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/222972/no-festive-cheer-retailers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Dec 1997 16:00:00 +0000 ASKING questions about your insurer's financial soundness is a good policy at any time, but even more so now, when financial markets are in turmoil. How safe is your insurance company? Will you get your money back when you need it? Has the drop in the region's stock and currency markets hit your insurer's bottom line? Thus far in Hong Kong, market volatility has caused three general insurance companies to fail to meet their solvency-margin requirements, the Commissioner of Insurance, Alan... https://www.scmp.com/article/222035/how-your-insurers-bottom-line?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/222035/how-your-insurers-bottom-line?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Dec 1997 16:00:00 +0000 DIAMONDS, it would seem, have been replaced by diversified investment and long-term financial planning as a girl's best friend. At least that is what author Neale Godfrey suggests in her latest book, Making Change: A Woman's Guide to Designing her Financial Future (Simon & Schuster, US$22). Forget about relying on fathers, lovers and husbands for money management. Calculate what you need and want, and then decide how to get it. That is the central theme of Making Change. It is worth wading... https://www.scmp.com/article/222036/financial-independence-womans-last-great-taboo?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/222036/financial-independence-womans-last-great-taboo?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Dec 1997 16:00:00 +0000