03/27/2023
Journalist England (The Quest of Noel Croucher) takes a fresh look at Hong Kong’s history by focusing on the “in-between people,” or Hong Kongers whose roots don’t go back to colonial Britain or mainland China. The British, seeking a trade station on the eastern coast of China, claimed Hong Kong in 1841, and China officially ceded the island in the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. Like other port cities, Hong Kong attracted people from around the world; early settlers included Parsis, a Zoroastrian “tribal group” from India that traces its roots back to Persia; Macanese; Malays; Filipinos; Japanese; Portuguese; and Jews from Venice and Baghdad. England profiles prominent members of these and other ethnic groups, contending that colonialism in Hong Kong was more collaboration than conquest: “Most Hong Kongers were collaborators because they chose to come to Hong Kong, they were self-selected.” Nevertheless, Hong Kong’s diversity didn’t spare it from racial, ethnic, and class tensions, including the Strike of 1925, which “brought British rule perilously close to the edge of economic collapse.” Since 1997, when Britain handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese, efforts by the Chinese government to curtail Hong Kongers’ freedoms have been met with fierce protests, including the 2014 Occupy movement. Extensively researched and accessibly written, this is a winning portrait of Hong Kong’s vibrant mosaic. Agent: Doug Young, PEW Literary. (May)
"Illuminating. . . . England rejects a tale-of-two-cities approach to the history of Hong Kong’s colonization, embracing the in-between lives of those who made it." —The New York Times Book Review
“Wonderful . . . a vivid, entertaining guide, rich in anecdote and understanding for an early globalised world that has gone.” —The Sunday Times (UK)
“In Fortune’s Bazaar, Vaudine England examines [Hong Kongers], these ‘in-between people,’ as she calls them, and their often overlooked role in the development of Hong Kong into a cosmopolitan, world-class city. . . . [With] impressive research, Fortune’s Bazaar is less a straightforward narrative than a history told through the stories of Eurasians and other mixed-culture residents. . . . readers will be rewarded with an enhanced understanding of what it means to be a Hong Konger.” —Wall Street Journal
"A vivid and colorful history of Hong Kong, seen through the lens of its ethnic minorities and mixed-race communities. . . . Rather than binary and tendentious grand narratives, England gives us a Hong Kong of many cultures, hues
and stories." —China Books Review
“To call a history ‘rollicking’ may indicate that it isn’t serious, but Fortune’s Bazaar is both. Vaudine England’s well-written take on the historical record is likely to delight anyone who loves Hong Kong.” —Asian Review of Books
"A formidable and important work of historical scholarship. . . . England has a fluent, vigorous prose style. . . . Even people who have read just about everything there is to read about Hong Kong will find their own outlook overturned by this excellent book." —The Correspondent
“Extensively researched and accessibly written, this is a winning portrait of Hong Kong’s vibrant mosaic.” —Publishers Weekly
“[With] deep research, an ambitious swath of Hong Kong social history, notable for particular insights about Eurasian entrepreneurs and dynasties.” —Kirkus Reviews
“At last: a lively and carefully researched page turner about the individuals and social forces that have made Hong Kong the dynamic (and quirky) place it is.” —Adi Ignatius, Editor in Chief, Harvard Business Review, and former Wall Street Journal Bureau Chief in Beijing
“As a history of Hong Kong, not just as a British colony, or an exotic Chinese enclave, but as a cosmopolitan city of many creeds and races, Asian and European, Vaudine England’s book is unsurpassed. Her take on the so-called Eurasians, who have played such a large part in Hong Kong’s history, is fresh and essential to a better understanding of this unique place.” —Ian Buruma
“Hong Kong is not just about the Chinese and the British but also about all the in-between people who helped build the city and made it their home. In this wonderfully quixotic and deeply researched history, Vaudine England has delved into Hong Kong’s history to bring to life the Eurasians, Armenians, Portuguese, Parsis, Muslims, Jews, and others who have played such a crucial role since 1841 in making it a commercial and cultural hub in east Asia.” —Victor Mallet, former Asia editor, Financial Times, and author of The Trouble with Tigers: The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia
“Vivid, atmospheric, packed with brilliant story-telling, Vaudine England brings to life the boiling pot of race, culture, and ambition that made Hong Kong one of the world’s great cities. Within this compelling read, Fortune’s Bazaar boldly explodes the myth that Hong Kong is ‘just another Chinese city.’ Not at all, England gives us the story of the visionary, deal-making, itinerant Eurasian elite who created this unique, international place that is Hong Kong.” —Humphrey Hawksley, former BBC Beijing, Hong Kong and Asia correspondent, and author of Dragon Strike: The Millennium War
“If you love Hong Kong and have lost her, as have I, Vaudine England’s marvelous account of the ‘in-between people,’ who made it the remarkable place it was, will fill you with wonder, understanding, and a sadness for a place—and an idea—that no longer exists.” —Richard Hornik, former Time Bureau Chief in Beijing and Hong Kong
2023-02-24
A new history of Hong Kong, emphasizing the early traders and strivers of mixed ethnic backgrounds who shaped its singular development.
“Hong Kong was precisely the handy kind of small but clever place always needed on the edge of huge empires—hideaway and refuge, petri dish or sewer, and always a service stop providing fuel of all kinds for next ventures,” writes England, who has been a journalist in East Asia for years. Located around a spectacular deep-sea harbor, Hong Kong has served as a convenient outpost for the empowered British Empire after the Napoleonic Wars as well as an entrepôt for the “newly unemployed, adventurous young men, ready to explore the seven seas.” While the majority of Hong Kongers were then and still are ethnically Chinese, England is keenly interested in what has attracted others to the city and the kinds of industry and family dynasties they created over the decades. After the British first visited Hong Kong in 1839, it became a hub on the thriving trade route, it had been a hub on the thriving trade route for centuries, attracting Jews, Parsis, Armenians, Indians, Malays, Filipinos, and the Tanka and Hakka people of China, all of whom were drawn to the myriad opportunities and created a mosaic of diversity. The author also shows how it became a place of refuge. “Chinese fled the Taiping Rebellion on the mainland, they fled poverty, women fled total control, and people left Macao, and South and Southeast Asia, in hopes of making their fortune in Hong Kong.” As Chinese nationalism grew, tensions increased between those who valued the strength of diverse ethnicity and those who sought to maintain racial purity. England clearly delineates her deep research into Eurasian dynasties and moves more quickly through the Japanese occupation and British handover.
An ambitious swath of Hong Kong social history, notable for particular insights about Eurasian entrepreneurs and dynasties.
In her first audiobook, Hong Kong-based BBC journalist Vaudine England delivers an unconventional, mostly suppressed, history of that great international port. Her focus is not on the generals and potentates central to most histories, but on the "in-between" people who are the product of Hong Kong's unique setting and culture. England doesn't identify a prototype; instead she surveys an assembly of memorable individuals and their pedigrees. It's easy to lose the thread, and a more seasoned narrator might have maintained greater balance and continuity. But England proves to be a commanding and effective voice, and her view of what makes cities prosper is fresh, provocative, and extremely timely. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
In her first audiobook, Hong Kong-based BBC journalist Vaudine England delivers an unconventional, mostly suppressed, history of that great international port. Her focus is not on the generals and potentates central to most histories, but on the "in-between" people who are the product of Hong Kong's unique setting and culture. England doesn't identify a prototype; instead she surveys an assembly of memorable individuals and their pedigrees. It's easy to lose the thread, and a more seasoned narrator might have maintained greater balance and continuity. But England proves to be a commanding and effective voice, and her view of what makes cities prosper is fresh, provocative, and extremely timely. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine