by Jan Morris
There is no general architectural study, but much of the ground is covered in Tall Storeys by Malcolm Purvis, a light-hearted history of the architectural firm Palmer and Turner published in Hong Kong in 1985 and in Building Hong Kong, Hong Kong 1996, a collection of photographs by Frank Fischbeck. Contemporary architecture is recorded in Hong Kong Architecture: Aesthetics of Density, edited by Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, Munich, 1993. Three architectural books published by the Government are Temples, by Joyce Savidge, 1977, The Story of Government House, by Katherine Mattock, 1978, and Rural Architecture in Hong Kong, a compilation published in 1979. The Hongkong Bank published a book about its own buildings, One Queen’s Road Central, by Ian Lambot and Gillian Chambers, to commemorate the opening of its new headquarters in 1986. Peter Hall has a valuable chapter on Hong Kong in the third edition of The World Cities, London 1984.
The best guide books are the Insight Guide to Hong Kong, repeatedly re-published, and the Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit for Hong Kong, Macau and Canton, 1989. The best maps are in the Government’s Hong Kong Streets and Places. The official Annual Report is obligatory reading for anyone taking Hong Kong seriously, and so is the annual journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’s Hong Kong Branch. Among many books of pictures, outstanding are Fragrant Harbour, by John Warner, Hong Kong 1976, The Hong Kong Album, published by the Hong Kong Museum of History in 1982 and Old Hong Kong, with a text by Trea Wiltshire, Hong Kong 1987.
Hong Kong has not figured much in English literature, as against ephemeral fiction, and I can suggest only five books: Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil (1925), John Le Carré’s The Honourable Schoolboy (1977), two by Timothy Mo, The Monkey King (1978) and An Insular Possesion (1986), and Martin Booth’s memoirs The Dragon and the Pearl (1994).
Finally, for students of the denouement, Mouldering Pearl, by Felix Patrikeeff (London 1989), City on the Rocks, by Kevin Rafferty, London 1989, and two books by David Bonavia: The Chinese, London 1985, and Hong Kong 1997: The Final Settlement, published in Hong Kong in the same year and gracefully dedicated to the memory of Captain Charles Elliot – the man who started it all.
THANKS
MANY HONG KONG FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES AND acquaintances, Chinese and expatriate, have generously helped me with this book in its successive editions. In addition a number have spared the time to read the typescript for me, in part or in whole, saving me from many naïveties: they include (for one or two prefer not to be named) Bernard Asher, James Hayes, H. J. Lethbridge, Neil Maidment, Peter Moss and Tak-lung Tsim. For this final edition Griselda Kerr kindly and assiduously updated for me every fact, figure and speculation.
Frank Fischbeck kindly allowed me to use his picture of the waterfront, Ken Haas his picture of the two expatriates. The Hong Kong Public Record Office showed me much courtesy, as did the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, the Government Information Services Department, the Hong Kong Club and the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. And Beth Gubersky, her dogs, cats and birds most hospitably gave me the use of their house in the New Territories.
I am grateful to them all, but have allowed none to sway my judgements.
TREFAN MORYS, 1996