Hong Kong

By: Jan Morris

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Hong Kong is the world’s most exciting city, at once fascinating and exasperating, a tangle of contradictions. It is a dazzling amalgam of conspicuous consumption and primitive poverty, the most architecturally incongruous yet undeniably beautiful urban panorama of all.

Through firsthand reportage, world-renowned travel writer Jan Morris takes us through the crowded streets of this enigmatic city, offering the most insightful and comprehensive study of Hong Kong thus far. She reviews Hong Kong’s early days as a British opium port controlled by pirates, cutthroats, and scoundrel tycoons, and looks ahead to the city’s future as part of the People’s Republic of China.

©1985 1987, 1988, 1989 by Jan Morris (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

great history of hong kong

got a good perspective on the history of Hong Kong. good sense of History dogs

Brilliant!

Really interesting and nostalgic review of HK until 1990, great to hear such views at this interesting time in our city

great historical work

she's also a great trans historian as well. I'm happy to have read the second of her works.

The historic viewpoint of the origins of Hong Kong

The book was a interesting view of how Hong Kong grew from the past of uncertainty. While the story is kinda outdated, it's still a interesting book to find out more about the origins of Hong Kong.

Great history book

This should be titled “The history of the British in Hong Kong, and insights into 1970’s Hong Kong”. That is what this book is. It is half a history of the city by the masterful historian of the British Empire Jan Morris. Half book about Hong Kong in the 1970’s including descriptions of fancy European clubs and restaurants and a sort of travel guide for the city at the time. A overview of the 1970’s colonial government and diplomatic situation with China is also given. The flaws of the book is first that it is entirely from a British perspective and has very little to say about the Chinese population of the city besides the ultra wealthy who worked with the Europeans. The second flaw is that the travel guide parts of the book are some 50 years old and often quite outdated and a bit boring. That said I love Jan Morrris’s history books on the British Empire and the historical chapters here are like an excellent lost part of her trilogy. I would highly recommend this book to any Hong Kong fans who want to know more about the British heritage of the city.

An interesting but mild disappointment

I am a big fan of travel books and if this were 1995 and if I was planning to travel to Hong Kong I would have found this book invaluable. It's an interesting and well written snap shot of Hong Kong during the 1980's with a brief mentions here and there of what happened in the past as background information for what is happening at the present. All from a British POV. But as a reader looking for a comprehensive picture of Hong Kong this book falls short.

What this book does is give the reader is a sense of what colonial Hong Kong was like for the British which is almost exactly what it was like for the British in India. They created their own self absorbed little bubble and life outside that bubble only existed as it related to them. Interesting but no surprises for the reader there.

Where this book falls sadly short is the part the Chinese played. The Chinese made up 96% of the population, but are described repeatedly as a mysterious, superstitious mass. Energetic and hard working but whose motives and culture were unfathomable to the westerner.

When I finished this book I had more questions than I had when I began and I'm off to find a real picture of Hong Kong. One that includes the years after 1997 to now.

Lovely narrator; superbly entertaining history

I'm extremely fond of the this wonderful collaboration of author and narrator. Wanda McCaddon has an amazing pitch perfect delivery, and a warmly comforting tone. It makes Jan Morris's entertaining study of Hong Kong a nice and cozy experience.

I'd also like to say that I'm grateful it was written so long ago, as I have no doubt this book would've been bogged down with politics if written today, leaving the interesting folksy side of history and the quirkier characters and anecdotes neglected by the wayside. They are what make a history lesson truly enjoyable, after all.

Unlike other reviewers, I don't have any qualms with the narrator's Chinese and Cantonese pronunciations, yet I acknowledge that classic westerner mistakes are made. Some vowels were constantly mispronounced, emphasis was put on the wrong syllables, etc. But the narrator's charm easily wins out over these errors. I highly recommend this book in any form, but especially the audio format. I was a great listen without a doubt!

Most accurate and insightful book on Hong Kong

This is the most accurate and interesting book on HK I have ever read and I live here.

Overly flowery and orientalist

Narrator makes me wince with her awful pronunciation. She doesn’t have to be a native speaker, but even by English standards, pronounce basic words like Guangzhou and “feng shui” correctly, please. No one would stand for such horrible anglicized French or Spanish. Why should we stand for it in Chinese?

Am interesting read

It's an interesting read giving some historical information and insight into the story of Hong Kong. The narrator needs to learn how to pronounce the names of Hong Kong locations as her pronunciation is bad at best.