Who did kill British diplomat Augustus Raymond Margary on the remote China-Burma frontier in 1875? It could have been agents of the Burmese king, eager to stop the British from undermining his own country’s trade with China; or local Chinese, scared that Margary was spearheading a British invasion from Burma. Some suspected a plot going right back to the xenophobic Chinese governor, Cen Yuying, or perhaps Margary had simply run foul of bandits – and how was a tribute envoy of Burmese elephants involved? Against a background of colonial arrogance and cultural incomprehension, A Murder in Yunnan unpicks the complex tangle of official reports, rumour, suspicions and unreliable newspaper rants clouding the facts behind Margary’s killing – an event which brought Britain and China to the brink of war.

Kowloon West, Hong Kong 1992 and the Police are facing a heavily armed criminal fraternity on the streets of Yau Tsim and Mong Kok. Newly recruited British inspectors continue to be posted to the most active areas of the Territory by a senior management previously scarred by the rampant corruption of the 1970s. Yau Ma Tei Police Station is no exception, managed predominantly by British inspectors who are expected to settle in, learn their command and assimilate into the local Chinese culture and its criminal activity. Mike Sharp introduces the reader to an extraordinary way of life through the eyes of Inspector Graham Brooke, who has departed an unpromising life in merchant banking and and is doing his best to handle the everyday challenges of policing a local population who may or may not want to be policed by an Englishman or indeed any other characters sent from the departing colonial power.

China Revisited is a series of extracted reprints of mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century Western impressions of Hong Kong, Macao and China. The series comprises excerpts from travelogues or memoirs written by missionaries, diplomats, military personnel, journalists, tourists and temporary sojourners. They came to China from Europe or the United States, some to work or to serve the interests of their country, others out of curiosity. Each excerpt is fully annotated by Paul French to best provide relevant explications of Hong Kong, Macao and China at the time, to illuminate encounters with historically interesting characters or notable events. Save 20% by buying this bundle which includes the following items in the series. Please click on their titles below to read full details.

Bestselling author Paul French travels to the most storied cities in China to tell the true tales of fascinating people who visited or lived in these places in the 19th and 20th centuries. With a special focus on the glamorous years between the world wars, the Destination series describes the local and international assortment of adventurers, writers, spies, artists, socialites and scoundrels who inhabited Macao, Peking and Shanghai during that golden age. Save 20% by buying this bundle which includes the following books in the series. Please click on their titles below to see full details and read excerpts from each book.

Welly the Wild Boar and Pickle the Porcupine are two of the wonderful local creatures that call Hong Kong's hills their home. Save 20% by buying both of these books in this bundle. Click on the images below to read more about each book.

This session of Tai Kwun Conversations accompanies the opening of a new permanent heritage exhibition at F Hall, which makes reference to the historical function of Victoria Prison as a place of detention for Vietnamese boat people and undocumented immigrants from different places. It brings together two speakers from diverse backgrounds to share personal and collective experiences of the Vietnamese refugee history.

Riding Out Typhoon Rose by Iain Ward Typhoon Rose was one of the worst storms to hit Hong Kong in the last fifty years. Winds gusted between 130 knots (150 mph) and 150 knots (172 mph) and some 12 inches of rain fell during the storm. Over 150 people were killed (no one knows the exact number) and nearly 6,000 rendered homeless.

The modern game of golf, which originated in Scotland, gradually spread across the globe from the mid-19th century, first to Asia and then to Europe, North America, Oceania and Africa. It has become a popular outdoor sport, a national and international competitive game, and an Olympic event. The spread of the modern game of golf was a by-product of the British Empire. Golf courses were constructed and clubs established as early as 1829 in India, long before they appeared in mainland Europe. As the British colonial empire expanded into China, Scots arrived in the country as naval officers, consular and customs officials, engineers, doctors, architects, merchants, bankers and accountants, and settled in China’s opening trading ports. Scottish missionaries reached into the Chinese interior to seek new converts for the Lord. As they became residents in China’s trading ports, they brought along their national game. Almost without exception, early Chinese golf courses and clubs appeared first at the trading ports. Those behind the courses and clubs were overwhelmingly Scots, with some coming directly from the birthplaces of modern golf such as St. Andrews and Carnoustie. According to our research, the earliest golf course in China appeared in Hankou (Hankow) in 1870 and the earliest golf club was the Hankow Golf Club, incorporated in 1878. This indicates that China was the third country, after only India and France, where the game of golf spread outside the UK. Later, courses and clubs appeared in other Chinese ports: Hong Kong in 1889, Yantai (Chefoo) in 1890, Shanghai in 1894 and Tianjin (Tientsin) in 1895, followed by many others. The pioneer of the Hankow Golf Club was a Scotsman, James Ferrier. His father had been the founder and captain of the Carnoustie Golf Links. James played from an early age and had honed his golfing skills to the level of a zero handicapper when he arrived in China in the late 1860s. As a marine engineer employed by the China Merchants Steamship Company, Ferrier travelled with his ship up and down the Yangtze River between Wuhan and Shanghai. In 1870, together with a few Scottish friends, he built China’s first rudimentary golf course with only a couple of holes in Hankou and started playing the Royal & Ancient game. Ferrier also built Shanghai’s first golf links of a few holes inside the Shanghai Race Course in 1871. With the aid of plentiful illustrations, this book tells the story of the first 80 years of golf in China.

起源于苏格兰的现代高尔夫运动从 19 世纪中叶逐渐传播到全球，首先是亚洲，然后是欧洲、北美、大洋洲和非洲。它已成为一项流行的户外运动、国内和国际竞技比赛以及奥运会项目。 现代高尔夫运动的传播是大英帝国称霸全球的副产品。早在 1829 年，印度就建造了高尔夫球场和俱乐部，远早于它们出现在欧洲大陆。 随着大英殖民帝国向中国扩张，苏格兰和英格兰人以海军军官、领事和海关官员、工程师、医生、建筑师、商人、银行家和会计师的身份抵达中国，并在中国开放的贸易口岸定居。苏格兰宣教士进入中国内陆，为主寻找新的归信者。 当他们成为中国贸易港口的居民时，他们带来了他们的国民运动——高尔夫。几乎无一例外，早期的中国高尔夫球场和俱乐部首先出现在贸易港口。球场和俱乐部背后的人绝大多数是苏格兰人，其中一些直接来自现代高尔夫的发源地，如圣安德鲁斯和卡诺斯蒂。 据我们研究，中国最早的高尔夫球场1870年出现在汉口（Hankou），最早的高尔夫球会是汉口高尔夫俱乐部，成立于1878年。这说明除印度和法国外，中国是高尔夫运动从英国传向全球的第三个国家。接着，中国其他港口的球场和俱乐部相继出现：1889 年的香港、1890 年的烟台（芝罘）、1894 年的上海和 1895 年的天津（天津），等等。 汉口高尔夫俱乐部的先驱是苏格兰人詹姆斯·费利尔。他的父亲是卡诺斯蒂高尔夫球场的创始人和队长。詹姆斯从小就打球，在 1860 年代后期抵达中国前，已经将自己的高尔夫球技巧磨练到零差点的水平。作为招商局轮船公司的一名轮机工程师，费利尔经常往来于武汉和上海之间。1870年，他与几位苏格兰朋友一起，在汉口建造了中国第一个只有几个洞的简易高尔夫球场，并开始打皇家古老游戏。费利尔 1871 年又在上海赛马场内，建造了只有几个洞的高尔夫球场。 本书借助大量的插图，讲述了中国高尔夫运动最初80年的故事。

The photo is from Kowloon's Kai Tak Stadium tonight, as Liverpool FC play AC Milan: stadium CEO John Sharkey presents Liverpool legend Sir Kenny Dalglish with a copy of When ‘Jesus’ Came to Hong Kong, Derek Currie's book about being the first European football star to play in Asia.    Currie came to the city in 1970 to play for Hong Kong side Rangers, but before he left Scotland he had played for Cumbernauld United -- "alongside a youngster called Kenny Dalglish", he says. 

By Charles JH Halcombe, introduced and annotated by Paul French   No. 5 in the China Revisited series   Charles Halcombe served for much of the 1880s and 1890s with China’s Imperial Maritime Customs Service. His career included sojourns in both Canton and Hong Kong. Halcombe long harboured dreams of becoming a journalist. Unusually he married a Chinese woman, Liang Ah Ghan, the daughter of a Chefoo merchant during his stay. His seven-year career in China, his writing ambitions and his marriage all strongly inform his impressions and the retelling of his experiences. In these excerpts from The Mystic Flowery Land we join Halcombe arriving by sampan at Hong Kong’s old Pedder’s Wharf before accompanying him on an extended literary stroll along Queen’s Road. With him we enter the “rum-mills” and Chinese theatres, meet the Sing-Song girls, indigent Europeans, and inveterate gamblers of the colony. On Hollywood Road Halcombe explores the fascinating Man-Mo Temple. In Canton Halcombe investigates the riverine life of the city - the infamous “flower boats”, the working river and coastal steamers, the numerous temples to the sea Gods. But it is perhaps Halcombe’s description of the terrible bubonic plague that hit Hong Kong in 1894 that stands out to the reader today as both shocking in its tragedy and pertinent to our own times.

Lindsay Varty is the author of four books about Hong Kong. Tomorrow (July 19) she'll be giving two talks at the Hong Kong Book Fair at the Convention & Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai. A talk about chil...

Macau, to its understandable chagrin, often seems an afterthought: to Hong Kong which overtook it, to Canton when it came to China trade, to Manila and the eponymous galleons when it came to being …

The Foreign Correspondents' Club's wall exhibition this month has featured the photography of Melville Jacoby -- an American freelance journalist, United Press stringer, and foreign correspondent for TIME and LIFE magazines who covered WWII in China, French Indochina (present-day Vietnam) and the Philippines. This photo collection of wartime Chungking (Chongqing) was inspired by the book A Danger Shared: A Journalist's Glimpses of a Continent at War…

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) is a well-known gathering spot in Hong Kong. It has a surprisingly tumultuous history. Founded in Japanese-occupied China in 1941, the Club’s first base was in Chongqing (Chungking), a city controlled by Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. As the Chinese civil war intensified, the club moved with the action, first to Nanjing, then to Shanghai. It moved to Hong Kong in 1949.

Bestselling author Paul French travels to the most storied cities in China to tell the true tales of fascinating people who visited or lived in these places in the 19th and 20th centuries. With a special focus on the glamorous years between the two world wars, the Destination series describes the local and international assortment of adventurers, writers, spies, artists, socialites and scoundrels who inhabited Macao, Peking and Shanghai during that golden age. Save 20% by buying this bundle which includes the following items in the series. Please click on their titles below to see full details and read excerpts from each book. 1 x Destination Macao 1 x Destination Peking 1 x Destination Shanghai    

On Sunday March 30th (that's tomorrow!) at 3pm, Paul French will launch his new book Destination Macao in the city itself. The book is a collection of true stories about fascinating people who have visited or lived there — poets and pirates, rebels and writers, innkeepers and adventurers among them. Some you will have heard of, and some you won't.

In 1924, Wallis Simpson — the American future wife of Britain's king — journeyed across China, witnessing a nation in turmoil. Join prolific old China author Paul French to learn about 'Her Lotus Year', his new essays in Destination Macao, and stories from his bestsellers Midnight in Peking and City of Devils. Date: Thursday, 13 March 2025 Time: 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM Location: Bookazine Social, Shops 03-07, G/F, Parade Ground, Tai Kwun, (Formerly) Central Police Station, 10 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong More details here.

For the third in his acclaimed Destination series, Paul French journeys to the former Portuguese enclave to uncover true stories of fascinating people -- pirates and poets, rebels and writers, artists...

Ian Gill’s first visit to Hong Kong in 1975 takes an unexpected turn when he meets his Chinese mother Billie’s friends, colleagues and fellow ex-prisoners of war, lifting the veil on a tumultuous past in Hong Kong and Shanghai. He moves to Asia and unravels her intriguing journey: from controversial adoption by an English postmaster in Changsha to popular radio broadcaster in wartime Shanghai, from tragedy and a doomed romance in a Japanese internment camp to being decorated by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the United Nations.

Tuesday March 4 at the Royal Geographical Society in Hong Kong. Author Ian Gill talks about the main characters of his Anglo-Chinese family, who lived in China and Hong Kong from the mid-19th century until modern times. The story starts when his great-grandmother married Ted Newman, a Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company steward, in Hong Kong in 1869. They founded the Family Hotel in Chefoo, turning it into one of the best-known hotels on the China coast.

A weed from Catholic Europe, it took root Between some yellow mountains and a sea, Its gay stone houses an exotic fruit, A Portugal-cum-China oddity. Rococo images of Saint and Saviour Promise her gamblers fortunes when they die; Churches beside the brothels testify That faith can pardon natural behaviour. This city of indulgence need not fear… — WH Auden, Macao: A Sonnet For the third in his acclaimed Destination series, Paul French journeys to the former Portuguese enclave of Macao, for him as much a place of the imagination as of reality. Constantly portrayed as the louche, sinful sister of Hong Kong, it was also a key trading post and early melting pot on the South China Sea. From the Macao of artists George Chinnery and George Smirnoff, the writers Deolinda da Conceição and Maurice Dekobra, to the pulp fiction fantasies and cinematic fever dreams of Josef von Sternberg and Jean Delannoy; from those like Dr Pedro Lobo and Ian Fleming who came to Macao to chase gold, as well as those who sought refuge from war and the combatants who sought secret passage through ‘neutral' Macao; from the earliest days of the China coast trade and its assorted cast of innkeepers and adventurers to the bizarre tales the changing times in the colony created. Did Japan really try to buy Macao in 1934? Who really sailed with Macao's pirate queen Lai Choi San? Who were the Portuguese rebels who sought to declare Macao a republic in the 1920s? Following the format of Destination Shanghai and Destination Peking, Destination Macao tells the true stories of fascinating people who lived in or visited Macao in the 19th and 20th centuries. Look inside this book Click on the following link to read pages from Destination Macao. Contents and Introduction