Category Archives: Hemlock

The mood on the Mid-Levels Escalator this morning is one of mild bemusement as Hong Kong’s industrious and clean-living middle class absorb the latest news about the government’s increasingly complex and laborious efforts to give us all HK$6,000 each to … Continue reading →

Back from a four-day trip to Bangkok, and I find myself in the conference room on the top floor of S-Meg Tower, in the central district of Asia’s perennially dynamic international business hub. The Big Boss fiddles with the ceramic … Continue reading →

Thurs, 2 June 2006 On the top floor of S-Meg Tower, I’m still trying to work out how the travel companies can make a profit from these package deals.  The money doesn’t seem to add up.  The retail price for … Continue reading →

Wed, 31 May And so we bid farewell to historic Shantou and set off on our journey back to Hong Kong.  But not before visiting one last attraction – possibly the weirdest of the trip. As our driver expertly lurches … Continue reading →

If it’s Tues, 30 May 2006, this must be Shantou – historic city of contrasts, as evidenced by the breathtaking view from my hotel room. After the standard breakfast buffet of congee, baked beans, iceberg lettuce and cha siu bao, … Continue reading →

Monday, 29 May 2006 My instructions are to find a Ms Chan at Peking Road, at 7am. How many Ms Chans will there be in a Tsimshatsui street? As it happens, she is easy to find, looking important in a … Continue reading →

I start the day stirring my congee in the booth with the window view in the charming Formica surroundings of Yuet Yuen restaurant – one of the last remaining family businesses in this edge of Central now largely blanketed with … Continue reading →

As dawn breaks over Exchange Square and the first office fodder start marching out of their subterranean production-unit conveyance system, a morose-looking wild American friend Odell seats himself in the softest, grandest easy chair in the IFC Mall branch of … Continue reading →

To the Foreign Correspondents Club for a hastily convened meeting of the Hong Kong League of Gwailos Not Related to Kate Middleton – a select group of just eight people who have successfully buried any evidence of third cousinship twice … Continue reading →

…taken from Why the West Rules–for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future by Ian Morris, shows the amount of opium sold by – or perhaps we should say eagerly bought from – the British … Continue reading →