Here's the 5-star customer review on Amazon's site:-
"Alice has brought her first book to a lively fiction. It is an amazing
transition from "the Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong";
incorporating some of the wealth imbalance and social economic ills to
this intense compelling novel.
The book is beautifully written, so
rich in details . . I felt I was in the middle of the story. . I could
feel the emotion, see the streets of Hong Kong, taste the food, and
smell the air. I found it hard to put the book down, it kept me reading
long into the night.
The book told the stories of many characters
from distinct diverse background, cultures and different generation. .
It is a tale of desire, jealously, passion, and endurance . . It is
indisputably captivating, filled with suspense and unpredictable twists
and turns."
Link to the customer review.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
Book Review: Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong
For the author of “Wolf Totem”, Jiang Rong, to be awarded
the Man Asian Literary Prize and for the fact that the book is a huge
bestseller in China, there is no doubt that the book has some very laudable
qualities.
But before dwelling on the good points, let me just quickly
point out the one thing that I find hardest to accept, and that is the author’s
tendency to explain away the weak disposition of the Chinese ethnic race with a
simplistic rationale that it is due to the traditional sedentary agricultural
lifestyle since the ancient times, and then to attribute all glory and success
in certain historic periods to the venturesome nomadic characteristics of
China’s hunter-gatherer tribes who came to be the rulers during those periods.
Based on this premise, he came to the conclusion that in order for China to become
once again a power to be reckoned with, Chinese people ought to discard their
submissive character and assume a more aggressive, or wolf-like, outlook on
life and the world at large.
There may well be a million factors and nuances that can
help explain Chinese racial characteristics, and the traditional farming
lifestyle may be only one of them. But this is a subject that is outside the
scope of this review. (Bo Yang’s “The Ugly Chinaman” may be a good way to start
exploring the subject.)
In proving his point, the author penned in one scene a poignant
and sad analogical description of typical weakness of Chinese character, which is both valid and sobering. It is the scene where a herd of sheep was being attacked
methodically by a pack of wolves, and where those sheep that luckily escaped
just stood and watched as others were being slaughtered.
“This scene reminded
him of what Lu Xun wrote in an essay: some Chinese imbeciles stretched their
necks and eagerly watched the Japanese soldiers behead Chinese prisoners – it
is exactly the same scene now. No wonder the nomadic tribes regard the Hans as
sheep. The wolves are devilish to devour the sheep. But it is those selfish,
callous and craven sheep-like people who are even more loathsome and more
disheartening.”
As for the strong suits of the book, there are plenty. Not
least is the honest warning about the urgent need to protect the environment.
Reckless farming of natural grasslands in Inner Mongolia
has had the devastating effect of letting the soil dry up and turn into sand,
resulting in frequent severe sandstorms that have been plaguing cities like Beijing for years. This
‘farmers’ invasion’, along with their deliberate purging of the grassland
wolves, entirely skewed the natural cycle that had gone on peacefully for
centuries – a stinging reminder to the whole world that humans have been
destroying the natural environment with their own hands.
Jiang Rong has nothing but praises for the natural cycle
that had maintained the ecological balance in the Mongolian grasslands, with
the wolves playing a key part in the cycle. Nobody knows the importance of
letting nature take its course better than the nomadic people. They roam with
their herds of sheep and cattle because there’s a need for grasses in the
grazed areas to grow again, so that they can rotate among the patches of grasslands.
The wolves who feed on gazelles, mountain beavers, rabbits and field rats are
doing the nomads a great favor because these animals are unwelcome grazers. But
if the wolves grow to such a number that these can no longer fill their
stomachs, they would threaten to feed on the domestic herds and even horses. So
the nomads in turn would, when occasion calls for it, hunt down wolves just to
keep their numbers in check, but never to eliminate them completely, because
they are the natural grassland protectors. Unfortunately, this ecological
balance is destroyed when the farmers begin to ‘invade’ the grasslands….
The down-to-earth and unpretentious writing style throughout
the book has captured my heart (it is the original Chinese edition that I read),
and I was especially moved by the part about the protagonist Chen Zhen raising
the wolf cub and how he tried to bond with it. The story is so compelling, vivid,
and rich in emotional details, that it’s hard not to believe that it is a true
life experience. The cub’s inevitable destiny, which it brought on itself in
fighting for its freedom, seems to be an iron proof that wolves are a species
that cannot be domesticated by men. In praising the free-spirited and audacious
cub, is the author not also trying to say that freedom is worth fighting for, even
if it means giving up one’s own life?
Doris Lessing once said that a novel is an outpost of
journalism which reveals information about areas of life that readers don’t’
know and that successful novels are those that report the existence of an area
of society or a type of person that is not yet admitted to the general literate
consciousness. In this sense “Wolf Totem” certainly is a successful novel, as
through it we come to know about a place, a people and a lifestyle that many of
us would not ordinarily be able to come into contact with.
Lastly, the author’s plain but flowing story-telling
technique tends to keep the reader in suspense and unable to stop turning the
page as he/she gets sucked into the world of the Mongolian wolves and
grasslands. Gripping episodes include the wolf pack’s strategic cornering of a
group of gazelles into a half-frozen lake; the wolves’ brazen and vicious
attack on a pack of horses; the villagers’ vengeful hunting and killing of
wolves after the latter’s predatory massacre of the villagers’ horses; the
farmers’ hunting of swans on the swan lake and the student’s futile attempt to
save two big swan eggs from the greedy farmers.
All in all, “Wolf Totem” is more of an entertaining novel
than a scientific study of wolves and much is based on the author’s life
experience in Inner Mongolia during his
youthful days. There are nonetheless strong messages that the author wanted to
put across, the most important being: a call for immediate action to save the
environment before it’s too late and an advocacy for following the wolves’
example of freedom loving and dauntless character.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Book Review: The Lasting Honour: The Fall of Hong Kong 1941
I’ve
just finished reading Oliver Lindsay’s “The Lasting Honour: The Fall of Hong
Kong 1941”.
The
book was published in 1978 and was the result of thorough research into wartime
official documents as well as interviews with survivors then living in Britain,
Canada and Hong Kong. The author himself was with the 2nd battalion
of the Winnipeg Grenadiers (from Manitoba, Canada) during the Battle of Hong
Kong in 1941.
If
reading “Not the Slightest Chance: The Defence of Hong Kong 1941” (please refer
to my book review posted on 25th February, 2014) makes one feel like
watching a documentary with grotesque images popping up now and then, then turning the pages of “The Lasting Honour: The Fall of Hong Kong 1941” is like
sitting through a heart-rending war movie that makes one feel anger, despair
and repulse about the inhumanities of wars. I couldn't help shedding a few tears out of respect and reverence for the honorable soldiers who defended Hong Kong to the best they could, even though they were aware that it was a lost cause from the outset.
That
Hong Kong was doomed from the very beginning can be summed up in this passage:-
“The
complete lack of air support, and inadequate sea power, made the defeat of Hong
Kong a foregone conclusion. The defenders, too few in numbers and too thinly
spread, have no knowledge where the weight of the attack is to be anticipated.
So it can only be expected that the assault, with the advantage of surprise,
pressed forward in great strength at a few points, will succeed in breaking
through. This is what the Japanese achieved, and then they pushed forward to
gain possession of the commanding heights which dominate the Island, and from
that moment the campaign was lost.”
Even
as early as April 1938, the War Office in London reconfirmed that the Hong Kong
Garrison should defend Hong Kong, with no reinforcement, for as long as
possible. The Chiefs of Staff in London thought of Hong Kong ‘more as a
strategic liability than an asset’.
Then
when it was finally decided to ask Canada for reinforcement, only two
battalions with little fighting experience or training were sent to Hong Kong.
Upon arrival on 16th November 1941, just three weeks before the Japanese
invasion (which began in the early hours of 8th December), they had
to hit the ground running, being totally unfamiliar with the battle territory, exhausted
from the long sea voyage, and later weakened by malaria.
Was
any help from the Chinese ever to be forthcoming? The answer seems to lie in
this passage:-
“However
China had her own problems. She was divided not only by the Japanese, but also
by the political struggle between the Nationalists and Communists, which
continued in a desultory manner. In 1937, both had joined in a ‘United Front’
to fight the Japanese. Ostensibly integrated with the Nationalist Army, the
Communists concentrated on winning over the people, and setting up base areas
from which to mount guerilla operations. The Communists were to be accused of
conserving their strength and avoiding decisive engagements while consolidating
political power, and the Nationalists were later to be criticized for corruption
and inefficiency.”
It
was bad enough that the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek’s empty promises of
help raised false hopes for those desperate folks in Hong Kong. But more devastating
were the subversive sabotage activities by Communists who had infiltrated into
the Colony (referred to as “fifth columnists” in the book), who looted,
murdered and in every way added to the already harrowing ordeal that the Hong
Kong population were subjected to.
Barbarism
is an understatement when it comes to the unspeakable wicked acts by the
Japanese during the war. The late Dr. Li Shu-fan (late founder of the Hong Kong
Sanatorium and Hospital) had estimated the number of rapes committed during the
battle of Hong Kong to be over 10,000. Cold-blooded murders of allied soldiers (in
some cases even when a white flag was raised) by the Japanese were especially
appalling at the Shaukiwan Silesian Mission Medical Post (where captured
prisoners were bayoneted to death from the back) and at the St. Stephen’s
College Hospital in Stanley (where many wounded soldiers lying in bed were
bayoneted to death, where two soldiers were brutally mutilated and murdered and where several
nurses were raped and murdered and still others raped). Civilian deaths during
the battle were estimated at over 4,000 (Banham: Not the Slightest Chance).
For
the Hong Kong folks, the 18-day battle was only the beginning, horrible though
it was, of a protracted period (lasting three years and eight months) of great trepidation,
starvation, homelessness and utter destitution under the merciless rule of the
Japanese. By May 1945, one million Hong Kong Chinese had left the Colony for
the Mainland, leaving only 650,000 behind.
This
particular part of Hong Kong’s history is probably unknown or unfamiliar to many
of Hong Kong’s young and not-so-young generations. To them, and others who
might have an interest in the subject, I would highly recommend Banham’s and
Lindsay’s books.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
"Fated and Fateless" Excerpt Part 2
Here's Excerpt Part 2 (continued from Part 1):-
[Diana had witnessed the amazing growth of Sun Tai Land on her frequent trips back to Hong Kong while studying in England – the number of staff shot up from a couple of dozens in 1966 to a couple of hundreds now (1972). The company structure had evolved from a simple single-tier one into a multi-department, many-layered management hierarchy led by her father. Her knowledge of the company’s operations, if perfunctory, had come from her attendance as an observer at board and management meetings during all her school vacations.
[Diana had witnessed the amazing growth of Sun Tai Land on her frequent trips back to Hong Kong while studying in England – the number of staff shot up from a couple of dozens in 1966 to a couple of hundreds now (1972). The company structure had evolved from a simple single-tier one into a multi-department, many-layered management hierarchy led by her father. Her knowledge of the company’s operations, if perfunctory, had come from her attendance as an observer at board and management meetings during all her school vacations.
During those
company visits, she couldn’t help noticing that her father had regular secret
meetings with Detective Ngan in his private conference room, which was annexed
to his large and lavishly furnished office, where valuable Chinese paintings by
Cheung Tai Chin were randomly hung. She was going to find out all about the
meetings from Ms. Yeung some day.
As she lay
reposed on the gold-trimmed velvety couch by the sheer-curtained French windows
looking out onto the terrace, she was thinking that it was high time to take
the company public and use the public offer proceeds for further expansion,.
She must set up a meeting with John Woo, Sun Tai Land’s legal adviser, and Ewen Saunders,
the investment banker. She was not going to tell her father yet what was on her
mind until she had all the information she needed. She must be able to impress
him with her first presentation. But before that important meeting, she must
first have a chance to hold an internal meeting with all the department heads
to get an update on the company’s business outlook and financial situation. The
matter was now of top priority as John Woo had told her that the KHS Group was
also planning to go public.
On that thought,
she rose from the couch and walked across the chandelier-lit living room to the
fireplace, above which hung a huge, three-panel mirror. She picked up the
antique phone on the side table while admiring her own reflection in the
mirror, and dialed Ms. Yeung’s number. Ms. Yeung had been her father’s private
secretary for as long as she could recall and knew the company’s staff like the
back of her hand. Diana was aware of the rumor that had been going round the
office in recent years: that her father had taken Ms. Yeung as his mistress and
had bought her a high-end apartment in Happy Valley.
For this reason, no one from the office dared to cross her and everybody was
trying to please her. If there was anyone apart from Mrs. Lee, to whom Ms.
Yeung would care to show some courtesy, it was Diana. Diana had once casually
dropped the question on her mother, but she had shrugged it off in an
unaffected manner without saying anything. She had thought it best to feign
ignorance in front of her father.
“Hello Ms.
Yeung, how have you been?”
“Hello Diana,
it’s good to hear your voice again. When did you arrive? Did you have a
pleasant trip?”
“I arrived on
Saturday. The trip was OK – you know, as usual, I slept during the flight.
Look, I was wondering if you could set up a meeting of department heads for 10 o’clock on Tuesday, if my dad
doesn’t have anything on.”
“Let me just
check his diary – yes, he’s free. I’ll have the meeting set up right away. Is
there anything else?”
“Please tell my
dad that the purpose of the meeting is to let me catch up. Oh, and please ask
the chief accountant to let me have copies of the audited accounts for the last
five years – have them on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. Another thing
is that I want you to place an ad in the English papers for two personal
assistants for me. Also, ask the fung shui master Mr. Yau to come by the office
tomorrow. That’ll be all for now.” Mr. Lee had hired Mr. Yau as the company’s
fung shui master on a retainer basis right after that house-warming dinner in
1970.
“Yes, I’ll get
on to it. See you tomorrow morning, Diana. Welcome back.”
Out of the
corner of her eye, she saw Edward hauling himself up agilely from the water.
His lanky torso and tight butt, dripping wet and exuding life in the bright
sunlight, looked even more sensual. As his elder sister, she felt she had a
duty to watch over him, not letting him fall prey to those tramps hovering
around him. He was always such a naïve and warm-hearted big boy. It was a good
thing he didn’t want to go into the business world – he was just not cut out
for it.
She walked out
to the sunlit terrace and picked up a white thick towel from one of the wooden
poolside benches to hand to him.
“I’m going
shopping at Lane Crawford’s this afternoon. Want to come along?” she was hoping
he’d say yes.
“Umm, I don’t
think so – there’s some reading that I have to catch up on. Why don’t you ask
Mother to go with you?”
Masking her
disappointment, she said in a teasing tone: “What a bookworm you are! Mother
has her mahjong party to go to. She wouldn’t be a great help anyway. Don’t
worry, I don’t mind shopping alone.”]
Monday, March 10, 2014
Giveaway of "Fated and Fateless" at Goodreads
One signed paperback copy of "Fated and Fateless" is available as a Goodreads Giveaway from March 8 to March 15, 2014. Enter to win the copy!
Saturday, March 8, 2014
"Fated and Fateless" Excerpt Part 1
The book excerpt that I'm going to post consists of almost a full chapter. As it is too long for one post, I've split it into two parts. This post contains Excerpt Part 1.
[The last thought
on her mind, as she climbed out of the Mercedes, was that she needed to
advertise for a personal assistant, or maybe two, on the first day she started
to work at the office.
Diana had never
quite gotten over the spat she had had with Wendy when they were kids. She had
never forgiven Wendy for ruining her new pink frock that day. She had the nerve
to say it was my fault! She wondered where Wendy was working now, and how she was
making out.
“Whatever income
she may be earning, I can always give her an offer she can’t refuse.” The
corners of her lips turned up in a sly smile with this thought.
The next
morning, which was a Sunday, she had a chance to have a long chat with her mother
at the breakfast table, her father having already gone out to the Deep Water
Bay Golf Club to play golf and Edward was doing his daily laps in the terrace
pool.
In the Lee
family’s Sai Wan Ho days, Chuen Fat Kee had been used as a cover for a big
word-guess gaming (字花) operation which was run by Ah Chuen and Ah Fat. The
brothers had come from Chiu Chow like Mr. Lee. Being a sociable and astute
businessman, Mr. Lee had found out about the operation during his casual chats
with the brothers. He had offered to inject capital into the operation to make
it bigger, using his commission earnings from broking land deals. Immigrants
from Chiu Chow had a natural habit of sticking trustingly to one another. The
brothers had accepted his offer without hesitation. Two years into the
operation, Mr. Lee had suggested to the brothers to start a horse-racing bookie
business alongside word-guess game betting. The party of three had it so good
ever since that they were virtually swimming in cash.
The word-guess
game was a game in which thirty-six names of well-known ancients, or of places,
or of animals or profession, were put up for betting on a daily basis. Each
operator would have a number of couriers who acted as collectors of bets from
street gamblers. Each morning the operator would announce by word-of-mouth to
the couriers which group of names would be put up for betting that day and
would write up numbers in running order against the thirty-six names on a piece
of paper. He would randomly pick one number (name) by marking it and would then
put the piece of paper inside a porcelain container that would be hung from the
beam of the flat. Bets could then be accepted by the couriers. The payout
multiple for the winner was thirty to one. Thus, the odds are heavily in favor of
the dealer. Such operations were illegal gaming and had to be conducted
underground. The flip side to running such operations was that it would often
attract triad members as well as policemen to come around to collect protection
fees and bribes.
Now Diana
remembered when she was in primary school, her father had a habit of placing
before her each day a list of numbers and Chinese names and would urge her to
pick out a number or name on the paper. Ever since she took on the job of “the
gold finger”, money was flowing in faster than her father could ever have hoped
for. It was thus that she became her father’s good luck charm.
As the
underground operation was bringing in more and more cash, it had caught the
attention of the Wo Sing Wo triad gang. Gangsters had begun coming round to
extort protection fees from Ah Chuen and Ah Fat. By a stroke of chance, the
brothers had got acquainted with a police detective named Ngan from the vice
squad attached to the Shaukiwan Police Station. Ngan had also come from Chiu
Chow and once he came to know the brothers, they just hit it off in no time.
Ever since they had befriended each other, gangsters had stopped showing up.
But of course there was no free lunch. Instead of paying ever increasing
protection fees on demand to triad gangsters, the brothers and Mr. Lee had had
to allow Ngan a cut of the gaming profits. Diana had picked up much of this
information from the chauffeur Ah Wong during her car trips to and from the
airport on her annual vacations. Ah Wong was a second cousin of Ah Chuen and Ah
Fat. Her mother now confirmed those stories.
When the Lee
family had first moved to Repulse Bay in 1960, they had settled into a 2,000
square feet apartment unit which Mr. Lee had bought with the hard cash that he
earned from his underground business. Then in 1970, they had moved again into
the huge 4,000 square feet, two-storey beachside mansion, which had a large
manicured garden at the back and a sun terrace with a full-size swimming pool
at the front facing the beach. By this time, Ah Chuen and Ah Fat had also moved
out of Sai Wan Ho to live in a luxury apartment on The Peak. Together, the
brothers were now the second largest shareholder in Sun Tai Land, although they were content to
leave the day-to-day management of the company in the hands of Mr. Lee.
Starting from
the early 60s, Mr. Lee had begun to focus his time on buying land for his own
company and building low-end residential buildings in urban Kowloon for the newly arrived mainland
immigrants. The business had taken off in no time and he had begun to look for
land in the New Territories. In 1967, the communists in Hong Kong had started up a riot that had threatened to
turn uncontrollable, which had scared a lot of rich people into running for
cover overseas. The unexpected exodus had given Mr. Lee and a couple of other
gutsy developers, including the Lee family’s current neighbor Mr. Ko, a golden
chance to load up their land banks at negligible costs, when land and housing
prices had taken a dive.]
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
A Note About the Kindle Format of "Fated and Fateless"
A couple of friends from Hong Kong have asked me the same question recently: how could one get to read the Kindle version of my novel if one didn't have the Kindle device?
The answer is quite simple: just download the Kindle App for free from Amazon's website as you purchase the Kindle version from Amazon. If you want to download the book to your smartphone or tablet, there is a Kindle App for smartphone or tablet. If you want to download it to your laptop, there's a Kindle App for PC. It's just a click away on the right-hand column of the Product Page (either click on "Available on your PC" or click on "Free Kindle App for smartphones or tablets" as it suits you). The retail price of the Kindle version is US$7.99.
As presently the paperback version is not yet available in Asia, the most efficient and economical way for potential Asian readers to access the novel is by purchasing the Kindle version. That being said, the paperback version is actually a nicely done product and could be had for US$12.99. But the shipping charges can amount to US$20 and it takes 5 to 10 days for the shipment to arrive in Hong Kong. It would be nice if you could get friends or relatives living in the U.S. to buy and mail it to you.
For potential readers in Canada and most European countries (U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Italy), both the paperback and Kindle editions are listed at the respective local currency (e.g. in Canada, the Kindle version is listed at C$8.50 and the paperback at C$14.40). With the paperback version, delivery may be free or may involve a small local shipping charge.
In my earlier post I provided links to the Product Page on Amazon's U.S. and European sites but inadvertently omitted Amazon's Canada site. Here's the link:-
Amazon Canada's Product Page
My Twitter Account:
https://twitter.com/alicepoon1
The answer is quite simple: just download the Kindle App for free from Amazon's website as you purchase the Kindle version from Amazon. If you want to download the book to your smartphone or tablet, there is a Kindle App for smartphone or tablet. If you want to download it to your laptop, there's a Kindle App for PC. It's just a click away on the right-hand column of the Product Page (either click on "Available on your PC" or click on "Free Kindle App for smartphones or tablets" as it suits you). The retail price of the Kindle version is US$7.99.
As presently the paperback version is not yet available in Asia, the most efficient and economical way for potential Asian readers to access the novel is by purchasing the Kindle version. That being said, the paperback version is actually a nicely done product and could be had for US$12.99. But the shipping charges can amount to US$20 and it takes 5 to 10 days for the shipment to arrive in Hong Kong. It would be nice if you could get friends or relatives living in the U.S. to buy and mail it to you.
For potential readers in Canada and most European countries (U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Italy), both the paperback and Kindle editions are listed at the respective local currency (e.g. in Canada, the Kindle version is listed at C$8.50 and the paperback at C$14.40). With the paperback version, delivery may be free or may involve a small local shipping charge.
In my earlier post I provided links to the Product Page on Amazon's U.S. and European sites but inadvertently omitted Amazon's Canada site. Here's the link:-
Amazon Canada's Product Page
My Twitter Account:
https://twitter.com/alicepoon1
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