Gweilo

Product Description

Martin Booth died in February 2004 shortly after finishing the book that would be his epitaph
- this wonderfully remembered beautifully told memoir of a childhood lived to the full in a far-flung outpost of the British Empire... An inquisitive seven-year-old Martin Booth found himself with the whole of Hong Kong at his feet when his father was posted there in the early 1950s. Unrestricted by parental control & blessed with bright blond hair that signified good luck to the Chinese he had free access to hidden corners of the colony normally closed to a Gweilo a pale fellow like him. Befriending rickshaw coolies & local stallholders he learnt Cantonese sampled delicacies such as boiled water beetles & one-hundred-year-old eggs & participated in colourful festivals. He even entered the forbidden Kowloon Walled City wandered into the secret lair of the Triads & visited an opium den. Along the way he encountered a colourful array of people from the plink plonk man with his dancing monkey to Nagasaki Jim a drunken child molester & the Queen of Kowloon the crazed tramp who may have been a member of the Romanov family. Shadowed by the unhappiness of his warring parents a broad-minded mother who like her son was keen to embrace all things Chinese & a bigoted father who was enraged by his familys interest in going native Martin Booths compelling memoir is a journey into Chinese culture & an extinct colonial way of life that glows with infectious curiosity & humour.