Described as “Asia’s most photographed body of water”, iconic Victoria Harbour has played a key role in the story of Hong Kong. Here are some interesting facts about the famous landmark. A history of Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong

a lovely and majorly complex oil. super enjoyable and big vertical complexity. its sheer youth is not fully showing. it comes across as more settled and aged for a year or two. This book has everything: It's very suspenseful and moving, beautifully written and I loved the structure: Four parts, each with a different narrator and different length. All interconnected, but to various degrees. When the first part finished and I realised that the next part was starting with a new character in a different period, I felt regret as I didn't want to leave the previous part. But after only a few lines I was roped in to the new story.Below is a sketch of the harbour from 1845, by Thomas Bernard Collinson, an English naval surveyor of the Royal Engineers. Although the origin of the name “Fragrant Harbor” can only be speculated, there are two theories that try to explain how and why the name came about. “Fragrant Harbor” may have referred to the sweet and fragrant waters of the Pearl River or the sweet smell of agarwood that is popular on the island. The Small Stream Aberdeen Main Road. Open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10:00-22:00, Saturday, Monday and Wednesday 10:00-22:00, Sunday and holidays by appointment The arrival of the principal characters in Hong Kong is done in a travelogue style surely substandard for Lanchester, a writer formerly so careful in the control of the narrative voice. The Red Sea has to be described because in the old days one went through it on the boat, and the airport (the old one) is dutifully dealt with when somebody arrives by plane. In addition to these and other parts during Ho's segment, I loved nearly everything Tom Stewart had to say. The way Stewart handles himself - always with dignity, loyalty, honesty, stubbornness - makes his character one of my favorite protagonists in recent memory. A man of unwavering principal he is.

That is precisely the experience the novel offers: a passive one. There is pleasure in Lanchester's intelligent and measured prose, and in his rapid, seemingly expert analysis of a volatile and intriguing region. The march of time has seen the district evolve. Repurposed buildings have become coffee shops, contemporary concept stores and art studios. At Mudheytong Gallery visitors are encouraged to get hands-on with wheel-throwing, building and glazing, while at Bo Wah Effigies you can marvel at the artistry of the paper effigies they make as offerings in traditional Chinese rituals. Alternatively, lovers of vinyl can experience heaven on earth at Ah Paul’s Vinyl Hero, an Aladdin’s den of LPs from the 1970s and 1980s, and art lovers can steer their way to Colour Brown x Coffee Go.On Space, and its community of contemporary artistic talents. But it is Stewart who has to carry the burden of the story. His capacity for love, he says himself, is "elusive and equivocal" and his experience of grief is that it is numbing and passive, "something one undergoes rather than something one undertakes". Tom was conscious of the trouble his own curiosity could get him into. When asked to play a role in the wartime resistance against the Japanese, he asks, "‘Isn’t it better if I know a bit more?’ It would be untrue to say I blush at the memory of asking that question. But it was one of the stupidest things I ever said." In its 150 years of British rule Hong Kong flourished to a degree not even the most wildly ambitious early colonial administrator could have predicted.

Navigation menu

I was amazed how different this book is compared to the previous novels by Lanchester ('The Debt To Pleasure' & 'Mr Phillips'). In my opinion he's getting better and better. Looking forward to his fourth. And it’s this precious resin that has long been sought after. Known as the ‘King of Incense’, agarwood was extensively traded in the Middle East and Asia. Records from China’s Tang and Song Dynasties show it was a highly valued commodity, and its heady scent has historical connections stretching across Buddhism, Taoism, Islam and Christianity. It begins to unravel by the third section, however. The plot twist involving two of the major characters contains two main issues - firstly, it doesn't really ring true for the characters and secondly, it's an example of the author keeping information from the reader just to create a twist. The final section is probably the weakest and drags the book down - it just reads like a slightly stilted telling of a business deal and the most interesting section. The most interesting part would be how the grandfather reacts to the new business deal, but this is not included within the book. Also, the book has the problem that it is not really about the Chinese experience of Hong Kong but how the Western world viewed it. The first part of the book is narrated by Dawn Stone, an ambitious journalist who, after a moderately successful Fleet Street career, travels to Hong Kong in the early 1990s to work as an investigative reporter on a glossy magazine. Lanchester takes a considerable risk in choosing Stone as a narrator, because she writes energetically but without any real distinction of phrase or insight, in a kind of smart, wised-up journalese that is so popular today with certain female columnists and which Lanchester spoofs expertly, but for rather too long. this oil has ZERO in common with fragrant harbour supreme. the latter oil is top soil, bitter, root veg, peanuts and damp earth and FHI, is well, Not.

In the past, Ap Lei Chau served as a supply station for the water community, which would come here for “treasures of the land” like groceries, engines, fishing nets, hooks, incense or simply a bowl of wonton noodles. Wing Kee’s owner, Wing Gor, is an example of a boat person who migrated to land. “Only those who have earned enough can live on land,” he says. He calls himself “the keeper of Ap Lei Chau” and he is proud of his roots on the island. “I might not be here for long,” he says. The MTR will soon open a station on Ap Lei Chau and since Wing Gor does not own his shop space, it may fall victim to rent hikes. Will this be the fate of more and more small businesses on Ap Lei Chau?Asia Plantation Capital (APC), one of Asia’s largest commercial Aquilaria growers, is trying to save the trees by encouraging sustainable agarwood plantations in Hong Kong and across Asia. They believe that only a few hundred wild specimens remain in Hong Kong, although the Hong Kong government claims to have planted around 10,000 saplings a year since 2009.