Good books to understand Hong Kong's colonial history from late 1800s to 1990s

Submitted by smokiehk on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 21:56

Hoping experts here would point me to the right direction:-

I am a native Hong Konger so can read Chinese books as well. Moved to London three years ago and have been fascinated by the photographs seen here and other old hong kong websites. Been to Charing Cross Collectors Fair twice to read the old Hong Kong postcards but finding it rather difficult to recognise most of the buildings (aside from the major landmarks in current Central like te old Queens/Princes building). Would be grateful for any recommended background readings to get up to speed / piece things together..

I also enjoy identifying the buildings in old photos. Some suggestions:

Gwulo

Here on Gwulo you could sign up for the weekly newsletter, as every couple of weeks its topic is an old photo where I talk about the buildings we can see there.

Also follow the newly posted photos, see if you can recognise them, then click through to see if you were right.

You can post photos you're not sure about to Gwulo to see if we can help.

Books

Books with collections of old photos of Hong Kong are good ways to learn. eg anything by Cheng Po Hung is good. Also a couple of HK Museum of History publications, "City of Victoria", and "Images through time: Photos of old Hong Kong". FormAsia's books.

Websites

Check out Phil's http://hongkongandmacaufilmstuff.blogspot.hk/, where he identifies the locations used to shoot films in Hong Kong.

UWants have some threads that look at old photos and have some very skilled contributors identifying where they were taken.

Hopefully they'll help you get started,

Regards, David