The Kowloon Kid

From the author of Travels with My Angst and Any Guru Will Do, a vivid, nostalgic, and funny memoir of growing up in Hong Kong in the 1960s.

Phil Brown's life begins in small town Australia — Maitland, NSW to be precise — but in 1963 his father Ted hankers to return to the Hong Kong of his childhood and to cash in on a construction boom in the burgeoning colony.

Then under British rule, the world of Hong Kong is a truly fascinating place for gweilos or foreigners, both a colonial outpost and a region redolent with all the exoticism and contradictions of the Far East. The Brown’s home, in the garden suburb of Kowloon Tong, buzzes with characters: the family's amah, Ah Moy, frequent visitors such as the inscrutable Mr Lai, the spy-like Tony Parr, and family members such as Uncle Cyril. Not to mention the kid from across the road, Michael Hutchence.

Combining recent visits to Hong Kong, where the author explores his childhood touchstones of the Kowloon Cricket Club, the beach at Shek O, the Peninsula Hong Kong and the bustling lanes of Kowloon, with an affectionate yet truly honest portrait of family, self and the 1960s The Kowloon Kid is an intimate and tender gem.

‘An exquisite love letter to Hong Kong.’ — Ross Fitzgerald