after hunting high and low and being told "sorry, no more stock", who would have guessed that my friend living on the other side of the globe in god-i-want-to-live-there-amsterdam would find a bookshop in hong kong selling my current must have book; this is hong kong.
thanks g! what would i do without you!
the most embarrassing part is that the bookshop which g found for me, which seriously had the last copy in stock, was literally like 5 minutes walk from my office...
so i waltzed into the bookshop around the corner after work and picked up my brand-spanking new reissued version of this is hong kong.
gee, wasn't miroslav sasek a cleverly artistic man.
flicking through the pages of this beautiful book actually made me feel a bit sad...
why?
because i wished i was living in hong kong back in the day (the 60s).
miroslav's illustrations depict a hong kong how i imagined hong kong would look like before i arrived here.
hong kong has no doubt changed for the better in many ways, but i wish i could have experienced zipping around the city on a rickshaw, seeing sailors in their nautical uniforms whistling at ladies wearing china-dresses.
it would have been amazing to have explored the now long gone "kowloon walled city" for a puff of opium as shirtless-tattooed triad guys ran down the dirty back alleys wielding huge meat cleavers.
ok... so this side of old hong kong wasn't in the book!
but still, i'm sure life back then was full of excitement and a lot more "cultural" than it is now.
thanks g! what would i do without you!
the most embarrassing part is that the bookshop which g found for me, which seriously had the last copy in stock, was literally like 5 minutes walk from my office...
so i waltzed into the bookshop around the corner after work and picked up my brand-spanking new reissued version of this is hong kong.
gee, wasn't miroslav sasek a cleverly artistic man.
flicking through the pages of this beautiful book actually made me feel a bit sad...
why?
because i wished i was living in hong kong back in the day (the 60s).
miroslav's illustrations depict a hong kong how i imagined hong kong would look like before i arrived here.
hong kong has no doubt changed for the better in many ways, but i wish i could have experienced zipping around the city on a rickshaw, seeing sailors in their nautical uniforms whistling at ladies wearing china-dresses.
it would have been amazing to have explored the now long gone "kowloon walled city" for a puff of opium as shirtless-tattooed triad guys ran down the dirty back alleys wielding huge meat cleavers.
ok... so this side of old hong kong wasn't in the book!
but still, i'm sure life back then was full of excitement and a lot more "cultural" than it is now.
2 comments:
hong kong in the sixties! i wish i lived there then too. i'm thinking wong kar wai's gorgeous "in the mood for love".mm. happy holidays, by the way! do you get any time off over there in hard workin hk?
* Luuworld
i think i'm gonna get out some of his movies to re-watch and re-live the sixties!
it's fun watching old hong kong movies and seeing how places used to look like; espicially streets which i walk along everyday.
and holidays over christmas?! what are you crazy! lol
we get christmas day and boxing day off (shame that it falls on a saturday).
but i'm gonna make the most of my three days off!
hope you have a great christmas! looking forward to hearing all your drunken tails!
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