Gweilo

From the ages of seven until ten, Martin Booth, with his parents lived in Hong Kong. His father, a civilian clerk attached to the Royal Navy in charge of the provisioning of ships, was posted there for this period from 1952 until 1955.

As a seven year old, landing in Hong Kong after a fairly standard six years in Britain, Martin was let loose into a city of mixed culture, where there was always something exciting happening. The highlight of this book for me were the adventures the blonde-headed boy undertook - the street-food restaurants, the shops selling fireworks, the rickshaw pullers smoking opium, the Kowloon Walled City (which he was strictly forbidden to visit). He was inquisitive, pushing boundaries and yet made friends easily with adults from all walks of life from the American servicemen and the British Colonial staff to the Chinese - whether they were hotel boys, shopkeepers or triad gangsters!

Hong Kong at his time is described as an amazing place for an adventurous boy, blessed with his blonde hair, constantly touched for good luck by the superstitious Chinese. Without much knowledge at the time he visited brothels, opium dens, saw Japanese skeletons; with his parents visited a mountain monastery and a leper colony.

Much of the book is wrapped around the uncomfortable relationship of his parents. The two are clearly quite different personalities, and they clash (verbally), with Martin witness to most of this conflict, he without exception takes his mothers side. In the book Booth portrays his father quite poorly as a joyless man, whose life revolves around organisation and structure - who does little but work and sleep, but takes time to belittle and discipline Martin. He is disinterested in learning or becoming involved in the non-British culture of Hong Kong. His mother however, is quite the opposite, making friends with the Chinese she comes in contact with, becoming god-mother to countess children born to these friends.

Perhaps too much of the book takes on the relationship of his parents, but this is the authors memoir of his childhood, and this is obviously where many of his memories are entangled. It is unfortunate I think, that his mother is made to look bad by the author recording all her snide comments towards her husband, which was no doubt not Booths intention in writing this book.

There is no doubt this is very readable, at 370 pages is moves quickly, but cleverly wraps anecdotes around activities, not all on a linear time frame, but often dropping a side story within an anecdote, jumping forward or backward in time to add a detail relevant to the narrative. I was in no way familiar with the author, who is a prolific novelist, and am not sure that his other works hold much appeal, but this was a most enjoyable memoir which captures the essence of Hong Kong in the 1950s with all it colour, atmosphere and vibrancy, but also shares the some-time squalor, deprivation and suffering of the refugee Chinese in the squatter camps.

Booth wrote this book after being diagnosed with incurable brain tumour. He wrote it for his children, so share his childhood experiences with them. After leaving Hong Kong in 1955 he returned, with his parents, four years later to live. It is a shame he was not able to record those further experiences.

4.5 stars, rounding up.