Vaudine England, "Fortune's Bazaar: The Making of Hong Kong" (Scribner, 2023)

Aug 10, 2023

Vaudine England, author of 'Fortune's Bazaar: The Making of Hong Kong,' explores the diverse communities that contributed to building Hong Kong in the early days of colonization, highlighting the treatment of mixed heritage individuals and forced Chinese women in the sex industry. The podcast discusses the intermarriages and family connections of a famous Hong Kong family, Stanley Ho's challenging upbringing, and the influential figure, Paul Chader, and his contributions to transforming the city. It also delves into the impact of the Japanese occupation on different communities, challenging simplistic narratives about Hong Kong's history.

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Introduction

00:00 • 3min

Early Days of British Colonization in Hong Kong

03:12 • 27min

The Lineage of a Famous Family and Their Connection to Stanley Ho

29:56 • 2min

Unsung Hero: The Life and Legacy of Paul Chader

31:53 • 7min

Communities and Choices During Japanese Occupation

38:37 • 10min

Wrapping up the conversation and discussing future projects

49:06 • 3min

The legacy of the businessmen who built Hong Kong are all over the city. Bankers work in Chater House—named after Paul Chater, the Armenian businessman behind much of the city’s land reclamation (among many other things). The Kowloon Shangri-La Hotel sits along Mody Road, named after Hormusjee Naorojee Mody, a Parsi immigrant who helped found the University of Hong Kong. And that’s not including figures like Robert Hotung, the half-British, half-Chinese magnate who found more power in his Chinese identity.

The story of Hong Kong is more complicated than what the British or the Chinese might assert–countless migrants, from all over the world, came to Hong Kong to build the city and make their fortunes. Vaudine England’s Fortune's Bazaar: The Making of Hong Kong (Scribner, 2023) tells the stories of these communities of Armenians, Indians, Parsis, Portuguese, Eurasians, and others who sat between the Anglo-Saxons and the Chinese majority.

In this interview, Vaudine and I talk about Hong Kong’s story, the city’s early Wild West–or perhaps “Wild East” days—and the communities of men and women that built the city.

Vaudine England has been a journalist in Hong Kong and South East Asia for years. As a historian, she has focused on the diverse personalities and peoples that have gone into making Hong Kong a cosmopolitan Asian metropolis. She is the author of The Quest of Noel Croucher: Hong Kong’s Quiet Philanthropist (Hong Kong University Press: 1998) as well as several privately published works of Hong Kong history and biography.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Fortune’s Bazaar. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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