The Kowloon Kid

Book excerpt: 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.