Books : Golden Boy: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780312426262
ISBN: 0312426267
Label: Picador
Manufacturer: Picador
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: November 14, 2006
Publisher: Picador
Release Date: November 14, 2006
Sales Rank: 286983
Studio: Picador
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At seven years old, Martin Booth found himself with all of Hong Kong at his feet when his father was posted there in 1952. This is his memoir of that youth, a time when he had access to corners of the colony normally closed to a gweilo, a "pale fellow" like him. From the plink plonk man with his dancing monkey to Nagasaki Jim, and from a drunken child molester to the Queen of Kowloon (the crazed tramp who may have been a Romanov), Martin saw it all--but his memoir illustrates a deeper challenge in his warring parents. This is an intimate and powerful memory of a place and time now past.
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I am deeply sad that the author Martin Booth is no longer with us. However, he left behind a treasure in this amazing memoir. This book is also published under the name "Gweilo." I hated coming to the end of this enchanting book and recommend it to everyone.
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GOLDEN BOY, Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood
By Martin Booth
Picador Press |(St. Martins) 2004
ISBN 978-0-312-42626-2 (pbk)
What gave a seven-year-old British boy courage to explore the Hong Kong of 1952 in places where no foreign child belonged? Martin Booth felt safe among unusual friends during his adventures, because Chinese people believed rubbing his golden hair brought them luck.
Booth's superb prose pictures brothels, opium dens, Chinese drug-lord friends, forbidden temples and also the wild life and flora in both Kowloon and Hong Kong. Often lonely, Martin's independence was encouraged by correspondence and gifts from his grandfather in England. He never told his parents the extent of his explorations into forbidden and dangerous areas.
The boy also endured the hostilities between his bigoted, bureaucrat father, a man who never quite succeeded, and his out-going mother who was fascinated by Chinese culture.
The author calls himself a "curious, somewhat devious, adventurous and street-wise child whose heart never left Hong Kong" after his father's job sent them back to England four years later.
Anyone who likes biography, history, adventure, Chinese culture and beautifully written literature will enjoy this book.
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Martin Booth had an amazing memory for the details of post-WWII Hong Kong and the times he had there as a seven to ten year-old boy. His civilian father gets transferred by the British to the far-flung colonial outpost. While his father is more of a spoilsport, his mother tries live life to the utmost--wherever that life may be--and she allows Martin the freedom to do the same. He takes her fully up on that offer, befriending hotel staff, local storekeepers and more and tasting practically every Chinese dish and joining in every local festival with eyes wide open. However, there are actually very few stories of his escapades with fellow children, mostly stories with the adults that surround him and the nature and culture of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is ruthless with its built history, so a book like this is the only way to get to know the Hong Kong that existed only fifty years ago. It includes one of the few descriptions of a westerner in the `Kowloon walled city.' And from an eight year-old boy too!
I am grateful that Mr. Booth was able to finish this book before he died. I wish he had lived a few more years for selfish reasons--so that he could have finished a book on his second time around in Hong Kong. I am sure he had just as many adventures as a teen as he did as a young boy.
Richard Mason's `World of Suzie Wong' takes place at approximately the same time and is a great and recommended look at a decidedly different part of Hong Kong. So it was neat when Booth's ... Read More
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This book was recommended to me by a friend who said she was sad when it ended. Well, I am recommending it, and also sad when it ended. It is a delightful memoir of a blond 9 year old boy living in Hong Kong in the 1940ties. Blond means "luck" to the Chinese and everyone wanted to pat his head. He learned Chinese and was allowed into areas that no other "white" person could go.
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I read this book because I love Hong Kong and its history. I was totally unprepared for Booth's parents and adored Joyce. How cannot you not like someone so lively, loving, accepting (except of Ken) and adventuresome?
While the family (Ken, Joyce and Martin) are exploring Algiers, Joyce buys some dates from a market stall, and Ken pitches a fit because they are probably unsanitary. He asks, 'How can you tell where they've been?' Joyce replies that they've been up a date tree. 'And they picked themselves I suppose?' 'No,' Joyce rplies, 'I expect they were plucked by a scrofulous urchin and thrown down to his tubercular aunt who wrapped them in her phlegm-stiffened handerchief.' I had a large mouthful of iced tea when I read that and spat the tea I didn't snort up my nose all over the page. I couldn't stop laughing. This was, I learned, pure Joyce.
'Golden Boy' is delightful, insightful and something more - a word or phrase that escapes these old brain cells. This is the first book by Booth I've read, and I'm eager to read more.
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