Robbie Stamp recalls a brutal period of his life when he lost his firm, his father and his friend, and how making the 2005 film turned everything around Out of Africa My parents met and married in Johannesburg, South Africa. My father moved out there from the UK after the second world war with his first…
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Places such as Hong Kong that accepted refugees benefited from admitting highly motivated people who pushed their children to serve, author Helen Zia says What do American writer Amy Tan, Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first head of government under Chinese rule, and former Hong Kong chief secretaries for administration Henry Tang Ying-yen and Anson Chan…
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The musical artist found fame after his songs appeared on television shows and streaming services End of empire My mum is from Singapore and my dad, a barrister, is from Cheshire, in England. They met at a party in Hong Kong. I was born at the Matilda hospital (on The Peak) in 1984. My elder brother,…
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Rise programme focuses on bringing women into a safe environment to work through their substance use, and to see what trauma caused it Growing up in Belfast in the 1970s – in the time of the “Troubles” when there were bombing campaigns and shootings across Northern Ireland – Paula Shields saw a “traumatised generation” around…
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After meeting and befriending director Bernardo Bertolucci, Basil Pao was offered a part in The Last Emperor For two months over the summer of 1986, photographer Basil Pao watched sunrise at the Meridian Gate, the largest gate at the Forbidden City in Beijing. As part of the team working on The Last Emperor, the early starts…
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Travel à la Carte stores everything needed for a trip in one central place and includes a multi-functional digital wallet and an AI-powered assistant Ivana Hronova and her sister Olga Grillova’s first trip to Cuba started off as a nightmare. Their flight landed in the evening, the local system did not recognise their credit card…
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Mainland Chinese spending has cemented Hong Kong’s position as Asia’s most important luxury hub, but the recent wave of Mainland Chinese shoppers — drawn to the city by new transport links — tends to have smaller budgets and different tastes than earlier visitors. With no sales tax, a friendly business environment and a voracious appetite…
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Anyone over a certain height is at risk of losing an eye in the city If you’re five foot eight or taller, the rainy season can be a dangerous time. I nearly lost an eye last week. The man toting the umbrella that crashed into my face didn’t even break stride. Surely that counts as…
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More than half the Hong Kong workforce is made up of women, but they are not well represented at senior levels The corporate world looks nothing like it did 50 years ago – it’s faster, super hi-tech and, critically, there are women in the workplace in numbers that couldn’t have been imagined half a century…
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Dr Ramesh Pattni has been researching psychological techniques embedded in ancient spiritual texts to improve modern meditation and yoga practices As a teenager growing up in Kenya, Dr Ramesh Pattni was interested in Hindu scriptures. He was particularly interested in the ancient text known as The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a collection of 196 Indian aphorisms…
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Transformative travel enables people to break away from the stresses of modern life by finding eco-villages, social projects and farms David Casey was in his early 20s, a fresh University of California, Berkeley, graduate, when he first encountered the gift economy through the phenomenally successful Couch Surfing website. He was blown away by the way…
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As chief exterior designer at Porsche, Hong Kong-born Pinky Lai Ping won plaudits for reworking the 911. After leaving the German firm, he’s setting course for China with a high- performance plug-in car on the cards.
We’ve been hearing a lot about deep cleaning. When the last passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan completed their 14-day quarantine on March 2, following a coronavirus outbreak aboard, the ship underwent a thorough disinfection. Since then, not a day has gone past without mention of a club, gym, restaurant,…
British pop star whose family fled war-torn Kosovo when she was seven, is thrilled to be touring again, and Hong Kong will be her first big gig of the year. She talks about acting, growing up in West London and her sold-out UK tour
When you come from a land where we politely refer to smog as fog and have to have our stomachs pumped if we fall in the harbour, the Galapagos Islands are quite simply a paradise
Jami Gong, founder of the first full-time comedy club in Asia, TakeOut Comedy, talks about growing up in New York and the thrill of watching an audience laugh My mum was born and raised in Hong Kong and lived through World War II (1939-1945) there, and my dad is from Toisan (in Guangdong province). They…
North Korea’s top end has enough stunning scenery to make you almost forget you are in the world’s most repressive state. Almost. North Korea has been open to tourists since 1987, but it is only in the past few years that the hermit kingdom has seen visitors arrive in any significant number. Those who come…