Kowloon Tong [Hardcover]

Paul Theroux (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 1997

For Neville "Bunt" Mullard and his mother, Betty, Hong Kong is part of Britain - one of the pleasanter parts; it is also cozy, monotonous, profitable, and homely. It is big breakfasts and high tea and bad weather, the race meetings at Happy Valley, the roast beef at Fatty's Chophouse and, for Bunt, the "blue hotels" of Kowloon Tong, where he eats his packed lunches and sometimes rents a room by the hour with a girl. Now, ninety-nine years of colonial rule is about to end, and the British government is about to hand over Hong Kong to China. Betty and Bunt can see China from their parlor, but they have never been there. They detest Chinese food. "The Chinese take-away," as they call the hand-over, does not particularly concern them. When Bunt first meets Mr. Hung, who is a well-spoken gentleman from the Chinese mainland, he pays him little heed. And when Mr. Hung offers the Mullards a handsome sum for their family business - a fifty-year-old textile factory, Imperial Stitching, that was

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Paul Theroux, whose inveterate globe-trotting marks him as one of the most restless writers working today, lands us in the Far East with this novel of personal lives swept up in the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China. But the end of Colonial rule is perfectly unwelcome for Neville Mullard and his mother Betty, who run a textile factory that's been in the family for 50 years, and who have spent a lifetime insulating themselves from the Chinese culture that's all around them. Now, the shadowy and dangerous Mr. Hung wants to buy the business, and he won't take no for an answer--whether or not the Mullards want to sell. Theroux, the author of several travel books, has few equals when it comes to the portrayal of exotic cultures, a skill that makes this one of the first great novels of the Hong Kong handover of 1997.

From Library Journal

Neville "Bunt" Mullard is a quintessential Englishman: he likes eating at Fatty's Chophouse, going to the races, and having tea and oaties with Mum. Only Bunt was born and bred in Hong Kong, where he now runs a factory that his father established with Mr. Chuck, who has just died and left his shares to the Mullard family. Bunt is trying to ignore the imminent Chinese takeover of Hong Kong, but then Mr. Hung arrives from the mainland, demanding to buy the well-situated factory?and backing up his demands with some ugly tactics. Theroux's trademark contempt is in place here. The insipid Bunt and his coarse, avaricious mother are almost unbelievably awful, but in his ruthlessness Mr. Hung is even worse. The result can be pretty dispiriting, but this chilling little novel must be read to the end to catch the full effect of Bunt's breathtaking weakness. Whether it is read as a political fable challenging Britain's colonization and abandonment of Hong Kong or a morality tale about the worst in human nature, this is grim, note-perfect in its descriptions, and, one fears, absolutely honest.
-?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 243 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; First Edition edition (June 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395860296
• ISBN-13: 978-0395860298
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #336,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Theroux's highly acclaimed novels include Blinding Light, Hotel Honolulu, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, and The Mosquito Coast. His renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and The Happy Isles of Oceania. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Several Essential Books on Hong Kong for Visitors, October 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Kowloon Tong: A Novel of Hong Kong (Paperback)

This Hong Kong classic is both a great read and a great help for Westerners planning to live in, or visit Hong Kong. I first read it when I lived there in the late 90's, even began reading it on the Star Ferry when it came out in early 1997. Bunt is an old "Hong Kong Belonger", British, lives atop Victoria Peak ("the" address to have), has a factory in the district of Kowloon Tong, and has a pretty easy life thanks to the protection of British rule and law in a region better known for dictatorships. But all that is coming to an end, with Britain handing over Hong Kong to China. The Chinese military bureaucrat Hung arrives to force Bunt to sell the Chinese Army his business - the Red Army wants to start making some cash, and Bunt is bewildered and soft due to his life in the colony and can't cope well. The harshness of Hunt and the fuddy-duddyness of Bunt are well-drawn depictions of actual Hong Kong types. The ending is very Hong Kong. Also very Hong Kong are the myriads of other types depicted here - Chinese, British, American. The Chinese bigot yelling "Gweilo!" Bunt's horrible mother yelling "Chinky-Chonk!" The American trying to buy a new nationality to avoid paying US taxes. Many of the anecdotes and scenes perfectly capture the harsh underbelly of the place which has its origins in the tragic influx of all those millions of Chinese refugees fleeing China to the safety of then-British Hong Kong and the huge insecurities that created. This is a book to read both before you go AND after you've lived there for a year, many of the subtler aspects of the book will be revealed to you. One thing the book the makes no concessions to is the important concept in Chinese culture of "Face" - there is nothing more importatnat than NOT losing face in China, so warts-and-all books like this are not appreciated. But the book is written for any readers who like a good read to contain accuracy of description rather than a tourist bureau spin account. The book was banned in the People's Republic for just this reason (minor shades of Tiannamen Square!) There are also several in-house jokes which will become apparent after you've been in Hong Kong awhile - for example the placing of a factory in the district of Kowloon Tong, a subtle comment on how awful that residential district was to live in - locally reffered to as "exclusive" (this is "face" at work again), it sat under the final landing path of the international airport which was next door!

If you're going to Hong Kong, also consider reading the other *Hong Kong classics* most expats have on their shelves: Jan Morris's *Hong Kong* has loads of information on Hong Kong up to 1997, including an important account of the tragic influx of all those millions of Chinese refugees fleeing China for Hong Kong, how that situation vastly overcrowded the place and made for a pressure-cooker atmosphere, and how even today it is embarressing for Hong Kong Chinese to talk about (again, it causes loss of "face"). Great info on the British days, too, and evocative descriptions of the wonderful hill-hiking Hong Kong has to offer (don't miss Plover Cove!).

Bo Yang's *The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis in Chinese Culture* is a fascinating account by a Taiwanese journalist of the stultifying effect many aspects of Chinese culture has had on the Chinese - especially the worship of the past during imperial times that led to the near-death of critical thinking. The author relates this legacy to many of the unpleasant "underbelly" - side of things in day-today Hong Kong
life - the rude crowds, bad public behaviour, spitting, etc. Though that may sound harsh, it actually helped me to appreciate things Chinese better knowing the tragic origin of these things. I appreciated more the great aspects of China - the poetry of Li Po, the classic novels Story of the Stone, etc - because of Bo Yang's book. Sadly, Bo's book is also banned in China proper.

Timothy Mo's novel *The Monkey King* is a great account of an eccentric Hong Kong Chinese family - I felt I met these people again and again while living there.

National Geographic's video *Hong Kong* is a must see portrait of the real Hong Kong - not some tourist bureau fantasy but a remarkable look into the millions of refugees who escaped to Hong Kong after the Chinese revolution.

The film *China Box*, by a local Hong Kong boy who made it to the West, is essential for potential expats - watch it for the *depiction* of the city, which is perfectly rendered. The story is a little so-so, but if you're going to live there, watch the visuals. This is what Hong Kong looks like. The depiction of the young Chinses refugee (played by Gong Li) being ridiculed for her bad accent buy older, "more established" refugees is harrowingly accurate.

Lastly, check out Austin Coate's classic, *Myself A Mandarin*, a memoir of a colonial judge in the 1950's trying to sort out the culture clashes between British Law and Chinese sensibilities.

If you're going to live in Hong Kong, ALL these books are even more illuminating read a second time after you've lived there a year.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good read, excellent portrayal of the englishman in HK, August 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Kowloon Tong: A Novel of Hong Kong (Paperback)

This makes for a really good read. The plot keesp you turning the pages and the character portrayals (particularly of the english expats in HK!) is spot-on. I note the comments of the reviewer from China (below) who felt disgusted by the depiction of some of the chinese personalities, but it does not require a particularly careful reader to see that the portrayal of the english characters is even worse. What is more I can say, being part chinese myself and having lived in HK at the time in question, these unsavoury types DO exist within BOTH communities. To dismiss them is merely to censor what was part of reality in Hong Kong. AND the only character who is portrayed with sensitivity and who come across as approaching heroic are in fact two of the HongKong chinese characters.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A cobbled piece of fiction, July 11, 2003

By 

Matthew M. Yau "Voracious reader" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kowloon Tong: A Novel of Hong Kong (Paperback)

Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong (meaning nine-dragon pond, a district in Hong Kong) is a novel of Hong Kong on the verge of the 1997 handover. Written against the historical backdrop of handing a free Chinese city back to a totalitarian Chinese state, Kowloon Tong is far less glittering from the inevitably rip-roaring story for the global media, it is a piece of cobbled (opportunistic, maybe) fiction.

Neville "Bunt" Mullard was born and raised in Hong Kong, went to the posh Queen's College, and inherited the almost-monopolizing Imperial Stitching Company, which manufactured badges sewn on breast pockets of sports-jackets from his late father and his partner Henry Chuck. At 40, Bunt was not married, devoid of friends, frequented bars and brothels, but felt the pressure of his dead brother, dead father, and the late avuncular Chuck hovering near him at work.

A pathetic mama's boy, Bunt lived a life that synchronized with his mother's, so confining and dull. She knew so much (too much) about his life, his daily routine and his where about that he deliberately contrived to create secrets (the topless bar and an affair with an employee Mei-Ping) and manipulated his mother's mood.

As the British prepared to hand over Hong Kong to the Chinese motherland, the much-talked-about upheaval did not concern the Mullards, who lived nonchalantly at the Peak (a rich-and-famous, on-top-of-the-city neighbor which afforded panoramic view of the city and was away from, say, 95% of the colonial population). They executed their social fares with the small band of Brits at the Cricket Club, the English tea ritual at the Hong Kong club, outings to horse races by taxi, and lived as if the city and majority of its inhabitants (meaning the Chinese) didn't exist. The Cantonese was such grating noise that was remotely similar to any human speech. The Chinese food made them retch.

When a Mr. Hung, who spoke perfect English with an American accent, on behalf of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (soon to station in Hong Kong), offered 9 million to purchase the building of Imperial Stitching, the Mullards' world of insouciance was jolted. Through a series of minatory gestures that might have attributed to the missing employee Ah Fu and janitor Woo, for the first time in their life the Mullards learned the truth of the colony's prospect-smiling but threatening and know-it-all Chinese officials behind a system of bribes and disloyalty.

I have to applause to Theroux's keen eye on the geographical and cultural details of Hong Kong that are usually accessible to those who live in the city, the natives. His effort in nailing down the Hong Kong Chinese to the root is admirable and formidable-the inveterate trait to look after family, to not to say the thing that was no the heart, to say "I don't know" when you knew, to not to show feelings and emotion and (this is my favorite) to mob the exit on arrival in any transportation mean as if it was a panicky evacuation under an emergency. That's Hong Kong, in addition to all the incessant noise-the clanking of trams, the beeping of cell phones, and the ubiquitous charivari of Cantonese conversations that sounded like a hair-pulling argument, serenaded the city.

The book also deftly captures Hong Konger's despondency of the uncertain future. For over 100 years, under the British governance, Hong Kong stood as the only Chinese society that lived an ideal never experienced and realized at any time in the history of any Chinese society. The colony, which practiced capitalism, provided a stable home for refugees from turbulent events of Chinese history such as the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. Inhabitants of Hong Kong were those who fled the Communists in 1949 and their descendants. Thus in the proximity of 1997, a taut atmosphere hovered over the colony as everyone tried to secure an escape route, which usually manifested in the form of a foreign passport, a green card, a relative in Canada, or a marriage of convenience. Theroux has astutely seen to this political tension in his novel.

What infuriates me about this book and thus makes it a cobbled piece of fiction is the puerile plot. Theroux portrayed the Hong Kong Chinese women as some of the most naïve and gullible and stupidest species of the human. Women were constantly abased, manipulated, used, and sexually abused. As a native of Hong Kong, I could vouch that the chance of an affair between a foreigner and a factory worker is infinitesimal. The affair itself was stuck in a deadlock and the characters that involved in the affair were one-dimensional. Betty Mullard's ruler-ver-subject attitude toward the Hong Kongers was also snobbish and obnoxious. If the Chinese were really so out-of-focus and were like riddles to her, why couldn't she at least try to know the Chinese people? It was true the British were rulers and the Chinese the subjects, but what infuriates me is the arrogance on her part, not knowing she was in Hong Kong, where the majority was the Chinese people.

It occurred to me toward the end that the stitching company and its fate might have served as a symbolism of Hong Kong but I prefer not to give away. The ending was disappointing and ambivalent. It is a cobbled piece of fiction that astutely delves in the significance of the historical backdrop but sacrifices the backbone of the story. Readers will learn more about the culture of Hong Kong but disappoint at the story. 2.5 stars.