Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤
@ryanhk
Freelance writer/editor/translator | Last seen managing the China Media Project | Before that: TaiwanPlus, The Washington Post, Hong Kong Free Press, TIME, dpa 📍 Hong Kong
#17: 尋秦記 Back to the Past I went into this movie without having watched the original TVB series. Whilst nostalgia was enough to make it a huge local box-office hit, I was left very unwhelmed. A few anachronistic gags landed, and the sheer absurdity of the action sequences was briefly entertaining.
To say nothing of how mushroom cloud imagery continues to inspire glee amongst state media and online nationalists, 80+ years later…
#16: 浪浪山小妖怪 Nobody The story of a ragtag band of minor monsters who impersonate the iconic 西遊記 cast, 浪浪山小妖怪 captures the zeitgeist of the 躺平 generation and the grift economy. It’s also got some great comedic moments but the ending was a letdown that failed to say anything interesting or insightful.
#25: Everyday Movement by Gigi L. Leung A tapestry of interwoven vignettes revolving around the 2019-2020 protests, Everyday Movement looks at some of the ways the movement affected different individuals and families. It does a good job of capturing the minor dramas behind the citywide upheaval.
#15: The Odyssey Needless to say, Christopher Nolan took a lot of liberties with the source material and several of these I didn’t love (no gods, overly dark, etc). But overall it was a great cinematic experience and I can appreciate the vision and creative choices even without agreeing with them.
If your worldview is drastically altered by using Alipay during a visa-free layover in Shanghai, that says a lot more about you than it does about China. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
#24: Hong Kong, Macau and the Muddy Pearl by Annabel Jackson A log of the author’s trips around the PRD, this book doesn’t have much to tell on its surface but it is an interesting relic of late 90s expat optimism, when 1C2S was sacrosanct and integration was all fun travel/business opportunities
#23: Outlaws of the Sea by Robert J. Antony A history of piracy on the south China coast that draws from recent scholarship to offer perspectives you may not have heard before, such as the social construction of piracy, the roles of Dan (Tanka) women pirates, and the diverse makeup of pirate crews.
#22: The Breath of the Gods by Simon Winchester I seem to find Winchester’s natural histories satisfying in an inverse ratio to how ambitious they are. While his Yangtze and Atlantic books form complete narratives, Pacific and this are inevitably anecdotal. That said, they’re interesting anecdotes.
The “Multifaceted Hong Kong” exhibition series at the Hong Kong History Museum closed today. It was an excellent exploration of the city’s ties to overseas Chinese and the local Portuguese/Eurasian community — easily the best part (left) of the museum. Hopefully they replace it with something good.
Hong Kong’s government has presented the city’s private members’ clubs with an ultimatum: either pay much more for the land they lease at a concessionary rate, passing along the cost to members, or convert into a public facility open to anyone. It’s a more nuanced issue than it may seem on its face.
Undergrad — and the HKUSU as a whole — has been in the government's crosshairs for years, particularly since publishing a book on Hong Kong nationalism (香港民族論) in 2014. The book was singled out by Chief Executive CY Leung, catapulting it to popularity but prompting bookstores and libraries to ban it
The University of Hong Kong's student union newspaper Undergrad (學苑) announced today it is ceasing operations after 74 years in print. "Our historical role has come to an end," the editorial board wrote on social media.
#21: The Wall Dancers by Yi-Ling Liu Seasoned observers of China’s internet controls and online culture will find this covers a lot of very familiar territory, but the writing is fluid and there is some great, intimate colour from the subjects. Definitely a solid primer for anyone new to the topic.
At this year’s races, a Canadian team was banned from wearing their team jersey because it was suspected of violating the Regional Flag and Emblem Ordinance, enacted by the “patriots-only” legislature in 2023 — the same law now invoked to bar local clubs from using the HKSAR flag or bauhinia flower.
At today’s int’l dragon boat races, I thought it was interesting how HK/Macau teams had to be prefaced 中國香港/澳門 while teams from the mainland were simply named for their locality. At the same time, mainland teams’ tops all had the PRC flag while local clubs were instructed not to wear the HKSAR flag.
“National Security Files DECLASSIFIED” Interesting to see the language and aesthetics of transparency, accountability, and explosive revelations used to promote a programme celebrating the establishment of the national security police and promoting their “contributions,” hosted by the force’s chief
#20: Macartney at Kashgar by C. P. Skrine and Pamela Nightingale George Macartney, a Eurasian descendant of Lord Macartney, spent 28 years as British consul in Kashgar. His career provides insights on how Britain shored up China’s tenuous grip on Xinjiang as a buffer restraining Russian ambitions.
With the Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Races coming up next weekend, paddlers from around the world are once again being warned not to endanger China’s national security.
#19: Searching for Billie by Ian Gill Journalist Ian Gill chronicles his mother’s exceptional life story from the treaty ports of North China to Shanghai’s International Settlement, Stanley Internment Camp, Civil War Nanjing, and beyond. A great story told in a very personal and often poignant way.
#18: Red Dawn Over China by Frank Dikötter Dikötter’s latest focuses on the early history of the Chinese Communist Party, using archival material to argue that they won power not through widening popular support and KMT ineptitude but rather reigns of terror and frequent mass killings in Red areas.
#14: A Pale View of Hills I wanted to like this film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's debut novel, but alas, I did not. It has so many elements of a potentially great story — unreliable memories, the generational trauma of war and migration — but fails to explain any of these in depth. Disappointing.
#17: The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins After If We Burn, I wanted to read Bevins' other recent book, covering the anti-communist mass killing in Indonesia in 1965-66. The book also zooms out to similar Cold War incidents around the world, devoting a lot of the volume to (unsurprisingly!) Brazil.
#16: The Blue Frontier by Ronald C. Po The Qing are often seen as having completely neglected their maritime frontier in favour of inland expansion, inviting 19th-century European incursions. But in this history of the Qing from a maritime perspective, Po convincingly argues that this is reductive.
#15: If We Burn by Vincent Bevins Despite the title, only a tiny fraction of If We Burn is set in Hong Kong. The author goes into much greater detail on Latin America (namely Brazil, where he has lived for 13 years) and North Africa. Still interesting to look at the events of 2019 from a new angle.