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Kowloon Tong (1997)

by Paul Theroux

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527945,777 (3.16)10
When Mr Hung offers Bunt a handsome sum for the family business, he refuses him immediately. Yet it soon grows clear that Mr Hung will accept no refusals. Then a woman from Bunt's factory vanishes and he is forced for the first time in his life to make decisions that matter.
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Showing 1-5 of 8 (next | show all)
Better known as a travel author, or even, amongst the younger of us, as the father of BBC journalist Louis Theroux, Paul Theroux also doubles as the author of fiction novels. Most of them will feature some exotic town, travel being the constant in the man’s life obviously.

This novel about the last days of Hong Kong starts with an average character, leading a fairly ordinary life. As the heir of his father’s and his father’s companion’s fortune, he leads and owns a factory in the still very British colony. But things are about to change. Bunt is living with his old mother, doing his work and hardly mingles with any Chinese, apart from the odd liaison with a girl in his factory or the strippers he meets in dodgy bars.

But as the takeover approaches, at least it feels like a takeover, Hongkong is preparing itself for Chinese leadership. Bunt isn’t prepared. He is so extremely British; he can’t imagine himself in a different country. Then he gets an offer he can’t refuse. Or does he? The consequences reach much further than he can possibly imagine.

I prefer his travel books.

Quote: “There were days that Hongkong appeared nothing different from a suburb in London, where they had lived before the war.” (P.7)
  privaterevolution | Mar 4, 2024 |
Theroux always writes about what he knows, and he knows the Chinese - and British ex-pats, which is just as important. 'Kowloon Tong' explores what happens when the rug is pulled from under you - in this case, Hong Kong is being handed over to the Chinese, throwing into doubt the future of a mother and son who had spent over forty years in the territory. ( )
  soylentgreen23 | Aug 6, 2019 |
I get the impression that books about british expats are all alike. They all star those superiour complex laden brits, staying 15 years in a country whose food they detest, people they look down on and whose language they can't be bothered to learn. While I don't find it difficult to believe that there are people who'd act so condescendingly it doesn't actually help to root for the main character. Throw in the creepy mother-son relationship between a controlling 70 year old and a brothel-frequenting 45 year old who doesn't stand up for the woman he decides he's fallen in love with and you've lost me.
I don't think it's a bad book, though, I just didn't like any of the characters. I released it at a cinema and hope the next reader will like it more!
1 vote verenka | Jun 17, 2010 |
As much as I do agree that Theroux has pretty perfect prose, there's something about the way he sees things and how he shows a lot of thing in bad light that make me cringe a little bit (This claim made after trying to read another of his books to no avail). It's a skewed view, as far as I'm concerned, being a Chinese from HK, that Theroux chose to write about what happened to an Englishman at a time when the colony was to be handed over to Chinese authority, and how an Englishman lost his way. The Chinese to me are being portrayed in an exaggeratedly negative way I think, because it's only natural that we don't make friends with people that don't look like us. I don't suppose a Chinese would easily get his way in the snobbish London society either, for similar reasons. Too bad history unfolds itself the way it does, and too bad foreigners find it hard to establish the status, after the hand-over, the way they assume they always could. Too bad Theroux chooses to portray the scenario in a vulgarly biased fashion. ( )
  siafl | Jan 6, 2010 |
I thought this was going to be a travel book but it is a pretty uneventful novel about an ex-pat family called the Mullards living in Hong Kong just before the hand over of Hong Kong to China from the UK in 1997. For many UK ex-pats I should imagine there was anxiety and trepidation about the hand over, known in this book as the "Chinese Take-away" because many families had settled in Hong Kong in their own British bubble and had failed to integrate with the culture, and had a wariness of mainland China. The Mullards, Mum Betty an overprotective interfering lady and her son Neville, known as Bunt (named after Baby Bunting) own a stitching and labelling factory in Kowloon Tong, and they have prided themselves on being able to compete with mainland Chinese factories and do not use child labour. Betty Mullard is a character I cannot stand, for all her love and mollycoddling, she controls her son's every move and is a bigot. Bunt is 43, he lives in the shadow of his dead older brother, his Mother insisted he should try to be her two boys. Bunt runs Imperial Stitching and fits in time at local strip clubs and brothels. This world comes crashing down when Mr Hung, a chinese army official makes advances to buy the factory. Bunt wants to cling on to his world but cannot face the harsh reality initially. Mr Hung's gifts and advances turn to threats. Bunt Mullard is forced out and made to leave Hong Kong. It transpires Betty Mullard always wanted to leave Hong Kong and she appears to have orchestrated this in collusion with Mr Hung. I found the book interesting for its descriptions of ex pat life in Hong Kong, and the book is very dark in places. What holds it all together is the unpalatable Betty Mullard, who is the epitomy of everything I hate: bigotry, ignorance and selfishness. Three stars. ( )
  cerievans1 | Oct 29, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 8 (next | show all)
This hybrid story is infused with a powerful sense of menace (and an unfortunate whiff of racism) and manages a doggedly convincing characterization of its complex protagonist. But there are several long stretches during which nothing much happens, and Theroux overindulges a penchant for lengthy summaries in place of developed scenes. As a result, the book feels uneven, and sometimes hurried. A strongly imagined melodrama with a lot on its mind, but not the novel it might have been.
added by John_Vaughan | editKirkus, 1997
 

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Epigraph
'Mah jiu paau
mouh jiu tiuh'


'The horses will go on running
The dancing will continue'

-Deng Xiao-ping's pledge,
in Cantonese, to Hong Kong
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Some days Hong Kong seemed no different from the London suburb she had lived in before the war.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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When Mr Hung offers Bunt a handsome sum for the family business, he refuses him immediately. Yet it soon grows clear that Mr Hung will accept no refusals. Then a woman from Bunt's factory vanishes and he is forced for the first time in his life to make decisions that matter.

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