This is more of a colonizers' visitors guide to historic Hong Kong, with much about the European-style buildings that one can still see. I was looking for something that would give me more of the history of the colonized. Among gems like this (about the 34,000 Vietnamese boat people who arrived in 1989): "The boat people have suffered many privations and frustrations but the economic burden has been borne by the people of Hong Kong. The cost in 1989 was HK$471 million", there are also interesting rumored tidbitss like the pirate Cheung Po-tsai having built the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road. (Rodwell seems to have mangled the history of Cheung Po-Tsai and Ching Shih, who was the feared pirate queen (and not, as Rodwell implies, simply his wife), so I'm not sure how much else to believe in her re-telling of HK history.)

If anyone has a recommendation for an English language read on historic Hong Kong (esp the fishing villages!), I'm all ears. ( )