Inspired by Martin Booth's memoir, Gweilo, I decided to buy yet one more book before leaving Hong Kong. The back cover suggests that it 'invites' comparisons with Gweilo, but really if you read them on consecutive days, invitations turn into demands. I'm afraid that Booth is a better writer, and has a talent for creating a sense of nostalgia without sounding boring, or like an old uncle constantly shaking his head at the moral decay of our times and the new generation. Feng Chi-Shun's book is more interesting as a document, quite literally a documentation of what Hong Kong was like 50 years ago, than it is as a memoir. But this is no small thing: the Hong Kong to which the author had access is different from Booth's, and certainly unknown and harder to imagine for gweilos like me.