Hotel China

"The Hong Kong Writers Circle is an organisation that gives aspiring writers a platform to network, cut their teeth and get published. Every year they put out an anthology and this is one of them, published in 2009. I like the title, because in many ways Hong Kong is like a hotel. It captures the transience, especially for expats who feel they’re only here for a short stint. Hotel China is a fictitious hotel in Wanchai, and the anthology is comprised of 26 short fiction stories all set inside. There’s one clever one about an American tourist who chats up a beautiful woman next to him in the bar, never realising that the woman is taking his personal information and texting it back to her accomplices in America so that they can burgle his house while he’s on vacation. The quality of the stories can be uneven, but there is some creative stuff in there. That’s right, although if you try to rent a flat in Wanchai now you would be shocked at how expensive it is. Hong Kong’s geography is divided into four parts. There is Hong Kong Island, which is the heart of the city. There is Kowloon, the peninsula on the other side of Victoria harbour. To the north of Kowloon is the New Territories, which is primarily residential and very mountainous, with a lot of country parks. And finally there are the outlying islands – Lantau, Lamma, Cheung Chau and so on, which are more about beaches, fishing and the old way of life."