Travel
Beyond Lion Rock
Author: Gavin Young
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571287260
Category: Travel
Page: 264
View: 324
In 1946 Roy Farrell and Syd de Kantzow's beloved, battered wartime DC-3 touched down in Shanghai for the first time. On board was a cargo of morning coats and toothbrushes from New York, forging the first post-war supply route across the treacherous eastern Himalayas. The international airline now known as Cathay Pacific was born. Gavin Young tells the swashbuckling story of an empire of the air, a thrilling, action-packed adventure that began in an era closer to Biggles and biplanes held together by wire and safety pins than to our own. 'Pioneers like Farrell and de Kantzow would have had plenty of time to enjoy the dawn over Kangchebjunga. Would thye think of us with envy or contempt, cruising seven miles up with hundreds of passengers, air-conditioning, i-flight concerts, movies, hot four-course meals with an elaborate wine line and all mod-cons? . . . All this in forty years! Could the world have changed so much and so fast?' This is Gavin Young himself eloquently reflecting on the extraordinary changes in air travel. There can be little doubt where his own sympathies lie.
History
Beyond Lion Rock
Author: Gavin Young
Publisher: Arrow
ISBN: 0091737249
Category: History
Page: 245
View: 825
Business & Economics
China Bound
Author: Robert Bickers
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9781472949967
Category: Business & Economics
Page: 544
View: 489
From its origins in Liverpool in 1816, one unusual British firm has threaded a way through two centuries that have seen tumultuous events and epochal transformations in technologies and societies. John Swire & Sons, a small trading company that began by importing dyes, cotton and apples from the Americas, now directs a highly diversified group of interests operating across the globe but with a core focus on Asia. From 1866 its fate was intertwined with developments in China, with the story of steam, and later of flight, and with the movements of people and of goods that made the modern world. China Bound charts the story of the firm, its family owners and staff, its operations, its successes and its disasters, as it endured wars, uprisings and revolutions, the rise and fall of empires - China's, Britain's, Japan's – and the twists and turns of the global economy. This is the story of a business that reshaped Hong Kong, developed Cathay Pacific Airways, dominated China's pre-Second World War shipping industry, and helped pioneer containerization. Robert Bickers' remarkable new book is the history of a business, and of its worlds, of modern China, Britain, and of the globalization that entangled them, of compradors, ship-owners, and seamen, sugar travellers, tea-tasters, and stuff merchants, revolutionaries, pirates and Taipans. Essential reading for anyone with an interest in global commerce, China Bound provides an intimate history that helps explain the shape of Asia today.
History
City Between Worlds
Author: Leo Ou-fan Lee
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674046894
Category: History
Page: 331
View: 376
Hong Kong is perched on the fault line between China and the West, a Special Administrative Region of the PRC. Leo Ou-fan Lee offers an insiderÕs view of Hong Kong, capturing the history and culture that make his densely packed home city so different from its generic neighbors. The search for an indigenous Hong Kong takes Lee to the wet markets and corner bookshops of congested Mong Kok, remote fishing villages and mountainside temples, teahouses and noodle stalls, Cantonese opera and Cantopop. But he also finds the ÒrealÓ Hong Kong in a maze of interconnected shopping malls, a jungle of high-rise residential towers, and the neon glow of Chinese-owned skyscrapers in the Central Business District, where land development, global trade, capital accumulation, consumerism, and free-market competition trump every valueÑexcept family. Lee illuminates the relationship between Hong KongÕs geography and its colonial experience, revisiting colonial life on the secluded Peak, in the opium-filled godowns along the harborfront, and in crowded, plague-infested tenements. He examines, with a criticÕs eye, the ÒHong Kong storyÓ in film and fiction: romance in the bars and brothels of Wan Chai, crime in the walled city of Kowloon, ennui on the eve of the 1997 handover. Whether viewed from Tsing Yi Bridge or the deck of the Star Ferry, from Victoria Peak or Lion Rock, Hong Kong sparkles here in all its multifaceted complexity, a city forever between worlds.
History
Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory
Author: Rey Chow
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822325977
Category: History
Page: 346
View: 908
An attempt to describe the new boundaries of the field of Chinese studies.
History
Hong Kong
Author: Michael Ingham
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199886241
Category: History
Page: 256
View: 187
Hong Kong is the epitome of the modern city and a crossroads between eastern and western cultures. Today the city is most famously characterized by its breathtaking skyscraper skyline, dominating its "fragrant" harbor. The hundred-year-old Star Ferry, which continues to ply the seven-minute route between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, enhances the nocturnal magic of this unique maritime city, composed of China's southernmost peninsula and an archipelago of over two hundred islands. Hong Kong has always been something of an anomaly, and an outpost of empire, whether British or Chinese. Once described as a "barren island," the former fishing community has been transformed by its own economic miracle into one of Asia's World Cities, taking in its stride the territory's 1997 return to Chinese sovereignty. Beneath the surface of Hong Kong's clich?d self-image as Pearl of the Orient and Shopping Paradise, Michael Ingham reveals a city rich in history, myth, and cultural diversity. * City of Occupation and Immigration: The Buddhists; the Sung emperor and the Mongols; the northern Chinese; the British; other expatriates; the triads; sailors of all descriptions; the Japanese army; the Filipino "maids"; the rugby fans. * City of Glass, Bamboo, and Fung Shui: Temples and markets; walled village and city; skyscrapers and hotels; buildings and values--ancient and modern. * City of Cultural Hybridity: Sun Yat-seng and Sir Catchick Paul Chater; Chinese Opera and cinema; classical music and Canto-pop; Bruce Lee and Chris Patten; Suzie Wong and Wong Kar-wai; Timothy Mo and Mickey Mouse.
Fiction
Monsters in the Garden
Author: David Larsen
Publisher: Victoria University Press
ISBN: 9781776563760
Category: Fiction
Page: 607
View: 861
Too stuffy inside? All those familiar social realist furnishings, all those comfortable literary tropes. Perhaps a stroll out under the trees, where things are breezier, stranger, more liable to break the rules. You may meet monsters out there, true. But that's the point. Casting its net widely, this anthology of Aotearoa-New Zealand science fiction and fantasy ranges from the satirical novels of the 19th-century utopians &– one of which includes the first description of atmospheric aerobreaking in world literature &– to the bleeding edge of now. Spaceships and worried sheep. Dragons and AI. The shopping mall that swallowed the Earth. The deviant, the fishy and the rum, all bioengineered for your reading pleasure.Featuring stories by some of the country's best known writers as well as work from exciting new talent, Monsters in the Garden invites you for a walk on the wild side. We promise you'll get back safely. Unchanged? Well, that's another question.
Fiction
TSUI
Author: Geoffrey Meikle
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 9781456844196
Category: Fiction
Page: 332
View: 602
Set over a period of sixteen years, this incredibly detailed, diverse and intricately plotted book travels from Hong Kong to the Philippines, to Scotland, New Zealand, China and Japan. Mixing ancient culture with modern, business with religion, terrorism with tradition, the novel is a potent mix of politics, sex, double dealing and family wars, its explosive climax being fuelled all the way by dangerous characters, seething tension, and a desire for power from all sides. Characters form alliances, sell themselves to the highest bidder, socialise with enemies as readily as with friends, and exploit everyone for a fast buck. And everywhere.
Business & Economics
Merchants to Multinationals
Author: Geoffrey Jones
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 9780191530463
Category: Business & Economics
Page: 414
View: 540
Merchants to Multinationals examines the evolution of multinational trading companies from the eighteenth century to the present day. During the Industrial Revolution, British merchants established overseas branches which became major trade intermediaries and subsequently engaged in foreign direct investment. Complex multinational business groups emerged controlling large investments in natural resources, processing, and services in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. While theories of the firm predict the demise over time of merchant firms, this book identifies the continued resilience of British trading companies despite the changing political and business environments of the twentieth century. Like Japanese trading companies, they 're-invented' themselves in successive generations. The competences of the trading companies resided in their information-gathering, relationship-building, human resource, and corporate governance systems. This book provides a new dimension to the literature on international business through the focus on multinational service firms and its evolutionary approach based on confidential business records.
Business & Economics
Airline Economics in Asia
Author: Xiaowen Fu
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 9781787545663
Category: Business & Economics
Page: 313
View: 346
Covers low-cost carrier growth in Japan, competition against full service hub carriers in the Middle East, aviation market liberalization in Central Asia, high-speed-rail and airline competition in China, air transport and tourism in Asia and Australia, airline performance and outsourcing, airports development, and airport-airline cooperation.
Business & Economics
Mr SIA
Author: Ken Hickson
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9789814596466
Category: Business & Economics
Page: 260
View: 467
Introducing the life and times of a legend in international aviation — Lim Chin Beng — the man they called Mr SIA. Absorbing the life and work of Lim Chin Beng is like watching a fly past of airlines and aircraft old and new. In this book, his past comes to meet you in many forms — designs, shapes, figures, photographs, episodes, places, people and you discover the connections with business, society and international aviation today and into the future. Here's a man who was instrumental in taking the very basic components of a business — like a potter taking the clay — and creating what has become one of the world's leading brands, Singapore Airlines. But this airline "specialist", trained as an economist, had more jobs to do. His broad range of interests — arts and sports, property and tourism — led to him being called on to do his "national service" for Singapore. He was Ambassador to Japan for two terms and trade negotiator, chairman of the Singapore Tourism Board, Changi Airport International, Singapore Airshow, Singapore Press Holdings, Ascott Group, and ST Aerospace. Described as a quiet achiever and a visionary, this modest gentleman was not afraid to make bold decisions and take risks, even to the extent of setting up a budget airline, Valuair. Here was one man, who in his time, played many parts, on the world's stage and at home. Contents:Foreword by JY PillayForeword by Chew Choon Seng Lim Chin Beng: His Story at a GlanceDelivery TimesRaffles InspiredDesigner DaysLively LiveryTall on TalentSingapore GirlMeaningful MentoringPiloting PressuresPlane MakersIn-flight ServiceInternational RelationsDiplomatic to a TeaDreaded DisastersMedia & Money MattersBusiness ClassValue PropositionAirports AheadTourism ChiefAerospace ShowcaseAviation AlliancesEventful TimesProperty GuruFlying into the Future Readership: Professionals in the aviation industry, those in the field of business and management, and the general public keen to find out more about the life of the legendary Lim Chin Beng. Key Features:The first book to feature the legendary Lim Chin Beng — a key figure in the international airline business, with an engaging description of his life story and how he succeeded in making Singapore Airlines the brand it is todayWritten by journalist and communications specialist Ken Hickson, who has consulted for Singapore Airlines, and author of the book Flight 901 to ErebusKeywords:Lim Chin Beng;Singapore Airlines;Aviation;Tourism;Singapore Tourism Board;Planes;Aircraft Engineering;Advertising;Inflight Services;Airports;Public Service;International Relations;Environment;Emissions;Branding and Design;Asian Aerospace;Journalism;Singapore Press Holdings;Mentors