Gweilo

As an inquisitive eight-year-old, Martin Booth found himself with Hong Kong at his feet when his father was posted there in the early 1950s. He roamed freely in hidden corners of the colony - his blond hair signified good luck to the Chinese - and entered places such as opium dens, a secret Triad lair, and a leper colony.

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In this compelling memoir of his colonial childhood in Hong Kong in the 1950s, Martin Booth writes from his child's perspective of the years where he was able to roam freely around the streets of Hong Kong. Filled with an enormous curiosity about the exotic and colourful world around him, Martin quickly gains a grasp of pidgin-Cantonese and uses it to roam the streets and gain access to some of the most colourful parts of Hong Kong, including opium dens, the headquarters of ruthless criminals and a leper colony. In honouring a promise that he makes early on to a British naval officer, seven-year-old Martin tries every food that is offered to him, among them snakes, one hundred-year-old eggs and boiled water beetles. Martin's adventures are thrown into relief by the volatile backdrop of his warring parents. Martin's mother, like her son, was open to the Chinese culture which she embraced along with its people. By contrast Martin's father was an irascible bully of a man whose failure to progress in the navy had left him with a bitterness that he took out on his family. Booth takes us on a journey through Chinese culture and an extinct colonial way of life through the innocent eyes of