Evanescent Isles From My CityVillage Author:Xu Xi An unusual book of quirky essays, some deeply personal. Xu Xi writes from within, of Hong Kong's vanishing culture and sensibility as this surreal example of postmodernity transforms itself into a 21st Century Communist Chinese city. She zooms in on her own life in the city: on family, friends and her professional history as both business execut... more »ive and author, to focus on moments that offer wry observations of the shifting world around her. She casts her eye on films, pop stars, public transportation, and also muses on the political, without losing sight of the distinctly apolitical culture that evolved through the city's history as a former British colony and a Chinese "Special Administrative Region" after the 1997 "handover." Like letters to a dying lover, the tone shifts - at times comic or nostalgic, at others angry or despairing, at still others in raptures of delight - in a voice that is utterly Hong Kong. There is no other book on the market like it. This is a book for the curious general reader resident in the city, the traveler in Asia, as well as suitable as a text for literary, cultural or social studies. Readers interested in the dynamics of a modern, Asian family will also find resonance in these pages.« less