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Written by Alice Poon (潘慧嫻)
Friday, 02 July 2010
The Chinese edition of “Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong” has finally come to life. The title of the book is “地產霸權” and it is co-published by Hong Kong Economic Journal (信報) and Enrich Publishing (天窗出版). In the last few months, I was busy writing a Prologue (前言) for this new edition of my book and checking the Chinese translation and the blueprint. The purpose of the Prologue is to incorporate relevant events that have taken place since the publishing of the original English edition in December 2005. At last, with the help and dedicated work of the translator 顏詩敏 and the book editor Sun Ma (馬山), the new Chinese edition is born and is being distributed to the publishers’ network of bookstores all over Hong Kong. In fact, the thought of producing a Chinese edition did occur to me as early as 2006. At that time, I even asked for advice from Roland Soong, the renowned blogger of the EastSouthWestNorth blog. His view was, and I quote from his email to me (I hope he doesn’t mind):- “The first thing that struck me is that your book is much more serious than the superficial and sarcastic stuff from Sub-Culture (to be more precise, mere destructive caricatures without any constructive and progressive ideas). There is just nothing in Chinese that deals with the subject that your book does. If there were, I would have recommended that publisher.” The conclusion that he and I reached then was that finding the right publisher would be a big problem, as the Chinese publishing scene was mostly filled with collections of daily newspaper opinion columns (i.e. thousands of partial observations) and no work of comprehensive analysis existed (his observation coming from visits to the Book Fair). So the idea was shelved. I have to say that the recent inspiration for producing a Chinese edition came mainly from the impassioned post-80s. It all started with a review written in Chinese of the English edition in InmediaHK (香港獨立媒体) by a post-80 Chinese University sociology research student named Ronald Yick (易汶健). The review was in three parts and posted on the InmediaHK website on February 18, 19 and 20. It was really quite a pleasant surprise for me to find that a young person like Ronald would take such great pains to read the book thoroughly and write a full summary of it with added comments of his own. Then in March, I came into contact with a new bookstore called HKReaders (序言書室). This is an academic bookstore founded by a group of young people with a mission to promote the habit of reading in society and to increase social and cultural consciousness, thereby improving the quality of civil society. Daniel Lee, one of the founders of the bookstore, left a message on my blog (Blogspot) saying he would like to know where he could find a copy of “Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong”, as a talk on the book was being planned to take place at the bookstore. Ronald was going to be thekey speaker at the talk. He did a good job in giving the presentation on April 15, which attracted an audience of about forty, as I would later find out from the video clip link that he sent me. Kaxton Siu, a social sciences PhD student studying at the Australian National University and who has been involvedin work with the St. James Settlement (a social services NGO), was among the audience on that day. He was kind enough to leave a message onmy blog to compliment on my book. He also suggested that if the book were in Chinese, it would attract a lot more readers. Encouraged by the interest and zeal of these post-80s in their goal to better society,I started to look for a Chinese book publisher who might be interested in publishing a Chinese edition of my book, with the aim of sharing my observation and analysis with a wider readership and instigating intellectual discussion in society. Knowing my intentions, a friend brought me into contact with the head of business development at Hong Kong Economic Journal, who showed great interest in my book. Having beena fervent reader of this newspaper since its start-up, I felt comfortable working with them and their co-publishing partner. The rest is history. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Comments (9) Subscribe to this comment's feed Show/Hide comments English Print Version Still Available in Dymocks and Bookazine Bookstores written by APoon , August 17, 2010 Hi AT, Thanks. The English edition is still in print and should be available at Bookazine and Dymocks. The distributor is Far East Media (HK) Ltd. (Tel. 2555-0431). The updating is mainly done in a 7,000-word Prologue (written in English and then translated) for the Chinese edition. As for selling a digital updated English edition, I might consider this when the current English edition goes out of print. Cheers, Alice report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0 English/digital editions written by AT , August 10, 2010 Congratulations on the publication. Have you considered updating the original English edition with new information you have added to the Chinese counterpart? Where can I buy the English version? The major online book stores list it as out-of-print. HK Public Libraries have none. HKU Main Library has one but with a long reservation list. If you hold the publication rights to the English one please consider selling a digital version in one of the non-DRM open ebook/document formats. Don't time tie readers to any particular device. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0 Slipping through the cracks written by Pamela , July 30, 2010 Isn't it ironic that the publisher is partially owned by a so-called tycoon whose fortune came from the real estate industry which is the subject of your criticism? report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1 Good timing written by Pete S , July 24, 2010 It's a book whose time has clearly come! A lot of people are watching the current situation with interest. It's great to have a book like yours to explain the background. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1 Thank you! written by APoon , July 24, 2010 Dear FB3 and Cleo, As the publisher has the Chinese language world-wide publishing right (including e-book), I'll leave it to them to figure out how best to go about having a digital version. Dear Mister Bijou and Pete, Thank you so much for your support. To tell the truth, it is beyond my wildest dream that the Chinese edition has attracted so much attention. Over the past week, I was inundated with interview requests from the media. I guess I can consider my mission accomplished! The ball is now in the policy makers' court. Cheers, Alice report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1 congratulations! written by Mister Bijou , July 23, 2010 Hi, Alice. I am so glad a Chinese edition has now come out. Congratulations to you, the post-80s generation, and the publisher. The book deserves to have wider audience than the English-speaking one. And thumbs down for the South China Morning Post. I believe the first rule of journalism is "whatever else you do, make sure you get the name right". The SCMP managed to get your name wrong in the lead sentence of its article published on Friday, 23 July 2010. Shame on them. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1 ... written by Pete S , July 23, 2010 Congratulations Alice! I hope it does well at the book fair. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1 Don't forget Amazon's kindle written by Cleo , July 12, 2010 I would also suggest putting in your best chapter free on the internet to attract attention and develop interest. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +3 Distribution written by FB3 , July 03, 2010 Please, please, please publish this book also as an ebook. It needs to be downloaded to all the iPhones etc & reach a wider audience so that they can understand what is really going on in HK & how it impoverishes them. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +6 Show/Hide comment form Write comment Name Website Title Comment smaller \| bigger Subscribe via email (Registered users only) I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage. Write the displayed characters

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Alice Poon

To share readings and thoughts on current events, land use and land policy in Hong Kong & China, social justice and civic rights, and other incoherent thoughts.

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Alice is the author and publisher of the book “Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong”, which was featured as Editor’s Choice: Scholarly for September/October 2007 by Canadian Book Review Annual. The full review can be found in the November 1, 2007 blogpost under her original blog, which she started in August 2007 and was relocated here in late October 2007. She has also been a contributor of articles to Asia Sentinel since August 2006 and had previously been a financial journalist with Stockhouse Media.

Prior to her writing stint, Alice worked in the property development industry in both Hong Kong and Canada for over 20 years. Previous to that, she had been involved with the establishment of Hong Kong’s first and only Commodity Exchange.