An Intriguing Photo from Late Imperial Hong Kong – Dick Hughes & a Mate… Help Needed

Rereading Jan Morris’s brilliant Hong Kong: Epilogue to Empire (1988) I saw this photograph included. It is simply entitled ‘Expatriates, 1980s’. Two middle aged white men, smoking and drinking with what may be a bit of rather sad and lonely Christmas bunting behind them. Only these are not two unimportant men.

The man on the left – bald and with a trademark monocle – is the veteran Australian-born foreign correspondent, FCC fixture and John le Carre’s model for Old Craw in The Honourable Schoolboy (1975), Richard “Dick” Hughes (1906-1984) and Dikko Henderson in Ian Fleming’s Bond novel You Only Live Twice (1964). The photo was, according to Morris’s credits, was Ken Hass (born 1948), an American photographer who I believe later taught at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Now….though Hughes was dead by the time Morris visited to research the final chapters of Hong Kong, they had met on previous visits. So she clearly knew he was in the photo she selected.

My question is, who is the other man? What I do know is that he is the man featured taking a piss in the famous view from the toilets at the former FCC building in the now demolished Sutherland House (a scene and view immortalised by le Carre in THS. I mentioned this recently in my South China Morning Post piece on le Carre’s 1970s Hong Kong visits. A photo of it by Richard Lloyd remains in the current FCC men’s toilets on Lower Albert Road. I think it’s the same man, perhaps a few years later – see picture below.

But who is he? I know I should I know, but frustratingly I don’t. But I bet I know someone who does? Help please? Not knowing is bugging me!!

Book #29 The China Project’s Ultimate China Bookshelf – Chiang Yee’s The Silent Traveller in London (1938)…

Continuing our theme of Chinese writers living outside China and comparing and contrasting their temporary homes (in this case an almost permanent exile) with their homeland, Chiang Yee’s The Silent Traveller in London (1938) – click here – Book #29 on The China Project’s Ultimate China Bookshelf…. (full archive here)

The Inevitable China Barbie pics

As it is apparently obligatory to post Barbie pics this summer, here’s a reminder from 1998 of Qipao Barbie and Chinese Empress Barbie….

My Review of the British Museum’s China’s Hidden Century Exhibition for the South China Morning Post Weekend Magazine

My long read review of the China’s Hidden Century exibition on at the British Museum until 18th October 2023 for the South China Morning Post’s weekend magazine… click here…

Xi Jinping’s economic strategies, explained

My July author Q&A colum for the China-Britain Business Council’s Focus magazine with Andrew Cainey and Christiane Prange’s on their book Xiconomics: What China’s Dual Circulation Strategy Means for Global Business (Columbia University Press)… click here…

Covert Colonialism – Governance, surveillance and political culture in British Hong Kong, c. 1966-97

Florence Mok’s Covert Colonialism looks interesting….

This book fills the long-standing void in the existing scholarship by constructing an empirical study of colonial governance and political culture in Hong Kong from 1966 to 1997.Using under-exploited archival and unofficial data in London and Hong Kong, it overcomes the limitations in the existing literature which has been written mainly by political scientists and sociologists, and has been primarily theoretically driven. It addresses a highly contested and timely agenda, one in which colonial historians have made major interventions: the nature of colonial governance and autonomy of the colonial polity. This book focusing on colonialism and the Chinese society in Hong Kong in a pivotal period will generate meaningful discussions and heated debates on comparisons between ‘colonialism’ in different space and time: between Hong Kong and other former British colonies; and between colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong.

HK$3 Stamp, 1905

HK$3 Stamp, 1905 with head of Edward VII….

Book #28 on The China Project Ultimate China Bookshelf – Wu Ting-fang’s America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat (1914)

In Wu Ting-fang’s 1914 travelogue “America, Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat” – the latest on The China Project’s Ultimate China Bookshelf – the former Qing diplomat observes American society while asking big questions, many of which are still relevant. Click here to read…

BTW: the book is available to buy here or read on Project Gutenberg here.