Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.Įveryone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). In June 2020, a national security law was passed, which “marked the turning point for a total crackdown that soon infiltrated all aspects of life.” In a book that should appeal to young protesters everywhere, the author eloquently demonstrates how “it takes work not to simply pass through a place but instead to become part of it.” Hong Kong is in dire straits, and Cheung brings us to the front lines to offer a clearer understanding of the circumstances.Ī powerful memoir of love and anguish in a cold financial capital with an underbelly of vibrant, freedom-loving youth. At this point, Cheung, now a journalist, grew politicized, and she also suffered debilitating depression, which her family did not understand and that further alienated her from them. Her generation felt they had a grace period of decades until China actually took over-“one country, two systems model to guarantee the city’s way of life”-but by 2014, China was cracking down on Hong Kong’s election autonomy, actions that led to the emergence of the Umbrella Movement. She could not wait to leave home at age 18.

“At Tiananmen Square, where less than a decade ago students were killed asking for democracy,” she writes, “Beijingers are waving little handheld flags with the Hong Kong bauhinia flower stamped onto it, celebrating our return.” Cheung’s parents separated, and her mother went to Singapore with her younger brother the author lived in Hong Kong with her critical, authoritative father but was largely raised by her paternal grandmother, who she felt was the only one who loved her. The colonial handover from Britain occurred on July 1, 1997, when the author was just 4 years old. An intimate look at Hong Kong by an “ambivalent” native who never appreciated it until the incremental seizure of freedoms by mainland China.Ĭheung is one of the few in her cohort trying to stay in Hong Kong and make a living despite the crackdown, and she has dedicated herself to getting to know her city as its character, she fears, is slipping away.

The impossible city karen cheung