a unique testimony

Kessel us an account of his stay of several weeks in Hong Kong and Macao in 1955 while one still belonged to the British crown and the other in Portugal, two survivors confetti of colonial empires in loss, two bastions the West not far from the huge newly Communist China Mao, opaque and closed; it is very well accompanied by cultivated local and know all the secrets of its islands, and stories about the lives of some of its most illustrious members who have made its cities, its wanderings of lowlands in places high it gives us back a lost world (I spent in these two islands in 96 before I started to conquer China but that Kessel saw was no longer there or very little) But above Kessel is a storyteller helped by a fluid prose chosen, simple and graphically, it makes us all interesting the ascension of the person who used the tiger balm or heir of the companies that have built their fortune on selling opium or a wealthy Macau casino operator or a love story between a coach and thwarted a soldier or a woman who trades in his belly by selling her babies to rich Western ... two small examples:

"For while on the vast territory of China six hundred million inhabitants that populate it are subjected to leveling, uniformity, to austerity, the gigantic work and the hard communist faith, Hong Kong is a refuge in old Chinese world and all therein carried to an extreme intensity point the qualities and defects, enchantments and hideousness.
The colossal fortunes and thousands of hungry children. (...) "P36

"The magic of the scenery, well done black drink, freshness and friendship of the night seemed to unite to ease the burden of sadness. I renversai in the wicker chair. Far From Heaven East peace descended from the stars. " p240