Episode 120

Hong Kong’s Disappearing Traditions with Author Lindsay Varty

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A Sense of Home

Lindsay Varty is an author and former professional rugby player from Hong Kong who writes about Cantonese culture and history in an attempt to generate a greater love and understanding of her home for herself and her readers.

Lindsay is the author of several books including Hong Kong Slang, Welly the Wild Boar and the local best-seller, Sunset Survivors, which features a collection of photographs and interviews with local artisans who work in some of the city's oldest, most traditional trades.

Top photo by Gary Jones

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What you’ll learn in this episode:

  • Meet the keepers of some of Hong Kong's disappearing traditions like the villain hitters, the fortune tellers, and the bamboo pole noodle makers

  • Why some Hong Kong artisans don't want more sales

  • Is growth always good?

  • What Hong Kong leaves behind when it moves forward

  • Hong Kong's real estate problem

  • How to avoid the cliches of Hong Kong

  • Looking for identity and belonging as third-culture kids

  • Hong Kong's walking tours with Lindsay

  • Lindsay's upcoming book on third culture kids

“If you're so focused on moving forward, you forget about the old things, which make things so special. And for me, that is a lot of the old traditional crafts, the traditional ways of making food, the customs and cultures of Hong Kong. For me, that is really special.”

— Lindsay Varty

Meet the Villain Hitters & the Fortune Tellers of Hong Kong

Check out our full interview on YouTube →

Sunset Survivors:

Meet The People Keeping Hong Kong's Traditional Industries Alive

Sunset Survivors is a book by Lindsay Varty with photographs by Gary Jones. It tells the stories of Hong Kong’s traditional tradesmen and women through stunning imagery and candid interviews. Covering a myriad of curious professions that are quickly falling into obscurity, from fortune telling to face threading, readers soon find themselves immersed in the streets of old Hong Kong.

Order the book here.

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