Jade Woman

Qui en dit du mal, veut l’acheter.

(He who decries a thing, wants to buy.)

Author’s Note

Cantonese is Hong Kong’s language. I have mostly transcribed names and places in unsophisticated syllables as a stranger like Lovejoy would, and ignored the pretty Barnett-Chao and other romanization systems. Elsewhere, I have used the most common anglicized forms as experienced by the average Western reader. Where mainland place-names have lately made the headlines, I have followed modern practice and used the north Chinese romanization. The Cantonese terminal “-a” I transcribe as the rather posher “-ne”; it is simpler to read.

With regard to Hong Kong itself (where I lived for some years), I have chosen to disregard all modern advances such as the tube (MTR, Mass Transit Railway) and the under-harbor tunnel, and have left the physical city as it was in the sixties. I like it that way.

—Jonathan Gash