What do you think?
Rate this book
Hong Kong Rose
In October of 1987, Rose Kho, Hong Kong girl who left home, returned and has left it again for New York to escape her life, reflects, scotch in hand, as the sun sets on the Statue of Liberty. Meanwhile, the Feds are ransacking her offices because Gordie, her employer, is under investigation for illegal arms running. Rose faces the likelihood of deportation on the eve of the day when her sister Regina, a long-time illegal immigrant, will become a U.S. citizen as a result of the amnesty program. The novel rewinds through a drama set in Hong Kong of the seventies, where Confucian family ties and British colonial society embrace Rose's "perfect" marriage to a solicitor from a prominent South African Chinese family. But even before the wedding, a dark underside to that family begins to emerge, and Rose must confront the reality of her new life as it unfolds with many surprising twists and turns.
- GenresFictionAsian Literature
314 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
4 people are currently reading
84 people want to read
About the author
Xu Xi
47 books43 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
XU XI is the author’s pinyin* short form name which is also her byline, but she is most assuredly not the following beings with the same pinyin name: a Chinese painter & sculptor; the author of tomes about acupuncture; a nationalist or a dissident-in-exile of any nation-state; a reality TV show host in some special economic zone or on YouTube; an Academic in any Intellectual Discipline, real or imagined, as capitalized by Pooh or some other friendly wild thing. She has however had three legal English names (as well as several best left unnamed of dubious legal quality) and strives assiduously not to acquire any others.
However, she really is the author of thirteen books, including five novels, six collections of short fiction & essays and most recently Insignificance: Hong Kong Stories, released June 15, 2018 by Signal 8 Press; the memoir Dear Hong Kong: An Elegy for a City (2017), as part of Penguin's Hong Kong series for the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China. She is also editor of four anthologies of Hong Kong writing in English. Forthcoming from Nebraska Univeristy Press in March 2019 is an essay collection This Fish Is Fowl.
A former Indonesian national, born and raised in Hong Kong, she eventually morphed into a U.S. citizen at the age of 33, having washed onto that distant shore across from Lady Liberty. These days, she splits time between New York and Asia (her sights set on the land of her former nationality, Indonesia) and still mourns the loss of her beloved writing retreat in Seacliff, on the South Island of New Zealand, where she hovered, joyously, for seven years.
*pinyin = transliteration for Mandarin Chinese or Putonghua (P), the official language of China although Xu is far more fluent in Cantonese (C), that being the people’s language of her birth city, Hong Kong.
XU XI is the author’s pinyin* short form name which is also her byline, but she is most assuredly not the following beings with the same pinyin name: a Chinese painter & sculptor; the author of tomes about acupuncture; a nationalist or a dissident-in-exile of any nation-state; a reality TV show host in some special economic zone or on YouTube; an Academic in any Intellectual Discipline, real or imagined, as capitalized by Pooh or some other friendly wild thing. She has however had three legal English names (as well as several best left unnamed of dubious legal quality) and strives assiduously not to acquire any others.
However, she really is the author of thirteen books, including five novels, six collections of short fiction & essays and most recently Insignificance: Hong Kong Stories, released June 15, 2018 by Signal 8 Press; the memoir Dear Hong Kong: An Elegy for a City (2017), as part of Penguin's Hong Kong series for the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China. She is also editor of four anthologies of Hong Kong writing in English. Forthcoming from Nebraska Univeristy Press in March 2019 is an essay collection This Fish Is Fowl.
A former Indonesian national, born and raised in Hong Kong, she eventually morphed into a U.S. citizen at the age of 33, having washed onto that distant shore across from Lady Liberty. These days, she splits time between New York and Asia (her sights set on the land of her former nationality, Indonesia) and still mourns the loss of her beloved writing retreat in Seacliff, on the South Island of New Zealand, where she hovered, joyously, for seven years.
*pinyin = transliteration for Mandarin Chinese or Putonghua (P), the official language of China although Xu is far more fluent in Cantonese (C), that being the people’s language of her birth city, Hong Kong.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 29, 2016
Xu Xi is one of those writers who come from a background where English wasn't technically her first language yet she chooses tor write in English. She's one of those writers I admire. I admire her for choosinf such an option, and I admire her brilliance. Mostly though, I found myself admiring something I didn't expect to admire before.
Human drama stories aren't usually some I read, mostly because as an Australian-Asian, australian stories about white or aboriginal human drama stories don't appeal to me in that way. It's why I prefer manga over comics. There's something too simplistic about australian stories and the relationship between the characters. There's reality in them, sure, but it also, doesn't very real to me at all.
But when I picked up Xu Xi's book, which, to me was out of whim and necessity, I found something I didn't expect to find at all. Sure there's a lot of love relationships going on, lots of glazed over sex between characters but what caught me was the complexity of the relationships between the characters. I wanted to strangle Rose seven hundred times through the story for choosing to stay married rather than leaving for another life; for choosing to be constrained by social relations and staus and hierarchy. But I also understood her feelings well. They were well written and rawly explored by Xu Xi. And I really enjoyed it!
In saying that, Xu Xi herself has said that this book was the most fictionalised even though it is a reader favourite. And I can see why. Hong Kong Rose is the raw exploration of relationships between 'what Rose wants' and 'what she can have'. I loved it. I really loved it.
Human drama stories aren't usually some I read, mostly because as an Australian-Asian, australian stories about white or aboriginal human drama stories don't appeal to me in that way. It's why I prefer manga over comics. There's something too simplistic about australian stories and the relationship between the characters. There's reality in them, sure, but it also, doesn't very real to me at all.
But when I picked up Xu Xi's book, which, to me was out of whim and necessity, I found something I didn't expect to find at all. Sure there's a lot of love relationships going on, lots of glazed over sex between characters but what caught me was the complexity of the relationships between the characters. I wanted to strangle Rose seven hundred times through the story for choosing to stay married rather than leaving for another life; for choosing to be constrained by social relations and staus and hierarchy. But I also understood her feelings well. They were well written and rawly explored by Xu Xi. And I really enjoyed it!
In saying that, Xu Xi herself has said that this book was the most fictionalised even though it is a reader favourite. And I can see why. Hong Kong Rose is the raw exploration of relationships between 'what Rose wants' and 'what she can have'. I loved it. I really loved it.
August 30, 2013
Rose Kho is an intelligent, middle-class, young Hong Kong woman who, upon returning home after attending college in upstate New York, is expected to marry up and be a well-behaved and traditional wife. Set in the 1970's when traditional mores are changing in Hong Kong, Rose's family and in-laws-to-be soon discover that you can take the girl out of New York, but you can't take New York out of the girl.
I read this book back-to-back with Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, and couldn't help but latch onto some interesting parallels between the two. Both take place in rapidly modernizing societies, and the discomfort of going against tradition versus sticking with what is comfortable and convenient. As a British colony until 1997, Hong Kong was perhaps one of the more "westernized" cities, were many of the inhabitants (like Rose's mother) speak no Chinese or (like her aunt) eat mostly western foods. Despite this, a strong current of Chinese tradition (especially with regards to gender roles) persists, and much of the novel's conflict is driven by Rose's desire to please others as a traditional Chinese wife, but also to please that new Americanized part of herself--being an independent, working, sexual woman. Both Rose and Wharton's Archer struggle against the pull of an idealized "other" outside their respective marriages, though I like that Rose is allowed to realize
It's an immensely readable book, and the tension builds as Rose advances her career with an Asian Airline company while her (strange) marriage become more and more twisted. The characters are well-drawn and complex, and even the (relative) antagonists are multi-faceted and difficult to downright hate. Though the story lost some momentum for me near the end, I especially liked it when Rose would come out straight and say to her husband or father-in-law exactly what I hoped she would say instead of playing the (stereotyped?) shrinking violet traditional wife to the point of self-martyrdom. Catharsis!
I read this book back-to-back with Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, and couldn't help but latch onto some interesting parallels between the two. Both take place in rapidly modernizing societies, and the discomfort of going against tradition versus sticking with what is comfortable and convenient. As a British colony until 1997, Hong Kong was perhaps one of the more "westernized" cities, were many of the inhabitants (like Rose's mother) speak no Chinese or (like her aunt) eat mostly western foods. Despite this, a strong current of Chinese tradition (especially with regards to gender roles) persists, and much of the novel's conflict is driven by Rose's desire to please others as a traditional Chinese wife, but also to please that new Americanized part of herself--being an independent, working, sexual woman. Both Rose and Wharton's Archer struggle against the pull of an idealized "other" outside their respective marriages, though I like that Rose is allowed to realize
It's an immensely readable book, and the tension builds as Rose advances her career with an Asian Airline company while her (strange) marriage become more and more twisted. The characters are well-drawn and complex, and even the (relative) antagonists are multi-faceted and difficult to downright hate. Though the story lost some momentum for me near the end, I especially liked it when Rose would come out straight and say to her husband or father-in-law exactly what I hoped she would say instead of playing the (stereotyped?) shrinking violet traditional wife to the point of self-martyrdom. Catharsis!
February 29, 2016
I hadn't read any novels set in Hong Kong that I stuck with but coming across this one with a female protagonist I thought it would be interesting and relatable.
It's basically in the form of a memoir of a Hong Kong born indo-chinese female and her family, marriage and life. I found it fascinating but sad because of how mixed up everyone was, literally and figuratively.
It kept me reading though and I'm glad to have a glimpse of what makes up Hong Kong society which is where my own mother came from.
It's basically in the form of a memoir of a Hong Kong born indo-chinese female and her family, marriage and life. I found it fascinating but sad because of how mixed up everyone was, literally and figuratively.
It kept me reading though and I'm glad to have a glimpse of what makes up Hong Kong society which is where my own mother came from.
April 20, 2015
utterly absorbed in Rose's world.
August 6, 2021
Brilliant. Brilliant. BRILLIANT. Captures what if it feels like to be a young person caught between HK and America, and between obligations to others and yourself. My Hk friends, especially those studying overseas, should read this ASAP!!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews