Growing Your Own Food in Hong Kong

Acknowledgements

 166 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS  167 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It has been a pleasure to re-unite with The Chinese University Press (CUP), publishers of my 2006 book Urban Gardening: A Hong Kong Gardener’s Journal. This opportunity to work with them once again is largely due to the efforts of my long-time friend, Grace Chow, head of Admissions and Financial Aid at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. As an extremely effective facilitator, Grace connected me smoothly with Ms Gan Qi, Dr Lin Ying and the rest of the CUP editorial team. At the CUP, no one worked harder or had more to deal with my frequent enquiries and niggling changes than Angelina Wong, a paragon of patience and soother of frayed QHUYHV,ZDVDOVRGHOLJKWHGWREHQH¿WIURPWKHSURGXFWLRQH[SHUWLVHRI.LQJVOH\0D DQGIURPGHVLJQHU'DQLHO1JZKRVHWDOHQWVDUHRQGLVSOD\LQWKH¿QLVKHGSXEOLFDWLRQ Like every other discipline, gardening is a life-long learning experience. I have learnt much and gained valuable advice from fellow gardeners and kindred spirits, quite a number of whom are members of the Hong Kong Gardening Society. I will name no names, because by doing so, there will be many unintentional omissions, hence my general, simple thanks to all who have contributed to my education. Visits to other gardens and farms have also opened my eyes to new ideas and possibilities. I am particularly indebted to Dr Anthony Tse, whose Clover Nursery happens to be just a stone’s throw from where I live. Clover is an unlikely gem, a microcosm of a rural farm, an oasis smack in the midst of urban Hong Kong. I am a regular visitor, together with my dog Creamy (adopted from Clover), and I have had many opportunities to run into Anthony and to engage in useful exchanges over our favourite subject. Invariably I am the one to gain the most from these exchanges. Help with some of the recipes came from Noreen Souza. Besides being a treasured and generous friend, she is one of Hong Kong’s foremost Macanese cooks and creator of memorable feasts. On the night my Hylocereus undatusÀRZHUHGUHFHQWO\P\VRQ%ULDQDQG,ERWK aimed our cameras to capture the moment. His results were better, and I thank him for providing two photographs, the only ones in the book not taken by me. I am thankful for the stern, critical oversight of my wife Nim Yin regarding everything I wrote. She assumed the role of major domo (or in popular Cantonese parlance, a “one foot kick”) in all matters relating to the gestation of this book. It was necessary to humbly suffer under this strict discipline, otherwise this book might have ended up simply as a moderately interesting collection of facts and reminiscences destined for early oblivion. ...