Blogs & Sharing

This sixteenth-century blue-and-white porcelain bottle began its life in the kilns of Jingdezhen , journeyed through the maritime routes of the Portuguese Age of Discovery, passed through the Ottoman Empire , and finally came to rest in Victoria and Albert Museum . Its story links Hong Kong , China, Asia Minor, and Europe — a quiet testimony to how art and exchange travelled long before the modern age of globalisation. A Portuguese explorer. A Chinese craftsman. An Ottoman su

When you think of the British Empire, you probably picture carefully laid plans, grand strategies, and imperial masterminds. But here’s a twist: nineteenth-century historian Sir John Seeley once said Britain acquired its empire “in a fit of absence of mind.” In other words, a lot of it happened by accident—through misjudgments, unexpected consequences, and plain old luck. Fast forward to the 1980s, and the end of the British Empire, especially the handover of Hong Kong, looks

“History is above all else an argument. It is an argument between different historians; and, perhaps, an argument between the past and the present.…..Arguments are important; they create the possibility of changing things” ---- John H. Arnold At its heart, history is an ongoing conversation — a mix of evidence, interpretation, and competing narratives about what really happened and why. For me, the story of Hong Kong — the city where I was born and raised — sits at the center