An Extraordinary Youth: Growing Up in British Hong Kong

By Yvonne Blackmore de Jong

Living in British Hong Kong during the 1930s among the indigent Chinese seemed very cosmopolitan to a young girl with a British father and a French mother. Her earliest memories are of her beloved Amah whose sole duty was to care for her. While her father was busy with his construction company, she played with friends, took day trips to the beach and became a close companion to her mother. However, this idyllic life all came to a striking halt in 1941 with the advent of World War II in the Far East. Her family and other ex-patriate families were soon interned at the civilian Stanley Internment Camp when the Japanese occupied Hong Kong. In this memoir, Yvonne Blackmore de Jong recalls her life in Hong Kong before and during the war, and her travels to Australia, Great Britain and her return to the British colony after the war. It is a personal story that she writes for future generations to know what life was like for a young British citizen in Hong Kong before, during and after World War II. "What has gone by is over with and we should only learn a lesson from the experience, and not hold any grudges," she writes. Her experiences during the war years changed her life forever and she became all the stronger for it.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1451564120
• ISBN13: 9781451564129
• Release Date: May 2010
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 110 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"