Dragon and the Crown – Hong Kong Memoirs

Stanley S. K. Kwan was born in Hong Kong in 1925 into a traditional Chinese banking family. He attended King's College until the fall of Hong Kong in 1941 and joined the Chinese army as an interpreter for US forces during the war. From 1962 until he retired in 1984, he headed the Research Department in Hang Seng Bank. He launched the Hang Seng Index in 1969, served on the government's Statistics Advisory Board during 1976-84 and was awarded the MBE in 1985. He now lives in Toronto, Canada.

The Dragon and the Crown is a fascinating account of the twentieth-century history of Hong Kong. Stanley Kwan is the master of the telling detail as he recounts the saga of his extended family, torn between capitalist, colonialist Hong Kong and the Chinese Communist revolution. Kwan's own odyssey is gripping as a survivor of the Japanese attack on Hong Kong, wartime interpreter in mainland China for US troops, auto dealer, banker, creator of the influential Hang Seng Index and, ultimately, target of Communist China's velvet-gloved attempt to recruit sympathizers among Hong Kong's rich and famous. -- Jan Wong, author of Red China Blues and Beijing Confidential.