MemoirIT WAS AN innocent enough remark. "Looks like rain," he'd said, gesturing toward the bank of clouds looming over the city."No way," I said, shaking my head."Well, those clouds look pretty threatening to me.""Those are not rain-bearing clouds," I...

MemoirGIL JAMIESON SAT looking over Three Moon Flat, a shotgun across his sarong-covered knee as the sound of the crows in a vast gum tree filled the air. "They make a hell of a racket," I said, stating the...

MemoirYOU DON'T LOOK Chinese," said one of a small group of boys who had encircled me."I'm not," I said, stating the obvious."But ya come from Hong Kong?""Yes," I agreed."What language do they speak there?" asked one of the others."Cantonese.""Well...

MemoirPERHAPS I SHOULD have seen a portent in the entrails, but I could divine only horror from the scene. We'd come home from a pleasant Chinese New Year lunch to find our backyard had become a charnel house. The...

ReportageThe huge cop – they all seemed to be huge in Queensland in 1976 – rustled through my desk drawer as if I wasn't standing right beside him.‘What exactly are you looking for?' I asked. He ignored me. After...

MemoirWHEN I GET the urge to be elsewhere, as I sometimes do, it’s often my childhood home, Hong Kong. As I hanker for it, my mind’s eye evokes the sights, sounds and smells of the place with all the...