An Intimate Look inside Hong Kong, in a Taiwanese illustrator’s eye
by:Alice Lee Tim Wing
Flipping through the pages of the picture book “A Tour of Hong Kong”, familiar scenes in the book recalls our memories of the everyday Hong Kong. Not only those spots tourists go such as Tsim Sha Tusi and the Peak were drawn, but also places we live just like Wong Tai Sin, Sham Shui Po and Sai Kung… were recorded with profound scenes of historical background and meticulously portrayed in fluid lines of contrast and simplicity.
The picture book is a sequel to “A Tour of Beijing” by Taiwanese illustrator and picture book writer Sun Xinyu. “A Tour of Beijing” has won Bologna Children's Book Fair’s Bologna Ragazzi Award in 2015 and Sun is the first Taiwanese illustrator to win the award.
“A Tour of Hong Kong” is a fun book to read through for both adult and children. There are at least three ways to read this picture book. Just like reading “Where's Wally?”, you can choose a character to follow. By tracing the footsteps of the little girl from China, or looking through the eyes of teenager from England, or spotting the everpresent silhouette of a granny collecting cardboard all over streets of Hong Kong…as a fellow viewer, each time you will discover a different Hong Kong from a new perspective.
The fun part of the reading experience is going through little clues in the entire book and be able to spot a familiar local ice-cream truck, a hilarious copy-writing of the fruit stall and a recent street banner full of political slogans.
While children may enjoy little details of an urban landscape, how do adults interpret the visual connotations and metaphors? Where does the city, Hong Kong stand now? A good book is timeless, ageless and also can be wordless.
(Taiwanese illustrator Sun Xinyu ’s new picture book “A Tour of Hong Kong”)
