Category Archives: Asia

Penang Funicular

In 1994 I was stranded in Penang, Malaysia. The magazine for which I had been writing a series of stories about SE Asia had folded without buying my return ticket to the States. I had enough money to stay at the Swiss Hotel $3/night, eat at the Chinese and Indian restaurants on Chulia Street, and […]

July 11, 1993 Penang Journal.

Penang Hot “Go with God.” My departing words to Gulie at Penang Airport. She’s heading back to New York, but she’ll have to deal with her separation from Giancarlo, her husband my friend. Her entire stay was under the black clouds of her future. If she expects people to take sides, they will, but she […]

The World Of Suzie Wong / Movie

In 1960 Nancy Kwan earned a Golden Globe nomination for her title performance in THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG. Once a month my Irish grandmother took my older brother and me to the Loew’s Orpheum in Boston. I was eight. Nana was an indeterminate age, having claimed to have been born in the Year of […]

The Myth of Monkey Brains – 2017

Sitting in a Hong Kong dim sum cafe, I reflected on the strange ‘delicacies’ eaten on my travels; snails in France, dog in Indonesia, fried rats and insects in Thailand, alligator in Florida, and sausage pies in the UK, but whenever the discussions comes around the table to the most revolting meal in the world […]

Hong Kong Gone -2017

The Luk Kwok Hotel in Wan Chai was the inspiration for the setting of THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG. The fictional Nam Kok Hotel was a sailors’ brothel at which the film’s hero, Robert Lomax, decided to stay and paint the neighborhood and the women of the downstairs bar. The artist met Mee Ling on […]