Overview

Kwan Lai-chun was sick of being made to feel second-class by her husbands concubine; sick of her mother-in-laws endless carping about the money she spent; sick of the whole family. Late one sticky, humid night, something snapped in her -- and she grabbed the meat chopper. Within minutes, three people were dead: the concubine with over 70 gashes, many of them to the bone. Kwan was found guilty and became the second and last woman in Hong Kong to suffer the death penalty. But behind her story, and those of the citys other female murderers, lie complex webs of relationships and jealousies, poverty and despair. Taking the first 100 years of Hong Kongs colonial history, this book unravels the lives of women -- Chinese and Westerners alike -- who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Hong Kongs female prison population was a tiny fraction of that in Britain or America, but there are still plenty of tales from its women kidnappers, smugglers, bomb-makers, thieves and cruel mistresses.

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9789887963981

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Patricia OSullivan is a writer and researcher on the lesser-known aspects of Hong Kongs history prior to 1941. Stumbling upon an article concerning the death of her great-uncle in 1918 when he was an inspector in the Hong Kong Police, she quickly became immersed in the social history of colonial Hong Kong. Her research led to her first book, Policing Hong Kong: An Irish History. Her new book is about some of the criminal women of early 20th-century Hong Kong: smugglers, arsonists, murderers and one neighbour from hell. Patricias website is at www.socialhistoryhk.com.

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