Media

HKUL Book Talk: Heroes & Gamblers - Tales of survival and good fortune of the Poy Family

26 Apr 2016

Heroes & Gamblers - Tales of survial and good fortune of the Poy Family

Speaker:   The Honourable Dr Vivienne Poy
Moderator:   Professor C. F. Lee, GBS, SBS, JP, former Pro-Vice-Chancellor of HKU
Date:    7 May 2016 (Saturday)
Time:   4:00 - 6:00pm
Venue:   Special Collections, 1/F, Main Library, The University of Hong Kong
Language:   English
Registration: http://lib.hku.hk/friends/reading_club/bt2016_04.html

About the author:
The Honourable Dr Vivienne Poy is Chancellor Emerita of the University of Toronto, an author of non-fiction and a historian. In 1998, she was the first Canadian of Asian heritage to be appointed to the Senate of Canada where she focused on gender issues, multiculturalism, immigration, and human rights. She retired from the Senate in September 2012, and continues to be actively involved with communities across Canada. She travels extensively and has special interest in the study of Chinese diaspora.

About the book:
A panoramic account of Chinese diaspora in Australia and North America during the 19th and 20th centuries, from the perspectives of the Poy family.

Readers will experience life of the Chinese in the goldfields in Australia at the height of the White Australia Policy, the horrors of the Second World War and of heroism, the life of high society in Hong Kong and the Japanese invasion, filled with spies and infiltrators.

The turbulent events of the Chinese civil war, the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, and the subsequent Cultural Revolution, are felt through the suffering of family members who remained in China.
As luck would have it, due to wartime diplomatic bungling, one member of the Poy clan entered Canada with his family during Chinese Exclusion, where they eventually remained and prospered.

This is the story of a family from the village of Shuizaikou, where the streams meet, in Taishan county in South China.
https://justinpoy.sharefile.com/d-s87cd72278904c918

About the Guest Speakers:
Madame Janaline Oh, Deputy Consul General of Australia in Hong Kong
Professor Henry Yu, Principal, St. John's College, University of British Columbia
Mr Frank Ching, Author and Renowned Journalist

Media Contact:  Mr. Gary Chin, Tel: 2859 2211 / Ms. Marina Yeung, Tel: 2859 8903