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Hong Kong’s identity, or lack thereof, could well be considered the defining factor of our lives. And by us, I mean everyone who has chosen to call the 250-odd islands of these fragrant shores home.

This central theme is the axis around which Xu Xi’s autobiographical set of essays, Evanescent Isles: From My City-Village, revolve. At the age of 54, the Hong Kong author has taken the opportunity to look back at her life thus far, and the corresponding changing face of the territory, from its days as a British Crown Colony to its present status as a Special Administrative Region of the PRC.

The oldest daughter in an Indonesian-Chinese family, her story takes in her time growing up in ’60s Wan Chai; education at the all-girl Maryknoll Convent School; marriage to a Scottish dog-handler, living in then-remote Sai Kung; life as a corporate drone for Cathay Pacific, in love with the romanticism of Kai Tak; her observations on our jazz scene, watching it rise, fall, and rise again; and, finally, an acceptance of her place in Hong Kong, which is to say, there isn’t one at all.

(On October 1, 2005, our National Day, she awakes to a newspaper headline demanding the reader, “Identify Yourself”, reporting a recent survey that found most residents identified themselves as Hongkongese before Chinese).

Throughout the book’s 109 pages, the city-village of her title continually confuses, confounds and sometimes rejects – yet its draw is inescapable to both Xu and the reader. Many of us clutch desperately to the impermanent abode promised by our Hong Kong ‘permanent identity cards’ – if they leave, non-classified Chinese, such as Xu, a US citizen, are required to return every three years or else lose their ‘privileged’ status.

The author now divides her time between her homes in upper New York State and the Fragrant Harbour – with the issue of her identity still is as yet undefined. Ultimately, though, Xu reveals she has come to an acceptance that what is, will be – and perhaps that’s the best any of us can do.

Simon Ostheimer