Fragrant Harbour

An exciting story of battling adversity to find success and love among the teeming millions of Hong Kong. Three young members of a Chinese commune risk all when they decide to flee the cultural revolution and make the treacherous swim to Hong Kong. For one, their desperate bid for prosperity and freedom comes to a tragic end. Danger mounts when Woo Sing kills a man who threatens to hand them into the authorities. Terrifying nights spent living on the streets follow until she and Wa Hing find safety with an elderly relative. Now begins the real fight for survival; they face a world where few can be trusted and the ruthless triads control every aspect of daily life. Woo Sing battles disastrous personal and business setbacks when lured into life among wealthy English and Cantonese society. Wa Hing fights to escape the brutal activities of the triads. As their love grows, so do the darker forces surrounding them. Two vibrant lives entwined against a thrilling, colourful and detailed backdrop painted by an author who has been there, seen that.

About the Author :
Ray Richard Lycette was born in Levin, New Zealand, in 1929. His father, Ernest, was an English coalminer who enlisted as a private in the British Army in the First World War and left as a captain. Following emigration to New Zealand Ernest worked as a council overseer.Ray worked hard, became dux of his college and was awarded a medical scholarship. He met and married Gillian while they were both students. After graduating, he became a pathologist and worked in Hawkes Bay for twelve years before moving to Hong Kong in 1973 with Gill and their youngest daughter, Elizabeth, while their three older children remained in New Zealand.In Hong Kong he worked in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Kowloon city morgue, where he conducted post-mortems on swimmers escaping from China and anyone who died in suspicious circumstances in the city. Ray said all the events described in Fragrant Harbour were possible; he witnessed many of them, including the stock market bubble, and used written accounts from refugees to describe Wa Hing's rescue of his mistress.Ray described Hong Kong in the seventies as a colony where four and a half million people lived in a social and economic system similar to England a hundred years earlier. He visited China during the Cultural Revolution and remained fascinated by Chinese history and politics all his life.He and Gill witnessed great change in Hong Kong during the eighties, particularly during Governor MacLehose's term. They lived in Hong Kong until 1986, making friends with many Chinese and Europeans from all levels of society. They then migrated to Australia where Ray worked as a locum pathologist for Sullivan and Nicolaides Pathology, one of the country's largest and most respected pathology services, until his retirement in 2002.Ray died in 2012.Fragrant Harbour has been edited by his daughter, Margaret Atkin, and his widow, Gillian Lycette.

Review :
What appears to be a simple story, mainly set in Hong Kong in the 1970's, is much deeper than that.This book is intriguing as the author, Ray Lycette has woven into the narrative many astute observations on both why China was forcibly remodelled under Chairman Mao, starkly contrasted with the way many Chinese lived/existed in Hong Kong.At first it seems the commune way of life in China had many shortcomings hence the desire to escape. The author bases the story around two successful escapees expecting freedom only to find themselves vulnerable to exploitation by the darker side of humanity. The book describes the divergent paths each followed and the inevitable outcome.Corruption, drug trafficking Triads, women forcibly abducted to work in brothels, corrupt British police and business people.Ray further weaves into the story chilling snippets of what China was like in the pre-communist era controlled by warlords.One is left with a better understanding of current Chinese policies whereby the focus is ostensibly on what is best for China, not the individual. A thought provoking book that leaves one wondering what differences reverted back to Chinese sovereignty has had on the former colony. Mark O'Sullivan "I have just finished reading the book. It is good and is quite realistic for that period in the 1970's in Hong Kong. The book is easy to read with lots of characters. I imagine it would interesting for a westerner. The swim from China to Hong Kong was true. They used to practice secretly in the rivers as there were no swimming lessons at that time. Woo Sing would only have had very little English when she arrived in Hong Kong, There was no English taught in mainland China during the cultural revolution，especially in the rural areas, if you were found studying English, you would be in big trouble. English language study would have only been in the universities or big cities. I am not sure her English would be so good after only a few months. The background story of Kowloon City is true, in those days it belonged to China as it was a China government administration area and was not included in the lease for the New Territory. As such it didn't belong to the HK government, there were no rules or laws inside the Walled City." Lam Pung Leung