Hong Kong Eurasians

Abstract

At the time of his death in July 2008, Tony Sweeting was working on three major projects. The most fulfilling of these was a longstanding plan to publish a book on Hong Kong Eurasians, an undertaking that had the full support of his wife Sansan. The purpose was 'to characterise Hong Kong Eurasians-of the past, the present, and the future-as clearly as possible'. His was a deeply personal response to the question of 'Why study Hong Kong Eurasians?' for he planned to dedicate the book to his two children, Justin and Jacinta.

Tony completed only three chapters. The third, titled 'Historical Sketches', aimed at examining the development of the Eurasian community in Hong Kong from the 1840s to the present day. It forms the basis of the edited article that follows. We have attempted to retain as much of Tony's inimitable style as possible, but it has been necessary to prune significantly to make the text suitable for publication in the Journal. It is hoped that by publishing some of Tony's unfinished work on Hong Kong's Eurasian community other scholars will be encouraged to take up the work and perhaps produce a definitive study of this important facet of Hong Kong's history.