The question of why my family left Australia in 1967 has a different answer depending on who you ask. My father, Jack Spackman, would say that he wanted to get closer to Vietnam, to find out […]
Australia’s ‘asylum seeker issue’ has been pushed off our front pages lately. The Abbott government’s early Christmas presents to school children, car workers, aged care workers, child care workers and low-paid workers of all stripes […]
I spent a good chunk of my childhood reading trashy spy novels in the reading room of Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents Club, oblivious to the real spies who may… or may not… have been drinking […]
Arthur Hacker single-handedly brought civic pride to a Hong Kong generation. It’s impossible to overstate the impact of his creation Lap Sap Chung (literally Litter Worm) on the city in the 1970s. Hong Kong, it […]
When official sources fail, good journalists shine. One of the best was the BBC’s Anthony Lawrence, who died in Hong Kong in September 2013 at the venerable age of 101. One of his greatest stories is an example […]
My record on picking election winners is poor at best so I’m happy to leave that effort to others. All I have to do is decide who to vote for. It’s an opportunity I haven’t […]
When the Spackman family shipped up in Hong Kong, February 1967, we arrived at a turbulent time in the little colony’s history. The Cultural Revolution in China was in full swing and by May had […]
Francis James arrived in Hong Kong from Sydney in an ambulance one Friday night, with a briefcase full of greenbacks and a big jar of honey. He was on his way to Moscow to drink […]
Back in 1975 Hunter S. Thompson took in an historic game of cricket at the old Hong Kong Cricket Club and lost ten bucks to my father Jack Spackman. I was 12 years old when […]
Copyright: Maria Spackman
