Let’s get to know one another
May 6, 2010
Young Haven is a group for readers, writers, editors, designers, dreamers and artists. We like to talk about books as much as we like making them. We are going to be running a number of polls (see the side bar) asking you about the stuff you care about, so that we can start a conversation. We want to know what you think is cool, interesting and worthwhile because you inspire us and we hope we can inspire you!
Photo by Tiffany Kwan
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I’m really interested in what floats the boat of Hong Kong young readers. I’ve talked to hundreds of HK students over the years about their reading, read their book journals, given advice and so on and have found them to be greedy for books and the act of reading. But most of that reading material is coming from outside the HK culture and not a lot of it from Asian sources.
There also seems to be a big divide between the government schools where, until recently, reading literature of any sort wasn’t part of the learning diet and independent/international schools where literature is an essential ingredient.
So, in a perfect world, what sort of Hong Kong literature could there be for young people? What would the literature draw on – Chinese fables/myths/traditions ? Westernised fantasy? What types of story are possible that relate to Hong Kong? What would the readers like to see?