"The Best China," an expression traditionally used to refer to the
finest crockery brought out when one is entertaining special guests, has
been adapted here to mean the Best Chinese Tradition of free-thinking
discursive prose. This anthology of essays from Hong Kong and the
diaspora, ranging across the past hundred and seventy years, records the
intellectual ferment that has always characterised the city since its
founding in 1842, sometimes restless and questioning, sometimes
meditative and lyrical, always civilised, and buoyed by an all-pervasive
and indomitable spirit of freedom.