iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 21/09/2026

#33: At the Edge of Empire by Edward Wong NYT correspondent Edward Wong weaves his own time in China with his father’s life and career in the PLA, from wartime Hong Kong to revolutionary Beijing to newly occupied Xinjiang and Tibet and eventually the United States. A sweeping but human-scale story.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 21/09/2026

#32: Dealing with the Dragon by Jonathan Fenby I didn’t love the daily diary entry format, which could feel long-winded and repetitive. But when Fenby is detailing his personal experience of political pressure and censorship at the SCMP in the early post-Handover years, it becomes quite interesting

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 18/09/2026

I mean, this is the caliber of "evidence" we're dealing with from the NZ guy...

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 16/09/2026

Takes me back to the “smart lamp post” I watched protesters tear down in 2019

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 09/09/2026

Hong Kong gov't sites have all gone dark to mark the death of former Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. The last time this happened was after the Wang Fuk Court fire, which killed 168 people last year. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first time it's ever happened for a single person.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 09/09/2026

Ready for these bad boys to make a comeback

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 09/09/2026

Paying tribute to ex-CE Tung Chee-hwa, Henry Tang says Hong Kong was a "cultural desert" before the handover to China and Tung's appointment in 1997. That's right: HK was a cultural desert for 150+ years - even during the golden age of cantopop and HK cinema - until the politicians gave us culture!

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 04/09/2026

RIP to this unintentionally scathing piece of public art testifying to how Hong Kong has changed in the past ~6 years.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 31/08/2026

1. Charles Elliot 2. Henry Pottinger 3 John Francis Davis 4. George Bonham I could go on

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 29/08/2026

#31: Red Memory by Tania Branigan A collection of reportage and interviews with people who experienced the Cultural Revolution as both victims and perpetrators, Red Memory powerfully conveys the torment of watching a society devour itself and then having to move on without any meaningful reckoning.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 25/08/2026

#20: Rose of Nevada I’m not usually a fan of isekai, but this film — about a Cornish fishing boat that mysteriously returns to its home port 30 years after disappearing and then takes two down-and-out townies back to the 90s — was so visually distinctive and haunting I’m happy to make an exception.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 25/08/2026

#30 The Troublemaker by Mark L. Clifford I was glad to see this biography of Jimmy Lai was less hagiographical than the documentary The Hong Konger. This actually addresses some — though by no means all — of the criticisms against AD/Next, and offers valuable insights into Lai’s business decisions.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 20/08/2026

Hong Kong Free Press was the first place I worked as a journalist in Hong Kong, and this week I rejoined as its new Executive Editor. @hongkongfp.com has come a long way since it was a scrappy startup staffed mainly by students and fresh grads like myself. Hopefully, I can help take it further yet.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 19/08/2026

#19: Witch Hat Atelier S1 An endearing cast, original magic system, stunning animation, and promising world-building make Witch Hat Atelier a very welcome addition to the new Big Three of fantasy anime we’re being treated to. It isn’t Frieren or Dungeon Meshi-calibre yet, but I’m letting them cook.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 19/08/2026

#29: Hong Kong 1997 by David Bonavia Published in 1983 ahead of the Joint Declaration, this sums up the background and state of negotiations over HK’s handover. An interesting time capsule with details lost to more recent accounts and predictions that range from laughably wrong to eerily prescient.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 18/08/2026

#18: 牛來 Niu Lai Absolute cinema. No notes.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 12/08/2026

#28: The Taipans by Colin N. Crisswell A delightful used bookshop find, The Taipans does a wonderful job bringing to life the story of the Princely Hong and its rivals. A great companion text to James Clavell’s novels and a fascinating mirror for what has and has not changed about how HK is ruled.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 10/08/2026

“AI will manage your relationships, hobbies, health, home, and career so you can focus on the things you enjoy,” he writes, listing all the things I — and presumably most normal humans — enjoy most in life.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 10/08/2026

#27: City on Fire by Simon Elegant Ngl my expectations for this book, centring a gweilo cop during the 2019 protests, were low. I recently DNFed HK novels due to inaccuracies — call me pedantic but I think it’s about respecting the place. Elegant knows his stuff, though. This was a decent surprise.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 10/08/2026

It’s depressingly common to see local media highlight suspects’ ethnicity only when they’re not Han and when it has no relevance to the investigation. But this is somehow even more craven: unable to determine the ethnicity of the attacker, Oriental Daily just runs with “non-ethnically-Chinese man.”

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 02/08/2026

#26: Original Highways by Roy MacGregor In this follow-up to Canoe Country, the author profiles 16 of Canada’s most important waterways. From BC’s Fraser to the St John in the Maritimes to the Arctic Mackenzie, these rivers stitched the improbably huge country together long before railways or roads

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 28/07/2026

#17: 尋秦記 Back to the Past I went into this movie without having watched the original TVB series. Whilst nostalgia was enough to make it a huge local box-office hit, I was left very unwhelmed. A few anachronistic gags landed, and the sheer absurdity of the action sequences was briefly entertaining.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 28/07/2026

To say nothing of how mushroom cloud imagery continues to inspire glee amongst state media and online nationalists, 80+ years later…

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 28/07/2026

Speaking of discourse I can’t believe actually happened

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 24/07/2026

#16: 浪浪山小妖怪 Nobody The story of a ragtag band of minor monsters who impersonate the iconic 西遊記 cast, 浪浪山小妖怪 captures the zeitgeist of the 躺平 generation and the grift economy. It’s also got some great comedic moments but the ending was a letdown that failed to say anything interesting or insightful.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 24/07/2026

#25: Everyday Movement by Gigi L. Leung A tapestry of interwoven vignettes revolving around the 2019-2020 protests, Everyday Movement looks at some of the ways the movement affected different individuals and families. It does a good job of capturing the minor dramas behind the citywide upheaval.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 21/07/2026

#15: The Odyssey Needless to say, Christopher Nolan took a lot of liberties with the source material and several of these I didn’t love (no gods, overly dark, etc). But overall it was a great cinematic experience and I can appreciate the vision and creative choices even without agreeing with them.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 20/07/2026

If your worldview is drastically altered by using Alipay during a visa-free layover in Shanghai, that says a lot more about you than it does about China. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 12/07/2026

#24: Hong Kong, Macau and the Muddy Pearl by Annabel Jackson A log of the author’s trips around the PRD, this book doesn’t have much to tell on its surface but it is an interesting relic of late 90s expat optimism, when 1C2S was sacrosanct and integration was all fun travel/business opportunities

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 05/07/2026

#23: Outlaws of the Sea by Robert J. Antony A history of piracy on the south China coast that draws from recent scholarship to offer perspectives you may not have heard before, such as the social construction of piracy, the roles of Dan (Tanka) women pirates, and the diverse makeup of pirate crews.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 05/07/2026

#22: The Breath of the Gods by Simon Winchester I seem to find Winchester’s natural histories satisfying in an inverse ratio to how ambitious they are. While his Yangtze and Atlantic books form complete narratives, Pacific and this are inevitably anecdotal. That said, they’re interesting anecdotes.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 05/07/2026

The “Multifaceted Hong Kong” exhibition series at the Hong Kong History Museum closed today. It was an excellent exploration of the city’s ties to overseas Chinese and the local Portuguese/Eurasian community — easily the best part (left) of the museum. Hopefully they replace it with something good.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 05/07/2026

Hong Kong’s government has presented the city’s private members’ clubs with an ultimatum: either pay much more for the land they lease at a concessionary rate, passing along the cost to members, or convert into a public facility open to anyone. It’s a more nuanced issue than it may seem on its face.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 28/06/2026

Undergrad — and the HKUSU as a whole — has been in the government's crosshairs for years, particularly since publishing a book on Hong Kong nationalism (香港民族論) in 2014. The book was singled out by Chief Executive CY Leung, catapulting it to popularity but prompting bookstores and libraries to ban it

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 28/06/2026

The University of Hong Kong's student union newspaper Undergrad (學苑) announced today it is ceasing operations after 74 years in print. "Our historical role has come to an end," the editorial board wrote on social media.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 28/06/2026

#21: The Wall Dancers by Yi-Ling Liu Seasoned observers of China’s internet controls and online culture will find this covers a lot of very familiar territory, but the writing is fluid and there is some great, intimate colour from the subjects. Definitely a solid primer for anyone new to the topic.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 28/06/2026

At this year’s races, a Canadian team was banned from wearing their team jersey because it was suspected of violating the Regional Flag and Emblem Ordinance, enacted by the “patriots-only” legislature in 2023 — the same law now invoked to bar local clubs from using the HKSAR flag or bauhinia flower.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 27/06/2026

At today’s int’l dragon boat races, I thought it was interesting how HK/Macau teams had to be prefaced 中國香港/澳門 while teams from the mainland were simply named for their locality. At the same time, mainland teams’ tops all had the PRC flag while local clubs were instructed not to wear the HKSAR flag.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 26/06/2026

“National Security Files DECLASSIFIED” Interesting to see the language and aesthetics of transparency, accountability, and explosive revelations used to promote a programme celebrating the establishment of the national security police and promoting their “contributions,” hosted by the force’s chief

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 24/06/2026

#20: Macartney at Kashgar by C. P. Skrine and Pamela Nightingale George Macartney, a Eurasian descendant of Lord Macartney, spent 28 years as British consul in Kashgar. His career provides insights on how Britain shored up China’s tenuous grip on Xinjiang as a buffer restraining Russian ambitions.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 20/06/2026

With the Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Races coming up next weekend, paddlers from around the world are once again being warned not to endanger China’s national security.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 13/06/2026

Jump scare in Ulaanbaatar last week

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