Spring break 2015. Hawaii with my “aunt” and her family. Listened to a lot of old Chinese songs.
Kong Boys: Seven Friends From Hong Kong Take on Eleven European Cities for Their Thirtieth Birthdays
In summer 2006, twenty-year-old Gerald Yeung and his childhood friends from Hong Kong travel to South America and Africa on their parents’ dime. Confronted by challenges foreign to their privileged upbringing, the “Wannabe Backpackers” persevere in their Christian Dior clothes. They make plans to do it again when they turn thirty.
The decade that follows doesn’t go exactly to plan. Gerald chases the American Dream in a town of twenty thousand and subzero winters. Others pursue a fast-and-furious life in Hong Kong. They all experience failed relationships, career setbacks, and a decreasing ability to impress girls at clubs.
The summer of their thirtieth birthdays, they hit the road again to fulfill a lifelong dream — the 2016 UEFA European Championship. Set during European soccer’s most anticipated event, Kong Boys traces a friendship that transcends distance, culture, and time, dovetailing the different trajectories of seven boys in a decade of changes in Hong Kong. Kong Boys is a celebration of youth, brotherhood, and a sport of incomparable beauty.
Wannabe Backpackers: The Latin American and Kenyan Journey of Five Spoiled Teenagers (Proverse Publishing, 2011)
The summer of their twentieth birthday, five self-confessed “spoiled Hong Kong boys” and their designer suitcases traveled to Latin America and Kenya. Out to prove they were tougher than they looked but not actually ready to rough it too much, Justin the narcissist, Lulu the shopaholic, DJ the womanizer (or so he thought), Brian the modern Romeo, and Gerald the group mom hopped from city to city, alternating between five-star hotel in Argentina and rustic hostels in Kenya. In a month-long journey where their friendship and mental fortitude were put to test, they had one objective in mind — coming home as backpackers.
Told with candor and an endearing naivety, Wannabe Backpackers is a story on friendship. As these boys’ aspire to break free from the stigma on privileged Hong Kong teens, they explored the world with a fearlessness reminiscent of our own journey with our best friends.
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Wake Up and Smell the Shit: Hilarious Travel Disasters, Monstrous Toilets, and a Demon Dildo (Travelers’ Tales, 2015)
We’ve all had unspeakable experiences while traveling that we’re ashamed to admit, but these often become our best stories in the retelling. The writers in this collection cast inhibition aside and reveal their weirdest and worst moments and how they made the best of them. And memorable moments in exotic destinations come in all shapes and sizes: insects as big as Pam Anderson’s left tit, regrettable sex, stink-eyed officials, horrible healers, Lady Gaga’s shoes and Madonna’s special meal, trigger-happy militants, and peeping Tom rock stars.
Adventure vicariously as:
Kasha Rigby proved how tough she is on National Geographic’s Ultimate Survival Alaska, but is she a match for a 90-year-old bone breaker in Guatemala?
Namibians stereotype Chinese men as Bruce Lee—Gerald Yeung wonders if attacking baboons will do the same.
Keph Senett (hoping not to follow in the footsteps of Pussy Riot) braves bombs, police and a Soviet-era sofa bed to play soccer at the LGBT games in Putin’s Russia.
And many more….