Description
“Paul’s Records” can also be found for sale at Blacksmith Books.
Paul’s Records: How a Refugee from the Vietnam War Found Success Selling Vinyl on the Streets of Hong Kong
by Andrew S Guthrie
Blacksmith Books, 2015
As a youth in Saigon’s Chinatown of the 1960s and ’70s, Paul Au was greatly affected by American “hippie” culture and Rock and Roll. He was smuggled into Hong Kong in 1974 to escape the South Vietnamese military draft.
At first living in rooftop squats, he started to trade used vinyl records on the streets of Sham Shui Po, and finally established an underground reputation for his eclectic blend and unending supply of recorded music.
This full-colour book includes a first person account of Paul’s flight from Vietnam and his first years in Hong Kong, sample records and sleeve art to depict the evolution of popular music in Hong Kong since the 1970s, and descriptions and photos of Sham Shui Po with its walk-up buildings and street markets.
“Combining anthropological objectivity with a poetic sensibility Guthrie both creates and reveals a world. An objective documentation of this extraordinary place, and the story of the Paul Au Tak Shing, the man who created it (beginning in wartime Saigon), would in itself be worthy and supremely satisfying. Yet Guthrie invests his documentation with his own deep affinity for vinyl, and a companionable appreciation of life in one of Hong Kong’s oldest and toughest neighbourhoods. “Paul’s Records” is a gift to Hong Kong and to anyone who wants to know more about the unique worlds that thrive in its crowded spaces.” – Greg Girard, author of City of Darkness: Life In Kowloon Walled City
Category: book
Pages: 136 pages
Dimensions: 5” x 7”
Binding: perfect bound
Full color and black and white photos
Language: English with a small section in Chinese
ISBN 978-988-13764-3-5
click on photo of Paul to go to Youtube video further explaining “Paul’s Records”
