This book had its inception at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when my father was stranded in Calgary because of the virus. Our conversations about old Hong Kong got me wondering anew, as I have off and on since my earliest years, what the lives of my grandparents and great-grandparents were like prior to and during the Japanese occupation, as well as how my parents’ lives and, by corollary, my own were shaped by it. Though that was a period of tremendous violence and suffering, it was hardly the first endured by the peoples of that city, which at the time of the invasion had already been held by colonial Britain for a hundred years and was plagued by both local unrest, and unrest over the border in China. I am grateful to Mom and Dad for the ideas they shared in the writing of this book. One particular inspiration was a photocopy my mother gave me of a cookbook that instructs Chinese cooks on how to make Western food. It belonged to my great-grandfather, who was head steward at the Hong Kong Cricket Club before—but not during—the Japanese occupation.