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noted for harmony between the races in Hong Kong society and the unease was certainly apparent in the field of education." The relationship between the two “communities” was, at best, symbiotic at this time." The period seemed to present, however, interesting and attractive opportunities for coaching members of the Chinese community in the skills and ostensible attitudes required if they were to seek socio-economically successful co-existence with the British. As Mok Man Cheung implicitly argued in his book, language was the key.
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Clearly, Mok Man Cheung was eager to exploit the advantages of his own position as a middleman and go-between in Hong Kong society. He was ready to “cash in” his education and training. In so doing, equally clearly, he considered that he was performing an important service for his fellow Chinese. Both the editor of the South China Morning Post and the Registrar General seconded him in this supposition and the fact that the book sold indicates that there was an audience and a market for this type of self-improvement course which, in retrospect, might have been subtitled "How to be a useful and successful subject of a colonial regime".
Nowadays, Mok Man Cheung's English Made Easy may appear to be a quaint, charmingly erratic and possibly old-fashioned “Do-it-yourself” manual in language learning. The principal contention of this article is, however, that, in both its style of presentation and in its contents, it also provides interesting insights into the social history of early twentieth century Hong Kong and, especially, into the social history of education in Hong Kong, and that these insights are enhanced by an attempt to "place" Mok Man Cheung in context. Considering the fact that most publications on education in Hong Kong comprise statements of or comments on official policy about formal schooling at the macro level, this is no mean claim to make. Perhaps a reprint of Mok Man Cheung's book in the years leading up to the resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong by China in 1997 could stimulate some latter-day middleman to produce a Chinese Made Easy, based on the phonetic values of the English language, supplemented by some unique codification of tones, to cater for those non-Chinese who
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