Austin coates biography
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Myself a Mandarin: Memoirs of a Special Magistrate
The book centers around the author's description of working as a magistrate in a district in rural British Hong Kong. bygd his own admission, he knew absolutely nothing about the lag before going there and never learned, and he had never been to China.
Accordingly, he makes some absolutely awful decisions. For example, he forces a woman to stay with her abusive husband because he thinks that this is somehow a kinesisk way of doing things. At one point, he even intimidates a lawyer out of hearing a case bygd British Common Law (as opposed to Chinese Traditional Law, a right that all Hong Kongers had but seldom exercised). He does this because he doesn't know the Common Law. For that matter, he doesn't know any traditional lag either, but he figures that it's more "informal" and easier to intuit. He then resolves the case through corruption, revoking the defendant
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Austin Coates
British writer (–)
Austin Francis Harrison Coates (16 April – 16 March ) was a British civil servant and writer. Coates was a RAF Intelligence officer in World War II, and his service in Burma, India, Singapore and Malaysia was his first time in the Far East. In , he joined the Colonial Service and occupied civil positions in Hong Kong and Malaysia before retiring in to become a full-time writer. Coates wrote prolifically on Oriental studies and travel, especially on Hong Kong and Macau. His best-known book is Myself a Mandarin (), a memoir about his tenure in Hong Kong. In the Philippines, Coates is best known for Rizal: Philippine Nationalist and Martyr (), which is still considered one of the best biographies of the de facto national hero.
Biography
[edit]– Early life and civil service
[edit]Austin Francis Harrison Coates was born on 16 April in London, the only child of Eric Coates, a noted composer, and Phyllis Black, an actress.[1] C
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Austin Francis Harrison Coates (16 April – 16 March ) was a British civil servant and writer. Coates was a RAF Intelligence officer in World War II, and his service in Burma, India, Singapore and Malaysia was his first time in the Far East. In , he joined the Colonial Service and occupied civil positions in Hong Kong and Malaysia before retiring in to become a full-time writer. Coates wrote prolifically on Oriental studies and travel, especially on Hong Kong and Macau. His best-known book is Myself a Mandarin (), a memoir about his tenure in Hong Kong. In the Philippines, Coates is best known for Rizal: Philippine Nationalist and Martyr (), which is still considered one of the best biographies of the de facto national hero.
– Early life and civil service
Austin Francis Harrison Coates was born on 16 April in London, the only child of Eric Coates, a noted composer, and Phyllis Black, an actress.[1] Coates later said that his birth "wreck[ed]" his mother's acting career. H