Hsiao-Hung Pai

A tender and poignant debut of the redemptive power of unexpected friendship. In an old-fashioned fishing community on Morecambe Bay, change is imperceptibly slow. Treacherous tides sweep the quicksands, claiming everything in their path. As a boy, Arthur had followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footprints, learning to read the currents and shifting sands. Now retired and widowed, though, he feels invisible, redundant. His daughter wants him in a retirement home. No one listens to his rants about the newcomers striking out nightly onto the bay for cockles, seemingly oblivious to the danger. When Arthur’s path crosses Suling’s, both are running out of options. Barely yet an adult, Suling’s hopes for a better life have given way to fear: she’s without papers or money, speaks no English, and chased by ruthless debt collectors. Her only next step is to trust the old man. Combining warmth and suspense and recalling a true incident, The Bay tells a tender story about loneliness, confronting prejudice, and the comfort of friendship, however unlikely—as well as exposing one of the most pressing social ills of our age.

In 2013 Ousmane Diallo, a 26-year-old Senegalese olive harvester, lost his life when a gas canister exploded in a Sicilian field. As an African migrant, he was little mourned. But though they've been deliberately forgotten, neither the events of Ousmane's life nor his tragic death are uncommon. Across Italy today, African workers toil in the fields that make it one of Europe's largest exporters of fruit and vegetables. Having fled home countries devastated by colonialism and global capitalism, those who survive the journey across the Mediterranean arrive on European shores only to find themselves systematically segregated and exploited. They have been subject to anti-migrant policies over decades, from administrations across the political spectrum. Trapped in a chokehold of subhuman living and working conditions, they are the dehumanised Other, invisible by design--the people hidden behind foods and goods branded 'Made in Italy'. Ciao Ousmane is the story of this subordinated class. Through the lives and stories of Italy's migrant workers, Hsiao-Hung Pai exposes the open secret of how state and society create 'necessary outcasts'. This is a bitter, frank and moving tale of racial capitalism, against which workers constantly find new ways to organise and fight back.

The headlines about Europe's migration crisis have now subsided, though they continue to influence the political agenda all over the continent. Though there are moments when the human reality cuts through, as with the shocking picture of baby Alan Kurdi's body on the beach, for the most part the individual stories are lost amid the hysteria over cutting migrant numbers and shutting the doors of Fortress Europe. More than 25,000 migrants have died in their attempt to reach or stay in Europe since 2000. More than 5,000 migrants lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean and Aegean seas in 2016 - they were drowned, suffocated or crushed during the crossing. In 2017 over 3000 migrants lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean. Award-winning journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai specializes in communicating poignant human stories that many people find it convenient to keep out of sight and out of mind. She travels to meet migrants and asylum-seekers who have just been washed up on the shores of Lampedusa or Sicily and have been absorbed into dismal reception camps. While journalists ordinarily pitch up in such places and file their colour pieces before moving on to the next hot topic, Hsiao-Hung follows through, staying in touch with some of those she encounters - many of them children - throughout their journeys: into mainland Italy, to Germany where they face harassment from far-right groups, and to the appalling conditions in the camps on the coast of northwest France. These personal stories of individuals break apart the false distinction between "refugees" and "migrants", between "those seeking refuge" and "those wanting a better life", a distinction that has resulted in denying many people of their human rights.

'An enlightening, thoughtful and intelligent study.'The IndependentThere is a new anger brewing in Britain. In the pubs and estates, the cafes and football stadiums, the mood is unsettled. People kick back increasingly against whoever or whatever is presented as the latest scapegoat. Delving deep into the day-to-day of a marginalized section of the working class, Angry White People offers an unparalleled survey of this anxious, uncertain, febrile Britain. From the English Defence League (EDL) to UKIP activists, Hsiao-Hung Pai conducts a fantastically daring investigation. Amongst those she follows are Darren, a Lutonian who helped found the EDL but is now a dedicated anti-racist Labour activist, and Tommy Robinson, infamous founder of the EDL, whom Pai observes changing from a young, foul-mouthed kid to a suited-and-booted Oxford Union guest speaker and hate preacher.Uncovering disturbing levels of racism in our society which must be confronted, Pai also identifies concerns arising from exclusion and inequality in a post-industrial economy. Angry White People is the essential account of social discontent in Britain today.

Each year, 200 million workers from China's vast rural interior travel between cities and provinces in search of employment: the largest human migration in history. This indispensable army of labour accounts for half of China's GDP, but is an unorganized workforce-'scattered sand', in Chinese parlance-and the most marginalized and impoverished group of workers in the country. For two years, the award-winning journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai traveled across China visiting labourers on Olympic construction sites, in the coal mines and brick kilns of the Yellow River region, and at the factories of the Pearl River Delta. She witnessed the outcome of the 2009 riots in the Muslim province of Xinjiang; saw towns in rubble more than a year after the colossal earthquake in Sichuan; and was reunited with long-lost relatives, estranged since her mother's family fled for Taiwan during the Civil War. Scattered Sand is the result of her travels: a finely wrought portrait of those left behind by China's dramatic social and economic advances.

Adapted into the Channel 4 documentary 'Sex: My British Job' by Nick Broomfield. Ming and Beata share neither the same language nor cultural background, yet their stories are remarkably similar. Both are single mothers in their thirties and both came to Britain in search of a new life: Ming from China and Beata from Poland. Neither imagined that their journey would end in a British brothel. In this chilling expose, investigative journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai works undercover as a housekeeper in a brothel and unveils the terrible reality of the British sex trade. Workers are trapped and controlled - the lack of freedoms this invisible strait of society suffers is both shocking and scandalous and at odds with the idea of a modern Britain in the twenty-first century.

You know the people in this book. You’ll remember the harassed waitress from your local Chinese restaurant. You’ve noticed those builders across the street working funny hours and without helmets. You’ve eaten the lettuce they picked, or bought the microwave they assembled. The words ‘cockle-pickers’, ‘Morecambe Bay’, ‘Chinese illegals found dead in lorry’ will ring a bell. But did you know that there are hundreds of thousands of undocumented Chinese immigrants in Britain? They’ve travelled here because of desperate poverty, and must keep their heads down and work themselves to the bone. Hsiao-Hung Pai, the only journalist who knows this community, went undercover to hear the stories of this hidden work force. She reveals a scary, shadowy world where human beings are exploited in ways unimaginable in our civilized twenty-first century.CHINESE WHISPERS exposes the truth behind the lives of a hidden work force here in Britain. You owe it to yourself, and them, to read it.