MEMOIRS OF AN ICE-CREAM LADY is a charming and humorous series of anecdotes and reflections by a single Chinese lady, who established and managed an ice-cream parlour selling top-end ice-cream on the small outlying Hong Kong island of Lamma. Here locals and some residents from overseas live in close contact, as observed and recorded here by Emily's unblinkered eye. Comments on the traditional Chinese attitudes to girls and unmarried women mingle with reflections on meddling neighbours, the odd habits of customers, the ingratitude of teenage girls and the antics of feisty ferry passengers. Petty quibbles find perspective from Emily's account of the impact on her neighbourhood of the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and her response to an earthquake disaster on the Chinese Mainland. Emily's perspective is quirky and unique, but unquestionably valid. Behind the amused and critical eye of a modern-day Mrs Gaskell is another object of concern - the writer herself: - what is her place in this world where her own values and emotions are so often at issue with most of those in her milieu?