Born in Shanghai and educated in Hong Kong, Malaysia and England, May Holdsworth has been writing about China since 1979. She has written numerous articles about Beijing, Jiangsu and Sichuan for various books and periodicals. In 1994 she researched and wrote the script for the television documentary film on the Forbidden City broadcast worldwide by The Discovery Channel the following year. Caroline Courtauld is a writer specializing in China and Burma, published photographer; and documentary film producer and researcher. Her publications, including books on Burma, Hong Kong and China, have focused on Asian travel, history and culture. For five years she worked with Jonathan Dimbleby and Francis Gerard on a BBC documentary project about Hong Kong in the period up to the transfer of sovereignty to China. Joint works include The Hong Kong Story; covering the history of the colony, which was published by Oxford University Press just before the handover of the colony to China in 1997.