On Martin Booth's first day in Hong Kong in 1952, his parents took him to lunch at the British naval base where his father was about to start work. There the 7-year-old was confronted with a frightening plateful of leggy crustaceans unknown back in England. As he recounts in
Gweilo
(Doubleday; 342 pages), a memoir of his first three years in the former crown colony, a kindly naval officer briefed him on local customs: "Whenever someone offers you something to eat, accept it. That's being polite."
Booth followed the advice, inhaling more exotic food, culture and adventure in...