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Most read of 2023: Michelle Yeoh’s fashion designer, China freeing a CIA spy – your favourite long reads

  • A failed plan for a European ‘smart city’ piqued Post Magazine readers’ interest in 2023, as did a millionaire’s quest to stay young, and a father’s wart woes
  • The untold stories of early Chinese Canadians got your attention too, as did a Chinese child star, a Hong Kong tailor to the rich, and a hotelier’s life story

Reading Time:2 minutes
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Freed CIA spy John Downey walks from mainland China into Hong Kong in 1973, a moment recalled by China scholar Jerome Cohen in one of our most popular long reads of 2023. See which other Post Magazine stories engaged readers most in 2023. Photo: ISD

From the plight of Abul Bajandar, known as “tree man”, to a look at the life of Hong Kong fashion designer Barney Cheng, a reminder of eight of the most-read long features published in the South China Morning Post’s Post Magazine in 2023.

1. More turmoil for ‘tree man’

After his story went global, Bangladeshi man Abul Bajandar, known as “tree man”, was able to get treatment for the warts that left his hands deformed, allowing him to hold his daughter for the first time. Then the warts grew back bigger than ever. In July, Post Magazine revisited his story.

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Read more here.
Wife Alhima Khauton brushes Abul Bajandar’s teeth as he cannot use his hands for most tasks. Photo: Miguel Candela
Wife Alhima Khauton brushes Abul Bajandar’s teeth as he cannot use his hands for most tasks. Photo: Miguel Candela

2. Fashion designer Barney Cheng on his life

Hong Kong fashion designer Barney Cheng grew up in a big family, was inspired by his mother’s love of clothes and has rubbed shoulders with the fabulously rich.

Barnie Cheng at an event in 2019 with Michelle Yeoh, who is wearing a gown he created especially for her. Photo: Barnie Cheng
Barnie Cheng at an event in 2019 with Michelle Yeoh, who is wearing a gown he created especially for her. Photo: Barnie Cheng
He dressed actress Michelle Yeoh and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s daughters. In September he talked to Kate Whitehead about all that, and about finding God.
Read more here.

3. Has he cracked the code of age reversal?

Bryan Johnson in 2017. Photo: Wikimedia
Bryan Johnson in 2017. Photo: Wikimedia

In March, we reported on how tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson is trying to turn back the clock by transforming his 45-year-old body into that of an 18-year-old through a US$2 million (HK$16 million)-a-year diet and exercise programme.

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