Peter Dunn Siu-yue was born in Hong Kong in 1951, with family roots in Anshun, Guizhou. His father, Teng Ting-tsung, came from a wealthy Guizhou family, moved to Hong Kong in 1949 and later studied aviation management in the United States, leaving the young Dunn in the care of an amah whose influence kindled his love of acting. A devotee of the Peking-opera star Mei Lanfang, the father named his three sons after the Mei-school opera Yu Yu Feng, so the eldest became Dunn Siu-yue, the second Dunn Siu-chau and the third Dunn Tsz-fung (the television host Patrick Dunn). At the age of seven his father entered him for a test at the Motion Picture and General Investment company, and he was picked by director Yueh Feng to appear in Our Beloved Son (1959). He went on to act in Mandarin films including The Rain and the Clear Sky (1959), The Education of Love (1961), The First Born and Father Takes a Bride (both 1963), stopping only when he entered secondary school. He met John Chan Koon-chung while at Wah Yan College Kowloon, and later studied journalism at the University of Georgia and communications at Temple University without graduating. Returning to Hong Kong in 1976, he co-founded City Magazine with Chan Koon-chung, Henry Wu and Yau Sai-man, and under the pen name Mary Chin wrote the column The Woman in Kenzo, recording the consumption and tastes of Central's white-collar women in 1970s Hong Kong; the column was later collected into a novel of the same name, an early example of the city's confessional fiction about urban women, predating Sex and the City by some two decades. He has also published essay collections including Prejudice and Arrogance and A Day for Borscht. From 1983 he helped run the family business.
Through City Magazine and the 'Mary Chin' column, Dunn shaped the way Hong Kong's middle-class consumer culture was written about; The Woman in Kenzo, narrated in a woman's first-person voice, recorded urban life in the 1970s and 1980s and is regarded as an early example of the city's confessional fiction about urban women, predating Sex and the City by roughly two decades.
Achievements
- 1959 · Appeared in his first film, Our Beloved Son, chosen by director Yueh Feng.
- 1976 · Co-founded City Magazine with Chan Koon-chung, Henry Wu and Yau Sai-man.
- 1980年代 · His column written under the pen name Mary Chin was collected as the book The Woman in Kenzo.