Vittachi started his journalism career on the Morning Telegraph in Sheffield in the north of England before moving to London's Fleet Street, then to Hong Kong, where he wrote the gossip columns "Lai See" and "Spice Trader" for the South China Morning Post until 1997. Although remembered mainly for humor and affectionate take on cross-cultural clashes, the column was often hardhitting, and regularly received writs. His abrupt removal at the time of the 1997 change of sovereignty was widely seen as an act of political censorship. Collected editions of the columns under titles such as Only in Hong Kong went through numerous print runs. At the Far Eastern Economic Review, Vittachi ran a similar region-wide column called "Travellers' Tales". From the mid-1980s, Vittachi's stock-in-trade included absurd-but-true stories, funny signs, ludicrous menu items, curious business or personal names, instructions for idiots, dumb criminal tales and so on. As Internet usage grew from the mid-1990s, many of these became standard themes of web humor, and currently run on his blog www.misterjam.com. His ear for Asian English resulted in his being commissioned to write scholarly articles in the subject for academic journals. Vittachi contributes a column to the Asian edition of Reader's Digest called Unbelievable!, in which he relates amusing anecdotes about Asian life. In 2015 Vittachi began contributing to the Hong Kong Free Press.
Literary work
Vittachi has published a series of novels, The Feng Shui Detective, in which the protagonists, a feng shui master from China, a young woman from Australia, an Indian mystic and various pan-Asian bad guys, explore Asia-Pacific. Five novels had been published by 2009, and many school age filmmakers have bid for screen rights. Vittachi is founding editor of the Asia Literary Review, which has published work by writers such as David Mitchell, Maxine Hong Kingston, Hanif Kureishi, Thomas Keneally, William Dalrymple and Romesh Gunesekera. The journal, published since 1999, was designed for Asia-related works "unpublished in English." He founded the Hong Kong International Literary Festival Limited in 2000 with Jane Camens. Vittachi made numerous approaches to organizations to finance an Asian literary prize, and in 2003 spoke to senior officials at the Man Investment Group, backers of the Man Booker Prize. They declined, being in the midst of preparations to launch the Man Booker International Prize. Furthermore, relatively few novels were being published from Asia. In 2005, Vittachi attended the Vogel prize ceremony, an award for unpublished manuscripts in Australia. On his return to Hong Kong, he combined that idea with his journal's slogan, and proposed the creation of a prize for works as yet unpublished in English. After making an impassioned speech to the Man Group's board of directors in January 2006, he secured their agreement to fund the Man Asian Literary Prize. But other individuals involved told him that as an Asian author he should be trying to win the prize, not administering it or judging it. A panel of judges from outside Asia was appointed. The dispute hit international headlines with allegations of racial insensitivity. He is also noted for his role in founding the Asia Literary Review, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and was the chairman of the judges of the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in 2008.
Personal life
Vittachi fled Sri Lanka due to political persecution in 1960, when he was 2. He mentioned that many people supported and gave advice in his trip. One policeman said via phone "The police is coming. You better go." He later went to Britain and met his girlfriend Mary Lacey-Vittachi. They married in 1987. They went to HK the same year for their honeymoon and stayed there since. He currently lives in Hong Kong with his wife and their three adopted Chinese children, Lexi, Kelci and Jem. His father is the Sri Lankan journalist Tarzie Vittachi; his uncle, the late Dr V.P. Vittachi, was a major shareholder of the biggest conglomerate in Sri Lanka, the Stassen Group.
