Joyceyland

Happy New Year!

2012-01-23T11:00:00.000+08:00

Everyone's complaining of the cold, but I love it. It's holiday weather.
Yesterday morning, we went out to buy flowers, fruits and candies for the home. We spent the day cooking, eating, laughing and playing with the newest addition to our family.
Last night, I put up red banners with four-character sayings on my front door. Roughly, they say "four seasons of peace and safety," "success from the East and the West," and "welcoming the spring with good fortune." (The New Year is also called the Spring Festival in Chinese).
I'll be visiting family and going to an ancestral village. So I'll be on a blogging holiday for a few days. I only have about a week before I return to full-time work and I want to spend every free moment with my loved ones before I get really busy again.
Best wishes to everyone in the Year of the Dragon. May the New Year bring happiness and good health to you and your families.

Wiki and LOLCats at risk?

2012-01-20T12:05:00.005+08:00

Two days ago, Wikipedia went dark to protest proposed U.S. legislation that might block the good work that they do.
They are the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate.
On the face of it, the proposed American laws seem to have good intentions -- to cut down on privacy and copyright infringement.
On the other hand, there's concern that too much policing will constrain free speech and social media, and impact popular resources like Wikipedia, which I think we all use almost daily.
Backing the legislation are mostly corporations and the producers of movies and music. Nike -- a company that depends greatly on its brand name -- is for it.
Against the legislation are Internet giants like Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, etc. I put Wikipedia in a separate category because it's a non-profit service supported by charitable donations and run by volunteers. Many times, people forget that.

The debate calls into question who owns what. Obviously, if I opened a Dongguan factory that produced fake Nike goods, and advertised it with a fake Nike website, that's a clear violation. But what if I just want to write about Nike on my blog and use their swish symbol? What if I link to another site that (without my knowledge) sells fake Nike goods? Given the inter-connected nature of the Internet, should you be held accountable for everything you link to?
Even if monitoring is doing in good faith -- will that add a layer of expense and delay that will slow down online chatter?
Joining Wikipedia in its protest were smaller sites like Reddit, Boing Boing, I Can Haz Cheezburger and some WordPress blogs. And since Joyceyland has been a rather serious place recently, let's lighten our morning with a little Hugo LOLCat. C'mon, U.S. Senate -- would you block something this cute?

Why SOPA isn't the Great Firewall
Evan Osnos at The New Yorker's China blog wrote about the reaction in a country that really has some serious blocks to free speech. I like Evan's blog because he scours Chinese sites to come up with gems of comments like this one:

“I’ve come up with a perfect solution: You can come to China to download all your pirated media, and we’ll go to America to discuss politically sensitive subjects.”

But, of course, SOPA isn't the Great Firewall. It's not even close. That's because America, for all its faults, is still one of the freest countries in the world for speech. SOPA's critics have called this a fight over the First Amendment, which protects the freedoms of speech, religion, press, peaceful assembly and the ability to petition the government for the redress of grievances. And I honestly don't think the proponents of these laws want to shut down free speech.
In China, we often hear of the government talking about shutting down dangerous online activities, scams, porn, etc. -- but many people doubt whether those are really their main targets, or if it's political discourse they are actually after.
In the U.S., I think Nike just wants to look out after Nike -- the laws are not a thinly veiled attempt to keep people from criticizing President Obama or the Afghan war.
Plus, legislation in American (and Canada, and Europe, and democratic Asian countries like Japan) don't just magically pop up. They have to be proposed and publicized and debated. They have to be approved by elected officials. This is a longer, messier process, but it's a fairer one in the end.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Wikipedia's protest encouraged 8 million people to look up their congressional representatives. If anything, this whole exercise has encouraged many people to be involved in local government.
4.5 million people signed a Google petition against the proposals. 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets were sent in the first half-day of the protest on Wednesday.
Not surprisingly, some of those U.S. officials looked at the huge, negative reaction -- from the people who elect them to office, pay their salaries, and decide whether they can keep their jobs a few years down the line -- and changed their minds.
“The Wikipedia blackout is over and the public has spoken,” Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said in a statement. “162 million of you saw our blackout page asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge. You said no. You shut down the congressional switchboards, and you melted their servers. Your voice was loud and strong.”
I don't know if SOPA and PIPA will go through -- as someone outside the U.S., I feel a little helpless in this regard, as I can't contact my elected official about this. I hope they won't -- at least, not in a form that can constrict speech -- and I don't think they will.
I wonder if Chinese netizens will ever get the Great Firewall to "melt" in this same way.

Don't trust everything you read online

2012-01-19T22:49:00.001+08:00

Just a note to readers coming here from blog comments on other sites. For some reason, someone is posting stuff under my name. As you all know, anyone can use anyone else's tag or URL in an un-moderated blog.
So take it with a grain of salt. If I have something to say, I will say it here on my own site -- which is the only place you have a 100% guarantee that it's actually me.
Now that that bit of online silliness is taken care of... I'm off to bed!

A laisee / hongbau reminder

2012-01-16T09:04:00.009+08:00

From The People's Daily website. Yes, I found something I liked on People's Daily -- this photo of an elderly street-cleaner playing with his grandchild.
A gweilo friend emailed and asked for advice on how to handle laisee. I told him he didn't have to worry much about it -- after all, he didn't have Chinese family, and that's where all your big laisee-giving goes. I advised him to just give a few envelopes with HK$20 to security guards and cleaning ladies.
And now I take that back.
Most Hong Kong middle-class people give generously -- double packets of HK $100, $500 or more -- to their own families, who are also pretty well off.
Most professional Hong Kongers also get Chinese New Year bonuses -- usually a minimum of one month's salary, which is many, many times greater than what that Chinese streetcleaner will ever see.
Both Hong Kongers and rich Chinese visitors are busy splashing out on expensive meals, vacations and other luxuries. Looking at this photo makes me think that maybe -- once a year -- we should be a bit more giving than just tossing spare change at the people who clean for us, open doors for us, and keep us safe all year round.
Witnessing the mad spending by madly affluent tourists (mostly mainland officials and state-linked businesspeople) makes me think that there should be more to this holiday than just line-ups outside Canton Road luxury shops done up with tacky red decorations.
Plus, who wants to get caught up in a Dolce & Gabbana protest?
Giving to charity is a long-time Christmas tradition. Maybe we should do the same on the Eve of the Year of the Dragon, too.

Moderating comments for now

2012-01-14T12:08:00.002+08:00

When I comment on sites like The Peking Duck and The China Law Blog -- or occasionally, when Roland Soong at EastSouthWestNorth links back to me -- I sometimes get a few nasty comments from those who troll China-related blogs. This is no criticism of those three sites. (I know that Richard at Peking Duck struggles with containing his very popular comments page, while the ever-wise Roland doesn't allow any comments at all.)
Generally, trolls don't bother with Joyceyland, since it's mostly a personal blog, not a political one. As I work in the news media, I will sometimes write about current events, and not without humor. (I mean, come on. If an American official was accused of poisoning a millionaire with cat stew, we'd make fun of him, too).
Anyway, this morning, I wake up to find a lovely comment on my Happy New Year post about my "half-white child," which I deleted. Apparently, I shouldn't be "showing her off." (Though, I presume, a Chinese child can be shown? What is this? The Antebellum South?) This was followed by other nonsense about whites, half-races, Hong Kongers, overseas Chinese and -- I guess -- anyone who isn't a "pure Chinese," plus a bunch of stuff I'm not repeating here. A while back, I got a similarly disparaging comment about my "white husband." It was, of all things, on an apolitical post about Marc running the Hong Kong Marathon.
The comment was as outdated as someone telling a black woman with a white husband that she shouldn't show photos of her "mulatto" child. Apparently, the comment was copied from another blog. Who knows? I don't have time to go policing the whole Internet.
But, for now, I'm going to be moderating comments. There are political bloggers who spend all day arguing with these folk, policing the comment boards, and trying to figure out whom to block, whom not to block, which trolls come back via proxies, etc. I can't bother. As a new mom preparing to go back to full-time work, I don't have tons of free time. And I don't want upset and negativity taking up any extra space in my brain. This is a mostly positive, personal blog. The rules are clearly stated on the right.
I do still encourage comments -- and they are still open to everyone, including anonymous posters, some of whom are as funny, sweet and clever as my regular readers. It will just take a little more time for me to get to them. And I still encourage people to disagree with me. I'm not always right, and I like hearing the other side of arguments. Why most of the "pro-China" crowd can't make their arguments without personal attacks, I'll never understand. Many more people would listen to them if they could.
***
I could just keep the personal stuff on my Facebook page. But I like writing about the curiosity that is Hong Kong life, and Blogger allows me the length to do that. I'm particularly happy when I get visitors from overseas who may or may not know about Asian culture. And I think people enjoy the lighter parts of my blogs. Who doesn't want a cute baby or kitty photo?
On the other hand, I'm not going to self-censor my opinions on the news, or stop reposting the work I do for the I.H.T. or New York Times. There's no reason to do so. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, including moms!
But I also have to respect that I blog openly -- and that the child's loving father, grandparents, uncles and aunts come to this site. They don't deserve to read nastiness about someone in their family. I just can't believe that, in the 21st century, I still have to write a post like this.
***
Here is a Chinese New Year tradition my family follows: Before the New Year, you clean house. You do this physically -- you scrub the floors, you throw out the unused crap from your closet, you make sure everything is nice and tidy. But you also do so in less physical ways. You clean up your financial books and pay off debts or dues. You make peace with friends or family you may have been arguing for feuding with.
In the West, the New Year comes with resolutions -- promises for the future. The Chinese New Year is about starting with a clean slate. Really, those two ideas are not so different.
So let's say that I'm throwing out the trash -- the small minority of comments that add nothing to this site. They are going out the door, along with my old cardigan with a hole in it, the overflowing recycling bin and (hopefully) those extra few inches that somehow found themselves on my waist.
Here's to what I hope is another happy year of living and blogging.

This is what you get for eating cats

2012-01-05T06:59:00.002+08:00

Ugh. This was not the first news story I wanted to read this morning over my breakfast cereal.

OK, it's not major news. But, sweet Jesus. If the Chinese are wondering why negative stereotypes still abound, it's because of stories like this -- greedy tycoons and potentially murderous government officials dining on what most civilized people consider cute household pets. From the BBC:

Police have detained a local official in Guangdong province in connection with the sudden death of Long Liyuan on 23 December.
The official, Huang Guang, is suspected of adding a toxic plant to the stew at a restaurant where they were eating.
A police statement said the two were involved in a dispute after Mr Huang allegedly embezzled money from Mr Long.
Mr Huang, an agriculture official in Bajia, took Mr Long, who ran a forestry company, to visit a piece of woodland on 23 December, said the statement.
Afterwards, the two went to a local restaurant to share a local delicacy, slow-boiled cat-meat stew. A friend of Mr Long's was also present.
Mr Huang is alleged to have added the plant Gelsemium elegans to the cat-meat dish.
Local media say Mr Long was taken to hospital after feeling dizzy and sick, and later suffered a cardiac arrest.
However the other two diners survived.
Police initially detained the owner of the restaurant on suspicion of serving unsanitary food, AP news agency said.
However Mr Long's family did not believe it was a simple case of food poisoning and pressed police to investigate further as well as offering a $16,000 reward for information, the agency said.

And on a happier new year's note...

2012-01-01T13:33:00.001+08:00

Top, in my "breastfeeding chair" in the early days, when I was exhausted feeding my underweight infant every two or three hours, 24 hours a day. Looking back, I can't believe how scrawny she was. Bottom, a much plumper, healthier Baby Chloe hangs out with her big brother Hugo the Cat, who looks like he's seriously coveting the bouncy chair and teddy bear.

2011 was an awful year in news, but a wonderful one for us personally.
I found out I was pregnant on Christmas Day 2010 -- a result that was confirmed at the ob-gyn's office right around New Year.
Most of 2011 was taken up by my pregnancy, which was not easy at times.
Now we have our beautiful, funny, smiley darling to bring us into the new year.
All the best to you and your families.

* I should not have to say this, but please don't re-use photos from this blog, particularly not personal ones of my family. I heard of someone else who had their kid's picture re-used for a paid advertisement without her consent!

The Lau Family & The Christmas Deities

2011-12-24T12:22:00.003+08:00

I grew up with the idyllic New England Christmas of snow-frosted wooden signs, rosy-cheeked carolers and midnight Mass. Even our neighbors' home decorations were relentlessly quaint -- fairy lights, flickering candles, and hand-woven wreaths. Dads dragged home live Christmas trees smelling of fresh pine, while Moms baked turkeys and hams and pies.
In the midst of all this WASP-y good taste was the Lau Family Christmas Tree, a large some-assembly-required plastic model from Sears -- adorned with ornaments, plus tinsel, plus popcorn strings we made ourselves, plus multi-colored flashing lights. In case our neighbors couldn't see it, we put it right up next to the French windows that lined two walls of our living room. Plus, our house was on a hill, so tree could shine down on the rest of the street -- the Hong Kong immigrant disco-ball of a Yuletide celebration blinking and throbbing, its rainbow-colored lights reflecting off the snow.
Nobody celebrated Christmas like we did -- literally, since nobody else in Simsbury would mix up Santa with the Kitchen God.
Of course, we didn't literally mix them up. We knew the Kitchen God visited the night before Lunar New Year to inspect your home and bestow his domestic blessings, which is why Chinese households do a major spring cleaning before each holiday -- in the old days, people even threw out old furniture.
But after years of cross-cultural living, mythologies get mixed, and Mom started doing pre-Christmas clean-outs, too, to prepare the home for Santa's inspection and blessing. Explanations that Santa wasn't judgmental like Chinese deities fell on deaf ears. After all, didn't he have a list of who was naughty and nice?
And didn't the rest of it fall into place? The cookies and milk left by the hearth were directly in line with an offering of food to the Gods, only Western spirits preferred chocolate chips to oranges, which was probably why they were so round.
Think of American Christmas celebrations from an outsider's point-of-view. An elderly spirit dressed in lucky red is carried through the sky by mythical animals. He enters your home and consumes an offerings of sweets. He makes a moral judgment on your family, and fills the empty pouches you've hung from the chimney -- treats for the good and a lump of coal for the bad. Under a symbol of growth and renewal, he leaves an appropriate blessing of gifts.
"Dear Joyce," said the annual letter, written in my mother's fine cursive. "You were a good girl this year. Love, Santa." And tucked into it would be my Christmas laisee.
My brother and I are now in our 30s. Now that we have children of our own, the Lau tradition continues. While the rest of Hong Kong fights over overpriced restaurant meals, we will stay home to have a quiet turkey dinner, as we always have.
The helper and I have spent our morning making apple sauce and trimming Brussels sprouts. The same creche I had as a girl, dragged from continent to continent over the decades, has been set out, even if Hugo the Cat keeps trying to eat the Baby Jesus.
The gifts are wrapped and waiting under the plastic tree for Santa's blessing. The stockings are ready for their Christmas laisee.
A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Art development job offer

2011-12-21T09:37:00.000+08:00

The AAA is a great resource -- one I've used many times for researching my articles. It also looks like a sunny, pleasant, calming, rewarding place to work.

I'm just passing on the below job ad. Please don't cc:d the messenger! Contact details for the job are at the bottom.

***

Asia Art Archive, one of the world’s leading public resources for contemporary Asian art, seeks an accomplished professional to assist the Head of Development. The individual will work closely with the operations and development teams to support organisational development needs. This is an exciting opportunity to gain substantial arts administration and development experience in a dynamic organisation at the centre of the regional contemporary art scene.

In addition to day-to-day development duties, responsibilities include:
• Liaising with existing and potential corporate and individual patrons
• Thinking creatively about new/improved ways to encourage the community to actively support AAA
• Thinking of innovative ways to engage the younger community
• Organising and involvement in the execution of fundraising events
• Preparing applications for government and institutional grants
• Managing reports to funders
• Preparing funding analysis reports and monitoring budgets
• Assisting with development programmes

The ideal candidate should be polite, out-going, motivated, passionate, organised, and articulate and will possess:
• A degree in the arts or related discipline
• Excellent organisational skills and ability to coordinate multiple projects at a time
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (both written and spoken)
• Flexible attitude and willingness to put in extra time in the evenings and on weekends
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Photoshop
• Excellent command of spoken and written English and Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin)
• Work experience in the contemporary art field an advantage
• A strong understanding of the art scene and life in Hong Kong is crucial

To apply, please send a cover letter and resume with salary requirements, as well as a reference to anjali@aaa.org.hk
Closing date for applications: 16th January. Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.

Eveningwear for sale

2011-12-01T16:31:00.002+08:00

Who needs eBay when I have Joyceyland?
O.K., that's not quite true. eBay gets millions of hits and I get, like, two. But eBay has rejected me, presumably on grounds that I'm a Chinese scam-artist peddling fake goods. www.designergowns.hk
doesn't seem to be working. And I don't know any good second-hand shops in Hong Kong selling such high-quality items. Though, if you do -- please let me know where.
So here it goes. If anyone is looking for beautiful eveningwear for the holiday season and happens to be my size (or, ahem, my pre-baby size), drop me an email.
***
I bought these outfits for my wedding and never wore them. No, I wasn't stood up at the aisle.
The Shanghai Tang outfit was replaced at the last minute when an elderly aunt looked in a cardboard box under her bed and found an exquisite vintage piece -- a 1950s hand-embroidered "kwa" or Cantonese-styled wedding top, with gold thread pounded into the black silk. So I chose the family heirloom instead, as anyone would.
As for the peach satin gown, I ended up wearing the exact same cut -- only in ivory -- as my wedding dress. The ivory one is stored in my wooden wedding chest and will stay there forever -- maybe, it will be Baby Chloe's wedding dress someday.
The peach one was supposed to go back to Seibu -- but I forgot or something. So that has also been left, unworn, in my closet. I was much more cavalier with money back in those days!

Shanghai Tang, 100% silk, full-length Chinese robe / jacket.
From the Shanghai Tang flagship store on Pedder St., Central, Hong Kong.
U.S. size 6. Never worn. (I'm 5 ' 1" and it comes down to my ankles)
Silver-gold embroidery depicts flowers and lucky coins. Inside silk lining is the same silver-gold color.
Has six traditional butterfly clasps, and slits up the sides for ease of movement.
Pair it with black silk trousers and high heels for a different twist on eveningwear.
Selling for HK $2,500 or US $320.

ABS by Allan Schwartz. Peach-colored satin full-length gown.
From Seibu, Pacific Place, Hong Kong.
U.S. size 4. (I'm 5'1" and it goes down to the floor)
Never worn. Original tags in place.
Strapless.
Steel boning under the bodice. Gathering on one side of the waist makes the nipped-in waist look smaller. Skirt is cut in a gentle A-line.
Original price HK $2,650. Now selling for HK $1,200, or US $150.

Hong Kong job offer

2011-11-30T19:19:00.002+08:00

The Hong Kong Human Rights Press Awards is looking for a coordinator.

It is a paid, part-time contract position that runs from January to late April or early May.

The project is co-organized by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club, Amnesty International (Hong Kong) and the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

Requirements

* Fluent spoken and written English

* Fluent written Chinese and spoken Cantonese and / or Putonghua

* Education or job experience in one of these fields: journalism, media, rights or NGO work

* Ability to be highly organized and work independently

* Basic online skills -- for example, updating a blog -- are a plus

* Experience with fundraising is also a plus

Job Description

You will:

* be the point person between the three organizing bodies, and take direction from various staff

* contact media to encourage them to submit their work

* coordinate meetings with our panel of judges

* do administrative and office work

* help organize an awards luncheon

* Hours would be flexible -- some weeks will be busier than others, but you will be expected to organize your own time.

* You would work out of one of the organizing bodies' offices, though some of the work can also be done at home.

To apply, send a cover letter and cv to the FCC at fcc@fcchk.org, attention Ms. Chan Hoi-lo.

Please note "Rights Award Job Application" in the subject field.

You can also contact me at the email on the right-hand side of this blog if you have questions.

Why has eBay rejected me?

2011-11-24T20:15:00.002+08:00

I should add a blogging label called Help! Joyce Is Tech-Clueless. I feel like I'm always asking my blogging friends for advice, whether it's on buying a smartphone for my dad, buying a Kindle for myself, fixing Mac upgrade problems or figuring out Googe AdSense -- which, by the way, still has not paid me anything.
My latest problem? I've been rejected by eBay.
I've been clearing out closet space to make room for baby stuff. (The extra bedroom we used to use for storing our clothes, shoes and bags is now the nursery). I also have a bit -- a tiny bit -- of extra free time between feeds, since I'm a stay-at-home mom now. This is a good opportunity to go through our piles of junk, before I head back to work and get really busy.
Most of the stuff -- like clothes that don't fit -- I'll give to the helper or to charity.
But for a long time, I've meant to sell two beautiful pieces of full-length evening wear: one gown in peach-colored satin, one 100% silk Chinese-styled robe from Shanghai Tang. They were bought for my wedding -- oy, that is long ago, five years -- and never worn.
So I logged into my long-inactive eBay account to post them. And I got this error:

Your account is currently ineligible to sell this type of item.
Some items are subject to selling limits which help us maintain a vibrant online marketplace. These limits affect many sellers.
Sellers who have both exceptional performance metrics and a proven history of selling similar types of items for a minimum of 90 days may be eligible to list these items.

What's up with that? I went through their list of forbidden and restricted items -- like human parts, live animals, Nazi propaganda, guns, etc. -- and Shanghai Tang jackets are definitely not on there.
Does anyone have a clue what's going on?
By the way, I'm using the U.S. eBay site. The English-language Hong Kong eBay site seems to be under construction.

Is it wrong to say I'm bored? Should I write a novel?

2011-11-08T11:14:00.010+08:00

I've finally emerged from the fog of the first two months of motherhood.
For a while, when Chloe was feeding every 2-3 hours round the clock, it took all my effort just to find time to eat and catch a few hours of sleep. I'm glad I'm nursing her naturally, but nobody tells you how hard it is. I would sometimes go for 48 hours without changing out of my PJs or leaving the flat. It is a strangely isolating and mind-numbing experience.
It's better now. She still feeds every 3 hours all day, but at least she usually sleeps through the night, except for waking up once to feed around 3 am. It's funny that I'm so happy about this -- that I've reached the dizzying heights of actually getting 4 or 5 hours of consecutive sleep.
The first month, I was too tired to feel much except for love for my baby, and extreme fatigue.
But now that Chloe is 2.5 months and I am (relatively) more rested, I am beginning to feel restless.
I remember a few friends telling me about the boredom of early motherhood. At the time, I thought it a cold-hearted thing to say. What mother would be bored with her child? But now I understand.
The baby, as lovely as she is, can barely communicate. There are a few moments of sunshine -- when she looks at me and smiles, or when I take her to the park. But a 2-month-old baby only "plays" one or twice day and for about an hour max, before she cries to be fed or coaxed to sleep again. The grand majority of the time is spent nursing, spitting up milk, napping, wetting diapers and crying.

So I have these odd pockets of free time when I'm just sitting at home alone, when the baby is asleep or with the amah.
As someone who's never had house help, spending 9 hours a day with no adult company except for a Filipina helper is very weird. She's nice -- and I am thankful for the help -- but I don't know what to say to her all day.
I've also never gone any period of time without working.
(I fully acknowledge that motherhood is hard work -- Here I mean paid work outside the house.)
I started freelancing when I was 19 and never stopped writing. The only break I took off work was six months to do a journalism program, so it's not like I was lounging on the beach.
And while I'm eternally grateful that my company has allowed me an extended maternity leave -- a rarity in Hong Kong -- time off is strange to me.

Because my free time is just an hour here, an hour there, I can't do any serious work -- I can't imagine researching or writing an IHT article.
I'm too tired to really focus. I can do mindless stuff, like reading the paper, surfing online or casual blogging, but can I really do a proper feature story now?
Before I had the baby, I had all these plans on what else I could do with my half-year off work. Helpful (childless) friends had all sorts of recommendations -- like brushing up on my poor Mandarin, helping a volunteer group, joining exercise classes, or reading more books.
In fact, since I announced my maternity leave on this blog, I've gotten a few offers for paid freelance work, all of which I've turned down. Working professionally is very different from blogging -- it means being able to respond promptly to an editor's phone calls and emails; hitting word counts and deadlines; and doing rewrites as needed -- and I don't feel up to it yet.
That said, I'm also itching for some intellectual stimulation -- to put pen to paper again.
I've been thinking of participating in National Novel Writing Month, or nanowrimo, a U.S. online project that encourages amateur writers to finish a novel in the month of November. It would let me work at my own pace. But more on that later. It's baby feeding time again.

I almost forgot about "The Opium War"

2011-11-05T13:48:00.002+08:00

Dear God. This article came out months ago. I must have totally forgotten about it. Though I forgive myself this time, as it looks like the NYT / IHT ran it the day before I gave birth, so I was already in the hospital. It's a good book for any history or China buff -- highly recommended.

Highlighting Differences in Interpretations of the Opium War

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

The New York Times. August 18, 2011

HONG KONG — Julia Lovell’s book tour for “The Opium War” sailed along the historic path of the conflict itself.
The book was introduced last month in Hong Kong, a city whose modern history began when it was handed to Britain after China’s defeat in the first Opium War in 1842, marking the start of 155 years as a prosperous crown colony.
Fourteen years after returning to Beijing’s control, the city still bears the hallmarks of that conflict.
The convention center where the Hong Kong Book Fair attracted 950,000 visitors sits on a harbor still dedicated to Queen Victoria, the reigning monarch during the Opium War. The labyrinthine streets around the SoHo district are still named after Lord Elgin, a high commissioner to China; Sir George Staunton, who worked for the British East India Company; and Henry Pottinger, the colony’s first British governor.
“This is where the story starts,” Ms. Lovell said.
Her Hong Kong hotel suite had a view of Jardine’s Lookout, which commemorates William Jardine, an opium agent and one of the founders of the powerful trading company known today as Jardine Matheson Holdings. “Hong Kong’s origins are steeped in opium,” Ms. Lovell said. “For better or for worse, Hong Kong would not be what it is today without the Opium Wars.”
Her tour continued onto Singapore and India, also former colonies whose modern histories were entwined in the violent drug trade.


	Cambridge University Library A view of a street in Canton, a major site of hostilities during the Opium War.

“The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China,” which will be released by Picador in Britain in September, is more than just a history. It examines why the 19th-century conflict still holds so much weight in 21st-century China, while it is regarded as little more than a textbook chapter in other places it touched, like Hong Kong, Singapore, India and Britain. By looking at the conflict from a contemporary viewpoint, “The Opium War” offers insight into an Asian superpower still uneasy with its trade relations with the West.



Photo courtesy Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

With almost 100 pages of maps, notes, timelines and footnotes, “The Opium War” moves along with a quick pace and simple language. Parts are even dryly humorous in describing the absurdities of war: There was no lack of greed, racist stereotyping, bureaucratic bumbling, infighting and aggression on both sides. There are also about 50 photographs and illustrations, showing everything from opium dens (in both China and London) to depictions of China in Western pop culture, like a 1932 publicity poster with the actor Boris Karloff playing the character Fu Manchu in yellow-face.
Peter Gordon, editor of the Asian Review of Books, called “The Opium War” a “good and, importantly, very readable book.”
“What stands out, in my view, is how realistic, and human, the protagonists on both sides seem,” he said in an interview.
According to Mr. Gordon, the questions in Hong Kong were mostly about “the differing ways Chinese, Hong Kong and British people — and the author herself — view history today.”
The legacy of the Opium War, which was actually made up of two conflicts, looms large in mainland China, where it is an integral part of “patriotic education” and is still invoked in political discourse. When President Hu Jintao spoke during the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party last month, it was one of the first events he mentioned.
“In the 170 plus years since the Opium War of 1840, our great country has weathered untold hardships,” Mr. Hu said, according to a translation of his speech by Xinhua, the state news agency. “Following the Opium War, China gradually became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and foreign powers stepped up their aggression against China,” he added.
“It is a useful event marking the beginning of a century of humiliation that ends, inevitably, with Communist victory,” Ms. Lovell explained.
A University of London history professor and translator of Chinese literary works, Ms. Lovell began researching “The Opium War” in 2007 while she was a visiting scholar at Peking University.
She mined archival Chinese-language materials, like official correspondence between emperors and generals, as well as poems, essays and fiction. She also interviewed textbook writers and students in patriotic education classes.
“The Opium Wars were taught with a depressing Power Point presentation about the British pushing deep into China,” she said of a high-school class she attended in Beijing. “It was highly emotional in tone, and was accompanied by gloomy music. It was portrayed as the tragedy of modern China.”
In a survey of historic textbooks from England and China, Ms. Lovell found that there was initial shame over the opium trade in her home country, but that the conflict quickly faded into the broader history of British colonialism and imperialism.
In China, the opposite happened. The big stories of the 19th century were civil wars like the Taiping Rebellion, not foreign ones. It was only in the years between the two world wars — when Mao Zedong’s Communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists were battling for control — that the Opium War became a handy propaganda tool. It was spun as “the beginning of a longstanding, ongoing Western conspiracy against China,” Ms. Lovell said.
Some of those sentiments remain today.
“If the West criticizes China, the state media can push what I call ‘the Opium War button’ even if they don’t actually mention the war: It reminds the Chinese people that the West has always been full of schemes to undermine China,” she said. As examples, she cited Beijing’s response to Western reactions to the arrest of the artist Ai Weiwei, or the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the writer Liu Xiaobo.
What struck Ms. Lovell was the ambivalence, even self-criticism, of some of the young Chinese undergoing patriotic education.
“Students would stand up and say ‘It was our fault. We were high on opium. We were weak and backwards,”’ she said. “There was a sense that the Chinese were victims, but there was also self-disgust.”
Ms. Lovell also met with some of the angry nationalist youth called the “fenqing,” who are known for their anti-Western sentiments.
“The fenqing are a contradiction you can’t reason away,” she said. “One told me he was ready to send an army to the British Museum to take back looted treasures. When our talk was over, he asked me for advice, as he was going to an interview to attend a British university.”
“China exhibits self-confidence, but also a sense of insecurity and inferiority,” she said. “Because if you are really confident, you don’t need that external validation. That’s why Nobel Prizes, or the Olympics, are so important: China feels that it needs international face.”
Her own interest in China began when she studied Chinese at Cambridge.
“I read that, during the Ming Dynasty, there were more books in China than in the rest of the world combined,” she said. “By studying Chinese, I felt like I was opening up something extraordinary and intimidatingly complex.”
She paused when asked if she felt that the Chinese version of Opium War history was inaccurate.
“The British national character is portrayed very negatively in Chinese textbooks, which is right and proper,” she said. “The British are ashamed of our imperial past: the racism, massacres and involvement in the slave trade. But we’ve somehow overlooked our role as opium traders.”
But she implied that Beijing’s version was one-sided in its black-and-white portrayals of patriotic Chinese resisters and manipulative British drug-pushers.
“The problem with these Chinese textbooks is not one of accuracy, per se, but of balance. China’s education system spends far more time remembering the Opium Wars than the traumas of Communism, such as the man-made famine that killed tens of millions, and the crackdown of 1989,” she said. “It offers a skewed sense of history.”

Another round of our dinky elections

2011-11-04T13:00:00.003+08:00

For "Asia's world city," we've got pretty dinky elections.
We can't vote for our chief executive. He's like Hong Kong's president, I guess, only much dinkier and prone to wearing bowties. He's chosen by a small committee of elites with business and political ties to that great big non-democracy to the North -- so, essentially, he's hand-picked by Communist Party heads in Beijing. Some free society this is.
We also can't vote for about half of Legislature -- a situation that is neither here nor there.
So, when we get a chance to vote for the measly other half of Legco that is not chosen by business interests, I at least try to show up.
The last thing I voted in were the 2010 by-elections. Loyal Joyceyland readers may remember that I let Hugo the Cat decide. That's how poor the candidates were.
Now we're in the run-up for District Council elections. In my mailbox, I found a candidate list so amateurish, it looks like it was drawn up by some kid running for high school class president. No, I take that back. In the States, high school races can be pretty sophisticated.
Here are my choices for West Kowloon:

#1. Chu King leung Alaric Bazanio, 53
People Power Party
The "leung" is lower case because that's the sloppy way in which he hand-wrote his name on his candidate card.
I have received no correspondence from him -- not a pamphlet, not an email. I Googled him and found zero online presence. All I know is that the People Power Party is a recently formed splinter group from the pro-democracy camp. Other than that, I have no idea what this guy's platform is.
Not only did he fail to set up a simple website -- or at least one I could find easily -- he apparently couldn't bother to find a computer to type up his candidate card. Or a typewriter. Or capitalize letters properly. His job title is written "legislative Councilor Assit". I wouldn't hire him as an English tutor, much less choose him for elected office.
First impressions count, and the lack of effort is not good.

#2. James To Kun-sun, 48
Democratic Party
James seems to be trying more than Alaric, though that's not saying much.
He's sent me two emails and set up two websites, one in Chinese and one in English, that are unintentionally humorous, they are so earnest. The top post is called "My First Poster." It's like some kid saying "Look, Momma! I drew my first poster at school! It's a flower."
But he gets an A for effort. There are signs around the neighborhood and sweet elderly ladies handing out bilingual pamphlets in Olympic MTR. As far as I can tell, his party is the only one with English materials, which is not stupid considering the area's quickly changing demographic: Our neighbors are Indian, the family across the hall is Korean, and that whole ICC complex is filled with expat office workers. For some reason, there are an inordinate number of Japanese housewives who shop at Elements.
At least James has something of a platform. He clearly took time to figure out real local concerns, like that weird garbagey smell that comes from the harbor, or the fact that useful local businesses are being priced out to the inconvenience of residents. I think of district councillors as something like mini-mayors who take care of stuff like this. There used to be a small grocery, stationary shop and bakery next to my home, and they have all closed. I wait with baited breath to see if my local laundry will be next.
James -- save the laundry and get rid of that weird smell, and you have my vote.
He also has stated opinions on larger issues, like democratic reform. Whether you like what he has to say, at least he has something to say.

#3. Lau Kai Kit Vincent, 40
Liberal Party
Like our friend Alaric, this guy has no obvious online presence except for a one-sentence mention in a Standard article.
I did get an email from him with a PDF attachment of a Chinese-language campaign poster. (Personally, I hate PDFs, but that is not his fault.) But I do hold it against him that he couldn't add two sentences in English.
Other than the usual political-babble on his poster, the most I know about him is that he is an ophthalmologist. If West Kowloon was hit by an eye-disease-related crisis, we'd be in good hands.
Here's Wikipedia's take on the Liberal Party: "[It] is an example of a political party with libertarian economic policies such as the opposition of a minimum wage, collective bargaining, and antitrust legislation.... The party does not advocate welfare entitlements."
So, it's basically a bunch of greedy rich guys? Considering that the West Kowloon voting district also covers areas like Shamshuipo, where some residents still need food donations, does this guy fit at all?
Saturday addendum: Vincent has sent me yet another Chinese-only email. And Liberal Party people have been standing in Olympian City mall for the last two days, though you can't really say they are canvassing exactly, since they have no pamphlets or materials, nor do they speak to anyone. They're basically human campaign posters staring inanely into space next to the Cafe de Coral. You know those pretty girls that shops employ to smile at customers, but who do nothing else? I encountered one at Broadway the other day -- she couldn't even tell me how a camcorder worked. Anyway, the Liberal Party people seem a little like that.

Once again, I am so underwhelmed I don't know what to say.
The first thing I ever voted in as the citizen of a free nation was the referendum on whether Quebec should separate. It was a close call. I highly doubt that it was my vote that did it -- that stopped separatists from breaking up the country. (Honestly, I think they would have failed even if they had won the vote, but that's a whole other blog post). But I remember feeling involved in a way that I never had in Hong Kong.
Still, I will be out on Sunday to vote. I may even wheel Chloe in for her first experience in a voting booth.

Who's afraid of the Hong Kong autumn?

2011-10-31T14:00:00.005+08:00

It's not the New England autumn of my childhood, with its falling leaves, but the Hong Kong fall is pretty nice.
(*Anyway, the Northeast is digging itself out of a freak snowstorm, so I've been feeling pretty lucky.)

For weeks, it has been sunny and in the mid-20s Celsius (or the 70s, for my American friends). The worst of the heat and humidity is gone, but it's still warm enough to go out in a T-shirt.
I try to take Chloe out every day in her stroller, even if just to the park and playground next to our building.
Slightly further afield, Marc has discovered a patch of grass that is actually not forbidden near our home, behind One Silver Sea and that new luxury development. The walk there is not entirely scenic -- there is, inexplicably, barbed wire and, inevitably, yet another construction site. But once you get past that, there's a square of well-tended emerald grass, trees and an ocean view.

The awkward walk is worth it when I see the bliss on my baby's face when she plays on the grass. She's just beginning to follow objects with her eyes, and can endlessly watch dappled sunlight and leaves moving in the wind. But shhhhh. I don't want the developers to read this blog and close the place off with more barbed wire.

I wonder why there are so few other children under the blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Our neighborhood is chock full of kids, and there are thousands of young families living within a 5-10 minute walk. But the patch of grass is empty except for one Eurasian toddler with a tricycle and a few poorly dressed old guys out fishing.
Even the sanitized playground near my building is mostly empty. The few kids there are with Filipina amahs or maybe grandparents, even on weekends and holidays. Occasionally, there are some gweilos.
I don't think this is entirely because Hong Kong parents have to work, since the shops are filled with young mothers eating, drinking, buying clothes and, one presumes, protecting their white skin. Strangely, many of them bring their children to the playground at night.
Where have all the babies gone? They all either at home, in the indoor play room or the awful, sunless mall -- with its low ceilings, crowds, stale air and blasting air con. Gangs of restless, pale youngsters hang out with their parents at Cafe de Coral (a local fast-food chain) and get reprimanded when they yell and run. It's not the kids' fault. I blame the parents for not bringing them somewhere with some space.
There's really no excuse. Hong Kong's parks and beaches are free to the public.
***
I don't care much for so-called childcare gurus. I always end up returning to the common sense of Dr. Benjamin Spock, the 20th-century pediatrician who penned the seminal book on childcare. He wrote:

"I grew up and practiced pediatrics in the northeastern part of the United States, where most conscientious parents took it for granted that babies and children should be outdoors for two to three hours a day. Children love to be outdoors, and it gives them pink cheeks and good appetites."

The most recent version of his book -- updated by current medical doctors -- dryly adds that body needs sunlight to make active vitamin D.
When Chloe was hospitalized for two nights with jaundice, my father wondered why so many Hong Kong babies are diagnosed with the same thing. Was it because mothers here don't get sunlight?
I didn't when I was pregnant -- I spent much of my days in an office. The hospital room I stayed in for 2 nights before Chloe's birth and 3 nights after was completely sunless -- I had a "window" that was actually a wall with an outdoor scene painted onto it. The nursery had no windows either, nor did the room where she was later treated for jaundice. I wonder if that had anything to do with it.
My Dad's belief is more than an old wives' tale. According to the Wikipedia entry on neonatal jaundice:

The use of phototherapy was discovered accidentally at Rochford Hospital in Essex, England. The ward sister of the premature baby unit believed that infants benefited from fresh air and sunlight in the courtyard. This led to the first noticing of jaundice being improved with sunlight. Further studies progressed when a vial of blood sent for bilirubin measurement sat on a windowsill in the lab for several hours. The results indicated a much lower level of bilirubin than expected based on the patient's visible jaundice.

My mother remembers the "plump English maternity nurse" at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. Never mind if the mothers were sore or tired from giving birth -- the nurse would march them out to the courtyard for fresh air every day -- which is exactly the opposite of what is done in hospitals here, where new Chinese mothers are treated like invalids. Mom says she's glad I had the good sense to be born in August, instead of in the Canadian winter.
If you look at baby pictures of me from the 70s, I was always naked and lying in a pool of sunshine. I began topless tanning early.
Looking back, I wonder if Chloe needed to be hospitalized at all. She didn't look jaundiced to my eye, or my parents' eye, and I think she was a mild case. She was miserable and frightened in that light-treatment thing. Maybe we should have left her on a windowsill instead.
****
When Marc's parents were here, we visited my brother and his wife in Discovery Bay. Chloe slept happily in her stroller, parked at a restaurant next to the sea.
My father takes his other granddaughter to the same area. "She loves to listen to the ocean," he says.
It works better than baby relaxation CDs with terrible names like "Ultra Sounds." (That's a real one I saw at HMV). Why use canned ocean sounds when you have the real thing?
At DB, Chloe got a tiny red bump on her cheek -- maybe a little scratch or bite from a small insect.
When we returned home, our building doorman reacted as if we had allowed wild animals to tear off one of her limbs.
"What's that on her face? You must be more careful!"
I don't know how he even saw it -- it was the size of a pin prick. She took no notice of it, and it faded after two days.
The girls who work in our complex are the same. They coo and ahh over Chloe, but then immediately look worried that something, anything, might be wrong.
I started taking Chloe to the park when she was a month old. It was September and very hot, and she was in a short-sleeved onesie.
One of the security girls said "Be careful, it's very hot and humid." Another said, "Be careful, it's getting cooler and dry these days." Which means that it was just about perfect, doesn't it?
Babies are not shy about their needs. If she was uncomfortable, she'd cry.

Babies are delicate, but she will not be blinded by a ray of sunlight, or catch a cold from a breeze. While it's important to have sunscreen and a sunhat, nobody will get skin cancer from being outside for 15 minutes -- though one almost wonders if Hong Kong women care more that their daughters not get "dark like a Filipina", as one mom warned me. (Though Eurasian, Chloe is not particularly white-skinned, which does not bother me in the least).
As delicate as baby skin is, she barely noticed the prick of grass against it. I was so delighted that she had begun to roll by herself at 2 months that I didn't even care that she got dirt on her outfit.
This is how I want her to grow up. I don't care if she ever becomes a doctor or a banker. I want her to be happy and fearless, not nervous and frightened of the great wide world outside. To use Dr. Spock's words, I want her to have pink cheeks and a good appetite for life.
I want her to jump and play in puddles when it rains.

Two months old, and already punching and kicking dad.

What's labor actually like?

2011-10-21T11:50:00.008+08:00

Before the great unknown of childbirth, I took a prenatal class, surfed online, read baby books and wrote a birth plan. And I fretted. I did a lot of that, too.
Despite my preparation, no source gave me a realistic first-person account of what labor actually feels like. There's tons of medical information. But I wanted someone to tell me in simple English -- what's it like? How much does it hurt? Will I be able to do it?
It's different for every woman. But in summary -- it's not nearly as bad as I thought. With an epidural it was 90% uncomfortable, 10% painful. And the recovery was not bad. I was about as sore as I would be after a day of hard exercise. I didn't even take Panadol.
If anyone out there is deciding between C-section and natural birth, and being told by unscrupulous Hong Kong doctors that they "won't be able to take the pain" (as I was told repeatedly), just let me say that it's not true. I heard every excuse in the book -- I was "high risk", "too fat", "too tiny" (if there was ever a contradiction in terms), "might be carrying twins" (I wasn't), "not strong enough" and "of advanced maternal age" (I'm in my mid-30s). A top Central doctor told my husband that "if he loved me, he would buy me the safest option -- a C section." We didn't end up using him.
According to the World Health Organization, natural birth is safer in the 80% of cases where there are no complications. It's better for both mom and baby, as there is no surgery, no cutting through layers of skin and muscle, no long recovery time, no antibiotics and fewer drugs.
I'm a wimp
Let's preface this by saying that I'm no super-athlete or natural birth activist who wants to go through pain.
I'm a very ordinary woman. I don't have particularly high tolerance or endurance. Sometimes I complain when Chinese massage gets too hard.
The same goes for the women in my family. So far as I know, all have had natural birth, from grandmas to aunts to cousins to my own mom. We are all petite and un-athletic, and we've somehow all survived it. If we can do it, you probably can, too.

Gratuitous picture of George Clooney. Dr. Jimmy Mak at Hong Kong Baptist Hospital is excellent, but he does not look like this. And -- warning to new dads -- their nurses are not quite like this either.

Don't trust Hollywood
Why are women terrified of birth? Because we grew up with the Hollywood / T.V. version, which goes something like this: Your waters break like a biblical flood. It's an emergency and you are rushed to the hospital. You're strapped to a gurney and wheeled through endless hallways while your husband and a doctor who looks like George Clooney run dramatically beside you. Now there's a cast of thousands yelling "Push! Push!" while you scream and flair in unspeakable agony.
Before, I thought "Push! Push!" was the whole thing. That's why I was horrified when I heard of 30-, 40-hour labors. I thought, "Go through THAT for 30 hours? You'd have to be insane."
The reality is that "Push! Push!" is just the bit at the end. For me it was 30-40 minutes. And you don't push the whole time. You take breaks.
In reality, it's slower, quieter and less dramatic.

Don't trust most private Hong Kong doctors either
T.V. and movie producers have a reason to dramatize labor -- they're there to make entertainment, not impart medical information. No audience wants to watch a woman lying around for hours.
So I forgive Hollywood -- but not Hong Kong doctors. I don't think medical professionals should be allowed to make up fake complications, engage in fearmongering, or push C-sections like they are selling any other product. One had a folder in his waiting room with skewed information showing all the potential complications of natural birth (none of which I encountered myself) and skipping the major risks and complications of surgery. If a woman wants a C-section, all power to her. But many in Hong Kong choose them out of fear and ignorance, because their doctors give them biased information.

Early labor
Here's what it felt like: Every 15-20 minutes, I had a tummy ache. Just a normal "Ow! I shouldn't have had that day-old sushi!" tummy ache.
Other than that, I felt normal.
I didn't even realize it was starting till I went in for a check-up at 38 weeks and Doctor Mak said my cervix was softening. Since Baby Chloe was small -- she had intrauterine growth retardation, or I.U.G.R., which is a fancy way of saying she hadn't grown much since week 36 -- Doctor Mak recommended that we induce labor to get her out and get some milk into her. (A baby is full-term at 38 weeks. Average gestation is 40 weeks.)
Had they not hooked me up to a fetal heart monitor, I would not have noticed. Yes, my tummy hurt. But between Braxton Hicks contractions, having a 15-pound weight squashing your internal organs out of place, and the baby kicking, your tummy hurts all the time at this point anyway.
When Marc and I took the prenatal class, we saw a video of American natural birth types taking walks through the sunset, hanging out on the couch, taking a bath and exercising with a ball, through early labor.
While this was clearly idealized, it wasn't crazy. Labor started out so mild that I could walk, talk, eat and drink more or less like normal. Now I understand why many women go through early labor in the comfort of their home, and only go the hospital when it gets bad.
Dr. Mak was cool, so I went home. With my helper, I walked to a cheap and cheerful Japanese place and had cold soba and veggie tempura for lunch. (Before any Chinese traditional type gives me grief over my lunch, I'd just like to say that I ate all manner of healthy juices, smoothies and salads -- all cold things -- through almost a year of pregnancy and breast-feeding, and didn't get sick once).
Marc and I finally checked into the hospital at 8pm and they gave me medicine to hopefully induce me by morning.
I ate light foods, like toast and yoghurt, and napped on and off.

This was Wednesday night. Nothing changed. All day Thursday was the same. Mom and Dad visited and dropped off healthy snacks. Dr. Mak held fast to my desire to avoid surgery, so we just waited.
I was bracing for pain, but not tedium. It was like being stuck on an extremely long economy class flight, when I can't sleep well, but I've already read every word of my magazines and feel a little crampy. (In preparation for birth, I'd saved up three issues of The New Yorker.)
Every few hours, a nurse would come in to measure something -- contractions, temperature, blood pressure -- or give me a cervical exam, which was uncomfortable but bearable.
In the maternity ward, one nurse wheels around a cart of painkillers and stops by every room and bed asking if you want some. I thought this was a bit much. I didn't even need a Panadol at this point.

The epidural
Finally, Friday morning, Dr. Mak said they would use an induction drip and get me into the delivery room. You can only let early labor go so long before it starts getting dangerous.
I knew from the beginning that I wanted an epidural. The anesthesiologist advised that it was best to get it set up early on, even if they didn't turn the drugs on right away.
You lie on your side and roll up in a ball, with your knees up to your chest and your chin down.
There's a small shot to numb the area first.
The insertion of the actual epidural feels like pressure, like someone pushing a thumb repeatedly into your back. You have to hold very still, but it's just uncomfortable, not painful. If you have a C-section, you go through this, too.
My personal tips:
Tip #1: If they ask you if you want the slow induction or the fast one, go for the fast one. Both a friend and I chose the "slow" route thinking it would be gentler, and ended up waiting for more than 24 hours.
Tip #2: Get the epidural. I've had several friends say they were going to tough it out without, and they ended up getting it in the end anyway. As a friend of mine said recently, "I love my epidural."
My anesthesiologist was a jolly, jocular Hong Kong guy who shrugged and said, "Why suffer?" Good point.
Tip #3: Get the epidural put in while you're still in early labor. They don't have to turn the meds on right away, but at least it's in place. I can't imagine trying to hold still once the real contractions start. Also, if you wait too long, it might be too late and then you really will be in pain.
Nobody can plan these things. I had nada happening for two days. Then in one hour, I dilated from 3 to 8 cm, meaning I went through most of my active labor in one intense shot. Once you hit 10 cm, you're ready to push the baby out.

Active labor
The aches got stronger and closer in frequency (10 minutes, then 5, then a few minutes). It would be incorrect to call them stomachaches, as it's not really the stomach. It's like a band tightening around your middle, from the abdomen to the lower back.
The hardest part is something called the "transition", which was about 8-10 cm dilation.
The anesthesiologist kept asking me how I was doing and just gave me "top ups" of medicine -- enough to keep me comfortable, but little enough that I could still wiggle my toes.
For about an hour, I held Marc's hand, closed my eyes and did yoga breathing through the pain. But that was it. No screaming, no yelling, no tears. Later, Marc told me he wasn't even sure if I was in pain. I was, but then the worst part was over.

Pushing
At about 8-10 cm, the anesthesiologist said he was going to turn off the pain meds. Those words struck of cord of fear, but it was unwarranted. They do that so that you can feel and use your legs, which makes pushing easier and faster. But there were still enough drugs in me so that it didn't really hurt.
They tilt the bed up so it's like a La-Z-Boy chair, and put your feet in stirrups. The midwife told me to lean forward, with my chin down to my chest, and hold onto handles under my knees.
This looks uncomfortable, but it's actually OK. It's just the best way to push. Not understanding Cantonese, Marc thought I was curled up in pain, but I was just following instructions.
At this point, all I felt was relief, because I knew the end was in sight.
There was no yelling and screaming because the midwife, who was excellent, told me to take a deep breath and hold it while pushing. If I made a noise, it was a sign that I had let out the breath and wasn't focusing my energies.
The pushes, which took maybe 10-30 seconds, were timed with contractions. I'd push, then catch my breath, then push, then rest. The longer you hold each breath and each push, the better. (I believe that prenatal yoga helped this). Each time, the baby would inch forward a bit more.
According to Marc, this looked like the worst part from the outside. But all that sweating and scrunching up my face was because of exertion, not pain.
It was like working out with a personal trainer who's pushing you to do reps with a heavy weight. It hurts a little, but you're straining because you're trying so hard.
Dr. Mak reminded me of the various problems I had overcome through 8 months and said this was near the end. He told me I was strong and he had faith that I could do it. He told me he could see the hair on the top of her head. And before I knew it, she was out.
So there it was. I'm not saying every woman's labor will be like mine. But I've never met a woman who went through natural birth, and regretted it.

Initially, I was not going to post this photo, thinking it was both too intimate and, frankly, not very flattering.
But, two months later, I'm thinking -- why not? It's a natural process and nothing to be embarrassed of.
This is five minutes after birth, and I'm fine and smiling. I was tired and dazed, but mobile and not hurting. No, really. I didn't "forget the pain" as some people say.
Before giving birth, I asked a mom, "Does it hurt? It is awful?" At that point, I was still focusing only on the potential awfulness. And she said, "No, it's wonderful." And she was right.

Hong Kong still a cultural desert?

2011-10-12T10:27:00.001+08:00

My French in-laws are in town for two weeks and I'm struggling to find ways of keeping them entertained.
Why is there nothing going on in this city?

O.K., maybe that is not quite fair. I'm stuck in a sticky situation that is not Hong Kong's fault
* I'm breastfeeding Baby Chloe every three hours, and have to cram my own needs -- sleeping, eating, showering -- into two-hour segments between feeds. That means I can only pop out once a day briefly. Plus, I'm exhausted.
* Usually, I'm the family's tour guide. Marc the Metrosexual is not particularly social, so restaurant reservations and concert ticket bookings are my job. He's not the kind of person who will take them to a museum or a walk around SoHo.
* The weather is terrible and will continue to be. The usual outdoor stuff they like -- Stanley, The Peak, outlying islands -- are a wash until it clears up. The French are not stoic about rain like the Brits.
* My in-laws don't speak English, so most films, plays and other entertainment are out. I checked to see if there are French movies on, but no luck.
* My in-laws, who live in a quiet small city in Normandy, are not big city people. They don't like crowds or shopping. They went to IFC yesterday and lasted less than two hours.
(I'm jealous! I would like to go to IFC to check out the new Apple store, but have not had the time.)
They might enjoy a historic emporium like Harrod's in London -- but not a characterless modern mall filled with mainlanders crowding to buy LV bags.
* There's a limit to how much Chinese food they will eat. The restaurants we want to take them to are all al fresco, as they dislike being indoors in the air con. So we have that weather problem again.
* They've been to Hong Kong before.

But still, but still... If this were Paris or London or New York, it would be easy. There would be dozens of historic sites and amazing museums in which they could spend a rainy day by themselves. I can't, in all honesty, recommend any of Hong Kong's museums to people who are well acquainted with the Louvre. I checked the LCSD's website to see if any special exhibitions are on and .. oooh -- the history of Hong Kong ship-building....

Never mind Paris or New York. Even Taipei, Beijing and Shanghai have major museums of Chinese history and culture that beat the pants off of ours. Don't get me started on Tokyo. We're a cultural speck of dust compared to Tokyo.

If this were London or New York, there would be live entertainment all the time. Even if you don't understand English, a West End or Broadway show is a special experience. Just walking through the theatre districts gives you a feeling of the culture. Hong Kong has nothing close. We have a few more plays than, say, a decade ago, but nothing you'd fly across the world for. And on the rare occasion that we have a fully staged musical or opera, it's usually a Western import.

I checked Time Out's listings. There are a few concerts that may or may not interest them. But when I compare what we have to, say, the weekly listings I read in the New Yorker, I feel a bit ashamed of Hong Kong. Where are our jazz clubs? Our street artists? Our awesome author talks?

Our culture comes in fits and starts. When it's Le French May, or the art, film or literature festivals, there's tons on. But when there's no major festival, we have the cultural offerings of an average small city, not a major metropolis. (There's also my pet peeve of why all our festivals seem to happen at the same time, but that's a different gripe).

Even my native Montreal, which has half of Hong Kong's population, usually has more on.

As for our private art galleries... some are good, some are not-so-good, but all are quite small. This is why I rarely write articles about one gallery show -- partly because it reads like an advertorial, and partly because I wouldn't send tourists to seeing six paintings in one small room. When I do cover galleries, I do a whole bunch in one neighborhood at a time, like in this NYT article.

So what to do? Well, the baby is crying again, so I'm off. Any suggestions would be appreciated. If I could just send them in a taxi to spend a culturally rich afternoon somewhere, it would be great. Otherwise, it's just sitting in my living room watching TV5 with me in my bathrobe!

Usually, I'm annoyed by Google AdSense...

2011-10-09T05:36:00.001+08:00

In fact, I almost forgot that my site had them. I haven't checked my so-called (non-existent) earnings for months, and now realize that I have only "made" a whopping US $25. "Made" is in quotes because I still haven't qualified to receive a bloody cent from them -- not that I'm so anxious about that. I've always made clear that my Google AdSense experiment was just an experiment in online advertising, and not a real attempt at making money.

Most of the ads are as tacky and irrelevant as hell. But this one was a little cute, which is the point of this post. Clever entrepreneur, who got the iMissSteve T-shirt site up and advertised so quickly.

Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T22:42:00.002+08:00

I'm not going to say anything that hasn't already been said all over the blogosphere, but perhaps it bears repeating. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. I learned to write and to design, the tricks of my trade, on your machines.

Apple not only changed the way we worked and thought, it amused and delighted and surprised us -- a perfect balance of form and function.

If you want full coverage, the NYT has a very long, comprehensive, five-page article, plus multimedia package, here.

Here are some excerpts:

Mr. Jobs was neither a hardware engineer nor a software programmer, nor did he think of himself as a manager. He considered himself a technology leader, choosing the best people possible, encouraging and prodding them, and making the final call on product design.

“Toy Story,” for example, took four years to make while Pixar struggled, yet Mr. Jobs never let up on his colleagues. “‘You need a lot more than vision," said a co-founder of Pixar.

The article goes into his personal background -- perhaps a lesson for Hong Kong, where people think every child must have elite kindergartens and private tutors to make it in this world. Jobs was a free spirit who dropped out of a small no-name school, dated Joan Baez and had Ella Fitzgerald sing at his birthday.

There are two quotes that stand out. One was from a Twitter used named Matt Galligan:“R.I.P. Steve Jobs. You touched an ugly world of technology and made it beautiful.”

The other was his saying at Stanford University: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Marc and I were just talking about this the other day. He dreams of opening his own restaurant, I dream of writing full time -- maybe short fiction or books. We both someday want to return to the lives we grew up with, with space and fresh air. But we cling onto the security of our Hong Kong jobs and salaries, citing the need to pay off the mortgage, or private school for Chloe when the time comes. Have we lost our hunger for our work? Are we too cowardly to do something wonderful and foolish, like sell the Hong Kong flat and buy an old French farmhouse?

More Smartphone help

2011-09-24T18:02:00.003+08:00

Dear Old Dad is walking Baby Chloe around my apartment now. She refused to sleep all day yesterday, and cried and cried and cried last night into the early hours of the morning for no reason at all -- she was fed, burped, changed, swaddled and cuddled. God knows what was up. Poor Marc the Metrosexual had a long day at work, and then no rest. Even though I tried to keep Chloe in the nursery and shut the door of our bedroom to let him sleep, it was no use.

Anyway, now that Grandpa's here, she's fine. He's like the Baby Whisperer.

Which is why I want to get him a phone as soon as possible -- he deserves better than what he has. His old black and white Nokia is a shame. Now its on/off button has broken, so it's perpetually on.

Dad has decided, thanks to all your comments, that the iPhone may not be right for him. He's considering the Samsung, as many of you suggested, or maybe the Nokia N8.

The plus of the Nokia is that it has a 12 megapixel camera vs. the Samsung's 5 megapixel camera. Dad really wants to get rid of his old digital camera, so this is an important point. He wants a camera that takes photos of printable quality. He doesn't care much about apps or anything fancy.

My concern with the Nokia is that it uses the Symbian operating system. Is it user friendly? Easily compatible?

Dad uses Windows 7 on a PC laptop. He doesn't use a photo manipulating program -- he just wants to upload the jpegs so he can print them or email them to friends.
Thanks again!

Smartphone help needed

2011-09-16T19:30:00.001+08:00

Dedicated grandparents like this deserve a better mobile phone. This is a day after I gave birth, wearing the world's ugliest hospital gown. I have, for the record, deflated somewhat since this photo. Chloe looks tiny here.

Dear Old Mom and Dad have been wonderful in helping to care for Baby Chloe. Mom's been bringing Tupperware containers of healthy food, since I haven't had time to cook. And Dad's really got a way with kids -- he sings Chloe lullabies and she calms down in his arms. They are just as good with their other granddaughter - my brother's 10-month-old girl.
We don't often thank the grandparents enough, and my family are not big on lavish gifts. So, for their anniversary, we said we'd buy Dad a new smartphone. His current cellphone is really out of date.
Initially, he said he wanted an iPhone, probably because that is what Marc, my brother and I use. But it makes sense for us, since we are all Mac users, with iPods, MacBooks and iPads. But I wasn't sure if the iPhone was the perfect choice for Dad, popular as it is. (Dad's a PC user). There are many other options on the market.
Joyceyland readers know how helpless I am in the face of technology. So maybe you guys can make some suggestions. I am not worried about price.
Here are the requirements
* The phone must be durable. Dad is not faddish. He does not want to replace or upgrade his phone all the time. This phone should last years, and be able to endure a good amount of being carried around and banged up. My most durable phone was a Nokia that worked for five years.
* It must have a decent camera. Part of the reason Dad wants a smartphone is because he's sick of carrying around a phone and a digital camera. Are there smartphones that take pictures with good enough resolution that they can be printed out as normal snapshots?
* It should have WiFi so Dad can check email.
* It should be loud and clear. Dad spends much time in noisy places, like dim sum parlors, MTR trains and malls. So he has to be able to hear both the ringing, and the voices on the other end.
* It should be easy to use, with a relatively big screen and keyboard for typing SMSs.
* It has to be compatible with both Australia and Hong Kong, since he spends roughly equal time in both places. I know it's cheaper to buy an iPhone through a provider like 3, but that locks you into a HK phone contract, doesn't it? Dad needs to be able to switch SIM cards back and forth between two places.
* The phone does not have to be fancy. Dad doesn't care much about videos, music, games or tons of apps. He also doesn't use the phone much for IDD or roaming.
* Random issue: My iPhone connection is not very good -- conversations often blank out. Other times, it gets hard to hear the person on the other end -- there's tons of static. I don't know if this is an iPhone problem, or if it's because our West Kowloon flat is in a mobile connection black hole. It also often happens when I'm in cabs -- but I'm usually crossing the harbor, so maybe it's blanking out because I'm in a tunnel.
I read that iPhones don't do well in humid climates. If that's the case, it might not be the best choice for Hong Kong.
Any advice would be appreciated.

A baby is born

2011-08-27T15:52:00.002+08:00

Baby Chloe was born a week ago, last Friday night, Aug. 19.

She came two weeks early and a bit on the small side at 2.6 kilos, or 5 lbs 11 oz -- though this was not entirely unexpected.
Thanks to a patient and supportive Dr. Mak, we managed to have a natural birth, and I am glad for it.
(In some circles in the West, "natural birth" refers to one without drugs or medical intervention. What I mean is that I did not have a C-section.)
Hong Kong's Cesarean rates are way higher than recommended, partly because many private doctors and hospitals push for what is most efficient and profitable for them, instead of what is best for mom and baby. My first doctor -- a big-name specialist in Central -- tried scare tactics on me and my husband, and pushed us to "book" a date back when I was barely a month along. (More on him later). So we switched to someone lesser-known, but ultimately more humane in his treatment.

The team at Baptist Hospital in Kowloon were amazing. I was consulted on every decision, which made me feel respected, and not just one nameless patient in a surgical baby-making factory. The anesthesiologist gave me what I can only describe as an" epidural light" during the last few hours. It was enough to make me comfortable, which allowed me to see the experience as a positive one. There wasn't the screeching and agony you see in the Hollywood version of birth. But I could still feel and move my body the entire time.
I felt her being born. Brave Marc -- who overcame a phobia of medical procedures to go through this together with me -- held my hand, and was next to me the whole time. We saw her emerge into this world together. A few minutes after she was born, she was placed right onto my chest and into my arms. Because I wasn't drugged out of my mind, I could still operate more or less like a normal person, and I was out of bed and caring for her the next morning.

After delivering on Friday night, we came home as a new family on Monday morning, as our flat filled up with gifts of flowers and food from friends and relatives.

I think all new parents go through some bumps in the beginning. Ours was that Chloe had to return to the hospital for a couple of days to be treated for jaundice, which is common, especially among small or early babies. (White Dusk Red's baby had it, too, as did my brother's). It was not serious, but heart-breaking to see her crying and crying in that sterile plastic box in the hospital ward, just as we were getting used to her being home. When I reached my hand through the incubator portal and put it on her head, she settled immediately -- I think they know human touch and affection even at that young age.

To make sure she had the best, I went through the rather weird experience of rushing out to buy a pump, expressing milk for her at home, and then cabbing it to the hospital in an ice pack. We all know that a mother's milk is more nutritious than even the most expensive formula on the market. No scientist has been able to re-create the natural anti-bodies that a mother passes to her baby this way. I think of that as the first good thing I did for my daughter.

She is safe and sound at home now.

Mindlessly cute cat video to take my mind off of labor

2011-08-17T19:27:00.000+08:00

The Chinese have a belief that, at least in Cantonese, is pronounced something like "toi gauw."
It means that the baby in the womb learns (that would be the "gauw" part) what the mother is thinking and feeling.
This is why I've been told to look only at happy things (like cute baby photos) and to avoid unpleasant images or media. Working in news, this was obviously impossible. But I have tried to maintain a generally relaxed and happy attitude these last few months.
Some of the traditional Chinese suggestions are a bit much -- like not looking at any distorted images (I was told that Picassos are bad for pregnant women!) or reading any disturbing materials. (So much for my Stephen King habit. Or, actually, all my reading habits.)
I generally don't believe in superstitions, but there is something wise about trying to avoid anxiety-inducing thoughts while preparing for labor, which I'm seeing as one of the biggest physical challenges I've ever faced.
Sources from all over the world encourage expectant mothers to relax through exercise, deep breathing or calming music -- all of which are used in natural birth.

I've never liked relaxation music or tapes, and I actually get annoyed at some New Age-y type stuff. Sometimes a colleague plays ocean sounds at work, but I find it more distracting than soothing.
So I made my own iTunes playlist for the hospital, but had to resist adding songs with names like "Antichrist Television Blues."

As for my blogging, maybe I don't want to leave off with people arguing over David Sedaris and Chinese food.
So here's a mindlessly cute, happy video of Hugo the Cat with his favorite kitchen utensil, the wooden salad spoon. Why he loves this spoon so much, I have no idea.
The doula who taught the pre-natal class Marc and I attended asked us to try to imagine things like walking on a beach. I have to say that I'm not very good at stuff like that. I'm the kind of person who used to get so bored during the meditation part of yoga class that I'd fall asleep.
But I like thinking about animals. So maybe, when I'm stressed or in pain (hopefully not too much) I will think about Hugo the Cat and my lovely horses, whom I hope to visit again in a few months.

David Sedaris on gross Chinese food -- for my grumpy anonymous Asians

2011-08-16T18:09:00.012+08:00

Mmmm, chicken's feet, euphemistically called "phoenix claws", at least in Hong Kong Cantonese. We suck the little bits of gristle and skin off the bones of the toes just to gross out tourists. Makes me want to book for yum cha this weekend. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

A typically grumpy anonymous Asian poster -- there's no way to tell, but I'm going to bet my next plate of chicken's feet dim sum that it's an angry overseas Chinese guy -- read my mind by commenting on my last post about David Sedaris.
Anon asked: "Are you aware that Asian-Americans have BIG BIG issues with David Sedaris?" in reference to a Sedaris essay on traveling to Beijing and Chengdu.
No, I was not.
But, last month, I did read Sedaris's hilarious take on Chinese food in the Guardian that kicked up a ruckus among some Asians who are apparently so insecure and miserably humorless that they would take offense when one American guy writes a piece of satire about Chinese food.
***
The column criticizing Sedaris's column appeared on the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle, which reports that Sedaris made one of its contributors, Jeff Yang, feel "sad."
Yang writes:

Here's a question: How should you respond when one of your literary idols decides to take a huge metaphorical dump on the culture and civilization from whence your ancestors emerged?
It's something I've been grappling with over the past few weeks..

One humor piece about chicken feet and we have to drag in millennia of Chinese culture?
Plus -- weeks? Someone has been mulling over this for weeks?
Yang's piece goes on for four pages and, I have to admit, I wasn't tempted to read it all. But you can if you click on the above link.
***
Back to my original grumpy commenter: I can't imagine that all Asian-Americans would balk at the column, since Sedaris is effusive in his praise of Japan's fine culture, food and manners.
I could write all the usual justifications: you can't take humor literally; the self-mocking Sedaris is generally more bitingly critical of clueless Americans than anything else; many Beijingers really do spit in public and eat weird foods. But what's the point in arguing?
Maybe Anonymous and Jeff Yang should stick to some of the (cough, cough, "advertorial") food articles in the Chinese press in which "critics" (cough, cough, under duress, while getting "hong bau" gifts from the local restaurant group, or Culture Ministry) wax poetic about the wonders of the Motherland's cuisine and our thousands of years of cultural superiority.
I love Chinese food, but I don't think an entire race should rise up in indignation because of it.
I say the commenter read my mind because I was actually going to tack the food column onto my last post, but thought it'd get too long. I figure I'd wait a few days and post it separately.
So here is the top of "Chicken toenails, anyone?" Click on this link for the full text.

"I have to go to China." I told people this in the way I might say, "I need to insulate my crawl space" or, "I've got to get these moles looked at." That's the way it felt, though. Like a chore. What initially put me off was the food. I'll eat it if the alternative means starving, but I've never looked forward to it, not even when it seemed exotic to me.
I was in my early 20s when a Chinese restaurant opened in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was in a new building, designed to look vaguely templish, and my mother couldn't get enough of it. "What do you say we go oriental!"
I think she liked that the food was beyond her range. Anyone could imitate the twice-baked potatoes at the Peddler, or turn out a veal parmesan like the Villa Capri's, but there was no way a non-Chinese person could make moo shu pork, regardless of his or her training. "And the egg rolls," she'd say. "Can you imagine!"
The restaurant didn't have a liquor licence, but they allowed you to brown bag. Thus we'd arrive with our jug of hearty burgundy. I always got my mother to order for me, but when the kung pao chicken was brought to the table, I never perked up the way I did at the steak house or the Villa Capri. And it wasn't just Raleigh's Chinese food. I was equally uninterested in Chicago and, later, New York, cities with actual China Towns.
Everyone swore that the food in Beijing and Chengdu would be different from what I'd had in the US. "It's more real," they said, meaning, it turned out, that I could dislike it more authentically.
I think it hurt that, before landing in China, Hugh and I spent a week in Tokyo, where the food was, as always, sublime, everything so delicate and carefully presented. With meals I drank tea, which leads me to another great thing about Japan – its bathrooms. When I was younger they wouldn't have mattered so much. Then I hit 50 and found that I had to pee all the time. In Tokyo, every subway station has a free public men's room. The floors and counters are aggressively clean and beside each urinal is a hook for hanging your umbrella.
This was what I had grown accustomed to when we flew from Narita to Beijing International, where the first thing one notices is what sounds like a milk steamer, the sort a cafe uses when making lattes and cappuccinos. "That's odd," you think. "There's a coffee bar on the elevator to the parking deck?" What you're hearing, that incessant guttural hiss, is the sound of one person, and then another, dredging up phlegm, seemingly from the depths of his or her soul. At first you look over, wondering, "Where are you going to put that?" A better question, you soon realize, is, "Where aren't you going to put it?"

David Sedaris on Republicans and unwanted babies

2011-08-16T12:52:00.001+08:00

I find Facebook pretty useless. It's a fun distraction at best -- good for procrastinating when I have a story due (just sent in my last draft yesterday), looking at people's photos and getting birthday wishes. (That was also yesterday. I consider finishing my article a birthday gift to myself. It was like finally wrestling the work albatross from around my neck).
One thing FB is good for is alerting me to when there are new David Sedaris essays, thanks to one FB friend and colleague.
Here's the top from Sedaris's essay in Vanity Fair, "I'm Not Running For President," where he takes on Republicans, and God-fearin', pro-life, anti-gay, anti-immigrant types -- as well as all those candidates who make a fuss of not running for office, when clearly they are looking for free publicity to someday run for office.

"Yesterday morning I announced that, having given it a good think and a whole lot of prayer, I will not be running for president of the United States in 2012. I thought I’d made myself pretty clear, but judging from the flood of calls and e-mails my staff and I have received over the past 24 hours, I can see that I’ve got a bit more explaining to do.
"When I said that God didn’t want me to run, I didn’t mean that He thought me to be in any way inexperienced or “not quite ready to lead.” Far from it. “You’re a lot better qualified than the rest of the pack,” He told me. “Especially what’s-her-name who’s claiming that her candidacy was my idea. I never told her to run for president any more than I told her to marry that fruitcake of a husband. And I’ll tell you something else,” He said. “If the primary were held today, I’d vote for you in a heartbeat.”
"God prefers my ideas on shrinking the government to those of the other Republicans and added that if He could, He would put it in writing that Social Security is a Satanic Ponzi scheme.
"I said, “I wish you would.”

And more:

"You have babies born addicted to crack and meth, kids who will never be able to think straight, no matter how much money we throw at them. At the same time we have streets blighted with potholes. I’m not suggesting that we train these children to fill the potholes, but that we fill the potholes with these children, just stuff them right down there and cover them with asphalt. Then we take the money we’ve saved and put it toward the deficit.

O.K. -- so he's no modern Jonathan Swift, but he amuses me.

Review: Ye Shanghai, Kowloon / Shanghai

2011-08-08T02:16:00.003+08:00

Ye Shanghai, Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Price: HK $2,000 (US $250) for four people, but we had a bottle of wine, several whiskeys and way too much food, since we were entertaining guests. If I went with my parents and had tea and normal servings, I'd probably be half that.
Would we go back? Yes, for special occasions.

The Ye Shanghai in Kowloon has a special place in my heart because it was where Marc the Metrosexual and I went on our first date. God, in late 2002. I can't believe we've been together for almost nine years.
***

In terms of interiors, Shanghai's branch beats Hong Kong's. Not sure about the service, though.

My parents and I tried the Ye Shanghai in Xintiandi last year, when we went to Shanghai for the Expo. This is the most physically impressive of their branches, since it's in a renovated two-story historic building -- all big spaces and wood and high ceilings -- as opposed to a HK hotel or shopping mall. My parents were impressed with the quality of the basics, like the texture of the noodles, the thinness of the dumpling skins, the flavor of the broth, and the lightness of the stir-fried greens.

Simple sesame and green onion breads, from the Shanghai branch.

Soup noodles, dumplings and stir-fries from the Shanghai branch. Sorry -- we already ate some of it by the time I whipped out my camera.

But, typically for China, the service was a bit bumpy, even though this is a Hong Kong-managed chain.
I barely got the first part of my order out -- two set lunches -- when the waiter said "No. You can't order that."
"Why?"
A manager was called over and it took some time to explain that we wanted two set lunches, plus a la carte dishes, plus wine and dessert.
They were worried we were trying to cheat by taking up three seats and sharing only two lunches. Maybe they get customers who try to scam every yuan they can?
But we were treated to fine food, reasonable prices (at least by Hong Kong standards) and suddenly greatly improved service. Maybe seeing we were a bit miffed, they gave us a free fruit platter and took Mom's arm as she went down the stairs. So they redeemed themselves. We even returned for lunch one more day.
***

The Ye Shanghai in Kowloon. This is a handout pic. Since we were with guests, I felt it was impolite to start shooting like some, well, some blogger.

Back to Ye Shanghai Kowloon. It's not as charming as the Shanghai branch, but they've done a good job of creating elegant interiors, with big windows overlooking Hullett House and T.S.T.
I don't know if I would call it the best Shanghai restaurant in town -- many Hong Kongers would prefer more local places -- but it's one of the most consistent and visitor-friendly. Tourists always say they want to go local -- but when you get right down to it, they want immaculate interiors, English-speaking friendly staff, wine lists, and cake for dessert. Ye Shanghai fulfills these requirements, without compromising on the food. The patrons on a fully booked Saturday night were almost entirely Chinese -- always a sign of authenticity.
Last weekend, Marc had some out-of-town guests whom I'd never met. I had no idea what they liked, so I got a range of crowd pleasers.
The Peking duck, which should be ordered in advance, was excellent. A tip: It's supposed to be just the skin -- it's a delicate dish that requires some carving skill -- and you're supposed to assemble the pancake, duck, vegetables and sauce yourself. (I was reading TripAdvisor reviews where people were complaining that they weren't getting huge chunks of meat and the staff weren't helping them). The Ye Shanghai version has paper-thin skin slices -- no extra fat, no meat, nothing. The rest of the meat comes in a second course, which is a stir-fry.
A whole fish, deep-fried and topped with sweet and sour sauce, is always popular. Same with tender braised baby beef ribs in a thick dark sauce.
The waitress raised an eyebrow when I ordered, off the menu, egg whites with dried scallops -- she said it wasn't too popular with foreign guests. I didn't listen, but she was right. It was O.K., but not the best -- it could have used more flavor, maybe a raw egg yolk and vinegar -- but I think that for most visitors, a plate of steamed egg white doesn't look so appetizing. Same with the tofu noodles with baby bok-choy. I liked it, but it didn't seem to be a huge hit. (Note: It's a good choice if you're on a low-carb diet).
For dessert, I skipped my favorite -- steamed tofu, or dofu fa, in a wooden bucket -- and went for the pastries with red bean paste. I found them a bit oily -- they seemed more deep-fried than pan-fried -- but everyone ate them.
We had a good meal in the end, and our guests seemed happy.
A positive sign is that I left with a list of dishes I wanted to order, but didn't. When I return to this restaurant, I'll also try the stuffed baked river crab, minced chicken with sesame pockets, smoked duck (though I've heard mixed reviews on this dish), spring onion pancakes and xiao long bau pork-broth dumplings.

Law journal seeks freelance writers

2011-08-06T09:00:00.000+08:00

I got this tip via a colleague, who says that a leading law magazine is looking for someone in this region -- I think preferably in Hong Kong or, as she says, "within a time zone or two."

***
A leading law magazine is looking for freelance journalists.

Key responsibilities:
* Interviewing key personnel in the legal industry
* Reporting on important and emerging areas of law and business in Asia

Requirements
* University graduate
* Three years writing experience
* Excellent communication and presentation skills
* Good interviewing and reporting skills
* Native English speaker

***
As usual, my media friends, you can contact me via the email on the right, and I will pass your cv on. And, as usual, I have nothing to do with this hiring process, and nothing to gain from it.

Someone emailed me to ask if I was trying to profit from these "job ads". And the answer is no. They're not ads -- they're just things I hear through the grapevine. I post them because I remember how hard it was to try to make it as a freelancer -- and I think the industry is tougher now than it was when I started way back when.

Does parenthood change the way you see news?

2011-08-03T09:36:00.011+08:00

I will miss work. I'll still read the paper every day, as I have since at least high school, and I will certainly miss my colleagues. But it's definitely time for me to stop.

Last night, we had a discussion over whether to use a rather graphic image of an emaciated, naked African child at a hospital, to illustrate a story about famine. The worst thing is that it's basically a man-fueled famine. According to The NYT, an Islamist group is blocking starving people from fleeing Somalia, as well as forcing out Western aid organizations trying to bring in food.

The majority sentiment at work was that we should not pull our punches if we're going to report bad news -- famine happens; this is what it really looks like; and our job is to choose the most impactful presentation to force people to think outside their complacent daily lives.

A few of us balked briefly at the image, though nobody suggested pulling it outright. The division was not along lines of background, age or gender -- but along parental lines. The one person who said something is a parent. As for me, I'm an expectant mother. (But I didn't say much since I wasn't on page 1 duty and it wasn't my call to make).

Warning: The image below is probably not one you want to look at over your morning Corn Flakes. I kept the file small on purpose. (Click to enlarge)

I wonder if there is something to Gweipo's comment below, that becoming a parent makes you look at tragedy in a different way. That's not to say that those who are not parents are heartless or numb to the news -- all of us are rightfully upset when we see something terrible. But maybe going home to your own children every night makes you look at other people's children differently.

I had a strange experience last night. My right hand was on the mouse, clicking through images of other people's starving babies on my computer screen, while my left hand rested on my belly, where I could feel my own baby, healthy and moving and kicking. Half of my mind was on the technicalities of getting the paper out, and the other half was thinking about the fact that, within a few weeks, I would be feeding and loving my own child, who would have a far better life than the one I was looking at.

For all my love of work, it is definitely time to go. I need rest and more hours dedicated to sleeping, eating healthy food, stretching and gentle exercise. I need to do something about this edema. I have to prepare for a big physical challenge -- hopefully, natural birth. Sorry to go all New Age-y on you, but it's a problem of both body and mind. There's no way anyone can look at the news all day and not be affected or stressed. I need to clear that away and focus on my new life as a mother. Starting tomorrow...

Do you think parenthood changes the way you look at the news?

It might be interesting hearing from the many moms and dads who make their living as reporters, editors and journalists. Or from mothers and fathers in general.

Canada's answer to war, and my good-bye to work

2011-08-03T02:45:00.001+08:00

From the comedian Craig Ferguson, during Montreal's Just for Laughs festival. “Canadians are the nicest, most peaceful people in the world – except when handed hockey sticks. Forget about giving Canadian soldiers weapons. Just give them hockey sticks. Then tell them that the Taliban have the puck.”

And this would be the girls' team.

Can you tell I'm looking forward to the end of work? Tomorrow (Wednesday) is my last day in the newsroom. After that, I have one story to write from home, followed by five months of not having to update the death toll in the most recent Afghan war story, think about U.S. debt negotiations, or worry whether all the pages have been sent for the 8:30 pm deadline.

I.H.T. blogger position

2011-08-02T15:50:00.000+08:00

The International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times, is looking for experienced journalists, one based in Asia and one in Europe, to write and manage a new blog planned for this autumn.
The bloggers would post daily on important regional and international stories; do some original reporting; offer analysis; cull information from digital sources; and lead or moderate discussions on the blog, Facebook and other social media.

Candidates should have
* Long experience in international news and issues
* Excellent writing skills
* An understanding of new media, social media and digital publishing
* The ability to work both independently, and with a group of fellow editors and reporters

It should be a five-day work-week, mostly day shifts, including some weekends. Some flexibility should be expected when major news breaks.

As with many I.H.T. newsroom jobs, there could be a tryout period.

***

Notes from Joyce:

As always, I'm just passing this along out of the goodness of my heart. This is not the official job ad, and I am not in charge of hiring.The contact person is Marcus Mabry, mmabry@iht.com.

I don't think it helps -- you or me -- to go on about reading the ad on this personal blog, though you are welcome to cc: me on correspondence if you wish (joycelauarts@gmail.com).

At least from what I've seen over the years, an editing test, an interview, and one week of monitored, paid work is the norm before newsroom job offers are made, though I don't know if that's the drill in this case.

It sounds like a full-time permanent writing position. The original ad, circulated internally, said it offered competitive rates -- which signals to me that it's more than the two-cents usually offered for paid blogging positions.

The ad also vaguely says that the jobs will be in Europe and Asia. FYI, our European and Asian newsrooms are based in Paris and Hong Kong.

More media jobs

2011-07-28T18:20:00.004+08:00

Please note, as with all postings on my personal site, that these are not the formal announcements. I have nothing to do with IHT hiring. All I do is hand cv's to someone else.

Back to the jobs.

1. One is for a web producer for the Views pages (meaning Op/Ed, as opposed to News.)
It's a full-time position based in Hong Kong. It will mostly be day shifts, though you can expect to work some weekends and nights. (At least right now, the latest shift is 4pm-midnight).
The ads don't specify -- probably because it's so obvious -- but it requires a high level of English.

* Five years daily news experience
* Familiarity with international media
* Experience with online media work -- editing text and images, plus design
* Basic news editing skills -- writing headlines, proofreading pages, etc.
* Proficiency in Final Cut
Send applications to resume @iht.com.

2. I also just got offered a non-I.H.T. freelance gig for an arts / classical music article. I turned it down, since I do very little outside work in general, and I'm going to start maternity leave soon anyway. If there are any Hong Kong / Macau-based arts writers out there, email me a joycelauarts@gmail.com, and I can pass on your contacts.

My God, what a news week.

2011-07-25T09:00:00.027+08:00

Most people outside the IHT know me as an arts writer, because that's the part of my work that's obvious to the public. But 60% of the time, I do newsroom work that's invisible to the reader.
For every bylined writer, there's a team organizing coverage, laying out print pages, updating web pages, sifting through photos, checking facts and editing stories. News is a messy, slippery business. Just as you think you have a fact or story down, it updates, you get a conflicting report, or someone calls in a mistake.
This week, I'm subbing in as the front page editor, a job I don't do often.
The downside is that the shifts are long, late and stressful -- and I'm usually one of the last people out of the office. This is a pain even when I'm not heavily pregnant. I'm struggling to make it through my days now.
The upside is that -- at least when I'm fully healthy -- it's an odd sort of (masochistic) fun.
The main part of the job is designing the front page. While page 1 decisions are made by many people -- as they are in any newspaper -- I put together the articles, layout and photos.
The weekend I got to do this job, everything horrible happened at once -- the Oslo killings, the China train crash, Amy Winehouse dying, the endless drip-drip-drip of the U.S. debt debate, and the continuing aftermath of the shameful British media scandal.
Of course, not all news is hard-breaking news. There are also broader, longer features -- on Pakistani spies, or Chinese businesses on Wall Street.
Then there's the instinct to balance the misery with something uplifting and fun, like the tail end of the Tour de France. The above were all the stories I read at work recently.
My doctor told me to reduce work stress. Ha! This is the sort of weekend that would give any editor a heart attack -- and it's only Sunday night. One shift down, eight to go.
***
I wonder if, after several months of maternity leave, I will miss working?
It's clear in my mind that having a healthy, happy daughter and caring for her with all my love and energy is my priority over work. I'd rather be home with my new child than thinking about all the misery of the world. News is not a particularly happy subject, and nobody -- at least nobody with a heart -- ever gets numbed to the daily death tolls and horrible images.
But I'm curious how I will feel stopping my daily connection to writing and editing after working almost continuously for more than a decade.
Will I be devouring my daily paper like a junkie? Or will motherhood turn my attentions away?
***
Someone asked why I sometimes don't mention major news events on this blog, particularly ones that would seem to interest me, like Ai Weiwei being released or the British scandal that has erupted in my industry.
I admit that the news coverage here at Joyceyland is patchy. I presume that most people would go to a proper, professional source, like my employer, for their daily news.
Ironically, the busier my week is, the less likely I'll blog about news.
Blogging is a release valve for me -- as I think it is for most personal bloggers. After reading about tragedy and conflict all day, it's nice to have another place that's largely cat photos, recipes, shoe shopping, and quips about daily life.

Why are the census people harassing me?

2011-07-23T09:49:00.002+08:00

I got a notice saying that a 2011 Population Census rep tried to visit my home, but I wasn't there.
In fact, I might have been there, but the new building doorgirl doesn't seem like the sharpest pencil in the pencil case, if you know what I mean. Twice, I've been home but missed the DHL guy since she seems incapable of a) using the telecom thingie; b) telling the DHL man to wait a sec; c) signing for a package.
I only find out immediately after the DHL man has left -- sometimes just by 5 or 10 minutes.

But back to the Census.
Being a good citizen, I called right after getting their notice, as I was cabbing my way to work.
I am counting down the days of My Last Two Weeks which, for reasons too complex to get into here, are going to be tough. I'll be there late; won't get my usual work-at-home-days; and will work the next two Sundays. My Saturdays these days are spent doing baby-stuff, like pre-natal check-ups.

But it is what it is, and I'll muddle through. But the last thing I need to be bothered by the Census people.

My conversation went something like this.

Me: I've received a notice saying that I've missed a Census representative.
Census: You'll have to make another appointment. When are you free after 1 pm?
Me: I start work at 1, so that's no good. How about noon or late morning?
Census: Our workers only begin at 1 pm. How about weekends?
Me: I work weekends. Plus, I'm eight months pregnant, and very busy finishing up work. I'm happy to do this in two weeks time, when I will be free.
Census: It has to be done before August 2. We sent out advance notices saying so.
Me: I never got such a notice.
Census: We sent a notice.
Me: I swear there was no notice.
Census: Can we come to your home at night?
Me: No. I get home anytime between 10 pm and midnight.
Census: Can we come after that?
Me: Please don't come to my home late at night. Can't you just send a paper questionnaire?
Census: No, because your household has been chosen for a long-format questionnaire.
Me: Can that be changed to a short-format in extenuating circumstances?
Census: I'll have to ask my manager.
Click.

After work, I get another call. It's not a manager. It's some young sounding girl covering exactly the same ground as that morning...

Me: If we really can't set a time and date, can't you just leave a questionnaire in my mailbox?
Census: We could, but you've been chosen for the long-format questionnaire.
Me: The guy already said that this morning. Can I do it online or electronically?
Census: Only if you registered in advance when we sent out early notices.
Me: I never got that notice, as I said this morning.
ad nauseum...
Census: Let me check with the manager. Can I call you back tonight?
Me: No. It's already 10 p.m. and I'm exhausted. Please call back during normal work hours.
***
Is participating in the census a legal requirement of permanent residents? It is compulsory? What if you're out of town, ill, or otherwise unable?
Or is it just something that they hope most people will do?
Does anyone know? Because, if it's the latter, I'm going to ignore them.
It's not that I'm being irresponsible. I've done all that one could reasonably expect. I called them right away, spoke to them twice, and offered
* Doing it by phone
* Doing it online
* Doing it on paper
* Rescheduling for mornings
* Rescheduling two weeks from now
And my requests have been rejected.

Real Estate Fistfight in a Dark Side Mall

2011-07-22T09:08:00.012+08:00

We've all heard about Chinese tourists behaving badly in shopping malls. But we can't just blame the Mainlanders. The ridiculously aggressive real estate touts who have taken over my West Kowloon neighborhood are 100% Hong Kong's fault.
Last weekend, Marc the Metrosexual was buying cheese, wine and a surprisingly good lentil and pork stew at the new Monsieur Chatte shop in Elements -- which is filled with high-fashion brands, an organic supermarket, pricey restaurants, ice-skating rink, and other accoutrement of Hnouveau-riche living.
Not far from Monsieur Chatte, a security guard, 49, was trying to remove one of the hundreds -- yes, literally hundreds -- of property agents who have been harassing residents and shoppers since early July. The agent, 30, allegedly slapped the guard on the head, sparking a fist fight. It ended in hospitalization and arrest for both parties.
According to The Standard: "The fracas topped two weeks of strains caused by hundreds of agents from several property firms descending on Elements, the mall atop Kowloon MTR station."
(Note: The article's a bit old -- it's been about three weeks now)
The Standard continues:

"The spokesman said there has been several complaints from shops, shoppers and residents against the touting...."
"A concierge disclosed that about 60 security guards have been deployed daily since Sun Hung Kai opened a sales office for Imperial Cullinan at the International Commerce Center late last month."

"Unconfirmed reports are that the agent involved in yesterday's brawl works for Hong Kong Property, though the agency declined to comment."

"Besides that firm, Ricacorp Properties, Centaline Property and Midland Realty have sent agents to Elements."

Marc and I noticed the increased security earlier this month, when we were at Nahm, a pan-Southeast-Asian restaurant. We ate our Vietnamese pho while watching clusters of uniformed guards striding up and down the mall, armed with cameras. It was really bizarre.

We've found ourselves surrounded by agents who push and shove and won't leave us alone when we won't talk to them or take their pamphlets. They even bother parents with little kids.

Earlier this week, I was almost accosted while getting out of a taxi near the W. Hotel.
The Elements / W. security people were waving the agents back saying, "Leave her alone! Can't you see she's pregnant! Have you no shame?!" The burly Nepalese guards are more efficient at this than their local counterparts.

I now make a concerted effort not to make eye contact with anyone when I get groceries or meet a friend for dinner in my neighborhood, lest I attract the attention of the agents.

***
The Standard articles quotes a spokeswoman for the Estate Agents Authority as saying that there are guidelines against unscrupulous sales tactics, which include intercepting vehicles or distracting drivers.

They should tell that to the dozens of guys we saw standing forlornly at dusk on a highway round-about near our home in Olympic. As soon as our taxi passed by, two of those men starting sprinting desperately alongside the vehicle. If I saw this same scene in New York -- two men running like mad on a dark street -- I'd presume it was a robbery. Not in Hong Kong. They just wanted the chance to harass drivers before the red light changed.
The faster one, a rather nice looking young man in a white dress shirt, managed to hurl himself onto the windshield of a black mini-van, where he tried to stick pamphlets under the windshield wiper.
***
The article quotes the wonderfully named Winky Leung, who said she wasn't so bothered by the agents because "they did not chase me."
That's how low standards for civilized behavior have dropped. Nowadays, all we expect is to not be physically chased down.
***
Even if you set aside the problems of ethics, and etiquette, this doesn't make sense from a hard-nosed money-making point-of-view.
Almost nobody is buying flats from these agents.
Up at Civic Square -- a nice terrace area with al fresco dining -- there were dozens of agents lounging around in the dark, chatting on their mobiles, playing computer games, or looking like they wanted to take a nap.
What customer could they possibly attract?
If you were going to spend a minimum of HK $10 million -- or well over US $1 million -- would you leave that transaction to some sweaty, desperate man who has hurled himself onto your windshield? After a 5-second sales pitch, would you reach out the driver's side window and hand him a HK $2 million deposit? Would you trust setting up a mortgage with a guy who tried to chase you down in a mall, not unlike vendors in poor street markets trying to sell you a $10 T-shirt?
For most of us, our homes are our single largest investment. Wouldn't you make an appointment in the office of a reputable real estate agency?

Bright side of suddenly giant feet: shopping

2011-07-21T09:04:00.031+08:00

I knew that legs swelled during pregnancy, but I had no idea until I reached 7 months and -- bam! -- my feet turned into water balloons.
I've tried everything -- exercising, stretching, swimming, professional massage, putting my legs up, icing my feet, drinking tons of water, cutting down on wheat and salt.
I know they are much worse after editing days in the office, where I am basically stuck in a cubicle for 8 hours. Aside from brief 15-minute strolls during my non-existent lunch breaks, there's not much I can do till I finish work in early August.
For a while, I was down to one scruffed pair of brown leather flats. I couldn't stuff my feet into anything else I owned.
Usually, I'm a US size 5 /6, or European 35/36. Now I'm a US size 7, or European 37, at the minimum. I bought a pair of Lanvins, one size bigger than usual, and still had to exchange the 37 for a 38. How did I manage to grow 2-3 shoe sizes in less than a month?
And is there any truth to the old wives tale that, sometimes, your feet get bigger and then never shrink back? Because there will be many expensive, wasted shoes in my closet if that is true

I've been trying to find the silver lining to my strange, myriad pregnancy symptoms -- I mean, on top of the giant silver lining that, after all these years, I get a baby to love out of all of this.
When I get kicked hard under the ribs I try to think, "Well, that's a sign that Baby is healthy and well" as opposed to "Damn. Ow. What am I growing in there? A hockey player?"
As for my Braxton Hicks contractions, which I've had for almost a month now, I try to think of a maternity nurse's rather positive explanation that "Your uterus is practicing for the big day." Practicing! Like it has a school recital coming up.
As for my feet, I tried to look on the bright side: One small consolation is that I felt justified going shoe shopping. Though, alas, they had to all be flats, when I'm a wedge / heel girl at heart. But at this point, I'd fall over wearing anything over an inch or two high.
Here's what I got:

Clockwise from right: Lanvin rose-colored espadrilles with ankle ribbon ties that I've been coveting since this post in March, via the recent Net-A-Porter sale; two pairs of cheap Zara flats; and Havaianas flip-flops with a single embedded crystal and comfy rubber bottoms, from Sabina Swims.
Before this month, I hated ballerina flats. I also had a rule that I would not appear in public in flip-flops, unless I was at the beach or the pool. I'm still only wearing the flip-flops when I go swimming. But if the heat and 90% humidity continue -- and if I feet get any bigger -- I might have to cave in.

Speaking of shopping, swimming and caving in -- I did finally splurge on a maternity swimsuit. I'd love to think that I can still go out in a little black bikini without attracting public scorn, but I have to face the fact that I am, indeed, 8 months pregnant. It's not pretty.
So I got this Sabina Swims tankini, which has clever ruched sides and long ties that can be loosened or tightened. Someday, when my waist goes back in, instead of out, I might still be able to wear it.

I'll spare your poor eyes the sight of an 8-month-pregnant me in a tankini. Instead, here it is on a publicity photo with a slender, young thing who has probably been told to just stick her tummy way out for the photo shoot. (I'm always amused when pregnancy fashion shoots feature suspiciously non-pregnant-looking models)

Chinese Opera Gets a Modern Edge -- IHT article

2011-07-20T10:33:00.000+08:00

Both photos are from “The Last Emperor of Southern Tang." Courtesy the Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Services Department.

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU.

Published: July 18, 2011. International Herald Tribune

HONG KONG — The Sunbeam Theatre, the last dedicated Cantonese opera house on Hong Kong Island, stands on a crammed neon-lighted corner, decorated with Christmas lights and posters of its elaborately made-up stars.
Its 400 annual shows are often sold out, mostly to middle-aged women who know the ancient art form’s stories by heart. Singers in hand-embroidered silk costumes play the characters of Chinese legend: emperors and warlords, wily bandits and maidens in distress. Gongs and cymbals clang, sword fights break out, and the odd acrobat somersaults across the stage.
Despite its popularity, the Sunbeam, which opened in 1972, faces a problem that plagues many independent arts groups in this expensive city: ballooning rent. When its lease was set to expire in 2009, there was talk that the landlord would either triple the rent or turn the building into a shopping mall. The government offered some financing and the lease was renewed, but only until 2012.
“It’s tough, but we survive because we hold a large number of shows to manage costs,” said Wong Kwun-shui, who manages the theater. He added that state funding helped but might not be enough to keep the Sunbeam afloat.
When asked what would happen after next year, he said, “Heaven only knows.”
Chinese opera’s influence on pop culture has remained strong, and its mythologies crop up in kung fu films, comic books and television series. But traditional theaters have all but disappeared, except for the Sunbeam and a few others in far-flung locales.
There has, however, has been a greater effort to promote Cantonese opera since 2009, when the 300-year-old art form, sung in the dialect of Hong Kong and southern China, was recognized by Unesco as a piece of “intangible cultural heritage.” And while smaller private enterprises are still struggling, the recent push to promote opera has benefited larger state-run projects.
Plans for the West Kowloon Cultural District, budgeted at 21.6 billion Hong Kong dollars, or about $2.7 billion, include a new Chinese opera center with two mid-sized performance halls as well as a smaller tea-house-type space. When it opens in 2016 or 2017, it will be one of the district’s first performing arts centers.
The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, which has had a traditional Chinese singing program since 1999, announced in May that it would offer what it said will be the world’s first Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Cantonese opera, starting in the 2013-2014 academic year.
The Hong Kong Heritage Museum will open an exhibition later this month on Lam Kar-sing, 78, a veteran performer and the founder of two opera troupes.
And a Chinese Opera Festival, which runs through July 24, is featuring troupes from around China performing in their local dialects.
For the festival’s sold-out opening in early June, the government commissioned Fredric Mao, a Hong Kong theater pioneer, to rewrite, direct and produce a new production of “The Last Emperor of Southern Tang,” a classic tragedy.
Mr. Mao is a figure from outside the opera establishment. Born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong, he spent 17 years in the United States, where he studied theater and acted on Broadway. After he returned to Hong Kong, he encouraged the translation of classical Western works like Shakespeare and Chekhov into Cantonese, as well as the commission of new local plays.
“This is the first time that I’ve done a full Chinese opera myself, since I’ve mostly done modern and contemporary works,” Mr. Mao said. “But, from very early on in life, my parents took me to see Peking, Cantonese and Shanghai opera. It was my first love and has always had an influence on my work.”
He preserved the traditional singing style, costuming, make-up and orchestration, with Chinese instruments. But the backdrop was modern and minimalist, and the time was cut from the original four hours to a more digestible two and a half.
“The original was very long, very heavy on the singing and very repetitive — the way operagoers were used to seeing it in the 1960s,” he said. “If we don’t allow Cantonese opera to evolve, it will not reach a new generation. Younger audiences won’t go if it’s too long or if they don’t understand the language.”
Hong Kong opera is distinct from styles from the rest of China.
“There are some masters who think Hong Kong’s is the most authentic, because the Cultural Revolution disrupted traditions on the mainland,” Mr. Mao said. “At that time, they couldn’t perform traditional operas, only politically correct ones. There was a break in the passing on of oral traditions, and in the training, which was mostly by apprenticeship. But in Hong Kong, these traditions were never stopped.”
“We need to preserve both Chinese opera in general, and Cantonese opera specifically,” said Dr. Herbert Huey, an associate director and registrar for the Academy for Performing Arts.
The school is in the process of hiring and training teachers, and drawing up a curriculum for a form that was historically not taught in a formal, academic setting.
“Before, an opera star would take on pupils as apprentices, and they would learn mostly by observing and following,” Dr. Huey said. “It was very personalized, with no structured training. A young singer could follow a master for 15, 20 years.”
Eliza Wu, the academy’s director of administration, said traditional training usually began when a child was 5 to 7 years old. Because of this and other reasons, Ms. Wu predicts that its first class will have fewer than a dozen students.
“You can’t just be a singer,” she said. “You have to learn floor exercises, somersaults and use of stage weapons. You have to learn to gracefully twirl fans and 10-foot silk sleeves.”
“The repertoire and myths can be the same, but each Chinese region has its own dialect and personality,” Ms. Wu added. “Sichuan opera is more expressive; Peking opera has more acrobatics and weapons use; Kunqu opera focuses more on choreography and dance-like moves; while Cantonese opera emphasizes the singing.”
Back at the Sunbeam, Elro Chen, a 46-year-old housewife, was watching a troupe from Guangdong Province. Ms. Chen, who lives on Hong Kong’s rural outskirts, said she commuted into the city about once a month for shows, and that she often brought along her 16-year-old daughter.
“You have to train young people up to see this kind of opera,” she said.
Alice Woodhouse contributed reporting.

Tsui Hark's 3D martial arts flick -- IHT story

2011-07-14T16:33:00.001+08:00

Photograph by Joyce Hor-Chung Lau for the IHT

International Herald Tribune, July 11, 2011

Bringing a Wealth of Cinematic Knowledge to the Screen in 3-D

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

HONG KONG — Tsui Hark may be a 61-year-old industry veteran with more than 60 films under his belt, but he still has the heart of a young fan.
Crammed onto his neat office shelves are Godzilla figurines, comic books, action figures, Asian deity statues and books on everything from Stanley Kubrick to Chinese travel.
It was a busy morning at Film Workshop, the production company he shares with his wife and longtime collaborator, Nansun Shi, at the Innocentre, a sleekly modern building dedicated to promoting Hong Kong’s creative industries.
A staff member handed him a sample poster for “Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame,” a costume drama that was nominated for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last year. Another assistant set down a bowl of candy, which Mr. Tsui ate absentmindedly while he worked.
He had just flown in from the Shanghai International Film Festival, where he was the jury chairman for a festival of “mobile phone films” or super-shorts that run under 8 minutes and can be viewed on a cellphone.
He has also been jetting between Hong Kong and Beijing to finish post-production work on “The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate,” a 3-D action film that was promoted during the Cannes Film Festival in May, and is due for worldwide release at the end of the year. He will be working again with the action star Jet Li, who first gained wide attention through Mr. Tsui’s six-part “Once Upon A Time in China” (1991-1997) epic.
He is at the 10th New York Asian Film Festival, which gave him a lifetime achievement award on Monday.
“No other director combines his technical mastery, his passionate desire to do something new every time he rolls film, and his intellectual curiosity,” said Goran Topalovic, a co-founder of the festival, who added that one of his organization’s first events was a Tsui retrospective in 2001.
The festival highlighted some of his older films, like the original “New Dragon Gate Inn” (1992).
Some news reports have hyped the new “Dragon Gate” (2011) as the world’s first 3-D martial arts film. (That is, unless you count “Kung Fu Panda 2,” and most devotees of the genre do not.) But Mr. Tsui, who is known for drawing heavily on cinematic history, was hesitant to call it a real first.
“There were 3-D films around when I was a kid,” he said. “Remember those red and blue glasses? Of course, it’s very different now. The old one made you feel kind of dizzy. But I’m very careful saying that anything is entirely new.”
Most new generation 3-D films have relied heavily on animation or computer effects, but Mr. Tsui wanted to preserve the live action and outdoor shoots of traditional martial arts epics when they began shooting in Beijing late last year. The delicate new digital cameras struggled to keep up with him. “The sand storms of Northern China blew dust into the rigs and cameras. Also, the low temperatures froze up the batteries and the lubricants inside the machines.” Mr. Tsui said. “At one point, we had to wrap the cameras in layers of cloth.”
Particular attention was paid to the fight scenes. “If the action is too fast, it can look flattened on the screen,” Mr. Tsui explained. “With 3-D, it’s even more important that the action is seen moving through a particular depth and space.”
Mr. Tsui said that he did not want the technology to overwhelm or dictate the choreography.
“People say, ‘Hey — 3-D! Let’s make the guy punch toward the screen! And it’s such a cliché, kind of like the Chinese warrior girl spinning her long hair in slow-motion,” Mr. Tsui added. “Of course, we’ll still have some of that, but we will also be playing with new moves, taking advantage of how someone moves through a particular 3-D space. We don’t want it to be predictable.”
Mr. Tsui would not reveal the storyline, except to say that it will star Mr. Li as a rebel swordsman and Zhou Xun as his lover, Jade.
“It’s full of twists and turns, but I don’t want to give them away,” he said. “After all, the story is more important than the action or the effects.”
Mr. Tsui was born into a large family in China’s Guangdong Province, and lived in Vietnam as a child before moving to Hong Kong as a teenager.
“Hong Kong was opening up to foreign influences then, and I read and watched everything,” he said. “I loved comic books. My first contact was through Japanese manga and then American superheroes, like Superman, Spiderman and Batman.”
At the same time, Mr. Tsui’s mother instilled in him an interest in Chinese history, myth and folklore by taking him to traditional Peking opera performances, even when they lived in Vietnam.
“I was surprised when I came to Hong Kong, because people didn’t seem interested in their own history, maybe because it was a British colony,” he said. “It’s like people didn’t want to face their own backgrounds and roots. Copying Western culture was considered the ultimate good.”
When Mr. Tsui emerged as a leading name in the Hong Kong New Wave in the late 1970s and 1980s, he was one of the few to do historic martial arts films, like “Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain” (1983), which was also screened at the New York festival this month.
“People would ask me, ‘Isn’t the New Wave supposed to about films with modern subjects?’ But I felt that Chinese culture, art and history were amazing, and filled with wonderful stories,” he said. “Maybe some people thought I was old-fashioned, but I did it because nobody else was doing it.”
Still, Mr. Tsui directed and co-wrote an iconic work of the New Wave, which was defined by vernacular Hong Kong Cantonese slang, gritty urban backdrops and an unblinking look at modern society.
“Dangerous Encounter of the First Kind” (1980) was censored by the then-British government for its graphic depictions of youth violence. It is about a criminally insane schoolgirl and three hapless Hong Kong schoolboys who become tangled in a web of terrorism, bombings, animal abuse and a final encounter with gun-wielding Western bad guys.
“It was banned because the students did such terrible things, like bombings,” Mr. Tsui said.
More than 30 years later, the full, uncut version was screened publicly in Hong Kong for the first time on June 4, during the Noir film festival.
Censorship is a hot topic in Hong Kong, as local moviemakers increasingly work on productions on the Chinese mainland.
“There are restrictions everywhere,” Mr. Tsui said. “I was banned in Hong Kong all those years ago. Every society has its taboos. But China has more limits than most and some topics that you can’t talk about.
“The government is very sensitive about history,” he added. “Five experts look over your script, and then you have to explain your interpretation. Of course, there are things you can’t film. But this is your choice: Do you want to go where the market is? If Bertolucci could go to China to make ‘The Last Emperor,’ why can’t we?”
In November, he will begin filming “The Taking of Tiger Mountain.” He has begun to write the screenplay for another “Detective Dee” movie.
He brushed away concerns that Hong Kong’s distinct cinematic style would be lost as it integrated more with China.
“Hong Kong cinema is already a global phenomenon,” he said. “The China market is opening up. In the near future, it will be open to the world, so it’s only natural that we go there, too.”

Pregnancy as art

2011-07-13T09:24:00.000+08:00

I remarked a few posts down about women, particularly American women, blogging photos of their naked pregnant bellies and going into huge detail about their private problems. I was surprised at the number of online, home-made photos of pregnant bellies being painted with smiley faces, flowers, and God knows what else.
If it read like I was smirking, I take it back. Firstly, because people can blog what they want to. Plus, all these women are braver than I am. (Sorry -- none of you are seeing my 7.5-month pregnant bare belly. And given the stretch marks, I don't think you want to)
Also because I found some images that are really bizarrely beautiful. The three below are from a post about "Pregnancy as Art" on The NYT's Motherlode blog.

Top image: Robyn Thompson via The NYT. Middle image: From David Beckham's Facebook page, of his pregnant wife Victoria.

This is the image that started it all -- the (then infamous) cover of a pregnant, naked Demi Moore, before everyone else was doing it. I remember buying this issue when it came out in 1991 -- I think I was in 11th grade in high school, and a bit freaked out by it. Of course, at 16 years old, I would have been.

Google sent me... snail mail.

2011-07-11T09:31:00.002+08:00

Image from What Culture.

Yes, snail mail, and not even a cheque. Just a postcard with a code. Here's my little AdSense adventure so far:
May 28 -- I start using Google AdSense
May 31 -- I get my first monthly statement. I've "made" US $2.75, or HK $21.
June 28 -- After an exact month of blogging, I've "made" just under US $10, or less than HK $80.
July 1 -- I break the US $10 barrier. Woo hoo! That means Google has finally deigned me worthy of submitting tax and payment information. (If you make less than US $10, you can't even do the paperwork). Happily, the tax stuff seems to only apply to Americans, so I'm exempt.
It also means Google will finally send me the PIN I need to get paid -- though, in the most un-Googly-way, they will send it by the world's slowest snail mail, which allegedly takes 3-6 weeks. No normal letter takes 3-6 weeks, unless it has to be transported by a wagon pulled by actual snails.
July 8 -- I get my postcard and PIN in the mail after only a little more than a week. The snails in Hong Kong must be extra efficient compared to overseas snails.
Now that I read the fine print, I realize that I might have to wait until I earn US $100 to cross a threshold to get paid. Was this the case for anyone else? Did I read the fine print wrong?
At this rate, they won't cut me a cheque until at least May 2012.
By then -- touch wood, that everything goes OK -- my yet-unborn child will be eight months old.
Conclusion: The gestation period for a Google AdSense cheque is longer than that for a human being.

Several kind bloggers -- including Fili, whose intelligent comment got stuck in my spam queue and accidentally deleted, I'm sorry to say -- have written to say that I'm doing this all wrong, and that there are better ways of increasing revenue.
They're right. I'm doing it all wrong. But I've said from the beginning that my goal was not to make money, but to try a new aspect of blogging as an experiment. I'm not interested in spending lots of time boosting my AdSense -- I just wanted to see how it worked first-hand, and maybe give my readers something to discuss and debate. Also, making fun of Google amuses me.

Marc the Trainer & Pregnancy Weirdness

2011-07-09T09:14:00.035+08:00

I've always been lucky when it comes to girlie stuff. I've been spared bad PMS, birth-control pill side effects, and now pregnancy emotional weirdness. Maybe I'm just a woman on an even hormonal keel. (Maybe it's why I write like a man!)
I've had the usual physical pregnancy symptoms-- nausea, fatigue, weight gain. But I've had no crazy mood swings, binge-eating or cravings. In fact, once I got over my first trimester medical problems, I've been pretty happy.
But pounding the pavement through Hong Kong's hot, humid summer -- with what feels like a bowling ball strapped to the stomach 24-hours a day -- can get to even the most upbeat person.(All my colleagues have been complaining of the weather, too, and they're not pregnant).
My symptoms have been, if anything, just plain random. Every morning I wake to discover a new oddity. Orange juice will mysteriously taste like tomato juice. My left calf will hurt, but not my right. My elbows won't bend properly. Small cuts -- like a cat scratch, or a blister on my foot -- will take more than a month to heal. My nails and hair are growing like mad. Oh, look -- stretch marks.
***
This week, I had a nice lunch with Gweipo, then ran a few errands. On the 20-minute commute home from IFC, my ankles swelled up like water balloons. It was immediate. At 11 a.m. I could fit into my shoes. At 3 p.m. I couldn't. All I could do was hobble to bed, prop my legs up, and cover my ankles with Zip-loc bags filled with ice cubes. (Neither Mannings or Watsons had ice packs, so I made my own). The skin developed strange-looking folds, and was hot and painful to the touch. When you're pregnant, you try to wean yourself off over-the-counter medicines like painkillers and anti-inflammatories, so there's not much you can do but lie back and think of Advil.
When Marc the Metrosexual came home during his split-shift afternoon break, that's how he found me -- soggy ice packs on my feet and a duvet pulled miserably over my head in the most un-Joyce-like fashion.
He said, "Come on. It's beautiful outside. Go do some exercise. It may help the swelling."
"No," I said, my voice muffled through the duvet. "My feet have morphed into flippers and they hurt."
He failed to motivate me but -- you've got to give it to the man -- he tried again the next day. He even took a half-shift off work, packed a bag with beach towels, and dragged me down to the pool.
***
It was not easy, because it involved my appearing in public in a bathing suit despite not feeling very good about myself. Never mind P.C. talk about pregnant women being proud of their bodies. I'm a product of a society that says that I should be ashamed of being huge. A lifetime of fashion magazines and nagging Hong Kong salesgirls will do that.
I debated buying a special maternity swimsuit, but decided against it -- it doesn't seem worth the cost, since I have less than two months to go.

Please note that I do not look like a pregnant Nicole Richie in a bikini. My excuse is that she's 5 months pregnant here, and I'm 7.5 months. Or maybe it's because I've never been a celebrity model for the "size-zero look."

I guess I should be proud that I can still fit into my pre-pregnancy Sabrina Swims black bikini, though not in a particularly flattering way. (Bikinis work because they don't cover the tummy -- my one-piece is a lost cause).
Now, how weird is that? I've gotten fatter in the ankles than I have in the butt.
I tried to remember that my brave sister-in-law did go to the beach in a bikini while in late pregnancy. But, for modesty's sake, I threw on a T-shirt and shorts.
***
A month ago, I could still swim. Now it's harder. I think it's my balance -- my belly pitches me forward and I can't propel myself properly. So I walk through the water. The feeling of coolness and weighlessness is relieving. The water adds resistance, so I'm giving my muscles a mild workout.
With Marc by my side, I walked around the edge of the pool five or six times.
Then he spotted me while I made a pathetic attempt at a "lap" of breast stroke and side stroke. (I say "lap" because I use the kidney-shaped kids' pool, as opposed to the grown-up one. Olympic-sized laps these are not).
We rested on the sun chairs. Then I did another five walking rounds and a lap of a slow backstroke, which seems to be the easiest option while pregnant.
***
It's like I have a little cartoon devil and angel on each shoulder. One reminds me how tired and heavy I am; how much harder it is to exercise while pregnant; and how a nap in the air conditioning would be much nicer.
The other tells me that once I get over the unpleasantness of hauling myself outside, I feel better. The hour at the pool brought the swelling down. The more I skip workouts, the heavier I will be, and the harder it will be to get in shape later -- sending me into a spiral of obesity, sloth and inertia.
***
I think it's sometimes hard for men to figure what to do with their expectant partners.
They want to be helpful, but they can't possibly imagine what pregnancy is like. Hell, I couldn't have imagined what it was like a year ago.
Men know they should encourage better eating and exercise habits, but more sensitive women may take suggestions as criticism or insults.
I'm glad Marc hauled my ever-expanding butt down to the pool -- because, this week, without him, I never would have mustered the will-power to go.

Apparently, I write like a man

2011-07-07T09:06:00.014+08:00

I'm going to try -- for my non-baby-loving readers like Foamie and my own sanity -- to alternate pregnancy posts with non-pregnancy ones. Expectant moms still have interests and thoughts beyond prenatal scans and icing swollen ankles, right? Right?
***
V.S. Naipaul, a Nobel-prize winner author, said recently, "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me." He then implies that he is better than all female writers, including Jane Austen.
His comment drew the expected outrage, which I mostly ignored. When famous people make comments like this, it's mostly for attention, so it's best not to give them any.
What piqued my attention was the fact that Mr. Naipaul thinks he can tell the gender of an author simply by reading the text. Can you?
What about best-seller J.K. Rowling, whose publisher chose a gender-neutral name for her in the beginning, to keep from alienating the preteen boys who usually buy fantasy novels about wizards? If you didn't know she was a woman, could you guess from the Harry Potter books?
The New Yorker's book blog points to an online tool that supposedly can guess an author's gender by analyzing a block of text, courtesy of the tech geeks at the Stevens Institute of Technology in the U.S.
I analyzed a dozen Joyceyland posts. They were all written before I had any idea I would be doing this experiment -- to ensure that I wasn't making a subconscious effort to write in a more feminine or masculine way.
The subject matters were: book recommendations; the new Ozone bar at the Ritz; Google AdSense; Father's Day; the Vancouver riots; the Stanley Cup hockey finals; the West Kowloon Cultural District; a job announcement for paid bloggers; Ai Weiwei; and the Hong Kong Art Fair.
According to this tool, 11 of my 12 posts / articles were written by a man. (They were judged as having a 60%-85% chance of having a male author). Only one, the West Kowloon article, was tagged as gender-neutral. None were tagged as being written by a woman.
Maybe it was a particularly masculine-sounding list due to dumb coincidence -- the time period coincided with Father's Day, ice hockey and violence. Maybe it was because four of the stories were from the IHT/NYT, so the style was flattened into the concise, less personal writing I do for work.
To compare, I hand-picked some older posts on softer, girlier subjects: the British royal wedding, cute Hugo the Cat photos, Hong Kong McWeddings and a brunch at the W, which will forever be known around these parts as The Hotel That Can't Scramble Eggs. Nope -- they were still either "male" or "neutral."
**
According to an article in the New Scientist, the Stevens team searched through text from the Reuters news wire and the Enron email database. They identified 157 "psycho-lingustic" factors that could hint at the writer's gender, including differences in punctuation, style, vocabulary and expressions of mood or sentiment.
Women used more question marks and more "emotionally intensive adverbs and affective adjectives such as 'really,' 'charming' or 'lovely.' "
According to Stevens' own documents, women are also more polite.
So, basically, we write like feeble-brained sweeties. Maybe I should blog like, "My, we had the most charming brunch. The eggs were really very lovely."
Men emphasize themes like independence and power. They use more first person (more "I") and directive sentences.
So like "I am a powerful, independent man. Hey, you! Get me some brunch!"
***
The Guardian newspaper created what it calls the "Naipaul test" and asks readers to try to identify the gender based on excerpts from well-known authors. I did terribly on this test, especially given that I had actually read four of the books on the list. But clearly, I am of an inferior gender to Naipaul.

***
Addendum: Here's another tool, "inspired by an article and a test in The New York Times Magazine, the Gender Genie uses a simplified version of an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology, to predict the gender of an author."

I tried 4 blog posts and an excerpt from my still-unpublished fiction. It's all still male!

http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php

Gweipo was right... I'm preggers.

2011-07-02T09:37:00.018+08:00

Gweipo put together various hints -- like our recent search for a full-time amah -- and guessed that I have been expecting. Call it a Mother's Intuition.

You may have guessed from my sudden desire to make space in our flat by throwing out books and clothes. Or the fact that I haven't traveled anywhere for more than a half-year now; have stopped horse-riding; keep complaining of exhaustion; and suddenly have an opinion on issues like paternity leave. But the stuffed animal collection has always been there. I'm a little embarrassed to say that that is not actually baby-related...

People who see me in real life have known for some time, since I am becoming increasingly shaped like a beached aquatic creature.

I was doing yoga at home and looked in the mirror. I saw the oddly soft-sleek skin of pregnancy, the bloated limbs, the rounded middle, and the fact that all the usual sharp edges of ankle, wrist and elbow had softened out. "I look like a seal," I thought to myself.

Prenatal yoga has saved me: I'm in my third trimester and can still touch my toes. I consider this a major achievement. It is immensely useful for putting on my own shoes, picking a 12-lb Hugo the Cat off the floor, or retrieving dropped objects without toppling over.

The picture shows me at about 6 1/2 months, and still wearing some of my looser normal clothes. (For my fashion friends -- that's a Massimo Dutti dress and Marc Jacobs cardigan).

I'm now a bit over 7 months, though I feel much bigger than I look. I was initially growing slowly, but have suddenly ballooned in the last few weeks -- and have now fully moved into big-mama maternity wear. God willing, if all goes well, I will stop work in early August and deliver either in late August or Sept. 1. I look forward to the return of my waist.

I know expectant mothers are supposed to emit rainbows of happiness and start gushing about the miracle of life and the glowingly beautiful female form. I am thrilled, of course. But I'm also realistic about the fact that packing on 25 pounds in the middle of a Hong Kong summer sucks. I try to look on the bright side -- at least my hair has gotten incredibly thick.

I'll try to keep from launching into full-on Mummy Blogger mode, since I presume many of you don't really want to hear about the minutae of pregnancy. That said, there are many funny, unexpected aspects of what I've been experiencing -- and I've been holding my tongue since about Christmas.

I've been reading pregnancy blogs, and I'm amazed at how open some women are, particularly Americans. They document every step, even in very early pregnancy, which is considered high-risk. They are happy to talk about everything from graphic medical problems to trivia I'd never thought of. (Who knew so many pregnant women were worried about the state of their navel piercings?) They also show half-naked photos of themselves to demonstrate all the weird stuff that happens to the body. Some even paint flowers and smiley faces on their growing bellies.

Maybe I'm more shy. Maybe it's an Asian thing. Maybe, despite being so logical on the outside, I was worried about jinxing myself by announcing it too early. I did have a tough first trimester with some scares.

Maybe I didn't want to invite negative comments on something so close to my heart. My regular readers here are great. But I sometimes get awful anonymous comments. I generally don't mind -- but having unwanted comments about your expectant child is a different matter. I've always been more careful since I don't write anonymously. (That's why you will never see the full proper names of my family or colleagues, even if they are mentioned.)

Anyway, so now you know. Marc the Metrosexual and I are a bit nervous, but very happy, as we wait for our new little person to arrive.

Scantily Clad Kylie and Happy Handover Day (I Guess)

2011-06-30T20:20:00.004+08:00

Personally, I'm not a huge fan. But she's still better looking than that ol' Bauhinia flag.

Happy Handover Day! Or, to use that snazzy term our government came up with, Happy Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day. Just rolls off the tongue.
Time Out Hong Kong's three July 1 picks are the Kylie Minogue concert; the annual massive pro-democracy and civil rights march; and a handover party at Volar. That sums up Hong Kong, doesn't it? Politics sandwiched between pop music and glitz.
For a second, I mis-read the Time Out listings and thought that the People's Liberation Army had started a stand-up improv comedy troupe. "Boy," I thought, "They're really going out of their way to do the friendly PR thing in Hong Kong -- though I doubt they'd be very funny."
Then I reread it. There's a group called People's Liberation Improv -- no relation to the Chinese military -- also doing an event tomorrow night.
I need more sleep.
(In case anyone wondered why there's been a drop-off in blogging, I've been exhausted recently).
As for me? Well, I'm a miserable old woman nowadays, and will be in the office tomorrow. So I will be going to none of these. Maybe I'll have myself a July 1 brunch before work?
I don't mind, really. HK SAR Establishment Day is not exactly a holiday near and dear to my heart, like Christmas or Chinese New Year. And the "I Guess" in the headline is, in part, because of Hong Kongers' ambivalence toward the handover.
Those mixed feelings are fading now, I think, as people have had 14 years to get used to the idea. And while many mainlanders have happily integrated into our society, and vice versa -- and while there are many more business and social ties -- there is still unease on the ground over everything from politics to language to immigration.
***
Anna Tam at the Journey to Hong Kong blog has a nice post on the role of Canto-pop at the mass July 1 civil rights march. I've noticed the same thing at June 4 memorials.

What books should I buy?

2011-06-23T09:00:00.001+08:00

These are available both as Kindle and physical books.
At least that's what Amazon.com says. Sometimes, I go to buy and then get an error saying the Kindle version is not available for Asian buyers. Anyway, let me know which ones sound good to you.

The Internet is a Playground: Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius (humor)
Write More Good: An Absolutely Phony Guide (humor)
Daphnis and Chloe (Oxford World's Classics) (classic)
The Human Stain: A Novel American Trilogy (3) (contemporary fiction). By Philip Roth
Life of Pi Life of Pi (contemporary fiction). By Yann Martel
Fludd (contemporary fiction). Because I loved Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall: A Novel so much.
Black Dogs: A Novel (contemporary fiction) by Ian McEwan

Not on Kindle

I'm pretty embarrassed at how badly read I am in Chinese literature, even in English translation. Except for some Su Tong and Eileen Chang, who are both modern / contemporary, I haven't read much. I vaguely know the stories of the Monkey King and Mulan, mostly thanks to bedtime stories of my mother.

I'd like to read something like Dream of the Red Chamber, though excerpts I've tried haven't quite piqued my attention -- too flowery, too many names. But I feel I should try.

There seem to be a million versions out there. Any advice on where I should start?

Random Question
When you place a book mention via Amazon Associates, you get three choices: "Link," "Image" and "Link and Image."
Originally, I tried making all of these "Link and Image." But it seemed to only allow one book per post. So I just used "Link" for most of them, and then it worked.
Anyone else have this problem?

World's tallest bar (for now)

2011-06-22T23:53:00.002+08:00

At Hong Kong Hotel, the World’s Highest Bar

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

Photo courtesy Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong

This came out on June 21, 2011, on The New York Times' InTransit travel blog.

Hong Kong has taken the lead in the two-city race to build the world’s highest bar.
Ozone, at the Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong (118/F, International Commerce Centre, 1 Austin Road West, Kowloon; 852-2263-2263), which opened in March, tops the list at 118 floors, beating out Shanghai Grand Hyatt’s Cloud 9 (87 floors) and the Shanghai Park Hyatt’s 100 Century Avenue (92 floors).
There is an issue with all three, though: they are located in smoggy cities, and so far up that they are often within or above the cloud cover, often making views spotty. During a recent visit, Ozone’s open-air deck was thick with fog, and the view out its windows — which might be spectacular on a rare clear day — was obscured by a milky-opaque mist. Ironically, lower- and mid-level floors at both the Ritz and the adjacent W Hotel offer great views of the harbor and skyline.
Ozone does have stunning interiors, though, and an impressive drinks list, with prices to match. You could easily make a dinner out of its bar snack selection. There is raw seafood like oysters, sushi and sashimi, as well as small-plate items like lamb kebabs, tandoori chicken, cucumber-pomelo salad, duck spring rolls and vegetarian gyoza, or pan-fried Japanese dumplings.
Ozone has the potential to be pretentious, but it is surprisingly comfortable. It isn’t too loud, too dark, too crowded or too snooty. You can show up in a decent T-shirt and jeans without getting a raised eyebrow from the staff.
A generous dinner and drinks for three — including a bottle of wine and a few cocktails — comes to about 1,800 Hong Kong dollars, or about $230. There are no reservations, but it’s not hard to snag a table if you arrive early.
***

Non-NYT personal response -- Would I go back? Probably not just with Marc or local friends. But if I had overseas guests to impress, and it was a clear night, I would.
A comment that got edited out (probably for space, as these posts have to be super-short,)is that their food was well prepared, but not exactly exotic by Hong Kong standards. If you live here and eat at local restaurants, you'd find typical Asian fare like spring rolls, etc., overpriced. But that's not the Ritz's fault. It would be the same at any five-star hotel, which is exactly what you're paying for.
I've heard some people here grumbling about the service. We were actually well served and treated. And, no -- it wasn't a press thingie. We went as normal diners and paid our own bill.

Google AdSense FAIL

2011-06-20T09:09:00.019+08:00

Question on Google AdSense: Are ads specific to the site, or specific to the viewer? I presume it's the latter, based on browsing history. (It's a little Big Brother scary that Google knows whether you've been naughty or nice online).

Whether I'm reading about a Canadian hockey team or gay guys in Thailand, the ads will be for frozen yogurt in Kowloon. I know that has to be just for me, since it's irrelevant to 99% of that site's other readers. I get funny results sometimes, since I browse so much for research and articles. After researching my McWedding story, I got fast food and junk food ads for weeks. Recently, I've seen legal ads pop up. Why would Google presume I want to hire a lawyer in Sydney? Because I've been reading lots of China Law Blog? It's a good thing the NHL season is over, since I'm sick of getting ads for artificial ice skating surfaces.
****
My Google AdSense experiment is going nowhere. Yesterday, the ads mysteriously disappeared. If I cared, I could have contacted customer service, but I don't really care. They magically reappeared today.

For the last two days, I've gotten stuck right under US $10 -- US $9.44 to be exact. That's for about three weeks of blogging. I'll just finish my two months as promised -- so I can say I got one AdSense cheque -- then probably cancel the whole thing.

I've done a little bit of work to increase traffic -- and that does help a bit, like pinging, Facebooking, posting more often, etc. I mean, it helps my traffic. It doesn't help my earnings.

Increasing traffic from, say, 80 to 100 to 150 to 200 visitors a day seems to have no impact on AdSense -- the amounts are so tiny, it wouldn't matter anyway. I'm currently making US 50 cents a day. Let's say I get a 100% increase. Well, that'd be a buck a day. I'd be better off scouring Hong Kong sidewalks for dropped change.

To see any palpable effect -- to actually profit from this -- I'd probably have to jump from 100 visitors to 10,000. And that would require full-time professional blogging -- probably with an investment in a proper Web designer, web hosting, etc. Plus, I'd have to do focused, service- / money-orientated blogging. And my experiment wasn't about that -- it was whether one could make money doing the fun, free, personal, part-time blogging that most of us enjoy.

A blogging friend said she found more success using the Amazon Associates program. This is more targeted. You use an image of an Amazon book (which I often do anyway). If your readers click on it and buy the book, you get a cut. Given how much I read, it wouldn't be a stretch for me to write a book review a week. And I wouldn't feel like I was skewing coverage for cash -- I'd criticize a book if I didn't like it, or leave it out entirely. And reading is genuinely a big part of my life.

So maybe I'll try that.

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T09:50:00.009+08:00

For some reason, I don't have many pictures of just me and Dad. There are lots of pictures of me and Mom, or Mom and Dad, or group family shots. Why? Is it because, when we're on vacation, Mom never takes the camera? I will have to rectify this in the future. I had to go back a few years to find this snapshot, which (I think) is from about the time I came back from England in 2008.

I admit that I almost forgot Father's Day, which makes me feel pretty bad, since I'm close to my own Dad.
Marc and I did make dinner for my brother, who became a father late last year, and a dedicated and loving one at that.
He's the kind of guy who will let his wife rest at a cafe while he takes the baby and the diaper bag to the changing room at the mall.
As regular Joyceyland readers have probably guessed, we're a pretty happy family in general. But I've never seen my brother as happy as he is with his daughter.

Usually, I send flowers or a gift for Mother's Day. I'll justify not sending Dad something because he lives in Australia, where Father's Day is in September. (Weak excuse, I know).
But I will give him a call, and promise him a nice dinner out when he comes to town.
Dad was the one who taught me to swim, to ride a bike, and to do math. (OK, my math isn't so hot these days, but that's not his fault). He was the one to drove me to school, violin lessons, art lessons, friend's houses and study dates. Most importantly, he taught me to cook.

I found a Father's Day post in the most unexpected place: The Sartorialist fashion blog. He writes:

"I think stay-at-home dads get a bad rap in the media.

"We're often portrayed as forgetful, distracted, emotionally stunted parental blobs who never get it right.

"And yet somehow - I loved my time as a stay-at-home dad, it literally changed my life, and I met a lot of other dads during that time that proved to me that the media portrayal is just not justified."

The photos are great. (It is The Sartorialist). But he's asked that they not be re-used, so click on the above link to see them.

There's much talk about stay-at-home-moms. What about stay-at-home-dads? When a couple is expecting a child, everyone always asks the woman when / if she will stop working, even if both parents are professionals. Will she take extended leave? How will she balance career and family? Will she feel guilty going back to work and leaving the kid with an amah?

In what is supposed to be an equal society, why does nobody ever ask the man that? Is anyone curious whether he would like to stay home? I know several men who would love it.

Maybe society doesn't allow men to have that choice that women do. Both stay-and-home moms and working moms gets a certain respect. But a jobless guy who stays at home may be considered lazy, or not up to the task of child-care, particularly in Hong Kong.

What if the wife has a great job, and the dad is a real homebody?

Of course, the burden of pregnancy / delivery / early babycare falls on the woman for physical reasons.

And having a stay-at-home-dad is not a practical financial option for most, given that governments and companies don't allow for paternal leave, and most men still earn more than most women. But why not at least ask the question?

Anyway, happy day to the daddy bloggers: Ulaca and SorLo in Hong Kong, and Wang Jianshuo in Shanghai. And to those who just welcomed new babies, Joel Chung in Hong Kong and White Dusk Red in Singapore.

Dad -- I owe you a steak dinner when you come to town.

Filipina amah dies to save Hong Kong boy

2011-06-18T14:38:00.003+08:00

According to ABS-CBN, a Philippine news station:

MANILA: An overseas Filipino worker died in Hong Kong after saving the life of her 6-year-old ward, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) said.
Juanita Agustin Limbago and the boy under her care were knocked down by a tour bus in Hong Kong on June 10, according to an OWWA report.
"Without regard for her own safety, Juanita turned her back to the bus and used her arm to protect the boy. Both were pinned down but the boy got out of the unfortunate incident with only slight wounds," the agency said in a press statement.
She was working in Hong Kong for less than three months before she she was killed.
Her family will receive P220,000 in death and burial benefits from OWWA, according to the agency.

Note: P220,000 is about US $5,000 or HKD 40,000.
Has anyone seen anything in the local press about this?

So the guy in charge was Chinese...

2011-06-18T10:12:00.006+08:00

Jim Chu. Photo credit: Mary McNeil , via Wikipedia

Reading about the Vancouver hockey riots, I found out that the city's chief of police is actually a Chinese guy, born in Shanghai. Jim Chu, the first non-white-Canadian to hold that post, said that "criminals, anarchists and thugs" hiding among hockey fans were responsible, according to The Canadian Press and The Globe and Mail.

He also said that "the worst was over" in about three hours and that there were more than 100 arrests.

I have no idea whether he did a good job, though he did seem to handle it well, given how unexpected it was. As the kid of immigrants myself, it piques my curiosity when I see a Chinese person in a position of authority overseas.
***

Vancouver, in its very Canadian way, is sorry. Volunteers helped clean up the streets. And the local press even found out who those people were making out in the middle of the chaos. Turns out the guy was a simple-minded Australian. Here's what his abashed mom had to say:

“I just thought, yep, that would be Scott because he’s a bit of a dreamer and he wouldn’t have even known there was a riot going on around him, quite possibly,” Ms. Jones said with a laugh from her home outside Perth in western Australia.

Oh, dear Lord. They rioted in Vancouver.

2011-06-17T09:55:00.005+08:00

Top photo: Rich Lam/Getty Images, via The Montreal Gazette

Bottom photo: Chris Walts, via CNBC

These shots look like they are movie stills. I wish they were, because that would mean that some Vancouverites didn't really riot and try to burn down their beautiful city after their hockey team lost. If this isn't the definition of sore loser, I don't know what is. I don't know what's up with those people making out. Too much Molson beer? Maybe some couples find the destruction of their city to be sexy?

It perplexes me. Why do Canadians have hockey riots? Why? This happened not too long ago in Montreal, too. It's strange because Canada has to be one of the most moderate, laid-back, peaceful places I've ever been. The stereotype, if anything, is that Canadians are overly friendly and passive.
Why over hockey? I lived in Quebec Province through the whole separatist conflict and referendum. Now that was a seriously politically fraught time -- but I never saw any violence or anything that came close to a hockey riot.
Of course, not all hockey fans are like this and it is a minority of people. But it can't be a very small minority -- it's not like one fire was set. There was looting, fighting, lots of injuries, but thankfully, no deaths.

As in all news, a troublesome few make the rest of the city look bad. I went to YouTube to watch the video of the game highlights, and the top videos were all of the rioting, and not of the actual sporting event or ceremony.
By the way, if you haven't figured it out, the Boston Bruins won. And I have to give it to them -- they deserved it. They played better. Their goalie Tim Thomas -- who seems like a decent man, who kept himself well above all of the violence and infighting of this season -- was great.
In the stadium, those polite Vancouver fans reportedly cheered and applauded the opposite team, especially Thomas. Even though they were disappointed, they know good play when they see it. It's too bad that the behavior was so much worse outside the rink.
Now there are reports that citizens are out cleaning up the garbage left from the riots. That's very Canadian.
But needless to say, this all makes me feel even worse about being a fan of the sport.

Do I watch the Stanley Cup finals?

2011-06-16T01:58:00.005+08:00

The Canucks are led by identical Swedish twins called the Sedins. It's a funny sport.

As I've blogged before, my brother and I grew up watching ice hockey. And, during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, my interest was re-sparked and I've started watching it more recently -- though just via YouTube clips and blog posts.

I enjoyed the Olympics, especially that overtime, gold-winning goal by Sidney "The Kid" Crosby, who was probably the top player in the world at that time.

Tomorrow (actually, later today in Canada) is the final of the Stanley Cup, the sport's biggest prize. But I don't think I'll bother watching. It's been a disturbing year.

Sid the Kid in happier times. Look at that pure joy.

In January, Crosby, then 22, got hit hard during an NHL game, was sent back into a second game, was hit hard again and suffered what is presumed to be two consecutive concussions. He hasn't played since.
Several months ago, I saw a sad interview with him, where he said that he had trouble with some aspects of daily life -- bright lights hurt him, driving a car could be hard, and sometimes he lost track of conversations. A subsequent interview showed a more clear-headed Crosby, though he still seemed unable to exercise.
Hopefully, he will play again -- these Canadian kids train almost from the age they can walk. But even if he can't, one wonders what the future will hold for a young, bright man if he's suffered from brain injury.
**

This was one that broke my heart.
In March, a Montreal Canadiens rookie, Max Pacioretty, 22, was thrown against a stanchion at the arena by the Boston Bruins captain, the Zdeno Chara -- who is not only one of the more experienced players, but also the biggest at 6'9", or 2.06 m. This was probably the worst injury since it was a concussion and broken neck. (Fractured C4 vertebrae)
It touched me because Montreal is my team, and also because I watched a friend try to recover from spinal cord injury and paralysis a few years ago.
Pacioretty was (relatively) lucky that the injury did not sever the spinal cord. If it had gone an inch deeper, he could have been left in the same situation as my friend, who is still disabled today.
Chara was not suspended for any games, in a move that was later criticized. Various elements added fuel to the fire: The head of NHL Discipline had a son who plays on the Bruins. Even though he said he withdrew himself from this particular decision, a whiff of favoritism was left in the air (fairly or not).
Another Bruin tossed a branch into the bonfire by accusing Pacioretty of exaggerating the injury. Then Air Canada fanned by flames by threatening to withdraw sponsorship if the game didn't clean up violence.
I still don't know if this was a really unfortunate accident, or a deliberate attempt to injure.
**
That controversy was barely over when the Bruins found themselves in the Stanley Cup finals against the Vancouver Canucks.

On June 6, a Canuck defenseman, Aaron Rome, threw his shoulder into the head / neck of a Bruin, Nathan Horton, who hit the ice, fell unconscious and suffered from a severe concussion. Rome was thrown out for the rest of the playoffs.

On June 13, a Bruins defenseman, Johnny Boychuk, hit a Canucks forward, Mason Raymond, who suffered a vertebrae compression fracture and will be out for 3-4 months. (Whether this counts as a broken neck, I don't know.)
Boychuk was not suspended, and questions of favoritism came up again, even though the aforementioned NHL disciplinarian had stepped down from his job.
***
There are experts who watch the replays in slow motion and have long discussions on whether a hit was a few seconds too late, or whether a hit fell within various NHL rules. I am not one of these guys, so I'm not passing judgment on whether these hits were technically legal or not. Hockey is fast and violent, and there are many things that are allowed (like checking against the boards) or generally tolerated (like fights). You could have a whole blog on where that line is, but I'm not going into it here.

I have an old friend who loves cycling, much more than I love hockey. A few years ago, he said he started getting sick of it -- every article was about which cyclist used drugs and steroid-related politics. Sometimes, when I read hockey news online, it feels like all the coverage is about violence, horrible injury and NHL infighting, and I feel that same aversion.

I probably won't be up at 8 am to watch the finals, though I will check the score out of curiosity. I'm backing the Canucks, because it would be nice to see the Stanley Cup back in Canada for the first time since the early 90s, and because I think the Bruins have been particularly violent.

I believe a similar debate has been going on in American football.

3QS9FSYRPA8M

West Kowloon: Worth the almost US $3 billion price tag?

2011-06-15T09:00:00.002+08:00

Ym Yik/European Pressphoto Agency

The Hong Kong skyline as seen from West Kowloon, site of the city’s planned cultural center.

A Bid for Culture in a City of Commerce

This was posted on The New York Times website on June 6, 2011, and was published in the International Herald Tribune on June 7, 2011.

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

HONG KONG — This is a fast city, where skyscrapers go up in a blink and neighborhoods are transformed overnight.

It is also a rich city. The budget set aside for new cultural development would be the envy of any arts administrator: 21.6 billion Hong Kong dollars, or about $2.8 billion, to build 15 performance venues, a museum, an exhibition center and a giant park on some of the world’s most valuable undeveloped waterfront property.

And yet the 40-hectare, or almost 100-acre, site reclaimed from the South China Sea in the 1990s for this purpose is still empty, except for a walkway and an orange sign advertising a “West Kowloon Cultural District” that does not exist.

The years have seen international attention come and go. The heads of the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Guggenheim Museum in New York once visited with charm offensives, hoping to build branches here, but interest petered out. Endless plans were rejected, like one by the architect Norman Foster to build the world’s largest canopy.

Hong Kongers rolled their eyes at the delays, red tape, bloated budget and executive shuffling. But finally this year, the government seems to have jump-started the moribund project.

During the Hong Kong International Art Fair last month, more than 100 visiting art-world luminaries were taken on a cruise to see that promised plot of land, guided by Lars Nittve, a founding director of the Tate Modern in London and now the new head of West Kowloon’s proposed contemporary art museum.

Two days later, it was announced that Michael Lynch, the former head of the Sydney Opera House and the Southbank Center in London, would be West Kowloon’s new chief executive.

He replaces Graham Sheffield, formerly of the Barbican in London, who was appointed the project’s head with great fanfare last year but quit after only four months.

Most important, the government decided in March on a concrete plan — another one by Mr. Foster, minus the canopy — and a deadline. Construction should begin in 2013, with the park opening by 2015 and the first phase of the art facilities later that year. Performance venues are not expected until 2017.

West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

A computer rendering of the proposed West Kowloon Cultural District, as envisioned by the architect Norman Foster.

The idea for a grand artistic overhaul emerged around the time this former British colony was restored to Chinese control in 1997. Amid criticism that the city was a “cultural desert,” the new Hong Kong government countered with a plan for a money-making, prestige-building “cultural hub,” a catchphrase that has lasted through the project’s twists and turns.

Hong Kong has no facilities that come close to the iconic theater districts, opera houses or museums of New York, London, Paris or Tokyo.

Cultural infrastructure planning really began only in the 1970s, with concert halls built in the 1980s. The last major performance venue to go up was the Hong Kong Cultural Center, which opened in 1989 to criticism that it overlooked one of the world’s great skylines but lacked windows.

“This will put us on the same stage as New York and London,” Henry Tang, Hong Kong’s chief secretary and the chair of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, said in an interview. The fact that Mr. Tang is also the region’s second-ranking government official reflects the prominence of the project.

One criticism is that part of the government funding will support newly built shopping, dining and entertainment facilities, with the expectation that their management will go to one of the city’s rich developers. The arts area will also be connected to a controversial new rail line, as well as the International Commerce Center skyscraper and a luxury shopping mall, both of which opened in the past few years.

This unusual bundling of state arts funding and commercial enterprise plays into Hong Kong’s image as a shopping haven, not a center for high culture.

While most overseas museums have small gift shops or cafes, it is hard to imagine a Guggenheim or Tate being officially linked to a mall.

The justification is that revenues from the restaurants and shops will feed back into the project as arts funding. Unlike overseas cultural facilities that receive long-term government support and grants, West Kowloon will get one lump sum and then be left to its own devices.

“Most art projects in the world basically lose money and require subvention,” said Mr. Tang, who formerly was Hong Kong’s finance secretary. “We have a financing model in which the retail, dining and entertainment income will be under the management of the authority and help fund the arts side.”

The plans have sent nearby property prices soaring, while local artists complain of being priced out of studio spaces in neighborhoods like West Kowloon. There is also unease over what is seen as a cozy relationship between the government — which technically owns all of Hong Kong’s land — and tycoons and property developers.

Alice Poon, a columnist and author of “Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong,” has written about West Kowloon from the viewpoint of its being a property deal.

“In the case of West Kowloon,” she said, “the government is seeing arts facilities as a way of enhancing land values in this area — or, at least, that is the perception many people have.”

Then there’s the eye-popping price tag.

“In the context of building an arts and culture hub, it is a large amount of money. Other places in the world don’t talk about those kinds of sums,” Mr. Tang said. “But compared to other infrastructure projects in Hong Kong, it is not expensive. The high-speed rail costs more than double.”

The new train line — which, at 66.9 billion Hong Kong dollars, is projected to be the world’s most expensive per kilometer — drew wide protests over its price and the fact that a local village would be demolished to build it.

The line is part of a grand plan to create a direct link from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong’s new arts-shopping-dining-luxury-hotel extravaganza.

The government envisions an attraction for the greater Pearl River Delta region, which includes Shenzhen and Guangzhou, two Chinese cities with populations pushing 10 million each. The idea is that Chinese tourists will come out of the terminal and see a glittering cultural center with the water behind it.

“There will be a 270-degree view of the harbor. No other site is more spectacular than this one,” Mr. Tang said.

There is general agreement that Hong Kong’s existing arts facilities are inadequate.

“There are not enough venues, not nearly enough,” said Tisa Ho, executive director of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, which sold out 160 of its 180 performances in advance this year. “There are acts we would love to bring to Hong Kong but cannot.”

“There is no major performing arts group in this city with its own dedicated venue,” said Yip Wing-sie, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s music director, who also sits on one of the West Kowloon district’s boards.

Still, some worry whether the city has the artistic bent to fill all the new buildings with meaningful content.

“There has been much concern over whether we’re just building hardware instead of software, and in that regard, we’ve done relatively bad P.R. work in telling people what this museum should be,” said Mr. Nittve, the new executive director of West Kowloon’s 40,000-square-meter, or 430,000-square-foot, M+ museum, which will display international contemporary visual culture.

Mr. Nittve, who started work in January, will have four or five years to hire and train 400 staff members and build a collection of artwork.

“I’ve never built a collection entirely from scratch,” he said. “It’s really fun. Very few museums have this much money, but when you’re building something new, your needs are endless.”

Mr. Nittve said he was at liberty to collect what he wanted from auctions, galleries, other museums and even new commissions. And he noted some of Hong Kong’s advantages.

“We have the freedom of speech here. We can show things that can’t be shown in mainland China or Singapore,” he said. “We’re connected to the international scene. And in terms of customs and taxes, this is a much easier place for moving artworks in and out.”

The overriding feeling is one of anticipation.

“The train is going to be starting to move,” Mr. Nittve said. “This project has been so long in the coming — 12, 13 years — and now it’s starting to happen.”

“We needed these venues yesterday,” said Ms. Ho, the arts festival director. “That said, I’d rather we get it right than get it fast.”

Seeking Asian bloggers for paid work

2011-06-11T11:12:00.002+08:00

Unofficially ("off the record," as they say in my industry), a little birdie tells me that a U.S. media organization is seeking paid professional bloggers across Asia, with work starting in the autumn.

I presume this company is looking for people who are currently working in the field or, at the very least, a very bright J-school grad. You'd be asked to cover the usual gamut of topics -- basic news, business, features, etc. You'd have to write in an engaging way -- they're not looking for a personal blog, but they don't want dry, re-hashed government statements either.

They're looking to cover China (possibly written out of Hong Kong), Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia and other Asian countries.

All the blogging would be in English.

You may also be called upon to do supplemental work, like doing a short video, or holding a Q&A with someone from their main newsroom if there's breaking news.

This has nothing to do with my own work or with the IHT / NYT, so I don't have too many details, except that it would be a freelance / stringer-type contract, and the pay shouldn't be too shabby. (Better than my little Google AdSense experiment, anyway). I'm just posting this to help out a friend.

If you're interested, send your cv to my email, which you can find on the right, and I will pass it on. Obviously, the project hasn't been officially announced yet, which is why I'm not saying which organization it is. But I know they've begun scouting for writers.

Hong Kong Art Fair and and Ai Weiwei

2011-06-09T10:32:00.013+08:00

The Time Out booth at ART HK. All photos by Joyce Hor-Chung Lau

This story came out on June 3, 2011 in the IHT and NYT websites.

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

HONG KONG — The Hong Kong International Art Fair ended this week with a record 63,500 visitors and top sales driven in part by wealthy Chinese buyers.

But there were no signs that the local Hong Kong government or event organizers had buckled under pressure to remove contentious materials that might have been off-putting to Beijing.

"Marble Arm" at the Galerie Urs Meile booth.

The art fair included a single work by the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained on April 3 trying to board a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong and is being held in a secret location. “Marble Arm,” a life-sized arm and hand, its middle finger stretched upward in a vulgar gesture, served as a small symbol of dissent at the booth of Galerie Urs Meile , which has branches in Switzerland and Beijing. Laid casually on a black coffee table where buyers and sellers hashed out high-priced deals, the work, like most at the fair, sold.

ART HK, as the fair is commonly known, the first major art event to be held on Chinese soil since Mr. Ai’s disappearance, was abuzz with talk of his case. The former British colony, which was handed back to Chinese rule in 1997, maintains a higher degree of freedom than the mainland, though those boundaries are sometimes tested.

Magnus Renfrew, the fair’s director, was quoted in both the local and international media as supporting the artist. “Ai Weiwei’s works have been greatly admired,” he said in a statement.

The London-based Lisson Gallery , a regular and prominent attendee at the fair, which represents Mr. Ai, released a statement saying that it went “on the record as deploring the detention of Ai Weiwei by the Chinese authorities,” and cited Hong Kong’s “democratic process, greater freedom of press and an independent judiciary.” The statement added: “Hong Kong is a gateway to the entire Asian region, not just China.”

A stack of flyers at the Lisson booth.

The gallery also handed out Ai Weiwei flyers, buttons and T-shirts. Some young visitors pulled the shirts on and wore them around the event.

Greg Hilty, Lisson’s curatorial director, said the gallery had been thinking of bringing Mr. Ai’s works to Hong Kong, but that the timing had made that too difficult. “It was simply impossible to arrange logistically because we can’t speak to him — it’s a pity,” he said.

In London, the gallery is holding a show of Mr. Ai’s works at its two locations, including an outdoor sculpture garden, through July 16.

The Chinese authorities and state-run media have reacted defensively to international criticism of Mr. Ai’s detention, releasing statements implying that the West does not understand China.

“I think the Chinese authorities have been taken aback by the response,” Mr. Hilty said. “I’m sure we don’t entirely understand China. But at least there has been a traffic of ideas with the West. The biggest pity is if China cracks down and that stops happening. That would make cultural exchange that much harder.”

ART HK, which took place in central Hong Kong in the Convention and Exhibition Centre, also included satellite shows held on the eastern side of town. It was there, in art spaces hidden among the meatpackers and junk shops in the Chai Wan district, that real and heated discussion took place over freedom of expression.

A lightbox right outside the "Love the Future" exhibit.

Kacey Wong , an artist and curator, had pulled together “Love the Future,” a group exhibition that opened last week in response to Mr. Ai’s disappearance into police detention. About 30 local artists participated, some showing up at midnight to drag newly created pieces into the converted warehouse space.

Wong with his Mud Grass Horse, which he crafted in a few days partly out of an IKEA carpet. I didn't have space in the article (which, my editors kept reminding me, was already way past the 1,000-word mark) to explain the whole Mud Grass Horse thing, but you can read about it here.

Another part of the show: Live, swimming river crabs in neon-lit boxes. Another thing that would have just taken too many grafs to explain to anyone not particularly interested in the ins and outs of the Chinese blogosphere. You can read about the significance here.

The only piece they could get by Mr. Ai was a single porcelain sunflower seed, taken from a recent installation at the Tate Modern in London. There were also stacks of “Ai Weiwei’s Blog,” a new English-language book of his online writing, released in April by the U.S. publisher M.I.T. Press.

“We’re holding this show because, in Hong Kong, we can still enjoy different opinions,” Mr. Wong said. “We don’t want Hong Kong to go down the path China has in terms of human rights.”

Portraits by the Hong Kong photographer Bobby Sham show faces imprinted with the "Wei" character.

Mr. Wong said that organizing such an event in Hong Kong was more politically charged than doing so in New York or London, where there are currently major exhibits of Mr. Ai’s works, at Central Park and outside Somerset House respectively.

Mr. Wong’s show was co-organized by Art Citizens, a group of local artists, writers and performers that formed after Mr. Ai was taken by the Chinese authorities. Over the past month, Art Citizens has organized street protests and illuminated images of Mr. Ai onto buildings. Similar projections elicited warnings from the People’s Liberation Army.

“We Hong Kongers like to think that we’re separate, but we have to sometimes remind ourselves that we’re technically living in China and flying the Communist flag,” Mr. Wong said. “We think we live in this bubble, but maybe the skin on that bubble is growing thin. On the mainland, Ai Weiwei is already a taboo subject.”

Attending the “Love the Future” show was Jennifer Ng, one of Mr. Ai’s assistants, who was supposed to accompany him on the Beijing-Hong Kong flight, when guards took him away. She was allowed to leave the mainland herself, since she is a Hong Konger.

“There has been almost daily commentary about this in the Hong Kong media,” she said.

“There has been some overseas attention, too,” she added. “But we have not yet been contacted by the mainland press, where there have only been a few articles, and only in the state-controlled media.”

According to Ms. Ng, four other people have been detained in the Ai case, including three colleagues and one friend. “It’s important that there is public awareness about the situation, including the other people who are missing,” she said.

Up one flight of stairs was another show, “Red: China and Artistic Freedom” by 10 Chancery Lane , a central Hong Kong gallery that also funded the space for “Love the Future.”

Wang Keping's "Silence," left. Map Office's Ai Weiwei photos, right.

“Red,” a group exhibition of 17 artists, was a more polished affair with more prominent names. It covered the history of contemporary protest art in China, starting with Wang Keping’s “Silence” sculpture from the seminal Xing Xing exhibition of 1979, which led to demonstrations over freedom of expression, three years after the end of the Cultural Revolution.

The opening party for “Red” featured a performance by Xiao Lu, the artist who famously fired a handgun at the National Art Gallery in Beijing in 1989, a few months before a violent crackdown on student protests there.

Mr. Ai was represented in a series of four large photographs called “To Fight With Crossed Arms” (2007), which Mr. Ai created with Map Office , a French-Moroccan husband-and-wife team based in Hong Kong.

The Map Office artists Laurent Gutierrez and Valérie Portefaix have been close friends with Mr. Ai for a decade. They were the ones waiting for him to arrive in Hong Kong, when he was detained.

“We’re also showing a video of him playing with our daughter, who was 7 at the time,” Ms. Portefaix said. “We’ve been at his house many times with our children. He is like family to us.”

The “Red” exhibition included a talk by Valerie C. Doran, a curator based in Hong Kong.

“The show is about freedom of expression, not necessarily a confrontation with the authorities,” she said, adding that she did not find Mr. Ai’s works particularly radical in an international context.

“You could paint mountainscapes, and if the government decided that mountains were ‘sensitive,’ then suddenly, you’re seen as being political,” she said.

She said that she was not surprised at his detention, and that the government had been harassing Mr. Ai since he created works related to two controversial events in 2008: the deaths of schoolchildren in the Sichuan earthquake and the melamine-tainted milk scandal.

“It was never a case of if they would take him, or even why,” she said. “It was just a matter of when. Many of us thought this was inevitable.”

Nothing to do with Ai Weiwei directly, but an amusing part of that 10 Chancery Lane exhibit in Chai Wan. Detail from a 2011 work by Jian Jun Xi, a Chinese artist, which depicted an Andy Warhol-like character lying on top of a Chinese flag.

***

Correction: June 2, 2011

An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that an Art Citizens illuminated projection drew a warning from the People's Liberation Army. It was other projections that elicited the warning.

Deviled eggs recipe

2011-06-08T00:47:00.010+08:00

'Tis the season for eating salad for dinner every night. No, I'm not on a diet. I'm just hot. Both Marc the Metrosexual and I have been going through our annual Hong Kong summer drop in appetite, Hullett House Cheese Festival nonwithstanding.

For some reason, one night after work, I decided to pretend that I was invited to a 1980s cocktail party and made deviled eggs for dinner. (BTW, I didn't go to cocktail parties in the 1980s. I'm not that old).
***
eggs
salt and pepper
mayonnaise
mustard, preferably Dijon
paprika
salad

1. Carefully put eggs in a pot of cold water. Turn the heat up to high.
2. When the water gets warm, stir in lots of salt -- not to flavor the eggs, but to make them easier to peel later.
3. When the water reaches a gentle boil, set the timer for 10 minutes. Continue cooking, but at slightly lower heat.
4. While the eggs are cooking, make your green salad with lettuce, tomatoes, etc.
5. When the timer goes off, remove the pot from the heat and rinse the eggs in lots of cold water until they are room temperature.
6. Gently tap each egg on a hard surface and then roll -- this is the easiest way to remove the shells.
7. Slice the eggs in half lengthwise.
8. Using a small spoon, remove the yolks and mash together with mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper.
9. Spoon the yolks back into the egg-white shells. Sprinkle with paprika.

I like to eat this with a crisp salad, buttered rye toast and a glass of chilled white wine.

Note: Paprika is a deep red spice that is made of a variety of dried peppers. It is much less spicy than chili powder. Instead of being hot, it has a nice roasted, flavorful taste.
**
This is why I'm not going to make it as a foodie blogger -- I am pretty indifferent to photos unless I have to take them for work. Otherwise, I come up with blurry shots like this one.

Next up: A more sophisticated (and hopefully better photographed) recipe for frisee aux lardons, a French salad.

Kid sells kidney to buy iPad

2011-06-02T20:42:00.006+08:00

From Bloomberg: "A 17-year-old Chinese boy sold one of his kidneys for 22,000 yuan (US $3,400) so he could buy an iPad 2, according to a video of a Shenzhen Satellite T.V. report posted on QQ.com today."

Well, I guess he has two of them. Or had. I hope he never suffers from kidney failure later in life.

In other kidney related news, that is the organ affected by the unusually deadly E. coli bacteria that has been found in European produce during the most recent food safety scare.

If this Chinese kid happens to eat a German cucumber, he's basically doomed.

What hospital will perform surgery to allow a minor (or anyone) to just trade organs for cash?

And what happens when the next, newest version comes out? Will it be his spleen?

***
Addendum.

Oh, now that I've read another story on CNN Money, I feel kinda bad for the kid.

According to Thursday's Shanghai Daily, a 17-year-old student in Huaishan City, China, gave up his right kidney to get his hands on Apple's (AAPL) hottest-selling product.

"I wanted to buy an iPad 2 but could not afford it," the boy, surnamed Zheng, told the Chinese language Global Times. "A broker contacted me on the Internet and said he could help me sell one kidney for 20,000 yuan."

As luck would have it, the hospital in Chenzhou City that performed the procedure was not qualified to do organ transplants, and the patient, feeling worse for wear, regrets having made the bargain.

When he told his mother what he had done, she called the police. The case is being investigated.

He got caught somewhere between a suddenly-get-rich society, and a seriously corrupt medical system. We all make youthful mistakes -- bad girlfriend/boyfriend, overspending, etc -- but he will never get his kidney back.

**
China Daily reported that dealers organizing organ sales would face criminal charges, starting May 1. (Was it not a criminal charge before then?)
They also cited a case in which a kidney was going for 60,000 yuan. So, on top of everything else, this kid was also ripped off.
I hope he still has the contact of the agent, and the police go after him.
Poor kid. Hopefully he (or his mom) will have the common sense to get him a decent medical check-up to see how much damage has been done.

To AdSense or Not To AdSense? That is the question.

2011-06-02T09:00:00.007+08:00

I've said before that I have little interest in making money from this personal blog -- and I still mean it. I have a full-time writing / editing job already. Plus, I'm pretty realistic (meaning pessimistic) about the prospect of making a real salary from casual, personal blogging at this point in time.

So, why have Google AdSense ads been popping up?

Well, I was curious.

Actually, I was curious a couple years ago, but I was rejected by Google -- God knows why. It's not like this is a sham spam site.

Recently, I was chatting with a friend about paid professional blogging -- how much one makes, whether it works. I went online to do more research. And I couldn't find any definitive answer to exactly how much one makes from putting ads on a personal blog.

So I decided to try it again, maybe for a month. (Why AdSense works for me now, but not before, I'll never know.)

It's only been a few days and I'm already finding the ads annoying. (If you, dear reader, also find them annoying, please leave a comment to let me know, and I may stop my experiment. Making this blog enjoyable is more important than measly ad revenue).

Some of the Google ads have been directly related to topics I've covered and might actually be of interest to readers, like a new book with Ai Weiwei's blog excerpts.

There have also been a few Hong Kong art galleries, which I'm happy about.

Others are just random, like one for Groupon, the coupon site, or some rather suspicious real estate deals.

Then there are ones that make my site look trashy, for "role play massage" and "China love match."

The one that bothers me most is for a book called Consumptionomics. It's a full-color box ad laid out right between blog posts and not tagged as an advertisement. The way it's placed, many readers may presume that I am personally recommending this book, which I am not. (Nothing against it, I just haven't read it). That blurry line makes me nervous.

***

Do you guys use online advertising?

I did a casual scroll through my blog roll and concluded that the grand majority of you (80%) don't use advertising, while a minority (20%) do. I excluded blogs produced by major media, university bodies, businesses, etc. I only looked at personal blogs written by one person.

Of 40-odd blogs, only 3 used Google AdSense so far as I could tell: Hongkie Town, Gweipo and Stinky Tofu. (And Gweipo and Stinky Tofu had only tiny ads near the bottom).

Others used small, tasteful targeted ads, but seemingly not from Google, like Privilege and Hong Kong Fashion Geek.

How much would I make? Is it worth it?

I've been at it 5 days and I've made US $2.50, or about HK $20.

If I stick with it a month, that adds up to about US $15, or HK $120.

(We'll see how much it really is after this 30-day experiment).

Given where I am today, it's not worth the annoyance and clutter on my site -- HK $120 is one taxi ride from home to work if I take the Western Tunnel. So an entire month's worth of blogging is equal to one lazy night when I don't take the MTR.

But, if I were 19 again (ah, 19), I'd probably stick with it.
At that time, I was just beginning to start freelancing part-time. US $15 would have been a little extra money for me to grab some pizza and go see a band.

(Though, to show you how vastly different professional paid print work still is to online-only work: A teenage kid writer working for a free local weekly in the mid-90s made US $50 per printed short article. Today, The New York Times InTransit travel blog also pays US $50 per short article -- 15 years later. And the NYT is way up on the payscale. Of course, if you write for the proper print edition of the NYT, you get paid much more.)

It's probably not really worth it to hobby bloggers who have other jobs, or who are otherwise financially supported.

It may be worth it if you're a student / freelancer / just starting out, and every bit counts. When I first came to Hong Kong, as an editorial assistant at the Boston Globe, HK $120 would have been the equivalent of a week's worth of "rice box" lunches, or a gas or water bill.

It may also be worth it if you're serious about capitalizing on your blog -- meaning that you spend significant time every day writing, cross-linking, building traffic, pinging and bothering your friends by constantly self-promoting on Twitter and Facebook. You could also pepper your site with little boxes for RSS feeds, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Squidoo, etc. Some bloggers find a way of doing so tastefully -- usually with custom design. Otherwise, your site looks like a Formula One racer's uniform.

I presume I'd make much more than HK $120 a month if I did that. But professional blogging is a whole other kettle of fish.

I still am not convinced you can make a living writing a one-person personal blog, and writing what you really want, instead of turning it into some sort of advertorial-type site.

Am I wrong? What are your experiences with online ads or trying to make money blogging?

Not-so-serious art review with lots of pretty pictures.

2011-05-29T01:35:00.020+08:00

* Note: All photos by Joyce Hor-Chung Lau. Please credit me and this blog with a link if you use any of them.

Here's my unofficial, unprofessional, un-work-related review of ART HK: what art I saw and, almost as important, what people wore. Sunday is the last day of the art fair, and it's only open a few hours, so it's your last chance till next year.

I enjoyed the public opening on Thursday more than the V.I.P. vernissage on Wednesday evening.
First, let me say that I am not really a very important V.I.P. (an annoying term that seems to have seeped into every aspect of Hong Kong and Chinese life). It was only after asking, twice, that I got a single pass, meaning that Marc the Metrosexual couldn't come with me.
(I don't mind. Marc was working anyway, and I'm the kind of journalist who never asks for anything free.)
There were lots of P.R. and media folk there -- even those who barely write about art -- as well as art scene types, and assorted rich people and socialites.
The vernissage is more about the art scene than the actual art. And I am more interested in the latter than the former. Not to sound like a grumpy old woman, but I don't care much for hours air-kissing and trying to see around people standing in front of the art with their wine glasses. It was even more awkward because I'm not drinking, and it sucks to be alone at an event and the only sober one there. The only complaints I heard all night was that a certain V.I.P. lounge had switched to a paid bar -- a mini emergency! Of course, this comment came from a thirsty journo.
The public day was more interesting, since it was normal people, if you will. I like ART HK because it doesn't feel like just some industry event. There were uniformed school kids, teens in flip-flops, elderly people arguing in Cantonese -- you get the idea.
***
One thing I noticed during the V.I.P. preview was that people were almost magnetically drawn to any piece of art with a reflective surface. There could be a booth with the most amazing other pieces, but if anything looked like a mirror, it drew a crowd. Maybe it's telling that art scene people really like gazing at themselves.

Anish Kapoor's reflective plates were a big hit at Lisson Gallery.

Ooh. Shiny. Hey, look! That's me! (The work is by Olafur Eliasson, at New York's Tanya Bonakdar Gallery).

How do I look in this dress?

****

Speaking of dresses, this trio -- from New York, I believe -- were the best-dressed people there. Hong Kong ladies -- we were beat.

****
Artists also like seeing themselves, and there were quite a few self-portraits.

Creepy life-sized self-portrait of New York-Argentinian artist Rirkrit Tiravanija.

Creepy self-portrait of Evan Penny, the South African-Canadian artist, as a young man.
***

You know what's relieving about not writing for work? I don't have to look up photo caption details. Here are some people standing in front of a big ball of stuff and a portrait of Leonardo di Caprio.

Here is a woman in a colorful top next to some sort of wavy statue. (You can tell I write professionally about art, can't you?)

This is Hong Kong's paean to giant seafood. Imagine if that was real. I'm sure some tycoon would pay millions to have it made into soup.

Murakami's flowers. I recognized them from the LV bag.

In my last post, I questioned Net-A-Porter's wisdom that we creative types go to work events in short shorts and high platform shoes. I only saw one example of this and got a (blurry) shot of it. This woman's feet must have been killing her. I spent two-and-a-half- days pounding the Convention Centre's concrete floors in modest, sensible 2" wedges, and I felt like I could barely walk at the end.
***
Sarcasm and sore feet aside, I really did enjoy the art fair. It's way bigger, better and more varied than even a year or two ago.
The downstairs main floor had the heavy hitters -- the big London / New York / Tokyo / Hong Kong galleries selling expensive pieces.
I think I preferred the two special sections up stairs -- one was for younger galleries showing younger artists, and another had small solo shows of only Asian artists. It was definitely funkier, and I think I found a piece I want to buy.

I do actually like talking to art people -- but more during one-on-one conversations during the fair proper. I met a few new contacts who seem really nice.

And I shouldn't complain / make fun of the V.I.P. lounges and passes too much. I used the lounge many times during my three days at the fair.
The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre doesn't have great or particularly convenient food choices. It was so nice having a place where I could sit on a couch, kick my shoes off, order a water and a veggie sandwich, and meet someone for a quiet chat.

ART HK -- IHT article

2011-05-27T02:39:00.006+08:00

Image courtesy Edouard Malingue Gallery

The Buddhist-inspired work ‘‘Three Heads Six Arms’’ by the Chinese artist Zhang Huan is on display through June outside Hullett House.

Hong Kong Art Fair Reaches Out Into the World

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

HONG KONG — It’s no surprise that Hong Kong’s art fair has taken another bound forward, given its quick growth since it began in 2008. But the rising number of galleries taking part — now at 260 — is not the only reason that 2011 is turning out to be a watershed year.

Internationally, the owners of Art Basel are now majority stakeholders in the Hong Kong event, it was announced at the start of May, a turn that promises to give the fair more prominence.

Locally, ART HK, which opened to the public on Thursday, has spread beyond the confines of the exhibition and convention center. The large number of outside events has created for a first time what feels like a real citywide art week.

The fair has already succeeded in pulling in top galleries and orchestrating million-dollar sales of works by celebrity artists like Damien Hirst. The Hong Kong market is awash in cash, particularly that of newly moneyed collectors from China and other parts of Asia. Auction houses are getting into the act too.

Christie’s is the most prominent among them, and has a casual partnership with ART HK to hold its spring auctions in the same venue, at about the same time. From now until June 1 at the convention center, Christie’s will have 13 sales of art, antiques, wines, watches and jewels. Other companies, particularly smaller Asian auction houses, are following suit, with sales planned at hotels around town.

Local galleries also have waited for this week to open new spaces or major shows.

Hanart TZ Gallery — run since 1983 by Johnson Chang, an established dealer of contemporary Chinese art — opened its new space on Tuesday with a ribbon cutting by David Tang, the founder of Shanghai Tang, the luxury goods chain, who has been a busy man. The day before, Mr. Tang had opened a show for 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Both galleries are participating in the fair.

New galleries not officially part of ART HK are also using this week to raise their profiles.

The most booked man in town seems to be David LaChapelle. This week, Mr. LaChapelle, the New York fashion and art photographer, unveiled a 3-meter, or about 10-foot, collage inspired by Géricault’s “Raft of the Medusa” for his first Hong Kong solo show at de Sarthe Fine Arts, which opened in March. Mr. LaChapelle then held a private film screening, served as host for a party at a nightclub called Privé, and showed up at a Champagne breakfast a few hours later. On Friday, he will be debate whether art must be beautiful at Intelligence Squared, a British debating association.

Image courtesy David LaChapelle

David LaChapelle’s “The Raft of Illusion, Raging Toward Truth II” (2011).

Edouard Malingue Gallery, which opened late last year, worked with the Pace Gallery of New York this month to install a massive Buddhist-inspired sculpture by the Chinese artist Zhang Huan at a harborside hotel and shopping complex. “Three Heads Six Arms” will be showing in the courtyard outside the complex, Hullett House, a renovated 18th-century colonial building, through the end of June.

But the main buzz has been over the buyout of Asian Art Fairs, ART HK’s owners, by the MCH Swiss Exhibition Group, though the deal will not be official until July. The Basel-based company said that it would keep the local management basically intact through 2012. The only immediate change will be moving ART HK from its May slot to February, to fit in nicely between Art Basel’s events in Miami Beach, usually each December, and in Basel, Switzerland, each June.

Marc Spiegler, a co-director of the two Art Basel events, said by telephone from Switzerland that the goal was to have “three events on the arts calendar covering four continents, with Art Basel Miami Beach representing both North and Latin America.”

“We are not interesting in just copying and pasting the same fair in three locations,” he said. “Along with greater interest from China, we are looking at many rising art markets from Australia and New Zealand, to Singapore and Indonesia,” Mr. Spiegler said. “The Asian market is developing so quickly, it’s hard to say what it’s going to look like in five years.”

Annette Schönholzer, another co-director, added that the Hong Kong fair would eventually be rebranded as an Art Basel event.

“Art Basel’s involvement will bring unparalleled expertise and contacts that will take ART HK to a new level,” said Magnus Renfrew, ART HK’s director. “It will make us the third most important art fair in the world.”

There was unprecedented interest in ART HK, even before the Art Basel announcement, he said. “We were inundated with about 500 gallery applications and only accepted about half,” Mr. Renfrew said. “And while there are big names from New York and London, we’ve made sure to preserve the Asian flavor of the fair.”

One new feature at the fair this year will be the Asia One section, with 47 galleries representing a dozen nations, from the Turkey to India, Japan to New Zealand. “Because Asia One will consist of solo shows, it will give viewers, particularly collectors from the West, a more in-depth view of what is on offer,” Mr. Renfrew said.

Corporate interest has not lagged, either. DeutscheBank, a longtime sponsor, continues to be involved with the fair. Then there are quirkier offerings from companies like BMW, which is bringing in a Jeff Koons-decorated “art car,” or the Mandarin Oriental, which has afternoon tea cakes co-designed by the Chinese artist Zhou Tiehai.

Image courtesy BMW.

G.O.D., the upscale local retail chain that specializes in homewares and interiors, created the fair’s V.I.P. lounge. And if you can’t afford the minimum entrance fee of 7,500 Hong Kong dollars, or $960, for a group of five, you can hang out with the plebeians at the Veuve Clicquot Champagne bar next door.

What do creative working types wear to an art fair?

2011-05-25T09:37:00.002+08:00

I'm excited that I get to spend the rest of the week at the Hong Kong Art Fair.
And, as I often do when I have a really busy day ahead of me, I find I can't sleep and end up doing late-night online shopping / Polyvore making. (Yes, I know, not the best use of time).
According to online fashion guru Net-a-porter, here are the things that we creative-chic working women are supposed to wear: Buddy Holly glasses; well-tailored hot pants; chunky impossibly high heels; impractically small clutches; funky silver or crystal jewellery; and lots of neutral tones.

Black shorts by Philip Lim. Ankle boots by Rupert Sanderson. Sandals by Elie Saab and Aldo. Metallic leather clutch by Dsquared.

**
This must be the fantasy version of what women in creative industries wear, the same way that Sarah Jessica Parker's outfits on "Sex and the City" were the fantasy version of what freelance writers wore. (Most work-at-home writers spend their days in coffee-stained bathrobes, not designer frocks and Jimmy Choos).

Net-a-porter is right about the neutral tones and the glasses, though the Buddy Holly thing was newly hip among creative types in Montreal waaay back when I was in college in the 1990s.
They are also right about the jewellery. Once, when I was particularly distracted at a meeting, I took note of what a much-senior female colleague was wearing -- and it looks like silver and funky is the way to go. (I've personally worn the same Tiffany silver teardrop necklace every day for the last 5 years or so, since Marc the Metrosexual gave it to me).
But I have never seen colleagues in media / arts go to work events in hot pants -- no matter how stifling it is here in Hong Kong, no matter how well-tailored or expensive the shorts are.
Once upon a time -- when I first arrived in Hong Kong in my mid-20s -- I had cream-colored tailored short shorts that I paired with coffee-brown high-heeled sandals. I was showing off my toned and tanned legs, before they turned all pale and saggy from a decade of sitting in a cubicle.
I remember mincing my way down the stone steps next to the Fringe Club in that combo, trying to look cool, trying to see if any guys noticed, while also trying not to break my ankles.
There is a very brief window in time in which a young woman can get away with such an outfit. It helped that I worked at an indie local free weekly at that time.
Ah, youth.
**
So what am I wearing to the Art Fair? I have to find something that will last me through a daytime press conference, an afternoon back at the office, and a dressy evening event. And, unlike most of the tai-tai-type women who will be there, I won't be spending my day getting done up at the salon and picking out a cocktail dress. I'll be stuck with what I put on in the morning.
High heels are out, as I'll be running around and on my feet for about 9 hours -- and the concrete floors of the Convention Center are just brutal. (The fair is two storeys and seven halls big this year).
A small clutch is out since I need a bag big enough to carry the back-breaking stash of materials I get every year -- press packs, art catalogs, etc.
Also, I hate clutches, since they use up one of your free hands, making it even harder to maintain that drink / business card balance so important at social events.
I'll probably go the safe route -- sensible black wrap dress, sensible dress shoes, a cardigan in case the air con is freezing, my silver necklace and a big LV tote for carrying everything.

British blue cat asks for tummy rub

2011-05-21T13:00:00.006+08:00

A light-hearted post for the weekend...

You left me home alone all day while you worked.
Your punishment: One tummy rub.

Seriously, guys. I'm waiting here.

What's taking so long?

Alright then.

***
Since everyone asks, Hugo the Cat is a British Blue, which is a type of British Shorthair. In terms of looks and personality, he conforms almost entirely to his breed description.
They are known for being quite chubby, very quiet, a bit stand-offish with strangers, but warm to the people they know well. Once I asked if he was a bit heavy and lazy, and was told, "No, he's a British breed."
Gotta love Hong Kong. 14 years after the handover, we can still find things to blame the Brits for.
He's reserved in his affections (which, allegedly, is another British characteristic). If he's sure there are no strangers around to observe him, he will occasionally indulge in undignified behavior, as above. But he would never do this if there were guests in the house.
And he will not abide by having his tummy rubbed, or getting picked up and cuddled, if he's not in the mood. He won't bite or scratch, since he is not aggressive, but he will squirm out the way.
But he does like attention. The British Blues will quietly follow you around from room to room, perching right next to you -- like sitting on the sofa while you watch TV, or sleeping at the foot of your bed. But they would never belittle themselves to actually crawling on your lap.
I don't know about other British Blues, by Hugo purrs more than any cat I've ever had.
**
This post is dedicated to Wo Ai China, who posts photos of his cats in a dedicated manner every Saturday.

Xu Bing: An Artist Who Bridges East and West

2011-05-20T13:48:00.008+08:00

Photo by Morna Livingston

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

Published: May 19, 2011 -- International Herald Tribune / The New York Times

HONG KONG — In early May, assistants from Xu Bing’s studios in New York and Beijing scoured the gardens and dried flower stalls of London for material he could use for his next big installation.

The technique is not new to Mr. Xu. He has used what he calls “collected items” before, like a tank-flattened bicycle from the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and dust from the destruction caused by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack in New York. Part of what makes his most recent work interesting is its placement at the British Museum, an institution better known for historical artifacts than experimental art. The show, part of his “Background Story” series, opened on May 12.

"Where Does the Dust Itself Collect?" (2004) was made of 9/11 dust.

Courtesy Xu Bing Studio.

One of China’s best-known artists and the recipient of a so-called genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation, Mr. Xu bridges the very old and the very new. His new installation is a tall box with various materials inside that mimic the mountains, water and buildings of a 17th-century Chinese ink painting. That original landscape, by Wang Shimin and dating to 1654, is part of the British Museum’s collection and is displayed with its contemporary counterpart.

Viewed from the front of the box that stands at a height of 5 meters, or 16 feet, the new work takes on a slightly blurred appearance through a pane of frosted glass, “like the way ink looks when it sinks into paper,” Mr. Xu said. But the back is left transparent, so when visitors walk to the other side they can clearly see the dried plants, corn husks, crumpled paper and other debris he has amassed from those sites across London.

“I like to use local materials like tree branches or garbage,” Mr. Xu said. “It makes for a more direct, intimate relationship with the viewer.”

Mr. Xu emigrated to the United States in 1990 and did not move back to China until 2008, when he was appointed vice president for international relations at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, known as CAFA. Since then, he has been looked to as a cross-cultural spokesman, a role he seems to wear uneasily.

Just before his trip to London, Mr. Xu stopped by Hong Kong for a university lecture that happened to take place the same week that protests erupted over Ai Weiwei, a fellow artist who was arrested in April. In Hong Kong, which allows demonstrations that would be barred on the mainland, local artists illuminated images of Mr. Ai onto the walls of government buildings, a move criticized by the People’s Liberation Army.

“I don’t wish to comment on this,” Mr. Xu said in an interview in Hong Kong.

“I still have to live there,” he added, referring to Beijing. That same week his silence was noted in a Financial Times article, headlined “Apolitically Engaged.”

There are parallels between Mr. Xu and Mr. Ai. Two years apart in age, they are of a generation of pioneering artists born in the 1950s who came to prominence with the emergence of Chinese contemporary art in the 1980s. Both have spent considerable time in New York and both have been praised for bridging East and West. Both also were praised by the government in 2008 — Mr. Ai for co-designing the Bird’s Nest Stadium for the Beijing Olympics and Mr. Xu for his university appointment.

But the two could not be more different in style. Mr. Ai, who has created some abrasive and openly critical works, is now a brash activist working outside the system. Mr. Xu, a soft-spoken, owlish academic with round glasses and feathery hair, is a prominent figure in China’s top art institute.

While he would not address criticism of China for Mr. Ai’s treatment, Mr. Xu did comment on what he saw as a non-symmetrical level of understanding between East and West.

“The West generally doesn’t care much about what happens outside of the West,” Mr. Xu said. “Whereas people outside of the West care very much what happens there.”

He added: “We’ve been learning from the West for the last 100 or 200 years. It was Western culture that pushed human development over the last century. It is only now that things have changed and people are paying attention to China.”

Kai-yin Lo, an art expert in Hong Kong who was involved in promoting Mr. Xu’s installation at the British Museum, saw him as an in-between figure.

“Xu Bing is China’s international artist, and his art seems to be more appreciated abroad than in China,” she said from London. “While well versed in tradition, and in the culture and mores of the Communist regime, Xu Bing also poses cerebral and representational challenges to their validity and values.”

Mr. Xu majored in printmaking at the art school where he is now vice president. He is perhaps best known for two linguistic innovations: For “Book From the Sky,” which he created from 1987 to 1991, he invented an alphabet of 4,000 nonsense Chinese characters, carved them into wooden printing blocks and crafted hundreds of books using traditional typesetting and binding techniques.

After that, he came up with the Square Word Calligraphy system, which renders English words through Chinese brushstrokes. Chinese readers are frustrated because it seems like they should be able to read the letters and words, but they can’t. English readers see the Chinese-looking script and immediately dismiss it as illegible. It is only after the trick is pointed out that they realize they actually can read the writing.

Xu Bing's name in Square Word Calligraphy.

It was Mr. Xu’s generation that brought conceptual art to prominence in China. Since his student days at CAFA in the 1970s, there has been a sea change in the scope and direction of art education. Then, there were seven majors and 80 students. Now CAFA has more than 20 majors, including new offerings like animation, and nearly 5,000 students.

For decades, Chinese academies relied on an old European beaux-arts model, with an emphasis on technique. They have now branched out but still hold onto basic classical training.

He was critical of some overseas art academies that, he felt, relied too heavily on theory and not enough on basics. “We learned the techniques of the West, but then we watched the West throw it away,” he said.

On Sept. 10, he will open the third installation of his Tobacco Project in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. It will include a 440-pound, or 200-kilogram, block of tobacco printed with the words “light as smoke.”

The first segment of this installation was shown in Durham, North Carolina, in 2000 and followed the history of the American tobacco industry. The second segment was shown in China, now the world’s largest tobacco producer and consumer. Past Tobacco Project works included a voice reading the medical records of his father, who died of lung cancer, and a book of tobacco leaves that was devoured by beetles over the course of the exhibition.

Similarly, his British Museum installation will be dismantled after it closes on July 10, as the organic matter inside will naturally rot away. Like a crushed bicycle, or 9/11 dust, it is meant to be a fleeting commentary on a changing world.

Aileen Li contributed research.

ART HK reminder

2011-05-20T09:39:00.002+08:00

This was on the NYT's InTransit travel blog on May 13, 2011.

In Hong Kong, Art Fair and Auction Share Spotlight

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

Image courtesy ART HK. A view of the exhibition center at last year’s Hong Kong International Art Fair.

Art fairs and auctions are usually seen as playgrounds for high-flying insiders, like dealers and collectors. What most travelers don’t know is that they are often also open to the public. And in Hong Kong, a city with tepid museum options, they are often a better bet than the places written about in travel guides. The trick is being in town at the right time and finding events that are not widely advertised.

From May 26 to 30, art lovers can catch the double-whammy of the spring auction previews Hong Kong International Art Fair, both at the Convention and Exhibition Center connected to the Grand Hyatt (Harbour Road, Wan Chai). from the Christie’s auction house and the

Auction houses stage large, free exhibitions in the days leading up to sales. Just dress decently — and maybe leave young children behind. This season, Christie’s will offer artifacts from Imperial China; historic paintings, ceramics and calligraphy; and modern and contemporary Asian art. There is also its famed jewelry sale. (No, they will not let you try the jewelry on.)

Meanwhile, the Art Fair features mostly contemporary work, a younger crowd and a more casual feel — as well as a cafe and Champagne bar. If you want to hob-nob, snag one of the 500 Hong Kong dollar tickets (about $64) to the evening vernissage (or preview) on May 25. But the regular fair, from May 26 to 29, lets you see more art with less fuss.

There will be 250 galleries represented, from almost 40 nations and states, and lots of visitors, so get there when the doors open at noon. Tickets are 250 Hong Kong dollars at the door. Kids under 12 are free.

When I was going through ART HK's press photos, I noticed one shot featuring me (in the black skirt) and my I.H.T. colleague, as seen through a Damien Hirst work last year. I'm not sure if my being an (inadvertent) part of their PR campaign is flattering, or embarrassingly pretentious.

Joyceyland

Happy New Year!

Wiki and LOLCats at risk?

Don't trust everything you read online

A laisee / hongbau reminder

Moderating comments for now

This is what you get for eating cats

And on a happier new year's note...

Top 10 news stories of 2011

The Lau Family & The Christmas Deities

Art development job offer

Eveningwear for sale

Hong Kong job offer

Why has eBay rejected me?

Is it wrong to say I'm bored? Should I write a novel?

I almost forgot about "The Opium War"

Highlighting Differences in Interpretations of the Opium War

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

The New York Times. August 18, 2011

Another round of our dinky elections

Who's afraid of the Hong Kong autumn?

What's labor actually like?

Hong Kong still a cultural desert?

Usually, I'm annoyed by Google AdSense...

Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs

More Smartphone help

Smartphone help needed

A baby is born

Mindlessly cute cat video to take my mind off of labor

David Sedaris on gross Chinese food -- for my grumpy anonymous Asians

David Sedaris on Republicans and unwanted babies

Review: Ye Shanghai, Kowloon / Shanghai

Law journal seeks freelance writers

Does parenthood change the way you see news?

Canada's answer to war, and my good-bye to work

I.H.T. blogger position

More media jobs

My God, what a news week.

Why are the census people harassing me?

Real Estate Fistfight in a Dark Side Mall

Bright side of suddenly giant feet: shopping

Chinese Opera Gets a Modern Edge -- IHT article

Both photos are from “The Last Emperor of Southern Tang." Courtesy the Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Services Department.

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU.

Published: July 18, 2011. International Herald Tribune

Tsui Hark's 3D martial arts flick -- IHT story

Bringing a Wealth of Cinematic Knowledge to the Screen in 3-D

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

Pregnancy as art

Google sent me... snail mail.

Marc the Trainer & Pregnancy Weirdness

Apparently, I write like a man

Gweipo was right... I'm preggers.

Scantily Clad Kylie and Happy Handover Day (I Guess)

What books should I buy?

World's tallest bar (for now)

At Hong Kong Hotel, the World’s Highest Bar

Google AdSense FAIL

Happy Father's Day!

Filipina amah dies to save Hong Kong boy

So the guy in charge was Chinese...

Oh, dear Lord. They rioted in Vancouver.

Do I watch the Stanley Cup finals?

West Kowloon: Worth the almost US $3 billion price tag?

A Bid for Culture in a City of Commerce

This was posted on The New York Times website on June 6, 2011, and was published in the International Herald Tribune on June 7, 2011.

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

Seeking Asian bloggers for paid work

Hong Kong Art Fair and and Ai Weiwei

Deviled eggs recipe

Kid sells kidney to buy iPad

To AdSense or Not To AdSense? That is the question.

Not-so-serious art review with lots of pretty pictures.

ART HK -- IHT article

Hong Kong Art Fair Reaches Out Into the World

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU

What do creative working types wear to an art fair?

British blue cat asks for tummy rub

Xu Bing: An Artist Who Bridges East and West

Published: May 19, 2011 -- International Herald Tribune / The New York Times