The Woman of Wrath angers more than the eponymous woman seems angry for much of it! (Film review)

The tickets I bought for the 2025 Hong Kong International Film Festival 

 

The Woman of Wrath (Taiwan, 1984)

- Tseng Chuang Hsiang, director

- Starring: Pat Ha, Pai Ying, Chen Shu Fang 

- Part of the HKIFF's Chinese-language Restored Classics program 

 

This 1984 film adaptation of Taiwanse feminist writer Li Ang's The Butcher's Wife is said to be a classic of Taiwanese New Cinema.  I must confess to not knowing about this movie though until I read that a restored version of it would be screened at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival along with works that I am familiar with and rate highly, including Patrick Tam's My Heart is That Eternal Rose (Hong Kong, 1989) and Johnnie To's PTU (Hong Kong, 2003).

 

Starring two familiar names and faces in Pat Ha (who I've seen and loved in offerings like On the Run (Hong Kong, 1988)) and Pai Ying (who I had seen just one day earlier in The System (Hong Kong, 1979)!), I figured that I'd at least get guaranteed an acting masterclass.  And I think I did; what with these two thespians who I've seen in multiple roles play against type as they took on the roles of a much put upon female and a barbaric lout of a man in The Woman of Wrath!

 

Before they are seen in the film though, the audience is "treated" to scenes that set the tone for this harrowing drama in which rape and the general horrors of living in an unsophisticated patriarchal society prominently figures.  A young girl witnesses her mother, a widow who looked to be starving, allowing a man to have sex with her in return for food.  (Talk about a stark illustration about the "food for sex" theory I learnt about in biological anthropology classes at college!)  Then, when a male relative bursts into the room to confront -- and berate -- rather than rescue her, she decides out of shame -- or is it anger and desperation? -- to violently take her own life.

 

That young girl -- who I could easily imagine having become permanently traumatized by witnessing those scenes -- grows to young adulthood and is played by Pat Ha.  Just in time for Ah Shih, as she is called, to be married -- and sold? -- off by her uncle, whose family she had been living with, to a man living in another village a boat ride away.

 

Chiang Shui (portrayed by Pai Ying) is a butcher.  Literally.  And yes, the audience is shown graphic scenes of him and his fellow butchers at work.  (It's worth noting that The Woman of Wrath was previously shown with eight scenes cut that this restored version reinserts into the work.)  He also is shown visiting a prostitute -- a scene that turns out to be the film's tenderest; what with him treating the prostitute with the kind of humanity, not just affection, that he doesn't for anyone else, including the young woman he took as his wife.

 

Chiang Shui's disregard, dislike even, for Ah Shih looks to have begun on their first night together, when she doesn't respond well to his sexual overtures; not surprisingly given that she appears to not have known anything about sex and had not been ignored and not even given anything to eat in between her entering his home and his deciding to bed her after a big dinner and many drinks with his friends.  He does seem to like very much to make her scream and squeal while they are having sex (that is, when he is raping her), the way that a pig screams and squeals as it is being killed by him and his fellow butchers.  

 

Ironically, Ah Shih's loud screams are interpreted by other villagers as ones of enjoyment during sex and she is castigated as a sex maniac by village gossips.  (More than incidentally, many of the womenfolk in the village also come across as envious of her position as the wife of a butcher since their assumption is that she gets to eat lots of meat, unlike them.) 

 

The terrible treatment of Ah Shih goes on for what can seem like an eternity even though the film is less than 2 hours long.  Ditto the wait to see Ah Shih unleash her thoroughly justified wrath.  The fact of the matter though is that The Woman is Wrath is poorly named.  Honestly, I think The Terribly Abused Woman would have been a better title for this painful watch of a work that, if truth be told, I have zero plans of re-watching ever again!

 

My rating for this film: 5.5   

Favoriten shows us a multicultural Austrian elementary class' world (Film review)

  

48th Hong Kong International Film Festival 

advertising by the side of a street

 

Favoriten (Austria, 2024)

- Ruth Beckermann, director and co-scriptwriter (with Elisabeth Manesse)

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Documentary Competition program

 

In what can seem like another life now, I aspired to be an educator.  Hence my often gravitating to books. TV shows and films with educational settings (including, to name just a few: To Serve Them All My Days; To Sir With Love; The Paper Chase; and Dead Poet's Society).  

 

If given the choice though, I'd focus on secondary or tertiary rather than primary education.  For, frankly, my sense is that the younger the child, the more difficult it is to deal with them!  So I am inclined to take my hat off the most to primary school teachers -- and was left in awe of the one we see in Favoriten -- who is obviously adored by her young charges, all 25 of them, the majority of whom she teaches and communicates with in a language that's not their first language.

 

Ilkay Idiskut is a teacher in the largest elementary school in Vienna, Austria.  Favoriten -- which takes its name from the working-class district in which the school is located -- documents the goings-on in her classroom over a period of three years as she guides her multi-cultural, co-ed class of students (many of them recent migrants and/or refugees from countries such as Turkey (where she herself originally hailed), Syria, Serbia, Romania and Ukraine) through the third to fifth grade of the Austrian school system.  

 

Director Ruth Beckerman and cinematographer Johannes Hammel also follow Ilkay and her class on trips to a mosque (where a student proudly reveals that his father is an imam) and a Catholic church (where it is revealed that none of the students are of the Catholic faith).  There are also scenes where the parents, with their children present, meet with Ilkay (where it comes to light that quite a few of the parents are themselves struggling with speaking German); and one where the school's head teacher holds a meeting with his staff (during which one gets the distinct sense that the school (system) is not as well-funded as should be the case).

 

In the main though, the focus in Favoriten is on the learning that takes place in the classroom; with Ilkay teaching the class about how to behave and treat one another as well as maths, German and other formal subjects.  And while Ilkay is the main "character" in the film on account of her being the teacher in charge and primary adult in the documentary, the students quickly show that they may be diminuitive in size but quite a few of them have outsize personalities, and presences that have an effect on their surroundings and others around them!

 

At one point during filming, director Beckermann gave the children camera phones and had them film and conduct interviews of their classmates.  This results in interesting footage and conversations.  But the actual film crew also appear to have been successful in getting the children to act naturally in their presence too; resulting in Favoriten being a remarkably intimate collective portrait of a group of children whose struggles along with endeavor are honestly shown, and who have been helped along for three years by the presence in their life of an exemplary educator who truly cared for them.    

 

My rating for this film: 7.0

Farewell to David Bordwell, a beloved fan and respected champion of Hong Kong cinema

  

David Bordwell sharing a stage with Karena Lam, 

Christopher Lambert and Bong Joon Ho at the 

2014 Hong Kong International Film Festival

 

Today was one of those days when soon after I had dragged myself out of bed, on account of it being a way colder March day than I'm used to in Hong Kong, I wanted to head back to bed for the rest of the day.  For a change, it wasn't bad political news that made me feel this way.  Rather, it was learning (via a Facebook post from a mutual friend) that a good friend had passed away.

David Bordwell was one of those people I first knew about -- and writings (including Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment (of which there's a second, revised edition and Chinese language translation) I read -- before I met him.  An eminent film scholar whose Film Art: An Introduction (co-authored with his wife, now widow, Kristin Thompson) was the textbook for many introductory film studies courses, he taught for decades at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and, by many accounts, was a fantastic teacher as well as professor.

I never formally knew this side of David Bordwell as I never ever took a film studies class (nor was I enrolled at the University of Wisconsin at Madison).  Still I do think he taught me a lot over the years by way of one-on-one conversations, email discussions and such.  And not just about film but, also, how to be a good human being.

Among the things that struck me pretty much from the start of my getting to know him -- around two and a half decades ago now -- was how he would generously share information and insights, never forget to thank people who answered queries he had and to openly credit people he felt had helped in even the most minor ways.  Also, unlike too many professors and others who occupied respected positions, he never treated people who weren't his peers like, well, they were not his peers.

 

In addition to being an admirably "hail fellow well met" kind of guy, I really appreciated that David Bordwell was film fan as well as a film scholar.  Again, unlike too many other folks I've encountered (who seem to think that to be serious about cinema requires one to be critical -- or, at the very least, emotionally detached), he was unafraid to show his enthuasiasm and enjoyment of a movie, and also would openly expression passion for a particular actor, actress or filmmaker -- and even openly champion their work.

Fun fact: I first "met" David Bordwell via a film discussion board used mainly by movie geeks.  Although we were both based in the US at the time, we only met "in the flesh" in Hong Kong a few years later -- after a Hong Kong International Film Festival screening; one of many we would end up finding ourselves both at.

 

Some of my favorite memories of David involve watching movies at the Hong Kong International Film Festival with him and then waxing lyrical to each other about those we had enjoyed viewing.  Among the most memorable of our shared viewings was of Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China (Hong Kong, 1991) with two other friends.  All of us had seen this martial arts epic before and loved it.  But it truly was a rare treat for all of us to view it on a big screen with friends who were fellow fans.     

 

Another memorable viewing with David was of a lesser known Hong Kong movie: New York, Chinatown (Hong Kong, 1982), which we both viewed for the first time, sat side by side, in the front row of the cinema at the Hong Kong Film Archive back in 2014.  That's 10 years ago now but I still can recall his glee when watching this movie which can't be called a classic by any means but still has its moments.  

 

Afterwards, we headed out of the Film Archive and parted ways -- he to take the MTR and I to take the bus.  That was actually the last time I saw him because ill health made it so that he was advised by his doctor to not make the trip over to Hong Kong from Wisconsin in subsequent years.  I wish it weren't the case.  And I have to say that every year since that the Hong Kong International Film Festival has come along, I had hoped that I'd see David again.  Sadly, it's not to be.  

 

He was, and will be, missed.  But, well, David, thanks for the great memories. And, actually, thank you for everything -- including your championing of Hong Kong cinema -- and Hong Kong in general* -- over the years but, also, for being a wonderful human being and treasured friend.        

 

*From a 2020 post on his (and Kristin Thompson's) Observations on Film Art blog: "Since the last edition [of Planet Hong Kong], I have not followed Hong Kong cinema as intensively as I would have liked. Other projects have diverted me. But I have never lost my admiration for this cinema, this culture, and this citizenry. Watching Hong Kong films and visiting the territory have added a new dimension to my life."

 

RIP, David Bordwell (1947-2024).  And Kristin, should you ever read this blog post: my sincere condolences once more.  

Jimmy Lai's national security law trial dominates the Hong Kong news on the first week of the new year

Never not feel shocked at seeing Jimmy Lai pictured 

in chains on the front pages of his own newspaper -- 

this from back in May 2021, when Apple Daily still existed

 

Jimmy Lai's national security law trial has finally got going in earnest this week.  On the first working day of 2024, the former media mogul formally "pleaded not guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces and publishing “seditious” materials".  "Wearing a dark-coloured jacket and a white shirt, the 76-year-old founder of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, addressed the court for the first time on Tuesday since the trial began on December 18" and effectively confirmed that he's not going to go down without a fight even though the odds are clearly stacked against him thanks to his trial being jury-less and presided over by three judges handpicked by the authorities.

The prosecution begun delivering its opening statement after Lai had submitted his not guilty pleas.  And pretty soon, it became obvious that some -- if not all -- of the aspects of the arguments it seeks to make can seem very questionable from the viewpoints of many observers.

For example, the court was given a list of people named as “co-conspirators” that included a former US consul-general to Hong Kong (James Cunningham), the founder of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign (Bill Browder) and a former Japanese Member of the Diet (Japanese Parliament) (Shiori Kanno).  This even though Jimmy Lai had never met or spoken to some of them -- this according to some of them (E.g., Bill Browder)!  And here's this from another person named as a co-conspirator -- Hong Kong Watch's Benedict Rogers: "People who simply campaigned for democracy deemed "co-conspirators" with Jimmy Lai[.] People who simply spoke with him are "collaborators"[.] Who next? Everyone who bought Apple Daily?"

Then, on Wednesday, the prosecutors sought to make a big deal out the fact that Jimmy Lai "Followed" a number of foreign politicians on Twitter.  (Note: This was actually mentioned back in December 2020, and thought to be absurd then!)  In a sign of how weak such a charge is, even at least one of the three national security judges presiding over the case, Alex Lee, didn't find this all that damning. “He’s interested in international affairs, so?” was apparently his reaction!

Rather understandably, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the British King's Counsel who's the leader of Jimmy Lai's international team, was moved to Tweet that: "Today’s developments in [Jimmy Lai’s] trial are ludicrous. It is now clear he is being tried for: conspiracy to commit journalism; conspiracy to talk about politics to politicians; & conspiracy to raise human rights concerns with human rights organisations. This farce must end."

But continue, it has.  And so has the pointing out of holes galore in the prosecution's case.  For example, yesterday (Thursday) saw Samuel Bickett (who, remember, is a trained lawyer as well as a political activist) pointing out that "the prosecutor [had] focused on ads Lai allegedly funded calling for the world to support Hong Kong’s [extradition bill turned pro-democracy] protests. They were published in Aug 2019, almost a year before Beijing imposed the [National Security] Law under which Jimmy is now charged".  

Here's the issue: "It is a fundamental principle that laws only apply to future acts, not past ones. For Jimmy, the court is simply choosing to ignore that principle. Beijing said in the lead up to the NSL’s passage that the law would not be applied retroactively." (See this for the record.)

Yesterday also saw Jimmy Lai's international legal team file an urgent appeal with the United Nations special rapporteur on torture regarding one of the key prosecution witnesses in Lai’s trial; pointing out that "there is “credible evidence” that Andy Li, a 33-year-old former pro-democracy activist, was tortured while in prison in mainland China before he confessed to allegedly conspiring with Lai to collude with foreign forces." (For more details, see this Washington Post piece by Shibani Mahtani, and the book by her and Timothy McLaughlin that it's excerpted from, Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Democracy (Hachette Books, 2023) -- which, against the odds, there are copies of here in Hong Kong.)  

As this farce proceeds, it's worth reading the following musings by Bloomberg's Matthew Brooker:  

In their quieter moments, do the more sensible people in Beijing ever wonder where the likes of CY Leung have led them to in Hong Kong. We are still waiting for the evidence of foreign black hands [behind the Umbrella Movement] that CY promised us almost a decade ago. And now look where we are…

They have destroyed businesses, jailed dozens of politicians and incarcerated 76-year-old Jimmy Lai on sedition and collusion charges — and still they have nothing to show for it, except the most mundane innocent contacts that are part and parcel of everyday life for journalists.

Lai is accused of doing what everyone else did in Hong Kong - including pro-Beijing politicians - in talking to foreign diplomats. And for this, they trashed Hong Kong’s international reputation and undermined trust in its rule of law. Do they think they got their money’s worth?

What they have produced so far couldn’t even be called thin gruel. It is nothing at all. All they have demonstrated is that they have no idea of how Hong Kong society functioned - no understanding of the distinct way of life they undertook to preserve.

Beijing always had the power to do this, whatever its promises. But was wrecking Hong Kong in this way really in China’s interests? It’s easy to see what it has lost, much harder to discern what it has gained.

Rain couldn't spoil my visit to Kakunodate! (Photo-essay)

This week started badly, with my having nightmares two nights in a row -- the result of worrying about bad things happening in Hong Kong.  Last night though, I had a nice dream involving my being in Japan eating sushi.  I figure the dream was set in Japan in part because I finally got to viewing Hayao Miyazaki's magically evocative The Boy and the Heron yesterday -- and, also, because for some years now, Japan has been a place I have found myself visiting in the imagination, even if not physically (by way of movies, books (I'm a big fan of Keigo Higashino's tomes, among others) and food!).

 

Of course, I did finally visit Japan again this past October -- after a hiatus of some 4 years (thanks to the pandemic).  And there's still so much I want to share about that trip.  So, here's resuming doing so with this post about the next place I went to after visiting Tazawako: the former castle town and samurai stronghold of Kakunodate; one stop away on the Akita mini-shinkansen and, actually, now officially a part of the Akita prefectural city of Semboku along with Tazawako (though I must say that the parts of it that I visited sure didn't feel like a city)!  Anyways, you be the judge by way of the following photo-essay! ;b

 

It was still dry when I walked from Kakunodate's train station

through its Merchant District...

 

But the predicted rain came soon after I got to the Samurai District

(and stayed through the rest of my time in Kakunodate! :()

 

The first attraction I made a beeline to was the 

Aoyagi Samurai ManorMuseum, which actually

turned out to be a compound with multiple buildings...

 

...many of them chockful of treasures, including

samurai armor and swords (that I couldn't help thinking

that Funassyi, the history and katana buff, would LOVE)

 

Suffice to say that I most definitely came away from the visit

thinking that the Aoyagi family were serious collectors

of so much STUFF (including cameras and gramophones)! 

 

The second samurai house I visited, the Ishiguro House,

had far less STUFF inside of it -- but that might be true

only of the areas open to the public!

 

A cool element of this house -- parts of which remain occupied

by members of the Ishiguro family -- are the wooden panels,

designed and made in such a way that one's treated to a shadow show :)

 

Yes, I could have done without the rain -- but I also can see

what someone's said: that the rain can make the dark wooden 

buildings more photogenic!

Typhoon Koinu has come and gone, but the political persecution in Hong Kong continues

  

Storm/typhoon front visibly moving in last Friday afternoon

 

This is going to sound familiar but... Hong Kong was visited by yet another typhoon in recent days.  The T1 (lowest) warning signal was raised on Wednesday for Typhoon Koinu, became a T3 on Friday afternoon, a T8 at 12.40pm on yesterday (Sunday) and then a T9 at 7pm that same day -- but a T10 was not deemed to necessary.  Instead, Typhoon Koinu was downgraded to a T8 before midnight yesterday before all typhoon warnings were cancelled earlier today.

Yesterday also saw Hong Kong's second black rainstorm warning of the year issued.  While there were no videos or photos shared this time around of apocalyptic flooding (as had been the case last month), the Hong Kong Observatory "recorded 333.9mm (13.1in) of rainfall in just 12 hours on October 9, which is already the highest daily rainfall in October since records began back in 1884" -- meaning yet another weather record has been broken in recent months!  And while this was not the first time Hong Kong's seen two typhoons that necessitated the raising of T9 (or higher) signals in one year, this was the first time it had happened since 1999 -- and no one seems to know when was the last time Hong Kong saw two T9 (or higher) typhoons and two instances of black rainstorms in a single year!

 

There's no doubt about it: climate change is real.  At the same time though, I find it... interesting that friends living outside Hong Kong worry more how I'm faring during a typhoon or black rainstorm than, say, when they read news about X getting arrested, Y and Z having HK$1 million bounties placed on their heads, and A getting jailed -- for things that can seem well nigh inexplicable (in terms of their appearing to be so trivial or just, well, not (all that) wrong)!

 

To be fair, it may well be that a lot of the political prosecution and persecution happening in Hong Kong is no longer making international news -- due to so much bad stuff happening in the world at large and, also, I often feel, because much of the world has written off Hong Kong (or, at least, those who want it to have such as genuine universal suffrage for the denizens of this territory).  In which case, I feel that I should continue to try to draw attention to this on this blog -- which has just a few readers but, well, even a few is better than nothing, right?  To that end: here are three recent cases, all of which are absurd and also sad:  

One involves an elderly pro-democracy activist known as "Grandpa" Chan who many Hong Kongers came to know (about) by way of his involvement with an organization known variously as "Protect Our Children" and "Protect the Kids" that sought "to mediate between police and demonstrators, as well as buy protesters time when the cops start to charge" during the anti-extradition bill-turned-pro-democracy street protests of 2019 and 2020.  (Grandpa Chan can be seen in action in Kiwi Chow's protest documentary, Revolution of Our Times.)  

 

Now approaching 80 years of age (with his age being variously given as 77 and 79 by different sources), Chan Ki-kau hiked up the iconic 495-meter-high Kowloon Hill known as Lion Rock on the eve of the recent Mid-Autumn Festival and had a photograph taken of him holding up two banners with quotes by Chinese literary great Lu Xun on them.  One week later, on October 5th, he was arrested by the police "for "unlawful display of items in a country park."" , for which "[o]ffenders face a fine of up to HK$2,000 and three years imprisonment."  

 

For the record: The couplets concerned are from Lu Xun's poem entitled "In Mockery of Myself" about self-sacrifice [and] persistence, and can be translated into English as "I cooly defy a thousand pointing fingers. Head bowed like an ox, I serve the youth."  Also, for the record: Grandpa Chan  was released on bail but must report back to the police in early November (i.e., next month).  

 

The second case I think worth highlighting involves a 38-year-old Hong Kong man having been sentenced to four months in prison on Friday "after he pleaded guilty to importing children’s books that were deemed to be “seditious publications""; with the books concerned being the now pretty infamous illustrated tomes produced by speech therapists about sheep and wolves.  Kurt Leung "was arrested in March after he signed for a delivery from the U.K. containing the books."  Incidentally, the number of books he imported: 18 (yes, just 18).

 

The following are further details of the sentencing courtesy of a Hong Kong Free Press piece: "Taking into the account that Leung was not an “instigator” in the case and did not request the import of the books, [Chief Magistrate Victor] So adopted six months as the starting point of sentence. He granted a one-third reduction because of Leung’s guilty plea. Leung, who has been detained for a month pending trial, was eventually sent to prison for four months." 

 

(Note: many individuals accused of breaking the sedition and national security laws have taken to pleading guilty -- not because they actually think they are guilty but because they don't think they stand much chance of getting declared innocent and think that they if they plead guilty, they will get reduction of their sentences.)

 

Lastly, here's relating that it recently came to light that Hong Kong political prisoner (by way of being one of the 47 people arrested on February 28th, 2021, in what amounted to a major assault to the Hong Kong pro-democracy camp) Owen Chow "was sent to solitary confinement for 12 days & given an extra day in prison for "possessing a Portuguese egg tart w/out permission." Prison authorities raided his cell & discovered the offending tart... after he was denied a book because it contained Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus." The visitor who delivered the book received it back with a note: "Nudity! Rejected!""

 

A reminder: Owen Chow has pleaded not guilty to the charge of "incitement to subvert state power" that he and 46 other pro-democracy politicians and activists have been levelled with, and a verdict has yet to be delivered in the case of the HK47. But he is behind bars after his bail was revoked in January 2022 because he posted on social media about the Yuen Long attacks on Jul 21st, 2019, and the Prince Edward MTR station attacks on August 31st, 2019.  

 

Amazingly, the visitor who had sought to deliver the denied book to Owen Chow reports that "Owen considers these incidents a kind of training. "These methods don't work on me anyway."" Frankly, people like him and Grandpa Chan leave me in awe.  Their faith is so strong, and persistence inspiring.  And I truly wish more people knew about them, their actions, their sacrifice, and that there remain many people who truly are unwilling to give up in and on Hong Kong.

Nine years on from the beginning of the Umbrella Movement

  

A glass I got from Chickeeduck with an image that helps ensure 

that I don't forget  the Umbrella Movement

 

My blog entry from nine years ago today.  And seven years ago today.  And six years ago today.  And four years ago today.  And three years ago today.  And two years ago today.  Suffice to say that I've not forgotten the (start of) the Umbrella Movement.  And that remembering it is something that is part of ensuring that Hong Kong will not be a part of the People's Republic of Amnesia (which, for me, is not only about forgetting what happened in Mainland China on June 4th, 1989, but, also, what's happened  to Hong Kong since its Handover by the British to China).            

In the words of Milan Kundera (which, of course, was quoted in the recently banned short story Our Time): 'The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting".  And for the record, this is what preceded those lines: "The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was..."

 

So, remember, remember... not just the 5th of November and 4th of June but also the 28th of September, the 9th, 12th and 16th of June, the 21st of July, the 31st of August, etc.  And, also, remember that "Resistance is not futile" (and even the Borg can be, and were, defeated)!.

Visits to the 2023 Hong Kong Book Fair, and an alternative, "yellow" book fair (Photo-essay)

Earlier this week, I went to the 2023 Hong Kong Book Fair.  Having been to the book fair for a number of years now, certain trends are quite noticeable.  In addition to the obvious one of there being fewer and fewer "yellow" booths and books that are explicitly political on sale (even between 2016 and 2017, never mind after China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong), there also are way fewer English language books on sale -- and, actually, fewer exhibitor space for booksellers.  Also, maybe it's just me but there seems to be a lot more stalls hawking religious (more specifically, that which are Buddhist or Christian) books this year than any other year that I've been to the Hong Kong Book Fair!

 

On a brighter note: certain tomes that I was glad to see available for sale at the book fair last year remain available for sale this year.  Also, The Standard has reported that "a few small publishers [were] selling "politically sensitive" books that can no longer be found in public libraries, including books written by Au Ka-lun, a former columnist for the shuttered Stand News".  And while an alternative book fair for "yellow" book publishers and sellers was not able to take place last year, this year one organized by Hunter Bookstore's Leticia Wong did go ahead over in Sham Shui Po -- and when I went to check it out, I found that at least one bookseller that was among the smaller book fair's participants and also had a booth at the larger Hong Kong Book Fair! :)

 

Books I bought at book fairs I went to in recent days: 

Want to/can you guess which one(s) I got from the alternative 

book fair (as opposed to the Hong Kong Book Fair)? ;b

 

Yes, books by Xi Jinping and his ilk were on prominent display/for sale 

at the 2023 Hong Kong Book Fair -- but note that the booth attracted 

very few interested customers despite having a prominent location!

 

For comparison: note the crowd at a more "regular" booth 

(whose offerings included works by Nietzsche!) at the book fair!

 

Unlike last year, I didn't spot the copaganda booth this year

-- but I did see this for the first time at the Hong Kong Book Fair!

 

Also at the fair: a fair amount of Taiwanese representation

 

Two books that I found for sale at more than one booth:

George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984

 

Another book whose sale (or non-sale) I reckon is a good

weathervane for book fair censorship is this tome by 

Vaclac Havel, and, also, Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny

 

Probably the most popular national leader/politician this year -- 

books about Volodymyr Zelenskyy abounded, in both English

and Chinese (along with ones on Queen Elizabeth II)!

Book censorship in Hong Kong's public libraries, with the Tiananmen Square Massacre being among those subjects that is increasingly hard to read about in them

  

A book no longer available in Hong Kong public libraries

(but copies of which do exist in private hands in Hong Kong)

 

The past few days have been full of news of a number of books no longer being found in Hong Kong public libraries.  This is in addition to works by satirical cartoonist Zunzi having disappeared from them in the wake of the news of Ming Pao having suspended (and, in all likelihood, ended the four decade run of his cartoon strip last week; with a search by the Hong Kong Free Press, "including for Zunzi’s real name, Wong Kei-kwan, [having] yielded no results on the public library’s official website on Friday". (More than by the way, here's a link to his final comic, entitled "Rain and shine together" and featuring a yellow umbrella, which came out on Saturday, May 12th.) 

In the wake of this development, people have been doing searches in Hong Kong's public libraries and found that works by other notable folks -- including Hong Kong sociologist Ngok Ma and Stanford University political sociologist Larry Diamond -- have also gone missing; even those, like Chinese author Xu Zhiyuan, whose books are not banned in Mainland China!  In the words of a now exiled Hong Konger, Galileo Cheng: "A censorship system is being revived and we are drifting back to the old days" (with the old days in question being pre-turn of the 20th century British colonial Hong Kong). 

These discoveries prompted another now exiled Hong Konger, lawyer-political commentator Kevin Yam, to Tweet the following: "Today it’s banning books deemed politically unacceptable, tomorrow it will be banning of books containing politically sensitive economic, business and financial knowledge. Free information flows is a lynchpin of business and finance, which Hong Kong is en route to destroying."  That was on three days ago, May 13th, and in the days that have followed, still more books have been found to have gone missing from Hong Kong's public libraries. 

 

Yesterday, Ming Pao political reporter Alvin Lum Tweeted that "Hong Kong's public libraries have shelved memoir and writings of late democrat Szeto Wah as part of [a] review under [the] National Security Law" and also books by lawyer Margaret Ng.  Re the former: as Hong Kong journalist Ryan Ho Kilpatrick (now exiled in Taiwan) observed: "Szeto Wah used to be considered the archetype of the loyal opposition, every inch a patriot as much as a democrat. Even Beijing recognised this, and appointed him to the Basic Law drafting committee in 1985. The fact [that[ his work is now being censored shows how far HK has fallen."

 

Re the latter: If Margaret Ng wasn't already among the most respected Hong Kongers alive before she made a great speech in court in April 2021, she has become so after that.  More than incidentally, I had included a link to that speech in my blog post about her.  Sadly, Citizen News is one of the Hong Kong media sites that has felt obliged to close down in recent years; so here's providing a link to her speech at was shared on another, this time out-of-Hong Kong website.

 

And today's been dominated by reports of books about the Tiananmen Square Massacre (such as Rowena He's Tiananmen Exiles, six copies of which were available back on April 23rd, and Louisa Lim's The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited) no longer being in the Hong Kong public library system.  Channel News Asia reporter Wei Du was moved to Tweet that: "In 2017, when June 4 was removed from HK textbooks, I asked Carrie Lam how was anyone supposed to learn about that history. She told me to go to the library. Plenty of books there, she said. Yet here we are."

 

But, as Hong Kong Free Press' chief editor Tom Grundy noted: This removal of books about the Tiananmen Square Massacre "has been going on for a couple of years. In 2021,[the Hong Kong Free Press] found that Hong Kong’s libraries had 392 fewer copies of books about the Tiananmen crackdown than they did in 2009."  And this is the thing: it's been a drip, drip process for some years now; one which too many people failed to take notice or seriously enough despite this and other examples of  "Mainlandization" having been talked and shouted about by pro-democracy activists and protestors for years before 2020, 2019 and even in 2014!  

 

As Bloomberg's Matthew Brooker more generally noted: "It should be remembered that the 2019 protests were in part an accumulated reaction to a slow squeeze on freedoms that had been going on for years. Now the govt presents 2019 as the reason for these changes, but the program has always been the program".  And should it not be clear: "The program being to erase Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms".

 

Returning to today: Chief Executive John Lee responded to the current hoo-ha by stating that "Titles removed from the shelves of Hong Kong public libraries can still be bought from bookstores".  Also in the same Hong Kong Free Press piece covering this: "Ming Pao reported that since 2020, around 40 per cent of books and recordings about political topics or figures had been removed from public libraries.  Of 468 political books and recordings identified by Ming Pao, at least 195 had been removed – 96 of them in the past year, the newspaper reported." (And yes, this is the same Ming Pao that has suspended Zunzi's cartoon strip!)

Among the reactions to John Lee's remarks is this by Renaud Haccart over on Twitter: "This is disingenuous: • this is censorship - making undesirable titles harder to get access to for the public (the role of public libraries!) • lots of stores are owned by the PLA and will screen for such books • independent booksellers have been under huge legal pressure".  

 

Re the last: miraculously, independent bookstores -- a few of which are "yellow" too -- do still exist in Hong Kong; and I've actually seen copies of Louisa Lim's The People's Republic of Amnesia in one of those that still are in operation.  But the other Hong Kong bookstore where I saw copies of that book for sale is no more; with the owner of Bleak House Book having been open about the state of politics in Hong Kong having been behind his decision to return with his family to the USA back in 2021. 

 

Something else worth noting: amidst it all, it's never been outright proclaimed that mourning, never mind discussing, the Tiananmen Square Massacre is illegal.  Just yesterday, "Secretary for Security Chris Tang evaded questions from a reporter on Monday over whether members of public mourning victims of the crackdown would be committing subversion or sedition, ahead of the June 4 anniversary of the incident.  

 

So... tell me: why have all those books about June 4th disappeared from Hong Kong's public libraries with a number of others that it's really quite difficult to look upon as national security threats?  And this especially when none other than the Hong Kong Chief Executive maintains that they're (still) okay to sell and buy in bookstores?! 

A visit to the urban village of Cha Kwo Ling (Photo-essay)

For a number of reasons, I've not been out hiking for a couple of months now.  But I (still) have been doing a lot of walking, and not just along the Victoria Harbourfront either!  Something else I've been doing a bit of in recent months: exploring still other parts of Hong Kong that I hadn't previously ventured to.  

 

One of this places is Cha Kwo Ling, which has been described as one of Hong Kong's last squatter villages but, also, in Jason Wordie's Streets: Exploring Kowloon, as "one of the last remaining original, pre-urban villages in Eastern Kowloon" and an "early Hakka stonecutter's settlement".   Although I've known about its existence for a time, I was put off going there by a friend who described her visit there as depressing.  

 

But after seeing it featured in Amos Why's Far Far Away, I decided to go check out the area in the company of a fellow fan of that cinematic love letter to Hong Kong who had been there before and found Cha Kwo Ling to be an interesting, atmospheric part of the Big Lychee...

 

It can look like we're miles away from the city proper

-- but we are not, really!

 

In the village, there can be found a few information panels 

erected as part of the Travelling Through Cha Kwo Ling project

 

Lest it not be clear, however: Cha Kwo Ling is 

a living village that remains home to and for people...

 

...and this sleepy cat on a not so hot tin roof! ;b

 

Miles away from The Peak, literally and figuratively

 

A charmingly whimsical private garden in Cha Kwo Ling! :)

 

Cha Kwo Ling is also home to a Tin Hau temple

whose walls are locally quarried stone

 

Inside, the many joss offerings testify to this still

being an active and popular place of worship :)