We're Nothing At All is an explosive film that strikes a chord with many Hongkongers (Film review)

  

Three Hong Kong movies currently having local theatrical runs

 

We're Nothing At All (Hong Kong, 2026)

- Herman Yau, director-scriptwriter-producer

- Starring: Anson Kong, Ansonbean (Anson Chan Ngai-san), Patrick Tam Yiu-man

 

At the recently concluded 50th Hong Kong International Film Festival, seven films I viewed made the top ten list for the Audience Choice Award.  Among them were two (A Foggy Tale; and Whispers in the Woods) that would be in my top three of the 19 films I viewed at the fest (with what would be my top pick, Cageman, being ineligible due to it not being a new work.)  

 

Some of the other offerings looked to have been on the list due to hometown bias (e.g., The Dating Menu) or because fans of the stars in them turned it into a popularity contest (e.g., Silent Friend, which stars hometown favourite Tony Leung Chiu-wai) though.  And, indeed, I read complaints that We're Nothing At All may have won the Audience Choice Award thanks to fans of its two lead actors, MIRROR member Anson Kong and singer-actor-idol Ansonbean, having stuffed the ballot.  

 

But now, after having viewed this self-financed offering from Herman Yau (who directed and wrote the script as well as produced the film), I think that allegation was nothing more than sour grapes.  Or came from people who really don't get what this explosive work about two young, gay members of the economic underclass who get increasingly pushed to the brink means and represents for many Hongkongers who have viewed this obvious labour of love from Yau (and, I'd say, most, if not all, of the other people involved in making it).

 

Before anything else, despite the main characters in We're Nothing At All being gay, this is not a gay movie per se.  And I think that if you went into a viewing of this angry, anguished scream of a film thinking you'd be viewing a homosexual drama/romance, you'll feel let down -- even though there are indeed gay drama and romance scenes in it.   

 

Ditto your setting yourself up for disappointment if you're expecting much Mainland Chinese content; this despite We're Nothing At All being loosely based on a 1998 incident in Wuhan involving a bomb having been planted and exploding on a bus, killing at least 16 people.  (For those wondering: this is not a spoiler as the film starts with an explosion on a bus and its synopsis on cinema websites outline that "evidence [points] to [the bus blast having been] a deliberate act by two passengers, Fai [portrayed by Anson Kong] and Ike [played by Ansonbean], a gay couple from troubled backgrounds living on society’s margins.")

  

For Herman Yau has crafted a very Hong Kong movie: one that addresses, and comments on, contemporary Hong Kong situations, concerns, and perspectives on such as sub-divided housing (Fai lives in one such unit), societal intolerance with regards to certain sexual preferences and practices (Ike leaves home after his parents react very negatively to his coming out to his family), and the laughable "Night Vibes" campaign (that resulted in one (rare) very funny scene in the film).   

 

We're Nothing At All is also a very Herman Yau movie in many ways, including its Category III rating being earned as much as a result of its gore as well as sexual content.  But something that needs to be remembered about him is that, in addition to directing exploitation works like the gag-inducing The Untold Story (1993), the Lingnan University PhD in Cultural Studies also has made serious socio-political dramas like From the Queen to the Chief Executive (2001), which highlighted the sorry plight of juvenile offenders sentenced under a problematic legal ruling.

 

In addition, every so often, this Hong Kong filmmaker comes out with a movie that highlights the better side of humanity, like the sweet -- but sadly under-rated -- Herbal Tea (2004).  And, actually, there are strands of We're Nothing At All that emphasize that there indeed are some good people out there, against the odds and sometimes in unlikely places too.  

 

Fai and Ike are, after all, likeable individuals.  Also, a disgraced police investigator asked to return for this one assignment may not seem like he would be an admirable human but Lung (impressively portrayed by Patrick Tam Yiu-man) reveals that he is so.  In addition, the love of his wife (played by Kearan Pang) and the common decency of his delegated assistant, Raymond (played by Wong You-nam) -- together with the quiet goodness of Ike's sister (portrayed by Rachel Leung) -- go a long way to show that all is not lost even in a Hong Kong facing tough times.

 

My rating for this film: 9.0      

How great but also sad it is that Cageman (Hong Kong, 1992) is so very relevant and relatable 34 years on! (Film review)

 

The now 81-year-old -- but still very lively! --  Teddy Robin Kwan 

was the guest of honor at the Hong Kong International 

Film Festival screening of the restored version of Cageman 

 

Cageman (Hong Kong, 1992)

- Jacob Cheung, director and co-scriptwriter (with Ng Chong-chau and Yank Wong)

- Starring: Michael Lee, Roy Chiao, Teddy Robin Kwan, Victor Wong, Ku Feng, Liu Kai-chi, Wong Ka-kui, Lau Shun, etc.

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

 

Cageman is a film I've known about but put off viewing for decades.  It's not that I doubted that it was good.  After all, it was named Best Film -- and won in three other categories, including Best Director for Jacob Cheung -- at the 12th Hong Kong Film Awards, a very competitive year in view of other Hong Kong films made and released in 1992 including Centre-Stage, Swordsman II, and Once Upon a Time in China II.   

 

But it being a drama about people who live in cage homes -- which still exist in Hong Kong more than 30 years on, more than by the way -- makes for it having a reputation for not being easy to watch.  Also, there has not been good home video versions of it available for decades now.  Something that hopefully will be remedied in the near future now that there's a 4k restored version of it: which had its first ever public screening earlier this week; and at which one of its cast members, Teddy Robin Kwan, was the guest of honour.

 

And while director-co-scriptwriter Jacob Cheung was unable to attend the screening, he recorded a video message that was played before the start of this cinematic treasure of a film during which he sadly noted how many members of the cast are no longer with us (RIP, Michael Lee, Roy Chiao, Victor Wong, Ku Feng and Lau Shun, among others; and also the two youngest stars, Wong Ka-kui and Liu Kai-chi). On a happier note, Cheung recounted how he was so pleased about Cageman having been received positively upon its original release -- and that the award that gave him the most satisfaction was that for Best Ensemble received in Singapore.

 

After viewing this deservedly well-regarded offering, I understand why: as Cageman has an incredible cast, fully deserving of great acclaim, who infused their characters with humanity -- and, at times, a surprising amount of good humor -- as well as worked together very well. Michael Lee was incredibly watchable as the elderly but spritely "7-11", who runs a grocery within the cage home complex with the help of the more physically mobile "Sissy" (portrayed with great empathy by the late Chinese-American actor Victor Wong).

 

Roy Chiao anchors the film as "Fatso", the manager of sorts of the cage homes who also lives in one along with his intellectually disabled son, Sam (essayed by Liu Kai-chi, who I'm more familiar seeing playing father figures in his later years).  While Teddy Robin Kwan, Ku Feng, Lau Shun and Wong Ka-kui play other "cagemen" -- there are no (cage)women, by the way, but there's an ethnic mix in the film that, interestingly, is taken as a matter of course rather than made much of -- who stand to lose their homes after it's announced that the landlord has sold the building it's located in and the building will be demolished.

 

One of the biggest ironies and tragedies presented in Cageman is that while audience members will think that the living conditions of the "cagemen" are terrible, they -- a number of whom appear to have been (non-native Cantonese-speaking) refugees from China -- themselves think that there are much worse possibilities.  (Though, strangely enough, there's a former cage home dweller who moved out onto the streets who seems to be doing better than his friends in the movie; more specifically, Charlie, the cheery character played by Joe Junior!) 

 

Arguably even sadder to see, actually, is how the district councillors (a two-faced lawyer with Western ways played by Dennis Chan and a Chinese-opera-singing bow-tie wearer played by Chow Chung) use rather than help their cage dwelling constituents.  Ironically, that might have been (looked upon as) a dig against the colonial British government back in 1992 on the part of this Sil-Metropole Organisation production.  But 24 years on, the continued relevance of this invaluable social drama that might have been seen as (produced by) "leftist" by Hongkongers is a damning indictment on the post-Handover regime(s) (too).   

 

My rating for the film: 10. 

A Home with a View deserves better -- as does Hong Kong (film review)

Poster for a movie that deserves a larger audience

than film distributors seem to think

A Home with a View (Hong Kong, 2019)

- Herman Yau, director

- Starring: Francis Ng, Anita Yuen, Louis Koo, Cheung Tat Ming, Ng Siu Hin, Jocelyn Choi 

What is going on with Hong Kong cinema and local film distributors?!  Starting off with something positive: for the first time in a long time -- maybe even since I moved to Hong Kong close to 12 years ago now -- there are six Hong Kong movies (if you include a Mainland China-Hong Kong co-production directed by local comedy darling Stephen Chow) currently playing in local multiplexes.  

Now for the negative: the best by quite a long chalk of the three Hong Kong movies I've most recently viewed is the one that's been given the least publicity and fewest cinema screens to appear on.  With the kind of theme (housing woes) and tone (dark, even sad) that hardly screams out "Chinese New Year movie", A Home with a View also appears to have been dumped into cinemas -- after being completed a year ago and then seeing its original summer 2018 release date come and go -- and made to fight for scraps against the odds in a crowded festive field. 

Adapted from a play by Cheung Tat Ming (who also scripted the film as well as co-stars in and co-produced it), A Home with a View is a black comedy-drama about a family struggling to make ends meet as a result of being saddled with a hefty, multi-year mortgage for a not particularly physically impressive home that does have one major asset: its unimpeded harbor view.  However, they find that which gives them great psychological comfort suddenly taken away one day by a rooftop home owner whose money-making plans involve putting up illegal as well as large billboard structures atop highrise buildings.  

Already living in conditions that are far from ideal (due to such as five very different personalities living together in uncomfortably close proximity and being saddled with neighbors whose habits are annoying when faced with day after day for some years), this latest frustration threatens their very sanity.  Unwilling to take this latest obstacle to their collective happiness lying down, they come up with various schemes to get rid of the annoying structure that get increasingly desperate but also imaginative.

As someone who's also had to deal with some of the annoyances faced by the Lo family over the course of my time in Hong Kong, I really can relate to a number of the situations shown in the movie. And since I sincerely doubt that our cases are that rare, my sense is that there are many people out there would have some sympathy for, and fellow feeling with, at least one or more of its members: be it the patriarch trying to hold everything together even while feeling crushed by his circumstances (Francis Ng), his unhappy see lai wife (Anita Yuen), his infirm father too aware of his being burden on the family (Cheung Tat Ming), his jobless graduate son (Ng Siu Hin) and his secondary student daughter in search of peace and quiet when studying (Jocelyn Choi).    

Francis Ng and Co also make it easy to feel their frustrations and identify with their situation because they also are a sterling bunch of thespians (who include, lest it forget, a two time Hong Kong Film Awards best actress winner in Anita Yuen).  So even while their histrionics do seem on the theatrical as well as hysterical side at times, particularly when appearing alongside someone as emotionally stunted as Louis Koo's loner businessman character, they still can seem understandable and even called for.   

Also possessing a theatrical feel are the sets in A Home with a View.  Rather than chalk it off to the film's theatre origins though, I'm inclined to ascribe it to the restricted budget that its makers probably had to work with.  Especially in view of this offering not having received as much financial and other support as it deserved, I think Herman Yau and the others who worked on it deserve major credit for making the movie not only very watchable but also delivering so well the kind of salient messages that Hong Kong's goverment and bureaucrats really should hear and take heed of if they really care about Hong Kong (but, from past experience, I'm not going to hold their breath that they will, and do). 

My rating for this film: 8.5

Air pollution levels ill-fitting a place with claims to being "Asia's World City"

The kind of (clear air) day I'd love to see Hong Kong having more of

The kind of gray, polluted air vista that threatens to make me blue

Until a few weeks ago, I've actually been worrying more about water pollution -- and trash being dumped by the tides onto beaches -- than air pollution in Hong Kong in recent months.  Since the beginning of this new year though, there's been a number of worryingly super high air pollution days that the surprising number of beautiful blue sky days in the same period have not been able to mitigate.   

On at least a couple of occasions now, I've abandoned -- or at least postponed -- plans to go hiking because of how visibly bad the air looked.  And on days like today, I really do feel less healthy after venturing outdoors for even a short walk than if I had stayed indoors and not exercised all day since I got back from my brief time outdoors this afternoon still with a sooty smell in my nose and inclined to sneeze a bit because of the dust that went up my nose and into my airwaves.

To be sure, I've not felt that the air pollution in Hong Kong has been as bad as the haze that envelopes Malaysia that comes from the annual burning of forests by Indonesian "slash and burn" agriculturalists.  (I particular remember the haze that I experienced in Kuala Lumpur in August 2005 in the days before I left that Malaysian city, when the air smelled of burnt rubber -- even in air-conditioned indoor spaces -- and my skin would itch when I perspired as a result of my sweat and whatever particles floating in the air lending and sticking on it.)

Even so, one would hope -- and should expect -- that Hong Kong's air pollution situation will improve rather than get worse in the ensuing days, weeks, months and years.  Frankly, it's long been one of my frustrations that the government of "Asia's World City" doesn't seem to care and do more to combat environmental problems and, in fact, can seem to allow and even advance it as a result of certain of their actions as well as non-action. 

My distrust of the Hong Kong government extends to its Environmental Protection Department's Air Quality Health Index.  Frankly, I think the readings I see for Hong Kong on the World Air Quality Index are far more truthful as well as reliable.  (For the record, as I write this, the Hong Kong government's air quality health index has the air pollution levels in my area of the territory being "moderate" while the World Air Quality Index real-time air quality index marks it as "unhealthy for sensitive groups".)

In view of its (lack of) general air quality, it is really amazing to find that Hong Kongers lead the world in life expectancy.  But rather than marvel at both female and male Hong Kongers have the highest longevity rates in the world, perhaps it's worth pondering how much longer -- and healthier -- many people could be if the city they lived in had higher air quality?  

The blessing(s) of dragons, lions and more this Chinese New Year

A Guan Yu lion on display in Times Square

Some more colorful mythical creatures on show at the festive

The Blessing of Dragon and Lion exhibition 

Is that a Qilin I see before me?  In any case,

it looks very Taoist as well as Chinese to me!

More than once this week, I've heard the drumbeats that I associate with lion dances echoing through various parts of Hong Kong.  Although I've not actually seen any of the lion dances I've heard taking place thus far this Chinese New Year, I can vividly imagine what they'd be like as a result of having viewed quite a few of these festive performances over the years -- live in territories as diverse as Malaysia, the US, Macau and Hong Kong as well as in movies such as Once Upon a Time in China I and III, and Just One Look. 

Since moving to the Big Lychee, I've also been able to check out some colorful dragon dances -- both of the Tai Hang fire dragon and more "regular" Chinese festive dancing dragon varieties.  In addition, I've even spotted 'dancing' qilin (Chinese unicorns) -- which I had previously hadn't known existed! -- on parade in Shau Kei Wan on sea deity Tam Kung's birthday.

One year at the Tam Kung Birthday Parade in Shau Kei Wan, I also caught sight of some flat-faced costumed creatures that I found very exotic-looking and couldn't identify.  But thanks to The Blessing of Lion and Dragon special exhibition taking place in Times Square through to February 28th, I've got to figuring out that they're representations of the mythical Chinese creatures known as pi yao.  

Together with the northern and southern lions, dragon and qilin, the pi yao are thought to be auspicious mythical creatures.  Actually, if one were to be specific: the northern lion represents joy; the southern lion represents longevity (of life); the dragon prosperity; the qilin blessing(s); and the pi yao (good) fortune.  So those behind the Times Square exhibition are effectively endeavoring to bestow the show's visitors with good vibes to start off this Chinese New Year.  

To judge from the news headlines and reports this past week, people in Hong Kong sure could do with some auspicious cheer this year.  Among other things, the affair of the five missing booksellers appears to be heating up (even if remaining unresolved), the tortured soul-searching in the wake of (and fallout from) the 'fishball revolution' is continuing apace and the Hong Kong stock market had its worst start to a Lunar New Year since 1994.

I know that there are those who've already given up on Hong Kong's prospects for this year and those to come.  Increasingly, I've heard expats, some of whom have lived here more than 20 years, talking about wanting to leave Hong Kong and locals saying they wish they could migrate elsewhere (though certainly not to Mainland China!).  

But here's something I still have for Hong Kong -- and wish I could share with many others of those who love and care for this place, and its society, people and culture, the way that I do: hope that there's still a better tomorrow in store for the Big Lychee.  And, of of course, if we/Hong Kong could also be showered with blessings and joy -- never mind fortune, prosperity and long life -- this year, all the better! 

Hong Kong's thought-provoking Ten Years (film review)

Hong Kong-China relations, as depicted in a poster hanging in

the "Occupied" section of Causeway Bay in November 2014

Ten Years (Hong Kong, 2015)

- Kwok Zune, Wong Fei Pang, Jevons Au, Kiwi Chow Kwun Kwai and Ng Ka Leung, directors

- Starring: Liu Kai Chi, Ng Siu Hin, Courtney Wu, Peter Chan Bei Dak, Lau Si Ho, etc. 

A few hours before I started writing this entry, news broke of Taiwan having elected its first female president in Tsai Ing Wen.  How dearly many Hong Kongers wish that they, too, could vote in a democratic elections for their chief executive.  Instead, that possibility seems ever diminishing -- and Communist China's influence and power over Hong Kong ever increasing.  Consequently, many Hong Kongers are having nightmarish visions of Hong Kong becoming the kind of place that they so want it to not be, as soon as just 10 years from now.   

Made and released in 2015, Ten Years is a thought-provoking omnibus of five short films which premiered at last year's Hong Kong Asian Film Festival.  Given a limited release in just one cinema (Broadway Cinematheque) on December 17th, this low-budget indie production went on to outperform Star Wars: The Force Awakens at that venue and is now screening in a few other cinemas.  It also has caused quite a stir, particularly among the more political conscious and restless members of Hong Kong society, due to the often disturbing visions that its makers have offered up of Hong Kong circa 2025.

In Kwok Zune's intriguing Extras, Triad-like local officials, a former senior police officer and Mainland Chinese government representatives cook up an assassination plot aimed at facilitating the passing of national security legislation in the form of Article 23 of the Basic Law.  The two Triad underlings who are this short film's (anti-)heroes -- one of them a Hong Kong-born ethnic Indian (portrayed by Peter Chan Bei Tak), the other a working stiff from the mainland who came over to Hong Kong seeking a better economic future (played by Courtney Wu) -- are in way over their heads, and suffer accordingly.

The most slow-moving and consciously "artsy" of Ten Years' quintet of short films, Wong Fei Pang's Seasons of the End revolves around a couple (Lau Ho Chi and Wong Ching) who perform something akin to salvage archaeology on homes and lives presumably destroyed by the authorities.  Claustrophobic and "science fiction-y" in feel, it's the weakest -- and hardest to sit through -- by far of the five films; and it sure doesn't help that its setting doesn't come across as specifically Hong Kong, nor that its method of communicating its message tends towards the indirect, elliptical and abstract. 

Things get considerably clearer and better with Jevons Au's Dialect, which tells the troubling tale of a Cantonese-speaking taxi driver (Lau Si Ho) finding it increasingly hard to make a living because of his lack of Putonghua proficiency.  Already in Hong Kong in 2015-2016, it sometimes feels like the place has been over-run by Putonghua speakers.  But worse is to come just one decade on for those who consider Cantonese to be an integral part of their individual, family and societal identity, as imagined by this short film's director -- who himself has (already) experienced the "creep" of Putonghua with regards to his own life and circumstances.

Arguably the most inflammatory and powerful of this short film omnibus's five works, Chow Kwun Kwai's Self-Immolator is a documentary-style offering about a pro-independence activist convicted of sedition who dies in prison from a hunger strike at the age of 21 (She Remembers, He Forgets's charismatic Ng Siu Hin), and the acts of protest he inspires, include a self-immolation in front of the British Consulate-General's office on Supreme Court Road.  A moving piece that feels all too real, it's scarily easy to imagine how some Hong Kongers will see the kind of actions taken in this film to be the only, or most, viable ones they have come 2025, if not before.

Seemingly saving the best for last, Ng Ka Leung's Local Egg is surprisingly low-key, given that its main character is essayed by the regularly over-acting Liu Kai Chi.  Giving an unexpectedly emotionally dialed-down but actually effective performance as an eggseller whose young son (Hui Yuk Ming) is a member of a Red Guards-like group, Liu's character is at the center of the sole story in this omnibus that gives its audience hope that not all will have been lost in and for Hong Kong come 2025 -- which now is less than ten years away.          

My overall rating for this film: 8.0

Rallying for the missing booksellers and "One country, two systems"

Concerned politicians and regular Hong Kongers gathered at

Admiralty's Tim Mei Avenue to rally for the missing booksellers

and "One country, two Systems" this afternoon

Thousands, some with umbrellas in hand, marched from Admiralty 

to China's Liason Office in Hong Kong over in Sai Wan

While waiting to officially lodge a protest at the Liason Office,

we had to stand in an area where garbage had been strewn -- 

something which gives a good idea of what some folks are willing to do

to make things uncomfortable for peaceful demonstrators

Late last year, four Hong Kong booksellers specializing in books critical of China's political elite went missing.  But it wasn't until a fifth, Paul Lee Bo, also appeared to suffer the same fate on December 30th that people started paying notice and getting really concerned.

For many Hong Kongers, the key difference is that, unlike his four Causeway Bay Bookstore colleagues (whose disappearance he had sought to raise an alarm about), Lee appears to have been abducted in Hong Kong itself by individuals working for -- or who are a part of -- the Mainland Chinese authorities, and without the consent (or even knowledge) of their Hong Kong equivalents.  And if this is the case (which it very much looks like), the Mainland Chinese government has clearly violated the "One country, two systems" legal framework put in place after the 1997 Handover that's supposed to last for 50 years.

This afternoon, I took part in a rally protesting the disappearance of the five booksellers-publishers and the threat posed by the Mainland Chinese government to "One country, two systems".  Together with thousands of other people, we assembled within spitting distance of the still closed-off Civic Square and then made our way, in the kind of peaceful, orderly and civilized manner that has come to characterize Hong Kong political protests, to China's Liason Office in Hong Kong over in Sai Wan.  

Among the more well known faces among the crowd were Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau, Scholarism student activist Agnes Chow, Southern District Councilor Paul Zimmerman and former Chief Secretary Anson Chan.  But by and large, the participants at today's protest looked to be ordinary Hong Kongers out to defend their city and the freedoms they enjoy (but which they are see as being increasingly threatened, notably by the Communist Chinese government).   

Although there were times when the police, in the name of safety and security, temporarily halted sections of the march, it actually was pretty smooth going for the most part.  Thus it was that the section of the heavily policed protest that I was with -- which was within visual range of the march's "head", and which I gauged to be around 20 minutes ahead of the protest's "tail" -- was able to walk from Admiralty to Sai Wan in around two hours.     

When we got close to the Liason Office, however, we encountered a foul stench -- literally.  Someone had strewn filled garbage bags in the area where the protesters gathered to wait for a Chinese government representative to come out from the imposing building to officially hear our demands for the immediate release of the five booksellers and the adherence to Hong Kong's Basic Law.  

Maybe the message behind this dirty deed was that the protesters were/are trash.  But I am more inclined to interpret this action as showing that those responsible are truly scum --  who do not realize that Hong Kong people are far better than they seem to think, and consequently deserve better than has been the case, including the right to not have to live in fear of "the midnight knock on the door", and also the right to have the genuine universal suffrage that the Umbrella Movement made clear that many Hong Kongers want.

Amsterdam's thought-provoking Verzetsmuseum (AKA the Dutch Resistance Museum)

Words to live by at the Dutch Resistance Museum

The museum's displays include a book that was turned into 

a secret hiding place for a resistance fighter's pistol

The museum also shows how prams were used to hide

resistance fighters' weapons 

Given Amsterdam's reputation as a hedonistic city where recreational drugs can be easily procured and prostitution is legal, I can understand why people tend to react with disbelief when I tell them that the city's main attractions for me were its museums.  But that really was the case -- and thus it was that on my first full day in Amsterdam, I actually went and visited not just one but two of its more than 40 museological establishments!

Some folks may find it strange that I chose the Verzetsmuseum (AKA the Dutch Resistance Museum) to be the first museum I visited in the Netherlands but I thought it'd be a good place to go get contexualizing information prior to visiting the much more well known Anne Frank House (which my German friend and I had prebooked visits to for the day after).  And so it proved, with the Verzetsmuseum offering up a plethora of stories and facts about life in the Netherlands under Nazi occupation from May 1940 to May 1945.

Although its name might get one suspecting that it's going to be full of propaganda and tales of Dutch heroics, the Dutch Resistance Museum actually goes all out to give a more balanced picture of events -- and is all the better for this being so.  From the outset, it makes clear that after they found themselves under Nazi rule, people had the options of adapting or collaborating as well as resisting -- and that, in fact, resistance was actually the least popular option for many for the most part; with reasons being given for this ranging from it being by far the most difficult and dangerous option to many of the Nazis' directives and drives (such as the issuing of identity cards), at least initially, having appeared to be rather innocuous rather than obviously evil and wrong.

Something else that I greatly appreciate about this history museum was how it strives to put its visitors into the shoes of the people who lived under Nazi rule more than 70 years ago now.  One way it achieves this is by posing questions which come across as relevant today.  Another way it does so is to show how various individuals came to make the decisions they did (to adapt, collaborate or resist) using a combination of rational thought and emotion while thinking about themselves and/or others. 

At the same time, even while making it understandable why some people opted to not actively resist against and oppose the Nazis, the museum's curators also have shown the societal results of people not having done so as much and earlier than would have been ideal.  The sending of some 140,000  Jews living in the Netherlands to concentration camps and their deaths, the sending of around 20,000 (other) Dutch nationals to labor camps in Germany, and the execution of some 2,000 members of the Dutch resistance are among the horrific statistics of the Second World War.    

Still, what truly elevated the Dutch Resistance Museum for me is that its coverage actually extends beyond the Netherlands during World War II to also include the Dutch colonies -- and, in the case of what was known as the Dutch East Indies and now is Indonesia, through to 1949.  More specifically, as a special exhibition (which runs through to April 3rd) shows, after experiencing what it was like to be under foreign rule, the Dutch got to realizing that they were viewed as foreign oppressors by some people -- and that their own nationals were capable of atrocities and war crimes too.

Hailing as I do from neighboring Malaysia and having had more than one anthropology professor whose specialist area was in Indonesia, I had been acquainted with the dark side of Dutch colonialism before my visit to this museum.  But while I was not surprised to learn that Dutch colonialism was problematic, I did find it refreshing to see a Dutch museum openly acknowledge this and, along the way, deliver the universalist message that often we are all too fallibly human even when we'd prefer to be looked up to as righteous heroes, but that wrongs can be made right if we actively work to make it so.   

Country Parks Appreciation Day #saveourcountryparks

A popular sentiment etched on a country park sign!

 

A panoramic view that shows how beautiful 

Hong Kong's country parks can be 

This tiny country park denizen tried to

hitch a ride on my glasses this afternoon! :O

  

Over the last few months, I've seen quite a few "CY 下台" slogans emblazoned on various surfaces in a number of Hong Kong country parks.  So numerous are these written demands for Leung Chun Ying (AKA CY Leung, and 689) to ha toi ("step down" in Cantonese) they must be the work of more than person.  And the number of hikers and other users of Hong Kong's country parks who aren't fans of the politician also known as "the wolf" surely has increased in the wake of his suggesting that some sections of Hong Kong's country parks be redesignated for other uses. 

 

While pretty much everyone who lives in Hong Kong would like to see more (affordable) housing come into being in the territory, I know of few people who think that what effectively are Hong Kong's green lungs should be sacrificed; this especially since many "brownfield" areas exist in the Big Lychee, as do old industrial buildings that could be re-zoned for residential use and sizable facilities that are not useful for the vast majority of Hong Kongers such as the Chief Executive's official country residence and a private golf course on government land which covers the same area as the town of Tsuen Wan!

 

To protest what many people see as a planned act of vandalism on the part of the government, an umbrella alliance calling itself Save Our Country Parks called for people to especially go out into the country parks today, take photos there and upload them onto social media.  In lieu of my not having an account on Facebook (yes, really, still!), Twitter or Instagram, this #saveourcountryparks blog post represents my particular contribution to the environmental alliance's inaugural "Country Parks Appreciation Day".

 

For the record: a friend and I were out in Tai Lam Country Park this afternoon and saw plenty of other people enjoying the green scenery and fresh air on offer at Hong Kong's second largest country park.  Although I normally prefer not to see too many people while out hiking, today was an exception -- and I also liked that those out appreciating what was on offer at Tai Lam Country Park this afternoon included children as well as adults of various ages, bicyclists and anglers as well as hikers, couples, family groups, groups of friends and solitary souls.   

Speaking out for my Muslim friends

The beautiful ceiling of Schloss Schwetzingen's mosque

 

A quiet section of Kuala Kangsar's Ubudiah Mosque

 

On this day 74 years ago, the Japanese attacked Hong Kong and a whole lot of other places, including Pearl Harbor (over on the other side of the International Date Line; hence it still being December 7 over in the US when the attacks occured).  Unlike my grandparents and parents (one of whom was born in Japanese-occupied Penang), however, I've never personally lived in times when Japan was at war -- and feel blessed that this is the case.

 

Although I've never personally experienced living when a world war was taking place (and sincerely hope that I never will), I've lived in one country that has been at war when I was resident there.  The country in question is the USA -- and it's notable that each time they waged a war when I was there, the enemy was identified as Muslim.

 

Despite not being a Muslim myself, I found myself being called upon to explain -- and felt compelled to defend -- Islam and people of the Muslim faith on several occasions when living in the US, especially after September 11, 2001.  This was on account of my hailing from a country whose official religion is Islam (as well as where religious freedom is enshrined in the constitution), about the only thing some Americans I met seemed to know about Malaysia (and frankly, I'm amazed that they even knew that!).   

 

I still vividly recall a heated argument I had in a Philadelphia bar with an American acquaintance who refused to believe that I could be a Malaysian and yet not Muslim.  When I told him that not only was this the truth but that I had attended a Convent school in Penang (run by the government) whose headmistress was an Irish nun, he actually got angry with me and said that this was all impossible; this because his view of Islam and Muslims (none of whom he had ever met) was that they were intolerant extremists -- something that I was moved to conclude that he was more like than the people he wholesale accused of being the case!

 

As might be expected of someone who grew up in a majority Muslim country, I have had friends who are Muslim for much of my life.  Actually, I don't only have Muslim Malaysian friends but I also have had Muslim friends over the years from Singapore, Tanzania (where I lived for a time with a Muslim family with whom I shared many meals, laughs and fun moments, and, at other times, with an American-Zanzibari Muslim couple, and rent-free for a few months in the house of a Muslim friend when he was out of town), Eritrea, Mali, Turkey, England, and also the USA.  

 

In the case of the last: one of my Muslim American friends is the kind of person -- Caucasian, born in the Midwest, and going by the Christian-sounding name he was given at birth -- that doesn't fit the Muslim stereotype that the narrow-minded likes of Donald Trump have.  Actually, none of my friends would fit the image of Muslims that Donald Trump has -- for otherwise, he surely would have no reason to fear or hate Muslims so much that he'd advocate banning all Muslims from entering his country!

One of the reasons why I felt compelled to blog about this is to register my shock and horror that a supposedly serious American presidential hopeful could be so idiotic as well as  prejudiced.  I also want to do my bit to point out that not all Muslims are violent, horrible people -- and that, in fact, the majority of those I have known in my life are actually pretty nice folks who one would feel privileged to call "friend".

 

In addition, I remember the following words by German pastor Martin Niemöller, who spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps, and don't want what befell the likes of him to happen in my lifetime:-

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
 
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
 
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
 
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Reflections on Malaysia and Malaysians, on Merdeka Day

The Malaysia Building on Gloucester Road is home to

such as the Consulate General of Malaysia

This past Saturday afternoon, a crowd of yellow T-shirt 

wearers congregated over on the other side of the road

and made their "Bersih" demands 

Fifty-eight years ago today, a Kedah prince popularly known as Tunku Abdul Rahman shouted the word "Merdeka" ("Freedom" in his native language) in a speech delivered at midnight that heralded the birth of the new nation of Malaya.  But it actually wasn't until September 16th, 1963, when Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore (which was expelled just two years later) joined with the Federation of Malaya, that Malaysia actually came into being.

Regardless of whether one considers August 31st, 1957, or September 16th, 1963, as Malaysia's birthday, it's a young country by many people's estimation -- including my parents who, more than once, have noted that they're older than the country that they're citizens of.  And although a number of decades have passed since I read an article entitled "Malaysia: Youthful Nation with Growing Pains" in a 1977 volume of National Geographic magazine, I reckon that it's true enough that Malaysia still has a ways to go towards becoming the kind of mature and developed nation-state that many of its citizens want it to be.

When I first came across that National Geographic article all those years ago, I was a little patriot who bristled at the portrait painted of the country of my birth being one that wasn't entirely positive.  But I jettisoned the rose-tinted glasses through which I viewed Malaysia long ago, and these days definitely do see the flaws in such as its political structure (particularly its electoral system) and administration.  Furthermore, I've never hidden my preference of Hong Kong (over Malaysia along with the rest of the world) as my chosen home -- and happiness at having achieved permanent residency status here in the Big Lychee.

For all this though, I still do identify myself as Malaysian when people enquire about my nationality.  (And for the record: I do not see a need to qualify my Malaysian-ness by including my ethnic grouping before or after "Malaysian".)  And while there's much about Malaysia that I do criticize, I also definitely have done my share of defending and praising of those aspects of the country that I feel justified in being proud of.

This Merdeka Day, there are reasons to worry about and bemoan Malaysia's current situation, but also reasons to take heart.  On the negative side: Last week, the Malaysian ringgit sank to a 17-year low and not completely unrelatedly, Malaysia has been embroiled in a political crisis for some months now, due in no small part to its present prime minister, who has been dogged by scandal even before he assumed this top post.  

On a more positive note: this past weekend, an unprecedented number of Malaysians took part in Bersih rallies in Kuala Lumpur and scores of cities in various parts of the world (including Hong Kong) to demand such as clean (as in fair and free) elections and a clean (as in transparent and uncorrupt) government ("bersih" means "clean" in Bahasa Malaysia).  And in the 34 hours that Malaysians were protesting out on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, it was actually peaceful; thanks in no small part to the police not firing tear gas and water cannons at the demonstrators unlike, say, at the smaller 2011 and 2012 Bersih rallies.

To be sure, it shows how angry, frustrated -- and maybe even desperate -- many Malaysians have become about their country's current political and economic situation that they are willing to take part in mass protests which resulted in images that bring to mind the Umbrella Movement for many Hong Kongers.  But it's worth noting that these kinds of actions also take courage.  In addition, I'd argue that people must still feel hopeful that they can make a difference and the situation can be changed.  Otherwise they just wouldn't bother to do anything, especially that which puts them at personal -- and professional -- risk.  

So on this day, I feel sad for Malaysia but also retain some hope for it -- along with some pride in, and gratefulness to, those of my fellow citizens who have shown the world and one another that they actually do care for their country, and much more than those like the pathetic fellow who called the Bersih protesters shallow and unpatriotic will ever know and understand.   

From prisons to... housing options?

I just passed by rather than was in there -- I swear! ;b

Prison wire fence, not abstract art -- really! :)

Strange but true: on two of the four most recent hikes I've gone on in Hong Kong, I've passed close by to a total of four prisons.  On the first day of Chinese New Year, the hike I went on not only took me up along Dragon's Back and up Pottinger Peak but also close to the Tai Tam Correctional Institution and along the side of Pottinger Peak that gave me a pretty clear view of Cape Collinson Correctional Insitution down below. 

Then last Sunday, my Chi Ma Wan Peninsula hike ended at the ferry pier close to Chi Ma Wan Correctional Institution and Chi Sun Correctional Institution -- both of which are now closed, as is the case as well for the Tai Tam Correctional Institution. (The South China Morning Post reported in early September 2014 that the number of prisoners in Hong Kong had hit a record low; and I wonder if that remains the case post Occupy Hong Kong!)

Although it's not super usual for Hong Kong hike sights to include prisons, it's still happened enough that I've had at least three people I've hiked with comment that, especially in lieu of housing being so scarce in Hong Kong and the prisons tending to be located in pretty scenic surroundings, perhaps the prisons should be relocated elsewhere and the land they now are on be redeveloped into housing estates and areas.  And now that I know that quite a few of the prisons that I've passed by are actually no longer in operation, the case for turning them -- or, at least the land they're on, into housing space should be looked into! 

For those who think this suggestion sounds absurd: I think it's much less so than the suggestions made by at least one developer, an academic and also the development minister that a portion of the country parks should be rezoned into land for housing.  And yes, I would like to see more housing made available in Hong Kong -- and for property (and rental) prices to come down -- but, in all honesty, hiking these days is not only one of my favorite activities but I honestly think that without it and Hong Kong's country parks, I (and quite a few others) might well go insane living in this city with high density crowds and a high pressured working environment!