Thinking of Jimmy Lai even as Hong Kong continues to add to its total number of political prisoners

  

This sight got me thinking of Jimmy Lai... and I wouldn't be 

surprised if that's the case for a number of others too

 \

A 20-year-old Hongkonger was sentenced today to two and half years imprisonment for "rioting" when she was 16 years of age.  The case of Tsang Ling-yi revolved around a protest which took place on October 6th, 2019, the day after the government’s controversial Face Covering Regulation – meant to deter pro-democracy protesters from hiding their identities – came into effect. 

 

A Hong Kong Free Press piece on Tsang's case reported that "Tsang’s sentencing was previously pushed back to allow more time for mitigation and for the judge to decide an appropriate punishment. Given her age, the court had twice sought background reports to assess if Tsang should be sentenced to a training centre, according to local media. Training centres are an alternative to imprisonment for young offenders and place emphasis on rehabilitation."

 

Over on Twitter, a commentator offered an alternate take on this: "Not sure of the legal realities/details behind this, but it's hard not to see this as a case of GovHK waiting until she was legally an adult so they could sentence her as one. Whether that's the intention or not, I struggle to see this as justice."  And I must say that I'm inclined to see credence in his view.

 

The following remarks by Goose Lee prompted by the news of this case also hit home for me: "People outside of Hong Kong regularly ask me how things are now and I tell them that people are still being arrested and imprisoned EVERY DAY. It’s unrelenting and extremely depressing. They’re generally stunned to hear this".   And add to this that there already are so many political prisoners behind bars in Hong Kong; some of them because they have been denied bail rather than having actually been found guilty of any crimes.

Among them is, of course, Jimmy Lai -- whose name was mentioned a number of times in the British government's Six-monthly report on Hong Kong: 1 January to 30 June, 2023 released today. An example: "British national Jimmy Lai’s national security trial has been further delayed. His prosecution is highly politicised and I raised his case in Beijing last month. We continue to press for consular access. The international community is paying close attention to his case and many others. We urge the Hong Kong authorities to uphold the rule of law and to comply with international norms and standards."

 

Thus far though, these urgings have been in vain.  Adding insult to injury, AFP's Xinqi Su reported over on Twitter that: "The UK continued to request consular access to [Jimmy Lai] during the reporting period. [But i]t continued to be denied by the Hong Kong authorities on the basis that they do not recognise dual nationality, and therefore do not recognise his British nationality."

 

Still, Jimmy Lai's supporters are persisting in ensuring that he is not forgotten and that his story will be known to more people.  For example, yesterday saw a thoroughly sympathetic National Review piece on him, a number of whose sections I'm quoting here:

He is a legendary businessman. A champion of liberal democracy. And a political prisoner in Hong Kong. His story is heroic...

 

He is an ardent democrat, yes. A freedom fighter, in a sense. He is also an ardent Catholic. Lai wanted to devote himself to what he held to be the higher and most important things in life...

Jimmy Lai has been in prison since the last day of 2020. The authorities raided his newspaper, twice — first with 200 agents, then with 500 — shutting it down and arresting various executives, in addition to Lai.

[Jimmy Lai's son,] Sebastien points out that [the Apple Daily staff] worked valiantly till the end. “Reporters were staying up until 5 in the morning, because 5 is usually when they knock on your door and grab you away to the police station...

 

The Chinese authorities have invented charges against Jimmy Lai... They have convicted him of fraud. They have convicted him of unauthorized assembly... They want Lai out of the way and shut up. They are also sending a message: “If we can do this to the great and famous Jimmy Lai, we can do it to anyone.”

 

According to reports, Lai is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. He is in his mid 70s. What the government is doing to him, as Sebastien says, “is cruel. Just cruel.”

 

Sebastien is a key part of the worldwide campaign to highlight Jimmy’s case and win his release. The Chinese government has put bounties on the heads of Hong Kongers in exile — exiles who continue to speak out against tyranny in their home city. Asked whether he is taking precautions, Sebastian pauses. He then says, “Look, my father does not deserve to be in jail, and I’ll keep fighting until he’s out.”...

He admires his father a great deal, and he understands his father’s decision to stay: to be imprisoned, rather than seek exile. “You don’t get to choose where you were born,” says Sebastien. “But often you get to choose where you call home. And Dad chose to call Hong Kong home, and when someone comes for your home and your people, you stand firm.” (my emphasis)

Hong Kong after dark in the national security law era and Covid times (Photo-essay)

As the famous saying goes: "A picture says a thousand words".  So while I've already blogged about Hong Kong's reduced nightlife, here's offering the following photo-essay of photos taken on different evenings this past week that will help give an idea of what different parts of urban Hong Kong look like after dark these days.  And yes, ironically, I was out at night more than usual this week as it so happens -- include earlier this evening, in fact! ;b

From a distance, the lights look far from out in Hong Kong

And the views of Victoria Harbour from the Star Ferry

still can look downright magical

But when one turns one's attention to the interior of the 

Star Ferry though, I'd wager that Hong Kong's status 

as Asia's World City doesn't look super solid :S

I really wish it were otherwise but many of Hong Kong's

neon signs have seen better days  -- and we're talking here 

of those that remain (as opposed to have been taken down) :(

Ditto re the singalong parlours that the likes of Lonely Planet

have highlighted but few locals under the age of 60 (or is it 70?)

would seriously think of spending an evening in!

 

As for Four Seasons Pot Rice: the queues are long gone -- seemingly due 

to a combination of jacked up prices, the food no longer tasting all that special, 

and people not dining out that much anymore at night in these Covid times

 

Still, what really hammered home how quiet Hong Kong now is

after dark was seeing how empty Times Square was this evening

 

I realise that this was a Sunday (as opposed to Saturday or Friday) 

night -- but even so, right??!!  (Put another way: I'd never have

imagined a sight like this in the pre-national security law era)

Hong Kong's reduced nightlife and further governmental cultural faux pas are yet more signs that Hong Kong is not "back to normal"

A neon sign being renovated -- or, as is more likely

these days, about to be removed?

 

Last night, the Hong Kong government launched a campaign to "spice up Hong Kong's nightlife". For those who've been in Hong Kong before: can you imagine this: i.e., this city that I used to think exemplified the "city never sleeps" ethic as much as, if not more than New York, needing to have a “Night Vibes Hong Kong” campaign?  We're talking, after all, of a city with 24-hour McDonald's and supermarkets, and which used to have -- but no longer, and here's the rub -- bookstores and cha chaan teng. 

 

Here's the thing though: It used to be that I had places to go eat and drink at after viewing (classical music) concerts which began at 8pm (and would end around 10.30pm) at Hong Kong City Hall or the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.  And more often than not, I'd head over to my favourite sake bar in Hong Kong, which opened at 5.30pm and closed at around 2am -- or later, if there were clients who wanted to stay past that time -- and which also served food (as the Japanese tend to eat while they drink, as opposed to just drink the way that the Brits are wont to do).

In our Covid times though (yes, Covid is NOT gone!), I still don't go to concerts. And I don't go to bars even 1/20th as much as I used to do. And Sake Bar Ginn closed down more than a year ago now (and its Japanese owner has left Hong Kong).  And while "Club 7-Eleven" may have played a part in its demise since it was located in Lan Kwai Fong -- whose most popular drinking spot has, for years, been outside a branch of that convenience store located in a prominent corner of that section of Hong Kong which ceased being "Party Central" ages ago -- it's worth noting that in recent years, I've also seen branches of 7-Eleven which no longer are open 24 hours as I had previously assumed that all of them were!

 

But while I've not been to a concert in years and no longer spend that much time in bars (including to watch Arsenal play -- since I now watch their matches on cable TV at home!), I still go to cinemas and film screenings.  Pre-Covid, after an evening screening at Broadway Cinematheque, I'd sometimes go for a late night claypot rice dinner at Four Seasons Pot Rice, an eaery I first started going as a tourist back in the early 2000s when it was located in Temple Street (rather than on Arthur Street, as is the case now).

 

Broadway Cinematheque is still around of course -- and, frankly, remains my favourite cinema in Hong Kong.  The Four Seasons Pot Rice place. But while I think the former's doing okay, I was shocked to see when I passed by the latter last night that whereas it used to be a super popular, bustling spot (with long queues waiting to get into the place), it no longer attracts customers -- locals and tourists alike -- the way that it used to.  Is it because the quality of the food went down, its prices got jacked up too high or the combination of the two?  In any case, there's no denying that it looks like its days are numbered.

 

On a more general note: for many people, Hong Kong used to be a city of lights -- specifically neon lights. But the authorities are actually getting people to TAKE DOWN the neon signs, saying they are dangerous (as they are big and heavy and could fall down in such as typhoons); rather than, say, appreciating and preserving, never mind encouraging, the existence of what for many are/were integral parts of Hong Kong life! 

 

A further indication of how out of touch/culturally ignorant the authorities are: their campaign last night featured what appeared to be white dancing lions. As more than one person pointed out over on Twitter: white dancing lions are associated with/supposed to only perform at funerals! 

 

Another school of opinion had it that the dancing lions in question were actually nocturnal silver lions -- which would make more sense given the theme of yesterday's event.  As Kevin Yam has pointed out though: "usually the silver lion pairs with a gold lion to avoid confusion with white lion, but... [the Hong Kong government] can’t really do that because a gold lion Ka yellow and in Cantonese a yellow lion is pronounced the same as yellow ribbon, which makes it politically sensitive."  Pathetic, right?  Well, that, in a nutshell, sums up the authorities efforts to get -- as well as pretend that -- Hong Kong back to "normal"!

Hong Kong's new "normal" is not what people who care for human rights and freedom think is normal

Is this a seditious image in Hong Kong now?

 

As the blogger behind the Big Lychee, Various Sectors noted this morning: no sooner does the flooding subside than it’s back to "National Security" concerns.  Yesterday, the rain stopped long enough so that there was a beautiful sunset over Hong Kong.  Yesterday also saw exiled former legislative councilor Ted Hui’s parents- and siblings-in-law become the latest to be accorded the ‘taken in for questioning’ treatment. 

 

This ploy has become so familiar that it's no longer news as far as many foreign news outlets appear to be concerned.  Okay, thus far, the relatives of the eight people on whose heads the Hong Kong government have put HK$1 million bounties "only" end up spending a number of hours in police stations without ending up being arrested for the most part.  But how terrible is it that this is something that appears to have become so "normalised" and that we're becoming used to?

The worst thing about this "normalisation" is that like the slow boiling of the frog who doesn't notice what's happening to it, the ante does get upped over time.  Just look at what's been happening with regards to the government's views and actions against people who commemorate the Tiananmen Square Massacre -- something which had been assumed for decades to have been entirely within the right of people in Hong Kong.

For yesterday also saw a law PhD student from Mainland China being sentenced to six months’ prison for sedition over a plan to display a banner featuring the Pillar of Shame sculpture. Yes, 23-year-old Zeng Yuxuan was imprisoned for PLANNING to display a banner of a piece of art that previously had been installed, and stood for decades, on the University of Hong Kong's main campus.

 

As was reported in the Hong Kong Free Press: "The postgraduate student was said to have obtained the [nine-meter-long vertical] banner through mainland Chinese human rights activist Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader during the 1989 democracy movement who is currently based in the US.  The banner display was part of a global campaign led by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt, whose eight-metre sculpture commemorating the victims who died in the 1989 crackdown – the Pillar of Shame – was quietly removed by the University of Hong Kong citing safety concerns in December 2021."

 

Note: in December 2021, the pretext for removing the Pillar of Shame involved safety concerns. But now we're talking sedition for displaying a banner of the same piece of art. For shame!

 

Quoting again from the Hong Kong Free Press piece: "Police found the Tiananmen monument banner inside a parcel from the US at Zeng’s residence following her arrest. Printed on the banner was an image of the Pillar of Shame with phrases including “The Tiananmen Massacre 1989.  The magistrate said the content of the banner was “pointed” and could “evoke emotions,” especially when its target audience was “like-minded individuals” whose “emotions could be easily triggered.”"

 

A reminder: Large, PEACEFUL events were held in Hong Kong to commemorate the June 4th Massacre for 30 years.  The emotions triggered at the candlelight vigils involved sorrow, remembrance and solidarity. I guess they aren't the kind of things the Hong Kong government wants from Hong Kongers -- pretty sad, and ironic when you consider that the solidarity includes that with Mainland Chinese people: that is, the very people that Hong Kongers have often been accused of not having familial feelings for! 

 

Something else worth noting: Zeng Yuxuan originally hailed from Mainland China but chose to come over to Hong Kong to study law.  I've friends of Mainland Chinese origin who came to Hong Kong to study journalism.  These are people who felt that they would be more free and have more (human) rights in Hong Kong.  Sadly, even though/if this is still the case, it's still not as much as they probably thought or wanted for it to be so; a sentiment they have in common with many Hong Kongers, of whom I also would not be surprised that they now would consider themselves to be too.

Focusing on Hong Kong matters 22 years after 9/11

  

Remaining flood debris at Sham Shui Po earlier today

 

Half a week after the Hong Kong Observatory first put out the black rainstorm signal late on Thursday night, people are still talking about the catastrophic flooding that Hong Kong has experienced in recent days.  And while the worst does appear to be over (for much of the territory -- with the Hong Kong Observatory finally cancelling the landslip warning at 8.15pm today, 92 hours and 30 minutes after it was first announced!), the weather forecast for the next nine days has rain in it still and there has been more flooding today in the likes of Kwun Tong, the Sai Kung District and Tseung Kwan O!

 

I'm not sure whether I'm in the minority with regards to not actually having personally experienced a flooding situation in the past few days.  But as I said to an overseas friend who enquired how I was doing here in Hong Kong, I feel like I've been living in a parallel world of sorts since I've not even personally seen significant flooding -- as opposed to mere "localized water accumulation" -- when out on the streets in recent days. 

Of course, I've not deliberately gone over to known disaster areas for photo ops or what-have-you the way that certain government officials have done so.  (A message to those government officials who think they can fool people by posing for photographs that are supposed to look like they're involved in the cleanup: you need to look more sweaty, muddied and actually dirty!)

 

At the same time, I've also not completely stayed cooped up in my apartment for all of these past few days!  Yet it was only over in Sham Shui Po this afternoon that I saw not (completely) cleared flood debris -- with it being entirely possible that the flood debris I saw was fresh from more floods today!  Also, interestingly enough, today and yesterday, I've seen buildings that have experienced power outages and other problems.  

Still, most of the city looks to be back to "normal"/business -- including, alas, the law courts.  Consequently, news from the courts today includes four former student leaders of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), who originally faced one count of advocating terrorism, having pleaded guilty today to a less serious alternative charge -- one which still see the quartet of Kinson Cheung, Charles Kwok, Chris Todorovski and Anthony Yung being handed sentences of up to seven years imprisonment each!  All of which seems really excessive since their "crime" -- committed at a HKU student union council meeting on July 7th, 2021, involved the student body passing a resolution expressing sympathy for the death of Leung Kin-fai, who took his life shortly after he stabbed a uniformed officer six days previously on July 1st, the 24th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover by the British to China!

 

Also today at another law court, Fung Ching-wah, was "handed a four-year jail term for rioting and perverting the course of justice"; with the offences concerned being related to a protest in Tsuen Wan on October 1st, 2019.  (Yes, many people are still being tried and sentenced for actions that took place in 2019 some four years on.)

 

Fung's case caught the public eye by way of his being one of four protestors who, knowing that they were sought after by the police, had hidden in safehouses for two years ahead of a planned escape to Taiwan that was foiled when the quartet were arrested in Sai Kung in July of last year -- and one of that quartet being Tsang Chi-kin, the student who was shot by a police officer at point black range in Tsuen Wan on October 1st, 2019.  (Tsang, and the two others who were also in hiding, Ansen Wong and Alex Wong, will submit their pleas on September 28.  Tsang, Pang, Ansen Wong and Alex Wong have been on remand for over a year since their July 2022 arrests.)

I totally can remember where I was when I heard of Tsang Chi-kin having been shot.  Specifically, I was at the Foreign Correspondents' Club (on the invitation of a friend) when another friend (who's a member there) told me about it, told me to "be careful out there" and had explained that after news came of Tsang having been shot, his news company had asked him to get off the street.

 

Tsang's shooting is one of those shocking events on a long list of ones that I totally can remember where I was when I learnt about it.  And yes, the shocking events that involved planes flying into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- and the World Trade Center's twin towers' destruction -- on September 11th, 2001 are on that list.  And it's kind of shocking by itself to realise that 22 years have now passed since that day -- though it's also true enough that they also can feel like they occured in another lifetime; one that existed before such as September 28th, 2014, and June 12th, 2019.   

Much of Hong Kong left high and dry after record rainfall and flooding this past Friday!

  

A flooded area I saw last Saturday -- in the aftermath of

 Super Typhoon Saola's visit -- as opposed to today!

 

After I finished writing my review of Everyphone Everywhere (Hong Kong, 2023) on Thursday night, I checked the Hong Kong Observatory's website and found that a Black Rainstorm Warning had been issued earlier that night.  Although it's the highest level of rainstorm warning (with amber and red being the other colors of lower levels in Hong Kong's system), I didn't think too much about it as that was by no means the first time I've seen it issued.

 

Also, I remember having gone to attend a Hong Kong International Film Festival screening some years back when the Black Rainstorm Warning signal was on. (For the record: film screenings tend to take place as scheduled during a T8 or what's colloquilly known as "Black Rain" in cinemas and such; though people can exchange unused tickets within seven days for others.  And yes, I've also gone to view films during a T8!)

 

As it so happened though, the rainstorm was so major and loud that it led to my sleep being fitful and my waking up a few times in the night.  Still, I did not expect to see that the Black Rainstorm Warning would still be in effect when I checked the Hong Kong Observatory website again on Friday morning.  Nor did I expect to see the dramatic photos and videos of flooding in various parts of Hong Kong (including Wan Chai and Chai Wan -- which, for all of their name similarity, are not located close to each other! -- and Wong Tai Sin) that the social media was full of!  Oh, and landslides and road subsidence too!

 

In the end, the Black Rainstorm Warning was in effect for an unprecedented16 hours and 35 minutes.  But by the time I headed out of my building to see what my neighborhood looked like (at around lunchtime yesterday), whatever flood waters there had been -- which an acquaintance told me had been ankle deep late on Thursday night -- had subsided, only leaving a bit of debris over on the main road, part of which is close to a hilly area, but really not much at all elsewhere.  Also, at least half of the shops and restaurants had opened for business -- with a number of the eateries that had been closed at lunch time having reopened for dinner service when I went out again in the evening.

 

Still, I feel for the small/local businesses who must have lost quite a bit of business and money on two consecutive Fridays; with it being a T10 two Fridays ago, and then black rain yesterday.  And then there in other parts of Hong Kong that did get flooded; with among the worst hit being those at the Temple Mall North over at Wong Tai Sin, whose basement level was almost entirely underwater at the height of the flooding!

 

Yesterday's floods made the international news.  I guess it should be no surprise since it produced dramatic visuals and the rainfall that caused it is the heaviest Hong Kong has had since records were first compiled (in 1884).  I wonder though if the pretty amazingly rapid cleanup that has been undertaken (and that has made it so that, say, the Wong Tai Sin MTR station is back in operation today) will be as widely reported.  Otherwise, it might get people outside Hong Kong thinking that the city is in the same boat as the sections of Greece that (also) has experienced major flooding in recent days -- and sounds like it might never be the same again as a result.  

Of course, this is not to belittle what Mother Nature unleashed on Hong Kong as many of us were asleep on Friday.  In addition to what must be hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, at least two lives were lost as a result and some 15,000 people over at Yiu Tung Estate are currently without water.  For comparison: There were no fatalities due to  Super Typhoon Saola.  Hell, even Typhoon Manghkut back in 2018 left ZERO people dead in Hong Kong. 

 

So yeah, these are not good times for Hong Kong indeed.  And it really doesn't help that its political leadership is so... lacking at best (and uncaring at worst).  As Oscar Liu commented on Twitter: "Facing public anger over Hong Kong’s unpreparedness for the sheer impact of the record-breaking downpours leaving citywide devastations, the city’s leader [finally] showed up 19 hours later [at a disaster site] and left without taking English questions."  And as another Hong Kong resident observed: "It's times like this that I'm reminded that John Lee is not really a leader. He's a provincial sheriff appointed by the emperor to keep order and mind the store."

Everyphone Everywhere has its heart in Hong Kong and remembers the good old days (Film review)

  

A poster for the film that actually tells a lot about it!

 

Everyphone Everywhere (Hong Kong, 2023)

- Amos Why, director, co-scriptwriter (along with Frankie Chung and Kong Yu-sing) and co-producer (with five others)

- Starring: Endy Chow, Peter Chan Charm-man, Rosa Maria Velasco

 

Prior to viewing Amos Why's latest (and fourth) film, I didn't look very closely at its poster.  (This is not least because I don't tend to decide whether or not go watch a movie based on how its poster looks!)  But after doing so though, I'm struck by how much it reveals about -- and mirrors -- Everyphone Everywhere.  

 

It's not just that the poster makes clear who are the film's main personalities: a Cheung Chau resident named Kit (played by Endy Chow sporting a similar hairstyle to Cheung Chau resident Amos Why!); a besuited property agent named Raymond (played by Peter Chan Charm-man) whose imminent emigration to the UK prompts a reunion of a trio of old school friends; and Ana (Rosa Maria Velasco), Chit's old sweetheart as well as his and Raymond's former schoolmate.  But the #GoodOldDays hash tag also provides a clue as to where the ultimately pretty touching movie's true heart lies.

 

At the same time, Everyphone Everywhere also does have stories involving -- you guessed it -- phones: old and new; and predominantly mobile phones though an older desk set and a cordless telephone set also make appearances in the movie!  But although the early part of this dramedy presents a number of subplots involving newer phones and the problems that they can cause (e.g., when one is accidentally left at home or has been hacked but, also, when they are used to scam people or spy on them), my sense is that their primary role in the film is to act as as macguffins more than anything else.

 

Instead, again, remember the #GoodOldDays hash tag and wait for the appearance of a trio of phones that were first in use 25 years ago, when Kit, Raymond and Ana were younger -- and in their final days at school, typed and saved a series of answers to a series of questions they had posed one another.  And, in the process, used their phones in a way that comes across as pretty novel: specifically, as time capsules!

 

If truth be told, I'd have been fine with Everyphone Everywhere being a three-hander because I found Kit, Raymond and Ana interesting characters whose depths were not completely plumbed to my complete satisfaction!  And while they may not be big names in the Hong Kong film world, I also find Endy Chow (who I saw most recently before this in The Sunny Side of the Street), Peter Chan Charm-man (who held his own in the more star-studded likes of Table for Six and Mad Fate) and Rosa Maria Velasco (who I first saw years ago in a Hong Kong Repertory Theatre production directed by Stan Lai) to be very watchable performers.

 

In any case, the best scenes in the movie for my by far had this trio interacting with one another -- and, ironically, on an indoor set that could have been set anywhere in Hong Kong, or even the world!  I say "ironically" because, in addition to depicting personal human relations very well, Amos Why -- one of those people who I know really f**king loves Hong Kong -- also is adept at making Hong Kong itself a character in his movies (and, when shot, as in this film by Leung Ming-kai, look really beautiful). 

 

Put another way: my main criticism of Everyphone Everywhere is that it could -- and should -- have been less crowded and busy and, instead, more streaminlined.  If so, it wouldn't have taken so long to get to the heart of the truly affecting story.  But I get the feeling that this was because, among other things, Amos Why wanted to make room in the film for other topics he wanted to address, and fun guest appearances and cameos (including by Cecilia Choi as Chit's wife, Petra Au in not one but two different roles(!), and director Adam Wong as a Japanese chef with an unusual piece de resistance!). ;b

 

My rating for this film: 7.0