In praise of Japanese transport (which includes Hello Kitty shinkansen and Funassyi trains)! (Photo-essay)

At long last, I think this will post be my final entry about the most recent Japan trip I took -- some three and a half years ago now -- one which saw me spending time in Okunoshima, Ikuchijima, Akishoyishido and Hagi, among other places.  On this trip, I took a number of boat, bus and train rides; some of which made for enjoyable experiences in themselves.  

 

At the very least, they made me appreciate once more that Japan really is one of those parts of the world with great transportation.  And so great is the transportation that I think it merits a photo-essay of its own.  So, without further ado:

 

One of the boats that plies the route between Mihara 

and Okunoshima (AKA Rabbit Island) 

 

On a bus going between Yamaguchi (which I've only ever been to 

on transit to a number of other places!) and Akyoshido

 

On the more comfortable long distance bus between

Hagi and Shin-Yamaguchi train station

A bus advertising the Hello Kitty Shinkansen...

 

...which I spotted upon arriving in Fukuoka's Hakata station

from Shin Yamaguchi later that day!

 

Should anyone doubt: the Hello Kitty Shinkansen really exists! :)

 

And yes, it really does transport passengers! ;b

 

And yes, part of me does wish that I had gone on it! 

(Ah well, next time, eh?  Though it's also true enough

that I would like to go even more on the Funassyi train!)

When Typhoon Saola was still a T8 (Photo-essay)

As the Dinah Washington song which I first heard in Chungking Express goes: "What a difference a day makes."  When I went to bed last night, the T10 signal was in place in Hong Kong.  But Typhoon Saola has moved far away enough from the city that only a T1 signal is currently effect.

 

Actually, when I woke up this morning, the T10 signal had already downgraded to a T8.  And even though it stayed at T8 up until late in the afternoon, the weather was calm for much of today; with little wind and not that much rain encountered when I went out for a walk along the Victoria Harbourfront after having been cooped up for some 36 hours in my apartment, and the only signs that there was still a typhoon in the area being the darkened skies and clouds that looked menacing but actually weren't anymore!

 

Five years ago, I also had walked along the section of the Victoria Harbourfront -- and had seen more signs of destruction in the aftermath of Severe Typhoon Mangkhut's visit.  I guess it's as expected -- since, as the account known as Waterfront Runner pointed out over on Twitter, Saola was actually smaller (even while being more intense) than Mangkhut!

 

Even while the T8 signal was up, some boats had decided

the waters were calm enough to leave the typhoon shelter

 

Still, it also was the case that a number of boats

were content to remain anchored at the

Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter

 

Something I had previously noted in the aftermath of

Typhoon Mangkhut: there suddenly be a lot of dragonflies about!

 

And while I didn't see any boats sunk by the typhoon this time around,

I did spot typhoon damage on land such as this tilted over guard box!

 

A man bailing water out of his dinghy

 

Broken bits of decorative panels scattered a section 

of the path along the harbourfront

 

A helicopter coming into land in T8 conditions which

presumably had flown over from an Outlying Island

with a patient bound for a Hong Kong Island hospital

One of the tree casualities of the typhoon -- but, honestly, there 

really wasn't that much typhoon damage that I could see (and report)! :)

Supermoons and even a super typhoon can deliver temporary psychological relief to political oppressed Hong Kong

  

A blue moon that's not that blue? ;b

 

At the time of writing, the T10 signal is effect.  It was hoisted around three hours ago -- the first time that a T10 signal has been hoisted since Severe Typhoon Mangkhut scored a direct hit on Hong Kong in September 2018.  But even before this was so, Super Typhoon Saola was serving up notice that it was near Hong Kong and supoer powerful.

 

I've been at home all day -- unlike some people who ventured out and recorded some unusual scenes earlier in the day before it turned literally dark prematurely.  About all I've personally experienced by way of Super Typhoon Saola is hearing the wind wailing like a banshee outside and causing ghostly noises to emanate from my building's elevator shafts -- which is creepy but no biggy in the grand scheme of things.  

 

Heck, I've not even had the experience of feeling and seeing my building sway (unlike some people here in Hong Kong; a fate that is more likely to befall those living on higher floors (like happened to friends who lived on the 20- and 30-something floors of buildings back in 2018)!  Something else that those living on higher floors and with views are able to experience in typhoons: see and get pretty mindboggling scenes of the effects of the typhoon on the surrounding area; something that, in all honesty, I am not all that upset about not being able to do!  This not least since they do tend to get shared quite a bit on/via social media!

A natural phenomenon that I do enjoy viewing with my own eyes though are full moons, particularly supermoons -- of which this past August has had two!  I'd gone out specially to view the first one back at the very beginning of the month and last night, I went out again with the intent to view the second -- only to find that despite still being far away at the time, Super Typhoon Saola had already made the skies over Hong Kong pretty cloudy.

But as it turned out, August's second supermoon had actually been visible in the sky the night before -- and I had taken photos of it while waiting for a bus that evening!  I guess part of the date confusion came because my mind was elsewhere at the end of August; what with the final day of the month being the fourth anniversary of the Prince Edward MTR attack on civilians by the riot police.

Frankly, in recent years, I've found memories of August 31st, 2019 so upsetting that they are really tire as well as stress me out.  So today being a typhoon day actually came as a relief -- because it meant that there would be no news of additional political arrests, friends and relatives of activists being taken in for questioning by the police, judges finding defendants guilty of matters which just a few years ago were not considered crimes and sentencing them to years of imprisonment.  And while we're focused on natural phenomena, let's go one better and just admire my photo at the top of this blog post of a beautiful supermoon, shall we? :S

For members of the Yellow Economic Circle (and their supporters), this really is not "Our Time" -- alas!

  

A yellow Hong Kong phoenix that I'll take as a sign that there are

yellow Hong Kongers who have not given up on their hopes and dreams

 

Last week, I had my final meal at a member of the Yellow Economic Circle that had announced that it would close at the end of the week. Sadly, closing announcements have become all too frequent in the past year or so.  Yesterday, I walked by another "yellow shop" and saw that it had a notice up that its last day will be on September 25th.

 

The fact of the matter is that the Hong Kong economy's not doing well, and hasn't been doing well for some time now.  So, as the case of such as the "blue" (i.e., pro-Beijing) Jumbo floating restaurant's closure showed, it's not just the Yellow Economic Circle that's been struggling to stay afloat and even sank (in the case of the Jumbo, literally!).     

Still, there can't be denying that members of the Yellow Economic Circle also face extra obstacles in the case of such as de facto harassment by the authorities by way of their going and doing such as checking on a variety of issues.  And while there no longer are Covid restrictions to worry about, the visits by such as the police or other government branches have not ceased.  

 

Perhaps, it's not surprising, then, that those behind not one but two "yellow"/"blue" maps have decided to halt operations today.  Also today, it was reported that the authorities had gone after a "yellow" restaurant located inside a industrial building for operating inside said industrial building (despite there being other restaurants doing the same).  And it additionally came to light today that a "yellow" restaurant chain had all their branches -- located in various parts of Hong Kong (not just Kowloon but also Hong Kong Island, and the New Territories) -- visited by the fire department at the same time under the guide of licence checks!

 

By the way, the "yellow" restaurant chain in question's name translates into English as the Kwong Wing Catering Company but also is known in English as Glory Cafe.  And in the wake of the whole Glory to Hong Kong insanity, one can't help but wonder if this very existence of this restaurant chain in question was irritating the authorities by way of the name it had as well as it being openly "yellow".  This particularly after another eatery with a similar name attracted the attention of the authorities in recent days. 

The case of Glorious Fast Food is another one that shows how surreal -- and ridiculous life in -- Hong Kong has become.  Specifically, for at least a decade, its walls had featured art work of construction workers in yellow hard hats eating -- because "[c[onstruction workers are commonly customers at the restaurant", its owner told the Hong Kong Free Press: "There is actually no other meaning."  But the powers that be decided that "the image “may violate” the 2020 national security law" as yellow hard hats were associated with pro-democracy protestors (not just construction workers) "since construction helmets were often used as protection by protesters during the 2019 demonstrations and unrest"!

 

Speaking of surreal and ridiculous, here's another example for you that comes by way of a report by Quartz's Mary Hui: 

Gongjyuhok, a Hong Kong advocacy group that promotes the use of Cantonese, announced on Monday (Aug. 28) it is shutting down after national security police last week entered the founder’s former home, where his relatives now live. The group—whose name translates to “Cantonese study”—was founded in 2013 with the mission of “protecting the language rights of Hong Kong people." 

 

In a statement (link in Chinese), Gongjyuhok founder Andrew Chan said authorities conducted a warrantless search of the home and accused the group of violating Hong Kong’s national security law by publishing a fictional story.

In an email to Quartz, Chan confirmed that the story in question is “Our Time,” by an author named Siu Gaa. It was one of 18 shortlisted entries in a 2020 writing competition hosted by Gongjyuhok and sponsored by the Hong Kong government. Citing legal pressures, Chan took down the story from the Gongjyuhok website, but an archived version (link in Chinese; translation here) is still available.

"Our Time" is very much worth your time to read.  But if you prefer to have the short story summarized, Mary Hui's done that too in five paragraphs that I'm hereby quoting in their entirety:

The short story accused of violating the national security law, “Our Time,” is set in a dystopian 2050. It tells of an authoritarian future in which vast swaths of Hong Kong history have been erased from both the city’s structures and the public consciousness, and all aspects of life are subsumed under the Chinese Communist Party.

One of the two characters is a twenty-something named Gwong Zai, whose parents emigrated to the UK in 2020—the year the national security law was enforced. The parents recently passed away due to health complications caused by “[inhaling] too much Chinese-made tear gas in their youth.”

After finding an old notebook filled with his parents’ writings from decades prior describing pre-authoritarian Hong Kong, Gwong Zai travels to the city for the first time to retrace his parents’ footsteps.

He encounters a young woman, Siu Sze, who is surprised by how much he knows about Hong Kong’s past. “I have not seen local people so familiar with Hong Kong’s stories for a long time,” she tells him, hinting at a mass state-enforced amnesia.

Before they part, she gives him a book she had been reading. In the book is a poem that reads: “The struggle between man and totalitarianism is the struggle between memory and forgetting.”

I also think the following lines from "Our Time" is worth sharing: "We live in this city, and every street and every building around us tells its own stories".  And as I continue to live in Hong Kong, I take these words to heart and feel that it's important to know and tell and remember the stories of that which a friend recognized long ago was, and remains (despite it often hurting to be so -- including today, when there's also been news of two more national security law arrests and ), my "heartplace".

A Japanese feast in Hong Kong (which currently could not be offered in Mainland China!) (Photo-essay)

An update: it seems I was mistaken in thinking that China was "only" banning food products from 10 Japanese prefectures in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear plant discharging waste water into the sea beginning this Thursday.  Rather, China has decided to ban seafood products from ALL of Japan.  

 

Clearly, it's a political decision.  As noted in a BBC report: "Beyond China, no other country has even hinted at a total ban".  And with anti-Japan sentiments being whipped up in China, "Japan [has] told its citizens living in China to keep a low profile on Friday, including talking quietly in public".  

 

Over in Hong Kong, however, I really don't think Japanese folks have much to fear from the locals (who tend to be big fans of Japanese food and pop culture).  On a personal note: I've been partaking in quite a bit of Japanese culture in recent days; thanks to such as the ongoing Summer International Film Festival screening a number of Japanese films (including five works by master auteur Yazujiro Ozu) and a delicious (as well as visually enjoyable) omakase sushi dinner featuring seafood and other food items from those parts of Japan whose seafood products remain unbanned by the Hong Kong government -- a selection of which can be seen in the following photo-essay! ;b

 

Tako (octopus) that has been tenderised (I'd like to imagine,

by way of being massaged like shown in Jiro Dreams of Sushi ;b)

 

Onikasago (Japanese demon scorpion fish) sashimi (served with a slice 

of mushroom and wasabi) -- a fish I ate for the first time ever this week!

 

One of my all time favorite sushi toppings: 

kuruma ebi (Japanese tiger prawn) :b

 

Shima aji (striped jack, AKA white trevally) sashimi 

-- tasty and also beautiful, right? :)

 

Botan ebi (Botan shrimp) -- which was amazingly sweet and juicy!

 

Shinko (baby gizzard shad) -- a much looked forward to 

seasonal item, and so rare that only I was given it in my

party of five (because the chef knows I really love it)!

 

A decadent handroll featuring negi toro (chopped tuna mixed

with Japanese leek/green scallions) and uni (sea urchin)

along with rice and seaweed

 

A fat piece of rolled saba (mackerel) sushi! :)

On the eve of Hong Kong enacting a ban on seafood (and sea salt and seaweed) from 10 Japanese prefectures

  

Akami (red tuna meat) from Nagasaki served with tororo 

(grated mountain yam), negi (Japanese leek) and wasabi

(Japanese horseradish) at the Sheung Wan branch of Sushi Masa 

 

It's official: The Hong Kong government is imposing "an indefinite ban on seafood imports from 10 Japanese prefectures starting on Thursday as the Fukushima power plant discharges treated waste water into the sea."  More specifically, the prohibition will cover " all live, chilled, frozen and dried sea products, sea salt and seaweed" from the prefectures of Fukushima, Tokyo, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano and Saitama.

 

"Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan [also] said on Tuesday, adding that the government will monitor radiation levels to determinate how long the ban will last".  What's left unsaid though is how the four landlocked prefectures of Tochigi, Gunma, Nagano and Saitama would have those kinds of products -- and also why Niigata's seafood products are considered unsafe despite it being on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu Island: that is, the opposite side from where Fukushima is!

 

Of course, it's easy enough to accuse the Hong Kong government's decision to ban seafood imports from these 10 Japanese prefectures as being political rather than truly scientific.  But here's offering up some suggestions as to how they've come to target these particular prefectures (rather than others of Japan's 47 prefectures).

 

Firstly, as I previously noted, the 10 affected Japanese prefectures are the same ones that the (Mainland) Chinese government has also targeted.  But, as Environment minister Tse Chin-wan was quoted in a RTHK article as saying, Hong Kong "is taking a relatively conservative approach with the imports ban".  

On one level, I applaud this "conservative" approach -- in that I wouldn't like Hong Kong to be like Mainland China in banning all food products from the Fukushima, Tokyo, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano and Saitama.  And his especially if they also are banning drinks too as there are a number of really good sake breweries located in those prefectures!

However, after deciding to deviate from China in being more "conservative" and just specifying that they would be banning seafood products, the Hong Kong government should have more carefully looked at the list of prefectures affected rather than just follow China's lead in terms of which prefectures to ban products from!  This way, it wouldn't end up having egg on its face as a result of banning seafood products from landlocked prefectures and from Niigata too!

 

In addition, I have a feeling that the Chinese government first came up with this list of 10 prefectures in March 2011, when there were fears that radioactive waste from Fukushima was airborne as well as flowing into the ocean.  For if this were so, having Niigata and Nagano on the list makes more sense.

 

In any case, even though the ban is due to take effect tomorrow, it apparently remains unclear still to such as Martin Chan – a member of the board of directors of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants & Related Trades -- whether seafood coming from other Japanese regions – via Tokyo (one of the prefectures on the ban list) – are exempt from the prohibition.  For as Chan's pointed out, " 80 to 90 per cent of all exports from Japan to the world transit via Tokyo".  And as it so happens, Japan's (and the world's) largest seafood market, Toyosu, is located in Tokyo prefecture!

If seafood coming from other Japanese regions (even if they transit through Tokyo) is allowed to come into Hong Kong, then I think many restauranteurs and food purveyors here will thank goodness for small mercies.  At the same time though, I think many -- if not all -- of them would, given the choice, continue importing seafood, sea salt and seaweed from whichever part of Japan they've thus far been doing; with few, if any of them, seriously worrying about the impact of Fukushima wastewater on those items.

 

As has been reported (including in a recent piece in The Guardian), "the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), approved the discharge, saying that the radiological impact on people and the environment would be “negligible”.  [And s]ome experts point out that nuclear plants around the world use a similar process to dispose of wastewater containing low-level concentrations of tritium and other radionuclides."  As an example: "“Tritium has been released [by nuclear power plants] for decades with no evidential detrimental environmental or health effects,” said Tony Hooker, a nuclear expert from the University of Adelaide."

 

And for the record: "Tepco’s advanced liquid processing system removes most radioactive elements except for tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is difficult to separate from water.  The water will be diluted to one 40th of the concentration permitted under Japanese safety standards before being pumped into the ocean over the next 30 to 40 years via an underwater tunnel 1km from the coast."      

 

On a personal note: as it so happens, I'm due to have an omakase meal this Friday at a high end sushi-ya here in Hong Kong.  It will be interesting to see how different it is from previous ones I've had at the same establishment: in terms of what is served (this not least because I'd been served tuna from Shiogama and Miyagi oysters there previously); and, also, if there will be more, fewer or the same number of diners there.    

Hong Kong national security police "scare tactics" affecting families that have become all too familiar

  

A protest piece put up back in 2019 

and still, amazingly, up in 2023!

 

I know you've heard this before but more relatives and friends of one of the eight Hong Kongers who've had HK$1 million bounties put on their head were brought in for questioning by the Hong Kong national security police in recent days.  More precisely, the sister-in-law of former legislative councillor Nathan Law was taken from her apartment in Tung Chung on Saturday afternoon "to assist in investigations".  Also, on Friday afternoon, "a woman with reported links" to Law, named Yu Chi-yan, had been taken away from her apartment in North Point for the same purpose.

 

As of Monday evening, I've not seen reports of the woman having been arrested (and charged) or let go.  I'm going to presume that it's the latter, as that has been the case for Nathan Law's other relatives and friends, and the relatives and friends of Anna Kwok, Dennis Kwok, Christopher Mung and Elmer Yung, who have been taken in questioning in recent weeks: a total of 40 individuals since July 3rd.  For as was noted in a recent article in The Guardian about these occurrences: "Observers and supporters say while there is still fear that could happen, it isn’t really the point."

 

Rather, "“It’s essentially hostage-taking, sending a message to activists and potential activists abroad that if you stand up to the Hong Kong government they’ll go after your family,” says Samuel Bickett, a US-based fellow at Georgetown’s centre for Asian law, and a former activist who was previously jailed in Hong Kong. “Whatever [the authorities] do to couch this in terms of the law – saying they’re interviewing witness and things like that – that’s not what this is. They know exactly where these [activists] are and what they’re doing, there is absolutely no reason to question the families.”"

 

As pointed out in the article: what the Hong Kong national security police are doing/have done is to apply "gangster tactics" as well as borrow a leaf from their Chinese compatriots; one whose true objective is to scare overseas activists and potential activists into silence.  But while they may have achieved their aim with regards to some individuals, the eight who have HK$1 million bounties on their heads (and thus would seem to be the most wanted) do not appear to have been cowed and, in fact, are continuing to speak out and otherwise continue their activities.

 

As an example, Kevin Yam continues to keep an eye on, and Tweet about, Hong Kong.  Today, he also Tweeted his congratulations to Ted Hui -- complete with a smart looking photo of Hui at the Australian Supreme Court -- on his recently becoming a barrister and solicitor of South Australia, pointing out that Hong Kong "might consider him a criminal, but Australia sees him as fit and proper to practise law!"

 

In The Guardian piece I previously mentioned, Elmer Yuen was reported as stating that "he worries about his children in Hong Kong more than they worry about him overseas.“Hong Kong is like big prison. If they don’t allow you to leave the airport, there’s nothing you can do,” he said."  I'm not sure how much truth there was in his former statement but I do reckon he's got a point about Hong Kong being -- or, at least, feeling -- like a big prison at times.  And yes, I do know people who worry when they go to the airport that they won't be allowed to leave Hong Kong, even arrested when trying to do so.

 

The worst of it all with regards to national security law arrests is that, thus far, there has been a 100% conviction rate with regards to people charged with violating it.  Speaking of convictions: Hong Kong gained one new political prisoner last Thursday; bringing the total number of political prisoners in Hong Kong to 1,614 as of August 17th.  And sadly, we know that number will increase rather decrease in the coming days and weeks and months.  (So much for Carrie Lam's assurances about the national security law targeting only "a small group of people" and all that jazz!)

Returning to the families of the eight Hong Kongers with HK$1 million dollar bounties on their head and The Guardian's piece: "Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, remains worried that the targeting of families could escalate to arrests or even criminal charges under the very broad national security law and sedition ordinance.

“We’ve seen this in many other circumstances across the mainland,” Richardson said. “Every time people ask a question like that I’ve taught myself to think back five, 10, 20 years and see if we saw this [crackdown in Hong Kong] coming. We didn’t necessarily anticipate this escalation of hostility, or the appalling distortions of law, misrepresentations of law.  This is going to be an ongoing story."  So to those of you who care for Hong Kong, Hong Kongers and justice: please don't look away; and, instead, keep your eyes on Hong Kong.