A strange week for me, and quite the rubbish week for Hong Kong!

  

A reminder (from a member of the Yellow Economic Circle) 

that self care is important

 

This has been a bit of a strange week for me.  One evening saw me so very upset by something I read that I could feel my blood pressure rising, my actually feeling hot in the head and my hands literally shaking.  Another saw me feeling reflective and depressed post viewing a film looking at traumatic family experiences and how their effects are felt for decades.  And a third had me so affected by a late night discussion about what's been lost in Hong Kong in recent years that I ended up literally having a dream in which I detailed to my mother all the the things about pre national security law Hong Kong that I now miss so much.

 

Hence my not having been in the right frame of mind to do any blogging.  And all this while, life goes on and events like the national security law trial of Jimmy Lai continue to take place; with this week seeing the first witness for the prosecution take the stand.  Here's the thing though: I can't quite figure out from the reports what Cheung Kim-hung, the former publisher of the now-defunct Apple Daily, has said of his former boss that is actually incriminating!

For example, on Wednesday, Cheung said of his old boss that "“Mr. Lai has a very clear image. He advocates for democracy, freedom, and opposes totalitarianism".  Doesn't that sound more like an endorsement and praise than condemnation?  Also, what's illegal about that?!

 

Cheung also "said Lai, in 2019, told his senior editorial staff that the government proposal to amend the city’s extradition arrangement was an “infringement of Hongkonger’s democracy, freedom and human rights,” and the Chinese Communist Party would use the amendment to send “thorns in their side” to stand trial in the mainland."  Again, what's wrong and illegal about that?

 

And there's this: “Mr. Lai’s instruction was to use Apple Daily to encourage people to take to the street, to put up resistance [against the government],” Cheung said."  A reminder: not all street protests are illegal; especially those which are non-violent and got letters of no objection from the police -- which was the case with the vast majority of the anti-extradition bill and pro-democracy protest marches and rallies that took place in 2019, the year that Jimmy Lai gave those instructions.

 

As for this: "On the international level, Mr. Lai wanted to draw the attention from western democratic countries, hoping that they would offer some help, even some stronger measures such as placing sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials.”  Again, this doesn't sound illegal or criminal to me.  Especially before China's imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong on June 30th, 2020!

In all honesty, much of what's going on these days doesn't seem to make much sense to me at all.  A case in point: the waste tax fiasco that had much of Hong Kong in uproar in recent days.  As Ming Pao journalist Alvin Lum noted, only partly -- even if actually -- in jest, "Forget about Article 23. The biggest challenge for officials might be waste charging"!

 

Another crazy thing that happened in Hong Kong this week: the M+ museum being made to not mention the name of a film that they nonetheless were allowed to screen.  (For the record: it was Beijing Bastards, a 1993 drama directed by Zhang Yuan!) Prompting the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers' spokesperson, Tenky Tin, to ask the entirely valid question: “From the point of view of a regular filmgoer, one has to wonder, how can you sell tickets for a film without disclosing its name?"!

 

Even more disturbingly, this week also saw the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) withdraw its support for an annual drama awards ceremony, citing “inappropriate” arrangements last year and warning the organisers they must not breach the law; resulting in the Hong Kong Federation of Drama Societies (HKFDS) – which organises the Hong Kong Drama Awards -- not only losing its subsidy from the government advisory body but, also, being denied a venue to stage it after the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) also told the drama federation that it would not be offering a venue for the event this year!

 

Rather than accept the HKADC's decision though, the HKFDS actually decided to publicly challenge it!  On Friday morning, the HKFDS's chairperson, Luther Fung , called a press conference to “defend the theatre industry’s dignity.”  In response to the HKADC's objections to two of last year's awards presenters having been  political cartoonist Wong Kei-kwan, known as Zunzi, and journalist Bao Choy, Fung asserted that "Zunzi is a veteran cartoonist – are cartoons not art? Choy is a documentary director – are documentaries not art?"

 

Addressing the HKADC, he said: ""You made an official decision without giving us a chance to defend ourselves, and that came as a shock to us,”... adding that there had been no official meetings between the council and the federation over the funding issue.  “We demand a clarification, and for accusations to be retracted — we will not file a so-called appeal,” said Fung. “[We’re] poor, but we have a backbone!”"

 

To which I say "kudos"!  And long may Hong Kongers have backbones and not be as easily bullied as the bullies might think and hope!