Treated to a sky show while hiking in Tai Lam Country Park! (Photo-essay)

Hong Kong recorded its highest number of Wuhan coronavirus cases since the pandemic began again today -- this time, with a whopping 614 cases, only seven of which were imported ones.  With cross-border truck drivers among those having tested positive for Covid in recent days, there appears to be some panic with regards to food supplies from Mainland China, particularly with regards to green vegetables.  And with rumors running rife of further social distancing restrictions going to be announced by Carrie Lam (who'll be holding another press conference tomorrow), one wonders how much longer it will be before even hiking's (temporarily) banned in Hong Kong!

 

For that (and many other reasons), I've been making hay while the sun shines with regards to venturing out into the countryside to improve my psychological as well as physical health -- and actually went for my second hike in less than a week yesterday!  This time around, it was over to Tai Lam Country Park with two friends, along a route that took us from the Twist Country Park Management Centre down to Tsuen Wan via Lin Fa Shan and Shek Lung Kong.  This unnamed trail has become one of my favorites, and one that I've gone on a number of times now, and yesterday proved to be an excellent day to go on it as, among other things, those of us out there around 3 to 4pm were treated to some amazing cloud formations along with the kind of optimal temperatures which was not too cold but also not too hot and therefore just right! :b

 

A nice taste of things to come (in terms of cool cloud 

formations) and views of dreamy looking landscapes

 

No "big hat" on nearby Tai Mo Shan yesterday afternoon!

 

The abandoned school buildings at Lin Fa Shan are 

getting more ruined and picturesque with each passing year

 

The roofs are gone from all the old school buildings, 

bar for the toilet!

 

This spectactular cloud formation in the sky above

Lin Fa Kung really did prompt me to exclaim out loud! 

The sky above Shek Lung Kong was 

pretty splendid too, I reckon :)

 

There's no two ways about it: Hong Kong is so beautiful;

and I f**king love Hong Kong!

 

 

And yeah, we did have to go back down into the city eventually

but I couldn't help looking back from time to time,

because doing so yielded views like this one... :)

Musings on unprecedented (in)justice and the pandemic on the day that Hong Kong recorded an unprecedented 351 new Wuhan coronavirus cases

Wishing for peace and safety, 

and good health but... :S

 

It's the fifth day of the new Year of the Tiger and, if truth be told, so far, there's been little cheer for and in Hong Kong.  To be sure, some people have been trying to at least add some excitement to each night with the setting off of illegal fireworks (which is par for the course over in the republic of Yuen Long but less so in other parts of the Big Lychee!) but for many people, this Lunar New Year has been a bit of a damp squid thus far (with reports even of fewer red packets having been handed out in recent days as many people hunker down at home because of the ongoing pandemic and bad weather).

And even while the weather's cleared on day four and five of the new Year of the Tiger, bad news has arrived to dampen moods.  Specifically, yesterday saw the arrest of 75-year-old activist Koo Sze-yiu by the national security police following his announcement of plans to go protest outside the ruling Chinese Communist Party's Central Liaison Office against the Beijing Winter Olympics and call attention to Hong Kong's political prisoners.  And this morning, a court denied him bail -- something that has come to be expected of individuals charged under China's national security law for Hong Kong even though this practice clearly contradicts the "innocent until guilty" common law assumption (that prevails in territories where "rule of law" prevails).  

Something else worth noting about Koo Sze-yiu besides his advanced age: he is a terminal cancer patient, having been diagnosed with Stage 4 rectal cancer more than a year ago.  So yeah, one would have expected him to have been shown more mercy than most others.  And then there's the matter of his crime -- or non-crime since he actually hadn't effected what he had announced that he had planned to do prior to his arrest yesterday morning!   

As Hong Kong legal and political analyst, Eric Yan-ho Lai, observed (and Tweeted): Koo's arrest was "The first time [that the national security law was] being used as a pre-emptive measure against dissenting voices in [Hong Kong (HK)]. Before, small-scale protests in HK amid symbolic events for Beijing would be charged as unauthorised assembly. Now peaceful protests endanger national security, even if it has yet occurred."

 

A Voice of America piece on this matter which quoted Lai also noted that during the previous Beijing Olympic Games, "Hong Kong student activist Christina Chan tried to hold a Tibetan flag to protest during the 2008 Olympics equestrian event in Hong Kong.  She was removed from the event with no further consequences."  Compare and contrast Koo's case some 14 years later and it clearly shows how much Hong Kong has changed, and its authorities become more intolerant and draconian, in that time.

 

For those still needing proof of how harsh the courts have become against perceived enemies of the government, consider the decision yesterday to sentence Fernando Cheung  to three weeks imprisonment for his part in disrupting a 2020 Legislative Council meeting.  For those unfamiliar with this pro-democracy politician who served for years as a legislative councillor: consider reading this Twitter thread by Holmes Chan which points out, among other things, that: Cheung "was a social worker who first got elected to the Legislative Council in 2004"; and his mitigation statement included the following words: "I am deeply honoured to be able to fight for social justice and promote democracy... I have no complaints or regrets."

 

Away from the courts, bad news arrived by way of the announcement that Hong Kong recorded an unprecedented 351 new Wuhan coronavirus cases today -- more than twice the previous highest daily total.  A breakdown of the numbers only makes the picture more worrisome: as 343 of those 351 cases are local transmissions and 161 of them don't have known source (indicating problems with contact tracing).  Oh, and two pet cats have tested positive for Covid (in addition to all those humans)!

 

About the only coronavirus statistics that are not bad are that: only 1 of the 1,830 active cases is not in a stable condition; and -- touch wood -- Hong Kong's total number of coronavirus fatalities has not changed from the total of 213 that was reached several months ago.  Still, it's hard to not think, as David Webb has outlined (on his Webb-site Twitter page), that: "The [Hong Kong] Government has already lost control of this outbreak and "Dynamic Zero-COVID" is history. They just don't know it or won't admit it yet"; and this after reading his detailed explanation of why he thinks this. 

 

So... what now for Hong Kong?  Alas, the prognosis is like it's been for some three years now: that things are going to get worse before they (can) get better.  Truly, Hong Kongers must hope -- and, if one is religious, pray -- that the saying that "It's darkest before dawn" turns out to really be so for the Big Lychee and its denizens. :S

Soi Cheang's Limbo is a bleak, no-holds-barred, indisputably Hong Kong movie (Film review)

  

One of the 22 Hong Kong movies I viewed for the first time in 2021

 

Limbo (Hong Kong, 2021)

- Soi Cheang, director

- Starring: Gordon Lam Ka-tung, Cya Liu, Mason Lee

 

It's been more than a month since I viewed Limbo but I can still vividly recall its look, feel and story.  I also remember how intense the experience of viewing this Category III-rated crime drama was  -- so much so, in fact, that I actually lost my appetite for a few hours and didn't feel ready to have my dinner until late at night after attending an afternoon screening of this cinematic offering which most certainly is not for the faint of heart!

 

Based on a novel (Wisdom Tooth) by Mainland Chinese writer Lei Mi but with a tale that director Soi Cheang recognized would be hard to film in Mainland China, Limbo was filmed in the helmer's home city of Hong Kong.  But few Hong Kong residents would recognize the movie's actual locations; and this not just because this film was shot (by veteran cinematographer Cheng Siu-keung) in black and white.  Specifically, the Hong Kong of Limbo is far more filthy and garbage-strewn than is the case in reality; with the overall look of the movie's settings bringing to mind the nightmarish landfill that featured in Soi Cheang's Dog Bite Dog (2006) more than any actual Hong Kong street and space that I've personally been on and in.

 

An even greater shock for this (re)viewer was how utterly brutal some of the action scenes in this film featuring a clearly very angry main character are.  Gordon Lam Ka-tung turns in an incredible physical performance as Cham Lau, a veteran cop who nurses a grudge against Wong To (portrayed by the very impressive Cya Liu), a young sometime substance abuser who, when driving while high, ran into Cham's wife and left her in a vegetative state.  Placed on a team investigating a wave of serial killings of young women headed by rookie inspector Will Yam (played by Mason Lee -- Ang Lee's actor son!), Cham effectively goes off the rails and goes off in hot pursuit of Wong To when he discovers that she's back on the streets after serving her prison sentence.  

 

Cham's dogged chasing of Wong To and manhandling of the not-at-all tough-looking lass after catching up with her is quite something to behold.  But that turns out to just be the "appetizer" in terms of the often pretty horrific action served up in Limbo as Cham and Will probe and plunge into the underbelly of a city that looks broken, mad, and inhabited by broken, psychologically damaged souls -- among them Coco (Fish Liew), a drug dealer who is missing a hand, and Akira Yamada (played by Hiroyuki Ikenuchi), a Japanese man who's overstayed in the city and now ekes out a living as a waste picker -- with the luckless Wong To reluctantly dragged along for the ride.

 

Can this dystopian vision be read as Soi Cheang's commentary as to the current (psychological) state of his native city?  I'll leave others to draw their own conclusions about this.  But what I'll say is that what you've got in Limbo is an indisputably Hong Kong work by a filmmaker in top form and distinctive vision. 

After getting its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival last March, Limbo also played at a number of film festivals abroad (including the Far East Film Festival at Udine, where it came away with the Purple Mulberry award) before finally opening in Hong Kong in late November.  Despite having a Mainland Chinese actress as its leading lady, I do not foresee it ever playing in Mainland China.  

 

And, frankly, I think this says something positive about both Cya Liu and Limbo as a whole. With regards to the former: it means that it wasn't commercial pressure that got her this meaty but also super demanding and punishing part.  With regards to the latter: this means that the filmmaker wasn't so restricted in where he could take the story. And indeed, Soi Cheang's produced a work that's fiercely no-holds-barred and unformulaic, bleak and harsh but also thrilling, and absolutely memorable. 

My rating for this film: 8.5

Ringing in the new year of the tiger with a hike along the South Lantau Country Trail! (Photo-essay)

Kung hei fatt choi!  Sun nin fai lok!  Sum seung si sing!  A new year of the tiger is here and I sincerely hope that it'll be a better one for Hong Kong, and the world at large, than the most recent pig, rat and ox years have been.  

 

On a personal note: so far, so good -- in that, even though the weather had threatened to be less optimal, I still managed to go and have a pleasant hike earlier today with a friend!  So here's taking a (short) break from political and pandemic talk and sharing some photos from this afternoon's hike along from Pak Kung Au to Nam Shan along the South Lantau Country Trail which I've been on a number of times already, and enjoyed every time!  (And yeah, pretty much every time I go hiking, I get to thinking that Hong Kong is really beautiful and that I f**king love this part of the world!)

Things were on the distinctly misty side 

when my hiking companion and I got off 

the bus at Pak Kung Au and began today's hike 

 

Undeterred, we pressed ahead -- and, frankly, I thought

that conditions weren't all that bad and actually picturesque!

 

About one third into the hike, the mist lifted and 

we startedto get scenic views, including of 

Sha Tsui village and Cheung Sha beach

 

One of a number of rock pools that I could see some 

people getting tempted to get in on a warmer day :b

 

Wild mint that gives off a nice fragrance, 

especially if you tear the leaves

 

Greenery as far as the eye could see, and a bit 

of mist that made the scenery atmospheric ;)

 

View that includes Pui O village and beach, 

and the Chi Ma Wan peninsula
 

Post boxes at Nam Shan, including one for the village

and another that looked like it had been transported

all the way over from the USA! :D

A weekend when events in Hong Kong made the international news on both Saturday and Sunday

A candle that was burning in Victoria Park on June 4th, 2016
 

Yesterday and today, news about Hong Kong featured on the main page of The Guardian.  To put it mildly, this helps serve up proof that Hong Kongers are living in interesting times.  Another sign of the times: earlier today, some 300 officers from the People's Liberation Army (PLA)'s Hong Kong Garrison ventured out of their barracks to gather at the Central waterfront for a Lunar New Year flag-raising ceremony.  This is not something I can recall ever happening before.  And yet, it doesn't seem to have been considered headline news by anyone and, actually, hasn't attracted all that much comment!  (It's also telling that the few comments I've seen thus far about it include ones noting that the soldiers had not been wearing any masks!)

Here's what been considered big news internationally though (and been covered by The Guardian and the BBC, among others): The University of Hong Kong following up its removal of the Pillar of Shame days before Christmas 2021 with its literally covering up another Tiananmen Square masscre memorial on its campus days before the Lunar New Year of the Tiger comes along.  And you can see how much brazen they are now about turning Hong Kong into part of the People's Republic of Amnesia by way of this latest act taking place in broad daylight rather than in the dead of night, as was the case with the removal of the Pillar of Shame.     

The Swire bridge at HKU has had a slogan written in traditional Chinese characters on its surface since 1989 which can be translated into English as follows: “The souls of martyrs shall forever linger despite the brutal massacre.  The spark of democracy shall forever glow for the demise of evils”.  As Samuel Bickett pointed out on Twitter: "Students painted a banner on Swire Bridge during the very first 1989 demos right after the massacre & paint bled through. It’s been kept up ever since. It’s a site of genuine historical significance. For an academic institution to destroy it is absolutely nuts. Gives ISIS vibes."

 

Thus it is, as 伯昏無人 @Baakfanmouyan noted, also on Twitter: "The Swire Bridge slogans originally weren't a memorial but a preserved record of Hong Kongers' real-time reaction to 6489. Under Zhang Xiang and his party apparatchik cronies, HKU is destroying a painstakingly curated record of our history."  Truly for shame.

 

While we're on the subject of shame: It does no credit to Hong Kong's Legislative Council that honorable folks like Dennis Kwok (the recipient of the 5th Commonwealth Law Conference Rule of Law Award 2021) and "king of votes" Eddie Chu Hoi-dick are no longer gracing it and, instead, its members now include the likes of the Edward Leung who didn't know that Sai Wan Ho had an MTR station and Junius Ho.  And while we haven't heard much from Edward Leung (both the DAB's man and the far better known Edward Leung Ting-kei) in recent days, Junius Ho has been in the news again with some more remarks that have raised eyebrows.

 

More specifically, Junius Ho proclaimed yesterday that health experts who suggested that Hong Kong should abandon "Zero Covid" strategy and move to adopt the "living with Covid" strategy should be viewed as violating the national security law!  This prompted one wag on Twitter to proclaim that: "There are smart people, there are dumb people and then there is Junius Ho" while journalist Timothy McLaughlin took the opportunity to share the following quote by Hannah Arendt: "Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”  

 

While the Hong Kong government has moved to issue a clarificatory statement (in both English and Chinese) today that having an opinion favoring "living with Covid" is not a breach of the national security law, this act in and of itself is actually not all that assuring.  For, if you think about it, it looks to indicate that enough people were spooked by Junius Ho's comments for the government to feel a need to step in to clarify and try to calm things down.  And, really, if Hong Kong truly still had freedom of speech (as supposedly guaranteed under Article 27 of the Basic Law), such an action by the government would and should not be needed at all.

Pandemic woes and injustice meted out in court continue to dampen the mood in Hong Kong

 

Hong Kongers are trying to get in the mood for Chinese New Year

but, with less than one week to go, many are not succeeding :S

 

In less than a week from now, the New Year of the Tiger will come along for those who make use of a lunar calendar and observe that which is popularly known as the Chinese zodiac (but.also is known to the Japanese (even though New Year for them falls on January 1st), Vietnamese, South Koreans and a number of other Asians).  But while tiger-themed new year decorations have been hung up in many stores and malls already in Hong Kong, many people aren't feeling particularly in the mood to celebrate Chinese new year -- at least not yet.

 

It doesn't help matters that a number of buildings have been subject to "ambush lockdowns" seemingly nightly for much of this month -- with two overnight ones currently ongoing in Hung Hom and Tsuen Wan, and multi-day-and-night ones ongoing over in Kwai Chung.  Such is the strain that people are being subject to, particularly over in that public housing estate at the center of the largest outbreak of Hong Kong's fifth wave that a resident was motivated to go up to the rooftop of one of the blocks at Kwai Chung and attempt to commit suicide.  (It most certainly doesn't help matters that fear and paranoia has made it so that some 70 residents of Kwai Chung Estate are being barred from returning to work by their employers after the lockdowns on their buildings had been lifted.)

 

At a press conference yesterday afternoon, Centre for Health Protection Controller, Dr Edwin Tsui, said yesterday that Hong Kong currently is experiencing both Delta and Omicron variant outbreaks, and the infection risk in the territory is now "very high".  And although Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Wong said in an interview with Bloomberg TV just five hours earlier that "Well, I think we are in control of the virus", that clearly is not the case -- with Sophia Chan's boss, Chief Executive Carrie Lam directly contradicting her that very same day!    

 

One positive outcome of all this is that a number of previously vaccine hesitant individuals have gone and got vaccinated in recent days -- including two of my four friends in Hong Kong who had been vaccine holdouts until now.  (With regards the two holdouts: one of them would have been willing to get the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine but she's not in the best of health and her doctor recommended that she get Sinovac, which she refuses to have in her body; while the other has multiple objections to getting vaccinated (including her being far more into homeopathy and Chinese medicine than Western medicine) but has told me that she'd feel obliged to get vaccinated if a vaccine bubble formed that would cover her workplace).

 

Speaking of vaccine bubbles: It was announced yesterday that "The government plans to implement a “vaccine pass” next month, requiring patrons of certain premises to have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to enter", without any details being given as to what premises they will apply to.  While the expectation for some time has been that the "vaccine bubble" will cover restaurants, bars, gyms, cinemas and other venues that have been the subject of social distancing restrictions during the pandemic, there now are reports that the authorities are weighing requiring proof of vaccination to enter shopping malls and go on public transportation too!     

 

The extension of a "vaccine bubble" to include public transportation makes sense if one is thinking purely in terms of pandemic prevention.  But because of Hong Kong being the way it now is (i.e., a de facto police state), this possible move strikes me as very worrisome; this not least because over in Mainland China, such a "health code" has been used to restrict the movements of political activists. 

For those who believe that there is still rule of law and justice in Hong Kong, consider this: More than 30 pro-democracy politicians and activists have been held behind bars for almost a year now while they await their trial to properly begin.  Public figures who had freedom of movement and speech not so long ago, about the only chances most people now have to see them is when they appear in court for hearings that are ostensibly public but whose details journalists are not allowed to report, turning them effectively into "black box" affairs.        

In recent days, the 47 individuals arrested back on February 28th of last year for having taken part and/or organized pro-democracy primary elections have been in court for a "committal proceeding". But their actual trial isn't due to begin until 2023 and no reporting of the primary case details is allowed until then.  A reminder: they haven't actually been provided with details as to why they have been charged with "subversion" under the national security law that China introduced to Hong Kong.  After all, having primary elections to decide who should run for election to the Legilative Council isn't actually illegal in Hong Kong.

 

Something else that surely isn't actually against the law is to provide medical care and assistance to people.  Yet today saw a first aider being convicted of "rioting" (in Wong Tai Sin on October 1st, 2019) along with 10 other individuals by a judge who maintained, among other things, that "no innocent person would have been at the scene, which... resembled a “mini battleground”, as protesters had thrown bricks and petrol bombs at police."  With regards to the first aider: the judge asserted that "Treating the wounds of protesters could have increased their confidence, and allowed them to carry on with their radical acts for longer"!  

 

As a member of the Hong Kong Twitterati commented: "This is just one bad line of an overall bad decision from a judge who doesn't seem to understand how these situations work."  Furthermore, "He's jailing people for simply being at the scene of a riot regardless of what they were doing there under the assumption that only rioters would be there. That's like saying there are no innocent people in a war zone, which is not true."  

 

I would agree too that: "Also, "treating the wounds of protesters could have increased their confidence" is like saying if police wound a bank robber, treating his injuries would only just encourage him to rob more banks."  In conclusion: "Whatever the judge's intentions, he's basically echoing a typical pro-gov POV: punish anyone who refuses to treat protesters as anything but one-dimensional evil criminals. In any case, it's a heartless decision."

Happy 181st birthday to modern Hong Kong!

 

Hong Kong coins featuring a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II

 

One hundred and eighty one years ago today, Britain's Union Jack was raised over what was then a point of land on the northwestern coast of Hong Kong Island.  That which has come to be known as Possession Point is now an inland area due to land reclamation and it's easy to walk by it without realizing the place in history that it has.  And unlike in Australia (which commemorates the raising of the Union Jack at Sydney Cove on January 26th, 1788), January 26th is also a day that can pass by without much notice in Hong Kong since it's not a public holiday or anything like that.

This year, however, a number of exiled Hong Kong activists and politicians (among them Finn Lau and Baggio Leung) decided to bring attention to today marking the birth of "modern Hong Kong".  And when such as Promise Li took umbrage to their doing so, and decried it as "colonial nostalgia", I reckon they only succeeded in amplifying that today is indeed an anniversary of something salient to many Hong Kongers!

 

For the record: I'm not one of those people who wishes that the British still ruled over Hong Kong.  At the same time, I understand those folks who look back at the days before July 1st 1997 as better ones for Hong Kong than those after 1997; and this particularly so after Hong Kong effectively experienced a second, scarier Handover on June 30th, 2020.

 

On a not unrelated note: seeing such as the Tudor crown still atop Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal Building, and coins and notes bearing Queen Elizabeth II's portrait continuing to be legal tender, represnts/represented for me a commitment to the "one country, two systems" principle that's supposed to (have) ensure(d) that Hong Kong would remain "largely unchanged" for 50 years after Britain "handed it over" to China in 1997.  Which is why I took some comfort for a time in seeing these colonial vestiges in Hong Kong.   

Sadly though, while those physical remnants of the British colonial era remain (including place, road and street names that are distinctly British such as Aberdeen, Stanley, Edinburgh Place and Harcourt Road), Hong Kong is a very different place from back in 1997 -- and, definitely not better in the eyes of many.  But even while there are those who've concluded that it's become just another Chinese city (especially after China imposed a national security law for Hong Kong and so many Hong Kong institutions were chipped away at, removed and/or destroyed in recent years), I still will maintain that there remains a Hong Kong which is culturally quite distinct from Mainland China.

 

And it is that Hong Kong whose existence makes me inclined to celebrate the founding of modern Hong Kong all those years ago.  In the words of the member of the Hong Kong Twitterverse who goes by Old China Bland (香港): "Born from a most inglorious episode of British imperial history, Hong Kong has grown into a land beloved as home for people with ancestry from across the globe. What a privilege it is to be able to say "Ngo hai Heung Gong Yan.""