People
Mixed-mode art exhibition lights up Hong Kong cultural service in post-pandemic age
- 2020-11-21
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: WANG Yichun、Summer LiEdited by: Han Xu、Cassie Zhang
- 2020-11-21
In face of the declining visits due to the public gathering restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Hong Kong cultural sectors seek innovative solutions by delivering online/offline art programmes to the audience. The Fest Box program, launched for free by the Leisure and Cultural Service Department on Nov. 1, enables the public to enjoy and immerse in various cultural programmes by simply clicking on the programme's website at home. "The online world allows us to explore more possibilities," said Addy Wong Ngan-ping, Senior Media Coordinator of Muse Fest HK in a promotion video of the Fest Box. Facilitated with advanced online technologies, the team was able to create a chance for global audiences to appreciate artworks at any time. The Fest Box is not the pioneer of the virtual exhibition in the arts industry. Statistics from HK01 show that since the implementation of the restrictive policies amid COVID-19, 94.9% of art performances, festivals, and venues have been cancelled or postponed during the first quarter of 2020. As a result, many local art exhibitions, art festivals, and venues have switched to online mode. From March 18 to 25, Art Basel Hong Kong, one of the local signature activities that were originally cancelled due to the epidemic, set up the "Online Viewing Rooms." The initial form was so welcomed by the public that online visitors increased by three times to 250,000 compared with the previous offline ones, according to the statistics of HK01. As the LCSD announced on October 28, the limit on the number of visitors in each facility of LCSD museums, performance venues, and parks was relaxed from 50% to 75% starting from Oct. 30. In response, some art service providers started to organise both online and offline cultural activities. The Hong Kong Space Museum presented the "Univers/e" virtual reality exhibition …
Hong Kong celebrates 'Once In a Blue Moon' Halloween amid COVID-19
- 2020-11-01
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: LI Chak Ho SamuelEdited by: Jay Ganglani
- 2020-11-01
Traditionally, Halloween has been a festival for people to dress up as different characters and go trick-or-treating. But, the Halloween of 2020 has been a different one: Hong Kong is celebrating the festival under COVID-19, along with a 'blue moon'. The blue moon phenomenon, which refers to the second full moon in the same calendar month, is also the origin of the English phrase 'once in a blue moon'. The first blue moon appeared during the Mid-Autumn festival in early October. "We are excited to see what everybody is talking about, and also looking forward to seeing it [the blue moon]," said Alex Nathan, 45, who came to the West Kowloon Cultural District to take part in Halloween activities such as face painting. Mr. Nathan also brought four other children to the District, with all of them dressed up as different characters, including a vampire and ballerina. "The blue moon is making the day more special," said Will Mok To-Wing, 31, and Rebecca Cho Miu-Kwan, 24. Mr. Mok and Ms. Cho decorated their gathering venue with outdoor chairs and pumpkin lanterns, while also sharing food with their friends. Under the blue moon were a group of adults and children dressed as the hit Japanese game character Mario, which were bought from an online shopping platform for less than HK$500. "We wanted to dress up at a low cost and with clothes that can have different recognizable colours, so we chose Mario," said Cuby Lau Pui-Yu, 32, who put on a green Mario costume, along with her former classmates and their children. Apart from the costumes, Mr. Nathan, Mr. Mok, Ms. Cho, and Ms. Lau also carried face masks and hand sanitizers in their bags, with the pandemic still looming large in the city. Due to COVID-19 and unstable weather in …
Halloween brings large crowds to Lan Kwai Fong amid COVID-19
- 2020-11-01
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Simran VaswaniEdited by: Jay Ganglani
- 2020-11-01
Hundreds dressed in costumes gathered at Lan Kwai Fong for a night of partying on Halloween, with packed streets and long queues accumulating for bars and nightclubs, amid the city's on-again, off-again social distancing measures. "We can't take off our masks at all, take proper photos or completely enjoy ourselves," said Sparsh Goyal, 20, a university student in Hong Kong who came to celebrate Halloween with her friends, while having to sanitize her hands frequently to enforce self-hygiene and remain safe. Up until Friday, bars, restaurants, and clubs were only allowed to operate at a half-full capacity, with a maximum of four people per table allowed at restaurants, two at bars, and a required midnight closing time. On Friday, the government announced it would ease measures with the limit of people at restaurants raised from four to six and from two to four at bars. Clubs and bars were also allowed to operate at a 75% capacity till 2am, a two-hour increase for party-goers. Police took extensive measures to ensure crowd control. Signs were hung at every corner to guide people through designated entrances and exits, as well as to make sure they were following social distancing measures. Some were not so worried about the risk of contracting the disease even while being present amongst such a large crowd. "There is not a big chance of catching COVID while just walking around [Lan Kwai Fong]," said Chan Yu-Hon, 34, who said it was his first time celebrating Halloween at the city's prime party street. Most bars and clubs followed anti-epidemic measures such as temperature checks upon entry and providing hand sanitizing gel. "It's kind of surprising and unusual to see this many people together now," said Aidan Cheung, 23, referring to the large crowds. Since the start of the pandemic, …
Resolving disability through faith-the story of Sa'diyya Nesar
- 2020-10-30
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Shameel IbrahimEdited by: Jay Ganglani
- 2020-10-30
Sitting in a wheelchair, and spreading positivity, despite her adversities through her words and writings, a Pakistani woman talks about her struggles of being a woman with disabilities. One such personality is Ms Sa'diyya Nesar. She is a disabled woman, who wishes to empower people through her writing, speeches and community care initiatives. She has written a book called Strength from Within and was recently awarded the 2020 Social Justice Fellowship under the theme of 'disABILITIES and Empowerment: Less Assumptions, More Conversations' by the Resolve Foundation. Ms Nesar, born and raised in Hong Kong was diagnosed with myopathy, which results in weak muscles since birth. She uses a wheelchair and needs assistance when going out, when moving around at home and while laying down, where she has to use a breathing machine. According to the Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics, there were 578,600 people with disabilities, as of December 2013. Among them, 320,500 persons said that they had disabilities which had a "restriction in body movement." In 2013, she graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature and later began to write for different news outlets about her struggle with disability. She refers to her struggle as a result of "attitudinal barriers"— which refers to stigmas associated with disability. Ms Nesar also believes that it is an assumption that people with physical disabilities mainly suffer from physical barriers. "It's usually assumed that the main challenge for those with disabilities in everyday life is their health or the physical barriers that we face. It's actually not. The main challenge lies in being judged or being treated differently. Being treated differently in a way that is derogatory instead of accommodating. There's a lack of inclusion and the alienation that can come from that. …
Art review: Artists discuss video art in the 90s at Art Basel
- 2019-04-17
- People
- The Young Reporter
- By: Stephanie MaEdited by: William Tsui
- 2019-04-17
Technological improvements gave way to video art in the 1990s, and serve as the new gateway to film and new media art forms. "[After] the post-film period [and entering] into the period in which video was more easily accessible in terms of equipment, what became important [for the development of video art] was the fact that video cameras became cheaper," she said. "The Final Cut Pro was a very important element that any artist could have just as one had tubes of oil paint," Ms. Malani, whose work expanded from the realms of painting to film and video since the 1990s, added. Final Cut Pro is a video editing software released by Apple in the early 1990s that is packed with features such as colour correction, sound mixing and special effects. Priced at a mere US $1000, the programme was significantly cheaper than those released by the film industry's then superpower, Avid, whose systems ranged in prices from US $50,000 to $100,000. "My idea for making video art was because the language of the moving image is much better understood. Montage is very quickly understood by an Indian public because they are used to seeing it in advertisements, television and all of that," she said. The emergence of video arts in Asia during the 1990s was attributed to technology and culture, Zhang Peili, a Chinese contemporary artist and the Director of the Embodied Media Studio at the School of Intermedia in Hangzhou, China said. "Technology is being imported to China and is known by the people in China and used here. On the other hand, people's awareness of arts and culture changed. And because of that, they would abstain from what they did before," he added, "That's how video art came into being." Barbara London, an American curator and founder …
Art Review: The Stars Exhibition in Art Basel
- 2019-04-04
- Photo Essay
- The Young Reporter
- By: Oasis LiEdited by: Fang-Yi Chen
- 2019-04-04
This year, the 10th Chancery Lane Gallery especially displayed early artworks of a trio of avant-garde artists to commemorate the 40th anniversary of a historically important art event, which challenged official aesthetics and called for free artistic expression in the Post-Mao Era. Wandering at the colourful Art Basel, visitors could not help but slowed down their pace when a series of black and white photographic documentation came into sight. On an early morning in fall in 1979, the year after China initiated the economic reforms, a group of non-academy Chinese artists exhibited a total of 163 works with distinctive Modernist style and rebellious thoughts, displayed on the iron railings of The National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) after they were deprived the right to use an official exhibition space. Curators named exhibition with the word, Star, which means each star exists as an independent illuminator rather than the only illuminator during the Cultural Revolution when Mao Ze-dong was hailed as sun. This art exhibition without official permission gained huge supports from art students and famous artists at that time. On the following day of the opening, however, the police from the Dongcheng District of Beijing arrested two core curators, Huang Rui and Ma Deng-sheng, and acclaimed that The Star Exhibition affected the daily life of the masses and social order. After two months of demonstrations and negotiations, folk artists from The Stars Art Group eventually got legal permission to exhibit their artworks at the gallery of Beijing Artists Association, which attracted more than two hundred thousand audience. The second edition of The Stars Exhibition was successfully held in 1980, yet, it aroused the panic among senior figures of Chinese art field. An art exhibition jointly organized by Huang Rui, Ma Deng-sheng and Wang Ke-ping was banned due to the Anti-Spiritual-Pollution Campaign launched …
Weekend Review: Word art on signboards remains in Hong Kong
- 2019-03-26
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Amy Ho、Cara LiEdited by: Nadia Lam
- 2019-03-26
Two of our reporters join a signboards tour in San Po Kong and uncover the untold tale of a historical Chinese word font. Ever heard of the Chinese font Li Han Kong Kai ? Before it stepped foot into the world of typography, it was made up of 3600 Chinese word samples from Li Han, who used to be a signboard calligrapher before he retired. Those word samples were later passed down to his grandson Lee Kin-ming, who is continuing Mr.Li Han’s work in their family-run factory. "Signboards of large companies are everywhere and everyone can notice them, but it is not the same for small shops' handmade signboards," said Mr. Lee Kin-ming, who holds regular guided tours in the weekends to introduce long-standing signboards in the city that are usually overlooked. Compared to other old districts such as Kwun Tong, most of the shops in San Po Kong have a longer history so their signboards are still reserved, according to Mr. Lee in one of his guided tour held in the weekend before. He said signboards in Hong Kong are usually clear and visible from a distance. "Hong Kong shop keepers prefer grandeur fonts with thick strokes. For example, the Beiwei font looks imposing since hooks inside the characters are relatively large," he said. Bone clinics and martial clubs usually use the Beiwei font for their signboards, while the Clerical script font is for more artistic uses, he added. For sign boards with more complicated characters. Mr. Lee said he uses rulers and French curves to draw curved alphabets such as the English letter "U" and for numbers, he photocopies those on his calendar and follow them to draw. For example, the Biaukai font, of which strokes in words are usually separated, has been disliked by many signboard …
Weekend Review: Post 90s woman writes to break social stigma
- 2019-03-19
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Amy Ho、Cara LiEdited by: Nadia Lam
- 2019-03-19
Comprised of stories shared by 29 individuals from the post 90s, Choy Po-yin talked about her book, Salt To The Sea: Interviews of The Post 90s’ Generation, in a sharing event organised by the Art and Culture Outreach in Lok Sin Tong Wong Chung Ming Secondary last Saturday. "Apart from writing a novel, I hold talks to discuss the topic [labelling the post 90s in society] with the public to change people's perception of the post 90s" explained to Choy Po-yin, writer of the book, Salt To The Sea: Interviews of The Post 90s" Generation. "I can feel that I [as part of the post 90s] carry a lot of labels, so I want to clear all of them," she said. There is a phenomenon in society that the post 90s, who value their opinions and embrace diversity, "are always on the frontline," she added. More people [those of the post 90s] has already met their basic living needs, so they turned to focus on other concerns, said Jacob, born in 1992 and was reluctant to reveal their full name, said. "The post 90's may be satisfied with their material lives but it does not fulfill their spiritual desires, so they are stepping up to pursue something more valuable, such as equality and justice," said Kilo, another interviewee born in 1994. Author Ms. Choy said various banners seen in Hong Kong's large-scale socio-political movements on issues including climate change and civic engagement have been demonstrating a society they [the post 90s] desire.
Somewhere over the rainbow - How an 8-year-old boy experience China's education gulf
- 2017-12-30
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Caroline KwokEdited by: Cecilia Wong
- 2017-12-30
Every morning at 8:30, the muddy ocher-coloured cottage is blasted with young voices reading aloud textbook passages, so loud that it can be heard across the cement-levelled playground far from the school gate. There are three classrooms in the cottage with no lights but a rickety ceiling fan each. Drawings are repeatedly glued on and ripped off a section of the wall framed with red rice paper. On top, it wrote sloppily "In Celebration of the June First International Children's Day". This is where the eight-year-old Huang Wei-biao goes to school every day with his 22 young schoolmates, a village in the rural area of the East Guangxi province. The nearest town is 45 minutes of serpentine car ride away. One can tell Huang is a diligent student as he reads his textbook with his finger precisely pointing at each word when he pronounces it. One can tell Huang is an assiduous child as the veins of his neck appear every time he utters a word. One can tell Huang is an eager learner as each page of his textbook is torn and curled at the corners. Yet no matter how earnest or smart a student Huang is, he is just one the 13.8 million village primary students in China who are probably receiving education of lower quality than students who study in the urban parts of China. Village schools lack facilities and professionally trained teachers. Pupils do not have classes in other areas such as arts and physical education, let alone school outings. In comparison, the XinXing primary school in the same prefectural city has a multi-story building with a sports ground. There are more than 40 teachers and most of them have received tertiary education. Children's' parents can also find better working opportunities close by and not have …
Sugar blow your own figures
- 2017-04-23
- People
- 2017-04-23
While the local craftmanship slowly dies out, a lady still refuses to let go of sugar-blowing, which is a part of many's childhood. Chung Choi Wan, 60, is one of the remaining three craftsmen in Hong Kong who knows how to blow sugar-coated figurine, also known as sugar- blown figure, classified as one of the Hong Kong's intangible cultural heritage according to the Hong Kong In- tangible Cultural Heritage Database. Making such figurine requires a high degree of patience and it is easy to fail during the making process. Until now, there isn't any license issued by the government to ensure the right of sugar-blowing hawkers, which becomes one of the potential obstacles for such craftsmanship to exists throughout the century, said Chung. Sugar-coated figurine have over 300 years of history and made of maltose that has been treated with secret formulas. Chung said that she could not reveal the special treatment for maltose as it can only pass on to her apprentice according to traditional rules. Craftsman can change maltose into different shapes by bare hands and using simple tools like toothpicks to carve out the pattern of animal fur. Chung can made maltose into animal shapes such as dolphin and swan. The technique of blowing a large ball shape from a droplet-like maltose is to blow it instantly when the maltose is still hot enough to change its shape. "When the maltose ball is in dumpling size, blow it slowly until it change to the size of an egg", said Chung. "Blowing ball, laughing more" is Chung's slogan, which also written in front of her movable cart. Spread- ing the joy around is why Chung starts to learn this traditional art. The colorful coatings of the figures can easily attract eyeballs. She recalled that once a four-person family …