Chinese multinational technology giant Alibaba has pledged to inject HK$5 billion into Hong Kong’s entertainment sector to finance promotion to an international audience.

Hong Kong-made television dramas, films, events and training of young creatives will receive funding from video platform Youku, Alibaba Pictures and other businesses under the media arm of Alibaba, the company announced on Monday.

The five-year project, dubbed the “Hong Kong Cultural and Art Industry Revitalisation Program,” would concentrate on film production and distribution, rights acquisitions and television series production, a government statement read.

Unveiled during the Hong Kong International Film and TV Market exhibition, the programme would also offer investments in concerts, collaboration with performance venues, and talent development.

The company would collaborate with film and television companies in Hong Kong to co-produce films, as well as television series for streaming platforms. Alibaba said Youku would support the production of a sequel to the popular newsroom drama “The QUEEN of News” by broadcaster TVB.

Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung, who officiated Monday’s press conference, said the government hoped that the investment plan would bring the city’s film and television entertainment sector “to the next level.”

“We eagerly hope that [Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group] will work more closely with the film and TV industry of Hong Kong to develop new modes of co-operation and explore business areas, to nurture new talent, and to create rich and diversified content for film and TV,” an English statement by Yeung read.

Last October, Chief Executive John Lee pledged during his Policy Address to help the industry draw capital from the private sector and expand new markets by injecting HK$4.3 billion to the Film Development Fund and the CreateSmart Initiative. The government also vowed to earmark HK$200 million to finance 20 local film projects to boost their chances of being released in mainland China.

Kenny Ng, associate professor of the Academy of Film of the Hong Kong Baptist University told HKFP at the time that the new scheme may be more attractive to filmmakers who were already familiar with the complicated procedures of getting a green light from mainland Chinese authorities for a film to be released.

Those who were not familiar with the rules may need to rely heavily on middlemen, the scholar said. 

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Maria Editha Garma-Respicio fondly recalls her teenage years writing for her school newspaper, reading in the library and penning poems about love. Growing up in Tuguegarao, a city in the northern Philippines, she sought solace in the written word when all else seemed to be falling apart.

“I wrote about everything,” Respicio, as she asked to be called, said. “I wrote about my emotions, being in love, everything.”

Decades later, writing continues to play a central role in Respicio’s life. The 45-year-old domestic worker in Hong Kong writes poems about life as a migrant worker, her two children back home and whatever inspires her in the moment.

“Writing is a kind of therapy for me,” Respicio told HKFP. “It’s healing.”

Respicio’s poetry has been published in a number of literary magazines. Most recently, two of her poems found a home in Ingat, a new anthology of poetry, photographs and sketches by the city’s migrant workers.

Released last Sunday, Ingat – meaning “take care” in Tagalog – is a collaborative effort by Migrant Writers of Hong Kong, photography non-profit Lensational and independent publisher Small Tune Press. It features the work of dozens of domestic workers telling stories about family, hardship, love and sacrifice.

All the works in the book are accompanied by Chinese translations with the aim of making it more accessible to Hong Kong readers. The anthology’s dusk jacket pays tribute to balikbayan boxes, or large cardboard boxes stuffed with food, clothes and other gifts that domestic workers send home to their families.

The city’s 340,000 domestic workers, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, are the backbone of many Hong Kong families. Research has shown that domestic workers contribute significantly to the city’s economy, freeing up parents from childcare and other duties so they can enter the workforce.

Migrant worker activists have long campaigned for their rights, citing cases of domestic workers being denied rest days, food or their salaries.

Respicio wrote two poems for the anthology: Diaspora Spirit and Adios. The first is a tribute to the courage of migrant workers, while in the second, she described a tearful farewell to her family in the Philippines.

“Goodbye’s a torture, my tears shedding / I’ll no longer witness my baby’s milestone / Others children I will be caring / Making me numb like an ice stone,” she wrote in Adios.

Christine Vicera, one of the leaders of the project and co-founder of be/longing, an initiative supporting ethnically diverse communities, said the book aimed to carve out space for work that is “often forgotten or not as visible” on Hong Kong’s creative scene.

Born in the Philippines but having moved to the city as a toddler, Vicera – who co-edited the anthology – said she always wished there was more diversity in the literary scene.

“Growing up, I’ve always wanted to see works by people in our communities on bookshelves,” she said. “People from Hong Kong, people who are Filipino and of course, people who are migrant domestic workers.”

‘A very powerful story’

Established in 2021, Migrant Writers of Hong Kong unites domestic workers with a common love for the written word. The group partners with universities to organise writing workshops, poetry exhibitions and arts events on Sundays, the sole day off for most domestic workers.

Maria Nemy Lou Rocio co-founded the group after being inspired by Migrant Writers of Singapore. Noting an absence of such a community here, the 42-year-old set out to create a safe, inclusive space for domestic workers in Hong Kong to share their creations and hone their craft.

“Migrant workers are very talented. Every poem they write is a very powerful story,” Rocio, who came to Hong Kong as a domestic worker six years ago, told HKFP.

Shortly after establishing Migrant Workers of Hong Kong, Rocio told Vicera that she wanted to produce an anthology to showcase the writing of domestic workers. The idea was soon expanded to spotlight not just written work, but photos, art and other mediums.

Kristine Andaya Ventura’s contribution to Ingat is a sketch of a couple paddling a boat under the full moon. The 36-year-old Filipina has been working overseas as a domestic worker since she was 19, first in Lebanon and then in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Malaysia. She came to Hong Kong at the end of 2022.

“[My sketch] is about two hearts saying goodbye. No matter how happy they are today, tomorrow they need to say goodbye to separate, to have a good future,” she told HKFP.

Ventura is as much a writer as she is an artist, having penned dozens of poems over the years. She published a book of her poetry called She is a Lioness in 2021, telling stories about heartbreak over a failed marriage, battling depression, and life as a domestic worker in a foreign land.

Her main writing inspiration, she said, was her two children aged eight and 17.

“I want to dedicate [my poems] to them [to show] how I love them and miss them,” Ventura said. “When I miss them, I will express that I need to work outside the country for them… to give them financial support.”

“Writing helps me ease the pain,” she added.

Besides poems, Ingat also features around two dozen photos taken by members of Lensational, a non-profit that supports domestic workers interested in photography.

Felicia Xu, a volunteer at Lensational who curated the photo submissions, said photography was a powerful tool for migrant workers as it transcended the barriers of language.

Years ago, Lensational ran an event inviting domestic workers and their employers to view their work, she told HKFP. Some of the employers became emotional when they talked to their domestic workers.

“When [one of the employers] saw the photo, it raised her interest and she started asking questions,” Xu said.

“She got to know the struggles of the domestic worker that she basically spends every minute with, but she didn’t know anything about her emotions… and that photo broke the ice.”

Defying stereotypes

For the migrant workers who contributed to the anthology, writing poems and taking photos is a way for them to express their emotions. But more than that, they hope their work can prompt society to see a different side to them.

“I want [our] messages to be read by the locals… and I hope they can appreciate their domestic helpers more,” Rocio told HKFP, adding that she believed the anthology could be an “eye-opener” for many Hongkongers.

A study by researchers at Lingnan University last year found that domestic workers were unfairly represented by the city’s media outlets. According to an analysis of almost 400 reports about the mistreatment of domestic workers in Chinese-language media, outlets tended to use language that highlighted the “positive personality traits” of employers.

The anthology’s launch also comes as the government continues to crack down on what it calls domestic workers’ “job-hopping,” or prematurely ending their contracts to change employers. Lawmakers have alleged that domestic workers are induced to “job hop” by employment agencies offering them financial incentives, a claim activists deny.

The government is slated to announce new rules by July that could make it harder for domestic workers to switch employers.

Vicera said influencing policy-making was tougher nowadays as the legislature lacked lawmakers who campaigned for domestic workers’ rights.

See also: Without an opposition, Hong Kong’s ‘patriots only’ Legislative Council leaves marginalised groups behind

Since authorities overhauled the electoral system in 2021, only people deemed “patriots” by the government can run in leadership races. During previous legislature terms, when there was still an effective opposition, pro-democracy lawmakers worked with NGOs and activists to lobby for domestic workers’ interests.

Under these circumstances, visibility – through projects such as Ingat – is more important than ever, Vicera said.

“These stories are able to challenge certain stereotypes and at the end of the day, make people realise that beyond their identities as domestic workers, they are mothers, daughters, writers, photographers, and storytellers too,” she added.

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Last March, over 1,300 Hongkongers attended the pop-up Bay Market’s collection of local vendors, buying pre-loved goods such as records, books, garments, art, games and unexpected gems.

This Saturday, the boutique market is expanding to different areas of K-Farm on the Kennedy Town waterfront, with carefully-selected vendors and a new games section and seating zone.

‘A desire for something different’

After a summer visit to Berlin, co-founder Dorian Gabler immediately fell in love with the regular Sunday flea markets held all over the German capital.

“The market was born out of a desire for something different. Cities around the world boast incredible flea markets that attract kids, families, tourists, and locals, but Hong Kong was missing out. So, we built something that fills this gap while also reducing the cycle of unsustainable shopping in the city,” the founders say.

“In contrast to Hong Kong’s commercial and consumeristic mindset, we aim to upcycle and create less waste,” they added.

Revellers can expect four different food vendors, ranging from Philly cheesesteak sandwiches to tacos and Indian-inspired snacks. Smoothies and coffee will be available, alongside craft brews by the Hong Kong Beer Co. and a wine bar from Yatbui.

• Where: K-Farm Belcher Bay Promenade, Kennedy Town.
• When: Saturday, March 9, noon till 7pm.
• Entry: Free.

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A new homegrown, independent music festival, featuring 10 bands and 50 DJs, is set to descend upon Lantau’s pristine Tai Long Wan this month. Jungle Island Music Festival runs from March 15-17.

Accessible by sampan-only, the three-day, two-night odyssey on the Chi Ma Wan Peninsula boasts two stages, each offering a fresh line-up of local artists.

According to organisers, revellers can expect to see “music innovators Shumking Mansion, hitmaker Mengzy with an all-star drum and bass & garage line up featuring the unparalleled Immuno, Asia’s biggest Afrobeats group, The Afroseas ft. Global Natives, underground collective This is Bunker, experience curators Get Groovy Asia, gay circuit party organisers Haus of Circuit, up-and-coming live bands such as Whitt’s End (fresh of their Clockenflap debut) & more.”

Festivalgoers can also enjoy soul-enhancing workshops and activities, as well as a craftmanship and design market that supports local artisans, plus culinary treats and pop-up retailers.

The intimate gathering is capped at 1,000 visitors, with glamping and bring-your-own-tent options. Tickets start from HK$480.

For more information, and full ticketing terms, click here.

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Once home to the military families, Treasure Hill Artist Village has become one of Taipei’s most unique landmarks. A hilltop assemblage of 1960s and 70s shanties, many of them illegally erected, the enclave is now an incubator for Taiwan and international art, hosting residencies and housing studios.

It is not just for artists, though. The intricate alleyways that meander through the haphazard shacks are dotted with sculptures and street art, independent boutiques and artisanal coffee shops, too.

Treasure Hill Artist Village is about 10 minutes by foot from Gongguan MRT station. It is open between 11 am and 10 pm from Tuesday to Sunday.

Words: Mercedes Hutton

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The Hong Kong International Literary Festival returns to the city from March 4 to 10, uniting international authors, local writers and lovers of the written word to celebrate the art of storytelling.

Highlights from this year’s diverse programme include a series of events that celebrate International Women’s Day, among them a lunch with Australian author Diana Reid, whose latest novel Seeing Other People explores how we define the line between self-fulfilment and selfishness.

Also on the agenda is a Cha Chaan Teng Talk by Hong Kong food writer Lui Ka Chun, who invites attendees to join him at Tai On Coffee and Tea Shop, a traditional café that was last year saved from closure by a group of young Hongkongers. Lui will share stories of how intertwined such spaces are with the city’s culture, over a steaming cup of milk tea and an egg tart or two.

Local poet Akin Jeje launches his the highly anticipated book, Write About Here – captivating collection of Hong Kong and global poems that delve into the triumphs of human experience here, there and everywhere

And – in a talk moderated by HKFP’s Executive Editor Mercedes Hutton – poet and activist Azam Abidov will discuss how he pushed the boundaries of creativity to become an internationally-recognised writer despite spending most of his life in Uzbekistan, a country where free speech is often censored and curtailed.

• Tickets: On sale now via Eventbrite.
• Date: March 4-10, 2024.
• Venue: Various locations across Hong Kong, see programme for further details.
• Website: Hong Kong International Literary Festival.

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As I told a friend the other day: “If you see someone taking photos of the buildings behind us, chances are they’re tourists coming to see the Monster Building.” 

I’m a Quarry Bay kaifong, or local, and every time I visit a neighbourhood bakery or florist, I see people – mostly in their 20s and 30s and speaking in different languages – strolling along King’s Road. Some ask for directions, some take photos from the opposite side of the street. I can tell instantly that they are searching for the Monster Building.

For us locals, it’s just one of the ordinary residential structures of the 1960s. We didn’t call it Monster Building until it was introduced to a global audience by the Hollywood blockbuster Transformers: Age of Extinction.

When unfamiliar faces approach, bakery staff will point out the building before even being asked. The tourists have themselves become part of Quarry Bay’s topography. 

A recent music video by Pharrell Williams and friends for a song called Airplane Tickets was set in Hong Kong’s streets.  The locations include the vernacular residential buildings, high-end commercial towers and a hotel, the cross-harbour tunnel, taxis and the stunning Victoria Harbour. 

The small size of urban Hong Kong encouraged the construction of skyscrapers across the whole city, creating a stunning and uniquely attractive backdrop for films and videos. Cool and sleek skyscrapers, the claustrophobic streetscape, or the spectacular harbour have long been an integral part of local or overseas movies.  

The critically acclaimed animated sci-fi film Ghost in the Shell in the 1990s and its Hollywood remake in 2017 were largely modelled on the cityscape of Hong Kong. Causeway Bay’s landmark circular footbridge was used as the setting of the concluding fistfight in the 2017 version.

And recently, the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront, where families stroll in the evenings or at weekends, became a runway for Louis Vuitton. The French luxury goods giant staged its menswear show there last November, with the harbour and the skyline of Hong Kong Island as a backdrop.

YouTube videos of what was probably the world’s most spectacular fashion runway have been seen by millions.

The overlapping of the city’s physical and cinematic space helps boost the city’s cultural identity and image. 

On Valentine’s Day came the two-week Chubby Hearts campaign presented by the Hong Kong Design Centre, with the giant balloons flying over different parts of the city. Photos of the big red hearts have flooded social media. The design centre reveals the locations of the photos every morning on its website.

So far, the big red hearts have visited, among other places, the flower market in Mong Kok and Lam Tsuen in Tai Po. I hope they will also overfly more mundane neighbourhoods in Kowloon and the New Territories and make yet more people appreciate the charm of our cityscape. 

Since travel resumed after Covid curbs were lifted, a common justification for failing to spend weekends and public holidays locally is that Hong Kong does not have much to see. This is a laughable statement which only reveals the speakers’ ignorance. Hong Kong has much to see and to contemplate. The collective vitality of its people makes our city a rich place to explore. 

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More than 30 years after forming, British band Slowdive are back and bringing their rich, reverb-drenched sound to Hong Kong’s AsiaWorld-Expo following a largely sold out European tour.

Slowdive rose to fame in the early 1990s as pioneers of the shoegaze genre – a fuzzy, distorted wall of sound that is at once dreamlike, nostalgic and full of longing.

The band’s 2023 album everything is alive – their first since 2017 – has been called “their best yet,” by music magazine Paste, while the Wall Street Journal described it as “perfect music for the summer’s end, an album to be experienced under a thick blanket while watching the sun disappear behind the trees.”

They will be supported on March 14 at AsiaWorld-Expo by Japanese singer-songwriter Ichiko Aoba who pens mysterious, modern folk music.

• Tickets: On sale now via KKTIX at HK$750
• Date: March 14, 2024
• Venue: AsiaWorld-Expo, Runway 11
• Address: AsiaWorld-Expo, Hong Kong International Airport, Lantau Island, Hong Kong

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Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi has told Chinese fans that his absence from a much-publicised Hong Kong match was not political, after he was accused of attempting to humiliate the city as it aimed to boost its international image.

In a video posted on Chinese social media platform Weibo on Monday night, Messi said it was “totally untrue” that he sat out the match earlier this month for political reasons. He repeated an earlier statement given to reporters that he had been suffering from inflamed leg muscles.

“I’ve had a very close and special relationship with China,” the Inter Miami footballer said, speaking Spanish in the video which included Simplified Chinese and English subtitles.

“I’ve done lots of things in China: interviews, games and events. I’ve also been there and played many times for FC Barcelona and the [Argentinian] national team.”

Messi’s two-minute video was the latest development in a saga that started when tens of thousands of fans were left disappointed after the footballer remained on the bench during a friendly match earlier this month, in which American football club Inter Miami was playing against local team Hong Kong XI.

The Consumer Council received over 1,350 complaints from local football fans and tourists who had travelled to Hong Kong for the game. Tatler Asia, which organised the match, said it would withdraw a bid for a HK$16 million government grant and announced it would offer fans a 50 per cent refund.

Amid the fiasco, China’s state-run Global Times said in an editorial that there were possible “political motives” behind Messi’s no-show. The editorial suggested that external forces were “deliberately seeking to embarrass Hong Kong” as the city sought to attract more international events.

Senior government advisor and lawmaker Regina Ip blamed a “black hand,” calling the incident a “deliberate and calculated snub to Hong Kong.”

The Beijing Football Association has since cancelled two of Argentina’s friendly matches – against Nigeria in Hangzhou and Ivory Coast in Beijing – slated for March. The South American country’s team, captained by Messi, had earlier announced a tour in China.

‘Special affection’ for China

Mainland China is home to a growing football market, with Chinese leader Xi Jinping a self-proclaimed football fan who has expressed hope of China becoming a global football powerhouse.

Messi’s Weibo video attracted around close to 60,000 likes by noon on Tuesday, with most comments speaking positively of the football star. They also said they understood that Messi was injured and would not have been able to recover overnight.

“I believe this footballer who I have always loved would never have any bias… football is pure, and so is he,” one Chinese comment read.

In his video, Messi said he sent “good wishes to everyone in China who I’ve always had special affection for.”

The government said it welcomed Tatler Asia’s decision to offer a 50 per cent refund for those who purchased tickets. It added that authorities still hoped that Inter Miami would offer an explanation about Messi’s absence from the pitch to local and international fans who had travelled to the city for the game.

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A government fund contributed around HK$7.8 million for an open-air art installation of giant heart-shaped balloons around Hong Kong, a Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau (CSTB) spokesperson has said, after the bureau earlier declined to reveal the amount provided for the event.

Launched on Wednesday, Chubby Hearts Hong Kong is part of the authorities’ drive to bring large-scale “mega events” to the city to boost an economy struggling to recover after all Covid-19 restrictions were lifted early last year. It was organised by the Hong Kong Design Centre, with funding support from the government’s Mega Arts and Cultural Events (ACE) Fund.

Since its unveiling, the heart balloons have popped up at various locations across the city, attracting couples to pose in front of them as well as criticism. In a Thursday Facebook post, shareholder activist David Webb questioned how much the installation had cost taxpayers.

In an emailed response to HKFP on Thursday, the CSTB did not respond to a question asking how much funding the organiser of the Chubby Hearts exhibition had received from the ACE fund.

HKFP subsequently put in an access to information request on Friday afternoon, before receiving a response from the CSTB soon after 6 pm.

A CSTB spokesperson told HKFP by email that the HK$7.8 million funding covered “covering “curation, exhibit production and display, creation by local designers and artists, staff and security, market research, local and overseas promotion expenses.”

It also added that the event organiser will only receive the funding if they complete the project and submit an activity report.

Chief Executive John Lee announced the establishment of a fund to support major cultural happenings during his 2022 Policy Address.

The CSBT later told lawmakers the maximum funding amount for each project was HK$15 million, but the ACE committee could adjust that amount for a specific project’s requirements, if necessary.

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A deaf dance group in Hong Kong has said it was “saddened” after a charity arts organisation called off three performances scheduled for next month citing “changes in production arrangements.”

The Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation (HKYAF) confirmed with HKFP on Thursday that it had cancelled community dance performance in collaboration with Fun Forest, a dance group consisting of members with hearing impairments.

The cancellation came a little over a month before the dance drama was set to be performed in Youth Square in Chai Wan on March 22 and 23.

The show was dropped due to “changes in production arrangements,” HKYAF said in an emailed response to HKFP’s enquiries. The foundation did not respond to questions about whether the cancellation was prompted by national security or political considerations.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused,” HKYAF said.

Speculations

Speculations over the cancellation emerged on Wednesday night, after Fun Forest’s founder Jason Wong Yiu-pong shared on social media a screenshot of a Facebook status, which claimed that the show had been halted by the sponsor, Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC).

According to the status, the performance was cancelled because it was discovered after a vetting procedure that the producer of dance show had taught people to sing the 2019 protest song Glory to Hong Kong in sign language.

Wong, the choreographer and instructor of the production, was featured in a sign language music video of Glory to Hong Kong when the song was released amid citywide unrest against the since-axed extradition bill.

He also served as a sign language interpreter for press conferences organised by protesters in 2019.

Wong said on Wednesday night that he was uncertain whether the dance show would continue as planned.

“If the performance was suddenly cancelled, then the answer is very obvious,” he said.

In a Chinese-language statement released on Thursday night, Wong said his original intention was to use dance as a means to contribute towards building an inclusive society. The news of the cancellation had left members of the dance group “deeply saddened,” he said.

“I can only reluctantly accept the decision made by the organising committee. I had hoped to deliver a good performance, I did not think the performance would be cancelled at the end,” Wong said.

In a statement released on Thursday, HKJC said the performance was under the “stART Up Community Arts Project,” organised by the HKYAF. The foundation curated and executed the daily operation of the project and all of its activities, HKJC said.

“The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust is the funder, but has no direct involvement in the project,” the statement read.

Cancellations

Hong Kong has seen several performances cancelled in recent weeks, with performing arts group Fire Makes Us Human losing a venue for a play due to government pressure. A school it had hired performance space from to put on two plays was told by the Education Bureau to cancel the lease agreement. The group later announced to suspend operations.

The Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts also scrapped a graduation show featuring the play Accidental Death of an Anarchist, saying it had been cancelled due to “changes in the Academy’s production plan.”

The production based on the play written by Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo was scheduled to be performed between mid-February and early March. Local media reported that some of those involved said they felt “helpless” and were “speechless” about the cancelled performance.

Correction 4pm, 17/2/24: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to Dario Fu, as opposed to Dario Fo. We apologise to Mr Fo for the error.

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The government has declined to reveal how much funding it provided for an open-air art installation of giant floating balloons conceived by British fashion designer Anya Hindmarch.

Launched on Wednesday, Chubby Hearts Hong Kong is part of the authorities’ drive to bring large-scale “mega events” to the city to boost an economy struggling to recover after all Covid-19 restrictions were lifted early last year. It was organised by the Hong Kong Design Centre, with funding support from the government’s Mega Arts and Cultural Events (ACE) Fund.

Since its unveiling, the heart balloons have popped up at various locations across the city, attracting couples to pose in front of them as well as criticism. In a Thursday Facebook post, shareholder activist David Webb questioned how much the installation had cost taxpayers.

Webb also said that Anya Hindmarch had a shop in K11 Musea, a shopping mall owned by developer New World Development. Adrian Cheng, CEO and executive vice-chairman of New World Development, is also chairman of the ACE fund.

“Promoting her business should help your rents. Heart-warming indeed, ” Webb said, reposting a post by Cheng promoting the installation as first 2024 project supported by the fund.

In an emailed response to HKFP on Thursday, the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau (CSTB) did not respond to a question asking how much funding the organiser of the Chubby Hearts exhibition had received from the ACE fund.

Regarding whether there was a conflict of interest stemming from Hindmarch’s brand being a tenant of the ACE fund chair’s company, a spokesperson for the CSTB said that all members, including the chairman and the vice chairman, “have strictly observed the requirement on declaration of interests when handling all the applications in the past in accordance with the established mechanism.”

Mega events sponsored by taxpayers

The city’s leader John Lee announced the establishment of the ACE fund in the 2022 Policy Address to promote more international arts and cultural events being held in the city.

Kevin Yeung, the CSTB chief said in late 2022 the government planned to allocate approximately HK$60 million per year from the Arts and Sport Development Fund to the ACE fund to support around four activities.

Responding to lawmakers last July, the bureau said the maximum funding amount for each project was HK$15 million, but the ACE committee could adjust that amount for a specific project’s requirements, if necessary.

Lee said during the opening ceremony for Chubby Hearts Hong Kong that the installation was one of the year’s many mega events, and he hoped the city would host yet more to showcase Hong Kong’s strengths and make it a must-visit city for tourists.

Yolanda Ng, a former district councillor and a member of the ACE committee, said on Thursday on RTHK that the committee considered the scale of the event, its ability to attract tourists, the organiser’s capacity to curate large-scale events, and the significance of the project for Hong Kong when reviewing applications for funding.

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Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District will use up its financial reserves next year, the head of the authority overseeing the arts hub has said as she urged the government to approve a plan designed to secure its financial sustainability.

Betty Fung, CEO of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA), told local media outlets on Wednesday that the arts hub’s HK$21.6 billion funding endowed by the city’s legislature in 2008 will run out next year.

Fung said that the arts hub had recorded over 4 million visits in the 2022/23 year, in which the hub’s M+ Museum had drawn 2.7 million visitors. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Palace Museum attracted 1.25 million guests, she said, adding that she was confident that the increase in special exhibitions would draw more visits this year.

But the former director of the government’s Information Services Department also said that revenue generated by ticket sales could not cover the high costs of operations. She said that the M+ Museum and the Palace Museum were able to earn back close to half of its expenses, putting it “on par with or even exceeding internationally renowned museums,” but the WKCDA still had to cover the outstanding costs with its own money.

“Even the top-class museums in the world could run into serious financial troubles without government subsidies,” Fung told the Hong Kong Economic Journal. “We are [running] on zero government subsidies and rely solely on fundraising and ticket sales.”

Citing the Palace Museum as an example, Fung said that its operation costed over HK$400 million yearly, with exhibition costs amounting to over half of the expenses. In comparison, the WKCDA raised HK$197 million last year, she added.

According to its annual report, the self-financed arts hub has seen a deficit of over HK$1.3 billion in 2023, already down from HK$1.5 billion in the year earlier.

Finance plan

Fung said a plan to boost the cultural district’s income was proposed to the government last year, and that the WKCDA was still awaiting a reply.

The WKCDA proposed making “good use of its land resources” in a bid to shore up its finances last August. Details of the proposal – which has not been made public – are not known.

Fung said that the government had yet to reply to the proposal as authorities had been consulting with experts on the arts hub’s financial situation. But she urged the government to expedite the plan’s approval, citing the time required for setting up major art exhibitions in collaboration with international arts institutions.

She said that such exhibitions would normally require two to three years to prepare, and the uncertainty of the arts hub’s finances would hinder arrangements and contracts with other museums.

Fung added that the worst-case scenario would be to rely on bank loans to sustain the operations of the arts hub, which she described as “unheard of.”

Secretary for Cultures, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung on Wednesday said that authorities would continue to work with the WKCDA to address its financial situation.

“The government invested a great amount of recourses when the West Kowloon Cultural District was established, as well as offered assistance in its land [acquisition] and construction,” he told reporters in Cantonese. “We will continue to work with them to solve the problems.”

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A giant floating heart has become Hong Kong’s latest photographic sensation, attracting couples to pose with the oversized balloons unveiled on Valentine’s Day.

The Chubby Hearts Hong Kong project launched on Wednesday with the installation’s largest balloon, measuring 12 metres in diameter, going up at Statue Square in Central. Smaller balloons will pop up in various locations across the city over the next 10 days.

The project, by UK designer Anya Hindmarch, is presented by the government-funded Hong Kong Design Centre. It is part of the authorities’ drive to bring large-scale “mega events” to the city in a bid to boost an economy struggling to recover after Covid-19.

Speaking at the installation’s launch event at Statue Square, Chief Executive John Lee wished the public a Happy Lunar New Year and a Happy Valentine’s Day.

“I trust your hearts are all as ‘chubby’ as mine is, on this splendid day, where romance is in the air – or soon will be,” Lee said.

He also thanked Hindmarch, who was at the event, for coming to Hong Kong.

“Apart from showcasing Hong Kong’s innovative heart and dynamism, Chubby Hearts has inspired a variety of creative exchanges, between global designers such as Ms Hindmarch and Hong Kong’s own high-flying talent,” Lee added.

The Hong Kong Design Centre will announce the pop-up locations of the installation at 7 am every day on its website. The locations include the Clock Tower in Tsim Sha Tsui, PMQ in Central and Temple Street in Yau Ma Tei, according to the Hong Kong Design Centre’s Facebook page.

Words by Hillary Leung.

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Sum Lok-kei sometimes thinks back to a one-day music festival he organised almost eight years ago, when he and long-time friend Jason Cheung played alongside a dozen alternative bands from Hong Kong and China in a marathon performance of hybrid indie sounds.

The event took place in a now-closed venue called Focal Fair in the heart of Causeway Bay – one of the world’s most expensive shopping areas – and ran from midday past midnight, Jason recalls, adding that Lok was “rather crazy” to plan such an event. “It was a fun one,” Lok says in Cantonese. “And we have been wondering when we could do something like that again.”

Leung Wing-lai’s most memorable event, however, was a farewell gig for the third-generation version of legendary underground music venue Hidden Agenda. Leung pointed to a mimeograph poster reading “Keep on growing” in Chinese from the 2016 occasion. Hidden Agenda survived multiple locale changes and government crackdowns but eventually shut down in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020.

“It really wove together bands from vastly different musical backgrounds,” Leung – known as Ah Lai – recalls of the 10-hour showcase he organised. It featured his band, the unconventional yet long-lived An Id Signal. Lok’s Emptybottles and Jason’s David Boring also shared the stage.

Although it lives on in such memories, Hong Kong’s vibrant independent music scene has gone under-recorded and under-represented. Indie bands that lurk in the depths of the city’s industrial buildings thrive on a “do-it-yourself” ethic, whimsically putting on shows that attract mostly their immediate following.

Musicians working full-time jobs take on the role of gig organiser and sometimes face prosecution, especially when live performances were intermittently banned under Covid-19 restrictions. When they are able to put on shows, they grapple with a lack of event space.

Some, like Ah Lai, Lok, and Jason, press on. While each of them have their own act – Lok is now the frontman of emo outfit Wellsaid after Emptybottles went on hiatus – they grew up listening to each other’s music and helping out when friends in the indie music circle made records or put on release parties. At times, they mourn the transient nature of the scene – with much-loved bands fading away after a burst of energy.

“The vinyl you see, the music you hear, how does it actually come to your senses?” Lok asks. “There’s a path, a journey in-the-making that the audience wouldn’t know about. A good deal of music and performance didn’t make it. People had to give up mid-way.”

“Many bands in Hong Kong just go missing after their first record,” Jason agrees. “After seeing a few of their shows and starting to like them, they left the scene. Some made recordings but never released them. It felt deeply amiss.”

The trio decided to pool their experience, knowledge and networks to form UN.TOMORROW, a loose collective that seeks to create momentum, to thrust the indie scene into uncharted territory. “Tomorrow never knows; it is being,” they wrote in a statement.

Joined by Medius Chung of indie enthusiasts’ group Zenegeist, the collective is busy working on its first project: a two-day festival in March that will bring together 10 active acts – including An Id Signal, David Boring, and Wellsaid. The line-up, Ah Lai says, has been curated to showcase the unique and iconic sounds of the city’s alternative music scene.

More releases are planned. When HKFP visited the group in January, they were on their laptops, trying to make a deal with record stores in Taiwan and Hong Kong for a live album by the critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Wong Hin-yan, soon to be released under the tag of UN.TOMORROW. Jason is excited that the collective may become a record label and, in time, build a catalogue of its favourite music. But it is still a long shot, he says.

“We want to encourage everyone to continue,” Lok says. “The meaning behind UN.TOMORROW is that we don’t want ourselves to be fatalist, to end after just a shot… We want to explore the potential of alternative music, to see what it could become.”

In this collective pursuit, they seek to bring together musicians and fans in the city so that meaningful connections can be made, and, in doing so, leave an imprint of alternative music’s presence on the city’s music history.

‘Do-it-together’

The idea emerged from the group’s gatherings during Covid-19, when social distancing measures made it hard to stage live performances.

During that time, Lok continued what he had done for years: making music under mostly his own steam. He wrote songs, recorded them with Wellsaid, and brought them before an audience at a release party when the policy allowed. But the support of insiders was essential.

“Before the pandemic… we were mostly minding our own business, because we were competing as bands,” he says. “But it was much harder to make a show, whether openly or underground, during the outbreak… you had to involve other people to share the risks, but in that process, people also came to understand each other.”

Competition is not a bad thing, Ah Lai says, as it pushes people to grow and the indie scene to progress: “A vibrant scene is always made up of different people with different aesthetics, competing and cooperating with each other.”

But Ah Lai, who has been making music with An Id Signal since 2006, also feels that the city’s indie scene could benefit from being more tightly-knit – becoming a trusted circle where musicians can seek solace and advice whenever they encounter hardships. “In fact, we are always ignorant about how to run a band, with the time evolving so quickly,” he says.

“We have been pretty much on our own for a long time, perhaps we lack an intimate music circle to connect us, where we can communicate our experiences as bands.”

He takes inspiration from indie musicians overseas, who are seeing the merits of convergence. “My friends in Taiwan and Japan… are bringing the ‘do-it-yourself’ spirit to the next level, that is ‘do-it-together.’ I think we, too, are entering this phase,” Ah Lai says. “Take our three bands as an example: we may carry on with our projects separately, but if we do them together, it will be a different story.”

“At the very least, our shows won’t collide,” he adds. “We are now synchronising, we are giving the entire scene a schedule [of events].”

Medius, whose Zenegeist group has been putting on indie music shows for over eight years, is well aware of the value of getting events in order. When multiple shows happen in different locations on the same night, he says, it inevitably scatters the fans – already few in number compared with mainstream listeners.

It will also lack the synergies of an ensemble event at which fans can discover new bands after listening to their favourites. “This is an opportunity to attract the attention of those who are less familiar with indie music,” he adds.

The point is illustrated in the roster for the upcoming March festival, which features a variety of bands that cut across genres. Jason’s David Boring leans towards electronic noise, sharing a sense of affinity with the dissonant, post-hardcore sounds by Ah Lai’s An Id Signal. Lok’s Wellsaid makes slightly brighter music rooted in the emo genre. In succession, they will perform on the same stage with seven other bands with distinctive sounds, styles, and performances.

“Hong Kong is small, so is the indie scene,” Lok says. “Musicians from different circles can easily step into others’ territories… We are all friends and we could make a combo show together. There’s a strange proximity that is unique to Hong Kong.”

What truly binds them is the attitude of independence. It leads these musicians to keep a distance from what Lok calls “the institutionalised,” that is, to rely on public money or commercial models in making music.

Instead, they self-finance their production, lug their own instruments around, and reach out to friends when they need a hand, whether for album art designs or concert photography. It is a clumsy method, Ah Lai notes, but it gives them maximum control over their output.

And this kindred spirit draws people together, including Medius, who considers himself more of a supportive figure in this project. “I think we want to build a musicians-oriented community,” he says. “We are not saying our approach is the only way for indie musicians, but we encourage things to happen in this spirit.”

‘Time capsule’

For Jason, an equal amount of attention is placed on producing Wong Hin-yan’s live album, which emerged from a throwaway comment he made the artist.

Wong is a poet, a singer-songwriter, and a composer whose score won him a Golden Horse Award – the most prestigious prize for Chinese-language films – in 2022. But he has also played in smaller, underground venues, like “A Night to Call, Tales to Tell”, a jazz-infused live performance that happened in a factory building in San Po Kong last year. As an audience member, Jason was mesmerised.

After Wong’s performance, Jason said something he had often said to artists he liked: “The show was great! I will be your producer if you have the recording.”

But unlike other times Jason had said that, Wong went back to Jason two months later with the recording. Jason not only felt obliged to make it into a record, it was also a dream come true.

“When I am watching a show, sometimes I feel a sudden sense of detachment,” he says. “There are moments that hit me so deeply. I feel like I should not be just a witness, I want to bring them to the world, to seal them in a time capsule, to remember them.”

Now, “A Night to Call, Tales to Tell” has been materialised on a double LP album. Jason and UN.TOMORROW reached out to a studio in Taiwan to master the tracks and a factory in the UK to press the vinyl. They also enlisted a translator, so that Wong’s work could be exposed to non-Chinese speaking audiences.

The investment is worthwhile partly because they enjoyed Wong’s music, but it is also compelled by a sense of regret – and ambition.

“There were some bands that existed – like Ponyboy – but didn’t make a record. It was a real historical shame,” Lok says. “But you’ve missed the shot already. I think, if there were a way to support those bands in their prime to make records, Hong Kong would truly have a rich catalogue [of indie music].”

Having such a catalogue is helpful for future audiences to learn about what happened before them, Ah Lai says, but it also required time.

A case in point is the independent label Harbour Records, Ah Lai notes, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in January with a two-night party. Founded by a group of friends who enjoyed making music together, including the late Kwan King-chung, who is considered to be one of the most influential figures in the scene, Harbour Records has since released over 36 albums.

“You can see their timeline, with My Little Airport, False Alarm, etc. You can see their period,” Ah Lai says. “If we take the time [with UN.TOMORROW], this period will also become history.”

“Now, things in Hong Kong could easily disband and be banned, it takes a blink of an eye before things disappear. But, what if we can carry on for five years? That would be an archive in itself,” the musician says.

“When a band puts out a record, it naturally represents the music that happened in that time in history. We don’t seek to represent the entire indie scene – we are just a part of it, a part of Hong Kong’s music history – but we will put together what we have.”

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There is a scene in S. Leo Chiang’s Oscar-nominated documentary short Island in Between where two men discuss a fierce battle. One mentions a memorial for fallen soldiers on the opposite side of the strait that separates them from China. The other seems surprised something like that would exist.

“Duh! They fought us. Of course they have one, too,” the first responds. ” Their civilians fought and died, too, like our side.”

Their conversation – which plays out against footage of disused military facilities on the Taiwan-governed islands of Kinmen – is one of several vignettes in Chiang’s poetically paced film where a prosaic compassion pervades, exposing the nuanced reality behind deeply rooted rhetoric.

Islands in between

In Island in Between – released on The New York Times’ Op-Doc channel last September, a few months ahead of Taiwan’s general election – Kinmen is both a literal and figurative embodiment of that nuanced reality.

Kinmen, a group of 12 islands less than five kilometres from the Chinese city of Xiamen at their closest point and around 200 kilometres from Taiwan, was the scene of major hostilities during the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and beyond, when the Kuomintang nationalists fought the Communist Party for their control, and won.

Even now, as analysts debate the likelihood of Beijing invading Taiwan in an effort to bring what China considers a renegade province under its governance – as has frequently been the case in recent months – they often mention Kinmen in the same breath.

But for Chiang, Kinmen is more than a point on a historical map or the site of further, future conflict – it is where his father did military service in the 1960s.

It was not until 2020 that Chiang explored the islands, though. The Covid-19 pandemic had shut several borders, forcing him to accept Taiwan as his home base after spending most of his adult life in the US.

And so, with international travel off the agenda, Chiang and his parents decided to travel to Kinmen “because my father had been there, because I’ve always been kind of curious about it,” he told HKFP by video call from Taipei last Monday.

“The film came after,” he added.

What he found was a place that felt both separate from and part of Taiwan. Somewhere that does not shrink from its bloody history, but wraps it in nostalgia to sell to tourists, where hits by the late Taiwanese pop star Teresa Teng blare from a brutalist concrete speaker and portraits of Mao Zedong hang alongside those of outgoing Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.

See also: Decades after the end of White Terror, Taiwan still struggles to come to terms with its painful past

“If anything, it does in some ways feel like Taiwan… maybe 20 years ago,” Chiang says. “Which also makes a lot of sense because of the timeline… because they stayed under the more restrictive system longer than Taiwan island.”

While Taiwan’s repressive martial law period under Kuomintang rule officially ended in 1987, the people of Kinmen did not emerge from martial law until 1992.

“As the younger generation comes up, the identity’s changing,” Chiang says.

‘Enemy territory’

Perhaps surprisingly, prior to the pandemic, Kinmen had placed its bets not on war with China, but on arrivals from across the water. Connected to Fujian province by a 30-minute ferry ride, in 2019, some 40 per cent of Kinmen’s 2.5 million visitors were mainland Chinese.

“If you go to Kinmen now, you see this infrastructure that was clearly built during the boom times,” Chiang says, listing shopping malls, duty free stores and huge hotels. “It’s now basically deserted because this big flock of mainland tourists has not come back, or has not been able to come back.”

Shuttered during Covid, the ferry services have now resumed. But not for everyone.

“The Kinmeners who have investments, relatives in Xiamen are still allowed to go. The other side aren’t allowed, or not as freely,” Chiang says.

Without tourists from China, Chiang was unable to pursue an angle he had hoped to explore: “how the mainland Chinese tourists see this place.”

“You know, it’s like you go and visit the quote-unquote enemy territory, and you see how the same thing you grew up learning about is not that scary,” Chiang says. “I’ve always been very fascinated by that dynamic.”

It is one he is familiar with. Chiang grew up under martial law, believing that the Kuomintang would conquer China, and singing songs with lyrics such as, “Destroy Mao and kill traitors of the Chinese race!”

Then, aged 15, he moved to the US, and learned a whole new version of events, which made “that idea that this population of 20-something million can overturn [Communist Party rule]… just seem absurd.”

“The history I learned about Taiwan [before leaving], it’s very different from the history that I learned after I left Taiwan,” Chiang says. “You know what they say about ‘history is with the victors,’ it’s very much that way,” he continues, adding that was exemplified by “how huge a hole” there was between “what I knew before versus actually what is the reality.”

Chiang discusses a similar dissociation between perceived knowledge and reality in Island in Between – when he began working in China.

“The China I saw was not the sad and scary Communist wasteland that I learned about in school,” Chiang tells the viewer through a voice-over. “It was an exhilarating place, bursting with colours and possibilities.” On screen, a chorus of voices sing the same Teresa Teng song that blares every night out of Kinmen’s Cold War-era speaker wall.

For anyone who has not been to China, it is a humanising sequence.

“That’s very much the intention,” Chiang tells HKFP. “Do I agree with a lot of the policies of the [Chinese] government? No, absolutely not, but that’s not what the people are like. Sure there’s a portion, and maybe a big portion, that does support the government policy but there’s also a diversity of opinion that is not being heard outside,” he continues.

“People outside of the region do not understand the nuances of that and I do hope that’s what’s coming across in my film.”

‘Self-censorship is the worst kind of censorship’

When Chiang started worked in China, in 2005, he did so under his US passport as Beijing does not recognise Taiwan sovereignty, instead issuing Taiwan Compatriot Permits that essentially strip Taiwanese visitors of their citizenship.

Chiang explores this complexity of identity in Island in Between and in conversation with HKFP. “I would really prefer to be described as somebody that has two nationalities,” Chiang says. “The fact is I am both [Taiwanese and American] and I am also in-between.”

This in-between, though, is not a physical space, like Kinmen caught between Taiwan and China, or even Taiwan caught between China and the US.

“This is all about the, not even just about the in-betweenness of identity in terms of sort of feeling trapped by the pressures, but it’s also the grey areas between the extremes that we always hear about,” Chiang says.

“Either ‘the sky is falling, [China is] coming tomorrow,’ versus a lot of the people [in Taiwan], or in Kinmen, saying ‘it’ll never happen, it’s pure hysteria. Neither of which is true… no one really knows when and how and if – because the Chinese government, their decision making process is so opaque, there’s no way to predict it. Everything is speculation.”

Amid such conjecture, Chiang continued working in mainland China until just before the pandemic. “Most recently, I made a feature-length documentary… that was finished and released in 2019.”

It has not yet been shown in mainland China.

“It was about father-son artists, it was about ageing, it was about Alzheimer’s, it was about families, it’s about memory,” he says.

“I didn’t consider it to be a sensitive film… But of course if you talk about artists of a certain generation, you would touch on the Cultural Revolution… so the very mere mention of it put us in a censorship dilemma,” Chiang recalls.

“It’s one of those deals where they say, ‘well, we won’t accept this,’ and we would say ‘well, what would you accept?’ and they say, ‘we’re not going to tell you, you’re have to go figure it out.’ And of course we all know that self-censorship is the worst kind of censorship.”

Discussion turns to the increased pressures Hong Kong filmmakers face trying to get their work past the city’s censorship authorities, as well as a recent clampdown on the performing arts sector. Within the space of a few weeks, funding, plays and venues have been pulled.

“It’s just sad,” Chiang says. “I love Hong Kong.”

He has not visited since Beijing imposed its national security law on the city in 2020, criminalising secession, collusion with foreign forces, subversion and terrorism.

“I’ve actually been kind of avoiding it,” he says. “Not necessarily because I think something is going to happen to me… I just, I feel like it’s some little way of protesting,” he adds.

“A lot of the Taiwanese folks really… look to Hong Kong and the choices that, well, maybe not choices… things that happened to Hong Kong and what that means potentially for Taiwan if that’s the path that it goes down,” Chiang says. “Hong Kong is a cautionary tale.”

Chiang mentions in Island in Between that he is unsure when he might next visit mainland China.

“I actually haven’t really thought through it,” he tells HKFP, saying he had become more “visible” because of the Oscar nomination, which was announced on January 23.

“Interestingly enough, I have been producing for a couple of Chinese filmmakers and one film is being released where they were advised that I don’t put my name on it. So, who knows? I don’t know.”

For now, though, Chiang is forgoing the Lunar New Year break, flying from Taiwan to the US on Saturday for screenings and publicity in the run up to the 96th Academy Awards on March 11.

Of the awards ceremony, he says he is “very excited.” Anyone who doubts that should see his reaction to securing the nomination, recognition that puts him very much among – and not between – other celebrated filmmakers.

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A rare moment of public preoccupation has hit Hong Kong as a result of the incident which would in due course probably be called Messigate by the popular tabloids, if we had any left.

The hero of this debacle is Lionel Messi, a footballer of sublime gifts who is now getting a bit long in the tooth. As footballers sometimes do at this stage of their careers, he has moved from the highly competitive European scene to the US of A, where the football is worse but the money is better. Not so much a swan song as a goose with golden eggs song.

So, Messi now twinkles his agile toes for a new club called Inter Miami. The name is a straight lift from a legendary Italian club, Inter Milan. Inter Miami is not yet legendary.

But Messi is, so when a local lifestyle magazine, backed by a government grant and official approval for the staging of “mega events,” arranged for Inter Miami to come and perform in Hong Kong there was great excitement among football fans.

Many of them had the opportunity to watch a training session or to see Messi from a distance. Less publicly, for a six-figure sum people could get close enough for a selfie and a few words, although as Messi is from Spanish-speaking Argentina the communication may have been a bit disappointing for everyone concerned.

The high point of the whole exercise was a friendly match against a Hong Kong team assembled from the local performers. More than 30,000 spectators turned up for this, paying up to HK$4,880 for the privilege.

I was not one of them. Inoculated by five years as a professional watcher of football matches I am rarely tempted and “friendly” games in my experience usually disappoint. One of the reasons for this is that professional athletes are surprisingly fragile and reluctant to risk their livelihood in encounters which are merely entertainment. As a result, there is a tendency for people to drop out at the last minute if they get a twinge somewhere.

And so, alas, it turned out on this occasion. Inter Miami did their stuff, and saw off the Hong Kong team handily, but they did so without the assistance of Messi, who was down as a substitute but was not used.

Many of the spectators were extremely offended, and a speech at the end of the match from David Beckham, who used to be a footballer but nowadays is famous for being famous, was booed.

Cue outrage on all channels that fans had been scammed. The internet frothed with bitter complaints. Some irate fans resorted to the Consumer Council. Column inches were devoted to Messi’s medical symptoms and history. Academics were interviewed. Chinese-state media suggested that it was a result of “external forces” seeking to embarrass the city.

After the organising magazine announced that – given the circumstances – it would not collect the government subsidy, our leaders could wade in. Secure, for a change, from charges that they had misplanned an event or wasted taxpayers’ money, they were free to express warm solidarity with disgruntled fans and call for money to be returned to them.

Which is all very well, and has provided a great deal of harmless media fodder. It has also, rather regrettably, consumed a large chunk of the rather small period allowed for people to comment on the upcoming national security legislation.

This is a pity. I was surprised by a recent offering in China Daily’s English version from Lau Siu-kai. Lau is an emeritus professor of sociology – a polite academic way of saying retired – and a consultant to the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a think tank where democratic ideas are drowned.

Those of us who were here at the time will remember as the high point of Lau’s career his prediction in 2003 that the July 1 march against the government’s first attempt to pass such legislation would only attract 30,000 or so people – a forecast which turned out to be about 500,000 people light.

However, if you want to know what the government is plotting then Lau is your man, so I waded through his thoughts on “colour revolutions.” This involved a very elaborate string of definitions, understandable in a way because Lau could hardly be expected to use the common-sense definition, which would be something like “a popular movement aiming at the overthrow of a despotic regime.” For Lau a colour revolution is a Bad Thing.

He then proceeded to explain how the national security law would prevent colour revolutions in Hong Kong. Which included some interesting observations. For example:

It will no longer be possible for political groups to freely participate in the leadership, planning, organization and mobilization of a “color revolution”. The Ordinance will stipulate: “If the Secretary for Security reasonably believes that prohibiting the operation or continued operation of any local organization in the HKSAR is necessary for safeguarding national security, the Secretary for Security may by order published in the Gazette prohibit the operation or continued operation of the organization in the HKSAR,” and “If a local organization is a political body and has a connection with an external political organization, the Security for Security may by order published in the Gazette prohibit the operation or continued operation of the local organization in the HKSAR.

This seems a little stark. No obligation to tell society first, or give it a chance to explain itself; no avenue for appeal? It also seems a bit unnecessary. In 2018 the police withdrew registration as a society from the Hong Kong National Party on national security grounds. We are plugging a non-existent loophole.

Then there is this:

It will be difficult for hostile forces to spread false information to slander the central government and the HKSAR government, to instigate hatred, division and opposition in society, and to instigate, lead and organize unrest. That is because they would be committing the offense of espionage under the Ordinance, which includes “colluding with an external force to publish a statement of fact that is false or misleading to the public, and the person, with intent to endanger national security or being reckless as to whether national security would be endangered, so publishes the statement; and knows that the statement is false or misleading.

I quite see why one might wish to have a law against false statements, although this seems to be covered by the sedition offence which we already have. But, at least in English, I do not see how this can be classed as espionage. This is a concern because espionage is generally treated as a very serious matter, whereas publishing a statement might in some circumstances be a fairly minor offence, if for example the publication was seen by very few people.

It used to be said that the British army was always preparing to fight the last war, not the next one. Something rather similar seems to be afflicting our government. The Hong Kong Journalists Association is “not recognised” because of two disagreements in 2019, a play is cancelled because the founder of the drama group tweeted something in 2019, a legislator making reasonable points about tourism and police work is accused of speaking “dangerously” and sounding like some of the things that were said in… 2019.

Now we have national security legislation which appears to be an attempt to criminalise anything and everything people did in 2019 which didn’t please the government. The fear of an encore is unwarranted. The people who wanted the five demands have got the message. They are either going or gone. Relax.

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After more than three years in Britain, Hongkonger Charlotte Wong, her husband William Kan and their two children are getting used to a completely different lifestyle. 

Before leaving the city in the summer of 2020, they rarely cooked. “We were busy with work, so for our three meals a day relied on a domestic helper,” Wong told HKFP. 

But in the kitchen of their new home in Southampton, they have discovered a new interest in cooking. Starting with char siu, or barbequed pork, and mooncakes, they went on to experiment with turnip cakes, rice cakes and XO sauce.

Speaking to HKFP in Cantonese by phone, Wong said that she started to cook because she missed the taste of her hometown. Last August, the couple decided to try their luck in the catering industry. They obtained a food licence for a home kitchen and launched an online shop featuring Hong Kong-style food. 

“We were surprised there were many orders – mostly from Hongkongers in the UK, but also orders from people in Hong Kong who wanted to buy gifts for their friends or families in the UK,” Wong said. Business aside, she wanted her children to grow up appreciating the cuisine of Hong Kong.

“When we left Hong Kong, our daughter was less than two years old. Now she has fully integrated here and has a ‘UK stomach.’ She doesn’t have many impressions of Hong Kong,” Wong said. “We really hope the kids can taste the flavour of their hometown, to learn more about Hong Kong through food.”

Chinese sausage with brandy

Hong Kong was hit by a migration wave following the 2019 protests and unrest, along with strict Covid-19 controls and the Beijing-imposed national security law the following year. 

Hongkongers have settled in the UK, Canada, Australia and Taiwan, along with other destinations. According to the British government, some 135,400 Hongkongers arrived in the country between early 2021, when it launched a residency route for holders of British National (Overseas) passports, and September 2023. 

Partly from homesickness and partly from the need to earn a living, many Hongkongers overseas have opened cha chaan teng, Hong Kong-style cafes, snack shops or online food shops. 

Josephine Chow had larger ambitions. She founded a factory in Birmingham producing Chinese cured pork sausage and cured pork belly. 

Born into a Hong Kong family that specialised in curing meat, Chow used to run a factory in Yuen Long with her father. Preserving meat using salt and dehydration is said to date back thousands of years, and in Hong Kong cured meat evolved into a seasonal food for autumn and winter, often served with steaming hot clay pot rice. 

“Unlike other brands, we fermented soybeans and made our own soy sauce. And we used the sauce first extracted to pickle the meat. It smelled really good,” Chow said in Cantonese by phone. 

Business was tough in Hong Kong, with fierce competition from dozens of brands – some of held on to market dominance by mass producing in mainland Chinese factories. Rising temperatures throughout the year were a contributing factor, too. “No one purchases cured meat when the temperature in Hong Kong is always high,” Chow said.

But it was politics rather than the climate crisis that ultimately prompted her to leave the city. Her parents and brother also decided to go after witnessing the 2019 protests and unrest. 

“I had wanted to leave in 2014 [when the Umbrella Movement broke out]. You always knew things would change in that way, it was expected. But when it happened, it still hurt,” Chow said, summarising the Hong Kong government’s performance in 2019 as “expected disappointment.”

The family moved to Birmingham in early 2022 after selling the factory and other assets in Hong Kong. After months of struggling to settle into a new country, Chow made up her mind to open another cured meat factory. “I don’t want this craftsmanship to be lost.”

She learned the British tax and food industry policies from scratch, and worked closely with regulatory departments to apply for a food licence for factories. 

“According to regulations, we can’t make our own soy sauce in the UK,” Chow said. When an old flavour was missing, she simply tried new ingredients. 

Traditionally, Chinese rose wine is added to Chinese sausage. “We experimented and added VSOP brandy. It tastes good – rose wine offers a top note and brandy offers a base note,” said Chow.

She has named her new British new brand of Hong Kong-style cured meat, Home Place.

Fellow Hongkongers

In the southern city of Southampton, when Wong and Kan decided to make turnip cakes for the Lunar New Year festival, they thought of Home Place. 

“We cold-called Josephine in the hope of filling orders. We know Home Place is short of supply as the demand is huge, but Josephine worked really hard to fill our orders,” Wong said. “We’re grateful that Hongkongers are helping each other. ”

Turnip cake is a traditional Chinese dim sum dish made of white radish, Chinese cured sausage and flour. Some chefs also add dried scallops, dried mushroom and dried shrimp. Along with rice cake, the dish is often served during the Lunar New Year festival as its name in Chinese is a homophone of “high,” symbolising progress and promotion. 

As Lunar New Year approached, orders for turnip cakes increased. From late January, the couple worked in their kitchen every night after their kids had gone to bed until 3 am or 4 am. 

Earning a living in the UK had not been easy, said Wong, who worked as a makeup artist in Hong Kong while her husband was in the procurement industry. “It’s hard to regain a foothold in the same industry, though there are many blue-collar jobs available,” she said.

For their first two years as immigrants, Kan found freelance gigs as a deliveryman and Wong worked as a housekeeper in schools. They made ends meet but found it hard to save. 

Running their own business also poses challenges. To reduce risks, they started with an online shop. “Also, the UK is large and Hongkongers are scattered in different areas. Shopping online is convenient for them,” Wong added. Six months after launching the business, orders were flowing in. 

In late January they took part in the London Lunar New Year Fair, with around 100 stalls manned by Hongkongers selling food and handicrafts. After the fair closed, many got to know each other, sharing their experiences of cooking, applying for licences and other business tips. 

“I felt really moved. People used to say Hongkongers were pragmatic and driven by material interests, but here I feel that we’re united, appreciating each other, and generous in sharing experiences. ”

Chow said she felt optimistic. “We still can’t make ends meet right now as the factory is too small and can’t produce enough for orders. But I am happy and hopeful,” she said. “Hongkongers in the UK are very supportive. And the weather here is always cold. Good for cured meat!”

Cha chaan teng as a community

After graduating from a Taiwan university in 2018, Andy, who did not want to give his full name, contemplated opening a Taiwan-style restaurant in Hong Kong. His plans changed in the summer of 2019, while he was looking for a place to rent. 

“I was watching whether the government would listen to the people, help the people. I felt disappointed ultimately and I couldn’t see any hope. So I decided to run my business in Taiwan,” Andy told HKFP in Cantonese, sitting in his cha chaan teng called September, which he opened in September 2019. 

The restaurant in central Taipei has become a centre for the Hong Kong community. It not only offers toast, lemon tea and rice dishes, but also screenings of Hong Kong movies, book launches and seminars. 

“In Cha Chaan Teng September, we can do anything and sell anything. I hope this space can offer a space for Hongkongers to come together and [share their political views],” Andy said. 

Since 2020 many Hongkongers have moved to Taiwan via an investment immigration scheme, a professional immigration scheme or a special one for activists fleeing their home city. 

But many subsequently left the island for destinations such as the UK and Canada after failing to secure permanent residency, international media outlets have reported. 

Andy did not have the same issue, and has got a resident certificate after moving under the investment immigration scheme, he told HKFP in January. But in 2022 and 2023, many of his cafe’s regular customers left the self-ruled island. 

“At the peak, there was one family every two days coming to say goodbye. Sometimes they came in the afternoon, setting off to the airport in the evening, and then a newly arrived Hongkonger would visit us for dinner,” Andy recalled. “It’s so sad. You just don’t know whether the new friend you make will be staying.”

To run a cafe, the 30-year-old businessman had to innovate and adapt flavours to the local market. “Initially, we cooked Thai jasmine rice – a favourite of Hongkongers – but Taiwanese are not used to that.” He explored multiple varieties of rice before settling on Chihshang plain box, a Taiwanese species also enjoyed by Hongkongers. 

To make Singapore-style fried noodles, a staple of a cha chaan teng, he used rice noodles from Hsinchu instead of Cantonese ones. 

Andy has now lived in Taiwan for over four years and said he had integrated well. The last time he returned to Hong Kong was at the end of 2019. He said he dared not visit since then because the events he hosted in his canteen might be deemed by Hong Kong authorities as sensitive. 

“I still dream that I am going back to Hong Kong, but… at the end of the dream, somehow I am unable to board the plane,“ Andy said. 

Cantonese food, Hong Kong food?

In Taipei’s Ximending, a bustling commercial district, Bryan – who also only provided his first name – has run a snack shop for over three years. Most of his customers are Taiwanese but sometimes he has visitors from Hong Kong. 

Bryan worked as an office clerk in Hong Kong and seldom cooked. He joined the crowd at legal, peaceful marches in the summer of 2019 when protests against an amendment to the city’s extradition bill began. 

“We tried to speak up, marched peacefully, but the government did not listen to us,” he said. He and his parents decided to leave for Taiwan after witnessing the Yuen Long mob attack in July 2019. Police were criticised for failing to intervene in the attack on protesters and train passengers. 

Bryan said starting a snack shop cost around HK$100,000, much less than it would have in Hong Kong. “I learned from scratch to cook snacks such as steamed rice rolls, tripe stew and imitation shark’s fin soup.” 

The shop was launched in February 2021, offering a menu full of Hong Kong-style snacks. During Hong Kong’s migration wave, business was good, with Hongkongers making up nearly 70 per cent of customers. 

“Many Hongkongers started to leave [Taiwan] in 2022 after waiting for a long time and failing to obtain long-term residency. This trend reached its peak in 2023,” Bryan said. With fewer Hong Kong customers, he had to change the menu. 

“The culinary culture of Hong Kong and Taiwan is actually quite different, but I found Taiwanese do love steamed rice rolls. Therefore the shop features this dim sum dish, offering rice rolls with different toppings and flavours,” Bryan said. 

He recalled one passer-by criticising the shop. “The guy said that actually rice rolls are a Cantonese dim sum dish, not Hong Kong-style food,” Bryan said. “In my opinion, many Hongkongers fled mainland China to Hong Kong, bringing Shanghainese food and Cantonese food to the city. Hong Kong cuisine is influenced by different cultures.”

Bryan has also tried to innovate, adding different sauces to rice rolls to cater for Taiwanese. 

Like the Chinese sausage with brandy in Britain and rice rolls in Taiwan, the Hong Kong diaspora is creating something new from the traditions of their former homes. “Let’s do it better anywhere in the world, ” Bryan said. 

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The organiser of Inter Miami’s controversial exhibition match in Hong Kong – which saw football superstar Lionel Messi sit out the entire game – has announced a 50 per cent refund to fans amid pressure from officials and the public.

Tatler Asia, which organised last Sunday’s pre-season friendly, on Friday said it would make the refund available to those who purchased tickets through “official channels.” Details about the refund process will be provided in March, it added in a statement.

“We apologise to all those who were disappointed by the football match between the Hong Kong Team and Inter Miami CF on Sunday, February 4th. An event that we had hoped to be the pride of the city, and which we have worked very hard on for months, has become the source of great heartbreak,” the event organiser said.

Tatler Asia said the refund could cost them HK$56 million, resulting in a net loss of HK$43 million, according to unaudited figures attached to the statement.

The move came after a closed-door meeting between Tatler Asia and authorities, at which the latter suggested the 50 per cent refund, local media reported on Friday citing sources.

Last Sunday, the Argentinian football star disappointed more than 38,000 local fans and tourists when he sat out Inter Miami’s 4-1 win at the Hong Kong Stadium saying he was injured. Jeers, cursing and calls for refunds were heard from the stands, with some spectators leaving their seats before the match ended.

As of 2 pm on Friday, the Consumer Council had received a total of 1,303 complaints linked to the Inter Miami match. Among them, 1,038 were lodged by local consumers, while the remaining 265 cases were reported by tourists. The amount concerned stood at HK$8.92 million, with the biggest complaint involving around HK$82,000.

Tickets purchased through official channels were priced between HK$880 and HK$4,880.

The debacle over Messi’s no-show continued to swell throughout the week, with China’s state-run Global Times and Hong Kong senior government adviser Regina Ip crying foul over Messi’s failure to play due to an injury.

Global Times claimed there were “political motives” and “external forces deliberately [seeking] to embarrass Hong Kong” behind the incident in an editorial on Thursday. It urged the team to come up with a “reasonable explanation” before its scheduled visit to China for a pre-season friendly in March.

A day earlier, Ip blamed a “black hand” behind the no-show and said Hong Kong should never allow Messi to visit again. The term was used by China to allege foreign interference in Hong Kong’s protests in 2019.

Tatler Asia’s Friday announcement also came after a lawmaker threatened legal action unless compensation was offered. On Thursday, pro-establishment legislator Tang Ka-piu of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions appeared outside the Small Claims Tribunal and demanded Tatler Asia provide punters with refunds within a week.

Messi told a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that “muscle discomfort” had prevented him from playing in the Hong Kong match. The World Cup-winning captain said he regretted the no-show and hoped to return to the city in the future.

He went on to play for over 30 minutes in Inter Miami’s last pre-season friendly in Tokyo with Vissel Kobe on Wednesday.

In Friday’s statement, Tatler Asia reiterated that it had urged Messi to engage with fans last Sunday despite failing to take to the pitch, but to no avail.

“The fact that Messi and Suárez played in Japan on February 7th feels like another slap in the face,” it added.

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Hongkongers have flocked to festive fairs to buy flowers and other seasonal adornments as the city prepares to mark its first Lunar New Year on Saturday since all Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted.

At the city’s largest Lunar New Year Fair at Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park, which runs until midnight on February 10, multiple variations on the Year of the Dragon theme were on display – from balloons to stuffed animals – as well as flowers believed to be auspicious.

Once host to stalls selling satirical items from pro-democracy parties, the government rejected bids for stalls by members of the Democratic Party, citing a recently added term giving officials the right to dismiss bids without saying why.

Words by Shan Chan.

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China’s state-run Global Times has warned of possible “political motives” behind Lionel Messi’s failure to play in a much-publicised Hong Kong exhibition match, an absence which angered thousands of fans and the city’s government.

In an editorial on Thursday, the paper said the explanations offered by the Argentinian football icon for remaining on the bench and those given by his team Inter Miami were “not convincing.” It urged the team to come up with a “reasonable explanation” before its scheduled visit to China for a pre-season friendly in March.

“There is a lot of speculation about the true underlying reasons. One theory suggests that there might be political motives behind their actions, as Hong Kong intends to develop its mega-event based economy, and external forces deliberately seek to embarrass Hong Kong, ” the editorial said.

“Based on the unfolding events, it is not possible to entirely dismiss the possibility of such speculation.” Global Times did not specify who the external forces might be.

Founded in 1993, the Global Times is a state-run tabloid under the Communist Party’s flagship paper the People’s Daily. The tabloid is known for its hard-line editorials. Some analysts say the paper does not necessarily represent Beijing’s official line.

The Hong Kong Stadium on Sunday was filled with more than 38,000 local fans and tourists, who had bought tickets priced up to HK$4,880 to see their hero Messi. But jeers and cursing were heard from the stands towards the end of the match as Messi sat out the 4-1 win.

The government said it was “extremely disappointed” that Messi neither played in the Hong Kong friendly nor offered an explanation to the fans. Tatler Asia, host of the event, announced on Tuesday that it deeply regretted the no-show and would withdraw a bid for a HK$16 million grant from the Hong Kong government.

Inter Miami left for Japan on Monday. Messi said in a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that “muscle discomfort” had made it difficult for him to play and he hoped to return to Hong Kong “whenever he can. ” 

On Wednesday, Messi played for over 30 minutes in Inter Miami’s pre-season friendly in Tokyo.

In an response to HKFP, the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau urged the event organisers and the team to explain why Messi was fit to play just three days after his Hong Kong trip.

“Three days later, Messi was actively playing in Japan, engaging in intense physical activities on the field for a considerable amount of time. Hong Kong citizens have many questions regarding this situation,” the bureau said in Chinese. “The government hopes that the organiser and the team can provide a reasonable explanation to address their concerns.”

‘Black hand’

Regina Ip, convenor of the government’s top advisory body the Executive Council and a pro-establishment lawmaker, blamed a “black hand” for Messi’s no-show.

“Hong Kong people hate Messi, Inter Miami, and the black hand behind them, for the deliberate and calculated snub to Hong Kong,” Ip wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday night.

China blamed “black hands” supposedly working for foreign forces for Hong Kong’s mass protests in 2019.

In another tweet, the politician said Hong Kong should never allow Messi to visit again.

Asked to clarify references to foreign interference, Ip told HKFP: “I have no hard evidence, but Messi behaved as though he was under some political directive not to play, not to shake hands with Hong Kong’s CE, not to speak, or smile or wave to Hong Kong’s fans. He apologised in Tokyo. Why not in Hong Kong?”

A viral clip showed Messi appearing to avoid shaking hands with Chief Executive John Lee at the stadium as players lined up for handshakes.

Ip added that questions over Messi’s motivation should be directed at the footballer, the team and its head David Beckham.

When HKFP approached Chief Executive John Lee’s office about claims of political motives, a government spokesperson said: “The Government urges Tatler Asia and Inter Miami CF to provide a reasonable explanation to clear all doubts arising from Messi not being able to play the game in Hong Kong on February 4 and his active participation in the game in Tokyo 3 days later.”

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Hong Kong performing arts group Fire Makes Us Human has announced it will suspend operations, after a school venue it planned to use for two forthcoming productions was pulled following government pressure.

The decision announced on Tuesday came days after the non-profit group revealed last week that a school it had hired performance space from to put on two plays was told by the Education Bureau to cancel the lease agreement.

The Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity (HKICC) told HKFP last Thursday that the bureau had cited its updated guidelines on national security in making the cancellation request.

The bureau had allegedly received reports concerning “inappropriate remarks” made by the group founder Alex Tong on “controversial and sensitive issues.” Neither the school nor the bureau would reveal what the reported complaints related to.

Under the guidelines, schools should “prevent inappropriate use of school premises,” including in situations where facilities were rented out to external organisations and when external individuals are invited to participate in school events, the bureau said.

One of the cancelled plays was about a group of artists who shared a dream in front of a broken art work. The other depicted a group of losers as they reflected on their situation during an armed robbery. Both were to be performed by young actors aged 17 to 30.

‘Reluctance’

In a social media post shared on Tuesday, the group said the actors and crew members involved in the cancelled productions spent three months preparing for the shows. The venue cancellation, which came three days before the performances were scheduled to begin, was “an outcome we never could have imagined,” it said.

Members of the group had wanted to create a space where like-minded individuals could develop artistic creations “with dignity.” Although the group said it could overcome different obstacles, losing the right to access their space and losing the space for expression meant that it was hard for them to present members’ ideals.

“At this moment, rather than describing it as regrettable, heart-wrenching, and sorrowful, the greatest feeling would be reluctance [to accept the outcome],” the Chinese post read.

Play cancelled

On Monday, the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts (HKAPA) announced that a graduation show featuring the play Accidental Death of an Anarchist had been cancelled due to “changes in the Academy’s production plan.”

It said refund arrangements would be announced later.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding,” the English notice read.

The production by HKAPA graduates based on the play written by Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo was scheduled to be performed between mid-February and early March. Local media reported on Tuesday that some of those involved said they felt “helpless” and were “speechless” about the cancelled performance.

According to a list compiled by online popular culture news platform Wave., the play had been performed in Hong Kong and mainland China many times since 1998.

Drama awards funding axed

Last month, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) withdrew funding for an annual drama awards ceremony after supporting it for 24 years.

The government statutory body cited “inappropriate” arrangements at last year’s event, saying the awards organiser – Hong Kong Federation of Drama Societies – had invited “then-controversial” cartoonist Wong Kei-kwan, better known by his pen name Zunzi, and ex-RTHK documentary producer Bao Choy to present the awards.

The pair was said to have mentioned “red bridge” and “red line” when they presented the awards, and the funding had to be axed to show the council’s “unacceptance,” the body said.

Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.

Correction 4pm, 17/2/24: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to Dario Fu, as opposed to Dario Fo. We apologise to Mr Fo for the error.

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Hong Kong authorities are urging the organiser of an exhibition match to explain star footballer Lionel Messi’s absence from the pitch, Chief Executive John Lee has said, as the city’s consumer watchdog received over 400 complaints over the captain’s no-show.

Two days after the the 36-year-old World Cup-winning captain was benched over a reported hamstring injury, prompting boos and calls for refunds from fans, Chief Executive John Lee on Tuesday told reporters that the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau is ordering the organiser, Tatler Asia, to address the incident.

Lee said Tatler had failed to meet the expectations of the public, adding that “the performance of the organiser has a significant impact on Hong Kong’s image and reputation.”

“The government also has the responsibility to ensure public funding is spent appropriately, especially when the event is sponsored by the government,” Lee said, speaking in Cantonese.

He added that he shared fans’ frustrations that Messi did not play.

Tatler Asia will withdraw its application for a HK$16 million government subsidy, chair Michel Lamunière told reporters on Monday. But despite the grant withdrawal, Lee said, Tatler still had a “social responsibility” to explain what went wrong.

Lee also called on Tatler to explain why it had not heeded suggestions and demands made by government officials.

Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung said on Monday that the government had requested the organiser to “explore other remedies,” including having Messi appear on the pitch to interact with fans and receive the trophy, but to no avail.

Lee also said the authorities would review the government’s role as a supervisory body over “mega events” in the future.

Complaints to Consumer Council

Meanwhile, the Consumer Council had received a total of 401 complaints over the Messi fiasco as of 3 pm on Tuesday.

A total of 342 complaints were from local residents and 59 were from tourists. The complaints involved more than HK$2.59 million, with the cases averaging HK$6,459. The largest claim amounted to HK$23,839.

The Consumer Council’s Executive Director Gilly Wong told RTHK on Tuesday that the incident may have involved “misleading omissions,” as consumers were not notified of Messi’s absence on the pitch in advance.

“However, the organiser could argue that the information was already widely reported in the media. That would be common knowledge to the fans, and they would be aware of the risks,” Wong said in Cantonese.

Wong added that aggrieved football fans could file claims for expenses in addition to the match tickets, including airfare, train tickets, and hotel stays. She suggested that they hold onto their transaction records.

Shortly after Lee’s remarks on Tuesday morning, Messi told reporters in Tokyo – where he had just arrived with Inter Miami – that he did not feel fit to play on Sunday, even though medical examinations showed he was not injured.

He said that he felt that something wrong with his body during the first half of his match while playing in Saudi Arabia last Monday.

“After the second [half] I did an MRI and no injuries were found, but I still did not feel comfortable,” he said in Spanish at a press conference in Tokyo. Inter Miami is expected to play a friendly match with local team Vissel Kobe in Japan.

“In Hong Kong, there was such a big crowd. We really wanted to play but unfortunately it was difficult,” he said, through an interpreter. “I understand that people were looking forward to it so I do hope that there will be another opportunity in the future that I will be able to play in Hong Kong.”

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The image of Hong Kong’s neon-lit streetscapes is, like the signs that lent their glow to those cinematic scenes, largely a thing of the past. But although bureaucracy has stripped many buildings of their illuminated adornments and left just a handful of neon masters to ply the dying trade, there are others dedicated to keeping the craft alive.

Artist Chankalun is one of them.

With a background in museum and set design, Chankalun, who is also known as Karen Chan, told HKFP’s Yum Cha podcast that she had always had a penchant for the “theatrical.” It was from a typically out-of-the-box idea that her passion for neon emerged.

“I organised and curated a group neon art exhibition called “My Life, My Hood” [in a car park]… basically trying to demonstrate how different artists are portraying Hong Kong or a very dear neighbourhood to them with an accent of neon,” Chankalun said. “Just like how neon is decorating our streets,” she added.

To help the artists add that accent of neon, Chankalun enlisted one of the city’s last neon masters, Wong Kin-wah, to offer a basic workshop. “That’s actually how I know how difficult it is to manipulate glass with fire,” she said with a laugh. It did not put her off pursuing neon as a medium, though. “I think maybe I love challenges,” she added.

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The next challenge came when trying to find a neon master who would teach her.

“I got rejected by the community here,” Chankalun said. Still, she persevered, finding a glass artist who was willing to help, despite never having tried neon bending. “He was watching YouTube videos the day before he taught me,” she said.

“That was when I started to like this medium,” Chankalun continued, drawing a similarity between Chinese calligraphy and neon. “You can shape it in the way you want, but once you kind of fuck it up… you can’t do much about it, but it can also be part of your expression. Kind of like Chinese calligraphy, where [you] would value expressions or even mistakes more than perfection.”

Chankalun’s persistence – and her willingness to make mistakes – paid off, and in 2019 her first ever neon creation was installed at Wonderfruit festival in Thailand.

That was just Chankalun’s first overseas stop as she sought out neon artists around the world from whom she hoped to learn.

While working with Dutch artist Remy de Feyter in the Netherlands, Chankalun asked how to achieve a flickering effect she had seen in another studio’s work, a question she had posed to Hong Kong’s masters with little success. De Feyter told her it required an oven.

“That’s the moment when… I was like, ‘Oh my god’,” Chankalun said. “If you trace back to why we have the neon trade in Hong Kong, it was back in the 50s and 60s and… it was a trade for bread and butter,” she continued.

“Hong Kong families wouldn’t have an oven because it’s Western.”

That realisation – that Hong Kong’s post-war neon benders were working with different equipment and within a different socio-economic framework – inspired Chankalun to investigate “how different countries developed neon based on cultural, geographical, historical factors.”

Her journey, a project she calls The Neon Girl, has taken her to France, Japan, Taiwan and the United States.

“I have learned so much… I understand my identity more, also the history of Hong Kong’s neon industry, and how we compare to other cultures,” she said.

Despite this, Chankalun has yet to be accepted by most of the city’s neon masters.

“A lot of people in the industry thought I wasn’t bending my own neon,” she said.

She proved otherwise when she created a large-scale neon sculpture in collaboration with Swiss skincare brand La Prairie called “Light as Air” for Art Basel in Hong Kong last year. Displayed in Tai Kwun, it was 10 metres long, five metres tall and three metres wide.

“I believe it was the first outdoor neon art installation of this scale in Hong Kong,” Chankalun said, later adding that she had one champion in the local industry. “I feel like master Wong is really proud of what I did,” she said, referring to the craftsman who first showed her how to bend glass to make neon.

For the others, Chankalun had a message. “I won’t be doing neon signs,” she said. “I’m just doing something experimental. I just want to break boundaries of what neon… is and I will keep doing that in my own way.”

HKFP Yum Cha

Chankalun’s episode was the final one of the first season of HKFP Yum Cha – which featured a diverse range of voices, from artists to scientists, who share their perspective on Hong Kong as it is today.

Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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A Hong Kong performing arts group has been left without a venue for two plays after the school that was hosting them was told by the city’s Education Bureau (EDB) to cancel the lease agreement, citing national security guidelines.

Performing arts group Fire Makes Us Human said on Facebook on Wednesday that it had hired a performance space at the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity (HKICC) to put on two stage plays in early February.

However, the group said it had been informed by the HKICC on January 19 that the school could not lend out the venue according to Education Bureau guidelines updated last June. Despite the group’s efforts to appeal to different parties, it said it was unable to change the school’s decision.

“Ultimately, we cannot proceed with the productions of the two plays, which has rendered the hundreds of hours of effort from all the participants behind the scenes in vain,” the group wrote in Chinese. “Our group feels helpless and despairing for the future of Hong Kong’s art development.”

Alex Tong, founder of the art group, told HKFP in Cantonese by phone on Thursday that the HKICC had told him about the Education Bureau receiving “reports” concerning his “inappropriate remarks linked to controversial and sensitive issues.” But, Tong said, the school did not know exactly what those remarks were.

Tong said he had tried to reach the Education Bureau’s Kowloon Regional Education Office but had been told by senior school development officer Wong Yuk Ki that while the authority could confirm it had received complaints and reports, it could not divulge what the complaints were about.

‘Opaque system’

In response to HKFP, HKICC confirmed by email on Wednesday that the school had received “cancellation requests” from the Education Bureau on January 19, citing the bureau’s national security guidelines.

“Regarding reports and complaints in this case, it is recommended to refer to EDB as they are the ones who receive the complaint,” the school said.

“As an art school, we will, whenever possible, provide rental support for the production of art groups. However, HKSC is a direct-subsidized school under the jurisdiction of the Education Bureau, therefore, all arrangements, including curriculum, student development, and facility usage, must comply with the instructions and guidelines provided by the Education Bureau,” the school continued.

In an emailed Chinese-language response to HKFP on Thursday, the Education Bureau did not respond to a question about what the reported complaints related to.

“After receiving the complaint, the Education Bureau has contacted the school to understand the situation and provided appropriate advice and support to the school based on guidelines from the perspective of student protection,” the authority said.

Citing the national security guidelines, the authority said schools’ governing bodies must “prevent inappropriate use of school premises,” including in situations where schools lease facilities to external organisations and when external individuals are invited to participate in school events.

“It’s a super opaque system. So, whenever someone files a complaint [to authorities], they can determine our fate?” Tong said in Cantonese, urging the Education Bureau to clarify the issue.

In its Facebook post, Fire Makes Us Human said it had always obeyed the law and reserved the right to purse legal action against suspected defamation. Founded in 2017, the performing arts group has around 40 members.

According to promotional materials for the two cancelled plays, one was about a group of artists who shared a dream of art in front of a broken art work, while the other depicted a group of losers’ as they reflected on their situation during an armed robbery. Both were to be performed by young actors aged 17 to 30.

Winton Au, an associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and member of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC), said in a statement on Monday that neither of the productions involved sensitive issues.

“[The Education Bureau] therefore suppressed artistic creation and contradicted the official vision of building Hong Kong as a hub for cultural and artistic exchange between local and international communities,” Au said, adding that his statement did not represent the official view of the HKADC.

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Critics have weighed in on a new television series featuring scenes from Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy protests that cannot be viewed in the city.

While some found fault in Expats‘ portrayal of privilege and detachment, others appreciated its exploration of Hong Kong’s identity politics.

NPR

NPR pop culture correspondent Linda Holmes’ review, – titled “Nicole Kidman leads an ensemble of privileged, disconnected American ‘Expats’” – took aim at the “rich-person melodrama” which had “nothing to say about Hong Kong or about expats [.]”

She wrote: “It was a bitter pill, it seems, that this production about rich outsiders who paid little attention to the lives of ordinary people in Hong Kong was being given a blessing to hand-wave regulations meant to protect those same ordinary people.”

She was referring to the Hong Kong government’s decision to waive Covid-19 quarantine requirements for Kidman and several other crew members during filming in 2021. The exemption made international news, at a time when dissatisfaction was mounting over regulations that were perceived as excessive.

In various interviews with US entertainment media, series director Lulu Wang said Expats “interrogates privilege,” and the novel from which Expats was adapted – Janice Y. K. Lee’s The Expatriates – was lauded as a “vibrant social satire” in a 2016 New York Times review.

Yet, to Holmes, Expats panned out as a “good-looking rich-people melodrama,” in which its setting is relegated simply as “scenery.”

See also: ‘Expats’: Amazon show with Umbrella Movement protest scenes not shown in city

“Maybe it’s better than nothing that Expats acknowledges the existence of the strife in Hong Kong, even if it does so very non-specifically,” Holmes writes, noting “growing” censorship laws in Hong Kong.

“Moreover, it’s a project that invites you, right from its title, to be bewildered by its indifference to life in Hong Kong. It’s like showing up at a billionaire’s house and taking 100 pictures of the koi pond from every angle, while the house is burning down behind you. There’s nothing wrong with the photos you’ve taken, but there is the feeling you could have captured something far more worthy of your attention by just turning your head,” she writes.

The Guardian

To the Guardian’s Lucy Mangan, Expats “plays out against the backdrop of civic unrest.”

The fifth episode, titled Central, which follows a pair of student protesters and, separately, a migrant domestic worker, is “moving, even if it doesn’t properly connect to anything that has gone before or comes after.”

“It feels less like an organic part of the drama than a nod to those seeking more than another look at the gilded but discontented lives of the elite. But, the fifth episode aside, this is all Expats really amounts to. It looks great and there are some fine performances … but we have seen it all before,” Mangan writes.

Political backdrop aside, the titular expats’ personal struggles “[set] the stage for a languorous – soporific? – meditation on grief, guilt, classism, capitalist greed, the disingenuousness of the rich, racism, emotional and geographical dislocation.”

Los Angeles Times

For the LA Times’ Jireh Deng, Wang “treats Hong Kong as another main character,” as the premise of the series contends with the racial politics of the city: “It fleshes out a world that feels rooted in the reality of Hong Kong’s nuanced politics around race and gender.”

Deng calls Wang an “insider” as a “native Mandarin speaker” in Hong Kong, where the usual spoken language of almost 90 per cent of the population is Cantonese.

“When we talk about diversity, it’s not through an American lens. It’s through a much more global lens because even Asian American as a category in America is challenging in many ways because it is a huge continent,” Wang is quoted as saying in the Times review.

“I think in recent years, for me, I’ve really seen Hong Kong defined because so many people have left so you can’t say that it’s defined by those borders,” said Wang, who on Sunday stressed the importance of “defending” Cantonese on X, calling it a “dying language”.

“Wang doesn’t consider ‘Expats’ to be political, but she also doesn’t shy away from showing Hong Kong’s thorny politics, including the Umbrella Movement,” Deng writes, referring to the 79-day long pro-democracy civil disobedience campaign in 2014.

Thus far, the show has received mediocre ratings from the public, achieving 3.0 stars on Google, 6/10 on IMDb and 74% approval on Rotten Tomatoes.

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By Qian Ye and Greg Baker

It’s just after midday in a quiet studio in Beijing, and Xuan Yi is finally getting the deep sleep she’s craved for months.

Xuan is one of an estimated 300 million Chinese people suffering from insomnia, the product of a high-stress, high-pressure culture that has left many young people choosing to “lie flat” instead.

She tried everything, she tells AFP — from psychological counselling to essential oils.

“I had a lot of work pressure. I could not go to bed before 2 or 3 am and had to get up at 7 am to start work,” she says.

“I also worked weekends, and my sleep was not very good for a long time.”

But when the curtains close and the singing bowls start humming at healer Li Yan’s studio, she can finally drift off.

To the sounds of a gong, Ukrainian water drum, rainstick and handpans, Xuan and her fellow millennials enter a gentle slumber.

Fifty minutes later, they awake after what they say is the best sleep they’ve had in years — at a cost of 180 yuan (US$25).

“Dozens of people with tense minds lay down together and want to give their brains a short break,” Li tells AFP.

“It’s like charging your cell phone battery from three percent to 100 percent.”

‘Lie flat concerts’

“Pressure”, “anxiety” and “insomnia” are the words Li hears most often.

She says she often fields calls from clients desperate for a break.

“I need this therapy right away, in half an hour, I’m so tired,” Li says they tell her.

Many come from China’s competitive IT industry, which has some of the highest incidents of depression and anxiety in the country, according to a National White Paper on Health.

Giants like Alibaba — whose ex-CEO Jack Ma was notorious for demanding that his employees work long hours — have even used Li’s sessions as team-building exercises.

Li calls her work “lie flat concerts”, a reference to a popular meme extolling the virtues of trading the high-pressure life for something a little more easygoing.

But the singing bowls also tie into another growing trend: “short escapes”, in which young people snatch small, zen moments for themselves to escape the daily grind.

Happiness a ‘luxury good’

Surrounded by office buildings in the heart of Beijing, Li’s studio offers time slots tailored to the busy routines of young workers.

She says she has seen growing demand in the so-called sleep economy since the Covid-19 pandemic, which the World Health Organization says sparked a 25 percent increase in incidents of depression and anxiety worldwide in its first year.

“Many emotions and problems have come to the surface and people need to deal with their inner selves,” according to Li.

“Many are actively seeking solutions since the pandemic.”

And in a country where many turn to video games or shopping to unwind, she says, “relaxation and happiness seem to be a luxury good”.

Xuan, for one, is happy to shell out for some decent sleep.

“If I don’t pay for these healing sessions, I might have to pay for the doctor.”

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Hong Kong will see over 80 “mega events” in the first half of the year, the government has said, as it announced the creation of a cross-department team to support organisers holding festivities in the city.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong said the many mega events spanned sectors from culture to sports to finance. Such events would draw tourists to Hong Kong and boost the economy, he added.

On the calendar are an art installation called Chubby Hearts Hong Kong by UK fashion designer Anya Hindmarch, which will see floating hearts pop up in locations around Hong Kong for 10 days from Valentine’s Day. A giant heart sculpture will also be set up at Statue Square in Central.

The city will also host ComplexCon, a pop culture festival held annually in California, in late March, with about 30,000 people expected to attend.

The government did not say how many such events it had hosted in years’ past. Also among the 80-odd events were annual festivities including the upcoming Art Central, Art Basel and the Rugby Sevens.

To improve coordination, the government has set up a cross-department team headed by Wong to ensure that organisers of large-scale events get the necessary support. The team would provide assistance in areas such as crowd management and transport arrangements, Wong said.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board will also establish a dedicated team to serve as the first point of contact when discussing potential plans for events in Hong Kong.

“They will liaise [with organisers] about the arrangements they need, their expectations and needs, and make a preliminary assessment including the potential benefits of holding the event in Hong Kong to provide advice to the government,” Wong said in Cantonese.

Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung said at the same press conference that the government had set up an events fund last year to support organisers in bringing festivities to Hong Kong.

Adrian Cheng, the chairperson of the Mega Arts and Cultural Events Committee which administers the fund, said during Friday’s press conference that both Chubby Hearts Hong Kong and ComplexCon were among the events to have benefitted from the funding scheme.

“Our committee will continue to search for more mega events to come to Hong Kong. Together with the government, we are going to drive the mega events economy,” Cheng said in Cantonese, adding that such festivities can help “tell a good Hong Kong story.”

Slow economic recovery

The press conference came after Chief Executive John Lee held a question and answer session with lawmakers on Thursday, in which the city’s hosting of mega events was among the topics discussed.

Lee said hosting such events would enhance Hong Kong’s appeal and bring “enormous economic benefit.”

During a Legislative Council meeting on Wednesday, lawmaker Regina Ip called on the government to lure international music acts such as Taylor Swift to the city. The 60-odd concerts the artist held in the US and South America last year yielded US$1 billion, she said.

Swift will hold six shows in Singapore, the only Southeast Asian stop on her tour. Singapore’s tourism board was involved in efforts to bring Swift to the country.

Hong Kong continues to struggle with slow post-pandemic economic recovery, which authorities have attributed to external factors such as high interest rates globally.

The government has launched a series of initiatives aimed at boosting the economic outlook, among them a “night vibes” campaign in September involving movie screenings and night markets along the harbourfront. Last year, the government worked with airlines to give away 500,000 plane tickets for visitors to come to the city as part of its “Happy Hong Kong” drive.

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The Hong Kong Pet Show opened on Thursday at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, in Wan Chai, featuring more than 650 booths, over 200 exhibitors, and plenty of furry friends.

Countless cats and canines were at the exhibition’s opening day on Thursday, with their owners perusing the pet food and supplies on offer. The event, which runs until Sunday, also features “international-level pet competitions and events,” including pet beauty pageants, according to a Thursday statement.

Carl Wong, chairman of the organiser Exhibition Group, said in the statement that: “Over the past decade, the government has made considerable efforts in promoting a pet-friendly city, and pet-friendliness is one of the factors considered for attracting overseas talents to Hong Kong. Over the 18 years, the Hong Kong Pet Show has grown alongside the industry, becoming a major event in the field.”

Words by Shan Chan.

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Lawmaker Regina Ip has called on the government to lure international music acts such as Taylor Swift and Beyonce to Hong Kong, citing the economic boost that their concerts could bring.

Speaking at a Legislative Council meeting on Wednesday, Ip said concerts could stimulate industries such as tourism and retail. The 66 concerts that Swift staged last year yielded US$1 billion, she said.

See also: Why do int’l music acts appear to be shunning Hong Kong?

“In Asia, [Swift is going] to Singapore,” Ip said in Cantonese. “We lost this chance.”

The American singer, who completed the first legs of her tour in the US and South America last year, is skipping Hong Kong on her world tour. She will hold six shows in Singapore in March.

A tourism boom linked to Swift’s concerts is expected there, with fans across Asia flying in to catch the artist. Hotels have reported an increase in bookings over Swift’s concert dates, media reported, while travel searches for Singapore also spiked when ticket sales opened.

Singapore’s tourism board supported entertainment group AEG Presents Asia to bring Swift to the country.

“Will the government actively seek out these world-class acts, such as Beyonce or mainland Chinese dinglius?” Ip asked, using a Chinese term meaning celebrities that have a strong online following.

Ip’s comments followed her question to Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung, in which she asked what authorities were doing to attract world-renowned singers to Hong Kong – for example, by identifying venues and arranging visas.

She also asked if the government would promote the main stadium at Kai Tak Sports Park – set to open this year – as a concert venue to lure international acts.

In response, Yeung said in Cantonese the number of concerts in Hong Kong had “gradually returned to the pre-pandemic level,” with venues including the AsiaWorld-Expo and Central Harbourfront Event Space seeing large-scale events attracting audiences of up to 20,000.

“On average, there were about two internationally renowned singers holding large-scale concerts with an audience of more than 10,000 each month in 2023, and most of them were holding more than one concert,” Yeung added.

Ip criticised Yeung’s answer as “extremely bureaucratic” and said he did not answer her questions.

A number of international acts have left Hong Kong off their world tours in recent months, including Coldplay, Harry Styles and Lewis Capaldi. Industry insiders have said the snub could be due to a lack of suitable venues or the fact that Hong Kong still had Covid-19 restrictions in place when the tours were being planned.

‘Everybody is talking about Taylor Swift’

The lawmaker’s question came as Hong Kong continues to struggle with slow post-pandemic economic recovery, which authorities have attributed to external factors such as high interest rates globally.

The government has launched a series of initiatives aimed at boosting the economic outlook, among them a “night vibes” campaign in September involving movie screenings and night markets along the harbourfront. Last year, the government worked with airlines to give away 500,000 plane tickets for visitors to come to the city as part of its “Happy Hong Kong” drive.

Other lawmakers on Wednesday also pressed Yeung on whether the government would step up efforts to attract international acts to Hong Kong.

Legislator Peter Shiu said large-scale events and concerts were important to the city’s economy. He said that if the government “took the extra step” to invite singers to Hong Kong, their chances of coming would be higher.

Holden Chow, another lawmaker, said other countries were making an effort to entice world-class acts and Hong Kong should do the same.

“Everybody is talking about Taylor Swift because her concerts can really bring tremendous economic benefit,” Chow said. “Will the government think of ways to approach these stars, or work with private organisers to do so?”

Yeung said in response that “on principle,” the government welcomes “everyone” to come to Hong Kong as all acts have their own fanbase. He said authorities could contact the agents of these acts to see if there was interest in coming to the city.

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