Entries from November 2006 ↓

IIt was 8am, and I was riding a bus to work. The noise belching out from the screen hanging in the front and middle of the bus compartment was so loud that even though I put on my ipod, the noise was still ”noise” and it was just unbearable, especially in the early morning when I would need some quiet time and a clear mind.

This screen is part of an entertainment broadcast system common on all Hong Kong buses. Special entertainment programmes are produced just for broadcasting on the bus through this system, along with many advertisements. All the bus companies benefit, of course, from such a device. So is the private company which conceives this idea and owns the service. Who to suffer? Those having to commute on the bus and who hate noise and stupid entertainment shows.

It is hard to imagine this would happen on the tubes of London, where many commuters are seen reading newspapers, books or magazines, and the flooding of noise from advertisements and stupid shows is certainly not to happen. People will protest.

Here in Hong Kong, we keep silent, and are submerged in the noise day and night, while the bus companies and the concerned parties continue to make handsome money from the “roadshow” - the noise system they name.

I filed a complaint to the bus company and the following day, the roadshow was on as usual, and loud as usual.  

If not for the fact that I actually lived in China for some time, I would have no idea what censorship is like in China.

I was writing a Chinese blog in a major Taiwan blog community before I moved to live in China in January this year. To my dismay, I was not able to access my blog from China, and subsequently had to discontinue my blogging. All this was just the beginning.

Later, I found that I was not able even to access YAHOO Hong Kong. And naturally, I was not able to access online Hong Kong Chinese newspapers such as my favourite newspaper Mingpao. Nor was I able to access the online RTHK - Hong Kong’s equivalent of BBC in the UK. I was effectively being cut off from the Hong Kong media. (The reason that Hong Kong media is censored is that it has more in-dept and critical coverage of China than the state-controlled media on the Mainland China)

As a result, I started subscribing to Hong Kong’s English newspaper South China Morning Post in order to read some Hong Kong news. The censors in China don’t care online content in English. But if it is in Chinese, it will be monitored closely and in a very sophiscated way.

Coming to email, I had problem too. I could not access hotmail and gmail, but was fortunately able to access yahoo email through the English Yahoo page. Imagine I used hotmail and gmail and what a disaster it would be. Until now I am not sure why only Yahoo mail worked. Is it because yahoo has a better relationship with the Chinese government?

It must be stressed that each Chinese city has its own definition of extent of censorship. My experience refers to Hangzhou where I lived. In other cities, a different set of censored websites exist. It is a sophiscated and unpredictable system, isn’t it?

Now that I am no longer residing in China, it just feels so good to be free again.

Hong Kong’s Star Ferry Pier in the Central has serviced Hong Kong for 48 years and sadly, was closed yesterday for demolition to make way for reclamation and re-development, a fate that so many other sites of heritage and historial interest in the territory have been dealt.

Thousands of people emerged yesterday to use the cameras/camcorders to record the last day of the ferry using the old pier. I was one of them, spurred by my fond memories of the pier and a deep sense of loss. This pier is about 20 minute bus from where I live and I used to take the star ferry from Central to Tsim Sha Tsui, so as to take in the spectacular harbour view and get some rest during the short boat ride.  

The pier has become part of my memory about the city, my growing up and my life. It is no doubt also part of the collective memory, testified by the big crowd which turned up to memorize the loss.

Hong Kong’s home affairs secretary Ho Chi Ping said those against the demolition of the star ferry are abusing the collective memory. I hope he did come in person to the ferry pier yesterday and see by himself how collective that memory is.

When the city loses its collective memory, what is left is stronger sense of isolation and alieniation among its citizens. At the same time, Hong Kong is also losing its uniqueness and charms in its quest to modernize itself to become “Asia’s World City” by demolishing sites of heritage and burying its past.   

The news that Margaret Chan, the former health director of Hong Kong, becomes the new director -general of World Health Organizaton(WHO) appalls me. For those living through the SARS and bird flu epidemics in Hong Kong, they know pretty well how competent Margarete Chan is and I am sure they all find, just like me, the fact that she is picked to head WHO is inconceivable and not justified.

Well, to some extent, it is not inconceivable - she is picked because china is campaigning hard on behalf of her and the other countries have to give “face” to China, a rising economic power on the world stage. That is real sad. Because an organization as important as WHO should be headed by one who has passion, integrity, capability and experiences, especially of dealing with developing countries. Margarat Chan doesn’t seem to me a person who possess any of the attributes.

She hided the truth from the public when dealing with bird flu and SARS crisis so as not to alarm the society; She refused to go to the orginating place of SARS to make inspections for fear of getting infected; she was slow in taking actions to stem an epidemic like SARS, resulting in many deaths; she has no experience in dealing with developing countries which desparately need to grapple with urgent health crisis such as AIDS. 

And my criticism is not alone -  she was even criticized in the government-commissioned reports reviewing the government handling of the SARS and Bird Flu crisis.

The irony is, she has no chance to be promoted to such an important international post if not for her poor performance in her HK government post and subsequently being transferred to work in WHO as head of a sub-section.  

The whole fanfare awakes me to a bare fact: the order of the day is politics - not about merit, justice or fairness. At the end of the day, the global players don’t care if the world will be better. They care only what is good for them.

“The highest embodiment of the education system is producing socially elite people with the best education,” said the president of Xiamen University in Southern China. His university, therefore, requires golf a compulsory subject for law, business and computer students. The university is also building China’s grandest on-campus golf course.

When hearing the news, I was wondering again where China is heading to when an university’s president can be so vulgar and vision-less in his view about higher education. To produce elites who can play golf is the highest embodiment of the education system? Give me a break. When the world is globalizing, what we need are students who are able to be critical in thinking, creative and aspire to engage the world. And this president is talking about social elite who can play golf!

I am not very surprised, though. In rich cities like Beijing, the parents spend thousands of RMB each month to send their children to golf courses or social manner classes - the aim is nurture them to be the social elites who can play golf, piano, etc. and know the western manner.

Being in the ranks of elites is what distinguishes the rich from the poor, and those with power from those powerless. It is a weapon of defense against competition and the encroaching of current elite status, so the uinversity is offering the weapon to its students, and parents are making use of it on the behalf of their children.

There is some exciting news about China in the past week though. The Sun Yat Sen University in Zhuhai, also in the southern China, has approved the establishment of the first gay/lesbian student union on campus - it is a great breakthrough in the scene of China’s higher education, and even in the the whole China. Wonder if this is the first time that a gay organization is recognized by an authority in China.