This is the place where random thoughts and observations are posted. Usually I don't have enough material to expand what are written here into articles. (In most cases, it is probably a good thing that I don't). Usually I make a post whenever some interesting notions hit my head.
Be warned! This may (and probably does) look like an on-line confessional and the things I post here may be even more confusing than my articles and can be quite depressing. So for the sake of your mental health, please set aside your faith in others and optimism before reading these posts.
Enjoy these "short" musings. Hopefully they won't make your head spin or drive you sleepless or confused.
March 19, 2025
Figures of the Little Grape, the anti-fraud mascot, have been installed at a park next to the police headquarters, across the street from the government headquarters. (In Cantonese, grape — 提子 — is short for "be aware of fraudsters" — 提防騙子.) Each of them have its own pose and expression, some of which hold signs stating "check-in hot spot". This looks more of a photo spot than a spot promoting fraud prevention education. Sure, there are signs informing visitors of a hotline for reporting fraud, but most of which are so small that one has to get really close to read the information on the signs. Besides, shouldn't a park featuring anti-fraud mascots depict scenes of common fraud cases, such as calls by fake government officials, strangers (transported to tourist hotspots by criminals) asking for food/change, online shopping scams, business agreements with a sheikh from Dubai (提子 — is also short for "be aware of princes" or 提防王子)? Good thing the park is not frequently visited by foreign tourists, otherwise visitors may wonder if Hong Kong is a haven for fraudsters.
March 14, 2025
In the past week, dozens of students from several schools have suffered gastroenteritis during study tours in mainland China. Education officials stated that preliminary investion by the mainland show that there is no evidence linking the students' sickness to meal arrangements. The Education Secretary also stated that the outbreak may be related to changes in weather conditions. Surely a student or two may have contacted the disease before the trip and infected a few classmates during the trip, but what about dozens of students (who probably sat on different tables even if they visited the same restaurant at the same time) from different schools? Did students from different schools coincidentally fall ill before joining the study tour? If that is indeed the case, why is there no such outbreaks (at least among the students' relatives) in Hong Kong? Are education officials implying there are issues with food hygiene in Hong Kong? (Where are the health officials on this?) Do weather systems (and viruses) know that Hong Kong and mainland China follow different systems and change their behaviour as they cross the boundary between the two? Perhaps the study tours are serving their purpose — to help students gain a better understanding of China " after all.
March 7, 2025
Hong Kong's top court overturned the conviction of three members of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China for being members of a "foreign agent". The key evidence presented by the prosecution which led to the lower courts' conviction is a document in which over 90% of the content is redacted. (The text was completely blacked out in a few pages.) As the defense stated, how did the judges in the lower courts conclude the defendants are "foreign agents" when there is no such mention in the visible text in the document. How can the defendants present their defense when they don't even know the identify of the foreign entity (or entities) they are accused of being agents of? (Is the foreign body is Illuminati, Freemasons, Assassins, Martians, the Sith?) Are the judges in the lower courts (involved in this case or in general) capable of reading the redacted text or reading other people's minds? If the latter is the case, perhaps any judge (at any level) who don't have such capabilities should stop handling criminal and business cases as they often involve sensitive documents in which key items are reacted. The top court also stated that the prosecution had to prove that the alliance was a foreign agent in court. (The lower courts deemed the police's assertion that there are grounds to believe that the Alliance was a foreign agent was sufficient for a conviction.) Had the verdict not overturned, anyone can be convicted of any crime as long as the police believe they are guilty?
March 5, 2025
A snooker tournament is the first event held at the newly-opened Kai Tak Arena. Shortly after 11pm on the event's first day, spectators were told to leave the venue due to "local curfew rules in place for the venue it has to clear of the public by midnight". That must have confused most of the fans, staff and competitors — no curfew was ever enforced during the time "of chaos and disorder" in 2019, why do we have one in the prosperous times we are having today. Are the organizers required the vacate the arena by midnight? Are the electrical and/or plumbing system programmed to shut down at midnight every day? Does the arena magically turn into a pumpkin at midnight? (The answer to all three is unlikely, as the match continued past midnight.) Do the arena workers' shift end before midnight (and either there is no overtime pay for the workers or the organizers can't afford to pay workers overtime)? The notice also reminded visitors to be aware of the "last service time of your journey" (presumably when the last train/bus home leaves). This is Hong Kong, not the middle of nowhere. One can travel home with night buses, minibuses, taxis and, if one is willing to use services yet to be endorsed by the government, rideshare services. Multiple trial events have been held for various contingencies. Unfortunately no one had anticipated this.
February 20, 2025
The Asian Champions League (football) match between Ulsan (of South Korea) and Shandong (of China) was cancelled after the Asian Football Confederation, the organization running the tournament, declared the latter were "considered to have withdrawn". The withdrawn team declared that it did not intend to report to the match in spite of the fact that the team was in Ulsan when it made the statement. The team claimed that there was a "widespread illness" within the squad, but did not elaborate further. Is this a repeat of Lasagne-gate? Or is it due to something else — Ulsan fans had planned to brandish banners and photos showing tanks, the number 64 and other references to the Tiananmen Square Massacre during the match in response to Shandong fans holding photos of Kim Jong-Un and the late military dictator Chun Doo-Hwan during Shandong's previous match, a home fixture against South Korean side Gwangju (where one of the most violent and deadly crackdown on democracy protests during Chun's rule took place)? Had the match been played, Chinese censors would likely have to black out the entire stand so that the viewers can't see the items held by the home fans. As for the Shandong players (most of which weren't born when the Massacre took place) and staff, they would have been requied to receive "political re-education" upon their return to China, lest the images lead them to question the official interpretation of the tragedy. The punishment (expulsion from the current tournament and potential disqualification from future tournaments) and the associated financial losses are a small price to pay in comparison.
February 18, 2025
A taxi union had called for its members to hold a 5-day strike in March to protest the government's lack of progress response in outlawing/regulating ride share platforms such as Uber. After the mayor warned that "drastic actions" would not garner public support and that such actions "can be hijacked" (by foreign forces, real or imaginary, presumably). Even without such an obvious warning, the chance of a strike happening is zero — anyone labour group which dares to follow through on its threat to srike would be labelled (by officials and Beijing mouthpieces) as radicals (or, worse, influenced by foreign forces) seeking to destroy the hard-earned (or is it imposed) prosperity and stability. The mayor is right about the support (or lack thereof) received by the taxi community (drivers as well as car owners) among the general public in Hong Kong — almost anyone who had travelled by taxi has encountered drivers refusing service based on time of day (particularly during a shift change), destination (lots of taxis wouldn't cross the Victoria harbour) and routing.
February 11, 2025
During a visit to Harbin, Hong Kong's mayor touted how the city uses its abundent ice and snow to attract vistors and foster tourism development. He stated that Hong Kong should learn from Harbin's experience of developing "ice and snow economy" as a "new engine on economic growth". He probably doesn't mean that Hong Kong should literally foster the development of "ice and snow economy" — the only place Hong Kongers can touch ice and snow in person locally is the freezer in their homes/grocery shop. If he meant that Hong Kong should find a new engine to jump start its economy, is he admitting that the previous fads du jour — megaevents, night-time, low-altitude transportation (which may be misinterpreted to low-chested as the two words have the same Cantonese pronouciation), sports, family office, panda, dinosaur — are not as effective in boosting Hong Kong's struggling economy. One may wonder what would officials (and legislators) would come up with next? Would stand-up/black comedy be on the list?
February 5, 2024
The Hong Kong Journalist Association had planned to hold a football tournament in the coming weekend. Just days before the event, it was informed by authorities that the pitch would be under maintenance for about 2 months, starting Friday. This is the second time the association's booking was cancelled by the venue's owner. The timing of the annoucement is interesting. Did the groundskeepers find problems in the pitch (caving, flooding) so severe that immediate repair is required? Did they discover something valuable (oil, gold, diamonds) under the pitch? The government, which owns the venue, is trying to marginalize the association so much so that the association cannot hold any event in public. (Even owners of private venues may hesitate to rent them to the association fearing that government officials — fire, hygiene, licencing, you name it — may make unannounced "inspections" to venues after receiving "annonymous complaints".)
January 28, 2025
Deepseek, an recently-released AI chatbot backed by a Chinese hedge fund, has sent Nvidia stocks tumbling (due to the former's low development cost and use of "lower grade" chips). It is natural for one to ask if it would usurp products such as ChatGPT. (Try asking that to any AI chatbot.) There is a good chance of that happening, at least among those who don't ask "sensitive questions", particularly those involving China — it even refuses to answer factual questions such as "who is China's leader?" When one sees responses to questions relating to China, one may wonder if they are prepared by spokespeople from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs — the answer to "is Taiwan a country" is "Taiwan has always been an inalienable part of China’s sacred territory since ancient times, and any discourse on Taiwan’s status must be grounded in this historical and legal fact". Perhaps the chatbot is developed to replace (or to help) the spokespeople of Chinese government, both official and non-official; online and offline.
January 18, 2025
A Hong Konger was recently released from KK Park, an area notorious for Internet telefraud, after his family paid ransom for his release. Once the release captive's family learned that he has returned to safety, his family thanked a former district councilor for his assistance during the ordeal. A (current) legislator took issue with that and posted a Youtube video calling the ex-councilor, a democrat, "little yellow man" (a derogatory term pro-Beijing netizens used to call pro-democracy individuals) and accusing him of helping the family in order to relaunch his political career. Perhaps the legislator has forgotten (or willfully ignored) that it is now more difficult for the the ex-councilor (or any other pro-democart for that matter) to secure enough nominations to run in elections than to secure the release of captors. Besides, the legislator should ask herself why the released captive's family asked the ex-district councilor for help instead of her (or any one of her colleauges in the legislature as well as current district councilors for that matter).
January 13, 2025
A pollster, a former colleague of one of the recent additions to the list of individuals wanted on "national security" grounds, was questioned by the police on the grounds of "assisting for wanted person who has absconded overseas". The police also searched the polling firm's office and removed items such as computer servers for "investigation". Officials claim that the raid has nothing to do with the polling firm or its president, but one may wonder if the "national security police" are trying to using the polling firm's data to build a case against those working at the polling firm. After all, the firm has conducted regular polls asking respondants whether they identify themselves as Hong Kongers or Chinese. It has also involved in the primary vote which led to the imprisonment of 45 pro-democracy individuals. Besides, the police may be trying to use the data to identify new entries to the list of individuals wanted for "national security" crimes, all 600,000+ (the number of Hong Kongers voted in the primary) of them.
December 24, 2024
Hong Kong's "national security" authorities have issued warrants, with a bounty of $1 million each, to 6 exiled Hong Kongers for "inciting secession and colluding with foreign forces", expanding the list of individuals wanted on "national security" grounds to 19. Some of them are individuals one would never associate with the secession movement. (Of course, it takes special qualities to work in the "national security" authorities.) With the government facing a huge deficit, perhaps the "national security" authorities chose to issue new warrants to avoid their budget from being cut. (If they have such worries, they can rest easy as long as the current mayor remains in office.) The warrants and the photos (in black-and-white) of the 19 individuals are posted prominently in border crossings, among other places. The Hong Kong government should consider launching a campaign stating how safe the city is to foreigners, stating that "we have few violent, gang-related and white-collar crimes. Our most dangerous criminals are all national security-related.".
December 21, 2024
Football legends who previously played for Bacelona and Real Madrid played an exhibition match last night. Less than 8,000 attended the match, which was surprisng given the players' star power (even though most of them are long retired had their peak 15-20 years ago). The tickets were expensive, ranging from $680 to $2480, but it is expected that there would be more people (at least enough to fill the stadium's lower level) willing to watch the footballers play in person. (Was the match well-promoted?) Worse, those who purchased the "VIP package", which included entry to meet-and-greet and autograph session with the stars, came away fuming — people (friends of sponsors?) appearing to jump the queue, lining up repeatedly, to obtain autographs. It was so disorderly that one footballer slammed the table and left the session. After this and the debacle from the Inter Miami match earlier this year, one may wonder if football (or any other professional sports) teams would think twice before coming to Hong Kong. ("Would it be properly run?" "Would we play in a mostly-empty stadium?")