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 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". 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the Asian Football Confederation, the organization running the tournament, declared the latter were "considered to have withdrawn". The withdrawn team declared that it did not intend to report to the match in spite of the fact that the team were in Ulsan when it made the statement.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 don'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?")
December 13, 2024
7 people, including one former legislator, were found guilty of rioting charges during the terror attack at Yuen Long Station on July 21, 2019. They were among the vicitms of the attack by well-equipped and well-prepared "white shirts". They were charged as they threw bottles and fired water hoses at the assailants in self-defense. (Would you try to fight back if someone you don't know hits you without any provocation when you have no way to leave &mash; the trains they arrived at did not leave the station.) Based on the number of people charged — only about a dozen among the 100 "white shirts"s; and about 10 "non-white shirts", most of which were passers-by, were charged — the Hong Kong government is trying to redefine the event as a (level) fight between two opposing groups. Not to mention that there were rumours that pro-government thugs (perhaps even the triads were involved) would carry out an indiscriminate attack to "teach them (the pro-democracy camp) a lesson". Those who incited the attack, including a former newspaper editor who told the audiance of a pro-government rally to "set the kids straight" with ratten sticks and water pipes the day before the attack, are still at-large. They should be the ones charged with sedition (for making Hong Kongers lose their trust to the Hong Kong government and the police).
December 7, 2024
A naming contest was held to name the two recently-arrived young pandas, both of which already have a name. After receiving over 20,000 entries, the pandas' new names are their original names. Why hold a naming contest in the first place if the review committee ends up choosing the original names for both pandas? Can those who send different names ask the organizers to reimburse the money they spent on postage/stationary (if they submitted their entry by mail) or power usage/network data charge (if they submitted their entry electronically)? (Of course not, as it was a naming, NOT renaming, contest, so the organizers can select the original name.) In the near future there would be less interest in naming contests, especially if the object being named has an existing name — why should I waste time, thoughts on naming something that already has a name? Good thing (for the organizers) that Beijing is not likely to "gift" Hong Kong with new pandas (or other animals) soon. This serves as a perfect microcosm of Hong Kong today — ordinary Hong Kongers may have a say, but those in charge don't have to listen.
December 1, 2024
It is reported that feminine pads sold in China contain pads that are discoloured, made of recycled cotton, contain dark spots and, worse, insect eggs. Moreover, there are packages contain pads which don't match the size specified in the packaging. As a result mainland Chinese travel abroad, including Hong Kong (would saying that be considered breaking the universal "national security" law, to purchase pads in large quantities. Some even stating that they are buying a year's supply during their visit to Hong Kong. With Hong Kong trying to encourage mega event/low-altitude/panda/dinosaur/whatever idea officals think of off the top of their heads this morning tourism, perhaps the goverment should start a campaign promoting feminine pad economy to mainland Chinese. It would be less of a fad than panda or dinosaur economy as the demand would remain high in the long term.