Putting on a decorative mask for carnival and a mask to prevent coronavirus
The number of coronavirus cases around the world is accelerating, making people wonder if we are entering a pandemic.
It was shocking to hear of cases in Iran -- it was discovered on February 22 when a Canadian woman flew back to British Columbia who had flu-like symptoms and was later tested positive. And now Iran has at least 45 cases and 12 deaths.
Iranian women wearing masks and gloves for protection
Reports say patient zero was a merchant from Qom who regularly traveled to China, but because of the travel restrictions he flew around to different countries before getting to China and back. Patient zero has since died.
Most of the cases in Iran seem to be centered in Qom, with some unsubstantiated reports saying as many as 50 people have died there. The sudden spike in cases has raised panic in the country, where there is a lot of mistrust of the government.
Fear is also in Italy, where over 219 confirmed cases were recorded in northern Italy, in Lombardy and Veneto, near Venice. The authorities have shut down museums, schools, fairs, markets, and even cancelled the last day of the carnival in Venice.
South Korea has also seen a surge in cases too, of over 800, half of which are from the Shincheongji Church of Jesus, where apparently worshippers are not allowed to wear masks or glasses, and they must attend service even if they are sick, and after service must break out in groups for Bible study or go out and proselytize. Huh.
Tourists wear masks as they visit St Mark's Square in Venice
Several hundred confirmed cases and seven deaths in South Korea has prompted the Hong Kong government to issue a Red Outbound Travel Alert to the country. Starting from midnight tonight local authorities will not allow anyone to come into the city except for returning Hong Kong residents.
Any Hongkongers who have been in Daegu and North Gyeongsang province in the past 14 days will be subject to a 14-day quarantine in Fo Tan in the New Territories.
Seems strange the Hong Kong authorities would raise this travel alert for South Korea, but not for China which has the vast majority of the cases at over 77,000 and over 2,500 deaths...
Speaking of China, someone might have been sacked after an announcement was made lifting measures for people who are not Wuhan citizens with no symptoms to leave the city.
The Shincheongji Church of Jesus has been shut down
But four hours later the announcement was retracted, saying it has not been studied and approved by leaders, in other words Beijing.
China's internal communications are in disarray, and one wonders if the messenger overlooked telling the central government about this message before pressing the "send" button...
There are so many missteps happening -- many due to caught completely unprepared for the coronavirus possibly landing in their country to not advising residents the best way to protect themselves.
We are hardly out of the woods yet in this coronavirus epidemic...
After a security check, visitors can enter The British Museum
In recent years there has been a lot of debate about whether the British should have been allowed to take so many treasures from places like Greece, Egypt, Syria, and China, and some countries even demanding their priceless artifacts back.
The Rosetta Stone is a must-see
While it is understandable as a point of national pride for countries to want these precious items returned, but in some cases, they would not be kept in as good conditions as they would in The British Museum.
It was started in 1753 by an Irish scientist and physician Sir Hans Sloane who had his own collection, and the museum was opened in 1759 in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. In the following 250 years, it has collected some 8 million objects during the era of the British Empire and is the first public museum in the world. And free!
We were here for a short period of time, so we tried to be as efficient as possible.
The first stop was the Rosetta Stone which is near the entrance. It's very hard to photograph because it's behind glass, but a very important piece that helped archeologists figure out ancient hieroglyphics. On the black stone are carved Demotic, the everyday script of literate Egyptians, and the bottom is Greek, the language used by the government.
One of the many friezes taken from The Parthenon
At the time Egypt was ruled by a Greek dynasty and the Rosetta Stone records an event regarding Ptolemy V Epiphanes, the boy king.
And since we had been to the Parthenon in Athens, where about half of the real marble friezes were in The British Museum thanks to Lord Elgin, we had to see them in person. The marble pieces are housed in a long corridor and to be honest the details of the marble figures and animals are clearer here than in the Acropolis Museum, where they were already weathered down before being housed inside.
The musculature of the soldiers and the horses is evident, showing strength and grace. The robes people wore are detailed to show drapery. However seeing them one after the other numbs the brain's ability to appreciate every single piece. It's also worth remembering that these friezes were placed on the outside perimeter of the Parthenon and not facing each other in this room. Nevertheless to be able to look at them so close up is amazing.
Men holding onto an ox; the drapery is very detailed
One more Greek piece we had to see was the sixth figure that formed the Erechtheum Caryatid. At the Parthenon we saw the replicas, then five of the real figures in the Acropolis Museum, and now the sixth one in The British Museum.
All the figurines are columns holding up the building next to the Parthenon. They each have long thick hair that is plaited and falls behind their backs, and they wear short tunics. They also had baskets on their heads as part of the column.
And like the other marble pieces that Lord Elgin stole/took, this figure in the museum is very detailed from the plaiting of the hair, to the drapery of her tunic, though it's a pity her arms are missing and her face a bit weathered. There seems to be more detail of her hair at the back, but nothing of her feet.
The sixth figure from the Caryatids in Athens
Regardless, it was a thrill to finally see all six figures -- in one trip!
We also saw two Haida totem poles housed in the foyer from British Columbia that date back to about 1850, while we visited the China section, focusing more on the Tang Dynasty known for its porcelain.
One impressive piece is that of a statue of Buddha's disciple called a luohan. This one is in excellent condition, one of 10 found in a cave in the Yixian region of northern Hebei province in 1912. The statue is glazed in the sancai or three-coloured palette.
Another was of a figure who was the assistant to the judge of hell. A clerk carries a slim scroll, recording the names of those who have done good deeds in their lifetimes. The robes of the assistant are detailed particularly in the various layers of "fabric" denoted by the various colours and the draping is magnificent.
What a treat.
The assistant to the judge of hell
The British Museum
Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DG
britishmuseum.org
Striking images of elephant tusks being burned show destruction by man
Another documentary I saw on the plane was Anthropocene by Nicholas De Pencier, Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky. Baichwal and Burtynsky have also worked on Manufactured Landscapes and Watermark, and Anthropocene is the third of the trilogy about how man is changing the natural landscape.
Manufactured Landscapes was about China being the world's factory, watching hundreds of thousands of workers doing the most mundane tasks to make products for us in the West to use.
Their next project Watermark was about how water levels are dropping around the world due to overuse or pollution, and how dire it is for farmers not having enough water to produce crops and how they have to dig deeper to get water.
And finally Anthropocene refers to our current geological age where human activity is affecting the climate and environment.
Carrara marble being extracted from a quarry in Italy
The documentary takes viewers around to 20 countries on six continents to see the devastating effects humans are having on the planet. For example tone scene shows Carrara marble being cut out of the quarry and one of the workers jokes the success of Carrara is thanks to Michelangelo, who demanded to only use this kind of marble for his masterpieces.
Then there's a shot in a workshop where several artisans make copies of Michelangelo's sculptures -- using the same marble he used hundreds of years ago. I also think of the luxury apartments in Manhattan that feature Carrara marble in their bathrooms.
The film goes to a bleak town in Russia called Norilsk that is considered the most polluted in the country. The main industry is smelting to extract minerals in high heat. Three Russian women are interviewed and one says how the town is dreary, but you get used to it and see the beauty in the stone. They laugh.
Another scene shows an unscripted moment of two workers having lunch and talking about how the filmmakers are recording everything they are saying.
Scavengers, animals and humans, hunt around a landfill
In Germany there is a giant machine that weighs 12,000 tons and scrapes out an entire hillside of dirt. The man running the machine is proud of this piece of technology and not really thinking about the effect it has on the environment.
Then in Nigeria there's a massive landfill with men, women and children literally ripping up garbage bags and scrounging for anything that can be recycled. They dig through the dirty trash with their bare hands and carry what they've found in baskets on their heads. Meanwhile birds hang around them, looking for bits of food to feed on.
Meanwhile in Kenya, a black woman activist talks about trying to stop the ivory trade. She feels guilty for not being able to save elephants' lives, but at least she has stopped people from making a living from killing the animals to get their tusks.
There are scenes of men carrying the tusks one by one and creating giant pyres that are later set alight to show the world that the ivory trade will be stamped out.
However go to Hong Kong, and a master carver prides himself on making intricate masterpieces on these tusks. he has a team of people using various tools to create a sea of people, flowers, trees, dragons and landscapes all on one tusk.
Baichwal, De Pencier and Burtynsky are the film's directors
He boasts the prices can range from several hundred to millions of dollars. But because the authorities are cracking down on the ivory trade, the man speaking Cantonese says he has found another better source -- that is not yet illegal -- mammoth ivory tusks. He won't be idle any time soon.
There's also shots of old growth forests in British Columbia being cut down and the narrator says there are less than 20 percent of the forests left in the world. It's shocking statistics like these that are disturbing and hopefully jolt people into realizing how much we have lost.
Nevertheless, some people in the documentary are indifferent because what they are doing is their livelihood, while others are very worried about the impact these actions have on the environment but are too small to stop them.
The images shot particularly from drones are beautiful and shocking at the same time -- this tension that Burtynsky is very well known for. A bulldozer pushes salt along a path and the camera pulls back to see how big the salt field is, that seems to go on forever.
Anthropocene first premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year and hopefully more people will see this documentary, and see what we collectively as humans are doing to the planet we live on.
Red maple leaf-shaped cookies appropriate for the birthday event!
Tonight I went to a celebration for Canada's 150th for those living and working in Hong Kong. It was held in the ballroom of the Island Shangri-La and a lot of effort was put into organizing the event.
Walking into a hallway leading towards the ballroom, there was a giant long poster on both sides of the narrow corridor to give the impression you were walking into a forest. Once inside, one side of the room represented the west side of Canada, the other the east side.
Leung Chun-ying and Jeff Nankivell have a toast on stage
Not only were there gorgeous video images to show off the different areas of the country, but also food too. The side with British Columbia and Alberta had fantastic roast beef, fresh salmon and tuna, while the other side had mussels, lobster and ham.
There were also mini burgers, Ambrosia apple crumble, very chocolatey Nanaimo bars and maple bacon oatmeal chocolate chip cookies shaped like maple leafs.
Our relatively new Consul General Jeff Nankivell impressed the crowd packed into the room with his pretty good gweilo Cantonese and then joked that he now had our attention...
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying was an honoured guest at the event. I wasn't sure how the audience would react, but on the whole they were supportive. Maybe it's because he's leaving in a matter of days so it didn't matter anymore?
He gave a lengthy speech, but not before praising Nankivell for his Cantonese. Leung explained that his parents came from northern China and when they came to Hong Kong tried very hard to speak the local lingo, but it sounded like the consul general's. That got a few laughs.
A video presentation showing the western provinces
Leung's speech was the usual spiel, and he had to throw in the Greater Bay Area and how Canadians can take advantage of that. Uh right. But he joked how Canada is turning 150 years old, but looks so young with a 45-year-old prime minister, and how Canada and Hong Kong share the same birthday.
Afterwards an Edmonton born singer Joyce Lee took to the stage and belted out Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams. Woohoo.
Perhaps most moving for me was singing the national anthem... I don't get to sing it often but when I do I feel very proud to represent my country.
My favourite time singing the national anthem was during the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010. I was taking the bus downtown to get to my shift at work to cover the Games when the bus driver announced we would sing O Canada. It was the best rendition ever.
