As Covid Cases Spike, Three Activists Face Jail

In the fourth wave, source of many infections are dance clubs

 

Hong Kong recorded 73 new coronavirus cases today with 50 of them from a cluster of infections from dance clubs. These should not be mistaken with night clubs, but places where middle-aged people, mostly tai tais do the cha-cha, foxtrot and the rumba on the dance floor with men who are not their husbands. 

Hmmm! There's a video circulating on Twitter that shows everyone mask-less and in very close proximity to each other... there are already 70 preliminary positive cases for tomorrow...

Seven more dance clubs are impacted and anyone who has gone to any of these dance clubs must get tested... we will see many more cases in the next few days, yet again confirming the fourth wave is here.

Chow, Lam and Wong arrive at court today

While these cases got a lot of attention, three democracy activists pleaded guilty for their involvement in a 15-hour siege of Hong Kong police headquarters during the anti-government protests last year.

Originally Joshua Wong Chi-fung, 24, and Ivan Lam Long-yin, 26 were going to stand trial for their roles in the incident on June 21 last year, but yesterday they changed their minds to plead guilty after reviewing the prosecutor's evidence and consulting with legal counsel.

Agnes Chow Ting, 23, had originally pleaded guilty.

Wong pleaded guilty to organizing an unauthorized assembly and inciting others to take part in the event. Numerous clips were shown in court of him speaking through a loudspeaker outside police headquarters in Wan Chai, shouting that he hoped more people could join, and in another he declared the protesters had "completely besieged the police headquarters".

Wong at the June 21 protest with Chow (far right)

Lam pleaded guilty to a charge of incitement, while Chow had been charged with incitement and taking part in an unauthorized assembly.

As the barristers tried to plead lenience on their clients, Magistrate Wong Sze-lai refused, believing the incident could have escalated into violence.

In the case of Lam, which the barrister tried to ask for community service, Magistrate Wong immediately rejected this, saying the defendant already has four criminal records. 

The three were immediately remanded into custody until sentencing on December 2. 

As Wong was led out of the courtroom, he told supporters: "Hang in there everyone. Add oil!"

Before entering the court, Wong said the trio were prepared to face jail terms and hoped their plight would draw global attention.

Lam and Wong look up as they go into custody

"Under the continuing crackdown against the city's citizens, generations of youth [have gone] from protests to prisons to safeguard liberty for the place [in which] we were born," he said. "Neither prison bars nor election bans, nor any other arbitrary power will stop us from activism."

While Wong was defiant, Chow was worried. In her Facebook post on Sunday she wrote: "If sentenced, this will be my first time in prison. While I say I have mentally prepared for this, I am still a bit scared."

Port Visit: Barcelona's Park Guell

Gaudi's famous salamander made of mosaics at Municipal Garden

Another major landmark that you have to see in Barcelona is Park Guell located on Carmel Hill. A Spanish entrepreneur, Eusebi Guell, who made his money in the industrial revolution in Catalonia, commissioned Antoni Gaudi to design the park, which he did from 1900 to 1914.

Gaudi lived in this house (1906-26) which is now a museum

Parc Guell was officially opened in 1926 and in 1984 was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Originally the park was meant to be a commercial housing project but it was unsuccessful: the land was basically a rocky hill with few trees and vegetation, but the location was away from smoky factories, hence the air was relatively clean.

Guell had hoped to build 60 lots of luxury housing here that were fitted with modern technology, and he tried to initiate buyer interest by moving there himself into an existing country house called Larrard House in 1906.

Entrepreneur Guell lived here in Larrard House

However, in the end only two houses were built -- one as a show house, the other for sale, but no one was interested in buying them. So at Guell's suggestion, Gaudi bought one of the homes and moved in with his family and father in 1906 and lived there until 1926.

The house contains original works by Gaudi and is now a museum called Gaudi House Museum. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go inside.

However, we did wander around the colonnaded footpath under the roadway viaduct and heard some flamenco music being played and saw some musicians along with a flamenco dancer.

Benches are shaped like a sea serpent at Municipal Garden

We also sadly missed the Municipal Garden, made famous by Gaudi's colourful mosaic salamander called "el drac" or "dragon". This part of the park also requires paying an entrance fee. I visited this part of the park over 20 years ago and I was blown away by how creative Gaudi was with the long bench that is shaped like a sea serpent. 

Lessons in Kinky Boots

Lots of high energy in the Tony-award winning musical Kinky Boots

One of the Broadway shows we saw was Kinky Boots, the Tony-award winning show featuring words and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper and book by Harvey Fierstein.

Rock star Brendon Urie plays Charlie Price

The musical is based on a 2005 British film called Kinky Boots that was inspired by true events. In the show, Charlie Price is the fourth generation of a shoe-making business but needs to figure out how to keep the company from going bankrupt and has an encounter with a drag queen...

Brendon Urie plays Charlie, and when he first appeared on stage, there were hysterical screams from young women in the audience because he's the frontman for the rock band Panic!

Having someone famous -- and easy on the eyes -- helps sell tickets, and in this case Urie plays the part well.

However his co-star J. Harrison Ghee as Lola was electrifying. He can not only sing his heart out, but has hilarious lines he delivers with pizazz and can dance in heels. He and the other drag queens do some really cool moves... talk about making drag queens more mainstream than ever in a Tony-award winning musical!

Also fantastic is the character Nicola played by Taylor Louderman, who really made the audience laugh with her lines and body language.

J. Harrison Ghee is amazing as drag queen Lola

The storyline is well thought out and focused on the similarities of the two characters even though they have such different backgrounds. It makes you realize how each had to have courage to carry on despite the risks stacked against them.

Nevertheless, overall the show was very high energy and after the show was over, many people wanted to dance their way out of the theatre.

Lots of fun!

Kinky Boots

Al Hirschfeld Theatre

302 West 45th Avenue

New York

kinkybootsthemusical.com

Review: La La Land

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling star in a romantic musical called La La Land

Lunar New Year is a time to meet up with relatives, eat too much, and watch movies.

Today I went to see La La Land, and it was a nice feel-good movie for the holidays.

Viewers are immediately swept up in the opening scene of gridlock on a Los Angeles highway, but then suddenly a young woman breaks into song and dance and everyone else gets out of their vehicles for an impromptu dance party.

The opening scene is so memorable and energetic

Do they really happen?

But your disbelief is suspended then and pretty much for most of the movie.

We soon meet Mia (Emma Stone), a struggling actress trying to get her big break, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) an ardent jazz aficionado.

It takes them three chance encounters to realize a spark between them, and viewers soon disccover it's their idealism that brings them together, and only in LA.

Gosling and Stone are great together, and pretty impressive they not only sing but dance too, harking back to the singing and dancing films like Singing in the Rain and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but now with iphones, Priuses and cappuccinos. Gosling also plays the piano with ease.

The pair play idealistic artists pursing their dreams in LA

And the colours! They are so technicolour brilliant that you have to wonder if they were digitally enhanced like the scene where Stone and Gosling first sing and dance together at sunset. But according to director Damien Chazelle, they really did shoot the scene at the "magic hour", and they only had the chance to do five takes.

However it can't all be hunky dory -- tensions arise when the dreams of how they envision their careers take different paths, and the ending isn't what you expect it to be, but the wistful what-ifs are a bit too predictable.

Nevertheless, we couldn't help but be swept off our feet with La La Land, with the intense colours, singing, dancing, wry humour and a big dollop of escapism, especially in these uncertain times.

La La Land

Starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, John Legend

Directed and written by Damien Chazelle

One Cool Pole Dancing Granny

Dai is very happy to have taken up pole dancing for fun and fitness

We love this story about a 69-year-old grandmother from Chengdu, Sichuan province, who's also a pretty damn good pole dancer.

Dai Dali has made a name for herself, performing on CCTV, and even represented China in Asia's Got Talent, where she made it to the semi-finals. In June she won an award for a pole dancing competition, and since then has had lots of media attention.

Dai attends classes regularly and even has a pole at home

After she retired from working in a bookstore, Dai liked to practice folk dancing in a gym. It was next door to a pole dance studio. She always passed by but never really thought about it. Then one day five years ago, she walked into the studio and asked the instructor if she could learn. The answer? "Of course you can."

She says she didn't know much about pole dancing -- especially its sexual connotations -- she just thought it would be a good way to exercise.

"I'd never danced on a pole before so I wanted to give it a try," Dai says. "When the instructor let me have a go I started to learn. Gradually I learned how to climb the pole and turn around on it. I was very happy to be able to do that."

When asked what her family thinks about her pole dancing, she says they are all supportive. "My husband minds his own business. He likes to play mahjong and we rarely interfere with one another's hobbies," Dai explains. "My 12-year-old grandson is a very loyal fan of mine. I'll show him the new poses I've learned and he always takes pictures of me dancing. My sister used to think it was too dangerous and asked me to stop practicing. But after seeing my performance, she was very excited and also very proud of me."

Check her out in this Asia's Got Talent clip:

Dai has seen a lot of benefits from pole dancing, reporting that the inflammation and swelling in her left wrist has gone down considerably, thus improving her health and fitness level. She loves pole dancing so much that she's even installed a pole in her home to practice every other day for about 10 minutes.

Two to three times a week Dai has pole dancing lessons that are about 90 minutes long. While the vast majority of the students are young women, she doesn't mind, saying: "I don't feel any different from them. I can learn some moves very quickly. I always forget my age."

We love Dai's attitude. She'd rather be dancing -- doing something she enjoys -- than waiting to die, she says. She'll be turning 70 in December, and one thing's for sure, Dai will continue swinging around the pole and having fun.

Gov't Backpedals on Dancing Grannies

The "dancing grannies" can continue line dancing in public spaces

A few days ago I wrote a post about the Chinese government issuing 12 model routines "dancing grannies" should follow to develop "healthy, watchable, scientific, and wide-ranging dancing".

There were 12 videos people could follow, but they were hardly featuring the right demographic in these "model routines" -- scantily clad young women in aerobic gear.

Needless to say the "dancing grannies" raised an uproar and now it seems Chinese sports officials are backpedaling on cracking down on these middle-aged to elderly women who have fun and exercise by doing line dancing or square dancing out in public spaces.

So it's not surprising the "dancing grannies" and their supporters criticized the new rules and routines, complaining they were robotic, and not interesting to watch or participate if every one did the same dance steps.

Although the statement initially posted on the General Administration of Sport's website had explicitly declared the end of personalized routines and the imposition of a national standard, officials later clarified that the 12 model routines were only mean to provide "scientifically sound alternatives" to existing ones.

"We saw that some people on the internet were worried that the new regulations meant all over China people would only be allowed to dance these 12 routines," Liu Guoyong, of the General Administration of Sport told the media. "Of course that's impossible. It's a misunderstanding."

Ah-ha! A "misunderstanding". So it doesn't seem like the authorities will be able to check on the some 100 million people participating in dance groups in every town, city and province, so the "dancing grannies" will be able to continue dancing to their own tunes.

So while it's a relief to hear the "dancing grannies" don't have to copy the routines anytime soon, what about regulating the noise levels so that some people can have a bit of peace?