Hong Kong's "Not So Golden" Week

Hong Kong needs to prepare for more stormy days ahead

Four days into "Golden Week", when mainlanders used to flood into Hong Kong and go on shopping sprees, clog up the MTR and restaurants, the local tourism and catering sectors are mourning the loss of HK$2.26 billion (US$292 million).

That's the number tourism sector lawmaker Yiu Si-wing estimated, saying a visitor would spend around HK$4,000 during their stay.

Only 918 visitors arrived from October 1-4, compared to 566,000 last year during the anti-government protests.

Mid-Autumn Festival kicked off Golden Week

"For hard-hit, tourism-related sectors such as hotels, retailers and restaurants, they all rely on local consumption to make up part of their losses, by 10 to 20 percent," he said.

Hotels did well this past long weekend, with many locals doing staycations, and hotels offering discounted packages. As a result occupancy levels were 80 to 90 percent, which at the beginning of the pandemic was in single digits, but in the last few months has hovered around 20 percent.

The number of mainlanders coming to Hong Kong plummeted 92 percent between January and August this year to just 2.7 million, compared with more than 34.5 million for the same period last year.

And Simon Wong Ka-wo, president of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades, estimated the catering sector took in about HK$1.1 billion over the past four days, which was a drop of more than 25 percent from last year's takings of HK$1.5 billion.

Retailers still relying on local consumers

"The reduction in earnings over the past few days was mainly due to the social-distancing rules that limit eateries from serving customers at more than half capacity. Under these constraints, I think business turnover for the catering sector was satisfactory," he said.

This is Hong Kong's new reality and all industries need to embrace this new normal. Even if the coronavirus pandemic recedes significantly worldwide and people can travel again, Hong Kong is not going to see tourist numbers like before anymore given its recent political developments.

The new national security law has prompted many foreign governments to warn its citizens not to travel to Hong Kong -- even for an airport transfer -- for fears of possibly being detained. 

Last year's protests have severely tarnished the city's reputation as a shopping mecca, and the pandemic has exposed questions of needing so many luxury brand shops.

Hong Kong cannot depend on the mainland market anymore. It needs to rethink what kind of city it can be now that it is considered a dangerous places for visitors to come to. What kind of campaign can the Hong KongTourism Board launch when tourists are terrified they might be nabbed by China's secret police!

Not a relaxing sight to see riot police around

In addition, the local economy can't sustain the city either when many residents are packing up and emigrating elsewhere. 

The odds are stacked against Hong Kong. Anyone have any brilliant ideas?

The Most Bizarre Reason for Beijing's Smog

Beijing's smog today (left) and what it looked like last month (right)

Now that Golden Week is over, everyone's back to work, and that means the smog has returned to Beijing.

This morning the air looked gray and the Air Quality Index measured at 213 -- which means heavily polluted.

The skies today were in stark contrast to August and September when there were clear blue skies that were hailed as some of the best air quality since officials began releasing data on PM2.5 -- microscopic particles that can be harmful to lungs.

A woman puts on a mask to try to avoid the smog

The smog congregated in Beijing because the air was static. But also officials are blaming residents from using everything from hair gel, perfume and air fresheners for the smog.

Really.

State media released a report from Beijing's Bureau of Environmental Protection from back in May, saying household emissions -- everything from cooking and hair sprays to perfume and air fresheners accounted for 12 percent of the city's total.

That would equate household emissions with industrial emissions.

How ridiculous is that?

Shi Aijun, deputy dean of the Beijing Academy of Environmental Sciences told Science and Technology Daily that daily emissions had been growing -- especially from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that give everyday products like perfume, hair gel and air fresheners their smell.

But Peng Yingdeng, a researcher from the Beijing Municipal Research Institute of Environmental Protection said it would be hard to measure the impact of these products on air quality.

Did hair gel, perfume and air fresheners cause the smog?

"It is difficult to pinpoint exactly how much these consumer products like hair gel contributed to PM2.5 levels since VOCs are not pollutants themselves and produce PM2.5 only after a chemical reaction. At the moment we can only calculate an estimate from the use of these products," Peng said.

So there is even disagreement in the scientific community about this.

State media reports said local emissions accounted for two-thirds of the pollution in Beijing last year, the rest from surrounding areas. Vehicle exhaust fumes were the biggest culprit, and the reports claimed households contributed the same level of pollution as mainly printing and vehicle manufacturers.

The population of Beijing was 21.7 million last year -- did all those people use hair gel, perfume and air fresheners? Highly unlikely.

Local authorities and the scientific community have to find another reason why the smog is so bad because the reasoning just stinks.

Silk Road: Mogao Grottoes

The Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, Gansu province

About 10 years ago when I was in Beijing, I checked out an exhibition that was a replica of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang.

There are over 400 caves, but only a handful shown publicly

I didn't know anything about them but it sounded fascinating and was so glad I went. Afterwards I was thinking, I have to see the real thing... wherever Dunhuang is!

It took me a decade to finally go see the place in person and it has to be appreciated on so many levels in terms of art, history, and society. It all started in 366AD, when a Buddhist monk named Le Zun was traveling in the area and had a vision of a thousand Buddhas. He built a cave here in hopes of reaching nirvana.

Others soon followed, digging out their own caves and began decorating them with paintings. It's here in these caves or grottoes that one can see not only the artistic skill that spans over 1,000 years, making it a kind of library of art history of that time, but also how Buddhism was depicted and studied.

Some caves reveal intricate artistic detail and vivid colours

Some pilgrims paid artisans to decorate caves for them, and so it must have become a mini industry in the middle of the desert to demonstrate their devotion to Buddha. Apparently there were some 1,000 caves, but when they were abandoned, the desert sands took over them; there are 735 left, of which almost 500 are decorated.

While most of the caves feature three Buddhas -- the present, past and future, along with musicians and dancers that seem weightless in the sky, there were also more down-to-earth portraits of wealthy patrons, such as the Cao family, featuring women in long robes and make-up. Others captured daily life, such as farming and the foods they ate.

Musicians in flowing robes performing for Buddha

We only saw about seven caves and the ones we saw were not all in good condition. Some figures had black faces, but that's because the pink colour had oxidized over the decades and centuries. Some caves had glaringly empty spots where sculptures used to be and had been stolen, or the "eyes" of Buddhist disciples scratched out because they used to have gold on them.

One cave had a giant Buddha lying on his side after death, his disciples mourning in grief, while another had Buddha standing up 75 feet tall.

Black faces are from oxidation of the paint on the walls

A reminder of foreign theft was shown in one cave that had stored 7,000 manuscripts including the Diamond Sutra that was published in 868AD and were gone, now in the British Library. The caves are individually locked with padlocks which our guide has to use a key to open each one and lock afterwards.

We were lucky to come here just before the Golden Week rush, so there wasn't a massive crowd of people, and we came early in the morning too. We wished we could see more, and the prime examples of caves, but alas, our guanxi wasn't good enough.

But just to have the experience of being in these caves and seeing the majesty of the art work was enough to satisfy our curiosity. Will we come back? Not sure, but at least we saw a slice of it.

Some have large statues housed in them with disciples

No wonder artists like Zhang Daqian came here to copy many of the murals, staying here for months at a time. I managed to see some of his works from his time there in August when there was an exhibition in Macau.

Silk Road: Zhangye Danxia Geological Park

Minerals and sandstone helped create these colourful rock formations

One of the highlights of the Silk Road tour was visiting Zhangye Danxia Geopark. It took a while to get there, and once we arrived, we had to board the park's own buses to tour around the place in a kind of hop on, hop off style to four different spots.

Located in the county of Zhangye, in the foothills of the Qilian mountains, the park covers 322 square kilometres and it's very impressive -- the hill formations look "rainbow" coloured, with layers of colours formed due to deposits of sandstone and other minerals over a 24 million year period.

Each spot in the geopark looked amazing

And the colours and the rock formations really are cool -- it's kind of like the Chinese version of the Grand Canyon, but with brightly coloured hills in layers of red, orange, white, green that seem to go on and on.

Each location seemed more amazing than the one before, providing dramatic backdrops for people interested in selfies and group pictures. It was quite hot that day, not scorching, but enough to warrant a hat and some sunscreen.

For the most part people were respectful of the environment, though a few did go out of bounds to get what they felt was a better shot. Our tour guide quickly reprimanded them and they complied. One more step and they could have fallen down the hill...

Some areas allowed visitors to have a good overview

There was a sign that said no aerial cameras, probably meaning drones, but there were lots of selfie sticks...

We were so lucky to come just before Golden Week so there weren't that many tourists. And since the park is so spread out, there was lots of room to move around freely and take good shots. Somehow I feel like the pictures I took didn't even capture this awe-inspiring place properly...

Word of the Day: Bakugai

Japan is experiencing "bakugai", a new word for "explosive buying"

The Japanese yen is dropping even further, enticing hordes of Chinese travelers -- from China and Hong Kong -- to invade the Land of the Rising Sun.

They aren't really there to see the sights, but to snap up a lot of stuff.

And so the word of the year in Japan is "bakugai", which means "explosive buying".

During Golden Week, usually the first week of October last year, around 400,000 tourists from China descended on Japan and spent HK$6.3 billion ($8.13 million) in seven days.

That's A LOT of stuff.

Chinese consumers like to snap up rice cookers from Japan

I can attest a lot of Hong Kong people go to Japan because the flights are so cheap now and the drop of the yen further seduces them to go there to shop.

It can be anything from clothes, food, cosmetics and even toiletries.

The Japan National Tourist Agency has found 63 percent buy perfume and cosmetics, 55 percent on food, spirits and cigarettes, and 52 percent bought over-the-counter medicines and toiletries.

Some 37 percent buy electronic appliances like rice cookers and high-tech toilet seats, the most popular items to purchase.

Whenever my uncle goes to Japan, he has to buy a certain brand of toothpaste that is good for sensitive teeth. "Isn't Sensodyne OK?" I asked. Apparently not...

Cosmetics and toiletries are popular items the Chinese buy

He has to go to several pharmacies in order to pick up a dozen tubes, and even asked his niece to buy half a dozen or so for him when she went.

While my uncle hasn't quite explained to me why this Japanese toothpaste is so much more superior, the cache of buying it overseas makes it sound like a must-have product.

I'll just stick to my Sensodyne thanks...

In the meantime Hong Kong should adopt "bakugai" in its vocabulary too! Or are we past that phase now?