Covid Numbers Climb; Oscar-Nominated Ascension

Babies and toddlers seems more at risk of Covid-19 now

Hong Kong had another record day of cases -- 7,533 -- and sadly 16 deaths, one of which was an 11-month old baby girl. There is a big concern now about children becoming infected and how they are not getting vaccinated or are too young to be vaccinated in the case of this baby.

Meanwhile the government is still going ahead with the vaccine pass that starts on Thursday. In order to get a haircut or go to a religious service you must have at least one jab and have this vaccination certification uploaded on your LeaveHomeSafe app.

Uploaded vaccine passport is on left, none on right

If you are going to a shopping mall, supermarket, department store or wet market then you may need to show your vaccine pass if a security person stops you. So there may be some people who are not vaccinated and may take the risk of going into a supermarket without having to show anything. How is this helpful?

And perhaps even worse, no vaccination is needed at all to go into a hotel! Why is that when almost all hotel staff were pushed to get the jab? It boggles the mind.

Something completely unrelated to Covid -- I watched a documentary called Ascension that was nominated for Best Documentary at this year's Academy Awards.

I didn't know quite what to expect and was surprised at the end and how it all came together.

Oscar-nominated documentary Ascension

There is no one main character, no particular storyline, but it becomes more apparent the longer you watch it. It starts off with scenes of people looking for jobs and those trying to entice them with decent labour conditions, like free wifi, air conditioning in the dormitories, but the pay is very low at around 20 kuai (US$3.15) an hour. We are not sure what the jobs entail, but some say you get to sit while working, others say the job is in an office.

People get rounded up and taken in coaches to their new destiny.

Some make rugs for Ikea, components for spray bottles, bottles of water, others make microchips, Christmas trees, jeans, and shirts. 

Perhaps the most amusing scene is watching mostly women putting sex dolls together. They are made of silicone, with large pendulous breasts, and curvy bottoms. They have permanent surprised expressions on their faces. Each one is custom made -- "Her nipples need to be pink!" one worker says, another has her wig changed from blonde to brunette. Another flings the doll's legs apart to inspect her down there. Each one is photographed to make sure it is correctly done up.

Worker checks the sex doll's face with the order

An interesting tidbit is that director Jessica Kingdon said a subsequent talk that all the sex doll factories they went to were owned by women.

Then the film shifts to jobs that have been created in the last few years, such as cryptocurrency mining (mostly young guys playing video games and eating lots of junk food), men collecting rented bikes that are dumped in a pile, people talking into their smartphone streaming online to sell things, and what looks like a pyramid company, where everyone is aiming to make over 10 million yuan in three years.

There's also people who are training to be bodyguards, hitting each other until there are scratches and bruises on their chests, and to be professional-looking assistants where they should smile to show eight of their upper teeth, while others are training to be butlers, measuring the distance between glasses and plates. The instructor asks them if they have ever watched Downton Abbey and none of them have, leaving them with little understanding with what career they have chosen.

It's an interesting look at what Chinese wealthy people think what being rich should look like, and the butlers trying to fulfill that fantasy. They probably assume everyone in England lives like that, ringing a bell for the butler to appear. 

People waiting around to get work in factories

This is similar to the aspirations of China's middle class. They think they have made it when they buy luxury brands or they go to a water park and sharks swim around them in an outer pool. It's all quite overwhelming the sheer numbers of people all trying to enjoy themselves at the same time.

Kingdon herself has an interesting background. Her father is Jewish-American, her mother is Chinese. Her brother went to China for a few years, learned Mandarin and persuaded his sister to come look at the country.

Before Covid-19, Kingdon and her small crew filmed in 51 different locations around the country and she says in interviews she had the best Chinese food. Kingdon also managed to meet relatives on her mother's side, one of which is now a cousin who works in Silicon Valley in the US.

Nevertheless, the title of the film comes from her great grandfather who wrote poems. One of them is Ascension, where he writes that the higher one climbs, one is horrified by what they see down below.

Director Jessica Kingdon, her mother is Chinese

This encapsulates the film -- how people are struggling to get ahead in some way, whether it's factory work to escape the poverty in the countryside, or to become a butler in the hopes of getting away from a terrible work environment. And with all this production and capitalism leads to terrible environmental damage, climate change, and exploitation of labour.

But Ascension doesn't preach a particular message, nor is it judgemental -- it has a fly-on-the-wall approach to the film and lets the viewers see what is going on and decide for themselves what they see in the documentary.

Ascension

Directed by Jessica Kingdon

97 minutes

Another Record Number of Cases

Large numbers of people being tested in Yuen Long today

Things are not looking good in Hong Kong at the moment with another record 342 infections reported today, yesterday having 351 cases.

Most concerning are 320 untraceable cases (so far), 80 percent of which involve the Omicron variant, said Director of Health Dr Ronald Lam Man-kin at today's press briefing, and warns of a potential super-spreader event.

"We could not track how many generations of transmission were spread," he said. "We could not make an accurate estimation on when the peak would arrive but we are certain that the number has not peaked yet."

Lam is concerned about 320 untraceable cases

Lam said because the Omicron variant is very contagious, 320 untraceable cases meant at least 320 other people had been infected as well...

Health authorities observed that "a lot" of the latest patients had been to Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island and Che Kung Temple on Tuesday and Wednesday, the first two days of the Lunar New Year. Some infected people had also been to Yuen Long Plaza, where 13 employees were among the confirmed cases.

Sogo department store in Causeway Bay also shut on Saturday and Sunday after two employees there tested positive. 

Lam has advised people to avoid shopping malls and for organisers to hold off having events for the time being.

Some banks have temporarily closed some branches, and retailers Ikea and Citistore have shut some outlets for disinfection after preliminary positive cases were found there. 

Sogo in Causeway Bay closed over the weekend

Meanwhile patients who have recovered from Covid-19 in AsiaWorld-Expo near the airport have complained about not being allowed to leave despite being given their discharge notice and having to wait two or three days more.

There are also horror stories of the toilets not being clean with the rubbish bins overflowing with tissues. Also just as bad is no hand soap for three days for people to wash their hands after going to the washroom. 

The government is completely overwhelmed with the logistics of running a health treatment centre, barely keeping the place hygienic which is crucial when a virus can spread so easily.

Is the problem understaffing or underpaying? This is work that should not be undervalued. And we all know the government has money to pay...

Local Tourist in Kowloon

M+ looks like a hard drive in West Kowloon

 

The coronavirus pandemic has turned many Hongkongers into tourists in our own town. This afternoon we did the same, walking from West Kowloon all the way to Kowloon Bay, a 15k stretch that surprisingly was accessible for the most part. 

The pavilion inside Xiqu Centre has disappeared

However starting the walk was a bit frustrating. We got out of Kowloon MTR station, but then it took a while to figure out where to get out -- it turns out the exit is near the ice rink -- which sadly at the moment is half melted.

Once we got out we were confronted with lots of water barriers here and there, and the place is still pretty much a construction site. We managed to get across to the area closest to the water and saw the Palace Museum being constructed, which will house a temporary exhibition of items from Beijing's Forbidden City. 

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor got a lot of flak for not having a proper public consultation of the project, and instead just announced that it would happen in December 2016. Even those involved in the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority didn't even know about the project, and the architect, Rocco Design Architects  was chosen without a tender. 

Smoked salmon on toast with passion fruit tea

Workers were installing the gold metal perforated sheets on the outside of the building, which is expected to be completed next year.

M+ is the new museum for visual culture, and so far it looks like a giant... hard drive. But upon closer inspection, it seems to be made of what looks like black bamboo poles. Interesting!

The park area is occupied by many young families and people with dogs. Many domestic helpers set up small tents to hang out for the day. 

Not soon after we passed by Xiqu Centre, for traditional Chinese opera. The last time I visited, there was a Chinese-style pavilion in the middle with a tree, but that seems to have been taken away and is empty now, pretty sad looking. One of the restaurants is actually open with customers in it which is good to see. Perhaps an alternative dining spot for people in the area?

We then headed down Canton Road towards the Star Ferry and interesting to see people lining up at luxury brands to go shopping. Previously it would be mainlanders queuing up but now it's locals... but why Gucci?

Cute painting of a ferry at the Hung Hom pier

Then we walked along Avenue of the Stars and passed by the InterContinental that shut down in April. The other day I had lunch with the former executive director of communications for the hotel who was laid off at the end of June. She said she and some 20 others were left behind to literally pack up everything in the building, plates, glasses, and put them into boxes and label them.

After we passed Tsim Sha Tsui East, we headed up a bridge that quickly took us to Hung Hom, another scenic area where we took a break at NOC for a snack before powering on.

However, the waterfront promenade just kind of ended at a complex of flats and we had to walk around to get back onto another part of the waterfront towards Kai Tak, which is still a massive construction site.

When we were at Harbour City we were accosted by many real estate agents promoting a new complex called Monaco and then in Kai Tak we saw it being built. Ahhh, the pre-sale, but not many takers from what we saw.

Wanna buy a flat in a development called Monaco?

Finally after a bit of a detour we made it to Mega Box, a large orange shopping mall in Kowloon Bay. Needless to say the Ikea in there was not socially distanced, as lots of people went through there to look at and buy furniture. Afterwards we walked a block away to the bus terminus to take the bus to Causeway Bay and then I took the MTR home.

Lots of exercise and had another perspective of Kowloon side I'd never been before!

Size Matters

Architect William Lim's conceptual flat with two bedrooms in 194 square feet

There's much discussion about nano flats -- the hottest selling housing units in Hong Kong these days, because many young people are priced out of the market and can only afford the tiniest of flats -- less than 200 square feet.

If a couple shares a nano flat, a lot of gymnastics is required to flexibly move around the tiny space, as well as hardly any possessions, but one Hong Kong architect seems to think he has the answer.

Architect William Lim and his creative design ideas...

Architect William Lim, managing director of design firm CL3 says: "We should think of them as three-dimensional spaces. We have traditionally looked at spaces as floor plans, but if we start looking at them in three dimensions, we could have different levels within the space."

He has created a conceptual flat that consists of two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room -- in 194 square feet or 18 square metres. Lim is able to achieve this by putting the bedrooms on top of the bathroom and kitchen.

While the concept is not new, particularly in places like Japan, Lim says flats in Hong Kong have a minimum height ceiling of 2.5 metres (8.2 feet), and some are as high as 10 feet, which makes "a flat within a flat" possible.

He also wants to prove that a space doesn't have to be completely utilitarian -- the show flat will be decorated with high-end furniture, including a Baccarat crystal chandelier.

One of the nano flats in Mont Vert in Tai Po

Lim says when it comes to living in style, quality of space, not quantity is most important.

If a developer gave him the opportunity to design a block of flats, he would probably never be able to do it his own idealistic way. Developers are not interested in having too high a ceiling when they can cram more units into the same volume of space. They and their management companies want to collect as much in management fees as possible...

And then his comment of quality of space and not quantity is important is completely out of touch. If someone can barely scrape enough together for a down payment for a 200 square foot apartment, they are not going to be able to afford a Baccarat chandelier, nor would they want one. The same goes for designer furniture. It's all well and good to make a show flat look enticing, but in reality, those who can afford to buy these tiny living spaces will probably hit Ikea and not Tom Dixon.

Oh and the ones who can afford to buy more than one of these flats are probably landlords so they won't be installing crystal chandeliers in a rental.

We like Lim's idea of trying to use vertical space as much as possible, but he's not being realistic.

And the psychological impact of living in tiny spaces can't be healthy. How is that quality of life?

Trying to sell nano flats as an idealistic aspiration mocks the people who are struggling to enter the housing market with the tiniest of flats. Size does matter.

An Unfortunate End

There were 14 DSC stores in Hong Kong, selling furniture and home ware

The police, customs and labour officers are all investigating what happened to the demise of DSC, that sold furniture and electronic products from washing machines to televisions.

It closed down as of Monday morning when hundreds of staff arrived at work to find all 14 shops in Hong Kong were shuttered.

Not only are the staff out of work, but there are at least 348 customers who still haven't received the items they ordered.

There is no sign of where Hui Ming-shun (left) has gone

It also turns out the owner of DSC, Hui Ming-shun sold his home in Kowloon Tong a few months ago and could not be reached. He owes the staff one month's pay as well as severance pay.

In addition, there were signs that DSC, or Direct Sales Centre was in financial trouble, as the retailer had been sued by landlords for unpaid rents totalling about HK$3.3 million.

The Labour Department is figuring out if it can criminally prosecute Hui for not paying staff their finally pay cheque and severance, but one employee said that even though DSC comprised of some 900 staff, only 200 to 300 of them were permanent employees; the rest, like delivery workers, were hired by contractors and did receive their July pay.

This is too bad, as when I arrived in Hong Kong over five years ago, I furnished my tiny flat in Sheung Wan with furniture from DSC.

A friend had recommended I go check it out, and compared to Ikea, DSC offered many more options and styles that seemed more solid in construction, and pretty good service.

Notices posted on Monday said DSC stores were shuttered

My round wooden dining table for four people was only a few hundred dollars complete with chairs, while a mattress could be customized to fit the tiny one-bedroom space I had. The closet too was the right size and price, as well as a decent cushion stool.

From purchasing these items, I was invited to pick up some free items, such as a cutlery set and power bar.

It was annoying at the time to find out there were different delivery dates for different items, but the guy who came in to build my closet did so in less than 30 minutes. That to me epitomized Hong Kong.

But now hard economic times have also come to epitomize the city.

It's frustrating to hear shops going out of business, employees being laid off and people struggling to make ends meet.

We don't know the full story behind the demise of DSC yet, but we wish the laid off employees find themselves back on their feet soon.

Picture of the Day: Discounted Lufsig

Stock up on Lufsigs while stocks last!

The other day when I was in Causeway Bay, I popped into Ikea to take a look around.

Note to self -- do not go on a Friday evening at 9pm. Traffic-wise, it looks deceptively fine in the store, as there aren't as many people checking out the showrooms.

Over a year ago Leung tried to have fun with Lufsig...

But once you arrive at the cashier, there are massive lines. 

I usually don't end up empty-handed in Ikea, and picked up a pack of napkins. But as soon as I saw the lines to pay, I gave up.

However, I noticed a bin with Lufsigs, or the wolf character in Little Red Riding Hood, who wears a red and white checkered shirt and jeans with suspenders, while holding grandma in his paw was on sale.

He became famous about last December when protesters threw the stuffed toy at Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and it quickly gained notoriety because of his association with a wolf, and also the toy's Cantonese translation sounded like female genitalia.

These days protesters like to use the toy as a metaphor...

But now that it seems like the Umbrella Movement may be winding down in the next week or so, the Swedish retailer has also decided to move its Lufsig stock. Originally priced at HK$99.90 ($12.88), it's now HK$84.90!

With the discounted price, is that a subtle sign Leung has lost favour?

One can only hope...

The Lufsig Saga Continues

The Chief Executive's desk looks quite sparse for a man running Hong Kong

We have to give it to Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying for taking lemons and making lemonade.

After the Ikea stuffed toy wolf Lufsig was thrown at him on the weekend, Leung was shown on his blog yesterday posing with it on his desk. The wolf had the casual look going with its legs crossed and hugging the grandma.

"Today I am with a wolf on the desk," he wrote. "I realize that this toy has been very popular recently with heated offline sales and speculation online. This shows that Hong Kongers' creativity is boundless."

Yes - especially when it comes to protesting...

In any event Leung said the toy was a present for his daughter and a gesture of support for Unicef as part of the proceeds go to the international child welfare charity.

Oh and the crude Chinese name for the toy on the mainland? It was changed to 路副西 (lufuxi) from 路姆西 (lumuxi)... which is basically the c-word in Cantonese.

It's an excellent example of what is translated into Putonghua does not necessarily work in Cantonese...

In the meantime Hong Kongers have exercised their creativity and photoshopped Leung's picture...

Hong Kongers seem to have a lot of fun with this photo...

Toy of the Day: Lufsig

Lufsig has become the new rallying mascot against Leung Chun-ying

Ikea has unwittingly become part of the anti-Leung Chun-ying campaign with its grinning stuffed animal called Lufsig.

The wolf is based on the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood and this version is wearing a red checkered shirt and blue pants while clutching a cute granny in its left paw.

But ever since the toy was thrown at the Hong Kong chief executive by two protestors from the League of Social Democrats during a public forum on Saturday, people have been trying to get to their nearest Ikea to buy one, because of the wolverine associations with Leung.

Also while the name of the wolf is not translated into Chinese in Hong Kong, its Chinese name in China sounds an obscene three-word phrase associated with female genitalia.

Yesterday an Ikea spokeswoman confirmed that Lufsig had sold out in its stores in Causeway Bay, Sha Tin and Kowloon Bay, with the remaining few going on sale today.

"All Lufsig toys were sold out. The next set of supplies will arrive in Hong Kong in early January," she said.

The selling out of the wolf toy has benefited one group -- Unicef -- which will receive a HK$10 donation for every HK$99 toy sold.

If you are desperate to get one, Yahoo's online platform had a Lufsig toy listed for sale at HK$150.