Pro-Police Rally Today, Anti-Extradition Tomorrow

A large rally was held at Tamar today in support of the Hong Kong Police

The weather has become unsettled again because of a typhoon passing by on Taiwan's east coast, and this weekend there has been rain on and off. Despite the unsettled conditions, a march to support the Hong Kong police was held this afternoon, and organizers say over 300,000 came to the rally at Tamar in Admiralty, while the police said it was 165,000.

Nevertheless, more than 60 relatives of police officers signed an open letter to Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, urging her to stop using the police officers as "human shields" between the government and the public, and to set up a judge-led inquiry committee.

Afterwards, some people tore messages from Lennon Wall

"We are furious that front line police officers have to stand in the forefront in the face-off with protesters in demonstrations arising from political controversies... Front line police officers are forced to bear the consequences of the government's maladministration," the relatives wrote.

The rally had some star power, with TVB star Nat Chan Pak-cheung and Maria Cordero, as well as former secretary of justice Elsie Leung Oi-see, while co-convenors of the event included Margaret Leung Ko May-yee, managing director of Chong Hing Bank, Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, vice-president of the Fok Ying Tung group, and former police commissioner Tang King-shing.

When the rally was over, some participants went over to the "Lennon Wall" in Admiralty and pulled down the hand-written messages there, while putting up some pro-police newspaper articles.

Where will tomorrow's march end? Wan Chai or Central?

In the meantime, since Lam has not addressed any of the protesters' demands, another march will be held tomorrow afternoon. Civil Human Rights Front had planned the route to start from Victoria Park to the Court of Final Appeal in Central, but the police have said the march has to end at Southern Playground for safety reasons.

The police are wary of marchers passing by the police headquarters in Wan Chai as well as the Legislative Council in Admiralty, where there have been attacks on these buildings. So we'll have to see what happens tomorrow -- will it all end abruptly at Southern Playground? Will some other protesters find another government building to vent their frustration and anger?

Stay tuned.

Up to the Same Tricks

TVB host Nat Chan Pak-cheung hanging out with Patrick Tse Yin

Ever since Ricky Wong Wai-kay lost the bid for a free-to-air TV license for HKTV, Hong Kong people began complaining louder about the low quality of programming on TVB, even though it makes the most money.

Its rival ATV is a distant second and so the public was hoping HKTV would give TVB a run for its money -- literally.

However it was not to be, though people were still keen to make TVB work harder.

This past week TVB broadcast its 46th anniversary charity show, and before the event, flamboyant host Nat Chan Pak-cheung pledged he would crawl home on his knees if the show only had a three-point rating.

By throwing down the gauntlet, Chan inspired a campaign to boycott the annual show and track down the households that were monitored for ratings. Chan later pledged he would donate HK$3 million to charity if the ratings hit 30 points.

In the end he just squeaked by at 31 points, with an average rating of 29 points of 1.856 million viewers and a 95 percent free-TV audience share for TVB.

Does this mean the majority of Hong Kong people love bad TV?

We see TVB is creating more budget programs like the one we saw tonight.

Magic is a perennial favourite, but the TV station didn't build a special set for the show. Instead the three hosts went on location to different places in Hong Kong to get magicians to do tricks in front of passersby.

The first place was Cheung Chau where they met with a magician from the outlying island. His first trick was pointing to a fishing boat in the distance with a red T-shirt hanging on it.

From the viewer's perspective his hand covered up the boat, but then in an instant the T-shirt was not on the boat but on his body!

Another was literally making sandcastles on the beach by lifting a cloth off the sand. How he did that I had no clue.

Then the trio of hosts went to Sham Shui Po where another magician lit up light bulb tubes like light sabres without any wires, while another in Mongkok made fish balls appear in a paper bowl with curry sauce. Or how about the magician putting his hands in a tank with just one small fish and then opening his hands to release a whole school of fish?

The only bizarre one was having a pretty TVB starlet change clothes literally in seconds. She walked into one changing room and in two to three seconds wore a new outfit. Then she walked towards the camera and was covered up by a clothes rack and presto! A new set of clothing.

Towards the end she wore a dark blue dress and for the finale a white dress on top and you could see the blue dress underneath...

The show format was very similar to Cris Angel and a Taiwanese magician Lu Chen who are in restaurants or hotel lobbies doing tricks in front of live audiences, but the TVB one is set in Hong Kong.

How hard is it to copy what's already been done?