News outlet Citizen News shuts down after five years
A few hours ago another independent news outlet Citizen News announced it will shut down as of tomorrow (January 4).
This comes just days after Stand News was raided by some 200 national security officers and seven people were arrested, including barrister Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee and singer Denise Ho Wan-see. Later two people, acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam Shiu-tung, and his predecessor Chung Pui-kuen were charged with allegedly publishing seditious content and stirring up hatred against the government.
Stand News' Lam was arrested, charged last week
Citizen News said tonight on social media in part: "Standing in the eye of the storm with the waves rolling, our little boat faces harsh conditions. In crisis, we must first ensure everyone on the boat is safe."
The online news outlet started five years ago on January 1, 2017. At the time the founders said: "By taking a small step, we hope we could inspire everyone in the industry to take a small step. Taken together, it will become a big step in protecting press freedom."
For five years Citizen News was a critical voice made up of veteran journalists who held the government accountable.
Last year in an interview with the New York Times, chief editor Daisy Li said: "You know there is a red line, but at the same time you don't know what that line actually is."
Which makes one wonder, what is the future of journalism in Hong Kong?
Citizen News' announcement tonight
How do you teach journalism students to be safe when you don't know what the red lines are?
What can be reported on safely anymore?
It's ironic that there is no violence in the streets, no blood being shed, and yet organisations being raided, people being arrested and thrown in jail, and groups shutting down are just as horrifying.
At the same time people are happy to pay good money to eat in nice restaurants, drink expensive bottles of wine and purchase luxury brand clothing, shoes and handbags.
What times we live in in Hong Kong.
The polar opposites could not be even more extreme...
Lai made a court appearance today to face NSL charges
The sight of 73-year-old Jimmy Lai Chee-ying bound in chains around his waist and in handcuffs will not be forgotten; the self-made tycoon is the embodiment of free speech, free press and free expression -- wrapped in chains.
He made an appearance at West Kowloon Court this morning to face charges of violating the national security law by colluding with foreign forces in his social media posts, calling for sanctions against local and mainland authorities.
Police are gathering evidence from Lai's tweets
The founder of Apple Daily was denied bail and his case will be brought to trial in April. In the meantime police will spend the next four months going through his social media, mainly Twitter to gather evidence.
While the law is not meant to be retroactive, prosecutors claim to have found tweets published after the national security law was implemented, where Lai called for overseas countries to "voice out and take action" over Beijing's suppression, tagging United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
In another tweet, Lai urged the US to "be lenient" towards young Hongkongers seeking asylum in the country.
Prosecutors also focused on Lai's commentaries published in his newspaper, in which he believed international sanctions against Beijing over the new law would be more severe than the penalties imposed over the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
The 17-page filing also noted Apple Daily has hosted online chats with guests like New York Times correspondent Nicholas Kristof, and Lai discussed how he thought Western countries should unite against China and why the West should be careful dealing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he called "Mao Zedong No. 2".
He has met with Vice-President Mike Pence
Lai was also interviewed on Fox News, and CNN, and met with US Vice-President Mike Pence.
The filing also noted Lai had 120,000 followers on Twitter, and he followed such people as Pompeo and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.
Lawyers for Lai appealed to grant the tycoon bail, but was refused. They also urged the magistrate to cut the adjournment period of four months down to one, but prosecutors claimed more time was needed to "enable police to conduct further investigation", and the case was adjourned to April 16.
As Lai is the first high-profile case to be tried under the national security law, there is not chance for leniency, everything is strictly by the book.
Sadly Lai most likely will spend the rest of his life in prison. Did he know it would happen this quickly? And like this?
Meanwhile the Department of Justice is "appalled" by overseas politicians like Pence and Pompeo calling for Lai's release.
Lai has given interviews with Fox News, CNN
Pence called the charges against Lai "an affront to freedom loving people and everywhere," while Pompeo said Hong Kong's national security law "makes a mockery of justice", and Lai's only crime is "speaking the truth about the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarianism and fear of freedom."
In a statement, a DOJ spokesman said: "We are appalled by such open demands for withdrawal of charge and immediate release of the defendant by senior officials in another jurisdiction. Such acts not only disrespect the HKSAR's judicial system and undermine the spirit of the rule of law, but also attempt to meddle in Hong Kong's affairs which are internal affairs of the People's Republic of China."
A very typical Chinese government statement.
"Any demands or statements that purport to interfere with the prosecutorial decision and process controlled by the DOJ or the independent exercise of judicial power by the judiciary of the HKSAR will be futile," he added, stressing that all prosecutions are without political consideration and it has nothing to do with people's political belief.
But this case is very much about Lai's political belief, is it not?
Dr Li Wenliang was infected with the new "SARS-like virus"
This morning we hard the news that Li Wenliang, the doctor who was one of the first to warn about a "new SARS virus" died. He was only 34 years old.
Pictures like these flooded social media
Mainland Chinese were devastated by the announcement and immediately declared Li a hero; they directed their anger at the government for punishing him for telling the truth. The national grief is similar to that of the Wenzhou train crash in July 2011. Two high-speed trains collided, killing 40 people, and a proper investigation was never conducted, and even one of the train cars was buried to prevent further inquiry.
A friend living in Beijing told me his WeChat account went berserk from 2am with messages of anger, grief, sadness and frustration. The people mourning Li's death related to him, a 34-year-old, married with a child and another due in June.
He was not challenging the state -- all the ophthalmologist was trying to do was warn his medical school classmates to be careful about this serious SARS-like virus in a post on his WeChat.
On January 3, the authorities accused Li and seven others of spreading rumours, and forced him to write a statement admitting to "illegal behaviour".
In the statement, it asks Li: "Can you stop your illegal behaviour?" and "Do you understand you'll be punished if you don't stop such behaviour?"
He wrote in response: "I can". "I understand".
Li's statement he had to sign
After his death, people wrote on their surgical masks : "我能" "我明白" and posted pictures of themselves wearing the masks as a way to mourn Li.
The hashtags #we want freedom of speech#, "#I want freedom of speech#" and "#Wuhan government owes Dr Li an apology#" were created on Weibo and viewed some 2 million times before being shut down around 5am.
People felt that if Li wasn't punished and the authorities took his post seriously, then we would not have over 30,000 confirmed cases now and over 600 deaths, mostly in Wuhan, Hubei province.
The central government, now trying to appease people, is sending a team from the dreaded National Supervisory Commission that typically looks into corruption to investigate Li's death.
But we all know what happened. Li posted his statement complete with his thumbprint on it. How much more can Beijing cover up or deny?
A mournful farewell for Li Wenliang in the snow
Tonight there was a quickly organized memorial for Li at Chater Garden in Hong Kong. Only a handful of people came out to the event that where pro-democracy activist Lee Cheuk-yan gave a speech criticizing President Xi Jinping as well as Chief Executive Carrie Lam for not moving fast enough to contain the coronavirus.
People held white chrysanthemum flowers before a portrait of Li.
It's a pity not more people came out, but maybe some worried about too many people showing up or they didn't know about the protest vigil at all.
In an interview with The New York Times days before he died, Li said: "If the officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier, I think it would have been a lot better. There should be more openness and transparency."
In Hong Kong a small protest vigil for the ophthalmologist
When asked how Li felt about the police accusing him of spreading rumours, he replied: "The police believed the virus was not confirmed to be SARS. They believed I was spreading rumours. They asked me to acknowledge that I was at fault.
"I felt I was being wronged, but I had to accept it," he continued. "Obviously I had been acting out of good will. I felt very sad seeing so many people losing their loved ones."
Li believed he would get better within two weeks and then rejoin his colleagues in treating patients.
South Korean film Parasite has reverberated among critics and viewers
I finally saw the highly acclaimed Korean film Parasite by Bong Joon-ho with much trepidation. It was the first South Korean film to win a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year.
It's not an easy film to watch and leaves you thinking about how this story is any different from how people in reality function: Are we all parasites in one way or another?
Director Bong Joon-ho winning the Palme d'Or for Parasite
The story starts off showing the Kim family in dire living conditions, in a sub-basement and trying to use the wifi from the upstairs occupants. They eke out a living folding cardboard pizza boxes, but even this simple task they can't do well and their pay is docked. How will they ever survive?
Luckily the adult son Ki-Woo (played by Choi Woo-shik) gets a recommendation from a friend to tutor the daughter of a rich and successful couple, Mr Park (Lee Sun-kyun) and his pretty wife Yeon-kyo (Cho Yeo-jeong).
Ki-Woo proves to be a good tutor and discovers the Parks' younger son needs an art tutor and recommends his sister (Park So-dam), but of course doesn't say they are related. Soon they con their way into getting the chauffeur job for their father (Song Kang-ho), but replacing the Parks' longtime housekeeper with the Kim matriarch Chang Hyde-jin) takes ingenious planning.
The Kims' ability to seamlessly slide into the Parks' lives and take advantage of this wealthy family shows not only the immense gap between the rich and the poor, but also how desperate people can be to get ahead.
The Kim family survives by folding cardboard pizza boxes
It is an amusing, but also pointed observation that turns to a shocking and sad ending. The reality is, becoming rich can only be a dream for most of us.
Bong explained to the New York Times that father Kim (Song) is a very famous actor in South Korea, while the son Choi is an up-and-coming actor. And so the scene where the son rehearses with the father about what to say to Mrs Park is amusing for South Koreans to watch -- like watching a young novice telling someone like Robert De Niro how to act.
But what also got a lot of buzz in South Korea about Parasite was how the wealth gap was portrayed in the movie. Remember in 2014, Air Korea CEO Cho Yang-ho's daughter Heather Cho Hyun-ah and vice president of the airline flew into a rage when nuts were not served to her on a plate on a flight from New York to Seoul.
The Park family holds a lavish birthday party for their child
The "nut rage" incident also echoes another one that was more tragic that year -- the Sewol ferry disaster in which 304 people drowned, of which 250 were students on a field trip. The ship was owned by the Yoo family, which investigators later found had siphoned off millions of dollars while encouraging its managers to cut corners and flout safety rules.
While Parasite does not directly refer to these incidents, they came to mind afterwards while analyzing the film, in that it mirrors reality, though with a macabre twist.
Another way to emphasize the rich-poor gap is through the excellent cinematography by Hong Kyung-pyo. Notice the Kim family is always together in the frame to emphasize not only their cramped conditions, but they are a close-knit group, while the Park family members are hardly together in the same shot, their home on the hill so large and spacious.
Bong (in grey suit) with the cast of Parasite at Cannes
Parasite is a film that makes observations about how money affects human nature, and is this the kind of world we want to live in?
Parasite (2019)
Directed by Bong Joon-ho
Screenplay by Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won
An Apple Daily image of tonight's rally at Edinburgh Place in Central
This evening there was a "G20 Free Hong Kong" rally at Edinburgh Place in Central, where the old Star Ferry used to be, but is now reclaimed land.
I went to check it out after work and even at 8.20pm there were hundreds of people wearing black still streaming from the MTR to go to Edinburgh Place. However they needed to cross Connaught Road Central, which doesn't allow pedestrians to cross because there is an underpass next to the Mandarin Oriental.
People just made their way across Connaught Road Central
However there was strength in numbers as a large group of them decided to stop rush hour traffic and cross the street en masse -- even nonchalantly crossing the barrier between the opposing traffic to get across. It was very impressive to watch but I didn't follow and instead went through the underpass.
It was getting crowded on the other side, and I could hear a voice speaking but couldn't hear what they were saying. It was also very hot and humid with hardly any breeze. But everyone still stood there, with friends, or some held signs, including an elderly woman with a sign demanding Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor step down.
Some people shouted slogans like "Democracy now!" "Hongkongers add oil!"... and then a Japanese man was given the microphone and no one knew what he was saying but politely listened...
Earlier this morning around 1,500 people gathered at Chater Garden and then split up into smaller groups to march to various consulates of countries that will be attending the G20 on Friday and Saturday, including the United States, Canada, Germany, UK, Japan, Mexico, Australia and South Korea.
Thousands gathered tonight to rally for Hong Kong
A crowd-funding initiative raised HK$6.7 million (US$858,000) in 11 hours to buy advertisements in foreign newspapers to take Hong Kong's cause to the international community. There are plans to buy ads in the Financial Times, The New York Times and other papers in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America in the next few days.
In the meantime Lam has not appeared publicly and intends to lay low before and during the G20. Perhaps she might say something on Sunday, on the eve of the July 1 march? Interestingly Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah has been invited to the Canada Day celebrations tomorrow at the JW Marriott in Admiralty...
Film critic Pauline Kael was a force to be reckoned with and utterly fearless
Pauline Kael was revered by some, feared by others. The film critic who wrote for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New Republic, and McCall's to name a few, was fearless in writing what she thought of what she saw on the big screen and didn't care what others thought.
The documentary What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael attempts to give a full a picture as possible of the woman and how she became one of the most revered movie critics in the western world. A lot of people appear in the movie, some her disciples called "Paulettes", some directors, producers and thousands of film clips are interspersed throughout the 95-minute film.
The "what she said" part is narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker, who reads out passages from her actual reviews, words that fans loved for being so subjective and relatable.
Kael was born in 1919 and her daughter Gina says her mother grew up watching silent movies, and then talkies, then colour films. In 1948 Kael had her daughter and was a single mother, something that was practically unheard of in that period.
She fancied herself a playwright but was terrible at it; in 1953 she got her first break in film critiquing when the editor of City Lights magazine overheard Kael arguing about films with a friend in a coffeeshop and asked her to review Charlie Chaplin's Limelight. She obliged and panned it, calling it "Slimelight".
She completely panned The Sound of Music
Writing didn't pay the bills and she also took a job as the Berkeley Cinema Guild manager from 1955-60, curating which movies to show and writing the mini reviews of them that people loved so much that they kept them on their fridges.
Her strong opinions got her attention that led to a job or got her fired from a job.
After publishing a collection of her reviews in 1965 called I Lost It at the Movies that became an unexpected bestseller, Kael got a job with McCall's, a women's magazine that pushed her into a mainstream audience.
When The Sound of Music came out the same year, she completely panned the film that was a box office hit, describing it as "the sugar-coated lie that people seem to want to eat". After the review came out in McCall's, the magazine got a slew of mail from readers who disagreed with Kael.
The documentary says she was fired because of this, but in Wikipedia, Kael and the magazine's editor Robert Stein denied this. He said he fired her months later, after she didn't like such blockbusters as Lawrence of Arabia, Dr Zhivago, and A Hard Day's Night.
Kael championed Bonnie & Clyde to box office success
She then wrote for TheNew Republic but not for long -- Kael wrote a review of Bonnie & Clyde praising it but the magazine refused to publish it so The New Yorker took it and that piece helped give the movie the attention it needed to succeed in the box office.
Kael stayed at The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991, but the film reviewing was only for six months of the year, the other half of the time they were reviewed by Penelope Gilliatt. So Kael still had to find other sources of income and even at one point took up Hollywood actor Warren Beatty's offer to help him write a screenplay but that only lasted for six months and she went back to New York.
Her scathing review of Ryan's Daughter in 1970 affected director David Lean was so much that he says in the documentary that he lost confidence in himself and couldn't make another movie for 14 years. Others complained they had thrown so much of their time and effort into their work only for her to rip it into shreds with her words.
Quentin Tarantino loved reading Kael's reviews
One director was smart enough to make sure his film was released just when Kael finished her six-month reviewing stint which made her absolutely mad, but for him this was the only way he could get an objective review.
However, the tables were turned on Kael when her collection of reviews in a book called When the Lights Go Down was published in 1980. Her fellow colleague Renata Adler at The New Yorker wrote an 8,000-word essay that dismissed Kael's work as "jarringly, piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless". The review hit Kael hard, and she never wrote a piece to rebut it.
In the early 1980s she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and resigned from The New Yorker in 1991. She died 10 years later.
Kael found her voice in reviewing films
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael is a staunch defender of her, how she was such a forceful personality, at times to stand up to the men, and others to say what she thought of the film.
Not being familiar with her work, I found the film to be for those who knew of her, and didn't give enough context to the controversies she courted, or perhaps attracted. Nevertheless, she was a pioneer in her field and she wasn't afraid of giving her opinion on anything. What would she think about the world of film today?
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
Written and directed by Rob Garver
95 minutes
Appearances by Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Jerry Lewis, Quentin Tarantino, and Alec Baldwin
Google is going to return to China in the form of an Android app
Google decided not to make its search engine available in China in 2010 when it knew its search results would be censored.
We applauded it for this brave move, much to the dismay of fans in the mainland. But Google did this to make a statement -- if you are searching for something on the World Wide Web, you should be able to find all the answers you need, not just what the government thinks you should see.
Fans mourned the search engine when it exited China in 2010
However, eight years later, the behemoth wants to come back -- and is willing to be censored.
According to the investigative website The Intercept, Google plans to launch a censored version of its search engine in the form of an Android app. So if you use it on the mainland, the Chinese search app will automatically identify and filter websites blocked by the Great Firewall; certain banned words and phrases will have a "no results shown" page; the app has already been demonstrated to the Chinese government; and the final version could be launched within the next six to nine months.
Back in 2010 Google was adamant about leaving China because one of the co-founders Sergey Brin was born and raised behind the iron curtain in the then Soviet Union and felt the need to take a stand against censorship. However these days he is less hands-on in the company and the leadership at Google has changed.
Sergey Brin is not as involved in Google these days
The company also specifically chose Android, as 95 percent of the 750 million internet users have mobile devices, 80 percent of which use Android. So it made sense for Google to target this massive audience through an Android app.
Nevertheless it's going to be an uphill battle for Google to get young people to use its search engine as everyone is so used to Baidu the domestic one. And how can Google differentiate itself from Baidu when its search results will be as heavily censored as the local version?
Not everyone at Google is happy with this latest development. According to the New York Times, some employees who were asked to work on the project declined and requested to be transferred elsewhere in the company. Some said the move to be censored went against Google's previous statements about its stance on censorship, and that technology should not be used to contravene human rights.
Amnesty International has said it would be a "dark day for internet freedom" and would constitute "a gross attack on freedom of information and internet freedom if Google accepted China's censorship terms.
The Android app will help Google reach millions of users
On Chinese social media, some were excited about Google's return, while others questioned the point of having a "neutered Google". "We don't need a second Baidu," said one internet user.
It's disappointing to see Google sacrifice its own ethics to satiate its desire to enter the mainland Chinese market. It only gives China even more power, so it can say, "Look, even Google is willing to bend to our demands."
Alas, the allure of China is too great for even internet giant Google...
Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep as Kay Graham in The Post
Many years ago I read Washington Post publisher Kay Graham's autobiography, Personal History. I didn't know much about her, but as one of the few women in power in the journalism business, it seemed like a must read.
She was hardly an aggressive powerhouse, instead pleased that her father, Eugene Meyer, had chosen her husband, Philip Graham to take over the Washington Post. However her world fell apart when Philip Graham committed suicide in 1963.
She details her career as The Post publisher
Kay Graham took over and did the smart thing -- hiring people smarter than her. She worked with Ben Bradlee and their major break was publishing the Pentagon Papers that was the inspiration for The Post, starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks.
At first The New York Times was ahead of the game, revealing the American government knew the war in Vietnam was a massive loss of lives, but that it would rather do that than admit going to war there was a mistake.
Then US President Richard Nixon got an injunction to stop The Times from publishing further, which gave The Post the chance to do further coverage.
During the film we see Graham as the only woman in the room full of bankers to discuss a public offering, and at first deferring to Frederick Beebe, the company's lawyer who later became chairman of the board. A character called Arthur Parsons who is a member of the board is fictional, but represents the opinion of many that a woman should not be running a paper.
Graham begins to realize, while the women's movement is happening, that she is the boss, and it is Bradlee's wife Tony, who points out how courageous Graham is to decide to publish the Pentagon Papers.
Publishing the Pentagon Papers was her hardest decision
There is a subtle scene of vindication when she walks out of the Supreme Court and there are women lining the steps as she walks down, admiring her. It's also nice to see one of the top Post journalists was Meg Greenfield, who wrote editorials, but was part of the Pentagon Papers team.
There were also witty remarks here and there, but just barely enough humour to get through the film.
Nevertheless, we also liked the scenes of watching the reporters using rotary phones, using pencils and furiously typing on old school typewriters -- how did the news ever get out like that? They typed the stories out that were then sent to the sub editor who edited them with a pencil.
The story was then sent to be typeset with blocks of words put together into paragraphs. What painstaking work! Once that was put together the presses would run. The film also showed dozens of people putting the paper together, bundling it and distributing it.
Nowadays it's all done on the computer, cutting out many laborious steps as well as staff needed, though newspapers still need reporters to provide stories for the paper. Printing has become more automated and accurate with computers so that there is better printing quality.
Old school newsrooms -- an army of reporters and typewriters
But imagine being in the newsroom at the time when this story was breaking -- that feeling is still important today -- that reporters are to serve the governed, not the governors.
Bradlee's feisty character is how movies like to portray chief editors and for the most part we'd like to think they are -- they set the tone and energy of the paper and employees. The way the reporters were dressed at the time is also pretty accurate -- they were hardly fashion plates and still aren't (except for those covering fashion).
So The Post has a pretty good feel of how people looked and acted at the time, a contrast between high society and scrappy reporters who are determined to tell the truth.
And yes -- Graham really was interrupted during a party when she was asked to make the call whether to publish or not.
The film didn't tug at the heart strings as much as Spotlight, but The Post reiterates the importance of a free press, and that women should not be underestimated.
A soft by otherwise delicious dosa with yoghurt and greens
When in New York, there's not only sightseeing and show watching, but also lots of dining.
One place we were very curious to try was abcV, a vegetarian restaurant opened by celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
I met him in Hong Kong a few months ago and when I asked him about abcV, he told me about the menu, and boasted the restaurant had "the best congee in New York City".
The restaurant's interior is sparse yet very modern
When a gweilo chef claims he has the best congee in town you have to check it out, right?
My New York-based friend made a reservation for July 4 for breakfast -- and we were told the only time available was 9.30am sharp, even though breakfast is served until 10.30am.
So we arrived a bit earlier than the appointed time -- no traffic because of the public holiday -- and hardly anyone in the restaurant either. We could have come at 10am... or did the staff forget it's a public holiday?
The decor is quite sparse -- a white modern room with a mish mash of chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, a bakery at the front, and kitchen at the back.
We noticed the pieces of cutlery were all different -- a kind of eclectic hipsterish feel that's kind of artsy, which is what the crowd was mostly made of, except for us.
Poached eggs and mushrooms underneath
The menu lists dishes that sound super good for you. Coincidentally the New York Times had tried the restaurant and the review came out just before we went, but I didn't read it until afterwards.
We agree with the assessment that the atmosphere is quite pretentious, but the reviewer showed the menu to a dietician, who proclaimed the dishes really were healthy -- though the portions were on the delicate side.
One of the first dishes we shared was the dosa with yoghurt, avocado and sprouts (US$14). It arrived in a beautiful presentation, but we have to say the dosa was hardly crunchy, but thinner than a pita bread texture. We liked the combination of yoghurt and avocado.
A winner was the wild mushrooms with poached farm eggs, shallots and herbs (US$15). How can you go wrong with runny yolks that explode onto the meaty mushrooms like a comfort sauce?
Testing out the congee dish with six condiments to choose
So the congee, or as listed on the menu: forbidden rice and millet congee with savoury condiments (US$10) that included pickled mushrooms, ginger, ponzu sauce, finely sliced nori, chilli sauce and spring onions.
The congee itself wasn't white, but more pinky brown thanks to the black rice, though it was more savoury than sweet. We threw in a bit of each of the condiments and they certainly perked up the congee. It was also quite a shallow bowl, so we savoured each bite (and more dosa), and sides like kale and potatoes.
In the end we were full, but not overwhelmingly so, which is probably the point -- portions are everything and just feeling sated is probably healthiest too.
Would we come back? Probably for lunch, not dinner.
Taikoo Shing earlier this evening, where lots of people were waiting to vote
The polls for the Legislative Council election have technically closed as of two minutes ago (10.30pm), but there are still people out there queuing to vote. They will allow them to vote, but only those who were in line before 10.30pm.
It's pretty amazing to hear reports like this, that people have come out in droves and I hope this demonstrates to the Hong Kong government and to Beijing that we care about who we vote for and we don't want to lose this right to vote directly for people to represent us.
Last minute checks at the polling station on who to vote for
Apparently social workers were out in some elderly homes to make sure seniors weren't coerced into voting buses to cast their ballot for a certain candidate or party, though Apple Daily reported some elderly had numbers written on their hands of which candidates to vote for.
I voted this morning at 11am in Kennedy Town and there was no line-up. I gave them my poll card, but they didn't want it -- they just wanted my Hong Kong Identity card. Surely they should at least match the two together? And take the polling card to cross-check later just in case? I find this a very strange practice.
A friend, YTSL, had asked if there would only be names on the ballot or numbers. It turns out EVERYTHING is on the ballot -- the person's name in Chinese and English, their political party AND their picture. Surely you can't get your vote wrong so hopefully there won't be many spoiled ballots.
US President Barack Obama emerges from Air Force One
In the next several hours the votes will be counted at AsiaWorld Expo, and the results will be out in the wee hours of the morning.
It's pretty exciting to see so many people come out, though it's expected that those in their 60s and above probably voted pro-establishment, while those 50 and under voted pro-democratic, and probably those in their 20s for localists.
Another big story today was the arrival of American President Barack Obama in Hangzhou for the G20 summit and things didn't work out too well because he didn't come out onto the rolling staircase, but instead emerged from the belly of the plane, which is usually reserved for high security risk areas.
A White House aide and Chinese security official arguing
Then the New York Times reported a shouting match between a White House member of staff and a Chinese security official. When she pointed out this was not normal protocol, he could be heard clearly saying to her, "This is our country".
Also the media had trouble on the tarmac too. The Times reporter who said he had covered the White House for six years, and never had he seen a foreign host prevent media from watching a US president disembark.
Then at the West Lake State House, where Obama would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, White House aids, protocol officers and secret service got into another shouting match about how many Americans would be allowed into the building before Obama's arrival. The reporter said there were fears things could escalate to a physical confrontation.
"Calm down please," an American official said, according to the pool report. A Chinese foreign ministry official said, "Stop please... there are reporters there."
However, a Hong Kong media outlet claims the "staircase snub" was not that at all, but that it was Washington's decision.
"China provides a rolling staircase for every arriving state leader, but the US side complained that the driver doesn't speak English and can't understand security instructions from the United States; so China proposed that we could assign a translator to sit beside the driver, but the US side turned down the proposal and insisted that they didn't need the staircase provided by the airport," the official was quoted as saying.
That reasoning is hard to believe -- what happens in every other foreign country that the US President arrives in?
It still seems like a deliberate snub at Obama to show him who's boss. He didn't make much of a fuss about it in front of the media, advising them not to "overcrank the significance".
But one can't help but wonder, the arrival of every other state leader in Hangzhou was fine...
Bill Cunningham taking pictures of people attending New York Fashion Week
I was dreading this day would come and it did. New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham has passed away at 87.
He had been hospitalized recently following a stroke.
Every Saturday evening Hong Kong time I looked forward to watching his video reports, narrated slideshows of the latest trends he saw on the streets of New York.
Sitting in the front row at a Carolina Herrera show
He had a scratchy voice, but full of energy and wit, describing people as "crazy kids" and what they wore, but he had such enthusiasm talking about what he saw, and put it into historical context, that it made me realize that fashion isn't just about what's on the catwalk -- it's about what people are wearing on the street.
For him, fashion shows gave people ideas of how to interpret what the trends are but in their own way. And it also made me see that there are people out there who are individualistic, who aren't afraid to make their own fashion statement.
Or he would notice the changing of the seasons, or colour themes, like everyone wearing black and white stripes, or pink, or leather biker jackets, or fur collars. It was amazing how he would find so many people wearing similar things.
From his video reports showing fashion trends on the streets
Through Bill I became more observant about what other people wore too and saw trends there were happening in Hong Kong too.
I was mesmerized by him after watching the 2010 documentary, Bill Cunningham New York by Richard Press. The director followed Bill as he photographed people and put his columns together.
He always ensured there was a space between him and the subject -- he would photograph the high society ladies, but would never eat with them -- not even a glass of water. He was very ethical, and also true to himself.
When he was young, fashion was always his thing. His family was worried about him being so passionate about it, but he started by opening a millinery shop where he made hats, and would do jobs on the side to pay the bills.
Practically everyone was a subject for Bill to photograph
He did have high profile clients come in, but when hats began to go out of fashion, he picked up the camera instead and started writing about fashion. It was then that he discovered fashion on the street as the story he should be covering, with the pictures to prove it.
When my cousin lived in New York, he bumped into Bill once and had a picture taken with him; another friend who loves fashion, also saw him one wintry day. My brother recalls seeing on the subway a few months ago.
While Bill loved fashion, he himself was not a fashion plate. He lived very simply, wearing a shirt, his denim workman jacket he got in France, a pair of khakis and comfortable shoes, riding on his bicycle.
One of Bill's columns in the New York Times
His studio apartment above Carnegie Hall up until 2010 was filled with filing cabinets of negatives and pictures... one wonders what will happen to all those images...
Once the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked to exhibit his photographs and he declined; But I hope there will be some kind of dedication to Bill somewhere in New York -- like 57th Street and 5th Avenue where he used to stalk?
Thank you Bill, for being inclusive and enthusiastic about fashion. You've encouraged me to look at it with fresh eyes and greater appreciation. We will miss you.
Iris dazzles thanks to her fun in experimenting with fashion and accessories
On the plane to Vancouver I managed to sleep quite a bit and in the last part of the flight I tried to stay awake. I was probably one of the last people on the planet to watch Frozen and also caught the documentary Iris.
While I now understand the hype about the theme song "Let It Go", it was Iris that resonated with me.
Iris is Iris Apfel, the 94-year-old American interior designer and now fashion icon.
The opening scene shows her dressed up with a number of colourful amber necklaces around her neck and she starts describing her outfit and sense of style. From then onwards you are mesmerized watching the nonagenarian who's an absolute riot, not just visually but verbally too.
She even shops in craft stores to find interesting pieces
She was born in 1921 and married Carl Apfel in 1948. They started doing interior decoration and clients wanted reproductions of fabrics from a century before. As she recalls in the documentary, she bumped into a school friend whose father she remembered was a weaver.
He completed the job well, and they started getting more business, that the weaver asked the couple to go into business with them and that's how they started Old World Weavers.
Apfel says that their clients didn't want to have what others had and so the couple traveled around the world to go on buying trips to find one-of-a-kind items and and fabrics to produce from other weavers. It was then that she started buying one of a kind pieces of clothing or fabrics that she fashioned into wearable items.
Their business did so well that they decorated the White House for nine presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Clinton until the Apfels retired in 1992.
Apfel with husband Carl were in the interior design business
In the documentary they are asked what it was like decorating the White House. Carl starts to talk, hinting Jackie Kennedy was a problem, but then Iris stops him, saying these are things they are not supposed to talk about.
The film watches her as she attends events in New York (even with scenes with New York Times' photographer Bill Cunningham), and various designers exclaim how Iris is so amazing. The praises come thick and fast and Iris can see through all of it, but she's gracious about all the attention.
She mixes and matches things, but her main theme is accessorizing. Her mother had told her that as long as a woman had a good black dress, it could be dressed up or down according to the accessories.
Iris will hunt everywhere and anywhere for anything she thinks is stylish from $4 colourful wooden bangles to even stuffed animals or African prints she's found in a small shop in Brooklyn.
Iris likes mixing and matching items to create new looks
She knows exactly how to put outfits together and layers pieces even though they may not have been purchased in the same place -- that makes it even more interesting for her. Some of her items are Chinese, like fabrics by the Miao minority, or Tibetan bracelets that she quips are so heavy she only wears them if the even she is attending is about 30 minutes long.
While she was well known in design circles, Iris became globally famous after the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005 took a good selection of her clothes and jewellery to demonstrate the creative things people could do with their outfits. Called "Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection", it was one of the more popular exhibitions promoted through word of mouth, and everyone raved about her and her sense of style.
What Iris has that most of us don't is guts. She is very comfortable about standing out and wearing what she does. She doesn't care what others think, only concerned about what she wants to wear, which is her secret to pulling off these eclectic, dramatic, bold looks.
And she will buy everything and anything. Each of their homes is stuffed with clothes, accessories, furniture as well as things from stuffed animals to crazy knick-knacks. Carl seems amused whenever Iris goes shopping -- he jokes that he'd rather his money go to Iris to spend than to the taxman.
However the film also documents Carl getting older, celebrating his 100th birthday with a big bash. And one can see Iris contemplative, worrying about what to do as the two of them get older. Carl passed away in August, just three days shy of his 101st birthday.
There are scenes of Iris going through their storage facility to get rid of some furniture, paintings and accessories. She says her accountant chastised her for not throwing out the items earlier, but she firmly says she wasn't ready at the time. That gives comfort to viewers to know, that not everyone is mentally prepared to let go, even Iris.
The documentary was made by Albert Maysles, in his 80s, and sadly he too died earlier this year.
Interestingly he's sometimes part of the film, inserted here and there, capturing Iris talking directly to him, or when photographer Bruce Weber insists on talking about Maysles, and he can't help but include himself in the documentary.
Iris says young fashion designers today have no sense of history, have no understanding of the evolution of fashion. She says art, politics, history, design, fashion, the economy are all interconnected and one needs to understand all of this to realize what is going on.
She is definitely one of a kind -- and we are sad to hear her dear Carl is gone, but we hope she will keep busy and thrill us more with her striking outfits that scream attention, mixed with witty humour. She shows that one can still be very busy late in life, as she calls herself a "geriatric starlet", who's blooming in her 90s and taking it all in.
