Hongkongers Should Live Better with Pride

 

Douglas Young (left) talks about his lifestyle brand, G.O.D.

Yesterday Douglas Young, the founder of G.O.D. or Goods of Desire, came to our office for an informal chat with some of us.

He is the creative brainchild behind this Hong Kong lifestyle brand to show his love for the city, how it has unique features, and how they can be turned into fun products. By the way G.O.D. is a homophonic translation of the Cantonese, "住好啲" or ju ho di which means "to live better".

Chinese culture inspires Young's design creativity

And the brand has many of these homophonic references that make it more fun for locals than for non-Chinese who don't have a deep understanding of the language.

Anyway, Young explains when he was young he went to school in the UK and ended up studying architecture but didn't practice it. He says architecture is all about maximizing space which seemed kind of boring to him.

By the time he came back to Hong Kong, Young says he had spent the same amount of time in Hong Kong as he did in the UK and felt he was straddling two worlds. When his UK friends visited Hong Kong they would point out things they found interesting that he thought was mundane; he later realized the city could be the inspiration for products that are unique about the place.

One of his more attention-grabbing slogans is "Delay No More", which sort of sounds like the Cantonese swear word 屌你老母 or diu lei loh mo, basically "f*** you". But in English without any context it can mean don't waste time, which is what Hong Kong is about too.

A G.O.D. store in Central with "Delay No More" on it

Not all of his products are related to dirty words -- instead there are fun T-shirts, and Chinese-style jackets and qipaos, environmental shopping bags with porcelain designs, panda-shaped pillows for sleeping on planes, notebooks and file folders with old school mail boxes or tenement buildings,

He feels it's important to promote Hong Kong, and locals should have pride in the city too. Young says maybe because of its colonial history that Hongkongers look down on local things and prefer Western things, but he thinks the city has so much potential if we give it a chance.

Someone in the audience asked him what he thought of local design schools in Hong Kong and Young replied they are fine, but the students are not given an opportunity to work on projects. For example he says at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, there are projects to develop a space in the school or design chairs and so on, and the design students there are not given an opportunity to take on this real world challenge, and instead outside professionals are hired.

Some fun creative items that can be bought at the G.O.D. store

Young continued, saying there wasn't enough patronage of the arts in Hong Kong, not like in Europe and the United States, and that the government should take the lead on this to nurture local talent, to give them opportunities and to show them they can make a living from doing design.

Then he hinted -- well not hinted, he said straight out that he was looking for someone, a creative mind to take over his business. Young said he didn't mind selling G.O.D., but that would mean he would have to continue generating the ideas for the business, so no one would buy it, he said with a laugh.

But he seems to come up with a lot of ideas all the time, and his passion for Hong Kong, and things Chinese are great -- some aren't executed well, but he has the idea, and that's important. The city is lucky to have Young trying to do some creative stuff and make locals proud of their hometown.

Picture of the Day: Fake Pandas

How do these pandas in Shanghai...

Last year it was the Rubber Duck that captivated Hong Kong last summer and then China had to do one (or many) better by creating its own versions. The one in Beijing for instance had to be bigger than the one in Hong Kong...

And then this year it's the pandas. There were 1,600 pandas that invaded the city last month, a project presented by WWF to bring to attention there are only 1,600 pandas left in the wild.

... compare to these ones that visited Hong Kong recently?

Now that the cute black and white creatures have left (presumably on the Cathay Pacific flight that they arrived on), Shanghai has decided to copy Hong Kong again.

One thousand toy pandas with various facial expressions were placed the steps of the Shanghai World Financial Centre for a promotional event.

While they attracted onlookers with cameras, these pandas are hardly as cute as those created by French artist Paulo Grangeon.

Just another sad commentary of how the mainland strives to be cool, and yet it can only think of copying what's already been done before...

Picture of the Day: Panda-monium

The panda invasion begins today in Hong Kong until July 17

They're here! Today 1,600 papier mache pandas arrived at Hong Kong International Airport, then visit 10 sites like the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Ma Wan, Victoria Park and Statue Square until June 21, before occupying PMQ in Sheung Wan from June 24 to July 17.

The pandas have already visited places like France, Taiwan, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands since 2008.

French artist Paulo Grangeon created the critters, each one representing a real one, captive or in the wild, which is not a lot.

Sculptor Paulo Grangeron at the airport with his 1,600 pandas

The traveling exhibition called 1600 Pandas is part of a fundraising campaign by the WWF to raise awareness about the plight of the cuddly black and white animal.

"If all humans die, all animals will survive with the earth," said Grangeon. "But if all animals die, the earth and humans will disappear."

He said that back in 2008, Serge Orru, then director of WWF in France asked him to create the panda sculptures.

"As a sculptor, I made art and showed it to only 100 people at a gallery. But now, these pandas have inspired many to help the environment," Grangeron said.

They are made from recycled paper in Thailand and environmentally-friendly paint, and over 10,000 have been made, as some are "adopted" for fundraising for a modest fee.

In Hong Kong there are three sizes and two shapes to choose from with "adoption" prices ranging from HK$200 to HK$450.

The panda flash mob has already visited Paris...

Alternatively the public can make their own pandas for HK$188 which will be exhibited and once the show is over, they can take home their pandas.

This panda project is a great follow-up to the Rubber Duck that came last year at this time, except here there is a strong environmental message and encouraging people to interact and take part.

Sixteen hundred papier mache pandas may look like a lot, but in reality that's not a lot of pandas on the planet. We hope more will be born in the wild and not be raised in captivity because the less they depend on us the better.

By the same token we should not be encroaching too much on their habitat and let them be.

Only through greater awareness can we create change.

Now how can I "adopt" a panda...