Picture of the Day: Sheep in Stitches

A very big sheep knitting a giant red scarf at Elements

I just came back from dinner at Elements in Kowloon Station and the mall has a cute sheep theme -- no goats!

In one area, there's a gigantic sheep, and its body is a massive ball of yarn, and it is knitting a red scarf perhaps?

And then in another section of the mall there is a flock of sheep, and some of them are decorated with colourful knits. One in particular features crochet outfit of pink flowers and green leaves on its body -- complete with ankle bracelets too!

One sheep looking pretty in pink crochet flowers

The knitted hat on its head makes it look like a grandma sheep.

It's fun seeing how designers come up with different decorations each year. Thank goodness there's 12 animals for Chinese New Year to keep it fresh compared to say Christmas!

Be Like Sheep

An idyllic Chinese New Year garden party at Government House

In his Chinese New Year video message, Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said that last year was a tumultuous one, and suggested that perhaps the city's residents should emulate this year's animal in the Chinese zodiac.

"Last year was no easy ride for Hong Kong. Our society was rife with differences and conflicts, he said. "In the coming year, I hope that all people in Hong Kong will take inspiration from the sheep's character and pull together in an accommodating manner to work for Hong Kong's future," he said.

So the wolf is telling his flock to be more docile and obedient...

Was this a deliberate message or was the metaphor completely lost on him?

Leung Chai-yan continues to create headaches for her dad

While he may be hoping for a relatively trouble-free year in 2015, so far many of his headaches have stemmed from his daughter Leung Chai-yan who has show business aspirations and keen on gaining any attention for herself at the expense of her dad's leadership image.

Officials in Beijing must be smacking their heads with their hands watching the family drama unfold on the sidelines.

For Hong Kong residents this is very amusing, though it's interesting to point out no student activists or pro-democracy leaders are taking advantage of this to smear Leung.

When Leung released the video, he was quick to point out that the children in the video were not paid actors, and that they had "language impairments".

In his message, the wolf tells the people to be like sheep...

But many were quick to point out the wolf and sheep metaphor, which also brings to mind the 2004 Chinese novel Wolf Totem by Lu Jianmin (pen name Jiang Rong), who suggests people should not be sheep who blindly follow others and instead become wolves with free spirits to survive.

Perhaps Hong Kong people should take a page out of Wolf Totem and unleash their independent streaks. Maybe sales of Lufsig will pick up again?

Review: Shaun the Sheep

A fun film for all ages, but particularly for those who love sheep!

On Saturday YTSL and I went to see the preview of Shaun the Sheep, the latest production by Aardman Animation, best known for Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run and The Pirates!

Shaun the Sheep is apparently already a well-known TV character in the UK, and now has his own feature film clocking in at 85 minutes. The animation created by Aardman goes back to the basics of stop animation, where the characters are painstakingly manipulated one frame at a time.

I remember trying to do this during a summer course in animation where we made flipbooks, but also one project we did as a whole class was create a stop animation short moving figures against a colourful background to music. That was fun, but imagine doing this for hours day in, day out... that takes dedication!

Some passersby take pictures on smartphones in the film...

But the latest movie is very cute, where Shaun is a young sheep who is tired of the same old routine everyday on the farm and then is inspired by an ad he sees on the bus to take a break and ends up in the big city. The consequences are funny -- you can't even take your eyes off the screen for one second because there might be something amusing you may have missed.

There are even references to today's modern life, with people taking pictures with their smartphones and using social media...

Also interesting is that the characters don't actually speak a language... everyone mumbles or makes sounds, while the body language makes what they are "saying" very clear.

This not only makes it easier not having to translate the film, but also makes it pretty much universal.

The sheep hanging out with The Farmer -- Is it Nick Park?!

Shaun and his other sheep friends are adorable, though he is the undisputed star of the show.

I hope others will appreciate this style of animation that is different from computer-generated ones. It's like the difference between drawing and taking a photograph: both can be artistic, but drawings can have more depth to them because they were created with a hand, whereas a photograph is done by a machine.

It just makes you appreciate the craft so much more because a lot of work has gone into each second...