World Press Photo Exhibition

Dancer Musa Motha by Alon Skuy

 

The 2020 World Press Photo Exhibition is in its 63rd year and this is the third time it has been shown in Hong Kong.

This year it was supposed to be held on March 1 at Hong Kong Baptist University in Kowloon Tong, but it was abruptly cancelled in late February by the university's officials who were concerned after a pro-Beijing media outlet, DotDotNews attacked the tertiary institution for "inciting violence".

School girls on the way to protest in Hong Kong

Management was concerned pro-Beijing figures would come to the show and stage a protest over the Hong Kong images, and then draw pro-democracy activists to counter protest which could then possibly result in a clash.

So the university cited "campus security" and the coronavirus pandemic as reasons why the exhibition was called off.

Luckily the event was back on March 28, this time in a co-working space in Admiralty, with visitors having to preregister online to ensure only a certain number of people were inside the room per hour.

I managed to catch the show today, the second last day, after work and when the elevator doors opened, there was a large crowd of people waiting to get into the show, filling out paper health declaration forms and showing their confirmation emails to go in.

A first-aider in shock of being arrested

The exhibition shows the best images from the annual photo contest that began in 1955 when a group of Dutch photographers organized an international photo contest to expose their work to a global audience.

It is now shown in 120 cities in 50 countries, and this year, 4,282 photographers from 125 countries entered 73,996 photographs to the contest.

There were photographs of the 2019 anti-government protests by Danish photographer Nicolas Asfouri. It's a series of pictures including school girls in a blue and white uniform holding hands on their way to a "human-chain" protest looking defiant and confident, while another shows a young man who is a first aider pinned down by a police officer on the ground, his facial expression reveals shock at what has happened to him, on his chest are vials of saline solution to treat people for tear gas.

A roadrunner looks at the US-Mexico wall

To be honest these pictures were not the best ones taken during the social unrest, but it is good to see the protests included in the exhibition.

Photographer Alon Skuy of South Africa, took a beautiful portrait of a young man, Musa Motha, who was a promising football [soccer] player, but at the age of 11 had his leg amputated because of cancer. He took up dancing instead and uses his crutches and gravity to create his moves and now performs professionally with the Vuyani Dance Theatre in Johannesburg.

A striking photograph is of a giant barbed wire fence and a roadrunner looking at it inquisitively. It was captured by Mexican Alejandro Prieto of the wall then US President Donald Trump was building along the US-Mexico border. There were concerns the wall would negatively affect 23 endangered and at-risk species. With Biden administration in office, construction of the wall has halted, but nothing yet has been decided.

A car melted by the Australian fires

The Australian fires were shocking to see in the news -- remember those koalas that had to be rescued by humans? Here photographer Matthew Abbott for the New York Times captured the heat of the intense fires with a burnt out car that is melting. Aluminum melts at 660.3 degrees Celsius and there's streams of the melted metal emanating from the vehicle creating an eerie sight. 

The Toronto Raptors had an amazing run in 2019, winning the NBA Championships. Canadian photographer Mark Blinch shot a great picture of the game-winning shot of the Raptors against the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semi-finals in Toronto. Every person's reaction is captured -- almost all of them eyeing the ball go into the basket, as if frozen in time. It could have been a painting of that moment. Amazing.

The final second of the Raptors vs 76ers game

There are other horrific stories, like that of Belarusian women who were forced to have abortions. One woman had a wooden leg when she was pregnant by her boyfriend but he left her when his mother told him she didn't want a disabled daughter-in-law. Another aborted after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, worried she could not handle another child (she already had one). One young woman was sexually assaulted by her boss. All these women did not reveal their faces or names.

In addition there were mages of people fleeing Isis, people burying their loved ones, others just trying to survive under the Taliban, or being defiant and holding protests in the streets, but unsure of what would happen.

Animals were also subjects, with one pangolin held by the tail as a cook is about to butcher it for a meal, or orphaned orangutans clutching onto their human mothers for a chance at survival, and a polar bear mother and cub inspecting flags posted on the Arctic Circle. 

A pangolin about to become someone's dinner

So glad to be able to see this exhibition and see what all the fuss was about. Everyone in the room was respectful and quiet in looking at the pictures, so why cancel it? This is an international photo exhibition that deserves to be shown, photographers capturing moments as they saw them. They help us witness what is happening around the world.

 

Protest Against Extradition Law Goes Global

A global protest will be held this Sunday

My friend YTSL has just sent me a poster letting the public know there will be protest marches against the extradition bill held in 17 cities around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne and Tokyo.

Organizers of the Hong Kong march are hoping to get 500,000 people out like what happened on July 1, 2003 when half a million people came out to protest against the Hong Kong government's plans to pass Article 23, an anti-subversion law.

The massive protest led to then leader Tung Chee-hwa stepping down as well as Secretary for Security Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee. Article 23 was shelved and Beijing is still waiting for it to be passed.

But back to the upcoming protest this Sunday against the extradition law. If there are massive protests not only in Hong Kong but around the world, Beijing may think twice -- if it wants to have good standing on the global stage.

However, if Beijing believes the world is interfering in its internal affairs then the bill will be passed in the Legislative Council on Wednesday, after the government bypassed more stringent scrutiny by a committee following chaos in the legislature.

After that there won't be much we can do... now is the time to tell the government (and Beijing) how we feel about the extradition law this Sunday!

Remembering Tiananmen 30 Years Later

The Goddess of Democracy greets attendees

It's hard to believe it's been 30 years since the bloody crackdown on students and Beijing citizens at Tiananmen Square. And even today there are new images, new stories being told, people who now have the courage to share them three decades on.

I attended the candlelight vigil at Victoria Park tonight and was worried about the weather because it rained heavily in the morning. I brought a plastic raincoat just in case as well as plastic bags to sit on, but when we got there, a few drops fell just before 8pm and then stopped. The weather gods were cooperating.

Lots of candles were lit this year in Victoria Park

Organizers say 180,000 people came, well over the 115,000 who were here last year. All six football pitches and the emergency vehicles access areas were all filled. When I left just before 9.30pm and walked towards the Tin Hau MTR station, there were lots of people standing behind the stage with candles. A pretty amazing turnout.

Every year the ceremony is pretty much the same... you have to wonder why we go through the same songs and same speeches. But the eyewitness account by Liane Lee was very moving for me, as I translated for a friend.

She now lives in Toronto, but Lee came to Hong Kong this year to speak about her experience that night in 1989. She said she and other students were at the Beijing Hotel and wanted to go to Tiananmen Square. But when they came down to the lobby, a student rushed in and said the army was going to clear the square.

Lee and the other Hong Kong students refused to budge, but then she could hear from behind the museum gunfire and Lee witnessed bodies on the ground. Later a young high school student came with a giant rock in his hand and said his older brother was killed; he wanted to get back at the PLA.

The event lasted over two and a half hours in Victoria Park

It was at this point a vehicle came to rescue the Hong Kong students and whisk them away. Again Lee said she and the other students were fine and staying put. But a female doctor grabbed her by the hand and said it was not safe for them; she instructed Lee to go back to Hong Kong and tell the world what she had seen.

At this point Lee paused because she was overcome with emotion, but was determined to press on. She said that she goes to the vigil every year in Toronto and remembers the sights and the sounds, the voices that night. She is sad that she doesn't remember the victims' names, but encouraged the crowd that we must continue to persist to remember them and their sacrifice.

This year the Tiananmen Mothers gave a highly charged political speech given by Zhang Xianling. Standing in a group in a video message, Zhang said it heartened the Tiananmen Mothers to see that Hong Kong marked the massacre every year, since they were forbidden to do so on the mainland.

A mini candle vigil where people left their candles burning

"For 30 years, the candlelight has accompanied us through difficult times and warmed our hearts," she says. "It has been 30 years since the crackdown. On that bloody night, the sounds of the gun shots... have forever stayed in our minds. The Chinese government cannot just wipe away the bloodshed by branding it as 'political turmoil'," she adds.

Zhang also vented her frustration of the police preventing them from properly mourning the loss of their sons and daughters, and that the Chinese government has to be accountable for what happened 30 years ago.

Since 1989, 57 of the parents who are part of the Tiananmen Mothers group have passed away; some of their portraits were shown on the screen to also remember them.

Singer and music producer Anthony Wong Yiu-ming also came on stage. He said every year he came as an attendee but this year he was on stage because "one country, two systems" almost doesn't exist anymore.

"For the past 30 years, I have never come on this stage. I am not used to joining protests or chanting slogans," he says before singing Memories of Guilt.

Another new item was a video called "I am a journalist. My June 4 story", with clips of reporters, editors and photographers recalling their experiences covering the massacre.



The trailer goes by fast, but there are other video testimonies available on YouTube.

Carrie Lam mocked as a Communist

One of them was Arthur Tsang, a photographer who took the iconic tank man photo, but his was released after fellow photojournalist Jeff Widener's, which is the one most people know of.

The police have said attendance tonight was 37,000 which is absolutely ridiculous... how will Chief Executive Carrie Lam explain this to Beijing?

Laobaixing Capital Outflows

Chinese nationals can only take out US$50,000 per year

I caught up with several friends in Beijing, both locals and expats, and the big issue for them was getting money out of China.

In the news Beijing is trying to stop capital outflows in the hundreds of billions of dollars. While one might think this mostly applies to large companies, it affects ordinary people, or laobaixing too.

My expat friend was having a hard time because his wife who is Chinese, has a fledgling business in the Chinese capital and they have to pay suppliers up front who are outside of China. They try to wire the money out, but their bank stops them, saying they aren't allowed to do this transaction. He says it's random -- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

And then for my local friends, getting money out has become a big obsession. Over lunch two of them were excitedly going over ways, from buying up US dollars and even the pound Sterling -- they think it'll go up after Brexit (?!), and even going to Hong Kong to buy life insurance.

Locals are anxious to get their money out of China

"Buying life insurance products there aren't just for life insurance -- it's an investment vehicle," one said.

Then during dinner with another friend, she announced to me that she had bought a condo in Toronto -- and her husband didn't even know about it!

She doesn't even know where in Toronto it is, but it was her second best choice after Vancouver made it harder for foreign investors to buy property. "Maybe when my daughter grows up she can go to school in Toronto and live in the apartment," she said.

This friend used to work in state media and now works for one of the big Chinese internet companies, and so her salary must be exponentially larger than what she used to earn 10 years ago when I met her.

That on top probably extra money from her parents has enabled her to invest abroad.

And she's only 30.

I asked all these friends why they were so concerned about getting money out of China, and they said they didn't have confidence in the government.

They also said the yuan was depreciating and so they wanted some guarantee for their hard-earned money.

But it is a vicious cycle -- the more people invest in foreign currencies, the further the yuan depreciates, and that makes them even more worried, and they continue to exchange more money.

Beijing is very anxious about the situation. Currently each person can take out a maximum of US$50,000 per year. That will be halved next year.

These further restrictions are making people even more anxious, and there's no end in sight...

Lessons Learned from Rocky Ride

One of 22 passengers on AC 088 who was sent to hospital to treat injuries

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada says two investigators are continuing to  look into what happened when severe turbulence hit an Air Canada flight 088 from Shanghai to Toronto where the flight was diverted to Calgary.

Twenty-one passengers were sent to hospital with seriously injuries, while the rest were eventually flown back to Toronto.

Described as "the flight from hell", the 332 passengers and 19 crew experienced 40 minutes of severe turbulence, estimated to be when the plane was over Alaska. Some passengers reported people were thrown out of their seats and hit the ceiling.

At one point oxygen masks came down from the ceiling

If that is the case, then they were the ones who did not wear seat belts. It is believed many of them were probably Chinese.

Several flight attendants have told me over the years how difficult it is to deal with Chinese passengers, particularly from mainland China.

The flight attendants tell stories of parents changing their baby's diapers on the fold down table, or handing plastic cups filled with warm yellow liquid and dirty diapers, and the usual of going to the washroom during turbulence, or jumping out of their seats as soon as the plane touches down.

One who works for a Canadian airline told me today that he has to remind passengers that while he understands they may need to pee, going to the loo while the airplane passes through turbulence puts them at risk.

There was a big mess after the turbulence

He basically said if he was working during severe turbulence like the Air Canada flight, he would not be risking his life to go down the aisle to make sure everyone had their seat belts on. "That's what the seat belt sign is for."

The passengers who were severely injured cannot sue the airline because they were forewarned in Chinese (Putonghua), English and French to wear their seat belts ahead of time.

Hopefully the news of this Air Canada flight will be a strong reminder to all passengers that they really need to buckle up. They aren't necessarily going to fall over, but they might fall out of their chairs and up onto the ceiling...