Hong Kong Finally Doing Something About its Crap

We are pleased to read in the news today that the government has set up the Food Wise Hong Kong Steering Committee that will work out how to cut food waste by 10 percent in the next three years.

The committee is headed by Environment Secretary Wong Kam-sing and includes executives from Maxim's, Wellcome supermarket, food bank representatives, school principals, academics and environmental groups.

Wong pledged to introduce municipal sold waste charges by 2016 and consult the public next year on how to collect the fees.

He did not publicly say what the timetable was to cut down food waste, but sources said 2015 was the target.

"We are introducing the Food Wise campaign as a response to the chief executive's election platform to 'terminate' food waste," Wong said.

This would involve changing household habits, establish codes of practice for trades and facilitate donations of unused food to charities. It would also include having government and public bodies set a good example for the public.

A shocking 40 per cent of Hong Kong's solid waste is food and the volume is expected to increase as the economy grows. Last year more than 3,500 tonnes of food waste was dumped in landfills that are fast filling up.

Greeners Action executive director Angus Ho Hon-wai is a member of the committee that will meet for the first time Thursday. He thought a 10 percent reduction was definitely doable, he believed it could be tripled to 30 percent in the right conditions.

"It really depends on how much effort is put into it, how government departments work together, and whether the top leaders throw their full weight behind it," he said.

Meanwhile Friends of the Earth conducted a poll last month and found that 65 percent of the 1,000 respondents supported a waste disposal fee. The result is an increase of 13 percentage points since the group's previous poll in March.

We also think 10 percent is a shockingly low target, but perhaps it's one of those things where you under promise and overachieve. While we are pleased to see strong affirmative action on food waste by the government, what about other kinds of solid waste, particularly ones that can be recycled?

We cannot wait much longer for the government to finally step in and do something about recycling glass, paper, plastics and e-waste.

When everyone starts learning to separate garbage and compost, solid waste into landfills is going to dramatically drop.

It's such a simple thing to encourage people to do and yet the government cannot get its act in order to make this happen.

We need something done now.

Christmas: The Hong Kong Version

Santa Claus is checking his list at the Mandarin

Christmas decorations are coming up fast and furious in Hong Kong.

Yesterday Cheung Kong was one of the last few buildings to put up Christmas lights while the shopping malls and other office buildings are in full swing.

Shall we do a quick round up of who's are pretty and who's are weird?

A knitted forest with reindeer at IFC mall in Central

In the strange category is IFC mall in Central which has the theme of "Forest Fantasy" --  there are reindeer with massive antlers and lots of squirrels and foxes in white in a forest covered in... yarn. While we love the intricate design of covering massive armchairs in cable knits, what do these pieces of furniture have to do with the forest?

And then at Elements in Kowloon station they have created a scaled-down display compared to last year. In 2011, the Christmas-themed display was literally floor-to-ceiling and had a gigantic throne theme a la C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We wondered who was supposed to sit there... Santa Claus, Mrs Claus, and ? Or were they harking back to Harry Potter and the houses of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin?

Brilliant colours at Elements but what's with the toadstools?

This year the mall presented a fantasy garden theme, with a large green tree sprouting long twisted limbs, surrounded by massive red flowers and red and white toadstools, reindeer and some Christmas trees. We like the brilliant use of colour, but toadstools? How are these poisonous fungi Christmas related? Nevertheless we appreciate the effort to create something less intimidating than last year.

Then further along in the mall is a weird living room set up that is completely wrapped a la Christo in a haphazard selection of knits. The "fireplace", coffee table, the floor and even the baby grand piano are covered in these funky knits that don't quite exude a festive feeling.

Funky living room setup for Christmas at Elements

On the "wall" it says, "Happiness is an Inside Job". Huh?

Or are they promoting a DIY Christmas crafty thing? Then we wouldn't be spending money in a mall, would we?

Meanwhile at the Mandarin Oriental cake shop, there's a massive sculpture made of marzipan of Santa Claus going over his very long list with his elves getting ready for Christmas Eve. we like that he isn't dressed in his red suit yet. But in another display window is a beautiful three-layered cake... made entirely of pink marzipan ribbon.

We appreciate the intricacies in creating such a piece... but don't quite understand the meaning of it. Perhaps it's more appropriate for Valentine's Day?

Check out the moving gondola up above at The Landmark

This year Landmark has a massive "snow" mountain and on top of it is a small but working gondola. Wow. If they had automated figures that skied down the hill, now that would be impressive.

However the mall periodically has ice carvers creating something out of block of ice using chainsaws which is interesting. It's an art where you have to work fast otherwise it's melted by the time you're done.

Nearby is Chater Garden where the Christmas event is sponsored this year by Tiffany & Co. The jeweller built a working carousel for people (ie children) to ride on and there's a small gift shop to buy candy. Too bad no Tiffany jewellery-inspired candy as I can't afford the real thing.

Kids in front of the Tiffany-coloured carousel at Chater Garden

We wonder if corporatizing a public space is a good idea. Does Chater Garden really belong to Hong Kong Land? If it isn't owned by the company, is Hong Kong Land renting the space?

Bird Watching @ Hong Kong Park

A close-up shot of a Green Imperial Pigeon

Yesterday after dim sum in Central, YTSL and I headed to Hong Kong Park to check out the aviary.

This bird is keen for visitors to identify, sitting near the board

I hadn't visited Hong Kong Park in a long time. Many years ago I lived for a few months up on Kennedy Road and would go through Hong Kong Park to get to and from Admiralty MTR station. Every night it was so refreshing to walk into the park after work and literally leave the buzz of the city and pass through such a quiet area where you could hear birds chirping or the flutter of wings.

When we went it wasn't too busy and we steadied our cameras the best we could to get some shots of the birds. The aviary was opened in 1992 and is named after the late Sir Edward Youde, who was governor of Hong Kong from 1982 to 1986.

Inside it is mostly a man-made space with a streambed with waterfalls and shallow pools and the aviary boasts some 600 birds from 80 species from what is called "Malesia", a biogeographical region between the boundaries of the Indomalaya ecozone and Australasia ecozone.

The birds don't seem to mind us humans being in the aviary

Visitors could identify the birds thanks to numerous postings with illustrations of the birds and their names.

While we probably saw at least 100 birds, there were 500 more we didn't see.

In the pond we saw the Australian pelican, who seemed to be grooming himself on a log as the fish swam near him. Were the fish taunting him, or was he just not hungry? And near the pond were two Golden Pheasants who enjoyed each other's company.

We saw the Bali Mynah, mostly white except for a few black feathers on its wings, and the Black-capped Lory, a very colourful bird pecking away at a whole piece of corn that was dangling from a rope.

Birds of a feather flock together with this pair of pigeons

There were also many Green Imperial Pigeon, and one in particular just sat there on a branch letting us humans take pictures of it. For the most part the birds didn't mind us being there, or were they resigned to the fact that we would be aiming strange machines at them?

In any event we had a lot of fun observing the birds and thought they had a nice place to hang out. For the most part, the walkways are kept quite clean, and so it must be a challenge scrubbing the place each morning before visitors arrive.

We'd like to thank the Hong Kong government for carving out some space for this park in the city; it's a welcome respite and fun place to visit -- for free!

A Bali Mynah calling out in gutteral tones

Aviary
Hong Kong Park
Open daily 9am to 5pm
http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/parks/hkp/en/index.php

Gallery Hopping at Pedder

Murakami's smiling flowers painted on a flat "ball"

On Thursday evening I went to the opening of Takashi Murakami's first solo exhibition in Hong Kong presented by Gagosian Gallery in Pedder Building.

The lobby was packed with people waiting for the two operating elevators (the third was out of order) or they didn't want to stand around and walked up several flights of stairs to get to the seventh floor.

In the gallery we could only have our drinks in the foyer and bags had to be checked in if we wanted to wander inside.

A Buddha-esque smiley flower in the lotus position

There were lots of artsy types wearing stylish unconventional outfits, and many were Japanese, thrilled to see the artist's work displayed in the city.

I was already familiar with Murakami's work thanks to Louis Vuitton's creative director Marc Jacobs who enlisted the artist to design his smiley-faced plum blossoms on the signature LV bags. It was a hit to say the least and gave huge exposure to the Japanese artist outside his home country.

Murakami describes his art as "superflat", where it combines the aesthetics of Japanese traditional art with post-war Japanese society and culture. There are two reasons for this; one is that Japan has had a tradition of two-dimensional imagery in Japanese art throughout history and continues to this day in manga and anime. The other explanation of superflat is that Murakami makes what one considers "low art" and repackaging it as "high art". Then he repackages "high art" as T-shirts and plush toys at affordable prices.

"Superflat" combines tradition and contemporary together

His exhibition here is entitled "Takashi Murakami: Flowers & Skulls" and I returned this afternoon and it was nice to see the pieces without the crowds.

YTSL and I saw one of his pieces at the Hong Kong Art Fair back in May and so we had a hint of what was to come. He juxtaposes his famous smiley flowers with skulls, making them colourful and even glittery, simultaneously presenting joy and terror. It's an uneasiness one feels, happy to see the smiling flowers and yet there are skulls right next to them, foreshadowing their fate?

His art looks cartoonish but very elaborate in execution

There are other pieces with just the skulls alone covering the entire space and it seems Murakami is making death a beautiful thing.

But there are some other smiley flowers we enjoyed viewing, and I particularly liked the round piece that was painted to look three dimensional, and another one that was Buddha-esque with pink lotus petals surrounding a smiley face.

Murakami also presented some self portraits, cartoon portrayals of himself in various moods and again smiley flowers in the background. There are some speech bubbles that are written in Japanese, but the English translations don't seem to make much sense!

Muniz's works look like old master paintings from far away

Then a few floors down we checked out Ben Brown Fine Arts which is showing "Vik Muniz: Pictures of Magazines 2".

From a distance the pieces look like oil paintings from famous paintings created with thick brushes of paint. But on closer inspection, it's a collage of magazine images carefully ripped out and put together, many of them having significance in contributing to the meaning of the entire piece.

The collage is then photographed to create another new piece of work.

So the Brazilian Muniz isn't just a photographer -- he's an artist who works in three dimension, shooting in two.

This lemon looks like it was created with thick oil paint

Some of the images look like old master Dutch paintings such as still life against a black background, another is Edouard Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergeres, but practically recreated in a collage form.

As YTSL says, these works are examples of post-modern art, where the viewer must have some knowledge of art history to understand and appreciate the work, but then there is debate about how this kind of art is not moving the development of art forward as it depends solely on the past to exist.

A still life "painting" of flowers

I like the pieces, probably because I have some knowledge of art history and find Muniz's work interesting. The words and images tediously put together are contemporary, and yet they create or recreate a painting from the past.

Muniz not only works with magazine images, but also other unusual materials including sugar, chocolate, diamonds, dust, caviar, paper hole-punches and junk.

Takashi Murakami: Flowers & Skulls
November 29, 2012-February 13, 2013
Gagosian Gallery
7/F, Pedder Building
12 Pedder Street
Central
2151 0555
www.gagosian.com

Up close the "painting" is actually a collage of magazine images

Vik Muniz: Pictures of Magazines 2
November 21, 2012-February 8, 2013
Ben Brown Fine Arts
3/F, Pedder Building
12 Pedder Street
Central
2522 9600
www.benbrownfinearts.com