The traditional art gets a life-giving boost from young devotees
By Rachel Cheung, Hilda Lee and Frances Sit
Learn the delights of double exposure
By Frances Sit
At first glance, it looks like an ordinary photo showing Hong Kong’s iconic ferry pier at Tsim Sha Tsui. But on top of the images of the pier, ferry and the skyline of Victoria Harbour are shadows of green bushes and white daisy petals.
This photo has not been touched up with Photoshop or any other photo-editing software. It is an artwork of pure accident and coincidence, produced through film swapping.
Film swap involves the double, triple or more multiple exposures created after swapping films with other people. It makes use of a technique in analogue photography, also known as lomography, in which the camera shutter is open more than once to expose the film multiple times, usually to different images. The resulting photograph captures the subsequent images superimposed on the previous ones.
How does film swapping work? After finding a film swapping partner, preferably from another country, shoot a roll of film, rewind and post it to your partner. Your partner then loads the film and shoots over it, without knowing what has been shot before. It makes for an interesting collaboration of photography that transcends space.
Stephanie Fung Mei-lok, a 20-year-old Hong Kong student, experienced the wonder of film swapping earlier this year. After noticing the “LomoLove Across the World” Competition – an international film swap competition organized by Lomography.com – Fung started looking for potential swappers. Wanting to meet new friends who shared the same interest in analogue photography, Fung responded to Ana Clara Barddal Tonocchi, an 18-year-old Brazilian girl who made an online request to swap films.
So, what kinds of photos should we should take for film swapping? In fact, you can shoot photos of anything according to the spontaneity rule of photography. Echoing the theme of the competition, Fung and Tonocchi come up with the idea of the differences in cultures between Hong Kong and Brazil. Tonocchi snapped scenes of her city while Fung took pictures of ferries, MTR stations, park signs, etc. to highlight daily life in Hong Kong. Other subjects, such as flowers and plants are always safe choices that can decorate photos beautifully.
You and your partner can always think of interesting ideas on what to do with your roll of film. Yet, brilliant ideas can still end up in failure as the essence of film swapping is accidents and unpredictability. You never know what pictures your partner has taken, consequently, there are many times when only half of your products are satisfactory.
But this uncertainty in film swapping is exactly that brings about extra excitement and delight when some photos match unexpectedly well. Accidents and mistakes can lead to good and creative photos. Film swapping is just a process of trials and experiments that prompt photographers to shoot without giving it too much thought.
Film swapping gives you thrills and pleasure, especially when your product is about to be revealed. Prior to the unveiling of the film swap there are months of waiting: posting the film to your partner, waiting for your partner’s turn to take photographs, and conducting online discussions with your partner across time zones. After all the possible accidents, unexpected situations, and the long wait, the moment you uncover the final product of film swapping is a moment of surprise and satisfaction.
If you are interested in creating amazing and unique photos, meeting new friends and knowing more about other cultures, start film swapping today and find fellow swappers from around the globe at Lomography.com or Flickr.com.
Edited by Lindy Wong
Free, fun language lessons
By Rachel Cheung
Do you want to learn Spanish, French and German at the same time but find the cost of taking three language courses is too high? Are you too busy to attend the one-hour language course held in an inconvenient location? Do you find the ordinary language courses and teachers are too boring? If you have any of the above problems while learning a foreign language, Duolingo can help you.
Duolingo is a free language-learning website which offers lessons in six languages, namely English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian.
Users learn a new language progressively according to topics in the skill tree of each level. Each lesson or topic comprises a number of “skills” or exercises to make sure users get a good grasp of the language.
In order to move on to the next, more difficult lesson, users are required to complete certain “skills”. Text translating, voice recording, multiple-choice questions and matching are featured in the “skills” to make sure users can practise reading, writing, speaking and listening. If users have prior knowledge of the language, they can skip through the topics in the skills tree by taking a test.
What is fun about Duolingo is that it turns language learning into a game. Against the colorful and lively backdrop, Duolingo lessons are like game battles. In each “skill”, users are given a several lives. If they answer a question incorrectly, a life will be taken away. A user has to repeat the task if they make a mistake and all the lives are lost.
On the other hand, users will gain skill points if they finish the lesson with lives remaining. They will then be promoted to the next level after earning a certain amount of skill points. There are currently 25 levels in a language. If you reach level 25, then congratulations! You have mastered the language.
Other than getting skill points, users will also earn Lingots, which is a virtual currency in Duolingo. For example, you will receive 2 Lingots for finishing a new skill and 1 Lingot for every 10 days on a streak. With Lingots, users can purchase virtual rewards in the game.
Duolingo encourages interaction with people who share the same interest in learning a new language. Users can connect to their Facebook accounts and compete with friends. You can see how many skill points your friends earn on the “Leaderboard” of Duolingo. If you encounter difficulties in learning, users can also raise questions on the discussion forum where native speakers or more advanced learners will reply to them promptly.
Duolinguo is free as it is run by crowdsourcing. The users can translate texts, which are uploaded by organisations such as CNN and Buzzfeed that pay Duolingo to translate them. At the same time, people can also rate and vote on others’ translations. In this way, users can polish their language skills and enjoy Duolinguo without paying a penny.
Don’t worry if you think you don’t have time to check out the Duolingo website. Duolinguo has launched its app for android and Apple mobile devices. Now you can learn languages anywhere and any time. If users do not have mobile data, they can download an hour’s worth of practice while connected to Wi-Fi and practice on the go.
If you want to learn a foreign language free and effectively, sign up now on www.duolingo.com and begin your journey right away.
Edited by Lindy Wong
It seems that more and more young people in Hong Kong are taking an active interest in social and political issues in Hong Kong, to the extent that they are participating. It also seems the young people taking part in social movements are getting younger.
This issue of Periscope looks at several aspects of this phenomenon:
Just over a year ago, the movement against compulsory national education in Hong Kong’s schools galvanised the city. Support for the campaign came from people in different sectors of society and of all ages. But it was the secondary school students rallying under the banner of Scholarism who attracted the most attention. Many in Hong Kong were astonished by the teenagers’ ability to take the initiative to organise and mobilise. Their hunger strike and occupation of the plaza outside the government headquarters proved to be a turning point in the campaign.
Then, last month, tens of thousands of black-clad demonstrators once again occupied what has now become known as Civic Square. This time they were demanding the government explain why it had rejected Hong Kong Television’s bid to operate free-to-air television services. The massive demonstration was, in large part, started by a Facebook page set up by a university student.
In the past, the younger generation in Hong Kong often found themselves described as being unmotivated and having little interest in social issues and politics. Today, we are consistently seeing more and more young people in our society making bold statements on an array of social issues. Most importantly, their actions are as loud as their words. Young people have demonstrated their commitment and their ability to make a difference.
Varsity explored this territory in our April 2010 issue on the young activists referred to as the post-80s. Three years on, young people’s participation in social affairs has not diminished. If anything, it has increased and those taking part are getting younger.
We want to look at what may have triggered the increasing social and political participation among young people, and how that participation is manifested.
To that end, this issue of Varsity looks at the Liberal Studies generation. Given Hong Kong’s notorious examination-oriented education system, it was understandable that in the past, students felt they could ill afford to spend time absorbing information about current affairs that would not be tested in their exams.
But the picture changed after the introduction of Liberal Studies as a compulsory core subject in the New Senior Secondary Curriculum in 2009. The subject should help students develop a more critical mindset, particularly about social issues. Students, teachers and legislators tell us how they view the link between social awareness and social participation.
We also look at some of the alumni groups that emerged during and after the anti-national education movement. Traditionally, alumni associations have been more concerned with organising social and leisure activities than social movements. Yet, over the summer, an alumni group from St. Stephen’s Girls’ College took to the streets to fight against the school’s decision to join the Direct Subsidy Scheme. Some of the core members were students who had only recently graduated from the school. How will the involvement of younger alumni change the dynamics of alumni-school relations?
While young people have become more outspoken, there is a common perception that they are overwhelmingly pro-democracy or anti-establishment. However, it must be remembered there are young conservatives on the pro-establishment side and they too are becoming more outspoken. As they see more radical pan-democrat groups and parties gaining support, particularly from young people, with their bold tactics, it seems natural that they would follow suit.
Social and political participation among Hong Kong’s young people is perhaps more varied than people realise. But whatever their stance or form of expression, it is encouraging to see more young people participating. After all, young people are part of our society and their voices count.
Matthew Leung
Editor-in-Chief
Is Liberal Studies driving young people’s social participation?
By James Fung and Cherry Wong
On a rainy day more than a year ago, a group of teenagers walked barefoot onto a stage in Tamar Park, in front of the government headquarters. Dressed in black, they crossed their arms high in the air to show their opposition to the government’s plan to mandate the Moral and National Education curriculum in Hong Kong’s schools.
By this time, they had already triggered a movement that cut across different sectors and generations of Hong Kong society and had started a hunger strike and occupation of an area outside the headquarters that became known as Civic Square.
They were members of Scholarism, a group of secondary school students, and their success in mobilizing support and media attention took many by surprise. Young people, and expressly secondary students had demonstrated their commitment to social participation and shown they were a force to be reckoned with.
This prompted many to ask what the driving force behind young people’s growing participation in social movements is. The introduction of Liberal Studies as a compulsory school subject has been suggested as a factor.
The subject came under the spotlight recently because it was accused of being too political by critics led by legislator Priscilla Leung Mei-fun. Leung suggested the subject should not be compulsory and that students should study Chinese history instead.
Along with Chinese Language, English Language and Mathematics, Liberal Studies was introduced as one of the compulsory core subjects in the New Senior Secondary Curriculum (NSS) in 2009. There are six modules, namely Personal Development and Interpersonal Relations, Energy Technology and the Environment, Hong Kong Today, Modern China and Globalization and Public Health. Through these modules, Liberal Studies aims to “broaden students’ knowledge base and enhance their social awareness through the study of a wide range of issues”, according to the Education Bureau.
Agnes Chow Ting, is a Form 6 student and a core member of the Scholarism. The 17 year-old says Liberal Studies does increase students’ social awareness. “Before the introduction of Liberal Studies as core subject, there were only three days on which teachers would discuss social issues with students. They are July 1, October 1, and June 4,” she says. Now students have a chance to discuss social issues at least two to three times a week.
Another core member of Scholarism, Tommy Cheung Sau-yin, who is now a second year student of Government & Public Administration at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, says that before the introduction of Liberal Studies, students were embarrassed to talk about politics. To do so would be to risk being labelled as a “freak”. Online posts about politics were considered strange because other people tended to discuss leisure activities and school matters, Cheung recalls.
Taking Liberal Studies makes it more comfortable and natural for students to discuss political issues, and perhaps participate in social movements as well. When Varsity reported on national education for its April 2011 issue, it interviewed Ivan Lam Long-yin who had set up a Facebook group to discuss Liberal Studies and national education. Lam went on to become one of the core members of Scholarism later that same year.
Tommy Cheung Sau-yin says Liberal Studies is often the first contact students have with current issues. But he adds that whether a student then goes on to participate is an individual decision, “Liberal Studies is the foundation while social participation is the building above,” he says.
Rosanna Tsang Yee-wai, an 18 year-old first year medical student agrees Liberal Studies helps her understand more about social issues. She says she has learnt to analyze a social issue from different perspectives after taking the classes. But she says it has not inspired her to take to the streets. “Political participation is not limited to demonstrations; there are other channels for you to express your views,” says Cheng, who prefers to express her opinions in online forums.
Teachers support the view that Liberal Studies has made students more aware of current affairs due to Liberal Studies.
Cheung Yui-fai has taught Liberal Studies for 15 years and is the Director of Education Research Department of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union. He says the traditional school subjects are detached from society. Schools are like hothouses where students need only concentrate on their exams.
Cheung says Liberal Studies opens a window for teachers and students to look beyond the hothouse and at the society around them. However, he does not think this necessarily leads to participation. For Cheung, the wider environment plays a bigger role. “If social conditions are good, students would cheer for the government instead of making criticisms after learning more about current issues.”
Cheung says social and economic conditions have worsened in recent years. The inflation rate and property prices have soared. It is more difficult for young people to make a living and buy an apartment. They are more pessimistic about the future.
At the same time, Cheung says the government does not listen to young people’s opinions and current government policies do not cater for their needs. It seems the government will give concessions to whichever groups make the most noise. Cheung believes it is against this backdrop that young people resort to taking part in direct action and social movements to voice their concerns.
This view is echoed by Joe Lo Tin-yau, the Head of Resource Centre for Interdisciplinary and Liberal Studies of Hong Kong Institute of Education. He says Liberal Studies is not solely responsible for the rise of young people’s social participation in recent years. Instead he points to advances in technology, the emergence of online civil society and the failures and inadequacies of government policies as examples of how the social environment has changed.
“The power of the online civil society is even greater than that of Liberal Studies,” says Lo. Social media gathers people with shared values and interests, creating an online civil society. This online civil society allows people of different backgrounds to communicate instantly and to organize social campaigns. The initial group of discussants then become the core members and invite or attract more people to join, generating a snowball effect.
Lo says another factor leading to greater social and political participation among the young is that political parties or non-governmental organizations (NGO) are holding more activities aimed at young people. There are now more secondary school and university students serving as volunteers or part-time staff of political parties and NGOs.
Although Liberal Studies make students more aware of society and politics, Lo says that awareness and knowledge is only maintained on an academic level. He believes few students have been inspired to participate just because of Liberal Studies. “Strong sensitivity towards current issues and social participation are two different things,” he says.
This has not stopped critics of Liberal Studies, such as legislator Priscilla Leung Mei-fun from being worried about the potential mobilizing power of Liberal Studies.
Leung has said there is too much emphasis on politics in the curriculum. In an interview with Varsity, she says some Liberal Studies teaching materials narrowly focus on specific social movements, such as the Occupy Central movement for universal suffrage. Leung says these materials feature a timetable for Occupy Central movement and equate striving for universal suffrage with Occupying Central.
What is more, she says the materials are “horrible, jumpy and with the purpose of mobilizing students.” Leung says it would be more appropriate to teach students about political theories instead.
Leung also worries that some Liberal Studies teachers may mobilize their students to go on the streets as part of their lessons. “Standards of Liberal Studies teachers vary. As there is no guideline, you can say whatever you like to say,” she says. She adds it would be wrong to encourage students to participate because 15 or 16 year-old secondary students may not be mature enough to understand the risks of taking part in a social action or movement.
Veteran Liberal Studies teacher Cheung Yui-fai dismisses these concerns. He says discussion of political action is only a small part of the course. Besides, the public examination does not expect or require students to adopt any particular stance. Instead students are assessed on their ability to analyse and debate an issue.
“If a teacher asks students to identify with a certain viewpoint, it would be disadvantageous to students’ public exam results. Teachers wouldn’t do that,” he says.
As for events such as the annual June 4th candlelight vigil, Cheung says students usually have their own ideas about participating without any classroom discussion.
He points out that when he does sometimes take his students to observe some protests and actions, such as the Anti-High Speed Rail Campaign in 2009, he lets them decide for themselves whether they want to go. Cheung sends out letters to their parents beforehand to inform them of the trip and holds debriefing sessions with his students afterwards.
He thinks it is important for students to experience and learn more about social issues. “If you deliberately avoid the students from understanding more about the issue, they cannot have a comprehensive view and the conclusion they reach by themselves is more likely to be biased.”
Lui Yu Chun, a former Liberal Studies Teacher and Principal of Graceyard Education Centre says the crux is how teachers introduce the social movement to the students. “If the teacher simply asks the students to participate without any explanation or clarification, he or she is merely mobilizing students,” he says.
However, if the teacher can clearly explain the rationale of the social participation in advance, and debrief students afterwards, it can be a learning experience. In these sessions, students discuss their observations and opinions with the teacher and they analyse what they have seen.
Perhaps most importantly, Lui says students should only take part in social movements on a voluntary basis.
Whether or not taking Liberal Studies really leads to a higher degree of social participation among young people, Lui says that those young people who participate are demonstrating the very things they are expected to learn from Liberal Studies, “They are willing to discuss, to listen to the opinions of others, and to respond. This is the critical and independent thinking that students are learning in Liberal Studies.”
Edited by Lindy Wong
Younger alumni want a bigger say in school policies
By Joyce Cheng and Sharon Lee
The heavens opened and the rain mingled with the tears rolling down the cheeks of a row of young women in drenched blue cheong sams. Undeterred by the amber rainstorm warning, old girls, students and parents of students of St Stephen’s Girls’ College (SSGC) marched around the historic school’s Mid-Levels campus.
They held up signs and sang the school song to protest against the decision to join the Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS), which would allow the school to start collecting fees and cherry pick students from outside its geographical school net.
Standing at the front was Joy Liu Shuk-wah, a third-year student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and an old girl of St Stephen’s. “St Stephen’s across the generations, let us continue our walk, shall we?” proclaimed Liu as the others followed.
The march on July 7 proved to be a turning point in the campaign to stop the school from becoming more selective and illustrated the increasing importance of alumni in influencing school policies.
The alumni movement began to take shape in the campaign against the introduction of a mandatory Moral and National Education (MNE) curriculum last year. In August 2012, the Parents Concern Group on National Education launched a letter campaign encouraging Hong Kongers to write to their respective primary and secondary schools as students, alumni or parents. Of the 5,000 letters that were sent out, 60 per cent were from alumni.
Alumni concern groups sprang up on social media networks and then formed in person to monitor whether and how their schools planned to implement the curriculum, and to oppose such moves.
These groups were very different from the traditional alumni associations found at most schools. These usually offer lifelong membership to any graduates of a school and charge either an annual subscription fee or one-off payment. Association committees organise regular gatherings and activities for members, and are mostly seen as social clubs.
Junior politicians introduce bold ideas to pro-establishment camp
By Yoyo Chan & Hilda Lee
As ever more creative street protests and social campaigns bolster post-handover Hong Kong’s image as the “City of Protest”, the impression many people have is that activists are getting younger and more radical. They are also seen as overwhelmingly pro-democracy.
Dominic Lee Tsz-king is a boyish 29-year-old who became interested in politics while taking a summer course at Britain’s Oxford University as a sixth former and cut his political teeth interning first for US Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign and Democratic Congressman Al Green the following year. Given this history, one would expect Lee to join the pan-democratic camp on his return to Hong Kong after completing his Economics degree.
Not so. Lee joined the Liberal Party and is now chairman of the party’s youth committee. He explains his flirtation with the American Democrats was motivated by youthful disdain for former US President George W. Bush. “To a youngster, George Bush represents something really bad, you don’t want to be associated with anything that is represented by him,” says Lee.
When Lee came back to Hong Kong, he interned at the office of former Liberal Party leader and legislator James Tien Pei-chun and realised his politics were far more aligned with the party of business.
“The Liberal Party is a right-wing political party based upon neoliberalism. Yet, many people hold misconceptions about us. They are confused about whether we are pro-business, pro-establishment or the centre,” says Lee.
Hong Kong has long been a city where free-market and entrepreneurial values are deeply entrenched and they are precisely the values held by the Liberal Party. But small government advocates like Lee feel the city has been drifting in a more welfare-orientated, interventionist direction.
He felt something had to be done to get the Liberal Party’s right-wing image across.
Earlier this year, Lee came up with an unusual move. He noted that Longhair Leung Kwok-hung’s Che Guevara T-shirts had become synonymous with the radical democrat legislator. Lee proposed the Liberal Party should also use a famous figure to illustrate their political ideology.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was one of the obvious candidates as an icon of neoliberalism. But there were fears her image might lead to accusations of pro-British sentiment and colonial nostalgia. So, the party plumped for former American President Ronald Reagan instead. A baby blue T-shirt bearing Reagan’s likeness and his quote “The best social program is a job!” has become the new symbol of a party previously associated with business suits.
Adverse possession cases expected to rise as land disputes between squatters and landowners increase
By Silvia Li and Frances Sit
At first glance, Ching Kee seems like an ordinary neighbourhood food stall. Boxes of fruit are piled in the front of the shop. The blender whizzes away to produce the store’s signature fruit juice mixes. But look closely at the menu and two items stand out: “After the bitter comes the sweet” (苦盡甘來) and “Kept you” (留得住你). The names of the drinks tell the story of how the store’s owners fought for and kept this 100 sq ft store on the ground floor of Ka Ming Court, an industrial building in Lai Chi Kok.
They managed to do so by claiming adverse possession, or squatters’ rights.
Owner Yeung Mau-cheong, who is in his 70s, has worked in the store for 46 years. He and his mother started the business in 1967 on what was then wasteland. Four years later, Ka Ming Court was built around the food store, incorporating it into a part of the building’s ground floor.
The store means a lot to Yeung and his family. It is where he met his wife, Lam Yuet-ching, known affectionately as Sister Ching. Lam recalls how Yeung would serve her drinks from the stall so he could talk to her. Lam took over the running of the stall from her mother-in-law in 1983 and it was named Ching Kee after her.
While running the stall, Yeung and Lam have raised four children. They have also made firm friends with their customers, with whom they regularly play mahjong and go to have dim sum.
One day in 2009, Yeung started receiving lawyer’s letters from the owners’ corporation of Ka Ming Court. The letters claimed the land on which Ching Kee was operating did not belong to the Yeungs but was part of the public area of the building. They warned Ching Kee would be torn down if the Yeungs refused to leave.
After several attempts to reach an agreement with the owners’ corporation failed, the Yeungs felt they had no choice but to fight back using a method suggested by one of their customers – adverse possession.
Adverse possession is a way of acquiring ownership of a piece of land by occupying it for a certain period of time without the consent of the landowner. The Limitation Ordinance (Cap 347) states that if the landowner takes no action to recover his land, his legal title would expire after a period of time.
The required minimal period is 12 years for private land and 60 years for government land in Hong Kong. According to the Law Reform Commission, 74 adverse possession disputes were brought to court between 2007 and 2011.
The Yeungs took their case to court in 2010 and after three years of hearings, they persevered. In the Yeungs favour was the fact they had water and electricity bills to prove their encroachment on the land; also, they had never been asked to pay rent although the owners’ corporation had long known of the shop’s existence.
“Justice exists in everyone’s heart,” Yeung says. “You don’t have any reason to take away the store we’ve been in for so long.”
Poll of university students finds more than half want to emigrate from fast-paced, polluted and expensive city
By Rachel Cheung and Cindy Ng
Frederick Au Tsz-ho was 15 and a Form Five student when his family left Hong Kong for Canada. Not wanting to leave his friends and his hometown, he decided to stay behind.
That was five years ago and Au is now studying Civil and Structural Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Looking back, he regrets his decision. “I feel Hong Kong isn’t right for me,” he says.
It is not the having to look after himself, the cooking, cleaning and other chores that have put Au off life in Hong Kong. What bothers him is the prospect of life after he graduates. “I hadn’t realised there would be so many practical problems after graduation. For example, it is hard to buy a flat in Hong Kong, the high property prices, the price of goods is high.”
The breakneck pace of life, long working hours and the pollution are also things Au says he can do without.
Despite the fact that his mother and sister are thinking of returning to Hong Kong, Au is considering emigrating, preferably to a European country, where he thinks he would not have to contend with so many people and so much pressure.
Au is not the only disillusioned Hong Kong youngster yearning to leave the city. Many are increasingly fed up with the high property prices and fast-paced lifestyle, the frequent social and political conflicts and constant scandals concerning government officials.
A survey conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Education and other organisations in July this year, found that nearly 40 per cent of the respondents aged between 15 and 34 believed Hong Kong would become more corrupt in the next five years.
With society seemingly more divided and tensions between Hong Kongers and mainlanders increasing daily, emigration has become a hot topic in the city. In order to understand how local university students view emigration, Varsity surveyed 207 students at five local universities (the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Hong Kong Baptist University).