By Charley Ho, Daniel Paek and Roy Ng

“If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine,” Natalia Gschöpf, a Ukrainian artist, who has been living for six years in Hong Kong says. 

Her comments come as the European Union hosted a seminar to express support for and solidarity with the people of Ukraine, marking the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Since 2014, Russia has initiated conflicts by invading and subsequently annexing the Crimean Peninsula, a sovereign territory of Ukraine.

“In October 2014, one of my very close friends lost his life in the battle. Since then, there have been so many names,” Gschöpf says. 

The Ukrainian artist shares that many cultural sites have been the main targets in recent attacks launched by Russia.

“Russia has been targeting our cultural sites and trying to kill our heritage,” she says.

About 342 cultural sites in Ukraine have been destroyed including 127 religious sites, 150 buildings of historical and artistic interest, 31 museums, 19 monuments, 14 libraries, and 1 archive, according to the UNESCO official report published in February 2024.

“Any of these destruction of culture and artifacts hurts. It is disheartening to witness all the physical cultures being set on fire by missiles,” the craftsmanship artist says.

“Despite the destruction of physical cultural sites, I believe that Ukrainian cultures will continue to survive through Ukrainian artists’ efforts to promote them worldwide,” she adds. 

Gschöpf has hosted workshops in London, Berlin, and now regularly in Hong Kong to promote traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs – Pysanky to keep Ukrainian culture alive.

“The Ukrainian Easter egg workshop is like a meditation. Surrounded by many candles and mesmerized by patterns, we engage and connect with each other during the sessions,” Gschöpf says.

“We can connect with people from all walks of life through these workshops and let more people know about Ukraine… I hope that Russia will show less aggression towards cultural heritage,” she adds.

Another Ukrainian artist, Nazar Tabachyshyn, who is also living in Hong Kong shares Gschöpf’s thoughts on keeping the world informed about the war outside Ukraine.

“The Russia-Ukraine war is very intense right now and there have been many losses. Russians occupy a huge city on the east side of Ukraine,” the accordion musician says. 

“You never know when you’re going to survive or whether you’re going to wake up but people have already got used to that kind of life,” he adds. 

Tabachyshyn says that his friends and family in Ukraine are fighting the war in their own different ways. Some of them are fighting at the frontline, and some other musicians are holding concerts to fundraise for the Ukrainian army. 

“People try to spread songs and increase their voices not only in Ukraine but to the world. Some are holding concerts and doing music tours around the world,” he adds.

The Ukrainian musician, who has been playing accordion since he was five, is committed to arousing awareness of the war to his audiences.

“I try to put some messages into the music I make…, that is to be heard, to be listened to, and make people question,” he says.

“We want the end of the war. Russians need to pay a lot and justice should be there after all, but I am not sure how we can get there,” he says.

Thomas Gnocchi, head of the European Union (EU) Office to Hong Kong and Macao, says the EU stands for Ukraine.  

 “The EU has committed a further 50 billion Euros to Ukraine to help funding. Despite the continuing difficulties, additional support for Ukraine is predictable, and these steps are playing very important roles. We will support Ukraine in any way possible,” he says.

Gnocchi points out that the EU has started negotiations with Ukraine about the membership of the EU since December 2023, though the country has yet to become a member. 

“There is a large Ukrainian community in Hong Kong. I hope there will be a lot of support through providing shelters for the refugees or any different kind of ways. This will really help Ukraine,” he adds.  

Teens overcome anorexia by having art classes

By Cathleena Zhu

Zhang Ranze suffered from anorexia when he was in primary school because of strict parenting and countless tests at school. He finds his passion in Maths after his parents sent him to have art classes. 

“My parents sent me to after-school classes starting from grade one every day and even during weekends. I did my study nearly 10 hours a day,” the 17-year-old recalls.

Being one of the top three students in his class in grade one, he became one of the bottom five in grade three. His mother finally realized the seriousness of the problem and took him to seek help from a psychologist.

The doctor advised his parents not to keep forcing the boy to study and kept telling him what to do. He advised them to let the child do what he really liked.

“I told my mother that I like to draw random lines on a book to relieve my stress after the doctor’s consultation. It worked,” the high school student recalls.

After learning about her son’s interest in drawing, Han Jing, Zhang’s mother sent him to a painting studio.

“Many of my friends have told me about a teacher at the studio. She does not limit children’s imagination and encourages them to follow their hearts to create. So I think this teacher can help my son,” the mother says.

Through paintings, the family learned about their son’s passion for mathematics. 

“Once the teacher asked my son to draw sea creatures, he designed all the fish and corals with symbols of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. When I asked him why he did it, he said he liked Math and that’s why he made such an interesting design,” Han recalls. 

“From his paintings, I learned that I should give him more space to explore what he likes to do,” the mother says, adding that her son goes to the painting studio once a week.

And she was delighted to see the boy’s happy face after class which used to be a rare sight.

“My son told me that attending painting class every Saturday is the highlight of his week,” says Han.

Former teacher Wang Ting, who founded the art studio in 2008 to help students with mental issues, says it is important to help students develop independent thinking. 

She points out that test-based education only forces students to learn without motivating their interests and judges students’ ability merely by their grades. 

“The skills I want to teach students is not drawing, but independent thinking. They need a medium to open up their minds to the world. I want to help them break free from examination-oriented education. Every child is unique,” the 60-year-old art teacher says.  

While seeing improvement in many of her students, Wang feels saddened that about 50 percent of the children stopped going to her studio in six months.

“The parents think my teaching philosophy is too ideal, and children can not learn practical knowledge such as exam skills. It hits me pretty hard. There were moments I doubted if I could keep this going. But every time I think about how many kids with mental disorders need my help, it keeps me going,” Wang says.

Apart from teaching children art, Wang now also holds parenting talks to share her education philosophy with parents.

“I gradually found that parents are the ones who need my help most, because their parenting philosophy will have a direct impact on their children,” Wang says.

Her topics in parenting talks include children’s physical and mental health, how to avoid depression, how to communicate properly with children, and how to create a good family atmosphere.

Professor Catherine So Wing-chee of the Department of Educational Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong says good parenting plays a significant role in cultivating children’s interests.

“The family is a child’s first school. Giving children encouragement rather than oppression helps build them confidence, which is an element that inspires them to explore,” So says.

So says parents should listen to their children to better understand their interests and potential.

The expert hopes that parents can guide their children to explore in a way that is as fun as art education, which can stimulate their motivation to find their passion.

Edited by Sean Pan

Sub-edited by Nutcha Hunsanimitkul

Korean police officer arrested for leaking information about Lee Sun-kyun’s investigation

By Erica Hwang 

A senior police officer was arrested for allegedly leaking investigative information about actor Lee Sun-kyun who was suspected of drug use and committed suicide in December 2023.  

The arrest by Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency’s Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Investigation Unit on March 21st, 2024, came after a two-month investigation into how the Incheon Police Agency handled the actor’s privacy.

The police officer, who is suspected of leaking a report about Lee’s suspected drug use case to the press, is not a member of the investigation team.

The press was alerted when Lee was summoned for three investigations by the Incheon Police Agency from October to December 2023. 

Renowned for his role in the Academy Award-winning film Parasite, the South Korean actor earned several awards including the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture in 2019 and the Asian Pop-Up Cinema Award for Excellent Achievement in Film in 2023. 

On December 27, 2023, Lee was found dead in a vehicle in a parking lot near Waryong Park in Seoul. The death was marked as a suicide by the Seoul Seongbuk Police Station.

Lee’s defense lawyer Park Seong-cheol was quoted requesting a private summoning and citing from a statement by a spokesman at the Incheon Police Agency “If Lee Sun-kyun is summoned privately and videos or photos are taken (as if he was hiding), it will be more damaging to the suspect,” as reported by YTN, a Korean news outlet, on January 17th, 2024.

Speaking to the press on December 28th, 2023, Kim Hee-joong, commissioner of the Incheon Police Agency said: “No official permit for press coverage of Lee’s appearances was issued, but information such as the specific dates of Lee’s questioning had ‘somehow’ been leaked,” 

 “Whether individual investigators interacted with the media or answered questions from reporters regarding investigative matters needs to be clarified,”  said Bong Joon-ho, director of Parasite, during a press conference hosted by the Cultural and Artistic Professionals Conference (CAPC) on January 12th, 2024.

The articles listed under Section 4: Media Promotion, Chapter 4: Investigation of “Police Officer Job Regulations to Protect Human Rights” clearly state the law. 

According to Article 84 (Limitations on media disclosure of investigative cases), “Matters related to honor and privacy, identity, that are not directly related to crime. Detailed information regarding the method of crime and the circumstances of the arrest should not be disclosed,” 

According to Article 85 (Prohibition of infringement on portrait rights), “Police officers must ensure that no scenes are filmed within the police station where the identity of suspects, victims, or other persons involved in the case may be assumed or where the identity may be exposed,” it reads.

There were 4,313 articles about Lee’s drug charges from October 19, 2023, to January 3, 2024, according to data from Korea Press Foundation’s Big Kinds, a news big data and analysis organization. 

They also found 2,855 news stories revealing Lee’s identity from 20 October to 26 December, 2023. 

Chairman of The Hong Kong Journalists Association Ronson Chan Long-sing describes the incident as “unfortunate”. 

“The Hong Kong Police Force releases information through official channels and journalists can call the public relations wing for information about cases for reporting,” Chan says. 

He also adds that the police do not reveal the full name and identity of people under investigation in Hong Kong. 

Regarding details of protocol and protection of individuals when conducting an investigation, the Hong Kong Police Force states they respect press freedom and are obliged to follow the requirements under the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance when responding to an inquiry by Varsity. 

“The Force has the responsibility to provide timely information to the media and the public for preventing and detecting crime. It is to the benefit of the police to maintain a relationship with the media that is based on mutual respect and understanding,” the statement reads.

“However, when disseminating timely information to the media, police are obliged to follow the legal requirements under the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance and ensure that all the important principles governing the disclosure of third-party information under the Code on Access to Information have been complied with. Furthermore, any information disseminated should not affect covert operations and possible judicial procedures,” it adds. 

Edited by Nutcha Hunsanimitkul & Charlotte Wu

Sub-edited by Nicole Li

“Addictive” online platform interfaces are designed to keep users hooked for hours and hours

By Suan Yeon

University student Chan Myae Kyaw spends five hours a day on average watching YouTube shorts. 

“I pick up my phone at 9.30 p.m. and even before I realise, it is already 1.30 a.m. I don’t even feel like it has been four hours. I just sit in the chair and watch YouTube shorts and I am often late for classes,” the 22-year-old student says.

“I just can’t stop. I keep scrolling and scrolling on YouTube Shorts endlessly. Screen time addiction has made me unable to focus. Now I can no longer watch YouTube videos that last for more than three minutes, only shorts,” the Year Three student adds.

“You can see the red bar moving, so you know the next video is coming – so you don’t skip it,” he says. The Biomedical Engineering student recalls having good grades before he got addicted.

“I scored straight As in Year One. Now B is my average grade,” he adds.

According to a research on the association of screen time with brain connectivity conducted by the University of California in 2023, adolescents who spent more than four hours per day on screens had reduced brain connectivity.

These reductions in connectivity were associated with poorer performance on cognitive tasks that measure attention, memory, and decision-making.

After his GPA dropped, Chan Myae Kyaw started to go to the gym in 2024 to cut down screen time.

“I feel sluggish after spending too much time on my phone. But now I realise when I am actively doing something like working in my lab or working out, my screen time decreases,” the Year Three Student says.

A report from Statista in 2023, an online platform specialising in data gathering and visualisation, points out South Koreans spent an average of 44.89 hours a month on YouTube’s mobile app. 

Assistant Professor Yang Tian, from the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong points out that YouTube’s personalisation algorithm makes use of users’ previous experiences and data to predict what they might like. 

“Personalisation algorithms facilitate users’ flow status so that people are fully immersed in the environment and cannot feel time fly by. The companies want users to spend more time because time is traffic, and this traffic can be turned into advertising revenue – that’s their income,” Yang says.

The social scientist adds that the companies exploit users’ intuitive nature to capture information.

“Users are very reactive to social endorsement. That is why when they see ‘Likes’ or ‘Views’ coming in, they want to look at those numbers, crave for those interactions, and try to look at those clips that go viral online,” he says.

“By conducting thousands of user tests, interface designers can find the so-called “optimal interface” that best serves their interests. Like an interface that keeps people on that page for the longest period,” he adds. 

The computational social science professional highlights that technology is not the only thing to blame. 

“When we think about addiction, we also have to think about the flip-side of the coin. People may want to use technology to avoid certain things by immersing themselves in a place where they cannot feel the reality. It is always the people who are addicted. It is an interplay between the technology and the user,” Yang says.

In a Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, launched in 2020, former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris, explains persuasive design technology. 

“Persuasive technology is a sort of design intentionally applied to the extreme, where we really want to modify someone’s behavior. We want them to take this action. We want them to keep doing this with their fingers,” he says.

“We can demand that these products be designed humanely and users not be treated as an extractable resource,” the Centre for Humane Technology founder adds.

Edited by: Ryan Teh

Sub-edited by: Sunnie Wu