Let Them Grow

May 6, 2019

Anxious mainland parents with children studying in Hong Kong find comfort in chat groups

By Katherine Wang & Wayne Chang

“Has any of your kids been to UC Berkley for exchange before? Which hostel is a cheaper option? Thanks!”

“From what I have heard, most students, including term exchange students, rent an apartment there.”

These dialogues are spotted in a QQ (a popular instant messaging software in Mainland China) chat group formed by mainland parents whose children study at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). They are seeking advice from other parents on their children’s exchange programme.

Separation anxiety

When mainland students leave their hometowns to study in Hong Kong, a city different from any other cities in the Mainland, their parents across the border are anxious to learn how their children are coping in Hong Kong. Numerous WeChat and QQ chat groups with some up to hundreds of members are formed by mainland parents to stay in touch with other parents and talk about their children’s school life in Hong Kong.

These chat groups allow parents to keep their fingers on the pulse of what is going on in Hong Kong, information about the latest programmes, exchange and internship opportunities. These parents then share such information with their children. They also seek comfort from each other in the chat group, as they all have to bear separation from their children who lived under their care for nearly 20 years. Most of their children were born under the mainland’s one-child policy.

School policy regarding admission and application for exchange programmes is one of the hot topics mainland parents discuss in chat groups

Parents also make use of these chat groups to “check on” their children. For example, some parents post group pictures of students took in orientation camps. When other parents recognise their own children in these pictures, they will start talking about their children who joined the same event in the chat group.

A Hong Kong University of Science and Technology student, who reveals his name as Jack, complains these parents’ chat groups go beyond their original purposes of sharing school information. “These chat groups can exist but the content should not be like these. Parents can contact one another, but they should just share how their children are doing, or chat with others when they feel lonely,” says Jack.

Faces behind chat groups

Zhu Xin, established a CUHK parent chat group (香港中文大學內地家長群) on WeChat with another parent in 2013. Its original intention was sharing experiences of getting a student visa since the application procedure was complicated. Little did she expect the group would grow to more than 700 people in just six years. She is now frustrated about having too many people in the chat group, as it is difficult to manage.

However, she still thinks the chat group is beneficial for parents in the sense that they can learn what their children are doing. “To be frank, this group is for us, parents, to console one another, not to supervise the children…And you should think about how unaccustomed your parents are to your absence, considering that you [the children] have been with us for around 20 years,” says Zhu.

Ma Renjie is another administrator of the CUHK parent chat group. He says joining the group is a channel for him to express his care for his daughter by learning the updates about her school. But he does not interfere his daughter’s school life directly.

“Parents just want to know what is going on in their children’s school life. My child can deal with all these things by herself…I don’t want to bother my daughter too often,” says Ma.

His daughter Ma Yunxue, a Year One CUHK student, is aware of her father’s leading role in the chat group. She says the group can help reassure her parents that she is doing fine in school, because it is impossible for her to keep in touch with them every day.

“It is necessary for the group to exist…When the parents are anxious about something, they can talk and comfort each other. Even though it might not help solve the problems, they can learn what happens, and they will be less anxious,” says Ma.

Building trust

Dr. Eva Lau Yi-hung, Associate Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Early Childhood Education of the Education University of Hong Kong, says family support continues to be a significant factor that impacts on university students’ self-esteem, wellbeing and adjustment to their university life during the first year of their study.

“Support is good, but too much parental involvement might have a negative impact on their independence,” says Lau.

Mainland parents seek advice from each other about exchange programmes for their children

As a mother of two, Lau reveals she does not engage in her children’s school life directly. Though she joins a WhatsApp group of her elder daughter’s primary school from which she can get useful information such as school system and curriculum, she encourages her daughter to try sorting out everything relating to her studies herself.

Lau points out family support is important for university students. She believes the right way for parents to support their children is to have empathy for their children and communicate with them, rather than to completely take over and directly engage in their lives. And children need to learn to be independent and update their parents about their school life on a regular basis.

“By sharing more information and telling them [the parents] that I’m independent enough, parents will eventually learn to let go,” says Lau.

Edited by Fangdong Bai

Behind the Masks

May 6, 2019

Can the opening of Xiqu Centre rejuvenate Cantonese Opera?

By Alice Wang

Every Saturday, Cheng Tin-ho, 10, goes to the Mills, a revitalized arts and cultural complex in Tsuen Wan to attend a class. It is not piano or ballet class that many children in Hong Kong join but Cantonese opera.

The underlying mask of Cantonese opera

His mother, Wong Ching-han, admits that she had no knowledge or interest in the traditional Chinese art before getting her son studying in the Cha Duk Chang Children’s Cantonese Opera Association. “Originally, Cantonese opera was just noise in my mind,” she says, adding that she hoped her son would learn to be patient by attending the class.

But her interest in this centuries-old art has grown. “When I pass by Sunbeam Theatre, I will start checking out the upcoming shows,” she says, and no longer finds Cantonese opera noisy, but an art to appreciate.

The Cha Duk Chang Children’s Cantonese Opera Association’s site inside the Mills is divided into two parts. One for visitors to take pictures with different Cantonese opera costumes, another one for students to learn skills and methods of vocal and dramatic training that performers have to master.

Cantonese opera with singing and spoken scripts delivered in Cantonese dialect is popular in Cantonese-speaking regions, such as Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. Its variegated costumes, distinctive singings and symbolic gestures attract people from all over the world. In 2009, it was inscribed onto the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

However, the younger generation in the city may not know how to appreciate this traditional art form.

Is education enough?

While teaching Cantonese operatic music is compulsory in the HKDSE Music curriculum, not all music teachers are equipped with the knowledge to teach it.

Li Yin-hing, Program Officer of the Cha Duk Chang Children’s Cantonese Opera Association, says: “If a school teacher teaches Cantonese opera by himself or herself, he or she will play pieces of traditional music and videos of Cantonese opera, or just open a textbook and ask students to sing a Cantonese opera song together.”

In Li’s view, making Cantonese opera compulsory in school’s music class can let students learn Cantonese opera. But such teaching methods are inefficient to cultivate children’s interest or increase their participation in Cantonese opera.

In 2005, to help develop Cantonese opera, the Home Affairs Bureau (HAB) set up the Cantonese Opera Development Fund (CODF) for local associations. CODF aims to support and fund different kinds of projects to help promote Cantonese opera. Meanwhile, some non-governmental associations also offer funding to support Cantonese opera, such as the Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund. But resources are still limited, so not all schools have the financial ability to seek help from Cantonese opera associations to train music teachers.

Nowhere to perform

Li points out small opera associations struggle to find suitable performance venues due to expensive rents in private sites. “For some local small troupes, we cannot afford the rent for performance sites if there is no subsidy,” she says. Cantonese opera associations find it hard to book public performance sites which are much cheaper to rent. While major performance sites are often reserved by big opera associations, local small troupes can only turn to sites they can afford.

“It is difficult for us to set the stage or carry performance props,” she says. Li shares their experience of using Youth Square in Chai Wan, which turns out to be an unsuitable site, as it is not specially built for performing Cantonese opera.

Xiqu Centre at the West Kowloon Cultural District

Officially opened on January 20, 2019, Xiqu Centre, is the first completed project of the West Kowloon Cultural District and the first professional Cantonese opera performance centre in Hong Kong. Occupying a total of 28,164 square metres, the Xiqu Centre holds a Grand Theatre, a Tea House Theatre, eight professional studios and a seminar hall. They are all specially designed for different types of functions and activities related to Chinese opera.

But some insiders reflect that the government may give priorities to famous Cantonese opera troupes to use performance sites at the Xiqu Centre, so it may not be available for the small-scale ones. Also, the expensive rent may not be affordable for them.

“Having one more performance site is better than one less,” says Lau Wai-ming, Artistic Director of Yeung Ming Cantonese Opera Troupe. She believes the opening of Xiqu Centre is good news for Cantonese Opera. While she appreciates that the government has put effort into the Xiqu Centre, she believes another challenge is that there are not many performance sites specifically designed for Cantonese opera.

Who can help?

Other than shortage of performance sites, Lau believes the development of Cantonese opera is not on the right track. “We are now developing arts with government resources and we have to comply with government policies, but not all activities from the creative industry are supported by the government,” she says. Lau thinks it is inappropriate for arts association to change their principles in a bid to receive government support.

Lau also points out the current policies tend to favour younger artists, which could drive current artists out of the field due to the lack of support. When the quality of current performance is affected, it can possibly lead to loss of audience. But, Lau stills feel optimistic about the future of Cantonese opera, with the growing population of old people in Hong Kong. “It is absolutely normal for a 60-year-old to appreciate Cantonese opera as an art form with their own life experience,” she says.

Future of Xiqu

Lau believes there is a need to sow the seeds for younger audience to accept this traditional art form now. “The main purpose of promoting Cantonese opera to children is not just to cultivate actors, but also to cultivate the audience,” Lau adds.

In order to preserve Cantonese opera, Ching May-bo, professor of History at the Department of Chinese and History at the City University of Hong Kong, believes it is a collective responsibility. “No one should be blamed for the problems in the development of Cantonese opera today,” she says.

Ching stresses that we should respect opinions from Cantonese opera performers, while we as audience, can give honest comments to them so that they can improve. Also, we should advise the government to follow up and review its funding allocation and adjust it accordingly.

All in all, Ching believes Cantonese opera will embrace a glorious future. “Since everyone knows that there is a problem, it is a good start for Cantonese opera,” she says.

Edited by Erica Li

Catch Me if You Can

May 6, 2019

Kabaddi – a sport that brings Hongkongers of different ethnicities together

By Bonita Wong

“Kabaddi is in the blood of everybody,” says Jazz, former professional Kabaddi player from Punjab in India. He simply cannot hide his love for the competitive contact sports. He loves it so much that he is trying to form a professional team in Hong Kong.

What is Kabaddi?

Jazz says the rules of Kabaddi are so simple that a five-year-old child can easily learn how to play. Originated from ancient India and South Asian countries, such as Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Kabaddi is an easy-to-learn and crowd-pleasing contact sport, but it remains unknown to many people in Hong Kong.

Kabaddi has been an official event in the Asian Games since 1990. The World Cup Kabaddi 2019 will be held in Melaka in Malaysia from July 27 to August 4 this year. A total of 32 men’s teams and 24 women’s teams, including representatives from Hong Kong, will participate in the tournament.

To play Kabaddi, all you need is a flat and rectangular area. Similar to a badminton court, a Kabaddi court is surrounded by boundary lines, with a middle line to indicate the area two teams occupy.

The match is divided into two halves and each session lasts for 20 minutes. Each team can send seven players onto the field and the two teams alternate between raiding and defending. To attack, one player from the raiding team runs across the midline to the defending side of the court and tag as many opponents as possible to score.

The raider must keep yelling “Kabaddi” from the moment he crosses the mid-line until he returns to his own team’s side. If the raider fails to do it in one breath, his team scores no points. The more defending team members the raider tags, the more points he scores. But if the defending team can prevent the raider from returning to their original side, the raider also scores no point.

Players are sent off when they are tagged, captured, or break a rule, and can be “revived” by eliminating an opposing player. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins. “The difference of Kabaddi [with other sports] is its high flexibility,” says Ho Yan-yee, a Kabaddi coach. She believes Kabaddi requires both speed and strength. “Comparing with basketball or football which have fixed strategies, it is a blend of all sports,” she says.

Bonding the society

Kabaddi United Hong Kong, founded in 2014, aims to promote social inclusion by introducing Kabaddi. Lo Yuk-kwong, one of the cofounders, says the sport is an active and concrete way to empower ethnic minorities (EM) in Hong Kong.

Lo explains why Kabaddi has been used to help solve the social inclusion problem. “There are people who want to help EM, unfortunately they only advocate policy changes, which turns out to be empty talks since it could not help explain why we should not discriminate them,” he says.

Kabaddi United Hong Kong aims to foster social integration and encourage the public to learn more about cultural diversity through the game. Since its inauguration, the group has collaborated with 42 organisations and arranged more than 150 Kabaddi workshops with a turnout of over 2,000 participants.

It has also organised Kabaddi fun days and beginners’ classes in the community with the help of its intercultural ambassadors. After playing Kabaddi, participants of different nationalities and ethnicities are encouraged to join a sharing session, in which they introduce their beliefs, culture, and languages.

Promoting culture through sports is not common in Hong Kong. “The major purpose is to integrate Chinese with other ethnic groups. Also, EM They can get very delighted when people in Hong Kong are actually interested in their sport and culture Lo Yuk-kwong Ho Yan-yee members can also be given job opportunities related to Kabaddi,” says Lo.

However, Lo believes career support is not the ultimate solution for EM to integrate into the society. “You may still get labelled with low-paid or simple jobs,” Lo explains. As the EM are not able to find their values, they have low satisfaction in life.

Currently, there are seven to eight EM intercultural ambassadors working in Kabaddi United Hong Kong. “They can get very delighted when people in Hong Kong are actually interested in their sport and culture,” he says. Lo added that there is a change in their identities. “They can gain satisfaction when they share their culture with Hong Kong people,” he says.

Kabaddi as a language

Language is always a barrier when it comes to communication with people from different countries, but Kabaddi is a sport that requires no verbal language at all. It enables people to communicate easily with physical touch. “If you are [only] learning the fundamentals, it’s very easy to communicate with everyone, whether we have a language barrier or not,” says Royal Sunar, a Nepali intercultural ambassador.

“When you belong to minority, whether others show it or not, you’re gonna feel you are left out,” he says. Even though he was born and raised in Hong Kong, Sunar always reminds himself to stay positive when trying to interact with people of different ethnicities. “Whether I’m understanding them or not, I just stay with them and then get to know them,” he says.

Mutual effort

Language barriers can only be overcome with collective efforts. Wyman Tang Wai-man, adjunct assistant professor of the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is grateful that the Hong Kong Kabaddi Team members have the awareness to translate messages for each other in their WhatsApp group.

“They got the idea that it won’t feel good when you try to leave somebody out, and they start to have this kind of sense and take further actions,” Tang says. He hopes others can do the same. “Nowadays, the biggest problem for Hong Kong Chinese is not to have this kind of awareness. They take it for granted,” he adds.

Tang believes having fun is the key to arouse others’ interest in enthic minorties and help them intergrate into Hong Kong mainstream society. He adds: “But if we think: ‘We’re going to play, you’re going to have fun,’ then we can create something that is intercultural.”

Kabaddi can be played anywhere, anytime.
*Photo courtesy of Kabaddi United Hong Kong*

Kabaddi is not just a notch on the belt of social integration. “It is actually mutual empowerment. It is mutually beneficial,” Tang adds.

Edited by Erica Li

Saving Homeless Cats

May 5, 2019

Volunteer cat rescuer Lisa Olausen, who has saved thousands of cats in Hong Kong, speaks of her love and care for her furry friends

By Cynthia Sit

An impulsive thought to take a stray cat back home becomes the first step of her life as a cat rescuer. Lisa Olausen’s house is a shelter for stray cats waiting for adoption. Over 2,000 homeless kittens have stayed at her home temporarily for the past 16 years.

Now a full-time individual cat rescue volunteer, her life has changed since 2003 when she brought the first stray cat for neutering. She sold her beauty parlour business and decided to devote her time to cat rescuing. The cat was not the first stray animal she took home. In 2000, when she was still working in the construction industry, she saved a stray dog in a construction site.

Olausen does not regard cat rescuing as an achievement. Her belief is simple – to save cats whenever she can.

Cat rescue takes hard work

To save stray cats, Olausen has to first catch a targeted cat and bring it to a vet for body check and neutering. Then she calls for adoption through her Facebook page, which has more than 10,000 followers. In order to screen potential adopters, Olausen asks them their family situations and living conditions and even arranges home visits.

Olausen is also a volunteer for the Cat Colony Care Programme (CCCP) under the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). She regularly looks for stray cats in her neighbourhood and sends them to the SPCA for further neutering operations. She is a supporter of this scheme, as it saves cats instead of euthanising them.

Olausen encounters many difficulties during her daily rescuing works, like suffering from mosquito bites in summer and cold in winter. Having no driving license, every time she takes a stray cat to a vet, she has to find a driver. She also faces oppositions from villagers. “Some villagers might be unfriendly to cat rescuers and forbid them from capturing stray cats,” she says. Despite the difficulties, she still enjoys her work.

Love and struggle

Olausen sees cats as an important existence in her life. She sees helping cats find new owners as “arranging marriage for her sons and daughters”. She hopes these cats can live in a new home happily ever after.

Having rescued stray cats for so many years, Olausen says there were moments that she thought of giving up, especially when someone returned her the cats she had taken care of before. There was once an adopter who claimed an 11-year-old cat that he adopted from her, attacked his new-born baby. The adopter returned the cat to her and she was very disappointed. “Sometimes it might be the baby attacking the cat first. The cat only attacked the baby once!”

She is often worried if the cats she takes home will be adopted and if the adopter is irresponsible. Some of the cats that no one wanted eventually became her pets.

For Olausen, a responsible cat owner should be able to protect a cat and should not abandon it in any situation. “You have to take care of it till the end of its life once you decide to raise it,” she says. She adds that cats need to be educated as well. Pampering them does not mean loving them.

She finds it hard to maintain her cat shelter financially. The medical expenditure for pets is high. “When you love them [the cats], you just have to do it,” she says.

Outside the shelter

As a cat rescuer, Olausen supports the idea of establishing animal cops since she believes many animal abuse cases are ignored by the police. “Actually, many of my adopters are police officers,” she says. “They support this policy too but unfortunately, they do not have the power to investigate into these cases.”

To improve the current animal policies, Olausen thinks giving more freedom to animal rescue volunteers is the best solution. “The government does not have to implement any specific measures. It is more than enough if officials support our voluntary work,” she says. She adds that it would be a win-win situation since the government does not need to bear the cost of human resources, while volunteers can protect the animals.

Speaking of her future plan, Olausen says she would like to extend her career further to educating the public about animal welfare. She is now promoting animal protection by encouraging her friends and adopters to work in cats neutering and become volunteers in the CCCP. “It is essential to start the education from cat population management and then work in neutering,” she says.

Recently, she started to reduce the number of cats she takes home as she is preparing to move to Malaysia later this year in order to provide her family and cats with a better living environment. Though the culture and religious practices may be different, Olausen hopes to continue her cat rescue in Malaysia. “Cats are my genuine companions. I will not give up easily,” she says.

Edited by Sam Kwong

A Wanderer’s Story

May 5, 2019

Siuming shares stories of her soul searching journeys and charity work in India

By Emilie Lui

In a hectic city where everyone works overtime for a living, she chooses not to have a full-time job but to wander around. 27-year-old Ho Kit-ming, also known as Siuming, spent more than a year away from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong to discover meanings of life through travelling.

Protester demanding social justice

Born and raised in a single-parent family, Siuming and her sister, Willis, are passionate in helping the vulnerable in society. They joined several social movements between 2009 and 2013, when they were university students. However, an unpleasant experience stopped Siuming from staying in the front line.

During a protest in 2013, Siuming was spotted to be “back-hugged” by a policeman. “It was quite stressful. I had to hold a press conference and be interviewed by media outlets,” she recalls. “I did a lot of things back then such as suing the policeman involved in the case and giving the public an account of the incident.” She found it hard to handle harsh comments circulating on different social media platforms. “Some netizens mocked me as a ‘prostitute’ just because of my little tattoo.” She could not bear such stress, and gradually she becomes less engaged in social movements.

Wandering around the globe

At 21, Siuming broke up with her ex-boyfriend. She then travelled to Cambodia alone for a two-week soul searching trip, hoping to recover from the breakup. In a youth hostel, she met a Canadian backpacker who had been travelling abroad for three years. After listening to his enlightening story, she felt amazed. Since then, she began to embrace the idea of backpacking to broaden her horizons.

Upon graduation, Siuming began travelling. With only a backpack and a one-way ticket to Lhasa, Tibet, she kicked off her life-changing journey as a wanderer. “I told myself that I would go home after I had spent all my money, which was around HK$20,000,” she says. “The less I spend, the longer my journey would be.”

Backpacking is gaining popularity among young adults in recent years. There is an increasing trend of youngsters travelling alone to less developed countries. Siuming believes everyone has their own ways to travel. She thinks the genuine meaning of “travelling” depends on what one gains and learns during a journey. “In the past, I would insist on travelling overland with a backpack.” She now has a different view: “It is not the way I travel that matters, but the attitude and lessons learnt.”

A Bowl of Compassion

By coincidence, Siuming met the founder of “A Bowl of Compassion”, a charity which builds schools in India, during her journey. The school built by the charity is located next to a hostel where backpackers drop by to teach students voluntarily. She was one of those enthusiastic volunteers. Siuming did not think of leaving the students behind until she decided to head back to Hong Kong.

After her year-long journey, she decided to return to Hong Kong to find a job. She chose not to become a social worker, though she was a social work major graduate. She believes that it is not what she really wants.

Instead, she brought another HK$20,000 with her and flew back to India. She purchased some traditional handmade scarves from some Indian suppliers and sold them in her online shop called “Wish You Were Here”. Her shop now also sells goods made by people in other developing countries such as Nepal.

The shop has been a great success, attracting over 6,000 followers on Instagram. But Siuming says she has never thought of expanding the business. “I prefer doing it on my own and I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself,” she says.

A portion of the revenue from the online shop is shared between two schools in India – “A Bowl of Compassion” and “The Flowers of Lakshmi”, for their development and renovation.

“I think that what I am doing now celebrates the value of sharing which is also relevant to social services,” she says. Her work has made impact on the vulnerable ones by providing them education. With the help of Siuming, the two schools in India are now well-developed. She is now planning to share some of her revenue with an orphanage in Nepal.

As an experienced wanderer, Siuming encourages teenagers who like travelling to be brave and give it a try. “However, we have to strike a balance between expectations and reality,” she says. She acknowledges that some people may need to take care of their families. “We actually need to plan ahead before travelling instead of leaving without any preparation.”

Siuming is ready to start a new phase of life. She will soon embark on another journey in South America, where she plans to stay for around three months. Siuming’s travelling story… to be continued.

Edited by Sam Kwong

A Tale of Two Streets

May 6, 2019

Lee Tung Street and Tai Yuen Street in Wan Chai face different fates under urban development

By Kayi Tsang & Shell Zhang

The “tong laus” in Lee Tung Street were demolished during the redevelopment project and replaced by modern skyscrapers.

After the renewal, traditional stores featuring wedding-product could not survive the high rents and moved out of Lee Tung Street. Different high-end stores become the new occupants.

Themed installation arts in Lee Tung Avenue are popular photo spots for visitors. At the entrance of the avenue, two puppets dressed in Tang suit sit in the middle of the pathway. Their fat and round body shapes signify blessing in Chinese culture.

Red lanterns, flowers, and large piggy decorations are displayed in Lee Tung Street. A lot of people visit the street for its festive vibes.

During Chinese New Year, stalls in Tai Yuen Street sell festive supplies such as red hanging ornaments, red packets, and piggy dolls for the Year of the Pig.

Tai Yuen Street is a narrow alley situated between hgh-rise commercial and residential buildings.

A colourfully painted stall in Tai Yuen Street. After redevelopment, the government modified the stalls by adding lighting system and roofs for the stall owners, forming the business model that we now find in the street.

The watch repairer has been selling and repairing watches in Tai Yuen Street for 28 years.

A lady is trying to sell jade accessories she bought from another stall in Tai Yuen Street. The second-hand products’ circulation rate is high as the residents often buy or sell their own goods.

Lai-deng has lived in Tai Yuen Street for over 70 years. He is well-known in the neighbourhood for his knowledge of the area.

There are still some old toy stores in Tai Yuen Street. Most of them sell comic figures to Japanese manga fans.

Wan Chai, one of the business districts in Hong Kong, is densely packed with skyscrapers and landmarks. Walking underneath buildings of modern architecture in Lee Tung Street, few people still remember the past glories of Hong Kong’s printing industry and the street where it was nurtured.

During the 1950s, Lee Tung Street was a street famous for printing and manufacturing of wedding cards. It is why the street was also known as “Wedding Card Street”. Printing shops lined up along the sideways in tenement houses or “tong laus” in Cantonese (唐樓). Back in those days, visiting Lee Tung Street for invitation cards of a wedding banquet was a must for the bride and groom-to-be.

In 2005, the Urban Renewal Authority resumed all the property rights of Lee Tung Street and initiated a revitalisation project. Its old buildings were demolished in 2007 and replaced by newly designed architecture. High-class boutiques, specialty shops, restaurants, cafés and hotels moved in and became the new occupants.

Lee Tung Street, renamed as Lee Tung Avenue after its remake, has become a popular tourist spot, for Instagrammers in particular. People from all over the world love to visit the place especially during festivals when seasonal decorations fill the pathway with festive spirits.

The outlook of the street seems to have improved. However, former tenants who were forced to leave and gave up their businesses, could not return to where they belonged. The shop rents in Lee Tung Avenue have soared after the renewal. Most of the shops are luxury chain stores selling cookware, accessories and cosmetics, or restaurants offering Japanese and French gourmets without any relations to the wedding card business.

Target customers of the street have shifted from local grass-roots to upper class and foreign tourists. The traditional culture, as well as the interpersonal relationships among residents, can no longer be found.

Adjacent to Lee Tung Avenue is another street with strong nostalgic local style – Tai Yuen Street. Even the locals may not be able to tell you where Tai Yuen Street is, because they may only know its nickname – “Toys Street”. A diversity of classic toys is sold in the myriad of toys stores there. It is a paradise for toy collectors and young children, and it also has a wide variety of stores selling daily necessities to residents in the neighbourhood.

While grown-ups can recollect their fondest childhood memory at a low price easily, the future of Tai Yuen Street is uncertain. Like Lee Tung Street, Tai Yuen Street is part of the Wan Chai old district development project.

In 2007, Tai Yuen Street underwent redevelopment. Eighty-six stores in southern Tai Yuen Street were relocated to ease the traffic problem in the district. The original plan of the government was to demolish the whole street, but it aroused strong objections from the public. The upper part of the street has been preserved. Lai-deng, 80, who has lived in Wan Chai for more than 70 years, says Tai Yuen Street was known for selling old clothes in bygone days. It only became “Toys Street” about 20 years ago. “It all began with the street markets, then the trolleys. The stalls only started to appear 10 years ago,” he says.

As a witness to the changes of Tai Yuen Street, he says he misses Shuang Xi Lou, a Chinese restaurant in the street the most. Renowned for its traditional and nostalgic characters, Shuang Xi Lou now lives only in the memories of those who dined there in its prime.

Leung, a grocery owner who has been selling umbrellas in a street stall since 1962, says more people visit the street after its redevelopment in 2007. Electricity was provided and lightings were installed. Individual stalls were reorganised. “It has become more convenient for shoppers, and for us as shop keepers,” she says. Leung adds that the variety of goods sold in the street has been multiplied after the renovation, attracting customers looking for different commodities.

“Tai Yuen Street is a unique place and it is worth preserving,” says one of the owners who has been running her street stall business in Tai Yuen Street for more than 10 years. Although she never makes huge profits from her business, she is unwilling to relocate her store or to quit the business, no matter how much compensation the government is offering them.

Under rapid economic development, old streets seem to have lost their original appearance and identities. Yet, the history they hold, the cultural values they carry and the community stories they record, are priceless treasures of the city. The destiny of the two streets and the story of our time are still in our hands.

Edited by Edith Chung & Valerie Wan

Experience the Beauty of Glass

May 6, 2019

Glass art – a new form of art is gaining popularity

By Kayi Tsang

Glass is everywhere in our daily life – from utilities to artwork, we can easily find products made of glass. DIY glass workshops are also gaining popularity all over the world. Wong Kwok-chong, 56, is a glass making artist who teaches people how to make beautiful glass products.

Wong first learnt about glass art through the Studio Glass Movement originated in the United States in the 1970s. After acquiring the glass making techniques in Taiwan, he decided to set up a glass studio in Hong Kong for glass art fans in the city in 1993.

As the first glass studio in Hong Kong, Wong aims to promote glass art through workshops, glass restoration, consultation services and art work exhibitions. He describes the making of glass as “very flexible and ever-changing”. Different temperatures result in different colours and shapes of the glass work. “The unimaginable beauty of glass art fascinates me,” he says. Wong says glass making nowadays is more than just blowing glass near the furnace.

Different kinds of glasses, including cold glass, warm glass and hot glass can be produced. Each of them has distinctive processing features such as polishing, bonding, fusing, slumping and casting. It provides more possibilities and variations for artists to create their own unique artwork.

Apart from producing glass art, Wong also specialises in glass restoration. “Restoration takes time. Before doing so, you need to understand the materials first,” he says. Even though the techniques used in repairing glass art are more complicated, Wong finds it both challenging and meaningful.

Wong says he helped restore Italian painted glass windows of the Haw Par Mansion, a historical building built in 1935. It took his team over four months to restore 20 glass windows which were destroyed by bombing in the World War II. In order to restore the mansion to its original shape, Wong and his team had to find materials that match the style of architecture of that time, which made the task more challenging.

Though Wong has made great effort to promote glass making in Hong Kong, he admits that glass art is still not widely recognised by the public. “Glass art is more like an obscure and underground art,” he says. “Glass is widely seen as an installation decoration, but not a form of fine arts.”

Wong shaping a glass marble with a flame

Glass production requires huge investment and space for equipment storage, which makes it difficult for the trade to develop in Hong Kong. Wong points out government policies are introduced to encourage consumers to purchase glass art products to boost the glass art market in South Korea. Hong Kong, however, does not have such kind of policies and the market is niche.

But Wong says he will strive to promote the art despite the challenges. “We will focus more on art creation and hold regular exhibitions in the future,” he says.

Want to make your own unique glass art? Pay a visit to the Studio Glass Hong Kong at L0-04 Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre at 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei or go to their website for more details.

Edited by Edith Chung

Tea Time!

May 6, 2019

Yang Chun Lei, a century-year-old herbal tea shop struggles to survive

By Shell Zhang

Most people nowadays go for soda and alcohol for a drink. But in the old days, a cup of herbal tea was a more popular choice. They would gather at a herbal tea shop to chat with one another while having herbal tea.

Yang Chun Lei, a herbal tea shop in Wan Chai, has been in operation for 105 years. It is one of the few traditional herbal tea houses in Hong Kong. Yang Wen-jia, the third generation owner of the shop, says he inherits the shop from his father and grandfather.

“You can say it is our uniqueness, or just being simple,” Yang laughs as he explains why there is only one item on the menu. Different from other herbal tea stores, Yang Chun Lei only sells “24 Herbs” (二十四味). He explains that 24 Herbs is good for health and therefore they focus on producing this kind of herbal tea.

Yang explains the key to enhance herbal tea’s effect is to keep it fresh and maintain the temperature. He says at first customers just walk by his shop and give the herbal tea a try. When they find the tea is really effective, they visit regularly. “Some Westerners are also our regular customers,” he says.

Although the business has been quite successful, Yang says he has never thought of expanding the business scale. He says the major concern is the quality of herbal tea. The preparation of 24 Herbs now requires manual labour. But if they increase the scale of production, he is afraid that the tea quality might be compromised.

“If you do not produce the tea yourself and rely on factories to manufacture, the tea will no longer be fresh after being packaged and then transported here and there,” Yang says.

He admits that the herbal tea industry is shrinking, but says his store still manages to survive. “We have the advantage of cost since we own the store. We do not have to pay rents.”

Yang says he does not view the recent revitalisation projects in Wan Chai as a threat to his business. “When it is time for our community to be redeveloped, we have to leave.” Yang says he will strive to continue the family business. “It is a family asset passed on through generations. I have to protect my family’s name.”

Want to try the 24 Herbs and stay healthy? Pay a visit to Yang Chun Lei at 29 Spring Garden Lane, Wan Chai.

Yang Wen-jia is the third generation owner of Yang Chun Lei

Edited by Edith Chung

Periscope April 2019 – Finding the Right Care

March 22, 2019

The structural problem of overcapacity has long existed in the public medical sector. With increasing number of patients, public hospitals in Hong Kong are constantly overloaded. Society has to explore alternative healthcare options to minimise reliance on public healthcare in Hong Kong.

The Good Samaritan Law has been widely implemented in Western countries to offer legal protection to people who help in medical emergencies. We talk to scholars about the necessity of enacting the Good Samaritan Law in Hong Kong and how it can change society’s perceptions on first aid.

The government has introduced the concept of “ageing-in-place” to allow seniors to live in their homes as they age. In response to this, foreign domestic workers gradually take up the roles of caregivers at home. They can receive proper medical training from fully-subsidised courses. However, the public has little knowledge about private foreign caregivers, according to employment agencies.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has announced a plan to open the first Chinese medicine hospital in 2024. We listen to union representatives and practitioners about the functions of the hospital, as well as their concerns on its management and mode of operation.

Finding the Right Care – Editor’s Note

March 22, 2019

Hong Kong’s medical system is heavily subsidised by the government. Every resident has the basic right to enjoy quality medical services.

According to 2018 Bloomberg Health Care Efficiency Index, which took into account the lifespans of citizens and the costs of healthcare services, Hong Kong had the world’s most efficient healthcare system.

But the structural problem of overcapacity has long existed in the public medical sector. With increasing number of patients, public hospitals in Hong Kong are constantly overloaded, especially during peak flu seasons. People have to wait for many hours to see a doctor.

These have raised doubts over whether patients can really obtain timely access to medical treatments. Society has to explore alternative healthcare options to minimise reliance on public healthcare in Hong Kong.

We begin by discussing the significance of first aid in our everyday lives. It has always been a race against time when it comes to life-saving situations. To increase the chance of survival, general citizens should be equipped with basic first-aid knowledge. In reality, it is difficult to promote first-aid education in school.

The Good Samaritan Law has been widely implemented in Western countries to offer legal protection to people who help in medical emergencies. We talk to scholars about the necessity of enacting the Good Samaritan Law in Hong Kong and how it can change society’s perceptions on first aid.

To alleviate the pressure on public health system, it is becoming common to employ foreign caregivers to take care of the elderly. The government has introduced the concept of “ageing-in-place” to allow seniors to live in their homes as they age.

In response to this, foreign domestic workers gradually take up the roles of caregivers at home. They can receive proper medical training from fully-subsidised courses. However, the public have little knowledge about private foreign caregivers, according to employment agencies.

In the meantime, the government is considering resorting to Chinese medicine to share the burden of the existing medical system. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has announced a plan to open the first Chinese medicine hospital in 2024. We listen to union representatives and practitioners about the functions of the hospital, as well as their concerns on its management and mode of operation.

Apart from healthcare concerns, this issue also features a variety of stories, ranging from the difficulties in accessing halal food and a profile on a LGBT social worker to the bubble tea craze. We hope you enjoy your read!

Sarah Poon
Editor-in-chief