Happy Birthday to us!
Twenty-eight years ago today, bc magazine debuted on the streets of Hong Kong.
A lot of people – staff, friends, advertisers and readers have been involved over the years, thank you for your continued support and strength especially now.
Carpe Diem!
Today we honour and remember those who died in and around Tian’anmen Square in 1989.
We take time to light a candle in their memory! Not to make a political statement but because honouring and remembering those who have died is an important and integral part of Hong Kong, Chinese and yes English culture.
That some would threaten violence towards those who wish to remember the dead says far more about them than us… What next, will Ching Ming Festival be banned as well?
The Hong Kong Press Photographers Association (HKPPA) has announced the winner of its annual “Focus on the Frontline” photo competition.
The 2021 winner is HK01‘s Liu Ngan Hung for his photo “The Pillar of Shame” depicting workers removing the Pillar of Shame from HKU. The statue remembers those murdered when the People’s Liberation Army opened fire on democracy protesters in Tian’anmen Square on 4 June 1989.
The “Focus On The Frontline” photo contest began in 1993 and has become one of the most prestigious awards for local photojournalists. Through the competition, the HKPPA looks for photographs that are important to Hong Kong’s history and which combine the elements of art and journalism.
Commenting on the winner “The jury thinks ‘The Pillar of Shame’ reflects the Hong Kong people’s sustained concern over June 4th, which is also a yearning and worries for the country’s democratisation. As workers removed the pillar in the twilight, it symbolises the freedoms of thought and expression once cherished in Hong Kong being dispossessed. The lighting condition and framing of the photograph gives it a baroque aesthetic, bringing tension to the work. The posture of workers lowering their heads to avoid being photographed and the darkness that envelopes the action are metaphorical, constructing a meaning that is more than the sum of all the visual elements in the image.”
Ming Pao’s Lam Oi Yee image of people drinking on a street, metres away from a fatal car accident came second in the Spot News category.
Singaporean artist Ming Poon, aka Ming Apur, likes as he puts it to use choreography as a “tool to interrogate, disrupt and re-organise the social and political relationality of the body in time and space.”
Poon’s latest work is Project June 4th a 24-hour online commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that looks to use dance to speak out against state censorship of peaceful dissent, criticism and the erasure and rewriting of history. For as Poon says “Once we forget, history repeats itself and the oppressors become emboldened”.
On 4 June 1989 the peaceful mass student protests in Tiananmen Square were ended by military force. Although more than 30 years have passed, the Chinese government still suppresses any mention or acknowledgement of the incident.
On 5 June a single man stood against a column of tanks… Project 4th June commemorates those who were murdered, the movement and choreography of Tank Man represents as Poon puts it “the potential that lies within ordinary persons to stop the machines of violence and oppression. It is also a call-out to stand up against injustice, no matter how small we think we are and how insurmountable we think the task is.”
6 dancers will take turns performing Tank Man throughout the 24-hour commemoration. Each will attempt to interpret the choreography in a way that expresses their individual thoughts and relationship to the Tiananmen Square incident, state censorship and the fight for human rights and democracy.
The 6 dancers are:
1. Pink Tank: “Watch out, the world is not behind you.”
2. Tank Ghost: “Of Ghosts and Shells”
3. Tank Zheng: “No Tank On Rainbow”
4. Tank Sexy: “The Days Without Cigarettes / 沒有煙抽的日子“
5. Tank Plant: “Planting the Reality”
6. Tank Critique Critique: “Which Tanks Do You Need To Stand In Front Of?”
If you want to watch, join or participate (see the video above for the choreography) in the commemoration Poon has an event etiquette to help make it safe for everyone. Keep your identity, as well as others’ anonymous!
Project June 4th
Date: 4 June, 2022 (
Venue: live stream on Zoom and Youtube
Tickets: Free
More info: www.mingapur.com
live stream on Zoom and Youtube
The final concert of David Bowie‘s Serious Moonlight Tour was in Hong Kong at the HK Coliseum on 8 December 1983. It was also, sadly, the third anniversary of John Lennon’s murder and after performing Fame Bowie and spoke to the audience about Lennon.
“I co-wrote that song with John Lennon.And I asked him one day ‘How do you write your songs’, and he said ‘lt’s easy, you just say what you mean, and you put a back-beat to it’.
I said ‘What do you think of my kind of rock & roll’. He said ‘It’s great, but it’s just rock & roll with lipstick on’”.
Bowie pauses for a moment, as the audience cry out, “Last time I saw John Lennon was in Hong Kong, we went to a Hong Kong market and there was a stall that sold old clothes, and there was a Beatles jacket on the stall, and I did something that is not usually in my character – I asked him to put it on so that I could take a photograph, I took a photograph, and I’ve still got the photograph. The jacket doesn’t fit properly, it looks like John had outgrown it”.
Bowie then performs a beautiful version of Imagine in honour of his late friend. An upgraded 4K version of this iconic performance has been uploaded to Youtube – enjoy.
There’s also an audio bootleg of the whole concert.
image: screenshot
James Ockenden’s “ghost bikes” project remembers the nine cyclists who lost their lives on Hong Kong’s roads last year. White painted bikes with white silk flowers and a memorial card with details of the person who died were placed at each of the fatal accident spots.
Ockenden, who organised the ghost bike memorial after the annual Ride of Silence 2022 was made a virtual event, said of the people who died – I think it is important to remember that these accident victims were not racing, but just getting around in an easy and environmental-friendly way, and we should be supporting that as a community.
The Ride of Silence is an annual international bicycle ride that pays tribute those killed or injured when cycling on public roads. The ride had been held in Hong Kong on the third Wednesday of May for the last 16 years.
After the 2021 memorial ride organised by the Hong Kong Cycling Alliance, the police accused riders of violating Covid-19 social distancing rules and ticketed everyone.
The Ride of Silence 2022 livestream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NBihAt2Pao
Ride of Silence 2022
Date: 7pm, 18 May, 2022
Venue: Hong Kong
Tickets: Free
images: hkghostbikes
Hong Kong’s ‘press freedom’ has plunged 68 places to 148th (out of 180) since the implementation of the National Security Law as government critics are jailed and publications silenced.
The 20th World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reveals a large increase in polarisation amplified by information chaos – that is, media polarisation fuelling and feeding divisions within and between countries.
The spread of ‘opinion media’ and disinformation are amplified by the way social media functions and are creating extreme polarisation of views with an unrepresented and unlistened to middle ground.
“At the international level, democracies are being weakened by the asymmetry between open societies and despotic regimes that control their media and online platforms while waging propaganda wars against democracies.”
Reporters Without Borders defines press freedom as “the effective possibility for journalists, as individuals and as groups, to select, produce and disseminate news and information in the public interest, independently from political, economic, legal and social interference, and without threats to their physical and mental safety.”
In order to reflect press freedom’s complexity, five indicators are used to compile the Index: the political context, legal framework, economic context, sociocultural context, and security.
image: The Korea Herald
American lawyer Samuel Bickett recently deported from Hong Kong at the completion of his prison sentence, has written about life in Hong Kong’s prisons during Covid.
On 22 April 2022 Bickett applied to the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal to appeal his 2021 assault conviction.
Prisoners have been harmed more by pandemic lockdown measures than by Covid
My intention is for this to be the first in a series of articles about my second stint in Hong Kong’s prisons earlier this year. In truth, I’ve found it more traumatic than expected to recall and write about these events, so I’ll make no guarantees about future articles. But there is a lot to tell, and I promise I will do my best to share it with you.
A cancer-stricken 75 year-old political detainee housed in the same cell as me at Lai Chi Kok Prison had his court hearing cancelled and was forced to remain locked up without bail, and without any indication of when he’d be able to seek release.
Hundreds of prisoners at Stanley Prison were locked alone in tiny cells for six weeks, only permitted out briefly every other day for a shower.
A dead prisoner’s corpse was left in a shared cell for hours, as other prisoners bunched together on the furthest wall in the small room to avoid getting too close… ”
Read the full article here samuelbickett.substack.com/p/the-black-box-my-experience-in-hong
