bc magazine

Happy Birthday Jia Jia, An An, Ying Ying, and Lei Lei

Ocean Park’s Giant Pandas celebrated their birthdays on the 28^th July – Jia Jia turns 37, An An is 29, Ying Ying and Lei Lei are both turning 10 – with a bit of a party.

Jia Jia, who arrived 19 years ago at Ocean Park when she was 18 years old, is now a double Guinness World Record holder for “the oldest panda ever in captivity” and “the oldest panda living in captivity”. The previous holder of both records was also a female, Du Du, who passed away on 22 July 1999 shortly before turning 37, now that Jia Jia has turned 37, she is the new record holder. In human terms 37 is still young but converting panda years into human years, 37 is equivalent to 110 human years. A birthday that is definitely worth celebrating!

Ocean Park also announced that Ying Ying had recently returned from Sichuan where she participated in China’s Giant Panda Breeding Program and enjoyed several romps with China’s horny male pandas and a bout of artificial insemination. The gestation period for giant pandas is quite long but there’s hope that Ying Ying is pregnant, and will soon give birth to her first locally born cub.

Ocean Park’s “Summer Nights” promotion offers extended opening hours to 9pm on all Saturdays and Sundays in August (i.e. 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30 August). There’s also a special discounted entry price of $198 (Adults) and $99 (Children) to enter the Park after 4pm.

Police Selectively Turning Their Back on Crime?

These days, it is almost a cliche to describe the Hong Kong Police as turning their backs on crime to fulfil political, guard duties for CY Leung’s government. But that’s what they were doing last night on Sai Yeung Choi Street.

The back story to what now takes place almost every Saturday, Sunday and public holiday evening in Mongkok looks like this. A group of ‘aunties’ supported by a motley crew of late, middle-aged men congregate to sing and dance to Mainland songs. Regular patrons of Sai Yeung Choi Street have various problems with this newly introduced behaviour.

Firstly, these groups take over the whole street with their dancing and extremely loud music, and if anyone dares to challenge them to turn it down, then they are met with hostile reactions. This kind of behaviour is exasperated when you speak to local musicians who have been playing in Sai Yeung Choi for years.

I have been speaking with these musicians, and they all said that they feel marginalised by the introduction of the Mainland dancing aunties onto the Street. They told me, “those aunties complain that our music is too loud, and the authorities make us turn ours down. But when we complain about their loud music or aggressive behaviour nothing happens, the authorities turn a blind eye.” All of the local musicians lamented that it appears the aunties have the protection of some powerful people and so act with aggressive impunity towards anyone who dares to challenge them. Many were in agreement that there seems to be a concerted effort to introduce this reddest of red communist past time to Hong Kong streets, regardless of the consequences for the local culture. So, while the local artists find themselves being pushed back, the revolutionary aunties and their admirers have expanded.

That was until the Localist groups took an interest in the musician’s plight. With an ability to regularly mobilise 2-300 protesters at any time, Localist groups now have a proven track record of being able to capture the media attention on any topic of their choosing. They revealed to the world the long-suffering difficulties of local communities overrun with swarms of smugglers and the stark contradictions in the government’s policies on street hawkers. The dancing aunties have now become another hotly debated topic that most people know almost nothing about.

For the Localists, the dancing aunties are an alien, cultural invasion that degrades local identity and introduces an unwelcome glorification of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) into Hong Kong. On top of this and most importantly, what the aunties are doing is illegal. The agreed format for performers on Sai Yeung Choi Street is that space is allotted upon a first come first serve basis. Anyone can perform, but without a license it is illegal to take money from the public. The dark principle behind the aunty’s shows is that the ladies in attendance sing and dance for money, which they receive via red-packets. It’s a form of ‘soft-prostitution’, as the aunties let the men ‘get close’ and they receive hard cash as a reward. The tone and the vibe of the songs may be politically supportive of the Mainland and CCP. But, in essence, this is a monetary transactional relationship, heavily tainted with sexual undertones, taking place on a street allocated for performers. Making it illegal.

To be clear, offering any form of sexual favours on a one-tone basis is not illegal in Hong Kong, but when there is more than one girl involved in the process, then it is. The loop-hole behind this is that there are many single-girl-brothels all over the territory, or when you go to Wanchai, you don’t pay for girls, you pay for expensive drinks. On Sai Yeung Choi Street what is flirting with illegality is bringing groups of dancing, singing-girls together to exchange money for sexually charged encounters. Let’s be clear, no one is having sex on the street, but the men are paying, and the aunty’s are letting them have a feel while dancing. It is undeniably a sexual transaction.

There are many investigative reports on these encounters where old men openly admit spending all of their money on the ‘pretty girls.’ (side note, these women are not pretty). In one such investigation, a video shows singers receiving numerous red-packets from men in Tuen Mun. This accusation of accepting cash for sexual favours and breaking laws covering prostitution is in reality hard to pin unequivocally upon the aunties. But what is clear is that they are taking the money while performing on the street, this is fact and is unquestionably breaking the law. (See pics of tweets of the girls accepting money).

Citizens have filed complaints about this practice. But rather than mobilize the FEHD to investigate, the Mongkok police have instead mobilised its PTU to ensure whatever the aunties are doing, illegal or not, continues unfettered. Presumably under some mistaken notion of protecting freedom of expression and the right to assembly.
So the question arises, in a city where a man fixing people’s bikes for free and taking $10 to cover the cost of parts can be hauled up in front of the magistrate for illegal hawking. Why are the FEHD not investigating and police turning their backs while aunties receive hundreds of dollars a night for offering old men soft-prostitution services on the street in plain sight?

The obvious retorts to this question are that the police are not aware of what is going on. However, this hear-no-evil, see-no-evil approach to law enforcement simply doesn’t hold up in reality. On Sunday night, HK Frontline Media easily took photographs of the aunties receiving payment while a horde of police stood just one metre away.
In plain sight money was changing hands while the police focused all of their attention on the much-vilified Localists who were, in fact, not breaking any laws by being there. If the police turned just one of their cameras on the aunties, they would quickly capture the illegal behaviour everyone is complaining about and just like the friendly bike-mender they would be up in front of a magistrate.

You may then argue, well it isn’t the responsibility of the police to micro manage street performers, this is the job of the FEHD. Yet, I have also witnessed the police closing down would-be buskers within minutes because they tried to collect money. So the police are not blind to what’s happening on Sai Yeung Choi Street. Instead, the only conclusion one can make is they are selectively enforcing the law depending upon who is in favour. Someone up on high has dictated that the aunties are patriotic and therefore they will stay! Regardless of how many police need to be mobilised to protect them and how much evidence there is to show them repeatedly breaking the laws covering street performance.

With the police only motivated to throw more PTU at the street performer’s impasse and the FEHD nowhere to be seen, what may you ask are the Localists plans for the aunties? Their strategy is very succinct. For them, the anti-aunty campaign is a low-cost, economic attack upon the aunties, with the broader goal of keeping the topic of Mailandisation of Hong Kong in the media. Between the groups, the cost of the protests is low. They expend little effort either in manpower or risking arrests, yet eventually they believe they can financially cripple the aunties money channels. The aunties will stop singing on Sai Yeung Choi Street if they don’t get paid, and the old men will stop paying if they don’t get to dance and sexually embrace the aunties. Every day the aunties don’t dance is a victory. The protests are a classic guerrilla tactic that closely mirrors such direct action groups like Sea Shepherd. Who know they can’t match the Japanese Whaling operation dollar for dollar, but they can block it at every turn, making it financially unviable to continue in the long term.

So, rather than being irrelevant bickering over music tastes, the aunty protests show us that Localist protests are not being driven by an irrational hatred of Mainlanders. Instead, they bring into sharp focus the favouring of a policy of Mainlandisation by CY Leung’s Government. The policy is chipping away at Hong Kong’s sophisticated, local culture and works only to the detriment of Hong Kong’s once proud police force and its impartial rule of law.

Cantonese Being Squeezed Out of the Classroom

Several years ago, when I found out my daughter might not get into the primary school affiliated to her kindergarten, I panicked. I had only applied to one school and now, I had to look for alternatives.

I was not looking for a famous or prestigious school. Instead, I wanted to find a school that did not have a high-pressure test culture, one that instead stressed a more relaxed and joyful approach to learning. I was also looking for a school that used Chinese as a medium of instruction and taught Chinese in Cantonese.

This proved to be much harder than I imagined in a city where Cantonese is the main language spoken by around 90 per cent of the majority ethnic Chinese population.

According to a comprehensive survey of 512 primary schools and 454 secondary schools conducted in 2013, the Cantonese advocacy group Societas Linguistica Hongkongensis found that 71 per cent of primary schools and 25 percent of secondary schools were using Putonghua as the medium of instruction for Chinese language (PMI). This meant anything between one and all Chinese classes in those schools are taught in Putonghua.

Today, whenever officials are about the government’s position on PMI for Chinese, they repeat the line that this is a “long-term goal”. In 2008 the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR), a group set up to advise the government on language education, announced plans to allocate $200 million to help schools switch to PMI.

However, there is no timetable for full implementation of this long-term goal. This should make us wonder, where did the goal come from and what are the reasons for adopting it? To try and answer these questions, I had to dig through some history.

The Mysterious Origins of the “Long-term Goal”
In 1982, the colonial government invited an international panel to conduct a review of Hong Kong’s education system. The panel recommended that Cantonese be the medium of instruction for the first nine years of schooling, so that teaching and learning would be conducted in “the language of the heart”. The recommendation was supported by the volumes of evidence that show mother-tongue teaching to be more effective.

Where it did refer to Putonghua, the panel recommended it be taught as a publicly-funded but extra-curricular subject at primary level and built into the timetable as a separate subject at secondary level.

In 1996, a report by the Education Commission said Puthonghua should be part of the core curriculum at primary and secondary levels and offered as an independent subject for the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Exams in 2000.

It also called on SCOLAR to,

“study further the relationship between Putonghua and the Chinese Language subject in the school syllabus to ascertain whether it would be more appropriate for Putonghua to be taught as a separate subject or as part of the Chinese Language curriculum in both short term and the long term.”

Note that at this stage there is no mention that Putonghua be a medium for teaching Chinese language (PMI), let alone the sole medium.

A year after the handover, in 1998, a study was commissioned to examine the effectiveness of teaching Chinese in Putonghua, to be completed by 2001. But before the studies were even finished, the first mention of the “long-term goal” appeared.

In its October 1999 review of proposed education reforms, the Curriculum Development Council said it was a goal in “the long term to adopt Putonghua as medium of instruction in the Chinese language education.”

A SCOLAR document from 2003 goes on to

“…fully endorse the Curriculum Development Council’s long-term vision to use Putonghua to teach Chinese Language.”

Yet the same document states

“…there is as yet no conclusive evidence to support the argument that students’ general Chinese competence will be better if they learn Chinese Language in Putonghua.”

In fact, of three studies referred to in the report, two studies found students’ performed no better or worse when taught in Putonghua.

According to Sy Onna, a secondary school Chinese language teacher who has studied the topic extensively, the government has never given a satisfactory explanation of why PMI for Chinese was adopted as a long-term goal. Academic research shows mixed results for the effectiveness of PMI, and has found no overall improvement in Chinese language competence.

For Cantonese language advocates like Societas Linguistica Hongkongensis, the reasons for promoting this long-term goal are clearly political – to dilute Hongkongers’ attachment to their native language on the one hand and to promote greater cultural integration with the Mainland on the other.

However, publicly at least, most proponents of PMI are likelier to cite its economic advantages and, to an even greater extent, its educational advantages.

“My Hand Writes My Mouth”
When I ask Professor Lam Kin-ping what the most compelling reasons are for PMI, he answers with the well-rehearsed assurance of someone who has answered the question many times before. Lam is Director of the Centre for Research and Development of Putonghua Education at the Faculty of Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, one of the organisations commissioned to carry out studies on the effectiveness of PMI in 1998.

He says he holds a fundamental “belief” that students learn better in PMI Chinese classes because they are listening, speaking, reading and writing in the same language code. Lam argues that in classrooms where Chinese teaching is conducted in Cantonese, students need to “switch codes”.

“The listening and speaking training is in Cantonese. Cantonese is at the end of the day a dialect, we can’t just write a dialect, so we have to adjust it internally, have to make it standard, switch some phrases and even sentences,” he says.

Lam thinks it makes sense to teach in Putonghua because it is very similar to written modern standard Chinese. Whereas Cantonese is a vernacular, a dialect that cannot easily be written or accepted in formal written contexts, says Lam.

For some people, this chimes with the idea of “my hand writes my [what my] mouth [utters]” – a slogan promoting the modernisation of written Chinese, harking back to the May Fourth movement of 1919 when classical Chinese was still the written standard. This core idea has been used to justify the need for PMI by scholars, education professionals and schools who support it, and is accepted without question by many parents.

But this does not make it a universally accepted truth.

Professor Tse Shek-kam, Director of the Centre for Advancement of Chinese Language Education and Research at the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Education, rejects the idea that students learn better in PMI classrooms because they do not have to “code-switch”. Nor does he accept that the Cantonese used in Chinese lessons is so far removed from modern standard written Chinese as to necessitate mental gymnastics.

Tse points out text-books are written in standard Chinese, which can be read aloud in Cantonese. Besides, he says, Chinese teachers do not speak in slangy street Cantonese.

“Our Chinese teachers speak very good Cantonese, very good Chinese,” he says. If anything, formal Cantonese has preserved many aspects of what would be considered literary and “proper” Chinese, he adds.

The proximity between spoken Chinese and written Chinese, “depends on the person’s education level, their reading experience and cultural cultivation.”

Tse says that if speaking good Putonghua really put students at an advantage in writing good Chinese, then students from Northeast China and Beijing, where the “purest” Putonghua is spoken would score highest in Chinese in public examinations. Yet, he says students from Shandong and Jiangsu/Zhejiang score higher.

“Both Jiangsu and Zhejiang are areas where distinct dialects are spoken, but they also have a strong tradition for literature and well-established publishing sectors,” Tse says.

For him, the advantages of teaching Chinese in Cantonese outweigh the advantages of teaching it in what is essentially a foreign spoken language to most Hong Kong students. Teachers and students are more comfortable communicating in their mother-tongue, making for livelier and more critical discussions that facilitate deeper learning.

Conflicting Evidence
In an interview with Ming Pao in April, one of the scholars tasked by the government to conduct longitudinal studies on the effectiveness of PMI, Professor Tang Shing-fung of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, said he had reservations about a wholesale switch to PMI, as evidence does not currently show PMI is a better way to teach Chinese language.

But PMI supporter Lam Kin-ping says his own observations in the classroom and reports from frontline teachers show students in PMI classes do perform better.

“We have seen improvements, for instance students can write longer articles, they consciously refrain from writing Cantonese terms and phrases, it is very easy for them to adjust [to written Chinese],” says Lam.

Lam acknowledges it is difficult to find quantitative proof of the above from research data, but he says his experiences and those of teachers convince him that it is real.

Sy Onna, who teaches separate Chinese Language and Putonghua classes at a local secondary school and is a member of the Progressive Teachers Alliance, dismisses Lam’s observations. She says being able to write longer articles with fewer Cantonese colloquialisms are not necessarily a sign of better writing.

“These are only superficial improvements,” Sy says. “As Tang Shing-fung points out, argument setting, structure and composition are just as if not more important, and these have nothing to do with Putonghua.”

This may be one reason secondary schools that teach Chinese in Putonghua often switch back to Cantonese in senior classes, as students prepare for approaching public examinations (as shown in Societas Linguistica Hongkongensis’ survey).

In a study published in 2011 of a school that switched to PMI in 2000, CUHK professor Angela Choi Fung Tam found school administrators were keen to push for PMI because they believed it would enhance the school’s reputation and help it to attract more academically able students.

This would support the view of both PMI advocate Lam Kin-ping and critic Tse Shek-kam that it is perhaps schools and parents, rather than the government who are taking the lead in pushing for the rapid switch to PMI.

But Tam’s study also found teachers were far more ambivalent – while they believed PMI would improve students’ Putonghua, they did not think it would raise their overall Chinese competence. Some senior teachers who experienced the switch said they had noticed a general decline in students’ language proficiency and school reports showed a drop in pass rates in public exams in Chinese language from 100 before PMI was introduced to around 90 afterwards.

“I think the government knows it doesn’t work, there is no evidence it works. To this day they haven’t set a timetable,” says Tse.

Making Informed Choices
I began this article outlining the predicament I found myself in while searching for a suitable primary school for my daughter. Eventually, she was accepted by the primary school affiliated to her kindergarten and we enrolled her in the sole class that teaches Chinese in Cantonese in her year. The other four classes all use PMI for Chinese.

Most of my daughter’s classmates’ parents told me they consciously chose Cantonese because they thought it would be better for their children to learn in the language spoken at home. A few of them said Cantonese was an important part of Hong Kong culture and identity.

However one parent said she was advised to place her child in the Cantonese class by education professionals, and another said it was because the PMI classes were already full. Both said they would switch to a PMI class if they could.

As I was also curious about whether my daughter’s former kindergarten classmates had ended up learning Chinese in Cantonese or Putonghua, I contacted some of their parents too. Of the eleven who replied, six had children who were in PMI classes. In most of these cases, parents said they had chosen a PMI school or class because they wanted their child to speak “native” level Putonghua. They also believed it would help their child to write better Chinese and be good for their future careers.

Three parents said they had yet to notice any changes in their children’s Chinese abilities and two said it had a positive impact. But two parents reported a negative impact. One, who I’ll call T, said her son would sometimes mix up the characters 的, 地 and 得, which are pronounced differently in Cantonese, but the same in Putonghua.

T told me, “I wish I had known then, what I know now, that writing good Chinese does not depend on Putonghua but on a person’s cultural and educational level and on how much they read.”

In terms of reading, it seems Hong Kong primary students are doing extremely well. In a study of reading literacy in primary school children in 49 countries and regions carried out in 2011, they ranked first – ahead of Taiwan which was seventh. So coming from a predominantly Cantonese speaking city does not seem to have affected Hong Kong school children’s reading abilities, a foundation for developing good writing skills.

The issue of PMI for Chinese has undoubtedly become a highly political and emotional one. But politics and emotions aside, the question we keep going back to is whether PMI is a better educational choice, and do we even have the information we need to make that judgment?

Any advantage gained through applying the principle of “my hand writes my mouth” needs to be balanced with the widely accepted principle that students learn better when taught in their mother tongue.

Through reviewing the evidence and speaking to experts, what I have learned is that PMI may improve students’ fluency in “native” Putonghua, but this can also be achieved through teaching Putonghua as a separate subject. Students may use fewer Cantonese words, phrases and grammar in their writing, but PMI cannot be said to have raised their overall competence in Chinese.

For parents like me, the choices themselves appear to be shrinking. While not all the schools teaching Chinese in Putonghua do so exclusively, many of the parents I spoke to agree with me that increasingly, the classes that teach in Cantonese are being seen as somehow “inferior”. Academically stronger kids will gravitate towards or be placed in PMI schools or PMI streams. Parents who worry their children may be labeled as less able may avoid putting them in the Cantonese Chinese class.

The government has offered incentives in the form of cash and personnel to help schools switch successfully to PMI. But school governing bodies and administrators, parents and an industry of extra-curricular literature and classes profiting from a transition to PMI are providing the momentum to push a long-term educational goal that lacks clear evidence, seemed to appear out of nowhere, and carries huge political implications.

Originally published www.yuenchan.org, July 2015

Parents Concern Group on National Education
This summer marks the 3rd anniversary of the anti-National Education movement. A number of organisations, including Scholarism, Progressive Teachers Alliance, Umbrella Parents and the Parents’ Concern Group on National Education issued a joint statement on Saturday 25th July.

There will also be a series of three seminars on PMI, the Chinese History curriculum and extra-curricular activities respectively .The first seminar on PMI will be held on August 8th at 2.30 pm in Room 103 of the Duke of Windsor Social Service Building.

Blur Live @ HKCEC – 22 July, 2015

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Blur-Live-HKCEC-22-July-2015/50786078_q7s3WM#!i=4222135625&k=vkwS54b

Blur rocked a sold-out HKCEC Hall 5 with a selection of greatest hits and tracks from their new album The Magic Whip – written in Hong Kong after the bands last concert here in 2013. The album is full of astute observations about life in in the SAR, but there is something a little bit extra special hearing live songs and tales about your home. If there was one complaint, the gig was not even two hours, so many great songs unplayed… Thanks for coming Blur, see you again soon luv Hong Kong!
Click on any photo to access the full gallery of images.

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Blur-Live-HKCEC-22-July-2015/50786078_q7s3WM#!i=4222125761&k=pKGst7j

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Blur-Live-HKCEC-22-July-2015/50786078_q7s3WM#!i=4222104226&k=4Bp9f29

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Blur-Live-HKCEC-22-July-2015/50786078_q7s3WM#!i=4222106492&k=vWRDxDh

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Blur-Live-HKCEC-22-July-2015/50786078_q7s3WM#!i=4222117489&k=HGz3FqS

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Blur-Live-HKCEC-22-July-2015/50786078_q7s3WM#!i=4222113745&k=6x8mbqJ

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Blur-Live-HKCEC-22-July-2015/50786078_q7s3WM#!i=4222118274&k=tD4WGdp

http://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Blur-Live-HKCEC-22-July-2015/50786078_q7s3WM#!i=4222138049&k=Hss5f8H

Summer International Film Festival 2015

Enjoy films on the big screen? Or simply have nothing to do this summer? The Summer International Film Festival returns for another year! This summer, it’s showcasing 32 films across 59 screenings all surrounding the theme of complexity and sentimentality.

This year’s SIFF 2015 opens on 11th August with 聂隐娘 (The Assassin (2015)) directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, about a thoughtful killer Nie Yin Niang (Shu Qi 舒淇), who has to decide whether to go against her morals as an assassin or as a woman. The film won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival 2015. The Director and and cast will meet the audience on the 11 August and there’s a masterclass with the Director on the 12 August. The festival closes with Woody Allen’s Irrational Man about a philosophy professor Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix), who finds himself in an existential crisis, but rediscovers himself through meeting Jill Pollard (Emma Stone). Blurring comedy and drama, it nicely closes with the theme of complexity and sentimentality.

The festivals Gala Premiere is the new Ringo Lam film Wild City starring Louis Koo, Shawn Yue and Tong Liya. With his trademark exhilarating car chases along Hong Kong city streets, director Ringo Lam returns after a 12-year hiatus to the crime genre that, together with City on Fire and Full Alert, can be considered his “City Trilogy”. A film about people in the modern world who worship money to the point of dogmatic ignorance, Wild City issues a warning to the greedy and selfish lost souls in Hong Kong… The Director and cast will meet the audience at the 18 August screening.

The two most interesting festival programmes this year are:
The Battle of Sexes: Screwball Comedy. A genre that originally emerged during the Great Depression when Hollywood responded to the hardships of everyday life with films whose sparkling dialogue and romantic complications played havoc with perceptions of class, gender and love. Typically it’s the female who dominates a relationship, challenging the male central character’s masculinity… The two then engage in a humorous battle of the sexes; a new theme for Hollywood and audiences at the time, but one which has become a core of film makers globally since.
Films: Trouble in Paradise (1932, Director Ernst Lubitsch), It Happened One Night (1934, Director: Frank Capra) My Man Godfrey (1936, Director: Gregory La Cava), His Girl Friday (1940, Director: Howard Hawks), The Philadelphia Story (1940, Director: George Cukor), The Lady Eve (1941, Director Presto Strugess).

Tsai Ming-Liang, Now and Then. The Malaysian born Taiwanese director’s five film retrospective, presents works which illuminate the themes of superstitions and reincarnation, sexual desperation, and isolation. The director’s uncompromising aesthetic of long fixed shots with little movement, complex characters and minimal dialogue, set him apart from other Asian directors, leading him to be one of Asia’s most significant filmmakers of the last 25 years.
Films: Rebels of the Neon God (1992), Vive L’Amour (1994), The River (1997), What Time is it There? (2001), Walker/No No Sleep (2014).

Film festivals are a chance for old and new films to once again appear on the big screen locally, an opportunity to appreciate a film in the surroundings for which it was created. They also offer, through the extended programme of seminars and panel discussions, a chance to enrich your experience and appreciation of a film that going to your local multiplex does not.

Other films shown in Cine Fan SIFF include:
The Assassin (聂隐娘), Yakuza Apocalypse (極道大戦争), Diary of a Chambermaid (Le journal d’une femme de chamber), Standing Tall (La Tête haute), Prophecy (予告犯), Seashore (Beira-Mar), A Touch of Zen (俠女), The Brand New Testament (Le Tout Nouveau Testament), Trouble in Paradise, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, The Lady Eve, Piku, It Happened One Night, Love & Peace (ラブ＆ピース), My Man Godfrey, Slow West, Flying Colours (ビリギャル), Güeros, The Double Life of Veronique (La double vie de Véronique), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Love letter, The Philadelphia Story, Wild City, PK, His Girl Friday, Vive L’Amour (愛情萬歲), The River (河流), What Time Is It There?( 你那邊幾點), Irrational Man

Tickets for the Cine Fan SIFF will be on sale on 21st of July, from URBTIX.

Summer International Film Festival (SIFF) 2015
Date: 11–25 August 2015
Venues: UA Cine Moko, The Grand Cinema, The Metroplex, MCL Telford Cinema, HK Arts Centre, HK Science Museum
Tickets: $75, $65, $85 from URBTIX
More info: screening schedule http://cinefan.com.hk/cms/schdeule/

Hong Kong lose to USA by 7 Wickets

After the euphoria of toppling Ireland the previous day, Hong Kong proved unable to maintain their momentum against the United States. A clinical partnership from the American pair of Alex Amsterdam and Nicholas Standford helped the US chase down the 126 they needed to complete a second victory of the tournament.

Hong Kong, who had bowled so superbly to defend 129 against Ireland, proved unable to replicate that effort on a more benign batting track at Clontarf. When Irfan Ahmed produced a devilish in-swinger to snare Fahad Babar lbw and reduce the US to 62-3 in the 11th over, Hong Kong had hopes of a third consecutive victory in the World T20 Qualifiers. But Amsterdam, who survived a tough chance off Tanwir Afzal at long off on none, and Standford batted with increasing confidence as Hong Kong reached their target.

Defeat makes Hong Kong’s final group game, against Namibia at 215 pm Irish time on Sunday, crucial. If Hong Kong win they should finish in either second or third, meaning they will only have to win one of two play-off matches to guarantee their passage to India next year. But should they lose Hong Kong would need the US and Jersey to lose their matches, to Papua New Guinea and Ireland respectively, to finish fourth. In this scenario Hong Kong would still qualify for the play-offs, but would be left needing to win two consecutive games to qualify for the 2016 World T20.

Hong Kong Director of Cricket and Head Coach Charlie Burke said, “We’ve got to grow up and get better tomorrow – learn from today and do things a lot better. I’m sure we will because the guys don’t often have two bad games in a row.”

“The destiny is still in our own hands which is crucial. We win tomorrow and we’ll get in the top four. We’ll probably stay fourth because of the net run-rate but that’s the important thing. We don’t want to get to the stage where it’s out of our hands. That’s the last thing we want – we’re a better team than that.”

Much of Hong Kong’s bowling performance was admirable, especially typically skilful opening spells from Tanwir Afzal and Haseeb Amjad. The fielding held up impressively too, with Aizaz Khan effecting a run-out and two batsmen surviving close direct hits. But ultimately Hong Kong were defending too few runs on an agreeable summer’s day at the picturesque, almost boutique, club ground in Clontarf.

Inserted to bat for the second consecutive day, Hong Kong faltered early on against precise new ball bowling from the United States. Anshuman Rath was lbw in the third over, and when Nizakat Khan edged Adil Bhatti behind at the start of the seventh over, Hong Kong were uncertainly placed on 27-2.

Irfan Ahmed began more cautiously than is his norm, but unfurled an exquisite cut through point for four as he became more assertive. Having reached 26, Irfan was run out at the end of the tenth over, attempting a single when none existed.

Having made a disappointing 54 from their opening ten overs, Hong Kong accelerated in the second half of their innings, albeit less spectacularly than they would have hoped. Mark Chapman and Babar Hayat added 33 in 4.3 overs for the first wicket, Chapman’s skilful accumulation complementing Hayat’s powerful hitting, until Chapman fell to a brilliant catch behind attempting to glide the ball down to third man.

When Hayat, who heaved Timil Patel’s legspin over long on for a huge six, fell clean bowled against Japen Patel, the onus was on Jamie Atkinson to get Hong Kong up to a score approaching the 129-8 they successfully defended against Ireland the day before.

It was a challenge the former skipper embraced. Mixing powerful hitting, including a clean straight six over long off, with aggressive running between the wickets, Atkinson reached 34, off only 23 balls, until being run-out from the final ball of the innings.

While this was a disappointing day for Hong Kong, there was still something to celebrate. Aged 17 years and 249 days, Giacomo Lamplough made his debut for Hong Kong. For one of the youngest sides in the tournament, promising days still lie ahead.

Additional reporting: HK Cricket Association

Megabites Food News – 17 July, 2015

Create Your Taste
Does McDonalds need a refresh? Hong Kong’s go-to 24hour answer for a cheap burger, fries and drink is experimenting. While there’s been a range of specialty burgers appearing and disappearing as special menu promotions for some year’s now as part of menu diversity. Some have been good, some interesting, some best forgotten but with the new ‘Create Your Taste’ (CYT) menu there’s only one person to blame if you don’t like your burger – yourself.

Although McDonalds in Hong Kong has always been a property play, globally Create Your Taste seems to fly directly in the face of McDonalds fast food ethos. It’s slow food cooked to order and delivered to your table, just as in a regular restaurant. So is this the potential new face of McDonalds? bc went along to try it out.

Leighton Centre and Festival Walk are trialling the new concept, where (in addition to the regular menu) a customer can build their own burger on a touch screen display. So how does it work… Disorganized and slowly when looking for a late lunch on a not very busy Saturday afternoon. The store is full of McDonalds staff, there’s one at every CYT screen.

The basic CYT burger is $48 dollars and ordering is multi-step process.
First: chose your bun – traditional, brioche, bunless.
Second: meat, one (supposedly angus) beef patty or more, each extra patty costs $15.
Third: cheese, a choice of Classic Cheddar, Mozzarella, Pepper Jack or White Cheddar. Sadly your only allowed to choose one cheese and only one slice
Fourth: free veggies – red onion rings, lettuce, sliced jalapenos, long sliced pickles, tomato. Choose as many as you want.
Fifth: sauce (choose as many as you want) mustard, herb aioli, American BBQ, Big Mac special sauce, spicy smokey BBQ, truffle, mayonnaise, tomato jalapenos relish, ketchup, teriyaki
Sixth: add extras guacamole ($8),fried egg ($6), applewood roasted bacon ($8), grilled mushrooms ($6), pineapple ($6), caramalised onions ($4).

You can then switch to meal, add drinks etc. The screens here are illogical and confusing with additions my burger was $68 yet making it a meal was according to the screen only cost $60.5… Some branches of the menu tree are unavailable – no coffee /iced tea for example as part of a meal.

Payment: at the machine with octopus or a credit card, if you want to pay cash you have to fiddle around and wait a few minutes before a bill is finally printed which you can then pay at the counter.

With all the money invested, the roughly 90x30cm screen is not intuitive, fast or even logical enough that a staff member is needed to guide each customer through the process and still mistakes occur. Why with such a large screen are the food images so big that scrolling is needed – idiotic! CYT was initially rolled out in the US a year ago – that they haven’t sorted the menu trees and smooth streamed the process is not a good sign.

After paying take a seat and wait and wait…. The restaurant is full of seated people waiting and people standing with trays of ‘regular’ McDonalds getting irritated that they cant find a seat…amidst the tables of people not eating but waiting.

My burger ($83 – extra patty, meal, tomato, pepper jack cheese, bacon, long sliced pickles and BBQ sauce) served on a wooden board took 35 minutes to arrive, with cold fries. This was a typical wait time among the people I asked about their CYT experience on Saturday, the average cost of their CYT’s $70-80. The fries come in a metal ‘fryer’ basket and portion size is that of a small fries. There’s no fries size upgrade for any meal. All the meal upgrade gets you is a larger drink.

So was it any good, presentation was ok – far more care had gone into making the burger than your regular McDonalds sandwich which (at least in the Wanchai outlets) often looks like roadkill. The sandwich was warm, not hot, the bun fresh. The burger patty tasted and looked no different from the regular 1/4 pounder (a double quarter pounder costs about $2 more than a single). bc specifically asked McDonalds about the patty weight and they chose to ignore the question in their email reply. The bacon was non-existent, as was the taste of cheese. The tomato while fresh was cut so thick it overpowered the sandwich.

CYT is a pretty good burger, but not an $80 burger! At $45, yes it’s a very viable and tasty alternative to McD’s regular items if you dont mind the wait. Asking around,the consensus was that if you’re paying $70-80 for a burger you can find a much better burger in a nicer environment with faster service in many locations across Hong Kong.

If you can, why not! An American CYT burger with maximum of everything!

order-gif-2

Free Sliders
As it gets ready to celebrate its ‘Grand Opening’ Wanchai’s Burger Joys (42-50 Lockhart Road, Wanchai) is offering free sliders on the 21-23 July between 6-8pm. 300 each day, one per person first come first served.

News
Australia’s largest family owned winery has a new distributor in Hong Kong. Taylors who have been producing wine in the Clara Valley since 1973 are the third biggest vineyard by volume downunder and have been releasing some very well regarded wines over the last 40 years. Taylor’s new distributor for Hong Kong and China are ASC Fine Wines.

Cecconi’s have moved from Soho to a larger more airy location on the 2/F of 77 Wyndham Street (Tel: 2565 5300). There’s a new chef Michael Fox, a new menu with a slightly higher price point, a healthy buffet lunch option…

Another outlet that’s moved is Flying Pan in Wanchai, the new address is 1/F 37-39 Lockhart Road (Tel: 2528 9997), although the entrance is actually on Fenwick Street. The decor of the new location is similar to the old one but new and fresh. Hopefully the move will also freshen up the food quality which had become very average in recent years. Good reports so far.

Hong Kong Beat Ireland by 5 Runs

Four wickets in 7 balls across the 18th and 19th overs sealed Hong Kong’s win over one of the tournament favourites Ireland. The win also means that Hong Kong have to win one of their two remaining games against the USA and Namibia to qualify for the knock-out stage of the ICC World T20 Qualifier.

Batting first Hong Kong scored 129/8 on a damp night in Dublin. Mark Chapman top scoring with 30 while Anshuman Rath, Nizakat Khan scored 22 and 25 respectively. Tanwir Afzal added a crucial 18 at the end. Despite starting strong with a 43 run partnership between Stirling and Porterfield, Ireland’s chase disintegrated amidst some fine tight bowling with Nizakat Khan and Irfan Ahmed outstanding. Ahmed only conceding 3 runs of the 19th over while taking two wickets to take Man of the Match with figures of 3/11.