Congratulations to Nancy McGillivray who becomes the first player raised in Hong Kong to be selected for the England Rugby senior women’s squad.
McGillivray grew up in Hong Kong playing mini and youth rugby for DB Pirates and age grade for the HK teams. She had two seasons with Kowloon rugby and then headed off to university in the United Kingdom.
Hong Kong’s Eric Yip has won the UK’s National Poetry Competition with his poem Fricatives which talks about language, race, migration, belonging and the guilt of leaving one’s home behind.
Fricatives’ is a poem that makes its way ‘through the murky and treacherous waters of language, race, migration, and of being heard when “Nobody wants to listen/ to a spectacled boy with a Hong Kong accent.”
Speaking of his win the 19-year-old Yip said “It’s possibly the most surprising thing to ever happen to me. I’ve never had anything published before in a journal, let alone win any competition. I’m also honoured to contribute a small part to the growing literary space of Hong Kong poetry, which was carved out piece by piece through the wondrous efforts of many Hong Kong poets I admire.”
“I see the poem as a coming-of-age for the speaker, reflected through the transformation of his city. It’s about different types of oppression and how the speaker navigates them. The poem begins by looking at the legacy of colonialism in influencing how we speak, or how we think we should speak. Then there’s the political dimension, which feels impossible not to write about. There’s also submission in the sexual sense, but even that scene has colonial undertones. And finally, there’s assimilating into an English-speaking country. All this mirrors Hong Kong’s journey from a colony to a battleground, to a site of exodus,” Yip added.
“I think there’s definitely an element of survivor guilt in the poem. Hong Kong is experiencing its largest emigration wave in history, but not everyone has the means to move to another country. For me, being able to write this poem is a form of privilege”
Yip’s work was chosen by judges Fiona Benson, David Constantine and Rachel Long, who read all the entries anonymously.
Benson said: “Fricatives is an immensely ambitious and beautifully achieved poem. It puts its reader into the position of a student of English as a second language, the fricative consonants tangling our mouths as we speak the poem, and intriguing us with the alternate meanings that rest precariously on the pronunciation. ‘Proper’ achievements – the correct pronunciation, the good education abroad, and the proud parents – are countered by an underworld of political prisoners and risky, grim sex.”
She added: “This is an incredibly powerful, vulnerable story of an uneasy assimilation, and of government surveillance… It’s a poem of poise and counterpoise, and is personal, political and acutely musical. What a tensile, high-wire reckoning.”
To speak English properly, Mrs Lee said, you must learn
the difference between three and free. Three men
escaped from Alcatraz in a rubber raft and drowned
on their way to Angel Island. Hear the difference? Try
this: you fought your way into existence. Better. Look
at this picture. Fresh yellow grains beaten
till their seeds spill. That’s threshing. That’s
submission. You must learn to submit
before you can learn. You must be given
a voice before you can speak. Nobody wants to listen
to a spectacled boy with a Hong Kong accent.
You will have to leave this city, these dark furrows
stuffed full with ancestral bones. Know
that death is thorough. You will speak of bruised bodies
skinnier than yours, force the pen past batons
and blood, call it fresh material for writing. Now
they’re paying attention. You’re lucky enough
to care about how the tongue moves, the seven types
of fricatives, the articulatory function of teeth
sans survival. You will receive a good education
abroad and make your parents proud. You will take
a stranger’s cock in your mouth in the piss-slick stall
of that dingy Cantonese restaurant you love and taste
where you came from, what you were made of all along.
Put some work into it, he growls. C’mon, give me
some bite. Your mother visits one October, tells you
how everyone speaks differently here, more proper.
You smile, nod, bring her to your favourite restaurant,
order dim sum in English. They’re releasing
the students arrested five years ago. Just a tad more
soy sauce please, thank you. The television replays
yesterday on repeat. The teapots are refilled. You spoon
served rice into your mouth, this perfect rice.
Steamed, perfect, white.
Image: National Poetry Competition
Factwire have written a long article about the new isolation centre “First instance of Wuhan Huoshenshan blueprint with restricted exterior access being built in Hong Kong’s Lok Ma Chau Loop”
//As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases gradually fall in Hong Kong, authorities continue construction on a large “container hospital”. As of today, Factwire has observed that the layouts of the “container hospital” and quarantine facilities apparently do not allow direct egress from rooms to the outdoors.
The architecture and layout of the facilities bear a distinct resemblance to Wuhan’s Huoshenshan and Leishenshan hospitals, where patients are quarantined in double rooms with shared toilet facilities, and are attached to, inter alia, a common operating room, ICU department, and computed tomography (CT) rooms. This appears to be the first instance of the Huoshenshan/Leishenshan(火神山/雷神山) blueprint being used to build a structure in Hong Kong.
The Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan had expressed earlier, via an online publication, that the Lok Ma Chau Loop facility would be staffed and operated by medical personnel from mainland China.
The government announced in early March that the Lok Ma Chau facility, scheduled to begin operation in April of 2022, would comprise some 1,000 hospital beds and allow an occupancy of 10,000 quarantined individuals.
Wen Wei Po reported yesterday that the construction was slated to be completed on April 5, 2022 and that the finished facility would contain three operating rooms and 100 ICU beds. The Chinese government appointed the China Construction Science and Industry Corporation – the same firm that built the Huoshenshan and Leishenshan facilities in Wuhan – to the project in Lok Ma Chau Loop…..//
Article continues on Factwire www.factwire.org/en/first-instance-of-wuhan-huoshenshan-blueprint-with-restricted-exterior-access-being-built-in-hong-kongs-lok-ma-chau-loop/
American lawyer Samuel Bickett who was convicted of ‘assaulting’ an undercover policeman who denied he was a cop – has been released from jail and deported.
An old lady in Diamond Hill is using fallen cotton tree flowers to create colourful messages of hope.
Originally from India the Tree Cotton – Scientific Name 學名: Bombax ceiba – is known as “Hero Trees” in Chinese.
You can read more about the plant in the HK Plant Database.
Image: andthenHK
World Rugby is offering everyone involved in the game the chance to have their say on the recent welfare-driven global law trials which have taken place over the last nine months.
An online survey offers fans, players, officials and anyone else with an interest in rugby a chance to be heard. The questionnaire is available until 28 March.
In July 2021, World Rugby announced that a package of law trials, focused on improving the welfare of players, would be trialled across the global game. Those law trials are:
The results of the survey will be used alongside detailed data analysis and coach, player, referee and medical feedback to help inform the decision of the Law Review Group (LRG), which will make a final recommendation to the World Rugby High Performance Rugby Committee, before the World Rugby Council considers the recommendations in May. Should the law trials be approved by the Council, they would become full laws of the game in July 2022.
World Rugby Chairman Sir Bill Beaumont said: “These player welfare-focused law trials have been invaluable and I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in making them such a success. Now it is vital that World Rugby has a complete picture of the impact of these trials for players, fans, medics and officials alike.
“That is why we are calling on everyone in the rugby family to have their say on these law trials and let us know your views, including the key question as to whether each of these trials should be accepted into full rugby law.
“As I said at the beginning of the year, 2022 is the year of player welfare for World Rugby and together with the rugby family we can ensure that this year, the laws of the game are the keeping up with all the developing science in this area.”
The Global Law Trials survey is available in the following languages
a. English https://forms.office.com/r/8mykKAL3Bt
b. French https://forms.office.com/r/bxA0KMj1pY
c. Spanish https://forms.office.com/r/tPgPYi242P
d. Japanese https://forms.office.com/r/2GCfy9PADa
Aditional reporting, images: World Rugby
A Hong Kong resident has written an open letter to Chief Executive Carrie Lam – and posted it across social media – which pretty much sums up most Hongkongers’ frustrations with the government’s inept and incompetent handling of the Covid19 pandemic.
“Dear Chief Executive
I am writing to express not only my dissatisfaction but also my incomprehension and, frankly, disgust at your policies for dealing with Covid in Hong Kong.
Time and time again you announce a policy, often contradictory to other, recent, announcements that fly in the face of science, medicine and the public good.
You, personally, have taken Hong Kong from zero to the world’s worst outbreak in under 30 days and this is, solely, a result of your indecisiveness and poor decision making. I find it very difficult to believe that your scientific and medical advisors have steered you into this course of action, one that flies in the face of the evidence from the rest of the world.
You have opened hair salons but closed beaches – please explain the thought process behind this to me.
You place no restrictions upon public transport, including the densely packed MTR, but a family of 3 have to sit at two separate tables in a restaurant despite living in the same apartment. How does this prevent the spread of the virus?
Arriving in Hong Kong and testing negative means that a traveller must spend 14 days, at their own expense, in a quarantine hotel (assuming that they can even get a booking) yet arriving and testing positive sees one carted off to a government paid-for facility and released after a negative test on the 6th day. Please, if you can, explain the logic of this to me.
Why do we have 9 countries on the flight ban list when their situations are less severe than that of Hong Kong? Can you explain how it is more dangerous for Hong Kong to let people come home than it is for us to be able to travel?
Can you justify to me why, as I look to travel home to the UK to see my father for what may well be the very last time, I need to be looking at an absolute minimum of 6 weeks away from my family in Hong Kong? Why the travel and cost constraints that you are imposing mean that I can’t even take them with me?
Why have you not worked harder to get the population vaccinated, particularly the elderly, whilst making those of us who have suffered restrictions on our lives? Why haven’t the consumption vouchers been linked to vaccination status?
You know the answer to these questions, we know that you know and you know that we know – so why, for the love of all that is decent, do you persist with this idiocy? If you, truly, cannot see the errors in your decision making to date then you have absolutely no business being in any position of power.
Your actions to date have seen hundreds of, preventable, deaths, thousands of people lose their jobs and livelihoods, businesses close, mental health decline across all demographics, children’s education suffers, and the diminishment of Hong Kong’s reputation as a business centre and a city of stable government. You have done more, in 18 months, to damage Hong’s people, economy and reputation than any bad actor could ever dream to do, and you are supposed to be on our side.
You must, surely, understand that zero Covid, whether ‘dynamic’ or otherwise is an impossibility? If you haven’t, by now, accepted the advice from medical professionals that this virus is never going away then you must, by implication, be deliberately choosing ignorance. If you have not, by now, accepted that we need to start living, fully, with the virus and work towards restoring Hong Kong to its former status and vibrancy then, frankly, you have no business acting as our leader.
I am sharing this letter on social media not to wallow in my own misery, mine is just one story amongst thousands, but because I want you to see this. I don’t just want to send you an email and receive an anodyne reply from a junior member of your staff.
I, very much, hope that you will find the decency to reply.”
