bc magazine

Mandela Exhibition Opening @ HKU – 13 September, 2016

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2016/Mandela-Exhibition-Opening-HK/i-v59jsD2

The Mandela Exhibition, at HKU’s Main Library until 28 Sept, explores the iconic figures life through six themes: character, comrade, leader, prisoner, negotiator and statesman. Although the exhibition is small it gives insight into a man whose words and ideals many of today’s leaders could pay more attention to. His auto-biography Long Walk to Freedom and collected speeches In His Own Words offer more depth.
Click on any photo for the full gallery

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2016/Mandela-Exhibition-Opening-HK/i-L7GDx5R

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HK Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2016

The 27^th Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (HKLGFF) boldly opens and closes with documentaries. As Festival Director Joe Lam puts it “Both documentaries captures the Eastern and Western LGBT community’s family, friends, relationship and discrimination.”

The festival’s opening film is South Korean documentary Weekends, a real life Glee. Gay men’s choir G-Voice write many of their own songs and are apparently the oldest choir in South Korea. Staying true to their own voices though is a challenge in such a conservative society. Director Lee Dong-ha gives an insight into the gay life of South Korea through the on-stage and off-stage stories of the choir members. Director Lee Dong-ha and 2 members from G-Voice will be present on the opening night to meet the audience.

Closing documentary Kiki is about the vogueing dance fight party subculture of New York that centres around the Kiki Ballroom. It’s a film about individuality and survival and follows the lives of seven people over four years. Filming their rehearsals, performances and personal lives, as they battle against problems such as poverty, homelessness, sickness, discrimination and prejudice.

Opening film ticket stubs are good for free admission and one free drink at the opening party at Maison Eight. Ticket stubs for the closing film audience earn admission and one free drink at the closing party at Koko.

The German/Mongolian production Don’t Look At Me That Way tells the story of a single mother Iva who falls desperately in love with her new neighbour, Heidi. Things get complicated when Heidi is attracted to Iva’s father instead. Actor and Director Uisenma Borchu will be attending the screening to meet the audience.

In the French production Summertime, it’s 1971 and Delphine a farmer’s daughter moves to Paris to break free from her family. There she meets feminist activist Carol and falls passionately in love, but when Delphine’s father suffers a stroke back home, she has to make a choice between her lover and her love for her land…

Documentaries
Apart from our opening and closing documentary, there are several other documentaries at HKLGFF. Chemsex exposes the dark side of modern gay London – a world of intravenous drug use and weekend-long sex parties. While society looks the other way, men struggle to make it out of ‘the scene’ alive aided by one health worker who has made it his mission to save them.

A joint Netherlands/Chinese production Inside The Chinese Closet documents the lives of gays and lesbians in China, who often have to live a double life in order to please their parents and conform with archaic attitudes to sexuality that still exist there.

Asian LGBT Films
Loev about the lives and feelings of the three Indian men of different social status is a rarity because in India homosexuality is still illegal. Sudhanshu Saria’s directorial debut was made in secret with the post-production taking place overseas.

Thailand however has a mature and well-developed LGBT film culture. Love Next Door 2 is a sex comedy about love, friendship and sex; while another Thai film at the festival Fathers discuss a more serious issue, the struggles and dilemmas a gay couple face when they decide to adopt a child.

Hong Kong director Scud’s fine body of work includes City Without Baseball (2008) and Amphetamine (2010) which have earned him a lot of respect in the local LGBT community. Scud’s latest work Utopians is about the fascination a dreamy boy has for his charismatic teacher. The HKLGFF will be screening the Director’s Cut.

2016 HKLGFF tickets are now on sale.

HK Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2016
Date: 17 September – 2 October, 2016
Venue: Palace ifc ($110), The ONE ($95) & Broadway Cinematheque ($85)
Tickets: $110, $95, $85
More info: www.hklgff.hk

Scotland Win the Braidwood Cup

Hong Kong lost the final match of their Tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Scotland scoring a 53-run win in the Second One Day International.

After Thursday’s washout of the first ODI – it meant Scotland won the series and claimed the Braidwood Cup.

Chasing Scotland’s 266-7, Hong Kong had reached 139-2 after 30 overs, but with the required rate creeping up wickets fell and the visitors were dismissed for 213 in the 47th over.

Babar Hayat (56) and Nizakat Khan (42) were again the linchpins of Hong Kong’s innings but didn’t get the support required.

Earlier, Scotland recovered from 144-5 after 32 overs to post an above par score thanks to a century from Calum Macleod (102) and a run-a-ball 52 from Craig Wallace.

Wickets were shared among the Hong Kong bowlers with Tanveer Ahmed (2-50) the only multiple wicket-taker.

Hong Kong now return home, with their next assignment a three-game ODI series against Papua New Guinea in November, which will be held in Mong Kok.

Babar Hayat:
“We got a good start with the run chase, Nizakat and I were playing nicely and then we collapsed. They took two really good catches and saved a lot of singles and twos which we didn’t do, that was the big difference for me. The way we bowled in the middle was brilliant but we let ourselves down in the field in the last 10 overs.”

“Nizakat or myself needed to stay there until the end, we were playing patiently but those catches turned the game.”

“Overall we’ve played really well on this tour – we brought a lot of young guys and are missing key players. So it’s a learning process for us and we will be a lot better for the experience. We competed in every game, won the T20 series against Ireland and Nizakat’s form was outstanding.”

“We need to work on our fielding, in every game we gave away 20-30 runs and today it put us under a lot of pressure so that is something we have to work on.”

Additional reporting and images: HK Cricket Association, Cricinfo

Bad Light Thwarts Hong Kong Run Chase in Scotland

Hong Kong produced another performance to be proud of on their Tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland, but bad light denied a great finish against Scotland in Edinburgh.

With just two overs remaining Hong Kong were 136-4, requiring 18 off 12 balls to win, when umpires decided light was not good enough to get a fair result. Being a One Day International (50 over) match – which had already been reduced to 20 overs a side – the failure to complete the minimum overs meant the game ended in a no result.

It came after a miraculous fight back from Hong Kong after Scotland, who raced to 96-1 after 8.4 overs, were restricted to 153-6 after 20. Debutant Ehsan Khan (2-28) became just the 23rd player in history to take a wicket with his first ball in ODI cricket.

In reply, Nizakat Khan was in red hot form again – backing up his scores of 69, 123 and 62 against Ireland – with 43 off 26 balls.

Hong Kong were cruising in the run chase at 124-2 with four overs to go, but the rapidly fading light and the loss of Anshuman Rath (32) and Babar Hayat (26) in successive balls raised the tension.

The second and final match of the series will be played on Saturday night with the winner to take home the Braidwood Cup.

Simon Cook:
“It was the right decision to come off the field but the decision should have been made six overs prior as it was significantly dark then. And that was further away from a result when neither team could claim to be unhappy.”

“The umpires asked our batters if they could see the ball and our guys said it was tough and then Scotland were told they couldn’t bowl fast bowlers. So towards the end they could just bowl slow to have shot at getting in to contention and once we hit a boundary and a few singles they brought the fast bowler on. The umpires handled the game brilliantly other than that but they held on for a decision too long with the light in my opinion.”

“It was a good performance – we were slow off the blocks and they got some momentum. Then we got back into the game once we got new batsmen in.”

“We are playing some really good cricket – well at least for 75% of the game, which is allowing us to compete but not allowing us to dominate and get right on top.”

“We looked in control a long way through this chase but with the conditions getting worse, it meant any new batter was going to take a while to get settled in.”

Additional reporting and image: HK Cricket Association

Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying About Life on Tour

With Grammy Awards, multiple number 1 albums and songs across the globe and over 10million fans across social media life’s pretty good at the moment for a cappella group Pentatonix. Scott Hoying spoke briefly with bc’s resident fan Ronnie Cheng about success, those videos and life on the road.

Pentatonix, currently on tour to promote their self-titled fourth album and performing in Hong Kong on the 22nd September at AsiaWorld-Expo, or PTX as they are known by their fans first rose to fame in 2011 by winning the third season of NBC’s The Sing-Off which earned them $200,000 and a recording contract with Sony owned Madison Gate Records.

The a cappella group only formed a few months before entering, but the 5 piece – Scott Hoying, baritone; Mitch Grassi, tenor; Kirsten Maldonado, mezzo-soprano; Avi Kaplan, bass / vocal percussion; and Kevin Olusola, beatboxer / vocal percussion – were pretty confident going in that they had what it took to win. Quitting school, not something they advise their many young fans to do, to pursue their dream.

After winning Sing-Off, we knew there was going to be this long period before the album came out so as we love singing we started covering and re-interpreting and releasing some of our favourite songs on YouTube explained Scott. The videos including Gangnam Style (PSY) and We Are Young (Fun) went viral, a modern version of the gigging and touring that bands used to have to do, created a massive and expectant fanbase before the release of their debut album PTX-I. Why were the videos so successful? “What they do is they show our personalities, they show other sides of us that fans can connect to beyond the music”

“It has been quite the rollercoaster, so many ups and downs” Scott continued on the difficulties they faced as an a capella group “Without YouTube we probably wouldn’t be where we are now”. PTX’s video view numbers are massive their Daft Punk medley has over 207million views while a cover of Christmas classic Little Drummer Boy has almost 85million and that’s just those measured on their official page.

After four big selling EPs PTX-1, PTXmas, PTX-II, PTX-III, That’s Christmas to Me and two platinum albums of a cappella covers the band in early 2015 informed their fans that were going to write and record original music. The result the eponymous album Pentatonix debuted at Number 1 on the US Billboard album charts in October 2015.

On tour to promote the album Scott said “There’s a lot of effort pre-tour, it’s hard to pick the songs for the tour everyone has a favourite and putting together ‘a killer set list’ will never please everyone so it’s balance. And then it begins. From there it’s just a whirlwind, from city to city to city – it’s non-stop”. Scott continued “We have wonderful fans and putting faces to names we only know as comments on social media is great. They’re so generous and creative. It’s their support that 100% got us to where we are, so we’re just grateful and happy to be able to see them in person and perform for them – though sadly just aren’t enough hours in the day to say hello to everyone”. In closing Scott said “It’s humbling that we can inspire and bring such happiness to so many people”.

https://youtu.be/E9XQ2MdNgKY

[Official Video] Royals – Pentatonix (Lorde Cover) (https://youtu.be/E9XQ2MdNgKY)

Pentatonix
Date: 8pm, 22 September, 2016
Venue: AsiaWorld-Expo, Hall 10
Tickets: $788, $588, $388 from HKTicketing

HK Cricket Match Report: 2016-17 Season Opening Weekend

The 2016-17 domestic cricket season got underway and the opening weekend’s results were headlined by a historic victory to the Cricket Hong Kong Sportsroad Dragons, who secured their first ever victory in the Elite League.

Playing against Sri Lanka Cricket Club, the Dragons were dismissed for 227, which they posted largely thanks to captain Damien Yee’s 91 off 129 balls. He shared a 119-run partnership with Anthony Marrin, who scored 40. The last six wickets fell for just 17 runs, which meant the Dragons only batted 46.3 of their alloted overs. Mukhtar Ahmad took 4-44, which included the key wickets of Yee and Marin.

In response, SLCC were cruising at 160-2 after just 23 overs with Akbar Khan smashing 73 off 69 balls. But his dismissal triggered a collapse as the Dragons dismissed SLCC for 212. Opening bowler Henry Siu took 3-36, including the last wicket to fall.
Scorecard – https://www.crichq.com/#matches/425297/1st_innings

In Division 1, Hong Kong Cricket Club Wanderers triumphed in a tight match against Pakistan Association.

Pakistan Association batted first but were rarely able to get their innings going with Ahsan Ali (59 off 79) the only batsman to score over 25. Angus Robson took 4-30 and Chris White 4-38 as Pakistan Association were dismissed in the 38th over for 150.

But they made a strong response with the ball, reducing HKCC to 37-4 and 72-5 to make for a nervy chase. But from there Stuart Tohill (65*) and Ravi Mulchandani (35*) guided the Wanderers to the target in the 46th over.
Scorecard – https://www.crichq.com/#matches/425301/1st_innings

The other match of the weekend was played on Saturday in the Championship League Division 2 where Diasqua Little Saiwan had a comfortable win over the Centaurs.

The Centaurs were knocked over for just 97 with Suresh Ghevariya (4-11) and Anik Shah (3-17) doing the bulk of the damage.

Despite losing a couple of early wickets, DLSWCC reached the target in just the 16th over with six wickets to spare.
Scorecard – https://www.crichq.com/#matches/425654/1st_innings

The Championship League Division 1 between KCC Tartars and CCC Jing Sun was washed out.

Nizakat’s Hot Streak Continues as Hong Kong Win by 40 Runs

Hong Kong defeated Ireland by 40 runs in the first of a two-game Twenty20 International series at Bready Cricket Club in Londonderry.

Carrying on from his outstanding form in the Intercontinental Cup game in Belfast last week, Nizakat Khan’s 62 off 43 balls led the way for Hong Kong as they posted 169-5 from 20 overs.

In response, Tanwir Afzal’s opening spell of 2-18 gave Ireland to much work to do in the last 10 as they were dismissed for 129.

It was the onslaught in the opening overs from Nizakat, whose innings included 7 fours and 2 sixes that set the tone as Hong Kong raced to 63-1 after the first six overs.

Nizakat then combined with Babar Hayat (49 off 31) for a 56-run second wicket partnership that took Hong Kong to 97-2 in the 12th over. Ehsan Khan provided the finishing touches with 29 off 22 balls to lead Hong Kong to an above-par total.

In reply Tanwir Afzal bowled four straight overs at the top of the innings and took 2-18 to leave Ireland reeling at 34-4 after 6 overs.

The Irish mounted a charge through Greg Thompson (44 off 32) and Kevin O’Brien (32 off 24) but the required rate proved too much as Hong Kong ran out easy winners. Aizaz Khan finished with 3-10.

Match Two: 6 September 10.30pm (HK time).

https://youtu.be/H_vDgrj04V0

Highlights: Ireland v Hong Kong 1st T20i (https://youtu.be/H_vDgrj04V0)

Simon Cook
“It’s good to get off and running and particularly against Ireland who are a strong side. The boys played well. Getting off to a decent start, which is something that has dogged us for the last few games, helped with a change in the batting order at the top with Nizakat going in. To get 60 off the first six overs was outstanding and Babar carried it on.

“If you want to level criticise Nizikat it’s been about his consistency, so to bat well in both innings in the four-day game and come here and start hitting with calmness and a solid base is a credit to him. Pleased to see some genuine consistency coming along. Opening is a different role for him, which he practiced in Sri Lanka recently and did well.”

Babar Hayat
“I think the pleasing thing was that everyone contributed. It was a team effort and everyone did their job. Really pleased with how I played – luckily I got a free hit at the start of my innings, which gave me some momentum. First win as Captain and just really proud to get the win for Hong Kong and really proud of my teammates – it will be a good lift to our fans at home. It’s pleasing to get the win but we need to work on our fielding – we were sloppy today but we can come back tomorrow and fix that.”

Additional reporting: HK Cricket Association, Scorecard: Cricinfo

Hong Kong Beat Thailand to Claim Third Place

Hong Kong women claim third place 36-7 with a convincing 6 try demolition win over Thailand.

Earlier in the day China’s women dashed Hong Kong’s hopes for cup final appearance at their home tournament with a 19-7 win in the cup semi final. A slow start proved disastrous for the hosts as the visitors dominated possession and territory en route to a 12-0 lead at the half.

Hong Kong brought the score back 12-7 with a try by Natasha Olson-Thorne in the second half. China proved too strong though and a late breakaway try clinched the match just as the hosts pushed for the win.

“We had a better second half, but we gave away some cheap tries early on and we can’t afford to do that,” said Hong Kong coach Anna Richards. “We have got to make better use of the ball when we have it. In the second half we were a lot better, there was greater urgency and we scored a good try, but we probably should have scored a couple more with the amount of ball we had,” Richards added.

The loss sent Hong Kong to the third/fourth place play-off against Thailand who had earlier lost to Japan in their semi final.

In the play-off, Hong Kong fired out of the starting blocks posting three unanswered first half tries with a brace from Aggie Poon Pak-yan bookending a try from Ivy Kwong Sau-yan giving them a 19-0 cushion.

On the back foot for the entirety of the game, Thailand’s only reply came from the kick-off of the second half, as Hong Kong expressed itself with three more tries in the second half to run out 36-7 winners.

“It’s nice to finish like that, but it’s been a disappointing weekend in some aspects. We have done some things quite well and when we give ourselves the opportunity to attack we look quite good, but we have to be able to do that in the big pressure games,” Richards added.

“This is a good start and we have two tournaments still to come. Our aim is to make the final in the next leg and to do that we need to work on keeping our composure and making the most of what we have in front of us. We turned the ball over too quickly and gave away too many cheap tries this weekend. If we continue to do that then we are going to be on the back foot from the start,” said Richards.

Hong Kong Women’s Sevens Squad (Asia Rugby Sevens Series – Hong Kong): Cheng Ka-Chi, Christy (Captain); Natasha Olson-Thorne (Vice Captain); Nam Ka-Man; Candy Cheng Tsz-Ting; Aggie Poon Pak-Yan; Sham Wai-Sum; Colleen Tjosvold; Kwong Sau-Yan; Li Nim-Yan, Melody; Chong Ka-Yan, Adrienne Garvey, Yuen Lok-Yee.