Alice Poon Blog http://www.asiasentinel.com Fri, 03 Sep 2010 03:59:32 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.asiasentinel.com/images/M_images/feed-icon16.gif http://www.asiasentinel.com Alice Poon Blog http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2657&Itemid=334 It seems that the SAR government finally decided to choose the lesser of two evils: taking decisive, albeit belated, anti-speculation measures in the hope of stabilizing prices, rather than sitting on their hands. The key question is: will those recently announced measures, coupled with the lenient and patchy sales tactics guidelines issued earlier and meant as a censure on developers, have the desired cooling effect on the property market? Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:06:15 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2629&Itemid=352 Like a tornado, the last two weeks in July came and went with dizzying force. Those were perhaps the two most astounding weeks in my whole life. By “astounding”, I mean the events that took place were utterly outside of even my wildest dreams. Before landing on Hong Kong soil, I had only expected to be interviewed by a couple of magazines, and if I were lucky, to have a few book buyers asking for my signature at the scheduled Book Fair book sharing session. As things turned out, perhaps even the word “astounding” is an understatement. A more apt adjective would be “unreal”. That said, I think I still have my feet firmly on the ground, as I have been through enough ups and downs to allow this to get to my head. Summing up major events of this book promotion trip, I had interviews with eight publications and two TV broadcasters and gave talks on three different occasions (including the book sharing session at the Book Fair). One thing that I had never dared dream about was the overwhelming positive reception of the book by the media in general. From my contact with them, it came across as if they had at long last found an outlet for their long-muffled voices. I was under the distinct impression that the media had long been arm-twisted to play down on negative reports about the property cartel. Another point I can’t help wondering is the fact that no one from the administration had seemed to care enough to read, let alone respond to, the original English edition which was published at the end of 2005. I had expected that the book, which is about serious social and economic issues, might at least somehow draw a little attention from policy-makers, who are presumed to be proficient in the English language. But reality fell short of my expectations. Even now, with all the buzz about the new Chinese edition going round, not a word from the government has yet been heard. Two questions keep circling in my mind since I came back from the trip. Is the Hong Kong society slowly waking up to reality? Is the book going to move more post-50s, post-60s and post-70s to come off their comfortable couch and start asking themselves honestly whether they want future generations to be stuck in the same old “property serfdom”? To quickly recap the meetings and interviews that I had and the talks I gave while in Hong Kong, I list below the events in date order. If I babble a bit or sound a little self-indulgent, I hope readers will bear with me. Touch-down (July 13): It was a bright hot morning when the plane touched down at Chek Lap Kok at 6:00 am. Clearing immigration and customs was a breeze, probably because people were still half asleep. Looking out from the air-conditioned airport express train, North Lantau looked particularly green and inviting under a summer sky with a few white clouds. The landscape called fondly to mind the farmlands and unspoiled countryside of the New Territories in my childhood days. The inevitable question popped up: “How long can Lantau remain unspoiled?” Welcome Meeting (July 15): Having been invited to a meeting with various staff members of Enrich Publishing, I took the MTR to Kwun Tong in late morning. Peggy was kind to come to meet me at the MTR station and guided me to Enrich’s office. Everybody at the meeting seemed elated about initial sales since “地產霸權” was officially launched on July 2. A full-page interview report appeared in Ming Pao’s Sunday Life section on July 11 (yes, the day before I got on the plane), which had been conducted via email and in which Ronald Yick was the interviewer and I was the interviewee, helped a lot by way of alerting the general public about the book. The publisher staff thought that the timing of the launch was spot-on, as anti-developer sentiments reached a boiling point, spurred by the Henderson internal sales saga. Peggy, who was responsible for marketing, reminded me of the press interviews lined up for the following ten days. Mr. Ma, my book editor, told me that some large bookshops were already placing large second orders and the publisher was ordering a second print-run. After the meeting, the boss treated me and his staff to a delicious dim-sum lunch at a nearby restaurant. Link to the Ming Pao July 11 interview report:- http://news.mingpao.com/20100711/vzd1h.htm Yazhou Zhoukan Interview (July 16): The magazine interviewed both Dr. Lam Pun Lee (whom I quoted several times in my book) and myself at the same time. Apple Daily Interview (July 18): This interview was brought about through Ronald Yick’s connection. The assigned reporter Ken Lui, as readers might guess, is a post-80 like Ronald. What came as a total surprise was that the interview report that came out the next day (July 19) occupied almost a full page on the inside headline page (A2) of the newspaper, complete with a large photo of me holding the book. The online version even included a short video clip and had over 100,000 hits. Link to the Apply Daily July 19 interview report (a repost):- http://marmarday.com/12615/%E5%B0%88%E9%A1%8C-%E6%96%B0%E5%9C%B0%E5%89%8D%E8%A6%81%E5%93%A1-%E5%87%BA%E6%9B%B8%E8%B8%A2%E7%88%86%E5%9C%B0%E7%94%A2%E5%95%86/ 經濟一週 (a finance weekly) Interview (July 19): My gut feeling was that the reporter was trying to get me to talk about things quite unrelated to the message of the book. Ming Pao Finance Property Section Interview (July 20): Two days later (July 22), the report came out on half a page in the finance property section of Ming Pao. Link to the Ming Pao July 22 interview report:- http://news.sina.com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/show.cgi/19/1/1/1794759/1.html Book Fair Opening, Now TV Interview, Ming Pao Weekly Interview (July 21): This was an action-packed day. Peggy had asked me to be present at the Enrich Publishing booth inside the Book Fair compound on the opening day and to answer questions from Now TV and other media who might turn up. When I arrived at 10:45 am, the publisher’s booth was already jam-packed with people. There were lots of photographing requests. I presumed they were from the media. The reporter and photographer from Now TV tried to do an interview with me, but it later turned out that their voice receptor was not functioning very well as there was too much noise in the background. They suggested to take me to lunch first, then to go back to their studio (which is nearby) to do the interview properly. They even promised to chauffer me to my afternoon appointment in time. So, I just couldn’t refuse them. Before I left with the Now TV people to have lunch, a reporter from Voice of America asked me a few questions and I answered them. Then Peggy announced through a loudspeaker that I would be back at the booth on July 24 evening to give a book-sharing talk. At the Now TV studio, I was properly made-up and appeared on camera for half-an-hour. Under the deceptively calm appearance, my heart almost jumped out of my mouth. In the afternoon, I attended the Ming Pao Weekly Magazine interview as scheduled. TVB Jade Finance Magazine Interview and SCMP Interview (July 22): Both interviews took place at Enrich’s office. In the late morning, the TVB photographer started the camera rolling inside the meeting room as the principal producer began the interview. I was still very much on edge, even after the Now TV practice. When the interview ended, the team took me to the Kwun Tong seashore for a few more shots. The reporter from SCMP was waiting patiently in Enrich’s office while I was running late with the seaside filming and I thanked her for her patience. Book Sharing Session at Book Fair (July 24): Flanked by Ronald Yick and Wong Yeung Tat (a well-known novelist and drama writer who had just launched a new novel about developer greed), I started the presentation at 7:00 pm, which attracted quite a crowd. Wong is a vivacious and humorous guy who had little problem in holding the crowd’s attention. Ronald also did his part by jumping in at the right moment. The audience responded by a round of applause and by speaking their minds. The talk was followed by a book-signing session. A long line formed in front of the raised platform where we were seated. Some book buyers requested to have photos taken with me. Book Sharing Session at HKReaders and Sing Tao Headline Daily Interview (July 26): Ronald was the moderator, and there were two other speakers: Victor Yuen and Kaxton Siu, both post-80s. The four of us had had a coffee chat before we showed up at the bookstore. When we arrived at the bookstore at 8:00 pm, the whole room was packed with an eager audience, with many seats having to be removed to make more room for the standing crowd. Victor and Kaxton were well prepared and had a lot to share about government-conglomerate collusion. When we finished our presentation, many from the audience took turns to speak. The session ended on an optimistic note that a concerted effort on the part of those who care will bring about positive changes in society. The reporters from Sing Tao and Headline Daily waited till the session ended to interview me. Then I chatted with Daniel Lee, founder of the bookstore, and thanked him for helping to organize the event. Link to the HKReaders Session (in two parts):- http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8526371 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8526717 Link to the Headline Daily July 29 interview report:- http://news.hkheadline.com/dailynews/headline_news_detail_columnist.asp?id=117918 section_name=wtt kw=8 Talk Organized by Community Development Initiative (July 28): Jeffrey Au, founder of CDI (a non-profit policy think-tank), had approached me on the Book Fair opening day with an invitation for a talk on July 28. That afternoon, the black rainstorm signal was up, but went down by 5:30 pm. The talk took place as scheduled at 7:00 pm in a lecture room at the City U.’s United Centre campus. Two other speakers joined me: Professor Stan Wong from the Chinese University and Dr. Yip Ngai-ming from the City University. The audience was responsive and many took turns to speak. Before the talk began, the TV unit of CDI (OurTV) had interviewed me for 20 minutes. Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:40:09 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2571&Itemid=352 The Chinese edition of “Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong” has finally come to life. The title of the book is “地產霸權” and it is co-published by Hong Kong Economic Journal (信報) and Enrich Publishing (天窗出版). In the last few months, I was busy writing a Prologue (前言) for this new edition of my book and checking the Chinese translation and the blueprint. The purpose of the Prologue is to incorporate relevant events that have taken place since the publishing of the original English edition in December 2005. At last, with the help and dedicated work of the translator 顏詩敏 and the book editor Sun Ma (馬山), the new Chinese edition is born and is being distributed to the publishers’ network of bookstores all over Hong Kong. In fact, the thought of producing a Chinese edition did occur to me as early as 2006. At that time, I even asked for advice from Roland Soong, the renowned blogger of the EastSouthWestNorth blog. His view was, and I quote from his email to me (I hope he doesn’t mind):- “The first thing that struck me is that your book is much more serious than the superficial and sarcastic stuff from Sub-Culture (to be more precise, mere destructive caricatures without any constructive and progressive ideas). There is just nothing in Chinese that deals with the subject that your book does. If there were, I would have recommended that publisher.” The conclusion that he and I reached then was that finding the right publisher would be a big problem, as the Chinese publishing scene was mostly filled with collections of daily newspaper opinion columns (i.e. thousands of partial observations) and no work of comprehensive analysis existed (his observation coming from visits to the Book Fair). So the idea was shelved. I have to say that the recent inspiration for producing a Chinese edition came mainly from the impassioned post-80s. It all started with a review written in Chinese of the English edition in InmediaHK (香港獨立媒体) by a post-80 Chinese University sociology research student named Ronald Yick (易汶健). The review was in three parts and posted on the InmediaHK website on February 18, 19 and 20. It was really quite a pleasant surprise for me to find that a young person like Ronald would take such great pains to read the book thoroughly and write a full summary of it with added comments of his own. Then in March, I came into contact with a new bookstore called HKReaders (序言書室). This is an academic bookstore founded by a group of young people with a mission to promote the habit of reading in society and to increase social and cultural consciousness, thereby improving the quality of civil society. Daniel Lee, one of the founders of the bookstore, left a message on my blog (Blogspot) saying he would like to know where he could find a copy of “Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong”, as a talk on the book was being planned to take place at the bookstore. Ronald was going to be thekey speaker at the talk. He did a good job in giving the presentation on April 15, which attracted an audience of about forty, as I would later find out from the video clip link that he sent me. Kaxton Siu, a social sciences PhD student studying at the Australian National University and who has been involvedin work with the St. James Settlement (a social services NGO), was among the audience on that day. He was kind enough to leave a message onmy blog to compliment on my book. He also suggested that if the book were in Chinese, it would attract a lot more readers. Encouraged by the interest and zeal of these post-80s in their goal to better society,I started to look for a Chinese book publisher who might be interested in publishing a Chinese edition of my book, with the aim of sharing my observation and analysis with a wider readership and instigating intellectual discussion in society. Knowing my intentions, a friend brought me into contact with the head of business development at Hong Kong Economic Journal, who showed great interest in my book. Having beena fervent reader of this newspaper since its start-up, I felt comfortable working with them and their co-publishing partner. The rest is history. Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:52:07 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2556&Itemid=334 Politics in the family, politics in the office and politics in civil society. I hate them all. But as a member of civil society, can an individual really avoid getting involved in politics in the community he/she lives?My childhood observation taught me that sometimes adults had to resort to politics in order to preserve their interests in the familial arena. But at that time, the expression “politics” was not even within my grasp. That kind of behavior was to me hypocritical and crafty. Apart from witnessing it at play within the extended family and learning more about it from reading Ba Jin’s (巴金) Family, Autumn, Spring (家, 春, 秋) and Cao Xueqin’s (曹雪芹) Dream of the Red Chamber (紅棲夢), I was not in any other way affected by it. To the extent that it ever had any impact on my youth, it was a French teacher’s comment that has stuck with me since I was in my early twenties: that politics is the opium of the mind.That word did not bother me again until the time when I became employed in a company with a hierarchical organizational structure. Then I began to have a little understanding of what “office politics” meant. But as the boss I served happened to be at the top of the hierarchy, I was luckily shielded from most of the virulent back-stabbing, unctuousness, hypocrisy, treachery, betrayal and boot-licking acts that were going on in the entire company, but outside of my office.Such luck did not stay with me for long. When I joined another company, I finally came face to face with vicious games of office politics. The biggest lesson I learned from such experience was that “if you are not with them, you are against them”. Once you are labeled as being “against them”, you will have no recourse, especially if the head of the “them” camp has the absolute power of dismissal. Under such circumstances, a staff member has little choice but to suck up to the “them” group if he/she wants to stay in the job.Now looking back, I can’t help wondering: if a sufficient number of decent workers allied with each other and formed an opposing camp, would the “them’ camp be so fearlessly overpowering? Like Hillary Clinton said in her autobiography: political action is “worth the pain and struggle, if only to keep the other guys away from power over us”.As far as I can surmise on Hong Kong’s political scene, politics is becoming more and more treacherous.Hong Kong people are now more split than ever by the recent imbroglio over government’s proposed political reform package and the Democratic Party’s latest counter-proposal. I’ve read many mainstream media and blog articles on the subject, but, frankly, I am still unable to make an educated judgment as to whether the DP’s idea, which is a result of “haggling” with the Central Government, is in reality a Faustian Bargain, or whether it is a step in the right direction in the interests of eventually getting rid of all functional constituencies. Now the populace can roughly be divided into one camp believing in the former and another believing in the latter.The reality for Hong Kong is that there will only be so much democratization of her political system as the Mainland government sees fit. It seems to me that the DP is trying to fight for the biggest manoeuvering room within that constraint, while keeping open the hard-earned channel of communication with the Central Government. I think they at least deserve the benefit of the doubt. But they will probably have to face the music when the next election comes round, if their voters think that by making the pact they have defected from their stance on the complete elimination of functional constituencies at the first chance possible. It looks like the pan-democrats will have an even more perilous battle to fight from now on. Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:39:06 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2536&Itemid=324 My translation of Han Han’s June 10 blogpost on the matter:- “Solo Choir is finally going to the press this afternoon. In twenty days it will be on the market. Initially it will appear in book form and will be a bi-monthly publication. The price has been set at 16 yuans. Given the fact that there are no advertisements, this price has been made possible owing to the purchase a year and a half ago of paper sufficient for a run of 300,000 copies. Since then, the price of paper and printing has increased by about 20 percent. Thus, there may be a slight upward price adjustment in future. Meanwhile, my associates and I will not attend press interviews. There will not be any specific book launching press conference either. The main reason is to lower prospective readers’ expectations about the magazine. Although the writers have provided very well-written articles, ultimately it is still only an arts publication. Whether from a technical or practical point of view, it cannot shoulder the responsibility of satisfying people’s longing for changes to be made to the status quo or for social reforms. People would always say that this society needs to have common sense and to be inspired. But in my view, the internet has been around for ten years; those who needed to be inspired would have already been inspired, and those who have common sense have always had common sense. In fact, we all know what is beautiful and what is ugly, what is good and what is evil. It is an insurmountable force that makes us go against our conscience and twist the truth. If we want change, we can only rely on ourselves. This is no longer the ancient era. The information channels are 70 to 80 percent open. And we have a 70 to 80 percent grasp of the world. Thus, there is pretty little an arts publication is capable of doing other than providing good writings. If you go to see a romance film expecting it to be a war film, you are bound to be disappointed no matter how good the romance film is.” Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:48:58 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2512&Itemid=324 Translation of a commentary in Southern Metropolis Daily titled “The Second-Generation Peasants Living an Ostracized Life”. Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:30:51 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2498&Itemid=340 There will always be the more fortunate in society, and there will always be the less fortunate. But a compassionate act towards the unfortunate, if performed by another unfortunate, makes it that much more noble. Thu, 27 May 2010 07:18:40 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2479&Itemid=324 The high-profile snapping up of Australian real estate by Mainland investors has finally galvanized the Australian government to take steps to stem foreign purchases of residential properties. But it seems the new restrictive rules won’t dampen this group’s interest in Australia’s farm land. Thu, 20 May 2010 07:27:34 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2462&Itemid=334 The Hong Kong government’s property market cooling measures are doomed to be a farce. But some media are too quick to make a contrary judgment. Thu, 13 May 2010 06:14:32 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2445&Itemid=334 A video commentary on the defection of traditional media by a media professional, Tsui Siu Wah (徐少燁), citing the cases of TVB and Commercial Radio. Thu, 06 May 2010 01:13:46 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2430&Itemid=349 Yesterday I watched an interesting documentary titled “Mind Over Money” which basically asks a key question: can behavioral economics, a new science which aims to incorporate human psychology into finance, do better at averting an economic crisis? Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:47:23 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2416&Itemid=346 I visited Shanghai once in 2002. In my memory, it is a very cosmopolitan and commercial city, very much like a chic, self-confident lady. Compared to Taipei, though, which I paid a 2-day visit to last year, Shanghai seems to lack the warmth, modesty and a refined aura of culture that can define Taipei. Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:27:59 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2403&Itemid=334 In Richmond, B.C., the citizens won a battle against hard-core development and managed to preserve a large parcel of agricultural land called “the Garden City lands”. The pleasing outcome, if a little surprising, got me thinking that perhaps there is a lesson or two here that can be learned by Hong Kong. Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:22:12 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2387&Itemid=352 This post is to share written views of two literary icons, one from the East and one from the West, on literature and novel writing: Gao Xingjian (高行健) and Susan Sontag. Thu, 08 Apr 2010 03:13:10 +0100 http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2375&Itemid=324 Mainland writer and blogging icon Han Han wrote a piece about his view on Google’s exit from China, but his post was deleted soon after it appeared. Thanks to a commenter on Hong Kong Economic Journal forum, 凱妮, the post was copied onto the comments section on March 25, and I’ve copied it from there. Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:52:46 +0100