Posts in Culture
【Video】Warren Stuart | Godfather of skateboarding – Persistence and community (Part 1)

Warren Stuart is a Hongkonger who helped shape the skateboarding community in Hong Kong. In Part I, he recounts his earliest memories of the sport, and explains Hong Kong’s skateboarding scene. He also offers advice for amateur skateboarders.

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Gary Yau | Hong Kong Road Signs and Prison Gothic Font Preservation

Gary Yau, a Hongkonger in his 20s, created the “Road Research Society” in 2016. He has spent several years cataloguing the remaining 500-600 road signs featuring Hong Kong’s unique bilingual “Prison Gothic” font and have reproduced this font in published books and online posts that share information regarding roadways.

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Michelle Cheung | Paragon Tea Room—Tea for the open-minded

Michelle Cheung is a prolific young business owner who is making waves in the Vancouver cafe scene. Her current endeavour: Paragon Tea Room, has just celebrated its 2nd anniversary, boasts a modest 4.8 stars on Google, and attracts guests from all over the Greater Vancouver area. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she never planned to have a career in Canada, but now that she’s cultivating a gateway for Vancouver to connect with Eastern tea traditions, she hopes she can make Hong Kong proud someday. Read on to discover her ambitions for Paragon and beyond.

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【Video】House of To Kwa Wan Stories | Home uprooted in the name of development - Farewell imminent, but community lives on

House of To Kwa Wan Stories, or “To Home” was established in Hung Fuk Street back in 2014 and now operates alongside Fixing Hong Kong and Community Cultural Concern. To Home is a one-of-a-kind community space, pushing for community development and the recording and archiving of To Kwa Wan’s stories, aimed at entering and being part of the community. With To Kwa Wan as a base camp, To Home hopes to connect the community as if it were a family, and to defend the ecumene that holds countless stories and tales. As To Kwa Wan is designated for urban renewal, and To Home’s fate is sealed along with its neighbours, members of To Home are now racing against the clock to maintain and record the fading area’s culture and vibe. In this interview, we have Sui Ling and Bun sharing their work and feelings as To Home faces the independent fate of urban renewal and eviction.

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【Video】Albert Wan | The Power of Human Stories

Albert Wan left his life as a lawyer in the United States, where he grew up, to become a bookstore owner in Hong Kong, where his parents are from. Together with his wife, he opened Bleak House, one of the few independent bookstores in Hong Kong that specialises in English books.

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【Commentary】Wandering through local shops: Between the old and the new

Leave bustling shopping centres behind and wander into the nooks and crannies—unearth local shops between the old and the new. Savour the feeling of old Hong Kong in traditional shops, and experience the creativity and vitality of newly established shops.

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【Video】Leung Ming Kai + Kate Reilly | Fragmented, collective Hong Kong memories—a film on remembrance and loss

Leung Ming Kai is a Hong Kong director-cinematographer whose recent works include Murmur of the Hearts and Suk Suk. Kate Reilly is an American actor-producer, whose recent works include Therapy and The Path. Memories to Choke On, Drinks to Wash Them Down is the first film co-directed by the couple.

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Uncle Man|The Living Dictionary in the Kowloon Walled City Park

Walking into Kowloon Walled City Park, it isn’t difficult to spot the older man chatting with citizens and tourists alike. This is Lei Sing-man: he goes by Uncle Man and wears a “volunteer guide” label on his chest. After moving to Kowloon in 1998, he became interested in the horticultural design and heritage of the park, and shouldered the mission to pass on its history.

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【SHARED】The last ones standing: Inside Hong Kong’s disappearing newsstands

As at Dec. 31, 2018, only 386 newsstands were left from the 1,005 that existed in the ’90s. Newspaper hawkers believe that the industry is vanishing.

Sociological scholar Chong Yuk-sik, who published her thesis “The Newsstands at the Street Corner” in 2010, has been investigating the culture and history of the city’s licensed newsstands.

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【Video】Lee Kin Ming | Repairing, evolving and circulating Hong Kong fonts

Lee Kin Ming is the founder of ‘Li Hon’s street calligraphy conservation project’. He has worked in his father’s signage shop since young and has recently started to digitise Mr Lee Hon’s calligraphy and has started a crowdfund. He wrote the book Looking at Hong Kong’s Signage to record Hong Kong’s signage history.

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【SHARED】Nicolas Petit | ‘We write our future,’ Belgian street photographer tells Hongkongers

To Hongkongers, shopping at wet markets, crossing the Victoria Harbor by ferry, or gobbling up at a cha chaan teng (Hong Kong-style café) are just day-to-day activities that hardly deserve any attention. But to Nicolas Petit, who runs a street photography project called The Hongkongers (IG: @thehongkongers), these mundanities are exactly what make up a unique Hong Kong.

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【Video】Calif Chong | Filmmaker—Creating a collective database and capturing the Hong Kong spirit

Calif Chong is a filmmaker currently based in the UK. She worked as a scriptwriter at TVB and a documentarian for RTHK. A few years ago, she began her studies in Europe and started her career in the film industry, with the aim of finding a new way to tell the story of Hong Kong.

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【SHARED】Leung Lo Yik (Chen Kau) | Letter Writer

Chen Kau has been a letter writer for nearly 40 years. Originally from Vietnam, where he worked as an accountant for a film production company, he first came to Hong Kong in 1972 and took a job as a bartender. Given his education and proficiency in English, a customer suggested he become a letter writer.

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Riz | Hardcore metal indie band guitarist daring to speak his mind through music

Riz is a Hongkonger of Pakistani descent. He formed a hardcore indie band called King Ly Chee (1999 - 2017) which was popular in Hong Kong and had a huge following in China. In 2015, he started an Asian punk, hardcore, and metal news website called UniteAsia.org. Then, in 2017, he started a new band called Dagger. He is a husband to a Hongkonger, a father and also a teacher.

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【SHARED】Lee Kin Ming | Traditional signboard font washed away by time of turbulence

“Cold and hot drinks”, “Marinated Vegetarian Meat”, “Signature Dish”, most signboards with street names and words about basic necessities of life are written by Mr. Li Hon. All the strokes of these handwritings are connected. This unique font is everywhere, however, the global pandemic shatters Hong Kong’s economy, no one can be spared...

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Koale | Body image and stigma in Hong Kong society

Koale is a Canadian HongKonger in her mid 20s and is a physiotherapist working at a hospital. She was born in Canada but has strong family and social ties to Hong Kong. As a teenager she was diagnosed with PCOS, a hormonal condition that can affect a person’s weight. Over the years, she has worked to prioritise her own needs and promote better understanding of body image issues.

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【SHARED】Irene Lee | Owner Of Sing Heung Yuen Dai Pai Dong

Irene is the owner of Sing Heung Yuen, one of Hong Kong's last and most popular dai pai dongs, nestled in the backstreets of Central. Each day, office workers, students and tourists pack the outdoor seating, feasting on Irene's famous macaroni in tomato broth, among dozens of other favourites. Despite being the owner and boss, Irene works in the kitchen alongside her staff, some of whom have...

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