Breathless in Hong Kong

Budget Tai tai

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Maybe Singapore has a part to play to improve air quality in this city

Every time I receive an email from Singaporeans saying they're coming to Hong Kong, it always ends with their top-most concern: "How is the air over there?"

I was tempted to say the air in Hong Kong is like the girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead: When it is good, it is very, very good but when it is bad, it's horrid.

Trouble is, it's never very, very good or horrid. Just an in-the-middle mushy all-round blah.

People see photos of Central with smog wreathing the landmark IFC, Bank of China and HSBC buildings, and wonder how I can still survive here.

Singaporeans smugly point out that a recent survey conducted by consultancy firm ECA International named the island state the best expat capital of the world for its infrastructure, health care, air quality and low crime rates. The authors said deplorable air quality was a major problem in several cities, including Hong Kong.

Guess they hadn't taken the readings during the haze - because honestly, the air here doesn't smell as bad as the haze that hits Singapore. I remember having difficulties breathing and smelling smoke on my clothes during the haze.

The difference is, with the haze, the end is in sight. It clears when the winds change and everyone breathes freely again. Whereas the pollution in Hong Kong is pervasive and unrelenting. And toxic. When the winds stop blowing the smoke from the factories in the Pearl River Delta to the region, roadside pollution takes over.

A few weeks ago, the Air Pollution Index hit an all time high of 500 (healthy air should be below 50) because of a sandstorm in drought-stricken China.

People panicked and started talking about pollution warnings. The irony was that the sandstorm was nowhere as dangerous to our health as the everyday pollutants we were breathing in.

The Hedley Environmental Index compares real-time air quality data supplied by the Environmental Protection Department with the World Health Organisation's recommended limits on pollutants. According to the index, Hong Kong is affected mainly by local sources of pollution on 193.5 out of 365 days a year.

It estimates that last year, Hongkongers made 6.15 million trips to the doctor and paid HK$1.88 billion ($340 million) for pollutant-related health care while about 800 had been hospitalised for asthma.

When I first came to Hong Kong, I used to suffer from itchy eyes and a sore throat all the time. But what really worried me was the shortness of breath and the chest pains.

The doctor told me it was a mild case of asthma. As a regular jogger and swimmer in Singapore, I'd never had breathing problems before so I asked him: "Are you sure?"

"Yes, it's a common ailment in Hong Kong," was his answer.

Will it get better? Well, there are plenty of angry people here in Hong Kong. They're angry enough to set up websites and petitions to needle anyone they can and make their point.

Even hedge fund managers, who usually seem more interested in money than the environment, worry that pollution is frightening off the most talented traders and analysts.

Maybe a few more years of losing out to Singapore as the best expat city because of poor air quality will do the trick. After all, Hong Kong seems to think best when pockets and profits start hurting.

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Tabitha Wang hates the way her husband uses pollution as an excuse not to go jogging - 365 days a year.
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From TODAY, Voices - Friday, 09-April-2010; source article is here: Breathless in Hong Kong

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It's All About Soul

Budget Tai-tai

An old street isn’t the same without its old residents

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Tabitha Wang
voices@mediacorp.com.sg

AMID the tall, gleaming buildings that make up one of Hong Kong’s priciest districts is a small backstreet, reeking of dust and decay.

On one side are 12 derelict tenement buildings, typical of the homes you see in many drama serials from the region. Tattered washing hang from rusty balconies that threaten to collapse on onlookers if they so much as sneeze.

There isn’t even a view to recommend it. At the back, a towering block perches on the steep mountainside while in the front, yet another building cuts out the sky.

It’s hardly what you’d expect of Hong Kong’s latest attraction.

But Wing Lee Street is drawing them by the hoards. On a busy Sunday, dozens of shutterbugs climb up the precipitous steps, from parents determined to get a photo of Junior against a crumbling wall to lovebirds hoping for a shot of posterity.

The rise in the fortunes of this quiet street can be traced to one film: Echoes Of The Rainbow. The film about a shoemaker’s family in the 1960s won the Crystal Bear at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival last month.

Shot mostly on Wing Lee Street, it single-handedly propelled the street out of crumbling obscurity — and protected it from the wrecking ball.

All but three of the buildings had been slated for demolition since 1998. But until the film, there had been hardly any protest.

Then came the Berlin accolade and within days, railings along the street were covered with yellow ribbons protesting plans to tear down the buildings.

The government did a quick U-turn on the decision and announced it was going to preserve the entire street a fortnight later. It was an amazingly impetuous decision from a government not given to sentimentality.

Last week, actress Nancy Kwan, who had played the lead role in the iconic 1960 film The World of Suzie Wong, lamented to AFP: “Hong Kong was really very charming in those days. Every time I come back it’s like going to a new city. I loved the old colonial buildings in Hong Kong, but now they’ve torn them down. It’s terrible.”

The decision to preserve Wing Lee Street is now pending structural reports. But if it does happen, the best news of all is that it will be conserved for the community that had thrived in the area for generations.

That includes a 92-year-old granny who has been there all her life, and an 80-year-old who has worked in a printing shop there since he was an apprentice.

As heritage activist Katty Law once told me: “Preserving the buildings means nothing if you don’t preserve the lifestyle too.”

Many people who champion for conservation in Hong Kong point to Singapore as a model. They cite areas like Boat Quay, Clarke Quay and Chinatown as marvellous examples of restoration.

I disagree. Like Law, I think that preserving an old building is not enough. You are just maintaining the body but not the soul.

A building comes alive because of the people in it who turn it into their own.

Restoring empty shells will just turn the area into another Tang Dynasty Village — nice to look at but not somewhere you want to linger.

So yes, many of Singapore’s heritage areas have beautifully-restored shophouses but where are the folk who used to live and work in them? Slotting in an international clothes brand or a hip restaurant just doesn’t cut it.

Kampong Glam used to be a charming area but ever since the last blacksmith in Singapore moved out, it has never had the same homely feel.

The kind of homely feel you get when you visit the restored Blue House here in Wan Chai, where all the residents have been allowed to stay on.

That’s why I’d pick the dirty, higgledy-piggledy lanes of Malacca, with their old-time goldsmiths and coffin-makers, anytime over any of Singapore’s sanitised quays or Macau’s soulless Senado Square.

That’s why, even though Singapore has no shortage of Peranakan architecture, The Little Nonya was filmed mostly in bustling and realistic Malacca and Penang.

Singapore has done a fine job of saving buildings.

Now it has to save communities.

Maybe a film can do the trick. Maybe something like The World Of The Little Nonya Echoes The Rainbow.

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Tabitha Wang thinks nothing says passion more than giving up indoor plumbing so that an old way of life can be preserved.


From TODAY, Voices - Friday, 26-March-2010
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HURT LOCKER BLOWS AVATAR AWAY

I've not seen Hurt Locker, but I love Avatar. Anyway, my take is that Avatar is very New Age in its main concept... you become part of the Eywa when you die, as everyting else does... now that's New Age!

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BRITAIN'S love of the underdog triumphed on Sunday as intimate war drama The Hurt Locker beat 3D spectacular Avatar to take six prizes, including Best Film, at the British Academy Film Awards.

Kathryn Bigelow won the Best-Director battle with Avatar's James Cameron, her ex-husband - who cheered her on from the audience - for her intense depiction of a bomb-disposal squad in Iraq.

"It means so much that this film seems to be touching people's hearts and minds," Bigelow said.

Both films had eight nominations for the British awards, considered an indicator of possible success at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles next month. Avatar and The Hurt Locker each has nine Oscar nominations.

The Hurt Locker also took British prizes for original screenplay, cinematography, editing and sound.

Avatar won awards for production design and visual effects for its vivid vision of a distant moon populated by a blue-skinned species called the Na'vi.

Bigelow also paid tribute to soldiers serving in Iraq, and said the goal of the film was "putting a bit of a spotlight on a very, very difficult situation".

"I hope in some small way this film can begin a debate ... and bring closure to this conflict," she said.

The Avatar/Hurt Locker battle initially seemed like a David-and-Goliath story. Cameron's last feature, Titanic, won 11 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Avatar is a global phenomenon that has taken more than US$2 billion ($2.8 billion) at the box office.

Hurt Locker has made about a hundredth that much.

British talent did not go home empty-handed, with Carey Mulligan and Colin Firth taking home the silverware. Mulligan won the Leading Actress award for her performance as an Oxford-bound schoolgirl seduced by an older man in An Education.

"I really didn't expect this at all. I was here a year ago and I just never imagined this in a million years," said the delighted 24-year-old, waving to her parents and brother in the Royal Opera House auditorium.

The newly-blonde Mulligan won fashion plaudits for her monochrome, flower-print dress by Vionnet. She turned the evening into a family affair, bringing her parents and brother to the ceremony. She likened the shock of her nominations to "being punched - nicely".

Firth won his first Bafta for A Single Man, in which he plays a grieving university professor. The actor said he almost declined the role, which has also earned him an Oscar nomination. Firth said he had been about to turn it down by email "when someone came to repair my fridge". He never sent the email.

"I would like to thank the fridge guy," Firth said. He added he has emerged from working with fashion designer-turned-director Tom Ford "better groomed, more fragrant and more nominated than one has ever been before".

Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, already a hot Oscar favourite, won Best Supporting Actor for his turn as a chilling, charming Nazi colonel in Inglourious Basterds. The Supporting Actress award went to Mo'nique for Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire.

Director Duncan Jones took the award for Outstanding British Debut for his lost-in-space drama Moon. The son of David Bowie credited his singer father with getting him "interested in the canon of sci-fi" at a young age.

"He is watching it live ... in New York," said Jones. "I turned my phone off, like I was told to, so I'm sure when I turn it back on, he will be trying to get through."

While the likes of Kate Winslet (in clinging Stella McCartney), Vera Farmiga (in Marchesa) and Audrey Tautou (who was nominated for her performance in a biopic of Coco Chanel but opted to wear Lanvin) posed on the red carpet, it was Prince William who raised the biggest screams from the crowds with his first official engagement as the new president of Bafta.

The prince was there to present a Bafta Fellowship to Vanessa Redgrave, who set aside her Republican leanings for the occasion.

She bestowed a kiss upon the prince and told him: "I would to say to Your Royal Highness how much I admire your father for his intelligence, humanity and kindness."

News that Redgrave was to accept an award from Prince William raised eyebrows. The actress was a leading light in the Marxist Workers' Revolutionary Party in the 1970s, and has a track record of making controversial speeches at awards ceremonies.

When she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1977 for Julia, she used her speech to denounce the "Zionist hoodlums" who had criticised her support for the Palestinian cause.

The 73-year-old actress, a member of the Redgrave dynasty, was accompanied to the ceremony by her daughter, Joely Richardson. AGENCIES

From TODAY, Tuesday, 23-Feb-2010

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