Archive for July, 2013

• BLOG – Cheerio!

  Date: 2013.07.10 | Category: Blog | Response: 2

  

  Loyal readers, Hong Wrong will now be on a 2-month hiatus for the summer. Thank you all for reading my blog blather over the past year. This place was a lonely echo chamber until I wrote about that bastard rubber duck – since then, we’ve averaged 50,000 visitors per month.

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  The blog will return in September with more politics, art, satire, history and photography. Until then, you can browse all 423 Hong Wrong posts on the new Mega-Index, including political coverage, photos of HK’s abandoned villages and entries from Sub-Standard.

  I’ll be heading to the US, Iran and Turkey tomorrow – you can follow my travels on my sister blog, globalcitizen.co.uk

  Cheers, Tom.

  

  This is a preview. Read the full post (119 words, 2 images)

• BLOG – Hong Kong’s Weirdest Joss Paper Offerings

  Date: 2013.07.08 | Category: Blog | Response: 1

  Each year, more outlandish and creative contemporary joss paper designs (or ‘zhizha’ in Putonghua) appear in shops… Offerings at the stores along Queen’s Road West in Sai Wan include a paper fido for the furnace…

  

  As well as the ever popular Hell Bank Notes, paper credit cards and cheques, Hong Kongers can now purchase papier-mache clothes, houses, toiletries, gadgets and even viagra tablets, servants and shaving kits to burn in honour of their ancestors…

  

  Long-gone family members can enjoy the conveniences of modern life in the afterlife, such as hifi systems and massage chairs…

  This is a preview. Read the full post (400 words, 22 images)

• HISTORY – Cool Vintage Hong Kong Tourism Posters

  Date: 2013.07.07 | Category: Blog, History & Abandoned HK, Possibly Racist | Response: 5

  A collection of retro Hong Kong tourism posters. (Also tagging as ‘Possibly Racist‘). For more historical entries, click here.

  

  

  This is a preview. Read the full post (252 words, 19 images)

• BLOG – WTF Licence Plates of the Rich & Shameless #21

  Date: 2013.07.06 | Category: WTF Licence Plates | Response: 0

  

  Courtesy of reader, Peter Fenyves. Click here for more.

  This is a preview. Read the full post (9 words, 1 image)

• HISTORY – HK’s Iconic ‘Two Girls’ Kwong Sang Hong Cosmetics Brand

  Date: 2013.07.05 | Category: Blog, History & Abandoned HK | Response: 2

  Any grandma in Hong Kong will speak fondly of the local ‘Two Girls’ cosmetics brand Kwong Sang Hong (KSH)…

  

  Back in 1898, only a handful of rich families and expats could afford foreign cosmetics. Seeing a gap in the market, Fung Fook Tien launched KSH. Legend has it that Fung’s branding was inspired by two beautiful women he spotted in the street, whilst another version suggests they came to him in a dream. Either way, Hong Kongers loved the brand, if only because it  cost ten times less than its competitors.

  This is a preview. Read the full post (423 words, 6 images)

• PHOTOGRAPHY – Ma Wan, Part 2: The Ghost Town Where All Residents Were Evicted

  Date: 2013.07.03 | Category: Blog, History & Abandoned HK, Photography & Wallpapers, Places & Attractions | Response: 4

  More from the abandoned ghost town of Ma Wan. Click here for part 1 of the photo series and to learn about what happened on the small island…

  
  
  This is a preview. Read the full post (141 words, 45 images)

• PHOTOGRAPHY – Ma Wan, Part 1: A Whole Abandoned Town Next to Tsing Ma Bridge

  Date: 2013.07.03 | Category: Blog, History & Abandoned HK, Photography & Wallpapers, Places & Attractions | Response: 5

  Once home to hundreds of villagers, Ma Wan village is now a ghost town. Unlike most of HK’s rural abandoned corners, the residents here were evicted by the government in 2011 – some of them unwillingly. Click here for Part II.

  

  As of 1995, fish farming was the main economic activity on Ma Wan and Hong Kongers flocked to its seafood restaurants. Shrimp-drying and shrimp paste-making farms now lie abandoned.

  

  The town had a population of several thousand prior to the 80s and around 800 in 2000. But today, Ma Wan is mostly home to Park Island – a huge gated housing estate that was mainly developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties. It houses 5,000 families.

  This is a preview. Read the full post (496 words, 34 images)

• POLITICS – The Coolest & Most Inspiring Photos & Videos from the July 1st Rally

  Date: 2013.07.02 | Category: Blog, Politics: All Posts | Response: 7

  Organisers estimated that 430,000 people attended Monday’s pro-democracy rally. The police revised their figure to 66,000 whilst Hong Kong University said turnout was between 88,000 and 98,000.

  

  via AP, click to enlarge

  Hong Wrong’s coverage and photos from Monday’s rally can be viewed here.

  This is a preview. Read the full post (287 words, 12 images)

• ‘NEWS’ – Robotic CY Leung Recharge Pod Sessions to Increase

  Date: 2013.07.02 | Category: Blog, The Sub-Standard | Response: 2

  ‘News’ from the Hong Wrong Sub-Standard: Following Hong Kong’s annual pro-democracy protests, Chinese premier Xi Xinping has announced that HK Chief Executive CY Leung’s weekly ‘alcove regeneration sessions’ will now be take place daily. Previously, Leung had received direct instructions from Beijing every Friday evening during hour-long ‘download’ stints in his CCP recharge pod. After each download is complete, Leung is able to retake human form and pander to the mainland for another 7 days…

  

  Leung directly connected to the CCP by fibre-optic cables last week, via SCMP

  Yesterday’s decision to increase the frequency of sessions comes after a number of embarrassing ‘subservience malfunctions’. The latest of which resulted in an error loop causing Leung to continually repeat ‘no comment’, ‘no comment’ after he was unable to locate instructional algorithms marked ‘Snowden’.

  

  This continued until advisers turned him off and on again.

  Leung, who has to be plugged in overnight, also suffered a system freeze recently whist ‘smug mode’ was engaged during a graduation ceremony…

  

  This is a preview. Read the full post (320 words, 5 images)

• ACTIVISM – Full Lowdown & Photos: Hong Kong’s July 1st 2013 Pro-Democracy Protests

  Date: 2013.07.01 | Category: Blog, Politics: Activism, Politics: All Posts, Politics: Full Lowdown | Response: 8

  Today, thousands of Hong Kongers hit the streets demanding full democracy in an annual protest against the local and national governments.

  

  Demonstrators assembled in Victoria Park at 2:30pm and, in spite of ‘T3′ tropical storm warnings and intense heat, marched down Yee Wo Street to Hennessy Road and on to Statue Square in Central.

  

  

  Icarus Wong Ho-ying of the organising body, the Civil Human Rights Front, told the SCMP that “the lives of Hongkongers have been getting worse, with an obvious example being the wide poverty gap.”

  

  Today marks 16 years since the handover of sovereignty from Britain to China. In 2003, in the midst of the Asian Economic Crisis and SARS, up to a million people protested leading the eventual ousting of autonomous HK’s first leader.

  

  According to a new Chinese University poll, 46% of people have no confidence in Chief Executive CY Leung’s leadership.

  

  Many well-known faces, including serving politicians, were helping to rally attendees. Pictured below are Lee Cheuk-yan (trade union leader and LEGCO member), Leung Kwok-hung ’Long Hair’ (activist and LEGCO member), Albert Ho (former leader of the Democratic Party and HK Alliance director) and Tsang Kin-shing (of Citizen’s Radio, also a former legislator).

  This is a preview. Read the full post (802 words, 69 images)