Xiao Hua Issue 25

Xiao Hua

CELEBRATING OUR 25TH ISSUE

Issue 25 Culture Crash February 2022

時尚的

移民潮前，在異國 他鄉的人們如何感 受到文化衝擊

流量時代

Music Review:

The Weeknd’s The Unsung Heroes: After Hours Hong Kong's Covid Cargo Pilots

Deep Insight Into College Admissions So you know you are making the best informed decisions

“[...] Thank you so much for dealing with me for the past year in particular, as I know your schedule became increasingly packed toward Christmas, and I hope my essays were intriguing enough to keep you awake at 3am.

Once again thank you so much and I know this letter doesn’t do you justice for the love and care you poured toward my applications!”

- C.C., CIS, Class of 2019, University of Chicago

“Under her guidance, I managed to get into my first-choice college that I firstly would not have applied to had I not consulted with Antonia, and secondly would never have dreamed of getting into. The college process was by no means an easy one, but having an admissions counsellor definitely streamlined the journey and I cannot imagine having gone through it successfully without Antonia’s direction.”

- S. Ma, CIS, Class of 2018, Barnard College, Columbia University

“[...] It was with her help that I managed to not only get into an Ivy League school but also properly understand what I wanted to get out of my college experience well in advance of my peers. If I were to go through the entire application process again I’d definitely choose to work with Ally!”

- J. Cheng, CIS, Class of 2013, Cornell University

“Antonia could not have made me feel better prepared and confident in my college application process. Using both an extensive knowledge of the industry and an instinct for what I wanted in an essay, she structured a one of a kind admission journey for me. [...] Thanks to Antonia, I’m in my dream school.”

- E.M., HKIS, Class of 2020, Oxford University (Wadham College)

BOOK YOUR COMPLIMENTARY 30-MINUTE INITIAL MEETING NOW

WWW. QUANTUMPREP.COM.HK

5995 7083 (Booking and Inquiry)

2778 2118

admin@quantumprep.com.hk

XIAO HUA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Myriam Lynch

EDITORIAL BOARD

CHINESE FEATURES EDITOR Michelle Min Writers Ashley Cheng, Emily Ma, Grace Ma, Joyce Sze, Sherry Wong, Lucas Wu, Meghan Yue DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS AND ADMINISTRATION Charlie Yeung Karen Lee, Ian Choi, Kaitlyn Wells, Shivahn Garvie, Patrick Wang, Francisca Lam, Lauren Kee, Ethan Lau DIRECTOR OF ILLUSTRATIONS Michelle Qiu Illustrators Trini Chan, Lea Cheng, Miah Cheung, Angela Guo, Meagan Hsu, Sherry Liu, Kaylee Zhang, Isabelle Zee DIRECTOR OF LAYOUT Ningjing Huang Layout Designers Jocelyn Ho, Lilly Larard, Amelia Oram, Sonia Shum, Maegen Wang, Shuwen Wen DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Evelyn Kwan Photographers Jake Chan, Claire Fang, Ashley Gatt, Erin Lau, Tallie Lin, Tony Shu, Bridgette Tang, Ashley Wong, Jake Wu, Han Juby Xie

MICHELLE MIN

Chinese Features Editor

All the Chinese articles in this issue demonstrate the in-depth awareness our writers have on society and its effects on us. I was so glad to see the expansion in the year group of the writers and their passion in Chinese. As a new team, there is indeed room for improvement, however, I think we already developed a great foundation for future triumph, so we should all be proud about what we have produced!

DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL MEDIA Natalie Kam Shirley Deng, Candice Hui ENGLISH FEATURES EDITOR Alexander Arnold Writers Kian Chan, Colin Chau, Thomas Cheung, Katherine Law, Tanya Wan, Aviva Wang NEWS EDITOR Conrad Cheng Writers Tiffany Cheng, Benjamin Coulter, Chloe Huen, Chloe Wong, Eric Wu, Elliot Yuen, Valerie Yum SPORTS EDITOR Querida Lai Writers Sofia Finnemore, Katrina Hsieh, Katherine Law, Nicole Wu

6

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

CHARLIE YEUNG

Director of Business and Administration

The 25th issue of Xiaohua is a huge milestone for our school magazine and I had such a great time creating this issue with the whole team :DDD I hope everyone that took part in making this issue is very proud of themselves. Enjoy!!

MICHELLE QIU

Director of Illustrations

Thank you for contributing your creativity to the magazine, the illustrations everyone submitted really made this Issue special. I hope everyone will enjoy this magazine as much as I have when contributing to it!

校話

期刊25

7

NINGJING HUANG

NATALIE KAM

Director of Layout

Director of Social Media

News Editor

Despite the challenges we all faced with InDesign, it's been great working with the Layout team and seeing all the wonderful designs. Hope you all enjoy this issue of Xiao Hua!!

Throughout the process of creating Issue 25, I have seen so much incredible work done by talented writers and artists. It has been such a pleasure being able to work with such an amazing team, and we all should all be proud of what we have accomplished.

Enjoy issue 25!

"Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it…You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window." --William Faulkner Remember to read Xiaohua Issue 25 too, then decide whether or not to throw it out of the window. Enjoy~

EVELYN KWAN

8

CONRAD CHENG

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

ALEXANDER ARNOLD

QUERIDA LAI

Director of Photography

English Features Editor

Sports Editor

It’s truly been an amazing experience to work with such incredible photographers with a wide range of style and ideas.

Xiaohua’s Issue 25 features a whole lot of photos that hopefully brings ‘culture crash’ to life. I’m really proud of all the photos in this issue, hope you enjoy!!

Every dead body on Mount Everest was once a highly motivated person. Hence I generally prefer the comfort of my keyboard. Hopefully, that comfort and my Features team have created a product you all will enjoy.

It has been a pleasure to work alongside such an amazing editorial board and writers from the Sports Department. Hope you find Issue 25 an interesting read!

校話

期刊25

9

EDITORS LETTER

Dear CIS,

I

n deciding the theme for this year’s first issue, the Xiao Hua Editorial Board came together to determine what we believed to be the most pressing issues facing CIS. Like all of our fellow students, the 2021-2022 Xiao Hua Team missed a year and a half of in-person school and all that accompanies it. We asked ourselves: how can we fully represent ourselves and our community through this latest issue when we, as students, have yet to fully understand the ways in which the last two years have shaped us and the people we are now?

Culture was immediately something that stood out as important to us. In the hyperpolarized environment in which we find ourselves, culture is an outstretched hand, offering us the possibility of reconnecting with each other. While the pandemic has been unimaginably difficult on us all, it has been just that: unimaginably difficult on us all. Wherever we are in the world, we have been forced to change the ways we go about our lives. From France to Brazil to India, we have all watched a switch turn off and we have had no alternative but to sit still and listen to ourselves, existing.

While we have waited, unable to discover other cultures abroad, we have become more intimately connected with our local communities. But we have also watched how the uncertainty and disruptions to normal life unleashed by the pandemic have led people to blame others and to retreat into nationalism and ethnocentrism.

Admittedly, our topic, “culture crash” may unfortunately remind readers of Samuel Huntington’s thesis regarding a “clash of civilizations,” which he regarded as inevitable between Western liberal democracies and, essentially, Islam. ​​His argument, in 1993, that “the fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future” makes a case for culture as an immutable constant incapable of dialogue and doomed to enter into conflict.

10

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

We believe however that culture is a playbook of sorts, that guides us on how we can understand each other. The late Edward Said, writing in response to Huntington’s argument just weeks after 9/11, saw clearly that cultures are not rigid blocs but rather “a disorderly reality that won’t be pigeonholed or strapped down,” knit together from “the interconnectedness of innumerable lives.” His advice 20 years ago is worth repeating today: “These are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self-knowledge or informed analysis.”

Cultures do not clash like cymbals, each unchanged by the other, we argue. Rather they crash and intermingle like waves, leaving new combinations. This issue of Xiao Hua hopes to lead our attention not to the aspects of our lives that separate us, but to what connects us, and to call out areas where we can try to prevent misunderstanding and conflict. Among other examples of “culture crash” our writers investigate: Chloe Huen (‘23) details how the approaches of Western Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine overlap and differ; Aviva Wang (‘24) explores different parenting styles, by examining the effects of the two different upbringings of Tiger Woods and Roger Federer on their careers.

For its 25th edition, the Xiao Hua Team is especially honored to open with a message from Xiao Hua’s founding Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Lu (‘12), who reflects on the past and future of the flagship of CIS journalism.

Happy reading from the 2021-2022 Xiao Hua Team!

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

MYRIAM LYNCH 校話

期刊25

11

FACULTY LETTER 文化碰撞 《校話》總編林美冉同學邀請我 為本期的《校話》寫一段話，我 感到很榮幸。我們正在緊鑼密鼓 地籌劃「願景33」，同時，也 在起草我們的「世界公民及跨文 化理解」的定義。本期的主題「 文化碰撞」可說是個非常及時的 話題。 「打開煙波浩渺歷史的畫卷，人 類的發展史就是一部碰撞與交融 的歷史」。在當今這個極度全球 化的世界，文化的碰撞更是無處 不在，而碰撞可能產生的結果也 是多種多樣，抑或融合，抑或排 斥。 在教育領域，東西方文化的差 異對學習的理念有著深遠的影 響。哈佛大學發展心理學博士 李瑾女士在《文化溯源：東方 與西方的學習理念》(Cultural Foundations of Learning, East and West) 一書中闡述了她對東 西方不同教育模式的看法。她認 為西方的心智導向模式 “MindOriented Learning Process in the West” 旨在開發學習者

的心智；而東方的美德導向模 式 “Virtual-Oriented Learning Process in China/East Asia” 則 是幫助學習者提高自己的道德修 養與社會價值。「儘管東西方文 化交流在不斷深化與發展，[這] 兩種學習模式的差異非但不會彼 此削弱，反而會更加彰顯各自的 長存價值」。 漢基作為一間雙語、多文化的國 際學校，一直秉承著開放包容、 兼容並蓄的原則，引導學生從小 開始學習尊重不同文化的重要 性，學習從不同的角度看問題。 小學課程把中國傳統價值「仁義 禮智信」設計到教學方案中，讓 學生自日常生活中體驗到中國的 傳統價值；中學部把「IB學習者 培養目標」滲透到教學當中，無 論是「善於交流」還是「勤於思 考」，無論是「胸襟開闊」還是 「懂得關愛」，都彰顯了協和包 容的特質。在文化碰撞無時不在 的今天，這些能促使我們在「碰 撞」中求同存異，和而不同的特 質則更顯珍貴，我們的世界也因 多元而更加美好。

副校長

12

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

李斌 校話

期刊25

13

ALUMNI LETTER

C

ongratulations to the Xiao Hua team for the major milestone of its 25th issue. It's hard to believe we founded Xiao Hua almost a decade ago, with the mission to serve the CIS community with the best Chinese-English bilingual school magazine in the world. And how resonant with the theme of this issue: in a world where we would all benefit from greater mutual empathy and understanding between cultures, I'm proud that CIS, Xiao Hua and the broader CIS community continues to do our part to demonstrate that what unites us far exceeds what divides us. I look forward to seeing how successive generations of CISers will make the next 25 issues of Xiao Hua their own, as a thoughtful reflection of the zeitgeist and a representation of all that makes CIS so special.

FOUNDING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

14

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

JONATHAN LU 校話

期刊25

15

TABLE OF

CONTENTS

Section headers by Evelyn Kwan

SCHOOLYARD

20| A Conversation with Mr. Lagos

HAPPENINGS

23| An Interview with Mr. Fenton 26| Photo Competition 28| Virtuosity Feature

18

VOICES

32| The Unsung Heroes: Hong

Kong's Covid Cargo Pilots

36| Are you a Tiger or a Roger? On

Eastern vs. Western Parenting

40| Let's talk about "Anti-White Sentiment"

45|「内卷」与「躺平」文化如何 影响当代年轻人

30

16

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

CURRENT EVENTS

70| The 20-Year Old War in Afghanistan

50| CIS Alumni in the HK Equestrian Industry

72| AUKUS Nuclear Submarine

51| 清华中大举行杨振宁学术思想

74| 奥运会中处处可见的文化碰撞

Deal

研讨会，庆祝杨振宁百岁生日

52| The Rise of Frisbee at CIS 54| 移民潮前，在異國他鄉的人們

如何感受到文化衝擊

57| 時尚的流量時代

48

LIFESTYLE

60| Music Review: The Weeknd's

After Hours

66| Mental Health on Athletes: Females, Especially

58

76| Swimming in Hong Kong 78|「飯圈文化」亂象究竟亂在哪 呢

68

EDITORIALS

82| AOC and her bold statement at the Met

84| An Intricate Harmony: Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine 88| Hong Kong Government: A Mishmash of East and West

92| Vaccine Hesitancy

80

校話

期刊25

17

Schoolyard

SCHOOLYARD

SCHOOLYARD A: Speaking of the 7 different from each one for yourself. I countries though, which think it’s weird, because my A: Oh. formative years, I grew up in the countries are these?

L: [When you move around so much,] it almost becomes part of your life, because you know that every couple of years you’re going to go somewhere else, so you get used to it. But the older you get, I think the more you value a little stability, so it does become cumbersome now to have to move, as opposed to when I was, I don’t know, my early 20s, where it was just another move I was going to do.

US, so I think I identify culturally a lot with American things because of those few years I was there. Then, I’ve moved to other places as an adult, but I haven’t retained as much from there. I appreciate what those countries are, I like the things that I’ve learned from them, but they’re not part of me as much as it was from when I was a kid.

So in that sense it’s interesting, but overall, I think it gives you an appreciation for how each country is a contained bubble in some way, and everyone there kind of thinks that everything that is happening there matters so much, and then you move to another country, and you forget about that completely, and all of a sudden that new bubble becomes really really important.

Then you move to another one and those past two bubbles are all of a sudden mostly forgotten, at least the internal conflicts that happen in those countries, and then you find new conflicts and so on. So it just gives you a perspective that nothing is really all that important at the end, so, it’s very transient. Yeah.

A: How long have you been in Hong Kong and CIS now?

*silent pause while plane flies over*

L: I think this is the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my life. I think this is my 5th year.

A: Where do you think that plane is going?

L: Hmmm. So, I was born in Honduras, then I moved to the US eventually, then I lived in Panama after high school, then I did international programs for college in Spain, and then in Italy, and then I moved for work to Vietnam and then Singapore, and now Hong Kong.

A: So when you moved around all of these places, did you enjoy making the moves?

Were the moves experiences that you valued in your life, or did you think it was quite a burden to be shifting around so many places?

Layout by Ningjing Huang

A Conversation with Mr.Lagos Interviewer: Alexander Arnold Interviewee: Mr. Lagos

"

Hi, my name is Mr. Lagos. I teach com-

Location: 10th Floor Rooftop +

puter science at CIS, I was born in

Adventure Zone

Honduras. I grew up in international schools my whole life, and I’ve lived in 7 different countries in my life. Fun fact.

A: But what’s it like, shifting from places? Because, you know, I haven’t been to Honduras, Panama, Spain - what’s it like, shifting between all these places that speak different languages and have different ideas on how people live their lives?

L: I think it’s interesting - I mean, you get a little of the culture

20

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

L: Good question.

L: I mean I like the act of being in other places but I don’t like the act of going to that place. The getting on the plane, packing, security, and then like, buying tickets is kind of stressful for me all the time. Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t like the process.

A: But you enjoy immersing yourself in new places, do you?

L: I think that the answer I should give is yes?

A: Well, can’t say no.

L: Exactly, I can’t say “no, I don’t like immersing myself in new places.” But sometimes it’s nice to go somewhere and relax. I think sometimes there’s a huge cognitive overload from being somewhere new and having to take all of it in. So there’s times in my life where I want that, there’s other times where I want to go somewhere and not take it in, and be away from stuff, otherwise it’s not really a rest, you know.

A: Let’s talk a bit about how home influences culture.

What sort of influences of culture do you have within the household, from maybe your parents, grandparents, more distant relatives who may come from different places?

A: If you could hop on a plane where are you going?

L: So, my family, my mom and L: I don’t like traveling.

A: Yet you move around so much.

dad immigrated to the US so I would define my upbringing as an experience of moving, but also as the experience of an immigrant childhood...

L: That’s probably why I don’t like traveling. 校話

期刊25

21

SCHOOLYARD

SCHOOLYARD

more specifically an American immigrant childhood, and I think that’s a huge influence in my life.

I enjoyed growing up in suburbs in the US, very much Americana, and I think in that sense I have a family influence when it comes to culture, but overall, there’s not a lot of diversity when it comes to my family. It’s very much Latin American, all things Latin American go, and it’s almost like we translated whatever happened in Honduras and just moved it to the US. Not even really adopted the US overall as some sort of cultural influence, our household was just some place, from Latin America, that just happened to be in Washington D.C. at the time. So that was interesting too, you walk outside, it’s the US, you walk inside, it’s, you know, Honduras.

A: So, let’s talk a bit about the school culture here at CIS. CIS is a pretty big international school, and it’s quite old at this point, and I think that given that it’s an IB school there’s a whole work culture here. So let’s just start broadly, what do you think the culture of hard work and academic rigor looks like at CIS? L: I mean, I think its a good thing overall, in the sense that if you get a bunch of students who want to work hard, and want to do their absolute best, and you put them together, they’ll probably drive each other to reach, you know, heights that they probably wouldn’t otherwise. So in that sense, I find positives in it, it’s nice to be able to trust students that they’re trying their best and they’re absolutely wanting to the most that they can, and if something doesn’t work out it’s not because they didn’t try, 22

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

maybe it was too much, maybe there’s some part of the course that needs to be redesigned, so overall it’s great. I look at the hard work as something that shouldn’t be seen as a negative.

A: Do you think that it comes with tradeoffs though? Of course at CIS, we’re pretty big on mental wellbeing, do you think that this culture of hard work has possibly led to tradeoffs?

L: I don’t think it’s the hard work that has led to mental tradeoffs, I think it’s the general mentality of the end result. I’ve talked to a lot of kids about this, you can work as hard as you want, I think that’s a good thing, and even put in the time if you want, that’s great, but at the end of the day you have to be at peace with like “that’s the best you did”, and if it comes back a 6, if it comes back a 5, that’s just an assessment, that’s just a one hour snapshot of what you knew and that’s all it is. It’s not some reflection of who you are as a person, it’s not a true representation of how talented or not talented you are, which I think is where some of the mental health issues come from, like if I’m not able to achieve this one grade, in a one-hour time frame, with this arbitrary set of questions, then perhaps I’m not good enough.

Which doesn’t make any sense.

A: To be honest though, as long as the goal is to get to a good university, the goal will be to get good grades, and as long as the goal is to achieve good grades, people are probably going focused on the result, and not the process, right?

L: Yeah. I think in the end though, there’s too much of a concern about how much universities

care about perfect grades? They care about good grades, but I think that at CIS, if you don’t get a perfect grade, all your chances of a good university are good, which again, are where some of the mental health issues come from. You don’t need straight 7s to get into the best universities, I think there are other things they are looking for, and if that was the only thing they were looking for, then-

An Interview with Mr.Fenton

A: It’s not for you.

L: Yeah. You probably don’t want to go there. And in the end, they can choose from thousands of kids who do have perfect grades and they don’t. They don’t end up choosing the thousand kids with the best grades that apply to them. They have some thresholds, then they look at other things within that. And I think some of those things are things that we at CIS need to do a better job of fostering like if you have some passion, perhaps that should be the focus as opposed to straight 7s, if you have something that you want to do in the community, that should also be a focus, and we should be able to do as much as possible to get you there. If you have some type of collaboration you want to do with other students, we should give you opportunities to collaborate, and those are things universities really care about after that threshold of good grades. But I don’t think that’s the case here. The case here ends up being, “can I get good grades?”, and there seems to be no way to convince you guys that that’s not really what you need.

Layout by Ningjing Huang

Q: How long have you been in Hong Kong?

Interviewer: Conrad Cheng Interviewee: Mr. Fenton Location: 8th Floor Teacher Offices Balcony

A: I have lived in Hong Kong for three years now, so this is my fourth year.

Q: What’s your favorite place in Hong Kong?

A: I have a couple of favorite places: I like my living room so I can hang out with my cat. I also really enjoy seeing bizarre and experimental films at Broadway Cinema Tech in Yau Ma Tei.

Q: What’s your favorite place at CIS?

A: I always enjoy spending time with the English department, where you can have edifying, intellectual conversations. I also like the outdoor balcony here, you get a really sick view.

校話

期刊25

23

SCHOOLYARD

SCHOOLYARD

Q: How would you identify first experience. I was able to Q: How would you say your identity in short or work out the nervousness [as your childhood or your well as] what it’s like to be in upbringing affected your long terms?

A: It’s a really interesting front of a classroom and get attitude towards your people to do things or ask question because, I feel national identity, or other like I might lean more into them to do things. parts of your identity? my identity as an English teacher, and honestly, my job probably constitutes more of my identity than I would like to admit. But I also feel lucky that my job is adjacent to my non-professional interests like writing poetry and doing art things myself.

I don’t think I own so much of my national identity, I feel like non-Americans routinely tell me it surprises them that I am American – I try to pass as Canadian as much as necessary – but quite seriously, people have mentioned that I have an attitude that doesn’t seem to conform to that [American identity], and I think that’s maybe sometimes about international teaching that appeals to me: the ability to just pick up and transplant and be myself or not myself wherever I am.

Q: How long have you been teaching for and where have you taught before CIS? A: I’ve probably been teaching now in various

capacities for like a shocking 8 years to me. I taught at a private school in the US for 2 years, maybe 3. Before that, I was an instructor at the University of Georgia in the US, where I started teaching as a graduate student. And even before that, for just a one-year contract, I was in DongBei, China, in a city called ChongQing, which was my first experience teaching, which was pretty great for a

24

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

A: Yeah, good question. I

Q: How would you compare don’t know how much I can teaching in Mainland China say for that, because growing and teaching in Hong Kong? up in the US is a particular A: Moving there was my first time properly living abroad right, I had done some study abroad trips, but not really packed up my life and moved there. It didn’t have the sort of rigor and prestige that CIS seems to have or thinks it has.

It is the caliber of student and colleague here that was one of the first years that was quite striking to me.

Just as a funny anecdote, the first time I ever even saw the school physically was when Mr. Caves met me at 8:30am the day after I arrived in Hong Kong at a hotel, coming up the hill in the taxi. There’s like 10 schools you pass and I was like “ooh is it this one, ooh is it this one?” And then we come up this last part of the hill and we see this monumental sort of post modern looking building and I was like no way, like there’s no way, and cautiously I’m like “is it that one?” and he was like “yeah” and I was like oh for real? Is this the kind of school I work at now? And a lot of that was because I just didn’t know any better, I found the job on one of the recruiting websites by way of Mr Peterson who reached out to me, and that’s how I sort of ended up here – which I don’t think is the question you asked, but, I don’t know.

like nationalistic experience: you do things in the class like pledge alliegance to the flag, stuff like there are American flags on every building. And I don’t know if there was an implicit desire to react against that, I wasn’t that perceptive of a child, but I do think that there was this – you know I was never really exposed to the kind of lives that many of you are here, where you have a passport by age 8, and you have multiple visas stamps in it. I got my first passport when I was gonna do a study abroad trip, and in fact, it had expired because [when] I was doing graduate school in the US and when I was offered this job, I was like I totally have a current valid passport, yeah totally have one. Then I raced down to the state department and got an emergency one issued.

But you know as I said, I have limited exposure to international travel, and I think there was this kind of romantic belief that there’s something out there that I’m not being exposed to, and maybe that’s it – I think that if I were anywhere, I would be thinking about the other place. I think there’s a certain time of mind that’s just interested in the things you’re not familiar with.

Q: With your art and who did the hero push out poetry, did your parents of the way to be the hero? I increasingly think that it's not play any role in that?

A: No, I come from a strictly working class family. The kind of things you’ve been exposed to at your age – I didn’t even know about them. That’s one of the things that, going back to my first impressions about CIS, walking around and seeing the sort of film studios that is not just a mixing board and a green screen, but like proper film studio, you know I just had no idea these schools existed. And for a little bit, I won’t say it was resentment or whatever, but I kind of recognized what I was not given access to. I was given so little access to these things that I didn’t know they existed for me to access. And I think that that is one of the things that I have not necessarily come to terms with, because that suggests something right, but I have now understood what different realities exist for different people across the world.

Q: Would you say you treasure a lot of the individualistic elements of you?

A: Yeah, but like I’ve always seen myself as a product of the people that have supported me. So am I the thing at the centre of this interaction, or are we this network of mutual interactions? which is probably closer than to what I really believe, and hence there’s no point in deifying a hero because when you point out the one hero, you intentionally or unintentionally are missing every other person that came to support that, or you know,

a question of society but it's just that we are a single social organism, and the more we see ourselves that way, the better, because as individuals we’ve ruined the planet, right, like that’s just one thing we can talk about through that.

Q: Would you say your teaching style models a lot of these teachers you look up to?

A: Yes and no. I like to think that I try to, I mean firstly, I don’t pretend anything that anyone does is original after the year 3000 BC or whatever. I do like to think that I have a unique or rather idiosyncratic teaching style, and I’ve certainly found allies or friends at this school, who we’re on the same level right.

There is a kind of direct answer to your question, which is that when I was in high school, my US history teacher was for me the first model of being able to perfectly pivot from just chatting and joking around to content and course material.

It was amazing because we all could read the social cues and know when it was time to switch modes, and that’s something I try to do in my class.

them this sick life that I’m currently living, and share this part of the city with them. And I think that I don’t miss the US, but I miss my friends who are in [the US]. I mean there’s also a certain social ease, like I’m fluent in American even though I may reject that identity right, and I at least know all that – (whereas) I’m not fluent in local culture, my cantonese is very poor, and so I kind of like that sense of alienation and maybe that’s the deepest insight you can get from me in this interview. But sometimes it’s nice to know that you can talk fluently with anyone that you encounter.

And more importantly, you know the social fluency that’s happening around you, which I don’t get here even though I live on the island right. But if I go visit my friends further out, it quickly becomes a different experience, which I like, but sometimes it might be nice to be the expert in the conversation that’s happening, or have, I mean I should say, an equivalent command of everything, and I don’t just mean language.

Q: What’s the main thing you miss about home, with thanksgiving coming up, you know?

A: Obviously family. I don’t care about visiting home as much as I would like to see my family and friends here in Hong Kong, so I can show

校話

期刊25

25

SCHOOLYARD

SCHOOLYARD

First Place - Olivia Chi Huang

26

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

Photography Competition Reimaging Hong Kong

Second Place - Tony Shu Third Place - Ziqi Kelly Gao

校話

期刊25

27

SCHOOLYARD

SCHOOLYARD This year, Virtuosity is excited to be hosting their first live show in two years. Designers and models together will bring students from all across Hong Kong to the CIS lower gym in April to view the show they have been working on tirelessly since August.

The theme of this show is “Euphoria”, chosen with the aim of “spread[ing] awareness of mental health through fashion”, explains Joyce. Jocelyn Ho, Head of Design, describes how this theme is important to the team: “ We believe that mental health is becoming an increasingly important topic” and an equally important idea to express in the fashion industry.

Virtuosity Feature

Alicia tells me that part of the mission of Virtuosity is “to give local youth designers a platform to showcase their talents.” The Virtuosity team recognizes that it can be difficult for aspiring designers to effectively display their passion.

“Hong Kong’s fashion scene is quite conservative.

Despite the diverse range of brands showcased commercially, Hong Kong’s attitude towards fashion still remains limited. However, there has been an effort to spotlight local designers. This aligns with one of our goals.”

Stay tuned to the Virtuosity Instagram page @virtuosity_hk for more details on their April show.

Layout by Ningjing Huang

“We learned that when faced with adversity, we need to find creative solutions- just like how clothes are made!”

28

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

V

irtuosity is CIS’ annual charity fashion show, led by. CIS students with a passion for fashion. With the next highly-anticipated Virtuosity scheduled to take place on April 8 (last year’s show was cancelled due to the pandemic).

Xiao Hua talked to three of their team members to learn more about their work.

For Joyce Sze, President, and Alicia Tang, former President and now Vice-President, 2021 was a year of challenges and adaptations: since they couldn’t hold a public show, the Virtuosity team published a zine showcasing young designers and their work. “We learned that when faced with adversity, we need to find creative solutions- just like how clothes are made!” said Joyce and Alicia.

Jocelyn, along with her role in the Virtuosity leadership, is one of the designers who will be featured in April. She is excited for the opportunities Virtuosity offers young students in Hong Kong and how they can change the perception of fashion here: “I think that Hong Kong designers bring a new perspective on the fusion of culture and tradition,” she said. Her personal favorite designer is Iris van Herpen, who she explains is known for “her modern approach to haute couture by using 3D printing to create biomimicry clothing”.

Jocelyn says that what catches her eye in Iris van Herpen’s designs is how she is able to “create intricate and geometric designs but somehow manage to maintain the smooth flow of movement in fabrics in her designs.”

校話

期刊25

29

voices

VOICES

THE UNSUNG HEROES:

Hong Kong’s Covid Cargo Pilots By:Benjamin Coulter illustration By:lea Cheng layout By:joCelyn ho

I

t is 4am and Captain Ian is sitting in a plastic chair with the bright lights of Hong Kong’s Midfield Concourse bearing down over him. He has just completed a gruelling 12 hour flight from London and is now waiting for his covid test before being allowed to leave.

Just like Captain Ian, cargo pilots in Hong Kong have had to contend with a tumultuous form of travel like nowhere else, with draconian restrictions, testing regimens and mental health struggles.

given for our stores to be fully stocked, no matter the crisis unfolding inside or outside our borders. All this has happened without the general public realising the tireless efforts of this city’s aviation workers, who work through thick and thin to ensure we can be greeted with stocked shelves in the morning.

As such, this article will delve into the challenges thrown at Hong Kong’s cargo pilots so you can understand the cogs behind this city’s always operating importing machine.

Ever since the start of the pandemic, Hong Kong, an economy reliant on imports from around the world, has hunkered down and shut its borders. Even vaccinated travelers have to contend with a minimum of 14 days of hotel quarantine, with this number stretching to 21 days depending on the country. While these restrictions have had positive effects on the general public health situation, the city’s “zero covid policy” has posed the greatest challenge yet for pilots and airlines, with no end in sight. Being a Special Administrative Region of islands covering just over 1000 square kilometres, the vast majority of products we as Hong Kongers buy are flown in from foreign countries, whether that be our fruits, vegetables, clothes, technology or even vaccines.

We have become so used to this system that it has become a

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department (CAD) and government have devised a rather complicated set of rules for all pilots when they are on and return from their trips. To satisfy these restrictions, Cathay Pacific Cargo has a number of different policies which are currently in place.

32

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

For short haul sectors (flights to closeby destinations in Asia eg. Hong Kong to Shanghai), airlines will perform a “contactless” trip, where pilots are not allowed to have physical interaction with anybody. This essentially means pilots do not exit the cockpit from takeoff to landing in Hong Kong. For medium haul sectors (flights to more distant destinations within Asia eg. Hong Kong to Delhi), cargo flights will carry two sets of crews, one of which will fly

there and the second of which will fly back. For long haul sectors (multi continental travel eg. Hong Kong to Anchorage), pilots are allowed to disembark the aircraft, however they are immediately privately bussed to a hotel where they are not allowed to leave the room until their flight back. According to a Cathay Pacific Cargo pilot, this “foreign hotel quarantine” lasts from 24 hours to a week.

Unbeknownst to many, the combination of the coronavirus pandemic and our consumption needs has significantly increased the burden on Cathay Pacific Cargo. Before the pandemic, airlines would use passenger planes to carry a large bulk of their cargo. For example, if you bought bananas from the Philippines, chances are it was flown in on a passenger flight from Manila or Cebu, however this system does not work anymore. As passenger flights to Hong Kong have been cut by 90%, there are simply not enough routes to transport all the cargo we need. To try and close this gap, Cathay Pacific Cargo has been working on overdrive, scrambling to fly as much cargo as they possibly can. This shortage in aircraft has been so high that even some regular Cathay Pacific passenger aircraft have had their seats ripped out, converting them into makeshift cargo planes.

VOICES Much of this has been brought to light by my conversations with pilots from Cathay Pacific Cargo and other local carriers. One Cathay pilot I spoke to (who requested not to be named) was just recently drafted into the airline’s cargo operation as a result of the sharp spike in demand. Perhaps the largest challenge was adjusting to the rather harsh working hours. The majority of flights in the high pressure world of cargo are at night, and “while a lot of airports close for passenger flights between 1 and 6 am, the cargo business never sleeps.”

To give readers a sense of being a cargo pilot, he suggested to “place one of your dining room chairs in front of the TV at 10 o’clock at night, turn the TV on, turn all the other lights off and sit there till 7 o’clock in the morning. No napping,” he remarked. Clearly, not a future career if you have trouble staying awake.

At the same time, flying through the night so far up in the air gives pilots a sense of freedom and independence unlike anything else. “Its magnificent sunrises, sunsets, thunderstorms, shooting stars, northern lights, it is a nice break from what’s going on below.” The atmosphere in cargo flying is also very different, “it is a very relaxed environment, there are no interruptions, whereas when you are flying 300 people there is always someone who has had too much to drink or is feeling unwell.”

In fact, none of the problems lie with flying, pilots adore it, the prob-

lems stem from everything in between.

Captain Ian, a highly experienced pilot is no stranger to tough situations, but even this has caught him off guard. Just this year alone, he has spent a quarter of the year in isolation away from his family, constantly jetting between cargo hubs across the world. One sector he recently flew, from Hong Kong to Tel Aviv and back, perfectly encapsulates the situations Hong Kong’s cargo pilots have to face. Being one of the most vaccinated nations on earth, Israel had an extremely streamlined entry policy for pilots, with the only barrier for entry being a 15 minute covid test. On his way to the hotel, he promptly received a negative result with a kind

校話

期刊25

33

VOICES

VOICES

Captain Ian described this process as

“soul destroying”.

“We are not compensated for it, you are at the edge of your fatigue, it is not counted in the calculation of your duty time limit. You are sitting there in your uniform waiting for some doctor to tell you you are ok when you literally have not left the aircraft, there is no reason to be tested again.” Every single pilot I spoke to agreed that as a bare minimum, there must be improvements to the speed and execution of the testing policy.

message saying “you are welcome to leave your rooms and explore Israel,” only he was not allowed. Captain Ian spent the next four days in isolation, after which he and his crew made the 11 hour flight back to Hong Kong. They touched down at 4:50am and were sent to the familiar airport testing hall where they received an inconclusive result. “Keeping in mind I had done a covid test in Israel, not seen a single human being, sat in an aircraft with only three 34

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

other pilots who had done the same thing, we were still forced to sit there for eight hours.”

Including the time spent before takeoff, the 11 hour flight, eight hours waiting and two hours to get home, Captain Ian spent 24 hours in the same clothes with just a bottle of water and a sandwich.

Captain Ian is not alone in situations like this. Another pilot I interviewed spoke about his experience flying to a covid

free Chongqing in China. The pilot was away from Hong Kong for no more than five hours, not even leaving the cockpit to perform a walkaround (outdoor visual inspection of the aircraft). When he had to communicate with ground staff, the crew placed an iPad outside the cockpit door, which was even disinfected before being taken back. Irrespective of all this, they were still greeted with a multiple hour wait for a covid test.

According to a source within Cathay, the carrier’s pilots have been subject to around 200,000 covid tests, without a single positive result. This streak ended on the 8th of November, after three pilots tested positive for the coronavirus. The cases sparked a flurry of testing and mass quarantine of 150 pilots, however it was later revealed that the infected pilots had breached quarantine rules and left their hotel rooms when overseas. The three pilots are no longer employed by Cathay Pacific.

Given this, respiratory medicine expert Dr Leung Chi-chiu called for the government to end quarantine exemptions for cargo pilots, instead suggesting the notorious “closed loop travel system.”

The “closed loop system” is an opt-in travel program that involves a 49 day duty cycle where pilots stay quarantined until they have another flight, essentially isolating them from

any human contact within Hong Kong. The closed loop flying lasts 21 days, followed by a gruelling 14 days of hotel quarantine before pilots are released back into the public.

Statistically, the three new cases have increased the risk of a cargo pilot contracting the coronavirus from 0% to 0.0015%. Pilots across the airline have also reaffirmed that the actions of the three pilots were in no way representative of everyone else. The notion of tightening a system which is already very challenging has sparked heavy backlash from Cathay Pacific and pilots across the city.

Regardless, if Hong Kong continues with a zero covid policy, maintaining or increasing restrictions, the least we can do is educate ourselves and understand how it is being made a reality. Behind it are a sometimes forgotten, niche group of aviators who have spent the last two years working tirelessly to keep our city moving, at the cost of their own wellbeing and their families.

So the next time you walk into a store with fully stocked shelves, do not forget the weeks of quarantine, hundreds of tests, barrage of emotions and many hours of flying by our cargo aviators.

Within the airline, all of the pilots I spoke to know colleagues who have resigned as a result of the current rules, unable to deal with the mental health ramifications of not seeing their families, being isolated and fatigued.

If the government continues to stall or even increase restrictions on pilots, it is likely many would reach their breaking point, resulting in serious staffing issues for the airline.

As stated by Captain Ian, “there are not enough pilots willing to sacrifice their family lives.”

In addition, implementing harsher restrictions would likely paralyze Hong Kong’s supply chain, given our city’s reliance on imports. Already stretched to its limit, Cathay Pacific Cargo cannot afford more logistical hurdles if we want any chance of maninting our current economy as we know it. As a matter of fact, the cargo giant Fedex just announced the closure of their Hong Kong base, citing a lack of visibility on the easing of restrictions. 校話

期刊25

35

VOICES

VOICES

Are you a Tiger or a Roger? On Eastern vs. Western Parenting

By Aviva Wang | Photography by Evelyn Kwan | Layout by Maegan Wang Gratefully inspired by Mr. Lynch’s December 4, 2020 Head of School’s Message “Tiger vs. Roger”, which introduced me to David Epstein’s thought-provoking work and the life lessons which ensued: Are you a Tiger or a Roger? Tiger Woods and Roger Federer are arguably the greatest-of-alltime in men’s golf and tennis, respectively. The first learned to putt before he could talk. At the age of two he appeared on television, driving a golf ball past Bob Hope; the following year he shot a 48 on a nine-hole course, eleven over par.

And at the (ripe old!) age of four “his father could drop him off at a golf course and pick him up eight hours later, sometimes with the money he’d won from those foolish enough to doubt.” Awestruck by his son’s extraordinary talent, his father fashioned a schedule for him that would be all golf, all the time.

By contrast the second, Roger Federer, grew up in Switzerland playing a variety of sports — football, basketball, handball, tennis, table tennis, badminton over the neighbour’s fence, swimming, skateboarding, skiing, wrestling — developing adept hand-eye coordination before fixing on tennis at the comparatively late age of sixteen, when “other kids had long since been working with strength coaches, sports psychologists, and nutritionists.” Yet in his mid-thirties, an age by which even some of the best tennis players are typically retired, he would still be ranked the #1 tennis player in the world.

So, would you prefer to be a Tiger or a Roger?

While it is undoubtedly true that there are certain situations which call for individuals with Tiger’s precocity and clarity of purpose, our society is also in need of more Rogers, people who start 36

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

broad and embrace diverse experiences — people with range. Hence, the title of acclaimed journalist David Epstein’s number-one NYT’s best seller, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. The book posits that those who sample across domains, whether athletic or academic, are statistically more likely to achieve at higher levels than those who specialise early.

Epstein himself grew up dreaming of a vocation as a test pilot and astronaut, his heart set on a place at the US Air Force Academy. Engineering would supposedly play a large part in his future.

Yet as he made his way through high school, he discovered his interests rapidly shifting. He started reading fiction and enjoyed it. By senior year, his initial passion for aerospace engineering had waned enough for him to look at other universities. Columbia’s prestige appealed to him, as did its sky-blue crest, so he matriculated there. He felt adrift at first, daunted by his private-school educated peers who were well-versed in literature, eloquently debating texts and subtexts and “urtexts”. He veered off into various courses, from chemistry, to political science, to East Asian literature. What centred him, though, was track.

He joined as a freshman, the worst on the team, but kept at it with gusto, in love with the flow of muscle and mind as he raced. He eventually graduated as a university record holder. A teammate pointed him towards a geology-infused summer at the Biosphere in Arizona, where he tangled with diamond rattlesnakes, and marveled at the desert suddenly teeming with life during the monsoon season. He settled on geology as his major and applied to labs. Although he loved the harsh beauty of his chosen major, he saw his future as a scientist begin to narrow after some time.

He headed back to New York, where a piece on sudden cardiac arrest in athletes landed him a full-time gig at Sports Illustrated, cobbling two passions, sports and writing, into one paycheck. Who would have thought an aspiration for the stars would eventually be followed by a successful occupation in sports science and investigative journalism? Asian “tiger parents” would never allow this kind of arbitrary interest sampling. The epithet hu’ma, or “tiger mom”, is reminiscent of some dominantly Eastern parenting styles. Coined by Yale Law School professor Amy Chua in her 2011 memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, “tiger parenting” is a largely Chinese-American neo-stereotype whereby parents are heavily invested in ensuring their children’s socio-economic success; specifically, pushing children to attain high levels of academic achievement or success in (solely) high-status extracurriculars like classical music or recognised in competitive sports. The origins of the concept trace its roots all the way back to Confucianism, more than two millennia ago. The ancient Chinese philosophy promoted traits such as diligence, filial piety, and dedicating oneself towards academic excellence through the pursuit of knowledge. Many contemporary Chinese parents strive to inculcate the value of an education in their children at a young age, as higher education is an overwhelmingly serious issue in Chinese society.

A devotion towards excellence in academia and non-academic achievements, particularly those with competitive structures and award systems, are emphasised.

During ancient times, it served a cultural status as well as a prerequisite to improving one’s socio-economic standing, and now, in present-day Chinese society, national exams such as the Gaokao remain the primary path for channeling one’s social mobility upwards.

Tiger parents prioritise core academic subjects

— math, science and the language arts — over creative art subjects like the visual arts, drama and design. A devotion towards excellence in academia and non-academic achievements, particularly those with competitive structures and award systems, are emphasised. These unusually high expectations may stem from parental love and care, alongside a keen desire to pave the way for their children’s success, as proficiency in extracurriculars like playing a classical instrument or sport serves as a cosmetic addition to bolster university applications. However, these expectations may be held unrealistically high without regard towards the child’s capabilities or interests. For Western parents, the heavy emphasis on high academic achievement is often viewed as a source of stress and anxiety, while Eastern parents see the stress of academic excellence on their children as an indication of good parenting, buttressed by the whole Confucian value system. Some do not allow their children to make their own choices, whether in academia or daily life. For instance, Chua’s daughters were not allowed to watch television at night or have sleepovers with their classmates. Tiger parents may even impose life-decisions on their children as to which career path (ahem, doctor, lawyer, engineer) or long-term extracurricular they should pursue.

Critics of the tiger parenting style contend that this lack of autonomy for the child will inhibit the process of discovering their unique talents and passions, thus denying the child a sense of self-esteem, belonging and purpose. On the other hand, proponents of tiger parenting assert that their strategy of early specialisation imbues children with self-discipline, and that excellent academic results will not yield if their children are allowed to sample across varying personal interests. Tiger parents often place their children in tutorial classes as early as the preschool stage. They may also implement physical punishments or emotional threats if their children, for instance, fail to practise their piano scales for a fixed number of hours.

This type of early-life training demonstrates the tiger parent’s desire for their child to get accepted into a prestigious university, a gleaming ticket which leads to a well-respected and lucrative white-collar career filled with socio-economic success, but not necessarily success in terms of happiness. Occupations below their standards may be looked down upon — That is, a selfemployed artist may be viewed as less 校話

期刊25

37

VOICES

VOICES

socially respectable than an investment banker.

On the other hand, in most Western parenting approaches, values of individualism, assertiveness and autonomy are highlighted.

A self-employed artist may be viewed as less socially respectable than an investment banker.

Western parents tend to be more permissive and sensitive to their children’s personal needs and wants, paying more attention to their developmental stages. They are inclined towards patience, using a “low power” approach which involves explanations as well as trying to communicate with children about their views and feelings. This heavily contrasts with the “high power” strategies more prominent in Eastern cultures like China or Korea, where parents are expected to assume greater control in child development and emphasise values of cooperation, compliance and self-discipline, which could be useful for accommodating to the more collectivist and hierarchical society. Globalisation and economic changes within countries are influencing cultural values that underpin such parenting approaches, though. As countries in Asia, Africa and South America industrialise and westernise, their cultures are also growing more individualistic and parents are adapting their parenting methods.

A 2005 study in Turkey demonstrated that over a three-decade period, as the Turkish economy expanded and families became wealthier, parents shifted their reasons for having children. In the past, parents had focused on the economic support that children could provide for them in old age, fostering more collectivist values. Nowadays, parents say that they are raising children more for enjoyment. They want to teach their children independent skills and positive self-esteem. Changes in cultural values like this have taken place in many countries. For example, shy children often have issues in Western societies — they may be perceived as anxious or stand-offish in social interactions. Yet in Eastern countries like China, shy children were traditionally considered as competent and well behaved. They did well in school, were liked by peers, teachers 38

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

and parents, and did not display the loneliness or depression that could be seen in similar Western children. However, these days, China has grown more westernised, and research shows that shy children, particularly in urban areas, experience exactly the same struggles as their Western counterparts. They are less accepted and may start developing psychological problems. These changes reveal that cultural norms and values have shifted in both directions and have had significant effects on child development around the world.

Proponents of tiger parenting contend that a strict parenting approach produces top performers — children (or tiger parents’ trophies?) who exhibit excellent academic results across the board, alongside adept proficiency in reputable classical music or athletic extracurriculars, which lead to great professional success later on in life. In a three-part series on competition within Hong Kong’s education system by the South China Morning Post, quite a number of Hong Kong parents revealed that culturally-rooted fears over economic hardship drove them to begin contemplating their children’s futures as professionals as early as after birth. They strove to find the best playgroups, endorsing competition among children in academics, music and sports, in the belief that this would foster competitiveness and increase their children’s chances of entering a better pre-nursery and elite kindergarten, and subsequently primary schools, secondary schools and universities. However, many other Hong Kong parents, educators and psychologists assert that pushing children too hard is counteractive and instead harms children while they are still very young and developing. There is an alarming growing trend of children as young as ages five to twelve seeking psychiatric help, and even contemplating suicide. In reaction, some parents have relaxed their formerly harsh discipline with their children, and some schools have modified their admissions requirements to be less demanding.

Coming back to his book Range and the Tiger vs.

Roger model, Epstein was invited to debate Malcolm Gladwell at MIT. Gladwell was a proponent of the 10,000 Hour Rule — if one practised something such as playing the piano or badminton for 10,000 hours, they’d become a master. “I suspected he was going to argue that early specialisation — a head start — creates an insurmountable advantage,” Epstein says, “but that hypothesis was not supported by the data.

In fact, among athletes (or any expert) who go on to become elite, early sampling across sports (or subjects) and delayed specialisation is by far the most common path to the top.” Gladwell acknowledged that Epstein had made a cogent point, and the two initially opposing authors became running partners. Afterwards, when Epstein inquired into other vocations and domains, he saw Rogers everywhere. Vincent Van Gogh flailed from interest to interest, from artistic style to artistic style, until he discovered his own ecstatic vision beneath a Starry Night at SaintRémy-de-Provence.

Gunpei Yokoi serviced the card-making machines at the Nintendo factory in Japan while bouncing between hobbies, from toy trains to ballroom dancing, before inventing the Game Boy, the best-selling console of the 20th century. Charles Darwin “had at least 231 scientific pen pals who can be grouped roughly into 13 broad themes based on interests, from worms to human sexual selection,” Epstein writes. “He peppered them with questions. He cut up their letters to paste pieces of information in his notebooks, in which ideas tumble over each other in a seemingly chaotic fashion.”

Range also investigates the limitations of hy per-specialisation, which can give rise to tragic consequences.

“It doesn’t take much to throw experienced pros off course,” “It doesn’t take much to throw experienced pros off course,” Epstein warns. Perhaps the most compelling case he presents is the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger just after launch from the Kennedy Space Center in 1986. With the temperature in Florida plummeting the night before takeoff, NASA officials ran an emergency conference call with engineers at Morton Thiokol, the manufacturer of Challenger’s rocket boosters, and raised the worrying question: would the O-ring seals hold in such chilly conditions? As Epstein contends now, “the engineers were dealing with a question they’d never dealt with before, informed by two data points: how the O-ring seals would perform at either temperature extreme.” NASA made the devastatingly wrong call: “They reverted to their old mantra of

‘In God we trust — all others bring data,’” Epstein asserts. “But they didn’t have the quantitative data to make a decision. They had photographs from two flights, and those photographs were telling a story. But they ignored them.” Thus, the key takeaway: hyper-specialisation can bring about grave errors of conformity.

Ultimately range — sampling across domains, or learning a little about a lot of things — breaks down our confirmation biases. “It is not that we are unable to come up with contrary ideas, it is just that our strong instinct is not to,” Epstein suggests.

“All life is an experiment.

The more experiments you make, the better.”

One should feel comfortable moving about in a diverse range of subjects and interests, regardless of what one’s parents’ expectations might be. So go attend that oil painting workshop, even if you don’t feel like you’re that good at drawing.

Go sign up for that space science elective, even if you’re aiming for a medical career in the far future. As the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.”

校話

期刊25

39

VOICES

VOICES

Racism and Rhetoric: What is “Anti-White Sentiment”?

By Tanya Wan | Photography by Jake Chan | Layout by Sonia Shum Depending on where you stand, when it comes to “anti-white sentiment”, two things may come to mind: a) the alt-right is taking it way too far and seriously exaggerating the smallest of slights; or b) these radical leftists have completely lost their minds and the world will now suffer at the hands of terrifying people of colour carrying flaming pitchforks. But in a world where politics has become increasingly divided by questions of identity, it’s important to take a serious look at both sides of the fence.

What do the statistics say? A 2018 survey conducted in the United States showed that both black and white people believed that racism, in recent years, was on the decline; additionally, the majority of white people felt that discrimination directed towards themselves had become more rampant than of that faced by black people. Which, in light of the glaring spotlight over police brutality and systemic racism in the US, might seem all the more ridiculous––and all the more worth discussing.

Another example a little closer to home: is gweilo a “racist” term or not? It depends on who you ask. Some Caucasians take great offence to the perceived epithet; others embrace it in a self-deprecating manner and profit from it by branding

40

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

their company Gweilo Beer. Though it’s difficult to say why anyone would want their beer company to harken back to the good ol’ days where white British men colonised Hong Kong through use of opium as a form of entrapment and consequently were nicknamed “ghost men” by the (rightfully) embittered locals.

No matter what you think, however, it is a problem. A few years ago, a British worker put forth a discrimination lawsuit against a local construction contractor for being spoken of as a gweilo “in a derogatory sense”, adding that he felt a “general underlying hostility towards non-Chinese employees”. “Towards non-Chinese employees” would certainly be correct: South Asian domestic helpers, for instance, are known to face severe abuse and discrimination at the hands of their Chinese employers. But towards people like the complainant himself? A 2020 Financial Times study showed that white men, who make up just half a percent of the Hong Kong population, dominate around 13.4% of local corporate boards. (Which means there are as many Caucasian men in such positions as there are women of all backgrounds holding those leadership positions.)

Hong Kong is, admittedly, a rather xenophobic city, with racial tensions constantly simmering on between native Hongkongers (another identity that remains starkly undefined), other Southeast Asians, South Asians, the Mainland Chinese, black people, white expats… it goes on, the same way it does everywhere around the world. But does any of this really justify what is now dubbed in mainstream media as “anti-white sentiment”? Here’s my saucy take: no.

call it—these terms in general, I view them in an interactional way. In other words, there’s two parts to that story: the person who said it and the person who receives it.” Different people, he pointed out, could perceive the terms in diametrically opposing ways.

“Do you feel alienated by it?” I asked.

“I’ve lived in Guatemala for four years and it [anti-white language] has a certain context,” Mr Goldstein said, agreeing. “You’d hear the term gringo used often…and it could be both a term of affection and of offence.

It’s about how it’s interpreted, how it’s meant, and how it’s received.”

We discussed how sentiment is an attitude or feeling that informs action, which is where anti-white sentiment could potentially stumble into rocky territory; I questioned whether this sort of “attitude or feeling” amongst marginalised groups ever did erode into violence against—or the oppression of—white people, who typically rest at the top of social structures and power dynamics. Often, Mr Wilson said, anti-white sentiment can be very conceptual, in the sense that they are negative feelings swirled around but not put into action as practices or policies, with concrete repercussions. So is it still racism? Well, it depends on who you ask.

“I don’t,” Mr Wilson replied, “and this is where I think—anti-white sentiment or racism, whatever you want to

Gringo, I later discovered, is a term broadly used to address foreigners in Latin America as well as Hispanics

Despite the general sense of dismissal I initially held before researching this topic, anti-white sentiment isn’t as clear-cut as it may seem, with a whole ocean of grey to wade through in order to achieve some isle of clarity and understanding––so I decided to interview people for their thoughts and to craft what would hopefully be a more well-informed article. When I asked two white American InSo teachers at CIS, Mr Goldstein and Mr Wilson, for their thoughts on terms like gwei’lo (ghost man) and gwei’po (ghost woman), they agreed that it did not come across as offensive to them, although they understood if some took it as such.

not “in touch with their roots”. Most etymologists disagree over the origin of the word, though some source it all the way back to peregrino, or the Andalusian term for pilgrim. Either way, some white Americans find the term offensive, possibly even racist––similar to the controversial gwei’lo. As a Guatemalan-born American writer put it in the NPR article Who, Exactly, Is A Gringo?, “gringo denotes the idea of otherness…Maybe one day more people will use gringo in the way my grandma uses it—as a name for Latinos in the U.S.” This argument suggests that the use of gringo could get to the point of becoming a neutral term that could also serve as a means to casually identify oneself. In the preface of Gweilo by Martin Booth, a memoir about a white British boy’s amusing experiences in colonial Hong Kong, the author wrote: “Once a derogatory or vulgar term… [gwei’lo] is now a generic expression devoid of denigration.” Yet there exist people who would argue that gringo and gwei’lo are, in fact, disparaging terms carrying flagrantly racist undertones. As such, there is no racist/non-racist, black-and-white dichotomy: it again all hinges on the way in which something is expressed from one end and received on the other.

校話

期刊25

41

VOICES

VOICES

Despite some discordant opinions on what anti-white sentiment was, the general consensus from the interviews I conducted appeared to be that it could not— usually, at least—be considered racism. “As long as it’s not being used to oppress, it’s not racism,” Aliraza Jafree, an ethnically South Asian Y11 student, argued.

He mentioned how white people (Mr Wilson, probing: “what is ‘white’?”) have had the dominant position in most, if not all, social hierarchies for the past few centuries. To him, racism is when “someone in a higher position actively discriminates against someone in a lower position because of their race”; that white people are more often than not standing in this “higher position”, then, means it would be impossible for them to be genuinely discriminated against. Of course, white people can experience discrimination, though not necessarily to the extent of which they are victimised like people of colour, when, generally, the social hierarchy tends to protect them and encourage their worship, particularly in post-colonial regions.

I laughed, a little self-deprecating, and lamented that most self-respecting Chinese people only like their meat cooked to (a second) death.

I have heard similar terms applied to me in a more biting manner, too, in the same way I suppose gringo would be used to name Hispanics who have in some way lost their “roots”. For instance, Southeast Asians who are “yellow on the outside, white on the inside” are often mockingly dubbed “bananas”. Sometimes, I sense that there’s a hint of deep-rooted envy or disdain to it: as a fluent English speaker and an extremely privileged citizen (indeed, the two often come hand-in-hand), I have unbridled access to far more opportunities than most other people living in Hong Kong.

And this likely plays into the reason why some of my Chinese counterparts view me more as a white foreigner, in a pejorative light, than as a Chinese citizen.

To hold these dual identities is at once a boon and a bane—except that the “white” privileges I possess are not in any way diminished by the backhanded criticism it may Hearing this, I couldn’t help but think back to my ex- generate. This brings us back to the nuanced question of periences as a gwei’mui, a “ghost girl”, in Hong Kong. anti-white sentiment, which can somehow be directed not Although I was raised in this city and speak Cantonese only at white people but also people of colour. It’s the “air with passable fluency, my first language is English and of superiority” some white people give off, Jafree asserted, I am growing up in a relatively Westernised educational when they stroll in “acting like they own the place” that proenvironment. As a result, I have been taught contradict- duces this sentiment. Similarly, in a 2015 SCMP article on ing values and sometimes doubt my identity as a “true “expat brats…the sad by-products of colonial Hong Kong Hongkonger”—whatever that is. Once, while ordering society”, Australian columnist Jason Wordie lambasted the a medium-rare steak in one of those restaurants that children of white immigrants as being “shallow”, “priviserve Chinese-style Western food, the waitress teased leged”, “undisciplined”, and “prejudiced”, the emphasis on me, saying something like “wah, this gwei’mui wants these children being that they are white. her steak medium-rare?”

I wonder, however, if it’s always deliberate: perhaps this “superiority” is occasionally inherent in the fact of being wealthier and more privileged, leading to immediate connotations with varying degrees of “whiteness”. Following that line of logic, it’s less about anti-white sentiment and more anti-upper-class sentiment, but it would perhaps be more reasonable to say that the two are overlapping and inextricably entwined; hence the myriad identities of the recipients of such “anti-white” sentiment.

In the eyes of the interviewed InSo teachers, racism outside of a legal perspective is a “massive…umbrella term”—more a “belief system”, Mr Goldstein suggested. What qualifies as racism, then? I inquired, more or less expecting (rather wishfully) a definition fit for a dictionary. “I think it’s a process,” said Mr Wilson. “I think it’s a verb, because the response to that question—‘what is racism?’—is a lot more complex than a noun. [It] suggests that racism is a noun.

The reality is racism is a process, a verb, and therefore requires a much more nuanced response, with historical and cultural considerations.”

42

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

Perhaps we could break it down this way: anti-white sentiment as day-to-day discrimination, involving arguably meaningless epithets that offend, as opposed to racism in terms of systemic oppression, which white people tend to be less vulnerable to because of their “superior” race and class. The latter, clearly, can have far more destructive effects on marginalised communities when compared to day-to-day discrimination.

But dilly-dallying over the definitions of words in the abstract likely won’t get us very far. So what about the more tangible, real-world application of anti-white sentiment? Where and how does it manifest itself? And to what extent is it a social issue that ought to be taken seriously? These, perhaps, are the questions we should be asking ourselves instead.

At its core, the social construction of whiteness involves stereotypes of being wealthy, cultured, elite, holding respectable jobs, enjoying comfortably exorbitant lifestyles, and living in notoriously expensive areas (i.e., the Mid-Levels, the Peak) and implies a degree of snobbery, arrogance, and general social apathy. This generalisation is prevalent not only in Hong Kong but almost universally, and inevitably draws a sense of animosity from local citizens who perhaps feel wholly disconnected to this sort of exorbitant lifestyle and inferior due to their limited access to opportunities and resources—especially that which white people appear to naturally possess only thanks to their racial identity.

come to mind, terms used to denote and denigrate white people who live in poverty and are, in a sense, “uncultured”. This could certainly be construed as a more insidious example of anti-white sentiment; to delve further into the nuance of the matter reveals that this particular manifestation of anti-white sentiment can be and is occasionally perpetrated by white people—more specifically, white people who correspond to the status quo—themselves.

These apparent anomalies produce confusion, condemnation, and scathing criticism—as Drs Julian Groves from HKUST and Paul O’Connor from Lingnan University put it, “whites are in place as long as they remain wealthy, foreign and not-Chinese”. Put simply, being poor, a local citizen, and Chinese is considered mutually exclusive from being white.

Mr Goldstein mentioned that he’d consider it a problem if anti-white sentiment were genuinely “converted…into rental policies, hiring policies”––white or not, if “someone [is] being denied an opportunity because of race or culture,” Mr Wilson said, “that suggests a broken system, with deeply flawed criteria.” In the recent 2019 study Whiteness out of place: White parents’ encounters with local Chinese schooling in post-colonial Hong Kong written by the aforementioned professors, a group of white people who wanted to admit or had already admitted their children to Chinese medium of instruction (CMI, largely local) schools were surveyed on their experiences. What they discovered is revelatory.

When white people subvert this expectation by being poor or uneducated, however, they upend an implicit social order and are often viewed as somehow less than white; for instance, “white trash” (U.S.) and “chavs” (U.K.) 校話

期刊25

43

VOICES

VOICES

Much of the motivation behind “going native” stemmed from a (fairly admirable) desire for their children to fit in by speaking Chinese, to properly assimilate to local society, and to no longer exist solely behind the “white” veneer of privilege and prestige. But actually getting into these schools was a different matter.

For the most part, white parents were directed away from CMI schools and towards international English medium of instruction schools instead, the implication being that a) white children were more suited for English-speaking international schools with a far greater white population, b) white parents could, of course, afford the fees—because they were white, and c) white people were simply incongruent in an educational community of predominantly Asian people.

For some of these white parents, this was their very first experience of being racially “othered” or even ostensibly discriminated against. To some extent, one could argue that quite a few of these white people expected to be treated under colonial standards, with one interviewee (Alice, a corporate affairs executive) describing an experience she had at a CMI school as such: …The person [school administrator] manning that table looked at me with like a really horrible look and said in very poor English, ‘Wait, wait’. I actually memorized a phrase: ‘Hello. I’m here to hand in my application for my son’s primary school in Cantonese. My pronunciation is really good for an expat, so it’s not a comprehension issue…A few minutes later, someone obviously more senior came in, looked me up and down with a horrible frown on her face and said, ‘Do you realize this is a Chinese school?’

Here, Alice suggests that she has been discriminated against for being white, deliberately mentioning that the Chinese administrator spoke imperfect English; she, however, also assumes that she ought to be treated 44

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

well because she is white and her pronunciation is “really good for an expat”. The authors of the study explained it best: she “still judges and wants to be judged by the colonial standards of language proficiency.”

They then concluded that: “…from the point of view of local Chinese residents and their critical white peers, these parents are in place precisely when they think they are out of place (i.e. embracing the expatriate identity and remaining aloof from the local community) and they are out of place when they think they are in place (attempting to go ‘native’ in CMI schools).” The social disconnect between expats––that is, white immigrants––and local citizens of Hong Kong is at once hilarious, disappointing, and woefully severe.

of any form of anti-white sentiment, that also means that person A has to let go of weary generalisations, stereotypes, and assumptions. And person B has to consider the social context before opting for a reaction. It’s a delicate compromise.

The narrative continuity of white people being superior remains—and it persists as both a form of consistent elevation for those who fit the box and a significant constraint to those who do not. So, is it anti-white sentiment and by extension racism that holds white people back? Or is it simply the inevitable outcome of skewed stereotypes and misunderstanding still rooted all the way back in Hong Kong’s colonial era? When and how can white people forge a social identity outside of its colonial context? And how much of that is contingent on the local Chinese community changing their attitudes towards white people—not to mention further non-Chinese people like South Asians and Africans?

I recognise that there is a great deal of regrettable misunderstanding between white people and people of colour built on sinister history and woefully inequitable power dynamics. I believe that anti-white sentiment is, for the most part, frivolous and superficial in comparison to “racism” as we know it—though it may warrant the umbrella term depending on the situation. I think that raising anti-white sentiment as a counter-argument to movements such as Black Lives Matter or the general empowerment of people of colour, however, is feeble, pathetic, and utterly irrelevant. At the same time, I find it foolhardy to discard the concept of anti-white sentiment outright and disregard such salient concerns that polarise our politics and bear significant weight on our complex, diverse communities. And I choose not to say gwei’lo or gwei’po because I view that as counter-intuitive to building positive relationships between people of varied racial backgrounds and identities. Anti-white sentiment is a delicate, sensitive phenomenon–– and we all ought to reflect on the roles that we play in it as well as the implications they carry.

The point is, anti-white sentiment has always existed in a linear, point A to point B narrative. Person A may or may not have intended to say or act in a way that was offensive; person B may or may not take what was said or done as offensive. As Mr Goldstein put it, it’s “interactional”––meaning that both parties should consider the consequences of their actions and the implications of their responses. And this goes beyond the superficial level: if we mean to genuinely rid society

Yes, countries have been victimised by practices conducted by white people in power for centuries. Yes, being denied admission to a Chinese-speaking school isn’t so awful when you think of Hitler’s final solution, slavery, the hierarchy of races, the unremitting oppression of people of colour that we continue to see today. And no, that does not mean that all white people are at fault for the actions of their colonial predecessors.

「内卷」与「躺平」 文化如何影响当代年轻人

By Emily Ma Illustration by Meagan Hsu Layout by Shuwen Wen

在网络如此发达的时代，相信大家 都听过「内卷」和「躺平」等网络 用语。不管是在常用的社交媒体， 新闻或报纸，甚至是人们的日常交 谈中，「内卷」和「躺平」都会被 广泛运用。那么「内卷」和「躺 平」到底是什么意思？这又意味着 什么呢？

「内卷」和「躺平」 到底是什么？

「内卷」和「躺平」代表着两种极 端，一种是过分的竞争和比拼，一 种则是完全退出竞争。

「内卷化」的生活从 何而来？

从2020年在网上流传的清华大学生 努力学习的照片起，「内卷」一词 便开始被更多人熟知，甚至入选了 2020年度十大流行语。“边骑车边 看电脑”的“清华卷王”这一说法开 始传出，光是关于「内卷」的微 博话题讨论度就已突破十亿。各 种年龄段和不同阶层的人都开始运 用「内卷」一词，不管是即将升小 学的幼儿园学生还是已经步入社会 的“打工人”都面临着被「内卷化」 的风险。BBC的专题报告中曾提 到，“有学生向中国媒体举例说明 这个词的内涵：一篇论文作业的字 数要求本是5000字左右，为了获得 更好的成绩，许多人选择写道8000 字到10000字甚至更多。到最后， 可以获得最高档成绩的学生比例 没有发生改变，但几乎每个人上 交的作业已经大大超出了老师的 要求。”那么，这种看似“整体的进 步”却实际上是无用的努力，怎样 影响了中国当代年轻人呢？

「内卷」怎样影响到 了中国当代年轻人？

伴随着这种极端现象的蔓延，人们 常挂在嘴边的也变成了“太卷了”或 者是“又卷起来了”等类似的发言。 这些口头禅反映了当下年轻人的生 活状态和社会的现状。这种不健康 的竞争方式已经成为了一种被默认

的形式，不管是90后还是00后都被 禁锢在这种无形的压力中。社会的 大环境演变成了一个“修罗场”，似 乎一旦松懈了一点就会被社会所抛 弃。“996”甚至“007”的工作制不再 是令人发指的想法，反倒成为了稀 松平常的生活规律，加班也成为了 常态。如果不那么努力， 不那么「卷」，似乎都无法融入到 大环境中了。 校話

期刊25

45

VOICES

VOICES

����������精神���������� 第六医院黄悦勤教授等报告的中国精神卫生调查 �����������������中国����� �������应����高��������� 一的���一生中���生一�精神������ ��生��率�高������为������.6%� �������.�%������精�������� ��.�%���������1.5%��精神����� �精神������.�%�和������.1%���� 精神����率�1�����的��群�中�是���

�����和������������人们的 �����健康����1���������的���健 康�����中国国���健康��报告���1�� �������式�����的�报告中����� 户口���群���������抑郁为��� 村户口人群中抑郁高风险的检出率为16.5%略高 ���户口的检出率1�.�%��������群 �的抑郁高风险检出率为1�.6%�中����群� 的检出率为16.�%�高中���群�的检出率为 1�.1%������������������ ��是生活����的人们��������� 是�����的��������人们��的�健 康������������������的� ��������������������� ���人人���������的�����人 们的�����健康������������ �������

「躺平」横空降世 ������1�的������������一 个�为����是���的��������� ���������的��������的生活 方式��������的���������� ���是人生���������报的��中 ��������的��生活�是������ ����������一������的��� ������是�一����尽量������� ���是������的生活����为���� �人�������生����是�为��们的 ���是一个等���的���������的 �是�为���出�������的����� ��人�����们��的���人活�应该是 ����的一�生活方式�����一���� ��的������������������ ��������是��的�����人应该�� 46

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

������是����的�的������� ���������������人们的��� ��健康�������������的��� 人们�该�����

「内卷」和「躺平」的"中间值" �����������和����的���是 ��的�������中国��人生活��的� �����尽��������������� �的���� ��的����������是��的一�� �����������是��的一����� ���������是��的������� ���是��的�作和��������的生活 方式������健康������������ ��一个�中����是��� ��������的���������和� 作���中�持一个��是�����的��� 人们还是应该尽量维持一个健康的生活方式和作 ��������中��的�中国国���健康 ��报告���1��������中的�报告����� ��的��持������������的���� ��为�.������为���生�.�个���� 中生�.6个���高中生�.�个����健康中国 �����1��������中����生��中生和高 中生���������1���和�个����� 中����5.5%的��生����1������.�% 的�中生����������.1%的高中生�� ����������������和�中���� ���������������高中���� �1���������生��的�������� 1��������一��������������� �高中����������6���� ���生活和�作��的�中���的���健康 的生活�是����的�一��������� 个人的生活������维持生����的�� ���个人的生活和健康������个��的 ������人们的�����健康����的 ����������������的��和� �的�作���������一������� ������和����作中��一个���是 ���

未来社会的发展 ��人人都���一个健康的生活方式�往往 ����人可以�到��内卷�� ��平�文化的�发���是� 的����内��是不断 ��������而��� 它已经大大影响到了中国 ��年轻人���已 经融入到人们的 ��生活中了� 这种����� 端的生活方式 显然对社会及个人 的发展都是百害而 �一�的�而�� 在这之间寻找一个平 ���是����� 这种文化已经危害到 健康���们需� ��来����� 的生活方式跟态度究 竟如何影响着个人以及 社会的未来发展�

如今内卷化的生活方式已经对人 们的心理及身体健康造成了负 �的影响�而��一��如 �未来�是如���一�年 轻人的不健康作息规 律很可能导致未来整 体社会的不健康生活方 式�这是一个��不理� 的���大��的�化 影响的是��人�� ��个人都是��� ��的一���个人 的进步往往造就了团 �的成�����们 需 ������的生活方 式�是对���对社会�� �����的���往这个方 �����造一个��成�� 健康的社会�

��来�� �����内卷����平�之间��的中国年轻人 百度百��内卷 中国���生�����之一��一生中�发生������ ������������������������2020年中国�������� 中国���������������年轻人的心理健康�来�� �������年心理健康��������成����不��心理健康�� 2021年两会期间不断涌现~ ����中文���������平�大���一��的社�是可�可�的

校話

期刊25

47

Happenings 48

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

校話

期刊25

49

HAPPENINGS

HAPPENINGS

CIS Alumni in the HK Equestrian Industry Author: Katherine Law Illustrator: Meagan Hsu Layout by: Lilly Larard

清华港中大举行研讨会 庆祝杨振宁百岁生日 By: Grace Ma | Illustrations by: Sherry Liu | Layout by: Jocelyn Ho 世界著名诺贝尔物理学奖得主杨振宁 教授日前迎来他的百年华诞。九月二 十二日，他所任职的清华大学、香港 中文大学为他举办学术思想研讨会， 庆祝他的百岁生日。

Dusk splashes the city with amber and rose-colored paint, creating a beautiful landscape. As the last golden rays of the day disperse over Hong Kong’s skyline, night begins to fall. The bustling city is quieting down on a Wednesday evening, but in the heart of Hong Kong, the fun is just beginning. Betting parlors slowly fill up with those who have high hopes for what’s to come. The sky is lit up by the twinkling city buildings, the racetrack is illuminated by the massive floodlights.

学术思想研讨会主要讨论杨振宁先生 在物理学领域所取得的卓越成就，以 及他对国家的贡献。杨振宁在研讨会 上发表演讲，他表示，1971年第一次 访问“新中国”是他人生中极为重要的 一段经历。当年，他从原子弹之父邓 稼先那里得知，1964年试爆成功的第 一颗原子弹除了在最初有一些苏联的 帮助，其余都是中国人自己制造的。 这件事对他了解自己的祖国以及今后 五十年的人生轨迹有重大的影响。

It is racing night in Happy Valley, thousands of onlookers gather at the racetrack. A living, breathing piece of history fueled by the lively energy of the crowd. You can almost feel the anticipation and excitement as you enter. The racetrack draws people of all backgrounds together, even those who don’t know a thing about filling in a betting slip.

For some, horse racing is simply just a cool pass time. But for us Hong Kongers, it’s not just that — it’s culture.

territory’s racing. Racing became increasingly popular, especially when Gymkhana events, extra meetings following the annual spring race, were introduced in the 1890s.

Horse racing is one of the oldest sports with the richest history to date, but the objectives have remained the same For locals, the popularity of racing boomed in 1926, — whoever finishes first is the winner. While the exact when the Jockey Club opened membership to them. time when races first took place is lost in history, evidence However, this was short-lived as racing was halted of horse races in the Olympic games of Greece from 700completely during the Japanese occupation in the Sec40 BCE has been found. Besides that, the Roman Empire, ond World War, until liberation.

China, Persia, Arabia, and other surrounding countries all developed horsemanship in the early ages. During the cruIn the early 1970s, the Hong Kong Jockey club prosades (11th-13th century CE), the first horses were brought gressed from an amateur to a professional organization, from Asia to Europe. and racing was turned into an official profession. Not long after, on October 17th, 1973, the club introduced Serving as a reminder of Hong Kong’s colonial past, Horse Wednesday night racing in Happy Valley, a floodlit inracing is a British influence that has been so ingrained in augural event. It was an instant success, and since then, our culture that can be easily overlooked. More than 150 regular weekly races have been a tradition, and horse years ago, Wong Nai Chung, as coined by the locals, was racing has been one of the most important elements of an area of swamp uninhabitable for the British. That soon culture to Hong Kong people. changed in 1845, when colonial equestrians converted the area for horse racing, now known as Happy Valley.

Although the Sha Tin racecourse was opened in 1978 to accommodate for expansion, to this day, Happy ValAt first, race meetings would happen during Chinese New ley remains the hub of racing and an iconic landmark Year, welcoming all. In those days, the races involved fueled by history. ponies and amateur riders from the colony and surrounding Chinese cities. However, in 1884, the Hong Kong Jockey Nowadays the sport is popular worldwide, but our city Club was established to formalize the administration of the truly takes the sport to its heart.

50

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

杨振宁1922年10月1日出生于安徽合肥，1938至1944 年就读国立西南联合大学物理系，先后获学士、硕士 学位；1948年获美国芝加哥大学哲学博士学位。1954 年，杨振宁同米尔斯创立了“杨－米尔斯规范场论”， 是研究凝聚原子核的力的精深理论。杨振宁与美国华 人物理学家共同提出“宇称不守恒原理”，1957年获得 诺贝尔物理学奖，成为最早获得诺贝尔奖的华人。杨 振宁和罗德尼·巴克斯特分别于1967年与1972年创建 了”量子杨-巴克斯特方程“，对物理中的量子完全可 积模型的对称性研究提供了强有力的数学工具。他被 《物理教师》期刊列为历史上杰出的18位物理学家之 一。 研讨会当天，杨振宁45岁的妻子翁帆陪同他出席。翁 帆当天穿着一袭红色洋装，气质出众。研讨会主要由 一些学术机构的领导人士，例如原国务委员、第十一 届全国人大常委会副委员长陈至立，清华大学校长邱 勇，中国物理学会理事长张杰，香港中文大学校长段 崇智，清华大学原校长、高等研究院院长顾秉林来讨 论杨振宁先生的成就，热情地表达他们对杨振宁的尊 敬，也祝他健康长寿。

校話

期刊25

51

HAPPENINGS

HAPPENINGS

The Rise of Frisbee at CIS

By Sofia Finnemore | Photography by Tony Shu | Layout by Maegan Wang

and kept playing as I found the game really fun. There are not many sports where you can “fly-out” to go to extremes to be able to play which is why I find Frisbee so fun”.

Over the past few years, the overall interest in Ultimate Frisbee has spiked up in the CIS community. Not only do students play recreationally in the field during lunchtime, but many have also joined the sports team to play competitively against other schools. The sport holds extreme value in the school, sharing the first tier recognition with only seven other sports at CIS. Although frisbee is a sport mostly played in the United States, where it originated, it is currently played in over 90 countries around the world, and it is fascinating to see CIS students engaging in a global sport by just spending an hour or two every Friday up at the field.

Currently in CIS, there are two different teams of frisbee: the junior (for years 7 to 9) and the senior (for years 10 to 13) team. Both are officially entered to play in the ISSFHK leagues although everyone also gets the opportunity to sign up for the Frisbee events frequently hosted by the HKFDF (Hong Kong Flying Disc Federation) which is also partly led

by Sunny (the CIS Frisbee coach). Sunny is extremely passionate about the game which also helps him be the fantastic coach he is with the right balance of fun and seriousness. His love for the game is inspiring which of course begs the question: what about frisbee does he find most intriguing? Let’s find out: Why do you like Frisbee?

“Frisbee is a team sport and I really like team sports. I used to play football, I wasn’t the best at leg coordination but I found that my hand coordination was better. So I joined frisbee

52

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

What do you think of the CIS team?

“I think that there’s a lot of pressure on the team this year because up until now, CIS has been the top school frisbee team. However, because of the pandemic, many people haven’t played in a while and there are also fewer coaches in Hangzhou teaching frisbee so everyone this year is rather new to the sport.

That’s also why there’s a lot of pressure on us coaches as we don’t want CIS’s ranking to drop from first place.”

Is there anything you would like to say to all young and aspiring CIS sports players?

“I think that everyone who joins sports teams at CIS has lots of potential and is athletic.

However, at least in frisbee, many of them don’t have enough passion and drive for the game. They all have the skill but without passion, it makes it hard to play a game well.

Even if they are at the same level as other players, other players will put more effort into playing well. When many of them don’t have enough drive, it makes it hard for them to improve.”

Furthermore, next in the pecking order, there must always be a leader — or in this case, a captain. Due to the large number of players in the Frisbee squad, there are 10 captains total. Among the most experienced is Helen Liang (Y13) who has been playing the game for 4 years. She is a great role model for all other players and one who can take lead and manage the team in an efficient and helpful way.

All there’s left to find out is why she loves the game.

Why do you love this sport?

“Well, I initially started this sport because I was a legacy; my sister used to play, around

5 to 7 years ago and she always told me about how fun the sport was and so I was super excited to try it out. Best of all, it started in Hangzhou with Wanglu (Ex Frisbee Coach).

He is a legendary coach who basically started frisbee itself and so then all the people who played frisbee in Hangzhou came back to Hong Kong CIS where they continued playing.

I think that it is a very different sport because its one of the very few sports where you play with a disc instead of a ball, it definitely requires a different skillset and it is also a game which greatly relies on sportsmanship given the fact that it is a self-refereed game which I think is very great because the people you get to meet through Ultimate Frisbee are usually very awesome. I think what got me to really love it was the fact that I got to play with my classmates and my friends in Hangzhou. That’s the best part about playing sports, being able to play with your friends and experiencing a win together and improving together.”

What is your favourite Frisbee memory?

“Back in year 10, we go to go all together to the Shanghai youth open and it was just really awesome to see everyone pull together and get up every morning at 5 to 6 am just to go and train for the three weeks leading up to the Shanghai youth open. We worked so hard together and then being able to see all of that practice come into fruition at the game — it was just, I don’t know, it’s very hard for me to explain that feeling of exhilaration when you’re playing the game and you do well. It can be anything as small as making a good cut and then you will feel a sense of fulfilment and you

will want to keep trying and going for more and more.

What’s the best thing about being able to inspire all of these young minds as the Frisbee Captain?

“Wow, I think that Frisbee is unique in the sense that it is one of the few sports at CIS where you don’t play gendered but rather in a mixed team. As a captain, knowing how everyone feels, especially the girls who feel less experienced sometimes, is super important for not just me but the other captains as well to be very patient and understanding especially with the newer players and to be able to encourage them and also allow them to step out of their comfort zone and really go for it. That’s why I think that the best thing about being captain is being able to help the shy people who I know are in a situation that was similar to mine.”

In that moment, perfect to demonstrate the wild nature of the game, a stray Frisbee flies in just over our heads and breaks up the conversation. Everyone is gathering in front of Sunny as he is about to begin the session.

With Sunny and Helen’s interviews, it is clear what passion and love for a sport look like.

They are both superb role models for the 40 young, inspired minds in the squad and they exemplify leadership. Despite Frisbee being a relatively modern sport, it is wonderful to see such devotion to the game and I am sure that with just a glance you would be able to see it too. Come and cheer on the Frisbee team so that the Phoenix can prevail!

校話

期刊25

53

HAPPENINGS

HAPPENINGS

移民潮前， 身處異國他鄉的人士 如何感受到文化衝擊的

By Sherry Wong | Photography by Erin Lau | Layout by Sonia Shum

隨著經濟不斷發展，人們對於生活質量 的追求不斷提高，使得人口外移的數量 與日俱增。根據香港政府的數據，僅僅 本年度便有將近九萬人移民，比去年的 數據整整多了兩倍有餘。截然不同的社 會環境和歷史變遷導致了文化方面的明 顯差異，不少人反映在日常生活中感受 到了各方各面的強烈衝擊，自己眼中再 平常不過的行為，到了外國友人眼中便 成了難以接受之舉動。

54

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

中西方餐桌禮儀上的差異性無疑是 膾炙人口的話題之一。在大多數正 式的西方餐廳，只能聽見刀叉碰 撞摩擦發出的聲音，人們講究食不 語。相反，傳統中國人在宴席間推 杯換盞，特意將咀嚼聲放大，大快 朵頤以表示對於烹飪者的讚美與食 物的美味。席間的祝酒辭，寒暄客 套一刻也不能停，才好其樂融融， 賓至如歸。初來乍到，在用餐時將 音量放低對於長輩們來說猶為困 難，偶爾不經意的陶瓷盤相撞，也 會引起四周眾人好奇的眼神，最後 鬧得一個大紅臉。除此之外，將餐 桌上的食物光盤處理在西方是再正 常不過的事情，他們認為浪費食物 再可恥不過，可在中國文化中，為 了顯示東道主的慷慨，總會點一大 桌子的山珍海味來分享，甚至常常 剩下大半盤子的菜來表現自己的富 裕。

西方人對於派對的熱 愛相信不用多加解 ����兒派對�� �派對��別�身派 對������相信不少人都 遇到過結識未久的西 方朋友邀請自己參加 派�����次的� ����人��難 ����們�來�參 加社交聚會從而擴大 朋友圈和適當地放鬆 是���不過��� 可不少人難免認為與 一眾不甚相熟的人相 �������便� 了也只能捧著溫水不 ������為�� 的�方家長眼中��

派對更是不檢點的行 為�認為參加��是 �朋�友���� ������兒�參 與�久而久��便成 了朋輩眼中格格不入 的���人�� �����方��中 西方家長對於孩子的 ��也不�相��� 獸家長一詞最早便是 從亞洲傳統父母身上 ���一����� ������甚�� 上班族們都可以大口 喘息的週日孩子們也 不��息���便� 拿來和別人家的小孩 �比����家的�

兒學了什麼自己也絕 不能��從小�為成 績而受到責備的次數 自是不��數��也 �當�社會����的 �����重�相比 �下�西方家長�為 �重孩子�人��� 嘗試比成果更為重 ����孩子們�� �����而�一� 地��子上���� 孩子�人�地��� 方�從��對��只 �是�適����� 境下成長的孩子都能 �����

校話

期刊25

55

HAPPENINGS

HAPPENINGS

時尚的流量時代 By 施慧怡 | Illustration by Lea Cheng | Layout by Ningjing Huang and Amelia Oram

「時尚」—— 這兩個字給人一種神秘而生 人勿近的感覺，九十年代的時裝秀更是獨 家專享，僅有時尚界的知名人士才能目睹 那場無與倫比的時尚盛典。一直以來，時 尚品牌推銷都是通過雜誌,、廣告牌等方式 提高品牌知名度。而近年來，隨著各大社 交媒體如抖音、小紅書及Billi Billi的興起， 社交媒體用戶的持續增長，時尚行業已經 無法僅憑傳統的傳媒渠道推廣自己的產 品。 如今，電子營銷已成為時尚界的家常 便飯，各大牌爭先恐後地發布廣告視頻， 創建網絡話題，做直播並開發電子商戶。 就這樣，時尚正式進入嶄新的流量時代。 2019年的新冠狀病毒令品牌無法像往年那 樣邀請嘉賓參加線下時裝秀。於是，品牌 便轉向Instagram、微博等社交平台，通過 直播的方式向大眾展示全新的系列。這不 擴大了品牌的受眾人群 — 只要你所處的地 方有網絡，你就可以欣賞一場絕倫的藝術 展示。通過編輯及特效，品牌可以利用互 聯網給網上千萬的觀眾呈現一場獨一無二 的看秀體驗。這是線下時裝秀無法達到的 效果。 Ԣ‫ٶ‬ೝфѪຮ땹ХՆঀ‫ݩ‬ϡ፩ዛ‫ݾݾ‬ѡϬϤฆӟ僡僡Ў‫ޑ‬ϧϬ࣪؆ա݂ะ࢞Ъϡ੤҂ ϥӳҡ൒ϡϯϤϰϥ‫چ‬೹჆ϡ֒‫ړ‬땹Ў‫ޑ‬ѡϧౖભׂ‫ڑڻ‬պ‫م؛‬ϥϽϬшຮભъገϧ ϡ๾ܾ땾ЩгЊПԳ땹ϬϣТ২Ӈ࿚֊ϡПԳ땹ѪϯЎϬ࣒ЌѰϡ২Ӈ‫ྫآ‬땾Ϭ՜҈ ട༒ӻ땹ϣТϥᙖ݅ϬѪϯϡ࢘պЊԪ‫ࡥܫ‬땹Ջӛ‫ۉ‬৏ೝՒюԵӸϧϤϰҒ‫ݶ‬ϡָଧ ҷЀ땹ϬෝಥЋౖ‫م‬ᝎ؏Ѵ땹աЋ‫م‬Ͻॄᐶ땾

56

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

通過互聯網，品牌能 吸引更多觀眾，增加 品牌關注度和流量。 為了得到更多人的關 注，電子營銷的手 段也是越來 越有創

意。2021年正是義 大利奢侈品牌古 馳創立的一百週 年。為了慶祝 這個具有里程 碑意義的的時 刻，古馳舉辦 了一系列的線 上線下活動， 比如暑假在上 海和香港巡演的「古 馳原典」藝術展覽。 品牌邀請許多高知名度的明 星及 網紅參加活動並讓他們在自己的社交帳號 上發布相關資訊。粉絲為了支持自己的喜 歡的偶像便會自發參與活動的宣傳，幫忙 轉發相關的帖子和照片。隨著越來越多的 互動量，話題便得到更高的關注，將消息 傳播到粉絲以外更廣的群體。人們看到那 麼多明星和潮人參觀這個展覽，也就自然 而然地想要親自去打卡，然後將自己的照 片發佈在社交媒體，讓自己身邊的親友注 意到這次活動。這個多米諾式的連鎖反應 讓古馳在網絡上的曝光率持續高漲，隨後 舉辦的大秀也從中得益 — 古馳的一百週年 的時裝秀直播僅在微博便收穫了高達六千 萬次觀看，打破了時裝界今年的紀錄。 可 見，電子流量也許真的是財富密碼啊。 其實，這樣的轉變並不僅限於時尚行業。 在這個流量為王的時代，越來越企業意識 到傳統的營銷手法已經逐漸失效，如何最 快最有效地進入網絡用戶的視野成為了新 的探討話題。這到底意味著什麼呢？讓我 們拭目以待吧。

校話

期刊25

57

lifestyle

LIFESTYLE

LIFESTYLE

Music Review: An Exploration of The Weeknd’s After Hours Authors: Kian Chan, Thomas Cheung and Katherine Law Illustrator: Meagan Hsu Layout by: Ningjing Huang and Lilly Larard

Introduction

Music, an art like no other. One that paints our lives with rainbows of emotions, one that can tint our perspective, one that splatters melodies that are so beautiful yet fill us with melancholy thoughts. The Weeknd’s most recent album is just that — a work of art. The three-time Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter/producer Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd, headlined for the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2021. Along with that, the release of his fourth studio album, After Hours, has been recognized by fans and critics as his best work to date and is no doubt a hugely influential album to all. Filled with this year’s biggest hit songs, Abel pours his soul into every note, every beat, and every word. His work shows all the faces of love, a feeling that can be so saccharine and addicting, yet full of sorrow and loneliness during heartbreak.

After Hours is a concept album, serving as a magnified emblem of Abel’s relationship, a rollercoaster of sadistic emotions that end in catastrophe, and begins a new chapter of his life.

Through the fourteen unique tracks of the album, Abel shows his versatility not only musically, but also of his state of mind. The album’s production style takes a journey back to the retro times, giving the listeners and fans a pleasant taste of the 80s nostalgia.

His record label “XO” can be most commonly interpreted as “hugs and kisses”, though Abel depicts this meaning through his songs as “drugs, Ecstasy and oxycontin”, capturing the style of his dark R&B genre. This sets the tone for the album title “After Hours”, as it narrates the emotions that circulate around Abel’s mind late at night. This is “the feeling after a long day, after the party, and drowning alone in your own thoughts at 4 am after everything is done”.

60

ISSUE 20

XIAO HUA

Tracklist Alone Again Too Late Hardest to Love Scared to Live Snowchild Escape from LA Heartless Faith Blinding Lights In Your Eyes Save Your Tears Repeat After Me After Hours Until I Bleed Out

Breakdown of the Story Behind “After Hours”

As the album was released, fans from across the world waited to hear his story represented in music. Abel crafted his masterpiece using various song elements, aesthetics, and further hints that build up to his persona, as well as his long perplexing storyline. The theme of the album is brought out by the sustained C minor key used in the majority of his tracks, evoking the emotions of sadness and melancholy. The trailer of “After Hours” states that this is “his most fully realized album yet,” exploring the themes of escapism, loneliness, and self-loathing, all within a cycle.

The album is split into three acts, representing three different stages in his relationship.

The first act of his chronicle starts with a gentler and softer tone, setting the atmosphere for the exposition of the album, and unveiling the beginning of this love story. Introducing the theme of “forbidden love,” Abel reveals that the character himself and his girlfriend, Bella Hadid, have had an on-and-off relationship. The starting two tracks 校話

期刊20

61

LIFESTYLE

LIFESTYLE

“Alone Again” and “Too Late” are sung primarily with his head voice that is accompanied by the haunting and menacing sub-bass, indicating Abel’s reflection of his relationship, hinting that it was not a pleasant experience.

The first track “Alone Again” opens with a graceful, ethereal atmosphere along with the broken chords of a synthesizer. Abel questions and fears the acceptance of moving on, thinking about his reality of being alone–“​​Take off my disguise, I’m living someone else’s life, Suppressing who I was inside” (Alone Again). This emotion is entwined to the heavy distortion within the vocals, implying the dystopian atmosphere reflected by the story of his life. Followed by the next track, Abel has the realization that it is “Too Late” to save his relationship, and begins searching for forgiveness. The narrative carries on with his confessions, admitting that “I’ve been the hardest to love” (Hardest to Love), coming to terms that he has made a lot of mistakes in the past. Within this section, the tone of his vocals section is very pure and has no distortion, evincing the sincerity behind Abel’s reflections. This is followed by the aftermath of his reflections in the ballad “Scared to Live”. The soft and slow track is sung in the past tense, where Abel truly reflects and admits that he was not the most ideal partner of this relationship, taking the blame for all the heartbreaks. The bridge also includes an interpolation of the melody from Elton John’s “Your Song,” taking the meaning of the song’s romantic and innocent nature.

“Snowchild” then takes a journey back to Abel’s childhood, where he was born and raised in the “snow” filled Toronto. It also hints at his past experiences with drugs, “snow” being a slang term for cocaine. A line of the track also refers to his debut music mixtape– “House of Balloons,” where “Cali is the mission” is a line on the track “The Morning”. In “Snowchild”, he now says “Cali was the mission”, and that he will be “Leaving, leaving into the night”, indicating his departure from California because of his broken relationship. This leads straight to the following track “Escape from LA”. With the slow and lethargic mood of the track, Abel believes that the city of LA is troublesome, being a major impediment to their relationship. The second half of the track suddenly shifts to a dark and inauspicious beat, describing Abel’s infidelity that puts an end to his previous relationship as he sleeps with another LA girl in the studio. This immediately destroys the whole development of Abel’s miserableness, leading to the development 62

ISSUE 20

XIAO HUA

of this new selfish and indulgent character in the next segment of the album.

Now entering the second stage of Abel’s relationship, he is hinted to be in Los Vegas, the city of entertainment and attractions. This is the start of the “brain-melting psychotic chapter”, stated in a post by Abel. The 7th track “Heartless” opens this segment, featuring Illangelo and Metro Boomin as co-producers. The mood of the track contradicts all previous songs, introducing a fast and upbeat rhythm about his new toxic characteristic of proactivity. The track reflects how Abel’s success and fame of his music career have shaped his behavior, now approaching the drugs and women in a savage and cold-hearted tone, as “I’m heartless, And I’m back to my ways ‘cause I’m heartless.” However, this feeling quickly comes to an end in the fallout of “Faith”, as Abel enters a low point, losing his faith and trust in his authenticity whilst getting caught up with a heavy mixture of drugs. Still desperately thinking of his ex, he enters a state of unconsciousness after finally overdosing on drugs, and “ended up in the back of a flashing car”- pointing to an incident that happened back in 2013-14, acknowledged as “the darkest time of my entire life”. Abel takes this emotion and applies it to the end of the track, eventually waking up in the back of the ambulance, hopelessly watching the blinding lights of the city that shine on his face.

This sets for a perfect transition to the final act, addressing Abel’s failed attempt at reconciling his relationship. This is also the album’s thematic turning point, bringing in the synth-wave/ electro-pop elements of 80s music. Introducing the biggest hit of the century, Abel incorporates the sonic theme from his previous studio album “Starboy” to deliver “Blinding Lights”. The track suggests that Abel is fully distracted in the city of Vegas, attempting to find happiness within a significant other until only realizing that it will never replace the experiences with his ex. He perfectly captures the track’s feeling in one quote: “How you want to see someone at night, and you’re intoxicated, and you’re driving to this person and you’re just blinded by streetlights, but nothing could stop you from trying to go see that person, because you’re so lonely.”

Following with the track “In Your Eyes”, Abel returns to his state of vulnerability from the first half of the album as he sees his lover face-to-face,

the upbeat track includes a sax solo influenced by George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”. Attempting to sustain their already broken relationship, Abel can see all the suffering his lover is undergoing when looking “in your eyes”, though she is still attempting to maintain a positive pretense to hide all the pain. This leads straight to one of the most 80s driven tracks of the album, “Save Your Tears”. Reflecting upon the downfalls of their relationship, he questions, “I don’t know why I run away”, admitting that he has always abandoned the problems in their relationship. He advises his lover to move on, telling her to “Save your tears for another day”, and not to reminisce about their past relationship. The track confirms that she has accepted this advice after the events of Abel’s departure from LA, and has already gotten along with a new partner.

The interlude “Repeat After Me” then manifests Abel’s desperate final attempt at getting his lover back, repeating the hypotonic saying, “You don’t love him, you don’t love him, if you’re thinking of me”, brainwashing her to forget about her current partner and should return with Abel himself. All the progression of Abel’s character brings the album to its center track, titled “After Hours”. The long and winding six-minute track is split into three sections, reflecting Abel’s sincerity step by step. The whole track follows the base of one note carried through a skipping synthesizer line, unveiling to a beat drop in the middle section where all his feelings and reflections are presented. With the heavy usage of processed vocals, Abel accepts the past events and apologizes for all he has done, saying he is “Sorry that I broke your heart, your heart,” promising to never commit these mistakes again. He explains that “‘After Hours’ the song is absolutely my thoughts at 4 a.m., alone, after everything is done”, making this the very final message to his lover. The album comes to the closing track “Until I Bleed Out,” serving as a metaphor mentally and physically. Abel is completely drained of energy from thinking of his lover, as well as through the various fights he came across (from the music videos) that also caused him to bleed a lot. In the instrumentals, the

track ends on the same minor note that was first introduced in the track “After Hours,” making an indication that everything is all a cycle, as Abel will always suffer through heartbreaks and pain in any relationship that he is in. From being alone, Abel will always be trying to escape his reality through self-loathing and getting caught up with drugs, until only realizing that he must face the reality of his relationship. The album “After Hours” reflects upon Abel’s perspective on the type of character he plays in his relationships, always having this toxic and selfish behavior that will lead to cycles of pain, perpetually.

Aesthetics and Themes

From the blood and gore-filled music video to his bandaged-face performances, Abel conveys his view on appearance–“being attractive isn’t important to me,” Abel states, “but a compelling narrative is.” The theme of Abel’s red and black suits was also inspired by the Thriller era of Michael Jackson, as many people view Abel as the new “King of Pop”, taking the cues of the past legend.

The Weeknd’s album music videos follow a timeline of his experiences, as he introduced his new persona that was covered in bandages. Abel’s timeline of music videos starts off with a memory clouded night in Las Vegas which was evident in the video of “Heartless” as he was sharply dressed walking around the city. Moving onto the video “Blinding Lights”, Abel who got beaten up by a club bouncer weaved through the empty desolate city as blood poured down his face. Abel explains the bandages on his face are a symbol “reflecting on the absurd culture of Hollywood celebrity and people manipulating themselves for superficial reasons to please and be validated.” He elaborates, ’It’s all a progression and we watch The Character’s storyline hit heightened levels of danger and absurdity as his tale goes on.”

Abel’s commitment to his appearance leads to the final appearance in the music video for “Save Your Tears”, as Abel appears on the big screen full of disturbing prosthetics and digital effects, as many rumored and criticized him as an act of plastic surgery.

校話

期刊20

63

LIFESTYLE

LIFESTYLE

The Clash of Music Culture: Current vs 70/80s Music Taking a step back into music in the past, the development of pop music culture was very significant, playing the role of shaping new music styles. Referencing back to 1980, the name “modern rock” was born. Music in this era is defined as the age of electronic and dance music, revolutionizing the innovations of pop music. While more technology has been featured in songs, artists would begin to use synthetic elements such as auto-tuning and drone chords, differing from the past decade’s disco-themed pop. The 80s music was considered to be nostalgic, forming this foundation for a new age of pop culture.

Going on to 21st-century music, songs combine many of the traditional elements and conventions, creating the so-called “pop music formula.” Pop songs nowadays are known for having addictive melodies that are accompanied by catchy rhythms, often being the genre that produces the biggest hits. Through Abel’s style of dark R&B music, he takes on a further step of creativity, using the elements of 80s music and incorporating it with the “pop music formula.” The convention is evident in Abel’s “Blinding Lights,” as he goes back to the 80s music to find inspiration.

The upbeat rhythm makes a connection to Michael Sembello’s track “Maniac”, accompanied by the flashy synthesizers that are prominent in the popular track “Take on Me” by A-ha. After taking some inspiration from the past, Abel then utilizes some conventions of current pop music by using the typical structure: Intro — Verse(1) — Chorus — Verse(2) — Chorus — Bridge — Chorus(Final) — Outro. With a simple 4/4 rhythm and a very addictive melody in the chorus, “Blinding Lights” became the century’s most popular song.

Another example comes from Roxy Music’s hit song “More Than This” in 1982, as Abel looked up to the track a lot, claiming that “you don’t have to wait to get the chorus to know it’s a great song”, as he attempted to recreate this feeling through the intro of “In Your Eyes”. Originally, the catchy intro was not in the demo for both tracks “In Your Eyes” and “Blinding Lights”, however after listening to A-Ha and Roxy, the inspiration of the sax fueled the hooks for the two openings.

The music production of “After Hours” has also reflected the 80’s music culture. With the collaboration of producers DaHeala, Illangelo, Max Martin, and many more, the inspiration that Abel has taken is prominent through the usage 64

ISSUE 20

XIAO HUA

of the 80s style instruments. One of the major instruments is the choice of drums, as Abel and his production team have used a combination of the Linn Drum and the Roland 808, creating the popular beats in Abel’s music. Aside from the beats and the vocals, the synthesizers were a key element in bringing many tracks together. The Roland-Juno 60 was the key to the main melodic hooks, allowing the listeners to experience a blast from the past, sharing a glimpse of the 80’s music.

The Roland-Juno 60 was a very popular instrument that was used by many artists in the 80s such as Vince Clarke, Howard Jones, and Nick Kershaw, as they all used the same synths to create different melodic hooks for their songs.

Conclusion

Abel has continuously influenced and impacted people across the world through the way he conveys his art. The versatility of Abel defines him as an artist, being able to express his emotions in the forms of many platforms. From his musical interpretations to his artistic and physical representations of his narration, it is no doubt that Abel is truly dedicated to his project of delivering his compelling narrative. The era of Abel’s “After Hours” album has drawn inspiration from the past, fusing current musical sounds to capture his story, captivating the world’s attention, and propelling him onto music’s center stage. With Abel’s unique style and delivery of the music culture clash, he has further connected a bridge between modern and contemporary pop, inspiring many future generations to take on this trend, as many fans would recognize new pop songs with the 80s synth-pop or dance music genre as “The Weeknd’s style”.

Though pop music is known to be cyclical, music culture does evolve in the hands of bright, potential young artists, making music history more fruitful as every era passes. Whether it is listening to music through the radio, or listening with friends and families, music has the unspoken ability to bring people together and is the only form of communication that can deliver elusive experiences and feelings to all humans. Many music artists across decades have defined music in so many ways, and Abel is no exception to this list. Enjoying the “After Hours” while it lasts, the world now awaits The Weeknd’s next studio album, when “The Dawn is Coming”.

Abel has continuously influenced and impacted people across the world through the way he conveys his art. The versatility of Abel defines him as an artist, being able to express his emotions through the forms of many different platforms.

Photo Credits: Nabil Elderkin

Photo credits: The Weeknd / XO Records / Republic Records 校話

期刊20

65

LIFESTYLE

LIFESTYLE

Mental Health On Athletes: Females, By:

Nicole

Wu |

Illustrations

by:

Especially Sherry

Female athletes at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics shook up the global sports scene. Just 13 years old, Sky Brown shocked the world as one of youngest to ever win an olympic medal. Local female athletes were equally impressive: of the 5 medals from Hong Kong, 4 were won by females.

Swimmer Siobhan Haughey born and raised in Hong Kong brought back two silver medals in two olympic events in the 100m freestyle and the 200m freestyle. While the public celebrates these amazing accomplishments, they rarely understand the cost of glory. For some, especially female athletes, the cost can be severe.

Female athletes’ health is often neglected and endangered when it comes to practicing a sport on a competitive level. For many years, female athletes have suffered traumatic events and been bullied into silence. For example, American gymnasts were sexually abused by Larry Nassar, their team doctor, for years. When survivors tried to bring attention to his crimes, they were pun ished by their coaches, who excluded them from the national team and from elite competitions. Recently many of the survivors have opened up about their abuse and bravely discussed their trauma and fear that continue to scar them.

What is frightening about this fact is that such scandals did not surface until years later due to the coverup and the lack of collective 66

ISSUE 20

XIAO HUA

Liu |

Layout

by:

Jocelyn

Ho

voice for the victims. The physical, sexual and mental abuse should not happen again. Tragically, mental health is often ignored and channels to deal with it are inadequate.

Just how inadequate? The media and the Tennis Grand Slam tournaments have forced Naomi Osaka to withdraw from the French Open in 2021 over her decline to attend press conferences.

The constant probing can be mentally draining on the athlete. Osaka confesses, “I’ve often felt that people have no regard for athletes’ mental health and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference...We’re often sat there and asked questions that we’ve been asked before or asked questions that bring doubt into our minds”.

For speaking her mind, she was criticized for being unprofessional and was fined. The consequences that she suffered only demonstrates the lack of control athletes have to tell their own stories. The media would often sensationalise stories about athletes and distort the truth which ironically deprives athletes of a voice.

Elite female athletes suffer in other ways too. Rather than solely focusing on their sport, they often have to deal with comments about their appearance and age. Korean archer An San was criticized for her short hair during the olympics. Local cyclist Lee Wai-Sze noticed her age has been repeatedly brought up in TV live streaming. Other athletes

are cyber-bullied for their body image. These comments trigger athletes to make unhealthy attempts to lose weight. It also creates psychological pressure on these athletes. It can even become so severe that some young female athletes would prefer to discontinue their sport than suffer pressure. Even though athletes are public figures, they are human too. Just because they are skilled in their sports does not mean they are no more sensitive, susceptible to doubt and mental health than the rest of us.

Besides needing to handle their psychology, women athletes also have more difficult biological issues to deal with than male athletes.

Period pains, the lack of training due to pregnancy and motherhoods are all challenges that female athletes are met with.

During this time, the hormone imbalance can cause them to be much more susceptible to mental health issues.

Pregnancy and childbirth as well as breastfeeding often deprives top athletes at least a year and half of their training time, and for many, it would mean the end of their careers. The pressure to stay on top of their sport added more undue stress to their lives.

Luckily, many female athletes have started publicly discussing these issues and prioritizing their mental health. During the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Simone Biles, arguably the most decorated gymnast, made the decision that she was no longer going to compete in the individual events. Biles publicized on twitter that she was one of the victims of Larry Nassar using the ‘#MeToo’ movement. This hashtag revealed that her battle with poor mental health was a result of past trauma from being sexually abused.

After announcing her break from intensive competitions, Biles has received immense empathy and continues to spark an even greater change about mental health for female athletes.

The issue of female athletes’ mental health can also be addressed much closer to home. Our school’s focus this year is fittingly “A Year to Care”, a year not only to be compassionate for each other but also to ourselves. We should be outwardly and inwardly looking at how we can be kind to our bodies and minds. Thankfully, CIS is a safe place where female athletes feel protected and empowered to become part of the community with mixed-gender sports inclusivity.

Student-led initiatives such as Dear Women and Body Banter club facilitate and encourage open discussions of female body issues without fearing criticism.

With these platforms in place, female students who play or don’t play sports can be assured that they are supported by their peers as well.

Being an athlete is stressful where winning insurmountable competitions determines your success.

Being a female athlete is even more difficult.

In addition to dealing with potential failures and criticism, they also have to deal with potential harassment and body image issues. Precisely because of this reason, CIS should continue its current trend of promoting inclusivity and mental health wellness for all students.

Together, we at CIS can set an example and draw awareness on how mental health can bring about cohesiveness and care in a community.

校話

期刊20

67

current events

CURRENT EVENTS

CURRENT EVENTS

The 20-YearOld-War in Afghanistan

By Eric Wu | Illustrations by Meagan Hsu | Layout by Maegan Wang

Between August 14th and the 30th, hundreds of thousands of Afghans lined up outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. These people weren’t trying to simply immigrate, they were trying to escape: escape a country of political instability, escape a country of danger, and escape a country of terrorist control. Starting from the 1st of May, U.S. troops and their allies started to heavily withdraw their troops, and with that, the Taliban started to capture back territory after territory. By the time American troops had fully retreated, the Taliban were in full control. They had captured Kabul, the capital, and thus the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan fell. But how did it come to this? How did America, the strongest military in the world, fail to win a 20-year-old war and what can we learn from this situation?

To understand how the U.S. failed in its conquest, we must understand why this conquest happened in the first place. On September 11th, 2001, a devastating attack occurred on U.S. soil now commonly known as the 9/11 attack. The perpetrators of the attack, a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda, were hiding under the protection of the Taliban in Afghanistan. After the Taliban refused to give Al-Qaeda up, the then-president George W. Bush launched a campaign to achieve not only the capture of Al-Qaeda but also to topple the Taliban. Thus began the Afghanistan War. Just two months afterward, the 70

ISSUE 20

XIAO HUA

war where narratives were the most impactful, and instead, they focused more on their military power. Military personnel like the boots-on-theground soldiers America was deploying, simply did not do anything to combat pre-existing and recurring narratives that the Taliban had pushed, and because of that, these ideologies only had room to grow. Narratives like the corrupted nature of the Afghan government and how they had betrayed their Islamic traditions and practices seeped through the nation without proper resistance. Furthermore, the military strength loudly boasted by Afghanistan at the time was far from the truth. An ex-finance minister for the government said that 300,000 of the recorded troops and police did not exist, with their wages being pocketed instead by military generals who had no incentive whatsoever to report the real numbers. Reporting shows that the numbers may have even been inflated by up to 6 times, severely misrepresenting the strength of the Afghan army.

This all meant two things. Firstly, the Taliban was able to easily regroup, meaning that even if the

Americans had military superiority, the Taliban were always able to retreat and find a new place to set up camp. Secondly, when the U.S. started to retreat, they were able to recruit a large number of people that allowed them to stage the huge military conquest that allowed them to capture Kabul just a few months ago.

In the current day and age, military superiority is not the only important factor in a war, especially in a counter-terrorism form of warfare. The U.S. wasted 20 years and $1 trillion on a display of military might, while only extenuating pre-existing anti-west sentiments and allowing the very group they tried to push out to grow even stronger. They misunderstood how to properly nation-build, only pushing people to mistrust the democratic process and the nation. They fought an information war using on-the-ground soldiers, leading to rallying efforts around the Taliban and its political ideology. The U.S. ultimately neglected crucial factors to its war effort, ultimately leading to its military failure.

U.S. military was able to topple the Taliban rule in the country and decided to not only defeat the Taliban militarily but also rebuild Afghanistan into a thriving democratic utopia.

To many eyes at the time, trying to convert Afghanistan to a democratic country was a morally justifiable and effective action. However, political reform is far more effective when it originates from the country of origin. In Afghanistan, tens of millions of dollars were poured into its constitution and its democracy from international groups and countries, with the American military at the forefront of its image. However, forcible military deployment and a perceived foreign invasion is not a good combination (at all) to foster national identity within citizens. The lack of national identity led to more detrimental beliefs like the mistrust of westerners and therefore the mistrust of democracy that led to even further political instability within Afghanistan. In this unstable time where people’s beliefs were widely rearranged and questioned without instilling belief in these political systems, people often turned to groups that promised them much more stability and comfort. For Afghans at the time, that was the Taliban.

At its core, terrorism is the use of violence to spread a political message, and the worst way to fight fire is with fire. The U.S. was fighting in a 校話

期刊20

71

CURRENT EVENTS

CURRENT EVENTS in Asia. This adds to the concern that cheap Chinese exports are taking over Western markets.

For many people in the West, the last straw was China’s perceived role in spreading the COVID pandemic, which Chinese officials have called a baseless accusation.

A Nuclear Submarine Deal

By Elliot Yuen | Illustration by Angela Guo | Layout by Shuwen Wen

AUKUS: a breakdown On September 15, 2021, the trilateral security partnership between the UK, US, and Australia, known as AUKUS, was announced to the world. The purpose of the pact, according to a media statement by Scott Morrison, Boris Johnson, and Joe Biden, the respective leaders of Australia, the UK, and the US, is to “deepen diplomatic, security, and defence cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region”. The first initiative under the pact is for the US and UK to aid Australia in acquiring at least 8 nuclear submarines. “Cyber capabilities, 72

ISSUE 20

XIAO HUA

artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and additional undersea capabilities” are also to be shared among the participating countries.

The announcement of AUKUS sent ripples around the international community, with China claiming that the pact “seriously undermines regional peace and stability” and will likely intensify an “arms race” between China and the West. France has also reacted negatively to the AUKUS announcement.

Before AUKUS, Australia had

its own submarine agreement with France, which would not only have improved Australia/ France relations but would have allowed France to gain a stronger foothold in the IndoPacific region. France has called AUKUS “a stab in the back”. In retaliation, France recalled its ambassador from Washington, something that has never been done since the inception of the US. However, relationships with France have since begun to heal, with France agreeing to send their ambassador back to the US.

Although the AUKUS pact is not the first partnership of Western countries in the modern world, previous alliances, such as the Five Eyes alliance (consisting of the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand), have mostly been information-based. In contrast, the AUKUS pact is very clearly militarily based, with the planned introduction of nuclear weapons close to China. This signifies that tensions are rising between China and the West as a result of political differences.

This dramatic escalation is pushback from the West on perceived Chinese encroachment of the frontiers of the West’s sphere of influence in the Far East.

China’s build up of bases in the South China Sea and increasing military manoeuvres in the Taiwan Strait led to Western concern about possible Chinese domination of vital trade routes

China has often conflicted with the Western world due to cultural differences.

Many Chinese are aggrieved

by Western humiliation of China since the Opium War whereas many in the West are concerned about Chinese use of sharp power to undermine liberal values in the West. For example, many Chinese see the West’s blaming of China’s role in spreading COVID as imperialist bullying whereas many in the West see Chinese denial as another example of its use of sharp power. Another symptom of the poor communication between China and the West is the accusations of espionage between each other. In Hong Kong particularly, Western influences have been accused of supporting anti-Chinese sentiments. And on the other side of the world, China has been accused of

cyber-attacks infrastructure.

on

American

Agreeing to the AUKUS partnership should be an undesirable course of action for Australia, given that they were not only already in a submarine agreement with France but the pact has a great likelihood of angering Australia’s biggest trading partner: China.

However, the fact that they still signed it reveals how the West is intent on putting more pressure on China as a result of mounting tensions. With the current geopolitical situation drawing parallels to the circumstances of the post-WWII era, this event could signify the growing political tautness between East and West culminating in a new cold war, this time in the IndoPacific region.

In short, the recent AUKUS trilateral pact between the US, UK, and Australia has the potential to drastically damage relations with China. However, diplomatic communication with China and the Western world is vital in the coming years if world leaders wish to prevent tensions from boiling over.

校話

期刊20

73

CURRENT EVENTS

74

ISSUE 20

XIAO HUA

CURRENT EVENTS

校話

期刊20

75

Swimming CURRENT EVENTS

in Hong Kong

CURRENT EVENTS back then, and there were over 360,000 residents that were served in just the first year of the build.

The expansion of swimming pools soon began and there were many public pools including heated ones for the winter. It was widespread amongst most citizens in Hong Kong, and therefore explains a significant improvement in the 1990s. Currently, there are 44 public swimming pools in Hong Kong. Additionally, Hong Kong China Swimming Association (“HKASA”) was established in 1951, multiple years before the first pool opened up in Hong Kong. Over the past 70 years, it promoted and developed swimming competitions, training sessions, and teaching activities. Furthermore, it has risen to become famous among clubs all around Hong Kong, It is now affiliated with over 120 clubs, and consists of over 10,000 athletes.

Siobhan Haughey was a part of racing in the HKASA and competed for South China Athletic Association (SCAA).

In Haughey’s childhood, she tried to achieve a balance between her studies and her jam-packed training schedule, and although she wanted to give up at times, as she began to grow older, she began to notice achievements, such as the acceptance to the University of Michigan in 2016. Consequently, she represented Hong Kong in the Rio Olympics and was ranked 13th. Amidst a worldwide pandemic in 2020, she did not stop training and despite pools being closed, she trained in a 10-degree lake, which shows how committed and resilient she is. Eventually, Haughey’s hard work paid off and she stood on the medal podium twice, once for the 100 freestyle and another for the 200 freestyle.

By: Katrina Hsieh | Layout by: Lilly Larard and Ningjing Huang Photo courtesy of Katrina Hsieh.

Katrina Hsieh (2nd to the left) and Siobhan Haughey.

S

ports is widely recognized as a medium that develops strong bonds between people who share a common passion. As a worldwide sport, swimming has caught the attention of many, pulling a total of 1000 contestants from all around the world in the 2020 Summer Olympics.

However, in Hong Kong, swimming has always been deemed as a mundane and effortless sport, and viewpoints have stayed stagnant until the recent debut of Siobhan Haughey, who made a turning point in history.

The history of swimming in Hong Kong commenced in 1956, when the first pool, Victoria Park Swimming Pool was unveiled. It was popular

76

ISSUE 20

XIAO HUA

Due to Hong Kong athletes’ competitive nature, many swimmers are forcibly put into these competitive events and are pressured and expected to achieve a high ranking. The HKASA has put out qualifying times, which puts the athlete among a concern. If the athlete has competed for an event and hasn’t successfully achieved the qualifying time, it makes them unqualified for the division.

The effect on unqualified athletes results in paying an excessive amount of money and the loss of points of the team. Many swimmers constantly complain that the sport is repetitive, pressurizing, and constraining, thus, quitting even after a long period of time doesn’t seem too impactful.

However, the ones that succeed begin to strive elsewhere such as the United States or Australia.

The swimmers continuously train for consistent times each week, and even amidst a pandemic,

they continue to push themselves harder and strive for a better result to help in racing for Hong Kong. Nevertheless, Siobhan Haughey’s triumph for Hong Kong has inspired youngsters and adults to develop an interest in the sport, and over 200 people showed up at her meet and greet event during the summer. People have looked at swimming from a different viewpoint, and have finally found positive and uplifting things about swimming.

Sports are universal as they are accessible to people of any country. Sports have the ability to shift the passion and hobbies of a country.

Citizens have the opportunity to communicate and unite countries as a whole. Furthermore, sports contribute to improved health and aid in establishing interpersonal relationships. Sports can help abolish discrimination and social differences, as athletes are treated equally and have their personal opportunities to perform as they wish. It develops relationships and communities between countries, and aid countries develop soft power . Big events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games are an example of inclusivity and unity in the current society. As global events, participants from all over the world are invited to compete; it reflects the positive aspect of the world’s activities.

In CIS, there has always been an uplifting atmosphere around swimming.

Chinese International School is labeled as one of the best swimming teams in the International School Sports Federation Hong Kong. With multiple age group wins and high point winners in previous years, the competitive but exuberant experience has allowed swimmers to bond socially and closely with one another. In the competition aspect, CIS has always had a positive result in not only swimming but the supportive and sportsmanship behavior. There are events such as relays, which bring the swimmers closer together and create a tight-knit community for all. Chinese International School encourages swimmers of all ages, and including the “Learn to Swim” programs, it ensures a welcoming environment no matter the level of competition.

It is positively revolved around students and occasionally includes practice swim meets for anyone to join. The welcoming community in CIS has allowed many to become interested in the sport of swimming, and even despite the skill differences, swimming has become a huge part of the supportive and delightful environment of the school. 校話

期刊20

77

CURRENT EVENTS

CURRENT EVENTS

「飯圈文化」 亂象究竟亂在哪呢 By: Meghan Yue | Illustrations by: Kaylee Zhang | Layout by: Jocelyn Ho

2021年可以堪稱是中國娛樂圈至今 最動盪不安的一年，從吳亦凡強姦 案到鄭爽代孕事件，這林林種種的 大事多次驚動了政府與大眾，導致 整治飯圈亂象條文的頒布。我們先 講一下這幾起事件的緣由。 首先，在四月底，選秀節目 《青春有你3》的粉絲為了給自己 心儀的偶像投票，僱傭工人掃描贊 助商牛奶瓶蓋下的二維碼，然後將 牛奶倒入水溝。這起事件當然引起 公憤，隨後，面對輿論壓力，愛奇 藝、《青春有你3》節目組及贊助 商蒙牛真果粒紛紛發布了道歉聲 明，節目也暫停錄製了。這起事件 成功引起中央政府的關注，令他們 意識到中國粉絲強大的消費能力。 其次是頂流女明星鄭爽在和前夫分 手分手之後，流出拋棄二人在美國 代孕的一雙子女的意向。消息一傳 出，大眾嘩然，驚訝於先前紅得發 紫的大明星居然如此狠心，而且代 孕在中國並不合法和被公眾認同， 鄭爽瞬間被金主拋棄，大批平台瞬 間下架她的作品，可謂身敗名裂。 隨後，上海稅務部門公佈鄭爽利用 78

ISSUE 20

XIAO HUA

陰陽合同逃稅案件的細節，對鄭追 繳稅款加罰金總計2.99億元，人民 日報則用「咎由自取」形容她的下 場，新華社評論說「案件查處彰顯 公平正義」。 然後是中國知名藝人吳亦凡於2021 年8月16日，被北京市朝陽區檢察 院以涉嫌強姦罪批准逮捕。吳的被 捕引發娛樂圈大地震，一時間網絡 鋪天蓋地充斥關於他的各種新聞。 其粉絲則形成了多個救援群，其 群聊中曝出多種言論包括「幫哥哥 越獄」、「要不我們進去一起陪哥 哥吧」，甚至打算把爺爺的低保取 出來充當保釋金等，使輿論嘩然。 這再次令中央政府覺醒，不但意識 到粉絲的瘋狂，還認識到這種飯圈 文化對新一代年輕人的極度負面 影響。 其實這些事件帶出的是「飯圈」的 畸形發展已經影響到社會秩序，也 惡劣影響到青少年的健康成長。其 中最明顯的包括不少飯圈的常年腥 風血雨，粉絲經常因為支持偶像爭 辯不休。「飯圈」粉絲群體的互撕 謾罵、造謠攻擊與攀比炫富的情況

已經屢見不鮮，嚴重破壞了網路的 健康生態。 於是中國就在8月27號發佈了《關 於進一步加強「飯圈」亂象治理的 通知》。其中的條文包括取消明星 藝人榜單，嚴管明星經紀公司、不 得誘導粉絲消費與嚴控未成年人參 與等等。但其實追朔回去，為什麼 會發生這些所謂飯圈的問題呢？其 中原因如下： 自二十一世紀起，中國的偶像工業 就和飯圈文化相伴相生。在這個過 程當中「偶像 + 流量 + 飯圈」的 盈利模式成為了行業常見的運營策 略。例如之前一批曾遠赴韓國參加 練習生訓練並成功在當地「成團出 道」的藝人，陸續攜著「韓流」的 餘威陸續回國，他们憑藉著具有專 業度的粉絲在微博等網絡社交媒體 制造的驚人話題數據，躋身内地娛 樂圈「頂流」行列。當偶像工業進 入「流量為王」的時代後，飯圈便 從原本將明星視作崇拜對象的追星 族群轉變為偶像的供養者。因此， 粉絲流量已經成為資本方衡量明星 商業價值的重要指標，而人設的巧

��用��能�������的 偶像迅速��粉絲������ ���粉�的成���粉絲群體 極易对人設光環濃罩下的偶像產 ��理性������力��打 ���援�消費以�數據造�� �為�����偶像的流量�將 ���頂流����� ��流量偶像工業的����� ���成為��������明 確�分工��的�間�群��� 后援會下設分工明確的不同部 ����為偶像�����數據 的�打�������下�援� ���的���������� �������明星��的�� ����以偶像����公�� �的�公������不�� ����的��������� 在短時間内打造出頂流的流量明 星��成為������的力量 ����的����� ������的出������ 在�偶像工業�����量�� 速成�造星的短視�����偶

像經�的������經���� �量明星��打造��量���其 内在邏輯是經紀公司將偶像視作能 ��速����的������� 並利用粉絲群體的數據制造能力迅 速將其��數人��頂流���� 后��明星的�業�����明星 的��下��������的造星 ��� 在��的��下�粉絲�群��� �偶像�����的����數 速成明星以人設光環遮蔽其專業水 �的不����的不�成���出 ����水����不時���� ����流量明星的粉絲��在以 ����������力���� ��為偶像�����力的��� ��������������出 �的偶像��數�專輯�產��� 不���時������������ 專輯���個��出������� �����並�明確��作�的� ����������體公��� ��������������� 不�的粉絲���明星粉絲�將� 理性消費表述為個人自願與消費自

由，還對維護其權益的媒體展開網 路攻擊。凡此種種，都說明失控的 飯圈已經到了必須加以引導和整頓 的地步。 綜上所述，中國政府因終於正視此 問題而頒布了這項關於管理飯圈亂 象的通知。上海社會科學院文學研 究所的杜梁也提到加強對飯圈文化 的治理，是需要從行政管理層面為 偶像經濟運作設置邊界。對社交平 台、明星藝人、經紀公司和粉絲群 體等多方進行監管。這不僅有利於 引導粉絲群体正確審視自身與偶像 的關係，也能夠推動偶像經濟領域 行業自律的形成。追星不是問題， 理性追星才能與偶像一起成長。

校話

期刊20

79

editorial

EDITORIALS

EDITORIALS

Congresswoman Alessandra Ocasio-cortez's Bold Statement at

the met gala 2021

By Valerie Yum | Illustrations by Angela Guo | Layout by Maegan Wang

T

he Met Gala, also defined as a “Costume Institute Benefit”, is an annual event that fundraises for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City. It’s a luxurious event, one that celebrates “all things fashion”, with Vogue gathering 600 of the world’s most elite, including many musicians, actors, models, designers, and more. Described as the hottest it-crowd, it takes a reported 30,000 USD to get an individual ticket to the gala, and an astronomical 275,000 USD as the starting price for purchasing a table.

So the question begs - why was New York Congresswoman Alessandra Ocasio-Cortez there?

Although politicians don’t always make up a large percentage of the Met attendees, politicians like Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, among a handful of others, have been to the Gala.

This did not stop the American Accountability Foundation from filing a complaint against Ocasio-Cortez, stating that she “violated congressional ethics violation” when accepting her 35,000 USD ticket for the event.

This wasn’t the only controversy that Alessandra Ocasio-Cortez experienced at the Met Gala this year. Ocasio-Cortez walked into the Gala with a slim white dress, with gigantic bold red words slashed on the back, reading “TAX THE RICH” in all capital letters. Needless to say, this

82

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

publicity act caught the attention of the media, including the New York Times claiming that Osacio-Cortez’s dress “made people mad”, and Forbes even calling it a “display of hypocrisy”.

But what does “TAX THE RICH” actually mean? The message being affirmed by president Joe Biden is interpreted as imposing more economic sanctions for the “super-wealthy” and large corporations in the United States, in order to improve the public healthcare system, expand child care programs, and take action regarding climate change.

However, we should not forget that Ocasio-Cortez herself has an “anti-elitist” background. In congress, she stands for tuition-free college, raising minimum wage and introduced the Green New Deal, a task force that directly addresses climate change while aiming to decrease economic inequality. More of her work includes criticizing Mark Zuckerberg for tracking Facebook user’s personal data, as well as condemning the lack of

restrictions in power and lawmaking that the 2019 president Donald Trump had – showing her unwillingness to be oppressed by people in positions of power.

Ocasio-Cortez also led the initiative to put a 70% tax on those with incomes that exceed 10 million USD annually, more effectively carrying out 2008 president Barack Obama’s effort to raise taxation for the mega rich.

Knowing the above, we find that the real irony lies in her anti-elitist ideology and advocacy work in congress, completely clashing with the fact that she just attended the prestigious Met Gala. Her attendance at the Met only funds and contributes to this annual tradition that the wealthy crowd upholds, hence explaining the “hypocrisy” in the situation that many people choose to see.

audiences usually objectify women by focusing on what they’re wearing, which distances what the women are trying to communicate to the public.

It’s not uncommon to have female politicians and influencers have their message heavily misinterpreted by the media, solely based on her choice of clothing. An instance of this is when Lady Gaga famously wore a meat dress to the MTV (Music Television) music awards in 2010. Her goal was to advocate against the repeal of “Don’t ask, Don’t tell”, a US policy that allows for the discharge of any military service member claiming or even indicating to be a homosexual – this meaningful and certainly worthwhile message was covered up by critics like Andrew Groves, director of fashion design at the University of Westminster, England.

More sides of the controversy include Trump’s eldest son calling her a “fraud” for attempting to convey “TAX THE RICH’ while her audience were “wealthy leftwing elites”, people that would undisputedly see eye to eye with her message. What’s more surprising is that socialists like Ocasio-Cortez herself also expressed their disapproval for this grand gesture of hers, calling it an exaggeration and a caricature of a progressive cause. Former secretary for Bernie Sanders – Ms Briahna Gray, however defended Ocasio-Cortez, saying that she is “held to a higher standard because people expect more from her’’.

Controversy, especially in the political hemisphere, tends to draw a lot of attention from the public. But when generation Z sees something we don’t like, we tend to turn to cancel culture,

discrediting influencers with frail reputations temporarily. On the other hand, controversy brought by media outlets also heightens the views on television and on the internet enormously, and so celebrities and politicians also use this avenue to capitalize on getting their message across to the public.

So, did Ocasio-Cortez’s controversy and bold message really make an impact? In short, yes.

Her fashion statement led a surge of people searching the term “tax the rich”, and the sharp rate at which the term was searched only shows the awareness she has brought to the issue. But that isn’t all – her statement will not only go down in the history books, but she has also encouraged millions of youngsters and aspiring fashion designers to really attach themselves to what they stand for.

As demonstrated, the dress sparked a lot of controversy, and Aurora James, the Canadian fashion designer for Ocasio-Cortez’s dress, was not hesitant to defend her artistic creation. She firmly stated that if Ocasio-Cortez was coming to the Met Gala, “she was going to present a message”, something that would represent “these tough past 18 months”, especially since New York City was hit “extra hard”. The creation also made an attempt to peg the patriarchy by linking Ocasio-Cortez directly to the message she wanted to convey,

校話

期刊25

83

EDITORIALS

EDITORIALS

An Intricate Harmony: Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine

By Chloe Huen | Photography by Bridget Tang | Layout by Sonia Shum We are accustomed to thinking pills and cutting edge surgeries will cure any disease without fail, but what about acupuncture or careful concoctions of herbal medicine? Today, Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) typically consists of acupuncture, cupping and herbal medicine, and these concepts have been developed to fit and adapt to modern society over the past 2000+ years. The history of TCM originates from a more philosophical root, in the Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BC), upsetting

On the other hand, western medicine is well-known for its technologically advanced methodology and compared to the lengthy history of Eastern medicine, the equipment and theories behind western medicine have only been discovered several hundred years ago. It was in 30 C.E that Greek physician Galen developed the theory of each patient consisting of four "humours”: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. A balanced harmony of these humours were what created a healthy human body. As a matter of fact, the essential invention of X-rays were first discovered only in 1895 and MRI's in 1973, these pieces of technology revolutionised medicine, allowing us to gain a far deeper understanding of the interior workings of the human body.

84

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

dead ancestors or allowing "evil to enter the body" was believed to be the main cause of illness. However, it was later on that the Chinese decided illness and disease was closely related to the "imbalances of yin and yang" caused by improper movement of blood. In 6000 BCE, the emperor and his doctor pulled together all the medical texts from the Zhou Dynasty period and declared acupuncture and moxibustion as "the main tools for correcting imbalances and treating illness".

Aggressive, intrusive, but effective. The goal of western medicine is to eliminate the symptoms as fast as possible, focusing purely on the effects the disease has on the body, rather than the disease itself - potentially ignoring the side effects treatment brings. For instance, extreme cancer treatments such as chemotherapy where the list of side effects, such as destroying healthy cells, are extensive. Destruction of white blood cells increases the bodily risks, as they are essential for fighting infections. Additionally, doctors practicing western medicine also tend to give up after the patient has reached what is deemed to be an “untreatable”, terminal point of the disease, withdrawing treatment and resorting to allowing the patient to die peacefully.

TCM approaches illness in a slower, more “comfortable” manner, where treatment is less effective but creates a pain-free healing process for the patient. Treatment takes into account the entire body, recognising the body as an interconnected biological system rather than just focusing on eliminating the mere symptoms. TCM is divided into five theories: “wood, fire, earth, metal and water”, corresponding to “liver, heart, pancreas (including spleen), lung, and kidney”. It is believed that a perfect balance of these natural elements within the body is how treatment can be personalised for a patient. TCM does not withdraw treatment, as the natural-based approach can be withstood by people of all ages and bodily conditions.

Yet another aspect to consider in the compare and contrast between western medicine and TMC is the medicine given to patients. It is known that western medicine relies heavily on drugs, backed by decades of scientific research to treat patients.

Antibiotics, pills and chemicals are given to patients in order to eliminate symptoms, however damage to other parts of the body are ignored. In fact, all western treatments depend on chemical synthesis to create a specific, desired substance or technology to exercise a secure level of precision and strong efficacy. CRISPR has become one of today’s most prominent pieces of technology in medicine, allowing researchers to “alter DNA sequences and modify gene function” in order to prevent the spread of genetically induced diseases or correcting genetic defects. In a fully contradictory fashion, TCM takes natural ingredients to produce medicine which aims to change the bio environment of the body for long-term effects.

Rather than being based on science, TCM relies on past experience and results to determine which treatments work successfully. Although the naturality of TCM allows it to be safer to use, improvements in health take much longer to appear. 校話

期刊25

85

EDITORIALS

EDITORIALS

A clear comparison between the medicine behind TCM and western medicine is in the treatment of asthma. Western medicine calls for using an inhaler filled with steroids to relieve the airway temporarily, while a TCM doctor would suggest herbal patching or crocodile skin soup for healing.

Surgery is notorious for its dangerous reputation; the nerve wracking wait to see if your loved one will make it off the operating table.

However, surgeries today bear little resemblance to the barbaric procedures done centuries ago, when people were cut open in lecture halls with no sterile conditions. Years of trial and technological advances are what has made surgery “highly

effective and safe” today, as many surgeries are done laparoscopically with minimally invasive procedures and less complications. Patients must understand the devastatingly high risks which come with an exceedingly effective but highly intrusive procedure and the toll it takes on the body. Nevertheless, delicate surgeries such as organ transplants have saved millions of lives. It is remarkable to think that taking a small or whole part of someone else’s liver or bone marrow can thoroughly change another person's life.

Acupuncture originated in 6000 BCE China, where “sharpened stones and long sharp bones” were used to perform acupuncture instead of needles. In effect, acu-

puncture can be seen as a Chinese equivalent of western surgery as it is also an invasive procedure where instruments are being inserted into the body. Traditionally, acupuncture is believed to cure an imbalance of energy within the body by using precise acupuncture points which were later developed in 100 BCE before evolving into one of the most standard treatments in China. Now, it is used as a treatment for chronic pain and seen as therapy for rebalancing harsh side effects which western medicine brings. As a matter of fact, many cancer patients tend to turn towards TCM and use acupuncture to relieve the discomfort of chemotherapy.

Global perceptions of TCM and western medicine are the defining points to which one people choose. Western medicine has a very aggressive, forthright approach to testing and treating disease and people are attracted to the exceptional efficacy it provides, which is why people tend to go for western medicine first. TCM is seen as an alternative or supplement, used to dilute the effects of western medicine. Furthermore, the Chinese are strong advocates for the natural element of TCM but the philosophical basis and lack of scientific evidence which TCM has is what sparks skepticism and wariness to the rest of the world .

In relation to recent events, the Covid-19 vaccine is a strong example of western medicine. Vaccines contain antigens which trigger immune responses within the body, prompting the body to know how to fight against the actual pathogen.

Although vaccines have been proven to work, many people still tend to be more hesitant to insert chemicals and foreign substances into their bodies, as it is extremely synthetic and could cause unknown side effects. Acknowledging the ambiguity of the Covid-19 vaccines which were so swiftly created, this shows how pure scientific research and 86

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

calculation may not be convincing enough to some.

So all in all, is TCM or western medicine better? By bringing together two cultures and merging western and eastern medicine, scientists have created what is known as combination therapy, bringing together the best of both worlds.

Western medicine aggressively eliminates the symptoms, whereas TCM comfortably addresses the root of the illness or disease, dousing away the discomfort and painful side effects of the former. There has been a new study on the combina-

tion of Yangzheng Xiaoji (a Chinese medical formulation consisting of ingredients such as ginseng, ground beetle, astragalus root etc.) and chemotherapy to provide anticancer effects. According to a study by Lin Ye, Ke Ji and Natasha Frewer, Yangzheng Xiaoji has been said to “synergistically work together with chemotherapy” while also “directly inhibiting adhesion and migration of cancer cells”. This distinctly shows how combining the advantages of both styles can benefit us greatly.

Countries in Asia such as Korea and Japan have become more inclined to incorporate TCM in their treatment methods, but Western countries are still hesitant to fully trust the procedures of TCM. This is because the nature of TCM leads to a lack of scientific verification and heavy reliance on anecdotal evidence, leading to a skeptical view where people regard TCM as being fraudulent. Nevertheless, due to the many success stories of TCM methods, the US National Institutes of Health have begun creating TCM research units, while TCM practitioners are conducting clinical trials to continue looking for valuable evidence in proving the potency of TCM. By unifying Western and Chinese ideologies in medicine, efficacy, precision and the holistic care of one's entire biological system could be achieved - allowing us to experience the harmony of both cultures in medicine.

校話

期刊25

87

EDITORIALS

HONG KONG GOVERNMENT

By Colin Chau Illustrations by Miah Cheung Layout by Ningjing Huang and Amelia Oram

A Mishmash of East and West

The Hong Kong government is an oddity in Asia - having both Eastern and Western influences combined with partial democracy, unlike its parent country, China. In this article, I will explore Hong Kong’s governmental system and how it relates to a fusion of East and West. elements, as will be explored.

While it is an executive-led system, Hong Kong is also governed by the Legislative Council, often abbreviated to LegCo. LegCo congregates in the heart of Central, similar to how other countries’ parliaments meet in their capital city or equivalent. Currently, LegCo has 70 members, of which a majority are directly elected.

With regards to the judiciary, Hong Kong’s courts are many, with more than 4 levels of courts serving a whole plethora of different needs.

These elements all work together to create a government that takes ideas and structure from both East and West.

CHEIF EXECUTIVE: The single most important CARRIE LAM person in the Hong Kong Wikipedia describes Hong Kong’s government as a “devolved executive-led system within a one party socialist republic”.

Essentially, this means that Hong Kong is a government with an elected leader that operates mostly autonomously within a one party state. Currently, the executive of Hong Kong government is Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who has been CE since her victory in 2017. The CE is not democratically elected, but the body which elects the CE has democratically elected

88

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

government is its Chief Executive. Since Hong Kong’s handover to China, it has had four Chief Executives, each serving for a period of time ranging from 5 to 7 years.

Currently, the CE has a 5 year term and can be reelected once to serve a total of 10 years. None of the Chief Executives has been affiliated with any political party, and all have been elected by the Election Committee (which will be discussed later). The CE has the ability to propose legislation to LegCo to be considered, and

can issue Executive Orders. The first CE, Tung Chee Hwa, began his career as a shipping magnate with colonial government connections. Being the Central Government’s pick, he was endorsed by Jiang Zemin, then the premier of China, as well as powerful tycoon Li Ka Shing. In this election, only Pro-Beijing politicians were allowed to run, and due to the Central Government consolidating its support around Tung, Tung easily won the election, taking over 80% of the vote. Being the first Chief Executive, Tung essentially set the groundwork for future CEs, by organizing and reorganizing Hong Kong’s British-inspired bureaucracy.

During his terms, Tung set up Hong Kong’s “Accountability System”, which essentially replaced all Chiefs of Bureaus (ie.

Financial Secretary, Secretary of Justice etc.) with political appointees, who were then organized into the cabinet of the CE (Executive Council, aka ExCo). During his second term, Tung attempted to pass the controversial Article 23 National Security legislation.

However, this failed after a major Pro-Beijing Party, the Liberal Party withdrew their support (as a result of massive public protests), dooming the bill.

EDITORIALS After Tung came Donald Tsang, who served as both Chief Secretary for Administration and Financial Secretary. His most notable actions include the proposal of the GuangzhouShenzhen-Hong Kong express train link, which was recently completed. He was also able to pass the 2012 Electoral Reform bill, increasing directly-elected democratic representation in LegCo. Furthermore, his term included the passing of the first minimum wage bill in Hong Kong, which established a base salary of $28 HKD an hour. Unfortunately, throughout his term, Tsang was indicted in a series of corruption investigations, in which he was accused of providing a quid pro quo to a wealthy Chinese businessman in return for a luxury penthouse in Shenzhen.

He was eventually sentenced to 20 months in prison.

After Tsang came a politician that most secondary students can remember, CY Leung. After beating Chief Secretary of Administration Henry Tang in a close race, the former LegCo and ExCo member was crowned as Chief Executive in 2012. Taking over from the scandal-ridden Tsang administration, Leung had big shoes to fill. Highlights of his term included the raising of the minimum wage to $32.5 HKD an hour, and the expansion of the New Territories “new towns”, providing more much-needed housing for the poor. However, Leung faced a series of political issues. With the media attacking him over seemingly everything, ranging from his daughter in England, parallel trading, the umbrella movement, and cross border abduction incidents.

The umbrella movement in 2014 was a turning point in his administration, with PanDemocrats outraged at the

new constitutional reform bill.

Essentially, this bill allowed all Hong Kong citizens to vote in the next Chief Executive election, a massive improvement over the current system, with the caveat that only Beijingvetted candidates could run.

Claiming the bill to be “unfair”, the Umbrella Movement started, occupying Central and paralyzing the city for months.

Throughout the period, tensions rose in the city.

Succeeding CY Leung’s unpopular administration came Carrie Lam’s administration.

Originally a colonial bureaucrat, and the Chief Secretary of Administration for Leung, Lam won the chief executive election easily (keep in mind this election was held by the Election Committee as the LegCo’s Democrats voted the universal suffrage bill down).

Her administration enjoyed widespread popularity for the first two years, improving transport infrastructure, raising the minimum wage again to $37.5 HKD an hour, as well as overseeing the development of the Tung Chung new town. In fact, according to PORI (a Hong Kong polling institute), she had the highest approval rating for any CE in Hong Kong history.

However, this came to an end in 2019, when the protests over the extradition bill began. This resulted in violent conflicts between protesters and police.

In 2020, her government passed the National Security Law (NSL), effectively ending the protests.

Furthermore, her government passed the LegCo reforms, which will be discussed later.

As stated earlier, the CE is not elected through universal suffrage. Instead, he or she is elected through the Election

Committee.

The Election Committee is meant to represent Hongkongers’ interests by incorporating both working professionals and elected officials. Previously, the EC was composed of 38 industries and professions including Tourism, Finance, Medical, and Law. These people were elected through a mini election, with those who work in the sector being eligible to vote. Every 5 years, this group of 1500 individuals comes together to elect a new CE by majority vote. However, through the 2021 Electoral Reform, certain oppositionleaning constituencies were removed from the EC (ie. the District Council), to ensure that “patriots govern Hong Kong”. In the 2021 EC Election, a total of 1497 members were from the Pro-Beijing camp, while there were 3 centrists. This group of individuals has been given a new task: to elect the next CE in March of 2022.

To support the Chief Executive, a Legislative Branch also needs to exist. The LegCo was established in 1996 (towards the end of the colonial era), with the first elections being held for the provisional LegCo that year.

Elections for LegCo are held every 4 years, with the previous one being in 2016. However, due to Covid, Carrie Lam postponed the 2020 election to December 2021. The Provisional LegCo was the first “trial run” of Hong Kong’s parliament per se, elected completely by the Selection Committee, essentially the equivalent of the current EC. The first real LegCo elections were held in 1998, in which the Democrats received an overwhelming majority of popular votes, but still lost the election due to the large number of seats that were not directly 校話

期刊25

89

EDITORIALS

EDITORIALS

elected by universal suffrage.

Ever since, elections have been unstable, with reforms coming about quite frequently. Notably, the Democrats have always won the popular vote by more than 10%, but have never gotten more than 43% of the seats. In LegCo, there have been 3 types of seats: firstly, there are Geographically Elected Seats.

These are essentially elected by the residents of an Electoral District, with the amount of seats being allocated by population to each district. For example, in 2016, Hong Kong Island had 6 seats, and New Territories East had 8.

Secondly, there are Functional Constituencies, in which a LegCo member represents a particular special interest or industry. For example, constituencies like Legal, Medical, Industrial and Commercial are major ones in the group. Lastly, reintroduced to the LegCo in 2021, we have the Election Committee seats. These members are elected from the EC’s ranks. In the latest round of Electoral Reforms, implemented for 2021’s elections, the legislature was expanded from 70 to 90 seats. However, seats elected via universal suffrage decreased from 40 to 20, and Functional Constituencies stayed at 30 seats. Furthermore, the Election Committee was allocated the remaining 40 seats. This move was implemented to ensure that “patriots” governed Hong Kong.

Much like other “parliamentarystyle democracies”, Hong Kong has political parties too.

Firstly, the Legislative Council is split into two caucuses (main sides) — Establishment and Pan-Democrats.

Generally, the Establishment tends to get somewhere between 42-47% of 90

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

the total vote, and the Democrats tend to get between 53-58% of the total vote. However, due to the aforementioned Functional constituencies, which generally lean towards the establishment due to their business friendly ties, the Democrats are rarely able to get more than 45% of the total Legco seats. However, even within these caucuses, there is massive internal division between its constituent political parties. I’ll examine the Establishment first. The Establishment can be split into three parts - the Beijing Loyalists, the Business Parties and the Moderates. The loyalists consist of Hong Kong’s largest party, the DAB (Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of HK), and the FTU (Federation of Trade

Unions). The two tend to be supporters of Beijing, and have very strong ties to the mainland government. They also tend to have the strongest groundwork for all political parties in Hong Kong, with their base being the poor and the elderly (likely due to the parties’ prolonged service to these groups). The Business Parties include the Liberal Party (LP), the Business & Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA) and the New People’s Party (NPP). These two parties tend to serve business interests, and so have strength in the businessbased functional constituencies, such as Catering, Engineering

and Transport. They tend to be slightly more moderate than their loyalist counterparts, with the best example being the Liberal Party’s actions with Article 23 as discussed earlier. The moderates include Professional Power (PP) and the Roundtable Party (RT), but are a minority within the ProBeijing camp. They generally are less close to Beijing in terms of political issues, and some (such as RT chairman Michael Tien) even supported the 2019 protests as well. On the Pan-Democratic side, there are two main groups.

The traditional democratic parties, including the Association for People’s Livelihood (ADPL), the Democratic Party (DP), and the Civic Party are generally considered to be moderate, and make up a majority of the Pan-Democratic coalition. The localists are the remaining portion - essentially, they are nationalists, but for Hong Kong.

Generally, they have a very anti-China stance, and have had issues with anti-mainlander racism as well, sidelining their base of support to extremists. Out of the Pan-Democrats, the Civic and Democratic parties earned the most seats in the 2016 Election. Yet, all of these Pan-Democratic Parties did not participate in the 2021 LegCo election. The Pro-Beijing camp won a landslide victory in the 2021 election, sweeping all geographical constituencies with massive majorities. There was only one opposition member who survived - Tik Chi Yuen, of the centrist Third Side party.

Hence, it is likely that Hong Kong’s legislative opposition will be severely weakened in the near future. It must be noted

that there were opposition leaning candidates who ran in the 2021 election, which the government states “shows room for opposition in Hong Kong’s politics”.

A quirk of Hong Kong’s legislature is that it sort of has a lower branch - the District Councils.

Rather than enact legislation, however, their function is to advise LegCo on local issues and provide support to their district. These districts tend to be very small, with about 15,000 to 20,000 people living in each.

For example, Braemar Hill is a District Council constituency.

Each district councillor meets with other councillors in their district (such as the Eastern District, with a population of over 500,000), forming the aptly named District Council. In 2019, riding a wave of opposition support, the Pan-Democrats scored a landslide victory, winning 84% of seats (with 57% of the popular vote). However, due to recent events, many of the district councillors have resigned, leaving a supermajority of seats vacant. To any readers

living on Braemar Hill, our district councillor is Kenny Yuen Kin-Chung of the Liberal Party, and his office is next to the Xi Kuai restaurant near 711.

In conclusion, Hong Kong’s government branches work together to form our government, taking ideas from east and west. Who will be Hong Kong’s next leader? Will it be Carrie Lam, C.Y. Leung or a black horse politician? Only time will tell, and hopefully with a new leader Hong Kong will prosper after the tumultuous Covid era.

校話

期刊25

91

EDITORIALS

EDITORIALS

Vaccine

100%. The data proves that these vaccines work. If vaccine hesitancy keeps spreading, our goal of returning to our pre-pandemic lives will never come into fruition.

Hesitancy

By Chloe Wong Illustration by Michelle Qiu Layout by Ningjing Huang

Almost a year and a half into the pandemic, vaccines have been widely hailed as the main tool to combat COVID-19. However, as new vaccines rise to public attention, vaccine hesitancy and skepticism do too. In 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) cited vaccine hesitancy as one of the 10 main threats to global health. Lack of compliance, trust, and convenience were pointed to as the main reasons why vaccine hesitancy is still so prevalent within modern society. According to research conducted by the Hong Kong Baptist University on vaccine hesitancy, 82% of the respondents agreed and recognised that getting vaccinated could significantly reduce the risk of catching infectious diseases. Yet, only 36% of the respondents have taken steps to get vaccinated against diseases such as influenza or HPV. The hesitancy towards getting vaccinated not only prolongs the end of the pandemic but also puts the immunocompromised at risk.

Simply put: vaccines save lives.

Vaccines and the science behind them can be traced back to as early as 1000 CE (common era) as there are traces of smallpox inoculation in China and Africa. Nevertheless, the practice did not become widespread until Edward Jenner used his smallpox vaccine to create immunity against smallpox. Using Jenner’s method as an example, vaccines underwent multiple changes, but eventually

92

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

led to the eradication of smallpox 200 years later. Vaccines went on to also halt the polio epidemic, and prevent potentially infectious diseases from wreaking havoc among society today. Vaccines are not the only thing that can be traced throughout history. Antivaxxers have been around ever since the first smallpox vaccine. News reports from the 1800s recognised huge bouts of fear and violation of personal liberty as the reason why anti-vaxxers existed. Even though science has made tremendous strides in the past 200 years, this “anti-vaxxer mindset” has not changed.

Even though many people still have reservations about getting vaccinated, not many medical advancements can match the impact that vaccines have had on society.

Vaccines have significantly reduced disease, disability, and death. In turn, they have raised our standards of living, and increased our life expectancy. As vaccinated children no longer die from historical childhood diseases such as measles, it has also boosted the economy.

Most importantly, vaccines not only protect a person from a certain disease, they also protect the immunocompromised, or people with weak immune systems. In terms of the current pandemic, the BioNtech vaccine has a 95% efficacy rate, meaning that it is 95% effective in preventing COVID-19. In adolescents aged 12-15, the efficacy rate is

Why else are people reluctant to get vaccinated? In the United States, there are many racial disparities in the vaccination rates. African Americans and Latinos were lagging behind in vaccination rates during the early months of vaccinations. People of colour tend to have a lack of trust in the medical system due to racism and past experimentation. A harrowing example of this is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 1932, when hundreds of African American men died after they were misled into believing they were receiving treatment for syphilis by the U.S. Public Health Service. Racism in the medical industry is still present today, and has an undeniable impact on vaccine hesitancy. Certain communities also earn less on average meaning that they live in more inaccessible areas. The CDC cited this as a reason for the racial disparity as many people cannot afford transportation to a vaccination center. However, thanks to the help of community groups and mobile clinics, more and more people have been vaccinated, and the racial gaps have started to narrow.

While racial gaps are narrowing, the partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans has only increased. Both President Biden and former President Trump had opposing views on the pandemic, with the former pushing for mandates, and the latter being more hesitant. The effects of this have played out on a country-wide scale as states with Democrat-led governments have a considerably higher vaccination rate than Republican states. According to data from the Pew Research Center, 86 percent of Democratic voters have received at least one dose of the vaccine, compared with

60 percent of Republican voters. The stark difference also plays into COVID-19 deaths.

As the Delta variant made its way across the country, Republican states surpassed the Democratic states in COVID related deaths.

With the Republican party being wary and sometimes rejecting empirical and scientific evidence, it's no surprise that their followers do the same.

In Hong Kong, citizens may choose either the Sinovac vaccine or the BioNtech vaccine. The low efficacy rate of the Sinovac vaccine (50% effective against the original strain of COVID-19 and much less effective against Delta and Omicron) compared to the BioNtech vaccine (between 85% and 95% effective against all variants), the choice between the two has created discourse online.

Some criticise the government for purchasing and pushing SinoVac as it is less effective than the BioNtech vaccine. In a survey conducted on the reason why people chose a particular vaccine, people who took Sinovac cited that the main reason was for personal safety and saw it as their duty. The reasons people cited for taking the BioNtech vaccine were personal safety and to protect their family.

Vaccine hesitancy applies to both jabs, however; many in Hong Kong do not want to take any vaccine as they see it as a direct instruction from the government while others have pre-existing biases or simply fear the new vaccines.

Another reason for vaccine hesitancy is the onslaught of mandated vaccinations for certain occupations. In America, there is a cultural emphasis placed on freedom and the liberty to do what one desires to do. Due to this mindset, when mandatory vaccinations were announced, many were upset and refused to follow vaccine mandates. AsianPacific countries have contained the virus well in its earlier stages, leading to a delayed sense of urgency to get vaccinated compared

校話

期刊25

93

EDITORIALS

EDITORIALS

to Western countries. Benjamin Cowling, a professor at The University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health relayed that many citizens do not see a need for vaccinations as mask-wearing and social distancing contain the virus just fine. The governments of AsianPacific countries were also more wary of the vaccines. When asked about the delay of vaccinations in South Korea, South Korea's Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said that they were waiting to see how vaccinations would play out in other countries. This “waiting” sentiment is prevalent throughout Asia, and this mindset also impacts citizens.

Many were hesitant to get the vaccine and wanted to wait until they could see first hand someone else receiving it. Hope remains that as more and more people get vaccinated, more and more people will be willing to get vaccinated. Although hesitancy can be combated in this way, the media still plays a huge role in vaccine hesitancy.

Media plays an important role in perpetuating certain viewpoints.

Throughout the pandemic, misinformation about vaccines and the pandemic itself has been spread both on social media and on news platforms.

The media has allowed anti-vax sentiment to gain traction, contributing to the low vaccination rates in c e r t a i n

demographics. A notable example of this is Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. Since the start of the pandemic, he has made countless outlandish COVID-19 related claims. When doing a segment on mandatory vaccination, he said “The point of mandatory vaccination is to identify the sincere Christians in the ranks, the freethinkers, the men with high testosterone levels, and anyone else who doesn't love Joe Biden and make them leave immediately”. Since Fox News is viewed by many Americans, these statements are dangerous and could potentially cost lives.

Carlson knows that his viewer base primarily comprises conservatives and Christians, so by targeting that demographic in his talk, and glorifying Christians who do not take the vaccine as “sincere”, Tucker Carlson uses his authority and statements to single out his demographic. He exploits Christian beliefs to paint his followers as the “chosen ones”. Fox News is not the only news outlet that does this. By targeting their audience, many news outlets use their power to influence minds in both good and bad ways: to both uphold truth, and to spread disinformation and fear.

Social media is another source of information for most people.

Living in the digital age, many people get their news from social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, or Reddit. However, misinformation can spread like wildfire on social media. An example of this would be the 5G narrative that was circulating on social media at the start of the pandemic: that they facilitated the spread of Covid-19. Although there is no scientific basis to support these claims, the 5G conspiracy led

to over 70 cell towers being burned in the United Kingdom and Canada. Social media sites like Instagram have written algorithms to inform users of possible disinformation, and Reddit has taken action to promote vaccines and ban certain subreddits that spread mass disinformation and incite fear of vaccines and pushing vaccine hesitancy. Yet, social media can also be used to spread meaningful and helpful information. Different accounts have been set up to combat misinformation along with providing people with sufficient information on the different types of vaccines along with the importance of them.

Combating vaccine hesitancy not only includes incentives, but also tackling the root of the problem. Education about the vaccine or a lack thereof is a main factor that helps people decide whether or not to get vaccinated. With the amount of misinformation online, it’s hard to convince people at first, but aiming for a middle ground is more achievable. Learning to understand their doubts and where people are coming from is important, but educating them about the importance of vaccines is paramount as well. Governments have also provided incentives to improve vaccination rates. In Hong Kong, people who are fully vaccinated get to enter a lottery, and win prizes. The prizes include a flat in Central worth 12 million HKD, along with other prizes such as a Tesla and iPhones. In California, 10 vaccinated citizens would receive 1.5 million USD each.

Yet, someone who is hesitant about vaccines is unlikely to change their mind overnight. It takes time and a lot of conversation for them to come around. However, at the end of the day, it’ll be worth it.

Vaccine hesitancy is one of the main threats to our global health system, and if we do not tackle it now, it could spiral out of control in a future pandemic. Open talks about vaccines should be encouraged, and education and discussions on mis-information should also be urged. Vaccines are not only for the sake of ourselves, but for the sake of everyone else around us. Together, we can fight against vaccine hesitancy, and help combat COVID-19.

94

ISSUE 25

XIAO HUA

校話

期刊25

95

By Emerson Blais

The IBDP. I know. I know. It’s tough. You’ve got to juggle the assessments, mocks, and all the rest - nevermind a social life.

But, how? As an IBDP Examiner and Tutorial Center Principal, I’ve worked with countless IB students over the years. Some good. Some great. All searching for ways to improve. And, I’ve helped more than a few reach the fabled 45. You know - those people who get their names in the newspaper. Believe it or not: They’re just like you, and you’re just like them.

WIth this in mind, I’d like to share the strategies common among all of my very best IBDP students from schools across Hong Kong.

It starts with an attitude.

Nobody ever changed the world by si�ng around and complaining about it.

Take control of your world. Sure - the IB is one of the most challenging curriculums in the known-universe. That doesn’t mean you cannot ac�vely choose how you respond to its challenges. The best IB students choose to figura�vely! - slap themselves in the face, get in the water, and dive into the waves. Have that a�tude. Ride those waves.

Build a team.

Behind every success story is a network of support. Whether you’re preparing to enter the IBDP or already a year-and-a-half deep, it’s never too late to gather people who can help you improve. They may be classmates, friends, family, or tutors. What ma�ers is that you have people who care about your success along the way. Brainstorm with them. Ask them ques�ons. Seek advice.

Post-It Notes and timelines.

Planning is half of everything. If you haven’t already, choose your HLs wisely.

They should align with your university ambi�ons. Afraid one is too difficult? It’s far easier to drop down to SL than move up to HL. Take the risk.

Then, read the syllabus / guide for all your subjects. Using Post-It Notes, mark key topics, assessments, marking criteria, etc. You can even color-code them. If you think there’s no way you’ll be tested on something, think again. Once you’ve finished this, create a ‘master �meline’ of all your subjects. You’ll no�ce that there are o�en huge gaps between assessments. For example, the First Year of English A requires nothing but a Mock IO. Though you should be following your teacher’s assigned texts and homework, consider what else you might do with all that �me. Prepare for Paper 1, the Extended Essay, the TOK, or shi� your focus to a subject with a more immediate assessment. Do you need to take the SAT, LNAT. etc. or apply for universi�es? Plan prepara�on between the ‘lulls’ of subject �melines.

The best IB students know when to be stressed and when to chill out or do something else. Timelines are the key to this.

Google Drive: Your new best friend.

The other half of everything? Organiza�on. Create an IBDP ‘master folder’ on Google Drive, as soon as possible. Then, create a folder for all six of your subjects, plus the EE and the TOK, which makes eight. In them, you’re adding every syllabus, guide, and �meline; you’re typing class notes, homework, and assessment dra�s; you’re dropping past papers; you’re making spreadsheets of helpful websites and YouTube links; you’re crea�ng summaries; you’re uploading photos of mind-maps. Everything - all of it - with clear and consistent �tles. And, don’t forget to share your folders with the people on your team, especially any tutors. Those who score a 45 on the IBDP can find whatever they’re looking for almost instantly. That’s because they’re organized.

Raise your hand, and take the mocks seriously.

Your teachers need to jus�fy the all-important Predicted Grades. They don’t just give away 7s. That’s too risky. Parents and administrators will want answers, should a student not get that score. So, you’ll need to put in an effort to help them give you the PG you want. Do yourself a favor by raising your hand to say something - anything! - once a class. A li�le par�cipa�on goes a long way. Your level of engagement can make the difference at a grade boundary.

Otherwise, the mocks are audi�ons. Prepare for them. Too o�en do new students walk into my office and say they have a mock tomorrow but haven’t started preparing. These are the same people who are shocked and confused about receiving a 5. You can do be�er than that. Teachers use mocks as indicators of poten�al ‘real scores’ for Internal Assessments and PGs.

A steady diet of past paper practice.

Let’s be honest: There’s no subs�tute for the real thing. If you’re floa�ng through the IB without any past paper prac�ce, you’re invi�ng disappointment and regret. Sit down with a tutor or member of your team and break down the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of every subject’s past papers. Prac�ce. Revise your prac�ces.

Do more prac�ce. That’s that. When you get to the real ones in May, those bu�erflies in your stomach will be much less bu�erfly-y, placing you closer to a top score. That’s it!

Listen - everyone’s different. My belief is that proper planning and skills-based prepara�on make for success. And, that’s what we do at Causeway Educa�on.

So, if you have any ques�ons or concerns about your own progress, let us know. Otherwise, follow the strategies above, and you’ll be that much closer to your goals - whatever they may be!

Emerson Blais is the Co-Founder & Principal of Causeway Educa�on. He could’ve used this space for adver�sing, but he just wanted to help make life a li�le bit easier for anyone who reads this.

Feel free to call or message him at 3906-9766 or emerson@causewayeduca�on.com for advice on everything from the IBDP or US/UK Boarding or University Admissions to the best pizza places in Hong Kong.

Contact Us! 30-minute

personalized coansulta�on session