The Correspondent, July - September 2021

COVER STORY

T H E O F F I C I A L P U B L I C AT I O N O F T H E F O R E I G N C O R R E S P O N D E N T S ’ C L U B

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HONG KONG

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The Struggle Continues This year’s Human Rights Press Awards illuminate a stack of cautionary tales Singapore: Why moving there could set press back

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A year of living on edge under the National Security Law

How Clubhouse became an unlikely bastion of free speech

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A Taste of International Gourmet Dining!

Take your tastebuds around the world with a series of special summer dinners, including American on 6 July and Korean on 17 August.

Reservations recommended. Tel: 2521-1511

www.fcchk.org

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CONTENTS COVER STORY

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HUMAN RIGHTS PRESS AWARDS: ARRESTING IMAGES, MOVING STORIES

We caught up with three of the winners of the 25th annual HRPA, which showcased vital issues around the region.

Cover Photo: Chan Tsz Yuk Alex, CityDog.by

UPFRONT

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Editor’s Letter

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From the President

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Club News We welcome the new board, take a look at sustainability efforts, and applaud the FCC’s Employee of the Year.

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Wine & Dine Here’s to an American guest chef, summer cocktails, new puddings, and a tasty char kway teow recipe.

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Member Insights Doug Woodring, who set up Ocean Recovery Alliance,

talks about his battle against plastic and other pollutants.

FEATURES

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A Year of Living on Edge How have reporters and media outlets been affected since the introduction of the National Security Law?

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Thick Red Lines in the Little Red Dot While Singapore might appear to be a tempting bolthole for journalists, the reality is very different.

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Listening in on Clubhouse Is Clubhouse a game-changer for connection and freedom of speech or just a flash in the pan? We ask experts, journalists and casual users to weigh in.

THE CORRESPONDENT

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THE REGULARS

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Committee Insights: Communications An inside look at the FCC’s new website, magazine’s redesign, and plans for the future.

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On the Wall Our recent exhibits cover everything from the continuing protests in Myanmar to surreal visions of the SAR.

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Member Movements Arrivals, departures, transitees. They’re all here.

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New Members Put faces to names (and vice versa) of the FCC’s newbies.

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Obituary Remembering Jim Shaw, longtime editor of Off Duty and a dedicated fan of cruising Hong Kong’s waters.

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Speakers Four journalists from around the region reveal how the pandemic has affected reporting.

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Book Review FCC member Stephen Vines’ latest book takes Hong Kong’s pulse and comes up with a pungent verdict.

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Reading List Wondering what to read next? Here are a dozen recommendations from the FCC’s tally of recent speakers.

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Last Laugh Not quite an Olympic contender himself, David Cain finds that the Games are pure gold when it comes to comedy.

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The Foreign Correspondents’ Club 2 Lower Albert Road Central, Hong Kong Tel: (852) 2521 1511 Fax: (852) 2868 4092 Email: fcc@fcchk.org Website: www.fcchk.org

THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB HONG KONG

EDITOR’S LETTER

The Board of Governors 2021-2022 President Keith Richburg First Vice President Hannamiina Tanninen

Dear FCC members,

Second Vice President Tim Huxley

A lot can happen in a year. I am currently typing one-handed, as my newborn daughter rests in the crook of my left arm. She slumbers in peace, blissfully unaware that outside, the city is struggling with continued pandemic restrictions, geopolitical feuds and disappearing freedoms.

Correspondent Member Governors Lucy Colback, Jennifer Hughes, Kristie Lu Stout, Iain Marlow, Shai Oster, Austin Ramzy, Dan Strumpf, Eric Wishart Journalist Member Governors Clifford Buddle, Zela Chin

Just over a year ago, on 30 June 2020, Hong Kong enacted the National Security Law (NSL). Since then, police have made more than 100 arrests, including several journalists; raided the Next Media headquarters; introduced a restrictive media accreditation policy; and curbed access to government information databases.

Associate Member Governors Genavieve Alexander, Liu Kin-ming, Christopher Slaughter, Richard David Winter Club Treasurer Tim Huxley

This issue, we explore how the law has impacted Hong Kong media in two key features: the first, our cover story on page 14, turns a spotlight on the increasingly important Human Rights Press Awards through a series of interviews with winning photographers, writers and documentarians.

Club Secretary Jennifer Hughes Professional Committee Conveners: Hannamiina Tanninen, Eric Wishart

The second (pg. 18) digs even deeper, asking reporters at Hong Kong media outlets such as HK01, Apple Daily and RTHK how the NSL has impacted internal policies, editorial standards and their own personal outlook about the future of the industry.

Finance Committee Conveners: Tim Huxley (Treasurer), Lucy Colback

If you’ve thought of relocating, you’re not alone. But the grass may not be greener. As a case in point, we’ve taken a peek into life as a journalist in Singapore (pg. 22), where a so-called “fake news law” pressures members of the media to adopt official narratives or face penalties and lawsuits.

Membership Committee Conveners: Jennifer Hughes, Clifford Buddle,

And on a slightly lighter note, we managed to secure an invite to the exclusive audio chat app, Clubhouse, to better understand how the social media platform has contributed to free speech and meaningful connections at the height of an all-too-isolating pandemic (pg. 26).

Building - Project and Maintenance Committee Convener: Christopher Slaughter

You’ll also find a fair bit of fun within these pages. Mark your calendar for this season’s culinary adventures at the FCC (pg. 8); meet Michael Santos, FCC ‘Employee of the Year 2020’ (pg 6); and fill up your bookcase with recommendations from our speakers (pg. 46).

Communications Committee Convener: Genavieve Alexander

Constitutional Committee Conveners: Jennifer Hughes, Liu Kin-ming

House/Food and Beverage Committee Conveners: Hannamiina Tanninen, Genavieve Alexander

Press Freedom Committee Conveners: Hannamiina Tanninen, Dan Strumpf

Wall Committee Convener: Kristie Lu Stout General Manager Didier Saugy

As my daughter peeks one eye open, I extend my thanks to Ed Peters, who has managed the magazine for the past two months and enabled me to spend precious time with this tiny human.

Editor, The Correspondent Kate Springer, Springer Creative Email: kate@kate-springer.com; editor@fcchk.org Contributing Editor Ed Peters Email: edapeters@yahoo.com

Kate Springer Get in touch: editor@fcchk.org

Publisher: Artmazing!

Noel de Guzman Email: artmazingcompany@gmail.com Printing Elite Printing, Tel: 2558 0119

PHOTO: L AKSHMI HARILELA

Advertising Contact FCC Front Office: Tel: 2521 1511

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The Correspondent ©2021 The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong The Correspondent is published four times a year.

Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the club.

THE CORRESPONDENT

18/6/2021 5:47 PM

FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear FCC Members, Let’s start off this new Board year for the club on an optimistic note.

Here in Hong Kong, we can finally imagine the end of the pandemic that has disrupted our lives for the last 18 months. The so-called “fourth wave” has passed, new virus cases have dropped most days to single digits or none at all, and the number of deaths has remained mercifully low.

As of this writing, Hong Kong has recorded just 210 deaths from COVID-19 – still fewer than the 299 who died during the SARS epidemic of 2002-2003.

Finally, we can see a roadmap for returning to normalcy.

At the club, as I outlined at our Annual General Meeting, that roadmap means getting our members and staff fully vaccinated, and getting everyone to use the LeaveHomeSafe app, as required by the government.

There has been some understandable hesitancy among a few, about both the vaccine and the app, and those concerns should not be dismissed. But the full reopening of the club – with in-person events, banqueting, longer opening hours and more guests per table – is absolutely crucial to our long-term financial viability. With government subsidies exhausted, we cannot afford to remain in the same restricted status.

We are fortunate that there are enough vaccines available for everyone here. My friends in Bangkok, who have been waiting on a vaccine for months even as a new wave sweeps across Thailand, have told me they are envious of Hong Kong’s fast and efficient vaccine roll-out. Other countries have no vaccines at all.

The problem here, I believe, is that the government is sending mixed messages, which may be partly responsible for the slow vaccine take-up rate.

For example, the BioNTech vaccine has been shown to be 95 per cent effective in stopping fully vaccinated people from getting seriously ill or spreading the virus, and almost as effective against the variants. Yet the Hong Kong government still requires fully vaccinated people to wear masks even outdoors, where we know the virus is least likely to be spread.

The full reopening of the club... is absolutely crucial to our long-term financial viability.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, normal life is returning, particularly for outdoor activities. Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control, said: “If you are fully vaccinated and want to attend a small outdoor gathering with people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated, or dine at an outdoor restaurant with friends from multiple households, the science shows if you are vaccinated, you can do so safely unmasked.” Here in Hong Kong? No such luck.

Another example of mixed messaging: we are told the vaccines are highly efficient, including against the variants. But if you travel overseas, once you return to Hong Kong, even fully vaccinated people will be subjected to 14 or 21 days in hotel quarantine. Why? According to Professor Ivan Hung, in a recent FCC Zoom talk: “The reason again is because of the variants, so even though you have a BioNTech vaccine, we do not yet know if you will be carrying the virus in the upper respiratory tract, and that could potentially cause an outbreak in Hong Kong.”

He added: “Unfortunately, we are very, very cautious.”

People need incentives to get the jab, and in my view, that excess caution has become a deterrent. Many ask why bother getting a jab when they will still be required to wear a mask, not gather with friends, and be unable to travel without coming back to a costly and inconvenient hotel quarantine.

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

Achieving herd immunity through vaccination is our only way out of this pandemic nightmare. The government could speed things up by offering incentives. They could start by letting vaccinated people ditch the masks when outdoors and quarantine at home after travelling.

Keith Richburg Hong Kong July 2021

THE CORRESPONDENT

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CLUB NEWS

PHOTOS: L AKSHMI HARILELA

A Sustainable Push for the Future

The club’s push for sustainability has been gathering momentum over the past four years.

“Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” has become the club’s mantra in recent years, in a drive that saves money while helping the environment.

It’s a case of notching up a series of little victories. The club started sending cooking oil for recycling in August 2018, and despatched 160 litres last February, pretty much the monthly average nowadays. Plastic straws have been ditched in favour of paper, and takeaway boxes are now biodegradable. Instead of the 550 reams of A4 that were gobbled up in 2017, paper consumption has been cut to 390 reams. The extensive list continues, embracing aluminium cans and coffee capsules given a new lease of life rather than being consigned to landfill and edible surpluses passed on to the Foodlink Foundation.

“I come from a hotel background, where there is a strong emphasis on environmental sustainability, and I think it’s very important to bring this sort of approach to the club too,” says General Manager Didier Saugy.

“New practices, equipment and products are being made available every day, so it is important to stay up to date. By playing our part in the community we are sending the right message not only to our staff and members, but also to future generations.

“Most people do not automatically think about it; however, if they are encouraged, they will happily take part, especially if they can see the benefits and results.

Which is exactly what’s happening at the club now.”

Coming Soon: the FCC E-Shop

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PHOTO: L AKSHMI HARILELA

For the past year, the Communications Committee has been working hard on the FCC’s very own online shop, part of the newly revamped website (turn to page 30 for the backstory).

The E-Shop is still under development, but members who are anticipating diving down this all-too-enticing rabbit hole should know that it will be divided into four categories. “Books” is pretty self-explanatory (we review the most recent, Stephen Vines’ magnum Hong Kong opus, on page 46); likewise “Merch”, with its cornucopia of club-branded miscellanea; and then there will be two more, covering what many reckon the club does best (apart from craic): “Food” and “Beverages”.

Delivery details and similar are still being thrashed out, as is a firm launch date. In the meantime, the Front Office is open and all too glad to welcome cashed-up customers.

THE CORRESPONDENT

18/6/2021 5:48 PM

Welcome, New Board Members Following the Annual General Meeting on 25 May, the new board of governors took up the reins for the coming year, headed by President Keith Richburg.

While some of the names and faces are familiar, new appointees include Hannamiina Tanninen as First Vice President and Lucy Colback, Iain Marlow, Shai Oster and Austin Ramzy as Correspondent

President Keith Richburg

First Vice President Hannamiina Tanninen

Governors. Zela Chin (Journalist Governor) and Richard David Winter (Associate Governor) complete the line-up.

Members with questions, suggestions or recommendations may contact the board via concierge@fcchk.org.

Second Vice President Tim Huxley

Club Secretary Jennifer Hughes*

Correspondent Governors

Lucy Colback

Kristie Lu Stout

Iain Marlow

Shai Oster

Austin Ramzy

Dan Strumpf

Eric Wishart

Journalist Governors

Clifford Buddle

Zela Chin

Associate Governors

Genavieve Alexander

Christopher Slaughter

Liu Kin-ming

Richard David Winter * Also serves as a Correspondent Governor

THE CORRESPONDENT

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CLUB NEWS

HERE’S TO YEARS OF EXPERIENCE The FCC’s long service and annual staff awards offered a chance to pay tribute where it’s most definitely due.

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he club presented a dozen staff members with awards on 20 March, recognising long years of service as well as outstanding achievements over the past 12 months.

It was a time for celebration, congratulations and a sustained round of applause both for front-liners and the back-of-house brigade.

“First of all, I would like to say the staff are far and away the club’s best asset,” said General Manager Didier Saugy.

“Each of them is a part of this big family. They see to members’ needs and make them feel at home, turning the club into a safe haven which is particularly welcome

during these hard times.

“Speaking personally, the special thing is coming to work every day and meeting my team. I can see just how much they enjoy their job and being here.”

Club President Keith Richburg added: “During my years living away from Hong Kong, whenever I made trips back, one of the best things about coming to the club was the warm greetings from all the longtime staffers.

“It’s the staff that always makes the club feel like a second home.”

FCC STAFF ANNUAL AWARDS

PHOTO: L AKSHMI HARILELA

Meet Michael Santos: Employee of the Year 2020

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Characteristically bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, 28-year-old Michael Santos is happier than ever as Assistant Head Waiter in the Main Dining Room.

“It’s an honour to be chosen for this award, and my colleagues have been very supportive, although there has been some gentle teasing too,” he says.

Michael was born in the Philippines but moved to Hong Kong at the age of five, picking up basic Cantonese and the warp and weft of life in a very international city. He has been with the FCC since 2016, following five other jobs in F&B around town, working for such well-known establishments as Frites and Porterhouse.

“I was a bit clueless when I started out, but I’ve learned a great deal here – about the history of the FCC and the Dairy Farm building, about wine, about how to put on an event,” says Santos, who lists basketball and computer games as his favourite downtime activities.

“The greatest thing about working at the club is that it’s almost not like a job. You get to know your colleagues and the regular guests – it’s a very strong family atmosphere.”

Having been at the FCC for five years, Michael also has half an eye on the future.

“I’d like to run my own restaurant one day.

Wherever and whenever that may be, I’ll always have the FCC to thank.”

THE CORRESPONDENT

18/6/2021 5:48 PM

Staff Appreciation Award

Staff Smart Contribution Award

Shiphrah Ho Sze Wah

Kerry Ho Sze Man

Marketing & Events

Main Lounge

FCC LONG SERVICE AWARDS

5 Years

Benny Kwok Chi Ming

Allan Vizmanos

Chu Siu Ling

10 Years

15 Years

20 Years

Joe Law Wing Hing

Jack Tang Chun Fei

Pardeep Kumar Ray

IT

Main Lounge

THE CORRESPONDENT

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Dining Room

Main Lounge

Main Lounge

Kitchen

Sun Chi Nam Kitchen

Leung Chi Kin Kitchen

Mike Ng Chi Fai Kitchen

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WINE & DINE

An authentic taste of America Hard on the heels of Independence Day, the FCC will be serving up all-American flavours courtesy of guest chef Chris Grare, who co-owns soulful Kinship restaurant on Shelley and barbecue joint, Smoke & Barrel, on Wyndham Street. Expect steak, fries and a whole load of other classic US dishes from the New Jersey native who has worked with such legends as Gray Kunz and Daniel Boulud. In addition to the ongoing promotion, join us for a themed dinner on 6 July to sample specialities from sea to shining sea. Available from 4 to 17 July for dine-in* and takeaway. Reservations recommended.

Get the inside scoop

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PHOTOS: L AKSHMI HARILELA

Summer just got a whole lot sweeter! The FCC’s summer dessert promotion promises five different – yet equally irresistible – flavours. Choose one (or all) of the following: coconut iced soufflé with muscovado pineapple compote; guava sorbet with meringue and melon; milk-tea ice cream with crumble and chocolate sauce; mango coulis with more than a dash of coconut cream; and cheesecake with glutenfree crumble and lashings of raspberry sorbet. Available until 31 July at Main Lounge and Bert’s*. Takeaway available but not recommended.

THE CORRESPONDENT

18/6/2021 5:51 PM

Two very good reasons to say ‘Cheers!’

It’s said that you can’t buy happiness, but you can purchase a cocktail, and that’s almost the same thing. The FCC is currently serving up a brace of cooling, reviving, inspiring and heroic cocktails to match the season at a very intoxicating HK$35 a glass. The peach and passion fruit frozen daiquiri kicks off with a rum base and gets an added fillip from a blast of frosted mint syrup and lime juice. And it’s vodka that fires up the summer berry spiked limeade, which incorporates a generous dose of muddled strawberries and blueberries. Of course, teetotallers need only request a pass on the spirits to arrive at their very own very moreish mocktail. Available until 31 August in Main Bar and Bert’s.

A rosé by any other name...

PHOTOS: L AKSHMI HARILELA

Food and Beverage Manager Michael Chan uncorks two favourite rosé wines from Provence and one from California.

Mirabeau La Folie Sparkling Rosé “Expect violet reflexes with a fine stream of bubbles and a lovely balance of rich, fresh aromas on the nose with apricot, yellow peach, melon and passion fruit all tied up by a lavender honey note.”

HK$250 per takeaway bottle.

THE CORRESPONDENT

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Domaine des Diables MIP Rosé 2020 “This delicate and superbly French wine has a very light rose petal colour. There is a pleasant and powerful bouquet with subtle notes of white flowers and small yellow fruits.

Gifted with a delicate mouth feel.”

HK$250 per takeaway bottle

Canyon Oaks White Zinfandel Rosé 2017 “The Canyon Oaks White Zinfandel is a refreshing bright pink. The nose and flavours are reminiscent of freshly picked strawberries and ripe watermelon.

A perfect all-purpose wine.”

HK$190 per takeaway bottle.

Korean celebration That sensational pickled cabbage known as kimchi is more than likely to be one of the starring items on the menu during a two-week Korean food promotion which will coincide with the republic’s National Liberation Day on 15 August. Chefs from Hong Kong’s oldest Korean restaurant, Lee Fa Yuen, will be lending their expertise to the menu, as well as a special themed dinner on 17 August.

Available from 9 to 21 August for dine-in* and takeaway. Reservations recommended.

*Dine-in events may depend on COVID-19 restrictions. Check online for updates.

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WINE & DINE

RECIPE

HOW TO:

COOK CHAR KWAY TEOW Executive Chef Johnny Ma lets his creative eye roam around Southeast Asia to conjure his version of one of the region’s most popular comfort foods. Now you can follow his sterling example at home.

It would be hard to come up with a dish that’s more fusion, and more Asian, than char kway teow – stir-fried flat rice noodles. It started out, so legend has it, as a sort of fast-food cooked by farmers, fishermen and cockle-gatherers who were looking to make some extra cash serving labourers with a tasty meal that was inexpensive and easy to make.

Regional variations abound, as chefs adapted recipes to cater for local tastes and make the best of whatever foodstuffs were on hand. But from Guangdong to Malaysia to Singapore and beyond, the hearty mix of seafood and sausage on a bed of noodles spiced up with chilli and soy has been whetting appetites for generations. Here’s how to whip up the FCC’s version just like Executive Chef Johnny Ma.

Char Kway Teow Recipe: Ingredients:

Instructions

Sauce 5 tbsp soy sauce 1½ tbsp dark soy sauce 1 tbsp sugar ½ tsp fish sauce ½ tsp salt ¼ tsp pepper powder

1. Mix the sauce ingredients and set aside.

2. Grind all the chilli paste ingredients until fine using a mini food processor 3. Heat up a wok with 1 tsp oil and stir-fry the paste until aromatic. Move to a dish and set aside.

4. Clean the wok thoroughly. Heat on high until it starts to smoke. Add 2 tbsp oil, chopped garlic and do a quick stir.

5. Remove prawns from water and combine with sausage in the wok. Stir a few times with the spatula until the prawns start to change colour and you can smell the sausage.

6. Add bean sprouts into the wok, then the noodles.

7. Add 2½ tbsp of the sauce and stir vigorously to blend well. Using the spatula, push the noodles to one side.

8. Add a little oil on the empty area and crack the eggs on it, then scramble with a spatula.

9. Flip the noodles and cover the egg, and wait for about 15 seconds.

10. Add about 1/2 tbsp of chilli paste (if you like it spicy, add more) and continue to stir-fry until the egg is cooked.

11. Add chives, stir, and serve immediately.

Chilli Paste 30g seeded dried red chillies, soak in water 2 pcs fresh red chillies, seeded 3 pcs small shallots or pearl onions, peeled

and sliced 1 tsp oil 1 pinch salt Other Ingredients 2 tbsp oil 3 pcs cloves garlic, chopped finely 8 pcs shelled prawn; submerge in ice cold water

plus 2 tbsp sugar for 30 minutes 50g Chinese sausages, sliced diagonally 1 bun fresh bean sprouts, rinsed with cold water

and drained 400g fresh flat rice noodles, loosened

with no clumps 2 pcs large eggs 1 bun Chinese chives; remove about 2 cm of the

bottom section and cut into 2 cm strips

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THE CORRESPONDENT

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PHOTO: L AKSHMI HARILELA

THE CORRESPONDENT

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MEMBER INSIGHTS

Tackling the oceans’ plastic plague

PHOTOS: SUPPLIED

Doug Woodring, founder and managing director of Ocean Recovery Alliance, outlines what we can all do about the plastics that threaten to take over our seas. By Morgan M Davis

Clockwise from left: Ocean Recovery Alliance founder Doug Woodring; Cambodians clear rubbish from a river; Hong Kong’s very own Lap Sap Bay.

I

t’s no secret that the world has a plastic problem. In recent years campaigns have called for a ban on plastic shopping bags and straws, but as Doug Woodring can testify, this is just the tip of the iceberg. In his 25 years living in Asia, including a decade running the Ocean Recovery Alliance, Woodring has seen how a societal reliance on plastic wreaks its toll.

How has awareness about plastic pollution changed since you started Ocean Recovery Alliance in 2010?

Doug Woodring: It has become a global effort, as opposed to simply trying to protect the local creek or river. That’s important with plastic because, like air pollution, when it gets in the water, it moves. Plastic doesn’t degrade very easily. There’s only one way the problem can be solved and it’s from all things upstream. The ocean is just the downstream recipient of our activities.

Because of David Attenborough’s “Planet Earth: Blue Planet II”, which spoke out quite strongly about the plastic

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issue, the UK and many other countries got excited. In Thailand they closed Maya Bay, where “The Beach” was filmed, due to pollution. Five years ago you never would have expected that a government would close their most famous tourist spot due to pollution.

When COVID-19 first emerged, I thought this was going to make us lose all the momentum. But we will come out the other end, probably with more corporations and governments ready to do things that can really make a difference.

Aside from reducing our everyday plastic use, how can we make real changes?

DW: The average half-life of plastic is more than 400 years. The challenges are societal; the way we do things on the run and use products that are cheap and packaged. It’s almost impossible to get away from it. You can’t go back to paper, glass, wood and metal in large volumes because of the environmental footprints that those also create. If you think about it, every single piece of plastic has left

THE CORRESPONDENT

18/6/2021 5:51 PM

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

On Lombok, where plastic pollution threatens tourism and fishing, the Ocean Recovery Alliance helped start a weekly ocean clean-up.

someone’s hand before it became garbage.

Why did you decide to set up Ocean Recovery Carbon comes out of a big factory or a big power plant, Alliance in Hong Kong? and big trucks and boats that the average citizen doesn’t DW: Asia has an opportunity to make changes because most have a chance to touch. But plastic and waste are different. of the manufacturing comes from this part of the world.

It is not that people want to litter, but the You’re starting to see brands from the West infrastructure is just not there. ask for supply chain changes and material Governments have a role to play because changes. Asia may well be an innovator for they can set policy. Consumers don’t have a lot of this. much power because they pretty much The interesting thing about Hong Kong Every single piece follow the lead for whatever they’re given. is that most corporations have or have had of plastic has left Some make an impact with their wallets offices here. Instead of me living in the someone’s hand before and their voices but a lot of them just pick US or somewhere else and having to travel it became garbage. up whatever’s on the shelf, and don’t think to 50 cities to meet different companies, I twice. I believe it’s the corporations that have the biggest can almost do all of that here. Your readers are probably role to play. They have the budgets and the marketing working for companies or institutions in Hong Kong that teams. They can tell the story, educate and lead policy. It’s can be involved in our efforts by just doing the Plastic been a chicken-and-egg problem. If someone doesn’t start Disclosure Project [a reporting framework for measuring to get the ball rolling, then we’ll never achieve economies plastic use]. There’s no right or wrong number for plastic of scale. use, but you need to set a baseline for what you use. n DOUG’S TOOLKIT Learn more about the global plastic problem by checking out these sources:

Commitment

In a UN Environment-funded study, Ocean Recovery Alliance scored 580 global commitments on plastic pollution, and created a scorecard and toolkit to find the best possible scenarios. oceanrecov.org

THE CORRESPONDENT

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Waste & Opportunity

Not-for-profit organisation As You Sow puts together reports on 50 corporations’ efforts, or lack thereof, to use sustainable packaging. asyousow.org

Plastic Wave

“Breaking the Plastic Wave”, a Pew Charitable Trusts report, looks at what can be done to solve our plastic pollution problems. pewtrusts.org

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COVER STORY

HRPA: OF COURAGE AND CONVICTION It is lamentable that there was no shortage of entries for the 25th edition of the Human Rights Press Awards, which are organised by the FCC, Amnesty International and the Hong Kong Journalists Association. But as Rhea Mogul reports, the high standard of submissions was inspirational.

A

Alex Chan: “I saw three very young protesters get t the helm of any news story is a fierce arrested. One young man – the one in the photograph – commitment to telling the truth. Under increasing was trying to reach for something as the police arrested political and societal pressure, journalists now him, but he was pushed to the ground. His fingers then more than ever understand the need for urgent, accurate spread open to show the protest slogan ‘five demands, not and nuanced reporting that holds power to account and one less’. That is why I named it ‘The Struggle’ because I defends vulnerable communities.

Despite increasing challenges, journalists’ unwavering think it matches what Hong Kong people are facing after the passing of the National Security Law. quest for the truth remains one of the They continue with their struggle under bulwarks of free expression and a free press. political repression.

Their storytelling has exposed uncomfortable “That day was one of the most unfriendly realities and given a voice to the voiceless.

Now in its 25th year, the Human Rights Journalism is the first journalists ever experienced at the hands of Press Awards sets out to celebrate the rough draft of history. the Hong Kong police. Soon after I took the shot, I was pepper sprayed mercilessly. work of journalists from across Asia who We hope we can do Some journalists, including myself, were have demonstrated tremendous courage in our best to show our forced to kneel down and stop recording. honouring these principles. Organised by the readers the truth and But instead of stopping, I took out a GoPro FCC, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) and Amnesty International Hong real change that Hong and continued my work.

“The police also told us to show our press Kong, this year’s winners were announced Kong has been facing.” cards and made us say our names in front of on 6 May. a camera. They said they had recorded us for Even in the face of particularly difficult – Hung-Chin Chen illegal assembly. During the very unpleasant times, which included a global pandemic and experience, my only thought was that I political upheaval, the winning journalists delivered original and compelling rights-related reporting need to protect the pictures I took, and try to publish it as soon as possible. As a journalist I will keep doing my work, that exposed wrongdoing. document and tell the truth.”

The Correspondent spoke with a selection of winners about their work, what it reveals and why it matters.

Photography: Single Image

‘The Struggle’ by Alex Chan Tsz-yuk, CityDog.by Freelance journalist Alex Chan Tsz-yuk’s winning photograph of a Hong Kong protester being held to the ground by two policemen was taken on 10 May 2020, after clashes broke out between the police and anti-government protesters in Mong Kok. Some 230 people were arrested that day, and the HKJA strongly condemned police treatment of reporters covering the event.

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Explanatory Feature Writing: Chinese

‘From Faceless to Voiceless: A Documentary Report of Hong Kong Citizens in Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement and National Security Law’ by Hung-Chin Chen, Tzu-Lei Yang, Long-Hei Chan, Yu-Ju Lee, Tzy-Tyng Chen, Hanshun Wang, Ling-Wei Hsu, Yu-Fang Lin, Cheng-He Mi, Ya-Wun Jheng, Yi-Ching Wu, Yu-Chieh Chen, Yi-Fen Kao and Chun-Hsien Lee, Mirror Media Journalists from the Taiwan-based publication Mirror Media spent one year documenting how the lives of Hong Kong

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WINNER – Photography (Single Image)

The Struggle Alex Chan Tsz Yuk, CityDog.by Hong Kong, 10 May 2020

A protester signals “Five demands, not one less” while getting arrested in Mong Kok.

WINNER – People’s Choice Photo Award ‘Little Brother and Little Sister’ won the People’s Choice Award with more than 21,000 online votes. The Correspondent spoke with one of the HRPA organisers, Mary Hui, about the winning shot.

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

Little Brother and Little Sister Fung Hoi Kin, Ming Pao Hong Kong, 6 September 2020

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When police “kettled” a crowd of demonstrators in Hong Kong, two young childen – brother and sister – attempted to flee but were grabbed by heavily armed officers. In a futile attempt to protect her, the boy reached out to his sibling.

“The photo was taken at the height of the mass protests.

As has been widely reported, the Hong Kong police increasingly adopted a tactic of ‘kettling’ protesters and other citizens who happened to be near an area of protest, making mass arrests by sweeping up large groups of people,” says Hui. “This image of two underage siblings dressed in shorts and a T-shirt being forcibly restrained and overpowered by fully geared-up riot police officers is very striking.

The widely documented use of heavy force by the police, and the unaccountability of the officers, was and continues to be a major public grievance that has severely damaged trust in law enforcement, and more broadly, the government.

“I imagine that many people who voted for this photo thought that the image captured and represented these complexities in a split second.”

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COVER STORY

WINNER – Photography Series

PHOTOS: REUTERS/DANISH SIDDIQUI

Citizenship Law Protests Danish Siddiqui, Reuters, India

An injured man is rushed to a hospital after clashes erupted over a new citizenship law in New Delhi on 25 February 2020.

A man brandishes a gun during a protest outside the Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi on 30 January 2020.

MERIT – Photography Series

Anti-government protesters gather in Sanam Luang during a prodemocracy rally in Bangkok on 19 September 2020.

A protester portraying a victim of abuse at school grimaces during a ‘Bad Student’ rally in Bangkok on 21 November 2020.

PHOTOS: ML ADEN ANTONOV

Pro-Democracy Protests in Thailand Lillian Suwanrumpha, Mladen Antonov and Jack Taylor, AFP, Thailand

MERIT – Photography Series Plight of the Poor in India’s Lockdown

PHOTO: STR

PHOTO: HIMANSHU SHARMA

Jewel Samad, Arun Sankar, Money Sharma, Bhuvan Bagga, Sajjad Hussain Indranil Mukherjee and Himanshu Sharma, AFP, India

Police detain stranded migrant workers in Surat during a nationwide coronavirus lockdown on 4 May 2020.

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A policeman fills up bottles with water for migrant workers in Ajmer after the government eased a nationwide lockdown on 18 May 2020.

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protesters changed after the implementation of the National Security Law. The judges praised their probing interviews, which encapsulated the feelings of Hong Kong people.

Hung-Chin Chen, one of the winning journalists on the Mirror Media team, explains: “I visited Hong Kong in 2019, during the pro-democracy movement, and interviewed nine Hong Kong people. Some were normal people like us, who were valiant protesters; others were legislators and scholars.

Back then, we wanted to paint a picture about these people and understand what made them take to the streets, what they were feeling when they protested and what made them desperately fight for power under any circumstances.

“None of us could foresee that the National Security Law would soon be imposed on Hong Kong. In less than one year, we knew that the lives of these nine people would have changed drastically. We strongly wanted to write a follow-up report about what happened to them.

“I felt sorry that some of them chose not to be interviewed again for fear of what would happen. I also felt so thankful that some were brave enough to accept, and told us that they were continuing with their defiance and protests.

“Others told us that they had started hiding their social media posts out of fear. We tried conveying what this must have felt like, and how the new law changed their lives.

“Journalism is the first rough draft of history. We hope we can do our best to show our readers the truth and real change that Hong Kong has been facing.”

MERIT – Photography (Single Image)

A Mob out for Blood Danish Siddiqui, Reuters, India, 24 February 2020

A group of men chanting pro-Hindu slogans, beat Mohammad Zubair, 37, who is Muslim, during protests sparked by a new citizenship law in New Delhi.

Zubair was on his way home from a mosque when he came across a large Hindu crowd. “They saw I was alone, they saw my cap, beard, clothes and saw me as a Muslim,” Zubair said.

“They just started attacking, shouting slogans. What kind of humanity is this?”

discoveries, partnering in teams of two to approach the alleged assailants because of security concerns.”

Sze-sze Cheng: “The process was long, but very rewarding. The most memorable part was when we approached villagers and asked for their responses. It was Documentary Video: Chinese dangerous, but it was part of our job and we had to do it.”

Paul Lee, Bao Choy, Sze-sze Cheng, Flora Yeung, Choy: “It was extremely difficult to get Judy Chan and Yiu-ling Wong, Radio people to talk to us about this particular Television Hong Kong incident. It seems those white clad-men involved were asked to remain silent. In RTHK’s investigation into the Yuen some ways, their silence reflects a part of Long attack of July 2019, which saw an Others told us that the truth. armed mob beat commuters and protesters they had started “Being truthful and transparent are inside a subway station, was praised by the hiding their social the core values of our work as journalists. judges for “chasing the smallest clues” and media posts out of Winning this award is recognition of our “interrogating the powerful without fear or fear. team and effort. It is proof that we will favour.” counter those who want to erase or rewrite Freelance producer Bao Choy was – Hung-Chin Chen history.” convicted and fined HK$6,000 in April for Cheng: “Our reporter Bao Choy was making false statements while obtaining charged and convicted of false declaration. I think that’s vehicle registration records during her research. RTHK the most cynical thing, and she did her best to fight press had tried to withdraw its entries from the competition but freedom. Our work is a part of history and serves as HRPA organisers declined to cooperate. In the wake of her important documentation.” n conviction, we spoke with Choy and her teammate Sze-sze Cheng about their investigation and reporting process.

Bao Choy: “A year after the attack, many of the victims still haven’t found justice and the assailants remain unpunished. This should not be accepted in a civilised city.

We therefore decided to reopen the investigation and look Rhea Mogul is a Hong Kongbased journalist interested in at all the tiny details which could provide more information gender issues and minority and the forces behind the attack. rights. Her work has appeared “A team of four spent a few months re-watching all the in a number of publications including Forbes.com, Hong online footage from the night, as well as CCTV footage.

Kong Free Press and South We had to mark every tiny clue, and use those clues for China Morning Post. further investigation. We used a spreadsheet to share our

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FEATURE

NATIONAL SECURITY LAW:

A YEAR OF ERODING PRESS FREEDOM

PHOTO: VERNON YUEN / AFP

How did Hong Kong media react to a catch-all law that sent shockwaves through the territory and beyond?

Jennifer Creery explores the law’s far-reaching ramifications.

Police lead Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, 72, away from his home after he was arrested under the NSL on 10 August 2020.

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PHOTO: ISA AC L AWRENCE / AFP

O

n the morning of 10 August 2020, hundreds of national security police raided the Tseung Kwan O office of Next Digital, the parent company of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

Winding up the slate staircase, uniformed officers made their way into the newsroom on the second floor, occasionally stopping to inspect items on desks. Just hours earlier, police had arrested the company’s founder, Jimmy Lai, at his home in Ho Man Tin for alleged collusion with foreign forces.

The unprecedented arrest and raid were two of the first major acts against the press carried out under the National Security Law (NSL), enacted on 30 June 2020. Just days after the law was passed, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she could guarantee press freedom if journalists could also guarantee “that they will not commit any offences” under the law.

Long a thorn in the side of the establishment, Apple Daily was a predictable first target. Founded in 1995, the tabloid made a name for itself with its celebrity gossip, shoe-leather reporting and criticism of Beijing. It doubled down on its position during months of street protests that began over an ill-fated extradition bill in 2019, drawing the ire of government officials.

Police said in a statement on Facebook that officers had entered the building with a search warrant to investigate an offence related to the legislation.

In the year since the NSL became a reality, Hong Kong’s media landscape has undergone a seismic shift: The New York Times has started moving approximately one-third of its Hong Kong staff to Seoul in South Korea; iCable fired 40 staff last December; and civil servants working for public broadcaster RTHK have been required to pledge allegiance to the government.

RTHK has also deleted critical programmes across its web and social platforms; axed politically contentious shows; and attempted to pull submissions from awards, while its freelance producer, Bao Choy, was found guilty of knowingly making false statements to obtain vehicle licence records – making her the first person to be convicted of a crime related to the Yuen Long mob attack on 21 July 2019.

In May, RTHK fired journalist Nabela Qoser, known for her tough questioning of officials.

“It’s pretty unprecedented for anyone anywhere in the civil service to lose their job,” says David*, an RTHK staffer who

Hundreds of police officers search the Next Media offices following the arrest of Jimmy Lai.

asked not to be identified in order to speak freely. “Civil service contracts are the golden rice bowl.”

His account of the last three years tells a bleak tale of shifting goalposts and self-censorship, accelerated under the new Director of Broadcasting Patrick Li. Previously the Deputy Secretary of Home Affairs, Li was ushered in during an overhaul of the organisation after the law’s introduction.

According to David, an interview with democratic district councillor Michael Mo was axed from the programme “Letter to Hong Kong” without explanation; a rerecording of the segment with the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA)’s Chris Yeung was also rejected under murky circumstances. In the end, Eugene Chan, the president of the pro-Beijing Association of Hong Kong Professionals, put in an appearance instead.

“The HKJA is facing an increasingly difficult environment in defending journalists’ rights,” Yeung tells The Correspondent. “The association is itself being targeted by pro-Beijing media and groups. [But] we will continue to speak up and stand alert.”

In another instance, David says, senior management from RTHK’s editorial committee questioned producers over whether a show on Myanmar could be interpreted as a commentary on Hong Kong – up to four hours before going on air in March. “It’s intimidation and creating deliberate uncertainty,” says David.

For the news writing team, he says, one method for working around political

The HKJA is facing an increasingly difficult environment in defending journalists’ rights.

– Chris Yeung

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FEATURE

Founded before the Handover, Apple Daily has rarely held back from running hard news stories, especially when it comes to lambasting Beijing.

Apple Daily will not close on its own.

PHOTO: ANTHONY WALL ACE / AFP

– Cheung Kim-hung

sensitivities has been to lead articles with government or police statements, thus giving credence to the stories.“We’re relying on doing things in the shadows and hoping [management] doesn’t notice. But of course, that’s not the way you should be doing it.

You should be taking pride in your work.”

David’s experience cuts across many newsrooms in Hong Kong. HK01, an online outlet known for its investigations and close government contacts, faced an internal dilemma in the tumultuous months before the enactment of the law, according to a reporter, John*, which is not his real name.

John says both HK01’s founder, Yu Punhoi, and Chief Editor Ernest Chi Pan-year, asked staff to update the headline of an article containing arrest figures because it created a “negative image” of police and was too sympathetic towards protesters:

“I think [Chi] wanted to maintain a good relationship with police. In the past they were only sensitive to [mainland] Chinese government issues,” says John.

At Next Digital, the situation has grown increasingly tense since the raid and arrest last August. As staff gathered on the floor of the newsroom on 5 May, Cheung Kimhung, chief executive of Next Digital, responded to rumours that authorities would force the newspaper to close in the coming months, declaring: “Apple Daily will not close on its own.”

It was a defiant stance but provided little relief for some staff. “They felt that management didn’t have a contingency [plan] in place and that their fears had been dismissed,” says Oscar*, which is not his real name, a reporter who attended the meeting.

For over a year, Next Digital staff had been feeling pressure from the police.

Between April 2020 and 2021, the police public relations bureau sent at least 89 “misleading report” letters to Apple Daily. In response to a report on a Hong Kong Police College open day to mark National Security Education Day on 15 April, the force criticised a photo caption reading, “What have [police] taught the next generation?”, and accused the publication of “distorting the original purpose” behind the event.

In an email reply, a police representative told The Correspondent that the department sent the letters to improve public understanding in order to “earn their support and trust ... There has been an overwhelming volume of unfounded information circulated in the society over the last few years,” wrote the representative.

“Police absolutely respect freedom of speech

Chris Yeung, chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

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PHOTO: ANTHONY WALL ACE / AFP

The inaugural National Security Education Day on 15 April 2021 was not greeted with universal acclaim.

and freedom of the press.”

Despite management reaffirming its commitment to editorial independence after the NSL, Apple Daily has not been immune to internal controversy. On 15 April, the Equal Opportunities Commission released a letter that chided the newspaper for its continued use of the term “Wuhan pneumonia” to describe COVID-19, which was first detected in the capital of Hubei.

Within a week, Apple Daily replaced the term with “Pneumonia epidemic”. Some staff saw it as a capitulation. “I think that incident was the first [of its kind] – that’s why it drew such a response,” Oscar says.

The working conditions for many local journalists were far from ideal before the NSL brought added risks and pressures.

Low salaries and long hours, coupled with increasing output quotas and news fatigue, meant that several years into the profession left journalists burnt out and looking for alternative career options.

“I want to leave but which media can I go to?” asks John, who laments a scarcity of well-paid positions on teams similar to his at HK01. “[Journalists] have a higher level of education; we have a bachelor’s degree, but our salaries are so low. And after the protests [and NSL] we could get charged – so why do we stay here and do this job?”

Some have chosen to leave. Three HK01 staffers, one of whom was senior, have immigrated to the UK, according to John.

THE CORRESPONDENT

Several former staff at Apple Daily have also departed for places including the UK, Oscar says, due to poor working conditions, worsened by political pressures.

This kind of industry brain drain threatens to usher in a generation of younger, inexperienced journalists who may lack the judgement, skills and sources to provide the quality of journalism delivered by their predecessors. In particular, they may have yet to establish in-roads with government officials or police officers, relying on carefully tailored press conferences and statements.

“It’s impossible for new journalists to build those sources,” says Oscar, pointing to the precarious nature of building trust in professional relationships after the NSL. “If you have watched i-Cable TV after the mass walkout [in December 2020], there is quite an obvious difference in the quality of the programmes.”

Now that the NSL is a day-to-day reality, Oscar casts a gloomy eye over his career. He says he had, like many other journalists, pursued a career as a reporter with hopes that a more informed society would lead to democratic development. “To end up in a completely opposite direction – it is not what I expected.” n *Name changed to protect the individual’s identity, owing to potential professional or legal ramifications.

Editor’s Note: Following the 17 June police raid on Apple Daily, the arrests of several top editors, and an asset freeze ordered by then-Secretary for Security John Lee for an alleged violation of the National Security Law, the newspaper ceased publication on 24 June, marking its final day with a 1 million print run that sold out quickly. Apple Daily’s YouTube channel and website have both been taken down, and Apple has rendered its app unusable.

Read the FCC’s official statement regarding Apple Daily’s closure here: www.fcchk.org/fccexpresses-deep-regret-overclosure-of-apple-daily/

Jennifer Creery is an FCC Clare Hollingworth fellow and Curated Content Editor at the Financial Times. Prior to her current role she was an editor at Hong Kong Free Press.

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DISPATCH

SINGAPORE:

‘A COUNTER-MODEL FOR PRESS FREEDOM’?

Journalists shopping around for a new home base in Asia may find that the Little Red Dot has thick red lines.

Alexis Ong reports from Singapore.

B

PHOTO: SAR AH GR AHAM/FCC

eijing is no longer a spectre that looms over Hong Kong, but a very tangible presence in the form of the National Security Law, which came into effect on 30 June 2020.

Since then, many Hong Kong-based journalists and media outlets have been tempted to consider alternative home bases in Asia, including Singapore. But press freedom in the city-state is arguably more draconian.

Having written a story for The Initium on how Singapore could be impacted by Hong Kong’s instability, Singaporean journalist and activist Kirsten Han explained that the city-state is far from a bastion of press freedom.

“If you’re someone who wants to leave Hong Kong because you’re troubled by the erosion of civil liberties like freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press – why would you come to Singapore?” she asks.

On the 2021 World Press Freedom Index, Singapore ranks 160th out of 180 nations and territories – two spots down from its previous position at 158. The index classifies Singapore as “black” – the lowest possible category – alongside notoriously repressive countries like North

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

Freelance journalist and editor Kirsten Han spoke about press freedom in Singapore at the FCC in 2018.

Daniel Bastard, head of the APAC desk at RSF.

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Korea, China, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Hong Kong hovers at 80, down from 48th in 2009. Hong Kong’s status may be gradually declining, yet it’s still far from the black zone.

“Singapore wants to be a model for development, but it’s actually a countermodel for press freedom,” says Daniel Bastard, head of the APAC desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), alluding to the controversial Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) introduced in May 2019.

The law affords the People’s Action Party (PAP) – Singapore’s ruling political party – the right to combat “fake news,” according to the official position. The Straits Times (ST), a pro-government paper with links to the PAP, recently defended the law as a necessity in a new COVID-19 reality where disinformation runs rampant.

While the law focuses on providing public corrections to alleged falsehoods, it has also been used against local activists and the political opposition, which the government calls an “unfortunate coincidence”. Serious incidents can also be

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If you’re someone who wants to leave Hong Kong because you’re troubled by the erosion of civil liberties like freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press, why would you come to Singapore?

ILLUSTR ATION: NOEL DE GUZMAN

– Kirsten Han

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DISPATCH

With strong links to the People’s Action Party, The Straits Times is emphatically pro-government.

punished with hefty fines or even a prison sentence.

The law’s broad legislative wording, coupled with the enormous power wielded by the government, poses a threat to independent Singaporean media. Take the case of historian Dr Thum Ping Tjin, the founder and managing director of New Naratif, one of the few independent outlets in the country, as an example.

In 2020, the POFMA office issued a warning to Thum after he posted a video claiming that POFMA outlawed all government criticisms and effectively turned ministers into arbiters of truth.

Given the legal consequences, Thum chose to post the necessary corrections while still challenging the law.

Then, of course, there are the “red lines that journalists should not cross, and if they

POFMA: KEY TAKEAWAYS • Essentially a fake news law, POFMA applies to “statements of fact,” not opinions, that a “reasonable person” could interpret as a true factual statement.

• If the statement affects issues related to Singapore’s security, public health and safety (including public finances), democratic processes, or confidence in the government, the law imposes heavy fines and even prison sentences.

• The offending party must issue a correction notice to state that they published a falsehood, and in some cases, ensure that the falsehood can no longer be shared in Singapore.

• The law applies to both public and private forums, including personal messaging apps.

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do, it means very stressful lawsuits,” says Bastard. These are also called out-of-bounds markers (or “OB markers”) to indicate topics that aren’t suitable for open public discussion, like racism, LGBTQ issues, religion, or the finer points of government surveillance; OB markers are purposely kept vague.

He compares the system to China’s state media, albeit with a little more room for independent writers like Han. But those who incur the PAP’s wrath will likely face a team of government lawyers, which Bastard compares to a “David versus Goliath” fight.

A Singapore High Court judge ruled in February 2020 that, under POFMA charges, the burden of proof lies with the individual, who must prove the statement in question is true – not for the government to prove it is false.

That same month, in the case of The Online Citizen (TOC), another independent outlet, the court dismissed editor Terry Xu’s appeal against a correction order. TOC had published an article about supposed human rights infringements at Changi Prison, even though Xu pointed out that words like “allege” and “allegation” were used six times in the text.

Despite this, the government deemed TOC guilty of spreading misinformation.

The appeals process can cost thousands of dollars, depending on how long the hearing takes. In Xu’s POFMA case, he claimed that his appeal would cost at least SG$10,000, or roughly HK$58,350.

In addition to POFMA, says Bastard, the Singapore government also exerts influence within news organisations. “I believe, still now, that the [Hong Kong] government doesn’t nominate the chief editors and directors of publications, as the government does in Singapore,” explains Bastard. “So in Hong Kong, you still have some editorial freedom or at least autonomy.

That doesn’t really exist in Singapore at all.”

Han, who previously served as the editor-in-chief of New Naratif, says the ST is a case in point. It’s owned by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), and the firm’s chairpersons are usually either PAP civil servants or closely involved with the party. The current editor-in-chief, Warren Fernandez, was almost nominated as a PAP candidate in 2006.

At the 2019 World News Congress in Glasgow, the World Editors Forum elected Fernandez as president. “I couldn’t believe it, but it dawned on me that people outside

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Plan Bs For those seeking an alternative homebase in Asia, RSF’s Daniel Bastard suggests: Taiwan Although Taiwanese media needs legislative reform to strengthen its independence, the government hasn’t taken concrete steps to address that yet, RSF reports.

PHOTO: ROSLAN R AHMAN / AFP

“Taiwan is definitely the regional model for press freedom,” says Bastard.

“Though the media is quite polarised, there are good legal guarantees.”

Charles Chong (right), deputy speaker of the parliament and chairman of the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods, attend a press conference in Singapore on 20 September 2018.

Singapore don’t understand the context of Fernandez being [chief editor] of ST – and how far from independent the paper is in Singapore,” she recalls.

In early May 2021, SPH announced a plan to restructure into a non-profit “limited by guarantee” company, to be chaired by ex-PAP minister Khaw Boon Wan. As reported by Today Online (another state-funded publication run

by Mediacorp): “A company limited by guarantee is an entity that does not have share capital or shareholders but, instead, has members who act as guarantors of the company’s liabilities.” The changes will allow SPH (which is still primarily a real estate company) to diversify its funding, a move predicted by former ST Editor-inChief Patrick Daniel.

While the shift to a non-profit model is welcome, concerned watchdogs and local opposition have also expressed concerns over Khaw’s appointment as a missed opportunity to create a more independent media environment.

According to academic Cherian George, Khaw’s new role is just another entry in SPH’s long history of appointing former politicians and civil servants with “no prior industry experience” into leadership positions. It also toes the line of the far-reaching 1974 Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (NPPA), which put

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ministers in control of publishing permits.

The PAP views the NPPA as a necessity for “moral policing” and social harmony, and to hold publishers accountable for their content.

But it’s clear that as social media becomes an increasingly powerful way for people to communicate, old methods of censorship and content regulation are quickly becoming obsolete.

RSF works with the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to evaluate Singapore for its Universal Periodic Review.

According to Bastard, Singapore has accepted 117 past recommendations from the UNHRC – not a single one related to press freedom. “It’s never good for states to be criticised over human rights, even if the PAP government obviously doesn’t care about press freedom,” he says.

But despite POFMA and the censorious climate it creates, the 2020 election showed that young, politically engaged Singaporeans are driving meaningful conversations around historically sensitive topics, such as race, class and independent media.

“Young Singaporeans have been doing great at normalising certain discussions... and setting new expectations for our political and public discourse,” says Han. “In the long-term, [this] will make a big difference to Singapore.” n

South Korea South Korea still follows a system where public broadcast managers are appointed by the government, however, it is better than many countries in Asia.

“South Korea would be a second possible homebase, with president Moon [Jaein] being quite protective with press freedom,” says Bastard.

“Things can change drastically with another government, though; the situation was quite bad under president Park [Geun-hye].”

Alexis Ong is a freelance culture journalist based in Singapore. Her favourite beats are emerging tech, video games, and internet culture.

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FEATURE

CLUBHOUSE:

AN UNLIKELY FORUM FOR FREE SPEECH AND CONNECTION

Known for its free-flow virtual discussions and debates, Clubhouse has become a valuable resource for curious audiophiles in an era of isolation. By Erin Hale

Musk drew a thenrecord of 5,000 listeners to the room, propelling the app from niche to buzzworthy.

Erin Hale is a freelance journalist based in Taipei, where she writes about Taiwan politics, culture and cross-straits relations. She was previously based in Hong Kong and Cambodia.

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PHOTO: SUPPLIED

C

hances are you’ve heard of the “invite-only” app Clubhouse – or maybe you’ve already tuned in.

Unlike Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram, which are mostly fuelled by text, photos and videos, Clubhouse delivers a continuous livestream of audio conversations on everything from tech and business to arts, culture, sex, music, science, parenting, wellness, politics and human rights issues.

At the heart of the audio app are realtime discussion “rooms”, in which users can chime in by virtually “raising their hand” with the click of a button or simply listen anonymously.

Launched in the spring of 2020, Clubhouse burst into the mainstream nearly a year later in January 2021 when Tesla CEO Elon Musk participated in a live discussion moderated by venture capitalists and a Facebook executive.

Musk drew a then-record of 5,000 listeners to the room, propelling the app from niche to buzzworthy as a wave of celebrities followed suit. Even so, a muchdiscussed “air of exclusivity” remains, as users need an invitation to participate.

But these factors alone are not the only forces thrusting Clubhouse into the limelight, says Jeremiah Owyang, a technology analyst at San Francisco-based Kaleido Insights and an early Clubhouse convert. The app also reflects the global COVID-19 zeitgeist to “stay connected” in the face of social restrictions, travel bans and lockdowns.

“Clubhouse launched at the perfect moment; the world was going into quarantine and humans wanted to connect, even though they were physically separated,” says Owyang. “Real-time video resulted in ‘Zoom fatigue’ – it was just too much – and text-based social networks left us craving more human connection.

US-based tech analyst Jeremiah Owyang says Clubhouse offers real-time connection during COVID-19.

“So social audio is the ‘Goldilocks Medium’ as it’s the best of both worlds,” he says. “Since Clubhouse launched, many competitors have followed suit, and tech giants are planning to incorporate real-time voice into their existing communication suites.”

When he joined in 2020 as User No. 3,121, Owyang says there was only one Clubhouse room, populated mostly by residents of the US West Coast. Over the past year, Clubhouse has grown from 1,500 users in May 2020 to more than 10 million as of May 2021. While still dwarfed

by Facebook and Twitter, the app has broadened its appeal, features, markets and available languages.

But for some, the app’s rising profile has made it riskier to use. For a short while after Musk’s appearance in early 2021, Clubhouse began to host rooms where users in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan could

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FEATURE

Clubhouse – a much sought-after invitation.

The rooms ranged from uncensored discussions about Chinese identity to Hong Kong’s protest movement.

Tesla tycoon Elon Musk.

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talk to each other live in Mandarin and Cantonese.

The rooms ranged from uncensored discussions about Chinese identity to Hong Kong’s protest movement, and included one 16-hour marathon session on Uyghur camps in Xinjiang that drew a reported 4,000 users. Users have also opened discussion rooms for Thai dissidents while other conversations have seen Saudi Arabians, Egyptians and Iranians tackling sensitive topics such as abortion, sexual harassment and political reform.

Given the app’s wide range of casual chats, panels, interviews, on-the-ground perspectives and expert insights, it’s no surprise that curious types and audiophiles have flocked to sign up to hear thoughts on topical issues from activists, experts, celebrities and ordinary people alike.

“Whenever I opted into a group that involved mainland Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong users, I would treat it as though it was the last opportunity that a free, open discussion could take place,” says Hong Kong-based freelance journalist Ezra Cheung, who joined Clubhouse a few weeks after its release at the suggestion of a tech-savvy friend. “Once mainland Chinese authorities censored Clubhouse, I doubted that the same or similar scenarios would easily occur on mainland soil.”

Users in mainland China were only able to access Clubhouse from September to October 2020, but many users appeared to still be using it with a VPN until February. Despite the ban, many sensitive conversations still take place about issues like democracy movements in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Myanmar as well as ChinaTaiwan relations.

“The environment Clubhouse has created – which allows people to come and go at will – is a reminder that not just your opinions matter. Others’ views matter too, so listen to them, and you’ll never be let down,” Cheung says.

Cheung mostly uses Clubhouse to listen and learn, but the app can also offer a chance to organise discussions and network in a more casual setting. Members can engage during discussion, as well as ask for permission to reach out directly afterwards. Many language learners have also joined the bandwagon, opening rooms to practice speaking languages, such as Mandarin or German.

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Take 5: Clubhouse Tips 1. Word to the Wise Clubhouse doesn’t record your conversations, but it’s best to assume that whatever you say is public and could be recorded by another user.

2. Tune In There are tens of thousands of rooms on Clubhouse. Hop in and out of ongoing chats or follow other users to see what they’re up to.

3. Mark Your Calendar Many Clubhouse discussions are scheduled in advance, so you can add interesting events to your calendar.

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

4. Be Polite Although you can stay anonymous, it’s best to follow the same social etiquette as you would with a face-to-face chat.

Freelance journalist Ezra Cheung (centre) in front line reporting mode.

After some initial hesitancy about speaking on such a public platform, Hong Kong-based writer and cultural critic Vivienne Chow took the plunge and joined Clubhouse. From time to time, she has listened to the more sensitive discussions about Hong Kong politics.

“It was an interesting and moving experience… even as an audience member.

Of course things are getting more difficult in terms of what we can or cannot say in public as we are still figuring out where the red line holds under the National Security Law in Hong Kong,” she says, adding that Clubhouse has many purposes beyond discussing politics. For instance, Chow has co-founded two “clubs” (discussion rooms that meet regularly): “Arts & Peeps: Asia and Beyond” on the arts; and “Astro Classmates,” on astrology.

“The great thing about Clubhouse is that it allows me to connect with people from the art world internationally – people I’d normally meet at art fairs or events but can’t because of the pandemic,” Chow says.

“I’ve hosted and participated in chat rooms, mostly in English, [and had] enjoyable, insightful conversations. And I’ve met a lot

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of new contacts. It’s like the new LinkedIn.” She most enjoys the opportunity to share “cultural memories” with other users, including a discussion about a 1994 Chinese rock ‘n’ roll concert in Hong Kong that starred musicians like Dou Wei, He Yong, Zhang Chu, and the heavy metal rock band Tang Dynasty.

For users who had not been able to attend – including many prominent organisers and music critics from China – she was able to bring the experience to life for them. “I ‘raised my hand’ to speak, sharing my tale and memories of that fantastic concert.

Fellow speakers were delighted that they finally got to hear about the concert from someone who was actually there.”

As Clubhouse is little more than a year old, members are still figuring out how to best use the app as the potential – and perils – of audio-based social media become more apparent.

Even as the world returns to normal after COVID-19, some users may find the digital world is still the best venue for free and open discussion. For others, including those in Hong Kong, it may be one of the only places left. n

5. Explore Alternatives If you fall in love with audio chatting, check out similar apps, such as “Stereo”, “Wavve” and “Discord”.

Twitter is also beta-testing its Clubhouse alternative “Spaces.”

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COMMITTEE INSIGHTS

FUTURE-PROOF: MAJOR UPDATES TO CLUB COMMUNICATIONS Communications Committee Co-Convenor Genavieve Alexander provides a backstage pass to the committee’s recent projects and upcoming plans.

A

s co-convenors of the Communications Committee, Kristine Servando and I have spent the last year working closely with the FCC marketing team, the Board of Governors and General Manager Didier Saugy to revamp the club’s communication channels and brand identity. Our mission? To futureproof the club’s visual image, improve the overall experience and attract new members.

Among the highlights is a freshly redesigned website with a dedicated “Members Area” – a one-stop-shop where members can book events, reserve a table, order club merchandise and manage their accounts. “The website’s new design and photography make it more inviting and interesting for members, and the speed of the site improves the user experience,”

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says Saugy, who has been instrumental in steering the new website. “You can still call us to book events or tables, not everyone is a tech master, and we welcome feedback.”

The Correspondent magazine has also had a revamp with an elevated design and content overhaul, as has our weekly FCC “What’s On” member e-newsletter.

Meanwhile, the club’s social media channels – Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube – have been steadily growing in popularity and engagement thanks to our content strategies.

We hope these tools help members get the most out of the club and attract new faces to our eclectic community. In the meantime, we caught up with three of the people who brought these initiatives to life.

We hope these tools help members get the most out of the club and attract new faces to our eclectic community.

– Didier Saugy

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A Refreshed Website

Every institution, even one as historic as the FCC, needs an online presence that fits neatly into its customers’ lifestyles. Hearing the call from members for a faster, more streamlined and mobile-friendly website, we set to work to bring you a totally redesigned website with a beautiful layout and several useful, convenient functions.

This spring, we were proud to launch the new website and collect feedback from members for further tweaks and improvements. We asked designer Jonathan Gillespie of Boss Digital about the new look, feel and functionality to learn more: What can members expect from the new website?

Jonathan Gillespie: In a nutshell: You’ll discover a more mobile-friendly site with faster loading speeds and greater security.

You’ll also enjoy more convenient access to member services online, including your account, through a new personalised member dashboard where you can make bookings, place orders and manage your profile. We’ve also incorporated an improved shopping experience via the FCC e-Shop – where food, beverages, merchandise, and books are all on sale – and an event calendar that makes it easy to search, browse and book events.

What are the key features of the redesign?

JG: We’ve used the latest FCC brand colours and a contemporary design that utilises new technologies, including an auto-updating homepage, push notifications, subtle animations and page loading effects. It’s compatible on desktop, mobile and tablet, plus there’s a new online enquiry form that sends messages directly to the relevant FCC department.

How can members get the most from the website?

JG: All you have to do is create an account via the Members Area, so you can make bookings for events, functions, restaurants and shop online.

We’ve used the latest FCC brand colours and a contemporary design that utilises new technologies.

– Jonathan Gillespie

What’s still in the pipeline?

JG: We have apps for iOS and Android in the works, which we plan to launch this summer. Members can set communication preferences, such as email or push notifications, based on what type of information they wish to receive – be that events, news, or promotions.

Have feedback on the new website? Share it with our concierge team via phone (2521-1511) or email (concierge@fcchk.org).

INSIDE THE MEMBERS’ AREA

✔ Secure Login ✔ Personalised Member Dashboard ✔ Account Preferences ✔ Event Search and Bookings ✔ Dining Requests and Bookings ✔ Private Functions Search and Bookings ✔ FCC e-Shop ✔ Booking Confirmation Emails ✔ Push Notifications ✔ Reciprocal Club Information Coming soon: FCC Mobile App

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COMMITTEE INSIGHTS

Turning a New Page

When revamping the content, I set out to emphasise people – exactly what makes the FCC so special.

– Kate Springer

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The Correspondent magazine has a long history, dating to the 1970s. The original design held steady for decades, only seeing a revamp for the first time in 2016.

Four years later, in 2020, designer Noel de Guzman helped move the magazine forward again with a new look.

“We incorporated the club’s corporate colours – blue and yellow – and peppered them throughout the magazine to create a more modern, punchy look and guide the reader’s eye,” says de Guzman.

“We also added a lot of entry points such as icons, boxes and pull-outs to make the pages more interesting and selected a new headline font, Roboto, and body font, Adobe Caslon Pro, to make the magazine look more contemporary and easier to read.”

The magazine has grown by leaps over

the last few decades, and the print run of 2,800 copies per quarter now reaches 2,405 members, 93 reciprocal clubs, 31 press clubs, 125 consulates and 35 clubs across 43 countries.

To learn more about the 2020 upgrade, we asked Editor Kate Springer to weigh in on the content direction: How has the magazine changed in design and content?

Kate Springer: In terms of design, we have aimed for a more energised look that is easier to read and navigate thanks to a thoughtful balance of text and visuals. A little white space goes a long way! Noel has done a great job of retaining the classic FCC style while embracing a more contemporary tone.

When revamping the content, I set out to emphasise people – exactly what makes

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the FCC so special – as well as timely press freedom issues, regional coverage and more lifestyle content. We’ve also played around with formats to keep things interesting, so readers will find a nice mix of roundups and Q&As, short highlights, graphs, illustrations, longer reads, photo essays, retrospectives and more.

Whether you read the magazine from cover to cover, or you dip in for an article or two, we hope that you enjoy the diverse voices, stories and layouts.

What are your favourite sections?

KS: ‘Members’ Insights’ and ‘Staff Profiles.’

In the former, we set out to showcase the talents and experience of various members.

There are so many interesting FCC members that it’s hard to narrow it down sometimes.

We hope the short interview in the ‘Staff Profiles’ section not only helps you put a face to a name but also celebrates the many people who make the FCC feel like home.

I also love our expanded food and beverage coverage, since the FCC is home to exceptional bars and restaurants – each with an atmospheric setting. In this section,

towards the front of the magazine, you’ll find high-quality, appetising photography, a round-up of upcoming dining promotions, wine-pairing inspiration, recipes and interviews.

As a magazine about journalism, we naturally put a lot of time and effort into our feature articles. We explore industry trends, expert insights, press freedom concerns, lifestyle issues, meaningful historic moments, and dispatches from around the region to create relevant, engaging content for FCC members.

DID YOU KNOW?

The Correspondent is one of the only magazines in Hong Kong to use delivery envelopes made from FSC-certified paper from sustainably managed forests.

Where can The Correspondent be enjoyed online?

KS: You can enjoy an improved reading experience on the FCC’s newly redesigned website (fcchk.org/news/the-correspondent) or head over to ISSUU to read a digital version of the magazine (issuu.com/fcchk).

Thanks for reading!

Should you wish to share story ideas or feedback with The Correspondent, please contact: editor@fcchk.org n

Social Media: Follow & Share

As a club of conversations, we have invested a lot of energy in growing our online presence via key social media channels this year. Join the discussion on your favourite platforms:

Facebook Likes: 10,126* Followers: 11,400

Instagram Followers: 1,238*

Twitter Followers: 18,800*

LinkedIn Followers: 945*

YouTube Subscribers: 7,210* Total Views: 1.3 million

• Follow Us: The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong • Tag Us: @fcchk.org

• Follow Us: @fcchkfcc • Tag Us: @fcchkfcc • Tag Your photos: #fcchk

• Follow Us: @fcchk • Tag Us: @fcchk

• Add Us: FCC Hong Kong

• Find Us: FCC HK

* Numbers correct as of 18 June

COMING SOON: THE FCC PODCAST Stay Tuned... we have a podcast in the works Over the years, the FCC has hosted an array of diverse, topical and inspirational speakers from all over the globe and our aim is to archive these in our very own podcast.

Please reach out if you are keen to get involved in the Communications Committee and help bring this podcast to life.

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ON THE WALL

Myanmar’s Voices in Photos

1

A

s a brutal crackdown played out in Myanmar, the photojournalists of Frontier Myanmar – Hkun Lat, Nyein Su Wai Kyaw Soe, Steve Tickner, and Thuya Zaw – remained on the frontlines, capturing images of the anti-coup protesters and their deadly clashes with security forces.

The military seized power on 1 February, deposing the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi

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and detaining those in her government and scores of others. It claimed – without evidence – that an election won by Suu Kyi’s party in November was fraudulent.

But it soon became blatantly apparent that Myanmar’s biggest protest movement in a generation was not going to back down.

For months, the country has been riven by strikes and anti-coup, prodemocracy protests. The authorities

PHOTO: ©2021 STEVE TICKNER/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Risking life and limb, four photojournalists documented the daily tragedy of military repression in Myanmar - and the triumph of the resistance.

have hit back with tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. More than 860 have been killed as of 10 June.

This past April, the FCC displayed the work of Frontier Myanmar’s photo team in an exhibit called “Myanmar’s Bold Anti-coup Movement.”

The FCC thanks Frontier Myanmar publisher Sonny Swe and his staff for sharing their powerful photojournalism. n

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4

PHOTO: ©2021 NYEIN SU WAI K YAW SOE/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

3

PHOTO: ©2021 HKUN LAT/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PHOTO: ©2021 STEVE TICKNER/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PHOTO: ©2021 HKUN LAT/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

2

5

1 In the first organised protest after the coup, garment factory workers, mostly young women from the industrial suburb of Hlaing Htayar, march from Insein to Hledan in Yangon before being obstructed by security forces.

2 A portrait of the coup’s first victim, 19-year-old Mya Thweh Thweh Khine, stands at a makeshift street memorial in Yangon the day after her death from a gunshot wound to the head.

3 Members of Burmese LGBT+ community protest and shout slogans at the Myay Ni Gone bridge in Yangon.

4 Relatives of Sithu Shine, 18, who was shot dead during the crackdown, lament during his funeral at the Yay Way cemetery in Yangon.

PHOTO: ©️2021 HKUN LAT/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

5 Anti-coup protesters use wet cloths to overcome the effects of tear gas before the police stamp out a peaceful protest in Sanchaung Township, Yangon.

6 Protesters stop police vehicles during demonstrations against the military coup in downtown Yangon.

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ON THE WALL

Hong Kong Life Lit Up Student photographers undertook to document the rapid pace of change in the city.

2 A woman brandishes her crucifix and bible as she remonstrates with police on 30 June 2020, the day the National Security Law was enforced in Hong Kong.

3 A family shops in a nigh empty supermarket in Hong Kong in early 2020. Many stores ran out of supplies as people panic-bought in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak.

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PHOTO: JEFF CHEUNG, HONG KONG UNIVERSIT Y PHOTO: TANG CHAK MAN, HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSIT Y

1 Student Max Jin playing “Glory to Hong Kong”, the city’s de facto protest anthem, on his flute within sight and sound of a posse of riot police during a demonstration in Causeway Bay.

PHOTO: ZIXU WANG, HONG KONG UNIVERSIT Y

A

captivating assortment of photographs by students from Hong Kong Baptist University and the University of Hong Kong livened up the Van Es Wall in May in an exhibit entitled “Young Lenses: Protest and Pandemic”.

“Each image provided a viewpoint – news reportage of the protests and life affected by COVID-19,” says cocurator Cammy Yiu. “All were portraits of Hongkongers young and old forging through life during a period of tremendous and transformative change. Life has been far from ordinary this past year.”

The FCC Wall Committee would like to thank Robin Ewing of Hong Kong Baptist University, and AJ Libunao of The University of Hong Kong for their enthusiastic support and assistance in selecting photographs by their students for submission, and Adam White, Committee Co-Convener, for his guidance and co-curation of this exhibition. n

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3

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An Artist’s Surreal Impressions

T

ommy Fung’s June exhibit – “Climate Change and the Housing Problem” – addressed two very real issues facing Hong Kong. A graphic designer and photographer who lived in Venezuela for many years, Fung combined his skills in a project he called “My Surreal Life in Hong Kong” after moving back to the city of his birth in 2016. The resulting Photoshopped

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1

2

3

4

images, which he shares on Instagram and Facebook as @surrealhk, provoke alarm and amazement in equal measure.

There is also an implicit call to action: much of Hong Kong is built on reclaimed land which could be threatened by rising water levels, while there is also a shortage of affordable accommodation. Is there really any workable solution? n

PHOTOS: TOMMY FUNG

Tommy Fung’s mesmerising take on Hong Kong causes even the most casual observer to stop and gape.

1 Sham Shui Po seen from street level and via drone.

2 Quarry Bay tram: no call for air conditioning.

3 A fantastic conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.

4 Ice makes crossing Victoria Harbour “the coolest ferry ride ever.”

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MEMBER MOVEMENTS

In, out, shaking it all about. Herewith the latest updates.

•

New Members

A hearty welcome to new media, diplomatic and associate members.

Correspondents

• Rebecca Bailey, Correspondent, AFP • Chery Kang, Asia Pacific Correspondent, CNBC • Mihir Melwani, Freelancer • Jadyn Beverley Sham, Producer, CNN • Sara Velezmoro, Reporter, Haymarket

• Paul Raben-Christensen, Leadership Talent Partner, Bloomberg LP • Haresh A Sakhrani, Director, Bestraders International Ltd • Harriet Sumner, Supply Teacher • Lawrence Tam Tsun Ki, Chief Technology Officer, eBRAM International Online Dispute Resolution Centre Ltd • Nick Turner, OF Counsel, Steptoe & Johnson HK LLP • Tae Yoo, Managing Director, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd Diplomatic

• Elizabeth Ward, Consul-General, Australian Consulate-General

Journalists

• Jack Lee Sai Chong, Freelancer • Ambrose Li, Reporter, Television Broadcasts Ltd Associates

• Joris Bertrand, Associate, Arbitration Chambers • Cecilia Carlsson, Managing Director, The Carlsson Family Living Ltd • Fiona Chan, Solicitor, Massie & Clement • Jack Charles Cheng, Associate, Erik Cheng & Co • Vanessa Hemavathi, Head of Investment Services, Privium Fund Management • Ho Hoi Fai, Solicitor, Henry Chiu & Partners • Nicholas Holmes, Programme Director, HSBC • Simon Jankowski, Security Director, BT Group plc • Stella Law, Chief Operating Officer, Fonto Holdings Ltd • Li Yan Lin, Physician, Queen Mary Hospital • Kane Mak, Senior Associate, Howse Williams • Jonathan Mo Hay Ale, Compliance and Risk Analyst, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB • Nicholas Moore, Head of Marketing, Skadden • Michael Moser, Independent Arbitrator, Twenty Essex Chambers • Victoria Ng Shan Shan, Senior Associate, Howse Williams • Peter Ng, Senior Associate, Herbert Smith Freehills • Anita O’Sullivan, Head of Onboarding, Trident Fund Services (HK) Ltd

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•

Membership Replacements

AKA “Sliding Doors”.

Corporate

• John-Kaare Aune, CEO/MD, Wallem Services Ltd • Sriram Balasubramanian, Technical Sales Manager, Gulf Oil Marine Ltd • David John Harley, Deputy Director (HK), The North of England P&I Association Ltd • Edward Lau Fu Keung, Chief Financial Officer, Pridemax Ltd • Helen Leung Hang Ling, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications and Citizenship, The Walt Disney Company (Hong Kong) Ltd • Luanne Lim Hui Hung, Chief Operating Officer, HSBC • Max Shen Zuojun, Vice-President & Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), The University of Hong Kong • Natalie Margaret Smith, Director & Solicitor, Lutea (Hong Kong) Ltd • Ryan Robert Murrey Sparrow, Director of Communications, Philip Morris Asia Ltd Diplomatic

• Shari Lauren Small, Consul, South African Consulate-General

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Absent

•

Resigned

Au revoir, or as they say in Glasgow, “Abyssinia”.

Wherever you are headed, we wish you the best of luck.

Correspondents

Correspondents

Journalists

Journalists

• Terry J Duckham, Director, Asiapix Studios • Kristin Kyoko Altman, Freelance Correspondent • David Scott Moll, A.M. News Editor for Asia, The New York Times • Stewart James Hawkins, Editor, Bloomberg • Richard PJ Castka, Photojournalist, The Sportpix International Photo Library • Lucy Thanna Christie, Sub Editor, South China Morning Post Associates

• Simon Scott Bambridge, Director Aircraft Management, TAG Aviation Asia • Neil Bruce Carabine, Partner, King & Wood Mallesons • Mark Steven Dale, Senior Director Quality, Ethics and CSR, Asia, Walgreens Boots Alliance • Geoffrey Thomas Denham, Training Check Captain, Cathay Pacific Airways • Sophie Ruth Gray, Director, Meraki Executive Search and Consulting • Ronald Martin Hoffmann, Senior Representative for Asia Pacific Basin, Government of Alberta Canada • Ronald Nathaniel Issen, Managing Director, Issen & Company Ltd • Philipp Koether, Managing Director, Cabot Group • Michelle Lai Yin Yue, Blockchain consultant and writer • Nicola Lai Ying Xi, Director Emerging Equities, Baring Asset Management (Asia) Ltd • Raymond Lai Chik Fan, CEO, AR Evans Capital Ltd • Yifawn Lee, Publisher, Orientations Magazine Ltd • Becky Cho Leung Gee, Senior Director, Corporate Affairs, Asia Pacific, VF Corporation • James John Oliver, Managing Director, Principle One Limited • Patrick Pao Shi Hong, Legal Advisor, Wheelock • Jonathan David Rebbeck, Captain, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines • Michael Ian Robertson, MR Consulting • Harry Roy Shiever, Managing Director, Citrix Online AP, Citrix Systems Hong Kong Ltd • Daryl Ann Smith, VP, Operations, Hughes-Castell (Hong Kong) Ltd • Phillip Straley, Partner Global Financial Services, Ernst & Young • Richard John Wesley, Director, Hong Kong Maritime Museum • Eva Wong Chui Yuk, Director, Silverlink Pacific Ltd • Symon Wong Yu Wing, Teaching Consultant, City University of Hong Kong • Timothy Wong Chung Ming, Managing Partner, Fifth Element • Wong Yuk Tong

• Adrienne Carter, Asia Editor, The New York Times • Sean James Gleeson, Editor, Agence France-Presse • Nisha Gopalan, Columnist, Bloomberg Opinion • Sophie Loras, Asia Editor, Incisive Media • Willie John Cox, Senior Reporter, Epoch Times • Ivy Ong Ai Bee, Sub Editor, The Standard, Sing To Newspaper Group Associates

• John Michael Allum, Resident Director, Hawkins • Stephen John Grant, Managing Director, Projexasia Ltd • John Lam Sat Wah, Director, Palco Industrial Ltd • David Tang Kwok Keung, Consultant, KY Woo & Company Solicitors & Notaries • David Tse Sik Hung, Managing Director, Hop Yuen (Holdings) Ltd Diplomatic

• Nabila Abdelaziz Nasir Saeed Alshamsi, Consul General, Consulate General of The United Arab Emirates

Reactivated Good to have you back on board.

Associates

• Au Miu Po, Partner, Messrs CP Lin & Co

Category Changes Like a business class upgrade, but lasts longer.

Associates to Silver Associates

• Barrie Calvert Goodridge, CEO, CardCo Ltd Honorary Members

• Teresa Fung Lo Chuen Mai • Joyce Marie Murdoch, Hong Kong Baptist University

Calling All Members As we all know, the club is overflowing with talent, and we would love to feature more work by FCC members in The Correspondent.

Do you have a great story idea? Shoot photography? Keen to proofread? Or simply want to share your feedback over a Headline beer at the bar? Please don’t hesitate to reach out!

We would love to hear from you. Send an email to editor@fcchk.org

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NEW MEMBERS

Welcome, New Members What do a Swede, a Singaporean, a surveyor and a solicitor have in common? The FCC, of course.

REBECCA BAILEY

I moved to Hong Kong last November to join AFP as a news editor (and as it turned out, bassist in the newsroom band, The Wires.) I also produce the “Asia Matters” podcast in my spare time. Prior to this, I worked for the BBC in Scotland, Singapore and London, including editing the flagship programme “Outside Source”. Three of us on the team started the 50:50 diversity project, which has since grown to become a global alliance of more than 100 partners in 26 countries.

CECILIA CARLSSON

When we left Sweden for Hong Kong in 2003, my husband Ulf – a handball player who ended up in fintech – and I decided to make the most of what we thought would be a short adventure. Some 18 years on, Hong Kong is home; it’s where our three daughters grew up, and where the adventure has never ended. With my background as a news researcher with Sveriges Television, I have always been drawn to the vibrant news hub that is the FCC. FIONA CHAN

I am a solicitor, and was educated first in the New Territories and subsequently in England. Music is very important to me and I recognise its importance to others, including those less fortunate than me. Prior to my legal career, I was a part-time piano teacher for five years in a community centre in a housing estate. I belong to a new generation of Hongkongers and I hope to be given the opportunity to bring new thoughts and perspectives to FCC members – both those connect with my profession and beyond.

VANESSA HEMAVATHI

I am Singaporean and relocated to Hong Kong about six years ago.

I have had several interesting career pivots, having started out as a chemistry teacher in Singapore before switching to travel as a flight attendant with Singapore Airlines. Subsequently, The Wall Street Journal brought me to Hong Kong. I currently work in finance and lead a charitable organisation called Help for Children Asia. As an ardent arts and literature lover, I especially enjoy watching plays.

SIMON JANKOWSKI

I am originally from Australia and moved to Hong Kong in 2018 as security director at BT specialising in cyber security. Previously, I had often travelled to Asia for work and had always loved Hong Kong, so I jumped at the opportunity to move here when it arose. In my spare time, I am a freelance photographer and techie. I love the atmosphere of the club and its members.

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STELLA LAW

I am a mother of two, a chartered surveyor, an accredited appraiser, a columnist for several financial magazines and newspapers, a parttime lecturer at HKU Spaces, and also an entrepreneur. I founded my own company, CHFT Advisory and Appraisal, in 2014. One of my missions is to bring the power of technology to the industry and fuel the expansion of my firm’s global business. In 2019, I was selected as a rising star by the American Society of Appraisers and I also won a Golden Bauhinia Women Entrepreneur Award (Innovation Technology) recently.

JACK LEE SAI CHONG

I am active both as an art historian and critic, and often comment on Hong Kong’s art and cultural scene. Apart from teaching in various universities, my major interests are the study of Hong Kong art, motoring history and food culture. One of my recent publications was Motor Heritage in Hong Kong – From the Postwar Era to 1960s, a research project funded by Wilson Heritage. As the founder and vice chairman of the Hong Kong Art History Research Society, I write regularly for the press, including several automobile magazines.

AMBROSE LI

For the past three years I have produced documentaries and news features for a local broadcaster. In my previous life, I trained as an art historian and worked at a 1,000-year-old English castle, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Life has taken me to Hong Kong, Canada and the UK. Consistent with my wanderlust, I study Italian in my spare time, and hope to be able to live in Italy at some point.

Some of my favourite things include dogs, wine, hiking, cooking, and museum-hopping – maybe not all at once.

KANE MAK

I am a lawyer by profession, with a dispute resolution and contentious regulatory focus. While the more interesting aspects of my work involve handling regulatory and criminal investigations and whitecollar defence, the real joy comes from occasionally officiating marriages for friends and other couples as a civil celebrant – after all, it’s one of the happier occasions in life when one needs a lawyer. You will probably see me around the club during weekends with my wife Ruby and mischievous one-year-old son Ryan.

MIHIR MELWANI

I’ve reported from all corners of Hong Kong for international and local outlets, most recently on the city’s underground street racing scene.

I’m always on the hunt for weird and wonderful stories. I was born and raised in Hong Kong. Second home – Whistler Mountain in Canada.

I have a background in mechanical engineering. Young journo, big dreams.

PETER NG

I am a litigation solicitor with Herbert Smith Freehills. I was born and educated in Hong Kong, and have spent time studying and working in London, Beijing and Kingston, Ontario. I enjoy going to classical concerts and operas (my favourite is “Der Rosenkavalier”, and a good beer. Lately the pandemic has made it possible to enjoy both at the same time – with the help of online streaming. My wife Stephanie and I are thrilled to be joining the club.

THE CORRESPONDENT

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JULY 2021

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NEW MEMBERS

ANITA O’SULLIVAN

Growing up in Poland, the thought of travelling outside the Eastern European bloc was something I never envisaged. I still remember the sense of freedom when I got my first passport after the fall of communism in the 1980s. After graduating from the Warsaw University of Technology with a master’s degree in chemical engineering, I joined the biggest gas company in Poland. But after qualifying and working as an engineer, the funny thing is, I have spent most of my professional career working in the finance industry.

JADYN BEVERLEY SHAM

I grew up in Melbourne and came to Hong Kong in 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis. A year later, I found my first job with Bloomberg TV Asia and my career in journalism took off. Reuters became my next base as I continued to thrive in business news. In September 2018, I began working for CNN – my first gig in hard news and I got a heartfelt taste of it during the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

Today, I continue to follow the Hong Kong/Taiwan story, US-China relations and any animal stories we can find around the world.

NICK TURNER

These days, I work as a lawyer, but I started out as a journalist of sorts. In the early 2000s, I wrote advertorials for Women’s Wear Daily in New York City. Think legwear, Fashion Week, and cotton fabric – real hard-hitting news. Not bad for a hayseed from Nebraska, but a fashionista I wasn’t. After some time in Washington DC and Los Angeles, I shipped off to Hong Kong. For work, I advise banks and other companies on US administrative law, mainly economic sanctions. I’m a co-chair of the American Chamber of Commerce’s Law Committee and a RUSI Associate Fellow.

TAE YOO

My family and I came to Hong Kong from Chicago, Illinois, in 2008. We’ve also lived in Singapore but in 2011 I joined Hong Kong Exchange & Clearing. I love Hong Kong for its diversity, culture, food and vibrancy. Living in Asia has been an eye-opening experience for us as Korean-Americans. It has given us the opportunity to travel all around the region over the last 13 years to learn more about culture, history and food. n

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THE CORRESPONDENT

18/6/2021 5:59 PM

OBITUARY

SOUNDING TAPS:

A SALUTE TO JIM SHAW

by Patricia Malone and Greg Nickels

THE CORRESPONDENT

13 New Members 10.indd 43

PHOTO: PATRICIA MALONE

O

lder members will be saddened to learn of the death of James “Jim” H Shaw. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jim spent much of his childhood in Louisville, Kentucky before moving to Birmingham, Alabama, where he finished high school and graduated from the University of Alabama with a journalism degree. After college he worked for the Huntsville Times in Alabama before joining the US Army.

After his stint in the army, spent mostly in Japan, he went to work for Pacific Stars and Stripes, Asia bureau. Recalling his first day at work, he later wrote: “Stripes at the time occupied a run-down old wooden building. The newsroom would have looked familiar to anyone who’s ever worked in one. Tobacco smoke. Coffee cups. Stacks of papers. At one end was my future home: the copydesk, a real copydesk with a slot in the middle where the slot editor sat and doled out stories.”

While in Yokohama, he met his future wife, Kaoru. After their marriage they moved to what was then Saigon, South Vietnam, where Jim was promoted to editor.

Just before the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Shaws relocated first to Bangkok, then to Happy Valley, Hong Kong, where they lived for 20 years while Jim edited Off Duty magazine. He also taught their Siamese cat to use the toilet by progressively lowering its litter tray down the bowl.

At weekends, Jim and Kaoru and a group of media friends took off on an old fishing junk, the Li Po, for swimming, dinghy sailing and even barbecuing on the boat. The Li Po came to grief not through fire but storm, when Typhoon Ellen rampaged through Aberdeen Harbour in 1983. The group promptly bought the Li Po II. During the 1980s, Hong Kong was Asia’s publishing centre, with many regional magazines edited and printed here.

Jim was a founder member of the Hong Kong Magazine Editors group, which met

Happily afloat: James H Shaw, 1 June 1929 – 11 December 2020.

for lunch once a month either at the FCC or on the tab of some grateful hotel manager.

Wherever they lived, but especially in Hong Kong, the Shaws made life-long friends. Jim loved working, boating and travelling, not necessarily in that order.

They returned to the US in the late 1990s, moving first to Los Angeles, then to New Bern, North Carolina – which had a climate very like Hong Kong’s, Jim claimed – before settling back in his childhood home, Louisville, in 2010.

Jim enjoyed an enriched and leisurely life until he became ill late last year. One of the highlights of his last full year was a 2019 reunion of many friends and colleagues from his time in Hong Kong. A friend recalls the sensation of sipping mint juleps, sitting on the porch assailed by the smell of magnolias, in a warm southern sun. “He was that easy to be with.”

Jim is survived by Kaoru, and several nieces and nephews. n

Jim was a founder member of the Hong Kong Magazine Editors group, which met for lunch once a month at the FCC.

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SPEAKERS

SPEAKING OUT ABOUT SPEAKING OUT After facing a challenging 2020, journalists based in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand joined the FCC to discuss how the pandemic has affected press freedom in Asia. By Morgan M Davis

Clockwise from top left: Keith Richburg, Gwen Robinson, Barnaby Lo, Ate Hoekstra, Ed Davies.

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Davies, Southeast Asia news editor for Reuters and president of the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents’ Club, says the law is open to broad interpretation. What regulates defamation, hoaxes and hate speech can easily be used to suppress the media online, he says. The law also allows the government the right to restrict internet access, as it did in West Papua in 2019 in response to civil unrest.

A similar situation exists in Cambodia, where the government has been quick to condemn “fake news,” says Ate Hoekstra, a freelance correspondent based in Phnom Penh.

The Phnom Penh Post reported in January that the government identified 1,343 cases of what it judged “objectionable or illegal material” in 2020. That resulted in three media licenses being revoked.

PHOTO: MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP

L

ast year was difficult for people around the world, and journalists, in particular, faced challenges on new fronts, battling harassment, attacks by the police and the manipulation of laws meant to punish reporting. In Asia, the struggle was acute. Of the 180 countries ranked

by Reporters Without Borders in its annual World Press Freedom Index, only two countries in Asia made the top 50: South Korea and Taiwan. Many countries in the region are near the bottom of the rankings.

During the FCC’s 3 May Zoom event, four panelists told moderator and FCC President Keith Richburg that the COVID-19 pandemic has created new barriers for reporting, as governments are particularly sensitive about how their response to the virus is perceived.

“Governments are not going to take very kindly to any suggestion that they have screwed up this phase of COVID management,” says Gwen Robinson, editor-at-large of Nikkei Asia and past president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand.

COVID has provided an excuse for governments to tighten their hold on the media, and control the narrative, while ensuring that vaccine updates and virus case numbers look as positive as possible. Countries like Thailand, which relies so heavily on international tourism, have been sensitive to any news that appears critical and could hurt the reputation of the country abroad.

How to approach critical reporting varies by country.

In Indonesia, the Electronic Information and Transaction Law has been in place since 2008 to govern the internet. Ed

The Cambodian government has been swift to identify “fake news”.

THE CORRESPONDENT

18/6/2021 6:00 PM

WEBINARS

In Case You Missed It

PHOTO: MARIA TAN / AFP

Check out a few of our recent discussions:

The Biden Administration’s Foreign Policy Challenges in Asia Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s press conferences are strictly controlled.

Hoekstra says the situation is concerning, seeing as the government has gone so far as to deny the existence of food insecurity in locked-down areas, despite photos and local reports showing otherwise. Hoekstra says there is an atmosphere of fear in the country, and things are only getting worse. The government, he points out, is drafting a cybercrime law that could hit press freedom even harder.

“It really seems that the government is trying to make it more difficult for the independent media,” says Hoekstra.

Often governments and leaders have moved beyond the “fake news” trope to simply and openly condemn accurate reporting that puts them in a bad light. Robinson says she’s noticing a trend toward calling out news for “spreading instability,” whether or not it is “fake.” That makes it easier to punish and jail reporters for criticising the state, she says.

Barnaby Lo, a freelance foreign correspondent based in Manila, Philippines, says the Rodrigo Duterte administration even controls the type of questions that can be asked during press briefings by requiring questions to be submitted in advance. That way, the government can cherry-pick questions and ignore reporters who veer off message. Journalists pushing for more may be cut off by a “technical glitch” during a video call, he says.

“That really affects our reporting because we don’t get to ask critical questions,” says Lo. In the Philippines, citizens are already suffering from a lack of reliable information in general. In May 2020, the government allowed the broadcast licence of ABS-CBN (the country’s biggest broadcast network) to lapse, effectively stifling a news source.

While Lo does not feel directly threatened, as he works for international media, he notes that the situation is dangerous for journalists who push too far. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, four reporters and media staff were killed in the Philippines in 2020.

Lo says: “We have a president who treats the press as his enemy.” n

With Ambassador Christopher Robert Hill, Former Head of the US Delegation to the Six Party Talks During a Zoom event on 7 April, American diplomat Christopher Robert Hill explained how US President Joe Biden has brought about a new approach to international relations. Hill broke down how the new “foreign policy for the middle class” affects US relations in Asia.

Conspiracy Theories and Online Violence With Marianna Spring, Specialist Disinformation Reporter, BBC Marianna Spring was hired as BBC’s first specialist disinformation and social media reporter a year ago – just in time to cover the pandemic. During her Zoom event on 8 April, Spring shone a light on the difficulties of her beat, and how she spent her “crazy first year down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole.”

Belt and Road at a Crossroads: What’s Next for Xi Jinping’s Signature Project?

With Jonathan Hill, CSIS; Nargis Kassenova, Harvard University; James Wang, Bay Area Hong Kong Centre/Belt and Road Hong Kong Centre On 29 March, a panel of experts took a look at China’s Belt and Road initiative. The country’s pet project has brought infrastructure to developing nations, but has also attracted criticism as to how Beijing is wielding its power around the world.

Interested in the full conversations? Watch them on YouTube at “FCC HK”.

THE CORRESPONDENT

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BOOK REVIEW

NEW BOOK

DAVID, GOLIATH AND THE END OF THE TRAIL

T

he breakneck speed of recent events in Hong Kong now has a book that manages to keep up. Stephen Vines’ account of the past three years takes us well into 2021: only the necessities of printing halt his narrative.

That he has managed to cram over 300 pages full of reportage, narrative, interviews and statistical analysis, together with pen portraits of the main players on either side of the political divide, is a tribute to the author’s energy and formidable powers of organisation. The writing is brisk, assertive and never gets in the way of the story. As the story might be one of the pivotal events of the decade, that’s a substantial achievement.

Yet for all its drive and timeliness, Defying the Dragon: Hong Kong and the World’s Largest Dictatorship already feels like history rather than current affairs.

It is published at the precise moment that Hong Kong’s faltering, fractious history as a kind of democracy is closed. From now on, Legco will be populated exclusively by patriots whose only qualification for office will be the ownership of a small rubber stamp.

The present participle in the title suggests that the democracy movement and the majority of Hongkongers continue to defy China. His final chapter is more doubtful.

It’s called “Endgame?” That question mark is interesting.

There’s no such punctuation mark over the Chinese Communist Party’s own endgame now that it has enacted the National Security Law (NSL). Nor has there been since the chairman of China’s Legislative Affairs Commission, Shen Chunyao, announced at a press conference that Beijing will “exercise full control over all aspects of policymaking in Hong Kong”.

Vines has the reporter’s – and the historian’s – knack of spotting a big moment which the rest of us may well have forgotten or overlooked. That is one of the book’s strengths.

Prophecy is not.

“There is every reason to believe,” he writes, “that Hongkongers will continue demonstrating the same resilience and creativity that drove the 2019-20 uprising.”

Perhaps so, but he does not venture to say how. Either he

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does not know what the opposition’s next move will be; or he’s not saying; or they, understandably, are not telling.

Balance and equivocation are also not facets of Vines’s narrative. The 2017 Netflix documentary about Joshua Wong (whose words appear on the cover urging “anyone who cares about Hong Kong and China” to read the book) was subtitled “Teenager vs Superpower”. There’s no superpower in Vines’s book, but “The World’s Largest Dictatorship”.

No equivocation either: in his view, China’s, and Xi Jinping’s, actions in Hong Kong follow the progress of all dictatorships and dictators.

And that progress invariably comes to an abrupt and often bloody end. Here, geo-political analysis falls prey to wish-fulfillment. Parallels with the fall of the USSR ignore the fact the former Soviet Union was bust, and its leaders knew it. You can call Xi’s China lots of things, but bust isn’t one of them. Apartheid fell partly because South African business got tired of being shut out of international markets. Yet last year, a record US$11 trillion worth of payments were cleared in Hong Kong.

That does not look like an international capital market preparing to vote with its feet. You wonder if the forced kowtowing to Beijing on the NSL from the SAR’s business community is actually that forced at all. Business craves stability. Xi is obliging.

This is an important book whose importance will depend on when and where it is read. The timing is immaculate: it appears at a time when the post-Trump West is getting serious about articulating a concerted, meaningful position on China. As for where, only a few favoured politicians and censors will bother in China. Perhaps that will be the case in Hong Kong, too. But for policymakers in Brussels and Washington, London and Tokyo, the book will be an absolute page-turner. n Pick up a copy at the FCC or online via hongkongfp.com.

PHOTOS: SUPPLIED

Stephen Vines’ prescient new book pulls few punches as it traces the furious face-off between Hong Kong and the motherland. By Mark Jones

THE CORRESPONDENT

18/6/2021 6:00 PM

READING LIST

SO MANY BOOKS, NOT ENOUGH TIME

PHOTOS: SUPPLIED

Grapes, a cat, medical anecdotes: our distinguished guests’ recommendations are nothing if not eclectic.

Former Judge Henry Litton, who spoke about the challenges facing Hong Kong’s legal system, not only touched on his own book, The Dance of Folly – Or How Theatrics Have Tarnished The Rule of Law, but also gave a whole-hearted recommendation to Nury Vittachi’s (yes, him) The Other Side of the Story.

Surprisingly perhaps, Master of Wine Fongyee Walker admitted to reading, and greatly enjoying, “a lot of trash’’ – especially Georgette Heyer. More seriously, she has also been delving into The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines by George Husmann.

Author and TV host Fareed Zakaria, besides speaking about his own book, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World, also recommended Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.

An examination of the current global crisis, Age of Anger by Pankaj Mishra, was described as “fascinating, but not an easy book to read” by journalist Rana Ayyub, who had discussed India’s COVID-19 catastrophe with fellow scribe Barkha Dutt, who just read The Lancet.

A posse of journalists from other press clubs around Asia who “Zoomed” on World Press Freedom Day were asked about what they were reading, or thought it politic to recommend other people to read. Ate Hoekstra pinpointed Sebastian Strangio’s In the Dragon’s Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century; Barnaby Lo picked Some Days You Can’t Save Them All, Ronnie E Baticulon’s essays and stories from medical school; and Gwen Robinson praised a novel – Lawrence Osborne’s The Glass Kingdom about a young American on the run in Bangkok – and The Dalai Lama’s Cat, a feel-good tale by David Michie.

THE CORRESPONDENT

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LAST LAUGH

ILLUSTR ATION: PEARL LAW

GAMES ON (SORT OF)

W

hile COVID-19 drags on longer than a Carrie Lam press conference, the Tokyo “2020” Olympic Games are set to provide a much anticipated distraction this July and August. Though they’ve been deferred a year, the Tokyo Organising Committee is taking no chances with COVID-19 by banning overseas spectators, mandating masks and discouraging cheering and singing. That won’t bode well for Americans who love to belt out “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the drop of a hat, but works fine for Aussies who barely know the words to “Advance Australia Fair”.

Despite extensive COVID-19 precautions, Tokyo does not seem to anticipate adequate social distancing – at least, not if the scheme for mass “protection” is any indication. Organisers plan to distribute 150,000 condoms to the 10,000 competitors. By my calculations, that works out to less than one romp per day per athlete for the two-week event.

In true Japanese style, various condom designs will be up for grabs, including national flag patterns or gold, silver and bronze motifs for medal winners.

Hyper-prolific athletes will be able to purchase additional skins from convenient vending machines throughout the Olympic village. Unlike masks, condom wearing won’t be mandatory.

The belated Games comprise the usual core sports, plus some new ones, including rock climbing, baseball, skateboarding and surfing. And referencing its unique and ancient heritage – meaning, borrowed from China – Tokyo has also added karate which nudged out other shortlisted and traditional Japanese

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sports such as Sakura viewing, whale slaughtering, and naval battles over disputed territories.

Unfortunately not all the proposed new sports made the cut for Tokyo. Breakdancing, now confirmed for Paris 2024, was one such nominee. The decision not to include it this summer was a massive disappointment for a group of Hong Kong grannies who had perfected their dance moves at various Wan Chai clubs throughout the fourth wave lockdown.

As per tradition, the Tokyo Games will also feature a relay consisting of 10,000 panting, sweatypalmed torch bearers who will shuffle through capital cities in all 47 prefectures of Japan before finally arriving in Tokyo – all during the worst pandemic the human race has experienced since the invention of world wars.

Predicting a lack of interest in the event due to the ban on spectators, Tokyo organisers continue to brainstorm new ways to improve its appeal. One concept under consideration: Combining two or more sports not unlike modern pentathlon and triathlon. For example, golf, which can take around four hours, but feels more like 14, could be combined with boxing. After just one hole, golfers would throw punches until a knockout is achieved whereby the winner takes home a medal for both sports.

Looking past Tokyo, numerous countries are discussing a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Meanwhile, Hong Kong has been confirmed as the host city of the 11th edition of the Gay Games in November of next year. It’s unclear whether spectators will be allowed to attend, but the five-day event should be a lot of fun compared with the stringent, spectator-free Tokyo Olympics this summer.

Rules for the Gay Games differ somewhat from traditional Olympiad competitions in that no qualifying events exist, no times or scores will be recorded, no medals awarded, and thankfully no anthems are sung, ensuring everyone, including spectators, win.

As we unexpectedly reunite with old Hong Kong friends while we queue for our vaccine shots, we can look forward to those great sporting events that bring the world together, after more than a year of separation and darkness. n

New Zealand-born David Cain is a freelance project management consultant who has lived around Asia for 18 years – always coming back to Hong Kong “like a missing sock in a clothes dryer”.

THE CORRESPONDENT

18/6/2021 6:01 PM

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