Bad Food in Hong Kong? Is it possible?

Well, of course it is. But I'm so used to reading about/experiencing great HK food that it's sometimes a shock to hear a negative opinion.

This comes from the witty blogger extraordinaire, film-maker and perhaps the best Scandinavian Cantonese teacher in the world, China Droll aka Cecilie.

What I thought was prawn spring rolls turned out to be a kind of deep fried dough with one prawn, a piece of mango and loads and loads of mayonnaise. It was, to be charitable, inedible.

The next “thing” was deep fried tofu, always a safe bet I thought, but it was a kind of goo that had once looked at a soy bean, then turned tail and run headlong into a vat of fish paste, staying there for the next few months before turning up at our table looking exactly like infant’s poo and being, again very very charitably, totally inedible.

Are there any other examples of bad food in Hong Kong?

Link: China Droll

Related: Cantonese - The Movie continues apace

Unhappy China forces Nobel boycott and launches own 'Peace Prize'

In an unusually overt and high-profile move, China has made its displeasure with the Nobel Foundation well and truly known by setting up its own rival 'Peace Prize'. The Confucius Peace Prize is to be awarded one day before writer and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo is honoured as the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Liu has been imprisoned by the Chinese authorities since December 2009 for subversion - his fourth prison term for political offences - and his awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize has seriously aggravated the Communist Party, unsurprisingly.

So much so that it has threatened consequences for other countries if they participate in the prize ceremony which has been held annually since 1901. The threat has been enough to cause 18 nations not to attend.

State news agency XinHuanet says:

Everyone knows that Liu Xiaobo, who is supposed to be "honored" in a ceremony in Oslo on Friday, is an imprisoned criminal and what he has done has nothing to do with "peace. Why did the Committee select Liu as this year's winner?

The answer is clear: Liu has done everything he could to subvert the Chinese government, and that suits the strategy of some organizations and people in the West toward China

Liu was one of the authors of Charter 08, a political manifesto published in 2008 which called for political reform and an end to one party rule in China.

He also played an instrumental part in persuading many students to leave Tiananmen Square during the 1989 protests, saving many lives. Ironically, for those actions he was dubbed one of the "Four junzis of Tiananmen Square". Junzi is a term meaning an exemplary, commendable person and was coined by... Confucius.

Liu is serving an 11 year sentence to run until 2020.


Story: Daily Telegraph

Related: Liu Xiaboa, Wikipedia

Related: XinHua

This guy would totally show me up at karaoke

No doubt about it...



Check out Frankie's Youtube channel here!

Wanted: Chinese males for advertising campaign!

UPDATE:

Dear readers,

Do you know any Chinese males aged around 35-70?

If you do, London-based The Eye casting agency may be interested in using them for a major forthcoming print and poster campaign. The campaign requires Chinese males aged between 35-70 who would be available for a photo shoot in London during the week starting November 29th. Successful applicants will be paid up to £1000!

Please spread the word to anyone you think might be interested!

For full details, please email Carey Mann


Good luck!

Mission Implausible: Asian Man uses movie-style disguise to board plane

A man, likely to be a Hong Kong or Chinese national, has been caught going to extraordinary lengths to disguise himself for a flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver. However, no-one is quite sure what his plan was or how he achieved his professional-looking disguise.

The details being reported are sketchy. Apparently, the Asian man boarded the plane using a swapped boarding pass. This implies that he went through passport control using his real identity then obtained a different boarding card whilst in the departures waiting area. Perhaps he got past security because he had a ticket for a different flight (not to Vancouver)?

Reports suggest the Asian man got the boarding pass from an accomplice (who would have been booked on that Vancouver-bound flight). In which case, what happened to the accomplice. Did he just stay behind in HK?

The plot was rumbled on the flight itself when it was noticed (by flight attendants, I guess) that the 'elderly man' had youthful looking hands. Although, since the disguise was ditched in mid-air, you would think that the sudden disappearance of a passenger and the appearance of a Chinese man from out of thin air might also have raised eyebrows!

A very strange story, indeed.

Story: Toronto Star

New HK movie 'Dream Home'

This looks interesting and kind of different to the usual Hong Kong movie. Stars Josie Ho and Eason Chan:

Side by Side

Being a BBC is a bit like inhabiting two worlds: The Western, British world and the Chinese world. This can be taken literally if you have spent a lot of time in both the UK and Hong Kong. So I wondered if it would be interesting to pair up some familiar, everyday things from both worlds and show them side by side - a sort of pictorial description of the world through BBC eyes.

This isn't meant to show that one side is better than the other or anything; It's just to try and show the 'two worlds' that we become familiar with as BBCs.

What do you think of the pairings? Accurate or off the mark?

(If it isn't obvious, the left side is always UK and the right side HK)











More later... :-)

Photo credits: Priceinspector.co.uk, dlade, rfeldman11, thesocialistway, dailymail, hongkonghustle.com, kellynwrites.com, paperin.org, uk.gamespot.com, webs-of-significance, absolutginger, coinnetwork.ning.com, travlang.com

Introducing bbc-Youtubers, MissYau and bubbiosity!

Asian American youtubers have already gained a degree of fame and notoriety (see thewinekone and Peter Chao)

So it's great to see some bbcs getting in on the act with their own distinctive Youtube channels - and very good they are too. Check out the sample vid from MissYau (aka Garbo from Swansea) below and go to her Youtube channel here.



Keep it up MissYau! Respect! :)

And from Northern Ireland we have a Triad-based epic from bubbiosity who seems to be playing at least three roles here:



You'll find the multi-talented Bubbi's channel right here.

Enjoy!