Today, thousands of people marched the streets in our city to mark the forthcoming 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. Among them was Mr. Xiong Yan, one of the 21 most-wanted protesters at the time. He was finally allowed entry into HK last night, after spending the last 17 years of his life in the States. Danish sculptor/activist Jens Galschiot (responsible for the now damaged ‘Pillar of Shame’ on the University of Hong Kong campus) was a bit less fortunate, as five hours of questioning led the Immigration Department to conclude that we’re better off without this annoying gweilo. Even the gift of two new sculptures was warmly greeted by the finger. Yan on the other hand was of course thrilled to set foot on Chinese soil again. And to be fair, the suit he wore last night almost makes up for that one-way ticket back to Denmark:
Photo taken from scmp.com, shot by David Wong (SMP Pictures)
‘Artist’ responsible for screwing with the photo: Johnny Mountain
Proponents of the teaching of creationism/intelligent design have already attempted to warp us back to the Middle Ages in countries such as the U.S., Australia, Germany, the U.K. and the Netherlands. Hong Kong appears to be next on the agenda. Check out this passage from the new Biology syllabus for secondary schools:
“In addition to Darwin’s theory, students are encouraged to explore other explanations for evolution and the origins of life, to help illustrate the dynamic nature of scientific knowledge.”
Earlier SCMP reported that at least thirty Hong Kong secondary schools with a religious background have admitted to teaching creationism and/or intelligent design as an alternative to the theory of evolution during science lessons.
Hey, Education Bureau! We already have a ridiculous amount of hideous churches in Hong Kong to mess with our kids’ feeble minds. We don’t need schools to be doing the same thing. Our internet-savvy offspring can always surf the web for additional feedback. The late George Carlin for example has been responsible for some excellent material on these matters. Heck, even Jews can be great alternative sources of wisdom.
Hong Kong, it’s time to take a stand to avoid our kids getting brainwashed with Christianreligious nonsense. Sign the petition by the Concern Group for Hong Kong Science Education here. Oh, and as long as our spell to control your online behavior appears to be working, why don’t you sign up here as a new fan of our little blog. Bless you.
And the winners in the different categories of the Stanley International Dragon Boat Championships 2009 are.. who gives a crap. Despite the shitty weather, today hundreds of spectators on land and junks witnessed one of the largest dragon boat events in the world again. One very perceptive reader of the Dark Side just sent in the below image:
Indeed, we were present as well. Not to race obviously, but to consume liters of whiskey-green tea, countless curry fish ball skewers and to occasionally take a dive in the refreshing Hong Kong waters. Our gratitude goes out to the alert water cops for kindly escorting Pushcart Prince back to the boat after swimming dangerously close to all the action. What a fun day.
As swine flu numbers continue to rapidly rise, health authorities are buckling down. Health declaration forms will be carefully inspected and if someone innocently fails to note flu-like symptoms on the form, and are later discovered to have the H1N1 virus, they are subject to imprisonment. Maybe.
This may be Hongkers staying true to form in being freakishly paranoid about all things flu, OR perhaps the government just wants to imprison H1N1 victims as some sort of sick social experiment (no pun intended) and unleash the virus on captured members of the Falun Gong movement. Alright, that may be a tad far-fetched; we’re only kind of in China. However, The Standard yesterday reported that health authorities want to take action against someone who failed to mention a sore throat on their health declaration form. I think instead of prosecution, they should give that lying bastard some ‘new and improved’ Tamiflu. Just kidding of course.
Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok urged us all to be self-disciplined when filling out the forms. Ya, I definitely want to notify the authorities that I have a tickle in my throat so that they can detain me for hours of testing after my 12 hour flight. Sounds like jolly good fun! Although….if there’s an anal probe involved in the testing and we can keep it as a parting gift, people may be provoked to be more honest (at least the more perverted/gay). On the other hand, such kinky measures may not be necessary as York Chow Yat-ngok assures us that “…people do not normally try to hide their symptoms…” – riiiiiight.
In all seriousness, H1N1 could potentially be the next SARS and the HK government really is doing a stellar job at keeping it under control. We should wear masks at the first hint of a cough, and we should be honest when filling out our health declaration forms, despite the lack of anal toy hand-outs. If we all work together we can fight this! Do it not only for yourself, but for the children whose innocent lives are filled with ho….. wait a minute, they’re the little shits who may just have caused an epidemic in Hong Kong!
Hmm… let’s take a wild guess. Wu might have realized his days of freedom were over and decided to get rat-assed, leading to his tragic death last weekend in Taipei. “Oh booo”, we imagine hearing you say, despite the fact that you probably don’t talk to your flatscreen. “Marriage is a beautiful thing and the ultimate form of commitment. Wu’s death was simply a result of being overjoyed.”
Perhaps… imaginary commenter. Yet we do think Wu stands a great chance to win a Darwin Award post-mortem. Out of courtesy and respect, we shall not mock his inability to withstand alcohol (tequila and vodka we get, but beer and wine? Then again, excessive consumption of Coca Cola may be lethal as well, at least in the minds of some) or the change of his facial skin color, as especially the latter is a rather common condition among our Chinese friends. And very amusing.
Poor Doug. Our post from three days ago stirred up so much controversy that all three Langham ‘Big Deal’ episodes have been removed. The videos have all been privatized on Youtube (thanks for tipping us off commenter Ed!) as well.
Blogs such as ‘The Pitch Hong Hong’ and ‘Living in Hong Kong’ picked up the matter quickly, as well as our growing share of Twitter followers. A small selection of responses here, here, here, here and here. And of course we shouldn’t forget the good people who are actually great fans of the material or just fellow hippies, such as our friend Chris here.
The Dark Side comes to the rescue of course. Unfortunately we were only able to retrieve episode I, but it blows almost as much as episodes II and III. Let’s see how long it’ll take before Doug decides to have it blocked for copyright infringement:
Update: And look, episode II is back as well! All hail Miss O’Kistic.
Update II: Today Langham Hotels canceled the entire campaign, as apparently these vids only represented phase I of their exciting social media marketing adventure. The Dark Side at your service.
Update III: Today (16-6-2009) we received an email from Youtube saying they deleted the above vids due to a copyright infringement claim by Langham Hotels. You wonder what took ‘m so long, considering the shitload of bad publicity. We did find the 2nd episode on Dailymotion, click here for more.
Waking up in the same clothes while reeking of ciggies can be a great way to persuade us into a hike for a bit of smog fresh air. However, in two months from now another push to move smoking outside of bars and nightclubs is going to be taking effect. Or will it? Yesterday hundreds of bar and restaurant workers protested against the planned smoking ban out of fear of losing their jobs. Some protesters lit cigarettes (clever!), others subtly threw eggs and tomatoes at a picture of Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok, claiming he had failed to listen to their concerns.
Bar and club owners are pushing for a two year delay, complaining that they will lose even more money if smoking is officially banned on July 1st. The Entertainment Business Rights Concern Group (EBRCG) cites that the current economic climate in combination with swine flu and the drink-driving ban has driven away almost 1/3 of revenues. Hang on… Viruses and recessions we get. Preventing drunk bankers from playing a real-life game of Carmageddon appears to be a solid piece of legislation though..
You’d think one way to get more business is to not charge us HK$ 100 for a vodka tonic, as Club 7-11 is always around the corner. But anyway, it’s now up to the wise men and women of our government to decide whether the ban gets another delay. In the meantime, ignorance is indeed bliss. Just ask the visionary owners of the latest Lan Kwai Fong addition, ‘Ashtray’.
