Drink (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

There's no two ways about it: I do like my drink. Contrary to what some people might think, however, I don't only care for alcoholic beverages! And it really is the case that I tend to choose what to drink based on the occasion but also, for meals, what food is being eaten.

For example, on my German holiday last year, during which I ate much traditional German fare (like was the case when
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This weekend's hiking (and) weather

Blue skies over Chek Keng Hau yesterday

Blue skies over Ngong Ping (and some mist
over Lantau Peak) this afternoon

Just before I set out to Tung Chung to meet my regular hiking companion earlier today, I decided to check the Hong Kong Observatory's website one more time -- and was somewhat horrified to see a thunderstorm warning in effect. For those who are wondering: the two reasons why I
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Video: Kung fu legend Sammo Hung shows us his moves

Sammo Hung, Hong Kong's consummate kung fu filmmaker, has seen and fought them all.

From his early days establishing the unique Hong Kong genre of kung fu vampire comedies -- producing seminal works like "Mr. Vampire" -- to his starring role in "Ip Man 2," Hung is Hong Kong kung fu movies' "Big Big Brother." The "Big Brother" refers to Jacky Chan.

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10 things to do with HK$6,000

Offline registration forms are now available for the HK$6,000 Hong Kong government handout aimed at diffusing public discontent over the city's previous budget proposal.

Residents who want the money transferred directly to their bank accounts should collect a form from one of Hong Kong's 1,000 bank branches, but if you prefer to receive a check through the post, collect a registration form from a branch of Hongkong Post. 

Although critics say the handout scheme is just a sweetener that will aggravate inflation, many citizens are looking forward to the extra cash.

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Busking in Hong Kong blooms

The struggles of a busker are the same worldwide.

No matter which city and for what purpose, the busker has to battle against a government that wants to control where and what they perform, and the apathy of the general public.

In Hong Kong in particular, there are some fundamental misunderstandings.

The Busking Project is a team of documentary makers who are currently capturing the global busking culture on a nine-month, 40-city tour. While in Hong Kong in June, they found that busking is perceived differently here than it is in other cities.

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How acupuncture works

The electrical engineering department of Columbia University and the medicine faculty of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have collaborated on a study that proves how acupuncture works.

Professor Edward Yang of Columbia, acupuncture specialist Dr. Li Geng and former HKU medicine faculty dean Professor Lam Shiu-kum spearheaded the eight-year study, which shows that acupuncture works by stimulating the production of endorphins in the area where acupuncture is administered.

The study was published in the "European Journal of Physiology" in June. Researchers were in Hong Kong yesterday to discuss their work.

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1917. 25th Middlesex Regiment Concert Party

These men were half way through five unforgettable years.

Who: The poster they're holding identifies them as 'The famous "Number Nines" concert party of the 25th Middlesex Regt'.

They live up to their name - each man wears a nine on each shirt collar, and a natty 'number nine' hat on his head.

In their day jobs they were soldiers in the 25th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment.

Where: The poster says their show is held 'At the Grand Palace of Varieties'. If we take it literally, they'd be performing in a music hall in Clapham. (The building still exists as a theatre today, the Clapham Grand. [1])

But the note on the back of the photo identifies the photo's location as Hong Kong. The performers are wearing chinese-styled shoes, so I'm happy to believe it:

The mention of the Grand Palace of Varieties was just a reminder of home to the soldiers in the audience.

What: The poster advertised the show as a 'concoction of original Middlesses at 9 p.m. A cure for all ills, why take pills'.

It may have been a show to the public, or more likely part of the Christmas show  for their fellow troops.

When: A timeline for the battalion helps pin down the date:

• 1915. The 25th was one of four 'Navvie Battalions' raised by Colonel John Ward. The other three battalions ended up in the trenches of France, or dying of disease in Salonika, but the 25th seemed to have had good luck [2]. As far as I can see they remained in England until late 1916, when they were ordered to set sail to the Far East [3].
• Feb 1917, Mined at sea.  On their way around the southern tip of Africa, their transport ship, Tyndareus, hit a mine. The men stayed calm, and all were rescued by other ships that steamed to their aid. The incident, and especially the conduct of the men, was reported around the world [4]. Locally, a stone and plaque near the Peak commemorated the incident, until it was removed to England in the 1990s [5].
• 1917-18, Singapore & Hong Kong. Newspaper reports tell of a leisurely time for the troops. Surely a welcome break after the threat of joining the western front, then shipwreck.
  April 1: Governor of Singapore inspects the troops. Half stay, and the other half continue on to Hong Kong.
  April 30: The St John's Ambulance invite 400 men of the 25th to a Chinese meal at the To Yuen restaurant, West Point, Hong Kong. "The men were conveyed to the restaurant in seven special tramcars. [...] The novelty of the entertainment evidently appealed to the men, who struggled gallantly with chopsticks."
  July 3: The Saiyingpun school visited the Mount Austin Barracks, and trounced the soldiers (13.5 - 2.5) at chess.
  July 18: The Middlesex Band play a public concert at the Victoria Theatre.
  Aug: The Rambling section report 865 individual trips made by troops in July.
• July 1918 The party's over. The ship Ping Suie brought the troops of the 25th from Singapore to Hong Kong. There the rest of the Battalion boarded, then they all sailed to Vladivostok.
• Aug 1918. The troops arrived in Vladivostok on the 3rd August, and were soon digging trenches. Initially, the worst enemy was the local mosquito, that descended on them in hordes [6]. Later there would be fighting. (In an odd twist of fate their allies were the Japanese, fighting together against an army of Bolsheviks, Hungarians and Germans. The Middlesex Regiment had soldiers in Hong Kong again in 1941, but then the Japanese soldiers were the enemy.)
• Sep 1919. Ward, their commander, finally returned to England on 3 September 1919 [7]. I'm guessing the troops returned at around the same time.

So, the photo was taken some time between April 1917, and their departure in July 1918. It was a Christmas show, so that pins us down to 1917. And as a final confirmation, this type of photographic paper (see the 'Velox' stamp box with a diamond in each corner) was manufactured from 1907 to 1917 [8].

---

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions or corrections.

Regards, David

References:

1. The Clapham Grand
2. Chapter 21 of 'Navvyman'
3. Battalions of the Middlesex Regiment, 1914-18
4. New York Times: 'Battalion of Middlesex Regiment Face Death Lined Up And Singing Popular Songs'
5. Tyndareus Stone
6. The Siberian Sojourn Volume II- Chapter 18
7. John Ward
8. Playle's Real Photo Postcard Stamp Boxes

Date picture taken (to nearest decade for older photos): 

1917

Reference: 

DA008

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Massive red tides in Hong Kong summer 2011

Red tides are extremely evident in Hong Kong just now; perhaps resulting from combination of calm hot weather, long hours of sunshine, and excess nutrients from pollution.

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Destination: Ma Shi Chau (Photo-essay)

Why would one want to visit an island with the unattractive sounding name of Ma Shi Chau (Cantonese for "Horse Excrement Island")?! For those in the know, the answer would be "To see its rock formations of course!" For as it so happens, this island in Tolo Harbour which is connected, at low tide, to Yim Tin Tsai via a tombolo is part of a designated Special Area on account of its rich
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Hong Kong social media use higher than United States

Social media use is higher in Hong Kong than in the United States, according to the Blogher 2011 Social Media Matters Study.

Out of 387 Hong Kong residents polled in the online survey conducted in March and co-sponsored by Ketchum, 92 percent visit Facebook, 77 percent read blogs on a weekly basis and 52 percent write blogs. 

Comparatively, only 87 percent of respondents in the United States indicated that they use Facebook weekly, while Brazil notched up 72 percent and Germany 58 percent.

Nearly half of Hong Kong respondents agreed that social media "had a positive impact on their lives."

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Concert in the Dark: Music in 'outer space'

It doesn't get anymore no-frills than this. A series of shows beginning today called "Concert in the Dark" will feature no lighting effects or any visual gimmicks -- just pure unadulturated music, performed live in a pitch black hall at KITEC in Kowloon Bay. 

That doesn't mean it will be dull. Organized by Dialogue in the Dark (DiD), an advocacy group for anti-discrimination towards blind people, the concert will feature big names in Cantopop including Anthony Wong, Joey Yung, award-winning folk singer Yunpeng Chou from mainland China and Hong Kong's own visually impaired musician-brothers Hin Lee and Shing Lee.

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Quick Links (text-only)

(This is the Text-only page. For Graphics page - click here)

Government Records Service click here	Google Books click here	HK Public Library MMIS | Adv. Search | Basic Search
Google Newspaper Archives click here	Hong Kong Government Reports Online click here	"Names of buildings" from Rating & Val'n Dept: HK & Kln, NT.
Legco click here

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Down for Maintenance

Down for Maintenance I don’t mean this website. I mean me – I am down for maintenance. The flashback It was a beautiful Saturday morning. After some heavy thunderstorms, the sun came out. The skies were blue again. The outdoors beckoned. I started my motorbike -Kawasaki Ninja 250cc- at 6am in the morning and accelerated. [...]
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Symbolic (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

As those who regularly check out this blog (and not just its Photo Hunt entries) know, I have a fondness for photos of large spiders that I've come to realize is not shared by some of the blog's visitors. However, I'm actually not sure whether these people know that I also find the webs that spiders weave fascinating as well as beautiful.

Maybe it's the symbolic anthropology training I
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What's Up Smurf?

This summer I won two pairs of tickets to two different premier movie screenings, all thanks to Nuffnang. The first one was for Take Me Home Tonight and the other was for The Smurfs. The former wasn't really cinema-worth watching and hence I didn't blog about it. As for The Smurfs, I can tell you this, I totally wouldn't mind watching it again, even forking extra money for the 3D version too!

Not going to reveal anything about the movie here, don't want to be a spoiler. So the official screening of the movie will be on the 1st of September and here I am urging every single one of you who is reading this to watch this hilarious movie. Of course, to enjoy this movie you have to first love these blue creatures.

We have the joker, Neil Patrick Harris who starred as Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother and Jayma Mays, one of the cast from Glee in the movie. As for me, I was pretty excited to see Tim Gunn, the mentor to all the contestants in Project Runway.

So yeah, that should be my last movie before I head back to Hong Kong. Been pretty useless after I ended my internship. I am determined to pack my room tomorrow! or at least do something about it.

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My Little Airport at Hidden Agenda and Shenzhen

Event Ticket Price: 

HK$150

26 August 2011 (All day) - 27 August 2011 (All day)

My Little Airport's unique brand of Cantonese indie pop have been missing on our stages for far too long, but they're back with a series of concerts in the Pearl River Delta region for the next two weeks. Be warned: tickets are selling out like the proverbial hot cakes. 

Nicole Au and Ah P (Lam Pang to his Mom and Dad) are the undisputed kings of Hong Kong's cult indie pop scene. A duo of whom one must refer to at least once as "twee," their last album in November 2009 was filled with politically charged songs such as "Donald Tsang, Please Die."

With vocalist Au based in Beijing the last few years, we've been starved of new material and live music goodness from the terrific twosome. That is up till now.

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How to take an iconic Hong Kong photo

Travelling lasts days and nights, but the photographs from your trip last forever. Especially when they're uploaded onto Flickr.

Here, we've asked Flickr users how they immortalized Hong Kong in their photography. 

Have you got tips to share with fellow photographers? Send us your best shots and advice to be published on CNNGo through iReport.

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Chinese Guinness World Records holders wow Hong Kong

Kung fu expert holds himself up on two fingers and a woman spins half her own body weight in hula hoops

CNNGo

Guinness World Records holders are visiting Hong Kong's Cityplaza shopping center to show off their amazing talents.

There's a man who can hold several kilograms with his teeth and a woman who can spin 105 hula hoops at the same time. It's the best, and probably only, shopping mall sideshow ever.

In the video below, courtesy of Cityplaza, we see Chinese kung fu experts who hold Guinness World Records. 

Wang Weibo holds the title of “balancing on four fingers for the longest time” and Jin Linlin the "Goddess of Hula Hoops" holds the title for “the most hula hoops caught and spun in one minute." 

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