Hong Kong Stories

“Unemployed Drop-out Youth” referred to youngsters who have dropped out of schools and unemployed. The “Post 80s” generally referred to Hong Kong people who are born in the 80s. The media regarded them as the young male and female demonstrators fond of taking part in parades; “The Nothing-own Persons” are the low-income groups neither own any public housing units nor recipients of comprehensive social security assistance, the MPF account or social welfare service. In the recent years, these groups were given an expression that carried features underlying the social, economic, political and cultural aspects of Hong Kong. At the same time, there harbored a criticizing tone behind the said identity tag. In this episode, the two hosts will share with the other four youngsters their life experience and the significance of the tag to themselves. In this way, we would be able to understand better of the life and spiritual features of the current generation.

In olden days, people in New Territories tried to go a long way to city to make a living. But for nowadays, because of the high rent in city, people tend to move to countryside for more space and fresh air. Our compere Leila CHAN is one of these post New Territories dwellers. She enjoys the scent of beautiful flowers around her house and the warm friendship with her neighbours. Her neighbours Man and Helen are nice farmers. From them Leila learnt how we can live in harmony with nature.

In average, every Hong Kong citizen produces 2.5 kilograms of city garbage everyday, of which over one-third is the kitchen waste food. In other words, one-third of the rubbish that Hong Kong people daily throw away involved food. Most of the food became rubbish amidst they are still in an eatable condition. Food wastage means the wasting of the world’s resources. This is an issue that calls for environmental protection awareness and thus becomes a serious problem in Hong Kong. In facing environmental crisis, Hong Kong people who are environmental-conscious, set off their life with among choices of food. They simply practice what they preach from the choices of the food they’ve taken in. The self-proclaimed “barbarian life-style” young man would eat photo chips remaining from the leftover of the chain fast food shop. He is not without money but he only wishes to remind others not to waste the food. He moves to outskirt areas, whereby dwellers over there do the cooking with woods. They eat locally grown vegetables. The said young man hosts local eco-tour. Also, he exemplifies his own life style to others so urging people not to waste food and ruin the environment. Zoey is working for a community organization in charge of the food recycle project. Every day, she and her sisters would go to the market food stalls to recover the vegetables left unsold. The vegetable vendors have no money to stock up the leftovers and so throwing them away. Zoey would then recover them as the cooking ingredients and turn them into cheap lunch for the people who wish to take the food. This is done in the hope to avoid wasting the food in landfills. Cheung Chi lives in a rural hut. He turns his own backyard into an organic field growing kitchen wastes and lives on a self-sufficient life. He runs a vegetarian restaurant in his own house and he believes that vegetarian diet can help reducing wastage and pollution as far as the earth’s resource is concerned. By conducting survey on th

In view of Hong Kong today’s new generation, we wish to see whether people like to form for themselves a family of two members or just a single member in a household unit? In this episode “Single Household”, we have reviewed people of various ages and backgrounds of how they have spiced up their own living. Interviewees included veteran stage actor Mak Chau, teacher Ron, manager Kobe, clown actor Jason and photographer William of whom we will explore their mentality behind the notion of “One-Person Family”.

In the recent years, Mainlanders were classified by Hong Kong people as big spenders indulged in an orgy of spending; if not be that, they were labeled the intruders of local resources. There formed a general perception on the Mainlanders in our local society; however, we barely perceived the difference in the niche. In this episode, we will focus on some Mainland students who are studying abroad. This is related to a group of University students who have furthered their studies in Hong Kong. The trend kicked off probably 10 years ago when Hong Kong’s Tertiary Institution gradually admitted Secondary and University students from various mainland provinces, whereof such a tendency has gradually turned into a micro-trend. Take for an instance in year 2011, there were nearly 300 Mainland high-school students admitted to the universities in Hong Kong. After they graduated, they might stay in Hong Kong to continue their career here and become permanent residents in Hong Kong after 7 years. They are thus entitled to the benefits given by this city. As the economic and trade exchanges between Hong Kong and China is getting increasingly closer, these Mainland graduates who are well versed in Putonghua plus their domestic background of China have gathered a pool of talents for our business sector to choose with. In this episode, the three interviewees are undergraduates and green to the workplace setting. We’ll see how they have absorbed the local culture and accommodated themselves to a different place. Also, we’ll see how they have contributed to their hometown after returning home. We’ll be surprise to find that they are very much different from the Mainlanders we used to have in our imagination.

To incorporate work into one’s personal pursuit and by doing so to enable one to dominate one’s life style of becoming his/her own boss or a freelancer. Stability and settled life is no more the core factor of consideration. Quite the reverse, personal satisfaction ought to be the biggest drive behind everything. In this episode, we have interviewed a group of freelancers to see how they have led their life: 1) Chan Keung (陳強 )quits his DJ job and changes to work for a magazine agency, a job which is full of creativity. 2) His partner Lam Yat Hei (林日曦) gives up his full-time radio job but turns for the job of lyric composer and writer. 3) His partner Ah Bu prefers a two-timer work mode; 4) Rita and Cecilia are working hard to pursue their dreams as well as interest in photography; 5) Eddie has found pleasure with image-making work; 6) Bobby holds on to his personal photographic style by merging his interest with work. All in all, it has been more common than ever it is that people nowadays are inclined to freelance job. Mutual support between the individuals is thus becoming more important.

Today is in an IT age where information technology and people’s daily life are allowed to be inter-related. Meanwhile, the development and advancement of technology can be moving really fast forward. In this episode, we have two protagonists James and Henry. From them, we’ll see how information technology can be utilized to bring benefits to us. James Ting, one of the IT protagonists, has created his own music. Since his work involved the use of computer and thus he would have to pay a lot of attention to technology development, like the popular tablet pc in recent years. James has made use of tablet pc in his music production. In such a way, his students are motivated to deploy more computer technologies also to their music production. Henry Chung, the other IT protagonist, loves making 3D photos. He stated that 3D pictures take a stronger sense of space in picture composition. Along with the progression in the technology, the mode of picture has been changed from black and white to vibrant colors and from films to digital pictures. Also, followed the growing trend of 3D movies, 3D photography is now getting a lot more popular. That is to say we have already utilized technology to better our life-style, whereby this has been the major irrefutable trend in this IT era.

In the era of information explosion, every single member can take up the role of informant. Below are a number of youngsters who are keen to use different channels to express their concerns over the society. Siu Wai is an inborn humor-maker. He is fond of using his home camera with pops like a piece of green cloth and a wig to make sarcastic short film. His performance has been well received in the internet world and had earned him a click rate of 100 Thousands. Oscar -- a post 90s, six-formed secondary student plus social activist. He would arrive at the scene to observe and record whatever he saw. It is with the hope that his record and report would have aroused more social concerns. Carrie and Jasmine are both active voluntary workers. They would make use of their leisure time to publish magazine by interviewing with different people who waved their dreams. This is a way to disseminate positive message of our society. Kenny – a society-observer. This is the very first book he had published, where he has put down significant figures of the millennium. He wished that people of his age would also share his views and give review.

Travelling is in fact one kind of a cultural exchange activity. To those who loved traveling around the world to appreciate others’ custom, they may also wish to introduce their own culture to the foreign visitors as well. Bird, a Hongkonger, is a travel enthusiast; he has joined an international internet website “Couch Surfing” – which is an interactive platform for giving home reception to newly met backpackers from foreign countries. Stephen and Joise loved to explore the Hong Kong culture. During their spare time, they have arranged a “secret tour” which gives free tour to foreign travelers to get to know more of the genuine untold stories took place in Hong Kong. Barbara was born in Hong Kong and she is crazed about the Western culture. She is married to an Italian who loved Chinese Kung Fu. Recently, she has been working for a Kung Fu magazine issued in Italy. Each year, she would guide an Italian tour for the magazine to Hong Kong. This is a chance for the travelers to learn kung fu from Hong Kong people face-to-face as well as to learn about the local Hong Kong culture. Of the cultural differences and mutual curiosity towards the other party’s culture, no matter it’s visitors from overseas or the local Hong Kong people turning themselves into the tourist guides, this got to be an interesting experience to them both.