December 21st, 2006
A collection of Michael Gardiner’s short stories which takes us into the heart of 21st Century Japanese culture. Beautifully written and accurately observed, each of the 19 stories gives us brief insights into the Japanese belief in education (or should I say obsession in prestigious universities?), the duties and roles of men and women, and relationships between people in the digital age.
Linked by a common theme of receiving the best education, none of the heroes or heroines are satisfied with their life. While some would give up dignity, freedom and pretty much everything to get through university, the graduates were doubtful of how far a decent degree can take them – in terms of developing a successful career or building a happy family.
One of the most extreme stories is the ‘Model‘ who lived under 24-hour surveillance so that she could pay her way through one of the most prestigious universities. The graduate in ‘Escalator‘ still worried about the uncertainty of his future, and the tramp in ‘Diamond‘ was once a respectable graduate with a desirable job but ended up living on the street and being abandoned by his family.
I was especially touched by the loneliness and dejection in ‘Exchange‘ and ‘Birthday‘ where isolation was extremely painful and yet wasn’t over dramatised.
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December 9th, 2006
Konditor & Cook has always been my favourite cake shop. I miss the shop in Waterloo which was five minutes away from my previous office. Its latest cafe is at the Curzon Soho cinemas on Shaftesbury Avenue. What could be better weekend entertainment than watching a high quality movie, followed by a slice of the delicious Curly Whirly double-layer chocolate cake?
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December 7th, 2006
I have been living in the East End from the day I arrived in London and I have always preferred it to the less characteristic West. In Dalston, we had a spacious, cool house which was converted from an old factory, but the surroundings were a bit scary and we were never keen to go out after dark. I was always tempted by some of the best kebab shops in London, nevertheless.
It was not uncommon to hear stories about people being stabbed to death at the number 38 bus stop during the day and some guy opening fire at the local McDonald’s. We felt much safer when we moved to a gated community in Bow, where we swapped the exciting area and exotic restaurants for a communal garden, swimming pool and gym.
Both of these places are mentioned in Tarquin Hall’s Salaam Brick Lane, which I was totally engaged by. It took me less than a week to finish this amazing description of East Enders’ lives; I could hardly put the book down and when I came to the end, I really wished I had read it slowly.
I was fascinated by most of the stories and was particularly interested in reading the East End references including the famous (or infamous) Kray twins. As I used to hang out around Brick Lane, it was nostalgic to read about the curry houses, the Jewish beigel (bagel) bakeries, Spitalfields and the Columbia Road Flower Market.
I may go back this weekend.
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December 2nd, 2006
There was another flash mob mobile clubbing event I missed on Thursday, when more than 3500 people turned up at Paddington station and started dancing to the same tune - ‘What You Do (Playing With Stone)’ - on their personal stereo at 7.18pm.
The next flash mob event will be a pillow fight in central London (venue to be confirmed). All you have to do is to turn up with a pillow hidden in plastic carrier bag and at exact given time pull pillow from bag and fight - sounds like absolute fun! The pillow fight in Covent Garden last year was hilarious.
If you want to bring mobile clubbing to your own city and country, simply sign up at the Mobile Clubbing website. Perhaps I will see you at the next flash mob event in Hong Kong.
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November 26th, 2006
My friend Vanessa bought me ‘The art of looking sideways’ for my birthday a couple of years ago and it was an introduction for me to Fletcher’s work. It is a 533-page collection of “anecdotes, quotations, images, curious facts and useless information, oddities, serious science, jokes, memories – all concerned with the interplay between the verbal and the visual, and the limitless resources of the human mind” - a fascinating book with lots of inspiring ideas.
I always like the Design Museum and it was handy to find out that they are hosting the ‘Alan Fletcher: Fifty Years of Graphic Work (and Play)’ exhibition, which was an amazing presentation of Fletcher’s work and ideas. I loved his creative letterhead and logo designs, as well as the playfulness in his other work such as his A2Z boxes/drawers. It was indeed very sad news to the creative world when he died on the 21 September 2006.
My only discontent was that the exhibition wasn’t very big and certainly wasn’t big enough to give a good reflection of a designer as prolific as Fletcher. I am definitely going to read ‘The art of looking sideways’ again tonight.
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November 25th, 2006
I was quite looking forward to seeing a film at the Curzon Soho again and Pan’s Labyrinth (El Labirinto del Fauno) made a fantastic debut to the UK cinemas this week, with a few magical write-ups under its belt. Saddly, I can’t say I agree with these reviewers.
In general, I found the story (or should I say two storylines) a little disjoined - whilst a cruel reality gave the heroine the perfect reason to indulge herself in a fantasy world, there weren’t enough linkages between the two. The post-civil war storyline was predictable but I cared for some of the characters, such as the caring female spy Mercedes and the stammering hostage. I was fascinated by the dark and mysterious fairy world but wasn’t particularly bothered about the little girl or whether she could finish the three tasks to re-claim her crown in the fairy kingdom.
The main problem with the movie was that without an obvious link between the two stories, I found it hard to feel warm about either of them. Perhaps it would be less distracting if the background story (the cruel reality) was less prominent. The interruptions of switching from one plot to another eventually broke my concentration and I ended feeling the movie was far too long.
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October 1st, 2006
While my mum and Lisa went shopping for leather gloves, we decided to get the most out of the good weather and walk up into the hills. It was weird to walk past the flat I used to stay (yes, with the horribly dirty host family!) and the memories all came flooding back of when I used to walk up to the Forte di Belvedare to watch the sunset and write my travel journal.
An astonishing coincidence took place during the two-hour walk — I ran into an old school friend who I hadn’t seen for ten years. It turned out that she was on holiday in Italy for four days before heading back to Hong Kong. We didn’t see anybody else on the walk. SPOOOKY!!
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September 30th, 2006
My mum and Lisa were visiting us in the U.K. so we decided to treat them to a week in Italy. Within the seven day trip, we visited Roma, Firenze, Siena, Castiglione del Lago, Perugia and Orvieto. Despite a previous bad experience in Firenze (including a cigarette burn to my eyebrow and staying with a horribly dirty host family for a month), I was able to re-discover this beautiful city.
We had some gorgeous food during the holiday. However, when it comes to choosing a place to eat in Italy, it is not always that easy to tell a ristorante (restaurant) from a trattoria or osteria. A trattoria is normally a cheaper version of a restaurant; there are no menus, the service is casual and the prices low. An osteria is more of a wine bar that offers a small selection of dishes with a verbal menu. A pizzeria serves pizza but usually has a trattoria-style menu. Brad and I had some nice panini from one of the alimentair (grocery stores) for just a few Euros.
Roma
Our first dinner in Roma was at a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet Italy Guide, called La Cicala e La Formica, which is a little restaurant with some delicious simple dishes. My mum and Lisa seemed to enjoy their Carpaccio. I forgot how laid-back Italians are especially when it comes to food - they spend hours in restaurants relaxing and chatting with friends until midnight - not so profitable for the owners I guess, but they didn’t seem to mind.
Firenze
We liked the reasonably-priced fast-food from the covered food market near Piazza San Lorenzo. It is a perfect place for lunch especially after an exhausting shopping trip along the open-air market for leather goods (jackets, leather-bound books and everything you can think of in leather). I managed to find my way back to the famous food stall just outside the covered market - they do the most amazing beef tripe rolls and they were as good as I remembered from my student days in Firenze. I wonder if Ellen can still remember the taste.
Perugia
It was at Osteria II Ghiottone (Via Caporali 12) that we had the best homemade pasta we’d ever tasted. Tagliatelle con funghi mistie e porcini was the starter for the set menu of the day and the texture of the tagliatelle was perfect - chewy but not too soft or too hard. It also went well with the simple mushroom sauce (although I don’t like mushrooms). I also had the best starter here - its Antipasto dela Ghiottone was gorgeous. I loved the Prosciutto and Salami, as well as the many other small dishes. It costed €12 but was big enough for four hungary people like us (three tiny women and a tall person).
On our last night in Perugia (also our last night in Italy), we bough some dried meat and smoked cheese from a supermarket called PAM, took them back to our hotel along with a bottle of €1.99 red wine, and chatted our way until midnight on our balcony. We were all surprised by the quality of such a cheap wine. It was a fun evening - Lisa was definitely merrier than usual.
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September 3rd, 2006
This year’s BQ Market was much bigger in scale than the one last year. Not only was Hudson’s grocery store was involved, the New Ark restaurant and bar were giving away free curries and snacks. There were more than 20 stalls selling photographs, bric-a-brac, CDs and books in the morning. There was a fair amount of people coming to see the stalls and buying things. Unfortunately, there were quite a few people losing their vases and dishes due to the strong wind. I lost one of my photos to the fish pond and sold a few of the others in the early afternoon.
A party started at three in the afternoon when there was a live band playing and free food. I have never seen so many people sitting outside and socialising. The weather turned out to be really good in the afternoon and the party didn’t stop until late evening.
I am already looking forward to next year’s market. I feel like I am learning something new about setting up a stall every year.
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August 29th, 2006
There is an interesting article on the BBC web-site today — Bonfire of the Brands is about a music promoter and style magazine editor Neil Boorman’s decision to burn all his branded belongings, from his Gucci’s shoes to Habitat chairs and even Simple soap.
I immediately thought of William Gibson’s most recent novel Pattern Recognition. The story’s protagonist Cayce Pollard is allergic to brands and works as a ‘consultant’ to detect the effectiveness of brands and logos.
I can’t help but think that Cayce would have had a hard time if she was moving to Hong Kong instead of London. Branding is everything in Hong Kong, from fashion to gadgets, the nation and even education. Unlike the Oxbridge brand which represents high-level intellectual accomplishments, some private institutions in Hong Kong like to ‘brand’ their tutors as pop idols. I don’t know whether I should be laughing when seeing these ‘English tutors’ posing on their web-sites as if they are selling the latest summer fashions from Gap. It was not funny when I heard their English pronunciation and failed to find any English version of their web-site.
Branding is so important in Hong Kong that even the Government commissioned a Brand Hong Kong programme to communicate Hong Kong’s unique selling proposition to its target audience. In order to keep the momentum going, the Government also came up with a series of tactics to manage the brand:
"A host of domestic and international promotional activities have been carried out under the Brand Hong Kong umbrella. The visual identity can be seen across Hong Kong, from the Peak to the airport. The Brand and its core values have become an integral part of major events such as the HK Rugby Sevens, ITU 2002, the Forbes CEO Conference and the Hong Kong Products Expo. The Brand has gained wide international recognition as a model for location branding, and other cities and countries have sought to learn from Hong Kong’s branding experience."
Hong Kong brand overview
It does make me wonder how long Gibson’s Cayce could survive in this branded city climate and how big the bonfire would be for Boormen.
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