The long forgotten Central Police Station of Hong Kong

Remember the heated debates of the Central Police Station and how people argued that the design by Herzog & de Mueron was too big and overshadowed buildings behind it.

After careful research, the Heritage Hong Kong has come up with something, so rather than read the news / listening to politicians debate about it and agree / disagree with the new reporters, why not read the original documents and make your own judgements and give comments?

Do make your comment to Town Planning Board!
Deadline for comments: 27/02/2009

http://www.info.gov.hk/tpb/en/plan_application/Y_H3_4.html

http://www.heritage.gov.hk/en/online/press2009/20090207.htm

http://www.heritage.gov.hk/en/whatsnew/events_08.htm

Summer voluntary work: 1) Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2009, 2) Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009, 3) Fundraising efforts:

Dear all,

I will be doing voluntary work in Japan this summer. In the remote
rice farming communities of Echigo Tsumari, Niigata and also in the
sprawling metropolis of the city of Osaka.

1) Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2009

Echigo Tsumari (Niigata province, Japan) is a city scattered with rice
fields, dotted with hills and a brush of river running in between. The
art triennial is about using public art to revitalise vast amounts of
land covering six farming municipalities.

The story goes that urbanisation, a lowered demand for pearl rice in
Japan and a declining birth rate has meant that schools continue to
close down and the average age of the population continues to
increase. Its a trend that the entire nation will have to face and, in
many ways, what happens in the villages is a preview of times to come.

300 or so artists, mostly from Japan, but also selected from all over
the globe, will gather in Echigo Tsumari this summer to celebrate it's
4th Triennial by creating artworks addressing themes touching upon
the vice and virtues, friendships and conflicts of our contemporary
world.

I shall be working with a Hong Kong artist, Mr. Kingsley Ng (伍韶勁), who has
been selected by the Echigo Tsumari community to create an artwork
amongst rice paddies and village townhouses.

Please follow the link to see one of Mr. Ng's art piece called metier
a tisser musical (Musical Loom)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=HK&hl=zh-TW&v=qXjKmerqHwY

The following are related links:

facebook group:
Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 越後妻有大地の芸術祭

Kingsleys Ng's homepage:
http://www.kingsleyng.com/

Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2009:
http://www.echigo-tsumari.jp/

2) Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009

I shall also be working on an art project for the
city of Osaka under the title 'Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009', an
initiative that aims to bring water back to the city of
Osaka.
Osaka was once known as the Venice of the east due to its rich
waterways. Modern infrastructure has meant reclamation and an
explosion of vehicles on concrete roads instead of water
transport as a way of commuting.

The project aims to stimulate questions about modern urban land use
and explore various themes such as conservation, nature,
city, development, and urban interaction.

The following are related links:

Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009' Touting new city image
http://www.osakacity.org/news/newsItem.aspx?news=370

Kansai in Focus: Waterside with people: for revival of 'aquapolis'
http://www.kippo.or.jp/KansaiWindowHtml/News/2008-e/20081105_News.html


3) Fundraising efforts:

In order to make all these happen, we plan to
have a tour to sponsor the artist, Mr. Kingsley Ng and
his team as well as students who will form a team at Echigo Tsumari
and Osaka.

The tour will be led by Mr. Alexander Hui (許日銓), a trained architect who was
a curator and lecturer from the University of Hong Kong. He also spent
some years as the executive officer of the Hong Kong Arts Centre.
He is currently pursuing a PhD degree and is also actively involved in
many community projects in Hong Kong.

One tour will cover a special preview to Echigo Tsumari to see the artists and volunteers at work.
The other tour will take all to a special visit to the Naoshima,
inland Seto Sea area for a special preview of not only places like
ChiChu and Inujima with the curators but also museums and art sites
under construction by Tadao Ando, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa and Li U Fan in
preparation for their opening in 2010.

If you are interested in these projects / tours / donations,
please email to

James Lam (林自立）
juanjaime@gmail.com

or
Alex hui (許日銓)
huialexy@hotmail.com

Warm regards,
James Lam

Things that brighten my life every Saturday

Before the discovery


After the discovery

More snowing in Edinburgh and food

Night snow scene...



They were in fact car tires making pattern on the snow, hence from the parallel lines, you could tell 2 cars moved back in order to get out.


Biblos Sweet Potato Wedges.... hmm... gems of Edinburgh food that I recently discovered. I can have this 3 times a day.


Home cooked Lamp Chop with Asparagus.... should've added corn for colour effect.
It tasted very lampy, which is exactly what I wanted, and as a result, my flat stunk : )

Snow and view from my bedroom

Pick your favourite, or least favourite, as the case may be.

Makes me nostalgic for the wonderful ski trip in Anzere, Switzerland some years back.

Blog on blog about teaching

I've taken up a part time job of teaching BBC (British Born Chinese) children Chinese. They age between 8 and 12. The hardest thing of all is to be mean and tell them to shut up since they are so adorable, the other hardest thing to do is to not smile and giggle when they are doing the mass reading from the text book. Simply the cutest ensemble of voices you can ever hear besides a baby doing dada sounds.

Anyways, teaching young children is not really that hard, I was afraid that they would be quiet and I wouldn't know what to say. But the problem in my classroom was keeping them quiet. And it is universal truth (if universal truths of any kind exists) that kids are all noisy, creative and talkative no matter what country you are in. And sensitive questions will be asked when you least expect it.

This blog on a teacher teaching English in rural parts of China shows a child wanting to be the first woman leader of the KMT party in Taiwan!!!

On Religion (Christianity mostly)

Never really believed in institutional religions, with it's heavy text and divine guidance making us all sinners before we even know how to pronounce that word and let alone understand it.

I used to be very skeptical about Christianity (be it Protestant, Catholic), Judeism or Islam. Not that I favour Buddhism, Hinduism or Zen, because the level of knowledge I have on all parties is pretty slim, but my skepticism is built around how worshippers of faith can be so blinded by the churches wrong doing in the past.

The crusades, buddhist monks slaughtering nonbelievers, the inquisitions, bishops going to Africa and telling Africans not to wear anti contraceptive devises (which results in the wider spread of aids).

I understand the God's / gods' words, once they touch down on earth, it is interpreted by earthly people who twist the wisdom into its own use and benefit. But again, how can believers be so blind about how corrupted institutions use it to its own benefit in the past. They may have apologised and made people who were real defenders of faith, saints, but that does not make their wrongdoing in the past correct and people should really stop donating their money to churches so they can continue with their elaborate decorations and ride around in nice cars.

But a recent conversation with friends and professors have changed my rushed criticism on institutional religion.

L: "It's basically a good teacher / good friend, I actually can think more rationally and critically of things around me when I attend church services, plus we can never know all the truths and follow our moral principles when tested, so it is nice to have rules in life that governs us."

I agree to a certain extent, as long as its not used on a macro level so that wars will be sparked by religious zealots, I'm fine with it. Easier said than done, like many things in life...

I then asked my history of art lecturer how she reconciles her faith with all the corruption and wrongdoings of the church which is so explicitly placed before her research material.

Dr. B: "We Christians know about the mistakes the church made in the past, but this is like the Nazi and the Germans. The Germans acknowledge that they've made mistakes in the past, but they still live on, being proud to be Germans."

So I guess born a Christianity in a European setting is similar to having filial piety in Chinese families. As Chinese, it is a cultural thing to have close ties with your family and you're meant to take care of them until they die of old age. And as Chinese, we know well that Confucius was adopted simply because one Han emperor decided to embrace it into state 'religion' / ways of living and got rid of all the hundreds of philosophical thinking at the time solely because it would be easier to govern people if we all believed in Confucius thinking. Yet we still appreciate Confucius concepts of governance, family, friendships and work ethics to a certain extent in the contemporary world.

For some sensitive religious humour (my friend's recommendation)

Go for Billy Connelly on religion.

Spoiler alert on swearing about religion.