MetaFilter posts tagged with hongkong

Breaking: NSA conducts espionage on foreign targets

pjenks — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:11:24 -0800

In an interview with Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, NSA leaker, Edward Snowden, claims that the US is "trying to bully the Hong Kong government" into extraditing him, and provides new documents which describe the NSA's routine hacking of targets in Hong Kong and mainland China since 2009, including regular access of large backbone networks. Snowden claims that his disclosure of the new documents is intended to expose "the hypocrisy of the US government when it claims that it does not target civilian infrastructure, unlike its adversaries." Earlier this week, citing "a number of confidential sources," Foreign Policy reported that (reg. reqd.; meta-piece from Business Insider):

a highly secretive unit of the National Security Agency ... called the Office of Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, has successfully penetrated Chinese computer and telecommunications systems for almost 15 years

Rubber Ducky, you're my very best friend, it's true!

yeoz — Sat, 18 May 2013 08:16:34 -0800

We've read about Florentijn Hofman's giant rubber duck before (previously), and it made it's way earlier this week to Hong Kong to spread joy :D

Well, unfortunately, the duck was also viciously murdered (warning: may be graphic to younger viewers), and many already blame chinese mainlanders for it. o<

That's the second biggest pile of $#!+ I've ever seen.

oneswellfoop — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:26:42 -0800

INFLATION! is the self-described "(con)temporary installation" curated by M+, a not-yet-built museum for visual culture at the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong and located in a future park next to the future museum. As you can guess, all the works on display are large-scale inflatables, and the contribution of American artist Paul McCarthy is "Complex Pile", a 51-foot-tall representation of ... poop. Designboom has a gallery of all the pieces, which also include a giant roast pig and a full-sized replica of Stonehenge.

NEWSFLASH: Bad weather and an unseen flaw combined to flatten "Complex Pile" into a representation of a big brown stain. Repairs are underway.

Two Short Films About the Fragrant Harbor

milquetoast — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:34:31 -0800

So Long, My Hong Kong pairs well with Hong Kong in 7000 Pictures.

"Designed in Japan, brewed in Belgium, drunk in Hong Kong"

MartinWisse — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:24:24 -0800

"Yamada had already become interested in beer after going drinking with fellow students around Cambridge, and taken trips to Belgium and Munich to widen his beery knowledge. Listening to Bilimoria talk about his desire to brew a beer that would match up with Indian food, Yamada had a revelation. What about a beer specifically brewed to match up with Japanese food?"

Living Large in Hong Kong.

chunking express — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 14:02:54 -0800

These apartments are so small they can only be photographed from the ceiling. "According to the Society for Community Organization, 100,000 of the city’s laborers live in sub-divided apartment units averaging 40 square feet (3.7 sq m)."

"No to brainwashing!"

monocot — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 00:54:22 -0800

Tens of thousands of protestors have been gathering outside the Hong Kong government headquarters every night since the start of the new school year to protest the introduction of "moral and national education" classes at primary and secondary schools. At the forefront is Scholarism, a student group led by 15-year-old Joshua Wong. Many are furious about the curriculum guidelines aimed at fostering national pride, which glosses over inconvenient historical events and realities in today's China, as well as the government's non-response to calls for publicising actual teaching materials or consideration of a rollback. Dissatisfaction with the new Chief Executive and his government has been mounting since March, with historically high turnouts for the June 4 Tiananmen vigil and July 1 march. This could affect the results of the Legislative Council elections on Sunday.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

gman — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 05:56:32 -0800

Mike McHenry has posted several photo pages of the Chinese firecracker and firework labels he's been collecting since 1968.

The App of Life

nickrussell — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 04:25:47 -0800

"Thanks largely to smartphones, this is probably the best time ever to live in a packed city... Steve Jobs was a lifelong suburbanite, but it turns out he perfected the city." [google cache for those getting a log-in page.]

A Rare Insight Into Kowloon Walled City

milquetoast — Mon, 07 May 2012 06:31:00 -0800

A Rare Insight Into Kowloon Walled City: photos from Greg Girard. Previously.

Disney Parks, Past and Present

filthy light thief — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:56:05 -0800

Plenty of people collect Disneyana, the toys, books, animation cels, and theme-park souvenirs. Then there are those fans who collect information and details on the Disney parks themselves, collecting official park maps or drawing up their own ride blueprints, assembling the design history behind the attractions, and even collecting vintage tickets and ticket books. Yesterland (previously: 1, 2, 3) is an ever-growing collection of Disneyland history, and has an updated collection of links to similar fan sites and Imagineering blogs, which is a whole collection of rabbit holes of nostalgia and behind-the-scense information. So grab a riding crop and pretend like it's the 60s all over again!

Counting Down HK's Top Flicks

milquetoast — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:34:22 -0800

Time Out HK counts down the 100 Greatest Hong Kong Films (along with a mind map of the perfect HK film), while lovehkfilm.com begins its series on the Top 100 Hong Kong Films of the Eighties.

The SAR is not charmed

andrewesque — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:02:54 -0800

"Hong Kong people are dogs," mainland professor Kong Qingdong said (video in Mandarin with English subtitles; "dog" comments are around 1:06) in response to a widely-viewed video (Cantonese/Mandarin, no subtitles, but a English-subtitled news report is here) of mainland tourists eating on the Hong Kong subway, where eating is banned. This has incited an uproar in the former British colony, but is not the only flare-up between Hong Kong and the mainland recently. Hong Kong mothers-to-be have protested an influx of mainland mothers (because of the Year of the Dragon*), who give birth in Hong Kong so their babies will have right of abode and education in the relatively free territory. And Dolce & Gabbana recently apologized after it was alleged that D&G store guards were prohibiting locals from and only permitting mainlanders to take pictures. Shops are accused of catering to rich mainland visitors over local Hong Kong residents. *There is a separate Chinese New Year thread discussing more specifically the birth boom in general; I don't mean to be repetitive -- mods, I hope this is not too much overlap, please let me know if this is.

vintage Japan and Hong Kong

nickyskye — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:10:14 -0800

Old Hong Kong/Macau clips 1949-1989 by Michael Rogge, now 81, who was stationed in Hong Kong and Japan. He documented his life in photos and 16mm film, clips on YT | his YouTube channel | Old Japan in 1870 Engravings. Taken from a Dutch magazine 'De aarde en haar volken' of 1875. Engravings done by French artists. | Old JAPAN in 1869 in engravings French engravings, part of a travelogue, picture a weird Japan. Pictures appeared in Dutch magazine 'De Aarde en haar Volken' of 1869 and were engraved by French artists. Michael Rogge's blog is packed with unusual (some quite flaky in my non-God believing opinion but many are very thoughtful, like An Approach To Living) and interesting links: Javanese Mystical Movements | Subud | On the psychology of spiritual movements | The exciting hobby of collecting CINEMATOGRAPHICA | his own collection | More than one hundred years of Film Sizes | List of vintage movie cameras, projectors, precinema, etc. Previously and previously

Clean, orderly, and entirely devoid of human life

Bora Horza Gobuchul — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:06:53 -0800

The official "StreetView" map of China is eerily reminiscent of SimCity, rendered in perfect isometric perspective without a pixel out of place: Shanghai, the Forbidden City, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. That hasn't stopped companies from trying to create a more true-to-life photographic alternative: there is coverage of Hong Kong and Macau in Google Street View; sanction to cover the rest of China appears to have been given to City8, which covers 40 cities. (The latter site is in Chinese, but Chrome or language plugins do a decent job of translating the content). (Earlier visits to online Chinese maps in posts on the blue are either plagued with advertising, defunct, or outdated, so thought these alternatives might be worthwhile).

Samson Young

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:10:26 -0800

Composer Samson Young leads an impromptu iPhone orchestra in one of his pattern sequencer compositions at the 2009 Hong Kong Biennale, and once more here at the Hong Kong Art Fair 2010.

Mega-City One

Artw — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:08:40 -0800

China is planning to merge the nine cities around the Pearl River Delta, producing the worlds largest city.

dragon whiskers candy, 16,000 honey strings

nickyskye — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:21:29 -0800

Dragon whiskers, honey skein, King's Dessert, Kkultarae, a Korean street vendor shows how to make 16.000 honey strings in two minutes. More looks at the making of this amazing candy, the wows of appreciation are worth waiting for and a close-up at the end. You can try making some yourself. What it tastes like. It's called dragon beard candy in Hong Kong.

Kowloon Walled City

brundlefly — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:51:30 -0800

This is an illustrated cross-section of Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City A 1989 German documentary (with English subtitles) that goes inside of the now-demolished settlement: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 Via io9 Previously

"People are so mean on the internet." - Complaints Choir of Chicago

Kattullus — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:47:37 -0800

The Complaints Choir phenomenon, started by the Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, has spread all over the world since last we paid it any attention, from Birmingham to Helsinki, Hamburg, St. Petersburg, Poikkilaakso, Bodø, Penn State, Canada, Juneau, Gabriola Island, Sointula, Jerusalem, Melbourne, Budapest, Malmö, Chicago, Florence, Copenhagen, Vancouver (2), Philadelphia, Sundbyberg, Milano, Åland, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rotterdam, Basel, Umeå, Ljubljana, Gdansk, Arizona State University, Washington, DC, Horace Mann School, Durham-Chapel Hill, Auckland, Toronto theatre students, Kortrijk, Cairo (2), St. Pölten, Maribor, Port Coquitlam, Ústí nad Labem, Columbus & Kauhajoki (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). For more information, including a 9 step guide to forming your own complaints choir, go to the Complaints Choir website. Finally, here's the Singapore Complaints Choir, whose performance was banned by the Singapore government.

Man in disguise boards international flight

KokuRyu — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 09:43:14 -0800

Man boards plane in elderly disguise (video) Canadian authorities have detained a young Asian man who was wearing a silicone head and neck mask making him appear to be an elderly Caucasian male. First reported on CNN: Man in disguise boards international flight: The incident occurred on October 29 on Air Canada flight AC018 to Vancouver originating in Hong Kong. An intelligence alert (PDF) from the Canada Border Services Agency describes the incident as an "unbelievable case of concealment." "Information was received from Air Canada Corporate Security regarding a possible imposter on a flight originating from Hong Kong," the alert says. "The passenger in question was observed at the beginning of the flight to be an elderly Caucasian male who appeared to have young looking hands. During the flight the subject attended the washroom and emerged an Asian looking male that appeared to be in his early 20s." "It is believed that the subject and the actual United States Citizen passenger (whose date of birth is 1955) performed a boarding pass swap, with the subject using an Aeroplan card as identification to board the flight," the alert said. Aeroplan is a credit card where card holders can earn frequent flyer miles.

A preventable tragedy?

monocot — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:20:16 -0800

25 Hong Kong tourists were held hostage in Manila in a 12-hour bus siege that ended with ten dead and six injured. The deceased gunman, Rolando Mendoza, was a disgruntled ex-policeman dismissed due to drug extortion charges in 2008, in a country suffering from widespread corruption. The police response has been criticised. Many wonder whether the situation could have been handled better. President Aquino's statement.

Sun Tzu would be proud

shii — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:20:50 -0800

Google vs. China, Round 2! Starting today, Google has redirected google.cn to their other Chinese search engine, google.com.hk. Will China be forced to block access to their own domains? Will Hong Kong, home to widespread political protest, be further segregated from the mainland? For the benefit of Western audiences, Google has made a page for us see what's getting blocked. (previously/2)

"You sound like my mom..... My camera was safely cradled on the dashboard, with both hands on the steering wheel."

defenestration — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:03:38 -0800

My drive to work in the rainstorm 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Footage of a drive through the June 7 2008 rainstorm on the North portion of Tung Chung Road on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. On that day Hong Kong experienced 307mm of rain and 130mm the previous day. That is more than 17 inches of rain in 48 hours.

The Loss of Human Scale: Old Hong Kong vs New Hong Kong

milquetoast — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:43:38 -0800

For the last two years, Flickr user HK Man has been collecting old photos of Hong Kong, finding the exact spots at which they were taken, and taking them again. The result, from his first photo of Victoria Harbor to a more recent one of Nathan Road, comprises a chronicle of Hong Kong's unrestrained vertical development over the past few decades. In a similar vein, Gwulo is a community site for "for everyone that is interested in old Hong Kong" and includes photos, mysteries, and discussions -- such as this one about old Kai Tak Airport. More on HK Man at URBANPHOTO here and here. Bonus Kai Tak videos: Overview and Landings over Kowloon.