Apparently, hordes of mainland Chinese and Taiwanese have organised themselves to meet at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney to watch the New Year Fireworks. The first person in line is someone named Wei Ting (groan).
A Taiwanese student with the fitting name of 'Wei Ting' - pronounced 'waiting' - staked his claim at the front of the queue at 3.20pm (AEDT) yesterday.
"As a foreign student, we think the Australian New Year is very fascinating," Chen Wei Ting said, adding that just sitting in the queue overnight was interesting.
Security staff said that those at the front of the line were mostly from China and Taiwan and had organised to meet through Facebook.
Yes, whether they know it or not, people from China (or greater China) have funny and sometimes novel names. And it's thanks to these people that this blog exists. Thanks again and Happy New Year!!
Thank you Cecilie for your fantastic work. Long may you continue!
Just to help clear things up … the novel name Anus is a Creation as well as a Deletion (of the Female name Annus or Male name Janus). So if, in the future, this blog encounters a real-life person with that name, it will be easy to categorize!!!
Here’s how NOT to inspire young scientists: don’t allow government officials to talk publicly about topics that they know very little about. Granted, this is a very broad and general rule that can usually be applied to most situations involving privileged individuals who are in positions of power that are beyond their competence and comprehension.
Really Rita Lau Ng Wai-lan—Commerce and Economic Development Secretary of the Hong Kong government—do you sincerely believe that asking our students to “be more creative” and to “come up with new icons that are unmistakably Hong Kong” is the best way to motivate them? (Reference:Creative cuppa runs over for students from The Standard)
To further demonstrate her ignorance of the way science works, Rita Lau used Hong Kong’s terrible tasting Milk Tea as the prime example to encourage students to be better scientists! That is pathetic and laughable. Telling young scientists here to set up a goal of creating a money-making Hong Kong icon such as Milk Tea is like telling a young Einstein to be creative and aim to make a mega-rich German product that will rule the world! Science doesn't work like that, and nor should scientists!
[Young scientists are told to aspire to create iconic products similar to Hong Kong-style milk tea. Pic Wikipedia]
Without going into detail (here), some useful suggestions on how to inspire young scientists is to first ensure a good teaching environment (i.e. quality science teachers and teaching resources); second nurture curiosity and an enthusiasm to ask questions; and third culture an attitude where business and making money (i.e. Rita’s call to “create a new Hong Kong icon”) is not the priority and instead the emphasis should be on nurturing fun and fascination with how the natural world works.
It seems in addition to educating Hong Kong’s young scientists, educating Rita Lau is warranted too.
Commerce and Economic Development Secretary Rita Lau Ng Wai-lan is calling on young scientists to be more creative and come up with products that are unmistakably Hong Kong.
Lau said although they may face many trials and failures along the way, they should aim at creating a new icon - the way that Hong Kong-style milk tea has become a popular drink.
Invited by milk-tea master Law Tak, Lau and four young scientists - Chan Yik-hei, Stephanie Yeung, Christie Lin and Chan Hoi- yee - gathered to taste Law's signature drink.
Chan Yik-hei, a fourth-year student in electronic and computer engineering at the University of Science and Technology, won an award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in 2004.
St Paul's Convent School Form Seven student Yeung, Carmel Pak U Secondary School Form Seven student Chan Hoi-yee, and Heep Yunn School student Lin were honored at this year's Awards for Little Scientists of Tomorrow.
Lau said Hong Kong-style milk tea is unique and represents the city's culture. According to the beverage industry, local people consume one billion cups of Hong Kong-style milk tea every year.
Law, who won this year's International KamCha Competition - a milk-tea brewing competition - said the choice of tea leaves, milk, sugar, water temperature, time and blending method all affect the drink's quality.
Most importantly, the maker must be dedicated in attempting to brew the perfect cup, he said.
Lau said there are many young people in Hong Kong who want to develop a career in innovative technology. The passion is there, all they need is encouragement and support.
She said the government, through policy- making, hopes to promote and encourage them to make the best use of their creativity.
Lau said the work of scientists was similar to that of milk-tea brewers - they must endure trials and failures, yet remain innovative. If they persevere, they will succeed.
Jeepers creepers! If only Rolex could turn back time … the luxury watchmaker should have spent more of their time contemplating the freakish giant advertisement that is currently being used to promote their driver’s watch, the cosmograph Daytona.
[Can you see a freaky face? No, a watch face does not count!]
The positions of the black stopwatch timers and the angles of their white single dials bring about an amazingly scary and intimidating illusion of Jack Frost or some malevolent madman. It's enough to make the hairs on the back of one's neck stand up! Coincidentally, over the Christmas period the Hong Kong weather dropped to a chilling, crisp and cold 10 degrees C which is a shivering reminder of Jack Frost, Father Winter or Old Man Winter.
[Rolex's frightful advertisement looks down menacingly on the public from the New World Centre]
At this time of year hordes of tourists and locals alike, who take the Star Ferry ride from Central to Tsim Sha Tsui to enjoy the harbourfront Christmas lights, will certainly see the evil face of a sinister snowman in the distance looking menacingly down on them.
Is this inadvertent illusion Rolex's creepy Christmas gift to Hong Kong? Lol.
Winkie Yeung (Ms), Instructor in Dental Surgery Assisting, School of Dental Surgery Assistants, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Well, a habit really. Ever notice what Rafael Nadal usually does just before he serves?
As he bounces the ball on the court with his racquet in his left hand, Rafa uses his right hand to pick his ass and then brings it up to his face or nose and then swipes the hair over his left ear and then over his right ear before catching the ball.
You can see this at 0:38 in this following example:
You can see this Nadal habit every time you watch this amazing tennis player play. Most recently, I saw this during the off-season charity matches between Federer and Nadal that were broadcast from Zurich and Madrid.
Since Roger Federer has faced his number one nemesis many times, it must be pretty frustrating for the Fed Express to see Rafa's habit all the time before a Nadal serve. One plus point is that it could be an unconscious nervous tic, which should be positively psychologically exploited by Federer.
The reason I took notice of this music video was the cameo by John McEnroe. His appearance and expressions was the only funny bit of the entire I Just Had Sex video (see pics below)! Good ol' Big Mac!!
However, it must be acknowledged that it is pretty amazing for this video to get over 6 million hits in 3 days, and over 12 million in 5 days.
Impudent, insolent and ill-mannered Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli has apparently been inspired by a British animated classic, Wallace & Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers.
Feathers McGraw and Mario Balotelli disguise themselves as chickens (pic from The Telegraph)
Sporting such headgear perhaps demonstrates that Balotelli doesn’t care about what others think and also emphasizes his rebellious and defiant streak. The 20-year-old Manchester City striker is infamous for his sulky, spoilt and sparky temperament. There’s no doubting his footballing talent though and, having just won Tuttosport’s 2010 Golden Boy award (for the best European player under the age of 21), he has reiterated his supreme arrogance by stating that out of all the previous winners only Lionel Messi is better than him.
I caught Pink’s catchy song on the local radio this morning. I knew there were swear words and so listened intently, wondering what would happen. Ultimately, the point of dubbing or deletion of swear words just does not work.
When you know something is deliberately dubbed, it actually induces you to pay more attention to a song (or movie) and then naturally fill in the blanks. The counterintuitive bit is that ... it actually makes you swear more than usual.
Here’s the YouTube version with full lyrics (below):
For any tie aficionados out there, isn’t it odd that Prince William tends to avoid the Windsor knot? Personally, I think the Windsor way of knotting a tie is the “princely” approach. Smart, sophisticated and … er … symmetrical.
Apparently. England’s approach in using The Three Stooges (see Ulaca), or the ‘Holy Trinity’, comprising Prince William, David Cameron and David Beckham was the wrong strategy.
Prince William, David Cameron and David Beckham at the Hotel Steigenberger in Zurich (Pic EPA)
According to Tottenham boss Harry Rednapp, who has an uncanny tactical knack of looking at things, England should have used sexy eye candy from England’s ‘finest’, and he named Jordan as a prime specimen example. At least this is the story according to the Daily Mail and the Guardian.
Would Jordan have swayed members of FIFA ExCo? (Pic Getty Images)
But then again, in the Land Down Under (where Mr Topsy Turvy lives, I think) they are complaining about the exact opposite, in a Sydney Morning Herald article (Misguided bid proved we're not ready to host the globe). In that article, former Socceroo Craig ‘Fozzie’ Foster whined and complained that:
Holland had Johan Cruyff, Guus Hiddink and Ruud Gullit; the USA had Landon Donovan; Korea had Park Ji-sung; England had David Beckham. We had Elle Macpherson.
Go figure!
Supermodel Elle MacPherson’s support for Australia’s 2022 World Cup bid was unwelcome by some (Pic Wikipedia)
This just goes to show that the FIFA ExCo voting system had apparently been decided all along, and all the superficial machinations and last-minute lobbying was further opportunity for the corrupt men of the moment to continue with their extraordinary power trip.
I am always skeptical when volunteers, who are motivated by or associated with religious goups, are praised as “selfless”. Here is an example from The Standard (Praise pours in for `selfless' volunteer) of charity workers who are Catholic.
Are these kinds of people really selfless or have they been brainwashed into thinking that there is an all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful being up there who will grant them access to heaven when they die? Is that the ulterior motive behind all these seemingly “selfless” acts by people who are religious?
Compare this to non-religiously motivated acts of selflessness such as giving blood or organ donation like this example from the same issue of The Standard of a customs officer donating part of his liver to a work colleague (New hero emerges in liver saga), which does not appear to be religiously-motivated.
Porky Chan, registered Chinese medicine practitioner (general practice), Wan Chai, Hong Kong (see also 0634 HKSAR Name of the Day and related comments)
[Does Porky have any specialist knowledge in treating Swine flu? Or will traditional Chinese medicine practitioners leave it to modern Western underwear to prevent the risk of catching infectious diseases? ]
Co Co Lau (Miss), Postgraduate Team, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong [Miss Lau's e-mail address is cococol at hku.hk, which seems to suggest that her full name is really Co Co Co Lau? Pepsi cola anyone?]
Denny Kwok-leung Ho (Dr), associate professor, Department Of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong see 0468 HKSAR Name of the Day
One minor quibble: it is a pity the BTS is only promoting the Halloween Blood Donation Night Party on the Dark Side (i.e. Kwun Tong and Mongkok Blood Donor Centres) and is limited to 100 people.
Nevertheless be it Halloween or not, if you want to give blood, there are blood donation centres in Central, Causeway Bay, Mongkok, Kwun Tong, Shatin and Tsuen Wan.
The Headquarter Donor Centre is at: 15 King's Park Rise, near Wylie Road Opening hours: Mon, Tue, Thur, Fri 9:30am - 4:00pm Wednesday 9:30am - 1:00pm Saturday 9:00am - 5:00pm Sunday & Public Holiday Closed Telephone : 2710 1202
Does this government posturing remind anyone of precautions of similar scale, such as when SARS or bird flu or some other "Asian contagion" broke?
Granted when Megi was a super typhoon earlier this week, 27 people were killed in the Philippines which is probably why government officials were nervous. However, since it appears storm-related damage will affect places like Fujian province and Taiwan more significantly than Hong Kong, let's hope the relevant government authorities in such places will have taken necessary precautions.
Adela Lam Shuk-fun (Ms), personal secretary to Head, Department Of Industrial And Systems Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong see 0569 HKSAR Name of the Day
The pluralism meme is gaining momentum and critical mass, at least in the world of football. It may have appeared earlier, but its increasing use has been significantly noticeable from the beginning of the 2010-2011 football season (examples here and here).
The definition of a meme is “a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena”. It was first described by Richard Dawkins back in 1976, and propagated by Susan Blackmore in her 1999 book The Meme Machine.
Fulham’s Danny Murphy is the latest to use pluralistic phrases, such as this gem:
"You get managers who are sending their teams out to stop other teams playing, which is happening more and more - the Stokes, Blackburns, Wolves."
The following newspapers and media outlets quoted Murphy's pluralistic phrase:
However, The Sun newspaper was incorrect in it’s reporting (no big surprise!). It misquoted Murphy saying:
"Stoke, Blackburn and Wolves, you can say they're doing what they can to win the game. But the fact is that the managers are sending the players out so pumped up that inevitably there are going to be problems.”
What’s even worse for The Sun is that they have posted the video of Danny Murphy’s speech, and you can clearly hear Murphy using pluralism and saying: “ … the Stokes, Blackburns, Wolves”. Poor reporting and transcribing by The Sun.
What Danny Murphy actually said, from 00:31 on the video clip (red text highlights the original speech changed by The Sun), was:
“… you know, the Stokes, Blackburns, Wolves … they can say ‘it’s effective and we’ve got to win games' but the fact is the managers are sending out the players so pumped up that inevitably there are going to be problems.”
The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is reportedly an annual cleansing event for Buddhist devotees (article here). The article says these “devotees go on a vegetarian diet to cleanse their bodies before taking part in processions, where they pierce their bodies with sharp objects, walk over hot coals and carry shrines past exploding firecrackers”.
According to the 'official' website, participants of this strange shenanigan have to be “local residents of Chinese ancestry”. This would make it more of a cultural event rather than a religious activity.
Nonetheless, whether it be a religious or cultural practice, it is still a bizarre and barbaric event that shamelessly promotes itself to the world as being associated with healthy vegetarianism, respectable religious ritual and upstanding cultural tradition. What utter rubbish! There is nothing about the festival that is healthy, respectable or upstanding.
1. Cleanliness of bodies during the festival 2. Clean kitchen utensils and to use them seperately (sic) from other who do not join the festival 3. Wear white during the festival 4. Behave physically and mentally 5. No meat eating 6. No sex 7. No alcoholic drinks 8. People at mourning period should not attend the festival 9. Pragnant (sic) ladies should not watch any ritual 10. Ladies with period should not attend the ritual
Another observation: the concept of vegetarianism is totally different depending on whether it is based on East or West concepts. I prefer the Western treatment of vegetarianism, which tends to have no association with religious or cultural traditions and practices.
Perhaps Thomas Jefferson said it best with: “Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error“. Much error exists in the world and this blog, from the perspective of one Hong Kong SAR resident, is a small attempt to minimize errors.
(this site was formerly HKSAR Blog)
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