Kanis Li, reporter, SCMP, Hong Kong kanis.li@scmp.com
About Novel HKSAR Names
Name Category: Creation; Substitution
Enthusiastic reflections about names, the universe and everything, with a positive dose of critical thinking
Devil. Whale. Chlorophyll, Violante, Treacle — you name it, Hong Kong probably has someone who goes by it. Inquisitive, enterprising and...
The first thing that came to mind was canis...
ReplyDeleteThanks AW. It's a dog's life … being a reporter !
ReplyDeleteThing is, hardly anything actually useful or important happens in Hongkers, so you're stuck with the "cat stuck in a tree" type stories (or at worst, "celebrity spotted eating/farting/walking/breathing!") to fill in the time... so being a reporter there is likely even less interesting that other places.
ReplyDeleteThe few times I have watched Hongky news, and the vapidity of the stories was alarming. Like they either ran out of or stopped trying to run informative stuff after 10 minutes max.
Thanks AW. I would tend to agree with you that the purpose of the media is mainly to provide "fluffy" space fillers … until something significant comes along (which can happen anywhere and at anytime).
ReplyDeleteObviously, you have heard of the case of Edward Snowden and the NSA. Things happen … occasionally … and the rest of the time it is just space filling duties for the media.
The Snowden case is really abnormal though, generally very little actually important to more than Hongkers happens there. They seem to have to resort to the "cat stuck in a tree" type stories alarmingly quickly.
ReplyDeleteThey don't seem interested much of what goes on in the rest of the world
Thanks AW. That's one way of looking at it.
ReplyDeleteI think Hong Kong has it's fair share of international news (e.g. bird flu, SARS, illegal trafficking, etc) that breaks up the monotony and boring fluffy space fillers.
I agree with you that the real problem is that the local media, and people in HK, do not pay much attention to important news outside of Hong Kong. Yes, they aren't interested in what goes on in the rest of the world (which is a bit like Americans in the US).