哈囉 – here you’ll find posts related to Hong Kong. That includes the territory, the culture, business, creativity and history. I lived and travelled to Hong Kong a number of times, so sometimes the content can be quite random.
In addition, I have long loved Cantonese culture and cuisine, so these might make more appearances on this category. I am saddened by the decline in the film and music production sectors.
I tend to avoid discussing local politics, and the external influence of China’s interference in said politics beyond how it relates to business and consumer behaviour in its broadest context.
Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Apple Daily launched a new ad format that I thought was particularly notable that might appear in branding as well as Hong Kong.
If there are subjects that you think would fit with this category of the blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.
Plenty have already covered the OceanGate Titan implosion in more detail. I will not repeat that work but wanted to bring to wider attention how marketers have jumped on the bandwagon. The following advert appeared in the print edition of the Financial Times, placed by Omega watches promoting their Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Ultra Deep series of watches.
‘Seamaster – Precision at every level’ next to a scale going beyond 6,000 metres.
Omega
I personally thought that the advert was too soon after the implosion for good taste. Although the watch community has seen a renewed interest in deep diving capable watches after the OceanGate Titan incident.
Young Japanese are craving fast fashion. What happened? | Vogue Business – it’s the economy stupid, luxury is less accessible. Secondly, much of the youth looks like Gyaru peaked in the early 2000s due to financial issues and things haven’t improved since. Shibuya subcultures were as dependent on the ability to spend as on youth creativity.
The Threat of Decivilisation | Quillette – President Macron when having a Chatham House type discussion with sociology experts used the phrase processus de décivilisation – as a descriptor for the widespread civil and political unrest that has rocked France.
Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron
On the face of it, decivilisation is an appropriate term if Macron believed that there was something rotten at the centre of French society. But the phrase decivilisation is problematic and Macron has been capitalised by French on the political left.
Renaud Camus
The crux of the left’s criticism is a work by the author Renaud Camus. Camus became famous writing a book called Tricks about a series of up to 45 stories (depending which edition you read) about one-night stands he had travelling around the world as a gay man in the late 1970s. Decades later Camus became more famous for his contributions to ideas of the far right, notably the great replacement concept in reaction to increased immigration in France from former French colonies. While these works were published in French they were summarised for English readers in his book You Will Not Replace Us!
In his works he describes the gradual takeover of France as decivilisation.
The left
The left drew a line between Camus work and Macron’s phrase and assumed that it was a way to build a bridge to the resurgent far right in France.
The reality is more complex. The degree of change in French society has driven backlashes in French society, in a similar way that Brexit and small boat immigration did in the UK. The problem for the left is that these reactionaries would have been natural constituents of the left. The left, like in many countries, instead has pivoted to degree educated urban dwellers, abandoning the workers to the far right.
Is French society really breaking down?
It’s hard to tell whether ‘decivilisation’ is really happening. Civil disturbances tend to happen during times of economic unrest and in the past has been a reset. There is a body of opinion who believe that social media has its thumb on the scales, driving things harder and faster without a countervailing force to help balance things out over time, like happened in previous decades.
Japan Rail Companies Limit Train Passes Due to Chip Shortage – these stored value cards also allow consumers to buy things in combinis as well as travel. They are similar to Hong Kong’s Octopus cards. What’s happening to the chips through? Japanese YouTubers have published advisory videos around the debacle for tourists to Japan. It seems to be a drive towards registration as much as anything else
Cigars are still a thing. This looks like a feature length video produced in conjunction between the YouTuber and a cigar manufacturer.
Marketing
Multi-factored reasons in nature why campaigns seem to be working less well. We know that as campaigns have become more digital, campaigns have been less effective and marketers being less confident in their campaigns. Interesting the way brand building on digital is danced around. The channels often dont work and measures are BS only a technologist would love.
I spent part of the bank holiday weekend reading and finally managed to tuck into designer Bruce Mau’s signature book MC24. For those that haven’t heard of him Bruce Mau is a Canadian designer and academic. He founded a brand design agency: Bruce Mau Design which is now part of marketing combine Stagwell. His Massive Change Network (MCN) is in the transformation business similar to Stewart Brand’s Global Business Network (acquired by the Monitor Group now called Monitor Deloitte) and The Long Now Foundation. The philosophy of Bruce Mau and feels like it had been lifted from an amalgam of TED Talks. Bruce Mau believes in a sustainable future with techno-optimist bent to his views.
Bruce Mau, like Robert Greene has principles that seem to contradict each other. Publisher Phaidon have wrapped the hard back cover of the book in an iridescent satin fabric that a photograph doesn’t do justice to. Regardless of whether you think the book is a self-help bible, your creative muse, an objet d’art or something nice to thumb through on a Sunday afternoon Bruce Mau and his book MC24 are ideal.
China
Where China is beating the world – by Noah Smith – interesting article, although it lacks some nuance about Chinese development, consider it a starting point that you can explore in more depth from, rather than the full story
I have alluded to the impact of China’s new espionage law. VisualPolitik has pulled together a good video on how it’s being interpreted by multinationals, policy wonks and politicians. It will have precisely the opposite impact that China would like it to have on its economy.
Consumer behaviour
How many Britons agree with Andrew Tate’s views on women? | YouGov – so much in this. You also need to think about bias in questions, that its done online and the ‘you can think it, but you shouldn’t say it’ aspect of how Tate supporters might think about the questions
Interesting debate on how the ‘evangelical bloc’ has evolved over time from being primarily theological to being primarily political in nature.
How doctors buy their way out of trouble | Reuters – When federal enforcers alleged in 2015 that New York surgeon Feng Qin had performed scores of medically unnecessary cardiac procedures on elderly patients, they decided not to pursue a time-consuming criminal case. Instead, prosecutors chose an easier, swifter legal strategy: a civil suit. Qin agreed to pay $150,000 in a negotiated settlement and walked free to perform more cardiac surgeries at his new solo practice in lower Manhattan. Qin faced no judge or jury. He did not admit to wrongdoing. He maintained his license to practice. What’s more, neither Qin nor government officials were required to notify patients who purportedly were subjected to vascular surgical procedures they didn’t need. Those included fistulagrams to spot issues like narrowed blood vessels or clots, and angioplasties to open clogged coronary arteries. Within months of the settlement, a registered nurse working for Qin at his Manhattan practice alerted authorities that something seemed amiss. The nurse, who ultimately turned whistleblower, alleged to federal prosecutors that the surgeon was performing unnecessary procedures on patients, mostly elderly Asian and Black immigrants whose care was covered by the public programs Medicare or Medicaid. Prosecutors indicted Qin in 2018 on a felony count of fraud, which carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. But in 2021, in a deal brokered behind closed doors, prosecutors dropped that charge in favor of yet another civil settlement, court records detailing that agreement show. Once again, Qin kept his New York license to practice with no restrictions; a restricted license is one of the few ways the public can learn that a doctor has been disciplined for bad behavior. Qin agreed to pay a total of $800,000 in annual installments ending in December 2025, deposited with the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As an added penalty, he was banned from billing public health programs until February 2025
Their inability to live up to the past German reputation for quality
Chinese manufacturers at the low-end
German automobile makers struggles with software
Japanese and Korean car manufacturers challenging the luxury end of the market. I would rather have a Lexus LX than a G-Wagen. At the moment Lexus have had to shut down the list on the LX they are that oversold
Hong Kong
chanhiu design – really nice graphic design. I love their project reflecting on Hong Kong-made knock-off toys familiar to Hong Kong children as well as European children – where these toys turned up in markets during the 1960s through to the early 1980s. More here: Chan Hiu explores Hong Kong’s playful past – The China Project
Cayman Islands fights attempts by Singapore and Hong Kong to lure Asia’s wealthy | Financial Times – the sharp uptake of Singapore vehicles versus Hong Kong vehicles is very interesting – an order of 10x magnitude greater. Interesting implications for Hong Kong’s wealth management business and China’s efforts to prevent capital flight from Greater China. It also implies that Hong Kong hasn’t been as successful at attracting foreign funds for investment in China. So the Hong Kong pivot towards the Middle East investor makes sense.
Apple expanding supplier base in China, Southeast Asia, and India – the number of manufacturing facilities/locations of Apple’s top 200 suppliers grew in 2022 in China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and India. However, manufacturing facilities/locations in the US and South Korea have dropped from 72 to 62 and 42 to 36, respectively. The latest list shows that Apple’s supplier base in South and Southeast Asia is growing amid Apple’s diversification move. Meanwhile, Apple keeps expanding its reliance on China, a sign that Apple is likely to prepare for a decoupled global manufacturing ecosystem. Due to Apple’s change of methodology, disclosing only “locations” instead of “facilities,” the numbers of certain geographies, including Taiwan, cannot be compared historically. For example, Apple said that TSMC had five “facilities” globally in 2021 but had three manufacturing “locations” globally in 2022. The methodology change led to fewer listed manufacturing locations of Apple suppliers in Taiwan, from 72 to 41
Starmer’s Britain – Portland – Kier Starmer is considered to be the most likely prime minister after Rishi Sunak. In some respects this feels like 1996, all over again. The then Conservative government back then was buffeted by scandals such as the Arms to Iraq affair report, the BSE crisis and the slow drip of sleaze.
Depending when in 2024 the general election happens, we will have had 14 years of Conservative rule and the government has been dogged by scandal.
Rewind to 1996
Unlike Kier Starmer era Labour, back in 1996, Labour looked like a political party chock full of ideas. Will Hutton’s The State We’re In focused minds on what a future Labour government would look like and long term thinking. Tony Blair and the policy wonks around him seeded the media and academia around them with their new ideas. Blair even used a computer system to analyse Conservative parliamentary statements and gain the upper hand in prime minister’s question time.
Back to the present
Kier Starmer and the modern day Labour Party isn’t the Labour of 1996. There isn’t the buzz of modernity about them. There is no vision thing at the moment. They are defined by not being the tories. Public Affairs specialists Portland have tried their hand at kremlinology to paint a picture of what a Kier Starmer-led government is likely to look like, should it get into power.
A number of people who contributed were veterans of the Blair – Brown administration. They recognise that Kier Starmer and colleagues are likely to inherit a country with problems across the economy, public services and infrastructure. The Kier Starmer administration is unlikely to share the globalist viewpoint of Tony Blair, partly due to decoupling and partly due to Brexit.
All of which makes the Kier Starmer five missions for a Better Britain look like a pipe dream without several back-to-back terms in government.
Secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 – with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.
Make Britain a clean energy superpower – to create jobs, cut bills and boost energy security with zero carbon electricity by 2030, accelerating to net zero.
Build an NHS fit for the future – that is there when people need it; with fewer lives lost to the biggest killers; in a fairer Britain, where everyone lives well for longer.
Make Britain’s streets safe – by halving serious violent crime and raise confidence in the police and criminal justice system to its highest levels, within a decade.
Break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage – for every child, by reforming the childcare and education systems, raising standards everywhere, and preparing young people for work and life.
Kier Starmer needs his own version of The State We’re In as just under 70 percent of the British public surveyed are neutral to being in disagreement about whether they understand the current Labour vision for Britain.
Can Chinese Payment Apps Gain Traction Globally? | ChinaFile – Chinese fintech companies and their super-apps will still revolutionize global finance. In this excerpt from his book The Cashless Revolution: China’s Reinvention of Money and the End of America’s Domination of Finance and Technology, Chorzempa explains why Chinese fintech has thus far struggled to gain a foothold in the international market, but will likely inspire other companies to replicate the fintech super-app model in their home countries
People too tired to lead healthier lifestyles, UK survey finds | Health | The Guardian – A survey has found that tiredness is why 35% of people don’t make the changes to their diet and physical activity levels that would help them close the gap between good intentions and concrete action. The results, from a YouGov poll of 2,086 UK adults for the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), illustrate the barriers many people face in their desire to adopt and stick to healthy habits. When asked what was stopping them from eating more healthily and exercising more often, 29% of men and 40% of women cited “feeling too tired”
The Lost Planet of Hong Kong | Newsroom – This just in from Hong Kong. Its chief executive has corrected the language of a journalist for asking a question at a press conference about the pro-democracy protests of 2019: “First of all, it is not [called] the 2019 protests. It is the black violence.” And: a 23-year-old has been charged under the Beijing-imposed national security laws for allegedly “intimidating the public in order to pursue political agenda”. He was attempting to stage a protest, otherwise known as a black violence. Also: a satirical cartoonist has been sacked after a government official complained about a drawing that mocked local elections, and his books were removed from libraries. When approached by the last signs of independent journalistic life in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Free Press, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department commented, “Books that are suspected to potentially violate national security law will be immediately removed for review.”
Young women in South Korea are live-streaming their suicide attempts | The Economist – the South Korean government announced its fifth “Master Plan for Prevention of Suicide”. Mental-health check-ups will now be available every two years, rather than every decade. Beyond that, the plan proposes different approaches for the young and old respectively. (Over-70s have the highest suicide rates in Korea.) For women in their 20s and 30s who live alone, South Korea will make available more counselling and therapy
The Rise of Generative AI Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT — Information is Beautiful and How Kevin Kelly is using AI in his creative process | Dropbox Blog and Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey? | The New Yorker – as A.I. becomes more powerful and flexible, is there any way to keep it from being another version of McKinsey? The question is worth considering across different meanings of the term “A.I.” If you think of A.I. as a broad set of technologies being marketed to companies to help them cut their costs, the question becomes: how do we keep those technologies from working as “capital’s willing executioners”? Alternatively, if you imagine A.I. as a semi-autonomous software program that solves problems that humans ask it to solve, the question is then: how do we prevent that software from assisting corporations in ways that make people’s lives worse? Suppose you’ve built a semi-autonomous A.I. that’s entirely obedient to humans—one that repeatedly checks to make sure it hasn’t misinterpreted the instructions it has received. This is the dream of many A.I. researchers. Yet such software could easily still cause as much harm as McKinsey has
What actually represents good taste and good style was discussed in this old show from the 1970s, which makes an interesting perspective to reflect on.
Hyundai have pushed out a campaign to teach British people how to pronounce the companies name properly. This is a well trodden path for foreign brands like Hyundai. My childhood featured ‘Nestle’s Milky Bars’ as the advertising jingle ignored the é at the end of Nestlé. I can only presume that it would be assumed to be too sophisticated for our palates rather than a playground staple.
More recently, I spent a couple of minutes coaching Arsenal footballing legend Ian Wright on how to say Huawei prior to him shooting some online video content for a smartphone launch. So I can relate to the challenge that Hyundai faces in gaining the correct pronunciation.
Getting the pronunciation right will allow Hyundai to use global English language assets, rather than having to do localisation. A small but important saving as it looks to compete for the UK and Irish electric car markets.
The advertising plays on the common pain-point of Siri and Google Voice failing to pick up on pronunciation in order to use humour to get Hyundai across correctly.
Older women and younger men relationships explored in this documentary. Prior to going to college in the mid-1990s I worked for a company that put coatings on materials to make stickers, stamps and labels. My boss there was a guy called Mark who married the PE teacher from school, once he’d finished his university degree. At that time Mark’s relationship was considered unusual in nature.
Design
Great film compilation of retrofuturist footage
Watching this film on the intersection of military clothing design and fashion reminded me of William Gibson’s Zero History novel.
New China-focused think tank staffed and advised by a number of prominent Hong Kong dissidents: China Strategic Risks Institute
Mainland Chinese visitors start to return to Hong Kong after Covid-19 restrictions lifted, but most tours low-cost and short stay, figures reveal | South China Morning Post – Tourism figures from February to this month show 86 per cent of tour trips from mainland China lasted one to two days and 54 per cent cost less than 500 yuan. Travel Industry Authority confirms it is investigating allegations of cigarette smuggling by mainland Chinese tour groups – it will be only a matter of time before the impact of this behaviour change ripples out to Hong Kong’s retail landlords and the luxury brands who have stores in the city. Hoteliers and the hospitality industry haven’t benefited from opening up the borders
Indonesia
Indonesia is an economic powerhouse in the making, but there are forces ripping away at its society that could leave it as inequitable as its neighbour Malaysia – which has been suffering from a brain drain and political stagnation. Indonesia like Malaysia before it seems to be coming under the sway of Gulf Arab traditions of Islam rather than the indigenous variant of the belief. Singaporean news programme CNA Insider did a good documentary on it all.
