Local Home Video Game Culture (By Stanley Hung Chung Man)

Local Home Video Game Culture (By Stanley Hung Chung Man)

 

 

The first generation of home video game console was launched in 1970s, up to now, the current era is the seventh generation. From the first to the current generation, there are many revolutionary developments can be found during the mutation process of home video game console. It is extremely popular in the world all the time, including Hong Kong.

 

Nowadays, I believed that playing home video game must be a popular culture of Hong Kong, because it is still liked by the public. Many families are having their own console, including old or new generation, such as PS 2, Xbox, PS 3, Xbox360, Wii, etc. But in recent decade, it seems that the local game culture is dominated by Japanese products, such situation is very obvious in home video game platform. I would like to discuss it in the next paragraph.   

In fact, there are many famous video game producer in the world, such as Electronic Arts of USA; Konami, Koei, Namco of Japan. Their products are having large varieties and high quality, the Japanese games and USA games are always available on different platforms, for instance, FIFA series are available on PS 2, PS 3, and Xbox360, so that the factor of gaming platforms cannot affect the popularity of the games of different origins. 

In the video game market of Hong Kong, the largest difference between Japan and USA games is language, all the games produced by USA companies are in English version, and even have Chinese version in the recent five years; but most of the games imported from Japan are only have Japanese version. Furthermore, the number of local video game consumer with English proficiency is absolutely more than those with Japanese proficiency. The above arguments are showing that the games produced by USA companies are ought to be popular in Hong Kong due to its language advantage, but that is not the truth. The truth is that even the games only available in Japanese, the games from Japan is still dominating the local home video game market and culture, the Japanese games are more attractive for the consumers, and the local game store are also more prefer to import the Japanese games rather than USA products.  

 

 

Why games of Japan can be more popular than games of USA in local market? So I have tried the games produced by both sides. I used sports games as example, “Winning Eleven (實況足球)” series and “FIFA” series are famous soccer video games produced by Konami (Japan) and EA Sports (USA) respectively. From my point of view, the visual and sound quality of “FIFA” series is better than the Japanese product, but the sale of “Winning Eleven” is much better than “FIFA” series.  

According to the above evidence, the consumer chose the game may not fully depends on the language, visual quality, and sound effects. There is a invisible main factor that affecting the local consumer’s decision, which is the video game ideology of Hong Kong. Because the Japanese comics and cartoons are dominating the children’s entertainment in the past decades, the Japanese culture is already gained the identifications from the new generations of Hong Kong. As a result, it becomes the origin of the local game ideology, such ideology is making us to naturalize that Japan is producing the most interesting games regardless the other factors, and it becomes a local trend. Finally, the consumers having preference on Japanese games become the major part of the local TV game culture, it also dominating the local market. Furthermore, the above practices can be regard as a kind of cultural invasion too. 

Actually, the video games from different origins are having their own characteristics, nobody can determine which one is better, but a thing is true that we are better to try more different games for spreading our field of vision, and get more fun.  

By Stanley Hung Chung Man

References:

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_%28first_generation%29

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koei 

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namco

Images from:

- http://image1.play-asia.com/170/PA.77589.002.jpg 

- http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/05/high_tech_homes_03/image/play_station_3.jpg 

- http://www.books.com.tw/G/soft/images/xbox/xbox_360_box.jpg 

- http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/productImages/0/2/00000100702-SonyPlayStation2videogameconsole-large.jpeg 

- http://www.ucmall.com/ucmm/upload/article/Image/20070302/wii1.jpg 

- http://www.phroon.com/files/1/fifa2007.jpg   

Material blinded the Teenagers nowadays(By Alison Yeap)

Are you a material girls or boys? Some of the teenagers may think that the brands that they use can define what classes they are. If they are using the brands like, LV, Gucci or any kinds of international popular brands, wearing the T-shirts or the bag or the wallet, they will think that they can be the upper class and their classes are probably higher than other one. Anyway, is it a good chain for the teenager thinking in this way?

Last night, when I was chatting with my friends, they told me something that they heard it form the radio channels. There are three cases there and generally they are all around 15-19 years old. The three girls has been whore about a couple years till now. Two of them are still studying. However, they think that it’s not a matter and they are proud of their job because it can earn so much money for a month.The girl that the DJ interviewed was only a 15 years old girl and studying form 2.Through the interview, we can recognized that she is really good at interact for the customer and that’s why she can get almost twenty thousand per month. Moreover, she thought that she cannot communicate with her parents even her mother always stays at home. So, she ought to find a job for buying the popular international brands to make her turn into the upper class.The second girl that the DJ interviewed was 17 years old .She went for this job because it’s high salary and can have more spare for her to take rest at home. She can wake at three to four p.m. and can choose her customers through the net. If she just want to stay at home then she will take some photos and upload it to the net in the website and sell them to the men and earn money, or used the other method is to sell her own underwear’s, they also divided in to three types and it can sell up to800 dollars. There is about seven thousand she can have per month. She think that money can buy a lot of things and it can define her class, also, not many one will follow her way to earn money. She thinks that it is the easy way to get money and no need to rely on her parents, because they can not satisfied her.The last one was a 19 years old fatty girl. Her parents have divorced since she was studying in the primary school. However, her mother didn’t take the responsibility to take care of her. Her mother just let her stay with her grandma and married with another man. Therefore, she thought that she doesn’t want this poor life and want to earn more money for herself and her grandma. She started to be the net- meeting girl and having sex with men or go out with the stranger for 900 dollars per day. She knows that she is not a beautiful girl and the customer would not pay her so much, but the payment can satisfy for her study and a living.For all the above cases, what we know that is unquestionably materials are indispensable in our lives, but can it represents the statues and can is it related to the upper class, is only a point of view in different person’s mind. By the way, the teenagers are lack of communication with their parents; this is main problem that we need to concern. They try to close their ears and also think that each other can’t understand .It is not a good chain for nowadays, hope that everyone can take notice of it and try to improve this chain and their perceptions. 

Copy culture in Hong Kong (BY Bruce lam)

Hong Kong once was the Britain colony for 100 years, but now it was already returned to the motherland China. Its culture is still affect by Britain so that it doesn’t have its own one. 

Since we were in primary school, teachers always taught us not to copy home works from the others. But still have some of the student willing to. From makes the paper to each kind of test, even the university graduate gets employed, all do not lack cheating. Afterwards, they joins in the society, they also does not forget to plagiarize. The most general things which we plagiarize from other countries are the pop song’s melody and the advertisement.

 Lets look at the street, there are lots of things are copy from others country. Including the meals we have, there are only a few is created by ourselves. First, let’s focus on food. In Hong Kong, there are thousands of styles of food, western styles, Japanese styles, Chinese styles etc. But you never heard about Hong Kong style. Even Chinese restaurant had many different types, such as Shanghai dish, Chiuchow dish Szechwan dish etc. You also can’t find a Hong Kong dish. However, there is a type of restaurant can represent Hong Kong, that is “tea restaurant”(茶餐廳). While you pick up the menu, you will feel disappointed, because most of it is not created by local and it only looks like a western fast food shop. 

  Besides food, let’s take a look the place where we live. Hong Kong modern people would like to live in western style with high-quality personal building. No one wish to live in old style “tang building”(唐樓). From the past, “tang building” is a product mix with Chinese and western culture, but now everyone only wants to pursue a modern high-class building. They also would like a place which includes a club house with every leisure facilities. Try to think about where did those things came from, the concept is mainly came from the western. 

 Furthermore, the fashion in Hong Kong also followed others. Youngsters follow the non-local latest fashions. They would like to wear the famous brands from others country, such as Levi’s, Polo Ralph Lauren etc. You won’t hear the youngsters in other country said “Wow, that’s cool! That is design in Hong Kong!” but inversely they will said that if it is design in Japan. Hong Kong holds international fashion show regularly. However the local fashion brand can’t hold the show out of China. That is because of those designers always design the product similar the others. This tendency to make local fashion brands are non eminent in the world.  

Nowadays we advocated the education for all-around development, innovate is the study way. If it is lack of intellect and creative, is really no advantage to create our own culture. Hong Kong is an international city. We can have our own special local culture, not only consulting the others.

Cable TV, English Premier League (by Harry.F)

There are two free of charge TV companies in Hong Kong which are TVB and ATV. They had been broadcast for more than 40 years. But until 90’s, birth of Cable TV affects the competition on Hong Kong’s TV broadcasting.

  

Cable TV is rather different from traditional TV companies. Since it had unlimited TV channels. It can build up different specified channels such as sports channels, movie channels, children channels, etc. Movie channels can further divided into channels only broadcast new movies where another only broadcast Hollywood movies. Such a kind of smally divided channels can helps Cable TV to highly expand its customer sources from different interest.

  

Today I will focus on the English Premier League, which can be regard as the vital system of Cable TV.

  

Cable TV will broadcast different European countries’ soccer league such as England, Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. And the most important one is English Premier League. Hong Kong was a colony of United Kingdom, and the soccer stars such as John Terry, Frank Lampard or Christino Ronaldo are some highly skilled soccer stars, so Hong Kong people always take more concern on Premier League than other leagues. Since a large group of people are adapted to English Premier League, and Premier League becomes a way of life to them, we could said a culture of watch Premier League is form starting from 90’s. Hence English Premier League becomes one of the most important programme to Cable TV.

  

In the other hand, for the people who do not apply for Cable TV but also want to enjoy the matches, what can they do? Neglect those illegal download method, they shall go to restaurants big shopping malls, karaoke or even McDonald! These places will broadcast matches freely. But the fact is that these places’ soccer matches’ clip source is also dominated by Cable TV’s signal! Even though they pay thirty dollars for a set dinner and a cup of drink, they are still paying money to Cable TV indirectly because the restaurants had to pay for the services. This show under the hegemony of pay TV companies, consumers has no choices if they still want to enjoy their favourite programmes. And the sports programme produced by other companies which cannot include Premier League become a subordinate class and they are no interest to soccer fans since under hegemony of Cable TV, you were told that watch Premier League is the greatest soccer entertainment.

  

But until 2007/08 season, the right of broadcast Premier League in Hong Kong area had been bought by NOW TV. So the hegemony of Cable TV starts to collapse. There is immediately large crews of people apply for NOW TV and cut down their contract with Cable TV. So the dominate class become the one owning NOW TV instead of Cable TV. The restaurants apply for NOW TV immediately in order to keep their customers and they put a big advertisement on the door saying that “broadcast NOW’s Premier League on coming weekend” this is a kind of ideology to identify them with those restaurant is still holding Cable TV, in order to attract the soccer fans to visit.

  To sum up, the culture of watching English Premier League was initiated by Cable TV and it had brought changes to our daily life as mentioned. Although English Premier League’s broadcast is not be response of Cable TV now, but the culture of watching Premier League will not cool down, it will become hotter and hotter since the league itself had develop better than before and itself have tendency to explore through the world.

Magazines in Hong Kong (by Claudia Fung)

Have you ever read a magazine in Hong Kong, such as the Next magazine? There are more than 600 magazines are being published in Hong Kong and they need to register to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority. Although their contents are being supervised by the government, most of the magazines publishing in Hong Kong are the just telling the gossip. Furthermore, you may hear about someone accused the magazine’s companies and they made an apologetic to the public. This is a circle will never ends.

 In Hong Kong you can buy the magazines everywhere. They can be easily found in varies book stores, 7-11 and Circle K convenient stores. Also, they are put in the place where can be easily noticed. When you walk pass these magazines, you may stay and watch what the latest news is. In Hong Kong, there are two kinds of magazines, one is for the specific group, such as for pet, car and finances, etc; and the other one is for the majority, which is the news from celebrities. The magazine’s covers always are the singers, movie stars or artists. The cover story must be the attractive point in the magazines. Most of the people may buy the magazines solely based on the cover story.  

As there are lots of magazines in Hong Kong, the competition among them is immense. The reporters need to put different attractive news on the cover page to draw the audiences’ attention and the cover of the magazines is usually captured by hidden camera. There is one major question is raising out that how far can the news freedom go, can it be override all of our privacy and own rights. It is a very serious problem that brought out a controversial discussion in the city on what can we do to prevent the media go too far, or any law should be in force to set a frame for the reporters to follow and obey, or can the media industry really try to figure out their self regulation to prevent outranging behaviors that can not only harm the media itself, also the basic trust on media by the people in Hong Kong. 

In Hong Kong, the style of the magazine cover must have a large photo come with a masterly sentence which makes good use of the tricks in language of such as rhyme, alliteration and intertextuality. The cover story is one of the factors to make you hold your step and buy it. For example, when the singer Gillian was changing her clothes in a concert, it is shot by a hidden camera and post at the magazine’s cover page. It went out of stock very fast. After it added the copies of the magazine to the market, it sold out within an hour. Although Hong Kong people accuse the magazine violate the privacy of the famous star, they also want to get a copy the magazine in order to know what is going on which indirectly support the magazine. The cheaper the magazine’s style is, the more the people want to read it.

Changing of the songs culture (by Nicole Au)

In the past, music is a kind of entertainment, people listened in the radio for relaxation when they went back home. On the other hand, music seems to become a part of the life, we listen to it when going back to school or working by using the MP4, iPod, and even mobile phone, etc. It seems that we can listen to the songs everywhere and whatever time when we like. However,  the influence of songs have been changed from meaningful to meaningless. As well as the love songs, the lyrics have been changed from elegant and reserved to oral language. 

In 80’s and 90’s, people listened to the songs mostly sang by Sam Hui (許冠傑), Teresa Tang (鄧麗君), Paula Tsui (徐小鳳), Roman (羅文), Anita Mui (梅艷芳), Leslie Cheung (張國榮). Their songs were mostly telling the audience not to give up. Even the love songs, the lyrics were more tasteful. Such as, the famous song of Teresa Tang’s, “The moon represents my heart” (月亮代表我的心), the meaning is shown on its name, that used the moon to represent her heart, meaning that her love is true and pure, also the love between her lover and her will not change in anytime and anywhere. Besides, the song “Si Shui Liu Nian” (似水流年) which sang by Anita Mui, it used “a little wooden boat” (小木船) to represent her heart. Although the time is passing away, the out-look and situation has been changed, she is still thinking of the man who she loves.  

In addition, the invigorated songs are more meaningful, for example,”Shun Liu Ni Liu” (順流逆流), which sang by Paula Tsui, is telling people that  time is running on, it will not wait for you. It is also the mind of “no pay, no gain”, it wanted to present that even you are in the time of adversity, you should not give up. Once you devote and thus, you can at least to get something. If you do this, at last, you will be success. Another song called “Cheng Feng Po Lang” (乖風破浪), which sang by Yeung Si Dai (楊詩蒂). It wanted to tell people to look forward instead of  backward. In spite of the journey of human life is long and hard, you should not afraid of it and you should keep going on, because you have friends with you, they will get over come the difficulties with you together.

Nowadays, the songs are became meaningless and the lyrics are using oral language, they become more direct to represent the singer’s feeling. Songs from Twins, Joey Yung, Miriam Yeung, and other singers, most of their songs were just talking about love, falling in love, parting, having the third person between the love relationships. If it is not this, then must be the other one. It seems there is no other choice can represent. Are the abilities of people in nowadays worse than the people in the past? Or love is the only thing that we should take care of?

Local Food Culture – Dai Pai Dong (By Genki Mak)

Dai Pai Dong(大牌檔) is a type of open-air food once popular in Hong Kong 19^th Century. It was mainly located in Central, also Wan Chai and Happy Valley. In 1950s, colonial Hong Kong Government issued licenses to families of civil servant who operated food stalls in public for earning. Besides, the license was larger than the normal one, thus that’s so called “big license stall”. It is low price and it has different kinds of foods, these are the reasons that Dai Pai Dong is popular in the local food culture at that time. 

     Dai Pai Dong operated on roadside with folding tables, chairs and without air-conditioning. It shows that the decoration is so simple. It is open-air, so people can talk loudly and do not need to attend table manner. Furthermore, it is so cheap to satisfy mass needs, especially for lower income-consumers. On the other hand, people can taste delicious food immediately which is cooked by Chinese wok with gas burner. Moreover, it provides different kinds of foods in day-time and night. For example, it is mainly sell sea food at night, and cheap food at day-time such as milk tea, instant noodles and dip tau fan(碟頭飯). In my opinion, all these features of Dai Pai Dong can reflect the characteristics of Hong Kong. I think typical Hong Kong food is available in Dai Pai Dong such as milk tea and po lo yau(菠蘿油). These foods can represent Hong Kong in food culture. In addition, Dai Pai Dong can reach mass consumers. Therefore, Dai Pai Dong generated culture at that time    

 However, the government stopped releasing the big license and limited them to transfer because of traffic congestion and hygiene problems. Moreover, people began to rent out their stalls on black market. Therefore, the licenses could not be inherited. People could only pass the licenses on to their spouses, otherwise their stalls would expire finally. On the other hand, as Hong Kong developed, Dai Pai Dongs were moved into temporary markets and cook food centres for survival. After that, they could improve the problems themselves, so traditional Dai Pai Dongs were declined quickly. Nowadays, there are only about 28 traditional Dai Pai Dongs in Hong Kong. Although Dai Pai Dongs are not popular now, they are still keeping the features themselves. Their foods can represent the characteristic of Hong Kong in food culture such as siu mei fan (燒味飯) and yuan yang(鴛鴦). Therefore, Dai Pai Dongs can be a part of the collective memories of Hong Kong people who lived in colonial Hong Kong.   

   In my points of view, I think popular culture can be changed by time. Different times generate different popular cultures. For instance, Dai Pai Dongs were popular in colonial Hong Kong. However, Hong Kong was progressing continuously. Dai Pai Dongs declined rapidly, and other restaurants become more popular such as fast food restaurant. I have been gone to Dai Pai Dongs in cook food centres. They do not operate on roadside now, and more tidy. They are still using Chinese wok with gas burner to cook food, so we still can eat delicious food immediately. Dai Pai Dong is not popular nowadays, but it is an important part of Hong Kong characteristic in the local food culture.    

 Genki Mak

Reference:

Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia. “Dai Pai Dong” 2 Oct 2007. 11 Oct 2007
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_pai_dong >

News nowadays means real and objective? (By Sean Sit)

     The progression of technology, the world has become a global village. We could get different information instantly from different kinds of media. News report is what we could touch everyday or even every minute. And it is an effective way for the media to reflect the condition of the society; we depend on news report to receive information of what is happening besides ourselves. By the way, it is quite a powerful tool to shape our thinking or even our culture.For an example, a news report about some offenders tried to smoke in public place and got caught and being amerced. Such news already included its value and the reporter’s point of view, a message we received is try not to follow these people, and these people deserved. News is a media to interpret the events happened in our world to the audience. But it is just quite presenting the truth, it is just re-presenting of what have happened which is a representation of reality. This is using the way of how media present the reality to us.Moreover, everyday we expose to news.      

     There are different images and texts to stimulate our imagination, although the report is motionless, we could imagine the movement of the event reported. This is because of the help of the images and lively re-presentation. While this re-presentation is subjective, the news itself is objective. Therefore, the writer or author could have input his or her point of views into the news. Therefore, reports always used“疑因”, “據” and “消息指”these kind of not certain words to describe an event, when seeing these kind of words we may not doubts that those information are real or not, in fact, the news reported is the reality but some of the content are composed by the news writer. News itself is objective, but reports are subjective just depend on how the writer encode it and represent it to the audience. Therefore values and implied assumption were added into the report.     

     So which kind of audience does the news for? It is everyone; we all have our curiosity towards other people’s story, especially gossip stuffs. The writer wrote the news in story like is just to stimulate our interest towards the news, these maybe what we want to see. Also, the values implied inside are likely based on our society structure and consumers’ interest. Writing according to audience interest could assure good circulation. Therefore, the one who benefit from this kind of reports is the media itself, choices of news from them is commercial, if we adopt this kind of presentation, the media may continue what we could like to see, news’s value is to entertain us. We expose to this kind of news everyday, we find it neutral by repeating seeing them, therefore, we may have also affected by thinking brought from the news. Therefore nowadays, we should not only believe what we see but also need to think about it.

Reference: 

www.inma.org/subscribers/papers/2003-Meyer-Kim.doc

Toys and us (By Carol Y.)

  

     Childhood is a very important stage for a person to build up they own sense of self, characters and values. Besides family, school and friend, toys are one of the most important factors which affect children’s life; it plays an important role in our childhood. I surely believe that most of the girls had a passing childhood relationship with Barbie. Barbie represents possibilities to the player – Teacher, Fashion Model, Dentist and airhostess. She can be whatever you want she is. Take me as an example; I had an unforgettable memory with my Barbie in my childhood. I am a Barbie collector and I have about forty beautiful Barbie up until now.

    

     I still remember that I desperately hope to have a Barbie when I was young, so my parent brought my first Barbie as my birthday present when I was four years old. Although that Barbie is only an imitation product, I fell absolutely in love with it and I still keep it till now. Until I was twelve years old, I finanlly got my first orginal barbie (figure4) . Just like the others girls, Barbie was “structured plaything” for me when I was young. All of the creative play I had with Barbie must relate to the beauty, it created a great training ground for me to learn how to be a feminist. I still remember that when I played with Barbie, I loved to dress up the dolls; she has a lot of clothes such as work clothes, play clothes, wedding clothes, and fancy shoes and accessories, just like in real life.

    

     It seems hard to imagine Barbie having so much impact in our daily life. In fact, Barbie’s unrealistic bodies and emphasis on looks stereotyped feminine roles. We know that Barbie is one of the most popular toys for girls, it represents the icon of a ideal female beauty. In fact, Barbie is an idealized sense of beaty for girls, we realised that our appearance is different from her. But if we accept that Barbie is the beauty standard for female, we would not appreciate ourself anymore. When playing with Barbie, I think Barbie is influential in the development of my self-concept and produce some aldut and cultural rules for me because particular toys for children shape them into particular type of person. Barbie for me is not just a plaything, it also present messages about gender, adult roles and values. It started a pattern of materialism and consumerism for me, mainly for clothes and cosmetics. When I played with Barbie, I just care about how beautiful she is and how perfect she is, but I never seriously care about her talent and inner beauty. It is similar to our social construction, it shape girls and womens as an beauty object, female only need to care about their appearance, no one would pay much attention on their working ability.

    

     Althought I would not see Barbie as an ideal female image for me now, my playing habit already affect some of my behaviuors and fixed my sense of self through the playing process. I am already twenty year old now, but I still care about my appearance and love shopping and fashion very much, so I think Barbie play an important role in my life. Everyone must have their favorite type of toys, therefore our life have also been affected by these toys. Types of toys you chose could reflect what kind of person you are, so which is your favorite toy in your childhood?  

Reference:

Dea Birkett 1998 “Unrequited Fantasies of Barbie, Doll-God,” South China Morning Post (December 1), 18.

Valerie Walkerdine 1990 “Rocky II,” in Schoolgirl Fictions (London: Verso), pp. 175-88.

Hong Kong Fondue (“Cheese Hot Pot?”) – Product of Hybrid Food Culture (by Patrick Lee)

When the weather becomes cold, Hong Kong people like to have “Hot Pot” in Chinese restaurant. Hot Pot (In Chinese: 火鍋) basically means people put the food in a pot with some soup over the burner and eat immediately. When people gathering, no matter how many people, they sit around a table, put everything into a pot, forget about hygiene, eating without discipline. Having Hot Pot is a good gathering activity because it generates harmony. Usually Hong Kong style Hot Pot’s ingredients include meats, sea foods and vegetables. 

Fondue is a western dish from Switzerland. In western, different kind of cheeses mixed with wine and kept it as liquid in a pot over an alcoholic burner. People use a fondue fork to dip the cubed crusty bread into the pot. Fondue is a dainty dish for western, cheese is a serious topic as well as red wine. Usually serves 4 people, with a romantic atmosphere.

Hot Pot and Fondue is 2 different kinds of food. Hot Pot is a popular meal while Fondue is comparatively elite. However, in Hong Kong, these 2 dishes seem grouped together. The Chinese name of Hot Pot is “Huo guo” (火鍋) while Fondue is “Zhi shi huo guo” (芝士火鍋, literality: Cheese Hot Pot).

The Chinese name makes the meaning of Fondue in Hong Kong’s different from the westerns’, Hong Kong people understand Fondue as a western Hot Pot rather than a unique western dish. Fondue becomes a sign of winter product, and a sign of western product.

Last year winter, Fondue was popular in Hong Kong. Café de Coral, one of the largest fast food restaurants in Hong Kong, promoted Hot Pot and Fondue at the same time. In fast food restaurants, both Hot Pot and Fondue are no longer server for a group, each people have their own Pot, with their own set of meal, everything put on a plate, and everything is standardized. In this situation, Fondue became popular, but the quality was decrease. Also, Hot Pot and Fondue became similar; the uniqueness of Fondue is decreasing while the symbol of “kind of Hot Pot Product” is increasing.

Yesterday I went to Spaghetti House with a friend; we tried the season special, Fondue Combination. There are not only baguette cube, it also include vegetables, pasta and a either seafood or meat platter. The ingredients are modified to satisfy Hong Kong people’s appetite, include meat and seafood, and make it as a dinner.

We are expected not only baguette cube, we also expected some western food, like pasta. And something that we usually have in Hot Pot which makes us full, such as the meat or seafood platter. We won’t feel any problems because the food is “correct”.Under Globalization, we can experience many foreign products, since companies need to satisfy local appetites, localization is often appeared. One of the characteristic of Hong Kong culture is absorb different kind of foreign cultures and mixed with local habit, behavior and culture and regenerates Hong Kong style products. Hot Pot is nowadays a hybrid food culture in Hong Kong. We categorized Fondue as “kind of Hot Pot product”, and there are many new foods or soups we added in Chinese Hot Pot, Hot Pot are not only specific means a dish, it is generally means a cooking style, wither what soup or ingredient, either eastern or western.