Consuming to Soothe

Today morning right after I sent a friend to the airport, I felt a great sense of emptiness.

To beat the emptiness feeling, I thought I needed sometime to wander around a bit to settle my feelings. But where to go to? When the Airport Express was approaching Kowloon station, I decided to take off and visit the new Elements mall.

It was ten something in the morning so not many stores were opened. I walked past a Swatch shop and thought, I saw a beautiful ring which was newly displayed. I bought it. With the weigh on my hand, I felt a little better.

I continued my walking around in the mall. I walked past some stores, most were still closed. Then I arrived at an HMV shore. They are giving out limited edition of HMV caps and shopping bags to celebrate the opening of the new store. Normally, I don’t fancy these kinds of gifts. But I thought new music might help to calm me down. And to say the truth, the silvery bag looks pretty cool. So I went in, spent almost an hour in the store, and came out happily with six new CDs, a free cap and a silvery shopping bag. I couldn’t wait to go home to listen to my new purchases.

Don’t we all shop to soothe our emotions? When we are upset, we shop to overcome the feelings. When we are happy, we tend to be in a good mood for shopping. When we are confused, we shop. When we need to celebrate, we shop.

Singaporean singer Stephanie Sun said she does the same. When she is in a low mood, she would go shopping with her closes friend. The new purchases, especially new handbags, always put a smile back on her face.  And also singersongwriters Hins Cheung and Tanya Chua, TV actress Ada Choi Siu-fan, lyricist Wyman Wong, movie actress Ng Kwan-yu, Radio DJ Vincci Cheuk Wan-chi and singer Eason Chan’s wife Hilary Tsui. In the past half year, they all shared on magazines, newspapers or TV about their shopping habit, how shopping helps them go through different  kinds of moods.

You can argue that even if these celebrities acted this way, we don’t have to follow suit. We are independent being that we shouldn’t be influenced by the media and the soft advertisements. Some critics of the consumerism said we don’t need more than the necessary things. And that luxuries, like my ring, or the expansive handbags that these celebrities bought, are plainly wasteful. Some They said consumerism is an artificial creation sustained by artificial social pressures, from the leaders of the big companies. This forms a part of the general process of social control and cultural hegemony in the society.

As you said, we are independent beings. We can decide what is necessary for us, influenced by the media or not. And if we all only have the basic stuff, how can we differentiated with others.

And for the meantime, I don’t have the time to argue with you. I got to rush home to enjoy my new music.

From “Brothers” perspective to view local movie (by Kerstin Chau)

 Recently I chase the current to watch the local big production movie “Brothers”(兄弟). There is no doubt that actors are the main reason that attract me to watch it, especially Andy Lau(劉德華). But after I watch it, I feel quite disappointed of the movie because it is not as good as I imagine. The movie name had point out the main theme totally. “Brothers”‘s theme is talking about the affection of two brother. Therefore the story is surrounding two main characters “苗僑偉” and Eason Chan (陳奕迅), including how others destroy their relationship and finally they restore good relation. However the story hasn’t defined that is true or wrong in the progress of they restore the relation. 

The story is a little bit bore and these have some scene didn’t make much of sense. Luckily the actor is quite good especially Eason Chan and Andy Lau, so it made the whole film didn’t too bad to look at. But there have one thing I can’t stand for. It was the advertising, there had few scenes that try too hard to sell the product, it made the audience feel very disgusting. Actually, this kind of advertising become more and more common in movie and soup opera, but I did think who would really enjoy this?

To be fair, if there were not too much movie talk about the affection of brothers before “Brothers”. This movie would be much better for me. After the movie “Infernal Affairs” (無間道) become so successful, this kind if genre was very popular for the producer, they produce a lot of similar movie. Such as “Election”(黑社會) series, “Exiled”(放逐), . Their storyline, costume, music. Even though actor are very similar. They always talk about how the police chasing the gangster, and how the people contest the power inside gangland. All those movie base on a similar pattern, sometimes it make audience feel so confuse, make us mix up all of them and cannot define which movie is which.

Actually this kind if confusion was not just in this genre, in many different type of genre were also have this problem in Hong Kong movie industry. Such as few years ago. “Needing You”(孤男寡女) this movie become very successful, after this there were a lot of love comic movie being produce, such as “Fighting for Love”(同居蜜友), “Dry Wood Fierce Fire”(乾柴烈火). This is one of the cultures about local movie. One a movie being big success the producer will use the same pattern to create other movie. And then again and again to produce more, until other genre of movie being successful and making big money, then the producer will start to follow that pattern and produce that genre of movie. One of the example is before the  “Infernal Affairs” (無間道) come out, there were still so many love comic movie are being produce, but after that love comic movie become less and less, and this kind of gangster movie are become produce more and more.

Back to “Brothers” this movie, one of the reason that I think this movie was not very good is because I see enough of this genre, I was too familiar with the pattern, so it was no any surprise for me, I can too easy to guess what would happen next. But if you was not saw too much gangster movie before, may be “Brothers” is a good movie for you.

Proper Cantonese by Rainbow Chiu

In the past few years, there was a trend of “Proper Cantonese” in Hong Kong society. The main reason is there were lots of promotion by the media and scholar. “More than words” is a very successful television programme of TVB which teaches audiences to correct “wrong” pronunciation and words in Cantonese.

However, some words or pronunciation are hard to define it is wrong or not. Dr. Richard Ho at the Chinese University of Hong Kong is an authority on this study area. Media always invite him to attend their show and explain the proper Cantonese. Nevertheless, there is a flaw in the premise of Dr. Ho’s standard. Dr. Ho based his model of Cantonese pronunciations on Guangyun, a one thousand year old rhyme dictionary, which reflects the Middle Chinese that has not been relevant to modern Cantonese for centuries. The situation now, just like we pronouncing English using Middle English standard (e.g. pronouncing “you” as “thou”). It is important to know that language evolves over a long period of time. Linguistic system is adaptable and changeable.

Rene Magritte is a surrealist painter, and “The Treachery of Images” is his most famous painting. The painting shows a pipe but he wrote below the pipe: “This is not a pipe”. It seems a contradiction but is actually true. The painting is not a pipe, but rather an image of a pipe. Same with the word “Pipe”, it is just a representational sign of the object. We need to acknowledge that we made the words and assigned them certain meaning and pronunciation. It is meaningless if we adhered to use original words, because we can assign new meaning to the words.

In addition, people who promote “proper Cantonese” said that it could avoid misunderstanding by using proper Cantonese. However, when most people have already accepted a “wrong” pronunciation or word, it would generate confusion if some people use the “proper” one. For instance, Cantonese Culture Promotion Society (organization that criticize Dr. Ho aboveboard) notified the past few years, there is a decrease in quality of Cantonese news programs in Canada. “As native speakers of Cantonese, we find the news broadcast is harsh to the ear. The awkward-sounding pronunciations are either unheard of or simply not employed in daily Cantonese language use, in settings formal or informal, cultural or otherwise……….. These pronunciations have been heavily promoted by Dr. Richard Ho at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, via the Hong Kong news media in particular,” said by the society. In this case, we can see that if we excessively pursue “proper Cantonese” in our daily life, it will become a nuisance to the society.

In order to communicate effectively, we have to understand that communication is not completely under the control of the sender. We need to consider the receiver’s understanding of a word. It can avoid misunderstanding by using the linguistic system which is common using, instead of the “proper” one.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_Of_Images

http://foucault.info/documents/foucault.thisIsNotaPipe.en.html

http://jade.tvb.com/special/more_than_words/main/14.html

http://www.cantoneseculture.org/

Famous brand name stands for……? by Janette W.

While walking on the street, nowadays, it is pretty easy to find the well-know brand’s products are on everywhere. They are not from shop displays, but from the people around. Unknowingly, it seems to be the trend that everyone should have at least one brand items for their appearance, and using branded products almost means you are a trendy and fashionable person. Due to this reason, people, especially teenagers are keen on buying branded products and making everyone look alike as they are using the similar products. For saying so, you must not feel strange with the “PLAY”tee by Comme des Garcons, the 3-way-use handbag by Agnes b., the traveling bag by Gucci, Etc. In this week, I would like to discuss this topic on a rather basic level: What makes using branded products become a popular culture in Hong Kong?The rapid economic development in recent years is one of the reasons. Hong Kong’s economy is getting recovery and blossoms since the economic decline in 1997. The income received per capita has increased. As people become wealthier and have higher ability to afford luxury goods, they would demand on higher quality of life. For this reason, famous brand products are inevitably become so popular and making us living in such a materialistic world. Apart form the scene that branded products are everywhere as an evidence, there are also a lot of evidence showing the case. For example, there are more and more large-scale shopping malls in Hong Kong, such as Langham Place, APM and the latest Elements locating in Kowloon, offering more chances to consume.Besides the economical factors, social factors also play an important role in discussing this issue. Many people, especially teenagers claim that their buying habits of branded products are affected by peer pressure. As everyone are using these products, you don’t have one seems to alienate you from the social group. So in order to get identification by peers, many youngsters spend a larger proportion of their pocket money to buy the products. Apart from this, more people say that using branded products means one is trendy and fashionable and some also say the vanity derived from famous brand name increases their incentives to buy. In this case, owning a branded product somehow represents one’s identity that possessing good taste and high status economically.

Although the factors discussed above are so powerful, ideologies under capitalism and media effect should be counted as the most prominent factors creating the unhealthy climate. The so-called “trendy”, “in” by using famous brand products are actually the ideologies created by the producers, or say the power group under capitalism. This is actually what the realist theory states. In order to make more profit from the consumers, producers impose their ideas of reality on the rest of the society, i.e. using their products equals to be trendy. They promote the false consciousness through media, especially by advertisements and magazines. They always invite pop stars, top models to be the spokesmen of their brands; to create the illusion that using their products could be look like as the spokesman that being so stylish and in-fashion. What’s more, the trendy magazines, such as Milk, East Touch, etc. usually selected the hot and must-have items as a trendy person in their books. These products are usually with a brand and this practice also imposes a false consciousness to their readers. That’s why famous brand could be so popular when taking the media effects into account. And it is also the common practice of consumerism.People buy branded products no longer only due to the products’ style, high quality or function, but to a larger extent, the cultural factors discussed above drive them to buy. So next time, when you are going to buy these products, think about it: What are the main reasons for you to buy? What does the products means for you?

Reference:http://www.rthk.org.hk/mediadigest/20050915_76_120607.html#

Do you like wearing jeans? -by Crystal Yam

     

            Do you have a pair of jeans? I am sure that everyone would say YES in this question. Moreover, it is commonly to see that you would own more than one pair of them in your wardrobes. When you are on MTR trains or in shopping malls, you can see many people wearing them, no matter male or female, teenagers or adults. We can see that jeans are around us everywhere. When we read the advertisements on the magazines or newspapers, we can also see the models wearing the jeans to promote the products other than the grand clothes. There are many versions of the invention of the jeans. One of them was that in the past, people thought only lower class would wear jeans. It is due to a person called Levi Strauss who was a merchant of the clothing invented jeans for the poor people. In 1850s, when he travelled to San Francisco, he saw that the trousers of good diggers abraded easily. He then designed to use the canvases to make some durable trousers for the diggers. After that, jeans were popular among them and also were popular to all people around the world. Later, he established a company that is called LEVI STRAUSS & CO. and it is a famous international firm in the world. Nowadays, one of its companies that are the most recognized among people throughout the world is Levis. It becomes a famous and well-known brand of the jeans, T-shirts, etc. clothing. There are also some famous brands of producing jeans other than Levis, e.g. Diesel, Chevignon, Miss Sixty, Tough, Big John, Lee, Wrangler, etc. In my observation, the sales volume of jeans is always the highest among the clothing in the world.                

In my wardrobes, all my trousers are jeans so I always look out of the advertisements about jeans in the magazines. But I do think that jeans can wear in very long time as they are durable and the styles are quite similar in every century. In recent years, there are many new designs to replace the old ones, however, each design still attracts the public for buying and would not be eliminated by the trend easily. I think that jeans will last longer than any of the products around us, e.g. mobile phones, computers, shoes, etc. They won’t be out-dated as they are suitable for any age of people and they are usually to match with casual wears, such as white T-shirts, sports shoes and jackets. They can give people impression to have untrammeled and freedom, so I like to wear them very much for giving myself a mood of comfortable.         

 In addition, there is a trend that many vogue and well-known brands to use the elements from the jeans to produce their brands’ own products. As I mentioned in the previous paragraphs, people wearing jeans in the past were usually lower class, however, the fashion designers of these brands designs their clothes with the jeans, and thus they can make them more stylish and fashionable. The jeans now are not only for the poor people, but also attract the upper class people. We then can see that the jeans are inside the popular culture as they penetrated in our society. Although they may not have a big contradiction between the upper and lower class, we can still see from their prices, materials and brands to determine what culture they are. For example, when there are some diamonds, gold or crystal border on the jeans, the prices are more expensive than the normal one and only rich people can be affordable. Or there is some jeans with poor quality that sells in Mong Kok, they are usually bought by lower or middle class people. From the above, we can see that there is class differentiation between the upper and lower class from the jeans. Although in the very first they was made from the diggers or workers, they now have a trend that upper class people are likely to wear.

References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_culture

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeans

3. http://news.yam.com/view/mkmnews.php/490730

4. http://www.levistrauss.com/Brands/Default.aspx

Magazines in Hong Kong (Carol Yam)

Magazines and periodicals is a regular issue for publication, which contains various articles content. It is a range of books and newspapers and publications. Most of the magazine’s sources of income are buying advertising and the readers. In addition periodicals have a fixed name and used volumes, period or year, month published serial numbers. Usually the magazine cycle mostly divided into: weekly, biweekly, half-monthly, monthly, and bimonthly, quarterly, annual. Most of the magazine will be published on the front cover marking the date, and use color printing; the cover is usually soft skin cover. 

There are several types of magazines: lifestyle magazine, fashion and beauty magazine, tabloid weekly magazine and cultural magazine etc.

 Let’s talk about tabloid weekly magazine first. For example,「Next Magazine」《壹週刊》(March 15, 1990 -) is a listed company in Hong Kong’s Next Media Ltd. At present, “Next Magazine,” was given current events, political, economic, social content and entertainment business news, and other information leisurely life.According to Hong Kong in March 2002 AC Nielsen survey, the readers of “Next Magazine” over the age of 35 accounted for 51%, secondary school graduates or above accounted for 69% of the family income of more than $20,000 accounted for 62%, it is thought, “Next Magazine” readers a as the middle class. According to the 2003 AC Nielsen surveys, “Next Magazine” is the second-highest sales in Hong Kong weekly. 

Although it is so popular magazine, but it’s shooting and interviewing people are very horrible. Mr. Lai single-handedly created the boss of Hong Kong’s “paparazzi” culture, in order to obtain exclusive or first-hand information, the magazine reporters even sneaked into the home of artists, to gather useful materials as their cover story. So we often hear reporters and the outbreak of conflicts between artists, journalists discovered artists privacy, let the general public know that they do not want known side in order to break the artist’s image.

Readers love these reports, especially female readers, the majority of them love tabloid magazine to swap life and so she will not outdated, but also as a topic between friends talking, a few dollars can buy weekly entertainment magazine they would not care about the authenticity of the content, since they only want extracting some time from the busy work. 

Another example is a fashion and beauty magazine. COSMOPOLITAN, is a globally renowned, mainly aimed at women readers of the fashion magazine category. The magazine was established in 1886 and in 1905 published industry magnate Hearst current prices the price of 400,000 dollars (equivalent to 2006 some 10 million dollars at current prices) of its acquisition. At present, including the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, COSMOPOLITAN in the world have more than 50 versions of the magazine published and distributed. 

This magazine is a completely different from Next Magazine. It is a female magazine, says the trend of clothing, cosmetics, accessories etc. It gives the impression to readers is very professional, and so that readers believe and buy its recommended products.

 To conclude, Magazine is the use of leisure, whether tabloid magazines, fashion magazines, or, the most important thing is to relax, enjoy the fun of it.

Performing arts are not a High Culture again (by Karis Man)

In the Mass Society Theory, mass culture is viewed as a commercially produced culture which offers the masses passive consumption and the standardization of culture. By contrast, high culture is viewed as a moral and aesthetic excellence inscribed in the educated elite. Thus, in the past, only elite group people appreciated performing arts while they had money to consuming the cost. It caused some famous drama such as Four Tragedies by William Shakespeare cannot to spread around. Common people may not be appreciated this drama in a theatre personally. Fortunately, they still had a chance reading the book to understand Four Tragedies by William Shakespeare.

Nowadays, performing arts are not only suitable for elite group. In Hong Kong, many people (from different social class) enjoyed appreciating performing arts: drama, musical or ballet. They are willing to consume on their favorite activity. In this week, I appreciated two dramas enjoyably. The first one was “Secret of Resurrection”《梨花夢》which presented by Hong Kong Repertory Theatre in The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts – Lyric Theatre at 16^th October, 2007. The other one was “Little Hong Kong” 《小人國》 which presented by W Theatre in Hong Kong Arts Centre – Shouson Theatre at 18^th October, 2007. Both of them were different style performance art, however, they were also a signifier to send a message to audience. The message which signified from “Secret of Resurrection” to me was “The utopia is equity, all people are disinterest” (天地清明、人心無私). And, “Little Hong Kong” used a comedic performance to represent a different Hong Kong people characters which let me have a chance to introspect myself. Although each audience signified the meaning differently, I believe that a well quality performing arts had a magical and influential power to attract audience keep supporting on it.

     

Moreover, due to the Hong Kong government support to the aesthetic development, many programme present in public, such as Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Hong Kong Arts Centre and Kwai Tsing Theatre. Besides, most of the performances have a discount for different group of people, such as full-time students, senior citizens, people with disabilities and comprehensive social security assistance recipients; therefore, it provides more opportunities to us (middle class and lower class) appreciating the performance. In some cases, some performances presented in Cantonese with Chinese and English subtitles, it also attract foreigner to pay an entrance fee willingly.

Furthermore, under the mass media, many well known and hot events promote to Hong Kong citizen. We can see some advertisements on MTR platform or get the informative booklet in City Hall. For example, we can find the billboard about the new event of Theatre Ensemble, “My Life As A TV”《萬千師奶賀台慶》 on Tsim Sha Tsui’ s MTR platform. It creates a hot topic to different taste of citizens who pay more attention on the advertisement. And then, it also provides the information about the show and reminds them to buy a ticket early and quickly.

     

To conclude, we can experience the arts through various avenues such as art galleries, performing venues, temporary halls for Chinese opera performances, malls, television, movies, information technology networks, advertisements, fashion and jewelry. There are no limits to affect people enjoying the arts. Performing arts are not a high culture again. It becomes the popular culture in Hong Kong while the arts have already been an integral part in our everyday lives. 

References:
http://www.hkrep.com/tc_chi/index/index.html
http://www.wtheatre.org.hk/littlehk/index.html
http://www.theatreensemble.com/02news/performance-tvd40.html

Japanese and Korean tv episodes and music(by yuki wong)

Since ten years ago, Japanese movies had entered into Hong Kong market already, as 阿信的故事. Until同一屋簷下, Japanese episodes became more popular in Hong Kong, and many Japanese episodes and movies were appeared in that time, like悠長假期and戀愛世紀and美麗人生. All these episodes were attracting teenagers and housewife change their flavor. Moreover, the style of the Japanese were changed too, the early period of movies and episodes were encourage people to face the arduous life, so it can join the audience feeling on that period. Follow the change about Hong Kong, the style of Japanese episodes were change to more depend on love, as我的野蠻女友, the trend of love story were keeping until now.

On another hand, Korean TV was entered into Hong Kong market about five years. Since the love story of Japanese episodes were popular in Hong Kong, Korean episodes can catch up the trend, also it insert some new ideal in it, the love story of Japanese episodes are happy and sweet, but Korean episodes are opposite. Consequently, it was fresher for Hong Kong, so the new trend was appeared.

If I were the producer, I will suggest broadcast the Korean music show in Hong Kong in near future. Because now a day, Hong Kong teenagers are love music more than before, they will want to insert more different music style into Hong Kong, Korea is the best choice for them.

Moreover, the economic of Hong Kong in future, between Korea and Hong Kong, the two ways communication chance will help for the economic develop, so that the language of Korea will be more popular. Music is one of the ways to learn the language, as a result the music show will join more audiences to watch.

Also, many brands which come from Korea, they haven’t entered into Hong Kong market yet, or some brand as LG, it is not total developed in Hong Kong. So that, the companies will catch this chance, broadcast the advertisements between the music show and let Hong Kong people know more about it.

TV Program (by Raymond Ng)

TV, this is the main pastime for people in their leisure time. So, for all of the TV program, there will have many restrictions for what can be play and what can’t be play during some specially appointed time. For example, during the afternoon, program content which is for the children can only be played. The time after seven o’clock only family program, i.e. family drama etc…. the time after nine o’clock can play most of the program. But for the quality of the TV program drop, and also, the standard of TV program restriction become more less, many of the program are combine with some bad element, for example, smoking, drinking, crime etc…. most of the people prefer not to see it, so most of the TV program (mainly TVB program), it will consist of some information which is about positive message for the people, the think that it will attract more people to watch TV, also the will get some good information when they watch TV.

In the few months ago, TVB have a program – the most important word (最緊要正字)which teaches people speak out the correct pronunciations of a Chinese word and some Chinese phase. Besides, there are a program which teaches people how to write and recognize Chinese phase and words. For this program, it attract many people to watch it, including many teachers, they will recommend their classmate to watch it also, this can help them to learn how to pronoun and write a right word.

Other than that, in the last month, TVB had a program call Steps (舞動全城), the content is giving a positive message for the people that dancing is good for you. Dance can help you keep fit, make you healthy and relax from a pressure world. Beside, in this program, there are some content which tell people that drinking of Chinese herb tea can make you healthy as well.

From the above, we can see that people willing to watch some positive message program during their leisure time. Beside, through the sponsor from the provider, TVB can earn both money and it will make people to watch this program. TVB earn money is because the sponsor need to pay to TVB on their product fee, they can also get a higher circulation for their program.

Genetically Modified (GM) Food in Hong Kong (Canyenne N.)

 GM food now pervades the lives of Hong Kong people in an unthinkable way. After 2003, when we had SARS, bird flu and mad cow disease which, added to the information blitz about the dangers of mass-produced food, resulted in a huge turnaround in attitude to GM food. More and more people have turned to healthy, safer ways of eating and more and more Hong Kong people have become aware of as the health perils of mass-processed products of food. In fact in one lifetime we may consume as much as 25 tones of food. Then the GM food market has grown. So what is a GM food?

Over 10000 years or ago we studied ways to improve the quantity of food and we have a lot of studied on agriculture. However, it was only until 1886 in Austria a monk conducted a cross-breeding of a particular type of a bean and he discovered that actually there were certain things which controlled the length, the colour, the weight or the quantity of growth of those peas, of course he did not know what that was. As technology and scientific continued, we gradually know that genes are composed of DNA, and we can reconstructs the sequence, therefore different patterns or sequence will lead to different genes. This technology made GM food.

Hong Kong is gaining more of an appreciation for organic products as it follows a trend somewhat further developed in other affluent Asian markets. Although some market-watchers have noted that GM food have been selling in Hong Kong since the late 1990s, GM food still is a new market sector, and certainly not a well documented one the government of Hong Kong keeps any statistics on GM food. In fact, even industry veterans concede that the Hong Kong organic market’s size is impossible to estimate.

Two most important consideration of GM food which are relevant in Hong Kong people are prices and health. The development of GM food can control the pests and speed up the growth, products would be cheaper and healthier. In Hong Kong, GM food is widely availed. It should be regulated and there is no control over it. People are consuming GM food, but they cannot identify it. If GM food has a labeling system government could be able to control the use of GM food.