Fact of the Day: HK's Birthrate Falls Below 30K

Babies are a scarce resource in Hong Kong

A quick news flash from Hong Kong that isn't good for the city's future.

It is well-known the birthrate is low, but the latest figures are definitely concerning.

There were only 2,376 births in August, the lowest total for an August since monthly records began, and 112 fewer than last year.

This means Hong Kong is expected to have 28,818 births for 2026, the first time below 30,000 since World War II.

That was when the Japanese occupied Hong Kong from December 1941-August 1945 (three years and eight months). During that period the Japanese colonisers routinely executed Chinese residents, took over and controlled the police, hyperinflation led to financial hardships for locals, and there was a shortage of fuel and food.

For comparison, only 10 years ago (2016), there were 60,856 births in Hong Kong...

What further measures will the Hong Kong government take to boost the birthrate? Does it even care?

Shoes Reveal the Human Condition

Colourful pairs of car-themed shoes in the museum

Who knew people would be so fascinated by shoes? Sonja Bata did. She married into the Bata shoe family business that has been around for 131 years. Her husband, Thomas J Bata was sent to Toronto after World War II to expand the company in Canada, and wherever they travelled, Sonja would collect shoes.

By the late 1970s she had collected over 1,500 pairs of shoes by the late 1970s, and a friend and anthropologist suggested she house them in a museum.

Silk shoes for Chinese women with bound feet

The Bata family set up the Bata Shoe Foundation in 1979, and then in 1995 opened the Bata Shoe Museum on Bloor Street West, near the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Today the collection has over 15,000 pairs of shoes!

I had visited over two decades ago and so it was fun to go check it out again. And here's a pro tip: if you have a Toronto Public Library card, you can visit the Bata Shoe Museum free by registering online!

After we went in, we were advised to start from the bottom and work our way up the building. In the basement is the permanent exhibition, showing an array of very old shoes, from depictions of sandals on Egyptian mummy cases, to tiny silk embroidered slippers worn by Chinese women with bound feet, to a French chestnut crushing clog with craggy spikes, and Nike sneakers designed by Pharrell Williams.

Perugia's patented shankless shoe

The next floor up had an exhibition about the Italian-French shoemaker Andre Perugia (1897-1977). He was the son and grandson of shoemakers, and Perugia went on to innovate when it came to fashion-forward designs that showed off women's feet in creative ways.

He made shoes that had a basket-like weave, or detailed button closures with a scalloped edge, and designed mules that had no heel so it looked like the woman was on tip toe.

Another intriguing design is a shankless shoe, where the middle part of the shoe that connects the sole and heel is missing. Perugia's design was first mentioned in 1934 and he patented it in 1940. One wonders if it is even comfortable to wear, but reports of the time claimed it was... if so, why aren't there more shankless shoes?

Perugia worked with fashion houses like Dior and Schiaparelli, and his place in fashion was immortalised in a painting that featured such giants as Christian Dior, Hermes, and Guerlain. 

Cactus-themed boots by Charlie Dunn

Another fun exhibition is called Rough & Ready: A History of the Cowboy Boot. It takes visitors on the history of the cowboy boot since the late 19th century to the present. Some are purely for practical use, others are decorative, like boots decorated with cactus plants complete with flowers designed by Charlie Dunn, who has been called the Michelangelo of cowboy boots, and there's also a beautiful pair featuring turquoise peacocks by Rocketbuster Boots.

And yes, there's even a pair of boots featuring Woody from the Toy Story animated franchise. 

The final exhibition room is about Vindolanda, a Roman auxiliary fort and settlement just south of Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England. The excavation site there has unearthed many pairs of Roman footwear.

Originally it was believed these military sites only housed men, but there were also women and children there, and they have also found socks, bowls, and cups. They have also unearthed messages like, "Please send me socks and underwear" to the price of beer, to "I'm getting kicked out of the social club house", which gives archeologists an even better picture of the lives of the people in Vindolanda. 

French boots worn to crush chestnuts

Really interesting, and as I said before, who isn't interested in footwear? It's a fantastic way to understand how people lived thousands of years ago.

For that we have Sonja Bata to thank!

Bata Shoe Museum

327 Bloor Street West

Toronto, ON

416 979 7799

A Natural Form of Resilience

Chinese tourists in Kennedy Town last year

On Xiaohongshu, Chinese tourists flock to Kennedy Town, specifically Forbes Street to take pictures of and with the banyan trees that seem to effortlessly cling onto the wall. This phenomenon is unique to Hong Kong.

Some people call them masonry wall trees because stone walls were built between the 19th century and World War II as retaining walls using stone.

Banyan trees in Kowloon Park

As these walls were being constructed, some banyan tree seeds may have blown into the crevices of the stone walls or dropped by birds and managed to sprout and grow, with their roots on the outside of the wall. It's quite amazing these trees have managed to flourish despite such an unnatural environment to establish themselves in.

There are many trees in Kennedy Town, Mid-Levels and Wan Chai.

On this trip I saw some of these banyan trees in Kowloon Park, adjacent to the aviary pond.

Banyan trees are considered to have good feng shui, symbolising longevity and perseverance. It is not a tree that is cut down for its wood because its wood is full of knots, and it is hard to set on fire so it can't be used as firewood.

These trees are beautiful signs of resilience in nature!

Review: The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes

Hughes was a reclusive painter who loved being in BC

I didn't know much about the artist E.J. Hughes until his paintings were fiercely bid on at auction and record prices were recorded by the media. He painted colourful sceneries of British Columbia, overlooking a lake, fishing, and whimsical houses. Hughes died in 2007 and it turns out he left behind a treasure trove of letters, sketches, and paintings that have been carefully archived or collected by trusted people.

Director Jenn Strom was interested in doing short films about BC artists, and Hughes was one of them. But when she started researching him, she found there was so much material about the artist that it made sense to do a feature-length documentary about him, The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes that made its world premiere at the Vancouver Film Festival.

Hughes depicted small town life in his art

It took her five years (delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic), but the end result is a beautiful, comprehensive tribute to the reclusive artist who would rather his paintings speak for him.

Hughes was born in North Vancouver in 1913 and his early childhood was spent in Nanaimo. His trombone-playing father moved the family around and ended up in Vancouver. Hughes, who wasn't particularly academically minded but gifted in art, enrolled in the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Art (which later became the Emily Carr University of Art + Design), where Frederick Varley, one of the Group of Seven artists, was one of the teachers.

Varley's style was to go out into nature and sketch or paint quickly; this wasn't Hughes' style, which where he was more meticulous and detailed, but Varley encouraged Hughes to keep going anyway.

In 1939 Hughes, with two classmates, Paul Goranson and Orville Fisher started a commercial art firm where they sold prints, and hoped to get commissions to make murals, but with people still suffering from the Depression, they didn't make much money. 

However, the British Columbia government got them to make some murals for the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco in 1939 and that made them well-known.

Hughes died in 2007 at the age of 93

During World War II Hughes enlisted and became a war artist. He loved this job because he was paid to make art everyday. The conditions were so cold in the winter, that this changed Hughes' detailed work into something more simplified, but still bold strokes.

The curators in the documentary explained how war artists must record history with a capital H with art with a capital A. So the soldiers must be depicted correctly in terms of their uniforms and machinery, and recording their contribution to the war for historical purposes. 

The curators -- mostly women -- observed how Hughes' work not only covered the war, but mostly their daily lives, like in the canteen which showed plates of food and bottles of Tabasco sauce on the shelf, or how the soldiers trained jumping over each other like leap frog in a circle.

It was around this time he met Fern who became his wife. They tried to have children and the first baby died at childbirth, the second died six months after the baby was born. Fern was later diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.

After the war, Hughes and Fern settled in Shawnigan Lake and he painted in his studio overlooking the lake. 

A Montreal gallery owner named Max Stern came to Vancouver and Varley told him to look up Hughes. It took Stern a while to track him down and when he did, he was so impressed by Hughes' work that he offered to buy the whole lot and to continue painting for him.

This was a godsend for Hughes, who was struggling financially. Stern managed Hughes' career on the east coast and the Montreal gallery paid Hughes until it closed in 2000, 10 years after Stern died.

Fish Boats, River Inlet fetched $2M at auction

Now Hughes and his wife were able to finally purchase a second-hand car and drive around and sketch landscapes from his front seat. They did road trips around BC, to places like Kamloops, Penticton, Revelstoke, Okanagan, Nanaimo, and Chilliwack.

Through curators at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian War Museum, and tape recorded interviews of Hughes with his friend Pat Salmon, author Robert Ramos, and even the staff at the diner he ate at everyday, director Strom is able to sketch out a pretty comprehensive picture of the quiet, thoughtful Hughes that is a fitting tribute to him. 

She also admits the real reason she wanted to do the documentary was that it gave her the opportunity to travel around BC. The hardest part was matching his paintings with the actual spots where he painted. Strom says there was one place where she looked around and saw a house that seemed to block the view. She knocked on the door and asked about the view. "The E.J. Hughes' view? Let me show you," the woman replied.

The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes

Director Jenn Strom

82 mins

Wok Hei at a Hong Kong Dai Pai Dong

Two chefs cooking with wok hei at dai pai dong Oi Man Sang

In Chinese cooking, particularly Cantonese, people talk about how good a dish is by the "wok hei", literally "the breath of the wok".

It involves intense heat or fire, that heats up the wok so much that ingredients are cooked and caramelised in less than a minute, resulting in a slight char or hint of smokiness that adds another layer to the flavour of the dish.

Baked casserole, stir fried beef ribs, razor clams

Most Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong have wok stations to create wok hei, but may not be able to get that intense heat that can be found in dai pai dongs, or open-air food stall. One of them is Oi Man Sang in the Sham Shui Po area, more specifically around Prince Edward district.

Dai pai dong literally means "big license stall", and they began proliferating after World War II. But decades later in a bid to clean up the streets for hygienic reasons, the government restricted the number of dai pai dongs, relocating many of them in government-run cooked food markets. 

The numbers of dai pai dongs dwindled further when the authorities only allowed owners to pass on the license to family members. 

Which brings us to Oi Man Sang, which has been around since 1956, making it one of the oldest in Hong Kong. 

Typhoon shelter crab with garlic and spices

Typically there is a massive line of people waiting for tables -- no reservations are taken -- and diners are literally eating on the sidewalk while the mobile kitchen is on the street, with two big gas burners fuelled by kerosene. As chef Lucas Sin likes to say, they use jet fuel to cook.

This was my first time to Oi Man Sang and was excited to try the food that I had read and heard so much about. We got a table set up on the sidewalk, metres away from the open-air kitchen and watched two chefs deftly manipulate the woks as they were heated up by the roaring fire underneath.

Another good thing about eating here is that there is no corkage, so we brought a bottle of sake to try with the food. 

The first dish to arrive at the table was baked fish intestines with liver in egg casserole, and here it was topped with thin slices of you tiao or savoury Chinese doughnut for a contrasting texture. This was done well, fluffy from the eggs combined with the offal.

Stir-fried cabbage with minced pork and shrimp

Next was stir-fried small razor clams, which you don't see often. The narrow strips of sweet clam meat were about two to three inches long, cooked with a tiny bit of spice, and roughly chopped onion and peppers.

We also ordered stir-fried beef ribs, very tender and attached to the bone, together with onion and peppers again, and typhoon shelter crab, which is cooked with a lot of minced garlic and spices. The meat itself was sweet, though quite messy to eat.

A favourite was stir-fried cabbage with minced pork and dried shrimps in a clay pot. The cabbage soaked up the salty flavours, and in the sizzling pot stayed warm for quite a while. 

Stir-fried prawns is considered a popular dish, though again a bit messy to eat, though the prawns were very large, meaty and sweet.

While most of these dishes demonstrated wok hei, perhaps the only dish that was disappointing with the yeung chow fried rice; the individual rice while plump, were not cooked well enough in the wok to have the wok hei flavour.

Large meaty prawns served at Oi Man Sang

Nevertheless, we were quite satisfied with our dinner. I ventured over to the kitchen to take a look and indeed the two chefs there cooked dishes in seconds thanks to the intense fire on the stove. 

At one point there was a lot of banging -- the fire was so hot that it had warped the wok and the chef had to hammer it back into shape!

The evening we went there weren't many people waiting in line, which some attribute to not many tourists coming. We hope Oi Man Sang and other dai pai dongs continue their tradition for years to come, though who in the next generation is willing to work with such heat day in, day out?

Oi Man Sang

Shop B-C, G/F, 1 Shek Kip Mei Street, Sham Shui Po

+852 2393 9315

VIFF Review: Modernism, Inc.

Noyes was most influential with his design work at IBM

Eliot Noyes was an American architect and industrial designer who promoted the importance of branding for a company, and how form and function were critical. "We think good design is good business," he used to say, and he proved it with his work for such clients as IBM and Mobil.

The documentary Modernism, Inc. profiles Noyes, as for most people who are not in the design world probably have never heard of him.

Noyes was very prolific. At the age of 29 he was already the director of the Industrial Design department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. One exhibition he showed the chair of the 19th century, stripping it to show off how much extraneous material these chairs had, from stuffing to fabric, and cushioning. He contrasted it with modern chairs that had simple lines and bright colours.

His design of the IBM Selectric typewriter

He was also very clever. During World War II Noyes set up a program to look into the potential uses of gliders, but the generals didn't seem interested in these planes that had no fire power. Then he noticed all the secretaries would read a military-themed comic strip in the newspaper everyday and sent a letter to the cartoonist about adding a storyline about gliders.

Soon after these comic strips were published, the generals took an interest in what Noyes was doing.

Noyes married another architect though she never practiced, and they moved their family to New Cannan, Connecticut. There he designed their home which had floor-to-ceiling windows with a courtyard in the middle; it meant that if they wanted to move from one room to another they would have to go outside, but the children in the film said this never bothered them.

The children were also brought up in a traditional sense, learning classical music and reading books, playing in nature.

Meanwhile a pilot Noyes knew in the air force was Thomas J Watson Jr, the son of the founder of International Business Machines, or IBM. As Watson Jr was poised to take over his father's business that started in 1911, Noyes advised him on creating a new standard look of the company, from the letterhead to the look of the products and even the architecture of the IBM buildings.

The Noyes' home in New Cannan

For this he got such designers as Paul Rand, Charles Eames, and architects like Mies van de Rohe, Eero Saarinen, and Marco Zanuso to work with IBM.

Noyes' most famous design for the company was the IBM Selectric typewriter, which used a typeball instead of a "basket" of individual keys, while the design of the typewriter itself was sleek and modern. He realised that with computers, the parts that people don't need to understand how they work don't need to be seen; only design how it needs to be used.

Modernism, Inc. takes a sharp turn that led to Noyes' fall from the pedestal, but for his children, it was an opportunity to get to know their father better as a person, which son Eli says in the film [he died in March 2024 at the age of 81]. 

He recalls flying in -- what else -- gliders with his dad and they had a great time, but soon after that his father had cancer and died.

Nevertheless, Noyes is perhaps the father of branding in the United States, giving us the language and template to follow that have been tried and tested. Apple, the film points out, has followed Noyes' philosophy of form and function. 

Modernism, Inc.

Directed by Jason Cohn

79 minutes

2023

The Mystery of the Missing Karsh Portrait Solved

The Roaring Lion has been found... in Italy

My father is a photo enthusiast and loves taking pictures. When I was young he told me about the famous Armenian-Canadian portrait photographer and showed me his famous pictures in two books he had.

There was then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, actress Sophia Loren, scientist Albert Einstein, and actress Audrey Hepburn. They are striking photographs because they are usually minimalist backgrounds and focus on the subject's face and their expressions. It was an honour to "be Karshed".

Karsh is best known for the Churchill portrait

But perhaps the most famous portrait is that of then British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, which was taken after he addressed the Canadian Parliament during World War II on December 30, 1941. 

Right after his speech, Karsh took the portrait of Churchill in the Speaker's Chamber during a very quick photo session.

As the story goes, Karsh asked Churchill to take the cigar out of his mouth, but he refused. So just before Karsh took the picture, he plucked the cigar out of the prime minister's mouth and got that grumpy, stern expression.

After the photo shoot, Churchill said: "You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed," which led to the name of this portrait.

Karsh and his wife lived in the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa for many years where he also had a studio, and when they moved out, they gifted a signed copy of the Roaring Lion to the hotel along with other portraits that were hung in public areas for visitors to admire.

Estrellita Karsh in front of the portrait

But sometime between December 25, 2021 to January 6, 2022 the Roaring Lion was brazenly stolen from the hotel and replaced with a slightly smaller replica.

In May 2022, Italian lawyer Nicolas Cassinelli unknowingly bought the portrait from a Sotheby's online auction for around 5,000 euros, or over C$9,000.

The portrait hung it in his house in Genoa, Italy, and Cassinelli today told the media it was like having the Mona Lisa in his living room.

It wasn't until August 2022 when a hotel maintenance worker who worked there for decades, noticed there was something different about the portrait and reported it stolen. Ironically the police told him he was considered a suspect, as the authorities thought it was an inside job.

Last October Cassinelli was contacted by Sotheby's warning the Canadian police were investigating the theft and would need to look at the photograph, as it may have been stolen.

The apartment in the hotel the Karshes lived in

However it wasn't until February 2024 that police verified he had the stolen picture.

Yesterday it was announced Jeffrey Iain James Wood, a 43 year-old from Powassan, Ontario, was arrested in April on multiple charges, including theft, forgery and trafficking stolen property.

In the meantime Cassinelli will travel from Genoa, Italy to Rome to formally return the portrait to the Canadian consulate this weekend and then it will be brought back to the Chateau Laurier where it will be rehung.

Cassinelli was only reimbursed about half of what he paid for the photograph, but he is taking it in stride and says he has an interesting story to tell about his brief time with Karsh's portrait.

Grazie mille Cassinelli and we are looking forward to Churchill coming back to Ottawa! 

Learning About Abandoned Spaces Part 1

Construction at Senakw, by the Burrard Street Bridge

Yesterday I went on a photo walk with a group of strangers and led by staff from the Museum of Vancouver. It has an exhibition called Mirage: Disused Public Property in Taiwan by photographer Yao Jui Chung that is on until September 2. 

For 14 years he and his students documented abandoned government-funded buildings all over Taiwan not only to draw attention to them, but also hold the government to account and challenge the authorities to reuse them, or allow others such as NGOs, artists, the elderly or young people to repurpose them.

Some of these photographs are shown in the exhibition, which encourages visitors to pin point unused spaces on a map of Vancouver.

On Saturday the museum staff invited some amateur and professional photographers to come and investigate some neglected places in the city (well those near the museum).

After visiting a run-down house that has been left empty for years, we went to see a plot of land with many construction cranes near the Burrard Street Bridge.

On Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh land, the development is called Senakw or "the place".

Museum staff explained that the indigenous people lived here, but in 1869 they were forced to move to the North Shore. They were told they would get C$100 cheques each when they got to the other side and were only given a short time to pack their belongings. When they did reach the North Shore, their cheques were void -- in other words fake.

We were also told the place was multicultural. In 1908 the first gurdwara or Sikh temple in Vancouver was built in Kitsilano; it was taken down and interestingly Canadian architect Arthur Erickson designed the Ross Street Temple in 1970.

Japanese-Canadians also lived in the area before they were interned in World War II.

The large towers at Senakw will add a lot of housing and services to the area; neighbours are concerned about what's coming in, while others are optimistic about the land use and look at it as a model for future development in Vancouver...

Review: The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises is a fictional story of Jiro Horikoshi

Since spring, VIFF has held a Studio Ghibli film festival, showing some of the best animated films during spring break, the summer and now a few more to wrap up the year. This past weekend I watched The Wind Rises for the first time and really enjoyed its message and how the story unfolded.

Just before the film began, a guest speaker gave a short introduction to explain the meaning of the title. The Wind Rises is from a line from a poem by Paul Valery called Le Cimetiere Marin, or The Graveyard by the Sea.

The romance between Jiro and Nahoko is sweet

The last stanza starts with: "The wind is rising!... We must try to live!", which is the theme of Hayao Miyazaki's 2013 swan song film (since then it's become The Boy and the Heron). Basically, it is about living life to the fullest and feeling alive.

The Wind Rises is a semi-autobiography or Jiro Horikoshi, who was the chief engineer of many Japanese fighter planes used in World War II. Originally Miyazaki published a manga series about Horikoshi from 2009-2010, and was later persuaded by his staff to make it into an animated film three years later.

His personal interest in planes comes from his father being a director of his brother's company that manufactured rudders for fighter planes in World War II. As a result planes feature in many of his films.

In The Wind Rises, the animated film follows Horikoshi's life from when he was a boy fascinated with planes and later went on to study aeronautical engineering, and later worked on designing planes for the military. However, Miyazaki added some fictional characters, including Jiro's love interest Nahoko Satomi, and fictional encounters with Italian aeronautical engineer Giovanni Battista Caproni. It's funny that he starts speaking Italian and then suddenly switches to Japanese.

Horikoshi was an engineer

The pace of the 126-minute film is never rushed, giving time for each scene to unfold and breathe before moving onto the next one. The dialogue is thoughtful and at times sprinkled with wry humour.

Many sarcastic lines come from Jiro's boss, a short man with spectacles and is basically a slave driver, but Jiro is so passionate about planes he is willing to work overtime and calmly takes on assignments even though his boss is anxious about meeting deadlines and pleasing clients. 

The romance between Jiro and Nahoko is very sweet and the storyline shows how fate -- or rather wind -- brings them together many times.

However, the plot has a strange detour when the Japanese secret police are after Jiro, so he hides in his boss's home; this storyline doesn't seem to be resolved at all in the end.

Nevertheless, The Wind Rises is a good reminder that we should not take anything for granted and appreciate what we have. Life is too short for regrets and to always move forward enjoying what we love to do.

The Wind Rises

Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki

126 minutes

Remembrance Day Made More Meaningful

The Canadian War Cemetery near Juno Beach, France

Every year the media manages to find amazing stories related to Remembrance Day. There are veterans who are over 100 years old and still clearly remember being in the trenches, or relatives remembering uncles, grandfathers, brothers whose lives were tragically cut short through letters and personal items.

For Brad Palin, of Saanich, BC, he discovered more connections to his family that has sparked his interest to find out as much as he can.

Some 2,000 soldiers are buried at this cemetery

He visited the Canadian War Cemetery near Juno Beach in France, where there are more than 2,000 gravestones there and found it overwhelming.

"It brings home what the loss of life was," Palin says. "And it's just one cemetery of many [in the area]."

The tour guide asked him where he was from and took him to the grave of a young soldier from the same area named Roy Pattinson.

It turns out Palin knew of Pattinson -- Palin's late uncle Peter went to the same school as Pattinson -- and that they lived around the corner from each other.

"I remember saying at the grave site, 'They had to know each other,'" Palin recalled.

That night he began searching online for more information about Roy Pattinson and found and black and white photo group photo of him -- with his uncle.

"I just had chills," said Palin.

When he came home, he opened old family files he hadn't looked at in years and found his uncle Peter's autograph book and found Pattinson's signature. There was also a condolence card from Pattinson's family after Palin's uncle had died in a plane crash in England during the war.

Palin discovered Pattinson was his uncle's friend

He later found more pictures he hadn't seen before, including photos of his uncle and Pattinson when they were young, and group photos showing both families had socialised together before the war.

"How can it be that we've made this connection halfway around the world to my family through a random grave in France?" Palin says, still amazed.

Palin never met his uncle, but now knows more about him -- and that he was named after him, as Brad is his middle name, Peter is his actually first name. 

"So I've heard stories about him, but seeing all this brings it all home," he said.

Palin is determined to contact the Pattinson family and try to identify as many people in the group photographs as possible. 

This year's Remembrance Day has more meaning for Palin, remembering not only his uncle but his friend and neighbour too.

VIFF Review: The Boy and the Heron

A grey heron taunts Mahito when he arrives in his new home

One of the films at the Vancouver International Film Festival that sold out on the first day tickets were available was Studio Ghibli's The Boy and the Heron, which was believed to be 82-year-old Hayao Miyazaki's swan song, but apparently since then he has said he will continue working.

However The Boy and the Heron does seem to be Miyazaki's parting gift, yet another of his fantastical stories on a massive scale, with deep themes about youth and old age, selfishness and selflessness, birth and death, trauma and devotion.

At today's screening there was a very long line of people waiting in the standby queue, hoping for the slim possibility of being able to view the feature-length animation, but only a few were able to get in as almost all the seats were taken except for seats in the front.

This may not be Miyazaki's last film...

Many in the audience were young people, some even brought young kids along, but it was not a My Neighbour Totoro kind of film...

The year is 1943 and during the Pacific War, Mahito's mother dies in a fire in the hospital she works at. The boy has traumatic flashbacks and has trouble processing her passing. A few years later, Mahito is now 12 years old, and he and his father move from Tokyo to the countryside where he meets his new mother, Natsuko, who is his mother's sister. And she's pregnant.

It's a lot for him to process, and on top of it Mahito is not liked by his classmates in his new school because of his relatively wealthy background.

But he quickly notices a grey heron following him and soon it speaks to him in a human voice, taunting him about his mother... and there is an abandoned tower that looks like a brick castle on the property that takes him to another world that involves pelicans, giant parakeets and the cutest little white blobs called waruwaru.

It's interesting to note many of Miyazaki's storylines seem to involve children who are left to their own devices, usually in the countryside, and discovering a supernatural world where they make friends and allies to help them on their mission or journey. The Boy and the Heron is definitely in this category, as numerous characters help Mahito.

Mahito meets many characters who help him

It seems this 124-minute film is Miyazaki's most autobiographical film to date. His family also evacuated from the city to the countryside during the war, and he lost his mother at a young age. She was apparently known to be opinionated and was a source of inspiration for Miyazaki's films, and one can see that in films like Ponyo, Porco Rosso, and now The Boy and the Heron.

The title is a bit of a misnomer because it's not just about a boy and a heron; it was inspired by a novel written in 1937 called How Do You Live?, about a 15-year-old boy and his relationship with his uncle. The book is literally in the film, left by Mahito's mother for him to read.

The fantastical worlds that Miyazaki creates are so interesting and creative, which also results in funny dialogue to create a bit of levity.

In a time where computer-generated animation is the norm these days, Miyazaki still hand draws all the scenes, a tedious process that also results in a look that doesn't have a perfect sheen, like say those of Pixar. 

Definitely worth watching again, as it's a lot to absorb the first time around!

The Boy and the Heron

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

124 minutes

  

Review: Oppenheimer

The film is based in a biography of the theoretical physicist

Just watched the film Oppenheimer and it was quite intense, but a cinematic triumph for director Christopher Nolan, featuring an all-star cast bringing to life the complex life and person of J Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb.

The three-hour film is an adaptation of the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin and Nolan wrote the screenplay. As a result Oppenheimer is a pretty accurate portrayal of the historical events that happened, following the American theoretical physicist as he studies quantum physics in England and Germany, brings the subject back to the United States, and then gets recruited to become the director of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Einstein was a contemporary of Oppenheimer

He brings together a team of scientists to create the atomic bomb, but as they are building it, Hitler has died, and the motivation to stop the Nazis has evaporated. But Oppenheimer believes the Japanese need to be stopped and the project continues. Once the test code named Trinity is a success, the US Army moves in to take the bomb plans to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945 respectively, effectively stopping the Japanese.

However, Oppenheimer is not a straight-forward all-American patriot, especially not during the McCarthy era. And this is what makes the film a complex portrayal of the man. While it is not definitive that he was a card-carrying communist, he tried to help Jewish scientists flee the Nazis, supported the Spanish civil war, tried to unionize professors. It perhaps didn't help Oppenheimer that his brother and wife were active communists.

The film also shows his complicated personal life, how he had a passionate affair with Jean Tatlock, but she broke up with him; he soon met his future wife Katherine "Kitty" Puening, who was with her third husband, also Oppenheimer's colleague.

He had an intense relationship with Tatlock

Later Oppenheimer rekindled his relationship with Tatlock while he was married with his first child, but ended it -- she later committed suicide, which affected him profoundly. He also later had an affair with Ruth Tolman, also the wife of Oppenheimer's friend.

In one scene Kitty is seen drunk and unable to care for their son and Oppenheimer takes the baby to his friend to look after him "for a while"... one wonders if he son experienced abandonment issues. Oppenheimer and Kitty later had a daughter.

After the Trinity test, Oppenheimer realises how the atomic bomb will impact humanity and tries to tell the US government it has to stop what will begin as the arms race in the Cold War. 

Another character in the film is Lewis Strauss, head of the Atomic Energy Commission who wants to be confirmed for Secretary of Commerce. Strauss is personally offended when Oppenheimer humiliates him publicly dismissing concerns about exporting radioisotopes. As a result Strauss orchestrates an elaborate plan to silence Oppenheimer with a closed-door hearing to decide whether the scientist should have his security clearance.

Black and white scenes show historical events

The questioning is intense and harsh, making it hard for Oppenheimer to defend himself effectively, but also reveals his character of being unable or unwilling to fight back, and his trusted colleagues and wife have to do it for him.

The cinematography of Oppenheimer shows calculated shots, and apparently no computer-generated images were used, particularly when it came to the Trinity test. Cillian Murphy as the physicist ages gracefully throughout the film, his big blue eyes are very intense and full of emotion. He is in almost all the scenes.

It was only after watching the film did a friend tell me that the scenes in colour were the story through Oppenheimer's eyes, while those in black and white were events as viewed in history.

Meanwhile the costumes were fantastic, bringing back sharp suits with high-waisted trousers, broad-rimmed porkpie hat. There was also a lot of smoking going on and Oppenheimer has a cigarette lit most of the time; is it surprising he died of throat cancer at the age of 62 in 1967?

Oppenheimer is a complex portrait of the man, how he was not just into physics, but was well read, faced moral issues with regards to humanity and was loyal to his colleagues. Should he have invented the atomic bomb? He was proud of his achievement, but saddened that it resulted in ratcheted tensions with the Soviet Union.

Oppenheimer

Directed by Christopher Nolan

180 minutes

Okanagan: Road Trip to Osoyoos

Osoyoos is surrounded by hills and water, ideal for fruits, wine

Yesterday we drove east from Vancouver to Osoyoos for a few days before going on to Kelowna, both small towns in the Okanagan, a region best known for its wineries and orchards, as well as fruits like cherries, apricots, peaches, and apples. Only the cherries are for sale at the moment and they are delicious!

The drive takes about four hours but we broke it up into three sections: Vancouver to Hope, where we had a bite to eat at a well-known diner called Home Restaurant. I had the all-day breakfast of two eggs, a large German sausage, a giant heap of hash browns and rye toast. The pies on display looked amazing, but we were too full even for a bite. 

There are many colourful murals around

Then I took the wheel from Hope to Princeton, where the roads were quite winding and many hairpin turns that required slowing down and steady handling of the car. Luckily there weren't many cars on the road, and when there were passing lanes available, I was more than happy to let those speeders go past me!

Princeton to Osoyoos didn't have the hairpin turns, but many parts were single-lane traffic before arriving in the small town. There are big hotel chains like Holiday Inn and Best Western, while many others are private operations. I was surprised to see that they promoted having a "sandy beach" -- that meant Osoyoos Lake was at the back of the property, and while there was soft sand, it was only a few metres long, and no shells, just pebbles.

Nevertheless, the natural scenery is stunning, with Osoyoos in the bottom of a valley surrounded by hills. No wonder it's an ideal place for growing wine grapes, and the place is usually the hottest place in British Columbia in the summer.

Luckily for us temperatures haven't hit the peak yet, and instead the sun's rays are cooled by blustery winds. 

This legion stands out and very patriotic

Today I went for a walk around Osoyoos Lake, which looks like a slithering snake that is split in half almost in the middle by a small bridge. There's lots of green space around the lake, as well as the aforementioned "beach". People are either hanging out and sitting on benches enjoying the view, or out on the lake in their boats.

Walking into town there are several murals. One that caught my eye was the one for veterans, and pointed out they had served in both world wars, the Korean War as well as in Afghanistan, and as peacekeepers. By the lake there is also Veterans Park paying tribute to these soldiers.

Founded in 1946, Osoyoos is named after the Syilx (Okanagan Indian) word soo-yoos, meaning "narrowing of the waters". Fur traders first worked here in the 1800s, followed by miners. It wasn't until the early 1900s were commercial orchards established and then growing wine grapes in the 1960s.

The town has a few banks, national chain stores like Shopper's Drug Mart and Home Hardware, and the rest are independent shops from jewellery to books, nail salons and clothing. Oh yes and ice cream shops, and by the lake there's a trailer selling mini doughnuts and frozen lemonade.

A refreshing frozen lemonade

As I reached the trailer before lunchtime it was more prudent to just get the frozen lemonade, which was probably a ripoff at C$6, but what the heck, it was hot and lemonade flavoured shaved ice seemed like the ideal antidote after a warm day in the sun.

New Museum Attempts to Evoke Patriotism

Lee officially opens a museum dedicated to Chinese resistance

The patriotism drum is beating louder in Hong Kong these days.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu is leading the way by opening yet another museum, this time marking the Chinese resistance against the Japanese invasion in the lead-up to World War II.

The Hong Kong Sha Tau Kok Anti-War Memorial Hall was hailed by Lee as "a base for patriotic education".

The museum is in the Luo ancestral home

Shivers are running down people's backs reading this.

The museum is located at the Luo family ancestral home, because this was the base used by resistance fighters.

On social media Lee hailed the museum as "a base for patriotic education, which will facilitate national education, deepen citizens' understanding of Chinese history and enhance their recognition for the country".

At the opening ceremony, he said people displayed their love for the country when they defended its soil decades ago, "encouraging the people of China to fight for a great renaissance of the Chinese race".

Apparently this is a well-worn phrase used by mainland officials to refer to China's modern development.

But it is only natural for people to defend their country when it is under attack. One contemporary example is Ukraine fighting against the Russians now. Romanticising war as a bid to revive the Chinese race is melodramatic...

Lee says museum is "a base for patriotic education"

Nevertheless, the Chief Executive added the Hong Kong government "attaches great importance to the history marking the victory of the resistance and will let the public understand its role and all the stories during the war," he said.

What victory is he talking about?

In the Battle of Hong Kong, the allied forces of the British, Canadians and Indians tried to prevent the Japanese invasion, but the city fell on December 25, 1941. How is that a victory? 

Only when the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945 respectively, did the occupation end.

But perhaps this is how one whitewashes history and insists on this victorious narrative complete with a physical building as proof. In 2014 the National People's Congress declared September 3 as "Victory Day".

When researching this museum, it should be noted only mainland Chinese state media mentioned its opening...