This Time Sing with Emotion

Students must sing the national anthem "with emotion"

Students in Hong Kong started school today, and they were instructed to sing the national anthem "with emotion" during the flag-raising ceremonies.

"On some occasions, we call it 'playing the national anthem'. On others, we call it 'playing and singing the national anthem," Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin said during a radio show.

Choi says students should not sing in a low voice

"Sometimes, students may be unaware of the occasion. Students sing in a low voice and are unsure whether they should sing it or not. After a reminder, everyone knows they should sing the national anthem solemnly and with emotion during the ceremony."

Back in June, the Education Bureau complained students in two schools of singing March of the Volunteers too softly, and told teachers at another institution to help pupils develop the habit of singing the song with confidence.

Thank you for the gentle reminder, but perhaps Choi could set a good example and sing March of the Volunteers "with emotion" for us so that students know what standard the Education Bureau is expecting?

HK Schools Graded on National Security Education

Hey kids! Time to learn about national security at school!

National education is in full swing in Hong Kong schools, except officials feel the students aren't singing their hearts out when it comes to the national anthem, March of the Volunteers.

The Education Bureau has accused the students at two schools of singing the national anthem too softly and that they should singing with more confidence.

Hong Kong and Macau Lutheran Church Primary School in Tseung Kwan O and Yan Chai Hospital Lim Por Yen Secondary School in Tsuen Wan were both told in the bureau's review report the students' voices were weak when singing March of the Volunteers.

Some students criticised for singing too softly

"Teachers need to remind students more to help students develop the habit of singing the national anthem loudly in unison," the report said of the students of the latter school.

Maybe the kids just don't like singing? 

Meanwhile the bureau told a special school for moderately mentally disabled students in Shek Kip Mei that its teachers don't have a comprehensive understanding of national security education.

"The school must strengthen the professional development of teachers and clarify relevant concepts in order to effectively implement national security education," the report said.

Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Kwan Fong Kai Chi School, which offers special education, said implementing national security education was still in the initial stages.

"Some teachers are taking the lead [in terms of the implementation], and it is understandable that other teachers may not have a complete grasp of national security education," it said in its response to the review report.

Flag-raising ceremonies are scrutinised as well

"The school will continue to strengthen the professional development of teachers according to school conditions and clarify relevant concepts in a bid to implement national security education in the school more effectively."

The report, released by the Education Bureau, covers various education performance indicators and offers suggestions.

Now how students sing the national anthem and conduct flag-raising ceremonies are scrutinised as well...

HK Students Need to Sing Anthem Louder

Apparently HK students not singing the anthem loud enough

C'mon kids! Gotta sing the national anthem louder! We can't hear you belting out "March of the Volunteers"! 

That's what Hong Kong's education authorities are saying in a recent inspection report, criticising schools for paying too much attention in teaching about national security rather than focusing on why the subject mattered to them.

"Teachers and students sang the national anthem together, but the singing was a little soft," the report said. "Schools must boost students' confidence and habit in singing the national anthem."

The bureau's report evaluated 251 primary, secondary and special schools over the last academic year. It said the schools did not explain to students the threats and crises the country currently faced and emphasise the importance of national security when teaching some topics.

"In terms of classroom teaching, teachers focus too much on teaching knowledge content and rarely link students' life experiences or create situations to effectively put students into others' shoes and understand how national security is related to them," the report said.

It also complained that promoting national education in the curriculum was more of something that was completed rather than focusing on how to teach it well.

But what are the crises and threats China and Hong Kong are facing? And how does national security matter to students? 

While one principal claimed teachers and school heads not singing loudly enough only resulted in students doing the same, another said students and teachers always sang at a low volume regardless of the song.

Perhaps students will sing louder eventually, but forcing them to turn up the volume will only make them sing even softer...

HK Government to Ban Protest Anthem

The song was the unofficial anthem of the 2019 protests

Just to make sure no one will every play the wrong Hong Kong anthem again, the government is seeing a court order to permanently bar anyone from trying to using music related to the song that became the unofficial anthem for the 2019 protests.

On Monday the justice secretary filed an unprecedented application to the High Court for an injunction against Glory to Hong Kong. The writ asked the court to restrain those harbouring criminal intent from "broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing in any way" the protest song.

March of the Volunteers is HK's official anthem

The injunction targets anyone who intends to incite others to separate Hong Kong from China, commit a seditious act, or insult the national anthem, March of the Volunteers.

The court order, if granted, would also prohibit anyone from playing the song in a manner that would cause it "to be mistaken as the national anthem insofar as the [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] is concerned", or suggest that Hong Kong "is an independent state and has a national anthem of her own."

In addition the thorough court filing listed YouTube videos of 32 versions of the song, from instrumentals to it sung in Mandarin, English, German, Dutch, Japanese and Korean.

This move comes just before the fourth anniversary of the large-scale anti-extradition protests that saw 1 million and then 2 million people out on the streets on June 9 and 16, 2019 respectively.

The wrong song has been played many times

So just to make sure no one will ever mistake Glory to Hong Kong for the official Hong Kong anthem, it will make it seditious to play it in any form.

From now on, any country hosting a Hong Kong team for a sporting tournament will be terrified of playing the wrong song.

How does that inspire anyone to visit the city?

Outgoing HK Security Chief Says There are Still Risks

Lau says Hong Kong still faces security risks

Hong Kong's national security hotline has received over 400,000 reports since it was established in November 2020, according to Edwina Lau Chi-wai, outgoing deputy police commissioner and national security chief.

She said the number of tips from the hotline indicated Hongkongers supported the national security law.

However, Lau warned that despite peace returning to the city after the 2019 protests, there were still risks to security.

Wrong anthem played at hockey game is a crime?

"While it's not as chaotic as the protester violence back in 2019, we feel that there are still some hidden undercurrents," she said, echoing a warning from Xia Baolong, director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office.

This is the narrative the government continues to recite in a bid to keep people on edge.

She also claimed "traitors" continued to "collude with foreign forces" in attacking the nation and Hong Kong after leaving the city.

"Some suspects who've fled Hong Kong I'll call them traitors because they are against the country and Hong Kong, called on different foreign governments to sanction judges and prosecutors involved in recent [national security] cases that are being tried in courts. Their actual goal is to pervert the course of justice," Lau said.

The recent high-profile blunders of the wrong national anthem being played at international sporting events have resulted in the protest song, Glory to Hong Kong being played instead of March of the Volunteers, and Lau suggests something nefarious could be going on.

Lau (back far left) is sanctioned like Lam (front)

"Could there be some people deliberately doing this? I think this is also a very iconic example," she said.

Where is the evidence that these actions were deliberate?

Lau reiterated the national security law only targeted "a small minority of people", with the national security unit arresting 250 people since July 2020.

Is that small? The impact the national security law has had on residents has resulted in tens of thousands of them leaving Hong Kong.

Meanwhile the United States has imposed sanctions on Lau, which she described as "extremely unreasonable and despicable". The sanctions were imposed in 2020 for her role in enforcing the national security law, but she insists it has only pushed her to work harder, though her last day is Friday.

Wonder if all her salary is in cash too, like former Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor?

Hong Kong Anthem Gaffe Strikes Again

The moment the wrong anthem was played in Bosnia

After the 2019 protest song instead of the Chinese national anthem was played twice late last year in a rugby tournament in South Korea raised hackles with the Hong Kong government, it is quite unbelievable that the gaffe has happened again, this time Bosnia, after a hockey match between the city and Iran.

On Tuesday "Glory to Hong Kong" was played as Hong Kong's national anthem instead of "March of the Volunteers" when the team beat Iran in the 2023 Ice Hockey World Championship Division III.

Pui says teams can't check right song is played

Pui Kwan-kay, honorary vice-president of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China, said he didn't have all the details of the incident, but believed the latest blunder was caused by "careless" staff who downloaded the wrong song from the internet.

"The government has a responsibility to continue to liaising with the service provider to ensure the correct national anthem of Hong Kong, China should be placed at the top," he said, referring to Google.

And yes, if you do Google "Hong Kong national anthem", "Glory to Hong Kong" is the top result.

Google has said before it will not change the rankings of specific pages.

But no one outside of the city knows it is the wrong anthem and the politically charged meaning behind it. How is it their fault?

Why not make it the responsibility of the Hong Kong teams to tell organisers to use "March of the Volunteers" instead? 

At a rugby tournament "Glory to HK" was played

Surely the team's coach or general manager traveling with the team could liaise with tournament organisers? 

However, Pui claims that while guidelines and tool kits have been provided to sports teams to ensure event organisers have a copy of the correct anthem, the teams cannot constantly check to make sure the right song is played.

"Team leaders can't always stay in the media room to supervise, and the counterparty may feel annoyed that they are being watched while working," Pui said.

Well, yes if the Hong Kong government keeps getting annoyed then someone's going to have to make sure the right anthem is played, right?

In this latest gaffe, the government "strongly deplored" the national anthem mix-up and requested the local Olympic committee to conduct an in-depth investigation.

The International Ice Hockey Federation reportedly apologised for the error, saying it was an unintended mistake.

At least Hong Kong sports teams are playing well overseas!

Regina Ip Demands Google Answers

Ip asking for Google to come to Legco to answer questions

The saga over the wrong anthem played at rugby matches overseas continues to be dragged out, this time by Executive Council convenor Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, who wants Google executives to answer questions in the Legislative Council.

She said she would write to Legco president Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen to invite the behemoth search engine to answer lawmakers' questions, and if they refused, Ip would seek to invoke the Legislative Council (Power and Privileges) Ordinance to summon them. 

"If they ignore the summons, a warrant can be issued. It's a criminal offence and offenders can be jailed up to 12 months," she warned.

The 2019 protest song is the top search result

In other words, the Google executives are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Ip added a majority in Legco was all that was needed to call on the ordinance.

Last month Hong Kong's rugby team competed in Incheon, South Korea, where Glory to Hong Kong, a song associated with the 2019 protests, was played instead of the Chinese national anthem, March of the Volunteers.

Korean organisers apologised for the incident, claiming when they looked it up online, Glory to Hong Kong came up first. And so pro-establishment lawmakers are urging Google to tweak the algorithm so that March of the Volunteers came up first.

The lawmakers, in a bid to prove their patriotism to their Beijing masters are probably hoping to get air time grilling Google executives, but they won't get very far.

The wrong anthem was played in Incheon

As long as people keep searching for "Hong Kong anthem", then the protest song will come up first -- this is how Google works because this is what users are searching for. No amount of buying advertising will change the algorithm, as I found out in a podcast called Freakonomics in an episode called "Is Google Getting Worse?"

Freakonomics host Stephen Dubner interviews Liz Reid, vice president of Search at Google.

At one point she explains the correlation between search results and advertising:

"Behind the scenes in Search, we take great pride in not only trying to provide high-quality results, but ensuring that they are not influenced by ads. So we have a very strong culture that says whether or not you're an advertiser, does not allow you to change the results we show. You cannot pay us to change how you show. Those results are very pure, and we go to great lengths to ensure that this is the case. And so the quality of the search we provide is run separately from the ads to do that."

Reid says ads and search results are separate

So one can imagine if and when these Google executives go to Legco, lawmakers are going to go red in the face with frustration that the search engine giant will refuse to budge. 

But watching this process might be entertaining so don't miss it! 

Good News and Bad News

Victor Chen perfectly encapsulates Leave Home Safe app

I was going to write that Hong Kong was the last place on earth to mandate using a Covid-19 tracking app, but just a few hours ago the government has decided residents don't need to scan the dreaded QR codes everywhere they go, but must show their vaccination records at restaurants.

Not only that -- when people arrive in the city and test negative, they are free to go anywhere they wish -- no more getting takeaway food and staying at home for three days. 

The Hang Seng Index immediately shot up to over 19,000 points upon news of the announcement.

Lo looks silly for defending the unnecessary app

Secretary for Health Dr Lo Chung-mau will have to explain himself on why he was so insistent that the Leave Home Safe app was here to stay forever when the winds across the mainland were about to change. Did he not get the memo or was he trying to keep up the appearance that Hong Kong was on a different track than China?

Christmas and New Years is going to be bustling business for Hong Kong, but restaurants and retail have been badly battered by the last three years, some barely surviving, others going gangbusters.

Now the next question is when the border between the mainland and Hong Kong will reopen, and at this rate one may assume before Chinese New Year (January 22). 

Another person desperately trying to show his faithfulness to Beijing is Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung. He accused Google of "double standards" when the tech giant refused to ensure the Chinese national anthem is at the top of the search result following several blunders in international rugby matches where they played the 2019 protest song Glory to Hong Kong instead of the Chinese anthem, March of the Volunteers.

Tang insists that Google obey HK government

"Google claimed it could not accede to our request because [the search results are determined by] algorithm and it cannot do anything with it," he said. "But it has been widely known that anyone who wants their information to be seen by more people could spend money on adverts to get their posts promoted. The claim by Google that its hands are tied is incomprehensible and I am sure Hongkongers would find it unacceptable."

Why not spend money on buying adverts on Google then? The Hong Kong Tourism Board has been desperately throwing money around to promote the city as being back in business...

Or as activist investor David Webb has suggested, as Hong Kong has its own flag and currency, why not give the city its own anthem? 

Tang's flogging a dead horse -- time to move on. No one is listening.

Meanwhile it is heartening to hear the former editor-in-chief of the now defunct Stand News is out on bail after being remanded in custody for almost a year on sedition charges.

Ex-Stand News chief editor now out on bail

Chung Pui-kuen, 53, paid HK$100,000 cash bail with a surety from his brother of HK$50,000 after the judge assessed Chung would not be a national security threat.

However his travel documents were suspended and he is not allowed to give media interviews. 

His lawyer, Senior Counsel Audrey Eu Yuet-mee said in court that Chung would not be a flight risk as his wife, Chan Pui-man was also remanded in custody regarding the now defunct Apple Daily on charges of collusion with foreign forces.

Chung's colleague, former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam Shiu-tung, 35, and Stand News' holding company Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Limited are accused of conspiracy to publish seditious publications. Lam was granted bail last month.

But things are getting worse for Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, founder of the defunct Apple Daily.

Lai's NSL trial not until September 2023

He was sentenced to 69 months (five years and nine months) and a HK$2 million fine for breaching a commercial lease contract that somehow has morphed into criminal fraud. 

Not only that, he has received word that his national security trial won't be heard until September next year, as the Hong Kong government is waiting on Beijing for an interpretation of legislation on whether Lai is allowed to have foreign representation in court.

Meanwhile his son Sebastien, who is based in Taiwan, is calling on the UK government to take action, as his father is a UK national.

"My dad is a British citizen who has done nothing wrong. I call on the UK Government to take urgent action to protect my dad immediately and secure his freedom. The UK must do all it can to stop this, and do it now," he wrote in a statement.

Unfortunately Lai is at the bottom of the UK government's to-do list but will Lai make it through mentally and physically? Not everyone has his patience and determination.

The Blundering Continues

The screen-capped caption blunder on the TV screen...

You can't make this up.

Only days after the diplomatic kerfuffle in Incheon, South Korea when the 2019 protest song, Glory to Hong Kong was played instead of the Chinese anthem, March of the Volunteers, another mistake happened.

At the Rugby World Cup event in Dubai, March of the Volunteers was played, but the caption on the screen was "Glory to Hong Kong", and below that "National anthem of Hong Kong".

Secretary for Sports, Culture and Tourism Kevin Yeung Yun-hung was not amused.

"I can hardly believe that [mistakes] related to our national anthem were made at rugby matches consecutively within such a short period of time. It is hard to accept," he said, adding the authorities would handle the incident seriously.

The Hong Kong Rugby Union had no idea what was displayed on the screen, nor were they informed the name of the anthem would be displayed on television.

The union said World Rugby had apologised for the mix-up and said the mistake was made by a "graphics operator"...

Meanwhile some people may have fallen in love with rugby now...

Ip Stokes NSL Flames in Anthem Fiasco

Some revisionism going on at the Asian Rugby Sevens Series

The national anthem fiasco at the Asian Rugby Sevens Series will not end.

Now it turns out the Korean Rugby Union, which was involved in organising the tournament, never received the recording of the national anthem, March of the Volunteers from the Hong Kong team.

Earlier it was suggested the Asia Rugby Union had received the "correct version" from the Hong Kong coach.

Someone must have looked up "Hong Kong anthem" online and found the 2019 protest song Glory to Hong Kong instead...

Ip suggests those responsible be extradited to HK

And now host South Korea has done some editing of that match, by removing the footage of playing the wrong song, or Glory to Hong Kong, and replaced the audio with the March of the Volunteers so that it looks correct in the history books.

Meanwhile Executive Council convenor Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee has weighed in with this idea -- as Hong Kong and South Korea have an extradition treaty, the Hong Kong police should ask for the South Korean police assistance in apprehending the suspects who violated the national security law and extradite them to Hong Kong to face trial.

Has anyone told her that the South Koreans will not do this as no crime was committed in their country?

It's ironic how the more pro-Beijing politicians talk about the incident, the more Glory to Hong Kong is mentioned, when they claim they want to bury it into a black hole like it never existed...