Month: June 2019

Final Case Study: Racial Inequality in Hong Kong

Racial inequality has been around since the beginning of time. The fight against this inequality has been improving everyday, but it has not come to an end yet. In the urban jungle of Hong Kong, racial inequality has been common amongst individuals of the Chinese race, especially towards ethnic minorities.

BBC News (2015) has reported that Hong Kong has a population of 365,000 ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. Communities consist of mainly Nepalese, Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos. Ethnic minorities have been in Hong Kong for several decades, but they face different issues than just Hong Kong’s main problems i.e. housing issues.

South China Morning Post (2018) posted a video on YouTube regarding the discrimination problem towards ethnic minority families when they are looking for a home. Ethnic minorities face more extreme housing problems when compared to local civilians, as some citizens are not accepting of other “darker skin” nationalities.

Landlords would decline showing these families flats, as landlords are terrified it will affect locals from being neighbors with them. Some neighbors have complained that they do not want the “curry smell” from these individuals, and also find it hard to communicate with them due to language barriers.

To Kwa Wan property agent Hui Kwok Sun states how 60% of the landlords in Hong Kong would not rent out to these families. Even minority families with high income were rejected to rent, in order to keep the peace within the locals in their flats.

There were more complaints from locals that ethnic minorities would not pay rent, drop trash and are extremely difficult to have a conversation with, creating this false stereotype towards them.

“Hong Kong Unison”, a minority advocacy group stated how the government should reinforce the Race Discrimination Ordinance.

“Officials should make it easier for minorities to file complaints and take a case to court”, says Hong Kong Unison.

Housing problems are not the only forms of discrimination they struggle with. Ethnic minority children are challenged to fitting in Hong Kong society, as their curriculum does not provide any form of Cantonese teaching as a second language, according to Castle J. (2015) from BBC.

“The language requirement that forms a barrier for ethnic minorities to receive equal access in education and the labour market, can be seen as an indirect form of discrimination,” says Raymond Ho, a senior member of the Equal Opportunities Commission in Hong Kong.

See the source image
Ethnic Minority Kids in EMI (English as the medium of instruction) designated schools

Local Kindergartens require kids to be able to speak Chinese at the age of 3 and even use Chinese as the interview medium towards the ethnic minority youth. English Medium schools were the designated spot for this niche society. But that does not solve the potential problems they will face in the future, such as fulfilling the Cantonese requirement in University or employment.

News Channels like BBC and South China Morning Post report discriminative findings about situations like the above, but this can be effective in order to stop this inequality. Major News outlets like BBC are able to raise an awareness that there is an issue of racial inequality in places like Hong Kong.

Ethnic minorities face a lot of difficulties in their Hong Kong lifestyle. In their daily life, ethnic minorities are faced with discrimination in shops, restaurants etc. Staff refuse service to these individuals, due to their difference in color. This makes life hard for them as they can not find employment, education or other fundamental human rights so easily in Hong Kong society.

See the source image

According to Society for Community Organization: Hong Kong (2001), “There are 279,600 non-Chinese in Hong Kong which occupy 4.1% of the total population. Among them, 32% have been rejected for employment or interview because of their races or based on some bad excuses while 27% have been rejected when the employers learnt that they were not Chinese or Westerns. Their lack of employment is not due to lack of skills or degrees, it is simply about their nationality and the cultural differences between the Chinese. Discrimination can be shown also within the salary contrasts between ethnic minorities and Chinese. The median monthly income of Hong Kong population is HK$10,000 while the median monthly earning for new immigrants and ethnic minorities is HK$6,000 and HK$3,800 respectively, based on the Coalition for Racial Equality (CORE), Hong Kong Human Rights Commission (July 30 2001).

See the source image

Foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) are also affected as they are treated as a second class towards Hong Kong citizens. FDHs are categorized into usually Filipinos, Indonesians and Thais. Based of a survey of Asian Migrant Centre and Coalition For Migrants’ Right, 2,500 respondents were conducted in this survey to find out more in depth about their discrimination.

“The result reveals that the FDHs have identified some areas of public life where they are very often unfairly treated or discriminated against. They are markets/groceries (7%), shop/restaurants/commercial establishments (4.5%), and public transportation personnel (3.4%).”

The belief of their discrimination is due to the nature of their job as a domestic helper, and also the fact they are different from local citizens in Hong Kong.

Ethnic minority discrimination is so common in Hong Kong society on a daily basis, we tend to turn a blind eye against them. Is there any organization that can help with this inequality?

Hong Kong Unison.

See the source image

Hong Kong Unison is a non-governmental organization founded in March 2001 and recognized as a public charitable institution (IR File No. 91/7763) in 2005. We receive no government funding. In the past years, our services have expanded from handling individual cases to advocating policy reforms for ethnic minority residents. (Hong Kong Unison, 2001)

They strive to close the gap between the racial equality towards ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. They provide programs which empower the ethnic minority youth, as well to teach Cantonese to them as Cantonese is not taught as a second language to foreigners residing in Hong Kong.

Will we be able to stop the fight between ethnic minorities in Hong Kong? We may never know, but at least we can try.

References

Blog 5: End Game In Hong Kong

End Game for Hong Kong? Oh! You meant the Marvel movie End Game! Silly me!

See the source image

The movie End Game came out a few months ago and it was a huge success in terms of production and storyline! Personally, I was not a major fan of Marvel movies, but the hype was in every corner…literally. On social media, conversations on the streets and even on the bloody MTR! Bombarded with End Game posters…EVERYWHERE. My partner was dying to watch the movie as well, so with that in mind, I decided to watch the movie.

My partner and I decided to watch the movie in a budget cinema in Mong Kok called Dynasty Théâtre. I totally recommended to go to this cinema if you are into a vintage looking cinema, and if you are on a budget. The location is around a 10 min walk from Olympic station, with the alternative of going out from Mong Kok station as well. The End Game movie was overpriced in almost all cinemas, with some tickets soaring up to $200HKD for just one ticket! But for Dynasty?

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Take a guess.

$50. Ain’t even joking here. 

This was finding gold in a silver mine, being able to watch the such an anticipated movie, with vintage feels and with a super reasonable price! The capability constraint was dealt easily due to the pricing and transportation. As well as the coupling constraint, with my partner and I being quite free to find this movie, despite our busy schedules. Other cinemas around Hong Kong were all packed already, so this was really quite the charm to find.

During the movie screening, you could feel everyone’s anticipation of the movie. My partner could not stop whispering to me how much she was excited to watch this after all the trailers she replayed on a daily basis.

From what I learnt in the lectures, never really gave a deeper thought about sharing this media public space when watching movies in the cinema. We all have different feelings towards the media being shown, yet it we all our experiencing the same film and venue?

See the source image

Heterotopia: that space has the capacity to host multiple meanings for different users, at the same time.

The movie was a definitely one to remember. I never thought directors would be able to mix comedy, thrill and action together. But somehow, they did it so perfectly it was just majestic to watch. Not a huge Marvel fan, but I had a few good laughs in there.  Overall, I the movie made quite an impact towards hardcore fans in the cinema, with some even in tears and thrill going up and down like an insane roller coaster ride.

References

Blog 6: Can I Take a Photo of You?

“Hey that dude is wearing a sick ass tee! Take a little snap of it and post it on your Instagram story!” A common phrase I usually hear from my friends when we stroll around the hypebeast streets of Mong Kok. But thinking about it more deeply, do we actually have the rights to take photos so openly and freely?

“Some photographers have been approached by the police while on the street taking photographs.” (Arts Law Centre of Australia, 2016)

In the photography world, there is certain ethics that need to be followed properly, in order to have the rights and freedom to utilize them to your personal will. Certain violations of taking photos in public can have serious consequences.

“There are criminal offences set out in state and territory statutes regarding behaviour that is a gross violation of privacy or the taking photographs and video or audio recordings result in the creation of material that offends community standards” (Arts Law Centre of Australia, 2016)

In the “victim’s” perspective, will they be aware of the usage of your photo that you have captured? In their point of view, you could be a creepy person and print that photo out and hang it on your wall to admire their beauty or other needs. I am exaggerating a little bit, but it could happen!

Let us take this photo for example.

nista

I was in the streets of Mong Kok and saw this tattooed lady smoking a cigarette, while she uses her phone. I have been observing her for a few minutes to see what she does in this public space with her media device. She does nothing out of the ordinary and just scrolls through her social media, while taking puffs out of her cigarette.

With her face being clearly shown in the photo and using this photo for the sake of my blog: I am in violation of photography ethics.

However, that was just a hypothetical example. This is my girlfriend that I asked to take a photo of, for the sake of using this scenario for my blog. Do not need to report me to the cops guys.

There would be more violations if this was legitimately used for commercial purposes, like advertising for example. If the tee’s logo was shown, I would have to get permission from the tee company in order to use the photo, to avoid any legal action being placed on me. If I really did take a photo of this “random” person on the street and did not blur her face out, that would be another violation to the list.

In summary, street photographers should be careful of what they capture, they might know realize what they are doing is against the law. There will always be serious consequences for towards this unlawful act.

References

Blog 3: Robots, the New Guardians

Sounds kind of cool to think about, robots as like our new guardians in the 21st century. But what do I exactly mean by that? Well, robots benefit us by providing care, assistance or even to some, company.

Hospitals are a complicated and hectic place. People during with a myriad of diseases, ranging from a cough to life threatening situations. Usually for life threatening cases, robotic surgery is especially high in demand. According to Dr. Patrick Ross, Chairman of Surgery at ​Main Line Health (MLH) in Philadelphia, “Robotic surgery is currently in high demand with many types of patients because it is representative of the newest, most innovative technique, no one wants to consider receiving last year’s best option when there are more advanced, and possibly more effective, alternatives available.”

Robots are helpful outside surgical rooms, comforting kids and families before they go through a surgery or a check up. Due to the painful environment in hospitals, kids in particular are scared of the procedures needed to be done for their health. Robots kind of are like the hospital’s guardian angels to help them feel a little less scared.

According to Dodge, A. Ozobot (2017), a robotic platform blog that focuses on coding and STEAM, “A team at RxRobots developed MEDi, or Medicine and Engineering Designing Intelligence. MEDi is a humanoid robot that works in the pediatric ward to make doctor’s visits less painful. The robot hangs out with kids in the waiting room and travels with them to various procedures. MEDi has one job: making the hospital experience less painful.”

Kids have reported that 50% of the pain has been decreased, as they are so concentrated on playing with the MEDi.

MEDi is not the only robot that was invented to help cope with patient’s pain. The MIT Personal Robotics Group recently developed Huggable, a talking robotic teddy bear with more than 1,500 sensors, video cameras, microphones, and speakers.

Robots have also helped with the administrative side of hospitals, such as nursing, scheduling appointments and rooms usage, and also with janitorial duties. “The Xenex LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robot fights tiny aliens in the form of viruses and other microbial bugs with the help of ultraviolet light. The robot looks like any other cleaning tool, with four wheels and a handle, but it follows the cleaning crew and eliminates any bacteria that traditional methods are unable to reach.” Dodge, A. (2017).

Robots are not only essential to hospital aid, but also to other fields around the world.

The military services need robots in order to protect their soldiers’ lives. Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) robots are capable of examining suspicious packages and surrounding areas to find and even deactivate improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and mines.  The military also uses aerial machinery to scope for enemy movements or find hidden explosives, in order to protect their lives and also fight for their country in the most efficient way possible.

See the source image

Car production also relies heavily on robots in the automobile industry. Robots are more beneficial and help lower costs for employees for assembly line positions, due to the repetitiveness of the job. The cost of error is lowered and also saves time and energy for the company and employees. They also replace the risk of humans being harmed, as robots can take on dangerous tasks during the manufacturing process.

Personally, the most amazing use of robots is when they were into space. Honestly, without robots, we wouldn’t know much about space or knew how massive it was! The Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) were used in various space missions, in order to find out the details about several planets in outer space.

See the source image

Their capture of information and visual data gives us humans the opportunity to see what is beyond our little earth.

Fascinating.

References

 

 

Case Study 2: Ethnic Minorities Have Feelings Too! Part II

Racial inequality exists around the globe. The United States of America face with a myriad of racial discrimination, mainly towards African Americans and immigrants. In this blog, I would be focusing more on the racial discrimination towards ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.

Ethnic minorities face a lot of difficulties in their Hong Kong lifestyle. In their daily life, ethnic minorities are faced with discrimination in shops, restaurants etc. Staff refuse service to these individuals, due to their difference in color. This makes life hard for them as they can not find employment, education or other fundamental human rights so easily in Hong Kong society.

See the source image

According to Society for Community Organization: Hong Kong (2001), “There are 279,600 non-Chinese in Hong Kong which occupy 4.1% of the total population. Among them, 32% have been rejected for employment or interview because of their races or based on some bad excuses while 27% have been rejected when the employers learnt that they were not Chinese or Westerns. Their lack of employment is not due to lack of skills or degrees, it is simply about their nationality and the cultural differences between the Chinese. Discrimination can be shown also within the salary contrasts between ethnic minorities and Chinese. The median monthly income of Hong Kong population is HK$10,000 while the median monthly earning for new immigrants and ethnic minorities is HK$6,000 and HK$3,800 respectively, based on the Coalition for Racial Equality (CORE), Hong Kong Human Rights Commission (July 30 2001).

See the source image

Foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) are also affected as they are treated as a second class towards Hong Kong citizens. FDHs are categorized into usually Filipinos, Indonesians and Thais. Based of a survey of Asian Migrant Centre and Coalition For Migrants’ Right, 2,500 respondents were conducted in this survey to find out more in depth about their discrimination.

“The result reveals that the FDHs have identified some areas of public life where they are very often unfairly treated or discriminated against. They are markets/groceries (7%), shop/restaurants/commercial establishments (4.5%), and public transportation personnel (3.4%).”

The belief of their discrimination is due to the nature of their job as a domestic helper, and also the fact they are different from local citizens in Hong Kong.

Ethnic minority discrimination is so common in Hong Kong society on a daily basis, we tend to turn a blind eye against them. Is there any organization that can help with this inequality?

Hong Kong Unison.

See the source image

Hong Kong Unison is a non-governmental organization founded in March 2001 and recognized as a public charitable institution (IR File No. 91/7763) in 2005. We receive no government funding. In the past years, our services have expanded from handling individual cases to advocating policy reforms for ethnic minority residents. (Hong Kong Unison, 2001)

They strive to close the gap between the racial equality towards ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. They provide programs which empower the ethnic minority youth, as well to teach Cantonese to them as Cantonese is not taught as a second language to foreigners residing in Hong Kong.

Will we be able to stop the fight between ethnic minorities in Hong Kong? We may never know, but at least we can try.

References

 

 

 

Blog 4: Son, What is the Internet?

A few weeks ago, I asked my grandfather about his life with television back in his younger days.

Today, I asked him what he knew about the Internet.

The conversation didn’t really last long. Why you may ask?

Because there was no such thing back in this time.

With the help of my mother, she taught my grandfather how to use the Internet for his entertainment. He told me that the Internet is an useful tool that was able to search almost about anything.

Back in his day, if you want to find out about something, you got to do your research. Go outside, ask people around, go to a library. But now? Psh, we just need to search the keywords online and BOOM.

Media practices are changing, or even evolving. My grandfather told me that in his household before, there was only a miniature television, vinyl player and a radio. It doesn’t sound much but in the 50s, it was quite a handful of technology.

My grandfather enjoys using the internet a lot. He is able to search his favorite television shows from the 50s era, on repeat. He is even able to find some old time friends that he lost contact with for decades, through the use of this global network. Compared to traditional pre-paid channels, the internet would take the win.

“Pay $80 HKD for a few channels or $200 HKD for the entire world?” said my grandfather. The answer is pretty obvious. When he visits Hong Kong, he feels as if the free local channels like RTHK or TVB are dominated by Asian countries i.e. China and Taiwan. As a Filipino, it is difficult to find a media outlet that is tailored to his needs.

After his long rant about how the he wishes he had the internet back in his day, he ended the conversation with smile saying, “This is a nice era to live in for technology.”

Blog 3: Into the Depths with Ethnography

Ethnography is an interesting form of research, with the usage of raw data findings. You could say it is like the systematic study of people and cultures. Back in the day, people doubted results from ethnography due to the bias perspective of the researcher.

According to Lassiter (2005); While collaboration is central to the practice of ethnography, realizing a more deliberate and explicit collaborative ethnography implies resituating collaborative practice at every stage of the ethnographic process, from fieldwork to writing and back again.

research的圖片搜尋結果

What Lassiter is referring to is a different form of ethnography, collaborative ethnography. Collaborative ethnography provides higher quality data due to the use of Face to Face communication with the ethnographer. This can essentially be more useful compared to ordinary ethnography research, going in depth with the ethnographer’s memories and experiences, leading to a myriad of new information that was never heard of before. 

“Doing a more deliberate and explicit collaborative ethnography revolves first and foremost around an ethical and moral responsibility to consultants.” Lassiter (2005) 

There are few benefits to collaborative ethnography compared to ordinary ethnography. It broadens research, interpretation and writing process. But it does not only focuses on that, as collaborative ethnography focuses on ethnical research practices, more valid findings and more in-depth analysis. Thus, collaborative ethnography is more useful and beneficial to the researcher and interested parties. 

ethnographic research的圖片搜尋結果

 

A good question to ask yourself is whether or not you are suited for using collaborative ethnography. Professor Angie Hart has list of answers you can ask yourself to see if you are suited it or not:

  • Who are you?
    • Old fashioned career academic
      Deeply driven by social justice concerns
      Likes to be in charge
      Thinks community organisers and ‘participants’ often know better than academics

Saying yes or no to some of these answers would help you understand whether you are suited for using collaborative ethnography or not. Overall, collaborative ethnography can be an useful method to conduct an in-depth analysis of the chosen research.

References

 

Blog 2: How Far Can We Go?

The images shown in this blog post may be seen as disturbing/sensitive to the public.

How far can we go guys. Through the race? Education? Life? Nope, I’m not referring to those items.

I am talking about animals. Well, in this case, Elephants.

See the source image

“The circus broke the spirits of baby elephants by separating them from their mothers, tying them down, and beating them with sharp, metal-tipped weapons called bullhooks.” (PETA, 2018) 

Ringling Baby Elephant Training

Chaining up elephants and destroying their physical and psychological well being, for circus entertainment? How are people still supporting this kind of treatment towards animals? Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse, animal neglect or animal cruelty, is the infliction by omission (animal neglect) or by commission by humans of suffering or harm upon any non-human. (Clair, L. 2018) Imagine the treatment these elephants are receiving, is practiced upon humans for entertainment purposes? The world would go completely mad!

Here are some facts that you may not know about Elephant abuse in the entertainment industry. 

  • The circus tears babies away from their mothers.
    • Baby elephants are separated from their mothers from just 21 months old, and are in lockdown. This ruins the psychological being of the elephants as males stay with their mothers till their teenage years, while females stick with their mothers for the rest of their lives. Circus elephants start their training at an extremely young age, being chained up for basically the rest of their life.
  • Trainers use bullhooks, ropes, and electric prods.
    • The use of these items are mandatory for trainers. They use them to create fear towards the baby elephants, in order to make them obey the trainer at any given time. Wounds of the elephants can be seen at times, which are sometimes covered up with “circus makeup” to avoid suspicion from inspectors. The even slightest of disobedience will make the trainers punish them brutally.

Ringling Trainer Hitting an Elephant

  • Ringling paid a $270,000 fine for violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
    • This is the largest amount ever paid by an animal exhibitor, ever. This is why. The Ringling Circus Bros. started in 1871, and was a traveling circus company that was nicknamed “The Greatest Show on Earth” (Graham, B. 2017). Filled with marvelous and magical acts, but at what cost? You guessed it, abuse towards various exotic animals, especially Elephants. Elephants are tortured and are forced to be on their trains for dozens of hours while standing, chained up and unfed, to get to the next designated city. Around 14 elephants were entangled into this cruelty show, for decades. Thankfully in 2017, the show was cancelled due to the lack of audience, animals protests and high maintenance costs.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities (Oxford English Dictionary, 1885). In this context, Elephants are portrayed as performers to the public. Creating human like movement with acrobatic tricks that seemed impossible for a massive species. But we have to ask ourselves, is this really worth the entertainment? Pay a couple bucks to watch literal tortured animals perform for your giggles and smiles?

I don’t think so, and no living species in our globe should suffer any type of treatment like these elephants do. If you want to know more about elephant suffering, below is a YouTube clip that talks about one of the suffering elephants from the Ringling Circus.

Do not support animal abuse, please.

References