Perfect Working Holiday for Booklovers

Credit: The Open Book

Booklovers rejoice, as we’ve got the perfect working holiday for you! The travel destination? Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town.

A listing on Airbnb, The Open Book is a bookshop with an apartment above that enables you to manage the bookshop for a week or two while paying a minimal fee for your stay, as The Open Book is a non-profit. The residency programme was created by The Wigtown Festival Company to celebrate bookshops and encourage education in running independent bookshops.

If you’re planning to travel light, no worries, as a laptop and Wi-Fi will be provided should you want to connect with the outside world during your stay. Bicycles are also available if you wish to explore the National Book Town’s breathtaking scenery, such as Galloway, ancient woodlands, castles, whisky distillery, nature preserves and farms.

New to the town? Fret not, as there is a team of volunteers to make sure your stay is free of hassle, and a bookseller will be there too to offer you an orientation. Sounds an ace holiday idea, no? Seriously, nothing beats manning a bookshop by the sea! 

Conscientious Consumption in Hong Kong

Credit: A Boy Named Sue

So here are two things we didn’t know for sure until last week: (1) our current system allows pretty much every corporation to externalise both environmental and social costs; and (2) when you took the externalised costs into effect, essentially none of the industries is actually making a profit. So yes, what you suspected for quite a while is now official. And do you know what we can do to change this collective level of hypocrisy that’s sweet-talking us into believing our money is invested in a sustainable future while it isn’t? Support brands that are making actual social and environmental effort, and who are being transparent about it.

A Boy Named Sue is an ace brand to start with. With its vision conceptualised at a faux French café in Hong Kong in 2012, A Boy Named Sue is the brainchild of Sam Wong, a Parsons NY graduate with a degree in fashion and sustainable design, and Tania Reinert-Shchelkanovtseva, a London School of Economics and Political Science graduate who was looking for a solution to Hong Kong’s pollution problems. Called ‘cool clothes with a conscience’, the brand’s garments are sourced from all over the world, by designers and brands that are committed to upcycling, ethical business practices, and natural, toxic-free manufacturing process.

Similarly, PhatRice is an online shopping platform that showcases designers and brands that are known for their social and environmental initiatives, such as Portovelo, which is dedicated to combating child poverty by seasonal partnerships with charity organisations, who in turn benefit from consumers’ purchase of Portovelo’s shoes; Shark Savers, which is on a mission to save sharks and mantas through building awareness and education, and sales of its eco-leather card holders; and Handsome Co, Hong Kong’s own design consultancy that upcycles discarded parts of old taxis into new products.

For the home, consider Bamboa, a brand and resident in PMQ that carries products made from locally harvested bamboo, made by local communities throughout Asia. A fan of yoga? Make your mindful pursuit an environmentally conscious one too by supporting A Day with Fé’s eco luxe yoga pants, composed of recycled polyamide such as fishing nets. Meanwhile, outdoorsy types will love EARTH.er’s outwear and sportswear, made from used or wasted fabrics, as the brand strives for zero environmental damage and wastage while implementing fair trade practices.

There really isn’t a dearth of options when it comes to conscientious consumption in Hong Kong, so go explore! 

Get Your Parcel Delivered by Your Neighbour’s Car

Credit: Roadie

You’d be no stranger to the Uber affair in Hong Kong lately. Whatever your stance in this issue, this article is not about passenger-carrying Uber or Lyft or the likes, but the cargo version of Uber, more like.

Meet Roadie, an app that claims to be the first neighbour-to-neighbour shipping network, created by a man called Marc Gorlin, who thinks that the cargo space of your car can be put to better use by helping to deliver something that needs to go in the same direction that you’re going. The way Roadie works is simple: you take a photo of the item that you want delivered (as long as it fits into a car or truck), put in details about the location of the item, and Roadie will provide registered users who are going to that direction and willing to help out. By delivering the item, the Roadie (registered user who does the delivery) gets paid a fee which can be used to cover the cost of gas for the trip, even though he/she is going to that direction anyway.

There’s also an eco-friendly side to Roadie too, as now that it is delivered in a car, it doesn’t really need packaging. “We say your cargo can ride commando,” said Gorlin. “It actually can – it’s not going to have to bounce through four trucks and an airplane to get there. It’s going to sit in a blanket safely in my backseat. You’re reducing packaging materials by at least 80%.”  

How does the idea sound to you, Hongkongers? Perhaps not too useful for those living on outlying islands like Lamma Island, where delivery from the city is almost non-existent?

Let Kids be Kids

Credit: Upworthy, ideas.ted.com

Do you remember how life was like as a kindergartener? I do, vaguely. It was the most fancy-free time of my life to be honest, not having a care about the world, homework was minimal and in the form of colouring sheets if any; Friday was invariably play day so we were allowed to get up and down on slides and run around until tea time. I don’t think kids these days would believe what I say though, for they seem to be robbed of their childhood what with the pressure on their parents’ shoulders, which is passed on to these little humans who have only just managed to walk in a balanced manner.

I do not have kids. One of the gazillion reasons being the expectations schools and society have on children these days: from kindergarten onwards they are pushed beyond their limits to fare well academically, so much so that they are deprived of the right to be children – roll in the sand, chase after each other for no apparent reasons, and play according to their own schedule. Educators and parents alike seem to have lost sight on what is best for children.

Fortunately enough, there are educators behind the Fuji Kindergarten outside Tokyo, whose desire for children to be children materialised by the design executed by Tokyo-based firm Tezuka Architects. Put simply, the Fuji Kindergarten is an endless playground, with trees growing right through classrooms. The school is especially designed as a circle and the roof as a giant ring of playground to let kids run around literally forever, until they have had enough of it. With the light structure that is the kindergarten built around a big tree, kids are encouraged to climb up to the classroom if they wish. Oh, and there is a water sink in each classroom to foster the children version of water-cooler talk.

To quote the principal: “I don’t train them (children). We leave them on top of the roof, like sheep, and they will keep running.” And that is precisely the kind of school life a kindergartener deserves.

Park Your Dogs While You Shop

Credit: The Barking Garage

We’ve heard enough of negligent dog parents who leave their pups in overheated cars as they shop in air-conditioned malls. It’s heartbreaking to say the least, and if we’re honest, to have to make laws to forbid dog parents from doing so is the least we want to face about the ugly side of humanity.

Thankfully enough, there are always people coming up with solutions to prevent something tragic from happening, as a result of the parents’ thoughtlessness, such as IKEA’s dog park, and recently, The Barking Garage, a company created by an Austin woman called Mary Traverse, who is a chiropractor for both humans and dogs. By converting a bright yellow car hauler into a temporary doggie day care, The Barking Garage is now up and running, opening between 10am and 6pm on Saturday, 11am and 4pm on Sunday, at the Gateway Shopping Center at the corner of US 183 and N Capital of TX Highway (loop 360) in Austin, Texas. Inside the car hauler are individual kennels, ensuring safety and comfort of the pups in the climate-controlled facility, attended by one of their dog-loving associates. The kennel rental rates are hourly, with a half-hour minimum and 15-minute increments.

While we’re happy that someone like Mary has stepped up to save the pups from the heat, we still can’t quite understand why anyone would bring their pups to where they aren’t allowed inside. Why not leave the pups at home anyway? 

Shame On Who?

What happened at 9:25pm, 28 July 2015: dozens of students stormed the conference room at University of Hong Kong (HKU) where a closed-door meeting of the HKU Council was held and arrived at the decision to defer the appointment of a new pro-vice chancellor, after it was deferred last month. From the live news, we could see that as Billy Fung Jing-en, President of HKU’s student union, re-entered the conference room after a bathroom break, the students, previously protesting outside the conference room, also followed him into the room, and that’s how the chaos unfolded. Disruption to the meeting began as the students shouted “Shame on you!” at the council members. Amidst the chaos created by the students, Dr Lo Chung-mau, one of the HKU Council members who supported the deferral, was seen collapsing on the ground, the cause of his collapse is unclear, however. Students were heard calling Dr Lo’s collapse a fake flop, telling him to play football for Manchester United, some even threw in obscenities.

Besieged by the students, Dr Lo and the other council members were told by Yvonne Leung Lai-kwok, former President of HKU’s student union, that a path could be opened up for Dr Lo to leave the conference room for medical assistance, if all Council members went back to their seats, and provided no council members made an attempt to ‘escape’ the conference room.  What Leung also added was an appeal for the journalists to leave the conference room. In the end, council members Dr Lo and Ayesha Mcpherson were sent to the hospital, but not before one of the ambulances was barricaded by the students, and plastic water bottles hurled at Dr Lo.

While the causes of Dr Lo’s collapse remains unclear, the fact that the students prioritised their appeal (the revisit of the decision to defer appointment of pro-vice chancellor) over the wellbeing of a person goes on to show the younger generations’ fast dwindling respect for other people. And since when has disruptive behavior become the norm, the way to get your message across? It certainly brings back memories of the National Education protest and the Occupy Central sit-in: disrupt orders, not make compromises to seek mutual agreement, when you come across something that displeases you.

If I get to ask the students one question, it would be: Will you happily back down if the HKU Council appoints the pro-vice chancellor right now, except that that person won’t be Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun, as has been recommended for the post? Would that be political interference no more? That the students seem hung up about the appointment of Professor Johannes Chan, the rationale largely unknown, does boggle the mind.  

When asked about the chaos caused by the students at the council meeting, Billy Fung was quoted as saying, there isn’t anywhere the students can’t go at the university, because the university belongs to the students. What Billy Fung might have thought of as a witty excuse is really a statement that defies common sense. Think about this: Does it mean I can just walk into a random stranger’s home in Hong Kong because Hong Kong belongs to all Hongkongers? The reality that increasingly eludes young people these days is that there is law and order in society. What this means is, just because you are upset or dissatisfied about something doesn’t give you the right to breach law and order with impunity, such as illegally blocking major motorways or breaking into closed-door meetings uninvited. So widely glorified and yet so pathetic is such disruptive and rogue behaviour, with a disregard for other people’s rights and lack of intention to seek common grounds, among young adults these days.

For a person supposedly equipped with tertiary education, one would expect a more civilised way of engagement than a forced shut-in of council members who were verbally abused by students, not to mention their meeting adjourned because the students were displeased with the decision. The future of Hong Kong is fairly worrying, if these students are the leaders of our future.

Turning Food Waste into Nutritional Powder

Credit: Fast Coexist

Sorry to be talking about food waste again, but it IS a big issue, an ironic one at that too, with approximately 791 million people in developing countries going hungry while those in developed countries dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of food waste into the landfill on a daily basis. The good news, however, is that individuals and organisations worldwide are increasingly devising ways to tackle the problem, not least by turning food that is intended for the landfill into something useful.

A Swedish startup, for instance, is drying fruits that are about to go bad into a nutritional powder called FoPo, which can be mixed with water or sprinkled on yoghurt or ice cream. According to Kent Ngo, one of the founders of FoPo, the shelf life of fruits can be extended from two weeks up to two years simply by drying them. Incidentally, the drying process can retain between 30% and 80% of the original nutritional value, and the fact that the fruits are now in powder form means easier logistics – they can be shipped to people living in hunger in parts of the world. Also, refrigeration, which could be an issue due to lack of electricity supply in developing countries, is not necessary for the fruits, now in powder form.

The founding students from Lund University in Sweden will be piloting FoPo this summer in the Philippines, where an enormous amount of food grown is wasted because of poor storage and transport. Who knows, food in powder form could be the food of the future if we’re to live sustainably.