Ho Ho Hong Kong

#57 - Sustaining Hong Kong, with sustainability expert Dr Merrin Pearse

Hong Kong's got an unreasonable amount of people living in unreasonably small spaces. And Dr Merrin Pearse's on a mission to make the metropolis continue.

Pearse was described as an urban vigilante for HK sustainability. He's an advisor at Purpose Business, and chair at the Living Islands Movement (a local group dedicated to the sustainable environment of the outlying islands). He also founded a consultancy helping companies achieve their sustainability goals.

He told us what the city's doing well, the biggest challenges it faces, how we can help, and which part of recycling is full of literal gold.

#56 - The neutering of Hong Kong, with author Antony Dapiran

Antony's (@antd) become the resident podcast voice on all things political.

Since he last visited, the crackdowns on Hong Kong have been unrelenting and severe. Including vast arrests, mass bail denial, the gov claiming Jimmy Lai's assets, and 7,000 officers deployed to Victoria Park to crush any whisper of a vigil for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Dapiran is a Hong Kong-based writer and lawyer, and wrote two HK books City on Fire and City of Protest. He's appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Quartz, the whole shebang.

Check out Ant's work: https://www.antonydapiran.com/

#55 - HK‘s television industry, with TV star Vicky Chan 陳偉琪

Vicky Chan 陳偉琪 is a well-known face around Hong Kong, having played Jenny on the hit TVB series Come Home Love: Lo and Behold (愛·回家之開心速遞).

She was also previously crowned Miss HK, and separately Miss Chinese Vancouver.

She talked about her journey to the big leagues, the pressures of fame in Hong Kong, and the strategies that kept her above the fray and on top of the pile.

#54 - Capturing Hong Kong‘s diversity, with Dear Hong Kong co-founder Oskar Valles

Dear Hong Kong is a well-known photo book featuring inspiring people from different countries, all living in Hong Kong, and their contribution to the city. You can check it out here.

The stories are outstanding and it also looks super slick.

Oskar Valles has interviewed more than 90 people from different countries including teacher and ex-prisoner Dawit Debasai from Eritrea, and former Pakistani pilo Ajmal Samuel who became a Paralympic medalist.

#53 - Vaccine hesitancy in HK, with infectious disease expert Professor Ben Cowling

Professor Cowling is the Division Head of Epidemiology at HKU and a co-director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infections Disease Epidemiology and Control. And we're super excited to have him back on the pod.

We talked about vaccine hesitancy, addressed the major fears being expressed by the hesitant, immunisation against variants, the need for boosters, and the incentives being used to get people vaccinated.

#52 - Empowering women in HK to play more sport, with In The Changing Room podcast host Cissy Radford

Cissy Radford runs a sensational podcast called In The Changing Room, all about women in sport.

She also works with WISE HK (Women In Sport Empowered HK) and is a passionate advocate for getting people active.

We talked about the situation for females in the city, what sports are taking off, and the work that's being done to move the needle.

#51 - Colonial British police in Hong Kong, with former officer Guy Shirra

Guy Shirra moved to Hong Kong from England and served as an officer for the Royal Hong Kong Police force from 1967 until the Handover in 1997.

His stories are surreal and there were far too many for us to fully cover. He talked about terrorism from across the border in the '60s, corruption, opium raids in the Kowloon walled city, and the catastrophic Po Shan Road landslide at which he was an early responder.

Guy's fantastic autobiography The Accidental Prawn is available on Kindle here. Hard copies are available at Bookazine, Jelly & Walsh and the HK Book Centre, or by emailing guyshirra@gmail.com.

 

#50 - Volunteering with the famous, with Time Auction founder Fion Leung

Fion Leung is the founder of Time Auction, a tech-enabled charity connecting volunteers with their idols.

The group enlists famous and important voices in the region, who give up their time to reward those who give their time to charities. It's a far out idea that's taken off.

Get more details at https://timeauction.org/

She's also a co-founder of the Mindfulness Movement, and shared a ton of insight into the charities and how Time Auction found it's groove.

#49 - The debacles and victories of HK‘s vaccine situation

The vaccine rollout in Hong Kong has been both sensational and a total circus. There's been ineffective vaccines, halts on BioNTech, people getting the wrong vaccine, vaccinated people getting sick, and somehow Andy and Mo managed to get jabbed.

We diced up all the gory details.

#48 - The man in HK revolutionising how we make coffee, with John Buckman

John Buckman's a London-born, French-raised, kind-of American who cut his teeth founding companies in Silicon Valley that aimed to make the world fair.

His most recent project is Decent Espresso, aimed at reinventing serious coffee machines, launching them into the digital age, and building a community of obsessed fans who actively participate in making kickass machines.