Brouhaha spoke to Sam, guitarist and vocals from Irish indie-pop-rockers Two Door Cinema Club as he waits to board on one of many planes at Geneva Airport. Sam has been on many planes recently due to touring. Watch Sam and the gang here in Hong Kong on the 4^th of August at HITEC. There are no planes at HITEC. Poor Sam.

Do you like hot tropical cities like Hong Kong?

Yeah I don’t think I’ve been to many hot tropical cities. L.A. is probably the hottest one but it’s not tropical. Hong Kong it will be great though. I’m sure it will!

Do you have any preconceptions about Hong Kong?

Good food! Tall buildings! Lots of people and very crowded.

What’s the Chinese food like in Ireland?

Probably not good in terms of being healthy and lovely but yeah we like eating Chinese food. There are a lot of Chinese places there though.

Are you looking forward to eating authentic Chinese food when you’re here?

We won’t be there for very long but yeah it would be great.

Your music video for ‘Undercover Martyn” is played on one of Hong Kong’s popular English entertainment channels. What are your thoughts on being exposed to a more local Chinese audience?

I think it’s a bit more obvious for our music video to be played on English channels because of the language thing but I think our music is up-beat and down-tempo and therefore very accessible to international people. The people that do see us live quite often don’t speak very good English. It would be ideal if it would move to a more local audience actually. We don’t want to go to Hong Kong just to play to English speakers!

In the video, you all seem to be moving very fast. Is that something that can be taught?

We’re just really, really good at moving fast. Also, we had a lot of Red Bull because we were tired at the time.

Are you excited about playing with Delphic here in Hong Kong?

Yeah. We’ve played quite a lot with those guys around the world like in Berlin. We’re good friends and it’s good to be able play somewhere totally different with them.

What’s the best lie you can make up about Two Door Cinema Club for us here in Hong Kong?

We sold out Wembley Arena last week!

Have you seen Toy Story 3 yet?

No I haven’t! Is it even out yet? I haven’t been to the cinema in a while. It’s one of my favourite things to do.

Brouhaha loves cats and it would seem that you do as well. How did you manage to get the cat used on your album cover to sit comfortably with a paper crown on?

That’s a good question. We didn’t actually take the photos ourselves. Another company took it so we don’t know.

Whose cat is it and what’s its name?

Not sure but it belongs to a French man. A friend of a friend.

If Two Door Cinema Club could mold together to be one animal, what animal would that be?

We would be a giraffe. I think they get on with their big necks and grab leaves from trees, which is just great! They’re just a head above the rest. It would be great if we were doing that.

Would you illegally download your music if you weren’t in Two Door Cinema Club?

Not now. I probably would of five years ago.

What’s the best part of your job?

I guess travelling and getting to see all the different places and seeing all the different people.

Thank you Sam, says Alex Lendrum.

Tell us about that pivotal moment in your life when you decided film was your goal.

When I was 12 I decided that film making is what I wanted to do. Two movies really changed my life – Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Those two films were the best I had ever seen. Afterwards I read an article in the paper on Spielberg and Lucas, about how they went to film school and studied films together and that was when it dawned on me that film making is a legitimate subject that can be studied in a university. I went to Canada after Form 3 to finish high school and then to Los Angeles for university.

What were your biggest influences whilst in Hong Kong?

This has to be Jackie Chan and Japanese pop culture. Growing up in Hong Kong, you just can’t help it. All of their sci-fi children’s shows like Ultraman and Karmen Rider, in fact to this day I still watch the new Karmen Rider. It inspires me. Most people only see a superhero. For me, it takes me to my childhood and helps keep my juices going.

What about Hong Kong films?

I grew up with HK films. I have always found them to be inspiring, to have a type of energy that films from other countries just don’t have. That’s why I always enjoy watching films here, especially John Woo films.

You are the Director of Photography – what exactly is your role?

My team and I are responsible for photographing and staging each shot. Beyond that, I help the director make correct artistic and technical decisions to realise their vision.

What does it take to be good at what you do?

It is about knowing your story and character, about using your camera to support the story. The story is always in mind when you are framing your shots. You also have to be a fan of the film. You have to care enough to actually make good work. If you are not a fan, I don’t think you can create good work.

Was your path to becoming DP at Pixar a direct one?

I graduated in 1989. I’ve had so many jobs not related to film; I’ve worked in theatres, I’ve worked making coffee, I’ve worked making copies…the road to what you want to do is never straight.

The local animation community is both budding and youthful. Do you see promise?

I’ve seen animation studios in HK that are up to international standards. You have to invest in local talents and train them when they are young, give them an opportunity to thrive, and it’ll have a great future.

What would you tell those young hopefuls, in light of you chasing down your dream?

Though the road is never straight, you have to keep the faith. The first thing, though, is to know that it is what you really want to do. Then don’t be afraid to fail because I can guarantee you that on your first project, you will fail. Failing is part of success. That is actually part of Pixar’s philosophy. Trust the creative process. If you don’t make mistakes, you’ll never evolve. Lastly, never give up.

Ok, one last question: what have been your best and worse film experiences?

Let’s start with the worst. James and the Giant Peach. Creatively, it was hard because I was the Camera Assistant. Creatively, you want to feel a part of the process. Unfortunately, the way that system worked, you don’t get to really interact with the director. He basically directed from the editing room. He seldom talked to us. The best was Up. It had a lot of heart and everyone got along so well working on that film from the producer to the director to my team. It was really a very, very great working experience.

Words: Henry Mullins

POSITIVE POSTERS HAVE STARTED something global. Their first endeavour – a free poster art competition – took root in Melbourne, but the vines of viral hype rapidly spread across the globe and inspired submissions from some fifty two countries. The strategy behind the endeavour: who knows what’s going to happen, let’s just do it! The philosophy: give young artists and designers an outlet to spread a social message through art created to affect change.

Brouhaha sat down with two key members of the Positive Projects group which encompasses Positive Posters in its wide array of semi-experimental creative expeditions. Vice Chairman Nathan Welch and Simon Roberts, who sits on the board, took the time to tell us of their success in Melbourne, not financially but creatively. Not in terms of business, but in terms of art.

As romantic as that sounds, Nathan and Simon fuelled the project by embracing risk, by adopting a ‘well why not?’ outlook that ultimately resulted in a success but so easily could have fallen into failure. Their reasoning behind the decision to pool momentum and then roll it forward without looking back? To take a financial risk that could so easily spiral out of control? Faith and belief in designers, artists and regular people, that they would contribute in one form or another. It sounds dreamy, maybe even naïve. But despite all that, the at times careless trust and distinctly Australian enthusiasm that Nathan and Simon placed in the project, which they seemed to exude from their body language alone, has paid off.

That careless trust, haphazard faith, is what is carrying them to expand Positive Posters into Hong Kong. The poster art competition will be launched this month and both are excited at the prospect of bringing Hong Kong artists and designers a creative outlet to channel their energy and truly spread their creative wings.

The duo’s focus is always on creativity, inspiration and giving something back. You could say that story behind Nathan and Simon is that they are contemporary project-hunting hippies with a focus largely on the design community. Positive Posters is not the only pool of risk they’ve dipped their feet in (both are involved in at least four ventures at the moment), and the reward seems far greater than numbers appending a dollar sign could ever truly represent.

Simon, who spent a portion of his childhood in Hong Kong, met Nathan at RMIT University in Melbourne where they were both enrolled in an entrepreneurship program. Nathan had worked before in marketing but continually found that his passions lay in concepts like social justice, social enterprise, doing good things for people through commercial vehicles. “Business for people,” as he puts it. Before attending RMIT, Simon spent four weeks in the middle of the Kalahari Desert to help rebuild a primary school on an aid trip to Africa. There he found himself attracted to the idea of making a long-lasting impactful change, and began to look toward social enterprise and business as a vehicle to a social cause. Both remain enthusiastic and driven, committed to business ideas that might make a businessman reel.

But they put it so much better than we do. So let’s let them do the talking.

Tell us about the philosophy that drives Positive Posters and your other ventures.

Simon: It’s not about giving up the values to make a quick buck or to return to your shareholders, which is kind of counterintuitive to what we’re taught at university: ‘the whole purpose of business is to provide value for your shareholders.’ We like to think of it as to provide value for your shareholders but your shareholders are anyone from yourself, to the people you work with internally, and the greater community.

Nathan: We say, have designers at the centre of your business and then shape it so it has a commercial value. So we’ve been working with design studios, we’ve launched Positive Posters; we’ve had a business with two of our former professors where we’ve researched the impact of design on business.

Simon: It’s allowed us to look at design in a much more holistic way, from both a visual perspective and business to see how design can impact business.

Nathan: We’ve been working with Design Victoria for the last year, and the bipolar expedition charity that promotes better mental health. Before this I was in marketing and I guess now I’m applying it to do positive things for people.

Simon: Design seems to be increasingly more central to what we’re doing and as something that can come across all elements of a business and have a really great impact. How did Positive Posters come about?

Nathan: The Chairman and founder, Nick Hallem, came to us with this idea of ‘I’m a graphic designer and an industrial designer really pissed me off the other day’. The guy said to him, ‘I’m an industrial designer and if I wanted to create a positive change then I can make a product and have it made and sold and it will put a smile on someone’s face and it will do well for the environment and whatever, but you’re a graphic designer, what can you do?’’ And Nick’s a pretty lively guy, he took it pretty personally so he set about thinking what he could do as a graphicartist to have that same impact. We really whittled it down to a very simple, manageable idea that can just grow organically and eventually we came up with this thing called Positive Posters. What kick-started Positive Posters?

Nathan: It was a really grass roots building experience. After we had a general idea we pulled up some mates and got about 50 people to help us, and we just said ‘this is was we want to do, tell us what you think. All the business dudes go over there and all the creative go over there and let’s talk about how this can work and let’s do it in half an hour.’ I think that night was kind of a pinnacle moment…

Simon: We felt, we’ve got something here, let’s roll with it…

Who helps out?

Nathan: We’ve got a group of about eight guys that pretty much get up and go to university and straight after university, they come to our office and work in setting up the competition or looking at sponsors, finding prizes, finding an event space or exhibition space or judges. We’ve just opened it up to these kids who are just looking for an outlet, looking for a way to contribute because they’re not empowered to do so in their work because they work in a café or whatever and they just go to university and learn, learn, learn but they can’t do.

Simon: From our perspective it’s really about designing it properly the first time and then letting these kids run with it so each generation is different. It kind of moves with university kids and the way they think and particularly around this theme of positivity. It’s the kind of project that attracts the right talent and the right people.

What defines the attitude of Positive Posters?

Simon: We’re not selling a particular cause, we’re not selling a particular product, we’re just putting it out there and again I think that’s why young people are engaging in it so much. They’ve been brought up at such an early age being sold so many things; everywhere they look there’s noise and buy this, buy that, look this way, look that way, go here, don’t go there and this doesn’t have any religious, political or any other connotations attached to it, just simply positivity and like Nathan mentioned before, everyone needs a bit of positivity in their lives.
Nathan: Actually yeah, I think you coined a term for it, ‘Un-advertising’. I think it’s just spot on, it’s a company backwards. It’s just about people first. And the Hong Kong launch? How did that come about? Was it because you happened to be here so thought why not?

Simon: Yeah, that was pretty much it, but we’re also looking at cities around the world that have the potential to be a really good design hub. Hong Kong has got great potential but people don’t seem to be connecting the dots here. There are a lot of similarities to Melbourne because in Australia, Sydney is predominantly the creative central space because that’s where the big production houses and creative agencies are. But Melbourne’s got a lot of young designers coming through and making their own run on things.

Nathan: At the end of the day every city needs positivity. I mean, who the hell doesn’t right?

Simon: And really it’s about doing it in such a public way.

Nathan: We’d love to do that here in Hong Kong. In terms of contributing to the social fabric, there’s nothing really better than through some sort of art form, and if we can empower them to do that, just give them a vehicle, I think it would be fantastic.

Simon: We’ve found that there have been very few opportunities for designers to engage the public on such an open platform. It’s not behind a corporate brand, it’s not hidden in an art gallery in some kind of corner of the city. It’s something that we promote actively out there in the marketplace. In Melbourne, we put up thousands of street posters around Design Week in May.

Nathan: We pretty much covered Melbourne from top to toe in smiles. It was just brilliant because we just got so many responses from people who saw it and took photos of it and then wanted to be involved somehow.

Simon: Even on the street we have people contributing to the posters. They’re up there on the wall and people are drawing on them and adding things to them. The winning poster in particular certainly left it open to do that.

Will you be doing street level promotion here in Hong Kong too?

Simon: Absolutely. We’re talking with a couple of the street artists here about getting them involved. We’re actually hoping to do two campaigns, the first with this winner over the period that the competition runs for, so you’ll start seeing some smiles around the town from mid-July onwards.

Nathan: Yeah and it has to be street level. It has to be in the public domain because that’s where the whole thing’s different. You know, there’s heaps of design competitions where you can enter and the stuff is exhibited in a gallery or online or whatever but what makes us different is that we take it to people and it’s not just for the people who created it and their mates, it’s for everyone.

Simon: Yeah, we really separate Positive Posters into two elements; there’s the of two months that‘s the very design specific competition aspect of the project and then there’s the general public widespread promotion side of it. One of the underlying core elements of this project was engaging designers with the general public because we felt that as a skill set they have such an ability to speak their mind and present it in such a visual way that people are missing out on because its hidden behind corporate brands or a product or religious or political views and again this is void of all that. If we end up doing local exhibitions we’ll get local artists and their submissions because obviously that’s most relevant to this market.

Nathan: I’d love to see this stuff as really unique, collectable art. I think that would be so cool because there are no outlets for these guys. I’d love to see that become a vehicle for some of them.

Are you approaching Hong Kong any differently, with regard to the insecurity of doing something outside of academia or commercial work?

Simon: To be honest with you we’re taking a similar approach to what we did in Australia: just doing it. Again it’s going through the universities, the design associations and the influences. The response has been very, very, pardon my pun, positive and it’s very encouraging in a place like Hong Kong. Nathan: I think you just do it and people get inspired along the way. Things have a funny way of just falling into place if you’ve got some kick to it.

Basically, you want to give artists and designers here a chance to do something they want to, rather than what they have to?

Simon: That’s why they originally became designers right? And I guess that’s kind of the global value of this, that each designer started off in their industry with these values and they just haven’t had the opportunity yet to express it in this kind of a way.

Nathan: Yeah, but it would be awesome to have anyone, absolutely anyone and we want to keep on encouraging that. We’re still not charging for entries and we’ll try and keep it that way for as long as we can so as many people can come and get involved.

How did you spread the word to get overseas entries?

Nathan: We don’t know, actually.

Simon: We have no idea.

Nathan: It’s a mystery.

Simon: I’d love to say ‘we had a well thought out structured social-media campaign that had these…’ but no, it just wasn’t like that at all, it was just viral. It was such an authentic message that young people seem to engage with so easily and in particular designers because it’s that outlet for them. The little bit of promotion that we did was predominantly Facebook and through universities and networks. We got it out on a few of their newsletters and it just spread from there. We were just shocked that we got just under 350 entries but from 52 countries around the world. The highest entering country was Australia, then it was the US, then it was Iran. It’s a global message.

Nathan: Our partners did some promotion and Nick went out with a couple of guys and visited every design institution in Melbourne with a presentation. He went and interrupted classes and said ‘this is my slide show, this is why you should enter, get involved, we’ve got some prizes and we’re going to have a party at the end of it.’ That was pretty much it and now Positive Posters is actually adopted as a curriculum in one of the universities that we visited, so that might be something we can do over here too.

How are you going to organise international entries in the future?

Nathan: We’ve decided on going through an ambassador system where pretty much anyone can apply from around the world and be the Positive Ambassador for their country. As part of that they’ll be helping out in getting entries, so visiting their universities and talking to local designers who can contribute to the competition, but

also having a look at some collaboration opportunities again to actually create some really good outcomes for people. Last year’s winner, Peter Chmela’s design is striking and simple.

Is that why it won?

Simon: Yeah, I think it just pretty much sums up what we’re about. We had to consider: this thing is going to be on the streets, it’s designed not for a gallery, it’s design to be for the public level for everyday people, not just for designers but anyone so it had to be a universal message. It had to be accessible, it had to be non-cultural language specific, it had to look good as well in repetition, it had to stand out. So there were a few things we had to check off and make sure of, then we short-listed thirty finalist and we engaged designers though ICOGRADA (The International Council of Graphic
Design Associations).

Was Peter pleased when he won?

Nathan: Peter was wrapped, he’s from Slovakia and went mental in a different language when he found out. Nick was Skyping him going “mate, you’ve won!” and he was losing his shit! He was just blown away after because all the time on Facebook he was seeing his poster being taken to the North Pole or wherever. It’s pretty amazing for him and inspiring for other people to get involved and go ‘that could be my design’.

The North Pole? How did that come about?

Simon: We promote as far and as wide as possible and an element of that is getting great photo opportunities. The North Pole was another project that we were working on at the time for bipolar, an expedition to raise awareness and some funds for research. It was a great crossover.

Nathan: Antarctica was a little weird, a guy rocked up to the exhibition launch at a rooftop bar in Melbourne, and he was like, “I love what you guys are doing. I’m going to Antarctica tomorrow, I’ll take your posters”. We gave it to him and he chucked it on an easel on a Sea Shepherd helipad and took some snaps of it there.

Your first theme was ‘Change’ – how did you pick it?

Simon: It certainly seemed to be a word that was thrown around quite readily last year. It was great timing with the US elections and what was happening in the world at that stage and each iteration of the competition has got to reflect where certain aspects of society is heading.

What about this year’s theme?

Simon: The 12th is when it’s released online. We’re having our event here in mid-July. What will be the prize for this year’s competition winner?

Nathan: This year I think it is Adobe CS5 and a Wacom tablet.

Simon: With more prizes to be confirmed.

Nathan: Yeah we’ve started to work with Apple back in Melbourne so something could pop up there, but in the meantime we’re working with them on some in-store events and hopefully that will push this along in the right direction. We’re not making a trophy this time, last time it was a glass rabbit. Do you know how much of a nightmare it was to mail a glass rabbit!

You said before that the winner’s piece must be non-cultural language specific and bear a universal message with no particular agenda. What do you do with controversial entries?

Nathan: We had a couple last year. We had a white Obama! But, we give them as much exposure as the next poster because it’s all contributing to this dialogue that’s going on, we just let it fly. Obviously there’s some screening going on but as long as it’s not too profane, we just post it.If a piece of art comes in that was really good but it had a clear agenda, how do you weigh those two against each other? Simon: Well again that’s up to the judges to really define. They’re from different corners of the world and essentially it’s up to them to put their heads together and go ‘what is going to be most impactful visually on the streets?’

Nathan: In terms of the winner, it does have to be a fairly universal message, so last year we got heaps of stuff on saving water or whatever, having some clear agendas but part of the brief was that it has to be – plain and simple – a positive message.

What part does the rabbit play?

Simon: That is the Positive Posters logo. That is PP, so that’s what is printed on the t-shirts and is something that we want to be the universal brand of positivity.

Nathan: The whole idea is that the rabbit breeds and it breeds positivity. It’s a universal sign and we’re trying as much as we can to take the name Positive Posters out of it and put the rabbit on things so hopefully that will tell people what we’re about.

Simon: And on the Positive Projects, having the rabbit stamped on these things lets you know that if you come across something down the line with the rabbit on it, it’s attached to this whole value system that we’re building at the moment.

The future – tells us your plans and aims.

Nathan: We would definitely like to be the world’s most recognised poster competition or graphic design competition. We’ve kind of recently, after that two month period of ‘what the fuck?’, had a look around and just gone, ‘OK, why has this all happened?’ and we’ve found that there’s not really a global graphic design competition at all that is free and that encourages people to do that kind of thing. So we’d like to be known as the place where if you’re a graphic designer or illustrator or someone who just wants to enter, Positive Posters is the one. We’d also like to see a lot of outcomes in terms of actually creating positive change and I think that’s where Positive Projects come into play, so it’s starting to leverage this kind of ground swell of support and people who have this idea of social justice and work with organisations to actually create some change and I think the first one will be the Salvation Army. After the ‘what the hell just happened?’ period it was ‘where to now?’ and I think we all agree that this has great potential to further engage on a global scale, so Positive Projects is a collaboration hub for Positive Posters and open to any company or any organization that wants to share in our message. We’ve teamed up with Apple and with the Salvation Army back home. They’re looking at giving us a permanent gallery space in one of their street laneways, which is known for helping the homeless. It’s got a walk-in centre where the homeless come in and get hot food and a shower. That laneway is going to be turned into a permanent gallery. We’re also looking to some work where the homeless can actually create designs and we’re collaborating with a few of Melbourne’s top design studios, so it’s connecting the design studios and the homeless and creating the posters as well.

Simon: So again, we’re leveraging all of this wonderful exposure that we’re getting into stuff that’s again contributing to the social fabric and we’ll be looking to replicate that in Hong Kong once that exposure starts to roll out later on in the year. Also on a more personal level we’ve had some great stories of guys presenting their Positive Posters entry and people just realising that those are the values that they hold as a designer and that that’s OK, you don’t necessarily have to always adhere to this whole corporate design code.

Nathan: Yeah it’s kind of like, and I don’t mean to get too philosophical, but it’s like these old dudes who finish their career and they go, ‘I’ve done my career and I’m 60 years old and I’ve worked my balls off, now I want to give something back.’

Simon: Why can’t you do that for your whole career?

Nathan: Yeah, why can’t you make that your career?

Simon: Exactly.

Nathan: I mean, why are people waiting until the end of their career to start trying to make an impact? I can feel it, I can see it. Everywhere I look, people want to give back.

The burning question: is it worth it?

Nathan: Without a question, mate.

Simon: Absolutely. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. The bank accounts don’t really reflect it but that’s not why we’re in it. It’s never why we have been in it.

Nathan: Yeah, Absolutely, I think it’s something I live by, I mean we’re all heading to the same destination, right? How you choose to spend your time here is your choice and it’s an important one, and I couldn’t think of any other way I’d spend my time other than doing good things for other people.

Keep up to date on the competition and to find out how to enter at www.positive-posters.com

Words: Alex Lendrum and Hugo Stanford

]]> http://www.brouhaha.com.hk/features/positive-people/feed/ 1 http://www.brouhaha.com.hk/features/would-you-like-some-pork-2/ http://www.brouhaha.com.hk/features/would-you-like-some-pork-2/#comments Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:00:32 +0000 admin http://www.brouhaha.com.hk/?p=2347 A vegetarian breaks his silence. For nearly 15 years, “would you like some pork” has been the hilarious follow-up question to “Why are you vegetarian?”

Then I get asked if I’d like some beef. Every time. Brilliant. That’s why I just smile and shrug. All you other vegetarians probably know this situation well too. But, for the first time, dear reader, I’m answering that burning question, the one that gets everyone I meet for the first time riled up and provides comedy gold every time we eat out, or hell, at the mention of any food at all! Here’s the definitive answer to all your questions, meat-lovers.

I am vegetarian because I don’t see the point in eating animals. That’s it, really. I’ve lasted this long eating nothing that once was alive, I’m sure I can last a little while longer. Before you get your knickers in a twist, meatys, I’m onto you already. “Vegetables were alive!” you were thinking (and often say). Yes, smartarse, I suppose they were. They were as alive as a blade of grass or a shrub. I’d say that those things don’t live life to the full though. They exist, they look wonderful and do a job, but in terms of life, they’re pretty low down. If you hack off the head of an animal, it hurts it; if you hack off the head of a cabbage, it doesn’t. Let’s agree on that one. So I’d be happy to cut up all the vegetables in the world but if you asked me to cut up a dog, I’d not be so into it. The same goes for cows, sheep and pigs – all the wonderful staples of the meat spectrum.

I’m not religious in any way, so I don’t hold stock in the belief that man was created above all animals. I think man’s amazing – as amazing as anything else that’s happened to turn up on this world (apart from mosquitoes and their ilk – they’re dreadful).

The American author Kurt Vonnegut wrote of how his sister ruined fishing for his father by describing the act as ‘like smashing up tiny pocket watches.’ There’s stock in that. These things may be tiny but my word they’re wonderful. They work so well! If that veers into hippy country then so be it. I still hate bongos. Like going fishing, everyone has the choice between eating dead animals and not. What’s nicer? There’s only one answer.

As for the social stigma, abstaining from anything inevitably garners the same unwanted attention. If you don’t drink you not only have to spend the night out fielding questions about why you don’t drink but you also have to spend hours supping on orange juice and Coke while your companions get drunker and louder and ask why you don’t drink, this time with a jabbing finger and a gang mentality steeped in bravado. I can imagine it’s very dull, as dull as defending not eating meat.

Vegetarians are apparently always in the wrong though, based on this senseless logic: ‘Oh, but then there’d be too many animals!’ ‘We’d have to hunt them or they’d overrun us!’ They wouldn’t, and if they did? A city full of sheep and chickens would be delightful. We’ve got rats everywhere, why not let the cuddlier creatures have a go? Because they wouldn’t, that’s why. None of the better-offdead battery farmed animals would be able to stand the sunlight or hobble out of the sheds on their nubs of twisted feet anyway. If you need to kill things, kill them and have done with it.

Rape them too, if you fancy. Whatever makes you feel manly. Once you’re done killing them in inventive ways we can stop hunting. If you need to get an erection over ending the life of a defenseless being then go and punch a baby in the face. Same thing, just the baby will probably survive. You can smear any blood that comes out of it onto your face and indulge in some mirror onanism. You’ll love it and nothing need die. Surely we’re above that now, big guy.

This tongue-in-cheek diatribe may sound preachy, but don’t worry – I know I’m only speaking to fellow vegetarians. So no complaints, I just don’t fancy some pork, thanks.

Words: Tom Cassidy

The iPad tablet computer is all the rage – it’s rocketed past the one million units sold mark and has a legion of dedicated supporters frothing at the mouth in giddy excitement. The Amazon Kindle e-reader debuted earlier, made more modest waves but a splash nonetheless, has updates and upgraded iterations cemented on a schedule and has a loyal fanbase of its own of users that, for the first time, can claim to be both technologically cool and literarily rad.

These two devices do seem different: different functions, different features, different prices and the need for differently sized pockets in which to stow them. But they also do share a common thread which will be the converging of their two roads in the future. They’re basically handheld screens and you’re expected to have your eyes glued to them, as well as a finger or two, to use them. The feature set from both will soon expand to encompass the other and then all you have left really is the different styling and the different screens.

These screens and the technology behind them, unfortunately, occupy two different areas of functionality. The Amazon Kindle, using a kind of electrophoretic technology developed by E Ink Corp. has great readability and low power consumption. The LCD screen staring at you from the iPad brings you brilliant colours and full video motion. But neither one provides what the other can, which has been one of the reasons behind the huge investment into emerging screen technologies that can, ideally, give you the full monty of features at the cost of extremely conservative battery use.

The Amazon Kindle excels in the battery life department, with its E-Ink technology rendering black, white or shades of gray extremely efficiently by way of pigment particle capsules. Each pixel on the screen is a capsule which contains two pigments – black and white. Black is usually formed by particles of carbon, white by particles of titanium dioxide. These two pigments are oppositely charged, so when you run a voltage through the capsule, you attract or repel the pigments. Manipulating the voltages correctly allows you to display mixes of both particles – black and white to give you shades of gray. Since it is simply either black, white or a mix of both being displayed on the screen at any given time, the screen relies on reflected light, meaning it’s easy to read under the sun. Once the capsules are in a certain state – say, a page from your e-book – it requires no extra power to keep them in that state. That’s the technology behind the energy efficiency.

The technology is simple and easy to produce. But it also suffers from a persistent darkness. Consider the pigment capsule – at any point, half of it contains dark particles and half of it contains bright particles – black and white. But the white never truly hides the black. It’s kind of like painting your wall black, and then painting over it in white – one coat just won’t do, but only one coat of white is all these pigment capsules can contain. That means white is never really white as the black beneath it is still partially visible. Relying on reflected light and having dark pixels means you also need light in order to read it, so you won’t be reading your e-book in the back seat of a car at night. In this way, it’s like a real book. There’s just not enough light. You can have colour on an E-Ink display, but that involves adding a red green blue filter on top which just results in more darkening. That’s why colours will always appear dull on this kind of technology, even white.

Dull, though, is not what the Apple iPad boasts in its LCD screen, a power hungry energy hog that gives you vibrant colours and full-motion video at the cost of battery life… an extreme cost. The efficiency rate of conversion of electricity to light on an LCD screen hovers somewhere between 2-3%. Abysmal. Be prepared to get used to a battery metre flashing a dangerous red while a note incessantly pops up telling you it’s going to turn off so why don’t you go climb a tree or nip off for a nap. We already know what LCD screens can do – most of us look into one every day, whether it be the monitor at work or the monitor at home or –if you’re an early adopter – the iPad you are now inseparable from.

Now, if you’re one of those people who has already queued up, paid up, and cheered up with the acquisition of your new iPad, all gleaming in aesthetic glory, you may have also realised the major downfall of the portable LCD screen: an aversion to sunlight. So the sky’s blue, you spot an empty bench and think about having a quiet lunchtime padsurf, except you can’t see the screen because it goes all wonky and dark. Even the merest reflection of sunlight is still significantly brighter than your LCD screen, and renders your iPad unreadable. You try turning the brightness up and your battery goes into cardiac arrest. Resigned, you go back to your office or home and do stuff on your Macbook.

Right now, the screen technology just doesn’t exist to combine energy efficiency, full motion and colour capability and readability during both day and night, dark and light. The tech race is already steaming ahead, with emerging technologies such as the brute force approach of 3Qi, whereby you manually switch your device between LCD and e-paper modes (similar to E-Ink) depending on whether you are in dark or light. Nature has become an inspiration for the development of a technology called Mirasol which follows the same principles as the iridescence of a butterfly wing for generating intense reflected and therefore low-power colour, but this is economically unfeasible right now. Even chameleons and cuttlefish, with their age old biological pigment switching, have been under renewed scrutiny, leading to the emergence of the still-developing electrofluidic technology which still suffers from brightness issues.

Don’t get me wrong. We are moving forward, just not as fast as the marketers would have you believe.

Words: Hugo Stanford

The creative force behind Hong Kong’s best band, The Yours, have their eyes on transforming the city and creating its very own alternative music and fashion scene. It’s a carefully crafted plan and their club night, Wow Wow Wow, is three events in and gaining momentum. They stand for everything Hong Kong’s youth-culture traditionally lacks: individuality, attitude, a love for music and fashion and a desire to stand independently against the grain of Lan Kwai Fong piss-ups and the herd-like following of bland trends in pop music and fashion. The slogan for the flyer reads ‘THEY HATE US – WE HATE THEM’ and it speaks volumes.

‘Jack’ Pak Ting Leung and Azia Chau are the brains behind the band and the movement. Speaking to Brouhaha the night of Wow Wow Wow 3, they’re dressed in full gear and look every part stars. Besides playing together in the band and running the Wow Wow Wow clubnights and fashion blog, they work together in PR for a high-end fashion brand. They met through the band and their love of music and frustration of their surroundings pushed them into taking the initiative to start the fire.

Their influences sit in the 40 years before our time; the high art construction of Andy Warhol’s Factory scene in the late 60s and the stars of that show, The Velvet Underground; the new wave movement that followed punk and all the striking fashion that went hand in hand with it, to name but two. Naysayers may scoff saying they’ve seen it all before but what makes Wow Wow Wow so exciting is the fact that this call to arms hasn’t come through the usual channels of Westerners turning up in Hong Kong and looking to change things; this push for change has come from within.

It’s 9pm on a sweltering Saturday night, Wow Wow Wow 3 is an hour away from starting and the preparations have been made in Kamal, a bar in TST. On a normal night in the basement of Kamal you could be in any bar in the world. Inoffensive ornaments adorn the walls and the décor is textbook faceless lounge. Wow Wow Wow, however, is not a normal night. Every inch of the nothing décor in the sizable basement is covered in sheets that have been spray painted, penned and in one case, burnt. Slogans are scrawled all over them and they read like a counterculture exam sheet. Every aspect has been covered, from the complete transformation of the venue to their precise looks (Jack, this evening, clutches a bunch of roses and his topless torso is draped with a leopard-print shawl, taking inspiration from the Manic Street Preachers’ Richey Edwards, right down to the white skinny jeans, while Azia sports a more traditional punk look.) With the band, the blog and the full-time job, how do they find the time to do this?

Big a city as it may be, there’s still a small-town mentality to Hong Kong. For fun, the only options are either hit the sterile clubs and drink your weekends away with the button-up shirts and the Gucci clad girls. Alternatively you can start a band that goes no-where through lack of interest and support. For anyone looking for more than Lady Gaga, Akon or Bon Jovi on a Friday night, the options are dismally limited.

“It’s really hard, actually,” sighs Jack in his soft voice. “We spend so much time on Wow Wow Wow and the band. It is just the two of us but fortunately we have a lot of friends who help us set up, advertise, take pictures, video clips, all kinds of things.”

These friends are milling around and they themselves look fantastic. A whole clutch of influences have been taken on and although they all look different, they look like a striking unit, a gang, and in Hong Kong especially, completely different and fresh.

Wow Wow Wow vow vow vow to change that. “The reason why we started Wow Wow Wow is we found people who felt the same as us, we wanted to go to parties to dance. We couldn’t go to parties to dance because there were no nice parties or places that we liked,” says Azia. “We didn’t like the local dance parties so we had the idea to start something ourselves.”

Jack continues: “So we had the idea to create a scene and put lots of cool people, lots of good looking people or people really interested in music and fashion and culture together. That’s why we started this.” Do they feel it’s coming together? “I think so,” says Jack. “It’s growing.” What does it take to join this club? “People should be real cool, real punk, carefree, really love music and fashion,” says Jack, with Azia following closely to back up the carefree element. The scene seems carefree, to a point. There’s still the close precision paid to things like the dress code. Tonight’s pointer delivered via Facebook is ‘Fashion Anarchy’; what is the meaning behind this? “We have to give people a suggestion or a form for people to follow because they don’t really know what to wear or how to dress,” explains Jack. “We don’t want to use the word educate, but…” chips in Azia. Do they feel this dress code is intimidating or a good excuse for people to dress up? “I think both,” Jack reasons. “To begin with it’s difficult for people to really dress up, but the first time you come here and see all the people dressed up, the next time you come, you dress up. This is our idea behind it.” A few hours later when the night kicks off, the gulf between those who sport an immaculately crafted image and those first-timers in sports casual is huge and the skewed logic could actually make a lot of sense. This writer, for one, felt a little out of place in the standard jeans and t-shirt which in turn tapped into the desire to fit in. I’m guessing I wouldn’t have been the only one. There’s a solid gang mentality in Wow Wow Wow; the us against them ethos that’s been born of frustration and played out by all their heroes, The Clash; The Velvet Underground; Manic Street Preachers; punk; new wave; it’s present here and it’s got the same buzz of excitement around it as their heroes and embodied in their reactionary slogan.

What were the beginnings of Wow Wow Wow? How did these two normally unassuming people decide to take action and what has happened in Hong Kong to shape them? There’s a simple answer to what they could do before they started: “Be bored,” says Azia. “Seriously,” says Jack. “We were just boring kids. We really wanted to go out or hang out but in the end it always just turned out we could sit down and drink or talk, that’s it. That or play music.” “But our parents didn’t really allow us to play our music loud,” says Azia.

It’s not that Hong Kong doesn’t have things happening, they explain. “Lots of things are happening here but all of them are just boring,” says Jack. “You can go to Lan Kwai Fong and have some R&B, Lady Gaga, but it’s so boring.”

March 2009 saw a turning point. When Mike Mystery and Jane Blondel took to the decks at Philia for the first Songs for Children night, the music-loving population breathed a heavy sigh of relief as all of a sudden, just like that, we had an amazing indie music night. People flocked and some of them, Jack and Azia, took inspiration to go it alone and start something equally as exciting. Jack perks up when he recalls SFC: “These days we have Songs for Children, they are doing something really good. We are really inspired by them. I love Mike and Jane so much.”

“You know, Mike and Jane really support us,” says Azia. “Sometimes our schedule will clash and we will just talk about it and sort it out. They’re so nice.” This kind of support shows that these scenes are not about money but born of passion for diversity and alternative good times in the city.

Every Wow Wow Wower has a clear influence in their look. What are the influences behind the movement in general? “A LOT,” enthuses Jack slowly.

“For me 80s post punk and back into late 70s rock music, bands like Joy Division for sure,” says Azia. “Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Sonic Youth and no wave bands from New York like Suicide.” “In my life, be it with fashion or music, all my influences – they’re all from the past, from the 50s to the 80s,” says Jack. “I like The Jesus and Mary Chain so much, The Cramps, The Velvet Underground especially – their image, their music, it all really inspired me to form The Yours and to do this sort of thing.”

Their local inspiration stops at Songs for Children, however. “Honestly we are so eager to see more good bands in Hong Kong but…what we usually see, it’s not exciting to us,” says Azia. “We are so sorry to say that there are no bands in Hong Kong that we like,” says Jack, before reeling in a little: “Except my friend’s band, Laura Palmer and some new up and coming bands who are starting to get interesting.” They’ve got this problem in their sights too. “We would like to initiate a music scene in Hong Kong. Another project we’d like to work on besides this is to start organising mini gigs and parties,” says Jack. With the club night, The Yours and their own legion of groomed bands filling more and more nights, they’d be edging much closer to a bustling scene. Is the scene they’re trying to create derivative? Jack: “Recently I’ve noticed in the world these scenes just start again. In places like London and New York they go round in circles – we would like to do the same kind of thing in Hong Kong.”

The slogan for the night is so brazen, brash and bold that it can’t help but be admired. “It’s actually inspired by 70s punk bands,”says Azia, explaining that punk has been the theme of the party (the themes change each time). “Wow Wow Wow is a very underground indie type place and we change our image from month to month,” says Jack. “The mainstream people, if they don’t want to join us, don’t join us. We don’t want to join you. That’s our message.” ‘They’ are most other people in Hong Kong, and Jack and Azia have a firm opinion of them. “Hong Kong people only care about money, until now. From the page one until now, it’s all about money,” says Jack. They forsee change on the horizon but it’s a long way off. Culturally they have grown up to expect nothing. “There is no expectation, that’s what it is,” says Azia. “No expectations, year by year. That’s why we want to do something exciting by ourselves.” With the exception of Songs for Children and The People’s Party, whose praises they also sing for their devotion to bringing quality international acts to the city, going it alone is the only way forward they can see. Besides the above-mentioned glimmers of hope, they see the last five years in Hong Kong’s history as a cultural void: “It’s nothing specific,” says Azia. “Just the whole picture. The whole picture is quite disappointing. As we said earlier, it’s boring. There’s nothing at all exciting for us.”

The closest thing they can find to local inspiration is the Beijing music scene, a scene which has been picking up momentum, flourishing and producing diverse and dedicated alternative acts and most importantly, has followers active in supporting them and perpetuating momentum.

“Beijing is really, really good,” enthuses Jack. “[The clubs] D22, Mao Bar, people there really like music, they are really into it. I love Beijing so much. Beijing is a good example of something good that’s happening, Hong Kong is not.” Why so?

“Fashion is no good, music is no good…” says Jack.

“Parties are no good…” continues Azia.

“People are no good,” says Jack. Jack and Azia are looking to change all of this. How will change come about? How are they planning on spreading the word of Wow Wow Wow and get people taking the initiative to go out and use their spare time to start more nights and scenes? To them that would be the best thing that could happen to Hong Kong in the near future. Azia explains the plan: “First of all we really have to get people into loving this kind of thing, enjoying this kind of culture and get them to a level where they are so eager and want more and more and more but there’s not enough. Then they will do something on their own.”

These are high hopes but those willing to push the scene further have got an uphill struggle ahead of them, albeit it one that Wow Wow Wow themselves overcomes each month for the club night. “It’s horrible. It’s really horrible, actually,” agonises Jack. “First of all we have to think about the theme, after that we have to design the poster and the flyer, after that we have to think about the venue and really look around.” With all the clubs and bars in Hong Kong, it turns out they’re not the easiest things to get hold of: “We tried to go to Soho and Lan Kwai Fong, they tried to charge us $40,000 or something. We can’t afford it! Other than the venue we have to think about the decoration, the DJs…” the list goes on. The DJs aren’t too much of a problem though as it’s friends and the periphery to the core Wow Wow Wow team who put up their skills, or lack thereof: “We don’t mix, we are actually very horrible DJs but we choose nice tracks,” says Jack, refreshingly reversing the usual trend in Hong Kong clubs who are happy to have seamless mixes all at the same tempo, blasting out utterly irrelevant three-hour sets at a time. Like at Songs for Children, there are occasional gaps between songs, they come on at different levels, there’s no showyness, just great music and proof that there’s a human behind the DJ booth and not a bland digital mixdown.

The look, the time, effort and energy they throw into this, there’s one more burning question that’s pertinent to Hong Kong: what do their parents think of it?

“They don’t care actually,” says Jack. “They’re like whatever, just do it.”

“They’re carefree,” chips in Azia. With that Jack pipes up:

“They should come to Wow Wow Wow!”

“They are not cool enough, sorry! No room for them,” laughs Azia. So what will come of the first gang in town? The night was a huge success with an atmosphere rarely experienced in Hong Kong and there are the high hopes that this movement will grow, organically sparking offshoots and inspiring other scenes to emerge. And if these hopes don’t come to fruition? If the work involved and the weight of responsibility of trying their hardest to change a culture and kicking against walls gets too much for our Wow Wow Wowers? If that, then their efforts will be remembered by those involved as one hell of a time for Hong Kong and these parties will go down in legend.

Words: Tom Cassidy

It turns out a ‘molecular mixologist’ isn’t just a wanky new 21st century name for any old bartender who’ll knock up a gin and tonic, there’s a genuine science to it. It requires some heavy-duty equipment, a knowledge of chemistry and like all the best sciences, a desire to discover the unknown.

A regular barman will whip you up a margarita and see the ingredients as being tequila, triple sec, lime and salt. To a molecular mixologist, these things are lumps of other small and more fun things and need to be cracked open, played with and rearranged to create something utterly fresh. If you think there’s nothing new in the drinks world, think again and meet Antonio Lai, Finds bar manager and award winning molecular mixologist.

Antonio has been pushing the limits of flavour and sensation for the last year and a half of his 12 year career in bars, and he has no plans to stop pushing these rapidly shattering boundaries. When he’s showing you his creations there’s a glint in his eye that reveals you’re sat opposite a mad scientist with nothing but a bar of bizarre drinks between you.

An inconspicuous night led Brouhaha to Finds when a quick chat and a first taste of Antonio’s creation led us to see that we were in the presence of a man who cares about his art. An Earl Grey Tea Martini with a layer of bubble-bath bubbles resting on the lime-green liquid with unidentified floating blobs, proved to be the most refreshing cocktail money can buy. That was just a taster, however. Next up came a straight Coca-Cola, poured with another mysterious and surgical-looking device aimed in the glass. This drink, it turned out, was ‘Smokea- Cola’. On first taste it was a regular Coke.

After a second or two, however, a strong, smoky rustic oak flavour erupted from nowhere and all of a sudden this drink which can be accurately described as barbequed Coke lit the spark of realisation that here was a taste that we’d never experienced before. After years of drinking recognisable beverages, all of a sudden the door’s been kicked open by a man clutching some tools and flashing a grin. Who would have thought it? With molecular mixology, that’s just the beginning of this brave new world. The Smoke-a-Cola was pepped up with a little J&B Scotch and the whiskey’s already smoky and oaky flavour lifted it to another level. Antonio was on a roll and cracked out another whiskey treat. A shot glass, some dark orange liquid. A quick taste. Jack Daniel’s….a second later…bacon? Yep, bacon whiskey. Some of Antonio’s inventions are acquired tastes but there’s no denying they’re unique and most importantly, new.

The sensation of a new drink really is a surprisingly powerful one. After your however many years of living, you’ve pretty much tried every flavour; from here-on-in it’s just variations. It’s the sudden joy of a brand new sensation that makes this mixology worth seeking out and lifts it above being just a swish name designed in a marketing office. Antonio tinkers with every part of his drinks in a mission to find something new. Part chemist, part mathematician, part physicist and part alcoholic Willy Wonka, his skills have found him on the receiving end of numerous awards. Winning the Shanghai Championship Classic competition for his fresh approach to old drinks, he carted his custom Contreu mixology case, the only one in Asia, all the way to China; a short journey for the Star Wars and Adidas stickered metal box of wonder which has travelled all over the world. When Antonio opens up the case it’s a marvel in itself, looking like something from the future part of Back to the Future and an oversized doctor’s case. The first layer has scales, powders and potions, with a top that unhooks to reveal syringes and tubes and a whole host of unrecognisable things. The 22kg case travels with him and despite its appearance, has yet to cause a major disturbance at customs. “The dogs sniff it but these are not the powders they’re looking for,” he says with a smile and a hint of Obi-Wan at Mos-Eisley.

Our parting shot with this master of mixing is a tube of alcohol toothpaste. It’s one of the nicest toothpastes we’ve ever tasted and it serves as the perfect stealth hair of the dogthe morning after.

When molecular mixology first reared its head it sounded like the most pompous drinks experience since P Diddy’s branded vodka and anything with slips of gold in, but on application it’s a whole new world and thanks to explorers like Antonio, one that’s being forged, charted and mapped as we speak.

Words: Tom Cassidy

Steganography’s history is written in blood and war. In 494 BC, Histiaeus, the ruler of the ancient city of Miletus, tattooed a secret message onto the shaved head of a slave. He waited for the hair to grow back before sending the slave to the recipient, who again shaved the head and revealed a message containing instructions for an Ionian revolt against the Persians, a revolt that would last for half a century. In 480 BC, Demaratus carved a secret message into a wooden table which he then painted over in wax. The wax, scraped off, revealed a warning of Persian attack. The wax did not simply obscure the message – it obscured the very existence of the message; this is the essence of steganography.

Evolving in parallel with technology, steganography has traditionally found its greatest application during war time. Invisible ink was used by spies in World War I. In World War II the Germans used microdots, shrinking of an entire page of text into a 1-mm dot, placed inconspicuously within an otherwise unremarkable document. Quite suddenly, steganography was on a very sharp rise, becoming a tool with myriad applications, a few good and most bad thanks to the arrival of the Internet.

The good applications include digital watermarks hidden in a photograph for copyright protection, or the protection of confidential information by hiding it in an unexceptional medium. The long list of bad includes the proliferation of child pornography and hacking and gaining control over another’s computer. Of course, not every use falls squarely into those two categories. Journalists can use it to conceal sources. Dissidents can use it to evade government censorship. It can even be used to bait and trap criminals across a wide variety of crimes. An example would be the well known Thatcher typewriter trick, where British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had government typewriters altered to encode specific user information in the spaces between words in order to catch the person behind the leaking of cabinet documents.

The wide range of applications of steganography has ensured its ease of use and access. There are thousands of tools available on the Internet that can create steganographic messages. They come in user-friendly, self-contained packages and in no more than two mouse clicks and you’ve hidden your message in another medium. A password in an image; a plagiarised essay in an MP3 song file; stolen credit card numbers in a freely available movie trailer. There has always been a limitation to this though: file size – and by extension, the length of the message. You wouldn’t try to hide a pirated pre-screening of a new hit movie in an image file of your cat. That wouldn’t fool anyone with its thousand megabyte footprint.

Footprints have been where steganography tripped up – until now. In all the previous examples, a trail is left. The image will always contain the offending document. The slave’s head will forever have the hidden message printed upon it. In each example, a specific carrier was required and message length limited. The slave’s head: the message can only be so long. The image of your cat: how many megabytes can you explain away before someone gets suspicious? The moment an outside party knows that a message is concealed, the disguise becomes ineffective.

A new form of steganography sidesteps these issues, one that communicates the hidden message over Internet Protocol (IP), which specifies how and where information travels over a network. The IP contains the virtual addresses of a sender and recipient and governs the method by which the message is sent. Think of it like postal system addresses but online in a virtual world. Communication between these two IPs is done in the form of packet switching. This is the breaking down of information into tiny chunks which are then sent through the network to the recipient’s computer. By manipulating delays in the packets sent, this type of steganography can transmit a hidden message simply through patterning delayed packets so that only the appropriate decoding software on the other end can recognise these delays – to anyone else, they would just look like packet delays; normal Internet lag. Now the message sent can have limitless length – it just depends on how long the connection stays open between two computers. You could be chatting with a friend on MSN Messenger for an hour and secretly be receiving a book’s worth of piracy resources. That you had received the information would also be virtually untraceable. In fact, it is nigh impossible to even ever be sure that a hidden message is being transmitted because packet delays are the norm.

The almost total security of the anonymity of the hidden message has potent implications, especially for criminal applications. The hidden message can be anything – instructions for a bombing, access codes to a bank’s vault. Or – and more likely – it could be a Trojan – a program that grants somebody else total control over your computer. The packet delay system of steganography means that virus scanners may no longer be able to detect viruses until they have already been transmitted to your computer, by which time it may be too late. What’s even more worrying is that this usage of steganography is perhaps the least of our concerns.

By the way – there is a hidden message in this article.

Words: Hugo Stanford

	Name: Enormous crab stuffed toy Cost: 122 HKD Seller: http://shop36060005.taobao.com/ But of course, why would you not want to drape a giant stuffed toy crab around you as you pose? This cheeky snapper can be used as a pillow, a companion if you’re lonely, a focus piece for your wall or a fantastic Mother’s Day present. “My child gave me crabs,” she’ll say to her friends as they chatter over cake and tea.
	Name: Penguin mobile phone Cost: 420 HKD Seller: http://jixiangshouji.taobao.com/ This little cutie pie is in fact a mobile phone. Mobile phones aren’t weird (although, you’re holding plastic to your face and you can talk to another human that’s so very far away…) but have you ever seen one like this before? We don’t think so and if you’ve nodded or shouted “Yes” then you’re lying and that is a sin. It’s also a flip phone!
	Name: Scream muffler Cost: 29 HKD Seller: http://175cz.taobao.com/ Be the champion of any screaming competition by whacking this scream muffler over the faces of your opponents. Made originally for sexually frustrated wives to vent their anger in silence, this clay pot looking device works just as well for farts.
	Name: Reflective “Toilet” sticker Cost: 6 HKD Seller: http://aiqiche.taobao.com/ This toilet sign is rather special. It encourages an illegal act yet the figures look so cute it makes it all okay. We’re pretty sure they’re good friends and they’re just mucking around. Put this sign over your office toilet and you can be as good friends with your colleagues as these two are. Oh joy!
	Name: Plastic toy head in a gas canister Cost: HKD 103 Seller: http://shop33028854.taobao.com/ The number of times we’ve bought heads and have regretted it is getting ridiculous. Finally we’ve found one that we, “won’t regret buying”. We can’t wait to do all the things you can do with a miniature head! Maybe we’ll put it atop a table? Or maybe we’ll roll it down a slide? Or throw it up in the air and catch it again! Maybe we’ll have a staring contest with it. The bastard has no chance.
	Name: Japanese girl doll Cost: 77 HKD Seller: http://dwsdoll.taobao.com/ If your girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s birthday is coming up, why don’t you buy them one of these horrific Japanese dolls? Nothing says ‘I like you’ more than a doll that comes to life at night and slices you and your partner’s souls up with a rusty knife. If you don’t have a partner then you could always find one by giving this doll to the first stranger you meet. I’m pretty sure they’ll fall head over heals instantly.

Words: Alex Lendrum

MONKEY MOUNTAIN

Sure, you could go hiking along the coast or up a regular mountain, but why bother with them when this one is covered in monkeys? Macaques to be specific, and they litter the paths of Monkey Mountain (or Lion Rock Mountain near Kowloon Reservoir if we’re going by what the squares say, i.e. maps and signs).

The walk around the mountain takes 1-2 hours, is easy, clear and littered with man-faced beasts and friendly wild dogs. Not only is there this draw; scaling the mountain provides some of the best views of Hong Kong you’ll ever find, allowing you to take in the whole of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

It’s easy to get there too. Take the MTR to Prince Edward, leave out of exit E2, turn left and check the bus stops until you see the number 80. Stand there, hop on the bus and after 5 minutes when you see a big car park on your right scattered with furry friends, ding the bell and hop off. Stroll over the bridge and begin.

TAI LONG WAN BEACH

Hong Kong’s lovely, with its big city buildings and serene beaches within a stone’s throw. Repulse Bay’s not a great beach but is one of the most well know. Shek O’s the nicest of the easy to get to beaches and offers surfing but if you’re looking to go the extra mile, Tai Long Wan beach is the ultimate reward. Secluded, serene and with surfing and an amazing waterfall pool, this perfect getaway lies in the middle of the Maclehose Trail in the New Territories. You can get there via a Sunday-only shuttle bus or a cab from Sai Kung town centre. The $85 cab ride can be shirked if you’re feeling fit and want to make a day of it as it’s about an hour and a half along the trail. Once you’ve soaked up the sun, get away in style by hiking to Chek Keng and taking the $20 boat to Wong Shek pier where you can catch the 94 bus back to Sai Kung town centre or the 96R to Diamond Hill (weekends only). The waterfalls are a detour but worth every minute. Between Tai Long Wan and Sai Wan beaches, take a left before you go uphill and within ten minutes you’ll be staring at a little paradise in Hong Kong.

CHEUNG CHAU

Cheung Chau, one of Hong Kong’s outlying islands, boasts a reputation greater than its unremarkable name might suggest. Cheung Chau translated to English reads “Long Island”, but it might be better to describe Cheung Chau as dumbbell-shaped, the narrowest point being a mere three minute walk from coast to coast.

Famous for its observance to tradition, Cheung Chau is a throwback to older times, with housing bunched bravely together and streets so narrow that even a Mini would have trouble negotiating them. Dotted with small stores replete with some of Hong Kong’s more traditional food items, the abundance of salons is something curious.

The annual Bun Festival, held on the 21st of May, attracts tens of thousands from HK and Kowloon and is a spectacle as hundreds of young men climb 20ft high bun towers; steel structures with bagged buns loosely attached, to tear off the buns and spread them among the crowd.

The Mini Great Wall (!) is somewhat unspectacular but an expensive path with railings was built so it is a must see to gain insight into where the HK Government spends its money. The Human Head Rock is far more remarkable for its resemblance to, well, a human head.

The Cheung Po-tsai pirate cave is, as legend would have it, where the pirate of the same name stashed his worldly treasures. The cave is not much more than a slim tunnel through the rock. Pitch black, claustrophobic and beneath the waterline so you can hear the waves crashing against the rock beside you, it’s a mini-rush and what mobile phone lights were made for.

Finally, like Lamma Island, Cheung Chau boasts great seafood. Cap off a day out with a group seafood dinner – the more the better as you can try more dishes.

SAI KUNG SQUID FISHING

Summer is here and apart from bringing out mosquitos and scantily clad women, it also brings out squids. If you’re up a spot of fishing for your dinner, head to Sai Kung and arrange for a junk (boat) to take you and your friends out to sea (Recommended as it’s pricey otherwise. Also, it’ll get rather lonely out there in the dark on a boat by yourself). Once you’re there, plop your bait-on-hook into the water and wait diligently until you see the squid and luminous cuttlefish wander stupidly towards your set trap. All catch will then be cooked up and served either on the boat or at a seafood restaurant if you so wish. The man to call is Tony, on 2792 4553 to book a yacht and squid fishing session. Bonus points if you catch and cook a mermaid using only a small frying pan.

LONG KWU TAN BEACH BBQ BUFFET

Long Kwu Tan – or Lung Kwu beach – in Tuen Mun is famous for its all-you-can-eat BBQ sites. That’s right – for just a mere $78, you get access to a variety of free-flow meats at a BBQ pit site complete with staff who even light the fire for you. You can cook the night away eating charcoaled spare ribs and too-tough beef steaks as you while away the hours on the beach listening to the chatter of other patrons and the gentle lap of sea and muck against sand. Just take the K52 bus from the Tuen Mun MTR station. A mere 30 minutes later and you’ve arrived at Long Kwu Tan and presented with a few choices of which BBQ service to patronise. Brouhaha recommends Dragon Restaurant and Sunshine Cafe for their repeated and valorous endeavors, going beyond the call of duty to provide better quality meat and friendlier staff.

YUEN PO STREET BIRD GARDEN

Apparently it’s good luck when a bird makes a mess on you. If that’s the case then we should all love birds and thank them for pooping on our nice clothes or fancy hair-dos. In fact, we can thank a whole bunch of them at the Yuen Po Bird Garden. The place is littered with delicate Chinese cages, caging little feathery blobs of colour. It also includes wise old men showing off their favourite beasts of flight and young tourists wandering around, looking to be shat on. You can even buy your own lucky poo blob. There are also bigger birds in bigger cages: the majestic Cockatoo and the intelligent red or green Macaws. To get there, take the MTR to Prince Edward and to exit B1. Just walk east along Prince Edward Road West. The garden isn’t particularly big so once you’re done plucking feathers, why not head to the neighbouring flower market to see if he or she loves you/loves you not.

Hong Kong. A city where you can live in a bubble, doing the same things week in – week out. It’s easy to go to Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai. It’s where you were first shown when you arrived and it’s where your colleagues were shown first too. So on a Friday night you head there, again, and spend a small fortune on expensive drinks and retread the same small square footage.

Here’s a short guide that offers alternatives. Alternative places to drink, alternative places to shop, a change of scenery for sightseeing and information on all the Facebook groups you need to sign up to in order to know these things are happening in the first place. Here is A Design for Life.

Words: Brouhaha with Michelle Kwan & Henry Mullins • Illustrations: 1kstyles