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  • Music producer and mixer running a studio in Clear Water Bay. Currently working on projects for Khalil Fong, Mr. and Endy Chow.

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  • Hong Kong - Hidden City of Otherness

    2011-06-08 2:57AM / 視頻 / 會員可以看


    Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgKZdnlo-wU


    There are many fine individuals in Hong Kong. It is very dangerous to generalize something. What I'm about to say however is a somewhat frequent observation I've had throughout my 1 year stay in this city.

    I live in a small village in Clear Water Bay. In this village all the actual house owners are part of the "Lau" family. Everyone here is a "Mr. Lau". A few residents are however not part of the Lau-clan but come from elsewhere, such as myself.

    I have never experienced such a feeling of not belonging like I do here. I'm a "gweilo". That means I'm different. In my village not only is a gweilo frowned upon, but literally if you're not a "Lau" you're frowned upon.

    I remember my own home village in Sweden. There you could walk on the street and people wave at you and said, "Hello" when passing. If you were out of milk you could go to your neighbor and ask for a bottle until next time when you went to the store and bought one extra to give back to your neighbor.

    Why is that such a foreign concept here. I remember we had a black family from Africa move to our neck of the woods. They were met with open arms and curiosity.

    In my village here in Hong Kong there is only one old lady who greets me, as well as some other "gweilos" who live nearby. Usually the "greeting" is a sneer or a frown. What am I or did I do to receive such treatment?

    After a year of meeting hundreds of people, many who were great, but several who were not so friendly I have finally concluded that there is some sort of "otherness" attitude by many locals here, especially locals who have never interfaced with westerners much.

    With "otherness" I mean an attitude that I am other than what they are, i.e. I'm a gweilo, or simply not a "Lau" or not from Hong Kong, or not speaking Cantonese, or not willing to cheat and lie in business deals, or asking direct questions, or trying to be sincere and a score of other things which I do differently or behave differently.

    It is not that their ways are worse than mine, or that my ways are good, bad or different. It doesn't much matter what the difference is - the crux of the matter is that I have factors which are "other than" they.

    I don't expect people to like me, or agree with me, but I consider it part of human nature to respect other people whether or not they personally agree. There are of course extreme exceptions of people who, due to their heinousness shouldn't be respected.

    I would love to see more people in Hong Kong respecting others that may be different than they in whatever aspect and treat them as their equal. I would like to see people trying to understand other people instead of judging them. I would like to see people trying to be compassionate instead of finding fault at every corner. I would like to see people comment on the good things instead of only pointing out the bad aspects.

    Fortunately, I have also met many great guys and girls whom this article doesn't apply to. As a matter of fact, if you're reading this, this doesn't apply to you.

    Human Rights as a subject is and have been a passion of mine and I try to set an example myself when possible. The first Human Right is that all men are born free and equal. It would be nice if everyone at least shared that one opinion.

    The attached video which I did back in 2006 strongly emphasizes this.

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  • 20 years of experience in music and film. Occupied every conceivable function though Mixer and Director have been the primary functions in the last 10 years.
  • 職業:  錄音師 , 作曲家 , 音樂監製
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