5/31/2005 11:37:00 AM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|For those of you who don't know already, I was fucking busy the last week because I have to move out of London and into Bristol. I and my classmate/flatmate/colleague had now moved approximately 2/3 of stuff (have to go back to London this weekend to pick up the last lot) and had officially started work today.
So far so good, but I was asked to read employee conduct guidelines, and these things aren't as exciting as Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, or are they? I doubt it though.
Broadband has yet to be activated at home so I can only access internet at work, therefore most blogs will probably be written at work...dangerous things, and I put my job, pay and reputation on the line for this...haha!
I know that alot of things happened lately in the HK blogosphere on petty things like plagarism, however as I don't have time for this I will write a few thoughts on it a little later.|W|P|111753602722252466|W|P|New Day at Work|W|P|5/21/2005 09:47:00 PM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|...Since this degree started, I haven't picked up a novel at all (the last one I've read, I remember, was One Hundred Years of Solitude), and only until now I feel that I have enough time to actually pick them up again to read (I tried to read Anna Karenina, but couln't because it was on the internet, and I hate looking at the monitor for long hours, therefore I concluded that I need it on paper). I was going to buy Albert Camus' the Plague, however it was too expensive (8 pounds) so I decided to look for it on Ebay instead.
Instead, I've got four books real cheap, 1 pound 50 pence each, totalling 6 pounds, all classics.
1) Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray;
2) F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby;
3) Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer;
4) Charles Dickens - Great Expectations.
It will be a while before I can get through them, especially Dickens.|W|P|111670853104884313|W|P|Finally I can read again....|W|P|5/20/2005 04:45:00 AM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|(I'm sorry again Ben, if you see this post before the random music I've put up, it's most probably that I've already started solo week already!)
...Finally, I've got the will power and the energy to do the solo week! OK so I was bitchy about my disappointment with Star Wars yesterday, but now is the time to move on, and I will console myself by watching the original trilogy. :)
Maybe some of you are wondering just what the hell are solos anyway, but if you have been listening to music for quite a long time (and whitnessed the change in music genres, and the way they made music throughout the last 40 years), you will find that even for pop songs there are a lot of amazing solos. So what are solos? It's basically an oppotunity for one particular musician (normally the main solo guitarist) in the band to shine in their full glory and flash their skill. They would have something like 30 seconds to 1 minute of song time just for them to play a solo, and the rest of the band complement them.
How great is that? In the music industry, that's the single biggest ego-filler for most bands and musicians.
Since I'm a rock fan, most of the solos I've heard are guitar solos from rock songs, however I would just like to remind you that there are many more other solos from other instruments - pianos, bass etc., basically any musician writng a song can write a solo, or not as in the case for Nu-metal and any comtemporary music. Although solos nowadays were viewed as cheesy and outdated, however when someone writes a good one, it's still great to listen to. If the riffs are the backbone of a song, then undoubtedly solos are the most memorable, most striking part of the song, like the climax to an orgasm, and in some cases they even dominate over the whole song - the heart and soul.
However, given the limited scope that I have given myself (and more importantly the bandwidth that I have), I will only present to you 16 songs (10 of my favourites and 6 that didn't make it, but honourable mentions nevertheless) with solos which I feel are the best that I've ever heard. Some of them you may have heard already, and some of those choices you may not expect from me.
If you know something about rock music, and you have heard my choices for riff week last time, I think you will understand why I didn't shortlist some songs for their riffs, although they still have some good riffs within them, but instead chose them for their great solos. I was merely trying to be a little objective and fair really.
Also, to restrict my choices (hence simplify my shortlisting), I will only restrict to songs that are recorded in studio albums, no live songs at all (except one song), because that's where all the greatest solos were performed - live, and if I did that, chances are that I have to upload some 20 minute songs, and then people will be very annoyed at me.
Again, in no particular order, and I have tried to judge the solo along with the overall structure of the song as well.
1) 
This self titled album, released in 78, in fact blew many people away and got them famous. When Dire Straits first started they were playing in punk venues in London during the late 70's, and they built up their reputation from that somehow. Frontman and main guitarist Mark Knopfler was indeed a very talented musician and songwriter, and this songs sums it all up for them. He's one of the few guitarists around that have skin hard enough to play an electric guitar with steel strings with their bare hands (try doing that yourself, playing at his level, I assure you that your skins will fall off your finger, because that's what happened to me).
By the way, I used to hate Dire Straits so much, because I just thought it was a load of chessy shit like Status Quo, until recently I accquired their best of album, with a limited edition live CD of one of their gigs. That was the live CD that blew me away, and I'm liked them ever since.
By the way, for those of you who don't know already, the opening theme tune to ��Ӯx (with the saxophone) was in fact a Dire Straits song.
Featured Song: Sultans of Swing.
2) 
To be honest, I really have no idea where this song of Jimi's came from, I've only heard it as a live track, first time on this CD of him playing at the Isle of Wright festival. Nevertheless, I still think that it's the BEST EVER song that he's written during his lifetime (yes, even better than Little Wing, Voodoo Child (slight return) or All Along the Watchtower), and it's exactly this song that made Miles Davis, legendary jazz musician, wanted to work with this absolute genius.
He really was, and still is, the best guitar player. Listen to this song, and then worship the man.
Featured Song: Machine Gun.
3) 
For a guitarist that had worked with mights such as Frank Zappa, Vai is great in his own right, and as this second album has shown, he really is giving Yngwie Malmsteen a run for his money. This song is certainly one of those songs that people just wish they can play on top of an icy mountain and try and look cheesy. Him, Satriani and Malmsteen were all hailed as the G3...you know what it means.
Featured Song: For the Love of God.
4) 
Deep Purple were rock dinosaurs, whether you like them or not. To be honest, I thought Richie Blackmore was an absolute dick, but then again he also wrote great songs such as this one, which earn my due respect. By the way, this album was so great that they had inspired a band, called Machine Head, to name themselves after it. Maybe this song's guitar solo isn't that great you think, but do check out the keyboard solo though, that's what blows people away.
Featured Song: Highway Star.
5) 
The most skillful and fast-fingered out of the G3, I have only 3 words for this man: Cheese, cheese, and more cheese (maybe speed as well). He's just like a bloody cheesy factory in Switzerland, constanly dishing out smelly yet mysteriously good song, and surprinsingly, this song lacks all those cheese, whilst maintaining his high level of skill, without falling out of place therefore I say that this is the best song that he had written.
Featured Song: Black Star.
6) 
This debut album from the brotherhood of Van Halen, released in 1978, propelled the whole rock scene into finger-tapping chessiness. Nevertheless solo guitarist Eddie Van Halen is still a talented guitar player, and he wrote this great song during his well spent youth. It's truly revolutionary, unfortunately they can't top that with their later stuff...well, not with shit like Jump anyway.
Featured Song: Eruption.
7) 
Guns N' Roses used to have it all - Sex, drugs, Rock N' Roll, great anthems, and lots of fans. However, I think the single biggest killer of their career wasn't actually their mad frontman Axel Rose, it was that 2 year world tour that totally burnt them out. So, grab all you can while they can still write good music. Some of you may disagree and think that in fact Sweet Child of Mine is better than this, however the main point is that this is just a far more powerful solo that the former, and you really have to watch that pointless MTV to the end, to appreciate how great this solo is.
Featured Song: November Rain.
8) 
The existence of Pink Floyd just showed you that guitarists doesn't need to be lightning fast or fucking skillfull to perform great solos, and with Dave Gilmour they really took the statement "Simple yet effective" and exploited it to it's max. Gilmour is no Malmsteen, however, he's Dave Gilmour, and whoever disagrees with him, unless he's Clapton, Hendrix or Page, may want to shut the fuck up and listen to the man play his guitar.
Featured Song: Comfortably Numb.
9) 
Eddie Van Halen should be damn glad, because he's the only guitarist that has two songs on this list. You may think, "WTF? This is a Michael Jackson album!" True, but the fact is that Jackson did in fact made many songs in collaboration with many musicians, and Van Halen was the solo guitarist for this song. Great song, great solo, great performance. What more can you say about it, apart from the fact that Wacko Jacko is a fucking paedophile? What a pity.
Featured Song: Beat It.
10) 
HUAWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You thought I forgot about this didn't you? How can this list be complete without this song? This song, the collosal arrangements, with that heavenly guitar solo, inspired millions and millions of guitarists, old and new, across this planet to pick up a guitar and just play the song, and millions more just to pick this album up to listen at home, and wank. There are eight songs in this album, eight truly great songs (Black Dog, Rock n Roll, Four Sticks, When the Levee Breaks, Going to California, the Battle of Evermore, Misty Mountain Hop, what more can you ask for in one album?), and if I wasn't being fair, I'm sure eight of them will end up on this list.
Featured Song: Stairway to Heaven.
That was the 10 that made it to the final list, but since that I have a lot of bandwidth remaining, I will shortlist another 6 songs that are worth their honourable mentions.
11) 
If there ever was a heaven for rock gods, Randy Rhoads (Ozzy's guitarist at the time, who died a tragic death) will defintely be in it. He's just one of those really talented guitarist that write distinctive riffs and non-imitable solos. how great is he? Just listen to this song and find out, may even change the way you think about how Ozzy goes about his business.
Featured Song: Crazy Train.
12) 
Some people may have reservations about another band covering a Pink Floyd song, which in itself was already a great song anyway (like Korn did a Another Brick in the Wall part 2 cover, but it really wasn't that great). However, I urge you this - try not to listen to it as a Pink Floyd song (in other words, don't compare this with the original), because I can assure you that Foo Fighters weren't even intending to make merely a shitty cover out of it, what's the point? If they wanted to cover it they probably would have asked Dave Gilmour as the featured guitarist instead of Brian May from Queen right? They are trying to reinterpret the song, giving it a new lease of life, which I thought very brave of them, and they delivered in my opinion. Rock on!
Featured Song: Have a Cigar.
13) 
Brit-rock got to an extent that it actually pissed my off just listening to them...except this song. I remembered back when Oasis and Blur were at competition with each other, slagging each other off publicly etc etc. However when Oasis released this song as a single, Blur's singer Damon Albarn openly admitted that "this was indeed a great song." What a way to go, have a song so good that even your nemesis thought it was great!
Featured Song: Live Forever.
14) 
Anyone heard of them? NO? The you've missed out on the last decade man. One of the hardest most political that existed on this planet (they didn't just write political songs, the band members themselves were political activists), infamous for their amazing stage presences, magical guitar sounds (in fact, all their sounds were made from guitar, drum, voice and bass, no add-on computer shit), innovative solos (although this song is so overplayed) and so on. They onced played in front of the demonstration crowd at the National Democratic Convention in LA in 2001, afterwards the police got so pissed off with them all that they opened fire on the demonstrators with plastic bullets (no joke, check out the news back then) - sound like Tianmen Square 4/6/1989 huh?
Featured Song: Killing in the Name.
15) 
Queen is strictly speaking a pop band, just because they're mainstream and popular, but that didn't stop them from writing great songs. This song probably wasn't as famous as their better known songs such as We are the Champions or Bohemien Rapsody, but solo wise it's definitely one of their best, and unlike other Queens songs, this one's quite dark, so watch out.
Featured Song: Innuendo.
16) 
This song is the sole reason why I've decided to upload 16 songs instead of 15. If you have watched that great movie Apocalypse Now, that opening scene with the helocopter slowly appearing, with it's wings chopping away rapidly, this is the background song accompanying that scene. It was one of the most vivid imagary (music and vision combined) that I have ever experienced in my life. That turned out to be a great movie, and this song...well find out for yourself!
Featured Song: The End.
Woooooooooo! Time to sleep.|W|P|111617887147920747|W|P|My Radioblog - Solo Week|W|P|5/19/2005 02:20:00 PM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|I've got 4 words for it: GOOD PLOT, CRAP ACTING.
(I have emphasised my anger in huge font to show my annoyance against George Lucas)
Even the guy in the Vadar suit, for the mere 1 minute 30 seconds of his appearance, is a better actor than Hayden Christensen. I wanted to ask this question since two years ago, "Why the fuck did Lucas cast him?" He's so shit that he spoiled the whole movie for the fans (although he did better than he did in Ep. 2). His face was stiff like Kelly Chan, and not even the basic emotions showed on his face. This man is a ruthless killer I say, and showed no pain and guilt even when he killed those poor children, what a sick bastard, he should be casted as a cold-blooded psychopath killer on the loose instead, that way he can REALLY do his acting.
Not even the great plot can change my mind - this movie is absolute shit. Now Star Wars will not be remembered for it's classic Sci-Fi trilogy (that's Ep. 4, 5 and 6 if you don't know already) with Harrison Ford et. al., but for a bunch of craply marketed films with a crap main actor.
Good one Lucas, I hope you're pissing happy, because I certainly am, I enjoyed it as a shitty funny movie, pity for Ewan McGreggor and Natalie Portman, I thought they did alright, complementing the actor with all their might.
But then again, Spielberg made H.G Wells' War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise, set in America, and unleashing it in July...what has this world I'm living in become? Sigh.
Now eat this Lucas, you will love it.
|W|P|111650897168305048|W|P|Watched Star Wars Ep. 3 today...|W|P|5/18/2005 11:32:00 PM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|
The above object, the IO 2 Digital Writing System from Logitech (along with their counterparts made by Nokia and HP, they're all built on the same comcept and patent), costing 150 pounds (200 US$) , will form a major part of my summer project.
So, how does it work? Well, this is a sort of idealistic goal that this pen intends to achieve:
A sales professional can capture mission-critical customer information with their digital pen on a paper form while interacting naturally with their clients -- without typing away on a laptop during the meeting. When they return to the office, they dock the pen and it seamlessly transfers that information electronically into a computer -- eliminating the need to type notes into the system, and improving the speed with which time-sensitive information can be distributed though a sales organization.
Basically, it does what it saids on the tin - it records what you wrte, and it reads and saves what you wrote into a chip, then when you dock this pen (that black thing with a hole is the docking station for the pen) it transfers the data onto the computer, thus the distribution job.
Great vision to whoever thought of this. However, we all have to realise that corporate thinking doesn't equal to technological/scientific thinking, scientists do things and improve on them step by step, however executives only see that ultimate goal. The objective is far from complete, I have gathered some reviews, and it seems that:
a) The pen is chunky yet comfortable;
b) The data management software is good (I think Logitech had outsourced that part to other companies);
c) OCR is a little crap;
d) If one wants handwriting recognition, one will have to buy some digi-paper with gridlines so the pen can track what you write (They aren't that cheap either at 5 pounds per 80 A4 sheets);
e) A little too expensive for some liking;
Seems to me that there are a lot of improvements to be done huh? However, there's still alot to understand from this particular design, and it might take me some time.|W|P|111645567512450482|W|P|My summer project|W|P|5/18/2005 09:27:00 PM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|Kendra's gonna win, no doubt.
I've just finished watching episode 16, and she did so well! She did better than I thought.
You go girl!
(This could possibly be my first junk post, haha~~)|W|P|111644816783396652|W|P|Who's going to win the Apprentice this time?|W|P|5/18/2005 12:46:00 AM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|...I thought I would be posting quite heavily since my exams are finished and I have all the time in the world, but the last few days just proved that I'm as busy as ever!
a) The search for a new flat with my classmate in Bristol has been less than successful (in order to work in HP I first have to move out of London and into Bristol), and it's taking a little longer than I thought, however we have already planned and implemented our moves, all we can do now is wait;
b) Futurama took longer than I thought to watch (I'm down to the last few episodes now), however there's yet another new threat lurking up - Family Guy - and I have only watched 2 seasons of them (plus many others, such as the last half of the Apprentice 3, 24 etc.);
c) I will start researching my 4 month project tomorrow. My supervisor had send me some patent documents to look at...Gawd! This whole project maybe harder than I thought, but that's only because I have yet to work out what I really need to do;
d) I will attend a marathon Star Wars session at one of my classmates' house tomorrow (maybe even the LOTR trilogy!), and hopefully by Thursday morning we will goto the cinema nearby to watch Star Wars Episode III;
e) Plus many other petty little things...
When will I start solo week on my radioblog? I really don't know, but meanwhile, do make sure that you check out the Libertines' self titled second album and Tool's Lateralus, both albums are great to listen to (however, I have to say that Lateralus is much much much better than the Libertines).
p.s. I was going to change the songs in the radioblog with a bunch of random songs...uploaded, you can listen to them now.
1) 
To me, Thelonius Monk was definitely one of the greatest Jazz songwriter and musician that ever walked upon the face of the Earth, with this critically acclaimed album, released in the 60's, WAY WAY WAY before I was born. Jesus I just wish I was around at that time to witness the greatness that was unleashed onto the music industry back then...Monk, Davis, Jimi, Ray Charles, Led Zep...Gosh! Each and everyone of them!
I'm sorry for the crap quality, that's because of the low bitrate to conserve webspace and bandwidth, and which is one of the reason I tried so hard not to upload any jazz songs, you really need to listen to them in good quality to appreciate everything that's going on around the song.
Featured Song: Straight, No Chaser.
2)
Another great song from a great man, enough said about Hendrix, I've done that too many times, just enjoy the damn song.
Featured Song: Hear My Train A' Comin.
3)
Ex-Libertines frontman Pete Doherty was hailed by the Bristish tabloid as the 21st century Cobain-reincarnated (worshipped by many naive teenage kids across the country), with huge heroin addiction, bags of talents (he's in a new band called Baby Shambles now), and Kate Moss as a girlfriend. What a fucking waster I said, he has all of rock's gimmicks - sex, drugs, rock n' roll, live fast and die young (even though he's still alive, he won't be for long judging by the way he's going at it). Nevertheless, the Libertines are still great to listen to, and this track sums it all up, the tension between Doherty and fellow band members who eventually kicked him out.
Featured Song: Can't Stand Me Now.
4)
Here we go, the biggest dickheads in rock, Metallica sure had lost it, as we can see on their documentary-movie Some Kind of Monster, battling with their inner demons...cut that funny crap.
I hate their personalities, but I do give them great respect as songwriters who unleashed classics after classics onto the planet's sound spectrum...well until St. Anger.
Featured Song: Ain't My Bitch.
5)
What can I say about Beyond? One of the greatest rock band that ever came out of Hong Kong (the other was the Tat Ming Clan �F��@��), with a classic rock story that seems to have cursed the band ever since - THE most talented member of the band, frontman Koma Wong (�.a�s), died after an unfortunate accident in Japen. Ever since, the remaining member carried on as a three piece, but whatever they made, they just can't top anything that was done before.
The story sounded a lot like Manic Street Preachers don't they?
Featured Song: ���Z�� (Morning Train).|W|P|111637373498660902|W|P|Well...I'm away again...|W|P|5/15/2005 11:36:00 PM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|The first post I've written about my reactions can be read here.
I will now try to imply what I've said before, namely Marketisation, Corporatisation, and Competition within HK's media industry into reality, and try and find out what implications this has on HK's society. I will also try to include televised media (and possibly digital media like blogs, if I have time), also I would like to investigate the validness of the term Anti-Intellectual. I don't know if I will get anything out of this, in that case please bear with me.
Due to competition, the number of newspapers sold becomes the dominant issues; this also entails the amount of advertising, thus revenues, a newspaper company can earn, and ultimately survival. Essentially, what we read are now driven by the big $ sign, instead of the mission to address social and current issues so that society are informed. This may not be the case all the time, and what the top executives wishes doesn't necessarily means that the journalists at the bottom of the hierarchy thinks the same way as them, afterall there are still good journalists out there. Having said that, there are also many other journalists who are willing to compromise, or being forced to compromise by their editors, who in turn are compromised by the executives above, who in turn are compromised by the shareholders, who in turn compromised by profits.
Corporatisation and marketisation changed the underlying principles of a news agency, their method of operation, and the role of the newspaper (that's what I've been writing about). This ultimately changed in the way they had presented their newspaper - as a product, and hence impacted society on various issues, which I would like to talk about.
As I've previously commented, the degradation of media content is an imminent trend, whether it's the change in journalistic style, newspaper content or merely the TV program quality, and there should be no doubt about that whatsoever (if you do doubt, then it's probably best if you don't carry on reading, it may rock your little world). Who will feel these ripples ultimately? We, as readers and viewers, will, therefore it seems only convenient to start by looking at this phenomenon from our viewpoints.
1) Exclusion of Various Sections
There are in fact many ways to testify this trend of degradation, for example, goto any VCD/DVD shop in HK and compare some of the drama series sold as VCD box sets, which were made by TVB, HK's broadcasting monopoly during the last century (ok, so there are two free-to-watch TV channels, but ATV had it's fate pretty much sealed in my opinion, which is a sad sight), with that crap you watch today on the same TV channel; or one can compare newspaper articles written by journalists in the old days, and compare them with articles written by journalists of today (this can be easily done in the central library, and in the case of REALLY old newspapers, you're probably better off sneaking into university libraries).
I remembered that newspapers used to publish proses or short novels under one section, sent to them by writers of all sort (those who had their stuff posted were paid a little fee). This particular section used to have a page or two dedicated just for them (mind you that Jin Yong (��e), probably the single most famous Chinese writer that ever came out of HK, published his masterpieces first on newspaper back in the 50's). They are definitely obsolete now, alas, but you can still find them in really old newspapers, also a couple of newspapers still have such sections today, but those are of crap quality and merely written by some of their own journalists.
Maybe not many people read, or want to read those novels written by non-famous writers anyway, but the media seems to have sealed off happily a way for writers to be recognised...And people bitch about how novelists in HK are just piles of horseshit! I have read an article once criticising how tabloid journalism (such as Next Media with their Apple Daily) killed off one of the main platforms for writers to publish their writings, however I have no way of investigating that further, whether it's because the newly evolved tabloid format automatically left that part out and then others followed suit, or otherwise. Having said that, since the advent of the internet boom, many such writers can publish their writings online (although mostly without pay, which made it somehow worse than before), on the hope that they could one day be recognised, so there's still hope for wannabe writers out there.
Nowadays, all you can find in that 30+ pages newspaper are local news; regional news (to me these are the only two mildly readable sections); international news translated from western newspapers (most media companies in HK are too small to afford a proper international correspondent where he travels everywhere to report on current international affairs); tabloid news (basically celebrity dirt); a miscellaneous section which includes adult pages (I saw quite a lot of men reading this on top of their horse race odds when I went to Yum Cha in HK); columns of all sort (again, catered for everyone's taste); sport news - football, basketball, horse racing etc. (with odds, that's what pisses me off the most); pages after pages of properties for sale, to show you that people still dream about property bubbles (us HKers just never learn from our mistakes do we not?); stock market news and analysis (apart from the local HK market, most of them are translated from either Bloomberg, Reuters or otherwise, and those analysis are generally pretty crap mind you, if you want some quality analysis you're better off reading the Hong Kong Economic Journals �H��); classified ads...etc..
More importantly - Comments section, that's one part of the UK newspapers that I always enjoyed reading, and what you read here are letters in reply to a piece that certain journalist wrote, written by their readers. Some of them are totally stupid, but other times you will find an interesting read (sometimes even politicians send letters of replies to the newspapers, for one reason or the other). The existence of this comments page shows the interaction between the newspaper (contents) itself and it's readers, and an indication that readers don't merely take what journalists had written for granted. By interaction, readers can be presented with different sides of arguments, and thus encouraged to make their own judgments and decisions. I used to see comments section in some HK newspapers (especially in the old ones when I used to read reader's comments to Jin Yong's novels), however now I don't see it anymore (alas I don't have any HK newspapers on me to read therefore I maybe inaccurate here, please correct me if I had this wrong).
Every good corporation in the world realises the need for customer feedback, because it can keep the customers happy. It's none of that we value our customers or any sort of sentimental bullshit - without happy customers, who the fuck is going to buy your product in the future? Remember news agencies are now corporations, and thus their newspapers become products, so customer feedback are as important as for other companies' products. It can also point out where the company or the product had gone wrong somewhere, at a much lower cost (well, it's either this or spending millions on a consultancy company, and which one would you prefer if you're a CEO?).
Media companies in the UK have comments section (whether in paper form or online) or TV programs dedicated to comments. They readout feedbacks from readers/viewers, and they make sure that some gets aired, with a reply (satisfactory or not), to give a sense that they really do care about things; some other companies chose to advertise to the viewers to write their comments to a specific address or online (Channel 4 likes to do this the most) and these came after most of their documentaries, and it's these comments that fuelled a lot of post-program discussions. Sometimes they do change after comments, sometimes they don't, that depends on how much that particular company want to give a rat's arse about their customers (in the case of HK, I believe most local companies don't really care about their customers' satisfaction level, although it may seem that they care from an outsider's point of view).
The lack of comments section in HK newspapers (or even TV channels), however, is a worrying prospect because it shows the narrowness of the scope of these local companies, it also kills off the room for possible improvements (like me I have a lot of issues against newspapers, but who the hell am I going to send them to? Sure they have address where I can send these things to, but they didn't even make an effort to advertise these, it's a clear indication that they don't care), and it sends a message to readers that everything the newspapers said are right - there are no comments against them, in fact there are no comments at all! In time this will develop into something that's clearly observable - the mass do not question the integrity or the truthfulness of the newspapers, they merely read and absorb, like a sponge.
So far I can only think of two main reasons why these are left out deliberately by the news companies - a) It's not economically feasible because these couple of pages could mean a couple of pages less of advertisement, or other stuff that they wanted the readers to see; b) they don't think there's a need for them anymore, whether it's because the lack of enthusiasm from their readers or otherwise. Either way this is still a worrying sight, because that's sacrificing something much deeper for possible profits.
2) Thought Provocation (or the lack of it) and Reading Time
As well as lack of information, one of the major resentments towards tabloid journalism is the fact that they lack the thought provocation that traditional journalistic pieces have on readers. I mean, pick up the Sun or one of the tabloid section from one of the HK newspapers today, read it, how thought provoking is that? Local news and regional news sections always have a sense of seriousness attached with the report, and sometimes the news are just so absurd that it provokes thoughts immediately; this also applies to documentaries (I must give credit here to Channel 4's documentaries and BBC's Panorama here, because documentaries from those two programs were done so well, and certainly had provoked my thoughts, especially when Channel 4's documentaries had this reputation for edginess).
Some of the TV documentaries from RTHK (����q�x), which focuses on less-known aspects within HK society are also thought provoking. For example, there was one documentary about inventors in HK, which reported on how they struggled even to survive, often without government funding, although their inventions are good and useful (like a new design for fire doors); the ironic thing is that, after one particular inventor won some prestigious inventor award, the government immediately went up to them like a dog and provided him with funding for further research.
I shall explain a little here on how I actually read a newspaper. It normally takes me up to two or three hours to read newspapers properly (I try my best to read every report which I think are good to read), and I do it fragmented because I normally don't have the time to read them through in one go. The way I read it is - I read it with my eyes, analyse the report with my brain, and then I judge what the journalist's viewpoints are from wordings that he used, his grammar and his writing style; once that was done, then I can judge that piece of news for myself, without being influenced by the journalists' words. It sure takes time, but once I got into the habit of doing so, then it becomes somehow easier.
I'm not sure how much time people are ready to give up to read a newspaper, but I doubt it will be anything more than 1 hour (in fact, I kind of worried that I don't have that much time to read a newspaper in the future), be it they have to work, travel, or they're simply too busy to do so. Therefore reading time is also important for the readers. I would also like to point out that in order for an article to provoke thought, the journalist will most likely to have to examine the piece of news in depth, and hence lengthening it. Sure if the news is good in itself will provoke thought, but the truth is - most people don't have enough time to read it, or you're only given so much length to write your report (because spaces on newspapers are limited). Given a specific length, and often not enough (unless like the FT or some quality newspapers where you can be given a whole page to yourself to write a special report), it's quite hard for journalists to write something that's thought provoking, and sometimes they even struggle to write informative reports (that very much depends on the journalists' own ability).
I've picked up a few tabloid newspapers (paid or free, Londoners have this habit of leaving their newspapers in the tube after they read it, and most of the time other people pick it up to read it, that's circulation for you) recently on the tube, namely the Sun (paid) and Metro (free), and read it to see how long it takes to read from start to finish. Not surprisingly, it only takes me half an hour to fully read and analyse the news (I even read the sport section, which I don't often read) on each newspaper (totaling one hour). I have realised that the English they have used are extremely simple - high school level. They're certainly easy to understand, however I have reservations on whether they're concise, or even informative, because all these years of writing in both English and Chinese had taught me that you can only be concise down to a certain point, below that it's only mildly informative to read, let alone trying to analyse the report my way, and to get any thought provocation from it.
However, there's also one trend I've spotted - a lot of readers both read a quality newspaper and a tabloid newspaper, and upon thinking about it, I have concluded that this reason is due to the fact that some news are only reported on tabloid newspapers (e.g. on celebrities, or some news that didn't made it to the quality papers), and hence people would like to read them as well as more serious news on the quality papers.
One of my friends reads the Times, and a year or two ago the Times had decided to go for a smaller format - not going to tabloid, but making the newspaper smaller, with staplers (so it looks more like a magazine), so that it's more convenient for readers to read in busy tube on the way to work and put it in their bags/backpacks etc.. The reaction I got from him wasn't the most pleasant, and he even went onto compare the original paper with the new smaller paper, criticising that by cutting down newspaper size by by as much as 30%, they have lost 30% information on each page, but alas they didn't make it up for it by having 30% more number of pages. I have also watched a small documentary on the BBC news one night talking about the same thing, the journalist had compared the normal size newspaper with the new smaller size that were sold on the same day (there was a transition period where both version of the Times were circulated), and realised that they have indeed cut down the wording, and even information in some cases, in order for that piece of news to fit into the new format.
With a few other quality newspapers in UK followed suit after the Times, it is apparent that newspapers which had gone down a size, and they had sacrificed information and thought provocation for a smaller, more convenient size for their readers to read and absorb the information faster. I seriously don't know if this is a marketing triumph, or a journalistic disaster.
How about in HK? I've commented above that there are more than 30 pages in a HK newspaper, however it only take me about half an hour to read and analyse the whole paper (omitting all those adverts, crappy sports and financial analysis, and the miscellaneous section). This coincides with the fact that HK newspapers have EVERYTHING in it, and thus I don't read what I'm not interested in. I also tend to read more than one newspaper, to get a feel of what other journalists may say on the same news that could be different from others and provide some new insights (unfortunately that doesn't happen often).
There are certainly good journalists in HK, I have no doubt about that, and a few of them even write blogs (I'll leave that for you to find out who they are), however we all know that there are many more below-average journalists around, who are merely doing their job to survive, and they neither care nor intend to care how they do their job as long as they get paid, so it's inevitable that quality will degrade. Sometimes they're competent enough to write informative pieces, but it can be a little more difficult when it comes to special lengthy reports (this also has to do with that particular person's life ambitions as well).
As for time, I believe that this problem isn't just a British problem, most newspaper readers share the same problem - they simply cannot give up more than 30 minutes/1 hour's worth of time to read the news. When most of today's readers aren't willing to think about what's behind that particular of news at all, it's up to the journalists to try and provoke their thoughts. Sometimes they succeed, however hard that may seem, and alas sometimes they fail. Writing the news report in simpler format certainly helped readers to read the whole paper in their severely limited amount of time, but there seems to be an indication that quality will be sacrificed for extra convenience.
3) Quality/Moral Degradation?
The above factors seems to lead to quality degradation to a certain extent, however given the education of most HK journalists, I don't think one can degrade quality as far down as incoherent or irrational (since there are certain qualifications, like a university degree, where most journalists have to have for the job), thus the extent of such quality degradations are actually debatable, because these are mostly subjective views rather than objective standards. From my analysis however, I had the feeling that there are in fact quality degradations over time, and this poses itself as a worrying problem.
Although most journalists need a qualification of some sort, judging by how the journalist writes their report - a bit of written chinese in conjunction with cantonese, it's awfully annoying to read (although it's easy for some people), and in that sense the quality of the language used had degraded (this also coincides with the fact that British tabloid journalism uses simple languages).
There have also been much talk about moral degradations, to try to examine this, I will start by referring to something that doesn't havet much to do with traditional media here - the pop music industry.
If one observed the evolution of the pop industry (not HK, in UK or America) carefully enough, it's not hard to find out that there were indeed many times when moral boundaries were crossed, which immediately led to moral outrages, for example the appearance of rock performer Marilyn Manson in the 90's and how he was singled-out for the Columbine shootings, or Madonna in the 80's with her highly controversial Like a Prayer MTV (plus many other things she did); if one had seen some of the hip hop music videos released, they are also pushing the boundaries further and further out, and there are indeed videos that cannot make it to the TV, hence they are released instead as porn videos. One daunting aspect is that, even though there were such outrages, in the end the industry got their way, and that kind of opened the door to other things.
Certainly this doesn't only happen with the music industry. Compared with the last century, one can certainly hear more frequent use of bad languages and see more soft porn scenes appearing on British television (from TV dramas such as Footballers' Wives), and to a lesser extent, talking about sensitive subjects in various documentaries. In the old days one cannot even swear or show naked women's bodies on TV, nowadays they are everywhere (there were even televised gay sex scenes on TV a few years back, from a channel 4 drama Queer as Folk). It's a blatant fact that Soft porn and bad languages had become more tolerable by the day (if not the norm) over the years (after that useless 9 o'clock watershed), and that's what most people called moral degradation.
How about media in HK? There were programs in the past in HK's radio channels that talks with listeners openly about what-used-to-be-sensitive-topics such as sex (but those are nothing compared to what you can see on British TV), however, even though most HKers are more open to such topics over the years (try and talk to youths in HK, how many of them ceased to be virgins at the age of 13/14? That was unthinkable a few decades ago!), broadcasting soft porn on HK's TV is still unacceptable (some movies even had scenes cut off to make them suitable for broadcast). Whether this is due to the fact that the media industry as a whole refuses to be more open, or they are merely afraid to be named by their angry viewers as degrading morality, or most HKers actually still refuses to be more open about such topics (unlikely I think) are beyond the scope of this little article, I merely wanted to point out this trend; whereas on the other hand, one can see on a lot of the news reports (this doesn't happen often on TV, mostly in newspapers) that uses a lot of unnecessary photos all over their paper (of the poor souls dying, or in some case dead, in an accident).
In HK, there's such a law as Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance (�]v�Τ������~�ި���), where the government tries to regulate traditional media (TV, radio, newspapers, publication etc. including over the internet), but as you may or may not know, such regulations often crosses the lines, interfering with freedom of press (or freedom of speech in some cases), and it depends very much on who's judging those articles in concern. Therefore one had to ask the question, "Do the people judging it really represent the moral standard in HK's society? Or rather, is there a moral standard in HK, or a moral standard at all?"
Some things are certainly easier to regulate than others, such as blatant sex and violence in pornography, or unnecessary use of photos on newspapers, but what about deeper issues that stemmed from some of these aspects (such as pictures taken from war zones, or natural disasters)? Can one just oust them all altogether? Of course not!
In the past many had urged the government to take action against such trends of moral degradations, however I don't believe that this is a feasible option because when governments interfere, they will inevitably give the regulatory body a lot of power, and sometimes perhaps too much power, that will ultimately lead to censorship. There are still many loopholes and gaps within the law which are debatable, as there are still no exact definitions as to what obscene or indecent means in law - showing a male phallus, or hardcore sex scenes can be obscene and indecent, but there's the subtle difference between art and pornography (like 9 songs for example); sure war photos with arms, legs and bodies everywhere can be revolting sometimes, but does that mean one shouldn't report on the horrific reality of war (if the report about US soldiers abusing Iraqi PoWs in Abu Ghraib prison didn't show those humiliating pictures that the soldiers took, will it achieve the same effect it had all over the world? I seriously doubt it)? How can one judge the outcome or the intent of showing those controversial pictures? In the above case, what's moral degradation? Showing those pictures on media, or if nothing was done about these abuses at all?
These sensitive issues have much implications on freedom of press/speech; also these are very subjective issues, and hence may lead to the possibility of an unfair trial, and thus shouldn't be treated with a mere standard of law; and even if one has to incur the law, it should be judged relatively, and not according to a set of standards.
It's for the exact reason given above (interference with freedom of speech/press) why I think the government shouldn't take matters into their own hands, instead, these problems should be solved sociologically. This means that matters should ultimately boils down to something like a social movement against tabloid journalism/moral degradation (or something to that extent), and law should only be taken as a last resort; but more importantly, society should educate youngsters (in some cases adults as well) about such matters and encourage them to judge for themselves what is acceptable and what's not. Rather than enforcing law, they should provide suitable guidelines for the society to take in and follow, and these guidelines should be constantly revised, because societies change, and so does mass perception.
However, frankly speaking, unlike western journalists, HK newspapers always tend to print unnecessary photos instead of trying to prove a point, and that I think should not be tolerated, as it provokes much discontent amongst society.
4) The advent of Internet and Digital Media
The internet boom is truly magnificent, as if this uncharted territory just possesses some mysterious charisma that got the world hooked up ever since; even with cheap advertisement (a mere banner), sites can sometimes attract millions of viewers. This phenomenon of course was taken up very quickly by individuals and various companies, and exploited to it's max, which eventually led to the dot com/tech bubble, and inevitably it bursted in 2000.
Since then, the way cyberspace goes about their business had matured immensely, and formats like HTML, Java, Flash or even blogs had been utilised by many to achieve their objectives, from merely self expression to public relations. The internet provided portals across all spectrums, bridged many gaps and broke many barriers - geological, sociological or political. What was previously unthinkable is now possible, and one can talk to a person from Canada without actually being there.
The internet also provided gateways for us converted-cyber-users to look at world news...And I don't mean reports by mere international correspondents from your local news agencies, you REALLY can look at news from all over the planet. As I've commented a while ago, blogs supersedes traditional website building because it's much more simpler to build a blog, posting starts with just one click, and desires fulfilled; for a website, you need to learn HTML before you can start anything, that's why it's much more accessible to the mass.
Alternative media had also emerged alongside mainstream media - there are plenty of blogs around which provide news as informative and thought provoking as quality newspapers and documentaries can be (as well as bad and boring ones), and they lack the restrains that most mainstream media has, namely profit worries and regulations, therefore providing that one utilises it well, one can do what most journalists do, and even do what most journalists can't do. Lately there have been many independent news agencies that uses blogs to report on current affairs and issues (for example Gawker), or some individuals trying to make a point or start something worth fighting for (for example, glutter.org).
As ���� had commented before, more and more HKers had chosen alternative ways to be informed (eg. reading blogs), because they are tired of the degradation HK media is heading. This is also interesting because theoretically it can lead to some sort of movement against the crapness of HK's mainstream media, and the intentions are good because it shows that more and more people are feeling the ripples that corporate media had sent us (and the lack of feedback mechanisms that made matters worse). However, it only solves half the problem. As I've said, I believe that the root of the problems lies well beneath both the media, the society, and the interaction between them. Also these movements takes time to implement, and at the same time there must also be educational schemes set up to educate the future generations on how to perceive, react to and participate with media.
(I won't comment on the misconception of blogs by mainstream media here, because there are already enough material around for you to read, here and here, mostly in Chinese)
Anti-Intellectualism, possibly?
In the dictionary, anti-intellectualism means opposed or hostile to intellectuals or intellectual views.
From this definition, it's obvious that the term Anti-intellectualism isn't valid in this context (I'm sorry you have to bear with me for such a long time to get to this conclusion), because the media was neither opposing nor hostile towards intellectual views (they merely ceased to become intelligent informers), so using this term is a misjudgment of some sort; meanwhile, actions such as censorship is anti-intellectual.
However, from my analysis of the situation above, it's clear that there are certainly degradations of some sort from the media, whether quality - the media has subtly left out comments sections which are necessary for the media to function constructively, or morally - the extensive and unnecessary use of photos which provokes public discontent.
Conclusion?
To conclude on what I've wrote over the two blogs, I tried to identify the trend which the media industry in HK is changing itself into, and some of the implications this has on us as readers and as participants in a society from a few perspectives. Although I have pointed out the problems and made a few judgments of my own, I still have no intent to address the problems, let alone trying to provide solutions. I have possibly muddled myself up talking about serious journalism and tabloid journalism in the HK cases, but don't blame me, blame the HK newspapers, as they have both the serious news sections and the tabloid sections, that's bloody confusing.
The truth is, since this strange phenomenon interlinked both forms of journalism, one cannot really seperate them in HK media like one can in the UK.
So, this is it! I have poured my hearts out trying to analyse the situation to the best I can, and now I can go back to doing solo week on my radioblog. Whoever want to leave a comment are more than welcomed to do so.
p.s. In case you haven't realised already, what I wrote are basically what I've said in Chinese in the first part, and I am merely trying to clarify what I've said with analysis and reasoning, to the best I can.
p.s.2 I was going to talk a little about the struggle between Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black in the British media industry, however I didn't find the gap where I can fit that in, so I just didn't do it.|W|P|111542309414174043|W|P|"�ڬݶǴC�u�ϴ��v", my reactions after reading ����'s blog...(2)|W|P|5/15/2005 10:08:00 PM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|...as I am free lately, so I was peeking around fellow bloggers' blog, and found this test, what I found quite accurate, more so than those I had before. One thing though, it's in Chinese. Click on the title if you're interested.
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|W|P|111619150692826373|W|P|More Personality Tests....|W|P|5/13/2005 01:44:00 AM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|
Matt Groening may be famous for creating the Simpsons, one of the best cartoons ever in American broadcasting history, however, his other creation, Futurama, is a little less well known to the rest of the world, although the name was derived from a GM exhibit some 70 years ago.
Well, for a start, it didn't last as long as the Simpsons (it only lasted for 4 series, and the Simpsons are still going, after something like 17 series and three hundred something episodes!), and secondly, I don't know if it's the idea of the future doesn't appeal anymore, or people just like the Simpsons too much to appreciate anything else, although Futurama is also fun to watch (and I certainly believe that the satire and jokes in there are as good as in the Simpsons), it didn't win as many appeal as it should had.
The story is simple - a 20th century (1999 in fact) pizza delivery boy, Fry, was cryogenically frozen accidentally on new year's eve for 1000 years, and woke up in the year 3000, and after an episode or so, found himself working as a galactic delivery boy, and working for his great great great great great... (I can go on forever here) nephew, Professor Hubert Farnsworth (whose specialist field is Mathematics of Quantum Neutrino Fields (What a hardcore subject that must be!) at Mars University, and also the owner of the company Planet Express whom Fry is working with Bender (a bending robot who looks remarkably like Homer Simpson, only more evil, more funny, and more of a bastard), Leela (a female cyclop), Amy (a Chinese intern with extremely rich parents), Hermes (Jamaican manger, bureaucrat to the highest order) and Dr. Zoidberg (the medic of the company, who looks like a lobster, or some kind of crustacean alien species). It's just like the Simpsons - folks go about their everyday lives (it may seem extraordinay to us), except no family, and well into the future.
To be honest, jokewise I found Futurama much better than the Simpsons, because the latter was funny for being stupid, the former was funny for being sophisticated. The best thing about Futurama are the settings behind the story, and that's where most of the jokes are, e.g. the New New York city hall was called Citihall (the Old New York is buried deep under the new city); there's a museum full of famous people's heads (including Richard Nixon, Pamela Anderson, the Beastie boys and many more), Sylvester Stallone's skeleton, and the Quantum microscope used for verifying race results (and as Professor Farnsworth angrily stated, "You change the results by looking at them!" This is my personal favourite so far), Fry's interest from his bank balance of $0.93 after 1000 years accumulated to $7 billion, plus many more, including robot pornography, which consist of funny circuit drawings.
Somethings are unchanged however, like the bureaucratic business world, and big corporations, marketing, religion, politics etc., they are merely amplified through other alien species and robots, which I found most clever of Groening and Cohen. It's the little things like these are why I think they are more clever than the mere stupidity imposed by characters from the Simpsons (however it's quite amazing how they managed to keep Simpsons so funny, even after all these years).
There are some things that I found most disturbing watching Futurama, and from them the cartoon made some serious points, such as advertising in people's dreams (they have banned subliminal advertising for a few decades now, but who can be sure about the future?), some truly worrying products (like the suicide booth), the moon becoming a theme park, blasting garbage into space so that it comes back after 1000 years, and all of Earth's monuments were moved to a beach outside New New York. To really appreciate these, one must actually see the cartoons and discover them for themselves, otherwise I can go on for days but you still wouldn't understand a word I've said.
If the Simpsons are funny because of the stupidity of everyday lives, then Futurama is funny because of that background which the character lives on. The backdrop of the distant future allows Groening and Dohen to be even more creative with their satiracal humour than they did for the Simpsons, which seems somehow confined to me because of the present time setting. However, as I've gathered from opinions, some people, who generally aren't into technology, don't really appreciate those science/techonology/future-related jokes (even most of them are relevant today), therefore they feel detached, and they would rather watch the Simpsons because they're more content with it. I have nothing against that, and I'm not trying to say objectively that Futurama is better than the Simpsons either (afterall "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"), because both of them are amazing cartoons. I just feel that Futurama was very much underrated by most viewers, and now we are officially into 21st century, it's time to come to our senses, embrace the future, appreciate and laugh at those jokes.
Luckily, one of my friend remarked, "The main reason Futurama got axed wasn't because of the viewers, but mainly because of the stupidity of the Fox executives, the jokes are just too clever for them." Well said! There's still hope!|W|P|111594527495771890|W|P|Futurama!|W|P|5/12/2005 11:06:00 AM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|Some of you may have seen me posting (quite alot) during my examinations, but I just want to tell you all that all my exams are now over, and they would probably be my last ever (assuming that I'm not going to do a PhD). Now, all that's left is my summer project with HP, and I'm SOOOOOOOOO looking forward to that, because then I will be in Bristol and it's SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much cheaper than living in London.
I also want to tell you that I am more than honoured that one of my blogs (the one on media which I have yet to finish off) was read by the infamous ESWN, with the comment, "It's refreshing." (It was on the top of his blog where all the READINGs are, but it's not there now, it only takes so long to read something, and it was on there for a couple of days anyway, that kind of did it for me) To tell you that I was damn happy is quite an understatement, I mean, I am more than happy because I thought what I wrote are merely shitty things that everybody knew and no one would give a shit anyway, but over the last few months since I've commenced writing this blog, there are quite a few fellow bloggers that are willing to read what I wrote, and leave comments to show me that they too care about what I care about, and that's wholly important to me - to write something for oneself is another, to be appreciated for what you wrote is another, so they don't really intervene, unless the author chose to do so. I am still hapily writing for me, and just me.
Speaking of which, I have to sort out solo week on the radio, and finish off that media article that I've started writing...oh yeah, and countless novels that are sitting anxiously in my computer. But then again, I have four seasons of Futurama to watch, so I will try my best to write (really!).|W|P|111589260756149909|W|P|Totally back in action (I hope)...|W|P|5/09/2005 10:43:00 PM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|...I was always critical about how George Soros, the infamous speculator who orchestrated "Black Wednesday" and brought down half of SE Asia in 1998, presented himself to the world and how people portrayed him. He had been accused of insider trading for quite some years now, and to be honest, I sometimes do think that he has access to information that we simply don't have, because most what he did carried extremely high risks and people with a sane mind (like Warren Buffet) will never do things like that. There's a Chinese saying, "�ťިӭ��M�����L�]�C" which roughly translates as if there's wind coming from an empty cave, it's not necessarily due to no reason, it means that people don't accuse you for no reason, whether it's merely out of jealousy or there's really something fishy about how George Soros goes about his business. An old man now, he had delegated much of the front line work to his dominions, and he stayed at the backstage to mastermind many other things, like going against George Bush.
I admire George Soros, I think only 1 out of a million people can do what he did, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if he had such connection as that essay had suggested, which I found on the net (it really is full of weird stuff). It would greatly assist him in what he wants to do and how he goes about doing things, afterall Soros is only human, to do what he did as a lonestar was Godlike in my opinion. I never believed, for a single minute, that George Soros can do all that stuff just by himself and his little fund (haha, little...), there must be a whole circle or brotherhood of such bankers and funds that were by his side during his rampage through SE Asia, he was singled-out because he's the most famous and high profile of them all, and that the media can't uncover any other similar establishments.
If you are interested, you may want to read this article (and there are many more around if you use google to find them), however, in reading this please also keep a critical mind. I quite like the depth that this essay had went to research wise, but I was never a fan of conspiracy theory (bu I do admit that it's believable up to point). To say that George Soros had access to some secret insider information, or connected to the BCCI scandal is one thing, to say that he's THAT close to the Rothschild dynasty is another, and to make that conclusion/accusation one needs a hell alot of more research than that, and unfortunately, all the information on the net are not enough to convince me.
Meawhile, this is a good read too, if you don't know why the US invaded Iraq, or still believe that there are WMDs out there.|W|P|111567517276339843|W|P|Strange Conspiracy Theory...|W|P|5/09/2005 11:44:00 AM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|Banks are the ultimate capitalists, whether they're investment banks or just high street banks, they exists solely for two reasons - to crave for money, and to make more money. There are trillions of dollars (American) floating around the current banking system on this planet, and although most of us have a bank account (or in some cases, more than one for different reasons), the amount money that us masses put into the system are miniscue compare to the amount that's floating around due to investments etc..
Investment banks' clients are mostly big corporations looking for investments - room to grow their cash, and us poor souls are dealt with by high street banks. In the case of the UNWI - Ultrahigh Net Worth Individuals, however, they don't need to goto banks, the (private) banks goto them. There's no class divisions in a democratic state? You must be kidding me! I can sadly say that the relationship between us and the banks are not mutual, but rather antagonistic, for one reason or the other.
I'm a self-confessed capitalist, I love money and I love making money, however, I don't look up to banks as role models, rather, I find them extremely annoying sometimes, whether it's HK or the UK (these are the only tw places on Earth where I get to use use a bank), because whatever they do, they are only after the money, and there's no love in that, only business. I will make a short list below, provided with my reasons, why I find banks annoying (your humble host aren't that rich to goto investment banks, so most of these are my observations on high street banks). Again, if you knew them all already please look away now (well at least I know that the banks aren't just against me).
1) No matter which country you are in, banks (especially HSBC) are always full of people. In HK it's (mildly) forgivable because even though every counters are all opened you still have to wait for about 45 - 60 minutes before getting served (in that case I will just goto Yum Cha, read my newspapers and then go back, because even if I was late, they will still let me push in), and why do so many people need to bank? I know some of them are strictly on business, but there's still a load of people that aren't, what do they do? Tell the counter lady to take out all their savings in $10 bills, count them one by one, and then put it back in again?
Unfortunately, in UK the case is so much worse, they're all lazy gits, and for the 11 years that I've been in the UK, I've NEVER EVER EVER EVER seen a single bank working full on with all their counters opened, if they are that's probably because there's only 1 counter in the whole fucking bank, and they have to have at least one open to serve their customers. Even if there are 15 people in the queue, there's only 1 or 2 max. counters to serve them. Ridiculous.
If they are doing this on purpose to show that their bank is prosperous because alot of people goto them (in most cases, waiting), that doesn't fool me because I read annual reports from banks, and that tells you how well they do, not by low-level marketing methods.
2) Fake smiles, and pretending to be friendly. I'm sick and tired of those fake smiles and pretending to be friendly when they blatantly aren't. Ok, so you might have had a bad day, or your mortgage rate had gone up because the BoE had raised interest rates again, or because the Saints are going to get relagated, but please, don't take it out on us customers. Banks should put a punch bag or something that will take away staffs' stress in their common room, to save them being really bitchy and bitter towards their customers, and make them want to change banks. But again, they don't really care anyway because their customers are poor - if you're rich, you will most likely to have staff dedicated to serve you and only you, and what a job what would be! Hardly busy!
3) Bank staff tries to sell derivative products, mortgages, and credit cards like they're really good for you. In UK there are no such situations because most of the masses are incapable (whether mentally or financially) of indulging in such things (except credit and mortgages, where everybody are very happy to take out one just to buy a pizza); however, given the Chinese's love of gambling, it sells! Well, they are useful, if you know how to use them PROPERLY (if you have 5 credit cards but they are all at their limits, and you only pay the lowest repay rate each and every month, then chances are you don't know much about them) - they are there mostly to assist cash flow, but only for a short amount of time, and the problem is that there are very high interest rates involved as well. The one thing I hate the most about banks isn't the fact that they have packaged mortgages and credit as something necessary, but they fact that they have packaged Equity Linked Notes as something worth investing in.
You see, banks are sly bastards, and they knew exactly what they are doing when they're trying to sell you these ELNs. Yes, you get high interest paid to you each month, but that's not really interest you're getting, it's the premium the banks pay for buying options. Yes, with ELN's YOU become the seller, and YOU sell put options to the bank - in other words, the bank buys put options from their customers.
It's a poor investment even if the market is bullish (if the market is bullish, why don't you buy stocks yourself?), but when it's zigzagging or bearish, then the banks can sell their stocks to you (options they are indeed) at a previously agreed price (which is higher obviously) if things go downhill suddenly (for zigzagging market it's best if you stay out, or just enjoy the ride). See the problem here? The banks had diverted their risk onto the customers, for a little premium each month, and if the market is really bearish, the banks can get their stocks off for a high price, and prepare themselves for some bargain shopping by the end of it. Most of the time, these ELNs are sold with a time limit, where you have to hold on for something like at least 1 1/2 years or something, although there are some much shorter ones now like a few months, but why do you think the banks promote these? Do you really think that they do not know perfectly well what's in it for them? They know exactly what they are doing, but do the customers know what they are doing? Don't just look at the money man, look at the risk as well. Derivatives are there primarily to spread risks, of course you can speculate, but you better know bloody well what you are doing.
(By the way, a zigzagging market is most unpredictable, because no one really know which way it will go, even if someone tells you that they do, they really don't.)
Ok, so it's a good way of diversifying their risk I admit, but what I don't like is the fact that they repackaged ELNs into something they're not. Whoever thought of that is fucking clever, but quite heartless as well, making money in expense of the mass, and people who think they know about investing (in that case, they deserve it).
4) Many sub accounts in one account. In HK, I have 2 accounts, which makes about 12 subaccounts in total, i.e. a current account, a savings account, a FX account, a stock account...plus many more, and I have to open them one by one if I need one. Say I want to write a cheque for someone, I have to first write a cheque, and then check whether I still have any money in my cheque account (most probably don't), and I have to transfer money to there. I got used to the UK's banking system where there's only 1 account - current, and everything is done from there, and I only need to transfer money when I REALLY need to. Well this had improved dramatically since point 5), but it's still a bummer for me.
5) Class divisions within the customers. I will be quite contradictory on this one, because even though I don't like the idea, I use it because it's good for me. Banks in HK had this trend lately to separate customers into a normal bank account and a higher-level bank account (most call it premium accounts or something); the UK bank system is different, and different classes of people uses different banks (proper riches use private banks), most of the working class don't even have an account - transactions are still done in cash. A normal bank account is just your normal account, no offers no nothing, but with a premium bank account, you get a little more - like cheaper exchange rates, higher saving rates (although saving rates are fucking low in HK these days anyway), and better services - you don't have to queue up. This is innate class division, where higher class gets treated better, lower class gets treated relatively worse (one can say that they have always been treated like this anyway, but remember there can be no comparison unless there's something to compare with in the first place, now there is).
Lately banks in HK kept building service centres for such premium account holders, and the ladies who serve you generally looks better (not necessarily though, it varies from bank to bank) and certainly more chilled and have nicer smiles. When you walk into a bank you'll have to line up for ages if you only have a normal account, and then there's this little area where it's totally empty, reserved just for premium accounts if you have one.
Of course, these services comes with a price, if you don't have enough money in your account (Most banks will charge you a monthly fee if you have less than HK$1 mil or something, and mortgages doesn't count alright?), but when you really need things done urgently, it saves you alot of hassle. Believe me because when I was in a hurry to make a bankdraft for my solicitors to do something (and I have only 20 minutes to get it done), I just ran into the nearest bank, I didn't even bother looking at that long queue, I ran straight towards the nicely dressed lady standing around who is the bank manager, showed her my card, told her I needed things done fast, and then she happily took me to the premium-dedicated counter - empty, as usual, except for the lady who is always ready to serve you - where I got my bankdraft printed straight away. Think about how long would I have to wait if I didn't have a premium account? An hour? That's just for the waiting, I will have to wait for the bankdraft to be printed as well, knocks another 20 minutes off (Yes, I can't believe that you have to WAIT to get a cheque printed, what printers do they use?).
That's why even though I don't like the idea, I use it because it's useful alot of the times, especially when you don't have that sort of time to play around with them queuing up like a penguin.
These are just a few of them annoying things, there are in fact many more (maybe I will update them in the comments later)...Even though 5) is a useful point, but weighing the pros and cons so far, I can safely say that I still don't like banks, it's strictly business for me.|W|P|111563564875272318|W|P|Some things I found rather annoying about banks...|W|P|5/07/2005 01:16:00 PM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|...blog can also be a diary because no privacy is impreached, I meant that as long as you don't disclose anything online about who you are in reality, then ultimitely no privacy is impreached. I hope everybody got that one right? Well, click onto the title, it's ESWN's blog on the SingTao article about Online Diaries. I mean, yes, no privacy is impreached in theory, but don't push the fucking boundaries ok? There's only so far one can go before everything about you will be blown out onto the open, and everybody who reads it, including those who have malicious intent, will use it, probably against you and your will. Then things can get really hairy.
Damn kids, self protection is also necessary sometimes...please be vigilent.|W|P|111546831364415599|W|P|When I said that...|W|P|5/07/2005 12:43:00 AM|W|P|無塵工作室|W|P|�ϴ�, or anti-intellectual, is a term I have seen being used quite frequently for the last few years. Although this is no new word, however as I've observed these years, it appeared on newspapers in Hong Kong, and round mouths of the masses, perhaps more than ever.
Below is my quick, without thinking reply to that string of comments in ����'s blog:
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(I'm sorry if you can't take bilingualism, in that case it's probably best if you don't carry on reading it...)
In the UK, the structure of the media industry is quite strange, because there are clearly defined borders where one can tell the type of person you are just by which newspaper you read - The Sun, Daily Star for the lowest class; daily Mirror, Daily Express, Metro for the next up; The Daily Telegraph, Independent, The Guardian, The Times for the next up (and these are known as quality newspapers); and Financial Times for a completely different class (not necessarily higher) of people - I myself read the FT regularly. Apart from newspapers, there are also magazines, ranging from Heat to Readers' Digest, catered for everybody's taste. This strange situation, I believe, is possibly due to the fact that the British nation are innately class divided, and the fact that the media industry is more developed than say HK.
In Hong Kong the case is somewhat different - there aren't class differences between the newspapers, one agency is just as good / as bad as the other, this is probably because the Chinese nations has no such class barriers, and things operates differently over there than here in the UK (although some take political stances).
Observing the British media, it's true that a pen is mightier than a sword, just look at Andrew Gilligan with his Government sexing up the September Dossier: the 45 minute claim report that eventually lead to the showdown between the BBC and the British Government, which resulted in UN weapons expert Dr. David Kelly committing suicide, which then lead to the Hutton Enquiry, and eventually the corporate restructuring of the BBC; there was also the Martin Bashir's two-faced Michael Jackson documentary on ITV. They both showed clearly that journalists aren't robots who only have objective attitudes, they are merely human and can be as subjective as everybody else; in the case of the BBC however, the problem is more structural, and due to their cockiness which was fuelled by their prestigious name. I won't attempt to probe this issue here, because Lord Hutton had already done a much better job than I can ever do.
I myself don't 100% trust journalists, just like I never trust politicians, no matter how good they are at doing their job, and the reason behind this is because I am merely a person who doesn't take things for granted, and therefore when I read and watch what they have to say I tend to look at them critically; this view was also shared by my wife. We have both in the past realised this strange, slowly changing trend that the global media industry is leading, and had held discussions on this. I would also like to say that I merely wanted to talk about this with you here, and I neither want to address any problems or trying to provide solutions for it or otherwise, this is a job for the media regulators. I'm merely a curious person.
I have observed that, for the last decade that I had lived here, tabloid journalism had become more and more mainstream (well they ARE part of the mainstream now), and the emergence of second generation tabloid-dedicated magazines such as Heat had finalised the imminent changes in readers' trend (magazines like Hello! are the more traditional tabloid magazines). Based on similar treatments in other countries, one can establish that the appearance of tabloid journalism into mainstream media is a global, rather than a local trend. Whether you like it or not, they're here to stay, and the truth is - most people enjoy reading them!
In HK, the emergence of the current King of Tabloid journalism, namely Next Media (��ǴC), from the ashes of the last decade of the 20th century is a solid proof that even small places like HK cannot escape this global trend. Tabloid journalism, different from usual journalism, neither addresses any social issues nor care about current affairs, they are merely there to fulfill something - readers' curiosities and their bloody thirsts for celebrity dirt or whatever the current hot topic was.
���� had commented that some of these trend are due to the fact that HKers, especially youths, were mis-taught during their early lives; or some adults, due to hard work at daytime, neither had the mental strength or the will to read newspapers properly; also due to the fact that we now live in a world where information is at it's most abundant state (with the TV, internet, Blogs and all that), which leads to redundancy, and people had nowhere to start on how to hand-pick such information. I agree up to a point, because education does has something to do with it.
For those of you who don't know, HKers refers to their educational system often as Stuffed-Duck Style education - Students were stuffed with knowledge that they don't necessarily understand, but they have to know it because they need to pass exams and achieve high marks if they want to carry on studying in universities, eventually stuffed with even more knowledge. Recognised something missing? Yes, personal development. Although the HK system was derived from the UK system during the old colonial times, from what I've experienced (I studied at a private boarding school) in UK, I can say that as well as marks they also care for each individuals' personal developments. The HK educational system lacked serious personal development schemes, and in some sense that had shown in the way how HK youths viewed their lives, and the way they tackle things, or even their attitudes towards politics, current affairs and media etc..
However, I believe that isn't the the sole reason the media had downgraded - the readers had downgraded. If this is really the case, then one can say that this eventually boils down to a philosophical question, which ���� had stated, "Is it the fact that the media had downgraded first so their readers had downgraded with them, or the fact that the readers had downgraded first, therefore the media followed, in order to accommodate for that trend?" I personally don't believe in this explanation because of the fact that it's getting too philosophical, and therefore leads to no answer. This trend is real and imminent, and therefore there must be a social or whatever reason behind this.
Duke had commented that the newspaper that provided the most sensual stimuli sells the most, this is a really interesting observation because they bear striking similarities with corporate techniques such as marketing and advertising. I mean, even with traditional more serious journalism, inevitably there are some resemblances to them - journalists report on current local or global affairs, and we as readers read what they've written, and information is fed into us - that's the underlying principle of operation; however, one major difference is that - corporations don't bear any social responsibilities, whilst most proper journalists do, whether these are self-imposed personal goals e.g. search for truths, or merely morally bounded. Either way, this gave most journalistic pieces and their authors well-deserved recognition from many awards throughout the planet.
In some sense, tabloid journalism is very similar, perhaps too similar, to marketing and advertising, because tabloid journalists (or in some sense paparazzis) aren't reporting in the usual sense anymore - they aren't reporting on things that happened for us to see, they are there to fulfill the readers' curiosities, and to feed their desires. In some extreme cases, they even create news (I'm not saying that usual journalism doesn't). This isn't a problem as long as tabloid and serious journalism don't venture into each other's territories, but sometimes when they crossed, then things can get really hairy, the two scenarios I've described above are examples of such situations.
In UK, due to class divisions between the media, surprisingly some of the quality newspapers managed to keep out tabloid journalism from invading the media (or rather this was purposely done as one media company owns several news agencies, so they have the power to do so), unfortunately in HK newspaper agencies weren't so lucky. Since Next Media and their success, the game rules had been completely rewritten, competition between news agencies had risen to unprecedented levels, and as usual, there were many casualties along the way. The editors somehow got the (mis) conception/ they had realised that tabloid journalism sells newspapers = advertising = revenues = survival (some called this finally coming to their senses), and from there emphasis had been put on tabloid journalism, more than ever.
Due to the fact that there are now immense competitions between the agencies themselves, and the fact that Next Media emerged as a company and NOT an agency, they had started a corporatisation transformation in the media industry in HK. Now that they are a company (they are listed on the HK stock market, 0282, although they aren't the only one, infact most news agencies are now fully corporatised, like the big four news agencies in HK, most of them were listed on the stock market during the bullish 90's), the usual rules on corporate competition and the law of supply and demand etc. All applies to them as well as to big corporate giants like 0016 or 0001. This simply means that they now put profit before social responsibilities, and one really cannot look at them as a news agency in the usual sense anymore.
Normally that won't be such a big problem if we are talking about car making, however, due to the fact that this is the media industry we're talking about, such boundaries between the corporate and social side are so grey and ill-defined, and that can make editors more profit-driven than before, and thus leaving behind social responsibilities. We, at the receiving/paying end, ultimately gets it, and surely fellow bloggers are feeling it, although I have to say that this is no fresh news, it's just that now I have to interest to look at such things. Another big problem is that unlike the educational system, whose effects are only felt after running them over a long period of time (10 or so years), the effects of such transformations within the media industry are nearly immediately felt (couple of years).
Of course, one cannot only talk about tabloid journalism without reference to their more serious counterpart, however the truth is that as corporations they (or the editors) are getting greedy, and they needed to be so to sell. In HK media companies don't own a handful of news agencies, therefore they impose their greed onto their one newspaper, which led to the strange phenomenon of having EVERYTHING in a newspaper. Therefore, can one safely say that even the usual journalism aren't effected by such corporatisations? It's inevitable that newspapers need to sell, to fuel the growth (or mere survival in some cases) of these corporate machines. I hate to admit this, but I do somehow think that corporatisation had taken it's toll on HK media; Even though the media industries here in the UK are fully corporatised already, however I think the media regulators here seems to be doing a better job than their HK counterparts, or they merely had different newspapers catering different needs (the industry as a whole are better structured).
Duke had also noted the start of corporatisation of the media industry in HK (see? That man really has insights here and there) with Next Media, and I think that since that's now the case one cannot say that the media is drivan by readers alone anymore, but are in fact Market-Driven. Although their number of readers makes up most of their market, it doesn't just include them, it also includes advertising revenues and other ventures that they might get their hands on (like publishing, movie making or whatever). This means that they are also now Profit-Driven, and therefore trying to cater for ALL classes within the HK society. I have to say, however, they aren't doing a very good job. Having said that, it's only a decade or so since the media industry in HK had become corporatised, and therefore rather than saying that they're market driven, I think they are still being led by the market (there's a subtle difference, in my opinion, between market driven and being totally led by the market, one has clear objective, the other one doesn't), and have yet to find firm grounds to stand on.
Basically, there are three aspects that I've found from trying to analyse the whole situation - Marketisation, Corporatisation, and Competition within the industry. Some can say that I'm merely reinventing the wheel, but as I've said, I am a curious person, and the fact that I'm doing this shows that I didn't know much about this beforehand (or the extent the media industry had developed into). On the other hand, if you didn't realised this before, don't worry, I was as surprised as you were when I was thinking about this, because it never came across my consciousness that the media industry had took such an abrupt turn from what I had stereotyped them to be.
I have to stop here I'm afraid (that's why it's (1)), because although I've analysed the situation to the best I can, the truth is that I am still thinking about the implication this has on society as a whole, and the validness of the term Anti-intellectual. I have already typed one version of the above analysis, but due to some crapness of my laptop, all was lost and I had to retype from the start. My brain had fried during the process of retyping. If any of you find this piece biased, it probably is, who said it's not meant to be biased? Meanwhile, anyone who would like to leave a comment are welcomed to do so.|W|P|111541664366699078|W|P|"�ڬݶǴC�u�ϴ��v", my reactions after reading ����'s blog...(1)|W|P|