36 Hours in Kuala Lumpur

36 Hours in Kuala Lumpur
Roslan Rahman for The New York Times
Published: December 20, 2009

SITUATED at the juncture of two rivers, Kuala Lumpur means “muddy confluence” in Malay, but this fast-rising city has redefined itself. With its looming skyscrapers, stellar cuisine and thumping night life, the Malaysian capital has emerged as one of Southeast Asia’s most alluring metropolises, offering all the amenities of a major city but on a friendlier scale. It’s not just the rivers that converge: founded in 1857, Kuala Lumpur is full of odd juxtapositions. Old cafes are tucked under gleaming expressways. Calls to prayer beckon white-collar professionals from towers of steel and glass. And disparate ethnic groups — Malays, Straits Chinese and Indians — rub shoulders in glitzy malls and leafy parks, all of which gives this city a cosmopolitan flair unrivaled in the region.

4 p.m.
1) COLONIAL BEGINNINGS

Just 150 years ago, Kuala Lumpur, or KL as locals call it, was little more than a dingy outpost chopped out of the jungle by Chinese tin prospectors. But commerce served it well, and eventually Merdeka Square (at the intersection of Jalan Raja and Lebuh Pasar Besar) would become a center of British colonial life. The expansive, palm-tree-edged plaza is lined with 100-year-old landmarks like the Sultan Abdul Samad Building (Jalan Raja), which features a blend of Moorish and Mogul architecture that typifies the style favored by colonialists. Fittingly, the square is also the spot where the Malays declared their independence from Britain in 1957.

6:30 p.m.
2) HIGH LIFE

Ponder the city’s astronomic rise over a Champagne cocktail at the SkyBar, a futuristic lounge at the Traders Hotel (Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park; 60-3-2332-9888; www.skybar.com.my). The bar, on the 33rd floor (the space is dominated by the hotel’s pool), has picture-perfect views of the Petronas Twin Towers. Reserve one of the sunken, violet-hued couches for a front-row seat as the silver, scalloped buildings light up at night. Drinks from 29 ringgit (about $8.75 at 3.30 ringgit to the dollar).

8 p.m.
3) CATERED CONSUMPTION

Like many places of note in the city, Enak KL (Starhill Gallery, 181 Jalan Bukit Bintang; 60-3-2141-8973; www.enakkl.com) is in a mall. It serves some of the finest Malay cuisine in the city in an elegant space filled with heavy wooden furniture and batik wall hangings. Dishes, slow-cooked, rich and spicy, are based on recipes passed down in the Razaly family, the owners. Try the smoky-sweet beef rendang (27 ringgit), grilled prawns with a tangy tamarind-based sauce (28 ringgit) and the kambing masak merah: lamb shank topped with a cinnamon-cardamom tomato reduction (45 ringgit).

10 p.m.
4) DRESS CASUAL

As the name suggests, the loungey club No Black Tie (17 Jalan Mesui; 60-3-2142-3737; www.noblacktie.com.my) was conceived as an antidote to the stuffiness of classical-music halls. But it has since grown into one of the city’s coolest and most eclectic night spots. Covered in polished, honey-hued teak and twinkling with candlelight, the club hosts jazz, world music, cabaret, poetry and, yes, classical performances, attracting a well-heeled crowd who sip wine and nibble Japanese-themed hors d’oeuvres. Cover from 30 ringgit.

Saturday

10 a.m.
5) DIVINE DECORATION

The architecture alone is reason enough to visit the turquoise-domed Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia (Jalan Lembah Perdana; 60-3-2274-2020; www.iamm.org.my). Built in 1998, the white interiors of the four-story structure are silent, airy and saturated with natural light — perfect for contemplating the collection of Islamic decorative art. After admiring old calligraphic scrolls, jewel-encrusted swords and embroidered horse blankets, take your enlightened understanding of Islamic iconography and design to the rose and ivory marble Masjid Jamek (Jalan Tun Perak), one of the city’s oldest mosques.

Noon
6) TWEET, TWEET, TWEET

The city’s unrelenting traffic jams take on a humorous form at the KL Bird Park (920 Jalan Cenderawasih, Lake Gardens; 60-3-2272-1010; www.klbirdpark.com), where you’ll share the path with psychedelic-hued scarlet ibises, posturing peacocks and Victoria crowned pigeons, whose electric-blue feather tiaras put their drab New York cousins to shame. The 21-acre aviary is home to more than 3,000 birds representing 200 species, some of which, like the snappy cassowary and loquacious, rainbow-colored lory, you’re allowed to hand feed. You can also feed yourself at Ikan Bakar Asli Pak Din (Stall No. 5, Tanglin Food Court, Jalan Cenderasari; 60-12-320-1731), a stall in a food court that’s a 10-minute walk away, which serves a terrific grilled fish from 5 ringgit.

2 p.m.
7) CULTURAL CRASH COURSE

Start your tour of Malaysia’s ethnic hodgepodge in Little India, where the narrow streets throb with Bollywood music, silk shops churning out Punjabi suits, roti vendors and men stringing fragrant jasmine garlands. Fuel up with a glass of teh tarik, a brew of black tea and condensed milk, before tackling nearby Chinatown, a bustling area with stores selling knockoff purses, medicinal herbs and delicate tea sets. For a quiet moment, duck into the 145-year-old Sin Sze Si Ya Temple (14a Lebuh Pudu), an incense- and red-lantern-filled space where Buddhists have their fortunes told. Finally, hop a cab across town to sleepy Kampung Baru, where Malay village life plays out in sun-beaten, pastel-hued wooden stilt houses surrounded by hot-pink bougainvilleas.

7 p.m.
8) NIGHT HAWKS

Though KL boasts its share of Michelin-worthy chefs, the best cuisine is arguably found in the open-air street kitchens known as hawker centers. The mega-popular food court along Jalan Alor kicks off around 4 p.m., serving sizzling, wok-fried noodles, freshly steamed seafood and mouthwatering barbecued meat late into the night. Try Cu Cha (71-75 Jalan Alor) for dishes like char kway teow (5 ringgit), flat rice noodles fried with clams and shrimp. Head to W.A.W. Restaurant (7 Jalan Alor) for what must be the world’s best chicken wings (4.40 ringgit).

10 p.m.
9) SIN CITY

Despite the Malaysian government’s efforts to curb drinking by imposing a steep “sin tax,” bars are thriving in Kuala Lumpur — a trend no more evident than along the stretch of Changkat Bukit Bintang, or CBB. The street is lined with Irish gastropubs, velvet-roped dance clubs and trendy restaurant-lounges. Hot spots include the year-old Werner’s on Changkat (50 Jalan Changkat Bukit Bintang; 60-3-2142-5670; www.wernerskl.com), a red-and-black-themed bar where passion fruit martinis (28 ringgit) are mixed to catchy beats. A few steps away is the concrete-and-brick Cloth & Clef (30 Jalan Changkat Bukit Bintang; 60-3-2143-3034; www.clothandclef.com), which draws pretty young things with live indie bands and D.J.’s. For a full-on club experience, taxi to Zouk (113 Jalan Ampang; 60-3-2171-1997; www.zoukclub.com.my), a complex with six individually themed dance floors.

Sunday

10 a.m.
10) COFFEE TALK

Kopi tiam, or coffeehouses, were once an integral part of Malaysian society but are hard to come by these days. Luckily, the caffeinated chit-chat hasn’t slowed down at Yut Kee (35 Jalan Dang Wangi; 60-3-2698-8108), which has been serving kopi peng (iced coffee with sweet milk) since 1928. Now in its third generation, the breezy cafe is beloved for its roti baba (7.50 ringgit), a luscious bread pocket stuffed with shredded pork and onions that’s dipped in Worcestershire sauce.

Noon
11) MAD FOR MALLS

Like much of Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur is a mall town — after all, the mercury often hovers around 90 degrees. There are plenty to choose from, but among the more interesting is Sungei Wang Plaza (Jalan Sultan Ismail; 60-3-2148-6109; www.sungeiwang.com), a teenagers’ mecca packed with some 700 shops peddling colorful head scarves, sequined microminis, Hello Kitty Pez dispensers and T-shirts with phrases like “The Love is All Need” — another example of the city’s exuberant and unpredictable convergences.

THE BASICS

Several carriers, including Cathay Pacific, Korean Air and Qatar Airways, connect Kuala Lumpur and New York with stopovers in Hong Kong, Seoul or Doha. A recent online search found round-trip airfares starting at $1,189. The hourlong taxi to the city center costs about 90 ringgit, or $27 at 3.30 ringgit to the dollar; a 30-minute express train is 35 ringgit.

The Mandarin Oriental (Kuala Lumpur City Centre; 60-3-2380-8888; www.mandarinoriental.com/kualalumpur) offers skyline views and rooms that feature king-size beds, marble baths and nightstands furnished with fresh orchids. Rates start at 539 ringgit, not including tax.

The 270-room Hotel Equatorial (Jalan Sultan Ismail; 60-3-2161-7777; www.equatorial.com) is centrally located, with comfortable beds, outdoor pool and sharp service. Rooms from 260 ringgit, not including tax.

‘Useless' youths fuel calls for more funds

'Useless' youths fuel calls for more funds
PhilaSiu
The Standard, November 23, 2009

Most underprivileged city youths feel useless, a survey has found, prompting calls for the government to do more.

The survey, covering 849 Primary Three to Form Five students from poor families, was conducted by the Boys' & Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong.

About 52 percent of the respondents said they feel “totally useless” while almost 43 percent considered themselves “sometimes useless.”

And about 30 percent believe they are losers.

The monthly family incomes of all those surveyed is less than the median of HK$10,500 and some 40 percent live under the poverty line - with their families earning less than half the monthly median figure.

Association executive director Lilian Law Suk-kwan said the children lack self-esteem and confidence because they lack opportunities to take part in activities and express themselves. The Census and Statistics Department estimates that more than 1.23 million people in the city are living in poverty.

Of these, 210,000 are children under 14 years old.

Wong Kwai-yau, association supervisor for the Sha Tin district, said the Child Development Fund set up in April 2008 with a budget of HK$300 million has failed to help the targeted number of 13,600 children.

So far, only around 700 children have benefited from the fund.

A spokesman for the Labour and Welfare Bureau said the children who are being helped through the fund are the pioneers of the three-year project, launched last December.

The government will conduct an evaluation of the pioneer project first before deciding on the next step, the spokesman added.

Wong said: “The government always encourages teenagers to study hard.

“But how can they [the underprivileged] afford an associate degree that costs more than HK$40,000 a year?”

Law urged the Education Bureau to channel more funds to schools and underprivileged children.

The money may be used to purchase resources to facilitate learning like computers and desks.

It may also be used to give students allowances to pay for extra-curricular activities such as piano lessons, she said.

She pointed to the survey results that showed more than 30 percent do not have a desk at home or reliable computers to complete assignments.

About half the respondents do not participate in extra-curricular activities and 20 percent admit they are unable to control their emotions.

About 15 percent said they eat fewer than three meals a day.

Almost 20 percent said they do not have enough food for each meal.

Taiwan teens are lost and suicidal

Taiwan teens are lost and suicidal
Friday, November 20, 2009

About 60 percent of young people in Taiwan have considered suicide and more than third lack direction in life.

The results, a magazine survey claims, are because of a lack of public role models and weakened family support.

Taiwan-based CommonWealth magazine's first ever Life and Education Survey of 4,475 students between 15 and 22 found that most had thought about suicide, with 23 percent still considering it, survey center director Huang Ching- hsuan said.

About 34 percent of respondents said they had no idea what to do in life, the survey found.

“We were extremely surprised by the results,” Huang said, noting the high response rate.

In recent years teens in Taiwan have lost public role models including the 2008 death of Taiwan super-tycoon Wang Yung-ching and the conviction of ex-president Chen Shui-bian for graft this year, Huang said.

“This is an age of no role models. Teens today just know to get into good universities, but then what?”

Family ties have weakened over the same period as numbers of children per household decrease while both parents work.

Children are often sheltered to the point where they can't handle setbacks, even the death of a pet, said Huang.

CommonWealth, an authoritative privately funded magazine, has published surveys for about 10 years on trends in Taiwan.

After years of inflation and income stagnation that put pressure on common families, Taiwan unemployment surged to record levels earlier in the year as the economy went into recession.

As many as 4,400 people commit suicide every year.

REUTERS

For many Asian Americans, cultural factors help limit recession's impact

For many Asian Americans, cultural factors help limit recession's impact
By Haya El Nasser
USA TODAY

RALEIGH, N.C. - Until this summer, Loc Tran, 59, was a technician at Nortel, a global communications company that has facilities at Research Triangle Park here. Then she left and opened Pho' Cali, a Vietnamese restaurant.

When her brother lost his job at another local electronics company, he didn't become unemployed. He joined the family business. “My brother works here now,” Tran says.

The recession has been brutal for just about every segment of the population, but though the unemployment rate for Asian Americans has been inching upward, it has been far lower than the rates for whites, blacks, Hispanics or the nation as a whole. Among those groups, Asian Americans have had the lowest jobless rate every month since 2000, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking monthly unemployment among Asians.

The unemployment gap - 7.5% for Asians in October, compared with 10.2% nationwide -stems from a combination of education benchmarks and cultural traditions that foster family support when someone is out of work, researchers say.

“Asians in the United States, both native born Asians and Asian immigrants, have higher educational levels than other groups,” says Alan Berube, senior fellow and research director of the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program.

A recent Labor Department report on the work force shows a greater proportion of Asians than other racial or ethnic groups in management, professional and related occupations - jobs that require more schooling and are high-paying. About 47% work in management or professional jobs compared with 35% for the U.S. workforce as a whole.

Asians account for 5% of U.S. workers but make up a disproportionate share of computer software engineers (29%), computer programmers (20%), computer scientists and system analysts (16%).

“The character of this recession and how it's affected groups by educational attainment shows that information technology has done better, health care has done better,” Berube says.

Asians also are “tied in by a social network, a family network,” says Paul Ong, a professor of Asian American Studies at UCLA. “Rather than lay people off, you will find them spread the work out, and there is lots of use of family labor.”

Work ethics and close family ties certainly are not unique to Asians. But when coupled with high educational levels, those characteristics contribute to a lower unemployment rate. Hispanics, for example, demonstrate similar work and family values, but their population as a whole is not as educated as Asians.

Cultural and family ties are strong in immigrant-dominated communities and are powerful when combined with income and education, says Robert Lang, sociology professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

“Despite their upward mobility, Asians are still a minority group and thus more closely connected to one another than a native-born Caucasian American,” he says. “You're much more on your own if you're a middle-income, native-born white American, especially in a big city.”

Seema Agnani, executive director of Chhaya, a community organization in Jackson Heights, a South Asian neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., cautions that unemployment rates can be deceptively low because some immigrants work for cash and are not officially on a payroll.

“A lot of the folks who have lost income are not going to necessarily claim unemployment typically because they weren't working on the books in the first place,” she says.

The demographics of Asian Americans - from high educational levels to extended family networks - and complex cultural nuances help create the disparity in jobless rates:

•More educated. About 30% of Asians 25 and older have a bachelor's degree, and almost 20% have a graduate degree, compared with 17% and 10% for the nation overall. All other groups have a smaller share of college graduates: 18% of whites have a bachelor's degree, and 11% a more advanced degree; 12% and 6% of blacks; 9% and 4% of Hispanics.

•Larger households. The median income for Asian households is higher - $68,400 vs. $52,175 for all groups - but Asians have larger households, with more workers, Ong says. “If we look at per capita income rather than household income, it's another story.”

In the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside area, for example, median household income is more than $65,000 a year for Asians, exceeding that of non-Hispanic whites by more than $10,000, the Census Bureau reports. Per capita income for Asians in this community, however, is lower than for whites.

•Family ties and small businesses. Hans Huang, 36, was a partner in a Raleigh law firm until it merged with another company. They parted ways. He started his own consulting firm and opened two restaurants - the hip 101 Lounge + Caf - and the Moonlight Pizza Company in downtown Raleigh.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Huang says investments his parents made also are in his and his sister's name - typical of the cohesion and financial support within many Asian families.

“There is a propensity for active networking with the community and family,” says Hai Ly Burk, who came to the USA as a refugee from Vietnam at age 3. She is a social worker at Duke Raleigh Hospital and president of the local chapter of the National Association of Asian American Professionals.

That sometimes can be more easily done in small, family-owned businesses than large corporations. Whites and Asians - and especially Asian immigrants - are more likely to be self-employed than other groups, the Labor Department says.

•Less risky jobs. Many Asians gravitate toward jobs that carry greater job security. A large number of Filipinos, for example, work as nurses, teachers and postal employees. “They are risk-averse … and tend to stay longer (in the same jobs) so they have seniority,” Ong says.

Health care is one of only two economic sectors to grow in the recession. The other is education.

Many Asians are doctors, nurses or technicians. Since the start of the recession, health care has added 597,000 jobs.

“Asian Americans are far more into the area of science technology and business in the corporate financial banking sector,” says Larry Shinagawa, director of Asian American Studies at the University of Maryland. “They are ensconced in government and education, though a significant portion are in small business.”

•Unemployment is frowned upon. There is a cultural resistance among Asians to being idle and collecting money for not working, Shinagawa says.

“Better to be underemployed than unemployed,” he says. “They're working in jobs where they're overly qualified and that has a lot to do with small business and a family network where they can support one another.”

Working-class Asians, especially immigrants, are likely to accept any job to earn money, says C.N. Le, director of Asian & Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts.

“That's all it is for them, as opposed to a lot of Americans who see their jobs as a reflection of their own identity and self-esteem,” says Le, creator of a website that focuses on Asian Americans, asian-nation.org.

National numbers mask the struggles of low-income Asian immigrants, many of them refugees such as the large Hmong community in Minnesota. Many in those communities aren't well-educated and don't speak English well.

Unemployment claims filed by Southeast Asians in Minnesota jumped 150% from 2007 to 2009, says Lisa Hasegawa, executive director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.

Meanwhile, Chinatowns and Little Saigons in several cities are hurting because people are cutting back on restaurant spending, Shinagawa says, and small family businesses are being pushed out by big chains.

“Look at dry cleaners,” he says. “The Zip Cleaners (a chain) are taking over. In the past, bigger chain stores would never go into inner-city neighborhoods.” Now, “there is a recognition that people of color are a significant portion of the economy.”

Here in the Research Triangle, a region anchored by Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, top-tier universities, high-tech companies and research centers have attracted Asian professionals.

Asians' unemployment rate here is even lower than their national rate, averaging just above 3% in the past year in Wake County, home of Raleigh. It was above 4% for non-Hispanic whites, almost 8% for blacks and above 5% for Hispanics, according to the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina.

Many highly educated Asians here have been recruited by companies and universities and granted special visas because of their expertise. If they're here, they have work. When the jobs disappear, they return home and never appear on U.S. unemployment rolls.

“With their American experience, they can leverage that and start their own company” back home, says Hector Javier, a native of Manila in the Philippines and a consultant in technology operations at Cisco Systems in the Research Triangle. “The first generation is going back.”

Not everyone is prospering. Cyndy Yu-Robinson, 43, was a public affairs officer for the Environmental Protection Agency in Durham. She wanted to go into the private sector and took a job as manager of corporate responsibility for computer maker Lenovo in March 2008. This year, Lenovo started cutting jobs, including hers.

“At first, it was disbelief. It couldn't be happening to me,” says Yu-Robinson, a mother of two. “I chose to go on unemployment because I want to take advantage of resources available to me to find the right job.”

She's active in Asian-American organizations and admits that hearing Asians' attitudes toward unemployment stings a bit. “If I didn't care about the kind of career, I would've taken any job,” Yu-Robinson says. “I don't want to just go back to government.”

While she lines up job interviews, she teaches up to eight karate classes a week at Triangle's Best Karate, the studio she owns with her husband.

Asad Abbasi, 54, came to the USA from Pakistan in 1973 and had never been without a job. He has a master's degree in engineering and was working for mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson. When the tech bubble burst in 2002, he was laid off.

“In my life, just once,” Abbasi says. “I never went back. The heck with corporate America.”

He opened Baba Ghannouj restaurant in Cary, a Raleigh suburb, turning his cooking hobby into a job. He creates recipes, shops at the farmer's market and gets to know his customers. “It's less money, a lot of work but less torture,” Abbasi says.

Living in a cage in Hong Kong

Living in a cage in Hong Kong
By Eunice Yoon, CNN
October 28, 2009 -- Updated 1649 GMT (0049 HKT)
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/28/cage.homes/index.html

Hong Kong, China (CNN) -- If you have ever complained that your apartment is the size of a shoebox, consider the living space of Hong Kong resident Chung For Lau.

Chung lives in a 625 square foot (58.06 square meter) flat here with 18 strangers.

The place is sectioned into tiny cubicles made of wooden planks and wire mesh. Everything he has acquired over the years -- clothes, dishes, figurines, a tired TV set -- is squeezed into this tiny cube, a modernized version of what is known here as a cage home.

With all the buzz over Hong Kong's exorbitant luxury property (like the recent record-breaking sale of a $57 million duplex), it may be hard to believe that people have been living in cage homes in this city for years.

But with Hong Kong home to some of the most densely-populated urban districts in the world, real estate has always come at a premium, no matter how small.

Chung's cage is a newer yet less-desirable model, we are told. The wire mesh one, which resembles an over-sized rabbit hutch, is apparently more comfortable.

Occupants have less privacy, but the temperatures don't get as high as in the wooden-mesh variety. A thermometer in Chung's home reached 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit). Sometimes it gets so hot, Chung said, that he wants to die.

Chung used to be a security guard. In the good old days he earned about $500 (HK$3,875) per month. But as the economic crisis set in, his full time job went to part time work until he was laid off this past summer.

As he stared into his bank passbook, Chung lamented that he wouldn't be able to make the $150 rent (HK$1,160) this month -- these cubes aren't cheap.

They are stacked on two levels -- $100 (HK$775) for a cube on the upper deck and $150 for the lower bunk.

The lower cubes are more expensive because you can just barely stand upright in them. Do the math and the apartment owner is collecting roughly $2,500 a month (HK$19,375) from these people.

The 19 occupants share two toilets. A small rubber hose attached to a leaky faucet is what they use to wash themselves. Social workers who monitor the apartments said the electricity is donated, so a few of them have TVs. One person on the upper deck has an aquarium.

One social workers said that because of the recession these homes are being occupied more frequently by those made jobless -- people in their 30s and 40s. The social worker said none of the younger people wanted to speak on camera for fear their chances of finding work would be hurt.

Chung, 67, is now waiting for welfare to kick in and is on a long list for public housing. The government says it is doing its best to meet its citizens' needs, but Chung says he has lost all hope. Economic recovery or not, he feels forgotten.

Hong Kong's 'celebrity tutors' turn millionaires

Hong Kong's 'celebrity tutors' turn millionaires
By Anna Coren, CNN
November 10, 2009 -- Updated 0452 GMT (1252 HKT)
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/08/hong.kong.celebrity.tutors/index.html

Hong Kong, China (CNN) -- Dressed in Louis Vuitton from head to toe with the exception of a Gucci belt, Richard Eng stands out in his neighborhood in Hong Kong's New Territories. When we arrive at his home, the 45 year old father of one warmly welcomes us. His manners are as impeccable as the hairstyle and clothes that he proudly wears. But it's not the chic and manicured man standing in front of us that's caught our attention -- but the bright yellow Lamborghini parked in his driveway.

Now, as we all know, teachers around the world are renowned for being over worked and underpaid; but that rule does NOT apply to Hong Kong's “celebrity tutors” and Richard Eng is living proof. Twenty years ago he began working as a teacher. During the day he'd teach his school students, and then at night he'd work as a tutor. Through word of mouth, these evening classes grew to the point where he set up his own tutorial school. Eng then decided to take the business to the next level -- advertising in newspapers and on television and that's when the transformation began.

He understood the interest, fascination and obsession with celebrities and began marketing his services with that in mind. With billboards, glossy brochures, eye catching TV commercials and model photo shoots, he and his tutors in their designer gear, fashionable haircuts and Hollywood smiles, appear more like pop or movie stars promoting their latest album or film than anything resembling a teacher. And it's paid off.

He now operates 12 schools in Hong Kong and has just opened one in Tokyo. He has a total of 50,000 students, employs 300 staff and last year he personally took home more than US$1 million. Eng says: “This is a chance in Hong Kong for some people to teach and help students. At the same time, students come to class and see something beautiful and they learn exam skills ... that's why we're worth it and why we are here.”

With this success, Eng has reaped the financial rewards. He not only owns a US$500,000 Lamborghini that he drives to work most days, but also owns property all over Hong Kong and has a designer wardrobe and watch collection that would rival any fashionista. But he's not content with the status quo and has plans to expand into China next year.

He admits some of his students are attracted to his celebrity status but dismisses this as the core reason for his success. “I have to say they may come to me at the beginning out of curiosity, but as time goes by they realize I can teach them exam skills very important in Hong Kong.”

Tutorial schools are big business in Hong Kong. Four major schools dominate, but there are hundreds of others -- attended by approximately one third of all students. They pay approximately US$130 a month to improve their grades in a society where information is power.

One of Eng's students is 18-year-old Daisy Chung who has been attending his English class for the past two years. “My grade improved from C to B ... now I hope there's room for improvement.”

While the big names like Richard Eng are multi-millionaires, the average celebrity tutors earn more than US$120,000 a year. Government teachers take home less than half that. The Education Department says while the tutorial schools are popular, it doesn't endorse them. Deputy Secretary for Hong Kong Education Dr Stephanie Chan says: “I'm concerned how parents and students use the services ... whether the money is spent wisely, but if it proves to help then I don't have the right to say I disapprove of it.”

But as long as children's education is considered an investment, Eng and his colleagues will continue to make the sums of money that most people can only dream of.

Hong Kong vs. Singapore

Art Wars
Hong Kong vs. Singapore
By ALEXANDRA A. SENO
Wall Street Journal, OCTOBER 30, 2009

HONG KONG -- These are the trophies of a war between Singapore and Hong Kong: whimsical oils by Indonesian boy-wonder artist I Nyoman Masriadi; an abstract painting by Zao Wou-ki; and an ancient Chinese imperial throne worth US$11 million. All of these artworks turned up for sale in Hong Kong in recent months -- and set auction records.

Longtime rivals in trade and finance, Hong Kong and Singapore are vying to become Asia's regional arts hub, part of a strategy to be crowned Asia's top city. Already the third-largest art-auction market in the world, Hong Kong has picked up the pace by setting aside nearly US$3 billion for a massive development known as West Kowloon Cultural District, a move some people think will ultimately catapult Hong Kong to victory.

Both cities understand that “to build a super-competitive, super-productive society” that “can attract the world's best and brightest” professionals from an array of industries they need a world-class arts and culture scene, says Richard Florida, who studies global competitiveness and urban development at the University of Toronto. “What makes New York and London so robust, even at times of economic crisis, is that anyone in the world wants to go there (to work) and that's what Hong Kong and Singapore are trying to be.” Right now, Mr. Florida adds, “Hong Kong has the edge.”

On one side of the battle is the island-state of Singapore, with a total population of about five million. In the mid-1980s, during a recession, the country looked with envy at Hong Kong's cultural offerings and decided it could do better. Specifically it eyed Hong Kong's annual month-long arts festival that showcases local and international talent from jazz greats like Ornette Coleman to the English National Ballet to performers of Cantonese opera.

A 1989 Singapore government report cited the “importance of culture and the arts” not only as tools for nation-building and to generate revenue for the tourism and entertainment industries, but to “enhance our quality of life.”

A decade later, Singapore launched the first phase of its ambitious “Renaissance City” plan aimed at creating a “Distinctive Global City of Culture and the Arts.” It invested more than US$1 billion in infrastructure, including several museums and a 4,000-seat complex of theaters, studios and concert halls called the Esplanade, which opened in 2002, and spiced up its arts programming with diversity and a regional flavor.

New entities were founded, such as the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, one of the region's most dynamic arts organizations, which is housed in more than 40,000 square feet of converted warehouse space on the city's riverfront. The printmaking specialist quickly established a profile in the international culture world, collaborating early on projects with the likes of the established American artist Donald Sultan, and lately with Asia's cultural who's who, including Indonesian contemporary painter Agus Suwage and edgy Japanese installation artist Tabaimo.

And Singapore has been cleverly retrofitting colonial-era structures as arts venues. Following a renovation, the circa 1880s National Museum of Singapore reopened in 2006. A school and its chapel built in the 1850s was turned in 1996 into the Singapore Art Museum, a charming cultural space with exhibition galleries of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art that are on par with the best museums in the world. Down the street in another former school building, an extension called SAM at 8Q, specifically housing contemporary art, opened in August 2008. The National Art Gallery is set to throw open its doors in 2013 at the former Supreme Court and City Hall complexes.

The government launched a biennale in 2006 and over the past decade has enhanced its own annual arts festival. According to Singapore's National Arts Council, between 1997 and 2007, the “vibrancy” of the local arts scene, measured by the number of performances and exhibition days, quadruped to more than 26,000. The government has taken steps to attract world-class theater productions to Singapore, and it has loosened contraints on local productions. Today, mainstream theaters increasingly are allowed to take on political as well as social themes, such as homosexuality, the practice of which is illegal in Singapore.

To groom local talent, the National Arts Council sponsors a program for the performing, visual and literary arts that helps fund Singapore residents to do in-residency stints abroad.

But there's a key ingredient that Singapore so far hasn't been able to create: a big art-auction market. Some smaller art-auction houses hold sales in Singapore, but the big ones -- Christie's and Sotheby's -- have pulled out and moved their Southeast Asian art auctions to Hong Kong, the former British colony that is home to seven million people and became a Chinese territory in 1997.

For a city, having the ingredients for a thriving art market creates a virtuous circle. The powerful marketing machines of the big auction houses, including public previews of coming sales, raises awareness and appreciation of art in the community. All this encourages local artists to create more art. And that momentum, in turn, contributes to the development of a city's broader cultural scene, including music, theater and design.

“We are a financial city, so people understand money but don't always understand art,” says Claire Hsu, executive director of Asia Art Archive, a Hong Kong-based regional culture think tank. “People pay attention to prices, thinking in terms of investment,” she adds, so “people have become interested in art.”

In 2007, Hong Kong became the world's third-largest auction market after New York and London, partly because of its proximity to mainland China and the emergence of China's deep-pocketed collectors. That put Hong Kong firmly on the global art-commerce map.

The point is “about attracting the people who make it matter -- artists, critics, curators and collectors,” says Eugene Tan, formerly head of Singapore's Institute of Contemporary Arts and a high-profile personality on the Singapore arts scene who recently relocated to Hong Kong. “Hong Kong has that advantage” of a collector base that “Singapore has always lacked.”

He and others contend that Hong Kong also has another advantage: a livelier local artists scene.

“Singapore is very planned,” Mr. Tan says, and in the long run, that can mean missing something that “can happen if things are allowed to grow organically.”

Christie's and Sotheby's, the world's two main auction houses, have carefully nurtured their businesses in Hong Kong for decades. Last year, Sotheby's consolidated its sales in Asia by moving its auctions of Southeast Asian contemporary art to Hong Kong from Singapore. That followed a similar move by Christie's in 2002.

Today, the bulk of both their revenues in Asia comes from Hong Kong sales of Chinese antiques and art, categories that have seen prices soar along with China's economic growth. At Sotheby's autumn sales this month in Hong Kong, for instance, an imperial carved throne from the Qianlong period (1736-95) sold for more than US$11 million, including the buyer's premium, a world record for any piece of Chinese furniture sold at auction. The buyer was a Chinese collector in Shanghai.

And at Christie's spring Hong Kong sales in late May, an Asian buyer paid the equivalent of US$4.6 million, including buyer's premium, for the 1957 painting “Nous Deux,” by Zao Wou-ki, the second-highest price ever paid at auction for his work. Harvard University's art-museum fund consigned the piece to Christie's Hong Kong salesroom expecting it to bring a higher price than in the U.S, partly because many collectors in this region consider Mr. Zao to be China's most important living artist. (By comparison, at the same Christie's sales, the entire 72-lot array of Southeast Asian art, which was 90% sold by value, raised just US$2.6 million.)

Relocating the Southeast Asian auctions to Hong Kong buoyed other categories as, for instance, collectors of Chinese contemporary works started to also buy Southeast Asian paintings. More South Korean and Indonesian collectors are turning up at the Hong Kong sales, too. “Since moving to Hong Kong, we saw a three-fold, four-fold increase in clients who participated in our sales of Southeast Asian art,” says Andrew Foster, Christie's Asia president. “Average values go higher as you have more bidders, that's just how auctions work.” He credits the move to Hong Kong with boosting the prices of some lots by as much as 1,000% from what the auction house estimates they would have brought in Singapore.

Several world records for Indonesian art have been established at Hong Kong sales. Right after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008, just as prices of contemporary Chinese paintings were cooling, Jogjakarta painter I Nyoman Masriadi's satirical triptych “The Man From Bantul (The Final Round),” dating from 2000, netted more than US$1 million at Sotheby's, a first for a contemporary piece from Southeast Asia.

What's more, the move to Hong Kong by the major two houses prompted some smaller ones to follow. “We will go where we feel there is a demand for Asian contemporary art, which right now is Hong Kong,” says Daniel Komala, chief executive of Indonesia's high profile Larasati Auctioneers, which still also holds auctions in Indonesia, Singapore and the Netherlands. Mr. Komala is spokesman for a group of four Asian auction houses, his own plus ones from South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, that staged an inaugural Hong Kong Asian Auction Week in May, selling a respectable 77% of the 146 lots on offer. The group plans another sale in November.

Galleries, too, are following the money. Among them is London's Ben Brown Fine Arts, which plans to formally open in Hong Kong in late November. Ben Brown represents such contemporary art marquee names as conceptual artist Jeff Koons and the late painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, photographer Andreas Gursky and sculptors Claude Lalanne and the late François-Xavier Lalanne. Tamsin Roberts, who will head the Hong Kong branch, says that the gallery has a number of clients in Hong Kong and now will have access to a new market, China. “Everyone is looking at the mainland,” she adds.

Besides geography, Hong Kong's tax system works in its favor. The import and export of artworks is duty-free and there is no sales tax. By comparison, Singapore has a consumption tax of 7%, while China levies a 34% import tax on artworks.

Still, Hong Kong has relatively high overhead costs. John Andreas, CEO of Southeast Asian art specialist Borobudur Auction in Singapore is impressed with Hong Kong's position in the art business but declares: “The cost in Hong Kong -- for hotels, venues, labor -- is at minimum four times of Singapore, but it doesn't mean that selling prices will be four times more.” Mr. Andreas, a collector himself who made his fortune in shipping, has no immediate plans to hold sales in Hong Kong. His five-year-old company conducts auctions in Jakarta and Singapore.

As for art infrastructure, Hong Kong does have some performing-arts venues as well as museums such as for heritage and science. But many of the spaces aren't inviting; there hasn't been a significant art museum built in about 20 years. And while Hong Kong's overall arts scene has improved in recent times and draws such international attractions as the Chanel Mobile Art show, much of the focus, unlike Singapore's more diverse regional offerings, is on Chinese-oriented art and antiques displays.

The Hong Kong government first hit upon the idea in 1998 of building an integrated arts and culture neighborhood on 40 hectares of reclaimed land in the West Kowloon district. After many fits and starts, planning for the project recently picked up some momentum. Earlier this year, at a time when funding to museums and the arts in some countries was being trimmed, the Hong Kong government approved a HK$21.6 billion ($2.8 billion) cash endowment for the project. Then it named Henry Tang, heir to a textile fortune and a collector of Chinese paintings who is also the No. 2 official in the Hong Kong government, to oversee the project, which is currently undergoing yet another round of public consultations. But the only senior executive hired so far abruptly quit after three months citing personal reasons. The post remains vacant.

Mr. Tang says he expects a chief executive to be appointed in early 2010, and to be close to choosing the main architect. Nevertheless, even if it all goes as planned, the first phase won't be open until 2016.

The West Kowloon project has been “frustrating and painful,” says Asia Art Archive's Ms. Hsu, who is also on the advisory panel for the museum at the new West Kowloon development. “For the public it has looked like the government is stalling, but it gives me a lot of hope. The government is very concerned about getting it right.”

Among the missteps so far was an announcement in 2001 that a design by Norman Foster had won an international contest for the iconic structure. Mr. Foster proposed a giant glass canopy to cover the whole 40-hectare site. The idea was to award the project to a single entity that would not only commit to running museums but also to building the canopy. Bidders lined up all-star casts of possible museum partners and consultants: the Louvre, the Guggenheim, the Centre Pompidou. In exchange, the entity could make and sell commercial and residential buildings in the area. By 2004, that approach got the kibosh “because of public opposition to the project related to political developments of the time and memories of Cyberport,” says Ms. Hsu. (The US$2 billion Cyberport project was to be a focal point for a master plan to turn Hong Kong into a technology hub. The right to develop a large tract of government land was awarded in 1999 to Hong Kong businessman Richard Li without a public bid and is now mainly a residential project.)

The current concept for West Kowloon was hatched in June 2007. It calls for about 750,000 square feet of museum space and a 100,000-square-foot exhibition center -- and 15 performance venues with seating for 15,000, more than triple the capacity of Singapore's Esplanade complex. About US$1 billion, or a third of the overall West Kowloon budget, is earmarked for acquisitions for an as-yet-undefined but quirky “Museum Plus.” The museum, though, isn't expected to be completed before 2031.

Yet, just having West Kowloon back in the headlines has spurred the staging of more ambitious projects like this year's Hong Kong-Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture in December, which will feature a pavilion by noted Japanese architect Shigeru Ban.

Meantime, critics say more needs to be done to further Hong Kong's art-hub ambitions lest it lose out to Singapore. Plus, Hong Kong needs to stave off a longer-term threat from the likes of Shanghai and Beijing, both of which have burgeoning international arts scenes.

“West Kowloon is a catalyst to cultural development though we also need more policies in place,” says Ada Wong, a founder and chair of the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture and a former adviser on culture to the Hong Kong government. “We need better art education for the public and to engage” the art-starved housing developments, mostly in Hong Kong's New Territories area.

Undaunted, Singapore is diligently pushing ahead and has opened several museums and other arts venues while Hong Kong has dithered on the construction of West Kowloon. Christie's also recently picked Singapore to be the site of a global fine-arts storage facility to open in a duty-free zone in January.

Calling the process of developing an arts scene “never-ending,” Edmund Cheng, who chairs Singapore's arts council, said in a recent report outlining the city's plans through 2012 that “while there is cause for us to celebrate our achievements, we must set our sights farther afield at the same time.”

—Alexandra A. Seno is a Hong Kong-based writer.

In Chinatown, Sound of the Future Is Mandarin

In Chinatown, Sound of the Future Is Mandarin
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2009

He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears.

Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.

The change can be heard in the neighborhood’s lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it could bring as China’s influence grows in the world.

But the eclipse of Cantonese — in New York, China and around the world — has become a challenge for older people who speak only that dialect and face increasing isolation unless they learn Mandarin or English. Though Cantonese and Mandarin share nearly all the same written characters, the pronunciations are vastly different; when spoken, Mandarin may be incomprehensible to a Cantonese speaker, and vice versa.

Mr. Wong, a retired sign maker who speaks English, can still get by with his Cantonese, which remains the preferred language in his circle of friends and in Chinatown’s historic core. A bit defiantly, he said that if he enters a shop and finds the staff does not speak his dialect, “I go to another store.”

Like many others, however, he is resigned to the likelihood that Cantonese — and the people who speak it — will soon become just another facet of a polyglot neighborhood. “In 10 years,” Mr. Wong said, “it will be totally different.”

With Mandarin’s ascent has come a realignment of power in Chinese-American communities, where the recent immigrants are gaining economic and political clout, said Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies at Hunter College.

“The fact of the matter is that you have a whole generation switch, with very few people speaking only Cantonese,” he said. The Cantonese-speaking populace, he added, “is not the player anymore.”

The switch mirrors a sea change under way in China, where Mandarin, as the official language, is becoming the default tongue everywhere.

In North America, its rise also reflects a major shift in immigration. For much of the last century, most Chinese living in the United States and Canada traced their ancestry to a region in the Pearl River Delta that included the district of Taishan. They spoke the Taishanese dialect, which is derived from and somewhat similar to Cantonese.

Immigration reform in 1965 opened the door to a huge influx of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong, and Cantonese became the dominant tongue. But since the 1990s, the vast majority of new Chinese immigrants have come from mainland China, especially Fujian Province, and tend to speak Mandarin along with their regional dialects.

In New York, many Mandarin speakers have flocked to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Flushing, Queens, which now rivals Chinatown as a center of Chinese-American business and political might, as well as culture and cuisine. In Chinatown, most of the newer immigrants have settled outside the historic core west of the Bowery, clustering instead around East Broadway.

“I can’t even order food on East Broadway,” said Jan Lee, 44, a furniture designer who has lived all his life in Chinatown and speaks Cantonese. “They don’t speak English; I don’t speak Mandarin. I’m just as lost as everyone else.”

Now Mandarin is pushing into Chinatown’s heart.

For most of the 100 years that the New York Chinese School, on Mott Street, has offered language classes, nearly all have taught Cantonese. Last year, the numbers of Cantonese and Mandarin classes were roughly equal. And this year, Mandarin classes outnumber Cantonese three to one, even though most students are from homes where Cantonese is spoken, said the principal, Kin S. Wong.

Some Cantonese-speaking parents are deciding it is more important to point their children toward the future than the past — their family’s native dialect — even if that leaves them unable to communicate well with relatives in China.

“I figure if they have to acquire a language, I wanted them to have Mandarin because it makes it easier when they go into the workplace,” said Jennifer Ng, whose 5-year-old daughter studies Mandarin at the language school of the Church of the Transfiguration, a Roman Catholic parish on Mott Street where nearly half the classes are devoted to Mandarin. Her 8-year-old son takes Cantonese, but only because there is no English-speaking Mandarin teacher for his age group.

“Can I tell you the truth?” she said. “They hate it! But it’s important for the future.” Until recently, Sunday Masses at Transfiguration were said in Cantonese. The church now offers two in Mandarin and only one in Cantonese. And as the arrivals from mainland China become old-timers, “we are beginning to have Mandarin funerals,” said the Rev. Raymond Nobiletti, the Cantonese-speaking pastor.

At the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, which has been the unofficial government of Chinatown for generations and conducts its business in Cantonese, the president, Justin Yu, said he is the first whose mother tongue is Mandarin to lead the 126-year-old organization. Though he has been taking Cantonese lessons in order to keep up at association meetings, his pronunciation is sometimes a source of hilarity for his colleagues, he said.

“No matter what,” he added, laughing, “you have to admire my courage.”

But even his association is being surpassed in influence by Fujianese organizations, said Professor Kwong of Hunter College.

Longtime residents seem less threatened than wistful. Though he is known around Chinatown for what he calls his “legendarily bad” Cantonese, Paul Lee, 59, said it pained him that the dialect was disappearing from the place where his family has lived for more than a century.

“It may be a dying language,” he acknowledged. “I just hate to say that.”

But he pointed out that the changes were a natural part of an evolving immigrant neighborhood: Just as Cantonese sidelined Taishanese, so, too, is Mandarin replacing Cantonese.

Mr. Wong, the principal of the New York Chinese School, said he had tried to adjust to the subtle shifts during his 40 years in Chinatown. When he arrived in 1969, he walked into a coffee shop and placed his order in Cantonese. Other patrons looked at him oddly.

“They said, ‘Where you from?’ “ he recalled. “ ‘Why you speak Cantonese?’ ” They were from Taishan, he said, so he switched to Taishanese and everyone was happy.

“And now I speak Mandarin better than Cantonese,” he added with a chuckle. “So, Chinatown — it’s always changing.”

Schools a battleground over dueling Chinese scripts

Schools a battleground over dueling Chinese scripts
Los Angeles Times
October 18, 2009

For nine years, Sutoyo Lim's son studied Chinese with private tutors and at language schools. He learned to write in “simplified script,” characters with thinly spread strokes commonly used in mainland China.

But that all changed when Lim's 15-year-old son began taking Chinese classes at Arcadia High School this year. He was given two months to make the transition from “simplified” to the more intricate “traditional” script used in Taiwan.

Once the grace period is over, homework and exam answers written in simplified script will be disqualified -- regardless of accuracy. “To me, it does not seem right,” Lim said. “I'm not happy with being forced to choose the language that's going to be obsolete.”

When Chinese classes were introduced at Arcadia in the mid-1990s, Taiwanese parents pushed administrators to adopt the use of traditional script used in Taiwan and pre-communist China. The traditional form is distinguished by a series of complex and intersecting strokes.

But with the large influx of Chinese immigrants into the San Gabriel Valley over the last decade, there is increasing demand to adopt the simplified form, which Taiwanese parents and others see as a threat to an ancient tradition. The change is occurring at private and public schools in California and across the country.

The language dispute is part of a larger and politically charged debate that stems in part from changing immigration patterns in the United States and China's increasing influence as a world economic power. Schools such as Arcadia High have become a battleground over this issue.

In a 2007 national survey by the Chinese Language Assn. of Secondary-Elementary Schools, nearly half of 263 schools included in the sample taught only the simplified form and 11% only traditional. The remaining taught a mix of the two. In 1994, by comparison, 17% of 139 schools taught simplified and 40% traditional.

“China is opening up a huge market worldwide,” said Yu-Lan Lin, executive director of the association. “It's better to know the customer's language.”

For the last four years, Arcadia High Principal David Vannasdall has been lobbied by both sides of the debate.

Last April, the school held a meeting with parents to discuss the issue. Parents were urged to “focus on interests, not positions.”

Because of what he deemed a “hostile” attitude toward his support of simplified script, Lim didn't want his son's name used for this story.

“The reaction to eliminating traditional has been overwhelming,” Vannasdall said. “It's a really controversial issue.”

Two years ago, when Christine Lee was president of the Arcadia Chinese parents club, some parents pushing for the simplified form tried to draw the group into the debate. But Lee said the club resisted taking sides.

Still, Lee, who came to the U.S. from Taiwan in the 1980s, said she resented Lim's characterization of traditional script as obsolete. “Chinese characters are so beautiful, why would you give that up?” she said. “How could 5,000 years of history go away that easily?”

Simplified characters were introduced in the 1950s by the Chinese communist regime to improve literacy rates among the country's mostly rural population.

At the time, anti-communist politicians and refugees fled and settled in Taiwan, where they continued the use of traditional script.

Before diplomatic relations were established between the United States and China in the 1970s, the traditional form was commonly taught here. To switch to the simplified form says something about Taiwan's place in the world and who speaks on behalf of Chinese culture, said David Lee, past president of the Arcadia Chinese Assn.

“In the heart of Taiwan, it's a crisis because the Taiwanese feel they are so small, there's nothing they can compete with China, not militarily, not with population,” Lee said. “But if there's something they can . . . insist upon, it's culture and the language. And script is part of the culture.”

Others worry that changing school curriculum is only the beginning and that the rest of the community would soon follow with store signs, restaurant menus and newspapers. In August, the Sing Tao Daily newspaper in the Bay Area changed its free weekly publication to simplified script.

“There are more and more Chinese from mainland,” said Tim Lau, chief executive of the paper's San Francisco operation. “We want to tap a different market, the new immigrant market.”

In June, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou caused a stir during a meeting with visiting Taiwanese community leaders from the U.S. when he said students should learn to read in traditional script and write in the simplified form. After he was publicly criticized, he clarified that his statement was directed at mainland China.

“It became a very ideological thing,” David Lee said. “As the Chinese say, 'Save face.' Sometimes save face is more important than anything else.”

When creating its Chinese language curriculum three years ago, Palo Alto High School in the Bay Area considered the practical use of the language before deciding on the simplified form, said Norman Masuda, instructional supervisor for languages. Parents who continue to promote the traditional form are not acting in the best interest of their children, he said.

“For the future, they need to learn something that they can use right away, and most students want to go to China, not Taiwan,” Masuda said. “You have to keep up with the wave.”

Soon after she was hired as principal of Meyerholz Elementary School in San Jose last spring, Anita Alfonso said, parents were complaining about the teaching of the simplified form. The school has an 8-year-old Chinese immersion program taught mostly in the traditional form, but it introduces simplified script in the fourth grade.

Of the 350 students in the program, Alfonso said, about half have parents from Taiwan. “I've already had a lot of parents come talk to me that they don't like the simplified,” she said.

At Westside Chinese School in Mar Vista, the administration was forced into a compromise about five years ago after some Chinese parents took their children out of the school to protest the traditional-only curriculum.

Since its founding in 1967 by Taiwanese immigrants, the parent-run Saturday school had taught only the traditional form until enrollment dipped, and the school began teaching in both Chinese scripts, said Joan Kung, the school's past dean of academic studies.

“We ask the teachers if they can teach both to meet the demands of both parents,” Kung said. “We want to attract these parents from China.”

In classrooms and textbooks at the school, traditional script is presented side by side with simplified, and students are allowed to choose which they prefer. In his classroom at Westside, 10-year-old Jacob Graves writes in simplified form using big, broad pencil strokes. He said he could read traditional script, but he still became flustered when he looked at the school's newsletter.

“I can't read this word and this word and this word,” he said. “Actually, I can't read a lot of these words.”

Jacob's mother, Joanna Graves, who grew up in Shanghai, said the traditional form takes up too much study time. “I like simplified because it's a little easier for the children to write,” she said.

Most state and national Chinese groups have avoided promoting one script over the other, said Gay Yuen, a Cal State L.A. language professor.

For academic organizations, debating traditional versus simplified is a no-win situation. It not only distracts from other issues but can also alienate some members.

In June, Yuen met with other academic leaders from across California in a two-day conference held in Burbank to establish state Chinese language standards. They avoided any talk of scripts.

“If that question had come up at the meeting, we wouldn't have been able to get through our agenda,” Yuen said. “It's like politics. Don't talk about it.”

Girls sell sex in Hong Kong to earn shopping money

Girls sell sex in Hong Kong to earn shopping money
October 13, 2009 By Pauline Chiou
CNN

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- She doesn't want to be identified, except by her nickname "Sze," and she has a secret past. Her father doesn't know what she did as a 16-year-old, and she hopes he never finds out. But Sze, now 19, wants young girls to hear her story so they never make the same mistake.

"My first customer was an ordinary man in his 40s. We skipped the dinner part and went straight to the guest house for sex," Sze recalled. "Actually, I was a bit scared, but I knew this was the only way I could get money. This customer wasn't bad, though. We just had sex, he paid, and then he left. I thought this was easy money, and that's why I continued doing this kind of thing."

For a year and a half, Sze was part of a growing social phenomenon among teens in Hong Kong called "compensated dating," a practice in which a young woman agrees to go on a date with a man for a fee. More often than not, the date involves sex.

Sze said she started compensated dating because many of her classmates at an all-girls school were doing it. She says she became jealous when she saw the designer clothes, bags and cosmetics they bought with the money they earned through compensated dating. Sze wanted the same for herself, so her classmates introduced her to Internet chat forums where she met male customers.

The practice can have deadly consequences. Last year, a 16-year-old Hong Kong girl was killed in a gruesome murder after she went to a 24-year-old man's apartment for a compensated date. The man, Ting Kai-Tai, killed the teenager, dismembered her body and flushed the remains down the toilet. A jury convicted him of murder and sentenced him to life in prison.

Sze told CNN she knew a compensated date could go horribly wrong. She would set ground rules with clients on the phone first. She charged them $350 for a date and clarified how many times she would have sex with them.

She said sometimes the customers would stray from the rules, asking for more sex or refusing to wear a condom.

"Sometimes, I did feel shame. I kept asking myself why I had to do this kind of thing to make money. But the feeling didn't stay long. I would relax when I wanted to buy something. I just thought I could always quit after a short time or whenever I wanted," Sze said.

Most girls who engage in compensated dating don't view themselves as prostitutes, said social worker Chiu Tak-Choi.

"For the girls, they don't think so because they think they can quit anytime. The girls -- even though they post their details on the Internet -- they think they can quit. Even if they encounter the guys, if he is not good-looking, she can quit and say 'I don't do it.' They think they have a lot of power to control whether they do it or not, so they think of it very differently from prostitution."

Chiu, the social worker, is currently working with about 20 girls who are trying to leave the world of compensated dating. It is hard to quantify how big the problem is in Hong Kong because the business is conducted under the radar, he said.

Chiu believes the problem is getting worse because his caseload has doubled in the past two years.

Prostitution is illegal in Hong Kong, and legal experts say that compensated dating is a form of prostitution. "The law prohibits soliciting for immoral purpose," said Stephen Hung, a criminal litigator with Pang, Wan & Choi. "When a court looks at sentencing, the greater the age difference, the more serious it (the sentence) is."

Why do young girls get involved in compensated dating? The reasons vary from an unstable home life to a desire for material goods, Chiu said.

One 14-year-old girl told him she started compensated dating when she lost her cell phone. She said her parents wouldn't buy her a new one, so she thought she could earn some fast money with paid sex. She had her eye on an expensive cell phone. When the money from the first compensated date didn't cover the cost for the new phone, she went on a second paid date.

Girls involved in compensated dating don't necessarily come from poor families, Chiu said. They are from all levels of socioeconomic classes, he said. Improved family communication is one solution to preventing girls from becoming involved in compensated dating, Chiu said.

"The family has to do its part. I think caring for children is very important. Whenever they have problems, they can ask someone for help."

Sze said she was saved by a social worker who stepped in on her behalf. After a pregnancy scare and a number of unpredictable customers, Sze said her self-esteem plummeted. The social worker helped her get back on track.

"She helped me understand that making money respectably is actually not that hard in Hong Kong. I finally realized that it was wrong to make money by selling my body. It just wasn't worth it."

Sze now works at a hair salon to earn a living. She has tried to talk her old friends out of compensated dating, but they are not listening, she said.

"They felt annoyed when I talked to them about this. I'm now reluctant to get in touch with them. They just tell me they're different. Maybe they have more serious family problems or some other burdens. I know I can't control their thinking, so I just stopped trying to help them."

Hong Kong youth caught in wave of ketamine addiction

Hong Kong youth caught in wave of ketamine addiction
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/07/31/hongkong.ketamine/index.html

August 1, 2009
By Pauline Chiou
CNN

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- A 16-year-old Hong Kong boy makes two phone calls for delivery: one for pizza, the other for the drug ketamine. Two teenage girls are found semi-conscious in a car park in the southern Chinese enclave after overdosing on ketamine. A 13-year-old boy joins a gang and is given free ketamine.

These are anecdotes told to CNN by police, a family doctor and the former gang member. Ketamine has become the top drug of choice among young people as the number of people under 21 taking drugs has surged 57 percent in the last four years in Hong Kong, said Commissioner for Narcotics, Sally Wong.

“We started off with a very small number of young people taking drugs. We are now more worried about the trend,” Wong said. “We don't want a runaway trend, that's why we are stepping up action.”

Ketamine, an animal tranquilizer, puts youth in a dazed stupor for about two hours.

An oversupply of the drug in Hong Kong and the fact that it is cheaper than other narcotics makes ketamine popular with young people, said Superintendent Wilson Fok of the Hong Kong Police Narcotics Bureau.

One gram of ketamine sells on the street here for $13 and is enough to be shared with two other people, while cocaine, for example, sells for $103 a gram, Fok said.

The drug is trafficked into Hong Kong from other parts of Asia, such as India and mainland China, Fok said.

Police have recently stepped up their efforts to crack down on drug use at clubs and bars in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, a city in mainland China just across the border. Nearly 120 alleged drug users from Hong Kong, mostly under the age of 30, were arrested at entertainment venues in Shenzhen in July and held for 15 days in sweeps that made headlines for days here, according to the South China Morning Post.

However, narcotics police have detected a trend away from entertainment venues.

“Forty percent of young people abuse drugs in public toilets and playgrounds. That's what our recent data from last year shows,” Fok said. “They want to find some other places to take drugs.”

The problem has gotten so bad that authorities have decided to do something never done here before: random school drug tests.

Beginning in September, some two dozen schools will conduct tests. Officials say the drug screening will most likely be in the form of urine tests, though they are still working out the details. Ketamine can be detected in urine for at least three days.

Alman Chan, principal of Hong Kong's only drug rehab center for youth, the privately-run Christian Zheng Sheng School, said it was clear more young people were taking drugs.

“Just look at our school development. I was here 14 years ago. At that time, I was the only teacher. I had 18 kids. I only had one student who was 15,” he said. “But now, I have one third -- about 40 of them -- who are 15 years old or younger. That shows you the number of students getting into drugs is bigger and also getting younger and younger.”

There were a few reasons why children were getting involved with drugs, such as troubled homes and difficulties at school, he said.

“People are more concerned about material things and they are getting lost,” he added.

Hong Kong Police have arrested kids as young as age 10 for serious drug offenses.

Police said last week they had busted a network that allegedly recruited teenagers to sell illegal drugs, and one of those arrested -- a 14-year-old school dropout -- was found with 28 grams of ketamine, according to the South China Morning Post.

Dr. Cheng Chi Man, a family practice doctor, runs a seminar that trains doctors to detect the signs of drug abuse in young patients: drowsiness, skin problems, frequent urination (ketamine can affect bladder function) and frequent sick leave.

“When we were 10 years old, we were still in primary school watching TV and eating candy. But they are now taking drugs.”

Tai Ming Hung said she learned her son Keith was using ketamine after he had been treated at a hospital for taking it at a karaoke bar.

“I was in denial. I just didn't believe it was true. When I first heard about it, we all didn't know how to react, because we hadn't heard of those drugs before,” she said. “I didn't really understand why we have these harmful drugs in the world. And I was so afraid that it would kill my son.”

Keith, who said he began using ketamine at the age of 13 when he joined a gang, has recovered and is now living at Alman's school.

“I have a feeling that he's really growing up, he keeps improving,” Tai Ming Hung said.

Ketamine abuse is not limited to young people -- it is the second most popular drug among all age groups in Hong Kong, Fok said.

A 24-year-old man in Hong Kong was just convicted of killing a girl, whose dismembered remains were found by authorities. His lawyer said he was high on ketamine and Ecstasy, and did not know how the girl had died.

For the worst young offenders in Hong Kong, the court ships them off to Chan's school in a remote part of Lantau Island. The closest road is a three-hour hike through the woods.

Chan calls the school “the last stop before jail” for drug abusers.

CNN visited the campus on an old pig farm, where 99 boys and 24 girls live. Their curriculum involves regular school subjects and chores. The goal is for each student to finish their court probation and either sit the university exam or continue on to a vocational school.

Many of the students have become interested in video editing and photography. There is a video lab on campus and the students showed CNN some video projects they have done for clients.

Other students run a pizza parlor and tea shop on a neighboring island.

The average stay is three years and students are encouraged to plan for life after rehab.

“We have vocational training. We help them get some marketable skills; therefore, they may get a job or continue training afterward,” Chan said. “I believe everyone deserves a second chance.”

Malaysia Dilutes Its System of Ethnic Preferences

Malaysia Dilutes Its System of Ethnic Preferences
By THOMAS FULLER
Published: New York Times, June 30, 2009
BANGKOK — Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, announced Tuesday a major rollback in the system of ethnic preferences that has defined the country’s political system for almost four decades.

The new policy would severely weaken a requirement that companies reserve 30 percent of their shares for ethnic Malays, the country’s dominant ethnic group.

The 30-percent rule was once considered politically untouchable, and Mr. Najib described the change in policy as a “tricky balancing act.”

Malaysia has long given ethnic Malays and members of other indigenous ethnic groups — known as bumiputra, or sons of the soil — political and economic privileges. But that system has come under strain amid growing resentment by minority groups and poorer Malays.

The government offers bumiputra discounts on houses, scholarships and other perks. But some benefits, like government contracts and stock-market allocations, have been beyond the reach of working-class Malays.

Anger among Chinese and Indians, the country’s main minority groups, over the ethnic preferences was perhaps the main reason that the opposition made large gains in elections last year that nearly dismantled the governing coalition led by Mr. Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organization.

“We want to be fair to all communities,” Mr. Najib said in a speech in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. “No one must feel marginalized.”

Mr. Najib’s success in rolling back the ethnic preferences will depend in large part on his ability to hold together his coalition and fend off a resurgent opposition led by Anwar Ibrahim, a former finance minister.

Mr. Anwar, who leads a diverse group of opposition parties, has promised to undo the system of ethnic preferences.

By positioning himself as a reformer, Mr. Najib, who came to power in April, appears to be calculating that he can stave off opposition advances and be seen as an agent of change.

“The world is changing quickly, and we must be ready to change with it or risk being left behind,” he said Tuesday.

The change would leave some ethnic preferences intact and come with caveats. But it would dilute one of the most important components of what is known as the New Economic Policy, introduced in 1971: the requirement that companies listing on the stock exchange sell 30 percent of their shares to ethnic Malays.

That requirement was scrapped for companies already listed on the stock exchange and reduced to 12.5 percent for initial public offerings. The requirement will remain in place for “strategic industries” like telecommunications, water, ports and energy.

Mr. Najib also said he would lower barriers for foreign investors. The government would eliminate a special vetting process for foreign companies wanting to invest in, merge or take over a Malaysian company, he said.

“The global economic crisis is amplifying the need to be a preferred investment destination,” he added.

Malaysia’s trade-dependent economy is expected to contract by 5 percent this year.

Hong Kong holds on to money-giving tradition

Hong Kong holds on to money-giving tradition
By Kari Lipschutz
Published: International Herald Tribune, January 26, 2009
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/26/asia/packet.1-413354.php

HONG KONG: Edith and Kenneth Chung look around their upscale restaurant in Hong Kong and see empty chairs.

These are lean times, but the Chungs will not cut back on the Lunar New Year tradition of giving red and gold envelopes containing small amounts of money, called “lai see” in Cantonese or “hong bao” in Mandarin, to family and friends who are less fortunate.

“People will not compromise lai see,” Edith Chung said. “It is good luck.”

With some trepidation, as bankers lose their jobs and manufacturers close factories, Hong Kongers are continuing the practice as they always have, considering the luck they hope to gain from giving to outweigh the financial cost.

This is a practice rooted in the ages. Before envelopes there were other tokens believed to be auspicious gifts. The exact origins of the red packets are not clear, but over time they have come to be an iconic symbol of luck and prosperity.

The Lunar New Year is a time to celebrate with family and the tradition of giving is an integral part of that, but the steadfast practice may only briefly mask problems that are expected to surface after the envelopes have been thrown away.

Simon Lam, professor of management at the University of Hong Kong, says businesses traditionally wait to announce bad news like layoffs and cutbacks until after the New Year celebrations have ended.

“The sentiment is that the worst is still to come in the first and second quarters of 2009,” he said. The Hong Kong economy entered a recession in early 2008.

It may be the Lunar New Year bonus, a holiday perk that is not associated with the envelopes and something not tied to tradition, that turns out to be a harbinger of what is to come for China's economy in the Year of the Ox.

Samuel Kam, chief executive of PowerNetix, a small IT company in Hong Kong, says the financial problems of the outside world have already started to affect his business.

“Customers were already cutting back the services they ordered at the end of last year,” he said. “Some of them have just disappeared altogether.”

For Kam, the financial burden is creating a situation where giving bonuses will not be guaranteed, but anyone receiving lai see from Kam might not know that his company is having problems.

“I will probably give the same amount in lai see, because the people I usually give to know me,” he said. He added that he would rather spend less on himself so he can maintain the same amount of lai see to people like his doorman.

A survey in Ming Pao, a Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong, found that more people will be giving out 10 Hong Kong-dollar notes, or $1.28, this year, the lowest socially acceptable amount to give.

The survey suggests that people are not necessarily giving out fewer envelopes, but may be putting less money in each one.

Whatever the survey's findings, many people like the Chungs say they are spending as they always have.

“We will give the same amount this year,” Chung said. “Giving money is lucky.”

In once-booming tea region, a bitter reality

EMBARGO: In once-booming tea region, a bitter reality
By Andrew Jacobs Published: International Herald Tribune, January 9, 2009
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/09/asia/tea.php

MENGHAI, China: Before American real estate prices deflated, before the stock market nose-dived and before the Ponzi-madness of Bernard Madoff, there was the Pu'er Tea Debacle of Menghai County.

Pu'er tea, a pleasantly aromatic beverage that boosters claim reduces cholesterol and cures hangovers, became the darling of the sipping classes in recent years as this nation's nouveaux riches embraced a distinctly Chinese way to display their wealth, and invest their savings. Between 1999 and 2007, the value of Pu'er, a fermented brew invented by Tang Dynasty traders, increased tenfold.

In mid-2007 the finest aged Pu'er changed hands for $150 a pound, or $330 a kilogram. Now it can be had for a tenth that price.

For tens of thousands of wholesalers, farmers and ordinary Chinese who poured their money into discs of compressed tea leaves, the crash of the Pu'er market has been nothing short of disastrous. Many investors had been led to believe that Pu'er prices could only go up.

“The saying around here was 'It's better to save Pu'er than to save money,”' said Wang Ruoyu, a longtime dealer in Xishuangbanna, the lush, tea-growing region of Yunnan Province that abuts the Burmese border. “Everyone thought they were going to get rich.”

Today in Asia & Pacific
Thailand already bouncing back with tourismBiden in Afghanistan for talksAt least 14 killed in Afghanistan violenceFermented tea was hardly the only caffeinated investment frenzy that swept China during its boom years. The urban middle class speculated mainly in stock and real estate, pushing prices to stratospheric levels before exports slumped, growth slowed and hundreds of billions of dollars in paper profits disappeared over the past year.

In the Pu'er belt of mountainous Yunnan Province, a cabal of manipulative buyers cornered the Pu'er market and drove the price to record levels, giving some ordinary farmers and traders a taste of the country's bubble - and its still bitter aftermath.

At least a third of the 3,000 tea manufacturers and merchants have called it quits in recent months. Farmers have begun replacing newly planted tea trees with more nourishing - and now, more lucrative - staples like corn and rice. Here in Menghai, the newly opened six-story emporium built to house hundreds of buyers and bundlers is a very lonely place.

“Most of us are ruined,” said Fu Wei, 43, one of the only tea traders brave enough to open a business in the empty complex. He sat in the cement hull of his shop - he cannot afford to finish the space - and cobwebs covered his shelf of treasured Pu'er cakes.

All around him, sitting on unsold sacks of tea, were idled farmers and merchants who bided their time playing cards, chain smoking and, of course, drinking endless cups of tea. “A lot of people behaved like idiots,” Fu said as he poured another round.

The pop of the Pu'er bubble is a cautionary tale of modern China, where a dearth of investment opportunities, an abundance of cash and a lack of government oversight allowed buyers to drive the price of Pu'er to obscene levels.

Wu Xiduan, secretary general of the Chinese Tea Circulation Association, said many naïve investors were taken in by the frenzied atmosphere, largely whipped up by out-of-town wholesalers who promoted Pu'er as drinkable gold and then bought up as much as they could, sometimes paying up to 30 percent more than the previous year. He said that as farmers planted more tea, production doubled from 2006 to 2007, to 100,000 tons. In the final, free-for-all months, some producers would ship their tea to Yunnan from other provinces, label it as Pu'er and then enjoy huge markups.

When values hit absurd levels last spring, the buyers unloaded their stocks and disappeared.

“The market was sensationalized on purpose,” Wu said, speaking in an interview from Beijing.

With its near-mythic aura, Pu'er is well-suited for hucksterism. The darling of emperors and imbued with vague medicinal powers, Pu'er was supposedly invented by eighth-century horseback traders who compressed the tea leaves into cakes for easier transport. Unlike other types of tea, which are consumed not long after harvest, Pu'er grows better with age. Prized vintages from the 19th century have sold for thousands of dollars a wedge.

Over the past decade, the industry has been shaped in ways that mirror the Western fetishization of wine. Sellers charge a premium for batches picked from older plants or, even better, “wild tea” trees that have survived the deforestation that scars much of the region. Connoisseurs talk about oxidation levels, loose-leaf versus compacted and whether the tea was harvested in the spring or the summer (spring tea, many believe, is more flavorful).

But with no empirical way to establish a tea's provenance, many buyers are easily duped.

“If you study Pu'er your whole life, you still can't recognize the differences in the teas,” said Wang, the tea buyer. “I tell people to just buy what tastes good and don't worry about anything else.”

Among those most bruised by the crash are the farmers of Menghai County, many of whom had never experienced the kind of prosperity common in China's cities. Villagers built two-story brick homes, filled them with televisions and refrigerators and sent their children to schools in the district capital. Flush with cash, scores of elderly residents made their first trips to Beijing.

“Everyone was wearing designer labels,” said Zhelu, a 22-year-old farmer, who is a member of the region's Hani minority and uses only one name. “A lot of people bought cars, but now we can't afford gas so we just park them.”

Last week, dozens of vibrantly dressed women from Xinlu sat on the side of the highway hawking their excess tea. There were few takers. The going rate, about $3 a pound, was less than a tenth of the peak price. The woman said that during the boom years, tea traders from Guangdong Province would come to their village and buy up everyone's harvest. This year, they simply didn't show.

Back at Menghai's forlorn “tea city,” Chen Li sat surrounded by what he said was $580,000 worth of product he bought before the crash. As he served an amber-hued seven-year-old variety, he described the manic days before Pu'er went bust. Hotels and restaurants were packed with out-of-town buyers and local banks, besieged by customers, were forced to halve the maximum withdrawal limit.

“People had to stand in line for four or five hours to get the money from the bank and you could often see people quarreling,” he said. “Even pedicab drivers were carrying tea samples and looking for clients on the street.”

A trader who jumped into the business three years ago, Chen survives by offsetting his losses with profits from a restaurant his family owns in Alabama. He also happens to be one of the few optimists in town. Now that so many farmers have stopped picking tea, he is confident that prices will rebound next year. As for the mounds of unsold tea that nearly enveloped him?

“The best thing about Pu'er,” he said with a showman's smile, “is that the longer you keep it, the more valuable it gets.”