'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.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
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
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
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, November 9, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
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.
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.
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