Moved to: http://forget-the-spilled-milk.blogspot.com/

 

Bad mood today and spilled over into the morning. As much as I enjoy having the apartment to myself for a week, long work hours full of uncertainties have been draining. I received my first fax of "complaint" from a lawyer over my court story published today. I wrote in the story that the secretary of Patrick Fung SC earned $9500 a month. Fung sent a fax saying that secretaries at the chamber have a starting salary of $15,000. My boss asked me about it, and I told him that I wasn't actually at that court but found out about the case from other journalists. After I asked around and confirmed that the figure was said in open court by the lawyer representing the secretary in court over charges of forgery and theft, I was less stressed about it. But at the same time, I couldn't help thinking that Fung jumped to conclusion and ruled out the possibility that the secretary's lawyer got it wrong in court because all newspapers who reported that figure stated $9500. Yes we share information, but logically, it seems extremely unlikely that we all made the same mistake and reported the wrong figure.
It seems to me that the fax was already made known to people in my office other than my direct boss because editors were stricter than usual tonight.Anyways,i'm not sure if Fung had already spoken to the defence counsel but I'll need to dig him out today.
My editors gave me a lot of trouble yesterday over everything and I need to avoid that today.

On top of that, I've been dealing with way too many cases of infanticide, and have been hearing too many stories of people falling of buildings. All these cases point to serious social problems and the severe lack of support faced by many people. Such disregard of life is because of how bloody materialistic the society is. A high school teacher fell off a building because her husband was unemployed and she had to handle financial pressure. A maid flushed an infant down a toilet because she was afraid that she'd lose her job because she was pregnant. Two teenage mothers gave birth at home and tried to hide the pregnancies from the world. Yet while all these were happening, relatively stupid cases of drugs still made headlines. A medi effect is well documented that if one type of suicide or accident is highly publicised,many people follow suit in the few months after the story is out.But these incidents paint a grim picture of the city.Some NGOs have spoken about such incidents reflecting a lack of social support and the need to address emotional problems,but their voices have been drowned out but the political reform that (to me)is in a deadlock. eathquakes,red shirt army and the largest consignment of cocaine the city has ever seen continue to make headline.The infanticide cases remain me of the never-ending coverage of Baby P in the UK who was seriously abused.People were loud and forceful in blaming the social workers and the failure of the welfare state.
I didnt really agree with the brits that the responsibility of taking care of a child lies with the state. It is odd that people can pop up babies whenever they want but they need a license for just about everything else.
In court,judges make comments about domestic violence cases,and i've seen many magistrates giving parenting advice.Good intention and all,it is odd to hear that at court.

I almost forgot how much I enjoy reading,well at least at the right moment. For the past so many years, I only read for leisure during holidays and on endless hours of plane rides. The same trend goes since I started this job,not only reading what I wrote,but also what my colleages wrote, and selection of Chinese newspapers that I was more motivated to read a few weeks ago than now. Now that i have pretty much been assigned to the courts,local news,once again, has become relatively unimportant.
Too much time has been spent drinking and relaxing, which were much needed during the many 6-day work weeks in a row. But now that all has returned to the so called normal 5-day week, even though I have at least 5 canned stories on my hand and a new role,some reading fills the intellectual void.
So,I've gone through two-thirds of Martin Meredith's Mugabe in two nights. Affairs in african countries have always felt distant,especially when I was already making attempts to know about affairs down under,uk and most countries i've stepped foot in. It was, quite obviously,because of my involvement with a south african hottie tha i became more interested in the region.
I've never been interested in politics. I was too cynical to like any politician,to care about what they have to say because many of them are so blatantly self-serving in the name of public good. At the same time i was too ignorant to see that these people run the place i live in,wherever i am.
Anyways,back to mugabe. His name is familiar as a villain and a greedy, corruted and extravagant dictator.What i never thought about before now is how he became so. It turned out he once was a nationalistic hero, which is not hard to believe. But what is surprising that he was more of an international player than nelson mandela was,until the latter brought a peaceful end to apatheid.
Mugabe i no doubt a clever man,too clever perhaps. Over the 2,3 decades, he managed to please the class or group he needed to please for his advantage. The historian said now and then tha ''it became clear bla bla bla...'' i have my reservations because people always come across smarter when making comments in hindsight.
The author paints an interesting picture of Mugabe's journey, but at times, it felt very much like a white person writing about a black person, save for the brief mention of Mugabe's upbring in a Catholic school. The cause of many problems aka emperialist conquer is not clearly put.

Here comes another fortnighly midlife crisis rambling...

What is the meaning of life? to have a roof above our head and to get by? a white picket fence? living as a professional in a tax haven? living very simply with someone you love? to make a change? make millions by capitalising on the capitalist system(no pun intended)?
A few years ago, I look at my friend x's life with admiration but considerable distance, thinking that she has done a great job with her life and will continue to do so, but a life far from what i envision mine to be. Yet after all these years we end up in the same city with her life much more settled than mine. Now if u ask me whether i would like to be happily committed to a city, a career and a partner now, i'd most likely say yes. But the reality is that things take time to cultivate, and i would not have given aything to change all that i got to see and do while she (or people like her) has been working on it all this time.
After staying in London and HK, it's easy to see Sydney's a great place to live. That's something that i would never have found out until I actually moved out of Aust.
For the last six months or so, life has been more demotivating than anything else, but every now and then,there's a glimpse of hope,of some kind of future that i envision as thought i'm still at uni, even though i'm not.

Blah...grass is greener on the other side. Just because u can tick all the boxes that make others envious doesn't mean it's fulfilling to you.

The worst thing is that I no longer panic over the uncertainty. But it may hit me again at the end of March.

My story came out in the Sunday Morning Post yesterday - a good 1556 words according to the official word count. That makes it not only the longest piece I've written so far by at least threefold of other articles, but it's also I felt strongly my own since no one else in the office that should have been giving advice to a newbie like me said much.
It was certainly interesting to read up about Inspector John MacLennon. Those who were around in the early 80s would remember. I spoke to a rights activist when I was working on the story asking for a case study. She seemed keen to help at the beginning but in the end, I was better off relying on friends. The woman whom I've yet to meet did kinda gave me a hard time. When I asked for a case study, I said I just needed an instance of discrimination, even common ones. She retorted straight away and said that common ones include an off-comment or a look of disdain, which she said were not worth writing about. I thought she was right, but I didn't agree that things that are commonplace cannot be written about because people outside of the circle probably wouldn't know. She probably read the article and thought it brought nothing new to the picture, which is true I think, but I guess the point was to just talk about it and point out how ridiculously conservative HK is. Thankfully, my editor agreed because editorial followed up the story with a piece advocating for an anti-discrimination legislation today.

I'm not saying it has made an impact on anyone at all, but at least from what my friend told me, it caught at least some people's attention - an unexpected few on a local internet forum. That, to be honest, is extremely surprising because I did't think people other than gwai los, people who can't read Chinese and students who are forced to read English newspapers would read SCMP. Hell I didn't until I started working here (okay that's lie, I read a handful of them when flying out of HK in the past). 20-somethings born-and-raised in HK with an average everything isn't exactly the type the paper seem to target, with our mini-features on designer products and gadgets that cost at least a few thousands dollars.

When you write about something that you feel strongly about, you feel like you're putting yourself on the line. It's so different from writing a song coz being ambiguous is NOT the way to go when writing for a newspaper. But since most readers would not even notice who wrote it, I think I'm relatively safe.