The Correspondent, July - August 2007

CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG

THE

China + Irony

THE

CORRESPONDENT

contents

PHOTOGRAPH AND COVER : MARK HENLEY, CHINA [SUR]REAL

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Internet Video The changing face of communications

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The Lijiang Dilemma

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Art Hong Kong through the eyes of British artist Pam Williams Travel Amsterdam for book lovers

Travel

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Then & Now

Thailand’s Past Executioner

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Books

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China and Irony

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Books

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Saudi Match Point Thriller Out of Context

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Tim Huxley

From the President Around the FCC Merchandise Professional Contacts

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The Diana Effect

Mid-levels from the north Feature

Books

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Club Activities

> FROM THE PRESIDENT A

h, those endless summer days … are coming to an end, I guess.

It wasn’t too many weeks ago that you could easily swing a cat around the Main Bar on a Friday Zoo Night without hitting any of the usual animals.

But now, the holidays are over, work is picking up again, the kids are back in school and we seem to have returned to the usual Friday night elbowthrowing and jockeying for position and arm-wavingto-attract-John-or-Andrewor-Ming-or-Ruby-or-pleasejust-ANYone’s attention. Yes indeed… the games are back on.

So let’s talk about booze, shall we?

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re now making all of the wines on our list available to members to take away for substantially reduced prices.

Andy Chworowsky and the Wine Sub-Committee have figured out a formula that is devilishly simple (although complicated enough to be too boring to go into here) but which knocks the price of our regular plonk down to better-than-Watson’s prices. Bear in mind, this price is for wine that is consumed off the premises only – if you change your mind and decide to pop open your takeaway bottle inside the Club, the staff will whack on a corkage fee that will bring it back up to the usual price. Also, our cellar isn’t the biggest in town, so if you’d like to snag more than a couple of bottles, call the Club and place an order giving 24 hours’ notice. Of course, you’ll have to pick it up

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right away, because of the storage issues mentioned above, but then, if you want to save some money, it’s worth lugging a case of wine or two into a taxi on Ice House Street, isn’t it?

Likewise, if you’re a serious quaffer of wine, you’ll be interested in the “Publisher’s Glass” now being offered at the Bar. (There’s been some discussion about the naming of the pour, with several people suggesting that it should actually be called the “Sub-Editor’s Glass”, since most subs need a more sizeable drink at the end of their day than do most publishers … but that’s by the by.) Basically, it’s a double pour of wine, served in the larger wine glass – whereas the normal pour comes up to the bottom of the “Hong Kong” line, the “Publisher’s” now comes up to the top of the “Foreign Correspon-

dents’” line. Or something like that. By the time you’ve finished one of these, it’s all sort of academic anyway.

Oh, and it’s cheaper than buying two glasses of wine, too…

And we’ve finally decided to give Patrick Smith what he’s repeatedly asked for over the years (and if you know Patrick, you know just how frequently he has repeated this little request, and how clearly he has explained the rationale behind this tiny request, and how simple a thing it really would be to accommodate this minor request, and how difficult it is to understand why people just can’t see that it’s a small request to make, and how close to despair he has been so many times over such a seemingly trivial request, you know…).

Yes, my dear Patrick, we’ve been listening. And by the time this is printed, we hope that you and all our other long-suffering Members have been enjoying your martinis in proper-sized glasses. We even held a little impromptu martinimixing session with the new glasses one recent Saturday morning (!!!), and will be making sure that all the bar staff have been trained in how to correctly mix a range of drinks to go in them… look for a martini menu soon.

And once you’ve ordered your martini, don’t forget to raise your new glass to our Goodwill Ambassador Clare Hollingworth! As it happens, October 10th is her 96th birthday, so we’ll be holding a small gathering in her honour that evening. Do feel free to join us in

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wishing her the very happiest of birthdays. And belatedly, please do the same for our other Goodwill Ambassador Anthony Lawrence.

As the photos in this copy of the magazine show, we feted Tony back in August, when he turned 95 on the “Glorious Twelfth.” It is a pleasure to have both of them serving not just in formal roles as representatives of the Club, but also as testament to our collective professional history and heritage.

Happy birthday to both of you, and we hope to join you in celebrating many more to come!

On an ever-so-vaguely related note, even as we are honouring our veteran members, we are looking to continue the Club’s tradition of welcoming younger members of our profession to the Club. To that end, we have re-introduced our Young Journalists Promotion Scheme, which is intended to make it easier for journalists and correspondents under the age of 35 to join by defraying some of their monthly subscription fees.

Please help us spread the word by letting anyone of your friends or colleagues who qualify for the programme know and encouraging them to come to the Club and sign up.

We’ll also be holding a New Members Cocktail on October 16.

We haven’t had one of these for some time now, so it’s probably overdue. If you’ve joined the Club in the past year or so, you’ll be getting an invitation soon, and we encourage you to attend. At the same time, we’d also like to invite longer-term Members to join us in welcoming the newbies … at the very least, you can put some names to faces you’ve started seeing around the Bar, and maybe have a couple of excellent martinis or Publisher’s Glasses of wine with them.

Also, if you’ve introduced any

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of these new Members, you’ve doubtless enjoyed the fruits of your labour with substantial F&B credits added to your account as a “finder’s fee”. This has been a long-standing practice at the FCC, dating back to the Dark Ages of the 1990s, when it was introduced to help boost our membership rolls.

However, with our waiting list currently hovering at about a hundred people, like all good things, this too must come to an end.

Going forward, we’ll be happy to add your friends and colleagues to the waiting list (where they will likely remain for at least six months or so, given the current turnover rate), but you won’t be able to claim a bonus for bringing us another scalp.

Speaking of scalps, although we all love a good game of Cowboys and Indians with the kids, the FCC isn’t really the place for it. We have no intention of changing our policy toward letting children into the Club on the weekends, but we have been fielding a fair few complaints lately about unruly youngsters running riot on the premises. Bearing in mind that those of us with offspring almost certainly have higher tolerance levels for youthful mayhem than those who remain – ahem – unblessed with issue … please do what you can to make sure that your kids don’t disturb other Members in the Club.

I think that’s everything… oh, wait. We’re also going to get some Splenda, to replace the Sweet-nLo, or whatever-the-hell chemical is in those pink pouches that some of us are brave enough to put in our coffee. Just don’t ask us to mix it into a martini, or we’ll have to send Patrick over to explain why it’s not a good idea.

Christopher Slaughter president@fcchk.org

THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel: (852) 2521 1511 Fax: (852) 2868 4092 E-mail: fcc@fcchk.org Website: www.fcchk.org President: Chris Slaughter First Vice President: Keith Bradsher Second Vice President: Kevin Egan Correspondent Member Governors Paul Bayfield, Kate Pound Dawson, Matthew Driskill, Ernst Herb, Tony Munroe, Andrew Stevens, Mark Zavadskiy, Tom Mitchell Journalist Member Governors Francis Moriarty, Jake van der Kamp Associate Member Governors Andy Chworowsky, David O’Rear, David Garcia, Steve Ushiyama Hon Treasurer Steve Ushiyama Finance Committee Convener: Steve Ushiyama Professional Committee Convener: Keith Bradsher Food and Beverage Committee Convener: Andy Chworowsky Membership Committee Convener: Steve Ushiyama Charity Committee Conveners: Dave Garcia, Andy Chworowsky Freedom of the Press Committee Convener: Francis Moriarty Constitution Committee Convener: Kevin Egan Wall Committee Convener: Chris Slaughter General Manager Gilbert Cheng

The Correspondent © The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong The Correspondent is published six times a year. Opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the Club.

Publications Committee Convener: Paul Bayfield Editor: Diane Stormont Editorial and Production Hongkongnow.com Ltd Tel: 2521 2814 E-mail: fccmag@hongkongnow.com Printer Hop Sze Printing Company Ltd Advertising Enquiries Sandra Pang, Pronto Communications Tel: 2540 6872 Fax: 2116 0189 Mobile: 9077 7001 E-mail: advertising@fcchk.org

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Cover Story Internet

The revolution WILL NOT BE TELEVISED ... but will be available on your computer

If the words “internet video” bring to mind grainy images of pop idol William Hung or Hong Kong’s infamous bus uncle, it may be time to refresh your browser, writes Chris Dillon.

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I

n just two years, internet video has grown from a novelty into a powerful communication tool, one that businesses, educators and politicians are using to reach a global audience. And like many new technologies, it’s evolving in some unexpected directions.

A little history For many people, online video means YouTube. Founded in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees, YouTube is an internet service that lets you upload, watch, share and rate video clips. The service debuted in May 2005, rapidly became one of

Tube capitalises on new technologies that make it easy to record video on inexpensive digital camcorders and mobile phones, and then edit and manipulate the footage on a personal computer. By encoding the video files with standard software such as Adobe’s Flash and delivering them through a standard Web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer, online video sites avoid problems with international TV standards and make their wares free to anyone with a broadband connection.

Online video services also benefit from the growing popularity of TiVo and other digital video recorders that allow you to record television programmes – a controversial documentary, a humorous commercial or a late-night comedy routine – and upload them for the world to see. These services are part of a larger trend toward participatory media, where people consume and create content. Blogs, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, are all part of the same movement.

That’s entertainment

the most popular sites on the Web, and was acquired by Google in 2006 for US$1.65 billion in stock. In mid2007, Alexa.com ranked YouTube as the world’s fourth most popular site (behind Yahoo, Microsoft Network and Google), with over 10 per cent of internet users visiting the site in the previous 24 hours.

Along with Revver.com, Metacafe. com and dozens of similar sites, You-

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By removing technological and geographical barriers, online video sites have become a platform for sharing a broad range of amateur and professionally produced content. Amateurs value these sites’ ability to reach a large audience at no cost. And while many independent projects are forgettable, some, like What Barry Says or Fallen Art, are surprisingly good.

Media companies, on the other hand, have a love/hate relationship with the sites, which have a proven ability to promote and create “buzz” for new films, TV programmes and

music. The video for Avril Lavigne’s single Girlfriend was viewed nearly 40 million times in the three months after it was released on YouTube.

Media companies are less sanguine about online video sites’ effect on box office receipts and DVD sales, and some industry executives describe the sites as parasites that have built a business on stolen content. In March 2007, Viacom launched a US$1 billion lawsuit against YouTube, which Viacom accused of illegally showing clips of its TV programmes. Despite the threat of legal action, directory services like www. youtvpc.com make it easy to find movies and TV series on overseas internet hosts. And portals such as www.chime. tv aggregate a variety of news and entertainment in a convenient, easy to navigate package.

Brain food While the entertainment industry and online video sites search for a satisfactory revenue-sharing formula, a surprising amount of educational content is appearing online. How-to projects, music lessons and cooking tips are widely available and, if you dig a little deeper, you can learn how to cross-dress, pick locks or create inexpensive zombie effects for your next low-budget feature film.

A growing number of educational organisations are making documentaries, lectures and other materials available online. Search Google Video or visit the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s site or the Internet Archive and you can view universitylevel lectures on topics ranging from cancer to geothermal energy. Other sources include the US-based Public Broadcasting Service and the BBC. For autodidacts, home-schoolers or anyone simply looking for something interesting to watch, online video sites can be a gold mine.

Macaca moments The political power of online video became apparent in August 2006, when the re-election campaign of US Republican Senator George Allen

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Internet

self-destructed after Allen used the word macaca to refer to an Indian American, S.R. Sidharth, who was videotaping Allen’s speech for an opposing politician’s campaign. Largely unknown before Allen’s speech, the word macaca was soon identified as a Francophone slur used to describe people from North Africa. A minutelong segment of the speech appeared on YouTube, quickly became popular, and was eventually credited with costing Allen the election.

Politicians are using online video to reach younger audiences who are abandoning television. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair released a video message to congratulate Nicolas Sarkozy after his victory in the French presidential elections in May 2007.

And in the United States, CNN has teamed up with YouTube to cover the 2008 presidential debates and serve as a forum where viewers can record and upload their questions for candidates.

One of the more controversial uses for the new technology can be found on the Middle East Media Research Institute site, which takes Arabic-, Farsi- and Turkish-language television broadcasts from the Middle East and subtitles them in English. Memri has detractors, who accuse it of cherrypicking footage that portrays Middle Eastern countries and their politicians and religious leaders in a negative light. That said, the clips make for interesting, if uncomfortable, viewing.

Unflattering videos have caused several countries to restrict access to YouTube. In April 2007, Thailand

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banned YouTube after a video on the site was deemed to have insulted King Bhumibol Adulyadej. A month earlier, Turkey instituted similar restrictions after a court ruled that a clip on YouTube insulted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Brazil and Iran have also imposed bans on YouTube.

Corporate connections Like the entertainment industry, businesses have discovered that online video poses a threat and an opportunity. A corporate screw-up that appears online can quickly take on a life of its own, and local or regional issues often escalate into national or international ones. And because they are archived, searchable and easily accessible, embarrassing TV reports – like scenes of rats scurrying around inside a New York City fast food restaurant – have a longer lifespan than ever before.

On a more positive note, companies like Gillette and Wendy’s are signing sponsorship deals with YouTube in an effort to reach younger, tech-savvy viewers. Businesses also use online video as a crisis management tool. In February 2007, for example, JetBlue Airways Chief Executive Jeff Neeleman appeared in a video to apologise and explain changes to the company’s policies after 10 passenger-laden aircraft were stranded in a New York City snowstorm. It’s difficult to gauge how effective the video was, but it did reach an audience of more than 280,000 people.

In a crisis, online videos offer several advantages. They are inexpensive and easy to produce: all you need is a digital camcorder, a computer, senior management, a script and a location. Second, they let companies react quickly and disseminate a message within hours of a crisis. They also allow management to speak directly to consumers, without editors and other gatekeepers filtering the message. Finally, videos help companies to display a human face in the midst of a crisis.

Business applications continue to grow. Companies like Veodia offer higher picture quality and the ability to track, store and manage broadcasts, so customers can use videos for training and internal communications. Others, like Zentation, let you upload a video of your speech together with your PowerPoint slides, so viewers can watch the two side by side. And there are many other projects under development that are designed to take advantage of faster broadband connections and improved mobile internet services.

Will internet video replace television and movies? Not tomorrow.

But YouTube and its imitators are an important step toward the convergence of computers, the internet and the news and entertainment industries. And as the technology improves, it won’t be long until you can watch what you want, wherever and whenever you want it.

Chris Dillon can be reached via http:// www.dilloncommunications.com

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Art

Other Eyes Hong Kong as viewed by London-based artist, Pam Williams. Pam visited the British colony in 1996 in the countdown to the handover to China. She returned in 2007.

Here we show a selection of her work from both 1997 and early 2007. Visit her website at http://www.pwillartnews.co.uk for further details, including orders.

Victoria Harbour, 1997

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Art

Top: Tenements, Quarry Bay, 1997.

Bottom: Gurkha Wives, 1997.

Right: Gurkha Goldsmiths, 1997

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Top: Central Police Station - Closed, 2007.

Right: Black Watch Drummer, 1997.

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Art

Bus to Shek Kong, the Gurkha Base. 1997.

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Tsing Ma Bridge. Plane ямВying to Kai Tak. 1997

2 IFC Tower - Extreme Contrast.

2007.

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Travel

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Write On A bibliophile’s guide to the Amsterdam book scene WORDS AND PHOTOS BY VAUDINE ENGLAND

W

hen it comes to obscure sources on Hong Kong history, a reprint of the 1937 book, Armenians in India, by Mesrovb Jacob Seth, must be a leading

contender.

This Calcutta-published wonder, billed on the cover as “A Work of Original Research”, informs the reader about Armenians from Kabul to Lucknow, discusses links to the Jesuits, the Mogul court and the role of an envoy of King James I. It is also one of the best sources for early information of one Paul Chater, co-founder of Hongkong Land and Hong Kong Electric, who initiated land reclamation in Central and was a leading figure at the Jockey Club and across Hong Kong society, and who died in 1926.

It was a bargain at just 10 Euros (about HK$100), at one of Amsterdam’s most venerable book shops, Kok Antiquariat.

The Kok (Cook in English) book empire stretches to three floors of book storage and a separate warehouse, and stretches back three generations. The public part is spread

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Upstairs there is now a Writers’ Residence, for “quality” authors to stay while being creative over another two large floors with a fabulous double window-full of treasures, on Oude Hoogstraat, a short walk into the red light district from Dam Square, central Amsterdam.

Antonio Kok established the store in 1946, selling novels and children’s books, mainly to libraries.

“Then he asked my other grandfather to help start the antiquarian section,” said Sascha Kok, who with

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her parents and brother helps run the store today. It’s always been on this street, though it moved into its current building in 1974, when she was just four years old.

“It doesn’t matter how big or small your house is – there’s never enough space for books!” she says, in a lament shared by book lovers everywhere.

Grandfather Kok had spent time

during World War II in hiding, as many Dutch did to escape being dragged off to help the German war effort.

The other grandfather had escaped from Poland and was in Scheveningen prison, apparently betrayed for his work in helping to get passports for fleeing Jews.

He survived thanks to his skill at playing chess. The prison supervisor needed someone to play with.

After the war, Amsterdam lacked book shops, an unusual state as through many centuries the city had long hosted a wealth of intellectual endeavour. It had been directly involved in the history of printing, and open to a broad reach of ideas and cultures through its rich past of empire, mercantilism and tolerance.

“Amsterdam is the cultural capital of the Netherlands. That counts even more so in the literary sphere,” Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen said in October 2006.

“In former times Amsterdam attracted many writers thanks to its freedom of press, its freedom of religion, and, as a result, its book presses,” he added. The city remains the seat of many literary publishing houses with all the major national and international literary institutions based in Amsterdam.

Hints of that great tradition in books can be found all over the city, down quiet canal streets where a store will have boxes of books sprawled over the pavement, or in the regular openair book fairs across the city. Every Friday, rain or shine, a Book Market is open on stalls under the trees across the cobbled square at Spui – but more of that later.

UNESCO has marked Amsterdam’s impressive offerings of books by naming it the World Book Capital for 2008.

And the last weekend of October this year will see the hosting of the 28th Amsterdam Antiquarian Book, Map and Print Fair.

China’s First International Antiquarian Book Fair will be held in Hong Kong from November 30 to December 2 at Pacific Place – which will bring

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Sascha’s parents, Antonio or Ton, named after his father, and Marga, to Hong Kong to represent the Kok Antiquariat.

“It just happened to be a family business,” said Sascha, as she recounted how her father started selling books when he was 20 years old.

“He liked it and is a workaholic; he was at the book market in de Pijp,” she said, referring to a famous street market area of Amsterdam.

Her parents now travel the world looking for books to buy and sell and despite her own reluctance, Sascha found herself joining in, first at their

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The Athenaeum was established in 1966

by Johan Polak, a key figure in Amsterdam book history. auction house and then in the store some 15 years ago. As the business has grown from word of mouth, to published catalogues, and now to the internet, Sascha has found her role lies mostly with the internet.

“I said I didn’t want it, but I grew

up in books and it’s in the blood,” she admits.

Part of the Kok’s durability has been its adaptability to new specialities. It used to focus a lot on biology, but now has more archaeology and art. The store also sells maps, prints and engravings.

Like most Amsterdam book shops it does not confine itself to one or even two languages. Many books in English are available for visitors as well as erudite natives, “and for specialities, the language doesn’t matter,” says Sascha.

“Buying is still the most difficult

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“It doesn’t matter how big or small your house is – there’s never enough space for books!” – Sascha Kok part. If you have good books you can sell them, but buying is the key,” she says.

Just around the corner on the square dominated by de Waag, or the Weigh Station, is a smaller, more idiosyncratic store called de Kloof. It specialises in law, history and economics and is often closed. Its eccentric custodians, minded by a very fat cat, tell you to check their web site as they close the door for lunch.

Back on Spui however, a street that spills into a lovely open space, plaza, call it what you will, is the best modern book shop in Amsterdam, called the Athenaeum.

Herm Pol, of Athenaeum Boekhandel, says that Spui (pronounced like Spow, but with very pinched lips) is the

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centre of book selling in Amsterdam.

Across the square are behemoths like Waterstones and the American Book Centre. But in between is the Friday open-air book market where sellers set up their stalls in a haze of pipe smoke and hefty banter in a kind of tribal ritual.

Dominating it all, the Athenaeum has a News Centre on one side – selling newspapers and magazines from around the world – and the main bookshop. Upstairs there is now a Writers’ Residence, for “quality” authors to stay while being creative, and across another tramline is the new Athenaeum seminar and exhibition centre for cultural events and debate.

Perhaps just as important are the ancient cafe-bars nearby – Cafe de

Zwart and the Hoppe – where one can retire with a newly purchased book and start devouring it over a coffee or jenever.

The Athenaeum is excellent. One can go in and buy the only copy of an obscure book such as C.A. Bayly’s The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914 one day only to return 48 hours later to find another copy of the shelf. So swift is the restocking and ordering system that as soon as something is bought, a replacement is making its way to the shop.

That’s thanks to a clever Dutch system called the Centraal Bookhuis, which is a distribution system for all city bookshops, promising two-day replacements.

Some of the Athenaeum’s sec-

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tions are small, such as the Asian politics shelves, but they include the important recent and/or seminal works, as if someone who actually knew the subject was choosing the books.

That’s because, as Herm Pol says, they are. The medieval section is stocked by a medievalist, the Latin section stocked by a classicist, the modern art by a modern artist and so on. Window displays take the high level of intelligent engagement further, displaying artefacts that illustrate the books, including photos, maps, graphics and related books and criticisms.

The Athenaeum was established in 1966 by Johan Polak, a key figure in Amsterdam book history, a classicist who read a lot, indeed “a messiah”, says Pol. Branches of the shop exist in the nearby city of Haarlem and on university campuses. The News Centre was opened in 1971.

Polak, an essayist, gay activist and intellectual lived from 1928 to 1992, and was in the same class at school as Anne Frank. He used his family wealth to help start a publishing company with the late Rob van Gennep.

Their business split amicably in 1968, with the Athenaeum concentrating on the first post-war reprints of classical texts, and van Gennep surviving as an independent into the 1990s. The bookshop was an offshoot which has outlasted them both.

Herm Pol, with the store for 30 years, started as an unpacker and cleaner, and is now one of the bosses, although in tune with the egalitarian ethos whereby profits are shared by all staff, he has no title on his namecard, and was wrapping up my book purchase before consenting to an interview.

“Yes business is good, because we’re independent, we make our own choices. Larger book shops are part of chains but here our staff are experienced in their own disciplines.

Through the years we have dug our way toward Central Station,” said Pol, explaining how he has found

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“Amsterdam is the cultural capital of the Netherlands. That counts even more so in the literary sphere” – Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen underground warehouse space when needed.

About 45 staff keep a stock of around 50,000 titles on the move. As for the chains in the neighbourhood, Pol is not worried.

“At first we had our doubts. But we remember the line that if there’s one pub in the street it’s good, and if there’s two it’s even better. The same goes for book shops,” he says.

“We sell to that small group of people who like good books, but it’s good enough to keep us in good business,” he adds.

Anyone visiting Amsterdam with books in mind should ask around for the Antiquariaten & Tweedehands Boekwinkels Map, which marks out 70 secondhand and antiquarian book shops directly and lists another 40plus which couldn’t fit on the map itself. Not bad, for a city of less than one million people.

Given that so many stores, including theAthenaeum, hold extensive stocks of books in English, only seri-

ously homesick Anglophiles need find their way to the English Bookshop, an attractive store but with fewer surprises than, for example, the Book Exchange on Kloviniersburgwal.

Or there is JOOT (short for Just Out Of Time) on one of the Nine Streets of south Jordaan (Hartenstraat 15), just west of central Amsterdam. Or the travel book store with an antiquarian section at the back, called Evenaar en Singel (on Singel canal No. 348).

Sadly Book Traffic has recently died, taken over by an antiques-seller.

But Alibi, the specialist in thrillers and mystery writers, is still battling off a rent hike at Willemsstraat 21.

If that’s enough second-hands, then pop round to Island Bookstore on Westerstraat at Noodermarkt.

One could also try Bol.com, a Dutch web site which, in an open-minded sort of way, has an English books section too.

But the real shops, and Amsterdam, are much more fun.

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Cover Story Travel

AFP

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The Lijiang

Dilemma

BY CECILIE GAMST BERG

A

m I the only tourist in the world who has been to Xian, oh, probably seven times, without seeing the terracotta warriors? Yes, yes, they must be a wonder to behold, with their noble features, all different, mysterious half smiles and sexy uniforms. Truly, the warriors are something that anybody interested in history, China, men or all of the above, should see.

It’s just that ... where there are terracotta warriors there’s bound to be a bunch of intolerable tourists. Noisy, lemming-like, baseball cap-wearing tourists on their obligatory five-minute rush-through with screeching guide before they finally arrive at the real object of their trip: one hour in the souvenir shop.

Like all tourists, with the possible exception of mainland tour group tourists, I hate other tourists.

So what in the innermost tomb compels me to go to Lijiang, knowing it to be a tourist hell-hole? It is this: a photo of a sea of traditional Chinese rooftops with a towering snowy mountain in the background. I must also shoot that photo. No matter how many fried pancake and juice joints there are, how many “hello banana” sleeve-tugging, postcard-flogging maniac touts, I will go there and get my shot.

For people living in Hong Kong, not a week and hardly a day goes by without reading about some bus accident in China.

“Driver leaves bus to smoke – tourist bus plunges 40 metres.”

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“Overfilled coach slams into mountain.”

“Drunk bus driver kills 120 passengers.”

I’m not keen on dying and therefore only reluctantly get on Chinese buses, even more reluctantly than on planes. But faced with the choice of leaving a flying carbon footprint or a much cheaper carbon skid mark into a ravine, I choose the latter, and soon find myself on one of those bunk-bed buses I’ve always been most afraid of.

Overcrowded, dirty and without any visible signs from the outside of maintenance, I am therefore thrilled to see from the inside that these barracks of the road are bright, comfortable and have been cleaned this year. They’re not quite up there with the train (no toilets, no dining car) but definitely doable.

The driver, besides his aspirations to be a Formula One hero, is a keen eater or has an inferior bladder, because we stop at least

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once every hour. At one stop a short man in handcuffs and leg irons shuffles into our midst, accompanied by a couple of chain-smoking handlers.

Nobody bats an eyelid and a mother pushes her little girl down on a chair next to the prisoner, whose face, on a scale from one to 10 of human expressions, registers about minus 2.5.

Is he a journalist, caught on the run from justice after having written that the party occasionally makes misguided decisions? Or is he indeed an illegal brick kiln owner from Shanxi?

A sudden, rare and unforeseen shyness overcomes me and I can’t bring myself to ask.

We arrive in Lijiang in the early evening and head straight for the Old City ... and immediately come face to face with Main Street Disneyland.

Some people are never satisfied. Here I have been complaining for years about the way China’s cities are going the way of all progress and being razed to the ground, and about how the authorities ought to preserve what few old neighbourhoods are left. I’ve been lamenting the disappearance of Beijing’s hutong and other uniquely Chinese places, asking why Chinese people think everything old is bad and why they can’t understand that preserving old architecture will create much more revenue than another shiny tiled, blue windowed high-rise full of Starbucks and Giordano.

So what do I do when I finally end up in a place where there are no Shenzhen-style monsters but onestorey, traditional roof-tiled buildings all around, a famous natural heritage Old City protected by law? I run screaming for the hills.

Because instead of preserved old buildings we see nothing but New Old – built last year to satisfy the tourist’s vision of Traditional China. Squeaky clean, polished wood, faux-Chinese structures with English signs saying West Food, Juicy Bar and Wholemeal Pancake.

20

Fortunately The New Old City turns out to be just the area near our hotel. A few streets away there are indeed preserved buildings, streets and canals where life for the Naxi minority, famous for their blue clothing and willingness to shuffle around in groups to disco tunes in the main square (a spectacle advertised as “Grand Primitive Ecological Real

Is it politically incorrect to sic the police on a minority person, who is also extremely short?

Scene Performance”), ostensibly carries on like before.

Indeed, instead of the obligatory one or two streets, The Old City is so large and labyrinthine that after three hours’ constant walking I’m totally lost and actually relieved to see a China Agricultural Bank rearing up in the distance. Streets! Taxis! But where is the mountain?

Exhausted, me from walking and my travelling companion, Lee, from resting, we head for a massage. The taxi driver’s greed knows no bounds and she takes us way outside the city.

Suddenly there it is in all its glory: The snow-capped mountain with a tasteful foreground of genuine Chinese roof tiles. Snapping away, I can’t help thinking that my shots look a damn sight better than those I’ve seen in the tourist brochures, with the last rays of the evening sun kissing the mountain red.

After a soporific massage in a

Tibetan-style room we succumb to Bar Street Tourism with its baseball capped hordes and irresistible lure of young Tibetans dressed in colourful garb, belting out the latest ethnic hits that have been taking the mainland by storm since the new Qinghai-Tibet railway was opened.

In the bar we meet some Naxi guys and at last – a game of cards!

Two o’clock in the morning sees me, Lee and Naxi Boy in my hotel room, playing cards and drinking beer. When Lee leaves and NB falls asleep in a chair I ease into bed, only to wake up on our last day of the holiday, a day strictly reserved for hitch-hiking back to Kunming, to find my camera gone. Stolen

by Naxi Boy. Inexplicably, there’s a note with the guy’s name and phone number, saying he took my camera because “I didn’t care about him.”

Is it politically incorrect to sic the police on a minority person, who is also extremely short?

I prefer just to get my camera back, and it’s only after two hours of insane and fruitless phone negotiations with the little shit that I finally call the rozzers.

This is a mistake.

At three o’clock in the afternoon following hours of excruciating statement-taking by policemen in plastic slippers, who ignore all evidence such as the guy’s name and number and the 12 incriminating text messages from him in my phone memory, we are still in Beautiful Lijiang.

Instead of leisurely hitch-hiking, we leave ignominiously by hired van without the very reason why I came, three photos of a stupid mountain.

My only hope is that the little bastard’s karma will get him later.

But actually, it’s all my fault.

Instead of travelling independently and interacting with locals, I should have donned that baseball cap and seen the terracotta warriors and all the other intolerably tedious things as I meekly follow the instructions of an English-speaking guide.

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

Photography

Then

Now

The changing face of Hong Kong Mid-levels shot from Central in 1973 and again this year. Aigburth Hall and Century Tower remain but are hemmed in by a wall of high rises.

Š Bob Davis. Web: www.bobdavisphotographer.com. E-mail: bobdavis@netvigator.com

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

21

Cover Story Feature

RICHARD S. EHRLICH

A mannequin, displayed by Thailand’s Department of Corrections, shows how a condemned person is tied to a wooden cross, to be shot in the back by an executioner who stands off to the left, aiming at the heart-high target placed on a cotton panel.

Thailand’s Past

EXECUTIONER

The chief of the foreign prisoners’ section at Bangkok’s Bang Kwang Central Prison talks to Richard S. Ehrlich about crime and capital punishment.

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THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

H

RICHARD S. EHRLICH

e’s shot 55 people in the back, killing them with a burst of bullets

aimed at the heart but Chavoret Jaruboon, 58, a Buddhist who describes himself as Thailand’s “last executioner”, no longer carries out capital punishment.

After two decades as an executioner, Chavoret switched jobs three years ago to become head of the foreign prisoners’ section at the dreaded Bang Kwang Central Prison, where he coordinates the detention of about 500 foreign inmates from 44 countries, serving various sentences.

People still get sentenced to death in Thailand. Bang Kwang’s death row houses a number of Thais, alongside foreigners from Burma, Laos, China, Malaysia and one from Nigeria currently awaiting execution by lethal injection.

Thailand instituted death by lethal injections in December 2003. The first to be killed this way were a group of four, all executed on the same day, three of them for possession of a total of 115,000 methamphetamine pills.

Death row inmates do not know when they will be yanked from their cell to meet their end.

“Before I became an executioner, I was an escort for death row prisoners in Bang Kwang. It was gloomy. The door opens, and the guard points and he says: ‘You!’ “Some inmates immediately start grabbing things around them, wildly reaching out, trying to touch things, and get it together. I could see them, the blood draining from their faces,” he said.

Chavoret was one of about a dozen executioners who worked in shifts at Bang Kwang, using a 9-mm submachine gun fitted with a silencer.

“I have executed 55 people, including three women.”

Thailand’s system involved a lone executioner rather than a firing squad. “One gun per prisoner,” Chavoret said. “I shot at the person’s back, at the heart. The rule was we could shoot up to 15 bullets. So I would fire a burst of single shots, ‘bam-bam-bam-bam-bam’.”

A cloth panel with a heart-high target was placed between the shooter and the prisoner who was tied, standing, to a wooden cross.

Some historians say executions in Asia are often performed behind the person’s back, and not face-to-face, because many people fear the dead person’s ghost may later recognise the

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

“I shot at the person’s back, at the heart. The rule was we could shoot up to 15 bullets. So I would fire a burst of single shots, ‘bambam-bam-bam-bam’.”

Chavoret Jaruboon, a Buddhist who describes himself as Thailand’s “Last Executioner.”

23

Feature

RICHARD S. EHRLICH

“The most important thing is not to kill the wrong guy, or a scapegoat. There are some people who said they were innocent even when they entered the execution room, but it is not my responsibility to determine that.” executioner and take revenge. By remaining behind the prisoner, the executioner avoids being the last face that the condemned sees.

“When Thailand had the system of beheadings, they also chopped the person’s neck by jumping at them from behind. Maybe it was because the ghost might come back to haunt them,” he said.

Beheadings, abolished in 1934, included slicing and dicing the dead person’s headless body so it could be fed to crows and vultures. The decapitated head would be impaled on a sharp pole, which was stuck in the ground, so the head could be displayed to the public.

Chavoret, who recently published a book about his career, was 55 when he carried out his last execution. He admits he found it a stressful occupation.

“I have to remind myself that I did my duty, I did what the justice system told me to do, as an executioner. I am not completely happy with it, but I have to look at the bigger picture and try to understand things.”

He favours lethal injection over shooting. “It is more humane, because the body remains in the same condition, in its natural condition. The body is not going to be shot through the heart.”

“I’m not going to say if I am now

24

A painting, displayed by Thailand’s Department of Corrections, shows an official, royally mandated method of execution in the 15th century.

for, or against, the death penalty. But what I want to tell you is that Thai law still has this kind of penalty, and I don’t want anyone to have to get to that point.

“Every Buddhist monk would say that killing someone is a sin. But the question is whether you take pleasure in killing that person,” he added.

“What I have seen is that these prisoners have done bad to others,

and they are incarcerated because of their own karma.

“The most important thing is not to kill the wrong guy, or a scapegoat.

There are some people who said they were innocent even when they entered the execution room, but it is not my responsibility to determine that.”

Richard S. Ehrlich can be contacted via his website: http://www.geocities.com/asia_ correspondent

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

Cover Story Books

In the eye of the beholder

I

rony is one of those words that some editors insist should be avoided because the meaning is never quite clear. A group of young mainland Chinese women had the same problem with Mark Henley’s book, China [sur]real, reports Vaudine England.

“We don’t like it, because it’s ironic,” said one of them, a visa consultant, at the launch party held at the Alliance Française in Guangzhou earlier this year.

“Maybe I should be open-minded, but as a Chinese I should care about what foreigners think about China, and these,” she said with a sweep of her arm at the exhibition, “are not good for this generation.

26

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

“It’s like a mirror, I admit that. But it shows bad things, not beauty,” she said.

One could perhaps find it ironic that these women found only ugliness in what are stunning photographs. It might also be ironic that Mark Henley’s photos come from a deep love of China, and in particular of its ordinary people who are living through extraordinary times and surviving an incredibly compressed Darwinist project of selection, natural or not.

A favourite photo, for my Western eyes, is of a group of rough and ready migrant workers sitting down to a meal in the rubble of a construction site, laughing at Mark, showing exposed gums and broken teeth, with cranes and ugly buildings in the background. It’s great that these guys, hard workers all, can find hilarity amid the mess.

The sophisticated Guangzhou girls found these men dirty, and told me this showed the ugly China. Yet to me, these working men are impressive.

That dissonance is one of the many reactions Mark is happy to get to his pictures. He’s deliberately looking for layers of perception in the

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

27

Books

images around him, and his choice of photos for this slim volume was rigorously focused on that goal.

Another of my favourites is of old people doing their exercises in a public park, all with their hand raised at a certain angle which, perchance or not, happens to mirror the upraised arm

28

of Chairman Mao on a plinth behind them.

Again, the Guangzhou girls objected, being sure this image was poking fun at the Chinese people.

They’re right, in a way it does, but it also makes the viewer think about how many Chinese people are still

raising their arms to match Mao’s.

The answer might be not many, supporting the message that Mark found in another shot, of a billboard advertising a real estate development in Shenzhen, blaring: “You are Center”.

“On one level it sums up for me

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

“I think it is what everyone in China confronts in their daily life as society changes and mutates around them – who to be, where to be, how to be.”

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

29

Books

30

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

the challenge that every Chinese person has had to face – you are center, whether you want to be or not – you must embrace change or live with the consequences. The old values no longer apply, the old structures have gone – so now it’s up to you to embrace the opportunities and the challenges of this new Chinese world,” says Mark.

“I think it is what everyone in China confronts in their daily life as society changes and mutates around

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

them – who to be, where to be, how to be. I have always been amazed at the ability of Chinese people not only to keep their heads above the water, but also to swim, and even to surf on this ocean’s waves,” he says.

At the same time, Western observers of the same photograph often see it, he says, “in terms of China and the West – as China, with its economic growth, becomes much more central to global attention. Now the world is watching China, and foreign writ-

ers, commentators, photographers are competing to explain China, with each latest arrival noisier than the last.”

Other images poke fun at Western misconceptions about China – such as that of the big advertising billboard featuring mainland actress Gong Li for a Western cosmetics brand. It’s funny, says Mark, because many Chinese don’t agree with the Western idea that Gong Li is so beautiful or such a model to follow.

Or take the photo of the young girl

31

Cover Story Books

sitting on a merry-go-round clutching a plastic machine gun for fun. Just a quirky shot perhaps? On this one, the Guangzhou girls and Mark Henley agree. It is most surely a critical comment, by Mark, against the growing militarisation of culture. His mainland anti-fans didn’t like the picture because, they said aggressively, “it’s not true.”

The book was produced, edited and printed in Beijing, an unusual

32

achievement for any photo book. This also means it has passed China’s censors, which may or may not also be ironic.

For Mark, the process – drenched in stress, delays and erratic epiphanies – further complicated his personal relationship with China. He loves it, but it drives him mad, and he’s not alone in that.

He was forced to move from the (possibly easier) position of being an

observer to being a producer, sharing the same issues and questions as many western businessmen working with Chinese people to make a product.

And when the Chinese printers started noticing what the images were, and asked to be photographed as well, Mark realised he was reaching a Chinese audience too. The various book launch events in several Chinese cities have added to that audience,

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

33

Books

which even a few years ago Mark could not have reached.

“It’s extremely surprising, challenging in a new way, and sometimes, not just a little [sur]real,” says Mark, wholly aware that while some Chinese like his pictures, others get angry.

One image that annoyed the Guangzhou ladies was of a voluptuous Chinese woman in a swimsuit lying posed on the sand, magenta lipstick, movie star sunglasses and all. This might have been one of those prurient images – Western man looking at oriental beauty – except that this woman is posing for a local photographer she has hired in order to add to her own collection of images of herself.

Mark just happened to be passing and snapped it.

China [sur]real A photo essay by Mark Henley Timezone8 Art Books Ltd ISBN10 988-99265-6-3 ISBN13 978-988-99265-6-4 HB, 135 pages.

HK$320 http://www.timezone8.com

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THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

Books

Sand, Sex, Sun and Spies Luke Hunt enjoys first-time novelist Paul Ulrich’s thriller, Saudi Match Point.

T

he plot meshes neatly together an Al-Qaeda kidnap and assassination attempt with the lives of consular officials and locals who must conform to the rigidity of living in Saudi Arabia.

There’s a slight take on The Quiet American. Nick Hansen is the likeable guy from the American embassy who means well and risks too much, and to whom a Chinese spy takes a fancy. There’s also the Sunni daughter of a radical cleric who is desperate to escape an arranged marriage and seeks refuge in the arms of a foreigner and support from a childhood friend.

Meanwhile, a well meaning kid is preparing to graduate as an assassin – with possible martyrdom – after plans to kill the board of an oil company are adopted.

The conflicting worlds exist against a backdrop of American and Chinese diplomatic plays in the Middle East where Washington and Beijing are vying for influence to shore up future energy supplies.

Refreshingly this read is uncluttered by political correctness with the author taking a direct approach to the mores of Saudi and Islamic societies and assessing such cultures from a westerner’s point of view.

This affords the reader an insightful look at the uglier side Muslim traditions, particularly in regards to the treatment of women and the excessive behaviour that usually accompanies religious extremism.

Ulrich was unfazed by the prospect of upsetting fundamentalist Mus-

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

lims. In fact, he suspects there could be some shared sympathies with the characters in his book.

“I think Islamic extremists probably share some of the views expressed with regard to the Saudi government,” he told The Correspondent.

“As you might recall, Osama is a sworn enemy of the ruling family and persona non grata in the Kingdom,” he said in regards to bin Laden.

“Some of my readers have been from the Middle East, but haven’t denounced me yet. I even gave a complimentary copy to the head of the Saudi-Chinese joint venture referred to in the book. I learned a few months ago that he happens to live in my building.”

The detail in Saudi Match Point is

also impressive. Ulrich has worked as consultant in China and the Middle East, studied Chinese and Arabic languages and holds an undergraduate degree from Yale University. He also holds graduate degrees from Harvard and Stanford universities.

What I liked most about Saudi Match Point is that readers will probably gain more of an understanding about the Middle East and the problems and vagaries associated with Islamic militancy from these entertaining pages than by wading through reams of copy and endless hours of network news bulletins offered daily by the international media.

One example is the way he tackles the prickly issue of relationships between Sunni and Shiite Muslims with aplomb through the eyes of two little girls.

Occasionally, Ulrich stretches his plot a little too far where the story line appears too fanciful even for fiction, but this does not detract from the broader perspective.

Saudi Match Point is a thoroughly enjoyable read and hits all the right notes given the state of global energy play between the US, China and Saudi Arabia, and the never ending war against Islamic militancy.

Pick it up. This is a fun read.

Saudi Match Point

By Paul Ulrich Blacksmith Books ISBN-10: 9628673254 ISBN-13: 9789628673254 PB, 268 pages HK$80 http://www.blacksmithbooks.com

35

People

FCC PEOPLE

The Club fetes veteran correspondent and former FCC President, Anthony Lawrence, on his 95th birthday.

At the annual Cheung ChauFCC-Hong Kong get together in Brighton: L-R: Jonathan Chamberlain, Ron Knowles, Sally Taylor, Gavin Greenwood, Steve Fallon, Julia Greenwood.

Kneeling: William Barker and Mike Rothschild.

Correction: The photo of Tim Page in the previous issue was taken by Hurley Scroggins and not Luke Hunt.

36

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007

Professional Contacts FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHERS BERTRAND VIRGILE SIMON — Editorials and corporate brochures Tel: 2526 4465 E-mail: info@red-desert.com.hk Website: WWW.RED-DESERT.COM.HK RAY CRANBOURNE — Editorial, Corporate and Industrial Tel/Fax: 2525 7553 E-mail: ray_cran bourne@hotmail.com BOB DAVIS — Corporate/Advertising/Editorial Tel: 9460 1718 Website: www.BOBDAVISphotographer.com HUBERT VAN ES — News, people, travel, commercial and movie stills Tel: 2559 3504 Fax: 2858 1721 E-mail: vanes@netvigator.com FREELANCE WRITER AND GHOSTWRITER Mark Regan - Writer of fact or fiction, biographies, memoirs and miscellanea. Also speechwriting, features, reports or research.

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39

Out of Context

What members get up to when away from the Club

Life in the Fast Lane

Vaudine England talks to Tim Huxley

T

im Huxley is one of those quiet, self-effacing men in a dark suit, regularly found nursing a drink after work at the Main Bar. But he is equally at home clad in bright orange overalls in pit stops the world over.

Shipbroker by day, Tim morphs into a racing car team owner by weekend.

The orange is because the lead driver for his team is Tom Coronel, a Dutchman. Earlier this year, Huxley watched his team on the race track in the Netherlands. Less than a month later he was in Monaco, not just to watch the racing, but to meet friends in shipping who were there too.

The high point of his racing year is the Macau Grand Prix.

“Yes it’s a big hit. But during a race I’m a nervous wreck.

You can go through in half an hour, myself, the sponsors and the guests, through the whole roller coaster of emotion,” he says, recalling the race of 2003.

That’s when one of his drivers, in the first 30 seconds, put a car into the wall and took out 20 per cent of the field. Just 25 minutes later, his other driver won the race with ease.

So much for the dark suit and quiet demeanour. This vicar’s son admits he’s always had a thing for speed, but grew too tall to sit in a racing car.

That’s just as well, as thousands of young people are pounding around in go-karts dreaming of becoming Formula One drivers. Only 22 make it to each F1 race Luckily, he discovered the thrill of the deal, as the photograph shows.

40

KEES METSELAAR

If Huxley is to be believed, he has little driving talent and minimal technical knowledge. What he does have, though, is the ability to bring together large chunks of money in sponsorship deals, and a logistical grip that finds him undaunted after arranging how to get an entire engineering workshop, staff, cars and assorted bits, to race tracks around the world.

His team, GR Asia, comprises “a rather knackered truck with tools and a couple of cars”, he says in typical understatement. “The trouble with cars, as opposed to say horses, is that you can fix them but they don’t breed, so the point is to sell them quickly.”

The Newcastle-born Huxley got into shipping through Clarksons, the British firm that brought him to Hong Kong in 1989. He admits he fancied journalism as a career but worked out that though an honourable calling, “the money was crap”.

Now he runs his own company, Mandarin Shipping, and has no plans to leave Hong Kong. Proof of that is his quest to buy the burial plot of his dreams, on his favourite island in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong is a better place to live in 2007. In 1997 I would not have made the decision to spend the rest of my life here.

In 2007 I can make that decision.

“Hong Kong is still a great place for setting up and running a business. The ethos of encouraging entrepreneurship has been strengthened and the perception of Singapore as a nanny state is true, and growing,” says Huxley.

Hong Kong, by contrast, is still fun, and the sponsorship for the car racing keeps coming.

“Of course the whole thing is ridiculous, and ecologically unsound,” says Huxley. “You could also say it’s trivial, but as the great Clive James says, what is life without triviality?”

THE CORRESPONDENT JULY/AUGUST 2007