Society & Politics

What is the next step of beauty industry in Hong Kong? Desires for skin whitening, spot removal and staying young forever spur people to splurge on beauty clinics. But potential dangers and unregulated use of devices might cool them down. Hong Kong's beauty industry is a huge market. More than 82 % of women h undergone "medical beauty services" in a survey with a poll of 1004 men and women ed 15 to 64, according to Consumer Council. In this research, over 90 % of users firmly support government regulations on beauty industry. Meanwhile, the Consumer Council alre y received more than 1,000 complaints about beauty services in 2014. This year, a medical-device regulation proposal that requires supervision by doctors on the use of commonly used beauty devices, such as laser equipment, raised concerns from the entire beauty community. On January 16, more than 1,000 beauticians and beauty industry workers protested the proposal outside the Legislative Council. "They (government) are making our services subjected to control of the medical industry. This proposal will impede the development of the beauty industry," said Frances Chiu, chairperson of Federation of Beauty Industry. Chiu said lasers, for example, are a very important and basic beauty device and nearly every beauty parlor owns one laser machine; and if it is under the supervision, the beauty industry would have no space to develop further, said Chu Albert Poon Ka-fat, a professor of Practice (Biomedical Engineering) in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said that the definition of "medical device" is based on the standard from the International Medical Device Regulators Forum and is commonly recognised. Its criteria depends on whether the devices would change cells or tissue of a human's body. Under that, quite a few beauty devices are considered to be medical devices in "high risk" …

In between the crowds at the Lunar New Year Fair 2017 in Victoria Park,Causeway Bay, there were three stalls which had never operated : the 33th, 199th and 200th. Thousands poured into Victoria Park in Causeway Bay this year for the Lunar New Year Fair, an annual event filled with stalls selling everything from flowers and snacks to clothing and political posters. But, this year, three stalls never opened: numbers 33, 199 and 200. On January 18, four days before the official opening of the Lunar New Year Fair, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department barred Hong Kong National Party and Youngspiration, which are pro-independence political parties, from running fundraising stall on the grounds that they posed a threat to public order. The government was afraid they would sell products supporting Hong Kong independence. It is a tradition for political parties to organize fund- raising stalls in the fair. Not only wide range of products that carry their political ideas would be sold, politicians would also use the fair as a channel to boost their popularity by giving speech and writing red couplets. An official letter said the three stalls were a safety concern as they could attract political protestors to the crowded fair. The government department exercised the power stated in clause 10 of the license agreement, which allows it to terminate a signed contract "whatever reasons as the Department finds fit to do so". In an appeal, Youngspiration provided information on their products, describing them as the work of Hong Kong artists but failed to overturn the government decision. One of the tote bags that they would like to sell illustrated people's fear of the youth sitting on priority seats and the people's moody feelings on Monday. No political party advocated Hong Kong Independence in the fair, neither …

Local Bazaar can help the poor to earn some extra money while letting people to buy cheap wares. In November 2016, the Yau Tsim Mong District Council rejected government's proposal to organise a food bazaar at Macpherson Playground. While the government proposed the plan to allow local bazaars to be held during Chinese New Year, local bazaar advocates do not think the government is doing enough to develop local bazaars. According to Oxfam's latest report named ‘Report on Women and Poverty', more than one in six women are living below the poverty line in Hong Kong. The poverty line for a 4-person household was $17,600 in 2015, according to the Commission on Poverty. Wong Shek-Hung, Oxfam's Hong Kong Programme Manager, said running local bazaar on a regular basis and in an organised manner can be the way out for poverty because poor working women can make money on the side while enjoying the flexibility to take care of their families. Despite the complicated application procedures of running bazaars, the Supporting Grassroots' Bazaar Alliance hold the Tung Chung Bazaar after the two-month Hong Kong Bazaar Festival. Chiu Sin-ting, a spokesperson for Supporting Grassroots' Bazaar Alliance, said they implemented this pilot scheme of holding the bazaar, in response to the government's "district-led and bottom-up" approach to initiate hawking proposals. In order to gain broad local support and address various local needs and concerns, hawking proposals should be initiated by the local community, according to The Food and Health Bureau. Chiu said citizens' needs of local bazaar have been shown in last year's bazaar festival, in which stallholders are from all 18 districts. Candy Ho, a stallholder at the Tung Chung Bazaar who sells flowers and purses, said vending in bazaars is a stepping stone to small business. Despite a large loss, Ho …