The Young Reporter
Food for sustainability: a local practice of organic and sustainable agriculture in Hong Kong
- 2022-07-02
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Ziyu Bruce Zhao、Summer LiEdited by: Ziyu Bruce Zhao、Summer Li
- 2022-07-02
With almost 8 million people crowding in a just over 1000km² land, Hong Kong is not famous for its agriculture. However, a number of local organic farms have started up for several years to teach people not only how to grow their own food, but also the benefits of improving the sustainability of agriculture. Link to full video: https://youtu.be/ZqWWuB0AvlM
Community service for engineer who advised client to place $550,000 purchase orders with his own company
- 2022-06-30
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Lokman YuenEdited by: C.K. Lau
- 2022-06-30
A maintenance engineer was sentenced to 200 hours of community service for fraudulently placing purchase orders worth $550,000 with a company controlled by his mother while acting as a contractor for the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Dillion Leung Ka-wah, 46, a former chief maintenance engineer of Hong Yip Service Company Limited, had earlier pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud at the Kowloon City Magistrates Court for deceiving the university’s Hong Kong Community College. The Independent Commission Against Corruption brought the charges against Leung, who was seconded by Hong Yip to take charge of the campus’s maintenance works between December 2017 and September 2019. During the period, Leung was alleged to have deceived the college into placing purchase orders worth over $550,000 with Mulan Trading Company, which was set up by him in June 2017 and subsequently controlled by his mother, contrary to Section 16A(1) of the Theft Ordinance. In mitigation yesterday, Leung’s lawyer told the court that he had returned the $53,862.50 profit that he earned from the orders and that his ex-employer considered him a diligent employee and would be willing to rehire him if he was not jailed. In letters sent to the court, both Leung’s wife and grandmother said Leung had been a law-abiding citizen with no bad habits and was remorseful that he had committed the fraud because of greed. Magistrate Frances Leung Nga-yan sentenced Leung to 200 hours of community service for each charge to be served concurrently.
No insurance compensation for the Jumbo floating restaurant, the company says
- 2022-06-28
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Karmen LiEdited by: Lokman Yuen
- 2022-06-28
The company’s loss is not covered by the insurance from the incident of Hong Kong’s Jumbo Floating Restaurant that happened on June 18, the statement from Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises Limited said on Sunday night. The floating restaurant holds insurance only to indemnify and compensate the third party, according to the statement. “Where the assured has effected an insurance in express terms against any liability to a third party, the measure of indemnity, subject to any express provision in the policy, is the amount paid or payable by the assured to the third party in respect of such liability,” according to section 74 of Cap. 329 Marine Insurance Ordinance. Until June 26, the floating restaurant and its tugboats remained in the area of Xisha Island in the South China Sea. The company has noticed the Sansha Maritime Affairs Bureau. According to the statement released by the company on June 20, the seawater entered the vessel soon after the accident due to the poor weather conditions and capsized on June 18. It said that the vessel was sunk over 1,000 metres, which made the salvage works extremely difficult. Local media reported that the vessel was “sunk” on June 20 but their public relations representative did not clarify the sayings. The Hong Kong Marine Department (HKMD) mentioned that before the media began reporting on the sinking of the floating restaurant, HKMD had not received any notification from the vessel’s owner before June 23. While HKMD responded to the media request that the vessel’s owner submitted the written report regarding the incident on June 23. They cited from the report that the Jumbo floating restaurant was “capsized” and it is still in the water near the Paracel Islands. The official did not indicate that it was “sunk”. The company replied in the statement on …
Increased use of telemedicine during the Covid-19
- 2022-06-13
- Health & Environment
- The Young Reporter
- By: Karmen LiEdited by: Leona Liu
- 2022-06-13
The fifth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Hong Kong gives telemedicine a boost as many clinics are closed to prevent cross-infection and patients may be reluctant to attend the in-person appointments during the pandemic. Despite the constraints in video consultation such as being unable to physically examine the patients, it can provide the right medication and immediate medical suggestions for Covid-19 patients with mild symptoms.
Blind saxophonist in China’s national disabled performing troupe speaks on success and overcoming challenges
- 2022-06-08
- People
- The Young Reporter
- By: Ziyu Bruce ZhaoEdited by: Summer Li
- 2022-06-08
“One more time. Don’t make the audience feel your actions are too stiff, ” the director of the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Winter Games 2022 in Beijing said to Wang Qi as he practiced walking and turning on the stage. “Try to reduce the sense of performance,” the director said. Wang was practicing raising his hands to display the emblem of the winter Paralympic Games to the world at the opening ceremony on March 4. “I had to practice once and once again to form muscle memory,” he said. “We have been rehearsing intensively since January.” Wang, 40, a leading saxophonist in China, has been performing in the China Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe for more than a decade. His performance has been seen at many historic moments of China including APEC Summit and Shanghai Expo 2011. “For visually-abled people, it's natural to go to the center of the stage and then turn around and face the audience. But because we blind people can't see, we don't know which position to go on the stage, and we don't know how much to turn around is appropriate,” he said. “But if we practice too much without correct guidance, our movements will be too deliberate.” Wang, who wears his hair long and is always in sunglasses, has been blind for almost 30 years. In 1995, when Wang was 15 and had been blind for two years, one teacher at the special education school in his hometown Dalian led a group of students to a room full of musical instruments, where Wang befriended the saxophone. “I was standing in the big room, trying to recall those instruments I saw before losing my sight,” he said. “Suddenly, the saxophone jumped into my mind. I walked ahead and held it in my arms.” However, …
Pandemic gives rise to depression and anxiety
- 2022-05-31
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Hamish CHANEdited by: Nicholas Shu
- 2022-05-31
Rachel Li Liang-yu, 24, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 12 years ago. It is a mental disorder associated with extreme mood swings, ranging from depressive lows to manic highs. She said her emotions are more unpredictable than before due to COVID-19, and her mood swings are the worst during lockdowns. “It is because the clinic where I used to meet my psychiatrist has been closed for a while due to the lockdown in Hebei, China,” Li said. Dr. Adrian Low, the president of the Hong Kong Association of Psychology, said it is common for people to feel stressed due to the massive amount of information during the pandemic. “For those who suffered from mental health issues before, they are more easily triggered,” Low said. “For the ordinary public, they may face depression easier than before as well.” According to the World Health Organisation’s research in 2022, the pandemic has triggered an increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide by 25%. Parents’ anxiety levels have also been elevated. Cheng Lihua, a mother of two primary school children in Hong Kong, said she feels anxious and depressed due to the pandemic. “As a parent, it is normal to be worried,” said Cheng, “especially when there is so much negative information on television, WeChat groups and other social media.” The depression rate of mothers increased from 19% before the pandemic to 35% in July 2020, while the anxiety rate increased from 18% to 31%, according to research by the Department of Psychology, University of Calgary. This research suggested that the mental states of parents taking responsibility for their children’s academics and daily lives at the same time are severely compromised. Cheng said when her children leave home for school, she often worries about the campus hygiene and is scared that her …
What can dreams tell us about our physical and mental health?
- 2022-05-19
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Lokman YuenEdited by: Kiki Lo、Clarice Wu
- 2022-05-19
The crowd rushed at me, embraced me in an uncomfortable way. I struggled to get away, or get help, and then I woke up. That was my recollection of a dream to Akira Cheung Ka-fai, founder of HARMONIC Holistic Healing Centre. Cheung is a clinical hypnotherapist who specialises in the interpretation of dreams. He said that graphics and sensations may be merely symbolic representations of real-life issues, but emotions and feelings are not distorted, but are real because the subconscious mind does not lie. “With more intense emotions and feelings, or more frequent occurrences, messages from the subconscious mind become more important and urgent to the conscious mind,” he said. Cheung does not think one should use the conscious mind and rational thinking to interpret dreams, because the landscape can change and is symbolic, and sometimes what appears in a dream may not necessarily be the problem. It wasn’t until we tried to understand and analyze my dream that I fully understood how the conscious mind can block out the subconscious mind. “So what was the scene in the dream? Who came up to you and hugged you,” he asked. “A wedding, a relative’s wedding, and then my mum’s relatives interrupting me,” I said. “But now that I clearly remember that wedding from my secondary school days, and it wasn’t that terrible, and my relatives weren’t that annoying,” I added, But soon I realised it was my conscious mind analysing the dream. “What emotion did you feel in the dream,” he asked. I closed my eyes and tried to recall the dream and identify the strongest feelings in that situation. “Pure annoyance, a struggle to break free, a feeling of powerlessness,” I said. “Elements and images in dreams can change and are symbolic only, but the feeling is always true, …
Polycystic ovary syndrome patients regain menstruation by following the ketogenic diet
- 2022-05-19
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Gigi Chong、Tiffany MaEdited by: Hamish CHAN
- 2022-05-19
After Patricia Wong Oi-wai went a year without menstruating, she went on a ketogenic diet, a popular high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet commonly called “keto”. She weighed her meals, checked for fat content and only seasoned them with salt and pepper. Diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome at the age of 36, Wong refused to take medications. Instead, she read that a ketogenic diet could relieve her symptoms. She tried it to see whether it was real. PCOS is a common endocrine hormone condition among women of reproductive age that causes irregular menstruation, acne and excessive masculine features such as an overabundance of body hair. PCOS affects between 6% and 12% of women of reproductive age around the globe, according to a study from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. However, there is no precise clinical procedure to cure PCOS. "If there is a way that would heal my sickness without taking any medication, why not give it a try?" Wong said. "After trying it out, it works." Wong used to cook for herself and cut back on social gatherings to meet the strict requirements of the ketogenic diet – a daily food consumption of 70% fat, 20% protein, 5% vegetables and 5% carbohydrates. Wong lost nine kilograms after strictly following the ketogenic diet for a month and regained her menstruation four years ago. A ketogenic diet is often used to lose weight and improve insulin resistance. PCOS patients said their emotions and hair condition improved on the diet and that it helped with weight loss and regulated menstruation cycles. It even increases the chance to get pregnant, according to a pilot study from Nutrition & Metabolism. Wong, who said her PCOS symptoms have mostly been relieved by adopting a ketogenic diet, said it was tough for her to avoid carbohydrates and sugar …
Multimedia: Hong Kong's sixth chief executive election
- 2022-05-16
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Jayde CheungEdited by: Nick Yang
- 2022-05-16
The sixth chief executive election was held last Sunday. John Lee Ka-chiu, becomes the chief executive-elect with over 99% support from the Election Committee. The Young Reporter documented this first uncontested election in the city.
Trouble in mainland quarantine after escaping pandemic in Hong Kong
- 2022-05-11
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Ziyu Bruce ZhaoEdited by: Summer Li
- 2022-05-11
As the pandemic hit Hong Kong with unprecedented Omicron variants, many people working and studying in the city have started their journey to escape to mainland since mid February to avoid the health crisis. However, the poor living condition, extraordinary high prices and awful food during the 21-day quarantine caused a lot of inconvenience to the people longing to return home.