早日又到山頂一遊，兩個商場裏外遊人密密麻麻，獅子亭上都是觀景和拍照的遊客，四處聽到的都是普通話對話。近年大量中國遊客訪港，令香港旅遊業興旺，旅客數目屢創高峰，成為香港經濟重要支柱，如此盛況在山頂可見一班。

然而物極必反，大陸遊客大大推動了香港旅遊業，但在這過程當中又是否改變了香港的特色呢？有時有些國內同胞較少外遊經驗，在外地有過份喧鬧的問題，我反而不是介意這些。我留意到的是山頂有些變得好像和大陸其他名山的景點差不多，總是一大堆一大堆穿得光鮮的人要擠到觀景區前拍照留念。而其他如西方，日，韓等遊客好像在大量的中國遊客當中逐漸消失了。

台灣有去中國化運動，而香港在不知不覺間好像進行了去英國化運動。殖民地歷史在短短十年間已大大淡化，東西匯聚的形象已不及「我是中國人」流行。香港獨有的特色減退，逐漸變得和國內城市越來越相近了。

Originally posted at travellife.org.

2008.10.27 comments

早日我回到我童年時成長的灣仔區懷舊，找太太替我在戰前舊樓前拍照留念，然後我再到舊樓旁的後巷拍照。太太問我幹嗎在凌亂的後巷拍照？我說我媽小時候就是沿這小巷帶我上學。那時每天早上我帶著書包跟媽媽走這條捷徑到學校，下午媽媽在學校等我下課，然後一同從這裏走回家，小學的時候就是這樣渡過。

那時的生活很簡單，下午回家吃媽媽煮的飯。有時候媽媽帶我去街市買菜，年紀小小的我嫌街市髒，就是不喜歡跟她去。媽每日都要辛勤地做家務，打掃，洗衣服，煮飯都是由她包辦。每年換季，媽會替我們準備寒衣，搬出冬天被鋪，令我們過得舒服。當我病倒在床上，媽都會很擔心，為我量體溫，盡力照顧我。

小時候的記憶實在模糊了，我努力想尋回這些印象。又想起她那時只不過是三、四十歲，是多麼年青？現在別人都稱呼她婆婆，用長者優惠她也用慣了。時光飛逝，如今我的年紀已跟她那時差不多，我的孩子都快三歲了。媽媽很愛小孩，孫兒出世後她專誠飛到美國幾個月去照料了他。以後每次聽到孫兒從電話叫她都會令她開懷，她算是老懷安慰了。

這些是我想起關於媽媽一些瑣碎小事，今日她離開了我們，我想告訴她我們都很懷念妳，感謝妳替我們所做的一切。

2008.10.24 comments

Ballad of Narayama (1983)
Director: Shohei Imamura

The Ballad of Narayama is set in a remote village in Japan. There was a tradition that before a parent reaches the age of 70, the son will bring her on the back to a remote mountain, where she will let die alone, so as not be become a burden to the family in this very deprived village. Orin was 69. She was preparing for her journey. She reminds her son Tatsuhei not to behave like his father, who 30 years ago has evaded the duty of carrying his own mother to the mountain and brought disgrace to the whole family.

20 years after my first viewing of this film I have come to know director Shohei Imamura a little better. I have also paid more attention to the social theme depicted. Besides this mountain ritual, the village also harbors a great deal of brutality, which are often codified into traditions. In this world they are all part of a population control scheme. Just being the second born son relegate one to an underclass who would lose the right to marriage and starting one's own family. The problem of second son is sometimes avoided at the start by infanticide. Far from an idyllic village, this can also be a very ugly place. Scarcity can bring out the worst in human.

The journey into the mountain was long and arduous. As dictated by tradition, mother and son spent the last hours together almost without a word. Still you can see the love between them. She refuse the rice ball offered and insist the son should have it, perhaps just like the old days. The mother settled in the valley with nothing but a straw mat. It was a gracious self-sacrifice that was so moving.

2008.08.15 [movie] - comments

I was walking by Valencia Street this afternoon and I've decided to check out Abandoned Planet, a small second hand bookstore. It has been a while since I have been there and I was wondering if it is still around. Independent bookstores are facing a lot of difficulties these days. Naturally I have concern about it.

It turned out the bookstore is still open, but only for a few more weeks. It is running a closing sale right now. A few weeks from now it is going to close for good, to meet the same fate like so many other small bookstores.

Over the years I have purchased a few books from them. The first one is Carlos Fuentes' Orange Tree. It was only a random purchase and a great find for me. Carlos Fuentes' imaginative depiction of the conquest of Mexico still intrigues me.

For me this Valencia Street corner is one of the defining San Francisco experience. When I first come to the city, I was enchanted by this neighborhood with great food and all kinds of cultural destinations, all within close proximity. I realize the economy is always hard on these small businesses. The Roxie Cinema around the corner is another long time institution those end I fear is not far. Business do come and go. But Valencia Street without Abandoned Planet or Roxie is probably not going to be the same. I am going to miss it.

2008.07.12 comments

Hong Kong Economic Journal has launched their online edition at last! HKEJ is by far the best Chinese newspaper. Finally I can access their articles from US. They must have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out a business model to sustain the web edition and at the same time maintain the business of the traditional paper. It is on their 35th anniversary, under the diminishing business climate for tradition newspaper that they finally tread into online world.

Like most Hong Kong newspaper's website, they charge a subscription fee. The annual rate is just HKD398 right now, which I paid without second thought. They website is clean and quite well organized. This is a rather great contrast to other Chinese website, which tend to have dense clutter of materials and flashy graphics. It seems they are able to carry over the same clean design of the paper edition into the web. There are forum for users to comment on articles. The volume of comment is modest so far. I have high hope that eventually they can tend the forums into lively and high quality conversations. Another curious thing is that there are only very very few advertisements. I hope this is because the website is new and not because of lack of interest from advertisers.

All in all I am very excited about this. I hope the Hong Kong Economic Journal will continue to flourish both online and offline.

2008.07.03 comments

There are many free tools available to help people manage their stock portfolio. For example, you can use Yahoo! Finance to track your current holdings. For each stock it list many detail financial data as well as stock chart for various periods. Still, when you need to do more sophisticated analysis, there is nothing that beats the power of spreadsheet.

Fortunately it is easy to pull the data from the web tool to a spreadsheet. You can simple copy and paste the data into a spreadsheet to get a properly formatted table. For there you can add your custom formula or charts. The problem is unlike the web view, data downloaded on a spreadsheet is not updated with current market information. On the other hand if you download the again you will lose all custom formula you have added.

Download sample spreadsheet

To get the best of both world, I have created a script to so that you can update your spreadsheet with the latest stock quote from the web. This is a simple Python script. It first looks for the stock symbols in your portfolio in your spreadsheet. It then fetches the (15 minute delayed) stock quote from a Yahoo web services. Finally it updates the cells in the spreadsheet with new data from Yahoo.

This tool requires Python 2.5, Excel and pywin32 extension. Click here to download the stock quote update script.

2008.06.22 [python] - comments

Recently I have come to aware of the issue of Great Pacific Garbage Patch from the media. It is large region in the Pacific Ocean that has accumulated much man-made garbage carried there by ocean current. Amount them are many plastic trash. On one hand plastic are very durable because they are not biodegradable. On the other hand plastic are photodegradable, meaning under the exposure of sunlight, they will slowly break down into smaller and smaller pieces. The result is a high concentration of pollutant in the water that is nearly impossible to clean up.

To most people this problem is nothing more than just a scientific interest. After all we don't venture into the middle of the ocean. So this problem is out of sight, out of mind. But today I have personally experienced the effect of photodegradation right in my own backyard.

Two years ago my mother has spent several months in my home. In her spare time she has built a vegetable garden in the yard. Being, shall I say, a resourceful person, she has reused many trash items to build a trellis. For example she scavenged many plastic bags that we would have throw away and used it as ties to the stakes.

Unfortunately, after she has left, we have not given the garden proper upkeep. It was quickly overrun by weeds. And finally I have to clear it out. As I was dismantling the trellis, I found the plastic bags have become very flaky. After exposed in sunlight for 2 years, the have all photodegraded. As I tried to remove them, they just break down into small pieces of white plastic and scattered all over the garden. There is just no way for me to mop up these tiny pieces from the soil. Who would have thought plastic bags can turn into a much bigger headache after it has degraded like this.

2008.06.14 comments

The Hong Kong Museum of History is running a special exhibition of the banking development in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Both modern day financial centers get their start from mid 19th century. It was an interesting exhibition of the development of the industry, from small native banks to modern day institutions, from hand written bookkeeping to electronic systems. [more...]

2008.05.15 comments

This week I am visiting my parents in Hong Kong. I have grown up in Hong Kong and lived there for most of my life. But since 13 years ago I have moved aboard. During the time I make regular visit but otherwise have not spend too much time here. I have left long enough that I feel out of touch with my birth place in many ways.[more...]

2008.05.14 [personal] - comments

There is so much fun watching a child learn. My 2 year old son is very used to the morning ritual of me leaving house. He has since learned to use the phrase "Daddy goes to work" to describe this ritual.[more...]

2008.05.03 comments