#Opinion by Lau Sai Leung 劉細良｜"Education is for people’s well-being, but in Hong Kong, it has become a killing institution."

Read more: https://bit.ly/3tqIPe7

"教育本是為人謀幸福，在香港，已經變成殺人機構。"
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剛剛的北美之行，在演出之餘，當然也勾結了不少的當地的媒體。

#lgbtqInHongKong #CensorshipInChina #FreedomOfSpeech #LiberateHongKong #StandWithHongKong #CantoPop

//Anthony Wong’s Forbidden Colors

Out Hong Kong Canto-pop star brings his activism to US during his home’s protest crisis

BY MICHAEL LUONGO

From 1988’s “Forbidden Colors,” named for a 1953 novel by gay Japanese writer Yukio Mishima to this year’s “Is It A Crime?,” commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Hong Kong Canto-pop star Anthony Wong Yiu-ming has combined music and activism over his long career. As Hong Kong explodes in revolt against Beijing’s tightening grip with the One Country, Two Systems policy ticking to its halfway point, Wong arrived stateside for a tour that included ’s Gramercy Theatre.

Gay City News caught up with 57-year-old Wong in the Upper West Side apartment of Hong Kong film director Evans Chan, a collaborator on several films. The director was hosting a gathering for Hong Kong diaspora fans, many from the New York For Hong Kong (NY4HK) solidarity movement.

The conversation covered Wong’s friendship with out actress, model, and singer Denise Ho Wan-see who co-founded the LGBTQ group Big Love Alliance with Wong and recently spoke to the US Congress; the late Leslie Cheung, perhaps Asia’s most famous LGBTQ celebrity; the threat of China’s rise in the global order; and the ongoing relationship among Canto-pop, the Cantonese language, and Hong Kong identity.

Wong felt it was important to point out that Hong Kong’s current struggle is one of many related to preserving democracy in the former British colony that was handed back to China in 1997. While not his own lyrics, Wong is known for singing “Raise the Umbrella” at public events and in Chan’s 2016 documentary “Raise the Umbrellas,” which examined the 2014 Occupy Central or Umbrella Movement, when Hong Kong citizens took over the central business district for nearly three months, paralyzing the city.

Wong told Gay City News, “I wanted to sing it on this tour because it was the fifth anniversary of the Umbrella Movement last week.”

He added, “For a long time after, nobody wanted to sing that song, because we all thought the Umbrella Movement was a failure. We all thought we were defeated.”

Still, he said, without previous movements “we wouldn’t have reached today,” adding, “Even more so than the Umbrella Movement, I still feel we feel more empowered than before.”

Hong Kong’s current protests came days after the 30th anniversary commemorations of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, known in China as the June 4th Incident. Hong Kong is the only place on Chinese soil where the Massacre can be publicly discussed and commemorated. Working with Tats Lau of his band Tat Ming Pair, Wong wrote the song “Is It A Crime?” to perform at Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen commemoration. The song emphasizes how the right to remember the Massacre is increasingly fraught.

“I wanted our group to put out that song to commemorate that because to me Tiananmen Square was a big enlightenm­ent,” a warning of what the Beijing government will do to those who challenge it, he said, adding that during the June 4 Victoria Park vigil, “I really felt the energy and the power was coming back to the people. I really felt it, so when I was onstage to sing that song I really felt the energy. I knew that people would go onto the street in the following days.”

As the genre Canto-pop suggests, most of Wong’s work is in Cantonese, also known as Guangdonghua, the language of Guangdong province and Hong Kong. Mandarin, or Putonghua, is China’s national language. Wong feels Beijing’s goal is to eliminate Cantonese, even in Hong Kong.

“When you want to destroy a people, you destroy the language first, and the culture will disappear,” he said, adding that despite Cantonese being spoken by tens of millions of people, “we are being marginaliz­ed.”

Canto-pop and the Cantonese language are integral to Hong Kong’s identity; losing it is among the fears driving the protests.

“Our culture is being marginalized, more than five years ago I think I could feel it coming, I could see it coming,” Wong said. “That’s why in my music and in my concerts, I kept addressing this issue of Hong Kong being marginaliz­ed.”

This fight against the marginalization of identity has pervaded Wong’s work since his earliest days.

“People would find our music and our words, our lyrical content very apocalyptic,” he explained. “Most of our songs were about the last days of Hong Kong, because in 1984, they signed over the Sino-British declaration and that was the first time I realized I was going to lose Hong Kong.”

Clarifying identity is why Wong officially came out in 2012, after years of hints. He said his fans always knew but journalists hounded him to be direct.

“I sang a lot of songs about free love, about ambiguity and sexuality — even in the ‘80s,” he said, referring to 1988’s “Forbidden Colors.” “When we released that song as a single, people kept asking me questions.”

In 1989, he released the gender-fluid ballad “Forget He is She,” but with homosexuality still criminalized until 1991, he did not state his sexuality directly.

That changed in 2012, a politically active year that brought Hong Kongers out against a now-defunct plan to give Beijing tighter control over grade school curriculum. Raymond Chan Chi-chuen was elected to the Legislative Council, becoming the city’s first out gay legislator. In a concert, Wong used a play on the Chinese word “tongzhi,” which has an official meaning of comrade in the communist sense, but also homosexual in modern slang. By flashing the word about himself and simultaneously about an unpopular Hong Kong leader considered loyal to the Chinese Communist Party, he came out.

“The [2012] show is about identity about Hong Kong, because the whole city is losing its identity,” he said. “So I think I should be honest about it. It is not that I had been very dishonest about it, I thought I was honest enough.”

That same year he founded Big Love Alliance with Denise Ho, who also came out that year. The LGBTQ rights group organizes Hong Kong’s queer festival Pink Dot, which has its roots in Singapore’s LGBTQ movement. Given the current unrest, however, Pink Dot will not be held this year in Hong Kong.

As out celebrities using their star power to promote LGBTQ issues, Wong and Ho follow in the footsteps of fellow Hong Konger Leslie Cheung, the late actor and singer known for “Farewell My Concubine” (1993), “Happy Together” (1997), and other movies where he played gay or sexually ambiguous characters.

“He is like the biggest star in Hong Kong culture,” said Wong, adding he was not a close friend though the two collaborated on an album shortly before Cheung’s 2003 suicide.

Wong said that some might think he came to North America at an odd time, while his native city is literally burning. However, he wanted to help others connect to Hong Kong.

“My tool is still primarily my music, I still use my music to express myself, and part of my concern is about Hong Kong, about the world, and I didn’t want to cancel this tour in the midst of all this unrest,” he said. “In this trip I learned that I could encourage more people to keep an eye on what is going on in Hong Kong.”

Wong worries about the future of LGBTQ rights in Hong Kong, explaining, “We are trying to fight for the freedom for all Hong Kongers. If Hong Kongers don’t have freedom, the minorities won’t.”

That’s why he appreciates Taiwan’s marriage equality law and its leadership in Asia on LGBTQ rights.

“I am so happy that Taiwan has done that and they set a very good example in every way and not just in LGBT rights, but in democracy,” he said.

Wong was clear about his message to the US, warning “what is happening to Hong Kong won’t just happen to Hong Kongers, it will happen to the free world, the West, all those crackdowns, all those censorships, all those crackdowns on freedom of the press, all this crackdown will spread to the West.”

Wong’s music is banned in Mainland China because of his outspokenness against Beijing.

Like other recent notable Hong Kong visitors including activist Joshua Wong who testified before Congress with Ho, Wong is looking for the US to come to his city’s aid.

Wong tightened his body and his arms against himself, his most physically expressive moment throughout the hour and a half interview, and said, “Whoever wants to have a relationship with China, no matter what kind of relationship, a business relationship, an artistic relationship, or even in the academic world, they feel the pressure, they feel that they have to be quiet sometimes. So we all, we are all facing this situation, because China is so big they really want the free world to compromise.”

(These remarks came just weeks before China’s angry response to support for Hong Kong protesters voiced by the Houston Rockets’ general manager that could threaten significant investment in the National Basketball Association by that nation.)

Wong added, “America is the biggest democracy in the world, and they really have to use their influence to help Hong Kong. I hope they know this is not only a Hong Kong issue. This will become a global issue because China really wants to rule the world.”

Of that prospect, he said, “That’s very scary.”//

Your time as a caterpillar has expired. Your wings are ready. Let your dreams take flight. #GoForIt

#Quoteoftheday #Motivational #Mondays

Riding the clouds Malaysia Airlines #Malaysiaairlines

Track: Feel so Right by Hounded Ft. Bamiyah

Stephon Marbury dominated early. Allen Iverson struck late.

Iverson scored 14 of his 38 points in the final nine minutes as the Philadelphia 76ers rallied for a 102-94 victory over Marbury and the New Jersey Nets.

The NBA's leading scorer, Iverson fell a bucket shy of his 16th 40-point game of the season. He took over in the fourth quarter, giving the 76ers their first lead since the opening minute with a fadeaway jumper with 8:22 remaining and made sure they never trailed again.

Iverson was just 12-of-32 from the field but made 13-of-14 free throws and added seven assists and four steals. He scored 14 of Philadelphia's final 19 points, then skipped the media to nurse bruised ribs and a fat lip, products of a somewhat chippy game.

Marbury collected 20 points and 14 assists. He scored 16 points in the first half, when the Nets controlled play. But he went scoreless over the final 7 1/2 minutes, when the Sixers trapped him to force the ball out of his hands.

Forced to become a playmaker rather than a scorer, Marbury was let down a bit by his teammates. The Nets scored just 15 points in the fourth quarter and lost for the 12th time in their last 13 road games.

Last month, Iverson and Marbury teamed up to rally the Eastern Conference from a 21-point fourth-quarter deficit to victory in the All-Star Game. In this one, Iverson hounded Marbury down the stretch. Marbury shot 8-of-24 and committed seven turnovers.

"They went big, and we tried to trap him and get it out of his hands," Sixers coach Larry Brown said. "Then we tried to keep him from getting it. Our big guys did a good job of trapping and then Allen did a terrific job of denying."

"He was getting fouled and he wasn't getting calls," Nets coach Byron Scott said. "He goes to the line two times tonight. That's ridiculous. They say he is creating all the contact, but that other little guy (Iverson) that is pretty (darn) good does the same thing and he goes to the line 14 times. Tell me the difference."

Tyrone Hill had 13 points and 14 rebounds for the Sixers, who have won three in a row and eight of 10. They are 4-2 since acquiring All-Star center Dikembe Mutombo, although he was not on the floor when the Sixers made their surge.

"Tyrone Hill just killed us on the boards," Scott said. "That was the difference."

The league-leading Sixers (45-16) dominated the boards, 41-28, and avenged a 96-89 loss at New Jersey on February 4 in which they blew a 15-point third-quarter lead.

"We have a bull's-eye," Hill said. "Every team that we play wants to play hard and wants to beat us. ... They feel if they can beat the No. 1 team twice in one year, that it shows you what kind of talent they have."

The Sixers trailed 79-75 entering the fourth quarter but began the period with a 10-4 run that Iverson capped with his go-ahead jumper. It was Philadelphia's first lead since 2-0.

Marbury answered with a layup for his final points and the teams traded a pair of points before Iverson made two free throws and a jumper that followed a dive to the floor that kept possession for the Sixers and gave them a 91-87 lead with 4:49 left.

"Allen made an unbelievable hustle play among a lot of great plays," Brown said. "Defensively, I thought he's improved a lot, but that was by far for a whole game his best defense. He played against a great player."

A free throw and dunk by Aaron Williams got the Nets within one before Iverson struck again. He came around a screen for a jumper and added two free throws for a 95-90 bulge with 2:57 to go.

Williams made two more free throws, but Mutombo powered for a three-point play after Hill kept possession with by hustling for a rebound. Iverson answered rookie Kenyon Martin's jumper with one of his own and Eric Snow's jumper sealed it at 102-94 with 35 seconds remaining.

"They were hitting some shots in the first half, but we kind of tightened it up in the second half and it was hard for them to make the shots they were making in the first half," Hill said.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas didn't care who was or wasn't wearing a 76ers' jersey.

Four years between victories over Philadelphia was long enough.

Ilgauskas scored 28 points and had a key putback, assist and
block in overtime as the Cavaliers snapped a 16-game losing streak
against the Sixers with a 91-88 win Saturday night.

The 7-foot-3 Ilgauskas added eight rebounds and a career-high
seven assists for the Cavs, who hadn't beaten the undermanned
Sixers since April 2, 1999, at Philadelphia.

"Every win is a good win for us," Ilgauskas said. "We only
won 17 games last year, so they're all big. That's a tough team to
beat."

Rookie LeBron James had 22 points, eight assists, five rebounds
and a huge block with 11 seconds left in overtime for the
Cavaliers, who won it with defense down the stretch.

With Cleveland clinging to 90-88 lead, James was caught by a
pick in the lane but raced across the floor and swatted away rookie
Kyle Korver's jumper from the baseline.

"They used (Allen) Iverson as a decoy," James said. "When
Korver got it, I knew he was going to shoot and I just had one of
my high school moments."

Korver then missed a 3-pointer with 5.5 seconds left, and Kevin
Ollie made one of two free throws for Cleveland. Philadelphia guard
Eric Snow's desperation heave at the horn was way off.

The Sixers played without their starting frontcourt for the
second straight game. Derrick Coleman, Glenn Robinson and Kenny
Thomas sat out with injuries.

Iverson, the NBA's leading scorer, matched a season-low with 19
points on 8-of-29 shooting. After leading the Sixers to a win over
the defending champion San Antonio Spurs on Friday, Iverson, who
was hounded by Ricky Davis, just didn't have it.

"If I have an off-night, I have an off-night," Iverson said.
"But I don't do my teammates any favors if I quit trying. You have
to keep fighting and hopefully something will happen at the end.
That's the way it nearly went."

Marc Jackson had 19 points and 15 rebounds for the Sixers, who
shot 34 percent. Snow was just 3-for-15 from the field.

Carlos Boozer, who had 15 points and 15 rebounds, opened the OT
with a jumper and then scored on a dunk off a nice inside feed from
Ilgauskas to put the Cavs up 88-84 with 2:47 left.

After John Salmons scored for Philly, the Cavs crashed the
boards with Ilgauskas finally following in a miss underneath to
make it 90-86.

Ilgauskas, who played the entire OT with five personal fouls,
then blocked Salmons' shot with 1:27 left.

"It was Z's night," Iverson said of Ilgauskas. "They ran
their offense through him. He shot well and caused us problems with
his passing, too."

Aaron McKie's two free throws pulled Philly to 90-88, but the
Cavs survived the comeback with some stifling defense -- a rarity
for them in the early season -- and just enough offense down the
stretch.

"This is a huge win for us," James said. "We didn't buckle
under pressure and we executed in overtime. That's a big, big step
for us."

在美國的第一個感恩節
劉姥姥進大觀園的第一次黑色星期五
實在新鮮要好好記錄一下哈哈
逛街吃飯煮飯動物園都在裡面
一支大雜燴的Vlog希望你們會喜歡 :D

♫Music :
Hounded-On My Side (feat. Savoi)
Stupead- Let Me Know

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