Winnie engaged in art creation before. She once helped her friend, who was adopted by an overseas family, find her biological family. Having witnessed the family reunion, Winnie was deeply moved. She thus set up a website to help other people locate their lost families. From searching through information in libraries to going out looking for clues in person, she is always fully devoted and never gives up. She has helped more than 20 people locate their families and now there are still more than 80 cases pending. Facing the “missions impossible” and having only limited clues, Winnie said she would leave no stone unturned. She believes that whether one will successfully find his / her family depends on both human effort and fate.

Last week, billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that he believes more than 50% of business travel and 30% of office life will disappear in the post-Covid-19 world. There is certainly no doubt that for now our work and travel activities remain severely restricted. Given this new normal, the European Union Office in Hong Kong and Macao and the German Consulate General Hong Kong recently joined forces to organise a music programme hoping to, at least temporarily, take audiences to places they can’t otherwise reach. The fallout from this year’s Covid-19 pandemic and last year’s social unrest has been particularly disruptive for students. Classes have been stopped intermittently, and not everyone has equal access to online learning. These interruptions have made life particularly hard for those who need physical access to facilities and equipment to complete their work, such as students of art or other creative subjects. And the students, particularly in places like the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, have also had the psychological effects of those factors to face. Adia Millett is an American multi-media artist who incorporates quilting, painting, stitching, woodwork and diorama creation. In her first exhibition in Hong Kong, “A Matter of Time” at Galerie du Monde, Millett uses colourful hues, lines, shapes, patterns and textures to encourage viewers to construct their own meaning during committed moments spent experiencing her work.

Dining alone, watching movies alone, shopping alone. Will that make you feel free or lonely? How can design help you enjoy spending time on your own? Kevin, an interior designer and restaurant head chef, said, “Sitting at the low counter, you can chat with the chef anytime, and you can continue to eat alone. While sitting there on your own, you also know that there are other people by your side.” How much can a person understand the needs of another person? How much can a person understand his / her own needs? Hans and Peter, founders of a self-ordering system company, said, “Waiters cannot remember the preferences of thousands of diners visiting every day, while self-ordering system can provide customized recommendations.” In the crowd, you think nobody is watching you, and you can finally be yourself. However, when being immersed in the crowd, you notice you can only be yourself when someone is watching you. Being a foreigner in an unfamiliar city, one cannot find the feeling of home until he encounters a laundry. Designer Katol said, “Hong Kong people are short of time in solitude and silence.” Is there any good idea to design ways to experience the city on your own? Edit a visual content of the city’s small structures? Seize your lunch time for a journey to admire buildings? Let the birds’ twitters show you a birdwatching route? Perhaps, you will finally discover a broader world when you are not alone.

As an African proverb goes, when elephants fight it is the grass that suffers. Currently, Hong Kong is finding itself in the position of that grass. Starting this month, locally-made goods can no longer be exported to the United States with the label “Made in Hong Kong”. More on that later. But first, tech giants such as Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have dominated the world for decades. Today though, so-called “platform” companies and the “platform economy” are in the ascendant. One research report by McKinsey suggests more than 30% of global economic activity - some US$60 trillion - could be mediated by digital platforms within the next six years. And that concerns regulators everywhere, including in mainland China, where the government worries that digital platform companies such as Tencent, and Alibaba and its affiliated Ant Group, could be getting too big and too influential. As his presidential term started, Donald Trump was sometimes full of praises for Chinese President Xi Jinping. Later though, he changed tack, accusing China of unfair trading practices and intellectual property theft and initiating a trade war with China in 2018. The US has since imposed hefty tariffs on Chinese goods, and China has naturally retaliated. In January, both sides called a truce, but Hong Kong has been caught in the US-China crossfire. Since the introduction of the National Security Law in May, the United States has revoked Hong Kong’s special trade status and imposed sanctions on top local and mainland officials. And starting this month, the “Made in Hong Kong” label is no longer allowed on locally-made goods exported to the US.

According to the latest World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, Hong Kong has nosedived 10 places to rank 80th in just two years. Similarly, the city's press freedom rating from the Hong Kong Journalists Association hit yet another record low this year, marking the biggest drop since surveys began. Media professionals said, the press in Hong Kong is facing an unprecedented storm after the National People's Congress passed a national security law on the city.

Document people’s stories at a location in each episode. #10 Savour of Sham Shui Po Filming location: Society for Community Organization in Sham Shui Po Producer: Cheung Sau-kuen Now: In the Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2018, before taking into account government intervention, 1.406 million people (around 1/5 of the population) are living below poverty line, hitting the highest record. Here: Sham Shui Po is poverty-stricken district. Although the people are living in small flats with poor living conditions, this place is full of human warmth.

Cha chaan teng culture is a subject particularly close to the hearts of many Hongkongers. Freshly brewed coffee is certainly making inroads into Hong Kong, but there are still plenty of people who like to drink Hong Kong-style milk tea, also known as “silk-stocking milk tea”, with their breakfast or with egg tarts and other favourites in the afternoon. Of course, there is a long tradition of tea-drinking in China, but Hong Kong-style milk tea grew out of the British tradition of afternoon tea. It has gone through changes though. Here, black tea is usually taken with evaporated or condensed milk and a variety of very Cantonese snacks. At the Whitestone Gallery you can see a series of large-scale works by Korean artist Han Youngwook in the exhibition “Face”, his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. The large portraits, sometimes alternative portraits of the same person in different moods, combine paint with scratches and other indents on aluminium, to reflect on aspects of the human condition. Han draws his inspiration from real life and from the internet, but once he has chosen a person’s image, he explores the person’s qualities, combining his own perception and creativity to reveal what he sees as the true character of the human figures and the human condition. Pianist Jamie Shum earned her music degree at Hong Kong Baptist University before going on to obtain a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance and Literature at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. This Thursday at City Hall she’s giving a recital that spans the 19th and 20th centuries with music from Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov, and Prokofiev. She came to our studio to tell us more.

Is it a must to use our brains when designing? Not necessarily. For designers, it is even more free and fun using their hands first, then their brains, and find out the answers directly during the production process. Young concrete art designer Stefan said, “Every time I really look forward to how the final products will look after demoulding. The anticipation brings me pleasure.” Stefan loves mixing different materials with his concrete art design. He describes that the process is like cooking as we need to use our hands to adjust the concrete art recipes into ones that suit our tastes. Paper engineer and designer Soilworm said, “When you make something by hand, you will have more room to reconsider during the process, which will induce even more possibilities.” Soilworm and his years-long partner Michael have all along insisted in handling every production step on their own. The more experiences accumulated, the further the techniques can break away from the limitations, which enables them to walk further. Toy designer Lego said, “The pleasure of hand making things is that you can create something that doesn’t exist in real life, or creatures which I think they will exist in the future.” Lego and her husband Lewa are both vinyl toy designers. They gain inspiration from the surrealist worlds in their hearts, and turn surreal creatures into art collectibles. Each work has its own original story and even contains the couple’s thoughts on real life. Architecture conservator FUNG Wai-keung said, “If new techniques can be suitably integrated with traditional crafts, the crafts will possibly become art.” FUNG is well versed in the craft of terrazzo. He hit it off with Stefan, and the latter turned the creative ideas which FUNG could not realise into handicrafts using new techniques, which has brought new opportunities to this endangered traditional craft. Maria, Programme Manager of Makerbay Foundation, said, “Neither do you need to be equipped with all production skills at the beginning, nor learning through designing. By helping and sharing with one another, everyone can be a designer, or a maker.” Through sharing tools, ideas, production skills and experiences, people from different fields can inspire, exchange with and contribute ideas to one another, letting those with ideas put their designs into practice instead of getting stuck in the stage of thinking. Producer: Manfred CHOW