Digestive Disruption

^Special pastries in a semi-circular shape with decorative edges are the must-try Chinese New Year treat when paying visits to people's homes.

This is the second day of the Chinese New Year (CNY). In Hong Kong, as in any Chinese communities around the world, the first three days of the CNY are regarded as a celebrative period. Here in Hong Kong, these three days are public holidays. Contrary to what you are probably thinking now, a lot of shops are doing business as usual. The CNY is a great time to visit Hong Kong for all the annual celebrations going on in town, from parade, fireworks to some folk culture activities like making wishes upon the wishing tree.

^Oily CNY treats are best to be taken with Chinese tea.

The CNY is also the best time to disrupt stomach because, except for the vegetarian bowls to be eaten on the first day of the CNY, all the CNY foods are oily. The most representative are the CNY cakes.

There are several kinds of such cakes. The above photo shows the ones made with turnip (the top two) and taro (the rest), respectively.

These are my favourite, made with glutinous rice and water chestnut.

This last dish is of the kind made with glutinous rice and cane sugar. Usually they are fried with scrambled eggs.

Why do the Chinese take these oily CNY cakes? The Chinese language is a good tool to play with words because a large percentage of the characters are homophonic. The CNY cakes are pronounced in Cantonese as Nin Go, or Nian Gao in Mandarin. Nin Go is also the pronunciation of the Chinese words meaning Year(ly) Advances, which carries an auspicious meaning.

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A Real Hero

(Grip On Reality: This photo was taken on my way to work. I was walking past trucks parking on a cul-de-sac when the ropes caught my attention. The light was right, the colour was right and the criss-crossing pattern was perfect and I held up my GX200. People passing by checked me out and wondered what could be made out of such a boring scene. To me, the fun in photography is that the photographer makes something interesting out of what is not obvious to most at the scene. The ropes tied in knots somehow reminded people I know who are in the grip of the recession) You must have also known a friend or two, or even yourself, being baffled by the spiral downturn of the economy. Bank went bankrupt and the rich was faced with a shrinking wealth. A friend of mine has just had his salary cut by over 10% and some of his colleagues started to be shed. But, wait. Was this done really for the sake of continuing the business? Or is there a factor or greed in it? I wonder whether the

New Low Prices

The window shopping some hours ago has almost provoked my AgIDS illness. Just in case you’re in Hong Kong or are coming here, and have the money to burn (All in HK$/ body only): GX200 = $3,280 GRD2 = $3,380 LX3 = $3,180 G10 = $3,280 Prices are available form a gear shop on the 1st floor of the Mongkok Computer Centre. Besides these new low prices, I found that Wing Shing Photo (55-57Sai Yeung Choi St., MK Tel: 2396 6886/ 91-95 Fa Yuen St., MK Tel: 2396 6885) is offering a Sony A700 + Carl Zeiss Lens package for HK$9,980 (hopefully, a bargain will make it some hundreds cheaper).

Eye Contact

(Leica D-lux 5) The digital era may make it easier to end up with fave shots. Even lousy photos may be turned likable after a few clicks in the post-processing workflow. But if digital advancement or amendments have any bearing on the cultivation of personal style, no photographers will need to discover his or her own photographer’s eye. Undoutedly, this is out of the question. Only with a trained photographer’s eye can we give a thinking gaze and capture an eternal moment, in our unique style. Style is the soul of a great photo. A few posts have been written in GXG to touch on the topic of photographer’s eye. Instead of finding an answer, which would require academic discussions, the posts are intended to give my general reflections and spark interests in moving towards further exploration of the topic. The posts can be viewed after the links: 1) Photographer's Eye: Storytelling 2) Photographer's Eye: Little Show of Observing 3) Photographer's Eye: Sight-Worthy 4

GX GARNERINGS

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