GX GARNERINGS

(Ricoh GX200) My eye was attracted by the mysterious tone of the colour of the scene. Hong Kong has been raining in one hour and heating up with sunshine in another for a week. This so reminds me of the notorious four-seasons-in-a-day weather in Melbourne. The ISO400 doesn't fair well. I knew that it wasn't from day one, but this is more unbearable for today's standard. What a wishful thinking that Ricoh can follow up the GX series with a new one in the same body but a new sensor inside.

(Leica X1) These days the chance of seeing a movie with an all-star oldie cast is few and far between. But if you are interested, there is one on recently. It's The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel. I watched a preview of this thought-provoking work of John Madden, the director who swept seven Academy awards with the Shakespeare in Love back in 1998. Marigold Hotel is themed on the notion of aging, life goals and the regrets of life. In the movie, the director tried to portrait two types of people. One is those who are unduly absorbed in the past. They live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about the things they have or have not done in life. It was heart-warming to see in the movie some gradually managed to liberate themselves from the missing pieces of life which had oppressed their soul for too long. But grabbing a stronger hold of the heart were the sad moments when the characters clung back to their comfort zone in the hope of sucking vigour from what ...

(Leica X1) "Dabinlo", literally hot potting, is a faddish Cantonese colloquial term amusingly describing the common street scene of smokers taking cigarette breaks around the iconic orange rubbish bins. What is reminiscent of real Cantonese hot potting is not the eating element in smoking but the images of smokers repeatedly dropping ashes into the astray fitted atop the rubbish bins and of the astray giving out smoke from the ashes and lit stubs left in it. (If you don’t know, for Cantonese hot potting, the locals dip raw food into the pot of boiling soup and draw it out for consumption when cooked. An old post about Cantonese hot pot is here ) Contributing to this street hot potting culture is the rolling out of the stringent indoor smoking ban in Hong Kong. Since then, smokers have no chance to assuage their regular spasms of sense of insecurity occurring in indoor places or public transport. To save themselves from dying of not smoking, they hold onto the rubbish b...

(Leica X1) I bumped into these three visitors with tattoos all over them. The next thing on my mind was going over to ask them for a snap. And I did.  Normally, going over to tattooed people is a no-no in Hong Kong. Why? You may ask. In China, the history of tattooing goes as far back as to around the Warring States Period (A.D. 403 to 221). For example, as given in the ancient books, the lord of the then Yue state had tattoos. While tattooing could also be closely associated with branding as one of the punishments for criminals in the imperial days, tattoos were taken more as ornamentations as time wore on. Take for example the Outlaws of the Marsh (circa 960-1279), one of the four ancient chefs-d'oeuvre of China (the other three are The Story of the Stone, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West). The novelist invented three characters with tattoos on their body in the novel. Could these characters be taken from real life personalities? I have no doubt. ...

(Ricoh GX200) Some years ago, I bookmarked a column article titled "My Guide to Old Age" written by Brian Aldiss for the Guardian back in 2006. It was not that I was or am - but for everyone the time will come one day - old enough to need the consultation myself but that, as an octogenarian, he gave an insight in one spot which human nature is rooted in. Which is love. As you read along the article, you may see that threading through his tips is the theme of love. The love of life, of reading, of exploring around, of the awaking hours and, the most important of all, the love shown by and towards his woman. He wrote in the middle part of the article before turning to the inconveniences of old age, "Many people feel old at 30. I still feel young in spirit. And there is a great abounding reason for that, though she has begged me not to mention her name. She is just the most empathic, intelligent, adorable woman I have had the luck to meet. My winter sunshine....

(Leica X1) Workers of the world, arise! Hey, gweilo and gweipo, how can you be drinking all night and unaffected by the overnight visceral alcoholic fermentation, huh?

(Leica D-Lux5) This is a special day to take special care of your mum. Happy Mother's Day.