All Around Town: Legco breaks into song and games for one night
End-of-term dinner sees lawmakers set rivalries aside for singing competition and games with journalists
According to the University of Hong Kong’s poll, Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing is the most popular among the 70 legislators. But when it comes to musical talents, he is no match for engineering representative Lo Wai-kwok.
At the end-of-term dinner on Tuesday, a singing contest was held among lawmakers and journalists, and Lo – who also showed off his saxophone skills during the event - won the first prize. The first and second runners-up were NeoDemocrat Gary Fan Kwok-wai and Democratic Party’s Wu Chi-wai, respectively.
But during the event, pan-democratic and pro-establishment lawmakers also set their rivalry aside and teamed up to play games with journalists.
The atmosphere of the dinner reached its climax when outgoing lawmakers Civic Party leader Alan Leong Kah-kit and pro-establishment veteran Ip Kwok-him, from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, sang a duet. Leong and Ip will retire this summer to make way for younger party colleagues.
Tony Cheung
Jasper Tsang wouldn’t change his teacher past
If there was a time machine, would Jasper Tsang Yok-sing choose a different path 48 years ago?
In 1968, he graduated with first class honours from the University of Hong Kong’s mathematics department, and received offers from four prestigious universities in the United States for further studies. But he declined those offers and instead joined the pro-Beijing Pui Kiu Middle School as a teacher.
He told All Around Town on Monday he made that decision - which stunned many people at HKU at the time - because there were student movements all over the world and also anti-Vietnamese war protests in the United States. He decided to wait until things calmed down.
“I never doubted my ability to get a second chance. So I gave up those offers easily,” Tsang said.
He went to teach at Pui Kiu with no intention of spending the rest of his life there. “I thought I could spend a couple of years with them. I wanted to know more about China, and the school provided with a lot of chances to visit the region.”
“If I could choose again and was taken back to 1968 on a time machine, I probably would make the same choice,” he said.
Tsang later rose as a high-flyer in the leftist camp.He then founded the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong in 1992. The rest is history.
Gary Cheung
Everyone loves a love story at election time
With the Legco election looming, politicians are stepping up their game on social media to grab the public’s attention. And veteran lawmaker Frederick Fung Kin-kee, of the Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood, has jumped on the bandwagon. In collaboration with a group of filmmakers, the lawmaker produced a 10-minute short film based on his love story with his wife, which has been posted on Facebook. The film, 18 Years of Love, told the story of how the couple met during university and that it took Fung 18 years to finally convince his wife to be in a relationship with him. Back in May, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor softened her public image somewhat by revealing how she met her husband during a radio show. Perhaps Fung has taken a page out of Lam’s book on how to win over the public as he gears up to run in the New Territories West Legco race?
Owen Fung
