https://www.scmp.com/rss/322615/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Polls open on Monday for the People’s Choice Award in the Spirit of Hong Kong Awards, organised by the South China Morning Post. The online vote, which runs until July 24, offers readers a chance to recognise an individual finalist they found the most inspiring in the five non-group categories. Was it “the girl behind the face” who has overcome a life-threatening skin condition, cyberbullying and discrimination? Or were you most moved by the retiree who fights his Alzheimer’s by making elderly... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1984881/now-its-your-turn-vote-your-favourite-spirit-hong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1984881/now-its-your-turn-vote-your-favourite-spirit-hong?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Jul 2016 11:33:47 +0000 Sky-blue strokes, slathered on fat and dense, serve a strong contrast to the black-inked lotuses in the foreground of the painting. The abstract form of the flowers, balanced by a delicate crane perched by their side, shows the hand’s freedom in expressing what the heart feels, not what the brain sees. The hand belongs to Lee Oi-yee, 80, who has in fact only 20 per cent vision left in one eye. She had her first solo exhibition hosted by i-dArt Space in Kennedy Town earlier this year. Lee started... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1978084/art-brings-colour-life-brave-hong-kong-battler?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1978084/art-brings-colour-life-brave-hong-kong-battler?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Jun 2016 09:19:40 +0000 TVB dramas might be getting a lot of flak these days, but their influence on generations of Hongkongers is undeniable. Bill Tse Sze-kin, 21, grew up attached to the television. He was born prematurely on the mainland, and blinded in one eye by a light in his incubator. He developed into a toddler with atrophied leg muscles, so his father, a Hongkonger, brought him to the SAR. Smart Hong Kong call sees phones become eyes for the blind Here, TVB shows were his life, from programmes on ancient... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1977420/overcoming-adversity-disability-proves-no-barrier?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1977420/overcoming-adversity-disability-proves-no-barrier?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Jun 2016 08:48:36 +0000 Smartphones have proved a marvellous convenience, with greatly enhanced information and social access. What the average user may not realise is that for the visually impaired, they can offer access to life. Edward Yip Bing-chiu, 47, received his first iPhone in 2010. “It became my eyes,” says Yip, who has been blind since 1997. The accessibility offered via built-in functions and downloaded apps meant he could listen to text, navigate streets and recognise objects through verbal... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1976288/smart-hong-kong-call-sees-phones-become-eyes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1976288/smart-hong-kong-call-sees-phones-become-eyes?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 Jun 2016 09:41:01 +0000 There’s a lot of talk about “smart cities” lately. What makes a city smart? “Most people think of it on the consumer level: how can I control my room lights with my phone? We have smart phones, smart furniture, the Internet of Things,” says Matthew Lam Siu-ming, CEO of Optical Sensing. “But not many realise what smart cities really need is smart infrastructure.” A few years back, Lam was chatting with a friend who supplies buildings with electrical systems about the headaches caused by exploding... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1975547/cable-guy-proves-hong-kong-design-can-compete?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1975547/cable-guy-proves-hong-kong-design-can-compete?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Jun 2016 08:22:22 +0000 The world is grappling with the pervasive issue of cyberbullying, where victims, from schoolchildren to working adults, may be targeted anytime, anywhere. “The worst part is these bullies hide behind the anonymity of the internet,” says Mui Thomas, a cyberbullying survivor and fighter. Born with the very rare skin condition, Harlequin Ichthyosis, Thomas grows as much skin overnight as an average person does in two weeks and looks different from most others. This gave bullies an excuse to unleash... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1974496/girl-behind-face-tackles-cyber-bullies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1974496/girl-behind-face-tackles-cyber-bullies?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Jun 2016 09:07:47 +0000 When Raymond Ho Chun-wai delivered some furniture to a flat on Po Tin Estate, Tuen Mun, he was shocked as the door opened. “There was literally no furniture in there. Just a few blankets on the floor, which the family sat and slept on,” Ho recalls. The 300 sq ft apartment housed a couple, three kids and their grandmother. Ho had brought them a sofa, a bed, a wardrobe, a table and chairs. Together with the family, they silently set everything up. When they were done, the grandma went up and... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1973580/social-enterprise-delivers-little-hope-those?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1973580/social-enterprise-delivers-little-hope-those?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Jun 2016 08:18:40 +0000 Boccia gold medallist Leung Yuk-wing remembers the first time he went overseas for a competition. It was to Greece, for the Athens Paralympics in 2004. “When we got to the Paralympic Village, I noticed people from all around the world settling in, going about their business – but everyone was like me, in a wheelchair. It was so funny,” he says. When Leung was young, he was uncomfortable at the way people would look at him. He was born with arthrogryposis, the condition that describes congenital... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1970582/hong-kong-wheelchair-athlete-go-gold-again?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1970582/hong-kong-wheelchair-athlete-go-gold-again?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Jun 2016 09:12:44 +0000 Myth busted: reading in dim light will not damage your eyes, health experts have confirmed. What it will do is cause temporary eye strain, and make you more easily tired. Lighting is a pivotal part of our lives, relating to health, productivity, safety and the environment. Yet, shockingly, some in Hong Kong don’t have access to proper lighting. “You can really see it in subdivided homes, which is a serious problem in Hong Kong,” says Derek Wu Chi-chung, 37, CEO of local lighting solutions... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1969366/how-i-saw-light-and-got-my-company-community?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1969366/how-i-saw-light-and-got-my-company-community?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 08 Jun 2016 09:22:03 +0000 In the 2002 Hong Kong movie Time 4 Hope, Nick Cheung Ka-fai plays a screenwriter in his prime who has just won a top film award and movie companies are fighting to hire him. But one fateful night, a car crash leaves him crippled in one leg. He watches his fame and fortune roll away, along with his girlfriend and the people he’d thought were friends. Just as he thinks all his luck is gone, the luckiest thing happens – he meets a beautiful, sweet nurse, played by Athena Chu Yan, who replaces his... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1968123/fairy-tale-ending-screenwriters-horror-story?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1968123/fairy-tale-ending-screenwriters-horror-story?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 Jun 2016 08:00:00 +0000 In 1988, a 28-year-old woman was caught in a serious traffic accident. She awoke 20 bags of blood and hours of surgery later, missing an arm and a leg, wrapped up like a mummy, with tubes connecting her to machines like a science fiction horror show. That’s only the first of the major obstacles life has thrown at Susanna Tang Ying-lan, whose nickname these days is “Flying Eagle”. And she’s leapt over every one of them with her one remaining arm and leg. Autistic Hongkonger overcomes adversity to... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1967046/hong-kong-woman-was-crippled-and-then-faced?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1967046/hong-kong-woman-was-crippled-and-then-faced?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Jun 2016 08:57:21 +0000 Lee Kwong-tak starts work at 4am, six days a week. “I like it,” he says, “It’s so quiet at that time. I feel comforted by the tranquility.” The 32-year-old, who is autistic and mildly intellectually disabled, says he enjoys the bus rides every morning from his Ap Lei Chau home to a market in Kwai Fong, where he is a production instructor at a vegetable and fruit processing social enterprise. There, he oversees the logistical operations and makes sure the produce is handled properly. Spirit of... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1965911/autistic-hongkonger-overcomes-adversity-thrive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1965911/autistic-hongkonger-overcomes-adversity-thrive?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Jun 2016 08:52:57 +0000 In the middle of a space for processing produce, six workers are focused on their tasks at hand – peeling, chopping, mincing vegetables. They’ve been here since before dawn. One of them is 52-year-old “Ah Ming”, who has a severe intellectual disability. “When Ming first joined he couldn’t talk at all,” says John Wong Gee-chung, business manager of Tung Wah Group’s Enterprise Vegetable & Fruit Processing and Supply Service. In fact, Ming was bullied by his peers, who had milder intellectual... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1962644/care-grows-disabled-hong-kong-vegetable-plant?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1962644/care-grows-disabled-hong-kong-vegetable-plant?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 02 Jun 2016 09:28:27 +0000 “Green Mama” Lam Lai-shan has one enemy in life: waste. “It’s just unbelievable, the amount of good things being thrown out. “I once saw a brand new toilet, still wrapped in plastic, chucked at a refuse site. So I asked the cleaning ladies to keep it there for a couple of days while I found it a new owner,” she recalls. Lam has used her own Tai Po home as temporary storage space to save perfectly functional goods or food from a wasteful end in the landfill. “I get a little overzealous sometimes... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1961581/rely-green-mama-be-frontline-hong-kong-battle?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1961581/rely-green-mama-be-frontline-hong-kong-battle?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 01 Jun 2016 10:00:45 +0000 In late 2010, Alan Lee Siu-lun’s life was changed by a television programme on accessibility in the city. It featured a public bathroom designed for disabled users; yet some steps built outside rendered the space inaccessible for its target users. The product designer thought to himself: “Surely wheelchairs could be made to conquer a few steps?” He came up with the idea of using multiple pedrails – which resemble small tank tracks – built a miniature model to prove his concept, but then put it... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1960729/inventors-stair-climbing-wheelchair-set-conquer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1960729/inventors-stair-climbing-wheelchair-set-conquer?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 31 May 2016 10:28:36 +0000 As a devout Christian, Thomas Lau Kam-tai signed up to serve convicts in jail some years ago. Before his first visit to Tong Fuk Correctional Institution, he’d pictured big menacing guys covered in tattoos. “People turned out to be quite mild and civil,” Lau says, remembering how he came to let down his guard. “In fact, a lot of them came across rather wilted. Many of them used to have ‘face’ in their communities, but now they were reduced to caged up underdogs. It was sad to see.” The... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1959394/ex-convicts-are-more-just-number-accountant-heart?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1959394/ex-convicts-are-more-just-number-accountant-heart?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 May 2016 08:04:21 +0000 Getting advice on financial management is mostly something the well-off engage in: how do I take this chunk of money and make more out of it? How should I best plan for buying property? “But if you think about it, the grass roots are more likely to need help with managing what they have to make life work,” says Rosetta Fong Sut-sam, group vice-chairman and executive director of Convoy Financial Holdings. Her company is just about to open a “Life Investment Centre” in Sham Shui Po, to be run by... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1958556/financial-advice-hong-kongs-less-well-pays-dividends-everyone?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1958556/financial-advice-hong-kongs-less-well-pays-dividends-everyone?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 29 May 2016 07:59:24 +0000 Lee Mei-ping, known fondly as “Big Sister Ping”, didn’t have any children when she joined the laundry team at the Holiday Inn Golden Mile Hotel in 1997. Today she has nine. They’re not hers biologically, but nonetheless they love cuddling up to her and calling her “ma”. They are staff members hired by the hotel from IDEAL, the Intellectually Disabled Education and Advocacy League, a charitable organisation formed by parents and volunteers who strive to help the intellectually challenged learn to... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1955284/one-big-happy-family-hotel-gives-mentally-disabled?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1955284/one-big-happy-family-hotel-gives-mentally-disabled?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 26 May 2016 09:13:43 +0000 Teaching is never just about academic education. Teachers regularly pick up the roles of parent, counsellor, mentor, nurse, friend and occasionally even house mover. That is the case with Ma Yan-yan, who’s been all of the above for about two decades. She teaches Chinese, integrated humanities and liberal studies at HKTA The Yuen Yuen Institute No 1 Secondary School in Kwai Chung. She loves most being class teacher “because I really get to know each pupil”. It’s magic: How an elderly Hong Kong... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1953973/long-compassion-hong-kong-teacher-who-also-mentor?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1953973/long-compassion-hong-kong-teacher-who-also-mentor?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 25 May 2016 07:58:44 +0000 Retiree William Lau Chi-keung keeps himself busy in a multitude of fun ways. It’s all noted in his diary, which is almost always full: Monday, community service awards; Tuesday, Shatin balloon twisting; Wednesday, Caritas elderly centre committee meeting; Thursday, PHAB Association event; Friday, make 55 balloon flowers and two Roman columns for Caritas; Saturday, magic show in Sham Shui Po; Sunday, hiking. Outside the calendar borders, “write article” is scribbled. Spirit of Hong Kong Awards... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1952820/its-magic-how-elderly-hong-kong-resident-filling?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1952820/its-magic-how-elderly-hong-kong-resident-filling?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 24 May 2016 08:34:56 +0000 At the lowest point in his life, Jacky Ko Chung-kit went up to the roof of his building, ready to jump off and end it all. Business was bad, he was up to his neck in gambling debts, and his wife had just left him a note saying she was leaving him, with their child. It was at that moment he heard the stirring sound of a saxophone, which resonated through his whole being. “It made me stop and think. Suddenly, my life flashed before my eyes.” He thought of his poor mother, who had worked so hard as... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1951621/saved-saxophone-now-jackys-passion-changing-lives?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1951621/saved-saxophone-now-jackys-passion-changing-lives?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 May 2016 08:12:57 +0000 Did you know if you touch your ear at a waiter at a chalau, or teahouse, you’re indicating you want Pu’er tea? Prefer jasmine tea? Just touch your nose. “Back in the day, chalaus were particularly bustling and noisy, so people developed ways of communicating non-verbally,” Carmen Lee Ka-man explains. Both her parents were dim sum chefs and the backdrop of her childhood memories is mostly the inside of a dim sum restaurant. Yum cha, literally meaning “drink tea”, is a distinctively Hong Kong... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1950509/yum-cha-events-serve-help-local-charities?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1950509/yum-cha-events-serve-help-local-charities?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 May 2016 00:00:55 +0000 There are few things more heart-wrenching than losing family. One of those things is to have to watch them suffer first. Elisa Lee Wai-ching, 62, experienced it multiple times in the span of a few years. Both her brothers died from stomach cancer; the older one first, then the younger one, whom she’d worked hard for all her life to put through engineering school. And all the while she was dealing with terminally ill brothers, her mother’s dementia was getting worse. That was about two decades... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1947331/spreading-joy-magic-pill-overcoming-lifes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1947331/spreading-joy-magic-pill-overcoming-lifes?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 19 May 2016 07:56:51 +0000 For the visually impaired, it’s a challenge to use computers. Often, a combination of technologies is employed: speech synthesising software will read out the text, while an electromechanical braille terminal produces output for the fingers in the form of raised dots. It’s even tougher for non-English-speakers, as such technological developments are mostly English-language based. Ten years ago, when Johnny Lui Chi-hung, whose own visual sense is limited to “light” and “dark”, realised Cantonese... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1946759/visually-impaired-it-expert-selflessly-helping?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1946759/visually-impaired-it-expert-selflessly-helping?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 May 2016 08:20:34 +0000 On a sweltering afternoon, a large, middle-aged man sits chatting with a woman in a corridor. He tells her she’s lucky, because, touch wood, if anything happens to her, at least she has a husband to look after her child. “I’m sick as a dog,” the man says, “but I’m all she’s got.” He is referring to his eight-year-old daughter, whose squeak of “Bye bye, Chow sir!” can be heard from where they are sitting. He sighs. “I have to take her to class here, or she’ll end up like us, poor for... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1946186/teacher-giving-disadvantaged-youths-hope-brighter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1946186/teacher-giving-disadvantaged-youths-hope-brighter?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 17 May 2016 09:30:13 +0000 When Ike Park took part in a leadership workshop in 2013, he had no idea he would become an environmental advocate with his own not-for-profit organisation. The workshop, held by Nature Conservancy, ended with a task for the teams to carry out an action, and Park’s team decided to go tree planting. After hitting walls in their attempts to even just find a site for the planting, then realising how many hands it required to plant a few trees, Park thought: “There must be a more effective way of... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1945644/bright-spark-teenager-puts-ideas-action-paper?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1945644/bright-spark-teenager-puts-ideas-action-paper?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 May 2016 08:19:15 +0000 Twenty-six outstanding individuals have been nominated for the South China Morning Post’s Spirit of Hong Kong Awards this year, the fourth of the annual series to honour the work of well-known as well as unsung heroes who make a difference in this city. Over the next few weeks, the Post will run stories about these nominees, ranging from a teenager on a relentless eco-quest to a strong-willed mother single-handedly changing lives, a blind technologist with a noble vision, and a septuagenarian... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1945541/hong-kongs-can-do-spirit-embodied-26-award?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1945541/hong-kongs-can-do-spirit-embodied-26-award?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 May 2016 15:27:12 +0000 At 92, So Kam has lived through the dark days of war and still remembers how she would often stumble over bodies walking through pitch-black streets at night. “There was a lot of bombing, back then,” she recalls. “Life was difficult.” But unlike many who might be hardened by experiencing the brutal side of humanity, So lives by a philosophy of helping anyone she can. After raising her three children, who have now branched out the family tree with six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren,... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1945170/lifetime-caring-92-so-kams-positive-energy-still?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1945170/lifetime-caring-92-so-kams-positive-energy-still?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 May 2016 11:00:06 +0000