The journal / Visions of Asia

Category: News

sun resting on a building...

Sunsets over Hong Kong: loss of hope

When there is no clouds, haze or fog, Hong Kong can provide some spectacular sunsets, just like the one featured in this post. Somehow, a previous post of mine with the same title garnered some attention, but I believe it was more because of an understanding about the title referring to the political and economic […]

Typhoon Pakhar blasts Hong Kong

After typhoon Hato, earlier this week, it was up to typhoon Pakhar to blast Hong Kong. One life was lost when a truck driver got ejected from his cabin in a road accident near Shenzhen, but except that, the city did not report heavy damage beyond the habitual fallen trees or branches. A couple of […]

Protesters march

A big protest against the jailing of “Occupy” leaders

  Today, Sunday 20 August, a massive protest took place in Hong Kong from Wanchai to Central, before the Court of Final Appeals. The demonstration was organized by several organizations calling to protest against the imprisonment of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. A surprising mobilization Somehow, the size of the crowd must have come as […]

Umbrella movement protesters with umbrellas

Howard Lam’s fake aggression or the endless descent of democracy activists into oblivion

After a big mediatic scandal fulled by Western mainstream media (prompt to repeat any allegations without any ounce of critical sense), it seems the police finally confounded the Hong Kong Democrat representative Howard Lam. Self-inflicted injuries In fact, it would appear that Howard Lam self-inflicted those injuries and invented the whole story for unclear motives. […]

Helicopter rescueing hikers

Second helicopter rescue on Kowloon Peak

For the second time in as many weeks, hikers had to call a helicopter to be rescued on Kowloon Peak on Saturday 5 August. This time, it seems they took a more dangerous path from the road known as “Jat’s Incline”. The previous rescue attempt was already reported on this blog. The rescue helicopter had […]

The dangers of hiking: evacuation on suicide cliff

Yesterday, there had to be a helicopter rescue mission on the top of Kowloon peak with an evacuation on suicide cliff. Whether it is extreme dehydration (with 35 ° C, yesterday was a day of hell) or injury, this proves that you should never attempt difficult hikes without having more experienced climbers with you. The […]

BEPS and the increasing restriction on special tax statuses: Hong Kong’s case

The Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative of the OECD has been influencing a lot of the visible (changes in legislation) and less visible changes in the global tax environment. We already talked about it broadly here. Today, we are addressing the issues in the offshore status of Hong Kong. The principle of territorial […]

Pink Elephant in Ayutthaya

The plight of elephants in Thailand

A long silence finally broken After a long persisting silence, finally a study was carried out on the mistreatment of elephants in Thailand. While many tourists love to ride elephants as an attraction (the main place for this being the Elephant kraal in Ayutthaya), few know that to get pliable animals who accept to let […]

The Cardboard ladies of Hong Kong

This post was written back in 2017, but things have not changed much since. If anything, things have gotten worse as those who could, in the lower strata of society, attempted to move to the UK. In Hong Kong, besides the glamourous life of Central, there are  a lot of elderly people who try to […]

Old man protesting at oathgate

Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement and its failure

Two years ago, a movement started in Hong Kong, initiated by  a group of young students whose energy and determination brought a megalopolis to a standstill from September 2014 to December 2014. Since then, the movement got bogged down in its own indecision and some obvious frustration and hesitation on the proper strategy to follow […]