Translation Needed

Choosing to live in Hong Kong means that you are under the thumb of at least one of the city’s mega-corporations at all times. You may be beholden to Hong Kong Electric’s outrageous electricity tariffs, assaulted by the screeching of the Emperor Group’s musical offerings, or run the endless gamut of fun PPCW mind games.

For the most part these companies manage to stay off the radar; running in stealth mode sucking the wealth from our bank accounts. And as long as the services and products they provide are of a decent value, no one will complain – as a society we know our complaints are not worth the time it takes to make them. However, there is one issue in particular which has been raising my ire for quite some time now – visual media.

There are a host concerns at play, from a host of companies, but the main target for my rage is none other than NOW TV…. Quite simply put – what a bunch of spastics!

The first problem with NOW is the easy to point to “HBO On-Demand” Package. In essence, there is absolutely nothing “on-demand” about it. When initially purchasing my NOW setup, the sales associate informed me that HBO On-Demand would change their movies twice a month, with a range of exciting new offerings every time… Well, having had the service for 2 years now, that ladies and gentlemen is complete and utter bollocks. Yes, the movies may change twice a month, but they will often cycle back to previous offerings while only rarely including any new material. Point in case: Lassie in the blockbuster section.

In case you haven’t had the pleasure of watching Lassie recently, it is a movie targeted at Tweens, portraying the lovable adventures of a dog and its family. All very well and good, but not exactly what I would call a blockbuster. I’m fine with NOW offering me Lassie to watch, and including it in the on-demand list (even as a miss-titled blockbuster), but I started to loose it after the 8th consecutive month in which it was listed, and the titles that could be selected from remained steaming piles of turd which no one in their right mind would watch… Black Beauty for the umpteenth month in a row? You have to be shitting me.

Despite all this, the shenanigans of HBO are of a minor irritation compared to the games that National Geographic is currently playing.

Imagine this: You have just settled in to watch a thoroughly interesting documentary on the discovery of the “Judas Gospel”. “Golly, this is some serious stuff” you muse to yourself while the show interviews various leading scientists for their thoughts. All the while you only partially observe the Chinese subtitles running along the bottom of the screen off the picture (you are a hardcore HK expat after all, those subtitles are old hat by now)… And then the show produces a dramatization, the characters in the narrative (Jesus and Judas) start speaking Aramaic – and all of a sudden your mind breaks.

“Huh, I wonder what is being said, as I don’t speak Aramaic,” you think to yourself; all the while scanning the screen for some semblance of a translation for what is going on. Then you realize what has happened – there are English subtitles for this dead and ancient language, but the Chinese subtitles have moved 4 inches up the screen for the express purpose of blocking them out. “Maybe it’s a glitch” you think. “Maybe the next time I’ll be able to see the English,” you hope.

But no, every time the Aramaic ends, the Chinese subtitles retreat to the bottom of the screen. Every time the Aramaic starts and English subtitles are displayed the Chinese jumps up the screen for the express purpose of blocking them out….

WTF….. What. The. Fuck.

Is this on purpose? Did the Asian editor decide that the English subtitles were not worth including? Or did that same editor suppose that all westerners would be able to understand Aramaic? It’s a shame he didn’t watch the documentary, he would have discovered the language has been dead for a few thousand years.

But, this strange event has continued with the airing of the new James Cameron Film AVATAR – half the cinemas in the Big Lychee are not showing English subtitles for the alien language in the 3D version of the film… again, WTF. If your theatre is on Hong Kong Island, you can be dammed sure that more than a few gweilos will show up to watch a movie there… No English subtitles? Perhaps Fox Asia assumed that all westerners would have an intrinsic connection to the language Cameron created, and as such would need no edification… Or maybe Fox Asia was having lunch with the NatGeo editor?

This is not a recent trend however; the gamers among us will remember the fiasco of the initial Halo 3 release – it was entirely in Mandarin. When was it decided that English, as a media language, would be sidelined in Asia’s world city? While you have to love Microsoft’s optimism at releasing a Mandarin game in Cantonese speaking territory, there is something strange at work here.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Up In Smoke

Hong Kong has been officially smoke free since the first of July 2009. It has been 6 months of no smoking indoors (in bars, pubs, and restaurants), no smoking at beaches, and no smoking in public parks. Ask any smoker out on the street what they think of the ban, one will usually receive a reply along the lines of “meh, no real issue” – and it is not. While there are the odd scumbags desperate to take a stand by smoking inside at bars, on the whole most venues around the city have been smoke free.

The smoking community understands that there is a real issue with second hand smoke, and while we may not want to stop our filthy habit, we’re not out to kill anyone… So we as smokers took our habit to the streets, forked over the extra $10 a pack, and generally stayed pretty quiet on the whole issue.

The SCMP ran an article today entitled Anti-smoking lobby urges tax increase, ban on duty-free sales in which they told us that “a leading academic and anti-smoking groups say” that we should increase the current tobacco tax, and remove all duty free cigarettes from shops at the borders. The reason for this advice? Because it makes life easier for the “leading academic”, one Dr. Judith Mackay.

Dr. Mackay reasons that increasing the tobacco tax by 75% now will help her save time because she will not have to submit a new tax proposal every year. The article also states that “MacKay is now studying whether it would be more effective to introduce a big increase every three to four years or raise the tax little by little every year.” So in essence, she has no clue as to whether the tax increase would have any positive effect, but still wants it done anyway. Very academic.

And then, a Mr. James Middleton from Clean the Air’s anti tobacco committee said that allowing “duty-free cigarettes to be sold was almost like legalising tobacco smuggling”. So allowing duty free alcohol is akin to alcohol smuggling? Mr. Middleton’s analogy fails at everything it is trying to accomplish. If you outlaw tobacco because it is almost like legalizing tobacco smuggling, what about all the other consumables, we’re completely ok with getting rid of them as well are we?

Fair enough that second hand smoke is dangerous to a person’s health, but as a society we have taken action to minimize that damage. In the last 6 months how often have you actually seen someone puffing away inside? Extremely rarely would have to be the answer.

So then what is the reason for the new agenda’s coming from the anti smoking lobby? The simple answer is that they do not like it – the activity of smoking. As a result of this dislike, they are now attempting to institute legislation and financial frameworks purely targeted towards smokers. Even though in 90% of the cases the smokers have been removed from the situation, and that the new legislation does nothing towards addressing second hand smoke.

I may be a bit of a liberal, but wouldn’t this be considered discrimination in most other parts of the world? As far as I recall, tobacco is still legal. Or is this a case of Dr. Mackay wanting to have her cake and eat it as well….

We currently have some of the most stringent anti-smoking laws anywhere in the world. The efficacy of these laws have not been proven to work, yet we have an “academic” pushing for more restrictive legislation at a faster pace than ever before – this is not how the scientific method works – and we are listening to her! To me this is blatant railroading of a particular population segment for no other reason than because the activity is disliked….

I’ll make you a deal Judith… you know how every single credible study has said that Cannabis Sativa is safer than both alcohol and tobacco? You get that legalized and I’ll quit the cigs; second hand smoke aint a problem there.