“Macau is a place where legends are born, [where] the stories are written,” said Matthew Marsh when describing how Hong Kong’s parallel SAR has impacted the world of motorsport. 

Marsh never holds back when sharing his insights with the Club’s motorsport enthusiasts at the annual Formula One themed lunches. However, his most recent Club Lunch to preview November’s Macau Grand Prix was alongside Dr. Philip Newsome, a former HKU Professor of Dentistry who has spent the past 33 years writing and photographing the Macau Grand Prix. Dr. Newsome has also authored several books on the event, including Macau Grand Prix: Photographs 1954-2023, which was published earlier this year. 

Photographs from Philip’s latest work were also featured on the FCC’s Hugh Van Es Wall for the entire month of November — coinciding with the 71^st Macau Grand Prix and this fully-booked Club Lunch on the eve of the event. 

Like Marsh, Dr. Newsome agreed that the Macau Grand Prix is like no other motor race and is one of the most high profile events for up and coming drivers, many who have competed and benefited substantially from a good performance round the daunting streets of Macau. 

“If they win, they have to be good. But winning in Macau isn’t just about talent, it requires a lot of luck .There are many great drivers who’ve raced in Macau and haven’t won it, but have gone on to great things,” he said, citing the examples of multiple Formula One champions Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen who put in hugely impressive performances in Macau but failed to take the winner’s spoils. 

Marsh and Newsome also discussed how they initially discovered the Macau Grand Prix. 

Marsh had often heard about the race during his own racing career in the UK, but he never considered attending — and racing there himself — until he moved to Hong Kong. Through contacts made by visiting the event, he eventually found a drive in one of the support events and went on to become a regular competitor there. Marsh experienced the highs and lows of this most demanding of circuits, winning the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia championship in 2004 at the final round in Macau but also surviving a first corner crash which took out much of the field a couple of years later. 

For Dr. Newsome, he had frequented motorsport events in Europe before moving to Hong Kong and attending his first Macau Grand Prix in 1985, yet he felt that the viewing experience wasn’t fun enough. Not having the ability to be a successful driver, he figured that pictures and writing were his ticket to a better seat. 

“Sitting in the stand is fine, but it can get a bit boring. And I thought, ‘I want to be over there. I want to be where the action is,’” he said, referencing the activity in the pit lane and garages.

His early ventures into motor sport journalism included interviewing Sir Stirling Moss at his home in London, initiated by the fact that Sir Stirling’s father had not just been a competitive racer but also a dentist working out of a mobile surgery in bomb ravaged wartime London. Newsome has also penned the biography of Teddy Yip, the Macau casino mogul who went on to successfully run racing teams all over the world.   

To watch the full discussion, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel:

Henry Steiner moved to Hong Kong in 1961 and only intended to stay for nine months at his job as a graphic designer for The Asia Magazine. Finding Hong Kong full of more career opportunities than New York City or other popular destinations for designers, he stayed and ultimately became the “Father of Hong Kong Design” for his work with some of the city’s most recognizable brands. Visuals for Cathay Pacific, HSBC, Hong Kong Jockey Club, Standard Chartered, Wellcome, and many more companies have all come to life through Steiner’s creativity.

Zolima CityMag, a local publication that covers Hong Kong culture, recently published the first volume of its new series Zolima Culture Guide. This first edition features the city’s history through the work of Steiner and the cultural legacy of his designs.

At an FCC Club Lunch attended by Steiner himself, the two writers behind Zolima Culture Guide – Henry Steiner’s Hong Kong sat down with Correspondent Board Governor Jennifer Jett to talk about their new book and how the legendary graphic designer’s work influenced their own lives.

“From the very beginning, we didn’t want to do a biography of Henry Steiner or even a catalogue of his work. It was the story of Hong Kong through his work,” said Christopher DeWolf, who has been writing about the city’s architecture, culture, design, and history for over 20 years.

During the talk, DeWolf explained Steiner’s history in Hong Kong and how his designs were originally formed. Steiner had already arrived with the idea to express himself creatively while still preserving a deep respect and care for local culture, which led to his unique take on blending Western and Chinese visuals in his work.

While “East meets West” concepts have been used by previous designers, Steiner’s work stands out in that he highlighted the extreme differences between each and combined them in unique ways.

“We’re talking about Henry’s perspective as an outsider, somebody who could interpret Chinese characters without even being able to read [them], and yet being able to articulate [their] nuance[s] as a symbol,” said Billy Potts, the co-author of Henry Steiner’s Hong Kong.

Like DeWolf, Potts is also a writer covering Hong Kong’s design heritage. During the talk, he explained that he was a huge fan of Steiner’s designs when starting off with his own design works.

In his first interviews with Steiner, Potts said, he worried that the famed designer wasn’t giving him enough to work with. But upon reflection, Potts realized that Steiner was speaking about himself through the lens of Hong Kong’s design and how he fits into this specific part of the city’s history. It’s this specific angle that helped Potts and DeWolf write the book.

In Potts’ opinion, Steiner’s work, especially the media work he did for various magazines early on in his career, is not just about design, but communication as well. Potts went on to say that every designer in Hong Kong can, at some point, be linked back to Steiner.

“You can see from all of this how Henry is a focal point for design and communication in Hong Kong. If we were — and it wouldn’t take long — to seek out any creative person in Hong Kong, any designer, you wouldn’t have to push very far before you realize that it connects back with Henry,” he said.

Henry Steiner still lives in Hong Kong to this day, over 60 years after his arrival. If one were to walk through Kowloon, much like the walks Steiner, Potts, and DeWolf took when in the process of writing the book, Steiner’s influence is apparent in everything from signs and billboards to bus ads — ultimately shaping daily life in Hong Kong.

“Over 60 years, if you look at all the projects that Henry Steiner has worked on, you’re understanding the story of Hong Kong and how this thing has evolved through the years. That’s what I think makes his work so interesting,” DeWolf said.

From October 21-25, Hong Kong hosted its 2024 StartmeupHK Festival in efforts to boost local investment and interest in the city’s start-up ecosystem. With such government-led initiatives and local leaders’ praise for the city’s supportive environment, one may have the impression that Hong Kong is doing everything it can to support start-up businesses and their founders.

However, three experienced founders believe otherwise.

Coinciding with the 2024 StartmeupHK Festival, the FCC held a Club Lunch panel with three founders with decades of experience — Jordan Kostelac, founder of Deploy; Arthur Lam, founder and CEO of Zero2; and Ryan Manuel, founder and CEO of Bilby.ai.

All three panellists shared their views on how Hong Kong is performing as a start-up hub and how the city can change its strategy and mindset to better aid in-need founders.

Lam first pointed out that a few decades ago, Hong Kong had virtually no competition when it came to start-up markets. Now, the city is in fierce competition with cities such as Shenzhen and Singapore and increasingly, other major cities across Asia.

“That is the problem — we didn’t have to compete with anyone else 20 years ago. Obviously now, we cannot have the same mindset,” Lam said.

Coinciding with Lam’s views were that of Kostelac, who also believed that Hong Kong should expand its interests and variety of start-ups in order to create a more supportive environment.

“This market, Hong Kong, as a capital market, urgently needs to diversify and needs to be capital allocated. That’s the only identity that makes sense. Building close to Shenzhen and hoping we become the center of tech doesn’t work,” Kostelac said.

Manuel also commented on Hong Kong’s overall desire to be the centre of multiple initiatives, not just start-up companies. In his opinion, he feels that the city should focus on key industries versus trying to be the best at everything.

“How do we make something the best in the world? Pick something and just go for it,” Manuel said.

The trio also discussed the complications in how founders acquire funding for their start-ups, local start-up hubs like Cyberport and Science Park, and how to discern serious start-up founders and investors from superficial opportunists.

To watch the full discussion, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel:

Pokémon GO, the smartphone game based on the beloved animated series that also features collectible trading cards and videogames, was launched globally in 2016. Unlike any other game before it, Pokémon GO forced players to get outside and search for their favourite characters in real time while the distance they covered helped hatch the Pokémon eggs collected on their journeys.

One similarity between old Pokémon games and the new Pokémon GO was that players could also battle against each other both casually and competitively. Similar to other esports championships, contestants in the World Championship must qualify through regional tournaments or receive invitations or exemptions from qualifiers. Ultimately, 200 out of over 15,000 qualified Legend elite players from a pool of 24 million global players compete in the annual World Championships.

This past August, Hong Kong finally came in first place at the World Championship event in Honolulu, Hawaii. The winner was Cheng Yip-kai, a 16-year-old secondary school student who began playing when the app first launched but didn’t dream of becoming a champion until just two years ago.

To learn more about how Cheng became the best like no one ever was, the FCC held a Club Lunch panel with the young champion, as well as Samuel Chueng, the manager of Hong Kong’s Pokémon GO team. Moderating the discussion was Journalist Board Governor Joe Pan.

“Pokémon GO battles are like a game of speed chess. You have to make a decision every half-second,” Cheng said.

On the Verandah screen behind him, Cheng played a clip from his championship-winning game. He pinpointed the exact moment when he calculated a decisive move just 4 seconds before defeating his opponent and becoming this year’s champion.

It was a moment of redemption for Cheng, who had also competed at the 2023 World Championships but lost at the first round of the tournament.

Last year’s defeat didn’t faze him, though. Instead of feeling upset, he took the experience as a learning opportunity and continued practicing with the World Championships’ “show 6, pick 3” format which requires players to initially choose 6 Pokémon, examine their opponent’s 6 Pokémon, and then choose a final 3 to officially battle with. Cheng mastered this playing style over a year full of matches in regional Pokémon GO tournaments.

As Cheng won more matches, his skills and his online fanbase grew, and he quickly climbed higher and higher on the Pokémon GO global ranking system.

“I saw the global ranking system as a way to train my basic skills. I tried to make zero mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes in Japan last year, so I knew I had to perfect my skills to increase my chances of winning,” Cheng said.

While it may seem like Cheng was able to pull off his World Championship win on his own, in reality he had — and needed — a lot of support, primarily from his manager Sam Cheung.

Cheung, a full-time tutor, spoke at length about the financial hardships that anyone must endure in order to not only qualify for the Pokémon GO World Championships, but also to afford the travel expenses required to attend these competitions. He recalled a previous year where  several Hong Kong players qualified for the competition but forfeited their opportunity because they were unable to purchase plane tickets and hotel stays.

“I knew I couldn’t let that happen to Yip-kai and Team Hong Kong,” he said.

Cheung admitted that he worked 7-day work weeks in order to help cover some of the expenses, but that it still wouldn’t be enough. He tried to network as much as possible to hopefully find a sponsor, but most people weren’t convinced and said they needed hard proof that Cheung’s team would win. It wasn’t until Dr. Lai Ching-lung, a 75-year-old liver expert who is also a fan of the mobile game, donated HK$10,000 for the team travel costs.

“It’s not much, but I hope it helps,” Dr. Lai told Team Hong Kong.

Cheng also had a lot of support from his teammates who cheered for him all throughout the World Championship event. In his final match, the champion admitted that his opponent had a stronger set of Pokémon, but the support from his friends made a big impact on his performance.

“He might have had a stronger team of Pokémon, but I had a stronger team of people. This is where Team Hong Kong really made a difference,” Cheng concluded.

To watch the full discussion, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel:

The World Economic Forum estimates that around 10-20% of the world’s population is neurodivergent, and yet nearly 85% of these individuals are unemployed. People who aren’t neurodivergent (often described as neurotypical) have an unemployment rate of only 4.2%.

But what exactly does neurodiversity mean? How are neurodivergent people different from everyone else? Also, what can companies and organisations do to help accommodate neurodivergent people in the workplace?

To answer these questions, the FCC held a Club Lunch panel that featured three professionals who were diagnosed with neurodivergent conditions as adults — Jonathan Mok, a neurodiversity advocate and public speaker; Noelle Sinclair, the CEO of Diverse Minds; and Khoa Tran, a freelance writer and journalist. Moderating the panel was Correspondent Board Governor Jennifer Jett.

Each panellist first offered their own definition of what it means to be neurodivergent.

“It’s more than what’s just going on in our heads, it’s about how we’re experiencing the world around us,” said Sinclair, who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and later attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) when she was 40 years old.

“Neurodiversity is more about one’s identity,” Mok said. He was also diagnosed with ADHD and ASD when he was 37 years old.

“It’s not just learning disabilities, it’s not just quirks… it’s broader and broader,” said Tran, who was diagnosed just two years ago with ADHD.

Tran also described his first time taking Ritalin, a prescription drug used to treat ADHD symptoms.

“Oh, this is what it feels like to be normal, to have a quiet mind. It’s almost like an awakening,” he said, adding that the experience of feeling “normal” left him with tears in his eyes.

Along with ASD and ADHD, neurodiversity also includes dyslexia, Down syndrome, bipolar disorder, and a variety of other conditions. While each of these conditions has its own set of characteristics, Sinclair added that the umbrella term “neurodiversity” was created in the same sense that the term “biodiversity” was created, as a social movement term to highlight how an ecosystem thrives on diversity.

“The point was to drive awareness that those of us who are neurodivergent face biases, discrimination, stigma, and if the world were in some people’s hands, people like myself and Jonathan and Khoa would be taken out of existence,” she said.

The panel then discussed how Hong Kong’s corporate world has evolved to be more accepting and inclusive of neurodivergent people. While positive changes have been made, like including non-discrimination statements at the end of job ads on LinkedIn, the panel agreed that there is still room for improvement.

“We need to create a new affirmative environment for people,” Mok said when describing how neurodiversity information needs to be localised for a population that primarily speaks Cantonese and may be unfamiliar with these emerging concepts.

Mok also said that by focusing on university students, Hong Kong’s current efforts may be unintentionally excluding people like him and the two other panellists who were diagnosed later in life and may already have quite a bit of work experience.

On top of hiring practices and workplace accommodations, Sinclair also gave a business perspective. She reminded the audience that neurodivergent people are also potential clients and customers who all run a chance of interacting with nearly any type of business.

“If you are providing a service and your business isn’t taking into consideration people who are neurodivergent, you are losing customers,” she said.

To watch the full discussion, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel:

In October 2020, roughly a month before Donald Trump was elected out of office in favour of Joe Biden, Raymond Yeung published his book China’s Trump Card: Cryptocurrency and its Game-Changing Role in Sino-US Trade (2020). In it, he outlines the role of digital currency in geopolitical affairs, especially when it comes to the relationship between China and the United States.

“When I wrote this book, I was just testing my ideas, but now the last four years [are] clearly telling you this is actually happening,” Yeung said while also admitting that back then, his ideas didn’t sell well.

He even joked that China’s Trump Card made it to the New York Times’ “Worst Sellers” list and that his publisher refused to print any more copies.

Yeung made these remarks while sitting next to Professional Committee Member Andrew Chan at an FCC Club Lunch in October — roughly a month before Donald Trump was re-elected to serve as the 47th President of the United States.

As the Chief Economist for Greater China at ANZ, Yeung shared an overview of the world’s trade issues, as well as cryptocurrency dynamics and what he thinks will help fundamentally different governments navigate through economic tension.

“Openness is the key word,” Yeung said when describing how blockchain has been used in attempts to mitigate some of these issues.

However, Yeung finds that blockchain’s impact is small and can’t be used as a blanket-solution to worldwide problems. Instead, Yeung suggested that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) create a neutral cryptocurrency that can be used by every country across the world. The appeal of this move is so that transactions are decentralised and not limited by banking restrictions.

“The best way to address trade imbalance is [by] establishing a global-first, apolitical, very neutral global currency. [This] is the only way to solve the global impact,” Yeung explained.

Yeung also used the talk to break down some of the terms he created in writing China’s Trump Card, particularly the phrase “factory-dollar recycling”.

With the concept of the US Dollar (USD) being a direct exchange for oil from Saudi Arabia, Yeung uses factory-dollar recycling to describe the relationship between USD and the Chinese Yuan, or Renminbi (RMB). In the same way that the value of USD is directly linked to oil, Yeung explained that this is exactly how China uses RMB in exchange for USD.

This explanation prompted moderator Andrew Chan to ask whether or not oil would one day be substituted by different valuable resources.

Yeung agreed that we now live in a world with a “multi-polar system” and maintained that if this becomes the case, a blockchain solution can help retain trust in a new, global financial environment.

To watch the full discussion between Raymond Yeung and Andrew Chan, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel:

“We feel like history is repeating itself.”

Michael Bociurkiw, a Canadian of Ukrainian heritage, finds that the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia was foreshadowed by scenes from his childhood, when tensions between the two sides were already strong.

“I never learned how to play hockey, I was too busy being Ukrainian… it meant protesting in front of the Russian embassy, saying ‘KGB — Set Them Free’ or ‘Free Ukrainian Prisoners of Conscience,’” he explained.

Bociurkiw, a journalist-turned-global-affairs-analyst who has been based in Ukraine since before the Russian invasion in February 2022, first went to Ukraine more than 30 years ago as a reporter for The South China Morning Post.

In a discussion at an October 3 FCC Club Lunch with Correspondent Board Governor Jennifer Jett, he explained what he thinks may happen with the coming U.S. election and Russia’s inability to accept Ukraine as an independent nation.

With the conflict approaching the end of its third year, neither Russia nor Ukraine appears willing to negotiate. But Ukraine’s ability to continue resisting Russia’s aggression depends on continued support from its allies, particularly the U.S.

At the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, which Bociurkiw attended, world leaders were unenthused about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “victory plan.” Zelenskyy also sought U.S. approval to send long-range missiles deep into Russian territory, which he says will be a game-changer in the war.

Bociurkiw echoed skepticism from U.S. officials as to how much difference those long-range weapons would make.

“It’s not enough to push the Russians back completely,” he said.

Russia also shows no signs of giving up after already taking over parts of Donetsk, Kharkiv and other Ukrainian regions. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow will make “no concessions” to end the war.

Since Bociurkiw’s event at the FCC, there have been reports of North Korean troops training alongside Russian soldiers for possible deployment in Ukraine, signaling the lengths that Putin is willing to go to in order to win.

“I could see this war keeping on until Putin dies, whenever that happens,” Bociurkiw said.

To watch the full discussion, please visit our YouTube channel:

Counsellor Huang Jingrui is the spokesman of the Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong. Despite being posted in the city since September 2022, he has only given closed door, off-the-record talks to other diplomats and journalists.

That finally changed this September — two years after the spokesman arrived in Hong Kong.

For his first-ever public address, Counsellor Huang spoke at an FCC Club Lunch alongside Correspondent Board Governor William Zheng, an expert on mainland politics who works for SCMP as a Senior China Correspondent.

While Counsellor Huang began his talk by outlining China’s Third Plenum that took place in July and how it will affect Hong Kong, he also addressed the international community’s concerns about declining freedoms in the city.

“China and Hong Kong’s reputation has been smeared over the years, and actually the media is part of it. Media itself has become a problem, especially Western media,” he said.

When it comes to Western media’s coverage of Hong Kong, Counsellor Huang finds that they mainly focus on national security news, such as the enactment of Article 23 of the Basic Law or the enforcement of the Beijing-imposed National Security Law. Counsellor Huang believes that Western media should be more balanced in order to provide people living in other regions a more accurate depiction of what’s happening in Hong Kong.

He also commented on measures taken under President Joe Biden’s administration that have established a quota on the number of Chinese journalists that are allowed to live and work in the United States, which has resulted in some Chinese journalists being forced to return to the mainland. China swiftly created its own quotas for American journalists which resulted in a similar exodus.

Despite these “tit-for-tat” moves, Counsellor Huang emphasised that journalists on both sides are key in developing mutual understanding.

“We hope that there will be more journalists — American journalists in China and Chinese journalists in America — to promote a better understanding between the two countries,” he said.

When asked whether or not Hong Kong still guarantees free expression for both regular citizens and media, Counsellor Huang reminded the audience that while enjoying the “Two Systems”, they should also keep the “One Country” part in mind. Everyone can enjoy freedoms — as long as certain “red lines” concerning “one country” aren’t crossed, he said.

“Don’t just look at the Two Systems,” he began. “We still have to be One Country, and there is always a red line. You can’t overthrow the government. You can’t advocate independence. There’s always a red line. Apart from that, you have all the freedom.”

Counsellor Huang was also asked about the recent cases of journalists being denied entry into Hong Kong. While unable to comment on individual cases, he did maintain the opinion that Hong Kong is a key location for international media, but that everyone has to operate in accordance with the law.

“Everybody’s freedom is limited, and it has to be within the framework of the law. Nobody’s above the law, even if you are the media,” he said.

Before finishing his talk, Counsellor Huang also shared his personal thoughts on what the job of local and international journalists should be.

“It is your job to facilitate understanding — not to facilitate misunderstanding and even driving paranoia, to [a] new McCarthyism. That’s not your job. Your job is to tell the truth, facilitate understanding between countries and people,” he concluded.

To watch the full discussion between Counsellor Huang and William Zheng, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel: