Former BBC reporter Andrew Shaw is proof that there is life after journalism, even if it took extreme changes for him to achieve it. Kate Whitehead tells his unusual story.

Master jade carver Andrew Shaw in his workshop in Suzhou

Plenty of hardened hacks fantasise at some point or other about getting out of journalism. For veteran BBC reporter Andrew Shaw that urge had been gnawing at him for some years before he made the leap. The Londoner had no interest in taking the well-trodden route to the dark side, PR, and his transition was such a radical shift it took everyone by surprise.

The seed for change was planted in 2002, when Shaw took a four-month sabbatical from a job he no longer enjoyed and much-needed time out from caring for his mother who was seriously ill.

“I was fed up with journalism, I’d got everything I wanted to out of it, I’d done everything I needed to do, I was just repeating myself, it was time to do something else,” says Shaw.

For four carefree months he lived in Thailand in a hut on the beach, did yoga, went to a Buddhist retreat and laughed at the sheer joy of being alive – and not at work. On the last day of his trip, while visiting Wat Doi Suthep, the temple overlooking the northern city of Chiang Mai, he stumbled into a small jade shop. A beautiful lavender jade Buddha caught his eye.

“As soon as I touched it, it just sang to me, such a beautiful stone, I fell in love with jade at that moment,” says Shaw.

From there it was back to the grindstone at the BBC and his filial obligations, but his holiday romance with jade didn’t fade, it became a fully-fledged obsession. Every time he was sent on assignment overseas, he went looking for jade. In Hong Kong, he spent three days haggling over a piece. In 2006, his mother died when he was in Vietnam covering the trial of disgraced British pop star Gary Glitter. He knew it was time to do something else.

“I put my affairs in order and the next year got a plane to China, and went to Suzhou, where I heard there was a jade carving centre, and started looking for someone to teach me to carve jade,” says Shaw.

It was a bold move. It was 2008, the year of the Beijing Olympics, and it took some sweet talking to explain to immigration why a former BBC reporter suddenly wanted to live in Suzhou. What’s more, the then 51-year-old didn’t speak a word of Chinese. But he was determined. He enrolled in a Chinese class at the local university and then set about trying to find his way into the carving industry.

“The words to ‘carve jade’ and ‘go fishing’ are very similar, so quite often people would say, ‘Oh, you like to go fishing’. Even when I showed them a piece of jade, they’d say, ‘So where do you go fishing?’” says Shaw.

After seven months he had a basic grasp of the language and found the city’s network of jade carving alleys where thousands of jade carvers worked in small workshops.

“I went from workshop to workshop for six months asking people whether they’d teach me to carve jade. People don’t like to say no, they drink tea with you. Most jade carvers retire at 50 and I was already over 50,” says Shaw.

Eventually, he found a man who agreed to let him use a spindle and gave him old pieces of jade to carve and Shaw went there every afternoon for two years. Then he set up his own workshop and sold his pieces in the local market.

All the hard work paid off in 2016, when he won a medal in the Zi Gang Bey Jade Carving Competition in Suzhou. The following year, he invited international carvers to enter and it’s now the world’s only international jade carving competition. When he proposed to his wife, Ann, who he met in Suzhou, he gave her a flawless piece of white jade.

“A flawless piece of white jade is difficult to get hold of and cost a lot. She’s never taken it off since I gave it to her,” says Shaw.

Today the couple runs Ann’s English Tea House and Restaurant, a cafe with jade gallery attached, beside Jinji Lake. Although Shaw has turned his back on journalism, he hasn’t stopped writing and this year released Jade Life: An
Englishman’s Love Affair with China’s National Treasure, published by Earnshaw Books.

“It’s about the Chinese jade industry as told from the perspective of a Western jade carver. The book has a journalistic rigour to it, with plenty of interviews, and I’ve fact-checked all the sources,” says Shaw, the only foreign master jade carver in China. n

Carsten Schael and John Batten with the newly-installed clock.

Long-term FCC member, the late Walter Kent, will be remembered for his punctual time-keeping now that part of his bequest to the club has been put in its rightful place, at the Ice House Street end of the Main Bar.

It was Walter’s favourite drinking spot and an obvious choice as the permanent home of the Jaeger-LeCoultre clock that Walter, who died in 2016, received as a 25th anniversary gift for working at Chase Manhattan Bank.

“It is a fitting memorial for one of the FCC’s most loyal recent members,” said John Batten (pictured right being helped by Carsten Schael) when they fixed the clock to the Main Bar in August.

The photojournalist who took the picture that will forever represent the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 died in September in Bali aged 64. Charlie Cole’s Tank Man was included in the FCC’s June Wall exhibition marking the 30th anniversary of the protests.

Charlie Cole in the early 1990s

Born in the U.S., Cole spent more than half his life living outside the States in seven different countries. His career began at the Black Star Photo Agency and then later the Picture Group in New York, before he moved to Tokyo “because it was in the heart of a dynamic region and not well covered”. This led to a 10-year contract with Newsweek magazine, covering Asia. Cole said: “It was a period which saw some of the most dramatic events and changes in the world’s history. From Afghanistan to Beijing to Jakarta to Tokyo, it was an amazing time.”

He was one of four photographers who captured the moment one man faced up to a row of tanks in Tiananmen Square, but it was Cole who won the World Press Photo of the Year Award 1990. He regretted the picture becoming the iconic symbol of the protests, and felt that other photographers covering the event deserved equal recognition.

Cole lived in Bali for the last 15 years of his life, often battling pain after a motorcycle accident in Tokyo that left him with serious leg injuries. He leaves a widow, Rosanna.

The contact sheet of images from both within and near Tiananmen Square, May-June 1989.
© Charlie Cole

As a trading hub for wine, Hong Kong has seen the price and volume of Burgundy coming into Asia rocket. The region’s first Master of Wine – who’s an FCC member – has just launched a book on the subject. Colin Simpson reports

Jeannie Cho Lee with her book, The 100 Burgundy: Exceptional Wines to Build a Dream Cellar

Global demand for Burgundy has soared in recent years, along with the prices of the finest wines – and Asia has helped drive this trend.

Exports of Burgundy to Hong Kong rose 8.8 percent by volume and a whopping 24.5 percent by value last year, according to the Bourgogne Wine Board.

Data from Liv-ex, the global marketplace for the wine trade, show that the prices of top Burgundies have rocketed ahead of those of other leading wine regions and countries.

The most sought-after wines routinely command eye-watering prices. For example, this year Romanée-Conti 2015 sold for HK$198,400 per bottle at an Acker auction in Hong Kong, which is a major regional trading and distribution hub for wine.

However, Burgundy is a tricky, complex region, and for buyers there is the added problem of counterfeit wines.

Given all this, the appearance of a helpful guide in the form of The 100 Burgundy: Exceptional Wines to Build a Dream
Cellar by Jeannie Cho Lee is timely. Hong Kong-based Lee, an FCC member, is the first Asian Master of Wine.

The book has descriptions of 100 of Lee’s favourite Burgundies with information about the domaines that produce them. In her introduction, Lee says that rather than going into the microscopic details of terroir, viticulture, fragmented vineyard holdings, or winemaking choices, she aims to provide an “impressionistic” portrait of the wines.

Despite this, there is some talk of “cool pre-fermentation maceration” and the like, which may not interest the general reader. Also, the exact dimensions of the featured domaines’ many tiny parcels of land are listed, something that wine buyers might not find particularly useful.

The descriptions of the wines, based on knowledge built up from countless tastings over many years, are authoritative and give a good sense of what they are like.

For example, she compares two wines from Domaine de la Romanée‑Conti, Burgundy’s greatest property – the extremely scarce Romanée‑Conti, mentioned above, and its stablemate La Tâche: “La  Tâche  is clearly more forceful, more vigorous, and well defined; it is also earlier maturing and much easier to enjoy young.”

The book is handsomely illustrated, and there’s lots of useful advice on buying Burgundy, building up a cellar and serving the wines. On the subject of counterfeiting, Lee says the growing number of fakes is a concern for Burgundy lovers.

She adds: “My personal experience with wines in Asia shows that we need to be more vigilant than ever… as prices increase for all Burgundy wines, fakes will expand quickly.” 

The 100 Burgundy: Exceptional Wines to Build a Dream Cellar, by Jeannie Cho Lee (Assouline, HK$580).

WHY IS BURGUNDY A SUCCESS STORY IN ASIA?

An affinity between Burgundy and Asian food is one of the reasons the wines have become more popular in the region, Jeannie Cho Lee said at the Hong Kong launch of her new book at the Mandarin Oriental on September 4.

“With Cantonese food, with Japanese food, with a lot of Asian cuisines, Burgundy reds are actually more suitable than the tannic, bigger Bordeaux reds,” she said.

A disenchantment with Bordeaux in 2010 and 2011 also gave Burgundy a boost in Asia, she said. Prices set by leading Bordeaux producers were seen as too high, and collectors who bought the wines as an investment found that values did not increase.

In addition, some felt Bordeaux had become commonplace, while top Burgundies – which are produced in much smaller volumes – had an attractive rarity value.

Photographs by Vincent Yu from his 1998 book, HKG, and its 20^th anniversary edition

Chris Patten, The Last Governor of Hong Kong, writes:

“Vincent Yu, whose work I have known for years, has in this book assembled a collection of photographs which tell us an enormous amount about the community’s history and life of Hong Kong.

[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”14″ display=”basic_thumbnail” thumbnail_crop=”0″]He became a familiar face during my years in Hong Kong and it has been a pleasure to see him on the other side of his camera on recent visits. I am sure that everybody who reads this book will feel that they have been reminded about what a great city Vincent has photographed over the years.

I hope, indeed all Hong Kong’s friends hope, that it will remain a great city with its autonomy and rule of law still in place. It is sad that anyone has to think otherwise, but recent events have not all been very encouraging except of course for the courage and principle which so many Hong Kong citizens still demonstrate.”

About Vincent Yu

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Yu has worked as an Associated Press photographer covering major news events across the Asia-Pacific region since the mid-1980s. As a close observer of Hong Kong’s social and political development, Yu has acquired a unique sensitivity towards the territory’s ever-changing cityscape and environment which are often reflected through his imaginaries.

Yu is an award-winning photographer whose works cover both the journalistic and documentary genres. He is the first Hong Kong photographer to have been recognised by World Press Photo and his works are being collected by the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.

Yu was chairman of the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association, and a founding member of the Hong Kong International Photo Festival. From 2010-2012, he operated The Upper Station Photo Gallery in Hong Kong, which showcased the works of some of Hong Kong’s most acclaimed photographers.

William Furniss is an urbanist and architectural photographer based in Hong Kong but born in London in 1970. An early interest in science and design led to an engineering degree at Exeter University in England before beginning his photographic career in 1991. Initially taken with the idea of working as a portrait photographer, Furniss assisted luminaries of the London scene such as Patrick Litchfield and Terry O’Neill.

[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”13″ display=”basic_thumbnail” thumbnail_crop=”0″]In 1993 William was encouraged by friends who lived here to visit Hong Kong. Deng Xiaoping had reputedly said: “To get rich is glorious”, and the world’s focus had swung towards China. Fully intending to continue portrait photography, his work took a change of direction.  The alien visual landscape of Hong Kong reignited a fascination with documenting the immediate environment; the rural English landscapes of his youth were replaced by the chaotic cityscapes of Asia.

Furniss’ interest in cities led him to New York in 1999 with two years spent there developing his approach which today favours pre-visualisation of the image and camera-only manipulations to create a subjective but recognisable record of our time. His pictures are a testament to the belief that cities should be vibrant, enjoyable, sustainable, democratic places that enable a positive future for us on this planet.

William’s ongoing project, Rain, consists of photographs shot through the water rushing down the windows of Hong Kong trams, during our frequent rainstorms. With the focus on this watery plane Hong Kong is at once diffused and distilled to its essence.

Prints from this series are available for sale and enquiries of any kind can be addressed to William via his website, www.williamfurniss.com

Current photographs, Birdy Chu; others from FCC archive and courtesy of SCMP

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times”

Tear gas, rubber bullets and sponge rounds became a regular sight in Hong Kong from June. The extradition bill aroused hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people to march every weekend, creating an influential movement.

Just five years after the Umbrella Movement, this time around the scale is much larger and has been escalating week by week. The city has become a hotspot of international news.

As the weeks went by, my backpack became heavier. I now need a yellow vest, full face mask and helmet, plus an action camera when I go out filming. It is a war zone, and that’s no joke! I was hit by the water cannon mixed with pepper spray. My body felt as if it was burning and my eyes were red and injured. It is a horrible experience that no one will forget.   

Hong Kong has always been a safe and beautiful city.

Hong Kong people are always smart and strong.

Birdy Chu

[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”12″ display=”basic_thumbnail” thumbnail_crop=”0″]

Not much has changed for years in the way Hong Kong’s courts handle the media, leaving reporters to rely on an unspoken code of sharing any information they can get their hands on. This doesn’t bode well for the protest-related cases the judiciary will handle in the coming months. Jane Moir reports.

Journalists who regularly cover the courts in Hong Kong have an unspoken code. You can keep a scoop to yourself but are expected to share the essentials of a case with other court reporters, from writ lists to submissions by counsel.

It is a system which evolved out of necessity. On a typical day at the High Court there might be 25 hearings for journalists to cover. At the District Court, a similar figure. Add the city’s seven magistracies, the coroner’s court, and lands and labour tribunals into the mix and it would take an editorial army to do justice to the daily court diary.

In the coming months, as protest-related arrests and judicial reviews gradually trickle into the courts, journalists will have no choice but to select which cases they will cover.

Globally, as jurisdictions embrace technology and respond to dwindling journalist numbers with easier access to the courts and digitalised documentation, Hong Kong has made just incremental change over the past 20 years.

Journalists in Hong Kong are not privy to large chunks of a case: for example, witness statements which are accepted as evidence but not read out in court. Written expert reports, also deemed to be part of a case’s evidence, are not made available, even in redacted form.

In criminal cases, there has been some progress and journalists no longer have to beg friendly prosecutors to see an indictment. The High Court press office now keeps a copy for journalists to see.

But in the District Court and magistrates courts, journalists must still approach prosecutors or counsel to see what charges a defendant is facing. Although these charges will be read out in court, it requires a speedy hand to note down all the facts. The same is the case with any admitted facts read out in open court with crucial details – such as spellings of names – a reporter would want to check.

“It’s still very Stone Age,’’ says South China Morning Post court reporter Chris Lau. “When things like admitted facts are read in open court, they are read very quickly and sometimes it’s difficult to follow because we don’t have the same documents.’’

Civil cases can be particularly problematic to cover, he says, as opening and closing submissions may not be read out, leaving gaps in the facts and legal arguments for both the press and public.

These skeleton arguments are sometimes accepted by the court with only a few particular queries from the bench. It can be a hardy exercise for a journalist to piece together the gist of an argument when counsel refers to paragraph numbers rather than reading the relevant text.

Court reporters must ask counsel for a copy of their submissions, which is not always granted, although in high profile cases they are sometimes available in soft copy. At the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), counsel’s submissions are uploaded onto the CFA website “with parties’ consent”, according to the Judiciary.

In some cases, it may be only at judgment stage that the picture becomes clear. The Judiciary publishes judgments online and in recent years has tended to upload the documents the same day the decision is handed down. This is not always the case: for example, there was a two-week delay in uploading the English version of a decision to jail democracy activists Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Na-than Law Kwun-chung and Alex Chow Yong-kang in 2017.

Most judgments will give a good summary of the facts, evidence and reasoning. Occasionally however a judge will refer to a “helpful summary of the background and issues” as set out in counsel’s – unpublished – skeleton submissions, and only give a very brief outline.

Similar issues over access to the courts and case information in the UK led to a review in 2018. As a result, HM Courts published guidance on what information journalists are entitled to, as well as allowing journalists to report on cases using texts or other communications. The general starting point is that journalists should be supplied with documents and information unless there is a good reason not to.

The criminal procedure rules were also revised in October 2018 to incorporate the procedure for journalists’ requests for copies of court documents. In general, if a document has been read out in court, it should usually be provided on request – electronically, if possible.

Other jurisdictions, such as the U.S., take a different approach. To any court reporter, a browse on New York’s Supreme Court website is the stuff of fantasy: a plethora of information, from the writ and defence, counterclaim, witness statements, exhibits and even correspondence between parties.

Reporters from Hong Kong who covered the New York trial of disgraced former minister Patrick Ho in December were astonished by the wealth of case-related information they had access to, either online or available through the attorney general’s press office.

Hearings have likewise commonly been televised in the U.S. for decades. Britain’s Supreme Court began live streaming in 2014. Hong Kong’s High Court has broadcast some high-profile trials – the prosecution of former chief executive Donald Tsang and the Sun Hung Kai Kwok brothers’ trial for example – in the vicinity of the courtroom (usually the lobby outside) given seating constraints. In terms of televised hearings, the Judiciary says it is “keeping in view the developments in other jurisdictions on this front” but cites “divergent views” as being a factor in the decision that it has “no plan to introduce televised hearings in Hong Kong courts’’.

In respect of journalists’ digital access to other information such as witness statements and expert reports, the Judiciary says: “…thorough considerations need to be given and relevant stakeholders including the legal profession need to be fully consulted before a decision can be made.”

As the courts gear up to handle more and more protest-related cases, court reporters will still need their unspoken code, friendly clerks and cooperative counsel to give an accurate account of proceedings – much as they did 20 years ago.

Jane Moir writes on legal, regulatory and financial crime issues. She is a former court reporter with the South China Morning Post and was admitted as a barrister in 2012.

Family and juvenile courts present challenge, too

Hong Kong has not opted to follow the UK in allowing journalists access to the family courts. Britain has recently moved toward greater access amid controversial cases, such as a council’s decision to remove a child from her mother illegally.

Although held in private, journalists in the UK have a presumptive right to attend family court proceedings and must adhere to reporting restrictions. In Hong Kong, family courts are closed to journalists. Some judges publish judgments of family proceedings in redacted form, but it is still the practice of the court to seek permission from the parties before doing so.

In the juvenile courts, journalists may attend hearings unless the judge decides it is not in the interests of the child in question. But in some recent cases involving children arrested at the protests and separated from their parents, court reporters were barred from attending despite the high levels of public interest. The details of the case only became available when the guardians filed a judicial review and writ for habeas corpus at the High Court.