Hong Kong-born photojournalist Liu Heung Shing has been described as “The Cartier-Bresson of China” and his beautiful new book, A Life In a Sea of Red, chronicles turbulent points of history in China and Russia. Jonathan Sharp, who has known Liu since the 1980s, takes a look.

The late, great London Times correspondent David Bonavia wrote a typically entertaining book about his experiences of reporting in Russia (which expelled him) and China. Published in 1987, it is called Seeing Red.

Cadres Study Period during 1983 national congress in Beijing to mark the centenary of Karl Marx’s death. Photo: Liu Heung Shing

Now, another old China and Russia hand, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Liu Heung Shing, has produced a truly magnificent volume of his images recording pivotal periods in both nations’ recent history. It’s called A Life in a Sea of Red.

I came to know Liu in the early 1980s when he was in Beijing working for the Associated Press and I was there for Reuters. Liu and his AP boss, Vicky Graham, were formidable competition professionally but also fine, generous company socially.

Students on hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, 1989. Photo: Liu Heung Shing

I was lucky enough to be in Hong Kong in 1983 when Liu launched – at the FCC of course – his first book, China After Mao, chronicling how China was gradually coming out of its shell after the catastrophes of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Forward to 2008 and Liu presented at the Club his magisterial China: Portrait of a Country for which he spent four years trawling through images taken by 88 Chinese photographers covering the first decades of Communist rule.

Now, the images in his latest book, sumptuously published by Steidl, are Liu’s work alone, bringing together his stunning record of the astonishingly rapid changes he has witnessed both in China and Russia. I am proud to have all three books on my shelves.

At an FCC lunch on April 1, Liu spoke about his amazing journey. Born in Hong Kong but raised in Fuzhou in east China, Liu has stark memories of the famine resulting from the 1958-60 Great Leap Forward, seeing his neighbours with limbs and faces bloated by malnutrition. Tens of millions starved to death. Understandably that left an indelible impression.

Liu told us that his first China assignment for Time magazine, to cover the aftermath of Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, was a “miserable failure” because he couldn’t get to Beijing, where the Gang of Four led by Mao’s widow Jiang Qing were about to be arrested.

But not a complete failure. While languishing in south China on the banks of the Pearl River, he said, “I saw the Chinese with an entirely new set of body languages. Soon after Mao’s death I noticed the faces of people seemed more relaxed, their eyes less scrutinising of visitors from abroad.” He knew then that, given the chance, he wanted to return to China as a photojournalist.

Peasants at Evergreen Commune outside of Beijing toss cabbages – the only vegetable available in winter – onto a slow-moving truck in 1980. Photo: Liu Heung Shing

And he has seized those chances, witnessing and recording how China has moved from a life of rigid collectivism into a more individualistic style, albeit under repressive Communist rule, with smashing success. The Cartier-Bresson comparison from Newsweek is just one of his many richly deserved garlands.

So he was in China for the Democracy Wall period in the late 1970s when millions of Chinese poured into Beijing to express their grievances and sufferings. And he was in Beijing in 1989 when China stamped out the student-led protests centred in Tiananmen Square.

Liu did not take the famed “tank man” image of a lone protester facing down a line of PLA tanks. But he was instrumental in getting the precious roll of film, with that highly sensitive image on it, safely transferred across a city under martial law from the photographer, the AP’s Jeff Widener, to an office where Liu could transmit it. The unwitting “pigeon” carrying the film was a pony-tailed American backpacker.

Liu’s own image from that horrific episode, of a young loving couple with a bicycle beneath a bridge bearing tanks rolling by, also won world-spanning play. Most recently it was reprinted in the May 25 Financial Times marking the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.

A young ballerina has a costume fitting in Moscow, 1993. Photo: Liu Heung Shing

Liu’s time in Moscow also coincided with an equally dramatic turning-point in history, nothing less than the collapse of the Soviet Union. One of his better-known images is of Mikhail Gorbachev putting down his resignation speech on a table. Liu took a calculated risk of using a slow shutter speed (1/30 second) to show the motion of the paper being placed down. The whole picture could have been a blurry mess but Gorbachev himself came out sharply.

Liu told us about the startling changes occurring in photo-journalism – in 2017 more than 2.7 trillion images were dumped on Instagram – and that he himself no longer hurtles around to cover the world’s news hotspots.

Instead, he prefers the more gentle art of portraiture. He also looks after the ground-breaking, stylish Shanghai Centre of Photography, which he founded in 2015 as the city’s first museum dedicated to photography.

One of my favourites among Liu’s images is of a Chinese woman having an “eye job” in Beijing in the early 1980s, a procedure that makes her look more Western. That played into a cosy narrative commonly accepted at the time that as China modernised and prospered, it would become more like the West, increasingly democratic and moving closer to embracing Western liberal ideals.

That, as headlines now remind us on a daily basis, has not happened. 

A Life in a Sea of Red by Liu Heung Shing ISBN 978-3-95829-545-2, Published by Steidl, http://www.steidl.de/

You browse on Amazon, or in a bookshop. You have shelves of books all over your home, or you have a slim device that carries your entire library. Which one are you? By Sian Powell.

The contrast was stark. There was a small part of my husband’s library of beloved books, packed into four waist-high cardboard packing cases. Heavy. Unwieldy. Smelling a bit of mould and silverfish. A bore when moving, particularly between countries.

Since we had moved from Sydney to Jakarta, back to Sydney, then to Bangkok to Hong Kong, and back to Sydney and finally back to Hong Kong, the packing case books were weighty evidence of his love for reading.

There on the floor in front of the packing cases, (artfully placed by me to highlight the difference) was a small silver iPod Touch, with my library in it.

In sheer reading terms, my library was much bigger than my husband’s, running to many hundreds of books. And of course, it was light-years more convenient. It’s far easier to slip an iPod into a pocket or a handbag than it is to get books out of bookshelves, stack them in boxes, hassle around with shippers and movers and customs agents, haul them through houses and unpack them all over again.

Sian Powell

Weighing perhaps a few ounces, my iPod was a breeze, as is any other similar device, or even a smartphone with a reading app.

Yes, a paper book has a certain romance. A well-thumbed hardback can have a historical patina, imbued with a musty reverence for times past, sometimes with inscriptions redolent of an earlier age – “Dearest Ethel, happy birthday from your mother, August 1934”. After all, there’s nothing very poetic about sitting in a bay window, while a piano tinkles nearby, intent on a small sliver of electronically-connected metal.

But reading is surely more than just books? It’s the words, stupid, as the Bill Clinton election team might have said.

However they are conveyed from the author’s mind to yours – it’s the ideas and the phrases that count, not their outer casing. “Real” book lovers don’t even bother countering this argument – they generally just shrug and turn to a much-loved book, wedged into a bookcase groaning with books already read and sooner or later to be read, muttering about soulless digital reading, and the real fear of library wipe-out due to electronic glitches and crashes.

Back when I was an adventurous kid, roaming the world in the days of poste restante letters and queues for pay phones, I used to yearn for books. It was only practical to carry three or at the most four in my knapsack, and I used to swap them or replace them as much as possible. Often, though, I was reduced to reading the same few again, and again, and again. One friend used to take a weighty book and rip off the read chapters as he went, so steadily reducing the weight of the single novel in his baggage.

These days, the sheer ease of reading on a device is seductive. I can hold a small paperback in one hand and, at a pinch, turn a page with my thumb. But a device is an easy one-hand hold, and a swipe of the thumb turns the page. No need to switch on a bedside light, either, which reduces marital friction for those of us who don’t sleep so well.

Device readers can roam electronic libraries full of free books – authors’ copyright expires after a while, letting readers explore the wonders of Sherlock Holmes, or Jane and Lizzie Bennet, or David Copperfield for no charge. There are even some newbie authors who self-publish their books online, hoping to attract a following.

Regarding the current angst over iPhone and iPad overuse, I don’t count reading on my device as screen time. There’s no interaction or frenzied clicking. I just turn the pages and read the words until I get to the end of the book – and that, after all, is what reading is all about.

Hong Kong has one of the longest working weeks in the world, but what motivates people to work hard if their career path and pay don’t match expectations? Stephanie Lin reports.

March 2019, professionals in the technology industry across mainland China protested against the 996 working week – 9am-9pm shifts, six days a week. Even though labour laws limit their workers to 40 hours a week plus 36 hours per month overtime, the 996 schedule is common among the country’s tech giants.

Overworking plagues many countries in Asia, and many professions – including journalism. Robin Ewing, director of international journalism at the Hong Kong Baptist University, estimates that although 15 to 50 per cent of fresh graduates from her programme join the industry, the number drops significantly after a couple of years working as a journalist.

Low pay, slow professional growth and long hours – even burnout – all contribute to the drain. Out of between 60-80 undergraduates from 10 years ago that she followed up, only four to five are still working in journalism, she said.

Robin Ewing

However, Ewing considers the high turnover rate in the industry “normal”. “Many who study journalism do not necessarily know whether they want to be journalists,” Ewing said. 

Worried about the development of traditional media, DD, a former business reporter at the China Daily who wishes to remain anonymous, joined the public relations and investor relations industry after working four years in journalism.

“It was my plan to be in the industry for three to five years and gradually explore other opportunities in business,” DD said.

Austin Chiu, who worked at the South China Morning Post for five years as a reporter, left the industry to explore other career interests. “I love to write and that is why I chose journalism,” Chiu said. “It is a very rewarding job, though not in the financial sense.”

Chiu used to work an average of 12 hours a day and occasionally half a day over the weekend to report on court cases when he was a journalist. So why put up with the intrusive working hours?

The latest data by Hong Kong’s Census and Statistics Department estimate that 20 per cent of the city’s labour force worked an average 55-hour week last year. A survey by UBS in 2015 examined working hours in 15 occupations across 71 cities. Hong Kong came out top, with a 50.1-hour working week, 38 per cent above the global average.

Other local government studies have found that one in 10 employees work more than 60 hours a week and an estimated one per cent work more than 75 hours.

Lee Shu Kam, associate head of the Department of Economics and Finance at Hong Kong Shue Yan University, attributed the city’s overwork problem to its labour shortage. “Due to high rent and expenses, it has become very difficult to provide compensation attractive enough to entice those not in the labour force back to work,” Lee said.

The city’s Standard Working Hours Committee has advocated standardising working hours for low-income workers on a contract basis. Labour unions want to go further, pushing for a universal standard 44-hour working week.

Hairin Bahren

Lee says: “What Hong Kong needs is a regulation that establishes a cap on maximum working hours. Standardised working hours would only motivate those with low incomes to work even longer hours.”

Frances Yik Wa Law, associate professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong, said that the government should have a policy that supports work and life balance – although her research did not find any significant correlation between long hours alone and sudden death. “Family is the core of our values and work-life balance is essential to safeguard this pillar,” Law said.

Hong Kong’s finance sector is prey to overwork, too. LC, who wishes to remain anonymous, had a short stint at an American consulting firm after he graduated, where he worked a regular 40-hour week but decided to move to one of the Big Four accounting firms for a long-term career goal. While at the accounting firm, LC worked an average 72 hours a week.

His health and quality of life deteriorated, but LC said he is not against a 996 schedule. “It really depends on what I am expected to do during those hours and whether I will be compensated fairly either through career development or salary,” he said.

On the other hand, Hairin Bahren left the financial industry after feeling unfulfilled and opened a franchised boutique barre studio in Hong Kong.

“I think it is work-life integration – I love my work because it is very rewarding. I have direct access to the end result of our team’s efforts and see the impact we have made on our clients,” Bahren said. “Work has made my life great and it will continue to be my priority in the years to come.” 

BATTLE OF THE GIANTS

In response to a wave of protest against the 996 working week, Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba, issued a statement online in April, calling it a “blessing” for those who have the opportunity to work it. “In this world, everyone wants success… so I ask you all: if you don’t put in more time than everyone else, how are you going to achieve your success?” Ma said.

Across the Pacific, Elon Musk, the CEO and co-founder of Tesla Inc., is also known for working notoriously long hours and getting very little sleep. In response to The Wall Street Journal’s report on the company’s hours and high-stress work environment, Musk tweeted that “there are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week”.

Stephanie Lin is a business consultant who also freelances as a journalist. Prior to her relocation to Hong Kong, she lived on both the west and east coasts in the United States where she had several stints in the public sector, including the United Nations and the White House. 

The first two winners of the new Clare Hollingworth Fellowship have been announced as the club pays homage to the memory of one of its most famous members. Morgan M. Davis reports.

Mary Hui and Jessie Pang have been named the winners of the FCC’s first Clare Hollingworth Fellowship.

Mary Hui

The fellowship, which is named in honour of the club’s late legendary member and renowned journalist, was created to acknowledge early-career journalists and current journalism school students in Hong Kong, giving them access to the city’s professional journalism community through the FCC.

Candidates for the award must be a resident of Hong Kong, have at least two years of journalism experience, and be under the age of 30 at the time the fellowship begins.

“The fellowship struck me as a brilliant initiative to bring in young members to the FCC and to foster deeper connections across different generations of journalists, and I wanted to be part of it,” said Hui, of her application to the programme.

Hui, who is already an FCC member, has been working in Hong Kong since early 2018, after completing her college education at Princeton University and an internship with The Washington Post in the U.S.

She attributes her success in starting her career in Hong Kong to the support and guidance other reporters and editors have given her as she has established herself in the city. “Journalism is a community and, I believe, the better the community, the better the journalism,” said Hui.

Hui began her Hong Kong career as a freelancer, reporting for The New York Times and others, and now works for Quartz, covering business and geopolitics in Asia. “My goal for the coming year is to soak up as much knowledge as I can about covering Asia so that I can report on it more deeply,” she said. “I also want to learn more about covering finance, economics and business, given how fascinating and fast-changing those areas are in Asia.”

Pang, who is set to begin a job as a correspondent at Reuters in September, attributes her success and fellowship award to her journalism school teachers at the University of Hong Kong and her colleagues during her internship at Reuters.

For Pang, her role as a journalist is deeply tied to her ambition to provide a voice to those that otherwise wouldn’t have one, and to report on issues, such as the extradition law protests in Hong Kong, so that others can understand.

“Journalists in Hong Kong have been reporting the extradition law protests thoroughly, so that readers around the world now understand the serious consequences the extradition law amendment bill can bring, and the struggles Hong Kong people are facing,” said Pang.

Jessie Pang

“Given the political circumstances, I want to safeguard press freedom and contribute to the journalism community in Hong Kong,” said Pang. “I believe the FCC is the ideal place for me to start, as the club has a long track record of standing up and speaking up for our colleagues.”

As part of their fellowship, which will run from September 1, 2019, to August 31, 2020, the winners will be given complimentary access to all FCC talks, official gatherings and conferences, as well as access to the FCC’s facilities, while having their membership fees and monthly dues waived. The women will also be mentored by a member of the FCC Board or committees.

In exchange, the winners will produce and contribute a piece – written, photographic or video – for the FCC. They will also be committee members for the annual Journalism Conference, which takes place each spring, and contribute to the FCC community.

“In its first year, we were pleased and gratified by the level of talent and potential of the applicants for the fellowship,” said Jodi Schneider, President of the FCC. “Mary and Jessie both exemplify the qualities we were seeking in fellows.

“The fellowship is a key part of the FCC’s outreach efforts aimed at diversifying the membership base and bringing younger talent into the Club.” 

Remarkable Career Of An Extraordinary Correspondent

Clare Hollingworth, after whom the FCC’s new fellowship is named, died in 2017 aged 105 after a truly remarkable life and career. She joined the Daily Telegraph in London in 1939 as the newspaper’s first female defence correspondent, and soon bagged the scoop of the century when she reported on Germany’s invasion of Poland. Her career took her to the Balkans, Greece, North Africa, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and then to the China of Mao Zedong. She was also a treasured member of the FCC for more than 40 years, making significant contributions to the intellectual and professional life of the club.

Clare on assignment in Palestine in the mid-1960s

British Chief of Defence Staff, Field Marshal Sir Peter Inge (R), is greeted by veteran journalist Clare Hollingworth as Inge arrived at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong to speak at a club luncheon. Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP

Clare with Sir Edward Heath at a club function in 1987

Clare and Tim Page in Saigon during the Vietnam War in the early 1970s

Cameraman and journalist Gary Ling Wah-kee, who dedicated his life to chronicling the modern story of Hong Kong, passed away on March 25 after a short illness. He was 67.

Cameraman and journalist Gary Ling Wah-kee.

I met him in January 2012, shortly after I had arrived in Hong Kong to work for BBC News. One of my colleagues had fixed a TV interview with British finance minister George Osborne, and I desperately needed a crew.

I met Gary at the Convention and Exhibition Centre for the Osborne interview. It was filmed quickly and efficiently. That was the start of a happy and fruitful partnership that would last for six years, during some of the most exciting and tumultuous times in Hong Kong.

I had actually heard about Gary back in 2005, when I spent a few months in Singapore working for Reuters TV. The producers were always talking about him and commenting on how good his stories were.

By that time, he was already a legend. Born and raised in Diamond Hill, the eldest of nine, Gary started in the TV business in 1975, working for Commercial TV. A year later, he would join Visnews, the precursor to what is now Reuters TV, and stay until 2012.

Gary and myself made our way to the village in a rather conspicuous yellow Honda Civic, but managed to give the authorities the slip to cover the tense standoff between the gutsy villagers and riot police. As always, Gary could be counted on to find the best local dai pai dong joints, where he would share his wealth of stories over a hearty meal and icy beers after a day in the field

As a Reuters cameraman, Gary travelled across Asia covering stories for clients and making lifelong friends along the way. He was also known for his calm, his professionalism, his warm smile and his love of dim sum.

One of those friends was Reuters correspondent James Pomfret, who called Gary “Mr Reuters”, with his camera always poised and ready.

“As a trusted colleague, we embarked on numerous adventures together through the years, from factory strikes, the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to celebrity interviews and memorably, the Wukan ‘democracy village’ protests in 2011,” he said.

“Gary and myself made our way to the village in a rather conspicuous yellow Honda Civic, but managed to give the authorities the slip to cover the tense standoff between the gutsy villagers and riot police. As always, Gary could be counted on to find the best local dai pai dong joints, where he would share his wealth of stories over a hearty meal and icy beers after a day in the field.”

Gary was also known for being generous with his time and his knowledge. I vividly remember working with him on a story after he had retired from Reuters, only to have his former colleagues ask him for help on a tricky edit or camera setting.

Venus Wu, a former Reuters colleague of Gary’s, was also one of his protégés. “Before I met Gary, my ambition was to become a print reporter. But that changed after I spent a summer with Gary as a Reuters intern in 2009. Nothing beat the thrill of jumping into Gary’s van and tagging along with him for a shoot.

“Even when we filmed the most mundane assignments, like the stock market opening for the day, Gary was professional to a fault. Whenever we were in the field, I saw how he was friendly with everybody — from the security guards to other journalists who were supposed to be his competitors.”

With Gary’s encouragement, Venus landed another internship with Reuters TV the following summer, and eventually followed in his footsteps when he retired.

Both the BBC and I were exceptionally lucky that he “retired” when he did. Gary was loyal and hardworking, and he kept fit doing archery, ping pong and other sports.

But when there was breaking news, for example the Lamma ferry sinking or the start of Occupy Central, Gary was just a phone call away. My favourite moments with him were the times in between or after jobs, when we’d try to grab dim sum. I even convinced him to volunteer at the FCC, where he was the club’s videographer.

Gary is survived by his siblings, wife, son and daughter. He will be sorely missed and fondly remembered, always. 

Juliana Liu