The images in the exhibition are part of a global project undertaken by Xyza Bacani to explore the intersection between migration and human rights. The project is supported by the Pulitzer Center. Bacani is a Filipino street photographer and a Magnum Foundation Human Rights Fellow, known for her stunning B&W images of Hong Kong street life.

Female migrant workers waits for the train in Orchard, Singapore. Orchard is full of migrants every Sunday. Photo: Xyza Bacani

Singapore is a prosperous country in Asia and migrant workers have played an important role in its success, but at what cost? Hidden behind a shelter in Singapore are hundreds of distressed migrant workers of different nationalities waiting for their cases to be heard and hoping to move on. These people are victims of human labour trafficking, emotional, psychological and physical abuses.

Women are most vulnerable to these types of abuses, but even male migrant workers are subject to exploitation. Migrant workers from China, Bangladesh, India and other Asian countries go to Singapore to work as construction workers with little protection from local labour laws.

When the article was published, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Manpower of Singapore said that ‘Singapore authorities take strong action against employers who do not comply with the law in their management of migrant workers’. She noted that nine in 10 foreign workers reported that they were satisfied with working in Singapore, according to a survey published in 2014, but for hundreds of these migrants, it’s far from reality.”

A portrait of Huang Mei Xin, 32-year-old from China. According to him, he filed a work injury case when he broke his arm while at work. He said the alleged company misreported his case and he was not paid for his medical certificate wages. He is still waiting for his final medical assessment and still wants to continue working in Singapore. Photo: Xyza Bacani

Male migrant workers spending their day off in Little India. Most construction workers are usually from South East Asia and are paid less than locals on their work in Singapore. Photo: Xyza Bacani

Nre Nie Win and Phoo Phoo, age 26 and 25, from Myanmar, watch a movie on a mobile phone. According to them they were not given any holiday, wages were unpaid and they’re not allowed to use mobile phones. Photo: Xyza Bacani

Professional photographers in the past decade or so have had to struggle with declining markets for their photos as publications around the world have faded in the face of online competition. One way around this for many photographers has been to produce books, nearly always associated with an accompanying exhibition.

Hong Kong’s raging sky from “Wind Water” by Palani Mohan

This is the route Indian-born Australian Palani Mohan took when he left the Fairfax group of newspapers in the late 1990s. He has just completed his sixth book, with more to come.

“When I was 17 and just out of school I got a photography cadetship with the Sydney Morning Herald. Those times were also the generous years and they put me through university as well.”

He then spent about 17 years as a news photographer. “I enjoyed the photography world — earning money while doing something you liked to do.”

Out of the mist at the Big (Tian Tan) Buddha on Lantau. Photo: Palani Mohan

Although he had been part of various books projects published by the Fairfax group, “it wasn’t until the late 1990s when I moved to Hong Kong that I approached a publisher to produce my own book”.

At the time he was regularly doing a two-page column in the Sunday Post’s “day in the life” series and decided he would compile about 20 of those stories into a book. Called “Hong Kong Lives”, it was published by Joint Publishing, which now produces mostly Chinese books.

“What attracted me about doing a book is that it is all about your idea — it’s purely the way you see the world. You also have more control of the images which are there for life,” he said.

Palani, who has always been a buyer and collector of photography books, based his second book on a collation of stories he had done for the likes of Time, Newsweek, The Observer, The New York Times and Asiaweek in the early 2000s.

“This was pretty much at the end of the golden era of good work and good money for freelance photographers — it was great while it lasted,” he said.

The book became the “Hidden Faces of India” published by an Anglo/Australian company, New Holland.

Image taken with an iPhone from Palani’s fourth book, “Vivid Hong Kong”.

“I found with my second book that thinking about doing books was liberating which allowed ideas to burst out. So I quickly became hooked on the whole idea of planning books. This was helped by working with a publisher who saw the world with my eyes.”

His third book, “Vanishing Giants: Elephants of Asia”, was published by Editions Didier Millet in Singapore in 2008.

“I was living in Bangkok at the time and looked out the window and saw Asian elephants wandering down Sukhumvit, which somehow didn’t seem to fit: but at the same time to me they seemed to be saying ‘Here I am’ and I accepted the call.

From Palani’s fourth book, “Vivid Hong Kong”.

“I was first intrigued by elephants when I was growing up in India and have always been interested in the lives of the people who exist alongside them.”

This project was spread over five years. He photographed the elephants while doing other jobs in 13 countries around South and Southeast Asia seeing how the demands of industry and agriculture, burgeoning populations and environmental degradation had reduced the wild Asian elephant’s habitats and their numbers, which now hover below 40,000.

“When I arrived in Hong Kong after the elephant book the iPhone 3S was just out and the possibilities for taking photos with the iPhone was only just starting. I thought that using the iPhone unobtrusively to take photos might make a good book.”

From Palani’s fourth book, “Vivid Hong Kong”.

He approached Asia One Books to see if they would be interested in the idea of doing a book. “Without seeing any sample photos, Asia One grabbed on to the idea and so my fourth book, ‘Vivid Hong Kong’, was born and was published in 2011.”

Palani roamed the streets in all weathers and seasons to compile his take on the city. By forgoing traditional photographic equipment in favour of an iPhone, he was able to wend his way through the crowds, seizing those everyday, fleeting moments.

“When I started out not much had been done with iPhone photography,” he said. “It turned out to be a lot of fun and the quality was much better than I thought it would be which meant I could do exhibition prints and I was able to sell big prints.”

From Palani’s fourth book, “Vivid Hong Kong”.

The striking duotone images from Palani’s fifth book, “Hunting with Eagles: In the Realm of the Mongolian Kazakhs” by Merrell Publishers, were an On the Wall exhibition at the FCC in November 2015.

Palani spent some years seeking out the Kazakh golden eagle hunters on the far-western Mongolia and China border in the Altai Mountains. He got to know the hunters, or burkitshis, well as he photographed their vanishing culture, threatened by dwindling golden eagle numbers and the hunters’ children, who forsook the brutal winters and moved to Ulan Bator for a better life.

His sixth and most recent book, “Wind Water”, is quite a departure from his previous books as it’s a visual and artistic reflection on the feng shui elements — wind, water, wood, metal, earth and fire – and “the chi that powers this great harbourside city”, he said.

From Palani’s fourth book, “Vivid Hong Kong”.

“I have used the feng shui elements to make a personal portrait of the city which I think captures the energetic spirit of Hong Kongers. Although the geomancers will tell you this is no coincidence as Hong Kong has the most powerful feng shui of any place on earth.”

As well as exploring all the coastal corners of Hong Kong, it also entailed spending many hours on his roof in Happy Valley with camera and tripod in hand to photograph the shifting patterns of clouds in relation to the water.

For this book Palani approached a German publisher, Kehrer Verlag, “who were excellent to work with on this dream-like book — it was a work of love for me and the publisher, exemplified by their efforts to get a feng-shui-correct ISBN number.

From “Wind, Water”, by Palani Mohan

“This book was three years in the making and I don’t think I have ever worked this hard,” he said. “It’s probably the most difficult thing I have done, it demands everything of you.”

Palani will be having a major exhibition early this year at the F22 photo space. Having exhibitions is a way to encourage print sales, which is necessary as there is not a whole lot of money in books.

“You could say that doing a book elevates you as an artist, rather than your bank balance,” he said. “I learned a long time ago that in this line of work you are never rich, but have a rich life.”

Having said that, Palani says he has picked up quite a lot of commercial work as a direct result of the books.

From “Wind, Water”, by Palani Mohan

Student protesters were getting increasingly gun-shy as jail sentences were handed out during January. Even Joshua Wong, who was awaiting appeal for his previous conviction, was jailed for three months on a separate case.

Bailed democracy activists Joshua Wong (C) and Nathan Law (L) speak to the press after their arrival at the Court of Final Appeal for the first hearing in their bid to appeal their jail sentences in Hong Kong on November 7, 2017.

The judges in these cases seemed to take Henry Litton’s advice to heart when he had said that any charge that led to violence should result in jail time.

Earlier, when a still defiant Wong spoke at a press conference following his release on bail pending his appeal, he vowed to continue the “fight for greater democracy”, the SCMP reported. Last August, that meant 20,000 were out on the streets, now there are subdued handfuls.

Joshua Wong and Raphael Wong returned to prison — Raphael for four-and-a-half months — after being convicted of contempt for failing to comply with an injunction to clear the 2014 protest site in Mong Kok, HKFP reported. Another activist, Lester Shum, received a one-month sentence, suspended for 12 months, in addition to a HK$10,000 fine.

Some 17 other activists were also convicted of criminal intent. Joshua and Lester, along with nine others, pleaded guilty. Raphael Wong and eight others pleaded not guilty. The court found all 20 of them guilty in October. In December, four defendants were given 12-month suspended jail terms and fined HK$10,000 each. The other 13 defendants all received suspended jail sentences on January 17.

And there is more to come: Chief prosecutor David Leung has said additional legal action against more than 700 is being considered.

Separately, the VOA reported that the chairmen of the US Congressional Executive Commission on China said they planned to nominate Wong and the Umbrella Movement for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.

China has moved from censoring domestic and foreign news media to cracking down on academic publications as well.

Journal of Chinese History

Right from the start of Xi Jinping’s tenure in 2012, the authorities have been exerting control over what is said not only on domestic media websites but also on foreign media organisations’ websites.

One of the first foreign media to run afoul of China’s tougher censorship stance was The New York Times’s English and Chinese-language websites which have been blocked since October 2012 over a story about then prime minister Wen Jiabao’s family.

In fact, there aren’t many foreign news organisations’ websites that haven’t been blocked at some time or another, including the Wall Street Journal, SCMP, BBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, The Independent, The Economist, Le Monde, Time, Radio Australia and SBS radio. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, most Google services and certain search engine terms are blocked as well.

If you Google “NYT and China censorship” you can see how relentless NYT has been in covering every aspect of China’s censorship drive since 2012. At the time of the People’s Congress in October NYT’s Paul Mozur wrote about the composition of the new Politburo Standing Committee, identifying Wang Huning, who had previously been the man behind the throne for the past three leaders, as the architect of China’s authoritarian drive for “security and order on the Internet”.

NYT Chinese

Of course there have been some major beneficiaries of the squeezing of Western technology giants like Google. Chinese businesses such as Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba, some of the world’s largest Internet enterprises, benefited from the way China has blocked international rivals from the market, according to the BBC.

Not content to simply harass news organisations, the authorities (General Administration of Press and Publications) have now turned their attention to foreign academic journal websites. As a result academic publishers are deeply divided over how to respond between the resist or cave-in camps.

The FT revealed that the publisher in response to the authorities had blocked access to at least 1,000 academic articles in China that mention subjects deemed sensitive by Beijing, including Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong.

Of course, academic publishers have been dealing with censorship for centuries, although many now see that China’s censorship is an unprecedented assault in “Xi’s efforts to export the Chinese Communist party’s heavily circumscribed view of intellectual debate as part of his push to promote Chinese soft power”, the FT reported.

The latest publisher to feel the pinch is Springer Nature, a German group that publishes among others Nature and Scientific American. The FT revealed that the publisher in response to the authorities had blocked access to at least 1,000 academic articles in China that mention subjects deemed sensitive by Beijing, including Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong.

Springer Nature has been very defensive, saying in a statement that it was obliged to comply with “local distribution laws” and was trying to avoid its content being banned outright.

Earlier in August Cambridge University Press, under an order from its Chinese importer, reluctantly decided to block within China some 315 articles in its publication The China Quarterly. This was later reversed under pressure from academic staff, with the publisher pledging to “uphold the principle of academic freedom on which the university’s work is founded”.

NYT English

University of Chicago Press (CUP), which publishes the highly regarded China Journal, said in the FT it had not yet blocked content in China but, if asked, would cut off access to institutions overseen by the government. Similarly, Lord Patten, chancellor of Oxford University, said that even though China was a “hugely important income stream” for the institution, Oxford University Press had not and would not block content.

The Association for Asian Studies said in a statement it was “extremely concerned about this violation of academic freedom, and the AAS is in ongoing discussions with CUP about how it will respond to the Chinese government. We oppose censorship in any form and continue to promote a free exchange of academic research among scholars around the world.”

Another CUP publication that was in line for censorship was the Journal of Asian Studies, edited by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, who is also professor of Chinese history at the University of California, Irvine.

Wasserstrom noted that some academics whose articles were not proscribed feel a bit left out, as if they need to try harder to get banned.

When CUP first announced it was going to pull articles from its website in China, said Wasserstrom at the FCC in November, “it was often said that people could not access those articles in China anyway. This is true, but what is worse is that when you searched the journal site for articles about Tiananmen or Tibet or the Cultural Revolution it made it seem that those articles did not exist.”

Wasserstrom said he was given a list of 100 or so articles the authorities “wanted to have disappear from our site, but fortunately nothing happened because of the blow-back from The China Quarterly situation.

“In fact one of the journal articles which wasn’t listed was about Tiananmen, but we had it under the title ‘Acting out democracy’, and somehow it slipped right through.” Wasserstrom noted that some academics whose articles were not proscribed feel a bit left out, as if they need to try harder to get banned.

Wasserstrom said he also had an upcoming article in the Journal of Chinese History “which I am sure will be on the taboo list as it’s titled ‘The Red Guard generation revisited’”.

Wasserstrom said that academic publishers need to have some kind of coordinated strategy, “but at a certain point you have to be prepared to walk away from the Chinese market no matter how lucrative”.

Hong Kong’s creeping censorship

Hong Kong is feeling the creeping hand of censorship from Xi as he exercises a tightening of control over the city and mainland China, says Wasserstrom.

The disappearance of the Hong Kong booksellers, the silencing of previously vocal critics of China, and the flooding of pro-China posters around the city during the 20th anniversary of the handover celebrations are all signs of tightening control, said Wasserstrom.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom revealed to FCC Club Lunch attendees that he had been given a list of 100 or so articles Chinese authorities “wanted to have disappear”.

And he warned that a general concept that, until now, applied a different set of rules to Hong Kong was coming to an end. Wasserstrom described how, rather than One Country, Two Systems – the framework around which Hong Kong was to be reintegrated with the mainland – there had been One Country, Three Systems. He explained this as one set of rules applied in Tibet and Xinjiang; a second set of rules applying to the mainland; and a third set of rules that allowed Hong Kong media to freely report on issues including the pro-democracy movement. But the case of the missing booksellers, along with a push for a China-approved national curriculum, was a sign that this third rule no longer applied to Hong Kong.

He said the increase in China-centric posters around Hong Kong suggested that efforts to spread propaganda had become more obvious, and said future signs to look out for would be banks in the city using the Belt and Road Initiative to promote themselves.

Referring to Hong Kong and the silencing of some well-known anti-establishment figures, Wasserstrom used the metaphor of the canary in the mineshaft: “One other thing that can happen to a canary is it can find it possible to keep breathing but is unable to sing,” he said, before adding: “We need not just to keep watching the dramatic moments when the canaries disappear and die, but when they stop singing.”

A Hong Kong lad and his mates have put their bodies and minds to the ultimate test and completed one of the world’s great physical challenges: rowing unaided for 3,000 miles across the Atlantic inspired by two FCC families.

Peter Robinson, George Biggar, Dicky Taylor and Stuart Watts raised money for Spinal Research.

Despite all being amateur rowers, not only did Peter Robinson, George Biggar, Dicky Taylor and Stuart Watts win the race, smashing the previous world record for a four-man team by over five days, but they are also looking to reach their target of raising £150,000 for Spinal Research.

This epic challenge came from team member Peter’s friend, Ben Kende. A rising rugby star, he sustained a spinal cord injury while playing rugby for Hong Kong in 2010, causing paralysis. Ben Kende and David Wishart have had to overcome enormous challenges from quadriplegia. Both the Wishart and Kende families are active members of the FCC.

The Main Bar might not be somewhere you would expect to find leading sportsmen, but over Macau Grand Prix week in November it became a regular haunt for some of the world’s leading riders and drivers.

Eight-time Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix winner Michael Rutter (below, centre) was joined by two-time winner Peter Hickman (right) and Irish racer Steven Heneghan for a bit of pre-race training in the days leading up to the event while former World Touring Car Champion Rob Huff (right, on the left) came to celebrate his record-breaking ninth Macau victory with FCC member and fellow racer Richard Meins.

Former World Touring Car Champion Rob Huff, left, with FCC member and fellow racer Richard Meins.

Eight-time Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix winner Michael Rutter (centre) was joined by two-time winner Peter Hickman (right) and Irish racer Steven Heneghan.

The Punji Trap, by Luke Hunt

Journalist Luke Hunt’s second book “The Punji Trap” pries open the life of Pham Xuan An, the Viet Cong spy whose work for the Communists — conducted under the cover of being a foreign correspondent for major publications — was a major factor in the defeat of South Vietnam in 1975.

The release is also timely with the 50th anniversary of the Tet offensive approaching. That offensive, at the end of January in 1968, turned the tide of public opinion against the war.

Hunt, who has been a regular contributor to The Correspondent, interviewed An over many years alongside many of the people who knew him best, in particular the correspondent Pham Ngoc Dinh, whose portrait hangs under the Reuters plaque in the bunker of the FCC, and Tran Kim Tuyen, who headed South Vietnam’s spy network.

Club stalwarts like Jim Pringle and others who have passed away like Hugh van Es also figure in the narrative, which traces Vietnamese history from the early days of French colonisation and into the 21st century.

Early reviews have been positive.

“Luke Hunt’s incisive portrayal of a fascinating character explores a murky underbelly of espionage in the Vietnam War. This painstakingly researched work is compelling and thought provoking,” said Lindsay Murdoch, Southeast Asia correspondent for The Age in Melbourne and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Michael Philips, of the Phnom Penh Post, said that after the documentary series ‘The Vietnam War’ by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, “Hunt gives us an intriguing book to help fill in the gaps.”

“The Punji Trap” is published by Pannasastra University of Cambodia Press and distributed internationally by Talisman. International retail price US$18.

The latest group of members to join the FCC is, as always, an interesting bunch. The membership committee meets regularly to go through the applications and are always impressed by the diversity of the prospective members. As you would expect there’s a healthy mix of Journalists and Associates – and all have interesting tales to tell – so if you see a new face at the bar, please make them feel welcome. Below are profiles of just some of the latest ‘intake’.

Regina Ho

Finally! Membership! Love the bohemian vibes of the club. My origins can be traced to the beautiful Pearl of the Orient, but Hong Kong is now home. Hong Kong has certainly grown on me and when I came, I could not have imagined myself in the finance industry.

The past 15 years have been with a bank where I have had the challenge of building and managing trading, treasury and product functions and now, slowly but surely on to winding down said institution. As to where the road leads me, who’s to say what’s next?

Noah Sin

Born in Hong Kong, I spent my formative years in the UK, where I read history and international relations at university, interned at the British parliament and got my first taste of journalism at The Independent’s London office. I wrote about China and Hong Kong for the newspaper and a few other outlets.

My interest in what’s happening in the East – and a constant urge for Hong Kong street food – eventually took me back to my home city earlier this year. I now report on Chinese capital markets and the internationalisation of the renminbi for Euromoney Institutional Investor.

Mikko Takkunen

I’m the Asia photo editor for the New York Times’s foreign desk based here in Hong Kong. Originally from Finland, I lived in the UK for over a decade, including working as a freelance photojournalist in London, before moving over to the editing side and life across the pond in New York.

I spent a couple of years at Time magazine, before joining NYT at the end of 2015. I had never set foot anywhere in Asia before landing in Hong Kong, just a day before starting at my current role in March of last year. I’ve very much enjoyed the city so far. My family includes my wife Veronica Sanchis Bencomo, a photographer and curator, and our beloved rescue puppy, Capa, named after the famous Hungarian photographer.

Anthony Tung

I am art director and partner of Pop Spot advertising agency. With more than 40 years’ experience, I was part of Hong Kong’s first graphic design company Graphic Atelier, worked in established agencies such as Glenngraphic Advertising, and was partner in a company that successfully promoted the use of computers for graphic design. I was responsible for the rice brand 源隆米業(金象米), and the logo designs of Hong Kong’s CITYBUS and EPS易辨事.

Photography is one of my passions, and I am drawn to capturing and sharing Hong Kong’s rich native culture. I also enjoy the city’s nature, and in 2011 successfully completed Trailwalker as my first hiking challenge!

Mala Uttam

After working as a lobbyist in DC for several years, I moved back to Hong Kong to train as an educator. I am currently the Head of Year at an international school and the career shift has been a welcome change. Not only am I sleeping more, but my heart is lighter and my spirit more hopeful than ever before!

As an undergraduate at Georgetown University, we were taught the importance of cura personalis, or “care of the person”, which describes our responsibility to each person in our community. This stayed with me decades after I graduated and was the inspiration for a free clinic which I co-founded with Dr Damien Mouellic with collaboration between senior students at Chinese International School and medical professionals. The clinic aimed to provide high-quality medical treatment to those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it. Over the past year, we have managed to serve some 500 people whose median household income is HK$8000/month or less.

My yoga teacher always says “life is coming from within you, not coming at you” and I repeat this mantra to my students. I encourage them to look for where joy naturally arises in their lives and to follow that sensation and see where it leads.

Jack Yao

I was born, raised and educated in the northern part of mainland China, migrated to the south in 2004 and made a big career change from shopping/logistics/retail to multimedia journalism and have enjoyed doing it ever since.

Now, my focus is on outdoor sports events reporting and migrant workers’ living and working conditions.