March 2015 / Lorie Halliday

Hong Kong Muslims: Killing, terrorism not in Quran

A Muslim group here wanted to clear up negative notions about Islam, responding to earlier reports on potential Islamic State terrorism threats in Hong Kong.

Joseph Yusuf Bautista, president of the Helpers of Islam Group, on Monday said killing humans and doing acts of terrorism are all against the teachings of Quran.

“We also don’t know the truth about IS,” he said, noting that whether or not the IS is being used to discriminate Islam is yet to be known.

Some news agencies reported last week that Islamic State militants allegedly targeted Muslim workers here.

A local newspaper, South China Morning Post reported an alleged missing pregnant Indonesian worker believed to join the terrorist group.

Nearly 150,000 Indonesians worked in Hong Kong, according to its Census and Statistics Department in 2012.

The group released an open letter to Hong Kong people in response to the news SCMP and other news agencies. The letter aimed “to enlighten and portray the true teachings of Islam in relation to extremism, terrorism and corruption of any kind in any form of society.”

With some 60 active members, the Muslim group is composed of “rebirths” or those who converted their religion to Islam, he said. The group’s letter requested for everyone to judge the religion by its original scriptures, adding, “There are bad apples in every basket.”

Regarding the alleged missing Indonesian, Bautista said it is impossible for a pregnant woman to go to a battle.

The Hong Kong Police Force said Monday it has “no specific intelligence to suggest that the city is likely to be a target of terrorism,” adding that the terrorist threat level remains at moderate. The police will monitor terrorist trends to prevent terrorist activities in the city, its public relationS office said. It added that the police will conduct regular trainings and multi-agency exercises to ensure “high level of preparedness.”

Terrorism-related acts are criminalized in Hong Kong under existing laws, the police said. Asked to respond to the alleged IS recruitment, Leung Kwok-hung, member of the Panel on Security of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council stressed on Monday the need for reliable sources.

“How can journalists know about that,” he said, adding that he did not hear any official information from the police nor security bureau.

Some 270,000 Muslims live in Hong Kong, including 140,000 Indonesians and 30,000 Chinese, according to a government factsheet on November 2014. The rest are non-Chinese born in Hong Kong, and others from South Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries, it stated. The city has five principal masjids with the biggest, Kowloon Masjid and Islamic Centre in Nathan Road, that can accommodate up to 3,500 worshippers, as stated in the factsheet.

A red flag looks like that of a communist party at a distance. It has a sickle and, instead of a hammer, a wine glass. It was the work of London-based Filipino artist Pio Abad.

Modern and contemporary art of Art Basel Hong Kong came in different forms and concepts that without looking at the artists’ names, one would not know which country they represent.

“What makes an artwork Filipino is because the artist is Filipino,” said exhibitor Rachel Rillo at Silverlens galleries of the Philippines and Singapore that featured Abad’s works.

Art is becoming global, she said, adding that the flag was a satire and a contemporary art dialogue, along with a Hermes scarf painting of the same artist.

Pio Abad's flag is a satire of a communist party flag, says Rachel Rillo of Silverlens.

Silverlens also displayed the works of Filipino artists Maria Taniguchi, Leslie De Chavez, Renato Orara, Bernardo Pacquing, Gregory Halili, Patricia Perez Eustaqiuo and Frank Callaghan, and Yee I-Lann from Malaysia.

Displaying at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on March 15-17 were over 230 galleries from 37 countries, half of which are found in Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Their artworks varied in sizes, from huge canvases hanging from the ceiling to small used paint tube caps scattered like dots on white walls.

Highly conceptual

Artinformal, another gallery from the Philippines featured Nilo Ilarde’s “faulty landscape,” a collection of salvaged objects such as small paint tubes, tube caps, and brushes. On its fourth year at the international fair, the gallery chose Ilarde because his work was “highly conceptual with a very strong statement,” said its creative director, Tina Fernandez.

Nilo Ilarde's Faulty Landscape

The Drawing Room Gallery of the Philippines displayed Gaston Damag’s “Shadows of civilization,” using wooden sculptures that symbolize an Ifugao rice god called “bulol” as a proposal of art. “There’s no message at all. I don’t pretend. It’s all about art,” he explained.

The gallery tends to work with specific pool of artists, who are critical in the sense that their works are also a part of their daily life and cultural conditions, said its curator Siddharta Perez.

Gaston Damag (left) says his "Shadows of Civilization" is a proposal for art.

The three galleries have joined the art fair for several years and placed their artists in the map.

But, unlike Rillo, Fernandez cannot say that Filipino artists have reached global standards in terms of quality of works as they need to improve more. “Local artists should read up what’s happening around the world and attend fairs to see what’s out there,” she added.

Typical commercial art fair

On the other hand, an artist does not need to join international events to excel and be known globally, said Gaston Damag, who was on his second time to join the fair. In fact, it can be a disadvantage to be in “a typical commercial art fair,” he said.

“If you’re not careful, you can be eaten like a small piece of meat,” he said, adding that an artist has to hold a strong position to be less eaten by the commercial aspect of the fair.

Galleries from the Western countries aimed to expand their reach in the Asian region, such as the Richard Gray Gallery located in Chicago and New York.

“We made new clients each year,” said Paul Gray, one of the partners of the gallery.

Hong Kong is a sophisticated city, he said, but it does not have some of the things that make up a great art scene in Western cities. “But, it’s obvious that it’s moving in that direction,” he added.

Over 60,000 people from all over the world visited the fair.

Inkling of aesthetics

Citing that most of the visitors were widely exposed to art and galleries, Rillo said Filipino art enthusiasts do not take much to be at par as they have an inkling of aesthetics.

However, Fernandez said Filipinos need more education to have deep understanding on art, especially the people in the government to give more focus on it.

She hopes that the government will make things easy for the private sector in facilitating and building more venues for art promotion. “Just make things easy for us,” she said, adding that they are being taxed on Philippine artworks brought back from international exhibitions.

First time to see Art Basel Hong Kong, Filipino private art collector Andrew Benedicion expressed his bias with the Art Fair Philippines, a major exhibition of modern and contemporary Philippine visual art.

Although the artworks in Art Basel were nice, he said, it is “very generic looking.” The lighting in the halls were bright and the white walls of every booth drenched the entire space, creating a sense of monotony.

Benedicion likes the gritty effect of the Philippines’ fair that was held inside a carpark with darker lighting.

This also explains why he still wants to collect Filipino artworks besides being a Filipino. It is the raw and gritty feel of Philippines contemporary art that appeals to him.

Amid teeming monopods being sold cheap in the city’s street markets, locals still go to selfie studios for good quality photos. Banking on such demand, three entrepreneurs had savored success after the first year of its start-up company that stands for their youthfulness.

“Our name says it all,” Snaparty co-founder Vien Wong, 25, said Friday. It is a combination of “snap” that means taking photo and “party” as the place is also rented out for parties and meetings.

The company got its return on investment with a capital of 700,000 Hong Kong dollars a year after its inception in November 2013, said 26-year-old co-founder Alan Li.

Located in one of the old buildings in bustling Mong Kok district, Snaparty can hold up to 30 people.

It has two rooms as selfie or do-it-yourself studios, a living room with a sofa facing an LCD display screen connected to the Internet and Apple iMac desktop computer, a dining table and toilet.

The walls have shelves of stuffed toys, hats, party sunglasses and other colorful props for different occasions. Wi-Fi is available for everyone inside the room.

Each studio has customized tripod, DSLR camera, a stationary flash umbrella, LCD screen and a small sound system that can play mp3 files from both Android and Apple smartphones. Customers can choose their backdrop from painted canvas of various themes mounted on the wall.

Specifically designed for the studio, the tripod has wheels and holds a DSLR camera with levers to move it up and down, left and right. Instead of looking at the camera’s viewfinder, customers can see through the screen that can be adjusted up to 360 degrees to synchronize with the camera’s position.

After achieving the best angle, one can press the remote control button to shoot. Instantly, the picture shows up in the screen.

Adjusting the camera’s angle using the levers of a customized tripod, Snaparty co-founder Vien Wong says the market for selfie studios in Hong Kong has been saturated on March 6 in Mong Kok.

Having a pool of equipment that work well together is the key to have quality pictures and services, Wong said. Seeking professional advice was a good move, she added.

Kayu Chan, 24, also co-founder, is the photography master in the group, while Li, who works as bank consultant, takes care of the company’s financial matters.

Their cameras, Canon EOS 70D, are “not the latest, not the most expensive,” Wong said, but suitable for the environment with the flash umbrella and lights in the room.

“No need for Photoshop,” she said and laughed. Customers can automatically upload their photos online using the computer and/or print them through a compact printer, Canon Selphy cp800.

The printer was Wong’s choice as she has been using it at home and satisfied with its output quality. More expensive than the Canon, Fujifilm portable printer prints customers’ photos in the size of business cards, Wong said.

Printing costs HK$6 per 4R photo and HK$12 per business card size photo.

To rent a studio for an hour costs HK$100 with as many as 3,005 photos taken based on its customers’ record.

One of the first two selfie studios in Hong Kong, Snaparty remains afloat, thanks to word-of-mouth and free promotions online, Wong said, noting Phocus as the other company.

Since the recent holidays, the market has been saturated with at least 20 selfie studios that emerged in the city, Wong noted.

Photography is among the creative industries that are important in promoting Hong Kong’s creative economy, according to Hong Kong Ideas Centre’s study.

“But, we are not so optimistic on the Hong Kong market,” Wong said. Snaparty considered branching out in other countries, especially South Korea and Malaysia, she added.

[caption id="attachment_180" align="aligncenter" width="415"] SNAPARTY CO-FOUNDERS PHOTO BY LORIE ANN CASCARO

Snaparty co-founders (left to right) Vien Wong and Alan Li say their company’s motto is to make sure that their “customers carry a smile upon leaving the door” on March 6 in their space in Mong Kok.[/caption]

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Hong Kong Muslims: Killing, terrorism not in Quran