High quality photos make a selfie studio prevail

High quality photos make a selfie studio prevail

 

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 (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 food waste reduction counts on children, creativity

Hong Kong food waste reduction counts on children, creativity

 

The city is counting on the younger generations in solving the problem on food waste, while being creative in promoting sustainable habits.

The Environment Bureau launched in December 2014 the pre-primary environmental education kit to raise children’s awareness of protecting resources and reducing food waste. It points out that childhood is “an important part of environmental education.”

The bureau also prompted the education sector to cultivate among children the culture of “use less, waste less,” which is the theme of the government’s food waste plan launched in February 2014.

Supported by different sectors, the Environmental Campaign Committee set up last June an internet platform called “Waste Less School” for kindergarten, primary and secondary students. It aims to promote “zero food waste” among children, extend awareness through school events and encourage the public “to change their behavior.”

In its plan, the government aims to cut the disposal rate to landfill of municipal solid waste on a per capita basis by two-fifth in 2022. It says the critical part is to reduce food waste production.

Food waste here reached 3,600 tons every day in 2011. Households produced two-thirds of it. The rest came from food-related commercial and industrial establishments.

The amount of food waste from households had increased from 786,200 tons in 2008 to 925,200 tons in 2012, according to the Environmental Protection Department.

“Apparently, it is still more effective to start the environmental education at home,” said Wise Wong, who used to teach at the York International Kindergarten. Children learn the value of conserving food from their parents first, she added.

Sandy Zeng from Hung Hom district said she occasionally takes her 4-year-old daughter to a farm to show where their food came from. The child can see the tedious processes of planting and harvesting vegetables in the farm, and learn to give importance to the food and its sources, Zeng said.

Since the Food Wise Hong Kong Campaign began in May 2013, schools have done various activities and platforms for their students to participate in reducing food waste.

Meanwhile, Wong said it is effective to use animation characters to instill the values among children, especially if the ones being used are their favorite cartoons. “It’s like having a role model in a creative and fun way,” she added.

Cartoon character “Big Waster” that symbolizes food wastage in the FWHK Campaign “is gradually gaining popularity,” according to its press release. It also went online to interact with the public, especially the young generation, through its Facebook page.

 "Big Waster" of Food Wise Hong Kong Campaign poses in a poster retrieved from its Facebook page.

However, it is yet to be surveyed how Hong Kong people respond to animation characters and mascots of environmental and other campaigns, said Ms. Wong of the industry support section of Create Hong Kong that has the mandate to boost creative industries.

CreateHK held in 2013 the first mascot design competition here for “Hong Kong: Our Home” Campaign. Its four themes each with a mascot were “Hip Hong Kong,” “Vibrant Hong Kong,” “Caring Hong Kong,” and “Fresh Hong Kong.”

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HK labor unions say new minimum wage unreasonable

HK labor unions say new minimum wage unreasonable

Labor leaders were dissatisfied with the city’s new statutory minimum wage rate at 32.50 Hong Kong dollars an hour, effective on May 1. They vowed to continue their fight for workers’ welfare.

The minimum wage is “unreasonable, especially if the worker is a breadwinner,” Wong Pit-man, head secretary of the Eating Establishment Employees General Union, said last Saturday.

It is short by HK$7.2 from the proposal (HK$39.7/hour) of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, Ip Wai Ming, its deputy director, said Thursday.

Both labor leaders said the minimum wage is barely for survival, “while the government thinks it is enough for one person.”

The federation has its formula in computing the minimum wage to catch up with the inflation rate for a worker and a dependent to afford a standard living.

Since the government began implementing the statutory minimum wage policy in 2011, the HKFTU proposed an increase of minimum hourly rate to HK$33 from HK$28. In 2013, it was raised to HK$30 per hour.

For establishment owners such as M. Aslam, director of the Family Provision and Fast Food Co., HK$32.5 an hour is “still not enough,” considering the high prices of commodities and housing rent.

“No one will want the job. It’s good if it’s HK$40 (an hour),” said Lam, a regular employee of grocery chain, Wellcome, in Kowloon.
 

 

Ip Wai Ming, deputy director of Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, says workers are unhappy with the new minimum wage on Feb. 5 in Kowloon. 

On the contrary, the minimum wage increase “will benefit tens of thousands of low-income employees and encourage more people to join the labor market,” Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said in his policy address in January.

Hong Kong’s total working population rose to 3.92 million as of 2014 from 3.86 million in 2013, according to government statistical data.

“Just surviving,” minimum wage earners comprise 10 percent of the total number of workers in 2013 after the minimum wage rise, Ip said.

Most of them are cleaners, security guards and health care givers. One-third of them work part time, especially in catering industries, he cited.

Despite the enforcement of statutory minimum wage rate, Wong said workers in the Chinese catering sector only had 2 percent increase of average salary over the past decade.

A large number of workers out of some 8,500 members of EEEGU are underpaid, he said, having long working hours and poor working conditions.

He cited that pantry delivery and cleaning workers have an average salary of HK$8,000 to HK$9,000, dishwashers HK$10,000, waiters/waitress HK$11,000, and Chinese chef HK$18,000.

Meanwhile, not many employers would dare to pay below minimum wage as most citizens are familiar with the labor laws, Ip said. Majority of underpaid workers are immigrants, who are hired for constructions, banquets, and other informal jobs by unregistered agents, he added.

Seeking for higher wages and improvement of working conditions of underpaid workers, the EEEGU had lobbied their concerns to the labor and welfare department. They had also organized meetings with local news reporters to inform the public of their gathered data and cases, Wong said.

For instance, he said, some employers attempted to cut headcounts as an excuse from the minimum wage increase, or cutting paid meal breaks in order to conform with the new wage requirements.

While convincing its members in the government to yield to their demands, the federation will also take it to the streets, Ip said.

Some 5,000 workers will join a mass demonstration on May 1 to push for their proposed minimum wage increase, among other demands, Ip said.

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At home with the homeless in Sham Shui Po

At home with the homeless in Sham Shui Po

Chan Kwok-cheong has two beds: one for chilly nights and the other for warm weather.

His big roof is the wide bridge that stretches along Tung Chau Street at Sham Shui Po in Hong Kong.

On a Wednesday morning, the 58-year-old man woke up inside a box of plywood strips fully covered with printed tarpaulin.

His head could almost touch the ceiling, as he sat on an old single-sized mattress.

He went outside head first, almost kneeling, and took a couple of steps to reach his second bed at the Temporary Market’s wall.

Sitting on the bed, he placed his cellphone on a wooden table with old newspapers.

An agency, whose name he chose not to disclose, calls him if he gets a job, but it does not happen everyday, he said.

He earns HK$450 by cleaning malls or parks for eight to nine hours a day. Depending on his body condition and mood, he can earn an average of HK$3,500 a month.

Unlike his neighbors, Chinese immigrants and Vietnamese refugees, Chan is entitled of government medical services.

He will also have his own housing unit in the next three years, he said, as he applied for public rental housing in 2012.

The Housing Authority says the average waiting time for general applicants is over three years, while for elderly one-person is nearly two years.

Chan may get a house by 2017, but the waiting list might tell another thing.

There were about 130,200 general applicants for public rental housing as of September, HA says.

To build a 40-storey housing public block takes five years on “spade ready” sites and seven years for a typical public housing development, the authority says. In its report, there were 14,057 housing units produced for 2013-2014.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying earlier pledged to reach the targetted 470,000 units, 60 percent of which for public housing, in the next 10 years.

Chan took a slice of bread with his nicotine-stained fingers and spoke in between biting and chewing without teeth.

“I don’t have problems here, except mosquitoes,” he said, adding that the things he needed most are mosquito coils.

He picked up rubbishes around his area and threw them to nearby trash bins.

His laundryroom, toilet and bathroom are all-in-one at Tung Chau Street Park, right beside the market.

Unthreatened by the government’s order to evacuate, Chan said, “When I’d get the house, I might be dead already.”

Chinese immigrants, Vietnamese refugees and homeless Hong Kong citizens find shelter under the bridge along Tung Chau Street in Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong.

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Hong Kong’s food donors seek funding for sustainability

Hong Kong’s food donors seek funding for sustainability

Helping to reduce food waste in Hong Kong, food donors are seeking a funding to sustain their operations, Astor Wong, project manager of Food Angel by Bo Charity Foundation, said.

“Like all non-subvented charities, money is always one of the biggest challenges,” she said in an email. Food Angel had saved 752,600 kilograms of surplus food from going to wasteland, and served 1,030,000 meals since March 2011, its website states.

Some 30 small and medium food donation organizations have collected and distributed recycled meat and vegetables to Hong Kong people, said Celia Fung, former environmental affairs officer of Friends of Earth (FOE), a charitable organization here, in a phone interview on Monday.

Having worked with FOE in the last 4 years, Fung said they began advocating food waste reduction in 2010 by pushing markets to donate their surplus foods to organizations that distribute recycled foods, she said.

“The campaign was successful,” she said, however, food donors “cannot put all their efforts in saving food.” She said, as non-profitable groups, they collect and distribute for free, thus, seeking subsidies to be sustainable.

Another challenge that food donors face is the difficulty in persuading commercial sectors to donate food because of safety issues, Fung said.

As for Wong, it takes more time to popularize food donation among industries because the concept of food recycling is “still relatively new in Hong Kong.”

Furthermore, commercial sectors hesitate to donate their surplus foods because there is no law to regulate food donations, including food recycling measures, Fung said. She said non-government organizations have been lobbying policies related to food waste management for three years now, but, the legislative body has other priorities. She added that while accident related to food recycling has not occurred yet, there is no urgency for the government to tackle the issue.

Hong Kong produces an average of 9,000 tons per day (tpd) of municipal solid waste, one-third of which were food waste, Fung said.

Solid waste monitoring reports show that food waste was reduced by 247 tpd, from 3,584 tpd in 2011 to 3,337 tpd in 2012. This was due to reduction of food waste in industrial and commercial waste from 1,056 tpd in 2011 to 809 tpd in 2012.

Fung said the campaign has helped to achieve such decrease in food waste, adding that food donors had served meals to over a thousand families.

On the contrary, the same data show 282 tpd increase in total municipal solid waste from 8,996 tpd in 2011 to 9,278 tpd in 2012. The government is yet to update data on solid waste monitoring in 2013 and 2014.

Meanwhile, environmental experts and officers from 22 Asian countries will exchange views about solid waste management, including food waste, during the Eco Expo Asia-International Trade Fair on Environmental Protection, being held from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 in Hong Kong, Sum Luk of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council said Monday in a phone interview.

“Food waste remains a big problem in Hong Kong, but it could be solved if people would only get what they can eat,” Jerry Lo, 28, sales executive of Harbour Grand Hong Kong and resident in Tsing Yi, said in an interview.

A man passes by a food shop at Mong Kok, Hong Kong.

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