Dazed and Confused

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As I written a few entries earlier, I hate how I've been so moody, grumpy, cynical and easily-annoyed lately. Because really, I have no reason to. Met some genuine good people this summer, certain friends have been kind to me, and since being unemployed, freelance have gone much, much smoother than I could possibly imagine.

In fact, I may have done two of the longest, most informative interviews in my three years as a journalist. Yesterday I interviewed Lee Ting Mo, the inventor of Holga lomography camera. Lomography are photos taken by these plastic cameras, initially made to be used as a toy, the low fidelity and light leaks have turned the cameras into a cult phenomenon, with professional photographers and hipsters alike picking up the hobby. And yeah, the Holga was born in HK in 1982. I talked to 80 year old Lee Ting Mo for over two hours and I learned about life in HK in the 50s and 60s. Because of the factory boom at the time—school wasn’t important/required (unless you’re upper class) because factory jobs were a-plenty. Mr Lee Ting Mo, inventor of Holga cameras.

Today, I trekked all the way out to Fanling to interview MC Yan, one of the pioneers of HK hip hop. Now he isn’t just some BS “Chinese acting Black” rapper like Edison Chen, Yan spew politically charged lyrics and rapped about Hong Kong social issues (public housing, 1997 handover, etc) in the 90s. A true scholar of the game, the man has tons and tons of literature on hip hop, society, culture, and once spray painted graffiti on the Great Wall of China. Simply put, in this city, he’s about as hip hop as can be.

I hung out at his place for three hours today, doing everything from talking about the significance of Radio Raheem (thank goodness I rewatched Do The Right Thing recently) to talking about hip hop literature and why true hip hop will never work in HK because according to him “HK people are not educated on music. Awards are bullshit and everything is manufactured”. We did all this while his idiot cousin was shooting pigeons with a BB AK 47 ( I didn’t condone but what was I supposed to do?) and the Yan pulling a pipe.

I think Feature Writing is the way to go for me. It’s been so satisfying going on three legit interview (with former drug addict turned documentary maker Paul Boyle last week, Holga creator and hip hop pioneer this week)that now I look back, most of the interviews I did before were these bullshit celebrity interviews set up by PRs. It’s 100 times more rewarding to trek out to Fanling on my own and discuss Public Enemy or interacting with drug addicts outside Chungking Mansion than sit at a fucking roundtable interview with Maggie Q or some press conference with Kelly Clarkson.

The Holga story will be for a English newspaper and the hip hop story will be for Muse Magazine.Poor pigeon. You see that white thing on its neck? It's a BB stuck between the feathers man. The pigeon was stunned and couldn't fly for a while, the dog was friendly to the injured pigeon, so were MC Yan and I, only that cousin was out for pigeon blood."Motherfuck a window, Radio Raheem is dead!"

--Mookie, DO THE RIGHT THING

did Mookie do the right thing? Starting a riot because he was mad at the violence that led to Radio Raheem's death?