Work Life: January, February & March 2016

Short blog post on my work life in HK Magazine the beginning of this year. It's work, y'know, no matter how much more casual we are than the office culture during my year working in architecture, I try and keep photos to a minimum. So what's pictured below is me being super excited about the January issue of The List magazine because my first ever cover story was there, free gifts from Intercontinental Hotel, and missing the shuttle bus from Causeway Bay to work - two times in a row.

Okay, I gotta explain... since I only have one day off from school on Wednesdays, on Mondays I need to rush to work right after my morning 9:30 to 12:30 class. It's a big hurry because I have to get to Causeway Bay, shovel lunch down my throat at some random place, and run to the bus stop - which is not even in Causeway Bay exactly, it's on the periphery of Wanchai. The bus stop is super far away from the MTR station and civilisation (for Hong Kong city standards, anyway), so basically the time on average it takes to step off the train to run to the bus stop is 20 minutes, thanks to the uneven traffic lights. All of these traffic lights cross major roads, so I can't even jaywalk. Oh, and the time it takes from my class in Eliot Hall, the peak of HKU to the MTR station? At least 20 minutes too.

The bus stop is actually on Yat Sin Street, and it's not a place where the shuttle bus can stop and wait until the designated time it's supposed to be there. More than often, there's serious traffic, so if you're not there when the bus arrives, it's gone. It's scheduled to come at 2PM but I've arrived at 1:50PM and still missed it. I've also arrived at 2:05PM but still caught it. It's fucking crazy.

The third time around, I just decided to catch the bus from Kowloon Tong at 2:15PM altogether. Turned out to be a lot more convenient because at least the bus stop was right outside the freakin' MTR station.

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Cultural Journalism Campus 2016

I've been super busy recently because I joined the student journalism program Cultural Journalism Campus and was selected as one of the nine fellows in 2016. Basically, the program gave me access to the art scene during Hong Kong’s art week in March 2016, where I had the privilege to attend Art Basel, Art Central, Asia Contemporary Art Show and many other gallery openings, cocktail parties and auctions. It was a dream come true for me and it reconnected me with fine art - which has always been my passion, before I started specialising in architecture. My job throughout the week was to interview and report on the top dogs, gallerists, artists and anyone involved, which I was more than willing to do so. Art and writing - my favourites (stick food in and it'll be even better).

We even got to meet and interview Mark Spiegler, the global director of Art Basel! You can see a picture below (and I got to stand beside him haha).

If there's one thing I regret, it's not being able to spend more time on the program. You guys know I study full time (and it's the beginning of deadlines galore) and work part time, so I had to miss some lessons, take time off work and skip some events in order to do everything... mediocrely. I could've done better if I wasn't so swamped, but what can you do? It was an opportunity I just could not miss!

The works and exhibitions in the photos below:

• A Path To Life solo exhibition of artist Li Yonggeng at Galerie du Monde
• Mill6 Foundation's Social Fabric pop-up exhibition of artists Mariana Hahn and Kwan Sheung-chi at The Annex
• Statement 3: New Sculpture from Germany exhibition at Goethe-Institut Hong Kong

Check out my Cultural Journalism Campus works on my online portfolio!

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Working at HK Magazine

So I've sort of been mentioning this shadily in my recent blog posts, but I'm currently interning for HK Magazine! It's a dream come true for me, it's been my favourite magazine for a long, long time, and I'm not just saying this now that I'm working here. I love their style - their snide jokes with slight sexual innuendos. It's how I talk and how I write. Maybe how I write was actually shaped from reading their magazine every chance I got, which was very often since they're all over cafés and Starbucks.

It's not a requirement for HKU Master of Journalism students to do a winter internship, but seeing as I had no experience in this field I decided to do it. This job at HK Magazine wasn't actually on offer on the lists of places we could intern at, but the staff at JMSC kindly pulled some strings for me. And get this - they didn't even know HK Magazine is my dream workplace! It must be fate omg. I even got to attend their Christmas party during my first week there! I even got a chance to do an assignment with artists Sim Chan and Jack Li at Hotel sáv for their Floor of Love project, which was definitely my favourite, because it involves art and design. I didn't even mind that it was at night time and not during work hours!

I honestly think I've found my calling and my true career path. I've never been so happy.

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Aedas Annual Dinner

Even before starting my work, I'd already been looking forward to its annual dinner. I'd seen many seniors' pictures of the past few years' events and they all looked so fun. Unfortunately, this year's theme was "carnival", which I wasn't very enthusiastic about dressing up for (I tried with my overalls), but everything else was still great! It was held at the Hong Kong Football Club and the MC we hired this year was Jacqueline Wong, a super pretty former Miss Hong Kong runner-up. Oh, and did I mention they had a buffet? ;)

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