By Hugo Novales, FCC In-House Journalist

At the height of World War II, amidst Japan’s occupation of Hong Kong, author and journalist Ian Gill was conceived in a prison camp where his parents were forced to stay. After the war’s end in 1945, the couple relocated to New Zealand and Gill was born.

As Gill was growing up, his family split their time in England, China, and Thailand. After finishing his bachelor’s degree and starting his career as a journalist, he worked in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and even Hawaii where he furthered his education by obtaining a master’s degree through the East-West Center.

Curious about his family history, Gill returned to Hong Kong with his mother Billie in 1975 and was surprised to come in contact with Billie’s friends and colleagues from her life leading up to and during WWII. He discovered much more than she ever told him, which led him to embark on a journey to trace his family’s lineage all the way back to the 1840s and write Searching for Billie, his latest book that was published by Blacksmith Books just last year.

Speaking about his book alongside Professional Committee member Philip Bowing at an FCC Club Lunch, Gill gave a detailed presentation on his ancestors’ lives leading up to his own birth. Naturally, the majority of both his book and his talk focused on the life of his mother, Billie.

“I used to wake up in the middle of the night, you know, terrified thinking I’ll never finish this book on my mother,” Gill said.

Despite being so determined to chronicle his mother’s history from wartime Shanghai and Hong Kong, all the way to the day he finally gave her grandchildren and her later passing, Gill joked that committing himself to such a lengthy endeavour was foolish on his behalf. 

“And I said, ‘No, no, no. I’m not going to let go of this book until every word is finished!’ That was probably the most stupid thing I ever said,” he summarised.

Given his close relationship with his mother and her unique, once-in-a-millenium life story, Gill was asked if Billie herself had ever considered writing a memoir.

“She wrote. She had letters… [but] she wanted me to write it. I took too long, but there we are,” he concluded.

To watch the full discussion, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel:

By Hugo Novales, FCC In-House Journalist

Over the past several years, Hong Kong has been putting in more effort to boost its art scene. With the Hong Kong Palace Museum, Tai Kwun, and M+ all opening within the past 5 years, along with major auction houses doubling down on their operations in the city, Hong Kong has become a more welcoming and vibrant home for local and international art.

Still, the idea that the city is a “cultural desert” persists.

Enid Tsui, the Arts Editor of SCMP — and an FCC member — shared her insights and predictions for the city’s art scene alongside FCC President Lee Williamson at a Club Lunch promoting her latest book Art in Hong Kong: Portrait of a City In Flux (2025). This event was also held in anticipation of Hong Kong Art Week, which takes place from March 26-30.

She first explained that the idea of Hong Kong not being a cultural desert stems from a quote from famous Chinese writer Lu Xun who said during a speech that “Hong Kong is not a cultural desert.” Most people, Tsui said, only remember the final two words of his quote, leading many to believe that Hong Kong lacks an artistic ecosystem.

“This trope is still being rehashed over and over again, and you still see occasionally in actual, official press releases [that say] ‘Hong Kong is no longer a cultural desert,’” she said.

With her firm stance that the city does in fact have a unique cultural identity, President Williamson then asked Tsui to paint a picture of what the next ten years would look like for Hong Kong’s art scene. Her answer: a roller coaster.

“The roller coaster ride that is Hong Kong’s art scene will continue,” Tsui said while citing the major cancellations that have occurred despite the city’s push for more arts-related events.

The most recent cancellation took place on February 23 when the Digital Art Fair released a statement on their website saying, “Due to reasons beyond our control, we are forced to cancel the fair.” The fair was expected to take place during Art Week in the West Kowloon Cultural District. The government’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau said the next day that the fair did not secure funding from the Mega Arts and Cultural Events Fund.

According to Tsui, cancellations like this are likely in the next ten years as resources become “more selective”, with many of Hong Kong’s art organisations all competing for support from limited government finances.

In addition to resource constraints, Tsui mentioned another factor that may also fuel the rollercoaster of Hong Kong’s arts future — the shifting “red lines” under the National Security Law (NSL) that Beijing imposed upon the city in June 2020.

“Art practitioners, artists, curators, people who work in major venues, they are continuing to negotiate and discover what living under NSL means,” she said. “Censorship and the rules are not specific.”

Despite financial and political challenges, Tsui remained firm that Hong Kong’s art scene isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. In fact, she postulated that Hong Kong could become home to more artists from jurisdictions around Asia that have greater restrictions imposed on artistic freedoms.

Tsui specifically mentioned the queer art fair Myth Makers — Spectrosynthesis III that took place in Tai Kwun from December 24, 2022, to April 10, 2023. She explained how such a fair promoting LGBTQ+ artwork would be censored in places like the Middle East, and even in Singapore where same-sex relations between men were decriminalised in 2022 but same-sex marriage is still not recognised by the government.

“More diversity, perhaps more international talents, may choose to come to Hong Kong, [or to come] back to Hong Kong,” she said.

To watch the full discussion, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel:

By Hugo Novales, FCC In-House Journalist

Mental health has become an increasingly important issue in Hong Kong. According to Mind HK, a local mental health charity, an estimated 1 in 7 people in the city will experience a common mental health disorder at any given time. Three-quarters of these individuals will not seek help.

Younger people in the city are more vulnerable with 24% of them facing mental health issues and the suicide rate for 15 to 24-year-olds doubling in the past decade.

Last month, the FCC held a Club Lunch panel consisting of three mental health experts who shared their views on how Hong Kong can tackle its growing mental health crisis.

Sitting on the panel was Dr. Scarlett Matolli, a clinical psychologist; Brenda Scofield, a certified counselor and board member for The Samaritans Hong Kong; and Dr. Paul Wong, an Associate Professor from the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at HKU. Moderating the discussion was FCC Charity Committee Member Jenny Hsieh.

First, each speaker gave their own definition of what mental health means to them.

“Mental health is misunderstood as something that you have separate from your physical health… it’s only in the absence of it that people can recognize the presence of it,” said Dr. Matolli when explaining how both mental and physical health are intertwined.

Scofield, on the other hand, offered an alternative phrase to mental health.

“If we called it ‘emotional health’, wouldn’t that be easier for some people?” she asked the audience. “Emotionally, you just can’t live your life the way you would like to at the moment.”

Also offering an alternative and broader definition of mental health, Dr. Wong explained how he believes good mental health shouldn’t just be the absence of any psychological disorders.

“A person’s mental wellbeing should be about finding purpose in life, reason for living,” he said.

Dr. Wong also talked about the changes he’s witnessed in Hong Kong’s approach to mental health since returning to the city in 2003 from Australia where he studied clinical psychology at Bond University.

Back then, there weren’t as many hotlines and services as there are in 2025, which he said reflects the city’s growing discussion on mental health. Despite this, he suggests that even more needs to happen in order to diminish the mental health challenges that Hong Kong faces.

“The field has changed, but still, we have to talk more about [mental health], make it more normal and common as a daily talk,” he said.

Just two years after Dr. Wong returned to Hong Kong, Dr. Matolli also arrived with her family. Her interest in mental health began when she kept getting referred to the public hospital system when seeking help for her own children. Finding that there weren’t very few services in English, she decided to form her own consultancy program targeted towards other expat families living in Hong Kong who also wanted mental health services.

There is now a much wider variety of mental health services that Hong Kong residents can choose from, yet similar to the other panellists, Dr. Matolli believes more can still be done.

“We can’t really rest yet, but we can sit more easily,” Dr. Matolli said.

As a board member for The Samaritans, one of the FCC’s partner charities, Scofield also clarified that their services are not just for people who are having any suicidal feelings, but for anyone going through a tough time who simply wants to be listened to.

“We are here for anyone who is having difficulties, for anyone who is in that dark place and they don’t know what to do about it,” she said.

The panel also discussed the barriers that may prevent someone from seeking mental health services, as well as men’s mental health and how shared backgrounds in support groups may help newcomers seeking help for the first time.

If you are in need of mental health support, you can call:

The Samaritans: 2896 0000

Suicide Prevention Centre: 2382 0000

The Mental Health Support Hotline: 18111

This year, the FCC is partnering with nine hand-chosen charities to give back. Members are encouraged to join our “One Day’s Work” programme. From September 2024 to September 2025, members of the FCC can pledge to donate one day’s work (8 hours) to volunteer with a charity of their choice.

For more information about the FCC’s Charity Committee: https://www.fcchk.org/charity-stage-2/

To watch the full discussion, please visit the FCC’s YouTube channel: