The Foreign Correspondents' Club Hong Kong

Wall Street traders use transcendental meditation to ‘deal with challenges like a Ninja’

A growing number of stressed-out traders on Wall Street are turning to transcendental meditation in order to ‘deal with challenges like a Ninja’, according to an expert in the field.

Author and transcendental meditation teacher James G. Meade extolled the virtues of mindfulness at the April 24 club lunch. Photo: FCC/Sarah Millson

Author and transcendental meditation teacher James G. Meade told the April 24 club lunch that the biggest reason traders came to him for help was anxiety, with many working at least 18-hour days.

The solution, he said, was simple: two sessions of just 20 minutes each day had given many in the finance industry ‘an extremely effective antidote to stress’. Meade cited Ray Dalio, founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, who introduced transcendental meditation to his entire company. Dalio told Business Insider: “I did it because it’s the greatest gift I could give anyone — it brings about equanimity, creativity, and peace.”

Watch the club lunch here

Meade, author of books including The Answer to Cancer: Is Never Giving It a Chance to Start, said working on Wall Street was highly pressured, adding: “There’s no time for sleep. Transcendental meditation is instant deep rest at will. It’s a technology.”

He added: “We do make you peaceful, it’s extremely peaceful.

“It develops the mind and the emotions… We become more appreciative of other people. Also in the world of stock brokers… we have instances where they’ll say ‘my staff asked what are you doing that’s different? How come you’re coming out and talking to us, you’re friendly where you were not before?’ So actually people become nicer.”

Meade demonstrated how the ‘whole brain gets bathed in this alpha and the stress becomes less’. Using a video of a live transcendental meditation session, he showed the difference in brain waves once someone becomes relaxed.

Hollywood director David Lynch, Beach Boy Mike Love and outspoken radio DJ Howard Stern are all advocates of transcendental meditation, Meade said.

In pictures: The Hong Kong Riots of 1967

The 1967 riots of Hong Kong left 51 people dead and hundreds more injured. Although the initial outbreaks of violence followed labour disputes, the riots were soon driven by fighting between pro-communists and their sympathisers, and the establishment. As the FCC hosts a photographic exhibition looking back at the violent events, we publish some of those powerful images from Hong Kong’s bloodiest episode.

Obituary: Ian Stewart, foreign correspondent and ex-FCC president

Ian Stewart, father, grandfather, foreign correspondent, FCC president, author, China watcher, adventurer and authority on Southeast Asian politics and culture, passed away peacefully in Sydney recently.

Ian spent a total of 36 years working as a Foreign Correspondent and author in Southeast Asia and was a passionate believer in the free press and freedom of expression. He served two terms as the president of the Foreign Correspondent’s Club, Hong Kong, in 1963-1964 and 1971-1972. He was also president of the Foreign Correspondents Association of Singapore for three terms.

Born in Whangarei, New Zealand in 1928, he went to Auckland University before starting his career in journalism at the New Zealand Herald as a cadet. He then worked for both the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Herald before coming to Hong Kong as a stringer for Reuters 1954.

Ian was posted to Indonesia in 1955 where he meet his wife Truus The Tiang Nio and married her before quitting Reuters to return to Hong Kong to work as freelance writer in 1957. After another stint in Indonesia he joined the New York Times in 1959 and for the next 14 years reported on Mao Tse-tung’s China.

He and his family moved to Sydney in 1980 where he worked in public relations and publishing, while writing his own novels, a musical and two film scripts. Ian was the author of seven published novels and two historical works. His first novel, “The Peking Pay-off” was published in 1975 and his last, “ The lust of Comrade Lu”, in 2014.

Ian moved back to Asia in 1991, first to Singapore and then Kuala Lumpur, where he filed for The Australian, The Daily Telegraph (London), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), with occasional radio spots for the ABC, BBC and Deutsche Welle until returning to Sydney in 2001.

Ian is well remembered by the older members of the FCC for his work as club president and his entertaining FCC Folk Night performances at Sutherland House in the 1970s. A fan of Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary and Woody Guthrie Ian wrote his own songs in a similar genre commenting on current events, colleagues and his work. The chorus below is typical of the lyrics that kept his performances lively, entertaining and very popular.

“We’re the China Watchers of Hong Kong

We’re never, never, never, never wrong.

We may sometimes not be right

But it’s just an oversight

And we’ll certainly correct it ere too long.”

Asylum seekers who helped Edward Snowden ‘degraded’ by Hong Kong authorities, says whistleblower’s lawyer

The asylum seekers that gave refuge to whistleblower Edward Snowden were targeted by the Hong Kong government after Oliver Stone’s film on the subject exposed them, according to Snowden’s lawyer.

Robert Tibbo told guests at the April 5 club lunch that even the families of those asylum seekers were questioned and harassed by police in Sri Lanka after the film Snowden was released. Similarly, Sri Lankan police followed the asylum seekers in Hong Kong, Tibbo said. The three were brought onto the stage at the FCC to applause from the audience as Tibbo revealed that an asylum application for the trio was currently with immigration authorities in Canada, his home country.

Watch Robert Tibbo’s talk

Tibbo, who is based in Hong Kong and represents asylum seekers in the city, was critical of the Hong Kong government for not protecting the refugees after they were revealed to have helped Snowden during his short stay in Hong Kong in 2013. He said: “I think the Hong Kong government wants my clients out of Hong Kong. It’s quite clear that the Hong Kong government has treated my clients in an inhumane and degrading way.”

The three refugees that gave Edward Snowden refuge in Hong Kong. Photo: Sarah Graham/FCC

In June 2013, former US government contractor Snowden released a swathe of secret documents revealing the extent of America’s mass surveillance of its own citizens. He immediately left the United States and came to Hong Kong, which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.

Tibbo explained that after Snowden arrived in Hong Kong, contrary to popular belief, he was not a fugitive from justice because he had not committed a crime in the city and there was no extradition request from America at that time. Tibbo said that with the very real threat of Snowden being arrested – or renditioned – while in Hong Kong he decided the best way forward was to “hide Mr Snowden in plain sight”. So Snowden left the Mira Hotel where he had been secretly holed up and was given refuge by the city’s “marginalised” asylum seekers.

During his speech Tibbo played video clips from the Edward Snowden documentary, Citizen Four, in which he can be heard on the telephone discussing how to get Snowden to the Hong Kong branch of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) to help protect him. Tibbo revealed that he remains own touch with Snowden, who is still in Russia and is working with the Freedom of the Press Foundation. Tibbo denied reports that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, had agreed to hand Snowden over to the new U.S. president Donald Trump.

‘Speak up against China’: North Korean defector Yeonmi Park’s tearful plea

A young woman who defected from North Korea made a tearful plea to FCC guests to help the “forgotten” people of her home country as she spoke at a club lunch on April 3.

Yeonmi Park recounted the ordeal that she endured as she escaped the dictatorship with her mother in 2007. The pair were trafficked into China where mother and daughter were sold into slavery. Ms Park has since written a book, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom, on her escape, and gives talks around the world.

Ms Park, whose mother was in the audience as she spoke, gave an insight into life in North Korea, where the internet is banned and education is geared largely towards serving the “socialist paradise”. Children are taught to hate “American bastards”, and watching American movies can lead to incarceration in a prison camp, she said.

“I did not know what Africa was,” she said, adding: “I did not know we had many different races in the world.”

Yeonmi Park takes questions from the audience after an emotional talk on her escape from North Korea. Photo: Sarah Graham

When she finally escaped North Korea, she was forced to watch as her mother was raped by a trafficker. “We did not have sex education in North Korea… I lost my faith in humanity. She was raped instead of me.”

Eventually, her mother was sold for US$75, and Ms Park for $200 “because I was a virgin and I was younger”, she said. A year later mother and daughter were helped out of China to South Korea.

Watch Yeonmi Park recount her ordeal:

On her life today as a university student, Ms Park said: “I’m trying to be normal as much as possible but I will never be normal because I am from a different universe. I am here today even though I know I might get killed by Kim Jong-un. I am on his target list but human rights is something to care about, I will continue to talk about this.”

Having recounted her harrowing story, she fought back tears as she directly addressed the audience, and said: “The people of North Korea have been forgotten for 70 years… I am asking you to help them… Why doesn’t anyone do anything about North Korea?”

When asked by a guest what exactly could be done to help those in North Korea, she asked that people support the NGOs on the ground rescuing defectors in China. And she added: “Speak up against China.”

Journalists and diplomats: The challenges of reporting side by side from the front line

The close but often fraught relationship between journalists and diplomats on the front line of war was discussed by diplomat and author Dante Paradiso at the March 30 club lunch.

The two have very similar roles in that they are the bearers of first hand information on what is happening on the ground, he said. However, they are driven by two very different objectives: the journalist is part of a business model, whereas the diplomat is informing policy process.

Paradiso, author of The Embassy: A Story of War and Diplomacy, explained that while journalists are obviously keen to get breaking news out to their editors, then the world, this is often at odds with the way a diplomat – who is passing information to the government’s security services in order to make longer term strategy decisions in war torn areas – operates.

If you’re witnessing a human rights abuse or state-sponsored terrorism, your reporting can force decision-making.

But the relationship is also beneficial to both sides: “We exchange information… We can get messages out through the media, and the media can get headlines from us. There’s a transactional nature to these exchanges,” Paradiso said.

Dante Paradiso revealed the ups and downs in the relationship between journalist and diplomat in war zones. Photo: Sarah Graham

The continuous flow of information from both the press and people working the policy is vital. The exchange of information itself between the two can be imperative, he added. “If you’re witnessing a human rights abuse or state-sponsored terrorism, your reporting can force decision-making.”

He said in highly intense crises, for example bullets in the street, often journalists and diplomats work quite closely together. There was also an element of responsibility in keeping reporters safe, Paradiso said, “the ability to exchange information about physical safety”. This would often lead to shelter being provided for journalists in danger.

Drawing on experiences from Liberia, Afghanistan and other conflicts, Paradiso highlighted the need for operational safety versus the media’s need for breaking news. He told how in some circumstances the need to report what was happening at a particular moment could often put troops and journalists in danger. For example, the shelling of a U.S. compound is big news, he said, but in reporting this the enemy was being given confirmation that they’d hit their target, so could continue the attack.

Paradiso concluded that the dynamic between journalists and diplomats was incredibly important for physical transparency, safety and advocacy when it came to reporting the facts of events in war zones, both to news room editors and a the chain of command of a diplomat.

Watch the talk:

Moonlight co-producer Andrew Hevia reveals next film project is a Hong Kong crime thriller

A crime thriller set in Hong Kong and featuring local actors is the next project for Andrew Hevia, co-producer of the Oscar-winning film, Moonlight.

Speaking at the March 27 club lunch, the young American revealed that the film is about a British-born Chinese photographer in the city who captures a crime on camera and becomes obsessed with solving it. The film is not yet in production but Hevia said he hoped to start shooting it within 12 months with Hong Kong actors in the key roles.

Award-winning co-producer Andrew Hevia at the FCC. Photo: Sarah Graham

In a talk to members on the Verandah, Hevia talked about how he became involved with Moonlight, which picked up the Best Picture award at this year’s Oscars. He also gave amusing insight into this year’s infamous Oscars debacle, where Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty wrongly announced favourite La La Land as the winner.

Hevia talked about how he got into film making and subsequently, as a 2015-2016 Fulbright Fellow, spent 10 months in Hong Kong. It was during that time he met commercial director Joshua Wong – with whom he is shooting the Hong Kong thriller – having gone to watch star Wars: The Force Awakens in the hope of meeting other fans of the movie that he could make friends with in the city.

Watch the Andrew Hevia Q&A:

Hong Kong Remembers in pictures: Rocking the FCC to raise funds for China Coast Community

Hong Kong Remembers was certainly a night not to forget.

Members were entertained with live music on every floor, from The Red Stripes, Miriam Ma & Hippogroove, Mary Jane, and Crimes Against Pop; plus a special appearance from Michael (Thomas) Jackson.

Here, we bring you the best photos of the night from Asiapix and Sarah Graham.

Charles Li: Hong Kong needs to help China unlock its wealth

Charles Li, CEO of HKEX, has high hopes for Hong Kong as a top global trading centre. Photo: Sarah Graham

Hong Kong can thrive as a financial hub as long as it brings the world’s goods to China in order to unlock its wealth, according to Charles Li, who made the assertion as guest speaker at a club lunch.

The CEO of HKEX told guests on March 24 that, despite Hong Kong suffering from a ‘loss of faith in who we are’, he predicated a bright future for the city. But he said Hong Kong needed to become a fixed income derivatives centre and not just an equities centre if it wanted to become a top global trading hub.

He added that Hong Kong was now source of outbound rather than inbound investment for China. “It has too much money and doesn’t know what to do with it,” he said.

And he denied that HKEX was a stock market casino when asked by a Financial Times reporter about recent media reports of back door trading. Mr Li countered that the Hong Kong market was strong, adding that issues being reported in media are sometimes out of proportion. The reports called for stronger regulation to address market manipulation and volatility.

PEN Hong Kong launches crowdfunding bid to create Hong Kong Handover 20th anniversary book

Writers from Hong Kong will contribute to an anthology marking the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong Handover this year.

PEN Hong Kong plans to publish an anthology of non-fiction essays, short stories, poems and cartoons by some of Hong Kong’s brightest literary and creative minds to mark the 20th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Great Britain to China.

It has launched a crowdfunding campaign on FringeBacker and is appealing for your support.

Each piece in the collection will offer a unique and personal commentary on the city’s past, present, and future. The book’s working title is Hong Kong 20/20: Reflections On A Borrowed Place.

Donate money here.

Among FCC members contributing are:

Steve Vines (journalist, writer and broadcaster)
Harry Harrison (SCMP cartoonist)
Ilaria Maria Sala (journalist/writer)
Kate Whitehead (journalist/writer)

Vaudine England (journalist)

As well as esteemed Hong Kong writers and artists, including:

Jason Ng (Writer/Umbrellas in Bloom)

Joshua Wong (student activist)

Tammy Ho Lai-ming (poet and co-founding editor of Asian Cha)

Margaret Ng (barrister, political, writer)

Oscar Ho (activist and writer)

To make this truly a Hong Kong work, the anthology will be published in two editions – Chinese and English. It needs support to fund high quality literary translators. Any extra money raised will go toward funding book-related events, such as public forums featuring the contributing artists and authors.

PEN Hong Kong hopes to raise HK$180,000 by June 19.