Re: Various

1

So much more advertising in the modern pictures. I associate early to mid 20th century US cities with giant ad murals painted on the sides of buildings but there's barely any signage in the older Hong Kong footage.
I think the Neanderthal locus is associated with severe disease, another paper said 3x increased risk of hospitalization for homozygotes and 1.7 for heterozygotes vs. noncarriers, but I don't think it said anything about risk of contracting it. Although with asymptomatic disease it's hard to know what exactly is going on. Higher death numbers in Europe, Americas don't align with the patterns of variant prevalence so if anything it's a minor factor.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 5:47 AM
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2

Neanderthals elected Trump and now we're not allowed to implement sensible community protective measures. I think the implication is indisputable.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 5:59 AM
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3

Odd to realize that the time I was in Hong Kong(1981) is a lot closer to "then" than "now. But the differences between Hong Kong of 1981 and Hong Kong of 2018 barely register when compared to the differences between Shenzhen of 1981 and Shenzhen of 2018.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 6:21 AM
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4

I've never been west of that rainforest outside of Seattle.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 6:25 AM
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5

Is Hong Kong west or east?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 6:33 AM
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6

West. Years why we talk about "Western" civilization.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 6:36 AM
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7

That's*


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 6:36 AM
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8

3: same is, I realise, true for me - I was there in '94.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 7:03 AM
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I was last in Hong Kong, let's see... almost exactly one year ago! I didn't go to the center city on that trip because there were some protests happening. Seemed like the latest iteration of something that happens pretty often.

It's been a hell of a year, hasn't it?


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 7:58 AM
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10

Sure you've been to Hong Kong, but have you ever been to you?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 8:26 AM
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11

My children have never even seen a violin in Hong Kong.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 8:36 AM
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12

Well that's terrifying. I have no idea if I have those Bengali Neanderthal variants.


Posted by: Saheli | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 10:21 AM
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13

3: Is there a link to a Shenzen comparison I missed, or are you just talking about personal memories/records? Just curious because a cousin of mine is there.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 10:51 AM
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And now it's over.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, Hong Kong culture played an outsized role in my teenaged and early adult life. My friends were obsessed with Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat, and for years, Cantopop was a nearly-constant soundtrack. I can remember which boyfriend I was with when each Wong Kar Wai movie came out.

I finally went to Hong Kong in my early 20s. A friend who was living there at the time (she was originally from Korea) showed us around. It was just after the handover, and people I spoke to were optimistic that somehow things would work out. Of course, a lot of them were expats who had no permanent stake in the sovereignty of Hong Kong or in the preservation of its culture. And now it's over.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 11:50 AM
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I was obsessed with Hong Kong action movies. I have a friend from college who moved to Hong Kong and is tangentially connected to the movie industry, so she's met people like Chow Yun Fat. I was intensely jealous. She's still there.

I have another friend who lived in Hong Kong for years, but suddenly this past year her employer relocated her to Jakarta.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 12:47 PM
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13: I was just talking about my personal memories -- when my mom and I went to Hong Kong in 1981, we took a one-day tour into Mainland China to Shenzhen. This Business Insider article will give you an idea of what it was like then and what is like now -- https://www.businessinsider.com/old-photos-of-shenzhen-2013-2#the-cross-border-tours-were-perhaps-not-quite-as-unlikely-as-traveling-across-the-frontier-separating-the-two-koreas-would-be-today--but-this-was-definitely-something-new-back-then-8


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 1:07 PM
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Odile and I watched a particularly vapid romcom called It's Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong a week or two ago because it had been recommended to her, and only afterwards did she admit it had been recommended by the Hulu algorithm and not someone who actually knows her. We agreed to not give that credence in the future. But if you want to spend two hours watching people walk around 2015 Hong Kong, it does that part well!


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 2:09 PM
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18

[sob]


Posted by: Opinionated Hulu Algorithm | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 2:19 PM
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19

It seems to me that if we actually want to stick it to China we should open our borders to Hong Kong refugees and dissidents.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 2:40 PM
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That's basically how we got stuck with Ted Cruz.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 2:47 PM
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21

Yes, but also José Canseco, who is beloved by all.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 2:50 PM
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22

Baseball loves its drugs.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 2:52 PM
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23

19: That's what they're doing here, with more historical justification. I would say that the US should move quick if it wants the best and brightest, but it obviously has no interest.

Tian Mi Mi has a lot of good shots of 80s/90s Hong Kong. And is probably also vapid, been a while since I saw it.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 2:54 PM
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24

Baseball loves its drugs.

I guess I should have said Rafael Palmero, who was innocent.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 3:06 PM
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I would say that the US should move quick if it wants the best and brightest, but it obviously has no interest.

Technically US public opinion has been getting steadily more pro-immigrant every year for the last 40 years or so, but the government the opposite.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 4:02 PM
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23: How's it playing in the UK? "We're giving a pathway to citizenship for up to 3 million persecuted British overseas nationals yellow people" doesn't sound like a winning policy for this government.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 4:13 PM
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27

There's no other way they can beat the Germans.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 4:26 PM
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28

Or the Italians even.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07- 7-20 4:30 PM
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26: until the gutter press start stirring people up about Triads and (probably) white slavery, opium dens and Oriental beastliness, no one's going to mind very much. The mob are pretty easily led over here. Plus HK people are quite pale-skinned and not Muslim.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07- 8-20 1:37 AM
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This is interesting, and short by book standards: https://delong.typepad.com/files/studwell.pdf
Aims to answer the second most interesting question in world history, which is: why did some poor east Asian countries grow very rich in the 20th century and others did not?
(The most interesting question in world history is "why did the industrial revolution happen when and where it did?")

Reposted from elsewhere, where it was completely out of place


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07- 8-20 7:02 AM
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31

Tian Mi Mi

♥ ♥ ♥


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 07- 8-20 9:39 AM
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32

Sharing the love and obsession with HK cinema and music above. Refraining from posting a fuckload of Grace Chang songs.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 07- 8-20 9:47 AM
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