Hello From Hong Kong

今次除了我，還有Stella和劉伯跟我一同參與這次節目。這亦是我首個以廣東話及英語廣播的訪問，藉此要多謝Stella當日義務擔任我的翻譯員與劉伯細談他過去的心路歷程和點滴。我亦很感謝劉伯願意抽空跟我們分享他的故事，讓大家知道一些舊香港的事蹟。

劉伯於50年代由中國來到香港。透過訪問可以知道劉伯過往在邊界以及來港後的生活。初到香港，他透過同鄉介紹於現時仍屹立於油麻地的美都餐廳當過清潔及外賣。再輾轉經介紹做過其他工作。最後他在油麻地渡輪公司工作了30多年，直到94年退休享受自由自在的生活。從訪問中，可得知劉伯對工作的熱情和他對人生及生活所追求的目標。

希望大家喜歡劉伯的故事，我們期待劉伯很快跟我們再分享更加多的故事。

Show Links

www.jonathanjk.com

https://twitter.com/HelloFromHK

In this special episode I sit down with Stella and Mr Lau. Stella was kind enough to join me and help translate and share our guest’s story by Mr Lau in our first dual language episode. This is the english version where we share portions of Mr Lau’s life story as translated by Stella. I’m happy Mr Lau could share his time with us.

Some background, Mr Lau came from China to Hong Kong in the 1950s where he started to aspire to work his way through various jobs and achieve his life goals. We talk about what life was like in Hong Kong and along the border, the jobs he held and how he lived before retiring from his last job in the late 1980s.

This is part 1 and hopefully we can speak to Mr Lau again soon.

Show Links

www.jonathanjk.com

https://twitter.com/HelloFromHK

Welcome to the podcast, where I sit down with someone related to Hong Kong and share their relationship with the city, with you. In this episode I sit down with the founder of HarmlessHK, a small company that is making and selling a straw that is entirely made of paper. Now I know what you’re thinking, a paper straw is probably going to collapse after the first sip. Well Gabriel rated his straw as having a 2 hour ability to satisfy your consumption of liquids and I put that to the test without his knowledge. There is a youtube video I made in the show notes showing the outcome of that test. Spoilers, it passed.

Together we discuss why his straw is necessary when there are movements underway to remove ourselves from our use of single use items, his motivations for starting his company and how does Gabriel though his company hope to contribute towards helping the environment.

Before we begin, if you enjoy this podcast and many of its episodes, please don’t forget to give it a short review and rating on iTunes. Also if you’d like to support the podcast, consider the patreon which opens up other benefits and allows me to put more time into preparing and getting interesting guests for the podcast. Or just share it, on your timeline, you never know who else will be interested.

Having said all that, Thanks for listening, and Hello from Hong Kong.

Show Notes

YouTube version

HarmlessHK

Testing the straw

Hello From Hong Kong on Twitter

Hello From Hong Kong on Reddit

Welcome to episode 28 with Raphael, the owner of a zero waste store called Edgar’s in Hong Kong.

Together we sit down and chat about zero waste, what it is and how to do it in while shopping and at home. As an aside, its basically about trying to buy things without creating any waste, with recycling NOT being the solution, for most people you have recycling and then normal waste. With zero wasters its about removing waste entirely if at all possible so that you throw less out and recycle less because recycling isn’t the whole answer to our environmental issues.

This does mean doing more work so the sake of conveince to purchase things without taking home various types of plastic and paper to just then dispose of. The convince isn’t there to wholly serve you either, its to the benefit of businesses and corporations who can manufacturer more stuff as easily and as cheaply as possible.

Coincidentally, I have just started a new podcast about helping others get into zero waste, the episodes are much shorter than what you’re used to here with hello from hong kong and if you want to save some money i of course recommend downloading it. Link is in the show notes.

By the way, the environmental bent that one would expect to have with such a podcast is kept to a minimum, the focus is on helping you save money by being more conscious of your spending habits. If you know you’re saving money by the end of the month following the suggestions and ideas, then that’s what’s important, the environment will benefit of course, but you’re not burdened with wondering about the outcomes of living a zero waste lifestyle when considering the environment, what I mean is, how do you know you have lessened your impact on the world at the end of the month if you went zero waste? You can’t really, all you can measure is whether your wallet is getting healthier and that’s what I focus on in the zero waste podcast.

Back to this episode however, we also learn what its like to run a store selling zero waste to people who may have never heard of it before. Its also very informative to hear from Raphaels point of view how he has to over come many of the obstacles with running such a store especially when customers don’t have the benefit of product labels and packaging to help them in their purchase. We also talk about practising zero waste in the home and some of the limitations of these new types of stores at their current stage of development.

That’s about it, I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did, after recording this particular episode Raphael did mention he’d be interested in more collabs and i would like him to make regular guest appearances on my new podcast, so if you enjoy his style, stay tuned for more.

Show Links

My Zerowaste podcast

In this episode I sit down with some long time viewers of my Periscope channel. Two Californians who used to live here in Hong Kong way back in the 1970s. Together we talk about what life was like for them both while here, how they met, how much has Hong Kong changed and much more.

NOTE: I’m not wearing a mic, so my voice is lower than Victoria’s and Jay’s.

In this episode I sit down with Jeff Rotmeyer, the founder and director of ImpactHK, a charity he created that iams to help the homeless of Hong Kong. Jeff’s charity is a no-nonsense approach where people aren’t pressured to come to the aid of the services he provides. It begins with a simple act of kindness by giving something to a homeless person on the street and any future engagement is undertaken by the person who feels they are in need. The hope is, a simple kind act will create trust and then enable those in need, to seek out further assistance on their own volition.

Together we sit down and touch on the many topics surrounding homelessness in Hong Kong. Hopw Impact HK started, their philosophy, how many are homeless in HK and the media narratives surrounding homeless people.

Show Links

www.impacthk.org

In this episode I sit down with Jenny and Grace of the HummingFish foundation to discuss how their charity works with farmers to create a sustainable farming practice for coffee growing.
What interested me most is knowing that there are charities in Hong Kong that help other countries and I’d neer know about them in the mainstream media.

I met Jenny at a coffee day at PMQ and her responses to my questions were really interesting that I asked them to come on the podcast.

Together we get in depth with knowing about what they do, what is Timor Leste all about, how wasn’t coffee growing sustainable in the first place and against their efforts is the ever approaching threat of global warming and what will that do to coffee production, not just in Timor Leste but the world.

Links:

http://hummingfish.org

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I’m sat down with a Hong Kong local by the name of Eunice, she’s a student nurse with an open mind to discuss taboo subjects pertaining to Hong Kong, especially with regard to gender. Eunice has some questions for me and together we sit down for an hour to discuss them.

The episode was filmed live with an audience from Periscope. Towards the end I have an audio issue and the quality is changed slightly, so please be aware of the shift in audio.

Show Links

www.coastermag.com

Subscribe and watch on YouTube.

Hello to those interested in Hong Kong. I recently put out a message on reddit asking if anybody wanted to collaborate with me on the podcast.

One of the comments on reddit introduced themselves as the president of the craft beer assiociation here in Hong Kong. So I sat down with Sandra and talked about all things beer.

For those that don’t know, I don’t drink beer. I found making this episode a treat, it has much to do with Sandra’s outward personality and engagement with the topic, this enthusiam is really something to share and I’m really happy she reached out and wanted to be on the show. I hope you like this one as well, I did. Together we talk of course about beer, mainly craft beer and home brewing scene in Hong Kong and the Asia region.

We touch on the perceptions of being a woman in the beer industry, name drop coaster magazine a few times, the perception of craft beer in HK, and we also touch on the best way to drink and bottle a beer. Again I don’t drink and I found this episode highly informative. Of course you probably do drink, so I hope you enjoy this episode.

This episode comes with a free drinking game. Drink every time I make a bad joke, have fun!

Support the Show

www.ko-fi.com/jonathanjk