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South China Morning Post
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
This week in PostMag: Hello Kitty creator Sanrio and a South African safari
One of the first things I ever loved was a Hello Kitty diary. Yes, there were stuffed animals (Snuffy the bear, RIP), sticker books and an American Girl doll or two, but it's the red Sanrio diary from 1993 that's somehow become a core memory. The lock, shaped like Hello Kitty's head, was cute but flimsy at best. Inside? Kindergarten confessionals, scrawled in shaky handwriting and even shakier grammar. Seeing a vintage Hello Kitty diary brings back memories for PostMag editor Cat Nelson. Photo: Etsy Things escalated in Grade 2 when Miki moved from Japan to our sleepy California town. With her came a parallel universe of pencil cases, stickers and characters beyond anything our Lisa Frank-addled brains had seen. Keroppi erasers, Badtz-Maru mechanical pencils, pastel My Melody folders. Sanrio wasn't just cute, and it wasn't just a toy company. It was as aspirational and worldly as an eight-year-old could get. So it's no wonder I devoured Sumnima Kandangwa's cover story this week, which explores Sanrio's staying power across generations . She charts the company's shape-shifting fandom, from a collector with a 1,000-piece Hello Kitty stash to Zoomers swearing allegiance to Kuromi's soft-punk aesthetic. And these characters aren't just merch. I was struck by this as our photographer, Jocelyn Tam, and I worked on the images for this piece. One young woman we photographed felt compelled to tell us, unprompted, that it might be a Hello Kitty charm hanging off her bag, but only because it was limited edition and her friends convinced her. Her real favourite is Kuromi. They may be cartoons, but loyalties run deep. Elsewhere, Bernice Chan profiles Aqua founder David Yeo, who started out cooking for friends in his Hong Kong flat and somehow ended up with a 25-year-old international restaurant empire. He's the kind of obsessive who can, apparently, taste the seasonal shift in a bag of rice. I'm impressed. And then there's the Karoo. Mark Eveleigh heads to South Africa's semi-arid desert for a walking safari, which is not something I plan to do any time soon but greatly enjoyed reading about. It's part travelogue, part nature thriller – lions, rewilding, the return of springbok. I thought of our Yellowstone feature from a few issues back and how the park has brought back nearly extinct wolves. Both reminders that not everything that disappears stays gone. While you might not find me on the Karoo any time soon, you may run into me at Montana. Associate editor Gavin Yeung chats with bartenders Lorenzo Antinori (Bar Leone) and Simone Caporale (Barcelona's Sips) about their new cocktail outpost on Hollywood Road. It's a throwback to 1970s and 80s Cuban culture – and it sounds delightful. See you there for a drink? Finally, August looms. Hong Kong might not stage a full European-style exodus, but the city does slip into silent mode and we're pausing issues on August 3, 17 and 31. That said, we're not very good at staying away. You can always find us online, and we'll be back on August 10 and 24 in print. I'm looking forward to it already.
South China Morning Post
22-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- South China Morning Post
Tiny Island creative director Alexis Holm opens up to PostMag
The wellness ritual you can't live without? I drop my eight-year-old son off at school just before 8am and go to House of Fitness, a boutique gym on Possession Street in Sheung Wan. I could go to a cheaper gym, but this one is between my son's school and the office, so it's convenient. The most conversation-sparking object at home? Roomba , our robot vacuum cleaner. We have one at home called Rob and another in the office called Bob. People always comment on Rob, whether he's running over the dog or not doing his job properly. Alexis Holm's dog, Mei Mei, with Rob, the Roomba vacuum cleaner. Photo: Jocelyn Tam A scent that immediately brings you joy? Trudon makes a candle called Spiritus Sancti. It has a light incense smell and gives me the feeling of something old, magnificent and calm. It's like being in a church. Your favourite city and the first thing you do there?
South China Morning Post
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Cirque du Soleil's Kooza comes to Hong Kong
It's a rare sunny afternoon in Seattle, in the United States, and Angelo Lyerzkysky Rodriguez is parked on the pavement in a camping chair, shirt off, eyes half-closed behind sunglasses, peacefully soaking up the warmth. It's a striking contrast to how I saw the 37-year-old Colombian circus performer the night before: also shirtless, but mid-flight, hurtling through the air to great dramatic effect as part of Kooza's Wheel of Death – a high-stakes, high-speed act that elicits gasps of disbelief from the audience. Advertisement The Wheel is one of several acts in Cirque du Soleil's Kooza , a production that trades the Canadian circus company's signature dreamlike abstraction for physical thrills. 'Kooza is an homage. It's a nod to traditional circus,' says artistic director Jamieson Lindenberg. 'We're definitely known for death-defying acts.' That includes balancing towers of chairs seven metres high, bicycles on tightropes, and teeterboards that launch performers in perfect arcs across the stage – all set to live music and slapstick clowning. Cirque du Soleil's Kooza in Seattle, in the United States. Photo: Jocelyn Tam We're catching the tail end of the show's US run, spending two days behind the scenes with the cast and crew before Kooza heads to Hong Kong. It will be the show's first international stop since its post-pandemic relaunch, and its first time back in the city since its 2018 Hong Kong debut Behind the spectacle are the people who bring Kooza to life every night. Many come from a long line of circus performers, such as Rodriguez, who is fifth-generation, while others are following a childhood dream, like aerialist Mizuki Shinagawa. There's 63-year-old Vicente Quirós and his 55-year-old brother, Roberto, both high-wire veterans, and New Yorker Mark Gindick, a film student turned clown. Offstage in the wardrobe department, Alexandra Mancini helps maintain the show's 175 handmade looks. Here are their stories. Vicente Quirós, high-wire act Vicente and Roberto Quirós performing as part of the high-wire act. Photo: Jocelyn Tam My brother Roberto and I were born in Madrid, Spain. We are a sixth-generation circus family. My grandfather did head-balancing, my father did trapeze and Rolla Bolla (balancing boards), my mother was a singer and Spanish flamenco dancer. As kids, we were in school but every summer, Easter or Christmas we would go to see our family at the circus. And we started to love the circus because of family, because of tradition.
South China Morning Post
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
This week in PostMag: behind-the-scenes at Cirque du Soleil and HK cinema
Face paint and the stage were never my thing, so when I found myself with a face full of circus make-up (rosy red cheeks and all) on a brisk Seattle afternoon in early March, I was surprised how I felt. I was ready for my moment. I could feel myself morphing into someone different – less guarded, less self-conscious. More free. Maybe I should have been a theatre kid. That's the power of a mask for you. Cat Nelson, editor of PostMag, with circus make-up at Cirque du Soleil Kooza in Seattle, US. Photo: Cat Nelson In advance of its Hong Kong tour stop this month, Cirque du Soleil had invited PostMag photographer Jocelyn Tam and me behind the scenes of Kooza, the most classic 'circus' of their productions. I'd seen Cirque as a child in 1990s San Francisco, likely Alegria, and remembered it as an expressive, avant-garde performance – not so with Kooza, which is replete with clowning and high-energy antics. Advertisement We spent a few days in Seattle watching what goes into putting on the show. With 121 people on tour and 100 containers of equipment, it's no small feat. We tried our hand at make-up, failed horribly at the low-wire and ate in the kitchen that feeds everyone in the circus' 'village'. We also got to know the cast when the masks come off – or rather, the paint's wiped away – and have told a few of their stories here. In our cover feature, Chris Dobson meets Hong Kong filmmaker Peter Yung Wai-chuen. Recently restored in 4K by M+, Yung's 1979 police drama The System shows a Hong Kong from a different era – drugs, triads and corrupt cops – and was made possible only because of trust he had forged with the mob. The film came about at the start of Hong Kong cinema's New Wave movement, which I know distressingly little about but now my interest is piqued (as I hope is yours). When I hit 10 years in China, it was hard to believe that I'd stayed in one place for so long but I'd never considered the opposite and how exhausting that might be. I felt tired just reading about Thor Pedersen's near-decade-long, globe-trotting journey to visit all 203 countries without flying. As he tells Graeme Green, what the Danish native imagined would take a few years ultimately ended up taking more than double that, in part due to an extended stay in Hong Kong thanks to the pandemic. I imagine Cameron Dueck would be in full agreement with the premise of Pedersen's quest – it's not just if you get there, it's how you get there. How we move through the world colours how we experience it. Dueck puts this to the test in Thailand, where he explores Phang Nga Bay by air, sea and land, finding secluded corners of the gorgeous limestone-punctuated landscape. I'd always found cycling to be my preferred mode of transport but boating's sounding like it might come in a close second. Advertisement
South China Morning Post
01-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Drink in Focus: Oyster Shell at Socio
Where other concept menus often lead with esoteric ideas or atmospheres that contextualise their signatures, the front cover of Socio's new menu hits us with just facts: it introduces their community-driven bent, which focuses on reusing waste ingredients from other restaurants and bars in SoHo. Advertisement Upcycling spare/waste ingredients – usually by way of centrifuging, redistilling, using sous-vide or other means of processing – is not a new concept. The question is always whether a waste ingredient still yields enough flavour to produce a delicious drink. This is what we immediately wondered with Socio's Oyster Shell, which reuses about 4.4kg of oyster shells monthly from Caine Road fish eatery and market Hooked. The exterior of Socio at 17 Staunton Street, Central. Photo: Jocelyn Tam 'The shells don't have a lot of flavour,' says co-founder Amir Javaid, 'so we actually add vinegar to bump up the savoury and saline notes. We do a distillation to remove any of the shells and make it a cleaner spirit. You could just infuse the shells, but this is more hygienic.' The rest of the drink leverages those amplified saline and savoury notes. Taking inspiration from the porn star martini, the cocktail batches a mix of the oyster and vinegar – distilled in vodka – with Roku gin before fat-washing it in cocoa butter. The drink is completed with cardamom bitters, passion fruit and lemon juices, then topped with sparkling wine to serve. The result is an effervescent, refreshing reuse of what is usually associated with sea salt and brine. 'Just because we named the drink 'Oyster Shell', people expect a strong taste, but the idea is just that we're using ingredients and we build around them, so it's never going to be the main flavour,' Javaid explains. Advertisement It's taken time, but it's safe to say the group project approach to using oyster shells in drinks has been as successful as it is intriguing. You could start your evening with oysters at Hooked, then walk downhill to Socio to enjoy the rest of that dish in a drink. 'I used to go for fish and chips [at Hooked] and then I got to speaking to the owner,' says Javaid. 'At first he was a little unsure about why I wanted the oyster shells. As we developed the concept, it took some time to win people over.'
