Which Lammaite could have written this most unusual title?

It must have been an artist, with an innate talent for seeing beauty in objects that many people try to ignore or even dislike. The statement originates from this month's Lamma-zine Artist of the Month, Sarah Wyatt, who opened her first paintings exhibition in BBC (Banyan Bay Café) tonight. A web art gallery of her paintings will follow later this month in our Galleries section. But I have take photos of her paintings first, as I've done for many other Lamma artists already.

I'm offering the same free service for other artists living on Lamma Island. Sponsoring and promoting the many talented but often quiet, little-known and under-appreciated Lamma artists is one of the happy goals of this website.

Back to the "Fairy-Tale-Like Quality of the Power Station Towers". I've received this anonymous SMS text message today at 4:37pm (Yes, we use texting on "Hippie Island", as an alternative to our customary smoke signals!):

"sorry for short notice c.a.l.i painting exhib 2nite @ banyan cafe 6.thirty- 8ish. paintings by sarah wyatt."

Two hours advance notice, plenty of time for me for a late lunch/early dinner (lunner), laundry shop, an interview with Yeliz and her Turkish interpreter, two extensive music chats with Nick the Reviewman, a quick stop-over at the Beer Garden for a catered birthday party and a good talk with another Fun Day organiser and her son who'll distribute "Lamma.com.hk @ Fun Day" flyers on Sat.

"OK! OK! Enough with the trivia! Back to the 'Fairy-Tale-Like Quality of the Power Station Towers', you rambling, mumbling old fool!", I can almost hear you shouting very impatiently, dear reader. OK!

That's Sarah "Sleeping Beauty" Wyatt on the left - who created this poetic quote and BBC Cath who's a true Lamma Celebrity to her legions of friends, an experience "veteran" of the local bar/restaurant scene who's running artist-friendly, open-air BBC these days (Banyan Bay Cafe, former Corner Pin, Aroy Thai, Dan Kwai Fong and Sunset Bastard Boulevard, a true Lamma Landmark!).

Sarah's exhibition will run for several weeks. Have a look soon! Prices on request. Several paintings have been sold already, so hurry up!

Sarah Wyatt - Artist's Statement:

Sarah Wyatt studied art at Norwich School of Art, followed by a degree and postgraduate diploma in printmaking at Brighton Polytechnic. This classical training prepared her to work as a sandwich seller, data processor, prop maker, illustrator and other jobs too various to mention. She lived briefly on Lamma in the early nineties, and has recently returned to the island after a 12 year absence. "I have always loved Lamma, and it has so often been an inspiration in my work. This time I have been stuck by the fairy-tale like quality of the Power Station towers. The view from my house conjures up the story of Sleeping Beauty, lying within the towers, surrounded by the dense forest of 100 years."

This is the title of posters that will go up later this week all over Yung Shue Wan. Click above to see the entire poster. We'd love to meet you, our readers, and learn how we can make this website better and more suitable to your needs and expectations. What's missing now and what should be improved? Any opinions from bad ("The site sucks totally!", "Worst Blog Ever!") to good ("It's OK, I think, but I never look at it.") will be most welcome and we'll consider all your feedbacks.

We'll be looking for writers, photographers, fans, people to interview, artists, muses, etc.

The red carpet will be rolled out for any potential sponsors and advertisers, so we can afford to improve this site and realise your best ideas!

Ah, yes, before I forget, we'll also be selling Anonymous_ Guy's brand-new "Lamma Wildlife" desktop calendar with his very best photos. All profits from each calendar will go directly to the Child Welfare Scheme charity, of course!

See you at the Lamma Fun Day? You can't miss our stall, as we'll be directly besides the bar! Stop by for a chat and maybe even buy us a drink if you really enjoy this website!

But if you're a past, current or future contributor or sponsor of this website, then we'll buy YOU a drink!

Can you guess what this photo shows? Easy, isn't it?

I liked this golden orb so much that, once again, I couldn't resist playing around with it in Photoshop. Hey, it's Sunday after all, Day of Play, and it's officially permitted to have fun today! Below are some of the results of my messing around, All have been generated directly from the photo above. Click to enlarge.

If you hate the graphics below, just skip to tomorrow's story. But send me an email if you like at least one of them, pleeeease!!! You'll be the ONLY person doing so and you'll be making my day! Isn't that worth taking a few of your life's many seconds to email me right now? But I don't want to sound too desperate...

P.S. I assume you've figured out by now what the original photo represents? No?

A Lamma street lamp, of course! My weird fascination with playing around with photos of Lamma Lamps seems to be all too well-known...

Rockit Festival today and tomorrow in Victoria Park!

In former years, we've always had several Lamma Bands going through the tough pre-selection process (1:10 chance of making it) and performing live at Rockit! This year only 1 established and 1 brand-new Lamma Band made it to Rockit!

Go, Garoupa, Go! Don't let Lamma down and sweep the audience off their feet (at least the ones who are not already sitting on the grass). Lamma's HUGE number of Garoupies (rumoured to far exceed Lamma's total population of 6,000) will be there to cheer you on, applaud wildly and do all the outrageous things that we Lammaites are reputed to do when we're happy!

Garoupa is the hardest working Lamma Band around at the moment, performing live every few days in a different location:

Today on the main stage at Rockit at 3:30pm, next Friday in the Fringe Club, next Sunday at the Lamma Fun Day, on Oct 28 at Biker Daze.

On Oct 27 they'll perform in the Centrium (Central, where else?) at the HK Finals of The World Battle of the Bands! See Events Calendar! Just four HK bands left in the Battle now! The winner will take on bands from all over the world. Judges are looking at crowd response, so they need your helping hands, clapping till they hurt!

P.S. I've found the MySpace website and an Underground photo gallery of The Sinister Left!

Black Friday the 13th! But instead of a frightening tale of silly superstition and malevolent misfortune let me relate a little happy incident that happened to me the other day in Yung Shue Wan.

Walking along Main Street on the way to my usual late lunch, the guy above right rushed out of the Kai Mei Frozen Food shop and approached me with money in his outstretched hand. In very broken English he mentioned something about fish sticks and double pay. He was returning $18 to me because the shop had double-charged me for them by mistake the day before!

This amazing honesty made my day! It's so great to witness a really honest shopkeeper these days. They might have a bad reputation sometimes, often being suspected of cheating their customers (especially gwailos) a bit. But I've had almost exclusively positive experiences with Yung Shue Wan's shopkeepers in the almost five years I've lived and shopped here; their reputation seems totally undeserved. Property agents, on the other hand, well, that's another story...

I'll continue to be a frequent customer of Kai Mei Frozen Food Shop (opposite Deli Lamma) and I recommend this clean, bright and friendly place highly to everybody. It's featuring a fine selection of frozen and durable goods, ready-to-cook, marinated meats, wide choice of non-alcoholic drinks, very reasonable prices, friendly and helpful service, even an occasional smile. These are some of the many reasons we like and patronise these little shops daily. Most of us LIKE the total lack of supermarkets, brand-name and fast-food shops on Lamma!

No, no, they're NOT an advertiser on this website and are getting this fine home page publicity just for their refreshing honesty. Even better, it was unwarranted, pressure-free honesty, as I'd have never known that I was double-charged.

Maybe it's good karma finally bouncing back to me, for having in the past returned money to several cashiers in HK who gave me too much change...

P.S. Shopping in Lamma Gourmet on Main Street this evening, Geng insisted on also giving me back $18 (same amount!!!) for overcharging me a few days ago when buying her really delicious roasted chicken!

What's going on here? A conspiracy or a prank? Maybe I'm just an overly trustful stupidhead who gets overcharged all the time? My Chinese nickname amongst the local shopkeepers might mean something like "The stupid gwailo who can be easily overcharged".

Or is it just my stroke of luck on - of all days - Friday the 13th? Is 18 my lucky number, then?

So, who'll be next to return $18 to me?

Oct 12:  'We're F***ing Sick of Cat-Killing Dogs!'

Alexia - She sent me the email below, published here with her permission. (Story edited by Lamma-Gung; photos supplied by Alexia.) (See Alexia's personal blog story (in French): "Adieu Ma Zoe" and the Lamma forum topic that broke this story. You can also email her.)

Dear Lamma-Gung, Today, I am devastated by the death of my beloved cat, Zoe, killed by dogs. But I am happy to see that some people - the dogs' owners - were still good and decent enough to send you a picture for the forum, trying to find the dead cat's owner (me). I saw the picture and called them. They explained what had happened and even apologized compassionately. Kudos to both of them. Also, you took the time to publish the picture in the Pets forum. Thanks for your message; your words really touched me. Thanks for taking it very seriously, I deeply appreciate it. It's so important for a pet owner to know the truth about what happened. I am extremely devastated to learn that Zoe is gone and suffered because of those stupid dogs, but without Lamma.com.hk I'd have never known what had happened to her; this would have been even more terrible. The lady of the killer dogs went to see Hans the Vet to take care of Zoe, but Hans had to put her asleep forever as her back was broken. Last night, I went to see Zoe at his clinic and I kissed her good-bye. At least, there are some good people who really take animals seriously; for me this is very important. For my lovely cat and for all the other cats on Lamma, yes, I want to publish on your blog that Lamma's cat owners are f***ing sick of the terrible attitude of the dog owners who let them run free everywhere, without leash. Those dogs on Lamma are not trained, they do what the hell they want, kill cats and shit and pee everywhere. The dogs fight in the village streets and the owners don't care. They could hurt a kid, but nobody says anything. They pee on the chairs in the bars, on people's bicycles, etc. etc... Cats are being killed and tortured to death almost daily by dogs on Lamma. This is so bad and unacceptable. My neighbour's cat disappeared too. We're quite sure he got killed by a dog; and my other friend's cat as well. Moving on, I have decided to take another kitty from the Lamma Animal Welfare Centre (that's where I got Zoe 1.5 years ago). I have another cat, Rita, who is now very depressed. I cannot leave her alone like this, it kills me. Let's save the cats and educate the dogs and dog owners!

Oct 11:  Laudable Lamma Luminaries, Officials & Celebrities

The entertaining and creatively invented story (or was it all true?) by Tjungarayi below inspired me to describe the various types of celebrities on our little island of barely 6,000 permanent inhabitants. There are actually a lot of celebrities and this website might have contributed a little bit to create a few more 15-minute celebrities by highlighting their various positive achievements and successes in this Lamma-zine. Celebrities being famous for all the wrong and often dubious reasons, we've got them to. But this notoriously optimistic Lamma-zine usually keeps quiet about them, trying to focus mainly on positive news.

For the purpose of this website we have created 3 levels of celebrities:

Laudable Lamma Luminaries (LLL): The highest honour, reserved for well-known locals who have contributed in a positive, laudable way to the Lamma community as a whole.
Examples are the late Jonathan Gray, Chow Yun-Fat, Doggy, Mr DickStock, Dan the Bastard, Nick the Bookman, Bobsy, bbChris and a select few more. No need to agree with or like their achievements, simply that they have tried their well-meaning best to contribute to Lamma society in a way that they and their friends considered positive, making a significant impact on our community and its reputation.

Court Officials: These are forum moderators and frequent contributors to this website. They might be known only on this website and even remain anonymous or not even live here, but they're helping to maintain, grow and improve this website, so they're the most important celebrities for us. They're officially appointed (and refuted) by myself - sometimes by forum member poll - for a limited term only and then the title might move on to another qualified person.
Examples are the Official Court Tourism Ambassador, the Official Court Artist, the Official Court Translator, the Official Court Village Idiot, etc. More titles are available on request and will be awarded if you qualify as a frequent contributor of content (not cash) to this website.

Lamma Celebrities: Any Lammaite known beyond his circle of friends for at least 15 minutes. The fame can come from any number of reasons: personal achievement, winning something, notoriety, infamy, being newsworthy, a media appearance, good or bad publicity of any kind.
These are the type of people that often get their own Lamma-zine story. They might be unknown before, but become a little local celebrity through the story, at least for a few days.
If most of these stories about one particular Lamma Celebrity are positive, they might move up to LLL status some day. But this takes a few years and a sustained commitment and contribution to the community. Quite a few Lammaites are well on their way to achieve this exalted status someday soon...

Oct 10:  Ice Cream, Black Silk Knickers and the Hygiene Dept.

Rachel Yau from an anonymous "public sector organisation" is working on a tourism project and is looking for celebrities who live on the island for interviews. If you know any, you can suggest them in this forum. Always eager Tjungarayi - a frequent Lamma-zine and forum contributor - jumped right in, nominating himself as a celebrity to be interviewed and telling "purely fantastical", fictitious (or not?) Lamma stories:

Me, me, me! Oh - to be interviewed. Could I tell a tale or two! For example, the sordid, black, satanic masses that are rumoured to occur several times a year after midnight on a secluded Lamma beach. Lewd and wildly joyous Bacchanalian feasts involving goats, vanilla-flavoured ice-cream, cat-o-nine tails and tan-coloured teddy bears. It is hard to solicit any information about the goings-on at these festivities. People benignly accept this travesty of Christianity and go about their business and leave these nocturnal festivities to themselves, fearful of ungodly visitations and recriminations upon themselves. After relating these few facts to you, I will be festooning my apartment with crucifixes, my trusty copy of the Malleus Maleficarum will be on my bedside table and holy water sprinkled on window frames and my doorway. Or the tale of unrequited love between one of the blue-uniformed Yung Shue Wan hygiene department ladies and her secret lover, a one-time CEO of a major insurance corporation. A passionate affair until they were discovered entwined in lascivious synergy by the woman's grandfather around 2pm in broad daylight on the basketball court. Caused quite an uproar in the community, I can tell you! Lastly, the jock thief. Goodness knows what a bedeviled mess this man's mind must have been in. Three years ago, there were reports that men's underpants were disappearing from clothes lines throughout the island. Red, blue and black underpants. No other colours. Just these colours. The local police were amused rather than serious about the complaints until a committee was formed by the victims of this underhanded indignity. Needless to say, the local constabulary hastened their enquiries and sought to entrap the jock thief with a cleverly baited pair of black silk underpants. They sewed a tiny homing device into the label (Gucci by the way - thinking the thief could not resist such a status-endowed pair of knickers). These underpants hung on the clothes line of a willing citizen for a week and a half until the thief struck. The next day, when the police discovered the missing black silk underpants, the forces of justice were mobilised and zeroed in on the miscreant. Police boats, helicopters and the Hong Kong SWAT team were called in. However - big frustration, ever the companion of justice! - the homing device ceased emitting a signal suddenly. The police apparently were just a hundred metres away from the culprit at the ifc Mall (Yung Shue Wan Shopping Mall). The masses of people made it impossible to conduct an underpants search and the culprit escaped. The thefts stooped, however. The culprit knew he had had a close shave and ceased his unsavory brigandage. But the men of this island are ever vigilant and wary of losing their underpants. It is a sure bet that if you took a stroll along the verdant pathways of the island and made a casual perusal of the knickers hanging on clothes lines around Lamma Island you will be sure to find that the majority of underpants will be yellow, green, orange or even pink, but not black, blue or red! Oh, the uncensored life of Lammaites! It must be the little polluted sea air that turns our respectable citizens not infrequently to a life of unlicensed, reckless behaviour congruent with a sometimes voracious appetite for sordid gossip and unbound lasciviousness.

Oct 9:  Just 2 Weeks Left!

(Click on posters above to enlarge them)

Oct 8:  HK Copy News #4

Daniel - MomentEye.com:

A weekly animated round-up of Hong Kong's current affairs. This week featuring anti-smoking, the Heung Yee Kuk, Mastermind, and the minimum wage. It's just like the real news... but cheaper! The full length 4-minute version is available now. You can get it here: http://hkcopynews.blogspot.com/ Where you can leave comments and suggestions. Or here: http://one.revver.com/watch/75574 To get it straight in your iTunes: feed://momenteye.com/podcast/MomentEye_feed.xml

Oct 7:  Mid-Autumn Festival on the Beach

Click above for the Mid-Autumn Festival photo gallery

Oct 6:  Kumi the Drumming Geisha

in progress...

Oct 5:  Ahmed & Yeliz - a Turkish Wedding

Do you recognise this lucky guy?

Yes, it's Ahmed, the cheerful, friendly but quiet Turkish chef in the Best Kebab restaurant. He recently got married back home, leaving his overwhelmed cousin Hayri to do the cooking. After his return with his beautiful bride, I've convinced them to let me publish some of the wedding photos, as I thought a Kurdish Muslim wedding would be so different from a typical HK wedding. Well, I was wrong once again.

It seems that both families are very modern Muslims, adopting many Western customs, including the multi-layered wedding cake. Even the studio photo shoot and heavy Photoshopping so popular in HK seems to have become common in Turkey (see above).

They had a really big Western-style wedding party for over 1,000 guests! Congratulate Ahmed & Yeliz when you see them in Best Kebab. Ahmed, the very lucky guy, is now smiling even more than before...

Oct 4:  Dress-up the Hachiko

Our Official Court Artist, Andy Maluche, wrote in his art blog on Sep 8:

"A lifelong ambition finally came true. I will be painting dogs in a mall for week."

In the meantime, he's completed this unique and well-paid assignment and here are some of the best doggie-style paintings he's created in about 2 hours each.

"Sometimes he finished a little early. That's when you get all those silly aliens/butterflies.

"Nobody actually ever told me what I should do. So just to be on the save side I painted over the existing dogs. Everybody seem to be fine with that. Here you can see all the other ones."

Oct 3:  Chinese Forum Summary - Sep 2006

Samson - Official Court Moderator of All Chinese Forums (Photo credits: Lamma Fair and Pussy Paws photo by by bobby chiu. Tree photo by siuyu. All uncredited photos by Lamma-Gung, as usual.)

Mid-Autumn Carnival Lammaites turned up in style to pre-celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival at the Yung Shue Wan Football Pitch. With a karaoke competition, kung-fu and dancing demonstration, the lucky draw and lantern quiz, everyone has again hailed it as another memorable event!  Read more... I Felt the Earth Move! The members shared their experiences of the earthquake on Thursday 14 September, which measured at 3.5 on the Richter Scale. STOP PRESS!! The Apple Daily quoted nicole_kam’s message in its report on the following day! Read more... Our Very Photogenic Island! The Chinese forum’s photographer-extraordinaire, bobby shared more of his great work, from flora and fauna to everyday Lamma life, on the forum.  Read more... P.S. The Official Court Moderator of All Chinese Forum’s pick of the month: the cutesy pussy paws (see right):  Read more... More Pay-TV for Lamma While the Filipino Dream satellite TV has received much attention in the English forum, the Chinese forum discusses local service provider, TVB’s Pay-vision, which is now tapping the Lamma market. Its services were discussed and and new Pay-vision subscriber emuaisee revealed that she got a mooncake from TVB as an introductory gift!  Read more... All-new Congee A new congee restaurant has opened (across from Bookworm) and our food critic Devilfung was quick off the blocks for a taste test. Meanwhile, ex-Lammaite bunnyrabbit reminisces about the old congee shop near the VV parking lot…  Read more... Buy-cycle! Tai Peng newbie sai0517 started this interesting and informative discussion on buying a bicycle on our fair isle. One question remains unanswered in this topic – why do bikes rust so easily? Read more... New Banking Hours With the newly introduced 5-day check clearance system, the one and only HSBC adjusted the opening hours of its Yung Shue Wan branch. It now opens on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays! Read more... The 8am Sampans Regular commuters of the 8am weekday ferries should also notice the sampans leaving the Yung Shue Wan pier at the same time. The curious Varadise wonders where these sampans go. (Answer: the Power Station and its surrounding construction sites!)  Read more... S.O.B. = Save our Banyan, Part 2 An update on the frail-looking big banyan next to the police box at the Yung Shue Wan Main Street: The Agricultural, Fisheries and Conservation Department said the banyan is a "roadside tree", which is a responsibility of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. The LCSD said the main trunk is healthy and they couldn't find parasites on the branches, then referred the case to the Lands Department, which is still working on it.  Read more... Lamma Fair Another great community carnival was held at the Tai Wan tennis court during September, and the Chinese forum has a e-photo album to recap this fun-filled event.  Read more...

Oct 2 – Day following National Day:  Beer Garden Views

Some Lammaites are avid birdwatchers and -photographers. I'm more of a people-watcher. Today, a public holiday, I chose a vantage point inside the renovated, pinkified Beer Garden just opposite The Island Bar. The huge crowds of tourists and the occasional local passing through Main Street make for some fascinating pictures, as does the beach. I love my new 18-135mm zoom lens! I've selected these from about 100 shots, Click to enlarge photos, as usual.

Future Kung Fu warriors in training in front of the Green Cottage

Guess where the last photo was taken from? Sitting in Green Cottage, of course, staring at the tree trunk table tops. The photo is just "a little bit" oversaturated.

Oct 1 – National Day:  HK Copy News – Episode #3

Daniel - MomentEye.com: A weekly animated round-up of Hong Kong's current affairs. This week featuring Alan Leong, mosquito traps, EPD plans, Lantau Buffalo and a video pirate. It's just like the real news... but cheaper! The full 3-minute version is available now, including an Environment Report and an animated view off a roof in Tai Ping. Click below: You can leave comments and suggestions in the HK Copy News Blog, plus you can view Episode #1 and #2 again. You can subscribe to HK Copy News as a video podcast: Copy/paste this address into your iTunes software (ADVANCED>Subscribe to Podcast)

Read more of last month's stories...