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Hongcouver

Hongcouver
The Hongcouver blog is devoted to Vancouver's hybrid culture with Hong Kong and growing relationship with mainland China. Author Ian Young is the SCMP's Vancouver correspondent and former International Editor, who has won or shared awards for excellence in investigative and human rights reporting, and the HK News Awards Scoop of the Year.
Taiwan-born, New York-based fashion designer Jason Wu made clothes for his Barbie dolls as a child, but after talking his way into the fashion industry, ended up dressing none other than Michelle Obama. Photo: Jayme Thornton
Fashion

Profile | From dressing Barbie to Michelle Obama, fashion designer Jason Wu

Taiwan-born, New York-based fashion designer Jason Wu reflects on his life, from a childhood spent making clothes for Barbie dolls to dressing none other than Michelle Obama.

Huawei

HSBC suffered no risk from Meng’s alleged deceptions, Canadian court hears

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Meng Wanzhou

Boeing 777 jet was chartered to fly Meng Wanzhou home to China, court hears

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International Property

Canada mulls tax on phantom foreign homebuyers to rein in property prices

Canada’s plan to cool its red-hot property market by taxing phantom foreign homebuyers next year could upset the industry recovery and further erode international demand.

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Vancouver is one of the two most active and expensive property markets in Canada. Photo: Handout
Meng Wanzhou

Huawei’s Meng wins a small victory in quest to quash US extradition

A judge ruled Huawei’s chief financial officer can introduce new evidence from her PowerPoint presentation to HSBC, in her fight against extradition to the US.

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Canada

The Hongcouver | China virus? North America’s most Chinese city puts US Covid-19 rate to shame

Richmond is just 30km (19 miles) from the US border. But its pandemic performance might as well be on a different planet.

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US-China tech war

Meng Wanzhou’s extradition hearing goes behind closed doors

A Vancouver judge hears potentially sensitive evidence that Canadian government lawyers want withheld, on grounds including national security. Meng’s lawyers hope the evidence will bolster a case that she is the victim of an abuse of process.

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Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in May. Photo: Reuters
Hong Kong national security law

The Hongcouver | They fly flags of Hong Kong ‘revolution’ in Vancouver, despite security law

Canadian protesters worry they will be arrested if they return to Hong Kong. Some go to great lengths to conceal their identities from authorities and keep their activities secret from family members.

Vietnam

Anthony Bourdain’s Vietnamese ‘lunch lady’ inspires Vancouver restaurant

When Anthony Bourdain featured a street food stall in Vietnam, it inspired Michael Tran to visit the country of his parents’ birth. He met the stall’s owner, adored her cooking, and has opened a restaurant serving her food in Vancouver.

Vancouver

The Hongcouver | Did data secrecy help an anti-Chinese virus to spread in Vancouver?

Covid-19 data showing Chinese-dominated Richmond is Vancouver’s least infected area could have undermined racist sentiment – but it was suppressed for months.

British Columbia provincial health officer Dr Bonnie Henry responds to questions while British Columbia Premier John Horgan (left) and Health Minister Adrian Dix listen during a news conference in March. Photo: AP
Coronavirus pandemic

The Hongcouver | Coronavirus: Time for fear and forcefulness with Vancouver’s Covidiots

British Columbia’s health officer Dr Bonnie Henry has been a beacon of calm authority amid the Covid-19 outbreak – but some doctors want her to get tough.

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People play soccer behind caution tape at Mahon Park in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Vancouver Park Board has closed all public outdoor recreation facilities within its parks, beaches, and parking lots because of a lack of public compliance with social distancing rules. Photo: Taehoom Kim/Bloomberg
Coronavirus pandemic

The Hongcouver | Coronavirus: Go home Vancouver. Social distancing is not a party

Photos of British Columbians gathering in big numbers at Kitsilano Beach and Whistler show they have much to learn about social distancing.

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Canada

Singapore billionaire says Vancouver developer threatened ‘bodily harm’

Oei Hong Leong’s unproven lawsuit says Canada’s Concord Pacific tried to thwart efforts to find alternative partners to develop trophy site.

Hong Kong Sevens

Canada’s sevens squad on the rise after years of turmoil

Downing France, Fiji and South Africa on their way to a bronze medal at the Canada Sevens this past weekend, the squad is on the rise

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Connor Braid and the boys in red are hoping a bronze in Vancouver is a sign of things to come in 2020. Photo: AFP
Coronavirus pandemic

The Hongcouver | Panic at the Costco: how a bogus photo fuelled Canada’s supermarket stampede

The Hongcouver Blog: A much-shared photo said to show panic buying in the Vancouver satellite of Richmond wasn’t even taken in Canada – but it fuelled real panic buying in the region

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This picture of people buying rice at a Costco store was widely shared via social media as a depiction of panic buying in Richmond, British Columbia. But the scene did not take place in Canada and the origins of the photo are unclear. Photo: Twitter
Coronavirus pandemic

The Hongcouver | Coronavirus ‘misinformation’ in Canada? China’s embassy shares the blame

For weeks, China’s embassy has been telling people to avoid crowds in Canada, while local authorities blame online mischief for the woes of Chinese restaurants

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Coronavirus pandemic

The Hongcouver | Those Asian face mask wearers? They aren’t crazy or stupid, Vancouver

There’s nothing particularly funny about the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak – but some Canadians find Asians in face masks to be the height of ludicrousness, ignoring the trauma Sars inflicted on a generation of Hongkongers.

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Huawei

Meng case embarrasses Canadian court, lawyer says, rejecting fraud claim

The fraud charges are a ‘pose’ designed to disguise a case really about US sanctions on Iran that are rejected by ‘the rest of the civilised world’, lawyer says, before judge reserves judgment and adjourns proceedings.

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Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, arrives at the British Columbia Supreme Court for her extradition hearing in Vancouver on Thursday. Photo: Bloomberg
China-Canada relations

Free Meng, send $$$ for nudez: Canada’s unlikely anti-extradition activists

Some protesters said they were paid to take part in what they were told was a music video or professional film shoot – but to their surprise discovered the rally related to an actual court case

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Vancouver

The Hongcouver | Is Vancouver really an ‘insular little village’ as powerful developer says?

In contrast to his churlish assessment of Vancouver, Westbank’s Ian Gillespie has ridden the wave of internationalism and foreign money that defines the city today.

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Vancouver

Exclusive | China tycoon’s Vancouver spree: US$39m home, US$3.9m car, now a hotel

Tycoon Chen Mailin, once a member of China’s top political advisory body, is revealed in a lawsuit as the new owner of the 213-room Metropolitan Hotel Vancouver.

Chinese tycoon Chen Mailin is the new owner of the Metropolitan Hotel Vancouver. Photos: Marriott / Dingye Group
Hong Kong protests

As hundreds in Canada sang Glory to Hong Kong, he sang ‘shame on losers’

Vancent Zhu, a lonely dissenter against a flash mob by Hong Kong protest supporters near Vancouver, has previously protested in potentially hostile waters, sailing to the disputed Diaoyu Islands to assert Chinese territorial claims in 2006.

Vancent Zhu, pictured in the Metrotown shoppingmall near his home in Burnaby, British Columbia, says the Hong Kong protest anthem Glory To Hong Kong is "ridiculous". Photo: Ian Young

Canada police go undercover amid protest tensions in its most-Chinese city

A Hong Kong-style Lennon Wall in Richmond was torn apart on China’s National Day by counterprotesters dressed in designer clothes who threw money at opponents. The building and destruction of the wall was monitored by a police undercover operation – apparently unseen by protesters

Hong Kong protests

Why Albert Cheng left Hong Kong – again – for Vancouver

The celebrity democrat, broadcaster, media tycoon and ex-legislator returned to Vancouver to live for good eight months ago. But he promptly ended his 26-year Vancouver radio show amid the Hong Kong unrest, tired of trying to win over patriotic Chinese he fears find him ‘disgusting’.

Hong Kong protests

The Hongcouver | Vancouver’s Bubble Tea Summit for pro-Hong Kong and pro-China activists

The rivals sat together for almost three hours, trying to understand how the other came to such wildly different views about Hong Kong’s unrest to their own

Pro-China protester Victor Feng and Hong Kong democracy activist Fenella Sung, at Vancouver's Bubble Queen cafe. Photo: Ian Young
Vancouver

The Hongcouver | Vancouver’s Hong Kong protesters think they’re being watched. They’re right

Suspicion of surveillance is endemic among the protest movement in Vancouver, amid fears of retribution.

Jayers Ko (left) and a protester who did not want to be identified at a rally outside the Vancouver Public Library on Saturday. Photos: Ian Young
Canada

Anticipated Vancouver commercial property price crash not coming: analysts

Foreign investors, including those from Hong Kong and mainland Chinese, largely stayed out of commercial real estate in Vancouver, Canada’s second-largest investment market, in the first half of 2019 amid sinking home prices in the city.

Xinjiang

China claims ‘success at this stage’ of Xinjiang camps amid global outcry

Third white paper in five months on controversial policies in the region says there have been no terror attacks for three years as a result of programme, in latest response to international criticism.

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