Hong Kong cultural policy

The Hong Kong cultural policy refers to the development and preservation of Hong Kong's arts and cultural heritage. As a player on the global stage of world cities, Hong Kong is perhaps best known for its role as an international financial center and shopping mecca, and not for its artistic and cultural offerings. The popular stereotype of the city holds that its residents are far too focused on getting and spending to concern themselves with the ephemeral affairs of art and culture.

Yet in recent years the city’s government, residents, and the media have brought more attention to the development of the city’s arts scene and preservation of the former British colony’s unique cultural heritage. It has been argued that the role of art and culture in Hong Kong has taken on increasing prominence in city’s search for an identity in the ten years since China resumed sovereignty over the territory. The limitations on democracy in post-colonial Hong Kong may lead more residents to seek expression or confirmation of their identities through arts and culture.

Cultural Policy

The administration of arts and culture in Hong Kong has undergone major changes since Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997. Cultural matters, previously under the auspices of the two Municipal Councils, now fall mainly under the purview of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and the Arts and Development Council . The government’s formal cultural policy statement is available on the website of the .

The ADC is a statutory body established in 1995 to replace the former Council of Performing Arts. The ADC is responsible for promoting broad development of the arts, makes recommendations to the government on cultural policy and development and provides funding for cultural organizations. However, the ADC has been criticized for lacking the executive power and resources to implement policies directly.
The current chief executive of the ADC, Jonathan Yu, took up his position in April 2005 after more than two decades with the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation.

The LCSD organizes artistic and cultural activities and manages a number of cultural facilities. LCSD manages 15 performance venues and 16 museums throughout Hong Kong. The Antiquities and Monuments Office, part of the LCSD, is responsible for heritage conservation and education in Hong Kong.

The Culture and Heritage Commission was set up in April 2000 to advise on cultural policy and funding priorities. Its Policy Recommendation Report, submitted in April 2003, has been adopted as the blueprint for Hong Kong’s cultural policy. The CHC set forth six general principles to guide Hong Kong’s cultural policy: The six principles are "people-oriented", "pluralism", "freedom of expression and protection of intellectual property", "holistic approach", "partnership" and "community-driven."

Other proposed policy reforms include increased corporatization of government-sponsored cultural organizations, small scale public-private partnerships, and the controversial .

The government has commissioned a number of studies on Hong Kong’s creative industries and cultural policy. Yet to date, many of the ongoing policy issues have not been resolved.
Critics have complained of the government’s over-reliance on advisory committees and consultations in managing cultural affairs on the grounds that is inefficient and contrary to global trends in arts administration.

Funding and Support for the Arts

The Hong Kong government allocates around US $300 million per year for culture and arts, which accounts for about 1 percent of total government spending.

In the 2006-2007 Policy Address, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang announced that the Arts and Sport Development Fund would receive US $5 million dollars to support cultural activities.

The ADC receives an annual subvention of around US $12 million dollars from the Home Affairs Bureau and around US $3 million on average from the Arts and Sports Development Fund. In addition to providing grants to arts groups, the ADC has established an Arts Service Centre in Sheung Wan to provide office space and facilities for smaller arts organizations.

The LCSD provides funding for the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival and four professional performing companies: the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong Dance Company and Hong Kong Repertory Theatre. In addition to individual events, it also organizes two arts festivals per year: the summer International Arts Carnival for families and children, and a themed arts festival in the fall.

Film Industry

Globally, Hong Kong’s most noted contribution in terms of arts and culture has come through its film industry, which is the world’s third largest . have received worldwide critical acclaim and have been remade into blockbuster films by Hollywood, while Hong Kong directors and actors have gone on to find crossover success in Hollywood.

Hong Kong’s film industry has suffered since its last heyday of the 1980s and early 1990s, and the government has recently introduced measures to boost the film industry but this has failed miserably. The death of the Arts in Hong Kong is in large part due to an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship that the Hong Kong Chinese imposed upon themselves after the 1997 handover.

In the 2006-2007 Policy Address the Chief Executive proposed the establishment of a Hong Kong Film Development Council to support film production in the city. In his the 2007-2008 budget, Financial Secretary Henry Tang announced that US $40 million would be earmarked for a new fund to finance film production and professional development within the industry.

Events

Hong Kong is home to numerous cultural events and festivals throughout the year. Those that receive significant public funding include:

* – February/March

*Hong Kong International Film Festival – March/April

* – July/August

* – October/November

Arts Education

The Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts is Hong Kong’s only tertiary institution devoted to the performing arts, film, television and related technical arts.

Heritage Conservation and Collective Memory

After the demolition of the Star Ferry pier in December 2006 led to widely publicized protests, the government is reviewing its policies on heritage conservation. The Antiquities and Monuments Office has published a throughout the territory, though no decision has been made on the extent of protection for these buildings.

Hong Kong’s collective memory, as manifested in its street markets, , and artisanal traditions, is also being integrated into the city’s cultural policy.

HKSCS

The Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set is a set of Chinese characters -- 4,702 in total in the initial release -- used exclusively in . It evolved from the preceding Government Chinese Character Set or GCCS. GCCS is a set of supplementary Chinese characters coded in the user-defined areas of the Big5 character set. It was originally used within the Hong Kong Government and later used by the public. It later evolved into Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set when the characters in the set were submitted to ISO-10646 for coding.

Development History

Due to the inherent differences between and , the Hong Kong Government recognized the need for a standardized set of ''proprietary'' characters that would allow for the streamlining of electronic communication; at the time, the Big5 Chinese encoding scheme did not contain a vast majority of these characters .

The Government Chinese Character Set or GCCS was thus developed by the government. The character set consists of Chinese characters commonly used in Hong Kong. Some characters are -specific, while some are alternative forms of characters. The set is not well-organised and the characters are not closely examined.

Subsequently, the HKSCS-1999 was developed. Following its acceptance, newer revisions were released in 2001 and in 2004 , totalling 4,941 characters.

The HKSCS is encoded in Big5 and ISO 10646. Starting from HKSCS-2004, all characters using to Private Use Area section of Unicode are remapped, with many of them reassigned to Extension B Block or Supplementary Ideographic Plane Compatibility Block. However, to preserve compatibility with programs that generated PUA code points, the allocated code points are reserved, and no new characters will be mapped to .

Compatibility

Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows

In Microsoft Windows 98, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, HKSCS support can be enabled using Microsoft's patch. In Microsoft's implementation, application using code page 950 automatically uses a hidden code page 951 table. The table supports all code points in HKSCS-2001, except for the compatibility code points specified by the standard. In addition, the MingLiU font is altered using Microsoft's patch. This patch is known to create conflicts in applications such as Microsoft Office, or any application using fonts supporting simplified Chinese characters . If the target environment contains custom font mapped to the code points affected by Microsoft's patch, the custom fonts can undo Microsoft's patch. Furthermore, the patch breaks EUDC Editor supplied with the affected versions of Windows.

According to Microsoft, HKSCS-2004 characters will only be supported in Unicode 4.1 or later encoding. A utility is available to convert HKSCS and PUA-encoded characters to Unicode 4.1 version .

Software for entering HKSCS characters can be found in Hong Kong government's Digital 21 site.

In Windows Vista, HKSCS-2004 is fully supported, and characters can be displayed using MingLiU_HKSCS, MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB fonts. All characters are assigned standard, non-PUA codepoints.

Entering HKSCS characters can be done in Windows Vista. For earlier versions of the OS, it requires the use of Microsoft's patch, or using Digital 21's utility.

Linux

HKSCS support was added to glibc in 2000, but it has not been updated since then.

For freedesktop.org setup, ''AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni'' font fully supports HKSCS-2004 since 0.1-0.dot.1, with latest revision of HKSCS-2004 supported in version 0.1.20060903-1.

Mac OS

Mac OS X 10.0-10.2 supports HKSCS-1999. 10.3-10.4 supports HKSCS-2001.

Applications

Mozilla 1.5 and above supports HKSCS, with HKSCS-2004 support added into Gecko 1.8.1 code base. Unlike the above mentioned patch, Mozilla uses its own code page table.

3.x-based applications only support characters mapped to code points FFFF or lower. In QT4, characters outside BMP are supported via surrogates.

GNOME supports HKSCS characters in Unicode ranges, except those mapped to the Basic Multilingual Plane compatibility block.

Gweilo

Gweilo is a term for Caucasians, and has a long racially deprecatory history of use; however, nowadays it is usually not considered derogatory by Cantonese speakers.

Etymology and history

Gweilo ; ''sei gweilo'' , literally means "dead ghost man", using the translation "dead" for "sei" because it is only correct to be used as an adjective. However, the word "sei gweilo", when used to describe a living person, means "bad person". "Sei" is commonly added to other terms in order to describe the person or people being referred to as "bad", such as "sei lo" , meaning literally "dead man" or "bad guy" and "sei chai lo" , literally "dead policeman" or "bad policeman". Chinese people also can call each other "Sei gwei" in some situations, literally meaning "dead ghost", but refers to a bad man also. Even without the word ''sei'' the character itself can express intense loathing as when it was attached to the Japanese military in the term "Guizi Bing" during their massacre of what some have estimated to be upwards to 30 million Chinese during World War II.

While "gwailo" is commonly used by some Cantonese speakers in informal speech, the more polite alternative ''sai yan'' is now used. Many Cantonese speakers, however, frequently use the term to refer to white people and westerners in general and they consider the term non-derogatory, a controversial notion.. The term was commonly prefaced by ''sei'' as in ''sei gweilo'', meaning "damned ghost man", and used pejoratively with ''sei'' as the pejorative suffix.

Use of the term "gwei" to refer to Westerners is frequently referenced in Maxine Hong Kingston's ''The Woman Warrior''.

Variations

''Gweilo'' is the most generic term, but variations include:
*To refer specifically to non-Chinese women: ''gweipor'' which is also often spelt "gwai-poh" (it should be noted that "poh" implies the person is old"
*To refer specifically to non-Chinese boys: ''gweizai''
*To refer specifically to non-Chinese girls: ''gweimui''

Due to its widespread use, the term ''gwei'', which means ghost, has taken on the general meaning of "foreigner" and can refer to the European races since Indians, Filipinos, Indonesians, African and other races have their own separate racial terms that are used for them instead of gweilo. The following variant of the term is considered racist because they are specific to a group of people based on their racial characteristic:
* To refer to a foreigner: ''bakgwei''
* To refer to a foreigner: ''hakgwei''

Cultural reference

In 1999, CFMT-TV in Toronto had a cooking show named ''Gwai Lo Cooking''. It featured a Cantonese-speaking European chef as the host, who was also the show's producer and the person who named the show. In response to some complaints, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that

... While historically, "gwai lo" may have been used by Chinese people as a racist remark concerning foreigners, particularly European Westerners, the persons consulted by the Council indicate that it has since lost much of its racist overtone. The Council finds that the expression has also lost most of its religious meaning, so that "foreign devil" no longer carries the theological significance it once did. Based on its research, the Council understands that the expression has gone from being considered offensive to, at worst, merely "impolite".

According to CFMT-TV, ''"Gwei Lo"'' was used as "a self-deprecating term of endearment". Others, however, particularly foreigners living in Hong Kong, find the term demeaning and/or racist. However, it is also used by some non-Chinese to address themselves.

Related terms

In , guizi is a similar term to ''gweilo''. ''Guizi'', however, can be used to refer to either the or Europeans . ''Laowai'' is a word usually used for Europeans, and is a less pejorative term in Mandarin than ''guizi''. Also, cf. Ang Mo meaning 'red hair' .

Flag of Hong Kong

The flag of Hong Kong, or the Regional Flag of the , features a stylised, white, five-petal ''Bauhinia blakeana'' flower in the centre of a red field.

The flag of Hong Kong was adopted on 16 February 1990. On 10 August 1996, it received formal approval from the , a group which advised the People's Republic of China on from the United Kingdom to the PRC in 1997. The flag was first officially hoisted on 1 July 1997, in the marking the transfer of sovereignty. The precise use of the flag is regulated by laws passed by the 58th executive meeting of the held in Beijing. The design of the flag is enshrined in Hong Kong's , the city's constitutional document, and regulations regarding the use, prohibition of use, , and manufacture of the flag are stated in the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance.

Design

Symbolism

The design of the flag carries cultural, political and regional meanings. The colour itself is significant; red is a festive colour for the Chinese people, used to convey a sense of celebration and nationalism. Moreover, the red colour is identical to that used in the , chosen to signify the link re-established between post-colonial Hong Kong and China. The juxtaposition of red and white on the flag symbolises the ''one country two systems'' political principle applied to the region. The stylised rendering of the ''Bauhinia blakeana'' flower, a flower discovered in Hong Kong, is meant to serve as a harmonising symbol for this dichotomy.

History

Historical flags

Prior to Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty, the flag of Hong Kong was a colonial Blue Ensign flag. The flag of colonial Hong Kong underwent several changes in the last one and a half centuries.

In 1843, a representing Hong Kong was instituted. The design was based on a local waterfront scene; three local merchants with their commercial goods can be found on the foreground, a square-rigged ship and a junk occupy the middle ground, while the background consists of conical hills and clouds. In 1868, a Hong Kong flag was produced, a Blue Ensign flag with a badge based on this "local scene", but the design was rejected by Richard Graves MacDonnell.

In 1870, a "white crown over HK" badge for the Blue Ensign flag was proposed by the . The letters "HK" were omitted and the crown became full-colour three years later. Six designs were chosen as finalists by the judges, but were all later rejected by the PRC. Ho and two others were then asked by the PRC to submit new proposals. At major government offices and buildings, such as the Office of the Chief Executive, the , the Court of Final Appeal, the , the , and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices overseas, the flag is displayed during days when these offices are working. Other government offices and buildings, such as hospitals, schools, departmental headquarters, sports grounds, and cultural venues should fly the flag on occasions such as the , the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day , and New Year's Day. A Hong Kong flag that is either damaged, defaced, faded or substandard must not be displayed or used.

Displayed together with the national flag

Whenever the national PRC flag is flown together with the regional Hong Kong flag, the national flag must be flown at the centre, above the regional flag, or otherwise in a more prominent position than that of the regional flag. The regional flag must be smaller in size than the national flag, and it must be displayed to the left of the national flag. When the flags are displayed inside a building, the left and right sides of a person looking at the flags, and with his or her back toward the wall, are used as reference points for the left and right sides of a flag. When the flags are displayed outside a building, the left and right sides of a person standing in front of the building and looking towards the front entrance are used as reference points for the left and right sides of a flag. The national flag should be raised before the regional flag is raised, and it should be lowered after the regional flag is lowered.
*President of the People's Republic of China
*Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
*
*Chairman of the Central Military Commission
*Chairman of the
*Persons who have made outstanding contributions to the People's Republic of China as the Central People's Government advises the Chief Executive.
*Persons who have made outstanding contributions to world peace or the cause of human progress as the Central People's Government advises the Chief Executive.
*Persons whom the Chief Executive considers have made outstanding contributions to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region or for whom he considers it appropriate to do so.

The flag may also be flown at half-staff when the Central People's Government advises the Chief Executive to do so, or when the Chief Executive considers it appropriate to do so, on occurrences of unfortunate events causing especially serious casualties, or when serious natural calamities have caused heavy casualties. and that "publicly and wilfully burning, mutilating, scrawling on, defiling or trampling" the flag is considered flag desecration.

The ordinance also allows for the Chief Executive to make stipulations regarding the use of the flag. In stipulations made in 1997, the Chief Executive further specified that the use of the flag in "any trade, calling or profession, or the logo, seal or badge of any non-governmental organisation" is also prohibited unless prior permission was obtained.

Leung Kwok-hung, a member of the Legislative Council and a prominent political activist in Hong Kong, was penalised for defiling the Hong Kong flag in 2001 . He was placed on a good-behaviour bond for 12 months in the sum of HK$3,000 for dotting the flag with black marks while protesting against the handover anniversary and elections to choose the Election Committee, the electoral college which elects the Chief Executive, in Wan Chai, and on 1 July and 9 July 2000.

Leung's case was the second convicted case of flag desecration in Hong Kong. The first case involved demonstrators Ng Kung Siu and Lee Kin Yun, who were found guilty of desecrating both the Hong Kong flag and the national PRC flag in a demonstration held in January 1998, for writing the word "Shame" on both flags. The case was finally decided in the Court of Final Appeal, the highest appellate court in Hong Kong, after an initial guilty verdict was overturned by the .

Emblem of Hong Kong

The Emblem of Hong Kong, or the Regional Emblem of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is the emblem which represents Hong Kong. It came into use on 1 July 1997, after from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China.

The emblem features the same design elements as the regional Flag of Hong Kong in a circular setting. The outer white ring is shown with the caption of the official name of the territory in Traditional Chinese and the English short form, "Hong Kong".

Colonial Coat of Arms

The arms had been in use in colonial Hong Kong since it was granted on 21 January, 1959 and later adopted on the in July of that year. The use of the arms ended in 1997 where it was replaced by the regional emblem. The Coat of Arms feature a shield with two sections: the bears two traditional Chinese junks facing each other. Inside the or is a gold-coloured naval crown. The 'embattled' design separates the chief from the rest of the shield. The features a lion holding a pearl. The shield is held up by two supporters, a lion and a Chinese dragon. The shield and supporters stand on the compartment, which consists of a heraldic island bearing the motto "HONG KONG".

The two junks symbolise the importance of trade within the colony. The naval crown symbolises Hong Kong's links with the and the Merchant Navy, and the battlements commemorate the Battle of Hong Kong during World War II. The pearl held by the lion wearing the imperial crown in the crest personifies the romanticised phrase "Pearl of the Orient" referring to Hong Kong. The lion and dragon supporters show the British and Chinese aspects of Hong Kong. The island symbolises the beginning of the colony as an island and represents the maritime and hilly geography of Hong Kong. Some Hong Kong nationalists consider the design as an insult: the pearl originally in the left forelimb of the dragon is now given to the lion .

The crest alone had featured on the of Hong Kong coinage before the introduction of the Bauhinia design in preparation for the in 1997.

Colonial Badge

The colonial seal badge was in use since 1843 in one version or another until it was replaced by the coat of arms granted in 1959. Throughout several revisions, the idea of the remained. It depicted three Chinese merchants and a pile of cargo on a wharf on the left in the foreground. In the background there was a square-rigged ship and a Chinese junk in the harbour backed by conical hills.

External references

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Diu (Cantonese)

Diu is a common profanity in Cantonese. It can be regarded as the Cantonese equivalent of the English fuck. In , it is equivalent to the English "dick". The character, in , is also used by young people in Taiwan to mean "cool" .

In classic Chinese

''Diu'' is a word in the Chinese language. It appears frequently in the text of the classic novel ''Water Margin'', and is written as . It is used as an emphatic adjective with a function similar to the English "fucking", "bloody" or "god damned". For example,

''Water Margin'', Chp. 29

''Diu'' means primarily the penis. It is written as 屌 when used in this sense, but usually as 鳥 when used as an emphatic adjective. For example,

''Romance of the West Chamber'' , Act 5, Scene 3

has its female equivalent in the traditional Chinese written language. In the , the word, meaning penis, is sometimes written as . For example,

''Jiu Fengchen'' , Act 1

In Hong Kong and Macau

The written form is mainly seen in Hong Kong, for example, on graffiti. In Cantonese, it is used as a transitive verb meaning to copulate. In a manner similar to the word fuck, it is also used to express dismay, disgrace, disapproval and so on. For example, someone may shout "diu nei!" at somebody when he or she finds that other person annoying.

"Diu nei loe moe!" or "Diu nei loe mei" , a euphemism, is a highly offensive profanity in Cantonese when directed against a specific person instead of used as a general exclamation. In Cantonese, the meaning "''I'' fuck your mother" is implied, as opposed to English, in which the phrase "motherfucker" is an imperative.

The form is absent in the Big-5 character set on computers. The Government of Hong Kong has extended Unicode and the Big-5 character set with the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set , which includes Chinese characters only used in Cantonese, including the Five Great Profanities. The government explained that the reason for these characters being included is to allow for the Hong Kong Police to record criminal suspects' statements. Consequently, these characters are now also in Unicode.

In English, "damn" gives birth to its euphemism "darn"; similarly in Cantonese, especially Hong Kong Cantonese, ''diu'' has ''yiu'' and ''Tiu'' "siu" as its euphemisms.

Ding Hai Effect

The Ding Hai Effect , Adam Cheng Effect, Chiu Koon Effect , or Qiuguan Effect is a peculiar stock phenomenon that affects Hong Kong stock markets.

Phenomenon

It is observed that whenever the Hong Kong actor Adam Cheng stars in a new television show, there is a sudden and unexplained drop in the market. This is still a popular topic amongst stock brokers, years after the drama series ''Greed of Man'' was broadcasted in Hong Kong in October 1992. The effect is named after Ding Hai, the main character of the show, played by Adam Cheng.

History

In the 1990s, TVB aired the classic drama ''The Greed of Man'', which featured some of the most popular actors and actresses of the time. The drama centred heavily around the stock market, and the schemes and plots of those who struck it rich in the market.

Cheng, who played Ding Hai in the drama, made an immense fortune with his four sons by selling short derivatives and stocks during a bear market. Many people went broke, but the Ding family became richer and richer until an eventual defeat by the family's nemesis.

Occurrences

Initially, the Ding Hai Effect occurred whenever the TVB drama series ''Greed of Man'' or its remake, ''Divine Retribution'' , made by Asia Television Ltd was broadcast. Later, it was also observed that the effect occurs whenever a new drama show that Cheng stars in was aired.

1990s

* October 1992: The drama series ''Greed of Man'' made its debut on TVB. During the time it was broadcast, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dropped 598 points in 4 days, causing billions in stock losses.

* November 1994: ''Instinct'' made its debut on TVB. The Heng Sang Index fell more than 2,000 points.

* September 1996: ''Once Upon a Time in Shanghai'' premiered on TVB. The Hang Seng Index fell 300 points.

* June 1997: ''Cold Blood Warm Heart'' made its debut on TVB. The Hang Seng Index accumulated 735 points in losses.

* December 1997: ''Legend of Yung Ching'' premiered. At this time, the Asian Financial Crisis began, and the Heng Seng Index fell 5,324 points, ending below the 10,000 mark.

* June 1999, ''Lord of Imprisonment'' premiered, causing the Heng Seng Index to decline 1,176 points

2000s

* September 2000: A loose re-make of ''The Greed of Man'', ''Divine Retribution'' , aired on . Due to the Tech stock bubble at the time, the Hang Seng Index fell an accumulated 1,715 points, with other stock markets around the world falling as a result also.

*Summer 2003: ''Greed of Man'' re-aired on TVB's US satellite channel, TVB-USA. Corporate Corruption scandals stemming from financial troubles at Enron caused much stock market instability in the US and other global markets.

*October 2003: ''The Driving Power'' made its debut. At first, it appeared the spell was broken, with the Heng Seng Index rising more than 100 points on the day of the premiere. However, the market soon fell, eventually falling 51 points.

* March 2004: ''Blade Heart'' premiered in Hong Kong, causing the Hang Seng Index to fall 550 points over 3 days due to high oil prices and instabilities in the Middle East.

* October 2004: ''The Conqueror's Story'' premiered in Hong Kong, causing a 198-point drop in the Heng Seng Index on the day of the premiere

* March 2005: ''The Prince's Shadow'' premiered, and local uncertainties surrounding the resignation of Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa caused wild fluctuations in the market.

* April 2006: ''Bar Bender'' premiered in Hong Kong, causing wild drops in US and Hong Kong stock markets. {[fact

* July 2006: ''The Prince's Shadow'' aired on TVB-USA, and markets fell dramatically due to the .

* February-March 2007: ''The Prince's Shadow'' was rebroadcast in Hong Kong, and a Chinese stock market crisis caused Hong Kong and global markets to drop significantly.

* May 2007: Investigative programme ''Mystery'' premiered, with Cheng as the host. The Heng Seng Index fell 700 points.

* July 2007: ''Return Home'' premiered in Hong Kong, and the caused the market to fall 1,165 points in Hong Kong; US and Canadian stock markets also dropped significantly in July and August.

* August 2007: ''Bar Benders'' premiered on TVB-USA, and the caused extreme drops in global markets. The market is still in a volatile state when the series finale aired on 10 September 2007. It is interesting to note that ''The Greed of Man'' was rerun at roughly the same time on TVB-USA.

* October-November 2007: ''The Conqueror's Story'' premiered in Singapore, global markets dropped significantly for weeks.

Exception

The only time that the Ding Hai Effect did not occur was in late 2006, when a cultural and educational programme about the Forbidden City hosted by Cheng was aired in the US and did not cause a stock market crisis.

Conclusion

The Ding Hai Effect has led to Adam Cheng attracting much press attention. Now, whenever a new show starring Adam Cheng is about to be broadcast, some stockbrokers and investors in Hong Kong become wary, even anticipating a drop in the market.

While some investors have argued that the effect is no more than a series of coincidences and amounts to nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, the show's peculiar effect on the stock market is regarded by some as more than coincidence. It was also confirmed that Crédit Lyonnais wrote a report on this matter.

This strange phenomenon also created a career trough for Adam Cheng in Hong Kong during the 1990s, for the two over-the-air television stations in Hong Kong avoided using Cheng for its dramas, partly because they did not want to bear responsibility for a stock market crash.