Cultural Differences

Cultures around the world have many differences, among those are the phrases used to describe everyday things.

For example, Canadians often call the poles on the side of the road supporting electric cables, “Hydro poles”. In other parts of the world these will be referred to as “electric poles”.

British people refer to long cushioned chair normally placed in the living room as “chesterfield”, but most other cultures refer to it as a “sofa”.

The most famous difference is the way North Americans refer to American football as “football”, where rest of the world use this term to refer to soccer.

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HK Jockey Club Assisting the Arts

Today the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) announced the allocation of HKD7.5 million towards the Jockey Club Performing Arts Venue Subsidy Scheme. This scheme will offer rent-free venues to local art groups and individuals. This will enable local art groups a venue for them to hold performance or art installations. At the moment this scheme is only for the Blackbox Theatre venue, which is the theatre in the newly opened Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCA) in Shek Kip Mei. Where HKJC’s funding enabled the conversion of a vacated industrial building into a art center.

This is a move in the right direction for Hong Kong, as arts and culture is not that prevalent in Hong Kong. There are talks and much discussions about the West Kowloon and Kai Tak projects relating to arts and culture, but both of these projects are years away. Whether these projects will turn out as the government had intended, we will need to wait and see. In the past projects similar in intent had failed drastically, case in point is Cyberport.

I believe more of the Hong Kong arts and culture venues should similar charity programs for local budding artists and performers.