Hong Kong Life

Hong Kong, where busy people work around the clock, came last in a survey on work-life balance in the Asia-Pacific region. According to a 2015 study by the recruitment agency Randstad, over 70 percent of workers felt they were obliged to take work calls even when they are on holiday. Varsity takes a closer look at the difficulties faced by workers in the city as they try to juggle work and life.

Childhood obesity is a serious problem in Hong Kong, and it's getting worse. Meet the schools and healthy food advocates trying to stem the tide, as well as one parent who took a part-time job just so she can cook for her kids.

More and more private museums have opened in Hong Kong in recent years. Unlike public museums, many of them showcase very specific interests. In a tiny place like Hong Kong, you can find museums featuring toys, furniture, camera equipment and even fans.

Mention musicals and most people will think of productions from New York's Broadway or London's West End. But a group of dedicated performers, writers, producers and musicians are working hard to put on local musicals performed in Cantonese. It's an uphill struggle, but they tell Varsity it is well worth the effort.

The plight of an injured dolphin, later named Hope, in waters off Lantau island drew public attention to the dangers facing the Chinese White Dolphins around Hong Kong. Hope's eventual death led to calls for a protocol on dealing with the rescue of injured sea mammals in Hong Kong waters, and for greater monitoring of local dolphin watching tours.

New apps appear on the market for consumers to download onto their mobile devices every day. But for the developers who spend their time and efforts to create them, there is little in the way of intellectual property protection. Varsity speaks to some of the innovators who say that being ripped off is simply a sad reality.

While the sheer volume and creativity of the art and visual culture of the recent Umbrella Movement is unprecedented in Hong Kong's history, the territory does have a history of protest and protest culture. Varsity takes a look at how protest objects and their collection have changed over the years.

In the age of the ubiquitous smartphone and digital camera, Varsity meets the artists who prefer to capture urban scenes using non-digital means.

Mong Kok's Sino Centre was once a place of pilgrimmage for fans of Cantopop and local movie stars. In its heyday, fans used to queue up for hours to buy laminated photos of their idols. But those days are gone, and Sino Centre is now a repository of collective memories for a generation of Hongkongers.

Oyster farming has been practiced in Hong Kong for 200 years, but in recent years pollution and competition from imported oysters has seen a decline in demand for locally raised oysters. Still, as Varsity finds out, Hong Kong's oyster farmers have tapped a growing appetite for Hong Kong oysters in the Mainland.