Many migrant workers were affected too and Bethune House, a shelter for migrant women workers, is contacting their families (ways to donate directly TBC). Meanwhile you can donate to the org itself here: bethunehouse.org/donate

cf. www.thestandard.com.hk/hong-kong-ne...

But when a tragedy of this scale strikes and the grassroots response is this big, the last thing any govt should do is hinder that response, to include treating sincere volunteers as potential national security threats, which amplifies the public resentment they're trying to keep under control. 4/5

This is a *very* Beijing response to things

Wait, wut, how??

Hong Kong blaze spotlights enduring role of city's foreign domestic helpers reut.rs/49RioG5

As Hongkongers mourn the dead in Tai Po, authorities face a test of governance with next weekend's election potentially postponed. In full: buff.ly/chdyyfq

A blaze that tore through a Hong Kong high-rise residential complex and killed more than 120 people was extinguished on Friday, as investigators pointed to construction netting catching fire as the likely cause. In full: buff.ly/ijuAZyS

China Taiping Insurance Holdings said it was the insurer of the Wang Fuk Court renovation. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates its exposure at HK$2.6 billion (US$334 million), the largest ever in Hong Kong, possibly exceeding the Kimpton Hotel fire in 2023 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"The bamboo scaffolding is not the problem. The system is the problem." Source: Telegram

“I don’t know what will happen to us after 14 days.” In a city where housing is at a premium and public housing waiting lists are many years long, what next for the now homeless victims of Hong Kong’s tower fire disaster? www.scmp.com/news/hong-ko...

For those who want to read more about Freddy Lim - www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/w...

Metal diplomacy:

A HK university student has created a petition urging the gov't to respond to "4 big demands" after the deadly Tai Po fire, including setting up an independent investigation committee. In full: buff.ly/86gUoQk

The aftermath begins. As far back as Sept 2024, Hong Kong’s Labour Department dismissed resident concerns that the scaffolding nets were unsafe, saying the materials met safety standards, based on documents from Prestige Construction and Engineering (🎁 Free to read) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/w...

“There was no alarm,” said Ng Yuk-fan, a 62-year-old retired cleaner who was babysitting her 3-year-old grandson. “If there had been an alarm, you would have heard it go la-la-la-la-la,” she said. Latest on the deadly Hong Kong fire: www.wsj.com/world/asia/t...

There's a non-zero chance of folks getting a knock on the door for doing this. But sometimes you just have to take the risk for your community.

This tragedy is inseparable from the change in the governance of Hong Kong from an open, transparent and pluralist system to one of unquestioning obedience to its Beijing masters, a secretive and autocratic culture in which corruption can flourish.

Who is left now to fulfil this civic duty, now that free media outlets have been tamed, intimidated and in some cases destroyed? The Legislative Council is entirely made up of pro-government loyalists now that opposition parties have been banished as unpatriotic.

Hong Kongers express their solidarity with the victims of the Tai Po fire by writing words of encouragement and sympathy on Post-It notes. An act that disappeared since 2019 but apparently remain unforgotten since then.

Really hard to process the scope of it all.

Today’s #BirdOfTheDay theme is #MorningLight. I chose this photo to match the theme. Bathed in morning light, the Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker wears a crisp, resolute expression.😊☀️🪶 久しぶりの #BOTD 😊コゲラちゃん朝日が似合いますね👀✨ #nature #photography #animals #wildlife #JapanesePygmyWoodpecker #コゲラ #birds #野鳥

Images from the Tai Po fire earlier this morning from reporter Gigi Ho-wing chi for Hong Kong’s oldest student newspaper, The Young Reporter

A few takeaways from my reporting Hong Kong lecture: Context is everything. Talk & listen to local people (not just your taxi driver). But always consider their safety. Give credit where you can. Know what you don’t know. Acquiring In-depth local knowledge requires time, experience & humility.

Time for more light-hearted stuff now, after an emotional press conference. All the high courts rulings are being assigned an animal, to explain their nuances.

Hongkongers are mobilising to support the victims of a deadly fire that broke out on Wednesday afternoon at a Tai Po residential estate. HKFP lays out local NGO initiatives and fundraisers that readers may wish to donate to. See: buff.ly/dVibAme

1/ A grassroots relief effort has sprung to life across Tai Po, and online, as Hongkongers rally to volunteer, offer food, shelter and clothing to the victims of the Tai Po fire tragedy. Read the full story on HKFP: buff.ly/Dv8hIz6

A dog has been reunited with its owners, who had been anxiously waiting outside Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po after it went missing for two days during the massive fire that broke out on Wednesday. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

"I wanted to take everything, but I could take nothing... Instead, I stood quietly, looking around the wreckage, as if saying a final farewell to this home," Tai Po's Wang Fuk Court resident Lim ALim, who escaped the deadly blaze, wrote. In full: buff.ly/RSWd85s

#TaiwanArchives: A 1971 video extolling the benefits of raising Beltsville Small White #Turkeys (貝茨維爾小型白色火雞, Meleagris gallopavo) that were imported to #Taiwan from the United States by the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction.

Plaintiff Shinya Yamagata speaks about how he didn't expect this ruling at all. "I imagine many of you feel anger. Please share that anger with others. (...) It's taking too much time; we want to get married already."

What?

HKFP rounds up messages from government bodies, foreign state leaders and concern groups, as firefighters continue their operations at Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court. In full: buff.ly/CzS8TbM

Check out this 19th century Thai treatise on cats I just found! www.loc.gov/resource/gdc...

The HK pro-democracy camp recognised what the Chinese Communist Party ironically did not want to admit publicly - livelihood issues *are* political

SCMP has a list of charities and organizations accepting donations to support the people affected by the Tai Po fire, including GovHK's newly established HK$300M fund. • Beware of fraudsters and use only established charities and organizations www.scmp.com/news/hong-ko...

Pro-democracy parties existed to be thorns in the government’s side — true enough. But the official story, that they “politicised” everything while the establishment camp championed livelihood issues, does not match the reality. See below for an example of how they also pushed back on local issues.

Folks often forget the fight for democracy in HK isn’t a “Beijing vs us” thing in matters of human rights - I mean that matters too - but also the fight for local representation so that problems like these don’t get swept under the rug

I had not expected Bloomberg of all outlets to look for an anime angle but Bloomberg of all places found an anime angle

A large Chinese junk style rudder, photographed c.1920 - large rudders like this - up to 120ft - were developed long before western style rudders came into widespread use.

Senior permanent position has opened up in Chinese studies here at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. It is a very nice place. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPN980/rea...

powerful piece. how, in hong kong, silence can be deafening. "Even laughter feels different now." www.dw.com/en/hong-kong...

|| NEW EPISODE || Six years after Hong Kong’s mass protests, @yangyangcheng.bsky.social talks with sociologist Ching Kwan Lee and historian @jwassers.bsky.social about the struggle’s enduring significance, its transnational afterlives, and what it teaches us amid today’s democratic backsliding.

I find myself remembering how Chris Tang once said that any art can potentially be clandestine "soft resistance" if the govt thinks it could be interpreted that way.

Unclear whether the HK government is scared of LGBT+ or 5DN1L but it’s funny either way how they freak out over a few fingers

The incident of this type that sticks out in my mind are the several times in - I wanna say Hangzhou or Nanjing (maybe both) - that some park/mall rent-a-cops made a huge stink and detained groups of 20-sthing cosplayers for "Dressing Japanese." They were wearing hanfu.

From DW: "Hong Kong: Young activists suffer in silence" tinyurl.com/yc3wcfaa #HongKong #NSL

I have a diaspora friend who has a last name that ‘works’ in both Cantonese and Mando, except the actual character is different. When he was trying to go through Beijing airport some years ago, he was told his surname is wrong and, being Chinese, he should change it.

Best case scenario: Jackie puts in his contract that he’s allowed to spew as much Chinese Party propaganda as possible, the effects of which finally topple the American empire.