Latest news with #AndyLauTak-wah
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Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Eat at your desk, pay a fine: Odd rules at China firm draw outrage online
Imagine losing part of your pay because you glanced in a mirror or munched on a cookie at work. That's the reality employees at a big Chinese furniture maker say they face after a senior manager rolled out strict — and startling — office rules. In May, screenshots surfaced from Man Wah Holdings Ltd's internal chat showing a senior executive in the e-commerce division, identified only by the surname Liu, laying out new demands for staff. The notice banned eating at desks, ordered overtime, and required six daily clock-ins, telling anyone unwilling to obey to 'resign', the South China Morning Post reported. Fines for mirrors, snacks and idle PCs Under Liu's rules, workers risked hefty penalties: -Eating snacks would cost managers 2,000 yuan (₹24,100), supervisors 1,000 yuan (₹12,049), and assistant managers 500 yuan (₹6,024). -Leaving a workstation without cause more than three times in a month would slice 2,000 yuan (₹24,100) from salary. -Forgetting to shut down a computer after hours attracted a 100 yuan (₹1,204) fine. -Stepping away for over ten minutes without locking the computer and pushing in the chair also triggered deductions. 'If I catch anyone gaming at work, they will be fired immediately,' Liu warned in the chat. He added that money collected from 'those who slack off' would fund red-envelope bonuses for diligent colleagues, the report quoted. Founded in 1992 and based in Guangdong, Man Wah Holdings is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange and employs around 27,000 people. The group is best known for its sofas, mattresses and panel furniture. One of its flagship brands signed Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau Tak-wah as ambassador in 2016. Legal experts raise red flags Labour lawyer Yao Kun of Kangda Law Firm told Henan Daily that Chinese legislation gives companies no authority to fine employees. 'Fining employees for using the bathroom or looking in the mirror is excessively harsh and may not be legally enforceable,' he said, as quoted by the report. A 'prison-style' management? 'Is this a job or a prison sentence?' one asked. Another wrote, 'When a company starts obsessing over attendance and discipline, it usually means they are out of money. Do not buy their sofas.' A third user wrote, 'Is this executive OK in the head? Nowadays, any random clown can become a member of senior management.' Internal probe under way On June 7, a company spokesperson said Man Wah was investigating the matter. The firm has not yet announced any decision on Liu's rules, but the online storm shows no sign of calming down.
South China Morning Post
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong's Kai Tak sports park launch evokes nostalgia but where is the global appeal?
As an invited guest at the two-hour opening extravaganza at the main stadium of Hong Kong's newest landmark, the Kai Tak Sports Park, I found myself exclaiming a few times and swinging through a range of emotions during the opening ceremony, not least during the moment Andy Lau Tak-wah, one of the 'Four Heavenly Kings' of Cantopop, appeared on stage. Advertisement I gasped, first with delight at the film star's cameo, and then with a murmur of disappointment when he departed the stage after just three minutes without singing a single song. I was astonished to see my mother's silver idols, 77-year-old George Lam Tsz-Cheung and his 63-year-old wife Sally Yeh Chen-ven, singing a medley of Cantopop hits from the 1980s and 90s, with Yeh dancing like a teenager. At that point, the music was so loud and the lighting so bright that I wished I had a pair of ear plugs and sunglasses with me. The massiveness of the space and its acoustics could be overwhelming. Later, I was more than a little bemused to see Olympic table tennis champion Fan Zhendong and local paddler Doo Hoi-kem thwack balls at each other using ridiculously big bats in a bizarre clown version of ping pong. Advertisement And then I found myself literally feeling the heat and exclaiming as spectacular plumes of fire flared towards the retractable rooftop in my first experience of an indoor pyrotechnics display at a tremendous scale.
South China Morning Post
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong's Kai Tak Sports Park launch a landmark that fills me with pride
As an invited guest at the two-hour opening extravaganza at the main stadium of Hong Kong's newest landmark, the Kai Tak Sports Park, I found myself exclaiming a few times and swinging through a range of emotions during the opening ceremony, not least during the moment Andy Lau Tak-wah, one of the 'Four Heavenly Kings' of Cantopop, appeared on stage. Advertisement I gasped, first with delight at the film star's cameo, and then with a murmur of disappointment when he departed the stage after just three minutes without singing a single song. I was astonished to see my mother's silver idols, 77-year-old George Lam Tsz-Cheung and his 63-year-old wife Sally Yeh Chen-ven, singing a medley of Cantopop hits from the 1980s and 90s, with Yeh dancing like a teenager. At that point, the music was so loud and the lighting so bright that I wished I had a pair of ear plugs and sunglasses with me. The massiveness of the space and its acoustics could be overwhelming. Later, I was more than a little bemused to see Olympic table tennis champion Fan Zhendong and local paddler Doo Hoi-kem thwack balls at each other using ridiculously big bats in a bizarre clown version of ping pong. Advertisement And then I found myself literally feeling the heat and exclaiming as spectacular plumes of fire flared towards the retractable rooftop in my first experience of an indoor pyrotechnics display at a tremendous scale.
South China Morning Post
16-02-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong singer-songwriter Kiri T on her own brand of Cantopop
Published: 10:15am, 16 Feb 2025 New faces of heritage: for four artists at the forefront of their craft, a deep sense of Hong Kong's past is fuelling their vision for the future. Andy Lau Tak-wah . Faye Wong. Anita Mui Yim-fong . Leon Lai Ming. Even without knowing a single chorus, anyone who calls Hong Kong home is likely familiar with such performing greats of the 1980s and 90s. Cantopop is as deeply embedded in Hong Kong's identity as its dim sum, cha chaan teng and mahjong. For such a small city, Hong Kong's music is still able to traverse borders, making waves big enough to wash up on shores far away from home, in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and beyond. Maybe diversity is just in Cantopop 's DNA, a trait of our melting-pot city, where songs are sung in multiple languages and influences range from J-pop to R&B. Ask local artist Kiri T, and she'll tell you, 'Cantopop is a bit of everything, kind of like how Hong Kong people are. Even the way we speak, we don't speak in Cantonese completely.' Born Kiri Tse Hiu-ying, the 30-year-old is just getting started as a singer, but she's been working as a songwriter and producer since 2008. Wearing a baseball cap tugged low over her face, her hands balled into the sleeves of an oversized crew-neck jumper, she tells me the first demo she sold was a track titled '兩面' ('Two Sides') sung by Joey Yung Cho-yee , one of Hong Kong's most sought-after singers of the 2000s and 2010s. Tse was 14 years old at the time. 'It's so long ago. It's crazy,' she says. 'That song was the first time I heard a demo coming to life, and I just wanted it to happen many more times.' 'Cantopop is a bit of everything, kind of like how Hong Kong people are,' says Kiri T. Photo: Courtesy of Kiri T Since then, she's written songs and produced for the likes of Kary Ng Yu-fei, Kay Tse On-kay and Jace Chan Hoi-wing . Kiri Tse started her own record label, Kurious Grocery, in 2017 – shutting it down when she signed on to Warner Music in 2022 – released her debut album, Golden Kiri , in 2019, and her most recent, Chili T , was released in 2021. Right now she's looking forward to the release of her new single, which drops on February 20.
South China Morning Post
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
American-Chinese artist Rutherford Chang, scion of Taiwan semiconductor firm, dies at 45
Tributes are pouring in from the international art community for Rutherford Chang, the American-Chinese artist best known for making a video collage of Andy Lau Tak-wah's movie death scenes, exhibiting as a piece of conceptual art his own massive collection of copies of The Beatles' White Album, and melting 10,000 copper US pennies into a single cube. Advertisement His singular art practice was all the more unusual because he was the son of Taiwanese billionaire Jason Chang, and considered the heir apparent of a large semiconductor and property empire. Born and raised in the US, Chang majored in psychology at Wesleyan University, a private liberal arts university in the state of Connecticut, where he shared accommodation with Aki Sasamoto – now a New York-based Japanese artist. 'Rutherford was already an artist when I met him as a student,' Sasamoto says by email. 'He was wearing clothing he made himself out of everyday objects, taking care of their seams with US Postal Service packing tape. 'He would be labelling everything he lived with, using embossing tape. Everybody around him knew him with 'his way of doing things'. None of these were activities he did for class, which was for me the proof that an artful way of living was simply part of him.' Rutherford Chang (left) at an exhibition of his 'We Buy White Albums' project in Germany. Photo: Axel Heimken/ Getty Images
