 I will try not to use the microphone because I think my speaking voice is loud enough to reach everybody Yes, okay, because between holding my own notes and the clicker. I really don't have a third hand. So Welcome everybody. Thank you for taking the time to be here and A thousand things to the Polytechnic University for holding this round table Every year is a really good platform for some of us to share our thoughts and to have a conversation with the audience So, thank you Kay. Thank you. Sherry. I think it's the main person who hi Sherry Big thanks to the round table as well as to the English language Center for having me. It's really an honor Every time I talk I have three goals and Because I'm a business person because I work for bank and I have an MBA I I tend to use acronyms a lot or this sort of punchy things for three eyes So I aim to be informal and that's why there's a chair here. I want to sit down when I talk So we're at the same eye level number two. I want to be interactive So at any point you can stop me and ask questions or you can save the questions to the Q&A at the end We do have a bit of time for that and number three informative. So hopefully you walk away having Not learn something but at least a thought in your head that you can think about And engage with your friends and your students Just to warm up the audience a little bit. I want to get to know you a little bit. So By a show of hands, how many of you are instructors? Most of you that's very intimidating. Thank you How many of you are students? Okay, we have two thank you anybody who didn't put up the hand Okay, so we have one Technician who is taping the whole thing again very intimidating. So great. So most of the audience are instructors So I'll try to tailor the content mostly Toward that group So a little bit about I guess Myself beyond the introduction so I started off as a blogger about nine years ago and that sort of got a bit of traction and I started writing as a columnist on current affairs and politics for a number of publications in Hong Kong and overseas and then Turned some my writings and essays into my first book and then first book that to second and third and and and half Dozen anthologies To which I contribute my short stories to author and then This is sort of the crux of the conversation today is is how I went from author to a bit of an activist and Being an activist you need to continue blogging. And so there's a cycle of life and Today's topic is engaging the alliterate right so what is alliterate means it means a person who is able to Read because a person who is not able to read is an illiterate But an illiterate person is a person who is able to read but chooses not to Because he or she is not interested in reading. We have a lot of those people in Hong Kong, unfortunately and about four years ago In 2013 I wrote an essay called the city that doesn't read is in my second book To talk about or to try to understand why why we're different from Even our fellow Asian right if you travel to Japan if you travel to Korea, you see people reading the paperback on On the subway on their version of the MTR People still read newspapers and magazines But in Hong Kong all you see of people swiping their iPhone or their iPad on on the MTR So just again by show of hand how many of you have a newspaper subscription? Well done. Well done How many of thank you. How many of you? Only read nonfiction You're not a fiction kind of guy Okay How many of you don't really like poetry? It's not my thing. I don't get it Honesty is good How many of you have written? Not read read three or more books in the past month past month three or more Okay, how many of you have read three or more books within the past six months So more people okay, so This title doesn't really apply to the audience here. You guys are all very intellectually, you know stimulated, right? But that's not representative of the general population in Hong Kong so I was trying to understand how come people don't read is it this Einstein space time continuum in Hong Kong because we We lack both we don't have space we don't have time There's no space for a library people don't buy books So they say oh, I'll read e-books and they never do right. I mean this e-book is just an excuse for not reading Or they download the book they download the book on there, you know a Kindle And and read the first two pages and then say well, I've done some reading right and never really quite finished The book so space isn't issues a good excuse We will say well I don't have room for physical books and it just takes up too much space or my mom will yell at me if I buy books Or there's time right people stressed out who has the time to read if you have a full-time job that sort of Releases you at seven or eight or even nine ten p.m. And by the time you go home You just want to turn on the TV and just all right who has time to pick up a thousand page paperback And start reading and then there's part of the education system, right? Because Hong Kong is so sort of exam-oriented you have midterms. You have finals and Internal assessment Your homework who has the time to read especially for students who have the time to read outside of their Text material or the assigned reading if you do people will say well, you're not really focusing on your Correct them focusing on your academic. You are being distracted by reading But then I thought the most important factor is none of those things because space and lack of time or lack of space lack of time and also the idea that the Education is to learn by road it all those factors Exists in other countries right in Japan in Korea in China, but yes somehow Hong Kong is quite different and The reason that I thought it really comes down to is parenting upbringing and the environment Hong Kong parents are very good at making the children to do things that they don't themselves do Go take a violin lesson go learn ballet go learn Tai Chi or you know Kung Fu or something In order to bulk up your resume, right? So so that you get into better schools But then none of them do any of these things themselves, right? I have parents who are forcing their children to learn German and Spanish because French is already too commonplace And so knowing English and French won't score you anything extra when you apply to a prestigious primary school or secondary school and so people are now learning Spanish and German But then they themselves don't speak a word of it or they have no interest in languages And so the children are just being forced to do something for purely utilitarian reasons but but not because it is good You know that they themselves like it and if you and reading is one of those things that parents Forced the kids to read they take them to book a zine or to page one in the past And make them sit there and pick a book right pick a book and buy it and read at home Right, and I'm gonna ask you about it in a week But then they look at their parents and the parents don't read a word, right? And so there's a bit of double standard hypocrisy there and so obviously when the kid grows up Books will then fall by the wayside just like the violin just like ballet, right? We don't see a lot of people still practicing the violin into their adulthood So those are some of the reasons In my essay that I explored to explain Literacy in Hong Kong So this is a picture. I just took yesterday when I walked into joint publishing. There's a joint publishing bookstore In central which is where I work and then you walk into the bookstore and then boom the first thing you see economics finance and investment business and management and Another business and management bookshelf. This is our bookstore, right? This is a typical bookstore in Hong Kong where all the books are utility books their tool books Right and the tool books get the front and center the sort of the marquee area Whereas yes, they do carry maybe a couple of airport novels. I mean, that's what I call them, you know Like a John Grisham or you know No offense to John Please don't write him But then they get shoved to the back, right? So you kind of have to ask the assistant Oh, where are your fiction and they'll begrudgingly take you to that section where where you can physically see dust on the shelf So people don't so even for the 20% of people who do read because I had some Statistics in my essay. I think about 80% of people don't read regularly But for the 20% who do read it depends on what they read also, right? There is a prevailing concept in in Hong Kong that reading Fiction poetry is a waste of time because it's you don't learn anything from it All right, you read finance books because then it helps you Learn how to invest you read travel books because then you know where to go To Tokyo or to Osaka what restaurants to go to? Or you read self-help book because that sort of improve your well-being but Anything outside of those three categories are really a hard sell And so maybe occasionally you read a history book because then again You feel like you learn something about a particular culture or a country but fiction, right? People generally feel that fiction is not useful I have a publisher and I have been with the publisher the same publisher for the past seven years and I remember One of the early meetings with him. He has said to me point blank If you think about fiction you should talk to someone else right because fiction doesn't sell in Hong Kong And I don't want to print another title that sells only 200 copies Right and that that really sucked to me and my position is not a terrible person He's a really nice guy, but but he he he runs a business and there are commercial concerns So But the thing that really sort of surprises me is that we don't have the same approach with movies Right with movies. Nobody in Hong Kong watches a documentary, which is to me is the equivalent of a nonfiction Right if you if you tell a friend or your girlfriend or boyfriend, well, let's go Let's spend the weekend watching a documentary like what? My precious time. I want to watch the Avengers 4, right? It's not out until five years later, you know But so that's sort of drama. That's sort of superhero. That's fiction Right, but but we don't have the same aversion to fictional movies right and So people take a very different approach because nobody thinks of books as entertainment Right, they think of books as something useful. It's a tool and it's very ingrained in how they think So that's the current state of things in Hong Kong Yes Obviously I was generalizing not every parent is like that But I and my personal observation. I've seen parents just sort of drag the kid to a bookstore Well, actually nowadays bookstores are very kids friendly is colorful and so kids would like to go in and then they say okay here pick a book from the shelf and and then will The kid will follow and then show the mom the book and then mom is like no not this one, right? Yes, sometimes the school would have a Recommended extra reading and so they'll go to the bookstore looking for it But other time parents really do want the children to be immersed in the book culture because they know it's good for them And so they do take them to the bookstore and then say choose the book and then they will vet it Right because invariably the kid will pick something really fun with pop up, you know But then only five pages and their cardboard pages that this thing and parents feel. Oh, no, no, that's that's not that's not a real book Right. I want you to read the abridged version of you know, Charles Dickens hard times, right? Okay, so Why do we read right? So that's the next question. So we know we don't read the question is How do we convince them to read so it takes us back to the question? Why do we read? So any Idea Entertainment yes, I talk about that What? Words right so we want to have a relationship with words, okay? Imagination yes, it does sort of text Freedom it takes us to places. We've never been to to a time period. We've never experienced two characters would never run into in life Escape. Yeah, escape is some right that sort of movies like watching the Avengers, right? Yes, all of those are very good answers. So so knowledge and entertainment and Relationship with words, but I am a lawyer Right, I'm a lawyer by trade and so I have my lawyer's take on things To me the reason why we read yes It's all of those things that we're afraid to talk about but it's more than that. It's it's about the way we think it trains us To be more patient it lengthen our attention span It allows us to learn critical thinking independent thinking Allow us to learn how to analyze the situation how to interpret the story Right because when you read fiction is never just about the words on the pages But what message the author is trying to tell me the character sure they met and fell in love and then they ate poison and died But what is he what is he or she really trying to say right? It is that sort of decoding that interpretation that forces us to really think and reflect and analyze and Discuss engage with our friends and discuss with them. Well, this is what I think but what do you think? Right and ultimately it gives us the P word right perspective it gives us perspective on life And so it to me is all a matter of Affecting the way we think our way of thinking and our way of looking at the world So reading is more just about softs. It's much more about soft skills than cold facts or hard knowledge and that takes me to sort of the point I Wanted I really wanted to make is that our literacy is in especially in our current political environment It is a form of self-censorship right And what do I mean by that if you think of whoever is running our city? Right, not entirely popular. Right. We don't even know who is actually running our city, right? They could be further north right What do you think they count on? Right they call they count on a disarmed public People who don't really care Just want to go to the movies just want to maybe shop a little bit travel to Japan and Korea when I have time Not really pay attention to anything Right, it's the same thing in the US same thing in Europe You know to some extent right a lot of politicians count on you not paying attention so that they can just slide a quick one under the Right and so they can get away with things Right, so what better way to disarm the public by having people who are easily distracted By having people who are easily confused Right, there's so much fake news and alternative facts and all that people who have a short attention span People who respond only to sound bites People who are not in the habit of just generally taking the time Looking at something looking at an issue go a little bit deeper and scratch beneath the service And have a little of a thinking Discussion with friends and come to a conclusion which is all of the things that we talked about what reading can help you develop right, so What better ways for whoever is running our city? to disarm the public by Creating a public that doesn't really understand issues or stay on topic long enough for them for real changes to happen case in point This is what they want Right, these are the easiest people to govern Because no one would ever speak up no matter what you do okay, so Here's two sort of real-life examples It's a little hard to read. I know or make out the picture. Do you know who this person is? Eddie Chu He's one of the lechko lawmaker He made a lot of noise about six months ago about the Northeast news territory development, right? There's an area called Wang Chao right and he was one who first said well I think there's a lot of collusion between the government and the local Heng Yi Cook and The pro-Beijing camp and some of the local organized crime riots All right, and then he received a death threats Caused a lot of outrage. He was really getting a lot of traction with this issue That happened September 2016 Right, it hasn't been that long Maybe seven months now eight months Nobody's talking about this Nobody What happened since that story came out we had oath gate right to Firebrand lawmakers played with the oath and insulted China. They got disqualified all of that took away all the attention Right, so nine months later. Nobody talks about Northeast. I don't even know what the government is doing Right, not only did we the public take the foot off the Of the gas pedal the press to press not covering this All right another example Hong Kong free press and online media I write for They were banned from all got covering all government news conferences announcements They are a legit news agency just like any other, but they're independent Independent means they don't rely on on government or advertisers funding. They rely on crowdfunding So there's no way the government can control them not by putting pressure on advertisers not by you know Controlling the funding that they give them not like our TXK right so government doesn't like that Beijing doesn't like it banned barred from covering right so this happened when March 2017 and then the Hong Kong a generous association issue a strongly worded you know press release condemning the The announcement by the government It has only been two months. Is anybody talking about this? Nobody Right, so here we have is just a tip of the iceberg only two out of probably hundreds of New stories that have been buried because we don't have the attention span to stay on topic Right because but are these not important anymore has the situation improved and changed and so we can say oh Well, I think we can move on no things up if anything else if if anything things are only getting worse, right? so This is sort of how I tied a two together, right? illiteracy The decision the refusal to read or to to engage leads to a lack of civil and political engagement and It plays right into the hands of those who are running the city Okay So obviously we can sit here and nod and say oh terrible terrible here's a point Yes, we mustn't let this happen, but it's no good if we can't do anything about it, right? So let's talk about some of the ways we can change So to me communication is a two-way street Right, so I'm the content provider because I'm the writer or I'm the columnist and then there's the people who receive it All right, so I use the metaphor of how do you make your children eat vegetables? Right, so do you do you convince them son listen? It's good for you Celery is good for you Broccoli is good for you. It would never help it will work Right because that so keep telling people the public that reading is good for you Will not do anything Right, the only thing to make your kids eat green vegetables is by making it delicious I'm sorry. That's the only way if you boil celery. That's disgusting If your heart boiled broccoli to the degree that is like soft and mushy and there's no taste It's disgusting and no wonder kids don't eat vegetables Right, so think about ways to mix things up. Maybe use different spices or change the shape I know one parent who tell the kids that you know, Brussels sprouts look like turtle And so it's sort of fun to eat and so they play around with it with the fork and then they Fit into the mouth and so you have to come up with ways to engage your children to sort of instead of convincing them that a Vegetables are good for them You find ways to improve the dish and So that's some of the things I want to talk about right so how we improve our content And Secondarily how we how writers can we think our role? Okay, so how do we improve our content? So again, this is one of my NBA Coming out so all it's just C. A. M. Cam, you know, whatever Credibility accessibility and marketability so credibility Is it doesn't help that or you you might have this great Motivation to write and to change the world or to improve the city But it won't help if your stuff is not good, right? And what do I mean by good? Good doesn't mean that is sort of beautiful and colorful and stuff, but but good means is credible right the consistency in quality consistency in Defendability that you can defend your arguments Especially in the world of in the age of fake news and alternative facts and Consistency in your political stance, right? You can't flip-flop all the time because it is things like that that make you sort of lose credibility and Then consistency in timing Regularity is very important people if you tell people that is a by monthly column then you better put out something every two weeks Right because over time people feel like well, I check back. There's nothing new you and then they move on to the next site and Consistency in focus, right? You can one day post a picture of your dinner Right next to a serious topic about, you know, electrical election Right, so people come to your site with the clear expectations of what they would get from you Because they have limited time and you ought to deliver and then there's accessibility So it it doesn't help even if your stuff is good credible If it's hard to understand Right, so buy a show of hand Who knows how many lechco members we have? Okay, one gentleman. He might lie because I'm not gonna Tell him ask him how many Okay, how many? Excellent Next question will be harder Can someone explain me explain to me what the separate vote count work or how does that work? because Okay, same gentlemen, right? But the rest of you may you may have I an idea you may have heard about that term separate vote count Reading the scmp or something, but you don't really have a clear idea Same thing with the readers, right? So if you write this amazing analysis about the upcoming Electrical election you talk about how the existing system is unfair because the 70 seats are divided into a Geographic constituencies and functional constituency and functional constituency have a way to veto, you know decisions passed by You know lechco because of the separate vote count Nobody would get it Right people have limited time to just move on is a oh this is woo over my head Right moving on to the next thing All right, so your article or Whatever contribution piece of writing that you put out needs to be digestible and accessible to the extent that a regular person can understand And it's maybe a particular point-and-point for academic Right because people in academia tends to think that I don't pander Right. I did know it chippings my piece if I explained too much Right or I you know, I have spent time, you know footnoting have to put together the you know Bibliography in the back. I don't have time to explain what you know separate vote count is right. There's a bit of that tension Right, or if I write too popular a piece then whoa, excuse me Right. I'm an academic, right? I'm not into sound bites, so I don't care my title is to two sentences long Right, well, I don't really have an opening hook that get people to read my article because that's not how I write That's not who I am All right academic writing is not like that All right, and I have a reputation to keep up, right? So there's a bit of that tension going on so it depends if you want to engage the public unfortunately, you do have to sort of make your Information make your material a little bit more digestible and a bit more accessible You have to have a clear message people who come and read your article or your piece need to know Right, or you need to constantly ask yourself. Why should someone care? Why should someone watch anyone be reading this? right and in your I know There's a lot of admin work at the university One of the things that you probably have to ask to do is to write a report for your course Right and on that report may be even on the front page You have to identify by the end of the course students will learn ABC and D. Right? Everybody has to do that All right, think about that for your own article by the end of your article My reader should be able to learn or or have achieved the following things All right, and use plenty of examples use plenty of photographs and diagrams right, I remember when I wrote my Latest book two years ago umbrellas and bloom Because I had to chronicle the occupied movement and so much about the occupied movement is about the political reform that failed Right and how Beijing issued an announcement that basically Undo all of the consultation right and so Inevitably, I have to explain the political system in Hong Kong and how it's not a full democracy. It's really boring stuff I don't want people to pick up my book open the first page or the first chapter realize. Oh my god Right, who's ever gonna read this? So I actually went on amazon.com order a whole bunch of popular math books Right popular math is a genre in and out of itself It's sort of it's catered for non-mathematicians who are into math like a geek like me Right, but then it's it's there's not a lot of formulas. It's not narrative storytelling So I bought a about three popular math books and I read them because I want to learn how an Experience author can can turn something so esoteric so difficult to understand like relativity Right like I don't know other math topics But whatever the math topics is turn it into something that you can say oh, that's kind of cool, right? The books like the story of pie it talks about how pie is being used in so many different applications Throughout history across cultures. Those are wonderful books And so I wanted to acquire that skills. So before I wrote umbrellas in bloom I did that learn from them and I wrote the first section of the book about Hong Kong politics in such a way that people sort of maybe much more engaged or have a giggle because I put in a joke and so things like that would go a very long way and Finally marketability, so it doesn't matter if your writing is Extremely credible stands on all four very firm ground or very accessible very easy to understand if nobody knows about it Right, so you have to get it out there, right in order to get it out there Instead of complaining that people swipe the iPhone iPad all the time. They only do Facebook Right instead of fearing that trend because it's not going to change Use it to your advantage, right? So talk about your writing on on social media for Christ's sake have a Twitter account Right people are so resistant to Twitter or to Instagram because Instagram is only for food or something or for travels But what's stopping you from posting a screenshot of your article on Instagram? You never know what happens. It's like tossing a bottle into the ocean one day. You might come back so talk about Talk about your writing on social media is going to generate some buzz among your friends and you get shared It's a really good starting point and then work with the media. I mean the media needs content Right submit an article for crying out loud. It's not a big deal Right if you have written something that you think was pretty good I think people can benefit from it send it in Right, what's the worst thing that happened to get rejected or you know, then you try again, but that's how good things happen Right work with bookstores bookstores are great partner for writers, right? And they also need excuses to draw more readers in to get more traffic, right? And so offer to do a book signing offered to do a little talk at a bookstore, right? one of my friends one of my poet friends Nicholas Wong I'm not sure if you guys know him he recently launched or two days ago launched a campaign to sell poetry In order to save a bookstore error, right? So there's a Chinese language a bookstore in Hong Kong being evicted by the landlord because they jacked up the price And so he partnered My friend Nicholas partnered with the bookstore to say well, I'm gonna write a bunch of new poems I'm gonna sell them online whatever proceeds. I'm gonna Donate it to the bookstore so you can stay in business Things that is very clever right because it not only helped the bookstore obviously it does but it also helped his own name Right, obviously he didn't do it for self promotion But as sort of a by-product of what he's doing. He also get his name out there and Work with the university, right? So we're all in academia engage your students share your writing with your students Talk about if if it is relevant talk about your stuff in school In class and maybe even offer the university or the faculty that you want to give a free talk or something on a topic That you care a lot about One of the things maybe you can tell me you can't tell is that I I love talking I Love engaging with the audience and so I always offer to give free talks and guest lectures And you know and that's why I'm here today because it's a really good way to reach people sort of one audience at the time Right, but you have to start somewhere when I travel Right after I booked a trip and in my hotel, which is usually two three months in advance because you don't want to pay last-minute fare The next thing I do research Well-known universities in Barcelona Send them an email. I do it all the time I'm the author of umbrellas in bloom. I would love to come in and give a guest lecture on political development in Hong Kong Most people are very receptive right why Why not you're not charging them and it is a good way for you to sort of give some international perspective to Their students is a win-win really Right, so think about things like that. Just get yourself out there Which is a good segue to the next prong of my two prong strategy, which is rethinking our role My first image of a writer as a kid was someone who hunch over the typewriter in some dark cabin In in the forest or something, right? unfortunately That is no longer the case especially in Hong Kong when the readership is small when the city itself is very small Writers are increasingly Called upon to do a bit more, right writers have to market their own books, right? We don't have big publishers like Simon and Schuster to take us on a world tour Right, so a lot of the time you have to connect with venues and bookstores in order to get your book out there so writers need to come out of the shell a little bit and into the front line and You know really stand for something So these are some of the organizations that I work with regularly. I know I go a little overboard I I tend to sort of bite more than I can chew But this is an idea of some of the things that you could do because There are two issues that are Really close or near and dear to my heart number one is the freedom of expression number two is foreign domestic workers because nobody cares about them in Hong Kong not the local politicians anyway, so I join groups like Penn Hong Kong which I co-founded to Promote literature and defend the freedom of expression. I'm a member of the progressive lawyers group which again, you know Engages a lot of the political issues and then I work with organizations like helpful domestic workers, pathfinders room to read and all of the and Wimbler all of those are NGOs that either help the domestic worker community or promote literacy Then I teach law at HKU and I write for the SCMP Hong Kong Free Press and EJ Infright So these are some of the organizations I work with It's not easy because time commitment is really a big thing in Hong Kong And I have a full-time job and I can only sort of devote so much time sometimes You also risk your career a little bit, right? People worry about reprisals people worry about political pressure and As if that's not bad enough. It's a bit of a thankless job right, I mean people do appreciate what you do, but there's a lot of sort of politics within the organization sometimes and You know if you promise something, you know that line Approaches or you know That can be conflict and so it's things that you you really need to manage The good news is the reward is tremendous not in terms of financial reward I know we're in Hong Kong, but it's not always about money personal Fulfillment just satisfaction that you are making even a very small difference Is what keeps you going? That you are doing something for a place for a city that you genuinely love and care about and want to be better and There are because Hong Kong is a small pool Right you feel a slightly Like a bigger fish, right? And so it's easy. There's a lot of opportunities Out there if only you reach out and volunteer your time Right, you will find a lot of open arms and say oh my god We have been waiting for a volunteer for a long time with your skill set. Thank you very much for reaching out and the second piece of good news is you don't Always have to get physically involved. You can involve by making a donation There's always crowdfunding initiatives. You can get involved by even just sharing links on your Facebook post on your Facebook wall or just by engaging your friends and your Students by telling them oh, you know what helpful domestic workers is a really good organization Right, why don't you find out more about it? Or you know, Hong Kong free press relies on clicks and eyeballs. So why don't you add that at the page? To your Facebook follow them and get informed that way so before open the floor to Q&A Just want to sort of Summarize some of the salient points. I Still sort of the New York subway system slogan, which is if you see something say something I mean that's after 9 11 The idea is if you see a backpack not being picked up left on the seat It could be a bomb so alert Low enforcement so they can do something about it, right? So if you see something say something that applies to writers as well if you see something that's socially unjust That is wrong say something and also do something about it All right complaining is fun complaining is cathartic, right, but It at some point you ask yourself well, that's all negative. What positive contribution can I make and The second closing thought is technology won't change, right? We won't go back to the old age where we we all read physical books There's no Facebook to distract people. It's too late. It's irreversible, right? We are where we are you may as well Instead of fear it use it to your advantage, right? So As I mentioned before share your writing or share your thoughts on Facebook and gauge your friends and finally The C.A.M. acronym right so credible accessible and marketable and on accessibility We just have to think have our audience in mind Write something that's easily digestible and accessible to them. That's the only way to change minds So that's my little talk. I hope I'm on time So Q&A It doesn't have to be a question. It can be a thought Yes, please Video games, yes Yeah Yeah, well my response is sort of Common sense, I think everybody would probably react the same way number one. I think we have to start somewhere Right. I think we and what is the alternative the alternative is what to give up and say well books are sort of You know old news and so Let's just move on. I don't think we're there yet Right, maybe 25 30 a hundred years later. Yes, but at this point I don't think we're there yet and the fight is still worth fighting right, and so I'm not ready to go to the sort of nuclear option and say no, I will stop because writing is so archaic writing is just so so Not with today's a generation plus I think it's a learning process right over time if you immerse a person in In the written word they will turn around and I read a really Encouraging article in either the New York Times yesterday that you know for the for the past two years The sale of paper books have actually You know exceeded e-books, right? So people do come around, right? Maybe we'll go the way of the vinyl records Right that yes, it's not the primary medium anymore But it's kind of cool to have a record player at home Yeah, right. It's not mutually exclusive. It's not mutually exclusive. So I think we can continue to have faith in the written word and and Like you said at the beginning that I mean it's beautiful writing, you know to celebrate word is not just Utility, but it's also a form of art, right? There's so much beauty in it like any form of art lack of exposure is the number one You know barrier the reason why a kid doesn't want to go to an art museum is because I don't get this Picasso Painting because it's so weird and and I don't know what it depicts But that's why you bring them you keep bringing them to the museum at some point they realize oh my god That's that is worth five million dollars and that's cashed their attention And then they'll do a little bit more research and and from then on they move on to other Painters and so on same thing with writing right the first time you pick up Shakespeare's Hamlet oh, I don't get it then start with something easier and you know and create an environment of reading. Yes Yeah, yeah Absolutely absolutely Yeah, yeah, you can't keep telling your students that you know Shakespeare is good for you Right, you know because he's the father of the English language. He I mean so many references came from his place It doesn't mean anything if they don't enjoy the process, right? So it's again like eating vegetables You have to make the dish delicious Just by telling them the broccoli is nutritious really doesn't help, right? So that example is a really good example, right? So how do you make Shakespeare fun? Right by sort of creating an environment where it's beautiful to look at there's houses physical establishments that people can have Have a dialogue with or can imagine visualize what it was like many years ago, you know in Victoria times how how How the plays have been done? Yes, things like that will go a very long way I recently got into Cantonese opera Because I love Italian opera all my friends know that but then I realized well, you know what why am I spending so much time on Faraway cultures went right at home. This is rich amazing source of Inspiration and art form that I'm not exploring and so I started looking into it and I started listening to it every single day And it's beautiful. It's brilliant, right and then I went to the bookstore. I I talked to the assistant and I said well, I would like to I would like you to show me Where the Chinese opera books are because I wanted to understand the history a little bit more understand You know the creative process and all that stuff The person said oh, well, let me look. I'm sorry. We don't have a book. I Was expecting a shelf There's not a single book Right, I was so shocked. I'm like this can't be it must be because you're a small bookstore Right, and then he said well, no, sir. This is our system. Right. It's not just what we have in stock here And and so right in there is that okay mental note must write books on Cantonese opera Right, but then that that really saddens me, right Hong Kong is the It's the birth it's it's the cradle for Cantonese opera and yet nobody pays attention to it It's a crime. It really is a crime, right? So things like that. So reading is not the only art form being slowly neglected But there are others as well and then they deserve our equal attention Yes Yes Yes, I doubt it Yeah Yeah, yeah, no, yes, yes, right No, I absolutely agree and that is absolutely true in the US where the Kindle is Voyering, you know looking into what people are really. Well, okay, really just by an informal poll 80% video games Before it was Candy Crush and then there's Pokemon and then there's now other games. I don't know about Yes, but there are people who read the Apple Daily online the people who read Hong Kong free press online on the subway but really they are the minorities and I because I'm old school I really think there is a difference between reading words from a page then reading words from an electronic The device I think the retention is very different There has been Scientific studies done about it that people don't remember as much from an electronic medium as they do from a paper medium and When it comes to staying on topic, right retention is very important, right? because if you don't remember the the news article about attitude that you read six months ago because you read it very quickly on an Electronic device instead of a physical newspaper then it matters, right? So I'm not totally rejecting at the electronic medium as sort of Every, you know, I mean that a repudiation of what we do And I do get that a lot of people prefer reading online because it's searchable to I mean, that's brilliant, right? All right How many times have you read the thick novel there is a name comes up and say well Is this a new person and then you want to search for that name and find out the relationship? Yeah, exactly so Well, I think rewarding is a personal word No, but I don't get me wrong. I'm not rejecting the electronic medium. I think it's brilliant Maybe the answer is that the two are not mutually exclusive, right? Just because you read your kindle doesn't mean that you need to reject the paperback just because you read the paperback Like I do I need to reject, right? I would love to carry a kindle when I travel on a short The weekend trip right then I can select the book space on my mood that day rather than being stuck with the paperback That I realize I really don't like ten pages. How am I gonna get through the other six hundred, right? So I get that So again, maybe the answer is Not mutually not mutually exclusive. Why not both?