December 4th, 2009

As-tu oublié qu’on vivait ici?

Posted in Canada, Music, Society and Culture, Video by Christopher DeWolf
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Thanks to Montréal Multiple, an excellent blog about multiethnic Montreal written by two La Presse journalists, I came across this video video for L’oubli, the new single off of Dramatik’s new album La Boîte Noire. Dramatik, who suffered a childhood as a rest-avec — a modern-day house slave — in Haiti, raps about Montreal North, the borough that was wracked by riots last year after police shot and killed a young teenager, Fredy Villaneuva. The song’s refrain says it all: “Did you forget that we lived here?”

August 11th, 2009

Hong Kong’s Other Peak

Posted in Asia Pacific, History by Christopher DeWolf

Cheung Chau Peak

Cheung Chau Peak

Cheung Chau is one of my favourite bits of Hong Kong, but only recently have I strayed outside of its warren of small streets between the beach and harbour and up into the hill just south of town. Earlier this summer, after climbing up a long set of stairs at the end of a narrow lane, I was surprised to come across a long, winding footpath, lined by comfortable-looking houses with large balconies and lush gardens, called the Peak Road. It seemed like a deliberate reference the Hong Kong’s more famous Victoria Peak, the one where houses sell for tens of millions of dollars and the colonial elite built an exclusive hideaway for itself in the days of British control.

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