Established 1961 21 Lifestyle Features Sunday, November 3, 2019

These photos show shopkeeper Louis To making a figurine-shaped piece of candy to sell at his shop on Cheung Chau Island in Hong Kong. — AFP photos

sing a pair of scissors, a blow pipe people in Hong Kong with the knowledge works of art. “I had no money to buy can- and small metal tools, Hong Kong or skillset. The origins of To’s art go back dies, but I watched the craftsmen make it,” Ushopkeeper Louis To whittles a to the deprivation of the Cultural he told AFP. “I remember very well how he chunk of molten sugar into a dragon, a tal- Revolution when he learned to make his proceeded, in every detail.” To’s family ent he began honing during China’s own toys. “During this period, there was moved to Hong Kong in the 1980s when Cultural Revolution. To’s shop on Cheung no food, there was nothing,” recalled To, China began to open up after Mao Chau, a small island in the waters west of who was born in Chaozhou, southern Zedong’s death. He wasn’t a good student Hong Kong’s famous Victoria Harbour, has China. “So when I saw other children with and dropped out of school to pursue a become a must-see for visiting tourists. toys, I tried to make replicas for myself.” career as an artist. There they can watch a man locals dub He remembers being transfixed by the But it was only when he moved to “The Candyman” sculpt sugar into a host local sugar sculptor who would come to Cheung Chau island with his own family in of animals and fantastical creatures. his neighborhood on a bike and using little the early 2000s that he switched to sculpt- The technique is a centuries-old folk art more than a kerosene lamp and a few ing sugar. While Hong Kong is best known form in mainland China but there are few chunks of coal would magic up candied for its dizzyingly dense collection of sky- scrapers, many of the territory’s outlying islands have a distinctly laid-back, rural vibe to them. Cheung Chau has few build- ings higher than four stories and life is more traditional, built around the local fishing community. “In Cheung Chau, I saw many things that reminded me of my childhood flying kites, lion dances... things that you don’t see in the city, only here,” To said. “And I remembered that I wanted to craft can- dies.” With no recipes to guide him, To started experimenting himself, melting all kinds of sugars. “For six months, I tried at least a dozen of them,” he explained. Eventually he struck upon the right tech- nique to get the sugar pliable enough to sculpt. “I had blisters on my hands. I almost gave up,” he recalled. Now he is able to knead sugar dough at 80 C with his bare hands. — AFP

rchaeologists in Greece have amounts of porphyry-a prized purple located a “major treasure” of pigment of the ancient world derived ven as Disney, HBO and Apple lavish billions YouTube creators,” the company said in May. on a few successful shows. Quality not quantity AMinoan origin in a Bronze Age from sea snails, and later the color on content to gatecrash TV streaming wars, For YouTube, which has at times been con- also appears to be Facebook’s strategy on script- settlement on a small island in the exclusively reserved for Roman emper- Esocial networks like Facebook, YouTube demned for the questionable content posted by ed shows. In mid-October, it released Libyan Sea, the culture ministry said ors. “The amount of broken shells and Snapchat are creating their own original users, offering high-quality series with produc- “Limetown,” a web drama starring Jessica Biel Friday. A team excavating on the tiny found...show a very early shows to get their piece of the advertising pie. tion values matching conventional television also based on a popular podcast of the same name. In island of Chrysi south of Crete for over Mediterranean production of porphyry Historically, these three social networks are better burnishes its reputation. addition to boosting the social network’s image a decade have unearthed a 3,800- dye,” the culture ministry said. The known for hosting user-generated content. But in with prestige content, the show helps drive its year-old Bronze Age compound con- cache “constitutes one of the most recent years, each has invested in scripted pro- Quality not quantity Facebook Watch video platform. Both taining gold jewels, glass beads and the important (Minoan treasures) ever gramming which is free to view-unlike the Mark Beal, a Rutgers professor who wrote a “Limetown” and Elizabeth Olsen-starring flagship remains of bronze talents, the common found in Crete until now,” it added. The streaming giants, who charge subscriptions. book (“Decoding Gen Z”) on the generation born show “Sorry for Your Loss” benefit from and unit of value of ancient Greece. Minoan civilization, a naval superpower At one stage, YouTube planned to charge for since the mid-1990s, said young people “do not drive interaction among Facebook’s nearly 2.5 bil- Some of the beads are of Egyptian of the Bronze Age era, flourished on shows such as “Karate Kid” spinoff “Cobra Kai” respond to traditional advertising.” But they may lion monthly users. “That, to me, is the most excit- origin, the culture ministry said in a Crete and other Aegean islands until and Generation Z comedy “Liza on Demand” be more receptive to branding tied to original ing part,” Michelle Purple, co-producer of statement. The archaeologists also about 1500 BCE. — AFP using its premium service. But it backtracked this content on platforms such as YouTube, he said. “Limetown,” said at the Toronto film festival in found ancient fish tanks and large year. Free access “gives advertisers more oppor- Still, after its ambitious burst of content, YouTube September.—AFP tunities to engage with a broader audience ... has slowed down its original production, scrap- and align with top Hollywood talent and ping multiple new and existing programs to focus

decade after McDonald’s shut down of art inside a glass case at Snotra House, a in Iceland, thousands of online users hostel in Thykkvibaer in southern Iceland. Afollow the live slow decay of the last “People from around the world... come here order-a seemingly indestructible burger just to visit the burger,” Sigurdur Gylfason, with a side of fries protected in a glass case the owner of the establishment, told AFP. reasures from the tomb of boy- country ... This is the last travelling like a precious gem. The American chain The hotel claims it receives up to 400,000 king Tutankhamun will go on exhibition of Tutankhamun.” closed its only three branches in Iceland hits daily. Addressing claims that its burg- Tshow in London as part of More than 60 of the items have during the subarctic island’s financial crisis ers appeared immune to decay, the compa- what organizers say will be their last left Egypt for the first time, the in 2009, making it one of the only Western ny said in 2013 that “in the right environ- world tour before they return to gallery says. The tomb of the 18th countries without a McDonald’s. On ment, our burgers, like most other foods, Egypt for good. More than 150 items dynasty king was discovered by October 31 of that year, just before the could decompose,” adding that “specifical- - from statues and sculptures to a British archaeologist Howard Carter restaurant’s closure, Hjortur Smarason ly moisture” was necessary. silver trumpet and a funerary bed - in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor in bought a menu for conservation. So with sufficient desiccation, they were will be exhibited in “Tutankhamun: 1922. It contained about 5,000 arte- “I decided to buy a last meal for its his- “unlikely to grow mould or bacteria or Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh”, at facts. London is the third of 10 cities torical value since McDonald’s were closing decompose.” Bjorn Adalbjornsson, a senior the capital’s Saatchi Gallery. hosting the exhibition after success- down,” Smarason, who works as a commu- lecturer at the University of Iceland’s facul- Other exhibits include a wooden ful runs in Paris and Los Angeles. The nications manager for a company specializ- ty of food science, confirmed this to AFP on ceremonial shield, linen gloves and a items will eventually return to Egypt, ing in space tourism, told AFP on Thursday, explaining that without moisture, life-size statue of the king that stood where they will be put on display at Wednesday. “I had heard that McDonald’s “food will simply dry out”. — AFP guard at the entrance of his last rest- the Grand Egyptian Museum, sched- never decomposed so I just wanted to see ing place. “The reason we are here, uled to open next year next to the if it was true or not.” He first kept the meal we are celebrating almost 100 years Giza Pyramids. “Tutankhamun: in his garage but then lent it to the National A burger with a side of fries protected since the time of the discovery of the Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh” Museum of Iceland, after which it was in a glass case, belonging to Iceland’s tomb of Tutankhamun,” exhibition runs at London’s Saatchi Gallery until moved to a hotel in the capital Reykjavik Hjortur Smarason, is on display in the curator Tarek El Awady told Reuters. May 3, 2020. — Reuters for a while. Snotra House, a hostel in Thykkvibaer, “It is the first time Egypt allowed this Now the burger is on display like a work southern Iceland. — AFP number of artefacts to leave the