umarell. art exhibition

on July 18, 2023April 17, 2026 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

Congratulations to my friend Charles Tang on his Hong Kong Art School graduation art exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wan Chai! Me and some middle-aged pals went along to support him and to remember how it feels to be young, an artist, and Chinese. We were blown away by ALL the incredible artwork on display by the talented graduates of Hong Kong Art School! Add oil – and whatever else you use to mix paint.

The exhibition, umarell., is open until 24 July. Go see it and support the next generation of emerging artists in Hong Kong while you can still afford to! It’s FREE! (But sadly this lot are way too talented for it to remain that way for long.)

When he’s not taking the art world by Typhoon Talim, Charles is an ambassador for Mental Ideas and one of the artists featured in the inaugural issue of The Apostrophe. He sometimes refers to me as his mentor. But only when he’s taking the piss.

Issue 1 of The Apostrophe

on July 17, 2023September 8, 2025 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

The first issue of The Apostrophe, the new quarterly literary magazine of the Hong Kong Writers Circle, is out on Substack! Each quarter, the five points of the bauhinia flower – Hong Kong’s emblem – are paralleled by five original pieces of writing or poetry by Hong Kong writers and matched by me and editor-in-chief Jan Lee to five original pieces of artwork by local and international artists. You can read it on Substack here or download it as a pdf here!

Congratulations to writers Quincy Carroll, Murli Melwani, Sam Powney, Sonia FL Leung and Blair Reeve and artists Charles Tang, Kasra Shroff, Cassandra Lee and our incredible cover artist Jade Bryant on being published in our inaugural issue! If your art was not matched with a story this time, it still has a chance of being published in future issues.

The next submissions window opened 1 July and ends 31 July. Check out our submissions guide here and don’t forget to subscribe!

The Apostrophe Issue 1 Download

https://hkwcmagazine.substack.com

https://hongkongwriterscircle.org/the-apostrophe/

Mind HK Poetry Event & Exhibition Gallery

on November 26, 2022April 17, 2026 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

Thank you to everyone who braved the filthy weather and turned down Thanksgiving to show up at Mind HK‘s poetry event Poetry for Mental Health: The Healing Power of Words in SoHo last night! The event was part of a week-long exhibition More Than A Label: I Was. I Am. I Will Be. I loved sharing and listening to the stories of the two other poets, the incredible Vish and Derek, and chatting about the stigma of mental illness in Hong Kong. There was an overwhelming amount of love in the air at the intimate event at the uber-cute gallery on Lyndhurst Street. I can’t wait for the next one!

Thanks to Mind for the endless encouragement, opportunity to read Imagine Nation, and for curating such a powerful exhibition of letters and artwork. I loved reading every single one of the letters on display and the psychedelic 3D artwork of Mind HK ambassadors’ brains! Thanks especially to Odile for emceeing and sharing her own insightful observations. If you’ve not already seen it, you’ve still got a chance! The exhibition is open until Monday.

#More Than A Label #Poetry for Mental Health: The Healing Power of Words #I Was. I Am. I Will Be

More Than A Label

on October 30, 2022April 17, 2026 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

Happy to be taking part in Mind HK‘s anti-stigma campaign More Than A Label‘s first anniversary event; ‘More Than A Label: I Was, I Am, I Will Be‘, an exhibition of art, poetry and letters by Mind HK ambassadors aimed at de-stigmatising mental health, which will be open to the public Nov 21 – Nov 28. The exhibition will be held at 5, Sun Fung Mansion, 52-60 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong Nov 21-28. More details soon!

Some of my previous ‘rants’ about mental health!

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3181151/im-bipolar-and-seeing-word-headlines-divided

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3120634/bipolar-disorder-sufferers-and-medical-experts-share-how

https://themighty.com/topic/bipolar-disorder/mania-bipolar-disorder-sleepwalking

Bipolar Ambition

on July 5, 2022June 7, 2025 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

Really inspired attending HKU’s Bipolar Ambition Exhibition last week featuring the work of two Bipolar Hong Kong and Mental Ideas artists – the super-talented Coby Legans and Juliana Kung!!! Coby has been one of Bipolar HK’s longest and most giving members, although we did recently lose her to Perth, Australia, where she’s training to be a mental health counsellor, and Juliana has shared her artwork with Mental Ideas and designed Home Kong Kitchen‘s stunning emblem!

It takes a lot of courage putting yourself out there as a bipolar artist in order to raise awareness and fight the stigma associated with the condition and so hats off to Coby, Juliana, and all the other incredible artists who exhibited their artwork, some of whom we were lucky enough to hang out with! The sky at HKU was almost as memorable as the artwork, too, just as a typhoon came rolling in…

Remembering Johnny

on February 12, 2022June 7, 2025 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

Nearly 14 years after his tragic accident, aged 31, one of my besties and partners in documentary crime Johnny Lambe has been immortalized in a memoir by his magnificent mother.

Thank you, Mona Lambe, for the laughter and the tears today, as I devoured your memoir of Johnny in one greedy sitting. You are incredible to have been able to set your own grief aside and to have woven your stories together in such a unique and clever way. You have created an extraordinary, breathtakingly honest, and often very funny celebration of his life and soul. I feel more blessed than ever to have shared a seminal chapter of my life with such a rare gift of a friend who kept me incapacitated with laughter and inspired by his presence. His infectious humor, joie d’vivre, passion, talent and spirit live on through you and this book.

Johnny touched so many lives. His life was packed with adventures and I am so grateful to have shared my most memorable ones with him. Johnny’s last film was Sailing Miss Sadie, in which we sailed to Venezuela with three young offenders from The Prince’s Trust.

https://www.bookdepository.com/Johnny-Lambe-Mona-Lambe/9780957601512

Crazy – Mental Ideas Podcast

on July 2, 2020January 6, 2026 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

Crazy is a cheeky little fiesta of madness and the last episode of the first series of Mental Ideas so DON’T MISS IT!!! You can download all the episodes from this series here!

A HUGE thanks to all my mental guests: Mat Ricardo, Christina Yung, Larry Feign, Florence Wong, Ruben M, Josh Walters, Dan Davies, Kiki Wong, Jackie Chan, Philippe Joly, Eugenia Kim, Raffaello Degruttola, Ifat Hyndes, as well as to Nick Samuel for composing the mental music, Angie and Noz for all the support!

Mental Ideas will be back! Until then, you can catch me presenting my new humour column on RTHK Radio 3 from September 29!

Crazy on RTHK Radio 3

Crazy on RTHK Radio 3

https://mentalideas.org

The Depressed Banker – Mental Ideas Podcast

on May 28, 2020January 3, 2026 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

Brace yourselves for another “slightly strange” (yeah… thanks Noreen 🤣) episode of my Mental Ideas podcast on RTHK‘s 123 Show! This week my guest is the inspirational Christina Yung! She banks. She cares for her Mum. She writes books and takes magical photographs of Hong Kong old shops. She’s in tears twice during the interview and has the most infectious raucous laugh I’ve ever had the pleasure of developing tinnitus from!

Bit of an emotional rollercoaster this week as we discuss dementia and impact on mental health of the Hong Kong Protests among other topics.

On next week’s episode of Mental Ideas veterans Mat Ricardo and Dan Davies return and recount their most memorable experiences with internet trolls in Trolls Anonymous. Only Dan has another word for them – and he uses it a lot…

Catch me LIVE on RTHK Radio 3 in about… oooh… TWO HOURS!!!

The Depressed Banker - Mental Ideas Podcast

The Depressed Banker on RTHK Radio 3

Links!

The Depressed Banker on RTHK

Christina Yung’s website

Christina in the SCMP

https://mentalideas.org

Writer Unblocked!

on May 18, 2020June 19, 2025 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

I’m excited to be collaborating with the Hong Kong Writers Circle producing and presenting a podcast exploring the timely theme of ‘Masking The City: Hong Kong in Allegory‘!

Writer Unblocked showcases original short stories, poetry and humor to unlock and unblock Hong Kong’s creative art and soul. While some lucky writers and artists have been feeling creatively inspired by the protests, lockdown and surreality of social distancing, others have been left feeling disoriented, emotionally locked and creatively blocked.

Join me, familiar and debut voices from the Hong Kong Writers Circle as we attempt to ease the ‘blockdown’. The series will be recorded Sept/Oct 2020 and tie in with the publication of the HKWC’s 2020 anthology in November! The first episode will be recorded Sept 14 and feature Chief Editor Nathan Lauer and HKWC Chair Chris Maden.

The Depressed Comedian – Mental Ideas Podcast

on April 8, 2020January 6, 2026 by RTHK's Miss Adventure 香港電台冒險小姐

Episode 1 of my Mental Ideas Podcast, a new weekly strand on the fantabulous Noreen Mir‘s 123 Show, aired April 2, 2020 on RTHK Radio 3!

Depression. It’s no laughing matter. Or is it? Why are so many of our best loved comedians depressed? I trance in and out exploring this tragi-hilarious topic with award-winning cartoonist, depressed humorist and best-selling author, the irrepressible Larry Feign: creator of the iconic Lily Wong comic strip published in the South China Morning Post. Larry was the first cartoonist to have a full-page spread in Time Magazine, worked in animation for Walt Disney Studios and is the international best-selling author of 15 comic books and children’s book series The Fart Brothers, which he sensibly writes under the pen name M.D. Whalen because he doesn’t want to be too closely associated with flatulence.