Transcript:

Good morning! I read the papers for you. Quarantine-free travel will come for vaccinated Hongkongers once the numbers rise, the government said. More than 25% of eligible people have now been jabbed. Prizes and perks include a free apartment, a gold Rolex and a free Tesla Model 3. And Domestic helpers, you are welcome to join, too. That’s in the Standard.

A completely unknown Chinese company has seemingly come from nowhere to be one of the world’s biggest consumer goods firms, worth half a trillion US dollars. Investors call it “liquid bitcoin” because of the way its share price rises. That’s from Fridayeveryday.com: click here.

In the Financial Times, we read that Chinese parents are pulling out of Britain’s private boarding schools, the FT reports. In 2020, 42 private schools in Britain have closed their doors forever. Meanwhile in the near future, there are 78 new international schools due to open in China.

The paper notes a cultural divide. For example, Chinese parents told their children to wear facemasks in the UK when the panic started, and this caused the children to be stigmatized in the west. Of course we now know that wearing masks was the right thing to do.

Let’s take a look at the Chinese press. Jimmy Lai’s reporters admitted in court that they pretended to be connected to celebrity Cecilia Cheung to obtain a birth certificate for her child, and get a scoop on her private life, They published the birth certificate. That’s the lead story in the Oriental Daily News today. Jimmy Lai’s hagiographers, the Western press, are going to struggle to make that story fit their narrative. They’ll probably skip it.

Good one in the Standard: The deadlier variant of the coronavirus was found on frozen food packaging! Should we all panic and stay away from our fridges? No. Turns out that it was carried by a teenager who remembers opening the fridge and sneezing into it. So no need to be afraid of your fridge. But maybe be afraid of teenagers.

Goodbye.