During the summer of 2019, I worked as an editorial intern at the Hong Kong office of Time Out, a global city lifestyle magazine. For the publication, I produced content that covered arts & culture, food, and beauty, which was published on Time Out's website and its autumn 2019 print magazine. In addition, I photographed for several online articles and translated pieces from Chinese to English. Find links to my writing and excerpts from the magazine below.
For Time Out's website specifically, I wrote a range of content, including snappy 100-word event listings, pun-filled lifestyle news, light-hearted listicles, and articles about different facets of Hong Kong culture. I personally pitched several original story ideas, researched and provided updates to old articles, and worked on blurbs derived from press releases.
Culture
The rainbow building named Choi Hung Estate has become Instagram-famous in Hong Kong for its aesthetic, but there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. Behind the public housing estate's exterior is an often-forgotten history, revealing the consequences of gentrification as well as the effects of living in a post-Instagram reality.
Despite having no air-con, Hong Kong's most affordable public transport — the tram — has won my deep admiration. It's a moving piece of heritage that zips through the city every day, but I realized from my many journeys that people don't really know how to ride the tram. Thus, this article was born.
Lifestyle News
When the hyped 24-hour Japanese discount store Don Don Donki first opened in Hong Kong, I made a visit to the 23,000 sq. ft outlet to scope out its treasures and snap some pictures. I wrote about its wide variety of specialty goods, including everything from kawaii stuffed animals and baby bottles to beloved Japanese favorites like takoyaki and Umaibo corn snack.
Our favorite fried chicken specialist came up with not one, but two, mooncake flavors for Mid-Autumn festival, so obviously I had to write about it. The offerings included a golden lava mooncake and a spicy chicken and nuts mooncake, along with a Moonlight Bucket that had its own built-in LED light.
In honor of International Dog Day, I wrote about an Ovolo Southside brunch that was organized to celebrate our wonderful furry friends. The paw-ty offered complimentary dogtails (think puppy colada), a build-your-own-doggy bowl, and a real human-friendly brunch menu for loving owners. Fair warning: this one's heavy on the dog puns.
Reading about booze won't be a snooze — this 100-word event listing is for a Pirate's Beer Fest that featured a beer spa and cheeky muscle and bikini beer glasses, among other beer-themed delights.
Food
Summer in Hong Kong is humid and HOT, and shaved ice is one of the best cures to the sweltering heat. I visited several dessert joints and wrote about each place's iteration of shaved ice, including Shari Shari's use of Japanese ice and Meet Fresh's multiple shaved ice toppings. Taste-testing all of them was, frankly, an absolute joyous journey.
Come Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone's gotta have a mooncake or two. I compiled a varied list of the best mooncakes of autumn 2019, writing about traditional lotus seed mooncakes (Cuisine Cuisine) as well as unconventional options like a superfood-packed ginger and turmeric mooncake (John Anthony x The Cakery) and handmade Shanghai-style mooncakes (Old Bailey).
Bubble tea is an absolute staple in my diet, and I've drank a lot of it. So, I created the ultimate guide on how to order and customize your bubble tea to perfection, so that people don't ever have to complain about getting the wrong tea or not knowing which level of ice to request.
Beauty
After seeing that there was no comprehensive list of Korean beauty stores and brands in Hong Kong published online in recent years, I went on the hunt to find the ten best places to buy K-beauty. As an avid lover of beauty and skincare, I visited everything from big name chains to niche stores to look for the hottest Korean products on the Hong Kong market.
Print Magazine
In addition to producing digital content for Time Out, I also contributed to its autumn 2019 print magazine, which can be found digitally here. For the issue, I interviewed a food delivery driver, wrote a Lamma Island neighborhood guide, translated a shopping & style piece about qipaos from Chinese to English, and more.
