appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Letters

As a frequent contributor to this column, I wish to congratulate the South China Morning Post on its 120th anniversary and thank the editors for their support for my research and advocacy work in the past 10 years.
I started writing to the Letters section in 2013 and have published over 100 letters. Since 2020, I have also been working with my colleague, Dr Benedict Rowlett, at Baptist University, helping over 300 students to publish nearly 140 letters.
My first published letter to the editor was on Creative Commons, an alternative approach to copyright management. In my first featured letter in 2016, I made the case for Hong Kong to phase out Octopus cards and imagined a smart city embracing diverse mobile payment methods. With the advent of generative artificial intelligence, my students and I also published the first letter in SCMP’s history that was edited by ChatGPT. An overarching theme of most of our letters is to question the status quo and envision a better world made possible by new technologies.
The letters column offers us opportunities to critically review the decisions made by the Hong Kong government. Through researching public policy matters, including citing the Code on Access to Information, we have published letters on a wide range of issues such as the emergency alert system, national security law and solar weather. Occasionally, government staff, for example, the Department of Justice and Hong Kong Observatory, would write in response.
Our conversation with the government extended beyond the newspaper. We met Legislative Council members including Chan Kin-por, Alice Mak Mei-kuen, Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee and Tse Wai-chuen, and brought their attention to the challenges facing groups whose voices are less often heard. The letters section lets us share our conversations with lawmakers and create additional pressure for government action.
It is also a bridge between the public and the ivory tower. I have co-authored letters with research students to share insights from Baptist University research teams on Chinese medicine and carbon emission monitoring. Recently, Dr Rowlett and I have received support from the General Research Fund to study how citizenship has been exercised by SCMP letter writers. This research could never have been realised without the unwavering commitment of SCMP editors to nurturing a dynamic community of readers and cultivating an invaluable platform for public discourse.
Simon H. Wang, lecturer in English, Baptist University
A pure form of freedom of expression
Letters comprise words, words comprise emotions and emotions define us all. Writing this letter today, I am reminded of a quote from perhaps the greatest user of words, Shakespeare: “Time travels in divers paces with divers persons”.
This year is not only the 120th anniversary of the South China Morning Post, but it is also the 20th anniversary of my first letter to the paper published on October 15, 2003. Words for me are the clock that ticks, marking the passing of time. Writing is a love affair I have had since childhood, starting out with pencils (millennials may have to google that word) and moving on to the convenience of laptops.
I am never without a fountain pen in my pocket and still send postcards to friends when abroad. In a world of social media platforms, I remain committed to an analogue approach. The written word as expressed in letters to the editor defines my relationship with a newspaper that has used words to capture the essence of life in Hong Kong for 120 years.
It is perhaps not a surprise then that this form of expression has become scholarly. Letters to the editor provide an account of a range of different perspectives, a window on the relationship between editorial and readership identities across historical contexts. They are a forum through which the personal and the political intersect, a space where the implications of contemporaneous events are worked out by ordinary people and public figures alike.
This range of voices has helped open up letters to the editor as a resource for scholarship, which provides new insights into the relationship between journalism and its public. In short, it remains a pure form of freedom of expression.
My letters to the editor are my observations of Hong Kong and are often written on the spur of the moment when I see, hear or read something that I feel needs attention drawn to it.
I have never shied away from criticism of the government when there is a need to highlight failings that impact the lives of ordinary Hongkongers. In a city viewed internationally as having surrendered its freedom of expression, letters to the editor are a vital platform which give individuals an opportunity to express themselves.
May I wish the SCMP a very happy 120th birthday.
Mark Peaker, The Peak


Refreshed South China Morning Post homepage elevates reader-first experience

What the South China Morning Post was like in the 1980s and how it has shaped me as a person

120 years of SCMP: where the only constant has been never-ending change

Being the South China Morning Post cartoonist is possibly more challenging than ever before

SCMP’s 120th anniversary

Letters to the South China Morning Post bridge the space between the public and the ivory tower

Pedestrians on a footbridge in Hong Kong on April 24. Through writing letters to the editor, ordinary people have an opportunity to weigh in on current events. Photo: Bloomberg

Why Hong Kong universities should let students learn with ChatGPT

International journals do not accept AI chatbots such as ChatGPT as a co-author, but do not prohibit their use as long as authors acknowledge how these tools are used. Photo: TNS

Prolific South China Morning Post letter writer Mark Peaker on his new book, why lawmaker Junius Ho ‘needed to be shut up’, and freedom of expression

Mark Peaker, co-founder of 3812 Gallery in Central, has released a book containing many of his many letters to the South China Morning Post. Photo: Jonathan Wong

The cover of Peaker’s book. Photo: Unicorn

Peaker criticises the government’s bias towards big business executives during Covid-19. Photo: Mark Peaker

One of Peaker’s letters to the Post highlighting LGBTQ issues. Photo: Mark Peaker

Mark Peaker with his book Peaker of the Peak. Photo: courtesy of Mark Peaker

Opinion

Regular Letters to the Editor contributors Simon Wang and Mark Peaker reflect on the value of epistolary communication with the Post, on the newspaper’s 120th anniversary


Regular Letters to the Editor contributors Simon Wang and Mark Peaker reflect on the value of epistolary communication with the Post, on the newspaper’s 120th anniversary.


.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Regular Letters to the Editor contributors Simon Wang and Mark Peaker reflect on the value of epistolary communication with the Post, on the newspaper’s 120th anniversary

Regular Letters to the Editor contributors Simon Wang and Mark Peaker reflect on the value of epistolary communication with the Post, on the newspaper’s 120th anniversary