From extreme weather and crypto scandals, to local politics and cinema, Hong Kong experienced several events this year that captured public attention and inspired curiosity.
HKFP looks at what Hongkongers Googled in 2023.
Extreme weather
When it came to local news, “Koinu” – the name of one of this year’s more powerful typhoons – was the fifth most searched for term. The tropical storm skirted south of Hong Kong on October 8, causing the Observatory to issue its second highest typhoon warning signal.
Koinu hit a little more than a month after Super Typhoon Saola, which saw the highest storm signal raised for the first time in five years as hurricane-force winds battered the city.
While Saola did not make Google’s top 10 trending local news topics, the record-breaking rainfall that pummelled the city a week later did, with “Black rainstorm warning” placing eighth on the list.
Prolonged torrential rain hit Hong Kong on September 7, causing the Black rainstorm warning to be in place for 16 hours and 32 minutes, the longest duration since the alert system was introduced in 1992. The downpour also contributed to September’s record-breaking total rainfall of 1067.1 millimetres, more than three times the monthly normal of 321.4 millimetres.
Climate experts told HKFP in September that recent extreme weather events were a reminder that “climate change is really here,” adding that typhoons and temperatures would become more intense.
Crypto scandal
The second biggest local news trend of 2023 was “JPEX,” according to Google, the name of a cryptocurrency exchange at the heart of a high-profile alleged fraud case.
The scandal, which broke in September, has resulted in losses of around HK$1.6 billion for more than 2,600 people who have come forward as victims, as of late November. There have been at least 66 arrests related to JPEX, but authorities have yet to press any charges, with all those apprehended released on bail pending investigation.
The JPEX case has cast a shadow over Hong Kong’s embrace of digital assets and revealed regulatory gaps soon after the city rolled out rules requiring crypto exchanges to be licensed and meet investor protection standards.
YouTuber Chan Yee and influencer Joseph Lam, who were among those detained in the initial arrests, took third and fourth place among Google’s top trending “local entertainment celebrities.”
Between January and September, the city recorded 4,331 fraud cases related to investment, with losses totalling around HK$2.82 billion.
Political figures
Former lawmaker Au Nok-hin, who was one of the 31 defendants to plead guilty to conspiring to commit subversion in the city’s largest national security case, placed 10th in a list of top trending local people.
Au, who testified against his fellow democrats as a witness for the prosecution during the high-profile trial this year, was the only one of the 47 charged under the security law in the case to be named on Google’s lists.
Lawmaker Eunice Yung, who was thrust into the spotlight in July when national security police named her estranged father-in-law Elmer Yuen a wanted suspect, placed ninth in the same list. Yung was also ninth on last year’s list after she took out a newspaper advertisement to say she had severed ties with Yuen.
Now based in the US, Yuen is among 13 self-exiled activists wanted by national security police, with authorities offering a bounty of HK$1 million for each of the democrats. Yung’s home was searched and she and her husband were questioned by national security police for several hours in July, she said.
‘Murder victim, rape survivor, porn star’
The gruesome murder of Abby Choi in February was the top trending local news event; whistleblower Maple Yip, who exposed systematic rapes by Korean religious leaders, was third on a list of “top trending local people”; and Erena So, who made a high-profile porn debut, was ranked first among trending “local entertainment celebrities.
All three were at the centre of stories that gripped the city and revealed misogynistic undercurrents in the local media industry and Hong Kong society at large.
Global affairs
The Israel-Hamas war took the top spot in the top trending global news category, as calls for a ceasefire amplified around the world. The death toll from Israeli strikes on Gaza, launched in retaliation to an October 7 attack by Hamas militants, is believed to have surpassed 18,700. There have around 1,400 Israeli deaths, most of whom died during the Hamas attack.
The United Nations has called the situation in Gaza a humanitarian crisis, with nearly 90 per cent of the enclave’s more than 2 million residents displaced, after Israel issued directives for people in Gaza to flee the strip in a move widely condemned by rights groups, according to Al Jazeera.
Last month, five anti-war activists rallied near Hong Kong’s Israeli consulate, holding signs that said “Stand with Palestine” and displaying a list of thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza strip.
Calls for a ceasefire in cities globally have dwarfed those in Hong Kong, where protests have become far less prevalent since the passing of the national security law.
The Turkey earthquakes placed second on Googles list of trending news topics, with bedbugs coming in third, and the Credit Suisse crisis in fourth.
Movies
Legal drama A Guilty Conscience grossed HK$110 million at the box office and took the top spot in this year’s top trending movies list, according to Google. Following behind in second place was journalism thriller In Broad Daylight, then To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self, a controversial documentary pulled from cinemas after one of its subjects complained it was being screened without her consent.
Sixth on the list was director Nick Cheuk’s Time Still Turns The Pages, a family drama that grapples with mental health and student suicide. Its release coincided with news of rising youth suicides this year, with NGOs attributing the rise to the city’s return to normalcy after years of stringent Covid-19 mandates and an unreasonable level of academic pressure in some schools.
In ninth was courtroom thriller The Sparring Partner, a dramatisation of a 2013 double murder that saw a young man partner with a friend to kill and dismember his parents.
The cultural phenomenon “Barbenheimer”, meanwhile, also ranked among the top 10, with Oppenheimer in fourth place and Barbie in seventh.
Travel
When it came to Googling the weather in overseas destinations, Tokyo came out on top, riding on a travel frenzy after the city reopened its borders to the world early this year following a pandemic-induced period of isolation. Other cities in Japan – long a holiday hotspot for Hongkongers – occupied spots in the top 10 “trending weather forecast of outbound travel destination,” with Osaka in second place and Kyoto in ninth. “Japan” took seventh place on the list.
Other destinations were: fellow Special Administrative Region Macau in third; South Korean capital Seoul in fourth; capital of Thailand Bangkok in fifth; Taiwan capital Taipei in sixth; and capital of Sri Lanka Colombo in eighth; with mainland Chinese metropolis Shanghai rounding out the list.
Property news
Trends in property news seemed to be influenced by the city’s struggling real estate market. Searches for The Coastline, a property in Yau Tong, took second place on the list when flats at the harbourfront site sold out at an average of 15 per cent below the market rate — prices equivalent to the cost of a government-subsidised apartment.
That came amid a 14-year high in interest rates and weaker than predicted land sales – both indicators that real estate developers were wary, and slowing down the pace of development.
Searches for The Wai, a new shopping mall in Tai Wai, topped the list.
Chinese anthem tops Google results page
In April, a government webpage about the Chinese national anthem replaced a Hong Kong pro-democracy song at the top of Google’s search rankings. The change came after multiple mix-ups that saw the protest song Glory to Hong Kong played in place of the city’s official anthem at international sporting events.
Last December, leading Hong Kong officials – including Chief Executive John Lee and security chief Chris Tang – called Google out after the tech giant failed to comply with a government request to change search results for “Hong Kong national anthem.”
That followed an anthem gaffe in November that saw the protest song played at a Rugby Sevens game in South Korea after an intern reportedly downloaded it off the internet. Similar mix-ups occurred at a prizegiving ceremony of a weightlifting championship in Dubai and most recently at a February ice hockey game in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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