This week’s print issue marks the debut of our new regular column, Doing Good. I’m excited – perhaps unduly so for a single-page article. But it encapsulates an essential part of what “how to live well” means to our team and in these times. Living well is not just caviar and cashmere. It’s authenticity, creativity and curiosity. It’s about engaging the world around us, creating community, building bridges, not walls – something we feel like we need more than ever.

The Doing Good series highlights people who are making a positive impact, whether through charity, social enterprise or sustainability initiatives. Dave Besseling spent an afternoon packing meal boxes with local organization More Good, based in Chai Wan (lots of “good” in these paragraphs, I know), which distributes nutritious meals to underserved communities in Hong Kong from the past. three years.

Making a difference isn’t always the only goal, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. Gavin Yeung sees Tam Jai, the popular rice noodle chain, as an unlikely champion of female empowerment in the workplace. After reading it, I was intrigued enough to sip on a bowl of noodles crossing the bridge at my local branch that afternoon.

Our features are wide-ranging, taking us into the wilds of West Bali National Park, where Ian Lloyd Neubauer encounters the island’s largest native wildlife, and back in time as Paul French recounts the heyday of the Repulse Bay Hotel in Hong Kong and its high society. guests such as Wallis Simpson and Ernest Hemingway. These two events provide a welcome break from the incessant tidal wave of American political news that has engulfed the world this week.

Ambition also often requires a leap of faith. In our cover story, Patrick Suen talks to Philip Ng, who pulled out all the stops and left the United States for Hong Kong to pursue his dream of making it in kung fu films. Twenty years later, the actor is working to revive the city’s golden age of action films with his role in Stuntman.