Celebrity Life

The organization donated $105,000 to help introduce Palm Beach County students to the opportunities in the solar industry

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The organization donated $105,000 to help introduce Palm Beach County students to the opportunities in the solar industry

The post Moss Foundation Contributes to Student ACES Solar Workforce Development Program appeared first on Palm Beach Illustrated.

Peggy Chan is fundraising for her first cookbook, titled Provenance, with most of the proceeds going to her next impact-venture. We speak with the chef, restaurateur and environmental activist to learn more.

Times of trouble may pose a setback on certain goals we have in life, but it could also pose an opportunity to accelerate lifelong dreams that we hadn't prioritised in the past. More time at home and a slowdown in business have caused many business owners to rethink their strategies and use this unprecedented time of change to try new things.

That's sort of where Peggy Chan was, just before the turn of the new year, when she started a Kickststarter campaign to support the launch of her debut cookbook, Provenance.

As the name of the cookbook suggests, it's all about going back to the roots. Based on principles of plant-based cookery, Provance will be filled with memoirs and recipes for both the homecook and professionals. Readers can learn to recreate tried and tested recipes from Chan's restaurants, Grassroots Pantry and Nectar. They will also be educated on our existing food systems and informed of the impact of our daily decisions.

"Provenance is more than just a cookbook. It's a culmination of everything we at Grassroots have done, packaged as a memoir and a guide to help you proactively participate in climate action," writes Chan on Kickstarter. "This means showing you the ropes to how you can also source and cook delicious plant-based dishes at home, that takes our health and our planet's health into consideration."

Going beyond the Provenance cookbook

Supporters of the Kickstarter campaign will receive a copy of the Provenance cookbook, either in digital or hard copy format, if the campaign is fully funded by February 24, 2021. But the campaign goes beyond supporting just the cookbook. A major part of the proceeds actually goes towards Chan's next impact-venture called Zero Foodprint Asia. It is set to be the first Asian outpost of an NGO started by restaurateurs Anthony Myint and Karen Leibowitz in 2015 that looks at food systems as the starting point for change.

Chan tells me she met the couple in 2018 in the United States and they remained in touch. It was Chan's dream to expand their initiative to Hong Kong, and the pandemic has presented just the opportunity to do it.

"The pandemic has exposed the fragility of our food systems," Chan says. "But it has also demonstrated that businesses and people are ready to build back better. We are given a chance to change the way we produce and consume food."

The events of 2019 and hardships from 2020 had forced Chan to make the difficult decision to close Nectar in 2020. As upsetting as the decision was for her, she acknowledged that it just wasn't a sustainable way to operate. But activism was as much part of Chan's DNA as being a restaurateur, and with the close of her restaurant, she's channeled all her efforts (with the support of her husband) into doing something more impactful to the wider food network.

Chan has no intention of operating another restaurant in the near future, she tells me. But that hasn't stopped her from doing brief stints and working with other chefs. In January, she did a limited-edition burger for Leaves and Liberty. For now, all her focus is on change on a higher level. There are a lot more projects forthcoming. Right now, it's to get Zero Foodprint Asia and Provenance off the ground.

Click here to head over to the Provenance cookbook Kickstarter page.

The post Peggy Chan’s Provenance Cookbook is Just the Beginning appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

The $30,000 donation will support the local organization's mission to establish an Emergency Financial Assistance Fund for police and fire rescue personnel

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Nursing student and nursing scholarship recipient Elizabeth Lubin participated in the calming Healers in the Garden initiative

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Former lawyer, model, spinning and boxing instructor and now mother to a wonderful one-year-old baby boy, Angie Ng opens up about the challenges of raising a child in a pandemic, how she copes with stress and her hopes for the New Year.

How was 2020 for you personally?

It was a difficult time for the whole world. But for me, it was really a time to spend with my family and just recoup. We wanted to be closer to nature, so we moved out to Stanley, which is really nice. It just feels very different from my life pre-pregnancy, if that makes sense. There are nice beaches, we’re away from everybody, and I can spend time with my son and watch him grow and change.

Moving to Stanley had been on the agenda for a long time — we wanted to be somewhere with more space and that was slightly closer to nature. We looked at different locations until we found somewhere we loved. With the virus, too, it was good to move away from things a little. We’re right by the sea, there are trees and plants, and the air is fresher. You just don’t feel as if you’re in Hong Kong.

You’ve worn many hats — lawyer, model and fitness instructor. Was this always the sort of life you imagined for yourself?

I never thought that a lot of the ventures I’m lucky to have been involved in could have happened. Law was a conscious decision. And, you know, modelling just somehow came along, and the more you do it, the more you’re exposed to different things and opportunities. It really is about making the decision to do something new and challenge yourself. I was lucky to be given these new opportunities. I was scared in a lot of situations, obviously doing anything new is often scary. But it’s all been very rewarding to learn different things, to be exposed to new skills and just continue to grow.

Was fitness always important to you?

Always. It goes hand in hand with what I do as a model. I’ve always loved going to the gym and exercising, and when given the opportunity to learn to be an instructor at XYZ, I just said to myself, “Why not? What harm could there be?” It gives you a different angle when communicating with people. You know, when you’re an instructor you’re also a performer, but at the same time, you’re also very close to the clients and in sync with them, as opposed to being a model where you are just performing.

That feeling of community in the fitness world is the reason why people enjoy going to group classes, right? That community will always feel like my community, even if I’m not there all the time. Even the cleaners would ask me about my child. And it’s such a nice feeling to have. I think the fitness community does breed this more than the fashion community.

What else do you do aside from boxing and spinning?

I also like lifting weights — I think lifting weights and toning up are so important. That and doing some form of easy yoga are my go-tos at this moment.

How do you find balance in life? What do you do when stress gets to you?

There are always a million thoughts going through my head, things to do with work, with my baby. What I like to do is to sit on my balcony and focus on my breathwork. I let these thoughts come to me and I catch them, I acknowledge them and then I let them go. I’m looking at a tree, I think it, catch it, I let it go. I have this call with Prestige, with you. I think about it, I let it go, and I'll keep doing this until there’s nothing to think about any longer. I’ve thought about everything I’ve had to think about. Then I’m just left with me and myself. Does that make sense? It’s helped me slow down and appreciate 2020 when things have been stressful and uncertain.

Can you share a little of your own pregnancy and childbirth experiences with us?

I wanted a natural childbirth for my son, so in the very beginning I didn’t want to take an epidural. But the thing is, my son was quite large and he had a very big head. It's often said that people with a fitness background have an easier time with childbirth. I can tell you that’s not true at all! After two hours of constant pushing you become really tired. I was pushing my hardest and looking at the doctor, asking if it made any difference and she would say yes, but my husband was shaking his head. In the end I had to take an epidural.

Were there any challenges you faced raising a child during a pandemic and how did you overcome them?

It's inevitably been a challenging time for all of us. As a mother, I've felt increasingly worried and am constantly trying to find the right balance between having my son at home and safe but still letting him go out and play with other children, to experience nature and attend classes. Then there’s the challenge of getting the baby/toddler to wear a mask or protective hat, which has become the norm nowadays.

What are your hopes for 2021?

2021 for me is the year to explore and learn more, as well as to focus on self-awareness and development.

The post Angie Ng: Fitness, Babies, and Hopes for the New Year appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Part-time Palm Beacher Nicole Elizabeth Berger looks to take her budding acting career to the next level

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The chic Palm Beach philanthropist shares a few of her favorite things.

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If one man could claim responsibility for affluent Asians’ growing passion for yachting and the sea, that might well be Mike Simpson.

His tall figure has been a well-recognised presence around the typhoon shelter ever since he berthed his yacht alongside the Aberdeen Marina Club almost 40 years ago. In those days, Mike Simpson was a one-man-band, living aboard his boat, meeting fellow sailors and occasionally, over a beer or two, selling them a yacht. Now he heads one of Asia’s leading yacht-sales, charter and management companies, with a team of almost 100 based in 12 locations across the region, from Bali to Taiwan. And yet this freedom-loving Englishman had never intended to build a business at all.

Although Simpson says that he’s told his story several times, it’s a yarn well worth repeating. “If you want to start from the beginning,” he says, “I came to Asia to build a yacht for myself, in Taiwan, with the intention of sailing it around the world. For about 10 or 12 years before that, I’d been travelling in different parts of the world on foot and by boat, and I’d ended up in Greece running a yacht charter fleet.

“My girlfriend at the time was a keen sailor who’d helped to deliver a yacht back from Taiwan and told me what great boats they built there. In those days I wasn’t terribly impressed with the Taiwan-built sailing yachts I’d seen, which were clipper-bowed and heavily built, but one day a beautiful 46-foot, centre-cockpit cutter sailed into Mandraki harbour in Rhodes, where I was working. I wandered over, introduced myself, and the owner showed me around – and it turned out that it was built in Taiwan.”

"We’ve had great success with Sanlorenzo, whose combination of cutting-edge design and exceptionally high quality has struck a chord with Asian buyers”

Mike Simpson

Convinced, perhaps as much by the serendipity as anything else, the pair decided to head out to Asia, where they’d build their dream yacht; this was at the tail end of the 1970s. “The idea,” he says, “was to sail around the world – though, of course, we’d have to make some money to cover our costs en route. Maybe we’d charter the yacht or work on other people’s yachts, or in a boatyard – you did whatever you could to earn money on the way, that’s how it used to be.”

They holed up for half a year in Tianmu, a suburb of Taipei, and Simpson, who conveniently spoke Chinese, went to the shipyard each day and worked with the team to build his yacht, Hoopoe. Once it was finished and fully fitted out for cruising, the two of them sailed out into the teeth of a South China Sea gale, with Hong Kong and then Singapore being the first two stops on their planned epic circumnavigation. But that was as far as they got.

“We were all set to head out from Singapore for Sri Lanka, our planned next stop, when an American saw the boat at anchor and asked if he could have a look. After a quick walk around, he said, ‘This is my dream yacht. Is there any chance you’d sell it?’ I remember my girlfriend immediately snapped back, ‘Of course not, this is our home!’ but I wavered, because when you’re building a yacht there’s always something you could do better next time and we had debts to repay.

“I worked out what it would cost us to fly to Sri Lanka to pick up our mail from the poste restante in Galle, then fly on to Courchevel in France for a couple of weeks’ skiing, then fly back to Taiwan and rent a flat there while we built Hoopoe II. I gave him the price, which also included paying back the money we’d borrowed to help us buy the yacht, and to our amazement he said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ So off we went to his lawyer’s office and it was done literally in four or five hours.”

That eventually brought them back, via a long and circuitous route, to Taiwan, where they started all over again. Only they never did get to circumnavigate the world, because while building their second yacht they met “an English guy who was looking for a yacht in Taiwan” and, well, you can guess the rest.

“We delivered that one down to Hong Kong fully fitted out and ready to sail away,” says Simpson, “and he turned up with a suitcase – well, two suitcases, one with all his kit in it and the other one full of banknotes. After a day counting banknotes the deal was done. He sailed off two days later and I never heard from him again!” By then, he says, the penny had dropped and though he’d never been interested in getting into business and money was only a means to an end – funding for adventure and travel – he realised that a business was exactly what he had.

“I thought, ‘Maybe instead of being typical impecunious sailors, earning money along the way, we could build up a cruising fund by selling yachts for six months or so and then set sail again with some money in the bank.’ By the time I took a third yacht down to Singapore specifically to sell and to pick up a couple of orders, the shipyard had caught on and said, ‘By the way, would you be interested in becoming a dealer?’ So my girlfriend returned to England and I ended up here with the dealership for Ta Chiao yachts for Hong Kong. “I sailed my yacht into the newly opened Aberdeen Marina Club – I think, it was 1983 – and that’s how I got started here. I was living on the boat, I’d got a berth right in front of the clubhouse, and that’s where I began the business, from the yacht. The dealership was simply a document I’d signed with the rights to sell yachts here.”

Yachting in those days meant sailing yachts, says Simpson, and “there was quite an active scene, mainly centred around the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club”. However when a “buyer” explained that he’d decided to buy a Beneteau from France instead the beautiful hand-built yacht from Taiwan he’d been hoping to sell him, Simpson realised that his heavy Taiwanese boats didn’t feed the Hong Kong yachties’ appetite for club racing and performance. Realising a change of tack was needed, he contacted the Beneteau shipyard to learn more about them and ended up taking on the French manufacturer’s local dealership, which he still holds today.

“It’s a very long relationship, which says something, though I’m not sure what!” he says with a chuckle. “It’s now 35 years since we became their dealer, first in Hong Kong and then in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and China. They’re one of the world’s largest yacht builders with more than 400 dealerships worldwide, but they’re yachtsmen at heart and that comes across in the way they do business. They’re a great company to work with and I still enjoying doing business with them.”

Simpson’s move into motor yachts began when he met the Australian businessman and “corporate doctor” Bill Wylie, a man perhaps most famous in Hong Kong for heading Hutchison Whampoa in the late ’70s. “There’s a sort of cultural divide,” says Simpson, “between ‘true’ sailors, who sail boats with sails, and motor-yacht sailors, who typically have a captain and crew to look after everything and do all the work – or all the fun, as we ‘true’ sailors might say – while they just sit back, relax and enjoy the service! Although we’d started out selling sailing yachts, when I met Bill he was intending to move back to Australia and was interested in getting a motor yacht to keep down in Perth.

"It's the realisation of a dream, to help spread yachting around Asia, because being so keen on it and loving the adventure of it, I wanted to share that."

Mike Simpson

“Coincidentally, I’d seen an advertisement in a magazine for an Italian motor-yacht builder. So I put two and two together, flew to Italy, went to the shipyard and explained that I possibly had a buyer for one of their 76-footers, which in those days was a big yacht in Asia. And that was how that deal happened – and how I got into motor yachts.”

Today, Simpson Marine’s business is very much skewed towards motor yachts, representing the leading luxury Italian motor-yacht builder Sanlorenzo and its Bluegame subsidiary, Aquila power catamarans and UK-based Fairline motor yachts, as well as Beneteau motor and sailing yachts, Lagoon catamarans and CNB sailing yachts. The company also has a superyacht division, which offers purchase, management and chartering services.

That shift towards motor as opposed to wind power largely coincided with the company’s expansion into a regional operation, with sales and service facilities across East Asia. “If you look back over the last 30 or 40 years,” Simpson explains, “it’s been a turbulent period in Asian history, with all sorts of political and economic upheavals around the region, but fortunately not in all Asian markets at the same time – if some countries were down, others would be up.

“What that showed me was that if your business was centred only on one country, and that country experienced a serious financial crisis, you’d have no business. So I decided – though there were some additional circumstances that led to it – to open an office in Singapore and then in Malaysia, and so on. It greatly extended the reach of the company and it’s worked well for us – it’s given us a kind of balance.

“But it was also the realisation of a dream, to help spread yachting around Asia, because being so keen on it and loving the adventure of it, I wanted to share that, to be a pioneer, as it were, and introduce people to boating – and having the offices around Asia meant that people were given the confidence that if they did decide to go cruising further afield, we could look after them. And that’s always been part of our philosophy.”

Simpson admits – a little ruefully, as he doesn’t like to crow at a time that’s proved so hard for so many – that the past 12 months have been surprisingly good for business. “Although it could have been extremely bad for us, it worked out very well, and quite the opposite of what we’d anticipated. We’re very fortunate being in such a beautiful location in lockdown. When you get out on the water around Hong Kong, you see what a beautiful place this is – and that the best way to enjoy it is to buy or charter a yacht. Last summer I bought myself a Beneteau Oceanis – a sailing yacht, of course! – and I’ve enjoyed sailing with friends every weekend. When you’re sailing along in a brisk northeast monsoon with this beautiful coastline going past, it’s wonderful.”

As for being an old-school sailor who’s now forced to rely on new-fangled motor and superyachts for the bulk of his business, he’s phlegmatic. “To sustain and develop the business, we have to sell large motor yachts and we’ve had great success with Sanlorenzo. whose combination of cutting-edge design and exceptionally high quality has struck a chord with Asian buyers,” he says.

“We could never afford the regional presence we have if we were only selling sailing boats, because they’re a relatively small segment of the rapidly growing Asian yacht market. The reason we continue with Beneteau is because we really like the brand and because it’s our identity, it’s where we started. Beneteau are yachties themselves and I do think that’s why the relationship has lasted for so long. We share the same passion for the sea.

“It’s part of our DNA that we continue with sailing. And we always will.”

The post Mike Simpson on His Game-Changing Role in Building Asia’s Yachting Industry appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Established in 1870 by a Cornish barber, British brand Penhaligon’s doesn't just create complex and elegant fragrances, but also tells timeless and intriguing stories.

William H. Penhaligon's first fragrance, Hamman, created in 1872 and inspired by the Turkish Baths where he was resident barber, paved the way for the brand's ground-breaking approach.

From royal recognition to global stardom, more than a century later, the perfumer is still a symbol of British excellence and effortless savoir-faire.

We talked to Lance Patterson, who joined Penhaligon’s & L’Artisan Parfumeur in May 2014 as CEO, about the brand's heritage, present and future.

What does it mean for Penhaligon’s to be a British heritage brand?

Penhaligon’s is one of the traditional British perfumers with a rich heritage. However, the fact that we are still here 150 years later is a testament of us always looking into the future. We are proud of our heritage and the brand’s important milestones overs the last 150 years but we always adapt and try new things to delight our customers. Be this in the creation of fragrances that are innovative and captivating to the way we talk to our customers in the digital era.

How do you blend heritage and contemporaneity in your creations?

We are inspired by our British heritage first and foremost, by all these evocative stories and places. For example our iconic Blenheim Bouquet fragrance was created as a private commission for the 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1902 – which beautifully captured the era of the beginning of the 20th century in one of the most impressive palaces in Britain, Blenheim, where the Duke and his family lived and that you can still visit today.

What are the secrets behind Penhaligon’s success over the years?

For us it is not whether you make a purchase or not, it is that when you leave the store you leave with a good felling, that you had a connection with the brand, the team, the product, the story or all of them. We are proud to have been so agile during this disruptive time and discovered new opportunities for the brand which comes down to a super team of people, thinking always of the customer first.

Why do brands like Penhaligon’s appeal to Millennials and Gen-Z?

Penhaligon’s offers something for everyone, and for younger generations, the Portraits collection has been a huge hit. The humorous stories of the characters and their relationships with each other is definitely what attracts a younger customer who is looking for fun interaction when it comes to fragrance. Each character has a very distinctive personality, so it is easier to relate to than just purely talking about ingredients from Millennial’s’ point of view.

What’s in store for the future?

Our ultimate goal is to educate customers on fragrance, always with the priority of helping them find what they like not what their newest product is or the best sellers. We want you to become an “expert” on fragrance, and this is very empowering for the customer. We have many exciting tools to enable this learning, such as Air Parfumtm – a device that allows you to browse our entire collection of fragrances and by pressing a button smell the fragrant air without the alcohol, so that your nose does not get tired of smelling multiple perfumes. The most recent project that launched in our stores is called Penhaligon’s Magic Monocletm, by using a smartphone’s camera, customers can scan fragrances in the store and get a list of notes they contain without even smelling them. And we have our Digital Profiling, which is incredibly accurate in marrying the incredible knowledge of our Fragrance Sommeliers with the olfactive notes of each fragrance and your likes and dislikes, all done virtually.

When did you join Penhaligon’s and what’s your vision for the company?

I joined Penhaligon’s in May 2014 and my vision has always been to think of customer as being at the heart of everything we do and that means understanding them at present but also anticipating how they will behave in the future. This allows Penhaligon’s to remain relevant and grow the brand in new territories. Honestly, everything we do we try to do based on what we think our customers will want. Data plays a role in our project planning, feedback from our teams in the stores every day and, of course, a dash of gut instinct all help us build the brand for the future.

How do you integrate innovation and preservation in a brand like Penhaligon’s?

The brand has evolved since the very first creation of Hammam Bouquet and we are proud to say that we are not stuck in the past. The past is an important part of our DNA. We do refer to our heritage in all our new creations – for example the upcoming launch of Mr Penhaligon is an ode to our founder, William Penhaligon told through a very contemporary fragrance with vetiver at the base of it. We play with storytelling and the British love of humour which can be felt in our playful descriptions of the fragrances.

Has social media changed the company a lot?

Social media enables us to be closer to our customers, talk to them in real time and really connect with them through our immersive storytelling. It has been a great tool for us to tap into the younger generation and get them to fall in love with the brand. It has been crucial for the past year during the pandemic when stores have been closed and social media remained one of the only channels to talk to our customers through. We are excited for what the upcoming year will bring in terms of the social media landscape and the many exciting opportunities for our brand.

The post Penhaligon’s CEO on the Brand’s Timeless Heritage and Success appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

I'm holding a vial about the size of my thumb, which contains a cotton bud I’ve used to swab the inside of my cheek. It’s hard to believe that inside this tiny container is the key to most of the questions I’ve ever had about myself – my ancestry, my body type and whether I’m at risk of hereditary disease.

These are some of the most commonly asked queries, but did you know you can also find out more about your own personality – whether, for example, you’re an agreeable person? You could find out more about your ideal sporting regimen – what exercises are most effective for you? You could even find out if you were cut out to be an entrepreneur through analysing your success traits.

Within this vial is, of course, a sample of your DNA. Scientists have studied the human genome for decades to understand our genetic make-up. Mapping out the human genome in its entirety was only declared complete in 2003 with the Human Genome Project, which was started in 1990 and involved a massive collaboration between scientists around the world. Nowadays, it takes 18 days to run tests based on your saliva sample, utilising whole exome-sequencing technology, which gives you 500 reports to tell you everything you’ve ever wanted to know – and perhaps some things you didn’t – about yourself.

CircleDNA by Prenetics is one of the leading genetics companies to offer this service, and today I’m meeting its founder, Danny Yeung, to find out how it all began.

The Impact of Covid

It’s an extremely busy time for Yeung; in a year when health has become more important than ever before, sales for the CircleDNA kit have skyrocketed. But, more than that, Yeung has branched out to establish Project Screen, which uses WHO- recommended testing technologies as part of a turnkey solution to enable key industries and sports leagues safely to return to work and play.

“Interestingly enough,” says Yeung, “I’d say there are three to four companies that have really made an impact on Covid-19 – and they all came from genetic testing, because a lot of the laboratory equipment, and the scientific and medical aspects, are highy transferable to Covid testing.”

His company, Prenetics, made the pivot to Covid testing last March, when Yeung received a barrage of messages from close friends asking whether his company offered it. “It was difficult to get a Covid test back then. You had to pay HK$3,000-$4,000 for a Covid test and that was only limited to a few hospitals,” Yeung explains. “It seemed just insane to me, so we had a meeting with senior government officials in Hong Kong to see if we could play a supporting role.”

Operating five test centres in the community, Prenetics has carried out more than 400,000 PCR tests, identifying a few hundred positive cases within the community. At its peak, the company was doing 20,000 tests a day in Hong Kong alone.

Danny Yeung's Pivot to Health

An entrepreneur his whole adult life, health hadn’t been a top priority for Yeung. “It was probably the last thing I thought about,” he says. “I started working before I was 15, and began my first business at 25. You don’t take care of yourself as an entrepreneur, you eat crappy food and you don’t sleep.

“When I moved to Hong Kong in 2010, that was probably my most unhealthy time. This was when I started uBuyiBuy and Groupon – I was working with restaurants, going out a lot, eating a lot and socialising.”

Here, Yeung makes another observation. Health wasn’t a priority for him, but nor was it a priority for many others. “You only think of health and wellness when you’re already able to survive,” he says. “In many aspects, health is a kind of luxury. To have a healthy lifestyle is actually more expensive, correct? So I wasn’t always healthy. I wasn’t always eating properly.

“Health is a journey, right? It’s not an overnight thing,” says Yeung, who only really begun to think about the subject in 2014, around the time he left Groupon and became a father. For his next venture, he wanted to explore health. He didn’t have a background in science or medicine, but he’d developed an interest in genetics testing, finding it a powerful tool for people to take charge of their own health and take necessary steps to live healthier and stronger.

“Health is a journey. It's not an overnight thing”

Danny Yeung

A Health Scare

Yeung himself has first-hand experience. Now aged just 36, he discovered through genetic testing a few years ago that he had an increased risk for colon cancer. “It was a surprise to me, because I don’t have a family history of cancer,” he says. Within the general health-care system, a colonoscopy was only recommended at the age of 50. Realising many years earlier that he has an increased risk means he can actively take steps to reduce it.

“Genetics isn’t a death sentence,” says Yeung. “If you know you have an increased risk, why increase that risk further?” He began to live more healthily, managing his diet, cutting out red meat and exercising more. “I lost 20 pounds. I used to love steak, but once you know this information, you’re motivated to make these changes.”

Although self-care is a huge topic today, it often feels like a luxury. After all, pamper-me moments are only possible if you can afford the time and the money to do it. But shouldn’t health – both physical and mental – be essential and accessible to everyone?

Yeung certainly feels this way. “That’s why we launched CircleDNA,” he says. “I felt that the best form of medicine is actually prevention, not treatment. Because once you have the disease, whether it’s high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or cancer – whatever it is – you want the best doctor and the best treatment, and all of this is very costly. It’s also not the best treatment. Those who are invested in their own health already have this amazing tool that can really enable them to make the right choices for the rest of their life.”

“Those who are invested in their own health already have this amazing tool that can really enable them to make the right choices for the rest of their life”

Danny Yeung

How CircleDNA Works

The procedure is so simple it’s almost shocking. You simply swab your saliva, seal the sample in the vial provided and mail it to Prenetics. You’re given 500 reports within 18 days, all of which you can access through CircleDNA’s user-friendly mobile app.

“When I started looking into this six years ago, that was what fascinated me the most. I was really fascinated that you can do so little and get so much information,” says Yeung. “That’s all due to the genetic-sequencing technology. It’s not new technology, but we’ve been able to make it much more cost-effective. The Human Genome Project cost about US$3 billion to map out, but the cost to individuals has dropped dramatically, to a few thousand Hong Kong dollars.”

The 500 tests span 20 categories, mapping out common health risks, cancers, diseases, dementia and brain health, as well as touching on family planning, ancestry and gender traits. You can learn about planning your diet, nutrition, stress and sleep patterns, as well as your skin type, general wellbeing and sports and fitness regimes. You can even find out your sensitivities to pollution and drugs, and learn about your physical, personality, behavioural and success traits. Are you gifted in music and dance? Well, it’s a mystery no more. Genetic testing has taken out all the guesswork, and put your health and wellbeing back into your own hands.

“You can find out so much about yourself,” says Yeung. “And the great thing is, in terms of health and wellness, it’s such a small cost for a lifetime of information.”

The post Danny Yeung: Investing in Our Own Health appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

The book Knockout is a no-holds-barred biography that covers Mia Kang, her difficult childhood, bullying and toxic relationships, as well as her ascendance in modelling, travels around the world, and the eating disorders and drug addiction that followed. That’s all before she found Muay Thai and a path to wellness.

When Kang won the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search Competition in 2016, it catapulted her to global superstardom. But ultimately, hers is a story of self- redemption and, through Muay Thai, lessons that are physically and mentally learned. Kang has turned her own contemporary evolution into a force for empowering women everywhere, while championing a new consciousness in fashion and fame.

Through shaking off toxic behaviours and healing old wounds, Kang redefined her own perceptions of her body, beauty and life goals. Since then, she’s emerged as a powerful diversity activist in her field, gracing the pages of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. She’s landed campaigns such as Guess and the cover of Self magazine, as well as TV appearances on Megyn Kelly Today, Nick Cannon’s Wild ’N Out and a role as host of Bravo’s Spy Games show.

Here, she talks candidly from Thailand about her journey, sports and modelling, continuing anxieties and the power and pitfalls of social media.

What’s your favourite thing about your body? What would pre-Muay Thai and post-Muay Thai Mia say?

Its strength. My body is my home and (though it took me a long time to realise this) it deserves nothing other than honour. It carries me all over the world, gains and loses weight, gets sick sometimes, goes through all my emotions with me, exercises and kicks ass. It’s really amazing to explore just what our bodies are capable of, especially when we treat them with love and respect. Pre-Muay Thai Mia probably would have tried to say something like “my height”, to try and conceal the fact that she hated almost everything about her body.

If there were one thing you could tell 13-year-old Mia, what would it be?

To not waste your energy trying to fit in. It’s OK to be different. You’re unique. I wish that I’d used the energy I spent trying so hard to fit in on just being myself, and being confident with who I am as a person.

What lessons did you learn growing up in Hong Kong?

So many – there’s nowhere else I’d have rather grown up. First of all, to work hard – Hong Kong is small, and success and all the things that come with it are dangled right in front of you … Whenever people ask me where I’m from, I say, “Hong Kong.” I’ve always felt that that was the case having been born and raised there, and that’s where I have family. At the same time, I’ve always felt like a foreigner because I’m not Chinese and I don’t speak Cantonese. The city is also a melting pot of people from all over the world. Growing up there I learned to be open-minded and inquisitive, and multicultural became “normal”.

Your Sports Illustrated win and magazine shoot is seen as a huge career milestone. How was it life-changing?

Never having lived in America, I don’t think I realised just how significantly Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition was a part of American popular culture. Being selected to work with them, I definitely saw opportunities within the fashion and entertainment industry open up for me. A lot of respect is attached to the brand.

On a personal note, I think it gave me validation. As it was the largest “stage” I’d ever stepped on, I think it made me realise that there were no limits to what I could do. It was the first job I’d booked when I moved to the US. The first year it really kind of validated my appearance and opinions of myself as a model. The second year, I appeared in the magazine after I’d decided I was going to recover from my eating disorders – it really helped me with my own validation of myself as a woman and a person. The magazine was one of the first clients to hire me regardless of my weight gain, which really helped me in my recovery and gave me the confidence to go forward on the rest of my journey.

How well has the international fashion and modelling industry faced up to issues of diversity and representation?

Thanks to models like Ashley Graham, Precious Lee and Paloma Elsesser, we’re now seeing size-diversity in the mainstream media, which is a huge accomplishment. But, having a couple of plus-size girls in a runway show
of dozens, or six sample-size models and one plus-size model on a magazine cover isn’t diversity in my opinion. We should be aiming to represent women of all sizes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a massive improvement, but we still have a really long way to go in terms of not only size, but also race, gender, age and ability.

"I feel like I got a chance to start again. I reset myself, my mentality and my ways to be the woman I always wanted to be”

Mia Kang

Which markets are the most and least progressive?

I think the US is definitely pioneering this fight for diversity and inclusion, Europe is behind and Asia even further behind. In my professional experience, Asia’s beauty standards are by far the most narrow and inflexible … I think that within Asia we’ve quite a lot of work to do in thinking about how we represent our own women. The women of Asia are so incredibly diverse and yet all the media representation seems to say thinner and whiter is more beautiful.

What are your favourite clothing and beauty labels and why?

2020 was a year of reflecting on consumption for me. My industry and, therefore, income was drastically affected and so suddenly all the latest, hottest, trendiest clothes, shoes, bags and watches I thought I needed,
I suddenly didn’t need. Staples and classics over trends. So many small businesses, brands and labels have been struggling and it really also made me realise the value of my dollar and the importance of where I place it.

You’re Eurasian and your modelling career spanned Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea before you went Stateside. What’s your view on Asian beauty standards?

Recently I think there’s been a slight improvement in Asia. The conversation on diversity has been brought up, but by no means is it being discussed enough. Since I’m no longer “sample size”, I’ve made appearances in Asian publications in Hong Kong and Korean Vogue, and I’ve worked for a handful of Asian brands like Thailand’s Pomelo, but in no way is diversity seen regularly or in the mainstream. It’s very much still a rarity. The perception of femininity is almost culturally engrained, so when you don’t fit that box the pressures can be felt so immensely.

And what rule would you put in place in the industry if you could?

No measurements of any kind. Models are booked for their aesthetic and representation, and the clothes are made to fit the person and not the other way round.

In Knockout you expose all your demons, from eating disorders to drug abuse and toxic familial and romantic relationships. Was it tough to share so much in public?

Yes, it was tough on many levels. There’s so much permanence to writing a book. I frequently second-guessed myself whether I really wanted to share all that I did, because maybe that would change people’s perceptions of me. There’s so much in the book that even my family don’t know, and I feared them changing their opinions of me.

I was scared my parents would be upset, and I realised that, because of the cultural differences, my mum might never understand why I wrote my book. I had to consistently remind myself that I had nothing to be ashamed of. The taboos that I grew up learning, I unlearned. This is my truth, and everybody is entitled to their truth.

What mental and psychological impact has Muay Thai had on you?

Initially, I think I really loved how I was seen and treated. As a model you’re treated so preciously, almost like a doll. When I stepped into a Muay Thai gym, it didn’t matter what I did or how I looked. Everything’s just about hard work, heart, skill and knowledge. You find out a lot about yourself when you practise Muay Thai, and I believe this is true of all martial arts. You’re in a continuous dialogue with yourself, because there’s no one else accountable for your progress and your mistakes.

It’s constantly humbling, because you can never know everything – all practitioners are on the same learning curve, learning from one another. You have to put aside your ego in order to access real confidence. Every time I step on the mats I feel like I grow and learn something that I can apply to my everyday life.

How did it feel right after your first real Muay Thai fight, and are you game for another one?

When the fight was over, I instantly felt happy and accomplished, but soon after I was flooded with incredible disappointment. Weirdly enough, I wasn’t proud or happy that I won – the only thing I was thinking was that I could have done better. It was my first fight, it was so emotional and there was so much adrenaline. I wasn’t able to think clearly and perform to what I believe is my potential.

My trainers always tell me that if you know 50 moves and you do five in the fight, that would be awesome. So I felt like I knew 50 but did one! I’d absolutely love to fight again – and I probably will.

Is it still a struggle to stay on a positive path of self-love and not fall into old habits?

One hundred percent. I’m still human, I have bad days, I have insecurities. I still have moments of total self- doubt, I still have days when I feel ugly, I still have intrusive thoughts and deeply ingrained insecurities about my body that I’m working on trying to overcome. My brain spent so long programmed a certain way, it’s going to take time to get rid of old thought patterns completely, if I ever will at all. I’ve accepted the fact that I may spend the rest of my life recovering from eating disorders, and I’m OK with that. I know that I deserve health and happiness, and that’s what I wake up choosing every day.

You’re a big activist on social media, with almost 300,000 Instagram followers. What are your most important causes and do these shift depending on the stage you’re at or how your followers
are reacting?

It completely changes depending on what I’m going through. I try to be genuine with my social media, I post about things that are affecting me at the time. If I post about anxiety or depression, body-image, eating-disorder recovery or feminism, it’s because I’m learning and finding these things useful and applicable to myself … Sometimes, I post out of passion – maybe I noticed in this season’s runway shows there was very minimal diversity, so I’ll post about that. Throughout 2020 I was posting a lot about the racism and xenophobia developing towards Asians because of Covid-19, as I experienced it myself. I try not to think about “likes”, other people’s reactions and approval … Social media is a weird place. The second you start posting for other people, I think you lose your authentic voice.

Instagram never fails to show me hate and negativity that I just don’t see in real, day-to-day life. I mean, you’d never walk past a complete stranger in the street and insult their appearance, say something racist, or tell them what they’re saying is garbage – well, I hope you wouldn’t – but this stuff happens on social media all the time. And as much as you try and not let it affect you, it slowly chips away at you for sure. People definitely don’t like their belief patterns challenged, even if it’s for the better.

If you hadn’t chosen this career, what would you be doing now?

I’d probably be working in finance and living in Asia.

There’s plenty of change afoot in the worlds of fashion and beauty; what’s the most encouraging thing you see?

I feel as if people are becoming more conscious, which is amazing. Sustainability is now a huge conversation in fashion and beauty, and I think that’s amazing! It gives me a lot of hope for the future. People are also listening to people. Social media has become a great way to hear
what people are saying and brands can shift pretty quickly accordingly. Fashion and beauty brands are no longer simply dictating to us what’s going on. Public input is more valid than ever.

The theme of this issue of Prestige is renewal. Do you feel renewed as a person?

Absolutely. I feel like I got a chance to start again. I reset myself, my mentality and my ways to be the woman that I always wanted to be. I never wanted to be an insecure woman who was trying to look how people wanted her to look, who hated the skin she was in, who wasn’t confident with herself and who didn’t respect herself.

I remember watching The Oprah Winfrey Show on Star TV after school in Hong Kong and I’d sit there in absolute awe of Oprah, thinking, “One day, I want to be strong, smart, successful and independent.” There came a point where I realised I wasn’t anywhere close to being that woman, even though that’s maybe what it looked like from the outside. It took me a whole load of wrong turns and hitting rock bottom to get there, but I hope people realise that every day is a chance to reset and renew and take one step closer to being your authentic self and who you want to be.

(Hero Shot: Tania Quintaniall)

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