Pink Dolphins!! Sunday 21st March 2010

This morning I saw pink dolphins...it was amazing! The species, I think, are unique to this area. If you get to Tai O which is on the south of Lantau Island, you can get on a motorboat which takes you to a special marine reserve off the coast where they are kept since they are very endangered. The pollution of the water in this area, combined with intensive fishing, has reduced the numbers somuch that the remaining dolphins must live and be monitered in this reserve. However, it was amazing to see them come to the surface right by the boat. Their skin (?) is a really pale pink colour, almost white and so they are really easy to spot.It was an incredible sight to sit and watch them so close by! However, since I am incompetant, I did not get any photos of them, but Rosie took a video on her camera and I hope to be able to share it with you when I get it from her so you can see!

On the way back to the island, the boat takes you for a short ride around Tai O which is a fishing village on stilts..all the houses are built on wooden stilts and there are bridges connecting the different parts of the town. It looked sort of Venetian however ever so less grand, in fact not grand at all, extremely basic as you can see from the photos. However, it is amazing to see them going out their work like drying fish and squid and hanging them out to dry on fishing lines over the water and fishing over the back of their houses!

It was extremely surreal to think that this village exists only a bus ride and a ferry crossing away from Hong Kong Island and indeed, on the same island, as Hong Kong Disneyland! I am really glad I got the chance to see it and it was a perfect way to spend a beautiful, warm March Sunday morning!

Lantau Island – Christian Zheng School – March 20th 2010

Christian Zheng school is an educational rehabilitation centre for teenage young offenders in Hong Kong located on Lantau Island. A volunteering opportunity came up for a group of us to be able to go and help out at the centre, I was lucky enough to be free to be able to go and spend the morning chatting and joining in with the students as they went about their Saturday chores. It was an amazing opportunity to see what a difference rehabilitation centres are able to make to people and the progress and the benefits being given a second chance has been for these students. They were polite, kind, so friendly, and so welcoming to us as we played games and sang songs and helped them to tidy their assigned areas.


As well as educating them through daily lessons, there was also a strong emphasis on equipping them with life skills enabling them to think for themselves and make the right choices. There was a focus on physical activities, war games, shooting, basketball as well as getting them to make different things for the centre e.g. work in the garden, make a basketball court, put a roof over the library. Such activities were designed to give them pride and community and the success of such activities was clearly seen throughout my time there.



Although we were only there for a few hours and I feel as if our impact was minimal, I came away with such a positive feeling about the place and I hope to be able to return on the next trip that is organized for us to go next month as it will be so nice to see the students again.


As we were on a tour around the school, one of the teachers explained the motto of the headmaster which I think will stay with me for a long time. Excuse the less than elegant phrasing but it has been translated from Chinese but I hope you will get the idea, ‘in life there is no success or fail, only giving up and not giving up.’ As I am realizing more and more, the end result is not important, it is the attitude and the approach which is the determining factor that will count in the end.


Thank you Katy Jones for organizing such a thought provoking and worthwhile opportunity to get involved and see yet another side to Hong Kong.

English Funfair – Wednesday 10th March & Wednesday 17th March 2010

You may have guessed from the slight lack of blog posts this side of Christmas that things have sort of taken me over this year, and I have sadly neglected writing about all of the things I really want to tell you all about. These few months at school have been the busiest yet and while I am enjoying every second (well almost every second..!) I hope it will start to continue to slow down just enough for me to stop and have a chance to write about some of what has been taking up my time.
A big project has been the two English Funfair days held at the school on two consecutive Wednesdays. It is common in Hong Kong to hold English funfair days as a way to get the students to speak English while playing games in a fun and informal environment. (Ha, I sound like a promotional video for funfairs but that’s sort of what they are!) Whilst in orientation in the summer, we all helped to run one at one of the training schools, however, that was simply being assigned one group of children and helping to run one game with another CNET – organizing your own funfair was quite another ball game!
However, as ever, I was able to tap in to some wonderful resources at Chatteris, who provide both the expertise at farming out funfair resources of all shapes and sizes to all of us to run funfairs throughout the year. Furthermore, my school had held funfairs in previous years and so were quite relaxed (worryingly so I thought) at the prospect.

For those of you who don’t really have a clue what I am talking about, an English Funfair in a nutshell is a day where you set up a number of funfair games (e.g. splat the rat, shooting, archery, bowling etc) and the children come and play. All the games are in English, and the students must speak in English throughout the funfair. The English Ambassador Team (a group of 20 P4 – P6 students who have weekly meetings with me) each ran a game helped by other students, parent helpers and also other teachers from the school. We ran 6 similar sessions, 3 on each day for each year group at the time so we could tailor the questions and the games for differing abilities. All the students had a stamp sheet as an incentive to play as many games as possible and a large number of watching teachers ensured that no child was wandering aimlessly around the hall at any moment! In true Hong Kong style, (and NO thanks to me) it ran completely seamlessly and punctually, with the students forming orderly lines at the beginning, during and even at the end of their sessions to get a prize.
The second day saw my English Ambassadors playing the games instead of running them with their own year group. However, some of the Ambassadors, (either power mad or thoroughly bored with the games) actually came to beg me not to play but to carry on running their games! I would have gladly let them but they were told to play with their year group, however, I turned many a blind eye, when I came across an ambassador on the wrong side of their table telling a group of students how to play their game..

It was a manic manic manic day. There were lost resources, a recalled game due to a health and safety violation (helicopter challenge was replaced swiftly by the somewhat safer ball toss) after one of the school governors almost got hit with one of the flying parts…, lost stamp cards…Michael Cheung in P4 had to be called twice after his stamp card was handed to someone else, and I practically had to pull the ambassadors and helpers away from the crazy dress up stand where they rushed after every session had finished!, but all in all nothing drastically went wrong. I sang many karaoke songs with the students at the beginning and end of each session…the enthusiasm for ‘if you are happy and you know it’ seriously waned at both ends after about the 5th time...but I loved the students getting the rare opportunity to have the freedom to run around with their friends comparing the number of stamps they had. It was so nice to count down with them at the start of each session and see them all run in all directions when we shouted go.

Here are just a few of the many, many photos the school took over the two days...

Helicopter Challenge


Blindfold Basketball


Ring Toss




Penalty Shoot Out


Golf


My Teacher in Charge, Cecily, Heidi and the NET teacher, Amy


Ring Toss


Archery


And a rather manic looking Miss Hannah

Cycling in the New Territories - Sunday 14th March

Last Sunday, I went with Morven and Rosie up to Tai Wai in the New Territories (situated on the way to my school) to go cycling for the afternoon. We met Morven’s Hong Kong friend, Tracy, and a couple of her friends at the MTR station and she who showed us where to go to hire bikes etc. It was such a nice relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon! The route is a proper cycle path along a river so it is perfectly flat and off the road which, for me, makes for perfect cycling conditions!! However, it is important to remember, once again, that, when in Hong Kong, whatever you are doing, you are probably doing alongside hundreds of other people, which was exactly the case here. The cycle paths were rather hectic (very much like the pavements and the roads…in fact everywhere in Hong Kong!) and you had to skirt in and out of people if you wanted to get anywhere fast! However, luckily we were not in too much of a rush and managed to stop and take in the views and the relative quiet away from the noise of the city. After a few hours cycling, we reached Tai Po, a town further north along the cycle path and were able to leave the bikes there and then jump back on the MTR further up on the same line back home, which was also amazingly convenient!



It was a rare chance to be in the New Territories at the weekend and it was really good to see a huge mixture of people cycling from the serious athletes speeding past on their racing bikes to the large groups of friends ambling along together (Can you amble on a bike? – you get what I mean anyway). I may even be inspired to dig out my own bike when I get home although I fear it is a little bit too hilly in Surrey for me!

Dad comes to Visit!

It was such a treat to have my Dad come and visit. Clearly he had read my blog and hear about what a fantastic host I am, haha! and so decided to join in the Hong Kong fun! It was simply wonderful to have him and made going back to school after the Chinese New Year holiday so much easier since every evening we met up to do some exploring and go for yummy food. After a slow weekend, in which Dad managed to get food poisoning ( I think too much local food too quickly is never a good idea - I hardly have it and I have been here half a year), he was soon recovered and raring to go. Actually, I managed to drag him on a harbour boat tour and a 2 hour hike during the weekend all while he still could not eat anything - looking back I could have eased off on the tourist leader role! I am sorry Dad!

Highlights of his trip in a nutshell...the excelsior buffet breakfast...no he was not staying there but we found ourselves at the hotel booking a trip one morning and could not resist...easily the greatest breakfast ever..although we steered clear of the dumplings, noodles and all things Asian and opted instead for the museli eggs and juice making counter...amazing! A beautiful pre dinner boat cruise of Victoria Harbour which had beautiful views! Happy Valley races on Wednesday evening (where I placed my first bet and won!) an extremely misty and foggy Peak! (which is the highest point in Hong Kong where you look over the Island) however we could have been anywhere, you could not see further than 1 metre around you! and many evenings spent walking around Hong Kong and lovely drinks and suppers. It was really nice but really sad to go to the airport to see him leave last Saturday morning and my weeks now are lacking in comparison!
Dad, It was a pleasure to have you come and visit - thank you! Hong Kong misses you and enjoy the photo of the finish line in Victoria Park for the Hong Kong Marathon!

School Walkathon - Sunday 28th February, 2010

Happy Chinese New Year!! 2010 is the Year of the Tiger following the year of the Ox last year and I think people here are pretty hopeful about what this year holds, there have been lots of tiger souvenirs available over the New Year holiday.

On the first weekend back after the holiday, our school held a walkathon from City One to Sha Tin to raise money to the school. It was a beautifully warm day, just like summer! It was nice to see the children outside of the school week, who came with their parents and were really excited by the event. Some of the staff brought their children as well which was really nice to see! One of the teacher's children, Jophil, was 2 was able to tell me his name and his age in English which was amazing, as, in fact, were all of the childrens English, even those whose parents did not even teach English. It really is amazing at the pre school level and shows the focus right from the beginning of thier education on English - my teacher in charge joked that it begins, even earlier, with the mothers singing and telling thier children English stories in the womb...although knowing what I do about Hong Kong parents, I take this in all seriousness, as I think, do the mothers! However, whatever their tactics, I think it is something to be both admired and emulated, especially considering my struggle to grasp even the basics of their or indeed any language by the end of my education.

Anyway, as usual, I digress. The walkathon, in true Hong Kong style lasted the best part of an hour! with multiple breaks for traffic lights etc in the beginning part as we crossed rather a lot of roads to reach the river where we walked along to Sha Tin. However, what it lacked in length and scenery, it made up for in lovely conversation with students, parents and teachers, having the opportunuity to chat with people and learn more about the children and the staff away from the rush of the school day. This is a photo of me with one such student, who is a member of a P4 class, and is so shy and quiet you would never know he is there however this photo arrived in my email inbox this week from him with the accompanying note, - 'This is my first picture with a foreigner and I am very happy.'