Ingrid has been a busy bee updating our blog, while I have been lagging behind. So first of all an instant version of what she has written: just add boiling water.
15 October 2014
You name it, HK has it
All religions are present and highly visible in HK. The temples stand out amid all the glass and concrete towers that characterize the place.
14 October 2014
Norwegian visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong
The Director of Areopagos, Raag Rolfsen, has been at TFS to attend a board meeting and also as guest lecturer at the School of Divinity at HK University. Raag would no doubt protest that he is no professor, but he does have his PhD, which in HK eyes earns him the title. Those of us without a doctorate feel slightly undressed in such academic company.
Raag’s topic was “Can religion supply a foundation for a society beyond weightless freedom and Consanguinity?” He argued that it could, using Levinas’ notion of an ethics of face to face vulnerability and attempting to show its relevance in a HK context given the recent confrontations between police and demonstrators in Central. He sketched the development of democratic liberalism and its decline face to face with ethnic nationalism and consumerism. His opponent, Dr. Kung Lap Jan, pertinently replied that Hong Kongers would very much like to have a bite of liberal democracy before it disappeared. There was a lively discussion. Alas, there was not the time to debate all the points raised by Raag and that popped up after his presentation.
Afterwards we were invited on a tour around the campus by Timothy, a local volunteer at TFS and himself a student at Chung Chi College. The church there is really impressive. We ate a decent dinner at one of the canteens and took various buses and lifts ( the campus is spread over a steep slope), ending up on the terrace of an ice cream bar at the top of United College with a spectacular view over the valley and across the bay as dusk turned into evening. Steffen decided he could well become a student: the subject would not matter so much, if only he could find someone to pay the fees.
Exciting fruit
14 October 2014
Ingrid has bought some exotic looking fruit called Thailand Logan (among other things: a rose by any other name…). It is bigger than a gooseberry. Inside the flesh is a light, greyish white with a black seed – hence the alternative name Tiger’s Eye. The taste is mild in contrast to the name. We served it in slices of papaya with limejuice and maple syrup dribbled over. Not bad!
Norwegian evening
14 October 201
On Wednesday evening we invited students from LTS home to us. Ingrid showed slides and talked about Norway. While we set out the soft drinks and waffles, sour cream and jam, the students interviewed each other and what they liked to do in their free time. Afterwards they presented the person they had interviewed. It was a chance for them to practice their English and aroused much laughter. One from Thailand, Sudipatt (for simplicity’s sake shortened to Pat) had hardly any English but exploited this to the utmost. Afterwards I mentioned him to Rose, his teacher, and she confided he knew more than he let on.
We were a mixed bunch: apart from us four volunteers one of the students wsa Norwegian, the remainder were from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Hong Kong itself. One student protested she had no free time while another said what she liked to do in her leisure time was talk. Several had left children behind to study here. Thank heaven for Skype and Facetime!
Ingrid closed the evening by reading a Norwegian folk tale. Arnstein, the Norwegian student, had a bad attack of homesickness. No, it was the waffles, not the tale.
Reichelt’s library
13 october 2014
Since Reichelt’s entire library came back after being digitalized half a year ago, it has remained packed in cardboard boxes in the study room at the Christian centre. Ingrid volunteered to unpack them and return the books and periodicals to the shelves.
The challenge is where to start and in what order to proceed. Ruth and Karl Thelle should know. There is a stack of papers, a sheet for each book with the author, other details and a brief résumé. Has Ruth read the lot?
There are copies of Tao Fong Shan Magazine, the most fragile preserved in separate envelopes, dating back to 1935. On the cover is an English contents list. Some of the articles sound fascinating but they are in Chinese.
The archives contain an awful lot of history going back to the earliest days of TFS on this hill and photos showing how little the buildings have changed over the years. Sha Tin itself though is a radically different place: no more rice paddies, the river estuary shrunk in and the valley bottom and sides covered in traffic machines and high rise blocks.
Finally Ingrid decided to take matters into her own hands and put the books and periodicals back onto the shelves as she thought best. That at least makes this invaluable material available to anyone who wants to study it.
More brolly stuff
20 October
I left off when the Executive had cancelled the talks with the students. This resulted in a boost in the number of students occupying Admiralty and other Central areas as well as in Mong Kok. Since then events have taken a turn for the worse and we are now three weeks into the face off.
The police have made several efforts to clear main arteries so that traffic can return to normal. Demonstrators have then moved back in again. Police have used pepper spray and batons. One activist was taken away and beaten in turn by seven officers while on the ground, his hands tied behind his back. This, unfortunately for the officers, was videoed and shown on TV. Later when in the police station, he was beaten once more. His lawyer has filed complaints against the officers and demanded to know why the offenders have not been arrested. Other complaints were made about police brutality. Eventually the officers concerned were suspended.
By and large with some exceptions the demonstration at Admiralty outside the government offices has been peaceful, in contrast to Mong Kok. Mong Hok is a different area, a more working class area with many small shops and businesses that are really placed at risk by the disruption to their trade. Moreover, the triads would like their turf back. Some demonstrators have accused the police of collaborating with these gangsters, who stir up trouble hoping the police will clear the area. The student organizations have declared there is a danger of radical elements taking the movement out of their control with these urging participants to charge police lines. Many demonstrators have been arrested and five officers have been wounded with brollies. Cheung CY, the chief executive, claims, in line with Beijing, that foreign agents are behind the protests.
A positive development is that the government has once more agreed to meet the students organizations and have appointed a well known university professor to chair the talks. He has promised to be fair and impartial.
My favourite columnist in The South China Morning Post argues that the discontent among students and the young is due to their being economically marginalised. Economic inequality is in many ways a more serious issue than the lack of democracy, although one might argue that both are forms of exclusion. 1.3 million Hong Kongers live below the poverty level while the 34 top billionaires are good for ca 80% of HK’s GDP and HK does badly on the Gin coefficient, the international unit of measurement of inequality.