The Lives of Others

I went with my wife to see a movie last evening and ended up wondering whether I could have survived in East Germany.  Before I went, I had a vague idea that the movie was about some repressive regime and was prepared to be depressed.  I went away with decidedly mixed feelings.  On the one hand, it was heartening to see that some humanity may manage to survive in a repressive regime such as East Germany.  On the other hand, I believe I would not survive in East Germany and probably do not wish to. 

“The Lives of Others” was set in East Germany in 1984, 5 years before the Berlin Wall came down.  Playwright Dreyman was staying out of trouble by toeing the party line.  But Culture Minister Hempf ordered Stasi, the notorious secret police, to put the apartment that he shared with his girl friend, actress Sieland, under surveillance because Hempf coveted Seiland.  

Stasi officer Wiesler was sent to plant listening devices in Dreyman’s apartment and to eavesdrop on them continuously, taking copious notes, including when they came in and out, spoke, ate, slept and had sex.  Dreyman and Sieland remained blissfully oblivious of the surveillance.  

Dreyman secretly wrote an article about suicides in East Germany for the famous West German magazine Der Spiegel.  The Staci suspected Dreyman but could not find the evidence.  Eventually Sieland was pressured to sell out Dreyman.  Just before the Staci moved in to take the incriminating typewrite from Dreyman’s apartment, however, Wiesler removed the typewriter.  But Wiesler could not prevent Sieland from committing suicide when she realised that Dreyman was going to find out that she betrayed him.  

Wiesler, Dreyman and Hempf all survived the coming down of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the unification of Germany.  

The oppressive atmosphere as depicted in the movie, said to be rather realistic, was truly depressing.  You have to bury your humanity completely in order to survive.  I don’t think I could. And I don’t want to. So I won’t.  

East Germany is now gone.  But repressive regimes remain. Is humanity improving?  

Palestinian Pastor Awad

Pastor Awad is in Hong Kong again.  The first time that I met him was in 2011, when he visited Hong Kong.  He gave me a copy of his memoirs, written in English, which was already out of print then.  On Wednesday I went to listen to him again, at the Methodist Church in Wanchai.  This time, a team of volunteers translated his memoirs into Chinese and published it in Hong Kong.  This makes the story much more accessible, at least for the Chinese.  Their efforts are much appreciated. 

We have heard a lot about Palestine from the Jewish point of view, both religious and secular, Zionist and non-Zionist.  We have also heard quite a bit from the Palestinian and Arab point of view, mostly Muslim.  But we have rarely heard from the Palestinian or Arabic Christian point of view.  Many people seem to think or behave as if they do not exist - that all Palestinians and Arabs are Muslims - that the only difference is whether they are fundamentalist or moderate.  Some people believe that there is no distinct Palestinian people - that Palestinians are just Arabs from other countries.  

It seems Palestinians are truly a people.  At least that is what Palestinians believe themselves.  There are 12 million of them, with 70% living outside Israel and Palestine.  And 500,000 of them are Christians: Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, other branches of Protestants, and yet others.  In contrast, it is estimated that there are 15 million Jews in the world, with 6.5 million living in Israel.  

According to Pastor Awad, Palestinians will accept a one-state solution in which Palestinians are accepted as full-fledge citizens of the State of Israel.  They will also accept a two-state solution in which Palestinians have their own state.  However, so far neither solution has been fully realized.  Palestine is recognised as a state by more than one hundred countries, but crucially, not by Israel, USA, and most of the European Union. 

Some Christians, including many pastors, claim that Christians should focus no preaching the Gospel, and that nothing else matters - not poverty, not justice, not other physical needs and certainly not politics.   When I posed this question to Pastor Awad, his response was that Jesus does not just preach the Gospel - that Jesus also heals the sick and care about other needs; that there is no escape from politics; that we should practice good politics and stay away from bad politics; that recognizing people’s rights is good politics while that depriving people of their rights is bad politics.

Pastor Awad also said that we cannot solve all the world’s problems by ourselves and the ultimate solutions must await Jesus’ coming again.  But we do not know when Jesus will return and must be prepared for His return - by doing what we can to follow Him.  

I cannot agree more. 

25 Years of my life

On Friday, I received an award from our university for having worked here for 25 years.  Such awards are given to staff who have accumulated 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 or 40 years of service.  This year, 70+ people have 25 years, like me.  Compared to those who have 30, 35 or even 40 years of service, mine wasn’t so remarkable at all. 

Prior to this year, I have skipped these events.  I decided to go this year because this is most likely my last chance to attend such an event.  I didn’t actually tell anyone that I was going.  But I knew that some of them knew about it and were planning to attend.  I expected some photo-taking.

When I went on the stage to receive the award, my team of ~20 stood up, hoisted billboards and shouted, creating quite a commotion.  I wasn’t expecting it and was really quite pleasantly surprised.  

Then my superior gave me a bunch of flowers (of types that I could not recognize).  That’s another surprise.  Many other colleagues also came up to shake my hand.  

Some colleagues made me a nicely shaped laser-cut tree, reminding me of my days researching on manufacturing automation and geometric modelling, decades ago.  In those days I thought that was most exciting.  Little did I know what was to come. 

There is also a nicely-shaped real-life bonsai tree.  I will put it next to the one that I am trying to shape myself.  I am hoping to shape it a little, without killing it.  

Evidently many people were impressed by my colleagues’ enthusiasm.  They are not the only group to make a commotion, but they are among the loudest.  

Before I got seriously into service-learning, I wasn’t expecting to stay at the university for so long.  Even now, 25 years does not seem so remarkable, although this is, by far, my longest job.  But the last 10+ years of service-learning have given me a lot of opportunities to do challenging and meaningful things, make a lot of friends inside and outside of the university, go to a lot of exciting places, watch a lot of students grow up and change, link up my job with my faith, and discover a lot about myself.  

Come to think of it, the 25 year award presents a reminder of the good time that I have had. I am very grateful, to my students, colleagues, collaborators, friends, family and ultimately, God.  

My Last Marathon?

I ran my first full marathon since I turned 60, in the 2019 Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon today.  For the past 3 years, I was not able to register to run because there were just too many people applying.  So when I was able to get in, I tried to prepare as hard as I could.  For past years, I would run 20 kilometres per week in the months leading up to the marathon.  This year I ran 40 kilometres per week.  I feel fitter than ever before.  

But there were also some ominous portents.  I started to develop pains in the big knuckles in my big toes.  Most likely due to the increased running, and perhaps also related to my severe flat feet.  One week before the marathon, I stopped running altogether, to give my toes time to heal.  They did get better, so I was not too worried this morning.  

For the first 21 kilometers, I actually felt reasonably good.  The toes were not hurting too much, at least not enough to interfere with my running.  Then starting around 24 kilometres, just before getting into the Cheung-Tsing Tunnel, my ankles started to hurt.  I decided to stop to do some stretching, to relieve the pain.  And to prevent cramping, which was my major problem in previous marathon.  

Then the pain would come faster and get worse.  I basically had to stop every kilometre or so, sometimes even shorter, to stop and stretch.  The pain was just too much, mainly in the ankles, but also the toes, the sole of the feet, the lower back, the upper back, the neck and shoulders.  If I stretch the back of the legs, the front would start to cramp, …

I got slower and slower.  I dreaded running into the Western tunnel. It was long, stuffy, dark, and the road was dirty and slippery.   I decided to run out of it as quickly as possible.  Miraculously, I ran through the tunnel and then up to the elevated highway on the Hong Kong side without stopping.  But as soon as I got to the top of the highway, my feet were screaming so loud with pain that I had to stop to stretch, and repeat the run-stretch-run routine again.  

As soon as we turned into Lockhart Road, I decided to ignore the pain, which seemed to have eased, and run to the finish line, where my wife was waiting.  

So, I train hard to be fit to run.  But my feet hurt when I train hard. When my feet hurt,   I cannot run.  But if I don’t train hard, I am not fit enough to run well.  Either way, I don’t seem to be able to win.  What can I do?  Perhaps it is really time to call a stop to marathon running, and just run for fun?

People at Work in Tanzania

In Dar es Salaam I found a lot of people selling on the streets. There are, of course, many other people doing other kinds of work, in addition to selling things.  Such as a man delivering tires on a motorcycle.

Motorcycle-taxi drivers waiting for customers. 

A man delivering a heavy sack of something.  

A man delivering bread on a bicycle. 

Delivering crates on a bicycle.  

A man fixing a bicycle.  

Bus conductors, who take up dangerous positions to drum up business. 

People begging in traffic. 

Parking attendants.  

A young lady delivering take out.  

Their mayor working hard in a meeting with his staff and a visiting professor, discussing potential community service projects. 

Professors working hard, discussing possible collaboration in community service projects.

People who are just too tired. 

There is dignity in working hard to make a honest living.  

A Story of cashews from Tanzania

We served our guests over Lunar New Year with cashews I brought back from Tanzania.   They are big and high quality.

Many people have never heard of cashew nuts from Tanzania, even though Tanzania is one of the largest producers of cashews in the world.  But you might have eaten cashews from Tanzania without knowing it.  It is because more than 90% of them are shipped in raw form to India and Vietnam to be processed.  

Why? It is because Tanzania lacks the facilities to process them.  The farmer receives little more than one US dollar per kilogram.  Yet in Hong Kong we pay roughly 20 US dollars for one kilogram.  The bulk of the profit goes to the Indian and Vietnamese traders and processors.  This time it is not the developed countries exploiting the developing countries; but one developing country exploiting another. 

Worse.  It leaves Tanzania at the mercy of the processing countries when there is a glut of harvests, or when the market shifts.  Apparently there was a big harvest last year and the usual Vietnamese buyers are not buying from Tanzania this year.  In the mean time, the storage facilities in Tanzania can only store the raw produce for one year.  So the country is some desperate to find buyers.  

Recently the country used its army to buy the products at a guaranteed price from its farmers, to ensure that the produce was not left unsold and subsequently spoiled in the countryside.  The country is also working hard to build processing plants.  For some reason it has not been very successful. 

Such is the plight of many developing countries.  It is not always a lack of resources.  But a lack of the technology, the infrastructure, the distribution channels and the business acumen to take advantage of the resources that are lacking.  

In the mean time, my stock of Tanzania cashews is stunning low and I need to go to Tanzania again.  I should learn to process and distribute cashews.  

History and Culture in Sheung Wan

On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, some people are back to work, while many more seem to away still.  My wife and I decided to take advantage of the day to prowl around Sheung Wan.  Our first stop was Lin Heung Restaurant (蓮香樓), which was said to be closing at the end of the month.  By 9:30 am, it was full of people.  Worse, there were dozens of people milling around or standing at the back of people eating, themselves waiting for a table.  We beat our retreat quickly.  

One reason I keep coming back is the nice paintings and calligraphy.  But today is not the right time to enjoy them.  

Next stop was Tai Kwun (大館), the old Central Police Station and Jail.  

It has a lot of history but was closed for years.  Now it has been nicely tidied up.  Ho Chi Minh (胡志明), the leader of the Vietnamese Communists in its war of independence in the 1940s and 50s, as well as the Vietnamese War in the 1960s and early 70s, was once jailed here in 1931.  

Peter Godber (葛柏), a notorious Chief Superintendent of the Hong Kong Police arrested for corruption in 1974, was once led up these stairs to be incarcerated in the jail here.  His case led directly to the creation of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), an establishment which did a lot to clean up the government of Hong Kong.  That is something we are very proud of.  Unfortunately, some developments since 1997 seem to be weakening the results of that hard work.  

From there, we moved up Tai Ping Shan to the Jamia Mosque.  

It was clean, quiet and welcoming.  The people were friendly and spoke Cantonese well.  

Giving us a look into the Muslim community in Hong Kong.  

We then moved westward to the Jewish Ohel Leah Synagogue.  In contrast to the mosque, the synagogue was closed to visitors, locked behind fences.  A security guard queried us when we tried to take pictures of the synagogue, in a polite way.  He told us that we can approach the synagogue to request for a visit.  

Moving down the mountain, we arrived at the Gong Fun Temple (廣福義祠).  

For a long time, starting more than a hundred years ago, it took care of people who were poor and sick, people who died in Hong Kong away from home, and other people in need. 

Now some memorial tablets (牌位) of the dead remain in the temple.  But no new ones are allowed, even though many people are willing to pay very large amounts to have their tablets set up there.  

Moving back east, we dropped by the very busy Man Mo Temple (文武廟).  It was filled with people and smoke from the burning incenses.  We didn’t stay long this time.  We had been here many times before, when it was less crowded so that we could study it more carefully.  This time, we simply want to get a feeling how busy it can be.  

Some people, all dressed up in brightly coloured clothes in a style popular many decades ago, were having their pictures taken amid all the hurly-burly.  It felt rather incongruent; but perhaps it was just me.  Those people seemed to be rather enjoying themselves.  

Towards the end, we passed by a Cha Chang Tang famous for Hong Kong-style milk tea (港式奶茶), with dozens of people lining up to get in.  Most of them seemed to be tourists from Chinese Mainland.  This kind of scene is now very common across Hong Kong.  

Such is the rich and diverse history of Hong Kong, all within a short walking distance, if you know where to look.