Nowadays it is not common to find pomelo peel as food in Hong Kong. In the old days it was much more common, when society in general was less affluent. People try to make use of as much as a pomelo as possible.
My wife has been experimenting with a number of recipes lately. First of all, one has to slice off the green, hard, thin rind. That is my job.
Then remove the peel, technically the pith, carefully - so that the peel comes off in big pieces. That is also my job.
The flesh is delicious.
Then my wife takes over.
She soaks it in water, cooks it, and repeats the process a number of times, to get rid of the bitterness.
Then it can be used to make a number of dishes. One of which is steamed pork with pomelo peel and shrimp paste 蝦醬柚皮篜排骨.
It is really good, and brings back fond memories. Such dishes are not easy to find these days. If we want to eat them, we often have to do it ourselves.
Village Earth Community Centers - Lakeside, Youth School, Aziza
Finally, we were ready, and flew to Phnom Penh on Sunday, June 26, 2010. On Monday morning, we sent out 3 teams, one to each of the 3 community centres run by Village Earth. One went to Lakeside School, in the middle of a slum on the western shore of 90 hectare Boeng Kak Lake in the middle of the city. (One hectare is roughly the size of a football field.) When we got there in 2010, the lake was already 2/3 filled up. By the following year, it was completely filled up. Gradually buildings and roads appeared on it. By now (2020) there is no trace of Boeng Kak Lake. Most people who lived in the slums have also been driven away, to give way to the more affluent new tenants.
A second team went to the Youth School, one kilometre north of Lakeside. The community centres offer mainly English lessons and computer lessons. Our task was to help them set up or improve their computer and networks, and to run workshops on digital storying and other needed skills. From a distance, the houses on stilts looked idyllic. Upon closer look, many of the “houses” were no more than sheds barely bigger than a bed.
Many little kids run around completely naked, with no shoes, and no clothes. A man swayed tranquilly in a hammock - above a carpet of trash. It was surreal. Perhaps, one could get used to even really bad situations.
We taught the youths image theatre, and asked them to look for real life stories to tell. And we taught them how to take photos, edit the photos, and to use the photos to tell their story.
One of the stories ran like this: a man drinks, beats his wife, the children cry, …, they make up, …, a happy family again. We saw different versions of the same story - an indication of its pervasiveness.
A third team went to Aziza, another community learning centre at the back of the notorious White Building near the Independence Monument. The White Building was built in the 1960s, originally known as the Municipal Apartments, with an innovative design that attracted many artists. Tenants fled during the Genocide in the 1970s, when an estimated 2 million perished - in horrible circumstances.
Since then it went into decline and became known for poverty, drug use and prostitution. I wouldn’t have dared to walk through the slum to the centre by myself had I not been led by our friends. But subsequently I came through numerous times without incident. The tenants there were actually quite friendly. Most of the kids attend public schools for half a day. They then come to these community centres to spend the rest of the day. They seemed to genuinely like the centers, and some practically and literally lived in the center. Whenever we can, we taught them to take photographs with digital cameras, edit the photos, and put together stories with the photos. Kids love computers and cameras, just like kids elsewhere.
White Lotus
One team went to a very special ministry, White Lotus. It was run by two American lady missionaries, Sherry Lile and Debbie Tetsch. They reached out to abused girls, many of whom young girls forced to become sex workers, subsequently rescued. Some of the girls had been sold by their mothers multiple times. White Lotus set up a place for the girls to live, taught them practical skills, and set up small businesses so that they can make a proper living. It is very challenging work, with a not insignificant amount of risk. They demonstrated tremendous courage, enduring dedication, infinite patience, and abundant love. Our team tried to help them with some computer work, and taught the girls some crafts. The girls were very smart, and learned fast. The organization could also use some help in making use of the Internet - to promote their cause and events, and to distribute the handicrafts made by the girls, for example. We helped whatever we could.
A side story. On Sunday, 4th July, we were on a 6-hour bus ride returning from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. Two of our students have gotten sick, running fevers, with diarrhoea. The girl was vomiting, very weak, and seemed to be getting worse. By 6 PM, and still 2 hours away from Phnom Penh, we felt we need to take them to see a doctor. But we were really not sure where to go, not being familiar with the Cambodia medical system, and at such a late hour on a Sunday. Stephen called Sherry. She referred us to the SOS, a clinic run by Americans, which happens to be just 2 blocks away from our hotel. So I took the 2 students to the clinic as soon as we arrived at Phnom Penh at 8 PM, with help from 3 other students, and sent the other students to have dinner. The clinic was clean and tidy, and very well-equipped. The doctor was very professional. He felt, as we did, that the students had food-poisoning. He ordered a series of tests, and prescribed anti-biotic for both of them. The girl had to be re-hydrated through intravenous drip. Later that evening, my colleague Vincent came with 3 other students to take our place, so that Stephen can go back to the hotel to rest. Eventually, after about 5 hours, we all came back to the hotel. Both students recovered and came back to Hong Kong safely. We were all very grateful to Sherry and Debbie for the much needed and just-in-time help. And we told them so. We have since became good friends and collaborated on many projects.
Emmanuel Christian School
The Emmanuel Christian School in Phnom Penh was a primary school for 150 underprivileged children who used to make their living on the garbage mountain. The school was housed in an old former leather factory with gaping holes in the roof, in a village right next to the Stung Meancheay Garbage Dump. It was then run by a Hong Kong NGO, the International Christian Concern. The school charged no fees, and even provided the children with uniforms. Even then, many kids missed out. Some had to work on the garbage dump.
The children at the school were very well disciplined. They were having their regular classes in their classrooms when we arrived. They quickly took their own chairs, filed out of their classrooms, set their chair down, and in just a few minutes, all 150 children were seated in very neat rows. Amazing.
The children learned very quickly the songs and the movements that our students taught them. They learned to play the games we taught them in very little time, and follow the instructions very well - even when they were enjoying themselves, laughing and screaming loudly. They had obviously been taught well. Not just in discipline, but also in English, and in Christian principles. The ICC also ran an international school in the city. Some of the teachers at Emmanuel are seconded from the international school. And when the kids graduate from Emmanuel Primary School, they could enrol for free at the secondary section at the international school. The school had since been returned to its original sponsor, who greatly improved the building and expanded the ministry. We are continuing to work with the school.
Rhenish School
A team of us spent 2 days in Rhenish School, an orphanage then ran also by the International Christian Concern about an hour and a half’s drive outside of Phnom Penh. The last stretch of the road was unpaved, and full of potholes. The school was in a village of rice fields. The rainy season has just started, the fields were filled with rain water, and the young shoots of the rice were being planted. It made very pretty pictures.
Rice is the staple food here. Our meals consisted of rice in soup. The food was simple, fresh, and tasty. I was told an extra meat dish has been added because we were guests. And the kids let us get our food first. The kids could eat a lot, and very quickly. Our hosts were afraid we might not have enough if we did not go first - we could believe that. All our food were cooked using big pots on these 4 charcoal-fired stoves. They remind me of the orphanage in DingXi, Gansu. There they used coal, because coal is plentiful in China. Here charcoal was the cheapest fuel. Another reason was that there was no electricity supplied. This orphanage ran a generator for lighting purpose. And the generator was shut down in the evening after 8:30PM, when the kids went to bed. There was also no piped water. The villagers collected rain water using huge water pots under the roof. They also drew their water from the local water hole behind the orphanage - it was essentially also rain water. Collecting rain water was far from sufficient for an orphanage with 90 kids. So the orphanage dug 2 wells, costing several hundred US dollars each. Fortunately, because it rains a lot here, they did not have to dig very deep to reach the water table. Such was the primitive situation in which the kids live. But, for them, this was paradise compared to what they were used to. Many used to make their living picking trash from the infamous garbage mountain. Some had stolen. There were 4 brothers here whose father ran away, whose sister died, and whose mother sold fruits in Phnom Penh but was often sick and could not make enough money to feed them. Here they had a warm bed, clean clothes, nutritious food, caring teachers, an education, a future, and God - all for free.
Anjali House
One team was sent as far away from Phnom Penh as Siem Reap, near Ankor Wat. The team served at Anjali House, a charity serving vulnerable children. Anjali House specialises in using photography and gardening to nurture creativity, telling the story of the children through photos taken by the children and entering contests.
Ankor Wat and What It Means
When the service projects were completed, we took the whole team to visit Ankor Wat. It is a temple complex, said to be the largest religious monument in the world. In the 12th century it was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which was then the dominant political entity in the region. With a population estimated at over 1 million, it was thought to be the largest city in the world until the industrial revolution. The architecture, the art, the history and the culture represented is very impressive. It also causes you to ponder many questions. The Khmer Empire was obviously very powerful, rich and cultured, in the 12th century. Fast forward to the modern day. At one point after the Genocide in the 1970s, the country could not find enough books in the Khmer language to stock a small national library. How and why did the great Khmer Empire decline to such an extent, in just a few hundred years, in so many aspects - political power, economic vitality, and cultural richness? Fortunately, there are on-going indications of recovery in many aspects recently.
Building a Foundation and an Offshore Base
This time in Cambodia we ran our most ambitious range of projects, in terms of diversity, up to that point in time. In the past, in Hong Kong, Hubei and Gansu, we targeted a specific community each time, and most projects were directly related to IT: programming, robotics, etc. In Cambodia we found so much need among so many diverse groups - we felt compelled to do as much as we could. We ended up serving multiple groups at the same time, or one after another, in so many different ways. In the process we learned to be adaptable, and trust our students to work and solve problems on their own. We learned to take calculated risks. Our experience from this first trip to Cambodia became the foundation for so many international projects.
Little did we know at the time, but soon after we returned to Hong Kong, we had a chance to present to our management the Cambodia project in the form of a syllabus for an academic subject - and found that it compared favourably to a regular 3-credit academic subject in terms of time, effort, and rigour. It then became one of the key pieces of evidence that gave confidence to our management to decide to make service-learning a required academic subject for all undergraduate students at PolyU.
Gradually Cambodia became an offshore base for us. Satisfied partners introduced us to more partners and needs. We have since developed many more projects, collaborated with many more NGOs, and brought along many other teams from PolyU. None of these could have been envisioned at the time.
It was a sunny 30 degrees C this morning. I was stewing in my sweat after running for 17 kilometers. I probably lost 4 pounds from the sweating, which I will regain in a day after drinking enough water.After taking a shower, I was dead tired, and fell asleep on the sofa for an hour.When I woke up, I didn’t want to get up.My feet were so sore I didn’t want to put them on the floor.I tried to massage my feet.But they started to cramp, so I had to keep them straight.They hurt, but at least it was a good kind of hurt. Almost 3 hours after running, I finally regained enough energy to go for lunch and grocery shopping with my wife.
So why do I do it?
First of all, sweating is good for my body. Sweating so profusely feels clammy and smells foul. But I was told it improves circulation, and somehow cleanses my body of some undesirable stuff, although I am not sure what that stuff is. I do know that I feel extremely tired but relaxed afterwards.
Secondly, persevering is good for my mind. Knowing that you can keep on running when you have absolutely nothing left because you have promised yourself to run 10, …, 15, 16, 17, … 20, 30, 42 kilometers gives me confidence that I don’t have to admit defeat easily.
Thirdly, solitude is good for my soul. Left alone for one hour, two hours, three hours, sometimes I can work out a problem, a speech, a project. Often I can see things more clearly, in the middle of nowhere, without the normal hinderances around me. Sometimes I feel I am alone in front of my maker, answering fundamental questions of what, how, and why.
In 2010, 35 PolyU students went to Cambodia for the first time on a service-learning project. This was before SL became a required credit-bearing subject of study.All students participate voluntarily as an extra-curricular activity. Yet they went through meticulous preparation and training, worked tirelessly for 10 days, demonstrated passion, ingenuity and perseverance, served with significant tangible impact, land earned so much themselves.Most importantly, perhaps, they demonstrated how serious community based service can create tangible benefit for the community while helping our students learn to become socially responsible. It helped to give the university the confidence to embark on the amazing journey of service-learning.
The core team that organised the trip was composed mainly of 3 academic staff from Computing. The COMP team had already taken several teams to Hubei and Gansu in Mainland China on serious community service projects from 2006 to 2009. They served initially at secondary schools in Huang Shi and Yang Xin in Hubei in central China, running workshops and competitions on robotic car designs and programming, from 2006 to 2008. It was very well received by the students and their schools.
Then the team moved further northwest where the poverty was worse and the need seemed greater, to a newly setup primary school in remote mountains in Dingxi, Gansu.
They solicited funds from friends to purchase several desktop computers and set up from scratch computer networks, both wired and wireless.
They computerised a school library by putting RFID tags in 2,000 books and created an electronic book lending system.
They offered workshops on robotics, multimedia, etc. They even set up a remote teaching system whereby English teachers in a primary school in Hong Kong were committed to teach weekly English classes to the orphans in the primary school in Dingxi via video conferencing. In 2009 it was rather advanced technology.
The team felt they found a stable, committed, well-run partner. They thought they had built up a solid platform for collaboration for many years, and a base for more variety of projects, because they depth of poverty and need was tremendous. Unfortunately it was not to be. Less than a month after the team came back from Gansu in summer 2009, the school was abruptly closed down by the government. It was a huge huge disappointment for the team. That also prompted the team to look farther afield.
Church connections brought the team’s attention to Cambodia. Cambodia went through a genocidal civil war in 1974-79, followed by many years of continued, albeit lower level conflict. The situation only started to stabilise beginning in 2000. By 2010, the general population was still very poor, infrastructure such as roads, electricity and water supply were in very bad shape, and the government was rife with corruption. News coming out were mostly bad: children scrambling alongside adults on the city’s garbage dump for plastics, glass and metals for recycling, trafficking of young girls and children for sex, … On the other hand, foreign investment was pouring in, garment factories were being built, roads were being repaired and new ones built, buildings and apartments going up, lakes being filled up to build houses. Information Technology and English skills treasured for business. One good thing was that the country is open to foreigners, and there apparently were few interference in foreign NGOs.
We made contact with a number of potential partner NGOs in Cambodia. One was an NGO (Village Earth) set up by some professor from University of Colorado, which had setup several community centres in the slums in Phnom Penh, serving youths in poverty, teaching them reading and writing, basic computer skills, etc. Another was a primary school run by a Hong Kong-based NGO (International Christian Concern) near the city’s infamous garbage dump at Stung Meanchey. It served the children who were not able to attend government schools, mostly because of poverty. Officially, no fees were required to attend government schools. However, the schools were so under-funded and teachers so under-paid that fees were collected for things such as books, exercises, etc., with the consequence that many children could not afford to attend school. A third was an orphanage school also run by ICC in collaboration with another missionary organization from Hong Kong, an hour outside Phnom Penh, among the rice fields. Some of the children actually had families, but they were so poor the parent(s) could not take care of the children and sent them to the orphanage to be taken care of. A third partner was White Lotus, a women’s shelter run by two many missionaries from USA, providing a home and rehabilitation for young girls rescued from being trafficked for sex, many of them were heavy traumatised and barely surviving under very dire situations - addressing a very disturbing human tragedy in Cambodia. A fourth partner was another NGO, Anjali House, which provide schooling for children in poverty in Siem Reap, near the world famous Ankor Wat ruins.
Having considered the needs of the country, input from our partners and our own capabilities and experience, we felt we could play a role broadly in the area of strengthening education, particularly among the children and other underprivileged groups. We could do IT infrastructure such as computer networks, workshops on basic IT skills, robotics, multimedia, etc. We brainstormed on a theme that has broad application, easy to teach, that can benefit from technology, and settled on digital-storytelling - teaching the children and young people how to tell stories enhanced with digital images and videos. By chance, we ran into Professor Cecilia Pang of University of Colorado Boulder, who happened to be in Hong Kong at the time. She taught our team “image theatre” - a kind of performance very useful for teaching storytelling.
We started recruiting students in the Spring semester. We had been working with mostly students from the Department of Computing so far, in our previous projects. At that point we felt we have had enough experience and felt confident we could train students in other majors with the needed IT and other skills to carry out the projects. We felt we should be more inclusive and give other students a chance to benefit from the project. On the other hand, students with different skills can also enrich the team. When we advertised the project on campus, we received close to 200 applications! We shortlisted 70 promising ones for interview, and eventually accepted 35 (22 from Computing and 13 from other departments).
This was a project that we (basically 3 professors from Computing) initiated ourselves. We were not given any funding. The cost per student, including airplane ticket, accommodation for 10 days, meals, equipment and consumables added up to 6,000-7,000 HK dollars (just under 1,000 US dollars). We could ask the students to pay their own way. But we didn’t want it to be something that only rich students can participate in. So we wrote proposals to a government agency, to our own department, to the dean of our faculty, … And we were able to secure the funding needed without too much difficulty. It reaffirmed our faith - that there are donors and organisations that are quite willing to support service-learning projects with tangible benefits to both (1) the community and (2) the students.
We started training the students in the Spring Semester. We had planned several different projects around the theme of digital storytelling, serving a number of different groups, with quite different needs. There were a lot of things we had to teach the students to get them ready for the projects. Prof. Cecilia Pang from University of Colorado taught us how to do “image theatre”. An experienced social worker and a friend, Ms. Megan Hui, gave us a crash course on volunteering. We thought we should pay her for her services since this is how she made a living, but she refused to take any payment because she felt it was a good cause. We needed to prepare the students, mentally as well as physically, for the health risks - infectious diseases, travelling precautions, HIV, etc. A doctor gave us a lot help. Throughout, we gave the students training on setting up computers, networks, etc. The students prepared their own lessons for the workshops that they were going to provide.
Finally, we felt the students were ready, and flew to Phnom Penh on Sunday, June 26, 2010. For most of us, this was the first time we set foot in Cambodia.
We use millions of single-use masks each day in Hong Kong. Where do they end up after they have served their purpose? Perhaps not too surprisingly, quite a few end up on sidewalks, flower beds, footbridges, around garbage bins, …
One might think that people would treat someone who have dedicated themselves to protect them from illness with better respect. Apparently not.
The current George Floyd protests brought back some poignant memories from a while back in time.
On Easter Sunday 2009, I was passing through Chicago, after visiting our eldest daughter C who was then studying in Urbana-Champaign 2 hours south of Chicago. When I turned around the corner after coming out of my hotel in downtown Chicago, there was a long line of people waiting to enter a Presbyterian Church. People in the line were wearing overcoats, topcoats, leather jackets, dress shoes, high heels, … I saw two and only two pairs of sneakers, and no down jackets. A well-heeled congregation, obviously, and fitting for the so called Magnificent Mile. All whites and no blacks as far as I could see. All trim and looking well. But I was not attending service here.
I decided to attend Sunday worship service at the Afro-American Rock Church on the other (west) side of Chicago, where C had participated in a service project some time earlier. So I took the Metro train.
The train was clean and free of graffiti. The few passengers were mostly Afro-American. I noticed that as the train travelled west, there were more and more run down, deserted buildings and broken windows. There was a mother with two girls in pretty dresses, who looked like they were going to church. So I wasn’t too worried.
I got off the station on North Central Street and walked three blocks south.
The Rock Church was in an old school house at a street corner.
When I arrived, the congregation was finishing their communal breakfast of eggs, bacon, waffles, mashed potatoes and milk. There were 200 people. Other than 3 or 4 families who were white, everyone was black. I was the only one who was neither black nor white.
After the breakfast, the tables were cleared and put away quickly. Chairs were set up for the service. The singing was loud, powerful and really good. Some people were singing and dancing spontaneously. A choir led the singing. The pastor also sang, really well.
Because this was Easter Sunday, most people put on their best clothes. There were some boys wearing suits that looked brand new, and much too big. Boys grow up quickly. I could imagine their parents buying clothes for them one or two sizes bigger than they really were, hoping that the suits would last a little longer. There were quite a few people who seemed sick or overweight. Some were walking with crutches or otherwise with difficulty.
The Rock Church on the West side and the Presbyterian Church on Magnificent Mile seemed two totally different worlds. Both are American. Yet it seems the two does not ever meet, let alone mix and melt together.
To meet one of my mentees in a mentoring program, I went to On Tai Estate (安泰邨) for the first time. It is one of the newest and most elevated housing estates in Hong Kong.
It is higher than Shun Lee Estate (順利邨), one of the original estates in the sky. 15-storey elevator higher, to be exact.
It is high because it was built on the site of the Anderson Road Quarry. Behind and in-between the high rises one can still see what remains of the quarry.
Looking west one can see On Tai is practically half way up Fei Ngo Shan (飛鵝山).
Further West one can see it is close to the level of the Lion Rock.
It has very good views, with little obstruction, because of its elevation. It is also airy. So airy it feels cooler than down at the sea level.
One of the complications living here is getting in and out. There are buses that come here but they are not easy to find.
Of course, once you start living here you learn about these things. But there is also the little problem of traffic jams. It is said ~100,000 people are or will be living here. But the roads do not have enough capacity for so many people. So it can take an hour just to go up or down the mountain during rush hour.
This year, the government refused to allow the candlelight vigil at Victoria Park to go ahead. My wife and I attended a mass commemorating June 4 at St. Francis’ Church in Shek Kip Mei instead.
The sanctuary was completely filled long before the mass started.The congregation might look sparse only because we had to sit one meter apart. Many had to stand at the back and even outside. There were people of all ages, youths, adults, elderly. If anything, there seemed to be more adults than youths.
In 1989, we were in Ottawa. My wife was pregnant with our first daughter. We followed the massacre through television and the text messages coming from Mainland China. We had already been protesting at the Chinese Embassy many times in the months prior. On the Sunday following the massacre the whole church prayed together on Sunday, and then we marched to the Chinese Embassy across town to protest.
We dare not forget and we will not forget.
Often during this time of the year, I would be taking students to overseas service-learning projects, usually in Cambodia but sometimes in Rwanda and other countries. Hence unable to attend the candlelight vigil. My wife would go with our daughters or friends. This year I was planning to go to Cambodia until coronavirus forced the plan to be cancelled. And then the police banned the vigil.
I dug up some photos from past years to help us remember.
In 2011, I was on Tiananmen Square on June 10. I remembered.
In 2012, I participated in a march to commemorate Li, who was imprisoned and eventually died in prison for remembering June 4.
In 2014, the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong remembered.
In 2017, we went to the candlelight vigil in Victoria Park and there were a lot of people
and flowers.
In 2020, we went to church when we could not go to the candlelight vigil.
