Sometimes we come here as much as 4 times a week. Most often it is just my wife and myself, for lunch after running in the morning. Sometimes I come here for dinner by myself when my wife has to teach in the evening.Often we come with our friends - twice in the last 3 days.Sometimes I come here with colleagues from the university.
My wife’s favourite is the stewed soup 燉湯. Such as 黨蔘天麻川弓燉魚頭湯. Full of high quality ingredients. Huge stewing pots giving you more than two big bowls of soup. The big fish head is still intact. But it has been stewed for so long that the head falls apart when you try to pick it up. The bones literally dissolve in your mouth so you can eat the whole thing, bones and all - if you like that kind of thing. The broth is clear and tasty, with strong herbal flavour - again, great if that is your cup of tea.
Alternatively, they do serve several other types of stewed soup, with and without herbs with strong flavour. One can adda a bit of salt to bring out the flavour more.
The dim sum and rice steamed in lotus leaves - excellent quality for the money. And we like the people.
Since we started coming here about three-quarters of a year ago, the quality of the food has been maintained. If anything, it has probably gotten better, with more variety. This cannot be said of many of the restaurants in Hong Kong. Many have started well but the quality or the quantity of the food would start to go down after a while.
This one has become our favourite. We hope it remains this way.
In Hong Kong and Mainland China, Paralympics seems to be called 殘疾人奧林匹克運動會.殘奧會 in short. The name has a rather negative connotation in Chinese, implying brokenness, damage.In Taiwan, it is called 帕拉林匹克運動會, or 帕運會.Apparently the pronunciation of the name is rendered into Chinese rather than the meaning. This is consistent with the tendering of Olympics into 奧林匹克.
“Para-“ implies something in parallel. Can the name not be translated as “平行奧林匹克運動會 or 平等奧林匹克運動會, 平奧會 or 平運會 in short? Or something of that nature? It retains a meaning similar to the original, yet avoids the negative implication of damage or brokenness?
Colour has taken on unprecedented significance in Hong Kong. For many people, the most important characteristic of a person, business, organization, …, anything, is the colour.Not colour of skin, hair, or eye.But your political stance.For some, it is even more mundane - it is the colour of your clothing, your face mask, umbrella, … It sounds absurd, irrational, but sadly, true.
There are good reasons to favour stability, respect, order. But there are also bad reasons to favour the same. There are good reasons to favour freedom, change, equality. But there are also bad reasons for the same. It is true that those in power have a strong motivation to use unfair means to retain their power, while those out of power are motivated to seek change, sometimes also using violent tactics. The overwhelming imbalance in power in the political machine, economic resources, and military might puts the establishment in great advantage. That has always been the case in most places through history.
The important question for us, as a human being, is not where we are at. That has already happened, often out of our control. But we do have some influence over the future. It is what we do, given where we are at.
Do I have the wisdom to understand myself, why I am in my position, why I think this way, my position in society, and why I am in this colour? Do I have the courage to act in justice, compassion and love - now? Do I have the courage to restrain myself, give up some of my unearned privilege, confess to past wrongs, and do the right things from now on?
Or, alternatively, am I an animal who can only respond to external circumstances? If the going is favourable, I gloat? If not, I whine and fight? Do I use any means possible to preserve my advantage? Do I continue to abuse my power, be it political, economical, or military? Do I continue to make statements that I know are false? Do I continue to despise those who are different? Do I continue to persecute those who hold different opinions?
The answer to those questions tells me, and the world, what kind of person I am, and what the future of the world holds.
This year, we installed solar panels, together with wiring for LED lighting, phone chargers, and a radio for 150 households in a village in Rwamagana district in Rwanda. At the same time, “rocket” stoves, much more efficient, cleaner, healthier, and fuel saving than the traditional 3-stone stoves, were installed in those households with bricks and mud.All of which were accomplished without us going there. How was it done?
Three teams, led by professors from Computing, Electrical Engineering and Building Services Engineering, prepared with their students meticulously from the beginning of the year. They design, test and simplify, repeatedly, the systems to be installed, knowing full well that most likely we would not be able to travel over there this year. For the project to work we have to rely on local volunteers. The systems have to be as simple as possible, but robust and efficient at the same time. In the past, we would make electrical connections by the cheapest method, stripping the insulation from the ends of the wires and then using a screw driver to secure the wire. This time we solder connectors to the ends of the wires so that the local volunteers only need to plug the connector in. This way it is faster to install and less likely to have problems, but it is more expensive and we have to put more effort into the early stage of the assembly. We would manufacture and assemble the solar panel systems as far as possible, ship them over there, teach the local volunteers to finish the assembly and install them.
In the case of the stoves, the bricks have to be purchased locally. It simply does not make sense to ship bricks over there. Partly because of the shipping cost. But also because of the benefit of using local material as far as possible. Likewise, 150 big rechargeable batteries to store the electricity generated by the solar panels, and small ones to operate the radios also have to be purchased locally. Funding them is a challenge in itself.
Then there is the problem of shipping 150 sets of solar panels, charging controllers, LED lights, switches, cables, tools, …, totalling more than two tons. The logistics of shipping them over there, declaring them properly to customs, transporting them to the local site through the lock down imposed by the pandemic, …, requires meticulous planning, money, …, and praying.
Our local partner, African Evangelical Enterprise Rwanda, considers this project a top priority. Hence they assigned a top administrator to manage the project. They found a suitable village off the electrical grid, assigned several of their staff to be team leaders, and recruited many young local volunteers. One of the reasons we chose to work in Rwamagana this year is that AEE Rwanda runs a local vocational school, Center of Champions, which teaches practical skills including basic electrical technology, plumbing, sewing, etc. AEE was able to recruit some young graduates from Center of Champions who have been trained in electrical technology, some of whom are actually from the village.
There was a twist and an almighty scare along the way. Rwanda has been reporting a relatively low number of infections of the coronavirus for a long time. We were even entertaining the thought that we might be able to send a small number of staff over there, to help with the project. Our partner, AEE Rwanda, was hoping that we would be able to that, since this is quite a big undertaking that they have not tried before, and this is the first time, since we started collaborating in 2013, that we are not sending a team over there. In June, however, suddenly there was a big jump in the number of inflections. The government imposed a lock down. Not only are we not able to travel over there from Hong Kong, even local people cannot move around. How could we even collect the shipped material, purchase the batteries, and move the equipment to Rwamagana, let alone send the local youths to the village to do the installation.
After much anxious waiting, and prayers, the lock down was eased slightly. We are then able to actually carry out the project. Our students from Hong Kong trained the AEE team leaders as well as the local youths on the operations of the projects, with great difficulty, through the Internet, making use of video conferring, social media, and whatever technology that works, under severe restrictions of the low bandwidth and unstable network service. Once the local youths master the techniques needed, however, they work amazingly fast. At one point, our students in Hong Kong could not connect with the Rwandan youths through the Internet at the appointed time. We were, naturally worried. It turned out that the local youths were working so hard, and so keen on getting the job done, that they had forgotten to connect with our students for coordination, progress monitoring, testing, etc. In the end, the installations were completed ahead of schedule.
We had a small, secret weapon that was also quite important. PolyU had been accepting undergraduate students from Rwanda for a couple of years, partly as a consequence of our working in Rwanda. Two of them happen to be home during the summer break. These two students ended up working for us, helping us find critical equipment such as the batteries, monitoring the progress of the project, and running important errands.
This audacious tele-engineering project would not have been attempted, let alone completed, if we had not been operating in Rwanda since 2013, if we had not gotten to know Rwanda reasonably well by now, if we had not develop admiration of the commitment and effectiveness of AEE Rwanda, if AEE Rwanda had not developed trust of our commitment and capabilities, if our team had not planned meticulously, if our students had not worked os hard to manufacture and assemble the equipment, if we had not found a way to ship tons of equipment to Rwanda, if we did not have those skilful graduates from Center of Champions, if AEE had not assigned a top administrator and capable team leaders, if the lockdown had not been eased, …, if we did not have faith.
We were probably fortunate that all these happened in such a way. But it is also a truly great team effort, with players from so many different backgrounds, with such diverse skills, joined together with one great desire to do something good for some people who need and deserve them. God bless all of us.
This is summer, we should be in Rwanda installing solar panels and wiring up houses to provide lighting, phone charging, … - what we had been doing for many years until the coronavirus intervened in 2020. In summer 2020 we were forced to postpone and eventually cancel the project.This year we have more time to prepare.So we are doing it remotely.
We assemble a team of students, purchase 150 solar panels, controllers, cables, LED lights, phone chargers, …. We assemble the systems and shipped more than two tons of equipment to Rwanda. We work with our partner African Evangelical Enterprise Rwanda to purchase the batteries, identify 150 households in a village near Rwamagana, and assemble a team of AEE staff, local volunteers and youths from the village. We train the local Rwanda team on the installation and operation of the solar panel system.
Today the local team start to install the systems in the village. Our students are working online to support the installation …
“Where is team 1? We cannot get in touch with them!”
“Team 3 cannot connect with their partners either.”
“The team has arrived in the village.”
“Gerald is help them a lot.”
“Who is the house owner?”
“Can you tell us the name of the owner?”
“Can you show us the inside of the house?”
“You mike is muted.”
“Can you get Eric on WhatsApp?”
“How many are in the house?”
“Just three, right?”
“I want Eric!”
“The battery can be on the floor.”
“But should be in a place where the children will not play with it.”
“Plug the lamp cable there.”
“The lamp cable?”
“Stop! The cable is tied.”
“Now it is OK.”
“Goo … goo …”
“The baby is so cute.”
“There is a nail next to the controller.”
“You can hang the radio on the nail when it is charging.”
“We are moving to another house.”
“How is the progress? The installation.”
“We are finished with one house. We are moving onto the next one.”
“This is living room.”
“This is LED.”
“This is controller box.”
“Take a look at this. The cable should not be stretched. It should be like this.”
“Thank you.”
“Suleymen! Süleymen!”
“…”
It is barely-managed chaos. Almost unbelievably, progress is being made. Remote engineering as service-learning.
We need teachers to make service-learning work. Around 2010, when PolyU started on our service-learning journey, however, we had hardly any teachers who had any experience or training to teach service-learning. To gage our readiness and the challenge that we faced in getting ourselves ready to teach, we conducted a study, interviewing a number of potential teachers.
Many were worried. Some wondered about the demand (or rather, the possible lack of it) - are there enough needy people in Hong Kong for our students to serve? Some worried about the readiness of our students. PolyU is a strongly technology-oriented university - are students without a humanities or social science background suitable to take service-learning courses? Some worried whether we have the teachers needed - are teachers without a humanities or social science background suitable to teach service-learning courses? Reflection is said to be critical - do teachers from sciences and engineering know how to guide students to do reflection? Some worried about assessment - isn’t assessment of service-learning subjective and unreliable?
Those were not unreasonable worries, given how little we knew about service-learning at the time. Fortunately we did not let that stop us. We arrange workshops on various aspects of service-learning, develop e-Learning material to train teachers, embark on piloting to gain experience, develop guidelines for proposal writing, visit well-established programs at leading universities, develop teacher training courses, arrange internship experiences for teachers, organise research salons, organise conferences, publish papers and books, experiment with innovative projects and courses, …
In ten years time, we have witnessed tremendous growth and development. Some teachers have expressed gratitude for the opportunity to teach service-learning courses as part of their duty. Previously they had to find the time outside of work to serve the community in their own way, which is hard given the heavy workload in the university. Now they can serve the community and train students to do the same, as part of their duty - killing multiple birds with one stone.
Many questions are answered, not from theory, but hard-earned experience. Yes, there is no shortage of people to serve - as long as we are willing. Yes, students in science and engineering can learn serve. Yes, engineering professors can learn to guide reflection. Yes, service-learning can be assessed objectively. Along the way, novices in teaching service-learning become experienced. A single teacher has assembled a multi-teacher team to teach multiple subjects, send out multiple teams to serve in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Cambodia, and even further afield in the same year.
A teacher is teaching hundreds of students at a time, assisted by several assistants. Their teaching team is sending out dozens of student teams to serve multiple primary and secondary schools at the same time. At the end of each semester of teaching and serving, participating schools send their own students to compete in a territory-wide STEM competition organised by the teacher with hundreds of students having a great time.
Experienced teachers are offering teacher development workshops, consultation sessions, even full teacher development courses. To aspiring teachers, not just from PolyU; not just from Hong Kong, but also Mainland China and foreign countries. Teachers are engaged in research on service-learning pedagogies, impact of service-learning on their own discipline, and new technologies developed in the context of serving the community. The results are published in conferences, journals and contribute to consultancies. Teachers receive prestigious awards for their achievements.
Even when the coronavirus hit, the teachers are ready. We are able to switch to teaching online. It takes a tremendous effort. But we manage to move much of the service online. We even create innovative services in the process, opening up some great opportunities. Now we are taking about and excitedly practicing technology-enhanced and technology-driven service-learning. Tangible artefacts are integrated into online service. We are effectively practicing engineering online. In this sense, the pandemic hit us at the right time, when we are ready. Had the pandemic hit 10 years earlier, we would not have been able to deal with it in stride.
Ten years ago, we could not dare imagined that all these would happen as they did. Service-Learning is not the end that we are aiming at. It is a pedagogy that is not only effective for teaching, but also for the professional development of us teachers. The ultimate aim is better education. Service-Learning is now definitely part of our campus culture.
