Went to see the Golf Competition at Fan Ling Golf Course yesterday. It was truly beautiful.
It has gigantic, mushroom-like banyan trees.
Many beautiful, majestic trees that I could not name. I heard that some of them are quite rare. Lots of care must have gone into cultivating and taking care of them.
The lawns are immaculate. In fact, unrealistically neat and tidy. How much fertilisers, insecticides, and myriad chemicals go into them? And how much water, when it is not raining?
However it is created and maintained, it is evidently a beautiful place. There is now a lot of discussion on whether and how the place should be conserved/developed. It is probably worth conserving. However, currently it is enjoyed by only a select few, mostly wealthy and well-connected people. It is a valuable asset of Hong Kong. If it is conserved, it will certainly be at a significant cost to Hong Kong, in some way. It should then be made accessible to a much wider population. It cannot be left as it is, enjoyed by so few only.
The covid-19 pandemic stopped all our in-person international service-learning projects. During the 3 years of inaction, some teachers retired or left the university. On the other hand, some of our partners encountered difficulties and could not continue with the collaboration. We now have to rebuild many of our projects and develop some new ones. A week ago we went to Da Nang in Vietnam to explore opportunities in the middle part of Vietnam. We told our potential partner we have a team who can do projects in fashion design/art expression the we can bring to Vietnam. We even brought along the professor who teaches that subject.
Our partner, Danang Architecture University found us an organisation who serves marginalised groups. One of their projects trains people in up-cycling, sewing used linen into attractive bags and other accessories. It turns out that is quite similar in spirit to what our fashion design professor has been doing in her projects. Her team can help to strengthen the training in design, or at least to provide alternate ideas to the participants. It is an almost perfect match.
There are, of course, a tremendous amount of communities in need, in Vietnam and elsewhere. Their needs are also of a great variety. On the other hand, there are also professors and students who are willing to help, with the right kind of skill and experience. Nut matching the appropriate help to the specific need is very hard. These two groups of people live in different circles, in different cities and countries even. Under normal circumstances they will not meet each other. It takes parties such as the Service-Learning Office at Danang Architecture University and the Service-Learning and Leadership Office at PolyU, to reach out to each other, the communities in need, and to the professors who can offer the specific help, to connect them together. It is challenging, time-consuming, creative work that does not always work out.
That is what match making in Service-Learning is about. It is an important, but often under-appreciated contribution. Due credit should be given to them.
I have been making things with parts of palm trees since I started going to Cambodia in 2010, where palm trees are plentiful.
Gradually I learn more about them. Including how a palm tree is structured and how it arrives at its distinctive shape. A palm leaf can be quite big, as much as 20 foot long, and has a distinctive structure. A leaf is attached to the trunk by wrapping a part of itself around the trunk. It then extends a spine outwards from the trunk. Leaflets grow from the spine. When a leaf dries and falls off, it leaves behind a scar in the form of a ring around the trunk. Each ring in the trunk then is a remnant of a leaf. The number of rings along the trunk then represent the number of leaves the palm tree has ever had.
I took a spine and shape it into a small trunk. Pieces of a leaf are cut into the shape of leaves. The lowest part of a leaf is wrapped around the trunk, with steps cut into the trunk to accommodate the thickness of the leaf. The result is a miniature palm leaf of my own.
