Trash Pickup

I was taking a brisk walk on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront outside the Art Museum towards Hung Hom on a busy Sunday morning a week ago, through a big crowd of tourists mostly from the Mainland.  Suddenly, a big, young white man ran past me, going in the same direction, but much faster than I was.  I thought to myself: Even when I was in my 20s, I couldn’t run as fast as he was.  But, will he be able to run this fast, when he is my age now?

Just seconds later, he turned around, and ran past me again, this time in the opposite direction.  What was he doing?  Perhaps he was running towards Regent Hotel, and he realised he was in the wrong way.  I turned to see whether he was indeed running towards Regent.  Just in time to see the big man bend down to pick up a piece of plastic, perhaps a bag that used to hold some potato chips, using his hand.  He looked around, perhaps for a trash can.  There did not seem to be one nearby.  What would he do now?  

He turned again, and continued running towards Hung Hom, holding the plastic bag in his hand.  

I was quite surprised.  Stunned even.  Did he really care about the environment enough to do that?  I know I wouldn’t.  Not with my bare hands, when I have no idea how clean (unclean) that piece of trash may be.  

In a crowd of hundreds of Chinese, from Hong Kong and Mainland China, it is the lone white man who care enough to pick up that piece of trash from the ground.  We have a long way to go yet, in terms of care for the environment.  Even though we are so proud of our so called 5,000 years of civilisation.