Hole-ly Olive

What is it?  An American football lined up in front of a firing squad?

Actually it started out as an attempt to pay homage to Yayoi Kusama’s (草間 彌生) polka-dotted pumpkins, using pieces of a palm leaf. I couldn’t quite figure out how to make a pumpkin.  So it ended up as an olive, or American football.  

It is made up of 6 slices of a palm leaf, with irregular holes cut into them.  The challenge is to cut the 6 slices into the right convex outline, then to bend them into the right curved shape, and finally glue them together.  It took many trials before I could make it work.  

One of my most satisfying pieces.  

AI and Man

At our Spring Book Club, we are currently discussing the topic “AI and Man”.  AI, of course, stands for Artificial Intelligence.  We are not discussing AI the technology per se.  Rather, we are interested in studying how AI relates to us, human beings.  In order to do that, we do need to know a bit about the technology.  What is AI?  What are artificial neural networks, which seems to be the core technology behind this current generation of AI tools.  

Som people are very optimistic about AI, others are the opposite.  How do we sort them out?  What is it about the technology that make people optimistic, or otherwise?  How are artificial neural networks related to biological neural networks - out brain?  How does AI learn? An AI appears to learn by acquiring information (memory) and then learning to reason from that memory.  But it is so complicated that the process cannot be fully traced and explained.  Is that also how we humans (our brain) learn and think?  

How does AI reason?  And why does it sometimes get it wrong? Creating hallucinations, when it says something that is not in the data that it uses to generate an answer for you. How does that compare to the mistakes that a human makes?  Why do people trust AIs so much?

Does an AI have a mind?  Is AI conscious?  If it is not conscious now, will it become conscious in the future?  Is AI consciousness the same as human consciousness?  If an AI is conscious, like a human, and more intelligent, where does that leave us humans?  

A spiritual person may say a human has a soul.  But what is a soul?  Is a mind really more than a physical body?  A person’s memory is in the brain - the biological neural network.  A mind seems to reside also in the brain.  Is a soul more than a body and a mind?  If so, how does it work?  

The very few people who own these platforms/clouds that encompass the Internet, the various social media, digital markets, AI, etc. own the information that we all contribute to create.  

In return, these clouds make use of these information to influence our behaviour, make money out of us to enrich themselves, and control our lives to a large extent.   How do we respond? 

  

No Impact, No Service, No Learning

Service-Learning is the balanced integration of service and learning.  Students learn to serve the community. At the same time, they learn through serving the community.  Hence the service is the key.  If no service is rendered, it cannot be considered service-learning; and there will not be learning through Service-Learning.  That should be clear. 

Assuming that the students have carried out some project, how does one know whether the project is actually serving the community? One can ask a number of questions. First of all, what social need is it addressing?  Secondly, who is the intended beneficiary?  Thirdly, is it really beneficial for the beneficiary?  Or one can summarise them in one question: is the project making a tangible impact?  

Take the case of a project installing a solar panel to power lighting for a family  previously without electricity.  There is an obvious need - the lack of electricity.  The beneficiary is clearly identified - the family has names and faces, in flesh and blood.  The benefit is also easy to see - even after sunset, the mother can cook and wash, thc children can study, the family can visit their friends, they can listen to their radio, the children do better at school, the family is more productive, they have a better future.  The students receive immediate feedback, from the family themselves.  In this type of projects, stakes are high, and failure is possible.  If one tries to install a set of solar panels but no electricity is generated, the impact can be quite negative.  

Teaching-based projects can be tricky to evaluate.  The team may be teaching science, English, mathematics, artificial intelligence, public health, etc.  How does one determine whether the class has actually learned what was intended?  Theoretically that can be assessed through tests, examination, projects, etc.  Most of the time, however, these are conducted as extra-curricular activities without formal assessments.  It may also not be easy to determine whether the teaching is done well.  In some cases, such as robotics or some engineering projects, the class will build something as a deliverable, which can be a reasonably clear demonstration of learning.  Herein may lie the impact.  

How about studying the impact of cigarette smoking, writing a report on the study, and putting together an exhibition on campus, as an anti-smoking advocacy?  There is a social issue.  There is a target group of recipients - the fellow students in the school.  Is there real benefits for the fellow students?  How does one know whether anyone is better informed?  Whether anyone change their behaviour?  Or even pay any attention to the posters put up on campus?  Projects that aim to educate or benefit the “public” may be difficult to evaluate for impact.  How does not know who has been reached? Who has benefited?  By how much?  

Nowadays it is quite popular for projects to produce videos or other forms of material to advocate certain worthy cause, such as environmental conservation, anti-drug use, etc., to be put on social media, such as YouTube.  However, with such a bewildering glut of viewing and listening material on social networks these days, it is a huge challenge to attract any attention at all. Marketing such material require ingenuity, effort, and perhaps professional skills.  If effort is spent in producing the material, but nobody sees them, there cannot be any meaningful impact on the intended audience.  It would appear that there is no meaningful service.  There is no benefit for, and no feedback from the intended community.  Surely the teacher or some expert can be asked to judge the quality of the material produced.  But this becomes an academic exercise.  Not service-learning.  

If there is no impact, there is no service.  The students may still have learning something.  But if there is no service, it is not service-learning.  

Children and children - yet so different

At an outreach centre run by a church in Hong Kong, the organisers are frustrated.   A class teaching English to a small number of secondary school students seems to be running reasonably well. But most of the rest of the dozens of students do not seem motivated to learn, even though the outreach program is educational and the students participate voluntarily.  Perhaps they are there only because they are “volunteered” by their parents?  Most of the time, while the organisers try to conduct anything that is remotely educational, the students concentrate only on their mobile phones.  The only time the students come alive seems to be when they are playing games, or given food.  Even then, they are very picky about the food that they get for free.  Even though they are allowed to choose their food, they do not hesitate to throw away barely-eaten food that they chose themselves - if it is not to their liking.  It is understood that they do not come from well-to-do families.  But they behave as if money is no issue.  They expect to be fed with food, drinks, snacks continuously.  They do not seem to drink water. Only sugary drinks.  They are not doing well in their studies.  But they do not seem worried.  They do not help to set up the place for the gathering.  They do not help to serve the food.  They do not clean up afterwards.  I shudder to think how they will turn out in a few years' time.  

My thoughts jump, involuntarily, to some of the children we are sponsoring, in countries such as Rwanda.  Those children want to go to school. They know that education is important for them, for their future.  Basic education is for free - no fees required to go to school.  But often they cannot attend school because of a variety of reasons.  Some cannot afford the books, uniform, or other supplies.  Some cannot pay for lunch at school.  Some are too hungry, weak, or sick to attend.  Some are ashamed or bullied because of their poverty or appearance.   

So when they receive the sponsorship, which provide them with school uniform, shoes, books and supplies, medical insurance, school lunch, and chickens or goats or some other means to generate some income, so that they can attend school, they are overjoyed.  Not just the kids, but also their parents. Very often these are single parents raising a bunch of kids by themselves.  They cry tears of gratitude whenever we visit them.  They are so grateful we feel embarrassed.  But greatly touched.  When we visit them in their home, they show us the chicken they are raising, the piglets being delivered by their mother pig, their homework, their report cards that they are so proud of.  We look forward to seeing them grow up.  

Why does the world treat them so differently? And why do they react so differently, to their situation? These two groups of kids are both poor, relatively, in their own country.  In fact, these kids in Hong Kong are much better off, in absolute terms, compared to their counterparts in Rwanda - Hong Kong is just so much wealthier than Rwanda at the moment.  Why are these Hong Kong kids so unmotivated, while their counterparts in Rwanda are so eager to be educated?  Why are the Rwandan kids so grateful for the help they are receiving, while the Hong Kong kids seem to take it for granted when people reach out to them and try to help?  

AECR is now free

Our book, Academic Excellence with Civic Responsibility: The Story of Service-Learning at PolyU,  was published in paper form in November 2024.  

The electronic version is now available for free, or a nominal cost. Here are the places  where you can get it:

PolyU Press (Free pdf): https://www.polyu.edu.hk/polyupress/books/11_the-first-decade-of-service-learning-at-polyu_n/  

Google Play (Free): https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=QoFLEQAAQBAJ

Amazon (US$0.99): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZ29JMKS

Kobo (US$0.99, TWD$34): https://www.kobo.com/.../academic-excellence-with-civic...

 

Scenes of Malaysia

When we were landing in Kuala Lumpur, our plane was flying low enough for me to make out some distinctive features.  

Something I had seen before, in Chile as well as South Africa.  Light coloured pits, surrounded by multiple, irregularly shaped rings around them.  Some of them even have water in the bottom.  Some kind of mine, perhaps.  Of course, these are tin mines, possibly abandoned already.  

There are also many many neatly lined up little blobs.  As the plane depends, I can see they are kind of green. Trees.  Palm trees.  These are the famous palm plantations!

What about those square?  Fish and shrimp farms.  

Out destination was Taylor’s University, where we ran a Teacher Development Course on Service-Learning for their teachers.  Their campus surrounds a lake, hence it is called the Lakeside campus.  The lake is not big, but very deep.  Of course, it used to be a mine!

Each and every one of these features tell us something about the history of Malaysia. This is the fourth time I have visited Malaysia.  Except the one time I went to Penang with my family, every time I came, it is for service-learning.  Every time I came, I learn something new about Malaysia.  Fascinating.  

 

Good Food (2)

One day, while we were in Kyoto, we went looking for a breakfast place recommended to us, Lorima Kyoto.  Like many eating establishments in Japan, this is not a very big place.  We had brunch.  

My set has grilled fish, sashimi, many types of vegetables, sweet potato, soup, rice, and many things I cannot name.  I also tasted rice with grilled corn which is one of their signature.  The food comes in small portions, like a lot of Japanese cuisine.  But there were enough small portions to make a full meal.  The food was really colourful, attractive, and tasty.  An excellent way to start a day.  That was also the day we visited Higashi-Hongan-ji, the Buddhist temple that sent a monk-spy to Tibet towards the end of the Qing Dynasty - the second Japanese to visit Tibet.  Everywhere in Japan, there is history to discover. 

Grilled eel with rice is popular in Hong Kong. In Kyoto, near Kiyomizu-dera, we chanced upon a place that specialised in grilled eel.  In Hong Kong, the grilled eel is often overpowered by a heavy dose of thick, dark, sweet soy source.  Here that source is applied lightly, to enhance the flavour rather than disguise it. The eel is slightly crunchy on the outside but tender inside. really good. 

In fact, one can order grilled eel without source applied to it.  One can taste the original taste of the eel, and then apply a variety of source as you like.  As we walked out, we can watch the chef grilling the eel delicately.  Food in Japan is both a meal and a performance.  

At a omakase place, we got to eat a number of things we have never had before. Among them angler fish and its liver.  Particularly the liver.  It reminded me of goose liver, or foie gras.  But this is raw, and more delicate, in my opinion.  

There was Kawaga beef, olive-fed Wagyu beef.  Among the best beef I have ever had.  Because 2 of the guests did not show up, we got to have seconds.  I now wonder whether those were from Hong Kong. Because I heard something similar have happened with some tourists from Hong Kong - not showing up without cancelling properly.  

The meal finished with tow kinds of rice.  One with Japanese white radish, and another with succulent oysters, lots of them. We were given the leftover rice to take home.  Imagine, rice with oyster for breakfast!  We felt spoiled. I think we have to come back. 

 

Entertaining Food!

One of the greatest pleasures in Japan, if not the greatest, is the food, of course. 

On our first evening in Osaka, for our very first meal on this trip, we went for grilled beef. Really good wagu beef.  The tongue was surprisingly tender.  

The meat was even better, more flavourful, rich and juicy. That was a great start, on a cold, wet, windy evening.  

The following morning, we strolled through a walking street, eating interesting snacks along the way.  We had a plate of very tempting puffer fish sashimi.  Of course, puffer fish can be dangerous, and people have died eating puffer fish.  We are also told that, when prepared properly, it is quite safe.  Indeed I have had it a number of times before, and survived.  At one point, I had swallowed puffer fish skin rolled inside out, with the scaled outside of the skin thus wrapped inside. And survived. We survived this time as well. 

A few minutes later, we encountered a live puffer fish inside a water tank. It turned to look at me.  As if it knew that I just ate his cousin.   

A day later we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima.  We went there to pay our respects at the Atomic Bomb Memorial.  We also ate some of the famous oysters. I have to confess they do not taste much different from oysters from elsewhere.  But it was something that we kind of have to do in Hiroshima.  

We watched a show of the making of the shintenchi. It was basically fried noodles with vegetables, eggs, some seafood, pork, spices and sources.  But the process of stir frying all the ingredients on a flat hot plate is educational, and fun. 

Most impressive was that a multi-storey building was filled with dozens of eating places all serving shintenchi. 

Eating in Japan is certainly educational, entertaining, and satisfying adventure.