Mongolian Grassland

The Mongolian grassland in summer is truly gorgeous.

Green fields, blue sky and white clouds.  Everywhere you look.  

This is the best time of the year to be on the grassland.  Earlier it was still bitterly cold and the land was covered with snow.  A little later it will be hot.  Now it is around 20 C during the day, sunny most of the time.

Outside of Ulaanbataar, the air is crisp and it feels clean.  

 

The land is full of animals.  

Sheep and goats. 

Cattle. 

Horses.

And more horses. 

The occasional Buddhist shrine and little pagodas. 

There are trees.  

But far from enough of them.  

It is said that the government is aiming to plant a billion trees.  

Mongolia, again

I am in Mongolia, again, for the second time this year.  When we came in March, it was still quite cold.  The ground was covered with snow and ice.  This time, one can see what grassland looks like.  

In March, we came for the first time, to look for possible sites and partners for service-learning projects.  Some leads, initially looking promising, turned out not particularly suitable  While others, initially fraught with uncertainties, turned out much more positive after an initial meeting.  Such is life in service-learning.  This is not the first time that it has happened.  This is also partly why international service-learning is so challenging.  It says a lot that we have come this far.  

So we are here again. This time we have a much better idea what we are looking for, and where we might find them. 

However, we are also facing additional, unexpected challenges.  Some projects that have been planned for this summer may not be able to take place as planned.  So we are looking for backup sites for them.  And Mongolia is one of the potential sites for one of the teams involved.  That has created complications. 

By the way, two small teams from Rehabilitation Sciences came on the same plane.  Tomorrow they set off to small towns 6 and 9 hours by bus from Ulaanbataar.  They are led by experienced teachers and are in high spirits.  We are sure they will do well and make us proud.  

Life is never dull in service-learning at PolyU.  

A Corner in Hung Hom

When I snapped this photo, I just felt that the large number of people scattered on the staircase at a usually-quiet corner of Hung Hom makes an interesting composition.  I was making a run, and continued on without thinking much about that snapshot. 

Only much later, when I was tidying up the photos, then I realised that something was happening.  It was probably nothing serious.  The moment probably passed quickly in a few seconds.  Subsequently, everybody probably returned to their interrupted conversations, or whatever they were doing earlier.  Just like the way I continued with my run.  

But for a second, attention was drawn to a woman climbing the stairs. I tried to figure out what happened to the woman, but couldn’t really figured out what it was.  Perhaps it was nothing.  But the posture of the people  around her showed concern.  

I do hope that the incident means that people do care about each other.  That we do look out for each other.  That thought makes me like Hong Kong just a little better.