week 7 1st March-7th March

Personal and Cultural Experience

Discovery Bay is on Lantau Island, it takes a half hour ferry ride to get there and is stunningly beautiful. As you approach your met by a perfect white sand beach and an unusual landscape where hills seem to be springing from the water. In London there is a 'little China' and I would suggest that Discovery Bay is the 'little Britain' of Hong Kong. There are a lot of ex-pats and affluent Chinese living in this area with the area developing to allow more people to move there.

We spent a night on the beach. This was the first time since moving to Hong Kong that I saw stars. Usually the lights in Hong Kong are too bright and the sky misted over with all the smog that hangs during the day. It was absolutely amazing to star gaze and we pulled our knowledge of constellations to try and identify them.

This park in Shek Kip is a place of true serenity. At one side of the park is a museum of weaving, so we used our student discount to enjoy that. At the other end of the park is a place to bring your offerings to Buddha. Buddha is often surrounded by Lilies so it is interesting to observe the lily pad ponds before you climb the stairs to see the Buddhist god. This park has outstanding gardens with beautiful rocks and in the centre is a podium that looks Japanese. The restaurant is hiding by a water fall and its one of those places you just want to sit and read a book in.

Professional Development

Part of being a good teacher is practicing what you preach. There is a great emphasis on physical fitness in Northern Ireland and obesity in school aged children is becoming a very hot topic in education with many schemes being introduced to look after the health of the next generation. While at HKIEd I am taking a certificate in Intermediate Badminton coaching. I was excited to see the course offered and informed the PE department I had my beginners level in badminton coaching. The only problem is the class is conducted in Cantonese. However one very helpful student from the mainland acts as my translator. I've thanked her a lot but she says she likes doing it as it improves her English. So its a win-win situation.

The training is intense. I find that Chinese people always put their heart and soul into something whether its sport, acting or dancing. They give their hobbies a high priority and spend hours practicing. Their attitude puts me to shame. Its made me aware of the often blazer attitude we have towards doing anything outside of normal university. For the Chinese once they make a commitment they will not miss meetings or arranged practices and I have watched how the Hip Hop group will practice late into the night with none of the members complaining.

Mandarin lessons have been going well. This week we learnt more about money and ordering food. The teacher realises she only has a short time with us so she wanted to give us the most useful Mandarin for travelling. There were four two hour classes, the first two taken by Illie and the other two by Lusi. (below)

Spring dinner was a much awaited event in most of the Hall C's student diaries. Dinner seemed to take a long time because all the speeches were in Cantonese. However one student translated what the special speaker came to share. She entitled her talk 'Life is a stage'. It was great to meet this MP because she is standing up for what she believes in. Tanya Chan is one of six MPs who stood up to the pressure of Beijing and because of her stand won't be able to travel back into China. She advocates a free Hong Kong and while accepting a 'One country, two systems' policy fights for Hong Kong's autonomy to make its own decisions for its own interest.