Duncan got sick just before Christmas with a sore throat and laryngitis. He decided to see what traditional Chinese medicine would do for him. We were with one of my HK colleagues, Pak Sheung, and he volunteered to facilitate the process. First was finding a practitioner. There are plenty of them around, with little shops around the neighborhoods, but Pak wanted to make sure we found a good one. The one he chose, I pass frequently and there is always a line of people, sitting on stools in the store, waiting to see the doctor. I did not experience that part of it (Pak and Elizabeth, along with the patient seemed sufficient), but the doctor felt various energy points and asked several questions before prescribing a concoction that was to be taken for 4 days. It would not be ready until the evening, and in we had to go back for each of the next 4 evenings to pick up a 10 oz paper cup that was filled with the medicine. I don't know the ingredients (barks, leaves, roots, etc.), but it was black and thick and smelled sort of like licorice, but worse. The taste was extremely bad - very bitter, the sort of thing you might give somebody if you wanted them to throw up. I just had a small taste to see what it was like but Duncan was supposed to consume the entire 10 oz. We discovered subsequently that many people have switched to western medicine here because they cannot deal with the taste of these remedies. Duncan did his best, and by the fourth day got down about half of it, but I think he has had his fill of Chinese medicine.
Did it do any good? Hard to say, because he was not that sick and would have got better anyway. Pak's point of view was interesting. He said that experiencing the bitterness was part of the cure. It was part of the price to be paid to get the benefit of health.
Elizabeth enjoyed the football at the East Asian Games- sort of - though we were there for about 5.5 hours which was a little much. So the following, we went to a different marathon activity, Cantonese Opera. Elizabeth's exercise class teacher was performing. There were nine sets of two performers, one playing the female and the other the male role, although they were often both women. The female role was sung in falsetto, which meant it was really high. Each pair only sung one song, but each song lasted about half an hour, so you can do the maths. Everything was in Cantonese, so we had no idea what was going on. Good live music, with a mixture of Western and Chinese instruments, but overall something of an endurance test. The performers are supposed to be singing for the gods, which is just as well as the audience didn't seem to be paying too much attention. Actually, sometimes they were, but at other times they would be having loud conversations with each other or falling asleep. It was an older crowd. We were the only white folk there and also part of the few who were under 60.
I took a break at one point and wandered round the neighborhood in search of some flowers to give to Elizabeth's teacher. They were easily found and more interesting was the scene at the local office of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. It was mobbed, with lots of people spilling into the neighboring plaza, where they were sitting around, perusing the racing paper and often smoking cigarettes. Mostly male, but not entirely so. I think I wrote about going to the races a couple of months back. This is the off- track part of the experience. It looked like the Hong Kong counterpart of a familiar working class British tradition. However, here, the Jockey Club has the monopoly on betting (or legal betting, I should say), so the shops are fewer and the crowds at them larger.

For the past 10 days, Hong Kong has been hosting the East Asian Games. We thought we would take advantage by going to see a few events. There are 9 countries competing - China, Taiwan (or Chinese Taipei, as the announcers were told to call it), Macau, Mongolia, Hong Kong, two Koreas, Japan and Guam. We started with table tennis, since it seemed that this part of the world contains the best players. It was very impressive, with four games going on simultaneously, all of which could be seen at once. I tended to find a game that was competitive and watch that one. However, I made an exception to that rule when the two Guam players came out to compete in the singles tournament. They looked like they could have been father and son. Dad was about 40, with a paunch to match, but could move surprisingly well. His 'son' looked younger than Jacob and Duncan. They were absolutely creamed, but took it is good cheer and I bet had a wonderful time in Hong Kong. Actually, I noted in this morning's paper that Guam's total medal haul for the games has been one bronze, so I suspect their experience may have been shared by other members of the Guam team.
We also saw Guam compete in both men and women's Rugby Seven's. Apparently, the biggest sporting event of the year here is the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, when the best players in the world compete. That wasn't happening here, because, in contrast to table tennis, East Asia is not noted for its rugby prowess. However, they do take it pretty seriously. For those that don't know, Rugby Sevens is a version of the game where each team has 7 players on the field and each half lasts for 7 minutes, with a running clock. The idea is to make the game go very fast and it works that way. It has been added to the next Olympics and so the IOC commissioner was here to give out the medals to denote that fact. Getting creamed at Rugby Sevens looked distinctly more painful than at table tennis. The biggest discrepancies appeared to be with the women, where the Hong Kong and the Guam teams looked like high school girls, in comparison to the much larger and stronger Chinese women. In the first game I saw, the Chinese women beat Hong Kong by 44 - 0. That is a lot of points to score in 14 minutes.
The men's games were more competitive, and in fact Hong Kong heroically beat China to get to the gold medal game against Japan. They almost won that too, but Japan overtook them on the very last play of the game. In Rugby Sevens, the game can only end on a dead ball and since that does not happen very often can get extended beyond those 7 minutes. I get the sense that Hong Kongers have absorbed some of that British plucky losers spirit, so almost winning may feel more comfortable. The Guam teams endeared themselves to everybody after their losses by performing a short excerpt from Michael Jackson's Thriller on their way off the field.
The football was spread out over the duration of the games and we just saw the 3rd/4th playoff for bronze and the gold medal game. And unlike the rugby, only men were competing. The bronze medal game was interesting because it was North vs South Korea. Who knows what was going on in their heads, but they were very nice to each other on the field. Playing hard, but the fouls were fairly benign and they helped each other up after them. The north team looked a little older and a little tougher, but the game ended up as a 1:1 draw. The south prevailed on penalties. One remarkable thing about that (for all you soccer/football aficionados out there) was that the referee had a N Korean player take his kick 3 times. The first 2 attempts were both saved, but the ref said the goalie moved too soon. The goalie got really mad and ended up getting a yellow card for his pains. But he went ahead and saved for a third time, which meant that S Korea had won the game.
On to the final, Hong Kong vs Japan. HK were expected to be the plucky losers once more, but this time they won, again on penalties, much to the delight of the large and raucous crowd. We were sitting right next to the core of the HK support, who came equipped with drums and an enormous flag - probably about 20 x 30 feet. That flag did a complete circuit of the stadium, being dragged across the tops of the crowd's heads. It was interesting to see the enthusiasm with which the HK fans booed the opposing team - seemed a little unAsian somehow. The Japanese scored half way through the first half. But then HK brought on their super sub at the beginning of the second half. He is actually part of the British Premier League's Tottenham side and they allowed him to come home for this game. He only arrived a couple of hours before the game and scored with a nice header about a minute into the half. That was all the scoring, despite extra time and so to the penalties.

It has been a while since I have added to this blog. I guess that reflects my current state of busy -ness. Let me survey the last few weeks, since we got back from Korea.
Korea was followed relatively quickly with a trip to Zhuhai. Zhuhai is to Macau what Shenzhen is to Hong Kong, i.e. a city just adjacent to a Special Administrative Region, where economic incentives facilitate rapid growth. However, Macau is not Hong Kong and so Zhuhai has not developed to the same extent as Shenzhen. Maybe at least in part because of that, the PRC government is trying to make it into a center for higher education, establishing branch campuses for several universities. Hence United International College, which bizarrely is a partnership between Honk Kong Baptist University and Beijing Normal University. Christianity and communism combined! However, the HKBU part is dominant and really all that BNU does is to enable HKBU to set up shop in mainland China.
We were at UIC to help with a liberal studies conference/workshop that also involved a number of people from a consortium of Minnesotan Private Colleges. I was particularly impressed with the President of Saint Scholastica in Duluth, who gave a couple of talks with excellent and thought-provoking content.
It was a much more Chinese environment than the more international Hong Kong. Such things are most noticeable for me when it comes to breakfast. Any number of savory dishes - congee (savory rice porridge), noodles, steamed buns of various types, meat and vegetable dishes. One evening we went into town, but UIC provided us with student guides, to take account of language issues and to make sure we did not get lost. Elizabeth and I had a great time with our guide, who unusually was from Hong Kong. We spent the whole evening in a hot pot restaurant, which meant we were given pots of broth, heating on burners at the table, in which we cooked all manner of good stuff.
The provost at UIC has the goal of extending the work we are doing with general and liberal education in Hong Kong to mainland China. Talk about thinking big. Rather overwhelming if you ask me.
So that was a 3-day trip and since then I have helped with workshops at the HK Institute of Education and the HK University of Science and Technology. Plus things have been heating up at PolyU, since I have figured out how to engage with the parts of the university required for me to be effective. In addition I have been working with the General Education Centre here as it plans the transition to a normal academic department. Then the semester is ending so I have had all the usual end of semester stuff with my class.
However, there has still been time for fun stuff, not that the work stuff has not also been fun. There was Thanksgiving in there somewhere, when the Freake/Huebner family cooked. Lacking an oven, we could not host, so we decamped for the afternoon to another Fulbrighter's much larger apartment. Just the afternoon, mind you, because I had to teach in the morning. And the turkey cost the usual weekly food budget.
This past weekend, we had two wonderful outings. The first was to Sai Kung Country Park. It required a 90 minute ferry ride and then close to an hour trek, to get to some fabulous beaches. These beaches came equipped with cafes, which suited me, and big waves, which the surfers enjoyed. Then yesterday we went to one of the HK islands called Cheung Chau. It was just like putting down into a Chinese version of a Mediterranean village. A little bigger and more crowded but a wonderful place to be. You can buy fish in the market and take it to the restaurants to be cooked. And just half an hour by the fast ferry from downtown HK. Not a bad place to live!
By the way, I am not sure what photos I am going to put up with this narrative. My designated photographers, Jacob and Duncan were off in Sichuan on the Habitat for Humanity. They had a wonderful time there and are now adept bricklayers.