Visit to Yim Tin Tsai

A group of Sri Lankan friends recently visited Yim Tin Tsai, a small offshore island in Sai Kung. In the late 1800s, a number of Catholic missionaries arrived from Europe and began to evangelize in the Sai Kung and Tai Po areas. The small communities built churches and chapels (one still stands near the folk museum in Pak Tam Chung), and one of the most beautiful chapels is in Yim Tin Tasi, which is a 15-minute boat ride from the Sai Kung pier.

The island had been settled by the Chan's family some 300 years ago. "Yim Tin" means salt-pan and the villagers had lived on farming and salt-making. All the locals had gradually left (a common occurrence in the New Territories, which is sprinkled with "ghost" villages as a result).

According to records, the first missionaries, two Italians, had arrived in the island in 1864 and by 1875 all the islanders had been baptized. The chapel, dedicated to St. Joseph, was built by a German priest, Rev. Josef Freinademetz, in 1890. (He was ordained to sainthood by Pope John Paul II in 2003.) The islanders apparently led exemplary Christian lives and have produced two priests, Frs. Dominic Chan and Joachim Chan, and two nuns.

On the day we visited, the boat from Sai Kung was packed with about 15 children from a primary school in Tseung Kwon O, accompanied by two teachers who were taking them on a guided tour, and an elderly gentleman and a younger woman who may have been his daughter. I later saw this pair sweeping the grounds and cleaning up around the chapel.

As we arrived, we were greeted by a friendly man who appeared to be a descendant of the Chan's and probably the only resident of the island. He managed the charming "leisure kiosk" which offered noodles, snacks, Hakka dumplings, and, most importantly, cold beer. The day turned out to be rather hot for late October.

The charming "Leisure Kiosk"


These may have been the last homes inhabited by the villagers.


The beautiful chapel built in 1890 is dedicated to St. Joseph.


The immaculately maintained interior of the chapel

Prof. Malik Peiris from HKU, the only Sri Lankan Fellow of the Royal Society. Malik discovered the SARS virus.


The well-maintained graves

The chapel seen from a distance

The abandoned salt pans. Sal was made through evaporation of brackish water.

Through the marshes


A view of the pier. Sai Kung can be seen in the distance

Yim Tin Tsai, though only a short boat ride away, is a world apart from Sai Kung and fully worth a visit. I wondered why no one had thought of setting up a Bed & Breakfast there?

If you wish to visit, boats are available on Saturdays, Sundays, and Public Holidays from Sai Kung pier. The roundtrip fare is $35. Contact Colin 2791 6226. Thanks to ExploreSaikung for providing the contact.

After the boat trip, we stopped for lunch at "AJ"s Cuisine", the brand new Sri Lankan restaurant in Sai Kung (the only one in Hong Kong). The authentic Sri Lankan cuisine is highly recommended!

Teaching "Second Language Writing"

Where I sit, spending hour upon hour preparing for lectures

This, my penultimate semester at the Chinese University, I am teaching two courses in the MA program in Applied English Linguistics. The courses are taught from 6.30 to 9.15pm, not the best times for me. Being a long-term diabetic, my energy level is very low by late afternoon and exhausted by the end of class. But, I realize that teaching at the MA level where my students themselves are teachers has better long term effects than teaching undergraduates. My MA students may pick-up some effective teaching techniques which they might use in class and pass on to their students (the so called "trickle down" effect).

One of the courses is "Second Language Writing", which I hadn't taught in 5 years. My specialty is second language writing and this is a course I proposed and designed about 10 years ago. Among the four language skills--speaking, listening, reading, and writing--writing is the most neglected because of the assumption that learners become proficient in writing automatically, by a mysterious osmotic process, and therefore writing need not be taught. But the Americans changed all that, insisting that even native speakers of English needed to be taught how to write. When I first taught Freshman Writing at the U of Texas, I did not know how to teach writing and didn't fully trust that it could be taught. In the first few weeks, I walked into class with trepidation, lacking confidence and feeling like a fraud. As I taught writing to those eager American students, I, too, learned to write better. I went on to become a writing "specialist", with research and publications, including two textbooks, on writing.

Coming back to Hong Kong, most of my students are teachers in Hong Kong secondary schools, where the teaching is oriented to the HKCEE and the Advanced Level exams. Hong Kong classrooms have no time or patience with the process approach to writing because it is time consuming and cognitively demanding, and does not favor the rabid memorization that that passes for "education"in Hong Kong. The process approach came into fashion a good 35 years ago in the USA, but, in Hong Kong, it's still considered a novelty in many schools. So, in my course, I am winning the "hearts and minds" of my student-teachers, hoping to persuade them to adapt at least some of the features of the process approach in their teaching.

The last time I taught the course it was more or less stand and deliver, with quite a bit of discussion with students. But, now, the PowerPoint is king and I am compelled to prepare PP slides, spending about 15 - 20 hours of preparation on each lecture. But, this is time well spent because I am thinking again, and deeply, about the topics and learning to see them from new viewpoints.

Going by the electronic discussion among the students, some of them appear to have been converted. As we discuss topics such as teacher feedback, error correction, and peer reviews, the students contribute insights from their own practices as well as novel ideas that are pragmatic in the Hong Kong context. So, even after 40 years of teaching, I look forward to teaching this course. There's still some life left in this old teacher!

Construction at "Pondside"

With my retirement looming and the possibility of spending more time in Sri Lanka, the idea came to me in August that "Pondside" needed some expansion. So I thought of expanding one of the 12' X 12' bedrooms in to 18' X 24", expanding the small kitchen, and adding another toilet.

When I talked to my cousin Krisantha, who is a master carpenter and also undertakes small-scale construction jobs, he offhandedly quoted Rs. 1.5 million (about US$15,000) for the project. At that time, I laughed it off because it seemed hideously exaggerated. In 1997, when a new house was built at "Pondside" along with fencing and a bund along the pond, the entire cost was only Rs. 800,000.



View from the front. The existing house is to the right.


View of the extended kitchen. The new toilet is to the right.



The expanded bedroom. It extends towards the pond.

But, as I have written before, I am one of the less affluent people in Boralessa village. Many villagers live and work in Italy and they visit the village about once a year to throw their money around to have small palaces built. The masons, carpenters, and electricians pander to their whims and fancies and these constructions cost enormous sums. So, in some ways, I am a victim of the affluence.

To be fair, all building materials have skyrocketed in price. Cement, sand, bricks, and granite are unimaginably expensive now.

As the photos show, the work is proceeding on schedule but the cost is also rising. Soon, the Rs. 15M mark will be met. By how much will the original estimate be exceeded? I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Prof. Charles Kao wins Nobel Prize for Physics

Prof. Kao with his wife Wong May-wan (Photo from SCMP)

On October 27, 2008, I wrote on this blog about Prof. Kao, the former VC of the Chinese University. I had met him and his wife at the University Health Center and remembered his shy, unassuming manner amidst the black suited, pompous bureaucrats of the university.

The blog entry was not because he had been CUHK's Vice Chancellor but because Asiaweek magazine had named him one of the six Asians of the Century, the only living receipient among the six.

I am copying the following extract from my blog dated 27/10/08.

[In 2000, Asiaweek magazine chose the 6 Asians of the 20th century who by their life and work contributed most to the betterment of Asia in the previous 100 years. The recipients were Politics and Government Deng Xiaoping (China); Business and Economics Sony founder Morita Akio (Japan); Arts, Literature and Culture Film director Kurosawa Akira (Japan); Science and Technology Charles K. Kao (China/U.S.); Moral and Spiritual Leadership Mohandas K. Gandhi (India) [The Asian of the Century was also Gandhi.]

Even at that time, Prof. Kao was the only living recipient of this rare honour. Asiaweek's citation read: Charles K. Kao. In 1966, Kao, then working in London, laid out the theoretical basis for the practical use of lasers and glass fibers in communications networks. He further established how to make optical fibers, how to connect them to lasers and how to join lengths together. Today optical fibers carry 80% [this was in 2000] of global long-distance telecommunications traffic, bringing the far corners of the world closer together and accelerating the arrival of the networked future. ]

Now, the Nobel Committee has finally recognized Prof. Kao. BBC and CNN of course call him an American but he belongs to Hong Kong. As I wrote last time, we should remember Prof. Kao each time we log on to the Internet. No one deserved the Nobel Prize more.