May, 2023 → Capturing Language and Photos

Construction – The City is Taking Over

May 23, 2023

A Chat With Sandy This morning I met a lady from Tsing Tau Village walking her dog, Jackson. I will call her Sandy. I asked Sandy about the construction. She told me they are putting up 22 public housing high rises. I asked her how many floors high they would be. She didn’t know, but from looking at the buildings we could see that many of them are already 25 stories high. Let’s just estimate they go another 5 stories, and the buildings will be 30 stories high. They could build them 40 stories high. We just don’t know but…

TaiTan Trail Has it All Waterfront, Shade, and a Beach

May 23, 2023

Recently, TaiTan has been one of my favourite trails. It's in SaiKung East Country Park. I like running there. In the following video, I run the first section of the trail with my GoPro set to Time Wrap. This worked well for the very beginning of the trail, but after I entered the woods it became a little too intense. The path is relatively flat but it is not smooth. In fact, it feels a bit like an obstacle. There are rocks everywhere. So you are constantly moving up, down, and back and forth. Thankfully, all of this is for…

Get Healthy Then Care For Others

May 17, 2023

In Hong Kong, 74% mental health sufferers do not seek help. This statistic comes from MindHK. It represents something deeply wrong in our society. Get healthy Then care What’s the value of a life? In God’s eyes each person is of infinite value. We have a responsibility to ourselves and to those around us to value life. When a person is drowning in depression or other mental illnesses, they can’t see clearly. It may take years for them to recover. They are responsible for their life, but as adults (especially those who are primary care givers) we have a role…

A Home for the Cows to Come Home to

May 14, 2023

I remember years ago the first time when I met a cow on my hiking path in Hong Kong. I’m sure he thought it was his grazing path. I didn’t argue with him. He was bigger than me. At the time, I was a little afraid. I just wasn’t familiar with cows or more specifically Hong Kong cows. Still that cow seemed very at home on the hiking trail. Fast forward to present day, I live in TinLiu, 田寮. If you are from the US, you don’t really care whether I give you the characters or not, but if you…

Sizing People Up

May 5, 2023

They say that you can't judge a book by the cover. The problem is that we do it all the time. Years ago a Chinese friend that I met in Rochester NY told me that I need to memorize a clever sounding introduction for myself to recite every time I met a new Chinese person. At the time, I thought his idea was a little over the top. Why go to that much trouble to make a good impression. Well, as a blond hair blue eye white guy, I meet lots of Chinese people who just assume I can’t speak…

Chinese Characters are Hard

May 5, 2023

Saturday morning a little after 11 am, I was walking back to my motorcycle from Trio Beach when I met this elderly couple. They were visiting a relative here in Hong Kong for a month. Both of them wish that they could stay longer. Hong Kong is an amazing place they told me. There are so many islands and places to visit. Reading Chinese The gentleman pointed to above sign and said that he finds the characters very fascinating. By that point in our conversation, I had already told them that I have lived in Hong Kong for 7 plus…