SUSIE MALLETT

My visitors today

Showing posts with label Hong Kong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hong Kong. Show all posts

Monday, 5 December 2011

CE books in China

"The Big Buddha"

One year to the day and still enjoying the excitement

One year ago today I was in Hong Kong for the 7th World Congress on Conductive Education.

During the months before the congress I worked very hard to prepare my first book so that it could be launched there. It was launched and was well received. You can read about it here:


I have been working on books Two, Three and Four all this year but none of these had reached the printing press, until today.

It was just a nice coincidence that this morning, on the anniversary of Hong Kong 2010, I had a meeting with the designer of that first book to discuss the second in the series. This will be a joint project with one of my clients and we hope it will be in print ready to be launched at a conference in Germany, in March 2012.

I just arrived back home from that meeting to discover, amongst my emails, that yet another book story. 

Another book is about to be launched!

Last year when I was in Hong Kong I was approached by SAHK (formerly the Spastic Society of Hong Kong) in regards to translating my first book into Chinese. We made plans.

I heard today that the translation is finished, a preface has been written and the book is in print, ready to be launched and distributed at a conference in Shanghai that begins on 26th December.

As I said the excitement of my trip to Hong Kong just goes on and on and on!

I wish I could be in Shanghai to see the launch of that Chinese version of Book One. I am relying on others to send me a photograph or two for my blog!

With many thanks to Ivan for making my day today!

Sunday, 20 February 2011

Names again

"Orderly bathroom at a SAHK hostel, Hong Kong"

I was travelling in Australia in 1987/88, at a time when people, centres and organisations throughout the world working with children and adults with disability were taking great care in their choice of words to describe their work .

During my stay in Australia I visited centres for people with disabilities in Sydney and in towns furthur north along the coast. I was somewhat surprised to discover that use of the word "spastic" in their names was still considered acceptable. Elsewhere in the world "cerebral palsy" was the term being used to describe the condition.

When I was in Hong Kong in Decmber, travelling northwards in a bus to visit a SAHK workshop and hostel for adults with disabilities, I heard the story of the Spastic Centre in Sydney, Australia and how it had been only recently re-named, as mentioned in the Google Alert below.
A conductor, who had been one of those who showed me the ropes in the first group that I worked in as a student at the Petö Institute, and who now works at a centre in Australia, talked to me about this change of name, and talked also about the difficulties faced while doing it.


In Hong Kong SAHK has managed it by using only its initials as its new name and logo.

It can be very difficult for charities already well known in their local communities to continue raising sufficient funds if they need to change their name. A good advertising campaign needs putting in place for people to make the link.

That goes for more than charities.

Wednesday, 16 February 2011

There is one person who you really must meet

Meeting a green man in an ancient woodland.
A wood full of lime kilns and ice houses, with a green me.
The green man was discovered by my sister at Whitlingham Broad, Norwich, 14th February 2011

This sentence that provides the title of this posting was spoken to me on my arrival in Hong Kong, on the Saturday evening before the pre-Congress workshops began.

At the time I had no idea why I should meet the person mentioned but, by the time that pre-Congress workshops the Congress and the post-Congress visits were all over I most certainly did know, and I was very happy to have had the pleasure of meeting her.

Off to a workshop

On the Sunday before the World Congress started I took myself out of the hotel door, armed with a map to guide me through the streets and the underground rail network to reach Kowleen, to take part in a pre-Congress workshop, in Cantonesse, about using art with children with disability.

In an email that I had received from the secretary of the Congress several months before, soon after I registered for this workshop, I had been asked whether I had made a mistake by registering for a workshop that was to be held in Chinese. I had not made a mistake and as it turned out I had rightly believed that I would manage all right, as a workshop about art would be mainly visual.

Armed with a map

Back to the story of the scary journey that took me on to the busy streets of Hong Kong and its to the underground railway. Even on a Sunday the place was swarming. I actually noticed no difference in the amount of traffic and people on the streets on different days of the week, or even at different times of the day. For me it was always busy, like speeded-up film image of street scenes, people scurrying like ants everywhere.

I do not like walking around with a map in a foreign place, as I think that it makes me look very vulnerable, I was soon to learn that I had apparently been giving out very different vibes, even with a map.

On the underground I made the change to a different line and settled down to count the stops before I had to get out of the amazingly long, bendy caterpillar of a train.

Meeting Sister Joan

Just before the doors shut a small lady dressed in black hopped spritely onto the train, with that style of movement that only elderly people who appear to be younger than their age have.

She stood beside me, looked me up and down and, in a wonderful Irish brogue asked tentatively whether I was in Hong Kong for a conference. I do not even think that I answered in the affirmative. I think I just said:

"You must be Sister Joan!"

Unbelievably, she answered with a question:

"Are you Susie Mallett?"

We continued on your journey together, deep in conversation. Already I was discovering why it had been suggested that I should meet this lovely lady.

Sister Joan and I travelled together to the workshop that was held at the Marion Fang Kindergarten, a place that Sister Joan holds dear to her heart. She wanted to show her face as a sign of support for her "young girls", as she called them.

By the time we arrived we had got to know each other enough for Sister Joan to tell me how she had been observing me in the underground station and had been impressed by this tourist who gave the impression that she knew where she was going. Well, I suppose I did know where I was going as I had a map in my hand and with a map one cannot go far wrong. But it was nice to know that I had shown an air of confidence and had not appeared to be the vulnerable tourist that I felt I was.

Being introduced

In the evening of the same day there was a big feast to celebrate the opening of the Congress. Just after I arrived directly from the workshop, still with paint under the fingernails, Sister Joan was grabbed in one hand and I was grabbed in the other of the mutual aquaintance who wanted to introduce us. What a surprise it was for him when Sister Joan and I then greeted each other as old friends before telling the story of our first meeting.

I talked to Sister Joan on several occasions during the Congress and was delighted to have been able to arrange a more informal meeting with her during my extended stay in Hong Kong. Over tea and coffee she described the work of SAHK, both in Hong Kong and in Mainland China.

Sister Joan makes regular visits to the orphanages in China where SAHK is assisting in developing conductive upbringing for thousands of disabled orphans.

Read all about it

Sister Joan reports on the 7th World Congress for Conductive Education here on her Order's website:

Thursday, 3 February 2011

Hong Kong revisited

"Susie with Shona, 2010"

"Hay Hay, Wan Chai"
It has been a nice surprise a few moments ago to discover Lydia again here:


I met the full-of-energy lady featured in this article in the Hay Hay, the noodle restaurant that I frequented often with friends, in Wanchai, Hong Kong. We had a really jolly evening there with four Brits and three Aussies getting to know each other.

There was a big participation from Australia at the World Congress, that included parents and conductors as well as therapists and others interested in conductive work.

I had seen that Western Australia were sending several conductors to Hong Kong when I read its newsletter last year:


Lydia was one of three parents I met from Western Australia. Amongst the conductors was one I had not seen since our last day at the Petö Institute, in June 1993. A fellow British student at the time, Shona who is now working out in Perth. It was strange, it was as if we had been seeing each other at the breakfast table in Hong Kong every day for the last eighteen years. Sometimes I think that there really is a conductive family.

A good week in Hong Kong

It was a week of surprises in Hong Kong. A week of making new friends but also of being re-united with old friends. Some unexpectedly, other pre-warned, but just as surprising and exciting. I had seen the names of some people on the Social Networking Site or on the lists of presentations that were available before travelling to Hong Kong.

The Social Networking site is still active with the regular addition of participants' photographs:

http://www.ce-congress2010.org/CE/modules/news/article.php?storyid=82

Monday, 17 January 2011

Michael J.Fox and the Botanical Gardens


"Waiting for the tram"


"Tea-time"




"Parrots"


" Green idyll"

"Museum of Tea"









Botanical Gardens, Hong Kong, 16th December 2010

16th December 2010
On the plane home

I wrote the following posting on the plane home from Hong Kong. It is one of many that I am slowly unearthing.

On leaving Hong Kong I was not as tired as I had been on leaving Germany two weeks previously, when I had fallen asleep as soon as I got into the plane, to awake refreshed just a couple of hours before landing.

My final day in Hong Kong I had spent visiting the Botanical Gardens. I had discovered this very small idyll in the middle of the business centre of the island.

While there I heard bird song for the first time since I had been in Hong Kong, I saw white and green parrots flying in front of the mirrored glass of skyscrapers, I watched a heron sleeping high in a tree, and I was mesmerized by huge fish swimming in the ornamental ponds full of beautiful flower arrangements and reflexions of the skyline.

I had walked up white marbled steps where cascading water was framed by beautiful red and white poinsettias, I wandered into the Tea Museum where I bought a few last-minute Christmas presents, and I rested my feet in a beautiful rosewood tea room where a beautifully dressed young girl with immaculately manicured nails poured my jasmine tea for me, and at the same time showed me how to perform the ceremony myself.

I finished off a perfect day with a final ride on the hundred-year-old tram, Back at the hotel to collect my suitcase and jump on the bus to the airport, I was completely relaxed and the exhaustion from the previous weeks of book-writing and work and the hectic days of the congress had left me.

Talking book

On this the return trip on the plane I was still wide awake when the food and drinks came round and after the meal I decided to take a look at what the entertainment system had to offer.

I am not much of a film-buff and certainly not at such close range. All those flashing images play havoc with my eyes, so I decided to take a look at what the talking books had on offer.

I found the latest by Michael J Fox which was a nice surprise and even nicer was that it was also read by Michael J fox. That was a treat as it sounded as though he was there beside me, telling me his story just as I tell stories in my blog.

I listened for several hours to the second installment of his account of life with Parkinson’s disease, dozing off and waking several times.

This was just the right thing for a flight home after such an interesting time at the Congress in Hong Kong.

I was not in the mood to listen to a thriller or watch a comedy film or a love story. I had read through the Congress’s abstract book while I waited for the plane, and for the food on the plane, and I did not want to write postings all night long. I thought that it would be quite nice to shut my eyes and listen to a story, so a talking book with the lovely voice of Michael J Fox was just perfect, especially as I learnt so much through his story that will help me when I work with my clients.

Notes

Michael J Fox -

Lucky Man: A Memoir

Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned

Tuesday, 4 January 2011

What Confucius says and what the China Daily writes

Align Centre Breakfast with the papers

What a shop window in Wan Chai says in Chinglish!

The Hot Incense Pot, Ngong Ping, Hong Kong, December 2010

Chinglish

Written in Hong Kong, 11-14th December 2010
The Wan Chai Empire has the best porridge ever, after my Dad’s!

That is not what Confucius said, that is what I said. What Confucius said comes later.

The porridge really is good, especially with the added SM touch. I put a spoonful of salted Chinese peanuts into it instead of the usual sprinkling of salt. The peanuts were in a bowl beside a different hot pot, with a forgettable Chinese name, amongst an array of spicy pickles.

The coffee is good too as there is warm milk to add, just like I wish I always had time to do at home!

Breakfast time

Since I was nineteen-years-old, when I left home for art school with the promise to Mum not to jump on my bike in the mornings without eating, I have loved breakfast.

I love breakfast with a newspaper and tea and toast, with a notebook, or a paintbrush and a bowl of muesli in my own kitchen. I love it sharing a crossword with my Dad at home or after a night on the sofa at my sister’s house. I love breakfast in the café beside the duck-pond near work, and I loved the early morning eggs-sunny-side-up or easy-over breakfasts that I experienced in America.

I also love the breakfasts here in Hong Kong. On the Congress days they were spent with a variety of friends old and new, getting up to refresh coffee or to collect pancakes with maple syrup and a selection of exotic fruits, while at the same time hugging a long lost Hungarian, Scottish, Australian or English friend. Even a few book-signings took place over breakfast!

Now in the quieter days, when Congress-goers have left for faraway places, I can spend some time with my newspaper on one side and my notebook on the other.

A word from my paper

Each morning I wake to discover a copy of the China Daily delivered to my bedroom door. What a treat to have a newspaper all of my own. My Mum used to treat me to the same when I was home. In Norwich it was The Times that she ordered for me, here it is a different story.

I had managed to scan the front page of the paper most mornings during the busy days and picked out a few articles that I may comment on later, but now I actually have time to read it.

Three days ago I read an interesting article on how English words are being introduced in the Chinese language and how new English words are creeping into the Hong Kong English. This reminded me of the campaign to keep the German language German by the people who oppose Neu Deutsch, but with a difference. Here in the China Daily there were no protests. No, on the contrary, the journalist Raymond Zhou describes it as something positive, telling us that the words that are creeping into the Chinese people’s languages “indicate how vibrant the mother tongue of Confucius has become.”

The article was a bit confusing. I was not sure whether I was reading about English words in Chinese or Chinese translated into funny English, but as the China Daily stated, I was reading about “language at is most vibrant, breaking out of fractured rocks like the legendary Monkey King, spurning conventions and hopping from treetop to treetop”.

It is what is described in the China Daily as “the hottest word of the year” that first caught my eye and made me read the rest of this article.

This word that initially attracted me was one that sounded very German and one that causes problems for the older generation in Germany.

This word is “ Geili” which means to give power or force. It is reported to come from a dialect but nobody could trace which one. As I said it sounds very German to me!

For a second time in the article I read about the Monkey King, as it was after being used in a dubbed Japanese film about the Monkey King that this word became the in word for cool or awesome.

Coincidence

The hip word for cool or awesome in German is Geil! How it derived this meaning forat least the past ten years, having meant homosexual for many more years previously, I have no idea. Older generations in German still have difficulty keeping “cool” when confronted with a grandchild for whom everything is geil!
Geili in China has been turned into a verb and has also taken on English forms “gelivable” and “ungelivable”.

More Chiglish

The China Daily article mentions a host of other words and phrases that are coming into use. One of my favourites is a word that describes smiling and saying nothing: “Smilence”. Apparently this word was created to describe Chinese stoicism or prudishness.

Other words in daily use on the Internet are “Chinternet”, “goveruption”, “livelihard” and “shitizen”!

Apparently although there is no Chinese equivalent of Urban Dictionary, there are scholars like Huang Jiwei, who collect witty sayings, but he feeling is that most of the grassroots wisdom will be soon lost when the next round of “geili” sayings hit the streets.

In a paper that I read while I waited at Hong Kong airport a week later, The Sunday Morning Post from 5th December, I noticed that the pre-Christmas best sellers list for non-fiction books listed at numbers one and five respectively Chinglish and More Chinglish; speaking in tongues, both by Oliver Lutz Radtke, who sounds like he could be German to me.

I saw enough Chinglish to fill one of these books while I was in Hong Kong, but unfortunately photographed very little of it, but one odd sign heads this posting.

Notes

The Monkey King, more stories about transformations-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Wukong

I later discovered that Oliver Lutz Radtke is German:
Oliver Lutz RadtkeChinglish: Found in Translation is a fine little book from Oliver Lutz Radtke, a German sinologist who was partially trained in China. ...
http://www.amazon.com/More-Chinglish-Oliver-Lutz-Radtke/dp/1423605845/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

More of what the China Daily says:
13th December 2011, Hong Kong

What else was there to read in the China Daily had landed at my door each morning?

There was also the 11th December- opening of the Asian Para-Games to read about on several days, in what appear to be very positive reports. Describing it as a stage for athletes to display self-esteem, self-confidence, self-striving and self-reliance, in an atmosphere filled with joy, friendship and dreams. The Games are following on after the Para-Olympics in Beijing with the same slogan “Spirit in Motion”, with the goal of fostering a more inclusive society and to inject vitality in a bid to constructing a harmonious Asia.

On the neighbouring page is a huge full-page article with the heading “ Stick to the path of peaceful development”.

What is that one all about? The first paragraph states:

“The CPC Central Committee’s Proposal for Formulating the 12th Five-Year-Plan for China’s Economic and Social Development adopted by the Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee has drawn the grand blueprint for China’s development in the next five years.”

On the following page the article is headed with the word harmony and the next with humanity. Another says that China needs adaptability and then there is the Monkey King with all his transformations and the vitalisingof Confucius’ language with the addition of a bit of Chinglish.

On another page there is a dramatic picture of students jumping off burning park benches in London underneath which readers are told that despite a “rebellion by members of the coalition government, student fees were raised.

There are articles telling readers not to be too complacent about the standards of education in Hong Kong despite the high grades that students are getting.
There are stories about finding foster care for hundreds and thousands of orphans and others about caring for the elderly population.

The paper is produced for English-speaking visitors to China. Sometimes while reading I felt like I was back in Hungary reading an English language newspaper in the late eighties.
One morning in Hong Kong I found that I was alone at breakfast for the first time in many days, days that I had spent meeting friends, old and new, over the coffee pot, scotch pancakes, porridge, scrambled eggs and hash browns.

Now alone I even quite enjoyed the piped music, that played quiet, classical versions of familiar Christmas songs, while I read the daily report on the Nobel Prize and its winner.

Nobel’s empty chair

There had been something written in the China Daily every day since I arrived about Lui Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese man who received the Nobel Peace Prize. I have been following this news story since the winner of the Prize was announced. I have been reading about it in Time Magazine, the Guardian Weekly and in German newspapers.

Here in the Chinese newspapers I read a different story. I will not go into the politics of that here, although it is really interesting to have been able to read about it in both the East and the West. I am glad to have had the chance to read about world news in the country in which it is actually taking place, even though it is news sorted out for the tourist.

Today (Monday 13th December) the China Daily put Liu Xiaobo and the Dali Lama, who was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in the same category. They were both prisoners who had committed crimes against their homelands.

What Confucius said

It was today’s headline for the Nobel story that caught my eye:

“Peace Prize mockery of its ideals”

“Confucius once said that when something was called by the wrong name it was the result of failure of understanding and an inability to perceive reality.”

This is the tone of most of the articles that I have read on this subject while in Hong Kong, dramatically different to what I had been reading at home. The general feeling that I get from the reports is the belief that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee have little understanding of what the people of China really wish for, and that they should take a trip to find out.

January 4th 2011

I have just spent a very pleasurable two hours after writing up my notes for this posting re-reading several days’ worth of China Daily, Hong Kong Editions. Actually for a paper that is for visitors there is a huge cross-section of news with the balance tipping towards social matters and the next Five-Year Development Plan. I am really glad that I took the time to read the newspapers while in China and make the effort to bring so many snippets back with me.

Notes

Saturday, 1 January 2011

Hong Kong leftovers - 4

Pre-Congress fishermen and women

A British fish

Two Chinese Fish


Engrossed in my work


A chance to relax after a long flight on the previous day

The bottles that I painted
First the blue one with the handle just a shape that I imagined,
then the green one was done through touch only.
Although blinded-folded, though, I seemed to know what colour the real bottle was!

Andrew Sutton’s Chinese takeaway –4

http://www.conductive-world.info/2010/12/world-congress-take-away-4.html

Re: Ivan Su's post Congress workshop. My thoughts during this workshop were that we should have gone through the whole of the Congress, and any time spent later meeting people and in discussion, with a much better understanding of SAHK and its "culture" had we all heard Ivan’s most brilliant lecture first.

As it was, the very small audience was so tired by the two jam-packed previous Congress days that we could not do it justice. I was actually enthralled by the workshop and how Ivan was enthusing us, despite our exhaustion.

Even if my eyes were physically drooping I was wide-eyed mentally as I soaked it all in.

One thing that I realised among other things was that having such a business-like approach is what is missing in most centres offering CE in the West. I do not mean by “business-like” that it is about making money, it is not, but it is about not loosing money and having enough resources to provide for the best life-style possible for clients.

These resources are the human resources and yes, they do cost money. Not only that, SAHK has a psychology department, all four of the centres that I visited in my two weeks in Hong Kong had a psychologist in the team, a team more often than not headed, as Andrew Sutton mentioned, by a social worker.

I remember “talking” to Andrew a couple of years ago in an email, about how excited I was to learn about what was being done in Hong Kong “conductively”. Andrew had then just returned from China after a week of busy visits and meetings. He was still making up his own mind about what he has seen and said nothing to influence my enthusiastic mood.

Much later, as the 2010 Congress neared and I read more about SAHK’s work, I was even more convinced that my own conductive-style living and upbringing was nearer to what was happening in Hong Kong than to what I experienced in some other conductive centres that I have visited in the West.

I was not at all worried by the time I actually got to China, that I would be disappointed or that my mind would have to change.

I certainly was not disappointed

From what I listened to, observed, and heard in Ivan Su’s post-Congress workshop, SAHK has developed a conductive culture in all of its teams in a way so similar to the conductive cultures that I strive to develop within the structures of all the families with which I work.

I say again now what I said to many of the people I met in SAHK's centres, I really am very impressed and learnt a lot that will help my own development.

I wonder if I would have came away with the same positive feelings if I had only been in Hong Kong for the four days of the Congress.

I know that that final, post-Congress workshop was the key to understanding much of every thing that I had seen up to that point and it gave me a very good idea as to how I wanted to spend the following week in Hong Kong discussing and observing conductive work .

I came away hopeful of more of the same! The determination of these teams of people at SAHK was inspirational. It showed me that it really can work on a large scale.

It works fairly well in my small world of conduction here at home, where teachers, school aids, parents grandparents etc., all work with a conductive aim for our clients. But that is small fry compared to what I saw in Hong Kong.

I came away inspired and even more determined in my own efforts to teach more families about conductive upbringing.

It is already taking place, it seems that I only have to think about communicating to a wider audience and it happens. As if by magic ,as my athetoid clients would say!

As I say to those children what it really comes down to is a lot of hard work

As far as the “wetwear problems” go, those that Andrew Sutton described when discussing the Social Networking Platform, I encountered none in my meetings once I was in Hong Kong. Perhaps I too should give it ago on the Platform again. Like Andrew, as the Congress neared, I had eventually given up on it.

Re. German Christmas Market

I had been looking forward to having a Christmas-card photograph taken with a mug of Gluhwein in my hand at this market. I asked many people its whereabouts while in Hong Kong. I even had some Hong Kongers searching the Net. I searched Andrew Sutton’s blog and mine for any reference to it, to no avail. I should have looked in the social networking site where I think it was also mentioned but by then I too had just about given up on the Social Network. So as it turned out, I too missed the Christmas market.

But I did see a huge market in Causeway Bay as I was travelling on the top deck of a double-decker tram, having visited the headquarters of SAHK, in Hong Kong’s North Point.

The market looked like a mini-expo and the signs indicated that it was selling “all things Chinese”. The place was still swarming with visitors at six o’clock in the evening. I made the choice of travelling further down the line to have supper at the Hay-Hay, on what was my final evening in Hong Kong.

Perhaps I would have had an even better choice of food had I taken my weary legs to the front of the tram, paid my two dollars and jumped off at the market, but I carried on. In the end my meal of cashews with prawns, and fried rice with veggies, was a perfect end to the trip!

Friday, 31 December 2010

Transport in Hong Kong



My model green tram on top of my fridge, amongst new friends

Cable cars heading towards Lantau Island, on 5.7 kilometres of cable!

Hong Kong from the Peak Tram

Tram and taxis from my hotel room


Tram, taxi, Methodist Church, a building site, and always a row of motor cycles,
my view each morning

Trams at the busy intersection where the Indonesian maids met on Sundays
You can just see their heads where they sit on the bridge sharing their meals

Tramway or cycle path?
It was by far the safest place for bikes on Hong Kong Island


MTR, a long winding underground carriage

"A queue of trams!"

A Hong Kong bus

Buses and taxis and the Methodist Church, from my hotel window

Trams

A green tram at the Pawn

The Ferry Port

Hong Kong bus

Peak tram and traveller

Model trains on Lantau Island

Real tram in Hong Kong again with traveller


The delights of travelling by public transport in a city that is even more efficient than in Budapest or in Germany. All mentioned earlier this week by Andrew Sutton at:

http://www.conductive-world.info/2010/12/chinese-takeaway-2.html


The lovely old, green trams are not all green any more. There were red ones, pink ones, black ones, white ones and blue ones. Even maroon ones with Christmas lights for party goers! The MTR (underground) is incredibly sleek and shiny and never-ending! The red and beige taxis are everywhere. Travelling on the Peak Tram reminds us adopted Magyars of being in Budapest, although the views in Hong Kong were far more spectacular. And all the double-decker buses reminded me of home! The ferry was something novel for me and using it gave me a better idea of the distances between the islands than did travelling by MTR or bus.

My favourite after the double decker trams were the lovely Hong Kong little buses, but I forgot to buy myself one for the top of the fridge!

Notes

MTR, buses, ferry and green trams and more -
http://www.conductive-world.info/2010/12/chinese-takeaway-2.html