SUSIE MALLETT

My visitors today

Thursday, 6 January 2011

Kasey Gray comes up trumps again!


Once again it is a small, small world


There were so many people at the Congress in Hong Kong who I had studied with in Budapest. Some of them I have been in contact with over the past twenty years others not.


One of these was Andrea Benyovszky who works in Grand Rapids.


Andrea gave two presentations in Hong Kong. The first I heard, it was about traditional and non-traditional cases in the conductive group. The second about selective dorsal rhizotomy I unfortunately missed because I was in a different, parallel session at the time that Andrea spoke.

Luckily for me I have some readers who are really on the ball. One of these is Kasey Gray in the USA! Just a few minutes ago she sent an email telling me: "I believe that Andrea Benyovszky at CLC in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been keeping information on the children there and their experiences with SDR". It is lucky too that I have the book of Abstracts from the Hong Kong Congress, so I was immediately able to read what Andrea had presented there. Thank you Kasey for your prompt reply, I shall now email Andrea and see what more she has to tell me. Later I will publish all I can here.

Something that I realise already is that what I read this afternoon in the Britsh Government Reports described as a new treatment, had in fact been first reported back in 1913 and has been commonly performed in the United States since the mid-1980s. How old does something have to be not to be new any more?

I also gather from Andrea's abstract about this procedure that a selective dorsal rhizotomy has not in her experience reduced necessity for other muscle-release surgical procedures in most cases. I am still looking forward to hearing from others on this subject.

Thank you again Kasey for reading my blog and as always being a mine of information, and also to Andrea for providing such a good abstract for her Congress presentation.

More about Google alerts



Chinese Medicine store in Wan Chai, Hong Kong
But alerts to what?

In one of the postings that I wrote yesterday I congratulated Gábor Fellner. I had received a Google alert telling me that he had written an e-book. I noticed that Andrew Sutton had also picked up on this on his Facebook page.

Yesterday I soon realised that the link was not the official location for this " book" and that the material in question was already up on the Paces website, the link to which I put in yesterday's posting instead of the "unofficial location:

http://paces-school.org.uk/CONDUCTIVE%20EDUCATION.pdf

Today I received another Google alert about www.khuf.com. This is a search engine that has thousands of PDF files in its "collection". Apparently there are several about CE, which is why I receive the alerts to them.

Today's link:

http://khup.com/view/9_keyword-conductive-education/conductive-education-sink-or-swim.html

This article had no name of author, so I sent it on to Andrew Sutton suspecting that he would know! From looking at the timing of his Facebook snippets I think that he was on to the rest of the story before me, probably before I was even awake! You can read about what he found out at:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1540593482#%21/profile.php?id=1540593482

Thank you

I am sorry for the misleading information on my blog, but I am not sorry that the material that Gábor has written has found its way to me. I enjoyed reading it and have sent the link on to several other people. I found it to be comprehensive and hope that it will be particularly helpful to some families that I know who are just learning about conductive living.

Google alerts and what to do with them

Well I shall read them all from now on, and read them very carefully!

I have received another today. It is a link to yet another newspaper article describing yet another family's quest to raise money to take a child for treatment abroad.

Not conductive this time, not a trip to Hungary

I have been googling "selective dorsal rhizotomy" for the past hour or so and most of the newspaper headlines I found talk about a life changing operation in America.

I have been reading about the operation, about the positives and the negatives, and about some of the families who have travelled to St Louis with their children. I have noticed in photographs and video links that some of the children have been in conductive groups before and after this operation. I found no mention here, however, of Conductive Education.

Is there anyone outthere, conductors, clients, families, who can write here on my blog about their personal experiences of a selective dorsal rhizotomy operation?

I have never met a client who is considering undergoing the operation or who has undergone it.

I hope to learn more from my readers. I look forward to hearing from you.

Notes

Some of what I have been reading this afternoon

Wednesday, 5 January 2011

Celebrations

Stanley Market, Hong Kong
December 2010

Two reasons to celebrate just landed in my inbox.

The first is an e-book written by Fellner Gábor:

Congratulations Gábor, I have not read it all yet, but I will say more in another posting when I have.

The second reason is that somewhere or other, possibly Maryland, in the USA, the Prince George's Public Schools have decided to integrate Conductive Education in their system after a successful pilot scheme that took place during the last school year:

If anyone discovers more about this please inform me. I have found no more information than this one thing on Facebook that is a year old now.

This news was posted more cautiously at the URL below, 18 months ago and I think discussed on the blogosphere because of the need for successful applicants to take several exams before the work could begin.

Something new?


What to do with alerts?


I continue to receive Google alerts that I am not sure what to do with. As I wrote earlier in the week, I used to send them on to Andrew Sutton who always seemed to know what to do with them, and often they appeared on his blog. Just as often, I suspect, he put them to one side or deleted them, or he forwarded them one step further to Gill Maguire, then they appeared on her site.

I have begun to read more of the Google alerts myself, wondering whether I should blog them or put them on my "Oh Dear!" list, or throw them out with the spam.


Below is one of my more recent reads! I am now wonder what “kind of person” is going to go for this job, or is expected to apply. Is it one job or is it in fact a three-person position, for a therapist for CE, a coach and a stimulator?


Family, London
Conductor Wanted (London, UK)

A private family located in central London, UK. A part time job for a 9 year old daughter with chromosome abnormality. Condition has certain similarities with CP. Would like to receive a CE therapy/coaching/stimulation.

Job A – 1 x 2 hours during the week after school and 1 x 2 hours on a weekend.
Job B – 2 hours/3~5 times a week during School Holidays.
Job C – SLT (Speech & Language Therapist). 2 hours on a weekend.


http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/jobs-available/conductor-required-private-family-london



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

Monday, 3 January 2011

"Kritische Blicke auf Ungarn"

Critical eyes on Hungary

What is happening in Magyarórszág?

The German newspapers have had very small articles in them over the past few days about Hungary's now holding the Presidency of the EU. They may be small but the ones that I have read have been critical of this country that has taken the Presidency for the very first time.

There is not exactly oppostion to the Presidency from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other EU leaders, but it appears that there is much criticism from political and industrial allies about the recent laws that have been passed giving the Hungarian Government tight control on reporting in Hungarian newspapers and other media.

I do not regularly read a daily German paper, but last week when I had time for a coffee before work I bought and read, the Nürnberger Nachrichten. Yesterday I read the free Sunday newspaper and today I was given the Nürnberger Zeitung, which I read on the train this lunchtime.
In all three papers I read the same, that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban takes over the Presidency of the EU and at the same time approves new laws that will give his government tight control on the freedom of speech in its own country.

“The leading daily newspaper, Nepszabadsag, marked the new era with a front page declaring, in the EU's 23 languages: "The freedom of the press in Hungary comes to an end."

I wanted to use the front page mentioned here to head this blog but I could not copy it, but you take a look at it here:

“It was joined by the leftwing paper, Nepszava, whose front page was blank. At least three journalists have been suspended over the past week for trying to voice protests on state radio.
“A media law, which critics say marks the start of an era of censorship, reversing the democratic gains of the past 20 years, came into effect at the weekend, handing power to a panel of political appointees on a national media board for nine years, with no opposition representation.”

I was living in Hungary twenty years ago following closely the elections that saw the beginnings of those "democratic gains" mentioned above.

I wonder what era will begin now in Hungary, at the same time as the country begins its first six- month stint at the helm of the EU.

References

Google it, you will find a lot more! Britain is just waking up after the holidays so this is just reaching the British press. Maybe the press in other counttries has not yet turned attention to this either.

Breaking barriers


Logins and passwords

http://www.bubhub.com.au/community/forums/showthread.php?p=5468286

I found this by accident today and thought that I could just spent a couple of seconds between jobs passing on to this family a few URLs and links from which it might gather enough information to gain a better understanding of what it is that they have stumbled across. Perhaps even pave a path to finding someone to talk to about conductive upbringing opportunities in America.

But, as often happens when I try to leave comments on new sites, I come up against the barrier of logins and passwords.

Such a shame

As my internet skills increase and also, if the spare-time available to learn also increases, I will perhaps break through a few more of these barriers. Until then I hope that there are other routes available for such families.

If anyone else gets through the barriers on this one then please add a few links where this family, and perhaps others too, can find the information that it needs.

Sunday, 2 January 2011

All lives are exceptional

Nyong Ping, December 2010


Making cyber-friends

A few days ago I received an email from a lady who lives in America. She informed me that she had discovered, on a Google alert, that I have written a book, and wanted more information.

I answered the mail and then spent all that day at work trying to remember why her name was so familiar. On the tram journey home I remembered,: she has featured on my blog!

So of course I had to answer her email again!

Coincidently, I had also discovered on a Google Alert last November that the very same lady had written a book and illustrated it, just like I have since done.

I wrote about it here:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2010/11/power-of-books.html

This lady, Janet, had not discovered my blog until I replied to her last week and pointed out the coincidence.

Janet writes her own blog and writes for other websites on disabilty and families. She also works with:


There are some other people on this site who have featured in the past in postings on my, and/or on Andrew Sutton's blog, including the man who hosts the site, Nathan Charlen.

My cyberspace world continues to grow and I begin to see many more openings ahead for informing families about conductive upbringing and about developing conductive lifestyles.

Thank you Janet for getting in touch. It makes a lovely positive beginning to this New Year. I hope that we will be communicating a lot more in the future

Notes

Susie Mallett, The power of books -

Janet -
http://www.exceptionalfamilytv.com/blogs/families/janet

Where I first discovered the book -
http://www.bostonmamas.com/2010/10/boston_mamas_rock_janet_lee_harrold.html

PS

Something that I found on Janet's blog. Something that I first saw somewhere else a long time ago but had forgotten about:


http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo/pRR759~~f/Assortments/Lakeshore/ShopByCategory/blockplaymanipulatives/finemotordevelopment.jsp?icid=PD_CS2_RR759

Saturday, 1 January 2011

Oh, dear! or not Oh, dear! That is the question




"An early morning walk, in blue snow under blue skies"
30th December 2010

"Little Caleb making great strides as he battles with cerebral palsy", reports Portadown Today. "Conductive education focuses on re-tracking the messages to the brain to help him sit up and use his arms and legs. He has a poor sense of balance and his ..."

When I first looked at this, asit landed in my in-tray yesterday, my initial reaction was “Oh, dear, not again”. I am sure I have no need to explain which piece of the short Google alert alerted the Oh dear! reaction. Now that Andrew Sutton tells us that he has retired from G. alerts I also wondered what I should do with this. Should I add it to my personal "Oh Dear!" list for later use or have a look?

I decided to have a look at:

http://www.portadowntimes.co.uk/news/Little-Caleb-making-great-strides.6675427.jp

I was pleased to read up-to-date news from Buddy Bear, in Dungannon, still struggling to raise funds but still there providing a service. Some of my colleagues in Budapest were spending their summers in Northern Ireland working with Buddy Bear in the very early 1990s.

As I began to read through the article I decided before I got far to copy it and add my remarks as I read. Despite its being a positive report there were several “Oh dear” moments to add to the initial one that I had when I read about the brain messages. but there were also a couple of better moments as I read, even a smile or two.

My comments

As is often the case with conductive services this family had the luck to come across Buddy Bear and conduction, but it was only by chance. What can we do to remedy this? It happens like this all over the world.

Cerebral palsy is referred to as belonging to the child: “his CP”. I compared this to what it would sound like if I decided that I would own my migraine”.

Very late diagnosis of quadriplegia, at over one year of age, and a prognosis of never being able to walk, proved wrong at 17 months when, after discovering CE, this child began walking with a frame!

A familiar story?

Actually it sounds like the family made the initial diagnosis themselves. How can this still be going on? Why do doctors not tell the parents earlier? This still dumbfounds me.

"We met someone who said they thought it looked like cerebral palsy and when Caleb’s mother typed it into the internet all the symptoms we had seen in Caleb came up."

There were a few more sentences that if a conductor had been asked to check the news report first, would, I hope, never have been published: “...the one-to-one, specialist therapy” andregular daily exercise for his muscles” are two more of them.

I went on to read with dismay something about which I recently wrote on my blog:

“...closed for Christmas but will open in the New Year”.

Is there never anyone manning the phones, or available on the Internet to answer questions from these shocked potential clients who might have read this newspaper report?

This summer, when a client of mine found herself newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and unable to contact conductive centres in the UK to gather much needed information, a friend suggested she contacted me, many miles away, kin another country. What a disgrace that this has to happen.

A smiley moment

A particular smile happened when I was amused to read that the PAI is still being referred to as the “world-famous Peto Institute”.

As trainee-conductors in Budapest we always called it "The World Famous. “Just going to the World Famous?" This was the usual question asked if we met any of our colleagues in Moszkva Tér, not far from the Institute. Many of the British students found themselves called upon to give interviews for local British newspapers as they prepared for their first trip to the PAI. The headlines were usually something like “Angels of Mercy to study at the world-famous Petö Institute”, 2British trainees off to the world-famous centre in Budapest” etc. etc.

I wish that I remembered them exactly, but there were enough of such headlines for the name to stick and for us all to use the term in our everyday speech for the next twenty-odd years!

Another nice moment

It seems that this particular school is specialising in early intervention. I have not come across this in many other places and it is good to see. I have mentioned before on this blog that as a trainee at the World Famous I accompanied a conductor on visits to the premature baby unit in one of Budapests hospitals. It is an experience that I have never forgotten and one that I would love to experience in my own practice.

"There are thousands of children with cerebral palsy, many of whom could be helped by early intervention. It could make the difference between children being able to walk or spending their lives in a wheelchair”

Finishing on this note

This posting turned out not to be so much of an "Oh dear" Google alert as I intially thought that it would be.

http://www.buddybeartrust.com/websitepublisher/what-is-conductive-education.html

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!