Separated at Birth

There is always a certain amount of electricity in the atmosphere on the first day of school. But this year there was an extra buzz in the air.

By lunch time on the first day of classes, I had several of Annika’s classmates –my former students- come up to me and tell me that there was a new girl Emma in ninth grade and she looked exactly like Annika.

Well, I was a little dubious, to say the least.

First, I am her father, so this girl may look like Annika to her classmates, but that’s only because they don’t know her as well as I do. And second of all, the kids telling me this were Chinese, so I was inclined to take it with a grain of salt.

Later that morning I saw Annika on the fourth floor. Her back was toward me but I could see her long brownish-blond hair sticking out above a sea of dark heads. I wanted to know how her first day of high school was going, so I picked up my pace and started to call out her name, but she couldn’t hear me above the noise in the hall. I got to within arms-length of her and was about to tap her on the shoulder when I yanked my arm back.

Whoa, wait a minute, that’s not Annika. Bizarre. It’s Annika, yet it’s . . . not . . . Annika.

Turns out my former students were right: the two girls did look shockingly similar.

Once Annika realized that Emma didn’t have horns growing out of her head, she decided to flow with it. For the next three nights at dinner, our family had to get updates on how Annika and Emma were so twin-like: both are left handed, both are first-born, both have the middle name “Elizabeth.” Weird.

As much fun as the two girls are having with it, it has gotten a little tiresome having her classmates continuously point out the obvious day after day.

The other night at dinner, Annika told me “Dad, next time one of my classmates tells me that Emma and I look so much alike, I’m going to say ‘Ah well, you know us white folks, we all look alike.’”

Atta girls, way to keep your edgy sense of humor about you.

-Jack

Fire Dragon Dance

Last Thursday, we went to the Tai Hang neighborhood to see the annual Fire Dragon Dance. By the time we got there, people were lined up three-deep along the streets. Cameras were everywhere. The evening warmed up with some ambulating drums and loud, cacophonous cymbals. It had been advertised that the parade would start at 7:30, but it was well after 8:00 before the dragon made his appearance.

I expected a traditional dragon in which the upper halves of the dragon-bearers are covered by the cloth body of the dragon. This dragon was not like that. Rather, it was a long body made up of dried bundles of dark straw. But what the dragon lacked in girth, he made up for in length. He was almost 200 feet long. It took 32 men to carry him.

The head of the dragon alone weighed over 100 pounds. A small army of local men remained close to the individual carrying the head. One at a time, the young men would step up to take a turn carrying the head. Each volunteer lasted less than thirty seconds before he had to be relieved. The men did not simply carrying the head, but were running it from one side of the street to the other so that it looked as if the dragon was roaring at the gathered crowd. The men appeared to be competing with each other to see who could expend the greatest burst of energy in order to bring the dragon to life.

Sticking out of the dragon’s back were thousands (65,000 to be exact) smoldering joss (incense) sticks that filled the streets with a thick, aromatic smoke.

Over 100 years ago, before this village of Tai Hang was absorbed into Hong Kong and become just another of her neighborhoods, Tai Hung was struck with a string of calamities including a plague. Buddha appeared in a dream to one of the village elders, instructing the villagers to light firecrackers and perform a fire dragon dance for three days and nights during the Mid-Autumn Festival. This is exactly what the villageres did, the plague ended and the villagers have been performing the fire dragon dance ever since.

After the dragon had passed by us twice, we decided we wanted to beat the crowds and so we slipped out while the merriment was in full swing.

Now I just need to buy a mooncake and my Mid-Autumn will be complete.

-Jack

What a Month

The end of first quarter is coming up quickly. Grades will be due soon. So why does it seem like I have hardly scratched the surface of my curriculum? Just when things get cooking in my classroom, it seems like there is an interruption on the calendar.

Then one of our colleagues posted the following summary of the month as her Facebook update. No wonder it's already the end of September and I am still in the middle of my immigration unit.

September: one week of school, weekend; 2 days of school, 3 days of camp, weekend; 3 days of school, 2 days holiday, weekend; 4 days of school, 1 day holiday, weekend. Hello October. Craziness!

Hong Kong as viewed from Outlying Island

I’m Huge in Taiwan

I am sure that he meant it as a question, but he forgot to include the question mark.

Thanks to the Mid-Autumn Festival, we had an extra day off of school. Julie, the girls and I spent it on Lamma island –a twenty minute ferry ride from Hong Kong island. We had lunch in a cute little vegetarian restaurant and spent the first half of the afternoon shopping our way from the center of the town down to the beach.

We had only been sitting on our beach towels for a few minutes when a man with a red microphone –followed by his colleague carrying an oversized video camera- approached us.

“We are from a Taiwanese t.v. station. We will begin filming you now.” Like I said, we had to provide our own question mark.

We agreed and thirty seconds later we were giving our opinion about Hong Kong beaches and all the other outdoor opportunities in Hong Kong. The whole interview lasted less than 90 seconds.

So, if any of those 500 cable channels you subscribe to gets a travel show from Taiwan, keep your eyes open. You may see us on the little screen.

-Jack

You’ve Got Some ‘splaining to Do

It’s not very often that I get to introduce my students to American pop culture; they are so media saturated. They all watch Glee. They all know who Taylor Swift is. They constantly make jokes at poor Justin Beiber’s expense.

Last week my class and I were studying the age of American industrialization, Henry Ford, and the assembly line. After they had dutifully taken notes from me for twenty-five minutes, I decided to reward them with a short video clip I thought they might enjoy.

I showed them the clip from the I love Lucy show in which Ethel and Lucy take jobs working in a candy factory. Their job was to wrap individual candies as they moved down the assembly line. Things start out fine, but then –in typical Lucy Ricardo fashion- things went haywire. It’s a classic clip but a little dated and black and white. I didn’t know if my kids would like or appreciate it.

Fear not. They liked it. In fact, I would say they more than liked it; they loved it. By the time Ethel and Lucy were stuffing the excess candy into their mouths, their hats, and their blouses, my students were stamping their feet and –dare I say it?- squealing in delight.

They enjoyed the three-minute clip so much that I showed it to them a second time and got the same over-the-top reaction.

Good to know that classic slapstick transcends time and culture.

-Jack

It went so well that I am trying to figure out how I can work the Vita-meata-vegamin clip into my curriculum next week.

Lamma Island over Mid-Autumn Festival