Bunkers part 2 of 3

The bunker was right there off the path. If fact, it was so close that a person could have reached out and dragged his hand across the rough cement surface as he walked past.

Once again, I found myself ahead of the group by a few minutes. (What are they doing back there? You know you could hike a whole lot faster if you wouldn’t talk to each other so much.)

But that was okay, it gave me just enough time to scope out the bunker. It was built into the peak of the mountain so that an occupant of the bunker could have an almost 360 degree view of the surrounding valley and any invading Japanese armies. Several posted notices said “Do not enter,” but I figured those were really more suggestions than hard and fast rules.

It wasn’t just a simple bunker. It was a small network of rooms that looked pretty much the way they must have looked seventy-five years ago. Coolest of all was that a tunnel lead from the bunker down the hill-side for forty meters until it terminated in a second bunker that was on the side of the mountain fifty feet lower than the first bunker. I snooped around a little and then hustle back up just in time to see my wife, sister, and the three girls walking up the path.

“Come, come,” I called to them. They are going to love this, I thought. I waved them over and showed them where to climb down into the bunker. Once they were in the bunker, I turned to the girls and said “Okay, go!” I didn’t tell them what to expect. I wanted them to have the joy of discovering it for themselves. Ten minutes later, they popped their heads out of the bunker. I made them tell me about everything they had seen. They were pretty excited.

We quickly discovered that there was a second tunnel headed in the opposite direction. We followed it. For the next hour and a half, we followed one tunnel after another and explored one underground bunker after another. The girls kept finding more passage ways and running down them.

Bunkers part 1 of 3

Whenever we have people in town, I am always torn between going places with them that I have already been or doing things that are new to me. If we go places that I am familiar with, it's more likely that we're going to have a smooth, low-stress experience. But that means I end up doing some Hong Kong activities multiple times.

I figured that my sister and my niece would extend me some grace if they had to stand around for ten minutes while I figured out which mini-bus would get us home. So I made plans for us to hike from the Shing Mun reservoir to the Kowloon reservoir even though I had never been on this particular hike before.

I had promised Ellie that we would encounter monkeys on our hike. But I must confess that I had an ulterior motives for wanting to go on this particular hike. I had heard rumors that a person could see World War II bunkers built into the mountainside on this hike. I also have to admit that I didn’t mention this particular fact to the rest of the group before we left. In my opinion, World War II bunkers are cool; but probably not to a sixteen-year-old girl.

We hiked for over two hours and -as promised- we saw lots of monkeys, but there was no sign of those bunkers. When the rest of the group had fallen a few minutes behind me, I used the opportunity to ask a local man I encountered on the path. He confirmed that if we took a smaller path on our right, the bunkers were just a fifteen-minute walk away.

The rest of my crew caught up with me. When I told them that I wanted to take a detour on a smaller path, I had to fess up about the World War II bunkers. “Really, Dad? World War II bunkers?”

“This was part of your plan all along wasn’t it?” my wife accused.

“No…well…maybe…kind of. Come on, it’s just a few minutes up this path here. It’ll be fun.”

So off we went.

I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to find the bunkers, but I needn’t have worried.

Ellie Enchanted part 3 of 3

We had an awesome ten days together. It was great to have my baby sister come see the place my family and I currently call home. For some reason, it brought me a great sense of satisfaction and well-being to know that my sister had seen the little table where my family and I eat our dinner every night, the desk where I sit to grade papers, and the balcony we sit on to look out over the mountains.

We visited Lamma Island and ate at the Deli Lamma (get it? Deli Lamma), hit the shopping malls and the night markets, and visited a sea-side village built on stilts.

And somewhere along the way, between rummaging for bargain clothes on Fa Yuen Street, seeing monkeys on our mountain hike, and checking out all the Hong Kong street fashion, Hong Kong wormed its way into my niece’s heart.

To be honest, it was probably in spite of my best efforts, not because of them.

Before they left, my sister confided in me that Ellie had shared with her that she “Absolutely loves Hong Kong. She doesn’t want to leave.”

Mission accomplished.

Few things in life are better than having the people you love, love the things you love.

Ellie Enchanted Part 2 of 3

A few years ago, Janna and Ellie saved their pennies and took a mother-daughter trip to Italy and France. It was a dream come true for Ellie. Rome, Florence, Paris. She loved southern Europe. That’s a pretty tough act to follow. But Hong Kong is a world-class city and can hold her own against any other major metropolitan area.

Okay, let’s do this. Bring it on.

We started off with a waterfall hike. The mountains and greenery usually catches people off guard -not what they expect to see in Hong Kong. We followed that with a visit to the village of Sai Kung with all of its fish tanks full of live seafood. Over the next ten days, we went from sun-up to sun-down doing everything on Hong Kong’s A-list, most things on the B-list, and a few things that aren’t on anybody’s Hong Kong to-do list but mine.

My philosophy was to throw as much of Hong Kong up against the wall and hope that something stuck. We rode the Star Ferry, visited the Peak, saw the Big Buddha, and walked along the Avenue of Stars.

I tried not to be too earnest. Nothing turns off a teenager quicker than an overly-earnest adult. But, occasionally, I would toss out what I thought were interesting little tidbits in an attempt to engage her imagination. “See how this temple has a big, free-standing furnace out front? That’s so the faithful can burn paper food, clothing, and money to send to their ancestors in the afterlife.” Then I would casually saunter off and stealthily glance back to see whether or not she was engaged.

More often than not she was horsing around with her cousins. Wherever we were, the three girls kept taking pictures of each other jumping off of stuff. They would find a bench, a boulder, a curb and then two of them would jump off, tuck their legs up underneath themselves, and raise their arms while the third one took the picture.

“Hey Ellie, see the damage here on this bronze lion? That’s from World War II when the Japanese . . .” Oops, never mind, you’re busy jumping off of a retaining wall.

Undeterred, I just kept trying.

Being a guy, I thought maybe the way for Hong Kong to win her heart was through her stomach –after all, it’s how my wife one me over. Throughout the week, I kept stuffing little morsels of goodness into Ellie’s mouth. The sweet, red-bean cakes seemed to have worked their magic; the fish balls not so much.

Ellie Enchanted part 1 of 3

It’s pretty exciting when we have out-of-town guests come to visit and we get to introduce them to our adopted hometown. But I was extra excited as I waited for my kid sister Janna and her sixteen-year-old daughter Ellie to arrive. It had been on the calendar for almost a year, and I was pretty jazzed when I went to meet them at the airport.

But, I was also a bit nervous. Not because of my sister –I knew that she’d enjoy herself no matter what- but because of my niece. I had high expectations for her time in here. Hong Kong is a pretty awesome city with a little something for everybody and it doesn’t really require a hard-core sales presentation from me to win people over. But with that said, I was really hoping that my niece would get bitten by the same bug that had gotten a hold of me.

Ellie is a very intelligent teen, she’s well read, and she tends to hang out with a pretty diverse crowd at school. So I knew that the potential was there. On the other hand, she is a teenager. And a girl none-the-less. How was I supposed to figure out which parts of Hong Kong would capture here imagination and make her fall in love with this city?

I figured that there was going to be some shopping involved. A lot of shopping, probably. Hong Kong is famous for both its high-end and its discount shopping. This made me even more nervous. I have uncovered a lot of the secrets that this city holds, but shopping is one thing I know next to nothing about.

Fortunately, the success of Ellie’s trip wasn’t falling entirely on my shoulders; team VanNoord was on the task. Operation Win Ellie Over was underway.

Gazetted

I have a little extra bounce in my step; it's shaping up be a very good day. I just found another English word that is unique to Hong Kong. Okay, okay. It’s a somewhat common English word of which one of its usages is unique to Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, most of the public beaches are classified as gazetted or non-gazetted.

Normally, the noun gazette refers to an official notice or bulletin. Dozens of newspaper around the English-speaking word are named Gazette including the hometown newspaper where I grew up: the Kalamazoo Gazette.

But in Hong Kong English, gazette has a very different meaning. Here, a gazetted beach is one that is maintained by the government for public use. A gazette beach has its water tested regularly, has life guards on staff, has its swimming area enclosed in a shark-proof fence, and has public restrooms.

Considering that the original meaning of gazette refers to a bulletin or notice, it is not hard to image how the meaning evolved over time to mean that the water was safe to swim in and life guards were on duty.

Thanks to my friend and fellow word-nerd, Becky Su who pointed out this one to me. Let the word hunting continue.

Jack

Gazetted joins the Hong Kong English Wall of Fame:

Shroff (payment office, from Hindi)
Godown (warehouse, from Malay)
Nullah (river, from Hindi)

picture: one of our favorite things to do in Hong Kong is to hike to this beach and camp with friends. Ironically, it is not a gazetted beach. No life guards on duty.

Looking at the Man in the Mirror

My students recently completed self-portraits for their art class. They were so good that when they were hanging up, I could actually go through and identify most of the artists based on their self portrait.

So talented, la.

Can you match the artist with the portrait?

Look Mom, I'm (blog) famous!

Email from my co-worker Fabian:

I was at Island ECC church this past Sunday with two friends who introduced me to Cherith and Richard and we performed the usual pleasantries.

At the end of the church service, Cherith turns to me and says, "Now I know why your name sounded so familiar. I read about you on Jack VanNoord's blog."

You, my prolific writer friend, are renown.

-Jack

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