Displaced Persons 1 of 3

His name was Mohammed Chaleb. He was twenty-one years old, unmarried and a farmer. He had a head wound and was disoriented.

I am not even sure if he was a real person.

But for ninety minutes last Friday, I was him.

Crossroads is a one-of-a-kind organization. They started out collecting clothing and furniture from those with excess to give to those in need. Things quickly grew and Crossroads now sends out several cargo containers worth of goods every month.

Then CrossRoads set up an international, state-of-the-art website that matches up those in need with those with excess so that a company in Taiwan with excess office furniture can connect with an orphanage in Zambia who is in need of desks. This on-line clearing house was so successful, that when the UN needed something similar, they contracted with Crossroads to design it for them. Not bad for an organization that started out in an Australian couple's spare bedroom in their Hong Kong apartment fifteen years ago.

Crossroads also does a lot of work with refugees here in Hong Kong. Another service that Crossroads provides is the chance for visiting groups to get an insider's feel for what it's like to be a refugee. They started running these simulations a couple of years ago and they have been widely successful. In fact, Crossroads was invited to an economic summit in Europe last year where luminaries such as Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines participated in the very simulation I was about to take part in.

The Headmaster at our school is a pretty extraordinary guy. In addition to being a crack administrator, he is quite the visionary. While some heads of school might plan a faculty picnic to kick off the school year, Ben Norton signed up our entire staff for Crossroad's refugee simulation. Several years ago, he was the first headmaster to bring his teaching staff to Cross roads. Several area schools have since followed suit.

So last Friday, after a brief explanation and a short history of Afghanistan, I was handed a small, laminated i.d. card. I was to be Mohammed Chaleb - a soon-to-be displaced person. I was also given a bandage to wrap around my wounded head. All the women in our group were given headscarves. We were given a few minutes to get comfortable with our new identity.

Boomerang Kids

The summer school program not only uses ICS teachers, but also makes generous use of a lot of college-aged alumni who are back in town for the summer. They serve as teacher assistants, hallway monitors, gophers, and a few of the more experienced ones actually teach a class.

It was fun chatting with them before and after school. It's pretty standard for these alumni to go to school in North America or Great Britain. Toronto and Vancouver are particularly populare destinations. Because we are a Christian school, a lot of alumni end up in evangelical colleges like Wheaton or Taylor. During summer school, the head of the hall monitors, Y.K. regularly wore Calvin College basketball shorts that his buddy brought back for him.

Having all those college-age kids around added an extra dose of energy to the whole summer school atmosphere. It meant that our program was one part school, one part vacation Bible school, and one part summer camp.

Y.K. and his family are originally from South Korea. He just graduated from ICS and was his senior class president. He was also the starting pointguard on the school's boys basketball team.

When I asked him where he was going to school in the fall, I was a little taken aback when he told me he wasn't going to university.

You aren't going to college?

No, I am going back to Korea to do two years military service.

Every South Korean male, I found out, must give two years of military service once he turns eighteen.

You can be exempted from service if by your eighteenth birthday, you have lived out of Korea for a total of twelve years.

When Y.K. turns eighteen next month, he will have have lived out of South Korea for eleven years and five months.

So close.

Hopefully, they give him the summers off to come back and work in the ICS summer program.

-Jack

Enkido

As the assistant director for summer school, one of my jobs was to circulate through the building and make sure that everything was running smoothly. Occassionally I would slip into a classroom and join a class in progress. If the kids were coloring at their tables, I would join in.

If they were sitting on the carpet listening to their teacher, I would quietly slip in beside them. But I had to stop doing this last one. Whenever I sat down on the carpet next to the children, the kids around me would stop listening to the teacher. It wasn't my presence per se that was a distraction. It was the fact that when I sat down, all the kid's within arms reach would start playing with my leg hair.

So fuzzy. So hairy.

Apparently over in the land of windmills and wooden shoes, they breed 'em a little hairier than they do here is Southeast Asia.

-Jack

Aspirate those T's

One of my favorite things to do during summer school was to greet students as they came into the building. Many of them had limited English language ability, so when I greeted them and asked them how they were, they all invariably gave the same word-for-word response. They would pause on the staircase landing, take a breath, and then clearly articulate (over articulate, really) each word with an ever-so-small pauses in between each.

"I am fine, thank you."

Wow. So formal. So polite.

After working with local students for the summer, I started to pick up on some of their other Enlgish language patterns. First, among these pint-size emerging Enlgish language users, I noticed that they did not use contractions. Every word got its due.

Instead of "I didn cut her hair" it was "I did not cut her hair." (Actually we know you did, three of your classmates saw you do it.)

Instead of "I won't write on the back of the teacher aide's shirt anymore," it was "I will not write on the back of the teacher aide's shirt anymore" (Darn right you won't. First your cut a girl's hair. Now this?)

The second thing I noticed was that compared to native English speakers, our local students tended to aspirate all of the their T's. In English, even though we spell it "button" we don't really say it that way. We say something a little closer to "buddon." When saying Wheaton College, very few native speakers apsirate that internal T so that a little punch of air comes out between the teeth. Most say something half way between a T and a D.

In their quest for precision, our little local students aspirated everything.

"Why did your teacher send you down to my office"

"Because I was NaughTy."

"You were being nawdy?"

"Yes. I was mean to QuenTin. But I will not be naughTy anymore."

Way too cute.

Unless you're the girl who got her hair cut.

Then it's not so cute.

-Jack

Um, yeah . . . about that

This past winter, Julie and I both signed up to teach summer school. Being a nurse rather than a teacher, it took Julie a little while to agree to take on the responsiblity of teaching a summer school class. But, in the end, she found my powers of persuasion too much to resist (hence, why we are even in Asia in the first place). I promised that we would do it together and I would be with her every step of the way. With all that homeschooling expereince, I knew that she would do great. Besides, she was going to be working with first graders. How hard could it be, right?

Shortly after we both signed on to teach summer school, I was approached by the director of the program and asked if I was interested in being the assistant director which meant that I would not be in the classroom. To summarize: the nurse was going to be teaching and the teacher was not. Did I mention that this whole summer school thing was my idea?

It took me almost a month to work up the courage to confess to Julie that I would not be teaching. My trepidation was not ill-placed. She was none too happy with me. She claimed that while she was busy running a classroom full of little ones, I was going to be sauntering down the halls with my morning cappuccino in hand glancing into classrooms windows.

Nothing could be futher from the truth.

I don't drink cappuccino. I prefer lattes.

Julie taught writing to five and six year olds. She had five classes which were 35 minutes each. On average, she had 24 students per class and she had two teaching aides in the classroom with her.

She did a great job.

And her husband was with her every step of the way.

Granted, he was holding a latte in one hand the whole time.

-Jack

School's Out for Summer

Last week, Julie and I finished up a four-week stint teaching summer school. During the first two-wek session, the program had 400 hundred students; during the second two-week session we've had over 600 students.

Schools in Hong Kong fall into several catagories. ICS is an international school. Around here, non-international schools are simply refered to as local schools. By extension, we refer to non-ICS students as local kids. This identifies them not only as attendees at a local school, but the assumption is that they are from families that generally do not hold international passports, don't necessarily speak English at home, and probably have not lived overseas for any length of time.

Our summer school program was dominated by local students. The summer school program gives families who don't send their kids here during the school year an opportunity to expose their children to an English-language program taught by English-speaking, certified teachers. It's also a Christian-based curriculum which is a draw for many of the families.

Although our program is open to students up to fourteen years of age, the vast majority of our summer school students are four-, five-, and six-year olds. We were overrun with little ones this summer. Since I teach middle school during the school year, it was fun for me to have interactions with the little ones every day. They're so tiny. And cute.

The program started out very modestly just eight years ago but it has grown beyond anyone's expectations. As much as the school would like to accept everyone who applies, they end up turning away students every summer.

It's amazing what happens when you offer a product or a service that people want at a price they are willing to pay.

Even in education.

-Jack

New Digs

We've moved.

Not very far though. Just across the hall. We are still living in on-campus housing, but instead of being in two adjoining studio apartments, we are now in a three bedroom apartment.

We were very happy with our place last year, but I must say, we are pretty jazzed about the new place. The girls are excited to have their own bedrooms -with actual doors that close. Previously, because of the nature of the layout of the two studios, if one of us was watching t.v, all of us were watching t.v.

Glad to have a little room to spread out.

-Jack

If a Tree Falls in the Forest . . .

Apparently, my mom, my Uncle Larry, and you dear reader are not the only one's reading this blog. Turns our, I've had a few visitors.

This from George over at One Travel:

"Hello, after reviewing your site, I would like to offer you a guest post at One Travel. if you would be interested in writing as a guest, please contact me so we can discuss the details. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to hearing from you. George Christodoulou."

And this from Karen at GPS My City:

"Hello Jack, this is Karen Ciripitca at GPSmyCity.com. I came across your blog about Hong Kong and is seems that you have good knowledge of the city. GPSmyCity is looking for partners to jointly develop city walk iPhone applications (also known as iPhone apps). We have developed a cutting edge technology platform for publishing self-guided city walking tours on iPhone and iPad Touch, and have by now publsihed such applications for 150 cities worldwide. We are now looking for authors to work on the next generation of city walking applications. If this is something you might be interested in, please contact us. I look forward to hearing from you. -Karen."

The whole iPhone app development thing is pretty intriguing -if for no other reason than I would get to use the word app a lot.

As if I don't have enough things on my plate already.

-Jack

Reunited

The girls got in last night at about 10:00 p.m. exactly one year to the day of our arrival in Hong Kong last August.

I am glad to have our family all in one place after more than two months apart.

A Shady Deal

We were staying in a colleague's apartment for the summer. It was one of those residency suite type hotel-apartments that come fully furnished.

We wanted to make sure that we left the place in ship-shape condition before we left -which included replacing a damaged lamp shade on an end table.

The 300 apartments in this building are all decorated exactly the same, so I knew that management would have a supply of replacement small lampshades. I was fully prepared to pay for it, it was just a matter of getting a hold of one.

I stopped by the front desk, explained the situation, and ask for a new lamp shape.

No problem, she said.

Good. May I have one then?

We'll have maintaninance bring one up.

Perfect. I am on my way up now. They'll be up in -what- five or ten minutes?

No, you need to schedule a time.

I have to schedule a time to have lamp shade dropped off at my room?

Yes.

Okay, what times do you have available?

Oh, we don't take care of that here. You have to schedule an appointment at the maintaince desk, she said pointing to the desk next to her.

I slid over six feet and then scheduled an appointment for the following Tuesday at 4:30.

The maintenance guy -actually there were two of them- showed up right on time.

They replaced the shade for me.

There was no charge.

-Jack