Mr. Quick & Two Monkeys

Camp

The middle schoolers all left school en masse on Wednesday morning. In a big trail of 225 students, we walked to the train station. We filled up five train cars as we rode to the Ma On Sha station. From there it was a five minute walk to the YMCA camp.

YMCA Hong Kong maintains a beautiful, five-acre facility here in the New Territories. It was fourteen kids and one teacher per cabin.

For the next three days, we swam in the pool, played ultimate Frisbee, and had cabin devotions together. We had grade-level tug-of-wars, played a round of after-dark find-the-eighth-graders, played a live-action, life-sized game of Clue with the teachers dressed as Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, Mrs. Claus, The Golfer, and so on. We hiked in a nature preserve and encountered some intimidating monkeys on the trail.

We ate camp food in the cafeteria. We sang one too many rounds of “Fried Ham, fried ham, cheese and bologna and after the macaroni, we’ll have onions and pickles and pretzels and then we’ll have some more fried ham.” We had several sessions of worship and speakers.

We roasted hotdogs and made s’mores. We had a bon fire. We stayed up past “lights out.” The kids ate all the junk food they had packed instead of clean underwear. We all got too much sun and drank too little water.

The kids did skits that included a Michael Jackson tribute, lots of prat falls, and some teacher imitations.

It was thirty years in the making, but I had my revenge on all the camp councilors I ever had. At 7:00 a.m. each morning, it was my turn to bang a large metal spoon on a garbage can lid and sing loudly and off-key “Rise and shine and give God the glory, children of the Lord!” The boys seem to hate it as much as I did when I was the one burying my head under the pillow.

Thursday, I had the opportunity to be the speaker for our evening session. I built my talk around my burn accident in July. My theme was God is in Control. I was a little anxious, but the kids (and my colleagues) responded well.

Some things seem to be the same no matter where you go around the globe. Eighth-grade boys use way, way too much Axe spray deodorant (or “deo” as they like to call it). A boy dropping his shorts on stage to reveal his pink boxers is guaranteed to get the biggest laugh of the night. And sadly, a majority of the eighth-grade girls would rather cluster up in the shade of the one small awning than put on their suits and go frolic in the pool in full view of the eighth-grade boys. Seventh-grade boys who drink coffee (with two creams and three sugars) think that they are really hot stuff.

And Friday afternoon when we were done at the YMCA which was five minutes from the train station and twenty five minutes from school, we simply dismissed the kids. Yup, we teachers all just waved goodbye as the kids fanned out into Hong Kong most of them heading for the train station and presumably home.

A strange experience for this teacher from the suburbs of Chicago.

Hong Kong is a lot more pedestrian friendly and a lot less litigious than what I’m used to.


-Jack

Choco

The Hong Kong weather bureau just announced that this August was the hottest on record. We do a lot of walking in this heat. To cool down and to reward the girls for their long suffering, we've been known to stop at McDonald's for cheap icecream cones.

Sunday, I really wanted the vanilla ice cream cone with the raspberry swirls but the picture menu behind the counter was just out of reach and the Cantonese word for raspberry was escaping me at the moment. (As I ever knew the Cantonese word for raspberry. I don’t even know the Cantonese word for hello.) After two failed attempts to communicate what I wanted, I figured it was easier to just change my order.

I went with the selection that everyone in Asia seems to understand.

Choco.

You thought money was the universal language. It’s not, it’s chocolate. I may not know what 秦 means, but I do understand what Choco is.

Better safe than sorry. If you’re not careful around here, you might get stuck with a green bean popsicle.

We’ve been eating a lot of chocolate-flavored stuff lately.

-Jack

Toto, I've a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

So there we were on Saturday night in the home of my Nigerian co-worker and his American-born wife eating Indian curry prepared by their Filipino helper. In China.

We wanted an international experience. I guess we got it.

-Jack

My Mind Has Become Animated