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| Diamond Hill exit with Lion's Head in background |
I have just finished a 4-day intensive (8 hours + each day), teaching Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) as part of a greater Chinese (e.g. it includes Hong Kong) Dance/Movement Therapy training program. The class was actually held in the same studio, so I was familiar with getting there on my own, even thought the local organizer and students were new. This photo of the metro (MTR) exit to the studio shows newer apartment buildings and behind them 'Lion's Head Rock', symbol of Hong Kong pride and independence.
Because I have taught in Hong Kong before (but not teaching this particular course.) I got the wonderful privledge to learn about the culture through my students. This time, it was a particularly enthusiastic class of 11 students with 6 folks from Hong Kong and 5 from Macao. The students were often already counselors, therapists or teachers and were giving up the Christmas holiday as well as taking at least one day off, to take my class. No matter how tired I felt, I was always aware that they would be returning immediately to work, while I would be able to have a day to rest and regroup.
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| MTR on a normal non-holiday .. sardines in a metal tin |
Side note about holidays here: As best I could figure out, between Hong Kong and Macao, there are several days of vacation at this time of year. In Macao in addition to Christmas, they get the day before Christmas eve-day as a Solstice holiday, and in Hong Kong they get the day after Christmas for Boxing Day.
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Class materials include hand written vocabulary in
English and Chinese |
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| Dinner at a Szechuan Restaurant |
Students were curious and very smart, often asking very advanced questions, even thought the class was at a beginning level. Because LMA focuses on movement and meaning, we got to have lovely discussion about cultural patterns that are expressed non-verbally. In all of the movement experiences it was clear that bonding and cohesion happened easily unconsciously (it is a relational culture,rather than individualistic, after all) but it was also delightful to watch individual personalities emerge. And, a large percentage of students were also lovers of all different types of food. Each lunch I would get to join them at different types of local eateries. We went to an amazing dim sum place (where the last class held its final day 'group feast')with an incredible variety of dim sum (little bit size dumplings and savory treats to eat). The next day was an 'old time/traditional Chinese restaurant, that seemed to be a fancier version of the types of Chinese restaurants that are found in so many small towns in the US, due to the men from China who came to the US to build the first railroads (and who the US put up many restrictions to their becoming citizens) In this restaurant, the wait staff were older men and women, who barely looked at you, as they hurriedly served and later cleared dish after dish of different kinds of food. The next day, a Japanese restaurant, where we all had deconstructed sushi (e.g. imagine sushi and sashimi served, not rolled in seaweed but on top of a bowl of rice, and everything cut as if for a large salad). Finally the last day, Vietnamese where they ordered 'set meals' that included Pho plus all types of rolled and fried taste treats. While I loved teaching them I also really loved their 'foodie' side as well. (Sorry, I keep forgetting to take photos of the food... it looks so good I usually just dive in to eat it.. perhaps in Beijing??? ) I did manage to take a photo of Bruce one evening, when we went to a Szechuan restaurant I remembered from the last time we were here. We had cold spicy chicken (Cantonese cooking doesnt use alot of strong spices, so I was happy to have the sharp flavor of both the peppers and numbing prickly ash (ma).
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| Street market |
I also had many side conversations with students who were trying to figure out how they could continue learning and growing in their work. In those conversations (and also in the questions many of them asked in class), I was able to learn more about the increase in domestic violence, challenges of taking care of aging relatives and the stress on young students as a result of parent pressures to succeed. While I suspected these issues were most likely present in Hong Kong culture, their questions made the problems more visible. It also provided additional examples of the housing challenges in Hong Kong. As an extremely competitive and fast paced society, the pressure to make money is partially due to the high cost of apartments (whether rented or purchased.) I often heard comments about how small family apartments were, and I also noticed that many of my students lived with their parents, despite being in their 30's or older. The economic challenges of living in Honk Kong were also visible as I walked each day to the local metro station (the MTR). In this walk, I would pass a number of what looked like elder housing, and the sidewalks would be filled with older women and men, slowly making their way to the market or community center. I wondered what type of space they lived in, and how they felt about their life in Hong Kong, but since I dont speak Cantonese, I could only wonder and imagine.
OK it is our last day here so the next entry will be from Beijing.Thanks for letting us share our adventures with you.
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