Skyline With Buddhas
This is the first of two views of the Beijing skyline (assuming thesephotos post in the order I hope). Though a small portion of the temple
has been given over to a museum and monument to Sun Yatsen, including
portions of the complex from which this photo was shot, overall much
of the temple is an active temple today — as you saw in the previous
shot of older folks visiting the temple. In light of the many
challenges to the practice of religion that China has seen, especially
during the 60s and 70s (which are referred to, somewhat obliquely, in
the signs at the entrance to the temple complex — they refer to
“destruction” or destructive acts of the temple during something along
the lines of “unrest during the 60s” or some such), I was cheered to
see many people actively worshiping at these buildings, including some
who bowed or saluted these Buddhas and Boddhisatvas.
Beijing from On High
The park also includes the highest mountain close to Beijing —
roughly 500M — which you can either climb on foot via several pretty
steep paths…or take a chair-lift to the top of! I took the chair
lift for the experience, and rather enjoyed thinking about all the
other times I’ve been on chair lifts in interesting and beautiful
places. (Amy, Nancy, and Kip, if you are reading this: yes, I thought
fondly of our time last year in Alta.) From the top, you’ve got a
really nice panoramic view out over all of greater Beijing, as well as
the hills to the north and west – where, another 50K on or so, you’d
get to the most-viewed section of the wall, at Badaling.In this picture, you see a green area with lakes about the center-left
of the photo or so. For those who’ve been, that’s the summer palace —
which gives you a sense of how far out Xiangshan is.
Self-Portrait in Park
After the long walk around the temple and down the mountain, I found alovely grassy area full of flowers (it rather reminded me of Jardins
de Luxembourg, one of my favorite parks in Paris…except there’s more
grass here, and you’re welcome to sit on it!) and settled in to read a
bit and, yes, do some yoga. Just so you’d know it was me taking all
the pictures, I thought I’d document it…not that you can really tell
from this, I guess. 🙂
Paul with the Hong Kong Skyline
The second weekend in May I had the opportunity to take a long weekend
in Hong Kong. I had some business with MSF-HK, and since I’d worked a
few weekends after arriving in town, I decided to add a few days and
give myself a long weekend. I’d not been to Hong Kong but once, back
in the early 80s, and I knew it had changed quite a bit in the
interim. I thought this would be a nice chance to buy some of the
English-language books I’ve been wanting (book group: I’ve finished
Kite Runner, and will send out my thoughts to you all soon I hope; and
I began Guns, Germs and Steel last night — I’m looking forward to
reading it!), eat some food I can’t get easily here in Nanning, and
generally relax away from my work and the project here in Nanning for
a while.
The trip was all of that and more, as you will see in the comping
pictures. I hiked, spent time with a new friend and his son (thanks
for hosting me!), drank some pretty darn good coffee and had one good
Thai meal…spent WAY more than I should have in a really nice
English-language bookstore, and so on.
I also had a chance to check the way my blog looks when you can
actually access the site. Carrie and Steve, thanks for being such
regular readers and commenters. It’s always nice to read the comments,
even if it takes a while for me to have the chance to read them!
I need to get back to work now…came in early to get caught up on
these photos. But if you stay tuned, you’ll soon see photos of my trip
to Beijing, from which I just returned yesterday (Tuesday, May 24).
Thanks, as always, for your support and your e-mails and your
comments. And do check the MSF website (www.msf.org) – there’s a lot
going on out there in the world, and they’ve been updating it very
regularly of late with interesting information.
Hong Kong Skyline
For those of you who’ve either never seen it, or not in a long time.
Hong Kong is truly a wonderful and world-class city in every way.
Paul with the Hong Kong Harbor
Thanks to Keith for taking these photos of me at the skyline!
Paul at the Skyline – Again
Thanks, Keith, for this one as well. 🙂
Hong Kong Park Aviary
One thing that didn’t exist when I last visited Hong Kong — in 1984
— was Hong Kong Park, in the center of the central part of the
downtown. The land, which is very central and would have been
developed otherwise, belonged to the British garrison in Hong Kong —
so when they gave it up, it became a park and a very welcome green
space right in the middle of town.
In the park is this wonderful aviary, full of interesting and
beautiful tropical birds from all over southeast Asia. The walkways in
the aviary are all above ground — it’s set up so that folks walking
in the aviary are all in the trees, at the heights where the birds
themselves typically hang out. I found the contrast of being in this
rich tropical rainforest environment, full of singing and colorful
birds — all with the backdrop of the skyline of one of the world’s
great cities — very interesting.
Hong Kong Park
This lovely lake, full of fish and water lilies, is also in Hong Kong
Park. There’s a marriage registry in the park as well, and it seems a
popular place for wedding photos to be taken – there was a party
having photos taken when I was there, and the outfits, both men and
women, were wonderful.
Shek O Peninsula, Hong Kong
Though my image before my trip was that I would spend all my time
eating Indian and Thai food and drinking good coffee and doing other
things that are difficult or impossible in Nanning, in point of fact I
discovered that what I most wanted was to get out into parks and
trails where I could be completely alone and hear nothing but the
sound of birds. And who knew that 40% of Victoria Island (hope I’ve
got that right — believe that’s the formal name of the actual island
people think of as the main part of Hong Kong) is reserved as parks
and open space? (Also hope I’ve got that stat more or less right…)
But it’s true — once you get up and over the hills from the downtown
district, which faces pretty much north toward Kowloon and Lantau
island, you get into a very steep and mountainous part of the island
that’s home to four large parks. Through them winds the
52(?)-kilometer Hong Kong Trail, which ends just about where this shot
is — at the Shek O Peninsula.
The last chunk of the trail is called the “Dragon’s Back” section,
because of the number of times it goes up and down as it follows the
ridge lines in this very steep part of the island. I spent the first
of two completely wonderful days of hiking on this trail, and hiking
around the peninsula you see here. It was very hot and humid, and I
got a good solid amount of sun, but it was such a complete delight and
treasure to be able to get out to an area where all I heard were birds
and insects, and there were times when for more than ten minutes I
didn’t see a single person, or in fact even hear any sounds of humans
— this is quite rare in my life now, and I was very happy to have the
chance. And let me also say that there are so many beautiful
butterflies everwhere I went in Hong Kong!
Towards Stanely, Hong Kong
The Dragon’s Back section of the trail follows the ridge line in a
very steep section on the southeast side of the island, which allows
the vistas to change fairly often as you look out in different
directions. This is a view looking south, toward the Stanley Peninsula
and the southern end of the island. Neal, does it make you homesick?
🙂
Lamma Harbor, Hong Kong
Lamma Island, which doesn’t have a very large population and is really
rather small (I covered probably a solid 3/4 of it in about six hours
of hiking — though, true, it’s all quite mountainous so unfair to
expect folks to lug themselves up and over mountains just to get into
town…) has three (or is it four?) places where the ferries dock.
This is the second-largest town on the island, and as you can see it’s
not very big. It’s quite lovely, though, and all the banners are
around what’s either a new permanent temple going up, or a large
temporary pavilion for a festival or something — I have to admit I
just couldn’t read enough of the characters to be sure, but there is a
large structure going up there, next to the permanent and rather
pretty little temple.
Lamma has a reputation of being “expat heaven” in Hong Kong — a small
island fairly close to the main island, more or less across a short
strait from the part where all the famous floating restaurants are.
Since it’s not facing either Kowloon or the main city, and since it is
a bit further out toward the open sea, the air is a bit clearer and I
suspect it’s maybe a touch cooler than the city during the hot summer
months. The main town is, indeed, chock full of European and American
tourists (but then, compared to Nanning, so is all of Hong Kong). It
also caters to them…to the extent that I was able to have a
completely delightful (and darned expensive, this being HK) meal at a
vegetarian, organic restaurant. 🙂
Lamma Island, Hong Kong
If these photos appear in the order I’m hoping, then I’ve alreadymentioned that I spent two days hiking in the remoter parks and island
parts of Hong Kong. This was taken on an absolutely gorgeous hike I
took around Lamma Island — I couldn’t help taking this image, since
it seemed to me that many of my LA friends will think this could
easily have been taken in the canyons of Malibu or Topanga.
Oops – Should Be Second Photo
Oops, I just realized there’s one more photo that I want to put uphere. These are some of the kids that stopped playing ping pong to
pose when they saw me pointing my camera in their direction. This shot
should really be appearing AFTER the next shot, which explains more
about the project and stuff. Sorry.
A Trip to Baoji (and Xian)
It’s Thursday morning here in Nanning, and I returned yesterdayafternoon from my first trip to our project in Baoji, which was simply
a great trip. To give you some general context, Baoji is in the
southwest of Shaanxi province, more or less in the geographic center
of China. This puts is roughly 1000 km north of Nanning, in an area
where the climate and landscape are much closer to the climate and
landscape of many parts of the US and Europe — lots of farms, grass,
dedicuous trees, rolling hills leading to larger mountins, etc. It was
interesting for me how my heart reacted to seeing green grass and
deciduous tress and “normal” mountains again, after spending a month
here in Nanning where the vegetation is tropical and the mountains are
closer to the unusual (for me) steep mountains of the old Chinese
scrolls.
Baoji is also in a fairly narrow valley between two mountain ranges,
one of which you can see rising in the background in this photo. The
range opposite this one (this shot is looking south, toward Sichuan —
or Szechuan — which begins not too far away to the south of Baoji) is
more of a long high ridge than a mountain range, but together they,
and mountains that continue on both sides of them north and south as I
understand, combine to make Baoji one of the good flat areas from
which to journey westward out of central China, heading most
immediately into the south-eastern reaches of Gansu province, and
ultimately into the Gansu corridor, another much longer defile between
mountains further north and west that, like Baoji, was on the old Silk
Road that we’ve all heard so much about.
Adding to the historical interest that really appeals to me, as a
former student of Chinese history and culture, is the fact that the
nearest airport to Baoji (2-1/2 hours drive away) is the airport for
Xian, which you may have heard of as the city closest to the site of
Chin Shi Huang’s tomb with the terracotta warriors. Though this trip
presented no time either to visit the tomb or to explore the general
area, I am very excited that my job — yes, consider: this is my job
now! — allows me to visit these places and that in the future I’ll be
able to extend a weekend or take a week’s break after a visit to
Baoji, to get into the history of the silk road or visit the tombs.
Then there are the kids, at our project in Baoji — The Children
Center. In the next several shots you’ll see the kids at the center,
and me playing or posing with them. I am not really going to put shots
of our AIDS project in Nanning up here, partly because it’s not really
a photogenic building or area, but mostly because confidentiality and
patient privacy with our patients there is important. In the case of
the children center, as you will see, the kids LOVE (for the most
part) posing for pictures, and the project’s field coordinator tells
me it’s OK to put these on my personal site. This is a project that
provides all round care (housing, meals, school classes as well as
general social and socialization support, and medical care) for street
children. The kids come from literally all over China, because Baoji
is an important railroad crossroads. Some have run away from home;
some have families that left them with relatives or friends when the
parents moved to a big city on the coast to find work, and then when
the parents stopped sending support money the friends or relatives
told the kids they could no longer support them; some simply ran away
from abusive or unhappy homes. The individual stories can be quite
upsetting, but the truly amazing thing about these kids — nearly all
of them — is how well behaved they are, how active they are both in
classes and at playtime, how little they fight or argue with each
other, and so on. Anyway, let’s just say that both these projects here
in China are ones I’m very proud to call my job now.
(so much world, so little time....) 