HONG KONG LESSONS
We spent almost three months in one of the busiest schools and city in the world and we are still trying recover from the pace.
Never thought that I could carve two 15 foot totems and share my Tsimshian culture with over 1500 students, from over 40
different nations of the world, but that`s exactly what I did, long with the assistance of my lovely wife Sue.
We both had different schedules starting as soon as we arrived by taxi or hiking the 396 stairs after getting off the bus. We
learned about being quite a lot busier than we are used to at home on Vancouver Island, I mean we are busy but nothing
close to that.
We had to work with students from grades 1 to 12 in a 9 story school that is perched on the mountain overlooking Aberdeen
and the other schools surrounding it, while I carved the totem poles everyday I was interupted by boys and girls of all ages
during their class recesses or lunch breaks, class visits, speaking engagements in the performing arts center or story time
in the library, my favourite.
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Sue and I lived in a very small 500 sq.ft. bachelor suite in the old area of Aberdeen, right next to the fish market, so it was
busy and noisy with stinky traffick roaring past almost 24 hrs. a day. Even thogu we were on the 32nd floor it was still
very noisy. We are both light sleepers and battled for a good sleep for the whole journey, which added a little extra risk
on top of the super physical job of carving two 15 ft. logs almost every day for over two months.
I am no spring chicken, 51 to be truthful, and this was the biggest physical carving project I`d taken on since I carved
the 40 ft. Ravensong canoe in 1994. Five years previous to this HK project I suffered a massive adrenal burnout, which is
like a massive nervous breakdown but more on a physical level. i found the totem carving challenge to be such a high risk
because of the rest challenge but was relieved to survive and be accomodated by the weather and extra assistance from
some of the schools maintainace staff, AKA my Chinese apprentices.
SUMMARY
In a total overview of the project I am still amazed what we accomplished with what we had to work with and in such a
tight timeframe. The school was very supportive and did everything possible to make our stay in the big city, and our
work at the school, enjoyable for us. Staff members were great and pleasant and so was the school teaching staff,
sometimes way too much fun on some school work nights.
Hong Kong is an amazing city to vist, cheap to eat out at so many great restaurants, challenging to shop at local
stores for food though, booze is very cheap and the transportation, by bus and or taxi, is also very cheap. But don`t
even think about buying realestate unless you are filthy rich, our humble little flat was valued at over 3 million Can.
We will go back but next time we will spend some extra time travelling around to all the amazing places we missed,
in HK and all the surrounding countries that are tropical and so close and convenient to fly to.
Much thanks to all at the school, especially to Jennifer Bate, Dave McMaster, William Lam and Ricky and so many
more including all the great students who gave me the strength to keep working through the pain and lonely
times, missing my kids and family.
