Sun Sets on Evening Schools

December 2, 2016

Once a thriving alternative to day schools, evening schools now struggle to survive

By Chloe Kwan, Venice Lai

When the sun sets and workers pack into buses and trains for the journey home after a long day at work, students at evening schools hunker down for their classes. They come from diverse backgrounds – some have day jobs and some are fresh out of conventional schools.

Although they have been in decline since the 1990s, evening schools were very popular up until the 1980s. In the 1950s, the arrival of large numbers of young refugees from the Chinese Civil War overloaded Hong Kong’s education system. The government and some non-profit-making organisations set up evening schools to satisfy the demand for schooling in the absence of free universal education.

There were two main kinds of evening schools. The first taught the conventional secondary school curriculum, while the others aimed to provide education opportunities for young workers.

Paul Yeung Siu-Hung, 62, co-founded the New Youth Study Society (新青學社) in 1977 with his college mates after graduation. It became well-known as the “workers’ evening school”.

At that time, only 60 per cent of students could enter secondary schools, while the rest worked as apprentices or child workers. Many of them were exploited because of their low education level.

Yeung and his friends hoped to empower these young workers through education. They taught a tailor-made, three-year course which included conventional subjects such as Chinese, English and mathematics, as well as industrial safety, the labour law and healthy eating to cater to workers’ needs.

Each founder invested HK$100 a month to rent a two-roomed flat in Tsuen Wan, which they transformed into classrooms. They even made furniture and donated books to set up a library corner. They promoted the school by posting street bills and attracted more than 20 workers in the beginning.

The government rolled out its policy of nine-years of universal education in the 1980s and this led to a sharp decline in new admissions. Finally, the New Youth Study Society closed seven years after it opened, in 1984. Yeung was content to accept the change. “We fulfilled our historic mission,” he says with a smile.

Today, workers’ evening schools no longer exist, and not many evening schools providing conventional secondary education are left. There are currently 10 government designated centres, and also some private evening schools. In the 2015/16 school year, the designated centres served around 1,300 students of all kinds and with different aims.

Ivy Yip Yuk-lan and her son study Mathematics together.

Ivy Yip Yuk-lan, 55, is studying Form five with her 18-year-old son at Holy Cross Lutheran Evening College in Tsuen Wan. Her son quit day school because he was bullied in Form Four. Yip, who completed a five-year evening school course 20 years ago, persuaded him to complete his secondary education in evening school. She hoped this will make it easier for him to find a job later.

At first, he refused because he had little incentive to study, but to encourage her son, Yip suggested studying together for three years so he would “not be alone”.

Her positive attitude worked and now mother and son study subjects such as biology and economics together. Yip is happy to be learning new things about subjects she has never studied before. She recalls the fun she had learning about enzymes in biology and gross domestic product (GDP) in economics. “If I do not learn new things, I will lose touch with society,” she says she always reminds herself.

A Proverb Speaks A Thousand Words

December 2, 2016

Cantonese sayings preserve traditional folk wisdom in a new era

By Fiona Chan

If you were born in a Cantonese family, chances are you have heard the saying: “I have eaten salt more than you have eaten rice (我食鹽多過你食米).” In fact, you have probably been told this by your parents or other senior family members.

It means “I have more experience than you” and is one of the Cantonese sayings, proverbs and idioms commonly used by the past few generations of Hong Kong parents when they scold or advise their children.

These sayings, characterised by allegory and metaphors, are the oral creations of ordinary local people, inspired by their everyday lives and passed on by word of mouth.

Au Yeung Wai-hoo, senior lecturer in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), says people in the past often had a limited education but they still wanted to convey folk wisdom and pass it on. They expressed it using simple and brief wording.

Au Yeung gives the example of the idiom, “straw covering pearls” (禾稈冚珍珠), which means pretending to be poor or putting on rags over glad rags. “Say ‘straw covering pearls’ alone and that’s it. The whole picture stands out,” he says. “But if I explain the whole message instead of using the proverb, it is time-consuming and doesn’t have this instructional function.”

Au Yeung points out that Cantonese proverbs and idioms often involve images of specific things that aid memorisation. Therefore, it is sometimes easy to guess what the proverbs mean from the literal meaning. As in the case of “straw covering pearls”, the images of straw and pearls are both easily conjured up. The images also stand in stark contrast with each other – the former is cheap and plentiful, but the latter is precious and rare. This contrast alone makes the saying vivid, its meaning clear without the need for elaboration.

Apart from the characteristics of Cantonese itself, the settings in which the sayings are spoken can encourage people to use them. Tsui Wing-shan, a 25-year-old YouTuber, spends her free time producing Cantonese-themed videos for her “The Wingshantsui Channel”. She says using Cantonese proverbs can help her build relationships with others.

Tsui was born in Vancouver, and grew up there. She says she is lucky to have learned Cantonese at a Chinese language school as a child and she started to love it as a teenager. Tsui says her mother often used Cantonese proverbs in their conversations. Although this gave her the impression that her mum was trying to mock her while giving her advice, she did not resent it. Instead, she found it very interesting.

Tsui thinks Cantonese proverbs and idioms seem more casual than English, which she finds formal and courteous.

horse fight — The proverb “standing on the fort to watch horses fighting” (企喺城樓睇馬打交) means keeping oneself out of a matter.

“I think compared to English, Cantonese proverbs have a hint of sarcasm. It is not a bad thing but rather can make people closer,” says Tsui.

She began to collect Cantonese proverbs and idioms and introduced them in her videos as a way to save them.

“Producing videos allows permanent preservation. Everybody can view them,” she says.

Although Cantonese proverbs and idioms may seem ubiquitous, there is a chance that some of them are in danger of fading out.

In October, Varsity made a list of eight Cantonese sayings and randomly asked 11 students at The University Mall of CUHK which of the sayings they knew. Most of them knew four or five on the list. One saying that none of the students knew was “Watch the horses fighting from the top of the fort tower” (企喺城樓睇馬打交), which means to keep your distance from or observe from the sidelines. One of the respondents said forts no longer existed and they had not heard of the saying before.

Science for All

December 2, 2016

Citizens connect to the world through science

by Doris Yu

Twice a month, Masee Fung, his teammates and other volunteers ride their bicycles along narrow tracks the width of a hand span to reach the small farmland site they rent in Yuen Long’s Ching Tam Village. Then the citizen scientists turn on their flashlights and find their way through to the shrubs where, according to a year-long observation study, they will find the most fireflies.

As they turn off their flashlights, the insects glow brighter and they start counting the fireflies and recording their species based on the knowledge they gained in a two-hour training session.

In the two-hour training conducted by Fung’s team, city dwellers learn about the colour, size and flashing pattern of four kinds of fireflies. Even without a relevant degree, ordinary people can be transformed into citizen scientists who are capable of helping to gather data. “Even ordinary citizens, kids and primary students can [distinguish species] as long as they can see and distinguish colours,” Fung says.

“Citizen science” refers to scientific research conducted by enthusiastic amateurs. Data collection, in the form of recording all encounters with specific livings organisms, is the most common activity for Hong Kong’s citizen scientists.

Unlike large-scale citizen science projects, such as Green Power’s Butterfly Surveyor project and the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society’s Hong Kong Sparrow Census, Fung’s team prefers to keep their research project low-profile. Doing less promotion and holding fewer activities mean they have fewer volunteers and less funding and data. But it also means the team can avoid attracting people who join for the wrong reasons – such as photographers who want to shoot fireflies and people who are just looking for a quiet place for a picnic.

_MG_9763_web — Citizen scientists identify the species of butterfly they have just observed

Fung is not concerned about how many volunteers he can get, what matters to him is whether they really appreciate nature and want to get involved in citizen science. His team’s main purpose is to learn about the habitat of fireflies and to create a firefly-friendly and biodiverse little corner in Hong Kong.

“Those who can really read our message will find us,” says Fung. “We do not have to sell it.” So far, this low-key approach has managed to attract two volunteers who are truly passionate about learning, enjoying and contributing to firefly biodiversity in Hong Kong.

Like Fung’s volunteers, Lau Yun-kwan, a third year environmental science student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), finds that joining citizen science projects makes him more sensitive to natural surroundings.

Last summer, Lau volunteered to be one of Green Power’s 248 butterfly surveyors. Since 2008, the organisation has been recruiting and training citizen scientists to update its Hong Kong butterflies database.

After three months of lectures and field trips, Lau is more familiar with butterflies. He once spotted more than 30 Coliadinae butterflies, which may include very rare subspecies, on the CUHK campus. Much to his regret, they flew away in a few seconds, before he could verify them using his well-thumbed illustrated guide to Hong Kong butterflies.

DIYbio Hong Kong, a newly-established “community of DIY biologists”, wants to do more than concentrate on any one family or species. The group wants to record Hong Kong’s biodiversity by “barcoding” all species in its Hong Kong DNA Barcode Project.

The project’s organisers, some of whom are trained biologists, are inviting the whole community, especially students, to collect and transport samples of plants, insects or animals they have discovered to DIYbio’s community lab. Members will teach citizens how to extract DNA and process it through a polymerase chain reaction machine to undergo sequencing. Each sequence will generate a unique barcode for each organism.

The group’s founder, South African biologist Gert Grobler, hopes to inspire people to engage with nature.

“We want to get people in touch with nature,” says Grobler. “People catch Pokémons, [lead] virtual lives; they don’t know about the real lives.”

Through the process of learning about molecular biology and extracting and analyzing DNA, Grobler hopes citizen scientists will be inspired and motivated to conserve the natural world.

Maria Li Lok-yee, the director and secretary of DIYbio says: “You need to take ownership of your environment, your surroundings, in order to love it and preserve it.”

However, the high cost of purchasing DNA-sequencing equipment makes it difficult to achieve the project’s goals.

Like many citizen science projects, DIYbio does not have sponsorship from big companies and institutions. Mike Yuen Chun-kwong, another core member of DIYbio and a retired science teacher, tries to keep research expenses down by either buying cheap copies of equipment components from the Chinese online retail platform Taobao, or seeking second-hand donations from local universities. Sometimes, the do-it-yourself biologists make plastic components using a 3D printer to build their own machines for experiments.

Inside Out

December 2, 2016

Meditation and mindfulness help people to heal themselves

By Chester Chan

Sze-chai is doing meditation in Plum Village. — Mak Sze-chai meditating in Plum Village. *Photo courtesy of Mak Sze-chai.*

Every Sunday, Mak Sze-chai, a first year anthropology student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), visits the Plum Village in Lantau Island for a whole day of meditation training, or Day of Mindfulness. Plum Village is a monastic community founded by the Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, but the Day of Mindfulness activities are open to people of all backgrounds and religions.

Far away from the city centre, the quiet environment calms whoever enters the site. As they walk through nature and practise mindfulness, participants try to slow down and observe the surroundings. When the bell rings, people start to concentrate on their breathing.

“I like to breathe in first, then scan over my body. Once you feel there is something uncomfortable inside, stop and check what it is,” Mak says.

Mak’s mother, a meditation instructor, began taking her to Plum Village when she was just four. Her parents were divorced when she was a year old, so Mak grew up with her mother in a single-parent family. This left Mak with feelings of abandonment which cast a shadow over her childhood.

She still remembers when she was studying in secondary school in 2012 and her father suddenly told her he had secretly married another woman who was going to give birth to a son in a week’s time. Mak felt betrayed by her grandmother who had helped her father to keep the truth from her.

Mak’s childhood experiences caused her to fall into a deep depression and have low self-esteem, they affected her interpersonal relationships. So her mother took her to a meditation camp at Plum Village in France in 2002. She remembers how her mother saw her at the camp laughing again without any inhibition.

“Without mediation, I think I would have fallen apart,” Mak says. Since then, she has joined regular summer retreat camps in Plum Villages around the world. Back at home, visiting Plum Village every Sunday has become a part of her life no matter how busy she is.

Still, Mak faced pressure in adapting to the new environment at university earlier this year, dealing with orientation camps and assertive classmates. But she is coping and even wants to help other teenagers through practising mindfulness.

Mak’s mother, Christine Cheung Sze-kuen, is a meditation instructor for the Spiritual Education Project at the Institute of Educational Research at CUHK. While providing meditation training to parents, teachers and students, she has observed there is increasing pressure in Hong Kong society.

Cheung says students face tremendous pressure from public examinations and a lack confidence in their future. Young people tend to measure their own value by comparing themselves to others. They end up living in fear and fail to appreciate themselves and cope with adversity. A 2015 poll found that 53 per cent of secondary school students surveyed displayed mild or moderate symptoms of depression.

Outside school, teenagers also face pressures in society – Hong Kong is awash with consumerism, negative news, property hegemony and political strife. A study conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Education (now the Education University of Hong Kong) in 2015 found that nearly 60 per cent of young people aged between 18 and 24 suffered from anxiety or depression after the Umbrella Movement.

Without real connection with others, Cheung says youngsters can feel more helpless.

Participants practice mindfulness in Plum Village

“Everyone is like an isolated island. Everyone feels lonely even within the crowd.”

Cheung thinks that pressures from society, schools, family, peers and even the individual young person themselves are factors contributing to a series of suicides among young people since 2015.

Having noticed that students were suffering from an increasing workload, such as School-based Assessment after the education reform, Cheung worked with secondary schools to promote mental health. She has designed a 10-minute meditation session for the beginning of the school assembly. Students have to concentrate on their breathing before the bell rings at the end of the meditation and then listen to soft music.

Youngsters tend to have a short attention span which prevents them from practising hours of meditation. Yet a mindful pause is enough for them to have a break and “tidy up” their minds and emotions during their hectic lives.

Some universities in Hong Kong have also started to introduce and promote meditation, with plenty of students willing to try it out.

The Activist Journalist

December 2, 2016

Zhao Sile juggles her roles as a reporter and Chinese rights advocate

By Rammie Chui

Zhao Sile shows *Varsity* her documentary for Feminist Voices

Dozens of international and local journalists gathered in May this year to celebrate and recognise achievements in human rights reporting at the annual Hong Kong Human Rights Press Awards ceremony. When the grand prize for Chinese News and Features was announced, an elegantly dressed young woman walked onto the stage to receive the prize for her story, “The Fate of Chinese Rights NGOs”.

Zhao Sile, a 26-year-old mainland freelance journalist currently writing for the Hong Kong-based online news outlet, Initium Media, told the audience she felt ambivalent, to say the least, about her award.

“My stories are derived from others’ suffering,” she said.

Zhao, who has received three Human Rights Press Awards, has built her journalistic career on chronicling China’s human rights defenders and their suffering. But for her this is a calling, not a career choice.

She did not always plan to be a journalist. Zhao studied financial engineering at Nanjing University but she had a long-standing interest in journalism due to her daily exposure to Hong Kong television throughout her childhood. She was born and raised in Guangzhou and was greatly influenced by Hong Kong culture.

Zhao watched TVB every day throughout her youth and admired the journalists and broadcasters who were able to disseminate news and information to large audiences. When she was around 10 years old, Zhao began to notice the differences between the Hong Kong society she saw on the screen and the mainland society in which she lived.

By the time she entered her third year at university and had been on an exchange programme in Taiwan, the differences between mainland culture and the outside world had become even clearer to her. She had been approached to write for the now defunct iSun Affairs magazine after an editor noticed some articles she had written about the chopping down of Nanjing’s historic plane trees to make way for a new subway line in 2011.

In Taiwan, she began reporting on the 2012 presidential election for iSun Affairs, the Hong Kong-based politics weekly set up by émigré mainland journalists, while she was on a semester exchange. It was a door-opening and eye-opening experience and she even managed to interview the incumbent Ma Ying-jeou and attend an international press conference held by his challenger Tsai Ing-wen.

“I thought this society was miraculous. I, as a mainland student who had stumbled into political reporting and social observation, [found] people were welcoming me, opening doors for me,” says Zhao, who felt a kind of certainty and security she had never experienced before.

Viva la Diva!

December 2, 2016

Cantopop legend Paula Tsui looks back on her 40-year career

By Minnie Wong

The lobby of Hong Kong’s iconic Peninsula Hotel, with its high ceilings, gold and ivory coloured columns and grand staircase seem like a fitting setting for a conversation with the grand dame of Hong Kong Cantopop, Paula Tsui Siu-fung. Tsui is elegantly turned out in a black pantsuit, a wig, and huge vintage sunglasses – the picture of an old-school movie star attempting to go incognito.

Indeed she quickly establishes she wants to go unnoticed, telling Varsity she does not want to be photographed for the interview. At one point she worries that the tourists holding out selfie sticks may be trying to take photographs of her.

This comes as something of a surprise as Tsui should be used to the consequences of fame by now – after a career spanning more than four decades. The 67-year-old star has outlasted her contemporaries, still plays to packed houses and has even won over a new generation of fans, some for reasons she never expected. Looking back, Tsui, who is affectionately known as Siu Fung-jeh (Big Sister Siu-fung) describes her life in show business as a dream.

“It’s a very real dream, although there’s a huge chasm between the day I first started and the 40 or so years that have passed in between,” she says. “I feel grateful – there’s been a measure of luck.”

But luck cannot wholly explain Tsui’s popularity. Apart from the time and hard work she has put into perfecting her craft, Tsui says it is her persistence that has set her apart.

“I’ve had many friends who are singers, some are much better singers than me, but they gave up in the middle of the journey… It’s all about whether you have the stamina and the interest to carry on.”

Paula Tsui in concert wearing her iconic dress *Photos courtesy of Paula Tsui Internet Fan Club*

Over the years, Tsui has built a solid reputation for her singing skills, her striking stage wardrobe featuring elaborate dresses with full skirts and long trains, and her easy rapport with the audience.

Today, her unique voice with its husky tones and deep register still captivates audiences. For her, singing is not just about the art of performance, it is about creating emotional resonance. Interestingly, she says she treats her songs as “patients” which she nurses to health to get the best out of them. Although she is regarded as a consummate professional, Tsui never formally studied music or singing.

She was born in Wuhan and moved to Hong Kong as an infant. The eldest child from a poor family with six children, Tsui left school at a young age to work at odd jobs to support her family. She taught herself to sing by listening and singing along to the tunes on the radio.

After drifting aimlessly between jobs, Tsui eventually found her calling in 1965 when she won a singing contest which led to her becoming a nightclub singer in 1968. Talent, luck and persistence led to her success and a recording deal with Sony Music that enabled her to release the Canto-pop albums that propelled her to stardom. “It all happened by coincidence, I never thought people would actually hire me,” she says.

Since her 1970 debut Mandarin album Autumn Night, Tsui has released more than 60 records before her last one in 1990. Her hits include classic Canto-pop tunes such as Season of the Wind, Char Siu Bao, Flowing in the Natural Direction and Behind the Bridal Gown, the theme song of a popular 1980s TVB drama series.

The Only Show in Town

December 2, 2016

The circus is back in town, and this time it’s a home-grown affair

By Stanley Lam, Jessica Li, Howard Yang

Party in the Kitchen

December 2, 2016

Cook up a storm in the kitchen of your dreams – for one night

By Jessica Li

If you want to prepare a meal for a big group of friends but do not have enough space at home to accommodate everyone, you might consider renting a kitchen. Rent-A-Kitchen has two sleekly designed venues in the Kwun Tong industrial area, both of which have a kitchen, bar and dining area. The larger, 1,000 square feet Party Kitchen can accommodate up to 30 people, while the 400 sq ft Kitchen Studio is more suited to intimate gatherings.

_DSC2344 — The overview of the big kitchen. Photo courtesy of Calanthia Wong

Calanthia Wong, who enjoys good food and cooking, founded Rent-A-Kitchen two years ago when she noticed that there is limited space in Hong Kong for people to have an enjoyable cooking and dining experience. “Most Hong Kong people live in cramped spaces of just a couple of hundred square feet. They have little personal space,” Wong says. “There’s no room for you to prepare a meal for your partner or friends.”

Rent-A-Kitchen provides a wide range of facilities for renters, including stoves, full-size ovens, refrigerators, cooking utensils, bowls and plates, cutlery and various types of seasoning. If you are unsure about how to use certain facilities, Wong would be happy to teach you. Apart from being a place for cooking and dining, Rent-A-Kitchen also offers a range of entertainment facilities, such as television, Play Station 4 and mahjong.

You can cook Fresh Tomato Pasta in the kitchen. Photo courtesy of Calanthia Wong

Wong says many of the customers are couples who wish to prepare a nice meal together. She says there are no security cameras, giving them more privacy. Best of all, customers do not have to clean their own dishes after their meal. “No one likes to wash dishes,” Wong says. “You can just leave after you dine and play here, you don’t have to worry about cleaning.”

The space is not just rented by foodlovers. Some engaged couples have taken pre-wedding photos at the venues, and companies have organised employee team-building activities there. Some media and advertising companies have also rented the place for photo shoots and filming television programmes. For more details, head to www.facebook.com/RentAKitchenHK.

Edited by Tiffany Tsim

Let’s Get Rolling

December 2, 2016

A simple and little-known paper art technique

By Stanley Lam

Origami and paper cutting are popular in Hong Kong but there is another type of paper art that is less well-known – paper quilling.

The delicate artwork is created through rolling, looping, curling or twisting paper strips 3mm to 10mm wide. The coils are then pinched into specific shapes and glued together to form pictures or even 3-D models.

The technique was first used during the Renaissance by European monks and nuns to decorate religious items. It was later used to decorate pictures, boxes and jewellery. Although it only requires simple materials and tools to create a wide variety of artwork, paper quilling is less popular compared with other traditional paper art forms, says local quilling teacher Clare Wong Oi-lam. Relatively few books about the art form have been published around the world.

A local quilling teacher Clare Wong Oi-lam

“It was only after 2013 when Harbour City hosted a paper quilling exhibition showing artwork by the Russian graphic designer Yulia Brodskaya that people started to notice it in Hong Kong,” says Wong, who has taught paper quilling for nine years. She remains fascinated by the art. “I have to do something related to paper quilling every day, either teaching or creating my own art piece,” she says.

Wong explains that paper quilling can be a very creative art form. Artists can come up with new designs by playing around with the composition of the picture, the use of colours and textures, and different coiling techniques.

Wong also loves the art because it is affordable for most people. The essential tools, such as stamp tongs, scissors and glue, can be easily bought. The one item that is the hardest to find is the quilling pen, which is used to coil paper. It can only be found in Chung Nam Bookstore in Yau Ma Tei, says Wong, and costs HK$35.

“Paper quilling is very easy to learn and is suitable for people of all ages, although smaller kids might find it difficult as they cannot move their fingers flexibly,” says Wong.

With its low cost and level of difficulty, paper quilling art could be the perfect Christmas gift

Head to Head to www.quilling4fun.com for more details.

Edited by Tiffany Tsim

November 2016 – Localisms

November 2, 2016

The results of September’s legislative council election saw a redrawing of Hong Kong’s political landscape. Six young non-establishment lawmakers who don’t belong to the pan-democratic camp was said to usher in an era of post-Umbrella Movement politics. Many media organisations and commentators referred to them as “localists”. But what does localism mean? In our November 2016 issue, Varsity explores the idea that there is more than one answer to the question and looks at how Hong Kong’s localisms evolved. Please read our stories below:

They’ve been dubbed “localists” but the label doesn’t adequately describe the different political stances of the six young non-establishment activists elected to the legislative council in September and the groups they represent. Varsity talks to some of the new lawmakers, their allies and scholars to see how they differ.

There’s no doubt that localism is popular with Hong Kong’s younger generation. Our survey of more than 500 young people shows that more than two-thirds of respondents said they support localist groups.