Day Ten: Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Wednesday, July 30^th (‘Til We Meet Again, Hong Kong)

Written by Sylvia Trinh

After a short few hours of sleep, the CTAHR group woke up around 5:00am to pack their remaining things before heading to the airport. Our taxi van was waiting for us as we hiked up the mountain to the street. We had our hugs and said our goodbyes to the Hong Kong folks before we got into the taxi van for the one-hour ride to the airport. At some point between the van ride, waiting for our planes, or on our flights, we all thought back on our past ten days in Hong Kong. 

Selfie on the van ride to the airport

The trip lacked many things: sleep, physical amenities, and a structured schedule. We’ll readily admit how much we looked forward to coming home to what we were familiar with, our families and friends, own beds, clean houses, home-cooked food, and other comforts that we took for granted when we left them behind for ten days. But this experience was also abundant in various other ways: humidity and mosquitoes, of course, but more meaningfully so in friendship and how we all cared for one another, laughter (some from delirium because of the lack of sleep and not knowing what was going on, yes, but countless other instances of genuine happiness over big and little things), and cultural exchange. The Chinese have a concept of yin and yang to explain how complementary seemingly opposing forces can be. On this volunteer/study tour, we were exposed to the good and bad, had our ups and downs, and got to see the urban and rural sides of Hong Kong. Having undergone what we had during those ten days challenged each and everyone of us out of our comfort zones immensely, but also helped us come to many important realizations that may not have happened without experience Hong Kong as wholly as we did.

As one student reflected, “I learned not only a great deal about Hong Kong’s culture, environment, and economy, but I also learned a whole lot more about myself.  Being so far from home, I found out what I truly stood for in terms of what I liked or disliked.  I understood myself, my decisions and most important; I became more confident in myself.” For another, “I believe this exchange has enhanced my understanding of Hong Kong culture and broadened my view of the world by introducing new perspectives on issues that originally seemed so black and white…This trip taught me a lot about myself, and has sparked my desire to travel the world and take on more risks in life, because there is still so much to see.”

We couldn’t ask for a better team of Hong Kong volunteers to help our group learn about agricultural and food issues in their home city. Not only were open to learning about us as individuals as well as how our life was back home, they so willingly shared whatever knowledge they could for us to gain a better understanding of their true culture. They didn’t try to filter Hong Kong for us; instead, we were exposed to the city for what it is. All of us who went to Hong Kong certainly valued having undergone this volunteer/study tour, being very well aware that such an opportunity to learn and immerse in a culture abroad in the manner that I and the four students who embarked on this journey were privileged to experience doesn’t come by so easily. 

Back home!

Day Nine: Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Tuesday, July 29^th (Evaluation)

Written by Felicia Geronimo

We got to sleep in today!  YAY!  This gave us enough energy to continue with our agriculture work.  Before we began, we started the day off with sharing how were we all feeling.  Then, we were given time to work on our Voltra Evaluation forms.  

One of the participants had gotten bitten while harvesting rice in Long Valley.  Bird recommended she go to the nearest clinic/hospital to get it checked out.  She left and the rest of us went to work.  Sadly, I was still feeling ill from the day before and my back was spazzing out.  So, I stayed inside for light duty cleaning in the living/sleeping/eating area to clean up trash, pick up dishes and take to kitchen, dust, sweep and mop the floors.  When those who went to the clinic got back we had lunch.  This gave us time to pull out the durian that was purchased yesterday for Stephanie’s birthday.  We put a birthday candle on top of the durian that played the tune to “Happy Birthday”.  It was my first time trying durian.  It wasn’t that bad!  I had no clue what was in store for dessert later.  

 Then, we got ready for the Farewell Party dinner.  Miho, Stephanie and I worked on cleaning and chopping up all of the vegetables for the Hot Pots.  We had squash, cucumber, sprouts, baby corn, a plethora of mushrooms, tofu, daikon, and kimchi that was used as the soup base.  When everybody arrived we all brought tables inside to put the hot pots on.  We gathered all of the cut up vegetables for everybody to add at their leisure.  It was nice.  It gave us the chance to stand and walk around the table to talk and eat repeatedly.  It felt more like a second welcoming party then a farewell party.  It was like a fun evening with friends.

For the student who got the bug bite, I think her antihistamine was making her groggy, so she passed out on the couch early sleeping next to her elevated puffer fish of a hand. L  But, we still had time to wind down and enjoy desert together.  This was a mango dessert and a durian dessert.  Holy Cow!  I am not joking when I say that I thought someone farted before I realized what the actual smell was.  I stood up to go to the restroom and smelled it.  I looked and saw some bowls with dessert in them.  Stephanie smiled and said I LOVE DURIAN.  Then, it clicked.  That’s what that horrific smell was.  The sweet-sweet stench of ripe durian.  I tried it once.  Didn’t quite like it.  But, the taste lingered.  So, I tried it again.  This time.  I like it.  So, I had a little bit before I took a shower and went to bed.  I had THE WORST burps in my entire life all night and all the next morning.  Happy Birthday Stephanie!  BURP!     

Day Eight: Monday, July 28, 2014

Monday, July 28^th (Ping Che/Long Valley/Tseung Kwan O/Wing Lung)

Written by Miho Fujii

6:50am: Wake up. We're all still very tired but we get up and start packing because we have to be at Long Valley by 9am.

7:30am: We leave Ping Che and walk to the nearby store (which is the only one for a couple miles). We sit down and were planning to have a full breakfast, but due to time we had to have sandwiches instead (which I was completely fine with!). I had a sausage and egg sandwich which ended up being a hot dog with egg (haha!). Others had egg and “spam,” the spam was more like luncheon meat. We quickly ate and soon the taxi vans were here to take us to Long Valley.

8:15am: We all loaded into the vans and took a 20-minute ride to Long Valley. It was a nice morning drive and I felt a little sleepy on the way there because I was still feeling the effects of my headache from the previous night.

9am: Arrived in Long Valley! We took a few minutes walk to the house where the volunteers sleep. It was so hot! It was even hotter in the house and we all felt grateful that we have been lucky to have AC every night in Wing Lung and Ping Che. We locked up our bags in the house, put on some boots, and we were off and on our way to the rice field!

We arrived at the rice field and the professional farmers and other volunteers were already working hard, coarsely separating the grains of rice from the stalks and sifting the rice even further from the stalks. They had already cut the stalks of the rice plant and they were all lying in neat piles. Ty, Kelli, Shirley and Bird got to work to helping the farmers in the field help transport piles of the rice stalks while Sylvia, Felicia, Steph, Anson, and I helped sift the buckets of rice and stalks. There was an electrically powered machine with a rotating cylindrical wheel with wire [pictured below] that separated the grains of rice from the stalks. The rice falls to the bottom of the machine where it drops into a bucket. Once the bucket is full, it is taken to the people sifting the rice grains from its stem.

The sifting task was completed by using a box with a wire fence type of material attached to a box of 2x4s [pictured below]. One or two people would shake it so the grains of rice would fall through the wire to a round pan below while the stalks stayed on top of the wire. It was very hard to completely separate the grains of rice from the stalks [pictured below] and I felt as though a lot of rice was going to waste, but at the same time it is a tedious task to individually clean each stem and it would take longer time to clear the field.

Once the pan is full with sifted rice, the rice is transferred using a bucket type of scooper to scoop the rice (and leftovers) into a bag. We didn't fill the bags all the way (only about 2/3 full) because the rice still had to dry completely in the hot Hong Kong sun. Once the rice was completely dried, it would then get mechanically sifted a last time to separate any non-rice particles. We didn’t get to observe this step in the process, as it would take days for the rice to dry.

11am: The day was getting hotter and hotter. We continued to sift the rice on and off until we didn’t have buckets and were waiting for the farmers to separate more rice. They had a small mechanical problem that halted the steady pace they had going. We stopped for our lunch break! We walked over to a small café/restaurant where a couple of farmers (by the looks of them) were relaxing and having their lunch. Our group of about 12 people went into a back room that had AC (yay!). Mahjong tables were being used for dining tables and immediately when we sat down, Steph chimed in, “Let’s play mahjong!” Sadly the drawers were empty. No menus were brought to us, instead Bird asked us what we wanted such as rice veggies and pork or a different substitute for meat. For $31HKD there was a huge plate of rice, bok choy, and pork [pictured below].

We ate our lunch (even had some ice cream too!) and relaxed in the cool room until 2pm. We were off and trekked back to the hut where the rice field was. We grabbed our gloves, rice bags, pans and sifters and set off to another field where we would be able to participate in the whole harvesting process. A field was ¾ of the way harvested, but was not finished due to heavy rain.

We arrived at the field, but the machine was not working because of a bad electrical connection. We waited around and took group rice field pictures while the professional farmers worked to fix the machine. Once the machine was up and running, work got quickly underway to cut the rice stem bunches and a chain-gang was formed to pass the bunches down to the professional farmer at the machine to remove the rice from the stem. The mud was thick and deep so boots made it hard to walk through the mud. Anson and I did not hesitate to remove our boots and socks to get dirty and quickly jump in line to not slow the pace of the rice stem cutters. In no time, the rice field was down to a small patch. The camp leaders wanted to give the Wing Lung group a chance at cutting the rice stalks so we all grabbed a sickle and learned how to the rice stalks. You grab a bunch of rice stalks, twist the bunch a little, and use the sickle to cut as low to the mud as possible. Camp leader, Theresa, explained that tall leftover stalks can injure farmers. Right before we cut the last bunch of rice, Bird took pictures [pictured below] of us gathered around the last one, and I got to cut it!!!

We piled the rice stalks on the side of the field where we would each take a turn to use the machine to separate the rice from the stalk. It was quite easy to do, by just hold the bunch of rice stalks and then turning it a few times to get all sides of the bunch. Of course we were all slower than the professional farmers. Some of us sifted the rice into pans and then bagged the last of the rice. We were done! We packed up everything and headed back to the hut by the first field we helped harvest. At this point, we all looked exhausted from being in the sun all day. At this point I realized that I had got sunburn on my face. >_< I should’ve listened to Bird and put sunscreen on! Oops!

4:00pm: We headed back to the volunteer house, used the restroom, packed up our bags, and were on our way once again! As we were walking back, Bird got a call from KK (from Ping Che). He was asking where we were and soon we saw him on the other side of the stream that we were walking along. We crossed the bridge and KK, his wife, and daughter were waiting for us with surprises! They brought us cans of Pocari Sweat and egg tarts! It was a delicious snack and it came at a perfect time! We all mentioned how nice KK is for bringing it to us. Bird rushed to our group (apparent he left…) and said that the shop that is selling tofu pudding is closing soon! He mentioned earlier that there is a tofu pudding that we should try. We rushed over to the little shop that was the same direction to the restaurant we went for lunch. Bird ordered 10 tofu puddings and we all couldn’t eat one so Anson and Bird finished the 3 that remained after we all had our share. The tofu pudding was interesting! It’s usually mixed with liquid sugar to make it a sweet dessert. I thought it was a weird twist on tofu, but I thought it was another great snack after our long day.  



Day Seven: Sunday, July 27, 2014

Sunday, July 27^th (Ping Che)

Written by Miho Fujii

 

7:45am: Wake up. Some of us got up earlier than others, as usual. Kelli wanted to sleep in a little later. As we got ready, Ty and Felicia were very delirious and laughing constantly for about 15 minutes about every little joke. I think we were quite sleep-deprived haha.

 

8:30am: Breakfast! On the menu: cereal, fruits (gala apples, peaches, oranges), and bread with Nutella, jelly or peanut butter, and rice cakes. There were many different kinds of cereals and ones that are similar to US brands. Soymilk, either a malted, regular or low sugar version is used as a substitute for regular cow's milk. Steph said it's due to the high price of cow's milk, which is about 2-3 times the price of milk. Though this is about the same as Hawaii they still opt to buy the soymilk. It was a very family style of eating where everything is on the center of the table and you just grab whatever you would like and eat a little, make a bowl of cereal, eat that, and maybe go and grab something else. All the volunteers at the work camp here in Ping Che introduced themselves to us again and we introduced ourselves and our area of studies. There are a total of 10 volunteers here in Ping Che. 2 from South Korea, 1 from Mainland China, 1 from Thailand, 1 from Spain, 2 from Taiwan, and 3 from Hong Kong.

 

9am: We quickly cleaned up breakfast as we had a workshop by Anson, the Hong Kong volunteer that's in our group.

 

9:25am: We had a quick briefing with Bird about the happenings of the day and the times [pictured below] they would occur to give us a better sense of what we should expect and so we won't be overwhelmed with the constant change of traveling. I admit that at this point in the trip I was starting to feel the effects of my constant sleep deprivation of not getting a full 8-hours of sleep and more like 5-6 hours a night.

 

9:45am: Anson presented on the perception of rural areas and how agricultural land compares to urban areas. He had the different volunteers get into their respective countries and draw our perception of rural areas in our country. Our Hawaii group drew Hawaii specifically and not the continental US. The difficult part about drawing rural areas in Hawaii is that rural areas differ from island to island. We then went on to compare rural areas from where we are from to Hong Kong's rural areas. Anson went on to explain that most of the food available in Hong Kong is imported which is similar in the case of Hawaii. Hong Kong used to be more self-sustainable but farming is becoming less common. Overall, I think the most interesting part about the workshop was when everyone shared what their perception of rural is in their countries. We not only learned about Hong Kong in this workshop, but also the places where the volunteers are from.

11:30am: We relaxed and hung out outside in the dining area to talk story with one of Anson's colleagues, Jonny, that wrote the paper that the workshop was based on. Felicia and I talked with him and Anson about Hawaii, it's agricultural, rural areas, and geography.

12:45pm: Lunch!

2pm: Ping Che tour. There is a forbidden area between Ping Che and the border of Mainland China. Many refugees were trying to escape Mainland China to Hong Kong because of the Cultural Revolution and World War II. This forbidden area is more of a buffer to try and keep as many Mainland Chinese out of Hong Kong. The gate into the Forbidden Area wasn't put in until 1951 so anyone coming from Mainland China could just walk in. You need a special written permit to go in or out of the area. The people that live there are the descendants of the refugees

In order to be indigenous you had to been already living in New Territories before 1898. This includes many privileges including ownership of a large piece of land. Indigenous often sell their land to private developers who then turn the land into apartment buildings most of the time for a rather large income.

We walked through many different farm fields filled with ong choi, egg plant, okra, and much more!

We got back to the Ping Che camp and ate a fruit salad with a couple of chicken wings. By this time we were all really tired and some of us had headaches from the walking tour. We relaxed in the dining area where there was discussion on the importance of preserving the farmlands as farms and not developing them.

6:30pm: It was "US night" in which we do cultural sharing about Hawaii with the other volunteers from Ping Che and Wing Lung. We started to make spam musubi to give as a side dish for dinner. Kelli, Ty and I explained what's in it and why it's so popular in Hawaii.
 
7:30pm: Dinnertime! We had a variety of food such as nigiri sushi, egg rolls, sautéed ong choi, a kalua pig and cabbage-like stuffed bun.

8:45pm: US Cultural Night (Hawaii) we opened with telling everyone about the state anthem, Hawaii Pono'i. We then sang it to them and had volunteers (John from Korea, Bird, and Vicky from Ping Che) come up and sing with us. I drew a map of Hawaii and the flag. Kelli taught them how to say the different names of the islands and we explained a little bit about the history of the flag. After we explained, many volunteers and guests had questions about Hawaii such as what can they do there, if there are volcanoes, and so on. They all seemed pretty interested which was exciting! Afterwards, Ty taught them how to say the numbers 1 to 10 in Hawaiian and we had a little test afterward between two groups on who could put the Hawaiian numbers in the correct order first. It was the end of our cultural night and we thanked the volunteers and guests for having us at Ping Che. My headache was feeling worse so I went to go shower while everyone else sang songs while some guests such as Venus and Jonny played ukulele and drums.

 

Day Six: Saturday, July 26, 2014

Saturday, July 26^th (Sino Organic Farm Tour and Arrival in Ping Che)

Written by Kelli Zakimi

We woke up around 6:15am and packed our stuff because we were going to stay in the Ping Che workcamp for two nights while we visit other farms under VolTra contacts.

Leaving Wing Lung

We took a taxi to the train station and had breakfast at a nearby restaurant that had a Campbell's Soup theme. We had rice noodles, deep fried yao za gui, jook, and coffee that already comes with cream inside. It tasted funny to me, too creamy.

yao za jui, some deep fried bread...looks crispy, but it is hard

 Jook and some kind of mochi rice with pork

  The coffee came with cream

 The restaurant menu

After breakfast we took the train to Sheung Shui, which is where Sino Organic Farm was located. On the way there we passed through some heavy rain. Stephanie said people in Hong Kong don't wear rain jackets, and use only umbrellas.

Donning our ponchos and opening umbrellas

The gate to the farm was flooded, which meant we had to wait for the water level to lower before the van could get to us. The tiny room had a ton of mosquitoes and the loud claps of thunder echoed loudly off the walls. After an hour the van was able to get out and we reached Sino Farm.

 The gate to the farm - flooded

Originally we were supposed to harvest peanuts, but the weather was not good. Sino (pronounced sigh-no), is a Buddhist farm and is named after Sing Lung, who was known for planting the first rice and discovering Chinese herbs and medicine.

The people at Sino were really nice and when they heard we were having stomach troubles, they gave us bittermelon tea. It was basically dehydrated bittermelon in hot water, and it was surprisingly good. I learned that bittermelon is also called half-life melon because people usually like it more when they are older. We also got to try freshly harvested raw peanuts, which had a crisp, clean taste while still earthy. It was delicious! If you cook it in soup they say it is good for the blood because it is red. On the farm they mostly use the peanut crop as fertilizer, since it grows so quickly.

By then it had stopped raining, so while our lunch was prepared, Marvin and the farmer gave us a tour. They showed us a bunch of different crops they were experimenting with - among them figs, kiwis, and blackberries. They had two kinds of pumpkin, Chinese long beans, and an assortment of sweet melons that when ripe are so crisp that if you tap them too much, it might crack. When harvesting, they cut off most of the water to make the melons sweeter. They also grew wintermelon, and two types of bittermelon (green and white). The white variety is less bitter and more expensive.

The lunch at Sino was definitely one of my favorite meals on the whole trip. After lunch we helped cover some of the baby white bittermelons, and sampled some sweet white corn and yellow watermelon. Felicia had the great idea of getting the addresses of the farms we visited and sending them UH seed lab seeds as a token of our appreciation. I wonder if that would be possible?

 

In the afternoon we took a van to Ping Che. We discussed the housing market in Hong Kong and talked about how mainland Chinese buy all the houses and drive the prices up, even if the houses are located in underdeveloped areas. After we got dropped off, we walked to the workcamp site and saw all of the volunteers there. I was amazed by all the longan trees too!

We learned that the government wants to develop Ping Che to create a tourist industry, which would end up changing the area and the culture. They bring in volunteers to the workcamp to bring a new purpose to Ping Che in the form of culture, arts, and education. The deal with the government was that Ping Che has 10 years to transform the area and bring a new value to it or else they will start construction.

Dinner was served around 7:00pm, and there was a lot of food. We met volunteers from Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Spain, and Hong Kong. We were also introduced to Vivian and KK, who were camp leaders for the Ping Che workcamp.

For the whole workcamp of 20ish or so people, there were two showers and one toilet area. It seemed like there was a showering schedule, but it wasn't followed exactly, so showering was a bit difficult for us. I feel that the facilities were definitely not enough for all of the volunteers that stay here. It actually made me appreciate Wing Lung, and the smaller scale of it. Bird organized a small group discussion, and we were able to communicate our concerns and general well-being to him. I appreciated that he did that. Bird talked about his first workcamp experience in Mongolia at the age of 24, and how it inspired him to get involved with programs like this. It unites different groups of people for a common purpose, which is the basic idea of a workcamp. The 10-day journey that we were on was a combination of workcamp and education, with the latter being the focus. We also had group discussions on what things we thought went well and what could be improved.

I was also very grateful for the air-conditioned room that we all slept in. It really is the little things that make a big difference.