Whose hands is our fate in?

  Some private files of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were made public yesterday on the Margaret Thatcher Foundation's official website with the work of Cambridge University researchers. 

  It was in the early hours in the morning and I was about to go to bed after deciding to put the work on my term essay to a pause for the day. But glancing this headline drew me to find the original text of her papers relating to the handover of Hong Kong. 

 ( http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/AA27A6DB4A994064855D295A5E8636D8.pdf)

  So I found this. Formerly secret notes of a meeting between Thatcher and the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping on September 24, 1982, the meeting after which the lady was well remembered tripping as she stepped out from the Great Hall of the People. 

  Much of the content of this meeting has been reported elsewhere, but a revisit of this part of history was still worth. 

  The issue discussed was pertinent to the future of all Hongkongers. But people on this piece of land were kept in the dark. 

  Reading this document dated about 30 years ago, I suddenly had a strong feeling that I have been betrayed by both governments from the time I was born

  Who decided on our fate, Hongkongers?

  Is this just a piece of land "colonised", "leased" and then "handed over", or is it home to millions of people with flesh and blood?

Traces of slave trade in Bristol

Just to put up a few pictures of places with traces of Bristol’s involvement in slave trade and its abolition at the end of the ‘Fair Trade Fortnight’.

Former residence of Henry Cruger, a British American merchant and a defender of slave trade, a Member of Parliament for Bristol and a New York State senator. A wealthy businessman who made a fortune by seizing collaterals from loan borrowers who could not repay their debts on time, he petitioned for those who supported the continuance of slave trade amid the abolitionist movement.

Why Superdry Store? Nothing to do with fashion. This is the historic site of the girls’ school set up by abolitionist Hannah Moore, the most prominent female campaigner against slavery and a key activist pushing forward the sugar boycott in 1791-2.

Pero’s Bridge, named after Pero (aka William Jones), a slave of the powerful Pinney family. He was bought by John Pinney in 1765 at the age of 12. John’s son Charles later became Mayor of Bristol in 1831. When slavery ended in 1834, Charles Pinney received compensation of £36,000 (estimated to be about £1.8 million today) from the British government for the slaves he freed.

Farrs Lane, named after Thomas Farr, who made a fortune with his slave ships. The lane is ironically located right across Pero’s Bridge.

The harbour from where slave ships sailed.

Abolitionists broke away from the Church of England, which was involved in slave trade. Members of the abolitionist church were buried here after their death.

Cambridge University student Thomas Clarkson arrived in Bristol in 1787 and conducted his investigation of slave trade with his base in the Seven Stars pub, with the support of landlord Mr. Thompson. Clarkson played an important role in the abolitionist campaign by presenting the evidences he had collected and gathering petitions to lobby MPs to outlaw slavery. This pub is still running on the old site!

茶餐廳內外

整理案上雜物時發現一紙去年九月從香港帶過來的手稿，雖已過時數月，但還時上載分享當日隨思吧。

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　　訪問臨時延遲了。偷得半小時閒情坐在這金融區域裏一間準備上市的茶餐餐，喝一杯我最喜歡的港式奶茶。

　　窗外，看着行人們、汽車和電車走過。室外氣溫很高，同樣在流汗的，有西裝筆挺的年青人，有赤着膊、推着堆滿紙皮箱的小車的阿叔。

　　一個老婆婆在執紙皮，她是否在計算着再執多少塊才可多賺一頓飯？

　　一個媽媽牽着小女孩的手橫過馬路，她是否在供樓？是否在為孩子上哪所學校籌措？

　　窗內，看着這杯奶茶，驀地覺得自己似是這個空間裏最幸福的一個人。至少當你們在那炎日下奔波時，我還在這冷氣開放的舒適角落裏在享受奶茶、在旁觀你們。

　　偷閒時間過了，我走到前台結賬，給這家快要上市的茶餐廳付了18元。喝一杯奶茶原來也真的很奢侈。

(2012年9月。中環)

Malmö: a midway stop?

  Malmö, despite being the third largest city in Sweden, does not seem to enjoy a reputation on her own right.

  Almost every traveller in the hostel I talked to had either come from Copenhagen or was heading there as the next destination. Everyone seemed to be making Malmö a short stop on their journey. The only two exceptions were a Canadian-Swedish woman and a globetrotting Dutch truck driver who were staying in the city for a longer time in search for jobs. Like my fellow holidaymakers, I was brought to Malmö by Copenhagen. When I told somebody that I was staying for three days I was given this response, “Why are you staying for so long here?”

  The Oresund Bridge has made it more common for people to dwell in Malmö and work in Copenhagen. Lower living cost but also lower pay level, this Swedish border city is always like a low-key little brother to the prominent, international and expensive Danish capital.

The Turning Torso

  

    Perhaps because of a lack of a natural or historic landmark, Malmö felt so eager to build her own icon that she decided to make one last decade. The city invited Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to build the 190-meter tall and 54-storeyed residential block of Turning Torso. Just completed in 2005, it is now as the tallest skyscraper in Scandinavia and is known as a (if not THE) landmark of the city.

  Maybe the border identity is the best signature of Scania (or Skåne in Swedish), a piece of land repeatedly fought for between the Swedes and the Danes in history.

  Cosmopolitan yet classic, clean, convenient and peaceful, the city of Malmö in fact appealed to me on my very first day there. I believe that it deserved more than what it was known.

Lilla Torg

Night view from the Suellsbron bridge 

The Malmö Castle

View of the Lillgrund wind farm
along the Oresund Bridge

 

The Moon's got a valentine tonight

  The full moon was “hoisted” in the sky above College Green, Bristol (which is right behind my residential hall!) on the evening of Valentine’s Day. A symbol of reunion in Chinese culture, it happened to appear on the fifth day of the new Year of the Snake.  

  The area was unusually bright on this night! Two moons in the sky?! Was it an illusion? I saw a new moon and a full moon. A big moon and a small moon… Wait, which one is BIG and which one is SMALL in reality?

(To find out more, visit http://ibt13.co.uk/fake-moon-4/)

The cool but warm Swedes

  Any of my friends who have travelled with me would be able to tell I am more interested in observing how people in a foreign place live and behave than visiting landmarks and attractions. If you ask me what in my ten-day trip in Sweden is the most memorable, I would say it is the trust and helpfulness of the people.

  Perhaps Scandinavians are well known for their stoicism. Any visitor who expects a welcome with a big smile and warm hug is likely to be disappointed. But as a tourist I found the Swedes are indeed very helpful despite their apparent coolness. When I moved in a hostel in Malmö on my very first day in the country, I was greeted by a big, tall, middle-aged man in a suit, with his face so emotionless while he talked to me that I might otherwise feel like being greeted at the hospital reception. Yet the content of his speech, his responsiveness to my questions soon proved he was very generous in giving help. The level of detail when he showed me how to use the washing machine and dryer on the second day showed remarkable patience.

  Of course one person working in the tourism industry cannot be representative. I took my little “social experiment” of opening a map wide on the streets conspicuously looking for directions yielded an interesting unscientific finding - the Swedes are very willing to help strangers but they are also very careful to respect your capability. If you do not ask for assistance they would not interrupt your effort to find your own way but once you ask they would nicely give you clear directions. This made me, as a foreigner from a rather individualistic metropolitan culture, feel at great ease.  I did not ask anyone for directions in Malmö because the map I had was sufficiently detailed and the city, despite being the third biggest in the nation, was small enough for me to get around easily. But a few requests for help with directions in Gothenburg and Stockholm gave me this impression of Swedish helpfulness and friendliness once approached. One lady in Gothenburg who answered a question from me and my travel companions about the ferry routes had quite a long chat with one of us, while another in Stockholm who showed me the way to the City Hall also extended very warm welcome to me as we walked together.

  On my two inter-city trips in the country I rode on buses with discounted student tickets, for which I was only eligible with a recognised international student card (I bought it for £9 before setting off for this trip). However on neither of the trips did the driver check my student identification! They just trusted me, or, one could argue that they were lazy. (Two other observations of bus rides in Sweden were, first, I encountered two Chinese drivers in Malmö, and second, a practice which perplexed me, they don’t allow passengers to pay on board – You have to get a ticket from a sales point such as a convenient store, a train station or a hostel before boarding.)

  The most impressive welcome I received was from Vasil, a Malmö resident who moved to Sweden from Macedonia many years ago. He was a retired restaurant owner living in one of the nice apartments nearby the modern landmark of the Turning Torso. I asked him to take a picture for me as he was going for a walk on the seaside with his puppy. After a pleasant chat he was so hospitable to invite me to his home, treated me with coffee, biscuits, made Macedonia Christmas food sarna with Swedish cabbage Kåldolmar for me, and even gave me a box of chocolate as a New Year present when I left! After returning to Bristol a girl friend of mine warned me, “You shouldn't have gone to an unknown man’s home!” I agreed that she did have a point, and perhaps I was lucky to have met a pure-hearted new friend. But in that country where I felt so much trust among people and saw the friendly exchanges between Vasil and his neighbours my metropolitan suspicion of strangers just disappeared when I received such a warm invitation.

  The Swedes’ courtesy was also impressive. No pushing around on the streets, for sure, not even in the busy shopping areas in Stockholm on Saturday. They would even offer places to strangers! One middle-age lady sitting in a crowded café indicated to me an empty seat next to her when she saw me looking for a place to sit down. An old lady I encountered in the lavatory of a museum offered me to go first, even she was obviously much older than me and was in front of me in the line! Of course I would be too embarrassed to take that offer so I thanked her and asked her to go first. At one point while I was walking in the peaceful and quite district of Östermalm in Stockholm, a question came to my mind: How am I going to re-adapt to the pushing crowd in Hong Kong when I go home?...

  Having said that the Swedes exhibit trust, honesty and helpfulness, tourists still have to be alert while travelling. One exception I encountered on this trip took place in a small convenience store which sold things like postcards and snacks. The shopkeeper did not look Swedish and I have no idea where he was from. Apparently betting that a foreigner would not know the postage fee there, he tried to cheat 6 kronas from me when I asked for three stamps (One krona is equivalent to roughly 10 British pence). After I declined to buy those stamps and continued with the purchase of one postcard, he still tried to cheat 2 kronas from me when giving me the change and gave me the correct change only after I pointed out it was short of 2 kronas - without any apology or any apologetic expression. He was unlucky to have encountered a tourist who was already spending her ninth day in the country and had managed to recognise all the coins of different values!

My Swedish treat

A New Year gift from my Malmö host

語言偽術

　　特首向報紙發律師信，已足夠令人嘩然，但看了《信報》的聲明（見http://www.hkej.com/template/forum/php/forum_details.php?blog_posts_id=98023），更感耐人尋味！

　　（一）聲明第一、二點支持練文沒有指梁氏涉黑，既採此立場，為何又要致歉？

　　（二）聲明第三點以「中國大陸的法律，接受無罪推斷，官員接受雙規，表示有一定嫌疑，但不表示一定有罪」來論述練文的雙規論不等於指梁氏有罪。事實上，雙規是中國共產黨紀委的程序,而不是中國法律的程序,《信報》熟悉中國的前輩大有人在,無可能不知,退一萬步說，就算撰寫這聲明的人士和有份編輯、校對、過目、批准這聲明的所有人都不知道，練文「由中共中央循黨系統對這幾個以梁為首的涉黑當事人在大陸某處進行「雙規」」一句也已指出了這點。雙規根本就不是一個法律概念，聲明為甚麼要轉移視視線,以法律無罪推斷概念解釋接受雙規者不一定有罪？ 

　　（三）聲明末段云「若因文章而引起讀者對梁先生產生不公的結論或引來不便，我們謹此致歉」。若認為文章的確有錯，便即使有沒有引起甚麼後果都應致歉，若文章根本沒錯，那即是別人誤讀，不須致歉。「若…致歉」即是《信報》認為文章有錯還是沒錯？是甚麼立場？

　　整件事到目前給我的印象是，《信報》不想跟梁打官司，所以出一個有致歉成份的聲明，間接承認文章「引起讀者對梁先生產生不公的結論或引來不便」，但又不想被讀者罵「跪低」，所以用上「 若...我們謹此致歉」這樣的含糊字句，沒寫明謹此向誰致歉，然後在其他場合被問起就說是向讀者致歉而不是向梁致歉。我們有一個跟市民玩語言偽術的特首已經很可悲，現在連一份知識分子大報都跟讀者玩語言偽術，讓人何其失望！當然我希望我的推斷是錯，若有朋友知道內情並非如此，請糾正我。

　　另一點令我失望的，是《信報》今天的新聞版面沒有報道這件事。無論眾人對事件中誰對誰錯有何判斷，畢竟這宗也是新聞，昨天已經引起這麼多同業查詢，起碼值得一提。就算報章自己是事件主角，另闢版面刊登聲明，新聞版面也應抽離當一般報道處理，就像特首選舉前中聯辦致電李澤楷，我們當時照樣報道不會避諱，《蘋果》寫錯林奮強話岐視新移民後致歉，該報翌日新聞版面照樣報道，BBC捲入Jimmy Savile 醜聞和誤認前官員Alistair McAlpine為褻玩兒童犯，新聞部都照報，無理由自我審查當事件不存在。

What poverty line for Hong Kong?

  A task force under the government-appointed Commission on Poverty met on Monday to draw up the first official poverty line for Hong Kong. According to recent media reports, the group is favour of a definition of poverty as measured with the common method used by the OECD and the EU and the Hong Kong government was also inclined to adopting this model.

  While local pressure groups and some respectable academics have long been clamouring for the establishment of an official poverty line for the city, there seems to be some popular illusion that such a threshold can reflect how many people in our society are poor and how many are not or whether the livelihood of residents has improved or worsened over time.  This is perhaps because the phrase “poverty line” itself is a misleading term. Even some members of the Commission reportedly expressed surprise when they heard that the benchmark under discussion would not measure people’s material wealth and urged the government to “clarify” what it meant. (Note 1)

  If people under the poverty line are poor and those above it are not, then the poverty rate should be higher in poor societies and vice versa, shouldn’t it? Perfectly logical in common sense. But this is not the case. In 2010, the poverty rate of Germany, which was envied by its European neighbours for its relative economic strength in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, was higher than that of the struggling Hungary by two percentage points, despite the per capita GDP of the former outstripped the latter by more than 80%, for example. (Notes  2 and 3)

  Why does the poverty rate not tell how rich or how poor a society is? Take a quick look at how the OECD/EU poverty rate is calculated and one can immediately realise where the problem lies.  The mathematical formula is simple – the population under the poverty line is those whose household incomes fall below a certain percentage, usually 40%, 50% or 60%, of the median of the society.

  Instead of indicating the income levels of the general population or of the economically worse off group, this measurement of relative poverty (as opposed to absolute poverty) is rather an outcome of the distribution of income.

  Suppose 100 households lived in Town X with an income distribution like this in a given year:

Income ($)	Number of households
20	4
30	6
40	10
50	22
60	20
70	12
80	10
90	8
100	6
110	2
Total	100

  The median household income is $60. If the poverty line is drawn at 50% of that, then 10% of all households will fall below the threshold. (For the sake of simplicity the difference in the numbers of people in households is ignored here.)

  Now in the following year, 20 households immigrated to Town X, most of them with incomes above the median level. Some high earners who had been living here also saw their incomes increase. On the other hand, those living on the lowest end of the breadline made even less money this year, with some even losing their jobs and left with no income.

 

Income ($)	Number of households
0	2
10	2
20	2
30	4
40	10
50	26
60	22
70	14
80	12
90	12
100	8
110	4
120	2
Total	120

   The median household income remained at $60. However, the official poverty rate with the above definition would drop to 8.3%. This is despite the fact that the poor in Town X have actually become poorer. (An interactive graphical illustration of how changes in people’s incomes move the poverty rate can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8177864.stm.)

  Another reason why this way to define poverty is misleading is, as researchers in the academia have pointed out and at least one member of the Commission has raised in the media, that income is the sole measurement while assets are not taken into account. Some retirees may have no income at all yet enjoy a well-off material life on their accumulated wealth while some young people may earn wages which do not look but cannot afford to live on their own. As the population of Hong Kong is ageing, the age structure is expected to have an effect on the movement of such an official poverty line.

  The OECD/EU model of poverty measurement has also been criticised for setting an arbitrary standard. Why should the percentage be set at 40% but not 50%, or 50% but not 60%? However an advocate explains the percentage he or she goes for, it is after all a subjective line. Indeed where the line should be drawn has become a centre of debate in the current discussion in Hong Kong, whereas the basic concept of drawing a line in this way seems to have become the general consensus between Commission and the administration. There have been voices raising concern that the government may adopt a lower threshold to make the population under the poverty line look smaller. These are merely manipulation of numbers and I am not going into this argument of what percentage is the best for I reckon that it is unrealistic to look for a benchmark free of subjectivity and biases. In fact the OECD website presents poverty data measured with three commonly used percentages. (Note 4) It appears that Commission members and many vocal advocates for this official poverty line in Hong Kong prefer the use of one single line to avoid complexity.

  What I would like to caution against is the type of arguments like “The line should be set at 40% because Hong Kong is an affluent society” or “The line should be set at 60% because the cost of living in Hong Kong is so high”. If these logics applied, then the official poverty line could be moved as our GDP or inflation rate moved every year, which would effectively make the line meaningless. Although the setting of the line is inevitably a political process, the exercise to measure poverty statistically should not be used as a political tool to reaffirm existing views on poverty. Instead, it should be a tool with a purpose to help make policies on poverty alleviation.

  Because it is convenient, such a definition of poverty has been commonly used in many countries despite its questionability as a poverty indicator. In recent decades the study of inequality in developed countries has been moving toward a more comprehensive view, such as developing more encompassing concepts like deprivation social exclusion, standard of living and quality of life, rather than drawing a simple line on the income curve. The Hong Kong government is aware of these new options but has chosen to go for the old, established, convenient, one-dimensional measurement and NGOs speaking on the issue appear to be happy about that.

  In spite of these limitations of the OECD/EU model of the poverty line, I would not say it is totally useless for Hong Kong. As Commission member and Oxfam Hong Kong director-general Mr. Stephen Fisher has pointed out, one major function of an official poverty line is to assess the effectiveness of public policies on poverty alleviation. (Note 5) Professor CK Law wrote a newspaper article last year which gave a clear elaboration on how it could be done and readers who are interested can refer it. (Note 6)  However, for the sake of comprehensiveness and to point out some confusion in recent media reports please bear with me for being a bit repetitive here.

  Take a glance at the OECD poverty statistical table and one can spot there are two sets of poverty rates, “poverty rates before taxes and transfers” and “poverty rates after taxes and transfers”. (Note 4) By comparing the two sets of data, we can find out to what extent an economy’s taxation and welfare policies have changed income distribution.  Certainly a general subtraction does not tell us which policy is working for the poor and which is not and why, but nonetheless it serves as a reference of how effective government intervention is. More detailed analyses of sub-groups can be conducted with demographic data.

  An understanding of this use of the official poverty line (despite one does not have to agree with it) is significant in the whole discussion of how the line(s) should be drawn and, in my humble opinion, why we hold such a discussion at all. After all, why does a poverty line has to be “official”? The Oxfam can draw its own line and so can the Hong Kong Council of Social Service. The local academia is not short of studies in poverty and there is a variety of measurements available to choose from in literature. (Note 7) If the only reasons for setting a poverty line are to keep records and conduct analyses, which carry importance in their own rights, then we can be happy without an official definition, which can be authoritarian. The most important point of making an official line is to for policymaking purposes.

  Recognising this reason for making an official poverty line and the rationale behind having a “poverty rate before taxes and transfers” and a “poverty rate after taxes and transfers” should be able to alert us not to confuse the two rates. I found some recent news reports intriguing and I do not know if it were the Commission members and pressure group representatives being interviewed or the journalists who had mixed up the concepts (Hopefully not the Commission members because they are the ones responsible for the task). Some recent reports warned against “the inclusion of welfare in the calculation of the poverty line” by the government (e.g. Notes 5 and 8). I myself was stunned when I first came across the headlines and I am afraid most readers might be misled that welfare would be included in the calculation of the commonly understood single poverty line unless they take the time and effort to read some original documents. If it were the case that government welfare was included in THE poverty line which people talk about, then it would depict an extremely unrealistic picture of poverty in Hong Kong.  I appreciate the fact that there are still a wide range of possibilities of how to measure the “poverty rate after taxes and transfers” and I agree that some of the concerns raised such as the inclusion of universal services like nine-year free education might come up with the false picture of “zero poverty” is valid in this sense. However, distinguishing the two lines and conveying the real purpose of setting an official poverty line to the public is still important.

Notes

1. 1.       The Hong Kong Economic Journal, Jan 29, 2013, ‘貧窮線不代表窮 議員促釐清作用’
2. 2.       http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?v=69&r=eu&l=en
3. 3.       http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-11-064/EN/KS-SF-11-064-EN.PDF
4. 4.       (http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=POVERTY)
5. 5.       The Hong Kong Economic Journal, Jan 28, 2013, ‘余志穩：訂貧窮線毋須一年 倡入息中位一半劃線 憂政府降指標當滅貧’
6. 6.       Mingpao, Sept 30, ‘貧窮線用來做甚麼?’
7. 7.       See for example a brief review by Professor Chou Kee-lee in Mingpao,  Dec 17, 2012, ‘如何訂定本港的貧窮線? ‘
8. 8.       The Apple Daily, Jan 29, 2013, ‘福利當收入  貧窮線恐變粉飾數字’

重返校園

「你還讀書？」

「你已工作七年還辭職來讀書？那要很大勇氣吧？」

這些是我自從來到英國唸書後，每當提起工作經驗時聽到的典型反應，尤其不少來自亞洲的同學都把放下工作全職讀書看作一種犧牲。

其實我並不是特別有勇氣，離開工作也不是一個甚麼艱難的決定。這並不是說我不喜歡我的工作，相反，我很享受當記者。我喜歡走出辦公室到不同的地方，接觸不同的人和事，喜歡不時有意料之外的挑戰。

重返校園正好給我空間探索我生活圈子以外的世界，給我空間思索和尋找自己。

留學英倫是香港學生往外跑的一個傳統選擇。坦白說，在香港人之中，曾在英國讀書已不算很特別的經驗。儘管英國政府近年財政緊縮、連年加學費、教育經費削減、大學排名榜漸被亞洲學府追上，這裏仍然是香港人熱門的留學地點。

若我來英國讀書是為了去一個先進國家享用豐富的硬件教育資源，那很可能會換來失望。來到這裏最讓我開眼界的是反而認識到來自不同的發展中國家的同學們，正因為這兒有世界各地的學子匯集。

十月開學不久，在報章上閱到巴基斯坦爭取女童教育權利的14歲少女馬拉拉被塔利班槍擊的新聞。我想到班上那位來自巴基斯坦的同學為甚麼在課堂上總是那麼積極講述她祖國的管治狀況，感慨當大多數同學都會熱情邀請大家將來探訪他們家鄉時，她總是勸喻同學們不宜到她的國家旅遊。

馬里北部由極端伊斯蘭組織掌控的地區衝突持續，那天我們校園裏的模擬聯合國會議討論是否要軍事介入，坐在我旁邊的模擬代表竟正是來自馬里的學生，揚揚道來為何希望外國介入平定她的國家，但又不想前宗主國法國出兵的心結。會後她說慶幸家人目前都在英國，但還是很擔心國內局勢。

十一月，哈馬斯向以色列發射火箭炮後，以色列以連日轟炸加沙地帶還擊。班上來自巴勒斯坦的一位同學十分氣憤，發動大家參加遊行。

這些種種，原本只透過國際新聞聽到、離我很遠的世界，忽然都就在我身邊。

這裏的最大海外學生來源地還是中國。雖然出發前已有心理準備英國的大學有很多中國留學生，但坦白說，起初對於千里迢迢出國留學卻跑到了小型唐人街，心裏還是有點納悶，但漸漸適應了，其實這也反映了國際發展的一種趨勢。這裏的教授和不少同學都顯得對中國的發展很有興趣，會問大陸同學們和我關於中國的事情。

內地同學們對社會的認知差距很大，跟他們討論時事甚是有趣的體會，有些同學在國內活躍翻牆，對國內外事情都很關注，有些則對官方媒體不提的新聞便完全沒聽過。跟我這個香港人相處，他們由把我當作完全沒有分別到問我懂不懂中文的都有。看着這一群未來海歸派，有的看見亞洲臉孔劈頭便跟人家講普通話，也有的樂於跟來自不同國家的同學們交朋友，似乎看到中國社會一個未來縮影。

這些都是書本上沒有的、但正是重返校園讓我有機會體會到的。

（本文於1月23日在http://hk.promotion.yahoo.net/education/201301237085/發表。）

Some old and new habits of mine

New:  Warm hats are so much needed under this cold weather. Indeed I haven’t been able to go out without a hat since November. Hats used to be just a practical thing for me, an item which I would use when occasionally needed. But they have now become part of my daily dress just like my T-shirts and trousers. Although two hats in the wardrobe are practically sufficient as you still get one to wear when another is hung up for drying after washing, I started to want to change hats more often just like I don’t wear only two T-shirts on alternative days. Sorry for my purse that I have bought my second winter hat here on top of the two I brought from home. The good news is that I have a small head so that money is saved by getting kid’s size ones.

Old: Another piece of good news for my purse is that I have absolutely stopped buying earrings. Why wear earrings when my ears badly need to be covered by a hat?

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New: Lots of tea drinking. English breakfast is still my favourite, as always. A mint tea or an Earl Grey would wake me up when I feel gloomy and sleeping in the afternoon. A fruit tea is a good reward for myself after several hours of class or essay writing. A flower tea is randomly picked but the fragrance makes me smile every time when I open the box.

Old: I still keep a teapot and some Chinese jasmine tea but they’ve eventually become a showcase and it’s mainly served when I have visitors. Interestingly the pattern of choices made my friends has been very consistent so far. Whenever I offered them some tea and asked what tea they would like, all my Chinese friends would go for English tea and all my non-Chinese friends would go for Chinese tea.

And of course, no more bubble tea for me now.

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New: Lots of walking. I actually enjoy walking as a way of commuting. You get to see the real city instead of having everything flashing in front of eyes for a second through a bus window. Oh I almost forgot how to ride on a bus… In the past four months since my arrival I have only ridden on a city bus three times (inter-city bus exclusive), including one ride from the airport on my first day here and another ride to the airport for a vacation.

Old: Commuting for one hour used to be nothing harsh to me. I routinely commuted for almost an hour to work and a whole hour back home after work, not to mention travel between places at work. I didn’t see why one would “wow” after hearing the distance between my home in HK and my office required one hour of travelling.  Now anywhere that I can’t reach within half an hour means a remote place to me.

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New: Dress in layers, or in a more vivid description I like, in an “onion style”. I really appreciate the idea of having cloakrooms in European museums. They are just desperately needed. This way of dressing also makes me move slower – You don’t realise it takes so much time just to take on and off clothing every time you go indoors and outdoors until you really have to do it many times a day, particularly when you have several classes at different locations on the same day.

And by the way, I have started to wear two layers of gloves since the beginning of 2013.

Old: I think I missed my dresses and skirts in my first two months here.

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New: I have come to understand why baking is such a popular home activity in Europe. It feels so good to be in front of a hot oven smelling fresh food when it’s freaking cold outside!

Old: Being in the kitchen was simply no fun – it made you sweat.

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New: Sunshine is a rare gift. When it was still not this cold by December, I would want to go out even just for a little walk to the nearby supermarket when I saw sunshine through the narrow window in my dim bedroom.

Old habit: There was almost always sufficient ambient light cheering up my flat through our large window and I could literally stay at home for days without feeling any depression.

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New: All DIY meals! Bye to polystyrene food boxes! Yeah!

Old: Restaurant meals for lunch and supper boxes in the newsroom. Weekend meals by mom were big rewards after a whole week of work.

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