The inner rewards of reading

The fact that these days I have almost completely stopped buying books has nothing to do with my love of reading. It is just that since many years ago the need for more and more space for bookshelves to accommodate the books that I kept buying became a bigger and bigger challenge. It also didn’t make much economic sense for me to pay a lot of money to buy books that I read but once (or didn’t even read, because being in possession of the book generates the feeling of complacency that I can read it later) and then shelve.

So in recent years I have turned to the public libraries. Not only do we have a good computerized library system that enables us to make a reservation for any book in the online catalogue and pick it up in any library of our choice, borrowing books from the library also has the advantage of forcing me to finish reading the book within a short timeframe – I might not even be able to renew it if someone else has made a reservation.

There is recently an article from the BBC news magazine in which the writer laments the slashing of many libraries in the UK. In defence of the libraries, she said: “In our culture the library stands as tall and as significant as a parish church or the finest cathedral. It goes back to the times when ideas first began to circulate in the known world. I worry where wisdom will come from.”

It seems that here in Hong Kong we don’t need to have such a worry as yet. Our problem lies in many people not having the love of reading. On the joy of reading, the writer of the article says it well: “It is the inner rewards of reading a book in a private and concentrated way that lead you into realms of your own imagination and thought that no other process offers. Something happens between the words and the brain that is unique to the moment and to your own sensibilities.” It’s the kind of joy that reading gossip magazines, which is what many Hong Kong people do, can never offer.

Guilty of fighting for justice

What has Zhao Lianhai, father of five-year-old Zhao Penrui who was one of the victims of melamine-tainted milk in China, done to deserve a 30-month jail sentence?

"Inciting social disorder", according to the verdict. Zhao was found guilty on four counts - organising a gathering of a dozen parents of sick children at a restaurant; holding a placard in front of a court and a factory on the first anniversary of the tainted milk scandal; giving media interviews in a public place; and trying to gather people to demand justice for Li Ruirui, an undergraduate who was raped while held in an illegal detention house as she tried to petition against her college expulsion.

It is very clear that, in a country which treats human rights with utter contempt, which upholds "social harmony" (defined in China' dictionary as silencing dissident voices at all costs), his real crime is fighting for justice, not only for his own son, who still carries a stone in his kidney, but also for the other 300,000 victims by setting up the "Kidney Stone Babies" website to exchange views with other parents on how to sue the firms involved.

The irony is that while such a case would most certainly result in an astronomical sum of compensation in a lawsuit if it were to happen in a more civilised country, under this barbaric regime the rightful plaintiff is thrown in jail instead. Even if the verdict is anything to go by, one may well ask what is wrong with a victim's parent organising a gathering of other parents, holding a placard to protest, giving interviews and helping a rape victim?

This is the regime to which so many people have pledged their allegiance and love.

Trekking in the Himalayas, meditation and yoga

"...I was in the Himalayas having a fabulous trek in the snow... I am now full involved with yoga activities... I am "fully enjoying my time in yoga"... Meditation is gradually becoming a part of normal life. It is very very gratifying when positive benefits (health and healing) arise to those who are doing yoga with me."

The above is extracted from an email sent to me by the yoga teacher I made friends with while attending the World Vegetarian Congress in Goa in 2006 (see the few entries on 29 October - 5 November). This remarkable man gave up a respectable job to pursue a life he craves for. These few lines are the best proof that his decision has been an excellent one.

While I am happy for him to have led such a fulfilling life, my heart aches with yearning. How I would have liked to do the same!

"I wanna eat fish balls, sausages, egg puffs, and siu maai!"

"I wanna eat fish balls, sausages, egg puffs, and siu maai!"

A little girl in school uniform started pester her mother once she got on the train.

I cringed at the matter-of-course manner of the request (or demand, depending on how you look at it), but I bet that the little despot routinely gets her wish.

On her wish list are, of course, the famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) street food of Hong Kong. Such street food is a very good reflection of the typical Hong Kong lifestyle - quick, convenient and strong-tasting. Never mind that the greasy, highly-processed and heavily-seasoned food is not healthy and the street stalls cooking and selling it are not clean. As long as the food can excite the taste buds and fill the stomach, that is fine.

And who am I to comment on or even criticise other people's food preference? Didn't I, too, use to crave for such street food at the end of a school day? The only difference is that Hong Kong wasn't such an affluent society in my childhood days that a schoolboy could sabotage his mother to buy him such street food every day after school.

Dictée: Il faut sauver les tigres!

The following is my dictation of an article from http://www.lespetitscitoyens.com/:

La semaine dernière, treize pays d’Asie étaient réunis en Russie afin d’essayer de sauver le tigre. Le plus grand des félins est en effet en voie de disparition! Il y a cent ans, on comptait environ 100 000 tigres… Et aujourd’hui, à peine 3200. L’espèce pourrait éteindre d’ici douze ans si rien n’est fait.

Mais les pays qui participaient au sommet pour la protection du tigre espèrent changer les choses. Leur objectif, c’est qu’au lieu de disparaître, le nombre des tigres ait doublé d’ici douze ans! Du coup ils doivent lutter en priorité contre la chasse des tigres: elle est intérdite, mais le braconnage continue, car le peau du tigre se vend très cher. Un accord a été conclu – pour punir très sevérèment les braconniers. Désormais, ils risquent douze ans de prison s’il tuent des tigres!

"Please singe and return to me"

There was a letter I needed to send out today. After preparing the original copy, the office clerk needed my signature before issue. She placed it in a clear holder, on which was a sticker which said: "Please singe and return to me."

Depending on how you look at it, this spelling mistake is both a howler and a taboo. You can either take it in a light-hearted way and quip "You mean return the ashes?" or associate it with the Chinese custom that we burn paper offering to spiritual beings or the deceased and so consider asking people to singe something and return to her as something inauspicious to say.

Either way, however, it is another demonstration of the uncomfortable truth that in casting itself as a bilingual city, Hong Kong gives the game away rather too easily.

They feed us what we like, don't they?

I find it utterly appalling and disgusting that one of Hong Kong’s best-selling Chinese newspaper should publish the photos of the naked body of a woman when reporting the news of this corpse being discovered in a country park yesterday. Even though the sexual organs have been blurred, the publication of these photos represents a blatant violation of professional ethics and ruthless trampling of the privacy and honour of the deceased and her family.

While a newspaper like this will do anything to boost its circulation, it goes back to the fundamental question about why it is that it not only survives but also thrives.

At the end of the day, this is probably what the readers in Hong Kong deserve.