Memories through Old Photos (2)

Vehicular ferries are historic products. In the 60’s, when vehicles in Hong Kong were increasing and the need of transporting them across the Victoria Harbour, vehicular ferries were built. Yaumati Ferry Company first operated such businesses of carrying vehicles, heavy as lorries, large vans, light as private cars and motor-cycles to and from Yaumati and Central. At the very begining, the ferries were double-deckers with passengers on the upper deck and vehicles on the lower. Further expansion went to a second route of single or double-deckered ferries which carried vehicles (with drivers of course) parallel to the first route between Central and Yaumati.

Later on, there were two other routes for vehicular ferries, one between Kowloon City and North Point and the other between Kwun Tong and North Point. At that time, the fare for each single journey for a private car was just a few dollars.

The sea journeys were usually relaxing and cool because breezes usually blew. To some car owners, when their cars were at the front of the lower deck, they might face the risk of their cars being washed by salty sea water when waves struck at the ferry on a rough sea.

The ferry service still operated well even when Cross Harbour Tunnel started to operate in 1972. As the Eastern Harbour Tunnel (started operations in 1986) and the launching of Mass Transit Railway (started operations in 1979 linking Central to Kwun Tong), the demand of vehicular ferry service became smaller and finally suspended towards the end of 80’s.

The top-left photo shows a passenger-vehicular ferry.
The top-right photo shows a single-decked vehicular ferry.
The two bottom photos show a double-decked vehicular ferry.

Our CCSC Sales at New Year Fair

ATV was so nice as to report our CCSC Sales of dolls at New Year Fair in Victoria Park at 6 p.m. news today, January 21, 2011. The business of selling dolls flourishes each year with accumulated experience and wise thought of design.

This year is the Year of the Rabbit. The pink rabbit is attractive. With the dark glasses, the rabbit looks proud and confident. In addition, the yellow eye brows give the rabbit a funny look. The basket in front is multi-purpose. People may use it as a waste-paper basket or children play ball games with it or even store their red-packets or candies during Chinese New Year.

Memories through Old Photos (1)

A photographer took out one photo of a boat taken many years ago off the shore of Shatin. He found more or less the same location along the riverside of Shatin where his photo was taken. He told a HKTVB reporter that there was a big change over these long years.

The opposite bank of the Shing Mun River which was quiet and uninhabited in early years had been turned into public or private residential areas.

Shatin itself has been developed into a satellite town. Nowadays the shopping centres near Shatin MTR Station are usually crowded with people. They shop, eat and join different activities in these centres. The Shatin Central Park, Museum of Arts, City Hall and its library (public), JC Race course are hot places for visits. Canoeing and dragon boat races often take place on Shing Mun River.

Making of Pencil sharpeners

The soul of a pencil sharpener comes from the knife blades. They are cleaned up first and one side of each blade is next sharpened. On one side, a machine is preparing the bodies of the sharpeners. The blades are arranged neatly by hands into a column. The blades and bodies of the sharpeners reunite in a third machine where each blade is fixed firmly onto the body of a sharpener with a small screw through the hole of the blade.

These pencil sharpeners are simple, light and easy to carry. They are best companions of artists, designers, office-workers, students and people in different fields when they make drafts, calculate, or record anything that may need corrections with their pencils.

Four Pieces of Cakes at JC

These slices of delicious cakes go with the set lunches at JC as desserts. Each only costs ten dollars. Today, let me introduce four kinds of cakes that are served in the restaurant.

Left top corner: It is a chestnut cream cake. The brown pastes of chestnuts are laid on the soft white cream like worms. A blueberry, half a slice of a kiwifruit and a bit of a yellow pear decorate the piece of cake beautifully. The cake is soft, tender and never too sweet.

Right top corner: It is a strawberry cheese cake. The main characters here are the two halves of a large red strawberry. They are outstandingly decorated with a triangular piece of white chocolate with patterns of red hamburgers. The white cheese layer is a few centimetres thick with a hard-crusted base. To me, it is “heavy-weighted”.

Left bottom corner: It is obviously a piece of a chocolate cream cake which satisfies chocolate lovers. The red cherries at the top add a little sweet-to-sour taste to the cake. Next to the cherries are some chocolate pieces. This mass of chocolate look very much like those wood and graphite lead pieces being scraped out of a pencil-sharpener.

Right bottom corner: It is a five-layered cheese cake decorated with three red berries and a piece of white chocolate. This piece of cake is a prism with a cross-section of a right-angled triangle. I think it is a good model for teaching Mathematics.

The Arctic Circle

At a small land mark on Dalton Highway, Alaska, this lady showed her pride of having reached the Arctic Circle. A large board showed the Arctic Circle (in yellow dotted line), the land and ocean at the Polar region. The “star” indicated the location of the board.

There the lady was issued a certificate (I don’t know if she had to pay for it) by Northern Alaska Tour Company to commemorate that she had crossed the Arctic Circle.

Let us read a brief note of this imaginary line on Earth:

The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. It is the parallel of latitude that runs 66° 33’ 44” (or 66.5622°) north of the Equator. The region north of this circle is known as the Arctic, and the zone just to the south is called the Northern Temperate Zone. The equivalent polar circle in the Southern Hemisphere is called the Antarctic Circle.

The Arctic Circle passes through the Arctic Ocean, the Scandinavian Peninsula, North Asia, Northern America and Greenland. The land on the Arctic Circle is divided among eight countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States (i.e. Alaska), Canada, Denmark (i.e. Greenland), and Iceland (where it passes through the small offshore island of Grímsey).

Besides the Arctic Circle, can you name the other 4 major circles of latitude?

Elly does Matching overseas

Yesterday we showed our green and red D’ Anjou pears to Connie and asked if she had such pears at home. Unexpectedly, Philip brought one in from the refrigerator and showed it to us. Little Elly observed this act closely.

When Philip had shown us the pear and put it back, Elly went out of the room and we could figure out Elly asking for a similar pear from Philip through the voices of the father and daughter.

Through Skype, we could see Elly walk back with a D’ Anjou pear. She wanted to show us the pear herself. This reflects clearly to us that she understands what adults say and she wants to take an active part in everything at home. She is so lovely to match her pear with ours in Hong Kong, isn’t she?

New products from MD

Recently MD produces two new products of fish fillet:

[1] Golden Fish Deluxe (黃金蜜蜂糖芥末魚堡) – I name it as GFD

Let us see what MD says:

“HERE’S ANOTHER REASON TO LOVE THE NEW YEAR.
Introducing the exquisite Golden Fish Deluxe. We’ve drizzled luscious honey mustard sauce on a juicy fish filet, and then layered pepper jack cheese, fresh tomato slices and crunchy lettuce, Take a bite and the celebrations begin.”

[2] Sakara Supreme (日和特盛魚堡) – I name it as SS

This time, MD says:

“BEGIN THE YEAR WITH A BURST OF FLAVOR.
Dive into a long filet of deep-sea fish in a fancy cornmeal bun. Drizzled with the tangy aroma of sesame mayo with crispy iceberg lettuce and melty cheese for good measure.”

Our conclusions are:
(1) SS is tastier than GFD.
(2) The buns are nice because they are comfortably soft.
(3) The fish filet is good.
(4) When biting GFD, I have to be very careful because the tomato may fall off. One of my palms acts as a safety net to hold back any food particle that is likely to fall from the bun.

Red D’ Anjou

Last Friday when I turned to a page of advertisement on articles sold in W Supermarket, I was startled to find Red D’ Anjou pears which I want to investigate. They were sold at around HK$2.67 each, much cheaper than those at P supermarket.

On the next day, we shopped at the nearest W branch. At first sight, the Red D’ Anjou looked deep red. A closer look at these pears brought me a lot of fun. The patches or dots of yellow and green spread beautifully across the skin making the pears look like pieces of art. I liked them and selected the pears according to different patterns of colours and here I display them in the collage photo above.

D’ Anjou

From my recent observation, the Fuji apples grown in China look like apples, but they do not carry any fragrance or sweetness at all. To replace them in our fruit list, we choose the green D'Anjou pears from U.S.A. The pears cost HK$3.3 each. I love the little orange-to-red colour against the major green on its skin.

First I find the descriptions of the pears from Natural Hills Nursery which say:

(1) The D'Anjou Pear (安琪梨) is a large pear.
(2) The flesh is white with abundant juice and a sweet brisk flavor.
(3) It is a naturally sweet pear, light green in color with a yellow tinge when ripe.
(4) Anjou pears have exceptional keeping qualities.
(5) The best flavor is realized when stored 1-2 months.

The tree is very hardy, large and highly productive. The D'Anjou does not change color as it ripens. It requires cross pollination with Bartlett or any other pear with the same bloom date.

Next from Wikipedia, I find:

The D'Anjou pear (Beurré d'Anjou) or simply Anjou, is a short-necked cultivar of European Pear. The variety was originally named Nec Plus Meuris in Europe and the name Anjou or d'Anjou was erroneously applied to the variety when introduced to America and England. It is thought to have originated in the early to mid-19th century, in Belgium or France.

The pears are in two colours.
[1] The Green Anjou has a pale green skin that doesn't change color as the pear ripens. Some other varieties of green pears turn yellow as they ripen.

[2] The Red Anjou originated as naturally occurring bud sport found on Green Anjou trees. Red Anjou pears are very similar to the original Anjou other than color.

The d'Anjou is considered a medium to large pear, typically around 270–285 grams, 85 mm in height, and 80 mm in diameter. It has a wide, globular base, short stem, and thin skin with many notable lenticels, or pores, which allow the exchange of gases with the atmosphere. The flesh is described as "creamy white, aromatic, juicy, sweet, slightly acidic, with buttery and slightly gritty texture.

D'Anjou pears are often used in crafting various dishes. D'Anjou purée is used for Jelly Belly's Juicy Pear flavor of jelly bean.

In the United States, the variety was recommended for general cultivation by the American Pomological Congress in 1852, and as of 2004 represented 34% of reported U.S. pear production, with Oregon being the primary pear producing state.

The Magic Power

Once again we met Hayley at lunch at Shatin. Last time her father HD was unable to come, but this time he joined us.

Mother Daisy ordered a bowl of food for Hayley and collected a dish of corn, prunes and red beans from the salad bar as supplement. I saw Hayley use her cartoon chopsticks to pick up beans and cut-up prunes to eat. She also ate the food inside the bowl with her yellow twisted spoon. To me, the spoon looked like a yellow bone, flattened a little at one end. Throughout the lunch she was not very keen at eating.

An excitement came to Hayley when her uncle HL took out a small bag of candies. At first sight, the candies were like stamp-chops with the faces of Hello Kitty. Hayley saw them. She raised her hands, waved like a Miss Hong Kong when making the Victory Parade, smiled broadly, shouted a little and moved her body from side to side. I believed Hayley must have seen this kind of candies before. Her father helped her tear open the wrapping paper. In a moment, she bit at the small white chocolate at each head of the three tiny plastic handles. In a short while, the chocolate was all gone.

This reflects to everybody at lunch that chocolate possesses some Magic Power.

十三點

When we say that a girl is”十三點”, we mean that she is open, bold and easy-going, giving people the feeling “a little crazy” (喪喪地).

In 1966, a lady comic writer, 李惠珍, created a magazine in Hong Kong called 《十三點 》to reflect the life of young girls in the society at that time.

In the stories, 十三點 is a rich girl living at 13, Fife Street (快富街). She is kind, young, beautiful and clever. Optimistic as she is, she often helps to solve problems for her good friends, 羅素珍 (fat) and 遲珊珊 (thin), but likes to make jokes on the boys around her.

In the early years, 十三點 wears colourful mini-skirts. Her hair style and clothes are forever changing and fashionable. She looks simply like an early Barbie.

In the 2008 version, 十三點 wears silky tops and hot pants. At museums in Paris, she even wears beautiful gowns worn by French ladies in the upper class.

Old Master Q

Yesterday I found this colourful figure of Old Master Q (老夫子) inside Telford Cinema at Telford Gardens, Kowloon Bay.

His pose looks as if he were playing Kung Fu with fingers curled up like claws of a cat.

He always wears his old Chinese cap and very short black 3 white-dot overcoat. Underneath the overcoat is an attractive stylish yellow T-shirt. His chequer light blue trousers is in old European style. He still wears white socks and those light black Chinese shoes.

The wrinkles on the forehead, two-stroke beard, 倒轉八字眉, his small 老花眼鏡 over his 鬥雞眼 together stand out the features of Old Master Q.

Nam Sang Wai

I have not been to Nam Sang Wai for decades. It is so nice to have my good friend, Fred, who supplies me with photos of recent Nam Sang Wai taken on January 3, 2011.

These photos can bring me some memories of my first visit to it when I was young.

Nam Sang Wai (南生圍) is the swampy area south of the junction of Shan Pui River (山貝河) and Kam Tin River (錦田河) and north of Yuen Long MTR Station. It is a hot place for photographers, hikers, cyclists and picnickers. Shan Pui River became famous when our crocodile star "Pui Pui" (貝貝) was caught somewhere near Nam Sang Wai.

There were many fish ponds in the past, but they were long abandoned. Pond by bond is accessible by narrow paths or man-made wooden walkways or by boats or rafts. Huts built over water like those in Tai O can still be found here. Weeds as tall as men, floating leaves of lotus and water plants still grow in some parts of Nam Sang Wai. The mangroves here attracted long legged birds to rest and find for food.

What a pity that a recent fire, maybe a man-made one, burnt some of the beautiful trees and vegetation away( see the photo in the left corner - a tree has been built leaving a hole which looks like a heart). The fire has destroyed the beauty of this area and worst of all, a developer has bought this piece of land and will turn it into a residential area. A big change of Nam Sang Wai will soon come!

CCSC 兔年師生團拜活動

各位張祝珊學友，係咪好耐沒有機會跟昔日好友老師聚首一堂？若然一次過跟多位本想重聚已久的老師們拜年祝好你又想唔想呢？快D記起日子連隨通知埋同學仔一齊番黎過番個喜氣洋洋的師生團拜日啦！

活動形式包括遊戲、表演、昔日照片放映及茶聚等，並已邀請大部份榮休老師出席。希望大家踴躍參加，與老師及其他「張學友」聚舊！

日期：二零一一年二月十二日（年初十，星期六）
時間：下午二時至四時三十分
地點：學校禮堂 (香港北角雲景道11號)
費用：全免 - 茶點招待 (歡迎攜眷及子女出席)

張祝珊英文中學舊生會 - 「誠閣」上

請電以下聯絡人：
Benny Koo 高方毅 9367 1892
Kenny Lo 羅卓基 9128 8828 報名預人數，同時誠徵自告奮勇義工幫手!

Mosaic walls in MTR Stations

There are mosaic walls in some of our MTR stations in Hong Kong.
Which MTR Station can you find this Mosaic wall?

Three Glasses of Water

Three glasses of water
make me think of my daughter,
my grand-daughters
and their father.

Soon in Hong Kong we jolly gather
where Philip fries his favourite chicken in a cooker,
Connie bakes her cakes with butter,
Abby meets her friends in a new social sector
and Elly eats her chicken drumsticks in a baby-seater.

Street Performers

These are some of the street performers in Seattle. They play music with their guitars, clarinet, bass violin and piano. Their performances at Pike Place Market and before the First Starbucks in the world create the culture and spirits of America. As tourists, we welcome the country music in the American way. How nice it is to hear such kind of music imagining cowboys chasing cows they rear.

When my wife and I were at Circular Quay in Sydney, in December, 2006, we saw a performer dressed up like a donkey standing motionlessly on a box. I wondered if "it" was employed by the Australian Government to entertain the tourists. I did not walk near “it” because I was afraid “it” would lean or fall head-long on me. I pitied “it” because the brown coat could have made “it” sweat through under the red hot sun.

Another experience came from the performances of an acrobat on Granville Island, Vancouver, in 2009. Throughout, Abby, our grand-daughter, watched the tricks with big smiles. The performer was so frank to say that he needed some money. Some of us, as spectators at the square, gave him some coins or notes after he had finished the performances. Philip asked Abby to give him a coin and I did too. We saw our grand-daughter running twice forward to place a coin into the hat of the acrobat and back.

Getting to know us

Hayley, my nephew’s daughter, is getting to know me and my wife.

Hayley was born overseas and has lived in two famous cities in Asia outside Hong Kong until she returns to Hong Kong with her family to reside.

My wife and I saw Hayley when she was just a few months old and brought back to Hong Kong to have a dinner with her relatives in Hong Kong.

Last summer was the second time we saw her in a restaurant at “The Arch”. Her family paid a very short visit to Hong Kong. At that time, we were still strangers to Hayley. Besides my son, I acted as another photographer that day chasing her and her cousin, Jasmine, to take a few pictures at the restaurant as well as at my brother’s home.

The whole family of Hayley re-stationed in Hong Kong last November and we met Hayley at Christmas. That night, Hayley engaged in playing with Jasmine and two other girls.

It was this Monday afternoon that we met in a car to JC, Shatin. My brother drove and I sat in front beside him. Hayley was asked to call us 三叔公 and 三叔婆. From her facial expressions she could not recognize us. My wife kept talking with her in the car.

We had lunch together at JC. There I took a few photos of Hayley to record some of her activities:

The central big photo shows that Hayley is good at balancing herself. It was actually her "catwalk".
The top left photo shows her “Shake, shake” skills of letting the crayons drop out.
The bottom left photo shows that she successfully pulled out a blue crayon from the box.
The top right photo shows that she was ready to colour the pictures of wild, but funny animals.
The centre and bottom photos show her stability on the stairs. It seemed that she was looking for something herself.

A big impression might have given to Hayley when she found me, her三叔公, driving in the return journey instead of her grandpa. She puzzled and with explanation, she understood that her 三叔公 could drive too. This time, she did not say good-bye to us when we left the car because she had log fallen asleep well before she reached home. Hayley is getting to know me/us from now on.

5C Class Gathering

Some time ago, Kestal Wong first contacted me through Facebook that she had been keeping the souvenir, “miniature figure”, which CCSC OSA gave me at annual dinner in 2005. After the presentation, immediately I found that the spectacles on the cartoon doll were broken, so I asked Cafrany Chow, the Chairlady of OSA in that year, to take it back to the manufacturer for repair. It was Cafrany who handed the doll to Kestal before she went to China to work.

Recently, Justin Chan organized a 5C (2001-2002) gathering. Kestal was so kind to invite me to join and perhaps she found such a chance to return the doll to me on behalf of Cafrany.

Last Sunday evening we met at Times Square and later went to an upstairs café at CWB to have dinner. The food consisted of salad, thin pizzas, small chicken wings (middle sections), rice with chicken in white-cream sauce, marshed potato and spaghetti.

Twelve students attended. They were Justin Chan, Kenny Chan, Windham Ko, Wendy Cheung, Becky Choi, Amy Chow, Kitty Ho, Ruby Liu, Angel Pong, Kestal Wong, Chris Wong and Mandy Yim.

We chatted and shared our working experience and, of course, my students were quite concerned with my retired life. Kenny, the funniest of all, spoke the most and we all laughed at his humour. We shared our stories until ten o’clock.

Street Pictures

When I stepped out of Kwun Tong MTR Station this Tuesday, January 4, 2011, I found two long wall pictures high above the roads going underground.

These pictures are not only colourful, but they also record the look of Kwun Tong at one time. They might be historic or going to be historic because Kwun Tong changes its look every day. The factories fade away and they are, one by one, replaced by commercial buildings and those old residential buildings will be soon pulled down and replaced by modern ones.

What interests me most in one of the photos is the vehicular ferry rocking on the rough waves off the coast of Kwun Tong.

If you want to see bigger photos, please double-click the above Collage photo.

Chinese Calligraphy at MTR stations

Beautiful Chinese calligraphy first impressed me many years ago when I found them on the metal walls of some of our MTR stations on Hong Kong Island. I could feel the strokes of Chinese characters across the walls of the platforms at the following stations – 天后, 炮台山, 北角, 鰂魚涌, 太古, 西灣河, 筲箕灣…….

Today a big shock comes to me when I look at the photos provided by MTR Company, some of those lovely Chinese calligraphy of Station names had gone. They are replaced by very low-graded writings. How depressing it is to me.

Yesterday I came across the Chinese calligraphy displayed for about eight years at stations 調景嶺 and 將軍澳. The brush to write these station names must be big and the strength of each stroke of the characters can be seen.

Fashion Show on IFC

Please look at the Fashion Show at our IFC.

The Marvellous Show of IFC

Let us use our imagination to interpret the look of IFC together with the Fire and Smoke created in the countdown to New Year 2011.

Below are my interpretations of the figures in the photos.

Top left to Top right:

[1] Milk bottle brush (奶瓶刷)
[2] Cactus (仙人掌)
[3] Old water-pump (古老抽水機)
[4] Traffic Policeman raising one hand to stop the in-coming cars (交通警正在指揮交通)

Bottom left to Bottom right:

[5] Totem pole (圖騰柱)
[6] Windmill with turning sails (風車)
[7] Mushroom (草菇)
[8] Cactus (仙人掌)
[9] Robot (合金機械人)

New Year Eve, 2010

On New Year Eve, I was longing to see the “count-down to 2011” on the shore-line of Hong Kong Island.

The scene of several commercial buildings consecutively blew smoke and fire into the air was absent because the lens of TVB camera were pointing at the VIPs at the Count-down Ceremony at Tsim Sha Tsui. The hands of the VIPs were on the handle of signifying the arrival of New Year 2011 ready to lower it down.

This year show of count-down again consisted of singing and dancing. Crowds of people gathered at the long corridor at Tsim Sha Tsui watching or taking photographs of the fire and smoke that sends out from our main character building, IFC.

Please double-click to enlarge the photos.

Sydney Welcoming 2011

This happened in Sydney, Australia, on December 31, 2010 when the clock struck NINE:and at MID-NIGHT, right into January 1, 2011:

"Sydney's skyline has exploded as New Year's Eve fireworks illuminated the city and dazzled spectators, ahead of the midnight extravaganza that will bring in 2011.

About 1.5 million revellers crammed into viewpoints on the foreshore, joining the people on board luxury yachts and tinnies in a celebratory roar as the party got into full swing.

The familiar rumble-and-bang of fireworks sounded shortly after 9 pm (AEDT) tonight as streams of incandescent colour shot into the heavens - a teaser for the much-hyped show-stopper set to wow the world at midnight.

An X on the Harbour Bridge reflected the Make Your Mark theme of the the family-friendly display, which coincided with a lit parade of vessels on the waters below.

All eyes were on Sydney, one of the first major cities to ring in the new year, with an estimated billion people tuning in to watch the party billed as the best since the 2000 Olympics."