From Tin Ha Shan down to Joss House Bay (photo-essay)

As I hope that my previous photo essays (here and here) showed, the first two thirds or so of the High Junk Peak Country Trail is not without its interesting and beautiful sights. In all honesty however, I think its end bit is the icing on this hiking cake in question.

In particular, my regular hiking companion and I thought the Tin Ha Shan plateau so pleasant that we instantly resolved, once we got up there, to hike up there again some time -- and this next time around, to arrange for it to be so that we could spend time just enjoying being up there, in a place where one could take in a 360 degree view that did not include a single building or even other person. In addition, we also reckon that the Tin Hau Temple in Joss House Bay at the bottom of Tin Ha Shan makes for a very photogenic subject -- and so much so that it's worth making a trip to alone, especially on such as Tin Hau's Birthday...

Tin Ha Shan may not be a "treacherous peak"
a la High Junk Peak but it still requires quite a bit of
effort to get up it (via a series of multiple stone steps)

On Tin Ha Shan plateau, I saw a collection of rocks
that looked to me like the broken up version of
Po Toi's turtle rock (along with a baby turtle nearby)

Standing on a large rock near the summit of
Tin Ha Shan (trans. heaven mountain),
one can feel like one is on top of the world :)

A scenic, even if somewhat smoggy,
view from the hill of land and sea

East of Tin Ha Shan lies the exclusive
Clear Water Bay Gold and Country Club
(and beyond it, 127 meter high Po Keng Teng)

Down a series of steep and very hard stone steps
is how one gets from near the top of Tin Ha Shan
down to the Tin Hau Temple at Joss House Bay

Upon getting down in front of the Tin Hau Temple,
one felt a nice sense of achievement
(together with no small amount of gratefulness!)

Looking out across the bay and out to sea

And the scary thing is... this hike wasn't the only thing I managed to enjoy that day. Rather, that day also ended up including a cool concert -- something I felt obliged to blog about in an entry entitled -- what else?! -- A full Sunday. (And yes, that Sunday was one from way early in the year... so yeah, I really am that way behind in my hiking photo-essaying! ;b)

The highlight(s) of this past week for me :)

Arsenal -vs- Fulham (2:1)
- Watch more Sports Videos at Vodpod.

I know, I know -- in that this is not what visitors to this blog expect and particularly wish to check out... but do please indulge me. After all, it's not often that I unleash the Gooner in me on this blog. But if you do go ahead and watch the video, I think you'll agree that that it shows a wonder goal being scored: to be precise, the second (and winning) goal by 23-year-old Samir Nasri (of Arsenal and France) in Arsenal's match again English Premier League opponents Fulham yesterday.

As one match commentator (but not the one in the embedded video, alas) lyrically waxed, "More beautiful football from the Gunners... poetry in motion from Samir Nasri!" As another even more hyperbolically declared, "That is a beautifully balanced ballet in a football penalty box!! Marvelous finish!!!" :b

And okay, okay, here's also sharing the following photo taken while out hiking earlier today in Sai Kung West Country Park:-

And yes, despite the weather forecast having been for some haze along with sun, it turned out to be a beautiful as well as unseasonably warm day!

Hard-To-Find (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

For centuries (heck, it's even noted in The Bible!), people -- male and female -- have variously observed, sighed and wailed about how it is that a good man is hard to find. For many heterosexual women (and gay men too?), they're of course referring to how difficult it is to find good "significant other" material.

But in a more general sense, it is too often felt that the world is too often full of men (and women) who just are too selfish, self-centered, weak and/or encumbered with some other failing to allow them to be truly worthy of being respected and liked -- and this especially so with regards to many a political leader and others in positions of great power and -- this they seem to tend to forget -- equally great responsibility.

Although the very co-existence of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (AKA Taiwan) bear testimony to his inability to completely heal the rifts between the Chinese people(s), Dr. Sun Yat Sen (1866-1925)'s being one of those hard-to-find good (political) men can be seen in how he is considered to be the father of modern China and revered by Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere in the world, with memorials and museums to him being found not only on the Chinese mainland and Taiwan but also places as far-flung as Hong Kong, Macau, Penang, Singapore, Honolulu and San Francisco.

Born in the Chinese province of Kwantung (now known as Guangdong), Sun Yat Sen was sent to school and later attended university (where he studied medical science) in Hong Kong. To help commemorate this, the people behind the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Museum located in Hong Kong's Mid-Levels decided to commission and erect a statue of the medical doctor turned revolutionary and statesman in the institution's forecourt that shows him as a youthful student rather than an older man (like is usually the case -- and is so with a bust that can be found inside of the same museum).

Another rare (i.e., hard-to-find) attribute of the statue in the upper photo of this Photo Hunt entry is that it shows the Chinese leader attired in traditional Chinese garb; for, as an adult, he usually appeared in public attired in Western suits or a Japanese-Western civilian-military hybrid suit that came to be known as the Sun Yat Sen suit. (Since the latter also came to be favored by Mao Zedong, it is also erroneously known as a Mao suit -- but we know better (now), don't we?! ;b)

Bruce Lee, My Brother (movie review)

Bruce Lee, My Brother publicity material
at the President Theatre in Causeway Bay

Bruce Lee, My Brother (Hong Kong, 2010)
- Starring Aarif Rahman (AKA Aarif Lee), Tony Leung Kar Fai, Christy Chung, MC Jin, Hanjin Tan, Jennifer Tse, etc.
- Raymond Yip and Manfred Wong, co-directors

At this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival, there was a special tribute programme of nine Bruce Lee films that drew attention to the martial arts legend having acted in Hong Kong films as a child as well as adult -- and it being so that, had he lived, he would have had his 70th birthday in 2010. Then, this past Saturday, as I viewed a newly released Bruce Lee bio-pic that appears to be based on a book written by Bruce's younger brother, Robert*, along with the memories of their two sisters, Phoebe and Agnes, I discovered that the late martial artist turned actor would have turned 70 on November 27th, 2010.

Starring 23-year-old singer-actor Aarif Rahman (who was credited as Aarif Lee in his debut film, Echoes of the Rainbow), Bruce Lee, My Brother begins with an interesting note cum disclaimer to the effect that "This production is a dramatized story of Bruce Lee's early life, based substantially on the recollections of the siblings of Bruce Lee. This production is in no way connected to, or associated with, BRUCE LEE ENTERPRISES LLC, the widow, children and estate of Bruce Lee, and the materials used in connection with this production, or the matters depicted in it, have not been provided by same."

Then, two Bruce Lee siblings appear on screen -- one speaking in English, the other in Cantonese -- to stress that this film tells the fact-based story of the young Bruce Lee and his family... as in father Lee Hoi-chuen (played by Tony Leung Kar Fai in the film), mother Grace Ho (portrayed by Christy Chung), his siblings, aunt, grandmother and the rest of her extended family rather than Bruce's wife Linda and children, Brandon and Shannon.

Right from the get-go then, it's emphasized that this is a family saga -- and one that will be told from a distinctively Hong Kong point of view. And while the dramatic section of this movie does begin in San Francisco (where the man whose Chinese stage name translates into Little Dragon Lee was born), it soon quickly moves to Hong Kong, where Bruce Lee spent the bulk of his growing years (and would return after a spell back in the USA).

Additionally, while there is no doubt that this film is about Bruce Lee, it actually is a while before his character takes center-stage. Instead, the production focuses for a time early on on Bruce's parents -- and goes to quite a bit of effort to show that his father was actually a prominent Cantonese opera star turned film actor (whose social as well as professional circle included such luminaries as actor-director-scriptwriter Fung Fung and actor Walter Tso) and his mother was someone who could speak English as well as Cantonese fluently (Grace Ho actually was the niece of prominent Eurasian businessman-philanthropist Sir Robert Hotung.).

Very early on, Bruce Lee gets sucked into the Hong Kong movie world. At the same time, however, those were the days when actors -- adult or child -- weren't paid that much and thus didn't seem to live a world apart from ordinary folks. So the young Bruce gets shown making friends with such as a maid's son (played by composer-singer Hanjin Tan as a young adult) and getting into all sorts of antics in the neighborhood and on the streets of Hong Kong.

Particular attention is paid to Bruce Lee's final high school years -- during which he falls in love, enters a cha-cha competition and comes to learn martial arts (wing chun at Ip Man's school -- if you didn't know already!). And it's during this section of the film where events portrayed can seem too dramatic to have been true. And yet, the records do show that Bruce Lee was a cha-cha champion as well as high school boxing competition winner! So I'm quite willing to take quite a bit of the story in the movie on trust (even while also throwing in a pinch of salt here and there)!!

All in all, I like how Bruce Lee, My Brother is more of a family drama than an action work -- and that its makers flesh out the world in which the young Bruce and his family lived, worked and played. (Among the nice and fun touches here involved not only referencing many a star name of yesteryear -- in particular, I appreciated the scene featuring Shek Kin (as Wong Fei Hung's adversary) and Walter Tso (as Wong Fei Hung's chief disciple, Leung Foon) -- but having them been played by contemporary familiar faces such as Cheung Tat Ming, Chin Kar Lok and Lawrence Cheng.)

The way the movie ends, you know that the filmmakers are hoping that the work will prove to be enough of a commercial success to make a strong case for a sequel to be made. And I, for one, most definitely do hope that this will indeed be the case.

My rating for this film: 8.0

*Link corrected: Thanks, Phil (AKA orientalsweetlips)! :)

High Junk Peak Country Trail Part II (Photo-essay)

The way I remember it, the High Junk Peak Country Trail hike that my regular hiking companion and I went on close to the beginning of this year (yes, I'm that way behind in terms of putting up photo-essays of hikes I've gone on!) was one of the best I've been on in Hong Kong. But while selecting photos for last week's photo-essay, I got to realizing that the air was not as clear on the day of the hike as I would have liked. Consequently, I not only wish I saw more than I actually did but, also, that the camera could have captured the distant vistas that the naked eye could see but the camera could not.

Nonetheless, I hope that both last week and this week's photo-essays will be able to give a good sense of the sights that could be gleaned over the course of this hike -- one that I'd definitely deem good enough to go on again; only next time, I know to do it when the air is clearer...

Even when viewed from a distance on a not optimally
clear day, I reckon that High Junk Peak's summit
looks formidable and uninviting to most folks

The kind of vista (and trail) that I didn't realize
existed in Hong Kong prior to moving to the Big Lychee

Hiking on a mountain but overlooking the sea

An optical illusion creates the impression that part of
the road below is actually on higher ground
than where I stood when I took this photo!

On the other hand, it alas is all too real that land so close
to the trail and Clear Water Bay Country Park
is being majorly cleared and "developed"

It's not just me who sees a stone pig atop the rock, right?!

Also, if I were to let my imagination loose,
I kinda see a figure lying on the slope... ;b

Alternatively, no imagination is needed to tell you
that this photo shows that we haven't gotten to
the end of the trail by a long shot yet!!!

So, yes, to be continued (and hopefully to the approval of at least a few of this blog's visitors)!!! ;b

What's the difference?!

Warning sign spotted in Tai Lam Country Park
last Sunday

Another sign seen in the same country park
earlier today bearing a different English end word
but all the same Chinese characters! :O

When my regular hiking companion (the fuzzyflyingbunny) and I were in Tai Lam Country Park last week, we spotted a sign that got us laughing as it caused us to have visions of caves jumping out from some hidden space in a bid to waylay us. This Sunday, if a sign we saw in the same country park was to be believed, we were being threatened by "hidden holes" rather than "hidden caves".

After chuckling over this other sign (that is one of those official "beware" signs found in Hong Kong that -- sorry, but 'tis true! -- I have problems taking seriously), we spotted a cave-like hole behind it that wasn't particularly hidden but we agreed we wouldn't want to go into... and got to wondering why that particular dark space -- which, as far as we could see, looked like it went back quite a distance from its opening -- was considered a mere hole as opposed to a cave.

At this point, we had hitherto focused on the English wording of the signs but now our attention turned to the Chinese characters on the signs. What if, one of us mused, they are the same on the two signs? And after checking them each other again, this is something I can confirm to be the case! (See the two photos above for proof!!)

So... is the Chinese word for "cave" the same as for "hole"? And sorry, I can't answer this question because my Hokkien vocabulary -- never mind my Cantonese one -- does not extend to caves! (What can I say besides say "yes, I really am an urbanite!")

At the same time, what I do know is that there are several instances of there being but a single Chinese word for which there are two different words in English. For example, there is only one equivalent word in each Chinese dialect for what in English are separate species of animals -- "rabbit"/"hare", "mouse"/"rat", and "goat"/"sheep". In addition, like many other languages, the Chinese language does not have masculine and feminine personal pronouns; consequently, the English "he", "she" and "it" would translate into the same Chinese word.

Less it be thought, though, that this kind of thing only works one way, here's pointing out that whereas the English "rice" can be used for both uncooked and cooked rice, there are separate words (not just adjectives) for those kinds of rice in Chinese (and, for that matter, Bahasa Malaysia too).

But back to cave and hole: some illumination on this matter would be much appreciated. This especially since the sign asking us to beware of hidden caves was near to a hole in the ground whereas that asking us to beware of hidden holes was right in front of a hole in what amounted to a vertical earth wall! Put another way: the not so hidden hole in question looked more like a cave than the not so hidden "cave" we saw last week!

(Tuzki demonstrates how thinking about this linguistic conundrum has made me feel!)

Written (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

On picturesque Po Toi, Hong Kong's southern-most island, there lies a Tin Hau Temple that is neither the oldest nor largest in the Big Lychee. But this particular temple built to honor and worship the southern Chinese goddess of the sea has become known to many people who have never set foot in this part of the world due to it having been mentioned in The Honourable Schoolboy, a best-selling thriller written by British author John Le Carre.

Like many other Taoist temples in Hong Kong, the main building of this Po Toi temple has lots of Chinese writing on it. For starters, there's writing on a sign bearing the name of Tin Hau placed directly above its central entrance and there also are columns of Chinese characters emblazoned on either side of the doorway. In addition, a peek inside the nicely-maintained temple shows that more writing is to be found on columns inside the building and on the beams close to the ceiling.

Those who can read what has been written on different sections of the subject of this week's Photo Hunt entry will undoubtedly derive much from being able to do so. Those who cannot may at least appreciate their aesthetics -- and how it is that Chinese script often can be decorative as well as informative. (Hence it sometimes being used to adorn flags, lanterns and more besides the usual surfaces and suspects!) ;b