A hike from Shing Mun Reservoir to Tai Wai (Photo-essay)

Over the years, something that has surprised me is how many regular Hong Kong hikers, local and expat, are content to stick to just one part of the territory and/or just the major hiking trails like the 100-kilometer-long Maclehose Trail (which this year's Trailwalker participants are going along as I write this) or 50-kilometer-long Hong Kong Trail.  For, in contrast, I like trying out different trails that allow me to go along and view sections of the Big Lychee that I had never previously been to or seen; this not least because, often in the process, I discover alternative ways to connect one part of Hong Kong to another.  

So while it wasn't the most scenic of hikes that a friend and I went on one Sunday afternoon, I thought it pretty cool that, after a short detour to explore the ruins of the Shing Mun Redoubt, we went from Shing Mun Reservoir over to Tai Wai on a route that neither of us had previously been on before.  To judge from the small number of other hikers we saw along the way, few people seem to know about it -- something which, of course, made this particular exploratory excursion seem even more satisfying to us! ;b

Despite the warning signs, I've seen lots of people (including

what looked like a school party) venture into the tunnels 

and other sections of what's left of the Shing Mun Redoubt

 

As long as the ruins remain, there will always be a

Charing Cross, Picadilly Circus, Shaftesbury Avenue, 

Regent Street, etc. in Hong Kong

The area around the Shing Mun Reservoir's 

East Dam looks pretty green

 

Not far away though lies the Shing Mun Tunnels 

connecting Tsuen Wan and Sha Tin, and these short sections 

of visible road between far lengthier sections of the tunnels  

 

If not for this hike, I'd not have known how scenic the area around 

Lower Shing Mun Reservoir is, and how popular it is 

among such as operators of remote controlled aircraft!

 

The view to the west of this reservoir's dam

 

Walking eastwards, we passed by a still rural section

of the Sha Tin Valley

 

On the outskirts of Tai Wai, people's washing hung on 

the railings of bridges going over a dry section of the

Shing Mun River -- a sign that we were back in "civilization"! ;b

South Korea's The Whistleblower is inspired by real life events (film review)

Note: The Whistleblower's titular character
is not in the foreground of the movie's poster 

The Whistleblower (South Korea, 2014)

- Yim Soon Rye, director 

- Starring: Park Hae Il, Lee Gyeong Yeong, Yoo Yeon Seok, Song Ha Yun 

In the middle of viewing one of countless Hong Kong crime dramas whose characters include a police mole, my mother asked who in their right mind would ever accept such a role in real life.  As more than one film also has shown us, whistleblowers are another group of people who often end up having to sacrifice much as well as undergo major hardships -- which again begs the question of who'd be one, even though it's also the case that these individuals actually are doing the morally correct thing rather than doing something terribly wrong.   

Among the reasons why whistleblowers often find themselves in (professional, if not personal) less than ideal situations is that they frequently find themselves going up against powerful organizations, including their national government.  And in numerous cases, they find themselves with the dilemma of having to choose between the truth and national interest.  

In Yim Soon Rye's The Whistleblower, the titular character not only has to wrestle between telling the truth and keeping mum in order to not shame a nation but also carries the burden of helping destroy the hopes of many with incurable diseases (and those who love them) that a major medical breakthrough has been a made, and a life-saving treatment is within reach.  For Dr Shim Min Ho (Yoo Yeon Seok), matters additionally are personal because he has a chronically ill young daughter whom he had previously hoped could be cured by the scientific work being carried out under the aegis of Dr Lee Jang Hwan (Lee Gyeong Yeong), a scientist with a veterinary -- rather than medical -- degree dubbed "the Pride of Korea" after he claimed to have successfully cloned human stem cells.

After realizing that Dr Lee has fabricated the claims that have brought him so much acclaim from the government and the general public, Dr Shim left his post at Dr Lee's research institute.  Unable to get another job anywhere else, his household's bills acrrue even though his increasingly upset wife (Ryu Hyeong Geong) has continued working at the same institution that his conscience had forced him to quit being a part of.  

Probably because he felt he was already at a super low point in his life as well as because he wanted to prevent Dr Lee from continuing to spin his lies, Dr Shim made contact with television news program producer Yoo Min Cheol (Park Hae Il) and broke his silence.  An admirably dogged and thorough investigator, Yoo -- and the young but capable reporter (Song Ha Yun) he enlists to help with his research -- goes in search of evidence that Dr Shim is telling the truth rather than lies and, in the process, uncovers a story that shocks even hardened news people and, they discover, is capable of being so threatening that even the reactions to it can be very disturbing.

This dramatic offering by one of South Korea's few female directors benefits from strong performances by its lead trio of actors, of whom the one playing the titular character actually gets the least amount of screentime.  The Whistleblower also profits from Lee Chun Hyeong's intelligent script chronicling manipulative acts carried out in full view of the public -- and the public's response to them -- along with the behind-the-scenes shenanigans that involve senior executives and government officials attempting to influence editorial decisions and shape news coverage.

Inspired by true events, The Whistleblower will have particular resonance for those aware of the real-life scandal it clearly was based on and who are citizens of the country where it took place.  Regardless of their nationality though, I'm sure that viewers of this thought-provoking movie will come away wondering how many whistleblowers end up making enormous sacrifices that sadly go unappreciated, never mind get rewarded -- especially if they fail to find similarly courageous and ethical individuals to help them open people's eyes and ears.
   
My rating for this film: 8.0

Sampling some Tedorigawa junmai daiginjo post viewing The Birth of Sake :b

This junmai daiginjo was made by the brewers

featured in The Birth of Sake

 

Puppet Ponyo posed with a pair of sake-loving rabbits by

a picture of other sake imbibers at Izumo Taisha last year :)

 

A couple of weeks ago, I caught a screening of The Birth of Sake, a documentary film that gave me a renewed appreciation of the effort that goes into brewing the Japanese alcoholic drink known to much of the world as sake (the Japanese word for alcohol) but more specifically referred to as nihonshu (which translates as "Japanese liquor") in its native land.

 

Traditionally considered the drink of the gods in Japan, its connection to the Shinto gods remains clear from such as barrels of nihonshu being on prominent display at shrines such as Tokyo's Meiji Jingu.  And at Izumo Taisha in Shimane, where legend has it that the gods enjoy drinking sake when they gather there annually, there are sculptures and pictorial illustrations that show divine beings and other creatures partaking of the libation!  

 

When watching The Birth of Sake, the work that went into making the Tedorigawa range of sake produced by the Yoshida Sake Brewery made it seem like they'd most definitely be fit for the gods.  Consequently, when offered a chance to sample Tedorigawa's Honryu junmai daiginjo at Sake Bar Ginn last night, I of course jumped at the chance to do so -- and am glad to be able to report that it's indeed a lovely tasting drink, so smooth that it really does go down very easily, and possessing a delicate flavor that's really pretty pleasant!

 

So... I may not have had the pleasure (yet) of dining at Sukiyabashi Jiro after viewing Jiro Dreams of Sushi or eating at Taishoken post viewing The God of Ramen.  And I know that whatever chances I had to eat at El Bulli are long gone (since Ferran Adria's restaurant has permanently closed its doors a few years back).  But at least I got to have a few glasses of the Yoshida Sake Brewery's product -- and I didn't even have to go all the way to its premises in Ishikawa to do so! ;b

A scenic hike that began and ended at Wu Kau Tang (Photo-essay)

In the eight years or so that I've been hiking in Hong Kong, I've had a number of regular hiking companions.  The first was a Canadian woman who gave me the courage to do such as go up and down The Twins.  Before she returned to Toronto, an American buddy asked if he could go hiking with us, and became my second hiking companion.  And most recently, I've been most regularly venturing into the Hong Kong countryside with another American friend -- this one hailing from the west coast rather than the east, like my other American buddy.

With all of them, I've separately done some hiking in the northeastern section of Hong Kong -- a scenic area that, perhaps because it's quite a bit a ways from Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, not that many hikers look to have ventured into.  And one autumn day, I went with one of them and a friend of his once again along a circular route that began and ended at Wu Kau Tang, a still inhabited village that doesn't look that much changed from a decade or more ago, that I've come to like quite a bit...

In Wu Kau Tang, there are older and newer buildings, 

some of which look abandoned, others of which still show signs of life

 Nearby is a clump of trees whose red leaves attract 

visitors to the area around this time of the year :)

All year round, this is a place where one can be in

solitude and commune with nature

 

This is the kind of countryside sight that I think

worth going several miles to see and be in the midst of :)

 

I don't know their name but the sight of these flowers 

sure do brighten up an afternoon :)

 

It's hard to resist the temptation to stop for drinks and/or food,

and a welcome rest, at the Fook Lee Teahouse at Sam A Tsuen

 

The shoreline of Double Haven is beautifully scenic,

and another place that's tempting to tarry a while at

 

At the same time, there are plenty of abandoned dwellings 

that attest to this section of Hong Kong being 

nicer to visit than to live long term in! ;b

The God of Ramen appeals more to the heart than the stomach (film review)

A no frills bowl of ramen I was happy to eat in Takamatsu

but which the God of Ramen definitely would not have served

The God of Ramen (Japan, 2013)

- Takashi Innami, director

- With Kazuo Yamagishi

To judge from the number of eateries in the Big Lychee specializing in dishes featuring that noodle, ramen is the king of Japanese noodles as far as Hong Kongers are concerned.  In all honesty though,  conventional ramen actually ranks lower in my estimation than soba, udon, somen, and the dipping ramen variation known as tsukemen that Kazuo Yamagishi is credited with having originated.

In Takashi Innami's documentary on Yamagishi, patrons can be seen eating tsukemen at the original branch of Taishoken (which began operations in 1951).  For some reason, however, tsukemen is never mentioned in The God of Ramen, only ramen.  Also, while Yamagishi-san is shown creating the magical broth whose taste none of his many apprentices can quite replicate (even while he openly and regularly showed them what went into it and how it's made), it often seems like the most remarkable thing about Taishoken's rustic offerings -- as far as the makers of this at times noticeably unpolished film are concerned -- is the extremely generous portions that are served at the noodle shop.

There's a part of me that thinks that the filmmakers' chosen focus doesn't do justice to Yamagishi's culinary abilities.  At the same time, The God of Ramen does successfully illustrate the man's amazingly generous nature, one which extends to his customers -- even those who have never spoken a word to him -- as well as his apprentices, a number of whom have gone on to open their own noodle shops named Taishoken (because Yamagishi never trademarked the name and doesn't charge royalties for its use).

Featuring over 10 years worth of film footage, The God of Ramen provides the viewers with glimpses of Yamagishi in his younger days courtesy of black and white photographs but its subject mainly appears in the documentary as a septuagenarian who already is not in the best of health.  Early on in the film, the camera follows Yamagishi into a hospital where the severely overweight old man is told by a doctor that he needs to have operations carried out on his knees, otherwise he will cease to be able to walk within a year, and that he also needs to deal with the problems with the fingers on both of his hands that regularly cause him a significant amount of pain, including when he's cooking.

Seeing Yamagishi ignore his doctor's advice for several months in favor of carrying on with his daily routine is heartbreaking and frustrating.  This feeling is compounded by there being a sense that, even while one does often see him smiling while serving his customers, he's going about his business more because he doesn't know what else to do rather than because it makes him genuinely happy.  

Put another way: even while Yamagishi was satisfying lots of people, he looked to be in quite a bit of physical pain.  Worse, he also came across as suffering psychologically from a lot of sorrow eating at him from within -- the result of his having never gotten over the death of his beloved wife, Fumiko, from stomach cancer at the age of 52, more than a decade ago.  So devastated was Yamagishi by Fumiko's passing that he closed up the part of the building where the couple had made their home, refusing not only to step into that space but also threatening to stop the filming of what has turned out to be far more of a character study than a culinary documentary if its director insisted on venturing in there.  

More than once in this emotionally revealing film, the sense was given that the childless widower wouldn't have minded dropping dead one day, so that he could be reunited with Fumiko.  But while he stayed alive, he was going to tend to Taishoken, where Fumiko had worked alongside him for decades -- and which continued to regularly attract super long lines and fanatically devoted customers, some of whom consumed its noodles every day of the week that it was open, others of whom had come from hundreds of kilometers away to eat at the very modest-looking noodle shop in East Ikebukuro.

Yamagishi passed away earlier this year at the age of 80.  Some may think that a life spent largely cooking and serving up bowls of noodles in cramped, not particularly comfortable surroundings may not have been much.  But as this rich-on-pathos work shows, his was a life that touched many thousands of people, a number of whom not only recognized his generosity but also did reciprocate by showering Yamagishi with recognition, love and care. 

My rating for this film: 7.0

The Magna Carta in Hong Kong

Hereford Cathedral's 1217 Magna Carta

was on display in Hong Kong earlier this week 

The sole surviving copy of King John's Writ 

also was on exhibition together with the Magna Carta

One of four surviving original copies of the 1217 Great Charter (better known by its Latin name of Magna Carta) arrived in Hong Kong a few days ago -- and unlike on mainland China, it went on display in a venue accessible to the general public.  An iconic document that continues to have great significance eight centuries after its creation, it is looked upon internationally as a symbol of democracy and the rule of law (which territories, like Hong Kong, adhere to but others, like mainland China, do not). 

Although Hereford Cathedral's Magna Carta does not bear the seal of a King (unlike the 1215 Magna Carta which effectively was a peace treaty between King John of England and the group of rebel barons with whom he met at Runnymede), it's also considered significant because it's the 1217 text that became English law.  Issued one year after King John's death by his son and successor, King Henry III (who was just 9 years of age when he ascended to the throne), the 1217 Magna Carta bears the seals of the Earl of Pembroke (William Marshal) and Cardinal Guala Bicchieri (papal legate), the young king's regents at the time.  

If truth be told, this symbol of liberty, justice and freedom of the individual actually is not all that visually impressive -- this from someone who's had the privilege of viewing both the 1215 version at the British Library (when it was housed at the British Museum) decades ago as well as Hereford Cathedral's 1217 version on the Hong Kong leg of its ongoing global tour.  Written in Latin using a surprisingly small as well as dense script, the Great Charter -- that was so-called to differentiate it from the smaller Charter of the Forest issued at the same time (regulating forest law) -- is big in physical size and text length compared to most other medieval charters but isn't all that large as well as is nigh impossible for modern readers like this blogger!  

Consider its age, it probably will be expected that most of the Magna Carta's clauses have been repealed over the years and centuries (even while the Great Charter's spirit influenced such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948).  At the same time, it's most illuminating to learn which of the Magna Carta's clauses have withstood the test of time.  Of these, two are specific to England, that which stipulate that: the Church in England shall be free; and the City of London and other boroughs have their rights and freedoms confirmed. 

   
But the remaining others are ones that many contemporary societies, regardless of where they are located in the world, would do well to see applied.  I refer to those which stipulates that: no one shall be imprisoned or have their goods confiscated in any way be reduced except by lawful judgement in a proper court; and justice will not be sold, delayed or denied to anyone.  For without the adherence of these (and, effectively, the rule of law and condemnation of corruption), surely there won't be real justice in place? 

Hiking on the Sai Kung Peninsula on a changeable weather but consistently visually stunning day (Photo-essay)

There's a Dinah Washington song entitled What a Difference a Day Makes that I've loved ever since being introduced to it by Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express.  Every once in a while, I think of it and reflect on how it really is true that one's life, mood, etc. can seem so different 24 hours later.  Then there are those days when it seems like things -- or, at least, climactic conditions -- can vary hour to hour, never mind be different from the previous day.  

Such was the case the day that I first made my way along the first half of Section 3 (or Stage 3) of the Maclehose Trail; with my notes of that hike on the Sai Kung Peninsula -- a body of land which actually is larger than the whole of Hong Kong Island -- including the observation that we had experienced weather so changeable that it had been variously super cloudy, a bit rainy, sun-shiny, cool and warm in the space of a single afternoon!  Still, when looking at the photos I took, it seems that regardless, it all looked pretty visually stunning that day! :)

It was the kind of day out in the Hong Kong countryside 

when the hills in the distance, not just the sky, looked blue :b

 

On steep sections of trail such as this, stone steps are welcome 

on the way down but not necessarily so when going up!

 

Even while huffing and puffing, it pays to keep a look out

for cool critters, like this large praying mantis :)

 

A section of the trail I could easily imagine turning into 

a muddy waterfall during as well as after a downpour!

 

 That's actually my shadow in the picture but it 

doesn't look all that human, does it? ;b

 

To doubting Thomases: yes, there really are 

parts of Hong Kong that look like this! ;b

 

The 100-kilometer-long Maclehose Trail continues 

up both Kai Kung Shan and Ma On Shan

 

But the friend I was with on this hike and I elected that afternoon

to leave the Maclehose Trail before we even passed Lui Ta Shek! ;b