Hong Kong Brother

Each month I will keep a running list of news items, including info on my schedule, etc. It's in order from LATEST entry at the top on down to the OLDEST entry at the bottom. I can't promise how often I'll add things, but I'll try as often as I can.

Here are the "News" archives, feel free to browse them for some interesting tidbits:

I've been in newspapers before, and magazines... I've had whole articles written about me, seriously... I was on national TV at least once a few years ago when I performed as part of one of the Lonesome Pine Special shows (that nationally-syndicated PBS series is filmed in Louisville, where I'm from)... And in my old job I used to have my name in all kinds of magazine ads and stuff, and people would call and e-mail us from all over the GLOBE, and I mean that quite literally, people from EVERYWHERE, asking for me by name... and ALL that used to make us joke sometimes that, "Gee, Glenn, you're famous!"

They just finished this mural at the school (right outside the art and music rooms) about a week or two ago, and I never got around to putting up these photos, but there you can see -- who else? -- but Yours Truly, noodling (all "Kenny G like") on the sax...

They've never seen me play an alto sax, only a soprano (a Selmer that my friend Matt sold me); and they have my right hand on top, which if you play sax you know it's the LEFT hand that goes on top; and the eyes, well, they look a little Chinese to me -- but don't you let that worry your pretty little head... IT'S ME, alright, in all my glory!

One thing I am a little, uh, "disturbed" about it is just how, uh... (oh, how can I say it?) -- just how "portly" I am portrayed. I'm not knocking the artist (I know they were really copying from a coloring book that lots of the kids did earlier this year, and they just "morphed" the sax player on the coloring book to look like me)... Okay, and I'm "healthier" than I think I am (I'm a little chubby, I admit)... But I guess I feel like I've lost a little weight since coming here, so I would have hoped to appear a little more "svelte" shall we say. But at least they didn't paint me from behind (they'd have to include my bald spot)... And really, who cares if they were a little "too accurate" for my ego?!? It's a total honor and I can't possibly tell you how it made me feel when I saw it (they surprised me with it).

Now, if you'll notice, in the mural all the kids and animals are dancin' to my jazzy tunes -- I'm the life of the party and I'm helping everybody just tap their toes and move on to a happy place...

Well, our big School Dedication Day and Open House was a success. Or at least it was for me, I suppose. We got through it, anyway!

On Saturday we had the big "invitation only" ceremony where the school was dedicated, all the supervisory board was there, lots of special guests, it was quite a time. The kids did a performance of their big musical called "Over The Rainbow" -- they did a pretty good job! They were all nervous about it, and the teachers were, too, and then there was also the ribbon-cutting ceremony, it was all so formal, geez.

I was one of the official photographers, I'm usually one of the ones they ask to do that, since I don't normally have to speak or know what's going on to do it... But they didn't tell me I was photographer until about an hour before the event! I guess everyone was so busy they just forgot. But that's okay, I happened to have my camera there already, so I did my best. Unfortunately my stupid camera is not made for long-distance flash, so most of the shots I took of the ceremony are unusable! Oh, well...

Have you seen the movie Spinal Tap? If not then forget this paragraph, but if you HAVE, then I'm thrilled to report we had our own Spinal Tap moment during the "Over The Rainbow" performance. At one point, in the climax, a huge rainbow-colored backdrop is supposed to fall and unfurl at the rear of the stage area -- well, in rehearsal (like 30 minutes before the guests arrive), the backdrop got stuck! So out come these janitor guys trying the hit the ropes and the music is playing and all these little kids are dancing around them, and they're banging on this backdrop, wow, I can't really describe how funny it was, especially if you've seen the "Stonehenge" scene in Spinal Tap. So for the REAL event they didn't want to take any chances with all the big-wigs there, they got it "unstuck" but they were afraid it would do it again. So when it came time for it to drop, out come the two guys, a teacher and one of the janitor guys, and they both have these long poles, and they sort of march out to the edge, just as if they were supposed to do that, like it was part of the show, right?!? So they march out and raise up these poles and unhook the rainbow-colored backdrop - it fell like a ROCK, I mean really fast, just unfolded in like a BLINK, okay, and everyone at the back of the hall (all the other teachers who were just watching, like me) we all looked at each other like, "whew!" - and then the two guys just marched right off stage, all the time trying to act like, "Hey, we MEANT to come out here and do that!"... I mean it was hysterical to me...

After the evening's events we (the staff and faculty) took a bus over to my estate's clubhouse for a big dinner -- wow, it was fun, I thought, especially after everyone had been so tense for the last month, they finally let loose and got a little crazy. I mean, before the food even came they were up singing and acting nuts and it was really nice and funny and I felt so lucky to be there and be a part of it, even if I had no idea what they were singing about... Even Carver Yu, the head supervisor of the board (and one of our CP pastors), sang his famous rendition of Danny Boy!! Man, it was great!

So then on Sunday it was Open Day and all the parents and kids were supposed to come and see how things had gone that year, but everyone was SO upset because almost no one came, or so they said. I mean, I thought it was pretty packed, but they all said, "Oh, no, it should have been LOTS more people!" -- they figure our kids' parents just don't care that much, not like most Hong Kong parents. In other words, we have a lot of new immigrants from the mainland as students, and the teachers seemed to think that these folks aren't used to the "Open Day" tradition of HK (it's a big deal in HK when a school has an Open Day), and plus a lot of them (the new immigrants) just don't really care that much. I don't know... like I say, seemed pretty crowded to me...

NET Teacher bulletin board (I'm the NET teacher)

This was the bulletin board I had to put up to show myself off. It features some photos of me with students, a short explanation of what I do, and LOTS of examples of students' work (including the big "S" snake, and in the upper right, a hat made of newspaper for the letter "H").

A primary school having a native English speaking teacher is pretty unusual, and for a school to have one all to themselves (and not have to share them with other schools) is literally unheard of. So I really AM a freak in HK, I don't just FEEL like one! (ha ha).

Geez, I love Hong Kong like crazy, but I also HATE the stupid weather. It is HOT and WET and quite frankly I feel miserable in this humidity. I'm not whining but geez, give me a break!

It's rained this whole week, it's so gross... and tonight we had a HUGE storm, I mean it was CRAZY loud and scary -- you really get a new appreciation of lightning when you are on the 35th floor of a building.

Anyway, enough of that for now. I have been so busy these last few weeks that I can't even describe it. But that's good, right?!?

Here's the reason: Saturday and Sunday May 25th and 26th is our school's huge Open Day (like an open house) and the official "Dedication Ceremony" of the school. Forget that the school is ending it's second year, they are just now dedicating it. Whatever.

By the way, we are making a CD of some of our students singing English songs for the big day, I will have a whole page up about this shortly, well, as soon as I can get to it... but for now, here are preview .mp3's, they are a nice big download, maybe 3 or 3.5 MB each, so give it some time to download to your machine. You should be able to just click and it will go, but if not then RIGHT CLICK and "Save As..." to your computer.

All the playing is by ME, and the singing is a group of 4th graders we are calling the "Little Rabbits"... again, more coming later...

Okay, keep checking back -- after this weekend's big events at the school I hope to get back to making this site rattle and hum...

--First, I'm happy to report that Yao Dao CP Church (the church that meets in the school where I teach) celebrated its One-Year Anniversary today! The place was packed for the special service, which featured 3 baptisms and the FIRST ten members to join the church. Up until now there have been no actual members of the church -- so we are all happy about today's events.

--Yesterday/last night I joined some of my dear friends from the Shatin CP Church for an adventure outing. One of the members at that church (and a great friend to me!) is Thomas -- he's a graphic artist working at a very important Hong Kong christian organization called Breakthrough. Well, yesterday Breakthrough had a fund-raiser where teams of six people each did a 24-hour adventure hike all around Sai Kung Peninsula (a great park/outdoor place in HK). I wasn't able to join the team, unfortunately, but I was part of their "support team" which helped cart their gear from checkpoint to checkpoint and also helped prepare dinner for them last night. It was GREAT fun, I'll post some photos when I have more time.

--I am currently HARD at work on the music for a CD we are making with the students of Yao Dao School. You see, on May 25th/26th we are celebrating the so-called "Open Day" of the school, and we will also have a big Dedication Ceremony attended by all the big-wigs of the HK Education Department. It's a very big deal, so I'm told, and we have to prepare a number of things to "showcase" our students' work from this year. Well, my idea was to make a CD of some students singing songs in English. Another teacher has offered to help, and she has been rehearsing with the kids -- now it's just up to ME to get the background music done! So far, though, I have to say I'm REALLY pleased with it (thank Heaven, literally). We are trying to make it sound like a real "pop" record, not just a bunch of 4th grade kids singing campfire songs! I'll post some mp3 samples as soon as I have more time... SO STAY TUNED!!!

I know it looks like I haven't done too much on the site lately, but actually I've been working like crazy, writing a lot of new things and working on some photos and such. But the difference is that this time, since a number of people are coming to check out the site, I want to make sure things are more "finished" before I actually post them.

So for the next several weeks, I'm going to continue to work like mad on new things for you to read and look at, even though you won't be able to actually see anything changing yet.

I just returned home from the Yao Dao School P6 graduation camp -- and we are so excited about how well it went!

It's traditional in Hong Kong that all P6 students ("P6" = "Primary 6" = "sixth grade") have a "graduation camp" to herald the end of their primary school careers, and to help push them into the new world of secondary school. It's a major time of transition and a sort of "coming of age" event for HK kids, so these camps are a big deal.

Now, some of you know that our school is in one of the roughest and most difficult sections of Hong Kong. Many of our students are new immigrants from the mainland and/or come from difficult home situations where they are trying to adjust to life in a new culture (Hong Kong is DEFINITELY different from the mainland!). In many cases their discipline and motivation are dramatically below the traditional HK student standards...

So as we prepared to leave for our 3 days in Sai Kung (in the east of HK), there was some apprehension about how things would go. We knew this would be the first time of "camping" or being away from home for many of our students -- they just never have the "summer camp" opportunities and experiences like kids in the U.S. typically have. Would the students go nuts? Would we have kids running off into the woods and doing who-knows-what? I don't want to sound like we feared losing control of the situation at all, that wasn't likely -- but we would be dishonest if we didn't admit to a good deal of pre-camp anxiousness about how our students would handle this new experience...

A significant change came over our students these last few days, and it's hard to describe it to someone from the outside, but you could just feel that these kids were suddenly waking up to things that they had never even thought about before -- I half expected to actually see little light bulbs appear above their heads a few times... I think the consensus among the staff was that the teachers could almost see our kids "growing up" right before their eyes. It really was that dramatic, and we were so thankful and relieved to see the kids sort of coming into their own so quickly.

Students who decided that they
wanted to be Christians were asked
to stand -- look at this crowd!!

But beyond anything else, we are thankful that on Thursday night (the climax of the camp) over 50 of our students claimed to have decided to follow Jesus. OVER FIFTY!!

Now, listen, if you're not into all this "Jesus" stuff then you may find this news a bit weird... some of you reading this may think it's downright creepy for me to talk like that -- it's so "televangelistic" or something, right?

But listen, whether you understand it or not, I'm trying to tell you that something happened this week, and we were all affected by it.

You see, for a lot of reasons it's not easy for a HK person to make a public claim of faith -- even in a cosmopolitan place like Hong Kong, the traditional culture still exerts considerable pressure AGAINST becoming a Christian.

So to have over ONE THIRD of our P6 students indicate they had begun a new life -- well, it's really one of the most amazing things that many of us have ever been involved with...

If you are a believer:
1) Please PRAY for these kids.
They need it more than you know, as they will face obstacles and all manner of pressures to renounce and/or forget about their decision in the coming days and weeks. Many of them will in effect be the first Christians in their families EVER, and to stay committed and grow in their knowledge and understanding will be terribly difficult.

2) Please PRAY for the teachers and pastors of Yao Dao School.
Given all that I've told you about these kids' situations, can you imagine the responsibility that we feel now in trying to follow up with them? Most schools have their P6 camps in July after school is over, but we decided to go WAY early FOR THIS VERY REASON: so that if God decided to move in these kids' hearts that we would still have time to work with them while they are under "our roof"... We are so thankful for the wisdom in that decision, and that God has honored it! But now the real work begins. They are ultimately in God's hands -- we know that, and are comforted by it -- but please pray that we would know how to support these young believers in ways that will really build them up before they move on...

Today I saw a man wearing a t-shirt that said, "#1 Starvin' Marvin!" on it -- but what was so hysterical was that I almost couldn't read what it said because his gut was so huge that the writing was horizontal!!

You just don't see that many truly fat guys in HK, and so to see this one wearing that t-shirt really cracked me up.

April/May 2002 Archive	October 2002 Archive
June 2002 Archive	November 2002 Archive
July 2002 Archive	December 2002 Archive
August/September 2002 Archive
=============================================
January 2003 Archive	June 2003 Archive
February 2003 Archive	July/August 2003 Archive
March 2003 Archive	Sept/October/Nov 2003 Archive
April 2003 Archive	December 2003 Archive
May 2003 Archive
=============================================
January 2004 Archive	June/July 2004 Archive
February/March 2004 Archive	August 2004 Archive
April 2004 Archive	September 2004 Archive
May 2004 Archive