This is a story
of how three individuals, each with an expansive heart and an even broader
vision, came together to do something good for fifteen small children with the
help of twenty-five teenagers. The principle actors in this drama are Alan Lo, a
high school science and math teacher, an ethnic Chinese born in the jungles of
Malaysia to a Chinese family escaping the Cultural Revolution, raised and
educated in Australia; Martin Radford, a theologian and teacher, a theater
director and parent, born in Bristol, England, and called to serve the Nepalese
community in Hong Kong as Executive Director of Inner City Ministries; and
Caroline Simick, a woman of mixed Indian and Chinese heritage, a Christian
missionary, and the glue that holds the Hong Kong Nepalese community together.
To
understand the vision and the work of Inner City Ministries, it is necessary to
understand Martin Radford. After over a month of trying to catch Martin, I was
finally able to sit down to a long conversation with him in March, 2014. On a
gray afternoon, on one of those days when one cannot distinguish whether the
dense cloud cover hovering over Hong Kong is caused by intense pollution or
fog, Martin and I sit facing each other across a long wooden table in the Inner
City Ministries conference room. The shelves lining the walls surrounding us
are stacked with board games, educational books, films, all the evidence of the
tutoring and educational support the center offers. Outside the conference room
windows a perpetual gray smog hangs above a roaring six-lane highway. The
twilight skyline is blocked by a massive wall of slate gray apartment
buildings. Outside the building, in the warren of tight streets that make up
the Kowloon neighborhood of Jordan, there are countless noodle shops, Chinese
herbal medicine shops, junk shops, and used clothing stalls. I could not
imagine surroundings more incongruous with the community’s native Nepal,
glimpses of which can be seen in photographs of cozy villages nestled between
the snowcapped mountain peaks of the Himalayas decorating the center’s walls.
With
four on-going outreach programs for children, three programs for young adults,
and three programs for adults, Martin’s work at Inner City Ministries keeps him
moving in order to implement the organization’s intended impact: “To engage,
enrich, educate, and empower our community members; to equip them to reverse
and rise above the marginalization, dysfunction and disempowerment endemic in
the South Asian community.”
To
reach the organization’s intended impact, at ICM members of the South Asian
community are offered a variety of opportunities for self-improvement: a
professional cooking class at a commercial kitchen, which provides catering
training, work experience, and support; sewing workshops with training on machines
and sewing by hand; language classes and parenting classes; pastoral care and
social service, including prison visits and assistance at immigration or in
hospitals. Youth and young adults are offered dance, drama, and music
workshops, as well as counselling and in-depth bible study. Children are
offered after-school tutoring with individual homework help in English,
Cantonese, and core subjects. They are also offered summer vacation programs
and sports outreach in local parks. All of this work is done by Martin and his
small staff and by volunteers, who feel that providing these services is not
enough; the work must be done from the heart in order for results to take root.
In the 2013 Inner City Ministries annual report Martin writes: “…our passion and
focus is to see life-long transformation. The impact we make is not measured in
the extent of our reach but in the depth of relationship and the lasting impact
this has on the lives of those to whom we minister…”
I asked Martin to explain how the
Nepalese community is marginalized and disempowered. Martin explained that most
of the Nepalese in Hong Kong are the descendants of the Gurkha warriors who
came to Hong Kong to serve in the British military when Hong Kong was a colony
of Great Britain. After Great Britain handed Hong Kong over to mainland China
in 1997 and pulled out its military, the Gurkha and their families faced a
decision. They could either accept British citizenship and relocate to the
United Kingdom, return to Nepal, or continue living in Hong Kong with permanent
residence status. Most chose to remain in Hong Kong, where they had been living
and working for generations. However, they underestimated how quickly Hong Kong
would be swallowed up and culturally assimilated into mainland China, leaving
the Gurkha and their families without a common language of communication and
without jobs and a structured life. Soon after the hand-over China put pressure
on Hong Kong to suspend education in the English language, as had been the norm
previously, and to make Mandarin and Cantonese the main languages of
instruction. With this new focus, English language education quickly
deteriorated. The Nepalese people, who relied on English as their language of
communication in Hong Kong, were marginalized and disenfranchised.
“Today
we see a situation in Hong Kong,” Martin said, “in which Nepalese children
learn to speak Nepalese at home, but do not learn to read and write in
Nepalese. They have no literary base for
the language. Then they go to school where they are offered instruction in
Cantonese and English, but no support to help them integrate as second language
speakers. They become confused, learn the two languages only very
superficially, and soon fall behind in their other subjects. Very often they
cannot differentiate between words in English and in Cantonese. It is not
uncommon to have ten-year-olds who cannot read come to our center. These
children are severely linguistically challenged and their parents also do not
have the linguistic tools to help them.”
The children currently in school are
the third generation growing up since the hand-over. Their parents have had an
even more difficult time. Many of the former Gurkha found work after the
hand-over as security guards or bouncers in bars, but this work does not pay
well, is unstable, and does not offer hours conducive to family life. Nepalese women
tend to work in the restaurant business, while the men who do not work in
security, work in construction.
“The type of work the Nepalese do
involve hours that wreak habit on the routines of family life,” Martin
explains. “The children develop poor sleep habits because their parents’
employment necessitates late nights.
Returning after eleven at night they often wake up the kids because families
live crowded together—sometimes two to three families—in one and two room
flats. These kids grow up with a poor diet made up mostly of carbohydrates and
typical of the urban poor. This in turn
contributes to attention deficit disorder and creates issues in school, which
then tailspin into a downward spiral. They also grow up in a tribal culture in
which there is no consistent discipline. Every child is everybody’s
responsibility. Parents don’t pay attention to their kids because everybody is
supposed to be watching them, like in the village. They don’t engage their
children in play. They themselves were never played with as children because
they grew up in poverty.”
Martin explains that the Nepalese
were not encouraged to integrate into Chinese culture when they served as
Gurkha in the British military and now they self-isolate. They experience passive
discrimination by the Chinese. Although the Hong Kong government has programs
that help new immigrants learn Chinese, the descendants of the Gurkha do not
qualify for this help because many of them are third and fourth generation Hong
Kongers. They are expected to know Cantonese and yet they have no real way of
entering into the language and community.
“There is no level playing field for
the Nepalese in Hong Kong,” Martin says.
Martin explains how it is one of
ICM’s mission goals to help Nepalese children learn individualism through the
study of Christianity. “They grow up with a karmic acceptance of life, which is
insidious. Many families bring a belief in the caste system with them from
Nepal, where the Hindi culture is dominant. The caste system enables poverty
and hopelessness. For this reason, I passionately believe in the Christian
Church. If you identify in Christ, then you will change your attitude and
transformation comes into your life.”
“How did you come to ICM?” I ask.
“What is your life story, Martin?”
“I
was born November 14, 1952 in Bristol, England,” Martin begins. “My father was
an Anglican minister. I grew up in the Church. I was taught church music and
played the organ. I studied Theology and Philosophy in university and intended
to go into the priesthood, but instead became an educator of multicultural
faith studies in the United Kingdom schools. I was married young, at the age of
22, and had two children, a son and a daughter."
As
a young teacher, Martin discovered that teaching was his passion. Through
teaching he could express his desire to share something important and at the
same time make it fun and accessible to kids. After a school trip to Israel in
1983, Martin and his wife, also a teacher, decided that they wanted to travel
and teach. He applied for a position as Head of Religious Studies at South
Island School and was hired. Martin and his family made the move to Hong Kong
and never looked back. He taught for nineteen years at South Island School and
loved every minute of it. Sadly, Martin’s marriage ended in divorce in 1992.
“I
was running a school theater company and we were always on tour. I was engaged
in many projects at school and did not realize until it was too late the toll
this was taking on my marriage. Hong Kong can be tough on families. There is a
tendency to get too busy in this city.”
Ten
years later, in 2002, Martin went through another upheaval in his life. He felt
called to ministry and could no longer ignore that call. He handed in his
resignation after nearly two decades at the South Island School.
“I
just didn’t want to teach anymore. This part of my life was finished. I felt
called to minister to the poor, only I didn’t yet know how. I took a leap of
faith.”
Remaking
one’s life at fifty is never easy, but for Martin one thing led to another and eventually
through volunteering and ministering, Martin found his way to Inner City
Ministries.
“I
began my work at ICM preaching, helping out with worship and repairing the
toilets,” Martin says and laughs, “but in 2006 I was invited onto the Board of
Directors. During 2007 – 2009 I was a pastor at Resurrection Church and served
on the Board of Directors at ICM.”
During
this time Martin met Kitty, who was also attending Saint Andrew’s, and after a
whirl wind romance, they married in 2005. From the outset Kitty supported
Martin in every way and has been truly a God given gift. “I never thought I
would marry again after my divorce and then a further 14 years being single,
but God had a different plan.”
It
is not uncommon that people who serve selflessly experience burn-out. This
happened with the former executive director of Inner City Ministries. He
resigned in January 2009 and Martin stepped in to serve as executive director.
However, because ICM was in financial crisis, Martin agreed to work his first
year as executive director without pay.
“We
had 1,074 Hong Kong dollars in our ICM account when I took over,” Martin said
and laughed. I worked as a volunteer. It was either volunteer or shut down
Inner City Ministries. I am fortunate that my wife has a very good heart and
believes in my work. She supported me for that year. After a year the board
stepped in and set up a salary for me.”
Martin
says that his greatest challenge that first year was learning how to run a
Non-Governmental Organization, an NGO.
“I
was a teacher. This was a huge learning curve for me. Donors wanted to know
where every dollar went. We had bills to pay and we had to raise money,” Martin
explains. “I prayed a lot and I followed God’s voice. But there is one thing I
learned that first year: God only turns up at 11:55 and he does so
deliberately. He wants us to know it is his provision. Otherwise life is too
easy.”
That
first year proved to be successful for Martin and ICM. “We started with 1,074
Hong Kong dollars in the bank, and we ended with 174,000 HK,” Martin explains. “We
became a company with charitable status. We got our accounts water tight.
However, we did have some close calls. That August our rent went up and we
acquired rats. We needed to move but we could not afford any rents. Then one
day our staff member Caroline Simick popped into an agent’s office and found
out about this space. It was renovated and the location was perfect, but the
rent was too high. However, when she went to speak with the owner, it turned
out she was a devout Christian, so she lowered the rent significantly to make
it affordable for us. We have been to the wall financially many times, but we
have come through. God does not want us to be too rich.”
Inner
City Ministries is a trusted institution in the Jordan community. Often staff
members are called upon to intervene with the police. The organization receives
no government help because they don’t want the restrictions.
“We’ve been able to survive and serve the
community,” Martin says with a certain measure of pride. “This is a family.
I’ve been accepted into this family and I am treated with a huge amount of respect,
which I don’t deserve,” Martin quickly adds. “They treat me as a father figure.
I don’t encourage the “Great White Father” syndrome. That’s something Britain
used to expand its empire. I don’t want anyone to “Yes Sir” me because I am
British. I am the caretaker here. I love to teach. I bring my experience as a
teacher into ICM. My passion is to share the faith. I love to share what I’ve
had the time to read. I’m proud of the staff. They are kind and compassionate
and have mission hearts. The Nepalese people are deeply spiritual. Spirituality
is integrated into their lives. They are disciplined and passionate Christians.”
On
my next visit, I walk into ICM’s conference room for my meeting with Caroline Simick
and find her engrossed in conversation with two young Nepalese women. They sit
at the edge of the large conference table, heads together, speaking earnestly
in soft voices. Caroline looks up and smiles warmly. She invites me to pray
with them. We place our palms together and Caroline begins her prayer in
Nepalese, interjecting English phrases between a stream of melodic Nepalese words.
We pray for God’s protection for one woman’s seven-year-old daughter, left
behind with family in Nepal, while she works in Hong Kong to earn money to send
home. We pray for good health for the second woman, who is four months pregnant
and deeply anxious.
When
we finish praying, Caroline and the two women place their palms together and
say: Djai masai.
“Djai masai is our blessing; masai is the Nepalese word for ‘Messiah,’”
Caroline explains.
I
repeat the blessing and they smile warmly at me.
“You
are a quick learner,” Caroline says.
The
two young women say good-bye and hurry off to their waitressing jobs. Caroline
takes me on a tour of ICM’s cramped quarters. The organization makes use of
every centimeter of its dearly bought office space. We walk out of the offices
and through the afterschool tutoring room into a large bright sewing room.
Women are huddled over sewing machines, sewing little girls’ dresses from
bright cotton print fabrics.
“Martin’s
sister has taught the women who have some extra time for it how to sew. The
items that are sewn here in this room are shipped to impoverished communities
in Africa, Nepal, and the Philippines. We do not only want to take. We want to
give. These women here, who have nothing themselves, give, and that giving
brings them pride and joy.”
Caroline
opens up a cupboard and shows me stacks of colorful cotton quilts and bright
dresses and pants sewn by the women. Djai
masai, djai masai, the women
greet me, palms together, pausing and looking up from their sewing.
Caroline
leads me back into the conference room. We weave our way between small
children, whose mothers have brought them to the center for tutoring with high
school students from the American International School of Hong Kong.
“Would
you like some chapa tea?” Caroline
asks. “It is Darjeeling tea, from my home district. We prepare it with lots of
milk and sugar.”
“Yes,
thank you,” I say in anticipation of tasting this tea I had only tasted a few
years ago when I’d visited India.
Caroline
prepares the tea and sets down a cup in front of me and cup for herself. Now,
she is ready to talk.
I
take a sip. The tea is delicious, a blend of bitter and sweet, refreshing and reminiscent
of a cleaner place, a place of mountains and fresh air.
“We
pick the Darjeeling in our district in India,” Caroline explains.
“You
are not from Nepal then?” I ask.
“I
am from the Himalayan region of India, from Kalimpong, on the border of Nepal.
We speak Nepalese and share our culture with Nepal; although, we are a hill
station in the Indian state of West Bengal. Kalimpong is located at an
elevation of 1,250 meters. It used to be a gateway for trade between Tibet and
India. My mother is from the Lepcha tribe; they are an indigenous people of
Darjeeling. My father is from China. He came over to India in the 1940s during
the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. He escaped China through Tibet and
made his way into India. My parents met in Calcutta. My grandmother was
teaching at the Industrial College there and my mother would go with her to
help. They would eat lunch at a Chinese restaurant and that is how my parents
met. They had eight children together, but I never met my father. We had to hide
our Chinese name and heritage from the Indian authorities. When I was a child,
the Indians were rounding up Chinese and families of Chinese and sending them
back to China.”
Caroline’s father died
when she was two years old. They believe he may have died of lung cancer, but
no one knows for sure. Her mother raised eight children on her own, hiding
their Chinese identity. That was why her surname was a Lepcha tribal name,
Simick.
Caroline first came to
Hong Kong in 1990 to visit her brother, who was a Gurkha in the British Army.
He traveled from India to Nepal and applied for a Nepali passport to be able to
join the Gurkha. He came to work in Hong Kong in 1969. After the hand-over he
and his family immigrated to Canada.
Caroline was raised a
Christian because her father had practiced Christianity. In 1997 she studied at
a Bible College in India. In 2000 she traveled to Hong Kong to visit a Korean
friend. Some friends brought her to Inner City Ministries to visit. Immediately
she found herself in a situation in which she was asked to interpret between
English and Nepalese. The Ministry liked her so much, they offered her a job.
She stayed in Hong Kong and has been working at the Ministry ever since. In the
early years she worked as an interpreter, translating for the Nepalese
community in the hospitals and in government offices. Over the years that work
grew into the missionary work that she does now.
The turning point in
her work came when she was asked to interpret for a family whose mother was
going blind from a brain tumor. At the hospital the doctor explained that it
was necessary to operate immediately. The family refused on the grounds that
they had to first go back to Nepal to make an animal sacrifice to their local
“witch doctor,” as Caroline calls the Nepalese tribal healers. The doctor told
Caroline that although there was no guarantee that the complicated operation
would save the woman, if she were to survive at all, the operation had to be
done at once. Caroline spent hours with the family, and with the woman with the
tumor, explaining to them the details of the operation and trying to convince
them of the futility of risking their mother’s life with what she viewed as an
unnecessary trip to Nepal at that crucial time. It took a lot of time and prayer,
but eventually she was able to turn the family around and help them let go of
their tribal beliefs and allow modern medicine to intervene. The woman’s life
was saved and since that time the family has given its full support to Inner City
Ministries and actively participates in the center’s many activities. It was
this break-through, this realization of how lives can be saved when minds are
opened up, that gave Caroline the vision to become a real leader of the
Nepalese community in Hong Kong.
I asked Caroline what
future she saw for the Nepalese community in Hong Kong.
“We can guide them,”
Caroline said. “They work long hours. The men who were Gurkha have found work
as security guards, but often they must work through the night. They don’t have
time to study. The younger generation wants to study. The previous generation
centered their lives around the army. We encourage the new generation to study.
More NGOs are helping the Nepalese people. Things are getting better. It
depends on the individual mind. They must do vocational training. Some are
teachers and even in international schools.”
The Nepalese are used
to living in tightknit communities, often by tribal affiliation. Public housing
spread them out too much over the large expanses of Hong Kong. However, in
recent years Nepalese have begun applying for public housing and moving into
public housing. The apartments are “bigger and cheaper” Caroline tells me. But,
she admits, the convenience breaks up the community.
“The
parents have long work hours,” Caroline answered. “Mothers do not have enough
time for their children. They have little money and must work. They need a dual
income because the rent is high in Hong Kong. Many families I know live five
family members in 150 meters. They apply for public housing and don’t get it.
The government rules make it hard. The wife may want to work but cannot or
cannot show her salary because then they cannot apply for public housing. The
mother must take care of the family. If the mother works at night the boys go
out looking for trouble. Nighttime jobs pay cash. A husband working as a
security guard may earn 13,000 Hong Kong dollars per month, but 4,000 of that
must go to pay the rent. Three families rent one flat together for a total of
12,000 HK. Each family pays 4,000. Each room has a tiny kitchen and toilet
installed. There is a bed and otherwise they sit on the floor. I know one family with three sons and wife
who all life together in one room.”
I asked Caroline what is
the most prevalent problem in the Nepalese community.
“It
used to be the language,” she explains. “Nepalese rarely intermarry or
integrate. They stick with their own kind. Therefore, there is little
opportunity to learn Chinese. In the days of the Gurkha, the Nepalese had their
own Nepalese language school on the military base—or they sent their children
to study in Nepal. They did not need to learn Chinese. This was a problem after
the handover and the schools in Hong Kong switched to instruction in Mandarin
and Cantonese. Now children are attending local schools from the first grade
and with the help of our tutors are learning Chinese. But by the upper grades
they get stuck and they cannot go to university. Then the young people leave
school and go to work making sandwiches at Subway, waitressing, or work
construction.”
We chat a few moments
about fate and about how fate has this way of bringing us exactly where we are
needed most when we need to be there. Caroline
thinks a moment and then says: “In my life I have come full circle. I have come
back to China, my father’s land.”
The Chinese Cultural Revolution
displaced many ethnic Chinese people, scattering them all over the world to new
places where they had to adapt and build new lives. Alan Lo’s family story,
like Caroline’s, is a story of displacement and of acquiring a special insight
into others’ needs through the challenge of being placed in the outsider role.
Alan begins our conversation by saying,
“Although I am ethnic Chinese, I am an outsider here in Hong Kong. I think that
is why I can connect with the Nepalese children. I have been in their position
myself as a child.”
Alan
Lo was born in Kuching, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo, in May 1968. Both
sets of his grandparents escaped the Chinese Cultural Revolution. His mother’s
family fled to Hong Kong and then to Borneo. Alan’s mother was born in Borneo
on the Indonesian side in a small village. His mother held onto a strong
old-fashioned Chinese ethnicity and became a Mandarin teacher. She was
academically focused and trained as a journalist.
His father came from a middle class
family. He went to Australia to study on the Columbo plan scholarship. When he
returned to Borneo, he married Alan’s mother in an arranged marriage.
When
he was two, Alan’s family moved to Melbourne, Australia. The family moved
around Australia, eventually ending up in Perth.
“My
life was difficult growing up,” Alan explains. “I had lots of trauma as a kid.
I connect with the Nepalese kids so passionately because I easily could have
become a criminal on the streets.”
Alan
feels that he was formed by Australia. He laughs as he tells a story about how
his mother would try to teach him Chinese and he would jump out the window and
run away.
“I
was the eldest and I fought my mother’s authority. I wanted to be free. I was
not your typical obedient Asian kid,” Alan says. “I embraced Australian
culture. Australian culture celebrates the underdog status. It’s about you as a
person. You try to live up to that without regret.”
However, as much as Alan embraced Australia,
Australia did not always embrace him.
“I did not speak
English when I went to school,” Alan says. “I was the only Asian kid in school.
I was bullied, picked on. I was in lots of fights. I had to defend myself and
that hardened me. As a teenager I stopped fighting because everyone was so much
bigger than me. Now I can empathize with the Nepalese kids as outsiders. I can
understand being physically and culturally different from the majority group. I
was an outsider by race, by family, and by personality. I was that problem
kid.”
I asked Alan what brought him to
teaching.
“The
birth of my sister,” Alan says. “Mom was 43 when my sister was born. I was 19.
We all had to pitch in and help. I was studying Science in the university when
my sister was born. I often brought my sister
to classes with me. I had a car seat for her in my car. As she grew, I taught
her and helped her develop. I taught my sister the basics of mental concepts. The
university helped me become a philosophical, intellectual person. I contemplated
becoming a priest. The university opened up the idea that that there is more to
life than just working and earning money. I do believe that learning should be
fun. You need to make connections between content and context. Lesson planning
is great, but you need to be ready to throw it away and follow the students’
interests. I treat my students with a certain level of intellectual respect. My
lessons combine topics. Teaching involves connections, leading to interesting
questions. I look for ways to connect with kids. I was so closely aligned with
the kids I taught in Australia that everything else was not important. I was
there for them on weekends.”
Alan began his first teaching job at
the age of 21. He accepted a position at a school in Newman, Australia, out in
the middle of the outback, in the desert.
“It
was my first time out of the city,” Alan says. I was the only Asian teacher.
The only other Asians the local population had seen were laborers. Eventually,
they saw that I was just a regular guy.”
After
two years teaching in Newman, Alan returned to Perth because his mother needed
his help at home. He taught in inner city schools in Perth for the next 17
years. Then five years ago his wife accepted a job in Hong Kong and the couple
set off on an adventure.
“I was feeling lost my first year in Hong
Kong,” Alan explains. “In Hong Kong I became an outsider all over again. From
the moment I passed through immigration everyone tried speaking with me in
Chinese. I could not speak Chinese, although my wife could. People were rude.
They were disgusted with me. I tried to establish a network of teachers, but
there is no union here. I first taught at Singapore International School. I
thought the system would be similar to the Australian one, but it wasn’t. I went back 20 years in a time warp. No kid ever asked a question. I had to break
down barriers. In Hong Kong the kids are brainwashed not to think for
themselves. They have been so obedient for so long that they are hesitant to
take a risk. When you do something fun they see it as a risk. They are good at
technical schools in Hong Kong, but critical thinking is missing.”
When
Alan began teaching at the American International School in 2013 the high
school principal, Mike Wing, was willing to give Alan a chance to start a high
school tutoring project together with Inner City Ministries.
“Other schools said it was too risky
and that parents wouldn’t like it,” Alan explains, “but Mike was willing to
give it a try. I had my first meeting and 25 kids came. I made the kids expect
the worst, so that they would be flexible. We can’t protect our kids. We have to
make them ready for anything. You have to be calm, patient, tolerant. I want to
teach our students how to be leaders and role models for the children in the
Nepalese community. After three months of work our students’ confidence has
grown. They walk the streets of Jordan leading these small children by the hand
and they can handle them. Our kids did not expect to feel this passion, but
they do. Leadership is about growing, about taking responsibility. They think a
leader gives orders. I teach them that a leader needs passion, a connection
with people, persistence and perseverance. You see the affects of poor
leadership on the Nepalese kids. They are left behind by society. The program
helps both the kids in Jordan and our school’s kids. Hong Kong is grotesquely
materialistic. If all you think about is the next pay check, car, house, you
are not human. In Hong Kong you are either Hong Kong Chinese or you are not.
Mainlanders are excluded. All immigrants are outsiders. The children suffer. What
we are doing in Jordan is slowly breaking down these barriers.”
Every Thursday Alan and I set out
with our 25 teenagers to Jordan, where we pick up more or less 15 Nepalese
children and weave our way through the traffic and chaos of the streets of
Jordan to the YMCA classrooms in the Elements mall. Once we’ve herded our
gaggle of boisterous children, ranging in ages from five to eight, into the
classroom, our students immediately get them on task, some working with the
children on Chinese lessons, some on English, some on math.
Over the months I have been
interviewing the high school students, encouraging them to reflect on their
experience tutoring in Jordan. Among participating students, the following
languages are spoken at home: English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Punjab,
Tamil, Hindi, and a few Chinese provincial dialects. I learned that many of our
student volunteers themselves feel like outsiders in Hong Kong, coming from
families that have had to struggle to find their place in this concrete jungle.
For this reason, they tell me, they are able to connect with the Nepalese
children and they want to help them.
I
open my conversation by asking the students to tell me about themselves. I
learn that many of them have already reflected quite a lot on the benefits of
belonging to dual cultures. Daniel Fung, who is 18 and in the 12th
grade, who has lived in Australia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and comes from a
mixed Korean and Chinese background said: “My mom’s Korean; my dad’s Chinese.
By nationality I am Australian. My Dad is a Cantonese speaker, but he learned
Korean to speak with my mom. We lived in Taiwan for seven years and learned
Mandarin. Then we lived seven years in Australia. We’re now living our third
year in Hong Kong. Father is an engineer and works with marketing. My father
likes to move us around. I like moving around because it is a good cultural
experience. It helps me accept things. I adapt to different environments. I’ve
been in very Chinese and very Western environments. Those ideas and worlds
conflict, but being part of both helped me grow up. I have both Chinese
influence in my thoughts and also Western. In Australia I learned to talk
freely with my parents. The Chinese language is freer than Korean, where
respect for the elders is built into the language. I live in a bilingual
culture in Hong Kong—Western and Chinese at the same time. I am best adapted to
a mixed culture.”
Chrissi
Lai, who is sixteen and in the eleventh grade, a native Hong Kong Chinese who
experienced being treated as an outsider when her family moved to Shanghai
because of her father’s work, had the following observations about being an
outsider inside her own culture:
In China the
kids are really brainwashed by Chinese stereotypes. They did not like me
because I was from Hong Kong. When I told them I was from Hong Kong they didn’t
want to play with me. They tend to have different values. They think studying
is just memorizing. The way I thought set me apart from them. They think Hong
Kong people think they are better, so they dislike them. We don’t like them
because they come to Hong Kong and they destroy our culture with their rude
behavior. My experience helps me understand these children. They need help, so
why not help them.”
I ask the students why they chose to
volunteer their time tutoring the children in Jordan instead of choosing to
play a sport or join a club as their afterschool activity.
Daniel answers: “At first I came
here to have the experience. I did peer tutoring a few years ago and found that
I like helping people. After I came a few times I realized I really like the
small kids as people and I like to help them. I feel as though I am doing some
good.”
Chrissi Lai expressed
the following: “I come here because I care. These children are so isolated in
school and they are constantly being told they are stupid. It destroys their
self-esteem. They need somebody to give them confidence and support.”
Srijith Kannan, who is
sixteen and in grade eleven, from Southern India, but who also has lived in
Singapore, expressed the following: “In grade 9 I first went to Malaysia on our
school’s Adventure Week. I was tutoring and I had a good time. I felt I was
contributing. Same in India and New Zealand. But I didn’t have much opportunity
to teach. I wanted to do something like this but did not have resources. Mr. Lo
started the club and I immediately joined. I want to leave a footprint on the
world.
Martin and Caroline and
Alan have educated me on the challenges the children from the Nepalese
community face. Indeed, on any given Thursday watching them tear around the
classroom and the high school students’ struggle to gently coax them into
focusing on their work is evidence enough that this is not an easy group of
kids to teach. I ask our student volunteers what challenges they have faced
working with the children in Jordan.
Srijith answered: “The
first two classes I was talking to my boy about life and his feelings. He would
not open up to me. I found it hard to do something about his emotional state. I
went directly to math. I gave him a diagnostic test and I found out he can do
no math. I’ve been teaching him addition. For the first few weeks I was really
frustrated because I could not get him to focus. He would say 1 + 1=11. It took
weeks for him to get it. I could see he did not get attention at school or at
home. I tried to create a bond. Now he trusts me. I enjoy his company. He gives
me a glimmer of hope that he can become something. He has resources. Even
though he is an ethnic minority, he can achieve.
“It is not enough to
volunteer for just three hours on Flag Day. You must do something continuously.
You can establish a relationship with someone you would never have the chance
to otherwise have a relationship with. I helping them improve while improving
myself. In Hong Kong the ethnic minorities are Nepali and Pakistani. They are
from third world countries and they are not given much attention. They don’t
have much quality of life because Hong Kong is expensive. Their education is in
a local school, which is overcrowded.”
Daniel answers:
“Communication is my biggest problem. When you talk to them they don’t respond
or they speak in Nepalese. I don’t know if they understand me or not. Behavior
is also a challenge. I don’t feel that they were socialized by their parents.
They don’t know basic discipline. If I tried to force my kid not to do
something, he would cry and throw a fit.”
Ruby says, “I don’t
know if they understand what I’m saying. They are very active and run around a
lot. Their attention span is very short.”
I ask the students: “What
have you learned from these children?”
Daniel says: “I’ve
learned to be patient. I’ve learned to listen. At first I thought that my kid
didn’t understand, but it turned out that he did. He did not want to work and
tried to hide it. I learned to be patient and not give up. I can honestly say
that this experience has taught me a lot of things. I’ve actually seen a lot of
Nepalese children, but I’ve not known about their problems. These kids are not
rich, but they are bright. There is one girl I walk back with who is really
intelligent. To me teaching is something I enjoy.”
“I’ve learned
responsibility and devotion,” Chrissie says. “Without responsibility you will
just push what you have to do onto another individual. You must take
responsibility for your own actions, for the person you are trying to help.
Devotion is coming every week. It shows that you are willing to take
responsibility.”
Carol Ho, a twelfth
grader and native Hong Kong Chinese says, “It’s very hard to learn another
language when it’s not a language you are used to. They all speak Nepalese with
each other. They have to face Cantonese and English. When I speak Cantonese
with them they have the same level as English, which is not much. There are
words they know in Cantonese, but not in English and vice versa, so I used a
mix of both to talk them. They may point to a picture and give me the Chinese
word. Their mother tongue is definitely Nepalese. They speak fast and fluent.”
Ruby Young Kyoung Kim,
an eleventh grader, a Korean living in Hong Kong said: “At first I thought the kids would be gloomy
and sad because Mr. Lo said they come from difficult lives. We have that
stereotype about minority kids. We think they are poor and mean or bad. But, as
I was communicating with Abigail and the other kids I found that they are nice
kids. They aren’t as bad as I thought.”
I
ask: “How do you feel when you donate your time to tutor the kids in Jordan?”
“I don’t mind,” Daniel
answers. “I have two younger brothers and I often tutor them. To me donating my
time to help others means more than me using my time just to play video games
to entertain myself. It is mutually beneficial: I get joy and I help them.”
Chrissie
says: “I have been teaching the same child the whole time. I help her with
homework. I give her prizes to encourage her and I tell her she is smart. I
build her confidence.
I feel happy. It feels good to make
changes to their lives when they are so young and so helpless and need our help
in school.”
Mathew Christian Clark,
who was born in Hong Kong to American parents and who is sixteen and in the
eleventh grade said: “I taught them that learning can be fun. I say: Look at
this cool thing you now know. I play with them and make learning come alive.”
Ruby says: “If I was a
student in Korea, I wouldn’t be having this experience. I would be too caught
up in academics. Because I am in an international school in Hong Kong I am more
open and free to experience. I wanted to do something and one thing I could do
is teaching the children.”
I ask a question designed to make the students
reflect on the cornerstone of the program—leadership: Why do you think Mr. Lo
calls this Club the Jordan Leadership Club and what does it take to be a
leader?
“I think it’s because
we develop our leadership skills,” Daniel answers. “Teaching these kids is not
easy. It forces us to step up and take care of the situation. We learn to be
independent. We have to take responsibility for the kid we are teaching. I
think there are different aspects of being a leader: one on the surface and one
behind. A leader is someone who tries to control the situation to allow events
to happen properly. We might not all stand up and take credit, but we are all
trying to stand up and take part.”
Ruby says: “Being a
leader means to be beside the person and as they go along we encourage them. If
they fall down, we encourage them to go on. It takes commitment and being
helpful. You have to be strong yourself to make the other person strong.”
Srijith says: “Many
people consider a leader as someone who gives speeches, but in reality
leadership is not only about leading a crowd, but about changing a life.
Leadership requires responsibility, patience, passion, drive. This club provides
us the opportunity to develop all these skills.”
Finally, I ask: How can
you be a role model to the children in the Nepalese community?
Daniel answers: “I don’t know if I am
much of a role model. I try to behave. Some of them don’t know right from
wrong. They think that doing anything they want is acceptable. It could be
because they are children or maybe it is because their parents cannot be near
them all the time because they are working. I can take on the role of a parent
and teach morals and guide them. I’m not sure if I can help them progress
academically in this short time, but I want to teach them morals.”
Carol adds: “First, you
need to be a good person in front of them. Speak appropriately and politely. If
I joke with Daniel I don’t let myself go. You can’t use offensive words. You
must watch your own behavior.”
“I learned that
teaching children isn’t easy,” Ruby says. “Although it is tiring, ironically I
get more energy. I’m trying to provide these kids with a little fun and
education at the same time. I want to help out with their work. I ask them to
make up stories in English. I also think that I could show them how I don’t
give up. When it’s hard I don’t give up. Even though they jump around I won’t
give up catching them.”
“I don’t really
consider myself as a role model,” Srijith says.
“I find it more important to help them become the future role models in
their society.”
Daniel ends our
discussion with the following thought: “I think this is a new thing. Our school
hasn’t done anything like this before. We’ve never gone off campus to tutor.
This club is helping our society and we are doing a lot. I prefer this club
over tutoring at school. This club is an opportunity that you seek out
yourself. I’d like to do something like this during my gap year. This club
taught me that I can do something like reaching out to a community in need.
This club was very surprising.”
The next week I speak
with some of the mothers of the children in the tutoring program. I approach a
group of women sitting together outside the classroom. One of the women is the
mother of a five-year-old girl who enthusiastically attends the tutoring
sessions every week. She speaks good English and so I ask her to translate for
the others. What I learn is that out of the ten women sitting together, only
two are actually mothers. The rest are helpers brought over from Nepal to care
for the children while their mothers work in restaurants. They feel that they
are not qualified to answer my questions, so I hold a discussion with the two
mothers.
I learn that my
translator is the daughter of a Gurkha and grew up in Hong Kong. Her husband
works as a security guard and she is a housewife. She is fluent in both
Cantonese and English.
“My child is happy to
come here,” my translator tells me. “She is five. Her name is Presheana. She
goes to Chinese school and learns everything in the Chinese language. I speak
with her only in English. I feel English is important. She speaks Nepalese with
her grandparents and her father. Her strongest language is English. I will talk
in Chinese if she does not understand. She only knows a little Chinese. My husband
is a security guard and I am a house wife.”
“What
do you think of our students?” I ask.
She
responds enthusiastically with one word: “Helpful.” She explains, “We are learning
together with our children. We sit in and ask the students for help.”
I
learn from the other mother present that during the week the children remember
the high school students and mention them. They are eager to come to tutoring
in the YMCA. Their children’s favorite activity now is reading and drawing.
This mother tells me that her son’s math skills have improved drastically. We
make the connection, Srijith, the Indian boy who focused on math, is her son’s
tutor.
My
translator tells me that last week after she came home from tutoring her
daughter was trying to make a paper airplane. I think back and I remember that
day. Mathew started making paper airplanes out of scrap paper and soon paper
airplanes were whizzing back and forth across the classroom to the delight of
the children.
“My
daughter was very shy,” my translator says, “but after she started coming here
she stopped being shy. She became more comfortable with the students. Before she
did not want to say anything; now she always runs to the YMCA.”
The
second mother gentle rocks a baby carriage. A chubby faced baby is sound asleep
in the carriage, wrapped in blankets, his face like a slumbering Buddha’s.
Suddenly, the room erupts in peels of laughter and happy chatter as the
children come racing out of the classroom. We all wish each other a good
evening and go home, content with our day’s work, energized by the vision of
three people who brought 25 teens and 15 children together in learning and
leadership.
