A Meaningful Trip to Sichuan

Much to my surprise I found myself on my way to Sichuan on May 6th, 2009. Just a week earlier H said she was traveling on a meaningful trip to visit the earthquake affected zone on the first anniversary of the massive disaster that took place on May 12th 2008. Standing on the elevated walkway in Central, Hong Kong, I told her that I wanted to go too. So here I am on the Star Ferry on my way to Macau. The beginning of a very precious journey.

Here is our international “Brightening Sichuan” delegation, comprising friends from Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, America, England and India. We have grown together and come closer over this trip, transcending our identities of culture, language, gender and age to become a community of people who tried to explore ways to express our compassion and concern towards the children of Sichuan. This is how we look at the start of our trip on May 6th 2009

I have visited many communities that have faced great suffering through poverty, violence and hunger. But a natural disaster like an Earthquake is not an everyday phenomenon. It changes lives of communities in one great stroke to an inconceivable horror. Many of the streets in the communities we drove through still bore a deserted look. A few buildings like the one below continue to stand testimony near ground zero. Yet, one year later we also observed many new constructions sites everywhere. Large housing blocks in the midst of development dominated the horizon.

Our visits took us to 4 local schools and one local community that had experienced the earthquake directly. Given that the schools that had been destroyed had either been rebuilt or relocated to temporary shelters and the children had completed one year at school, we were advised to stay in the present and keep our interactions focused to having fun while connecting with the children.

Many delightful moments of joyful interaction were facilitated by simple activities like magic, music, video film, games, and singing. Despite not knowing the local language as in my situation, it is possible to connect deeply through a universal language of smiles, laughter, shaking hands, and hugs. When spoken from the heart at the appropriate moment we understand each other deeply. The children were my teachers.

But it was at the Psychology of the Heart Garden that I saw how hard the children had worked to over come the trauma that they had experienced. The tools once again were so simple….sand, drawing, playing with toys….in the presence of nurturing adults, who had  given the commitment of their time and love, to support the children, as volunteers over a period of 3 years. It was this quiet, accepting nonlinguistic space that was the medicine to transform the disquietened heart.

When I closed my eyes to listen to the sounds of the school, I realized that this one in Beichuan was different. The humming happy sounds of a joyful busy day of a school community is taken for granted till you can no longer hear it.

This is what the children said in the foreword to the book I bought at the Beichuan Middle School

“WE USED TO HAVE A BEAUTIFUL SCHOOL THERE USED TO BE HAPPY SONGS AND LAUGHTER WE ALSO LEFT OUR FOOTPRINTS OF OUR GROWING WE ALSO HAD OUR TEACHERS CAREFUL TEACHING WE ALSO HAD OUR FELLOWS BUT ALL THIS FROZE ON 12/5/2008 THE BEAUTIFUL SCHOOL LOVELY FELLOWS WHERE DID YOUR GO? WE MISS YOU WE WILL KEEP YOUR MEMORY ALIVE AND WE WILL LIVE BRAVELY FOREVER.

So for a little while, the music, the magic and the games with a group of caring friends brought back the beautiful sounds of joy that prevail in any school anywhere in the world.

Receiving graciously is as important as giving and we have much to thank our hosts and organizers for making this trip a memorable one. They took every effort to provide us with comfortable and convenient arrangements for stay, transport, visits as well as for the delicious and sumptuous banquets that make up an essential part of the local hospitality.

I am reminded of Whitney Houston’s song "The Greatest Love of All"   https://youtu.be/IYzlVDlE72w and hope that we will always find ways to keep reaching out one way or another to children in suffering as seems fitting to the moment through: People-to-people contacts like this trip. Supporting projects for music and the arts to encourage creativity and healing Providing musical instruments and arts equipment to schools and community projects to create the spaces for children to discover and enjoy this form of expression. ………and in this way continue to make a small contribution to creating that sustainable psychological garden of the heart that children can find rest and joy!

Modern Fung Shui Living Spaces

Central is the busy financial district of Hong Kong Island. Narrow, crowded streets packed with pedestrians, double-deckers buses, trams and nifty, fast-moving red-and-white taxis hardly allow for a leisurely walk. Yet, alongside the overbearing highrises, sit the stately, squat, and expansive heritage buildings representing a different aesthetic of space. My favorites among these restful sights are the Flagstaff building and the St. John’s Cathedral.


The Hong Kong Park straddles the spaces between these two building and came as a delightful surprise the first time I saw it! A charming example of the Fung Shui Woodlands that comprise the cultural landscape of the city, the Hong Kong Park forms an interesting natural and simulated fung shui ecological buffer zone between nature and the city. The built-up stairway waterfall simulates a gurgling stream, to cut out the sound of rushing traffic, beyond which lives a cool, dark, wooded grove of old, gnarled Chinese banyan, silk cotton and pongamia.


This week the Park was a noisy riot with the sounds of birds like the Red Whiskered and Chinese Bulbuls, Yellow Crested Cockatoos, Koels, Spotted Doves and Rose Ringed Parakeets. A pool, very typical of Fung Shui Gardens, was filled with Carp in hues of yellow, gold, orange, white, grey and black that moved in unison to the vigilant, watchful eye of a rather rascally night heron. Given that it was lunchtime, the Park was filled with visitors, who had come to watch the fish over a brown bag lunch, enjoy the sense of space under the canopy of flowering trees or catch up on one’s reading in the sunshine. Most of us watched the Heron in tense anticipation of what was expected to come! But the Carp chanced it every time! They took turns to swim in pairs, squint from underwater for a quick, distorted look before rushing back to base! My jaw dropped at their tenacious curiosity.


Gardens and Parks support different life forms and provide a living space without discrimination to all beings, including the birds, trees, the local office-goers and me. In busy cities, large colonial buildings bring their gardens with them. An inclusive urban culture does therefore merit that gardens and old buildings coexist within the big busy hubs of large cities as the new modern oasis of the expanding urban concrete deserts.

Heritage in Hong Kong

A Heritage Walk around Hong Kong, includes exploring the cantonese food culture, and is a good way to kick start the afternoon. Wanchai, where I spent this after with P, has several little Cha Chan Tengs and traditional Noodle Shops with steaming pots of soup waiting to be tried. This herbal tea with Lotus seeds, is just one example of the desert soups that come so subtle and delicate that you can just about perceive the flavour.

A Spring afternoon is quite beautiful with a gentle breeze and warm sunshine. Inbetween the commercial high rises, appear the odd old dilapitated site, awaiting demolition. This old woman sits in the sun, an old wicker basket of chestnuts and a wooden table define her little space and purpose. Different and indifferent to the rest of the fast paced residents of Hong Kong, she shows she belongs there !

A tram ride is a eco friendly way to get about - slow, cheap and no emissions. No Air Con too.... much to the dismay of the tram drivers. The papers are repleate with news about plans for a new tramway along a rapidly developing waterfront promanade on Hong Kong Island.

Blue house, on Stone Nullah Street, no prizes for guessing how it got its name. The blue inspires the amateur photographers in us. A martial arts training centre, Blue House is surrounded by traditional chinese healers, bone setters and dentists. There must be a thriving business out there waiting to be tried!

Now, this is The Pawn! No, not a Pawn shop anymore as the name might suggest. The Pawn is posh new restaurant on a heritage site! It lies in the public domain but is not a museum. So the option remains, to hang out on the top floor and not dine there. A recent newspaper indicated that this is a grey zone, a common property resource, gradually appropriated by the diner!