Tuen Ng (a.k.a. Dragon Boat Festival)

On Sunday past, Hong Kong celebrated Tuen Ng; this is a public holiday commemorating a special event in the history of HK. The tradition goes as follows: Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month/moon of the Chinese calendar (approximately early- to mid-June), commemorating the death of Qu Yuan, a famous Chinese poet who lived during the Warring States period. Known for his patriotism, Qu Yuan tried unsuccessfully to warn his king and countrymen against the expansionism of their Qin neighbors. When the Qin Dynasty general Bai Qi took Yingdu, the Chu capital, in 278 BC, Qu Yuan’s grief was so intense that he drowned himself in the Miluo river after penning the Lament for Ying. According to legend, rice dumplings were thrown into the river to prevent fish from eating the poet’s body. (reference: http://zique.blogsome.com/2007/08/12/glutinous-rice-dumpling/)

So, following with tradition, Dragon Boat races are held all over Hong Kong. We were able to go to the races in Sai Kung, only 20 minutes bus from us. There were lots of people, boats, and festivities. Hope you enjoy the photographs from this eventful celebration!

The Cases

Hiking in Sai Kung National Park East

I officially finished my last term paper on Friday, December 28th and on Saturday, Melanie and I decided to head up north to Sai Kung National Park, which is known to have many good hiking trails. So within an hour we got ready, including Ezri, decided on a trail, figured out how to get there and set off. Amazingly enough we actually found the trail we were heading for and the day was off to a great start. The next big surprise is that the trail was paved. We were hiking stage 2 of the MacLehose Trail backwards because we found on the internet it was easier to do backwards (start from the top of a mountain) and had beautiful views as opposed to stage 1. It was exactly what the doctor ordered.

We went out to eat about a month back with some friends Melanie has made from playgroup and one of the couples was from Manhattan. Given that he was from the states I took extra joy in conversating with him, a financial analyst. He asked me what I thought about the speed of living in Hong Kong. I asked what he meant, and he went on to express how fast the pace of life was here in Hong Kong even compared to Manhattan, the financial capitol of the world. School hadn’t really kicked in to high gear at the time and I told him that we hadn’t really experienced the speed, living outside the city, but then I wasn’t prepared for the end of the semester either. One thing about finishing the semester in HK. It drags on forever. In the states it seems like you always finish the 1st or 2nd week in December, here I finished the 28th (yes, after Christmas). The professors do it as a favor to the students, but it doesn’t really feel like one, until it’s finished. You know the saying, “If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy”, well the devil has definitely been working on the people of Hong Kong. Anyway, it’s finally finished and I think I finished well, so I’m happy about that. What I’m not happy about is the way it took a toll on Mel & Ez, but Mel has been amazing and I think God has really grown all of us through this period.

Anyway, back to hiking, it was great, if I had a quarter for everytime Melanie said, “It’s so beautiful out here!”, we wouldn’t be going broke. It was one of those days where everything seems to go your way. We had hiked about 3 miles over a substantial mountain, passing a pregnant cow, and were about to a resting point when we thought we’d better ask someone how far it was to the nearest road, where we might be able to flag a taxi for a ride back to town. A nice Australian family was nice enough to tell us we were about a mile and a half away and that we needed to back track. They told us that if we didn’t want to hike up the final mountain we had started from we could take a ferry around to a pier and catch the bus from there. After Melanie & I panicked for a few minutes, yelled at each other a bit, we decided to head back and providentially caught the last ferry for the evening (in the nick of time, whatever that means). Once we reached the pier we boarded the bus back to Sai Kung. I picked up some BBQ (Chinese style), waffles and ice cream for a great finish to the day (thank God for ibuprofen). Enjoy the pics!

Jason for the Case family