Hong Kong

Yesterday was particularly thrilling because we got to get off the ship. All of us have been going a little stir-crazy, since we’re stuck on the ship though it’s not going anywhere. But tonight we actually sail to the Port, meaning that we’ll be able to come and go without having to adhere to the tendering schedule and dealing with the gangplank, which is next to impossible for anyone with disabilities or bad knees or simply leary of an accidental spill into the sea.

Anyway, I was quite fortunate and pleased that one of the IRCs, Nancy, invited three of us to join her for the night: Marcela, an IRC from Mexico; Ashley, a faculty member from Albuquerque; Ann, an IRC from China. (IRC = Intercultural Residence Counselor; akin to residence advisors in US universities). Nancy is a first-generation Chinese American, born in Hong Kong, raised in Boston, who has a first-gen Chinese American friend, Felix, from Boston who has been living in Hong Kong. He and his girlfriend Irene, who is the District Executive Officer of HK’s Home Affairs office, met us at the pier at 7:00.

The ride on the ferry gave us a thrilling view of the incredible skyline, though it was chilly. I think I tried to describe it before, but I can’t do it justice. I’m quite sure that the Victoria Harbor skyline is probably one of the most beautiful in the world. The south side is highlighted by the Convention Center, and the steel and glass of various financial buildings, and the island’s tallest skyscraper, which is an astounding 1,378 feet tall. It is impossible to miss. From the other direction, if you’re approaching Kowloon, you not only see the Arts and Culture Center, but the hills of the New Territories lurk in the background. As I mentioned, during the holiday season, the building have elaborate neon designs on them as well as laser displays that emanate from the building tops. We sat on the top of the ferry and froze our asses off, but it was well worth it.

Once we arrived, Felix and Irene met us and we strolled along the “promenade” as it were. This city definitely has high aesthetic values. Neon gold stars about the size of a dinner plate were everywhere, lining the walkway and illuminating the water. The crowds were already gathering, but the tone was pretty low key. The atmosphere was festive but tranquil, and people of all ages were visible everywhere we went. We arrived at a hot pot restaurant at which our new friends had made reservations.

Hot pot is a traditional Chinese dish that’s as much about the preparation as the eating. We sat at a table that had a hot plate in the center, upon which is placed a pot of boiling broth that you select. Because all but one of us wanted a spicy broth, we a double-sided pot with spicy broth on one side and a more mild broth on the other. Then we ordered very thinly cut slices of chicken, pork, beef, several kinds of wontons, oysters, and all kinds of veggies. A veritable feast! Think fondue – using your chopsticks or a ladle, you put a vegetable or slice of meat or a wonton directly in the pot. It very quickly cooks, and then you can put it in your own bowl or directly to your mouth : ) The meal was insanely delicious, especially after a week of the ship’s food, which as I’ve mentioned is not very good.

Although in the end, Felix and Irene were fantastic hosts and wonderful company, there was one moment early on, which I had to make a conscious decision not to go off. He and Irene had demonstrated how to prepare and eat the food, so we were all eating and chatting and having a good time when out of nowhere he says, “It’s always so interesting to eat hot pot w/ Americans because they always only serve themselves. In China, it's important to think about others, so you put several things in at once so that everyone can share." His comment extraordinarily pissed me off. Believe me, I’m well aware that Americans tend to have a sense of entitlement that doesn’t translate in other cultures, but we were following his lead – plus he’s American! All he had to do is say something like, “Now that you’ve got the hang of it, here’s how we put several things in at once and everybody shares.” I had to think about the ramifications of reacting to the same degree that I felt. I decided to let it pass and am glad I did, but it was a tense moment.

On the other end of the awkward scale, I did inadvertently put a fish wonton into my mouth that was raw and cold in the center. This I blame on the fact that we were all throwing things into the pot, so it was hard to know what had been in for what amount of time. As soon as I bit into it, though, I knew it wasn’t cooked, and I didn’t know what to do because we hadn’t been given napkins. I was also quite horrified that I was going to get food poisoning. I scanned the restaurant for the rest rooms but didn’t see them. I know it’s ugly but I had to think fast, so I pretended to cough and expunged the slimy, oozing ball of mush from my mouth and then threw it underneath the table. After that, I was afraid to eat anymore so I feigned fullness. Moments later, Ashley chose a raw wonton as well. I could tell by the look on her face. She kind of whispered to me, but we were sitting at a round table in a brightly lit space. I didn’t know what to tell her, and then it didn’t matter anymore because she decided to swallow it. She looked rather glum afterwards, but unlike me, she kept eating. As it later turned out, neither of us got sick so we both suffered in silence for no reason.

Later, I told him how much I like the little – very little – I’ve seen of HK – the fact that most people speak English, that it seems pretty low key for such a heavily populated place, the easy access to ample natural beauty, a fantastic public transportation system, and the fact that though it’s gotten expensive, it’s still a relative bargain in some things, such as electronics. I asked him his opinion about the city and whether he would recommend it as a place for a newcomer. He felt like it wouldn’t necessarily be such an easy transition because it would be hard to make friends. Instead he suggested Kuala Lumpur, which is a place that’s never even remotely been on my radar. I don’t even think I know anyone who has been there, but it’s definitely food for thought.

After dinner we walked around quite a bit and then ended up at Happy Together, which is a popular desert place. Marcela had fried black sesame ice cream, Nancy had a chilled mango soup with little tapioca balls in it, Ashley had a chocolate cake with hot chocolate fudge inside, and Felix had black sesame wontons in a cooled ginger-sugar broth. I don’t know the names for the deserts; all but Ashley’s were traditional. I had some kind of puff pastry thing that had a soup of tofu in a sweet, chocolaty kind of sauce, which was good but as I’m not over excited by chocolate, I was a tad disappointed. I had let Irene choose for me, though, so I went with it.

We bought a couple bottle of beer and then tried to find a spot to catch the fireworks. I think the most noticeable thing was that for as crowded as it was everywhere, everyone was well behaved. Though there were cops around, their presence wasn’t aggressive. It was as unlikely a thing as I’ve ever seen – that many people and no visible problems. Scads of people of all ages, families etc. and everyone was having a good time but there was never a moment of feeling like something bad might happen.

We found a spot where we could see a bit of the fireworks and laser show, though our view was obscured by some of the skyscrapers. But people were happy and at midnight we all cheered. At that point I desperately needed to use the restroom. We went into a McDonalds but the line was outrageously long, so we went to a bar called Nathan’s Pub of all things – a Brit kind of bar. We hung out there a bit and then wended our way back to the pier to await our transport, which came at 1:30am.

All in all it was a very good night. Back at the ship, everyone who was around was giddy. Coming back it was like being greeted by long lost companions. In fact, some of the people in the reception area did think that I had been lost. They hadn’t seen me board the ferry, and they were worried that I’d been left behind. Of course that didn’t prevent them from theoretically leaving me behind. : )

Yesterday and today, we had safety training. Anybody remember the Titanic? Har har har.

So basically it’s like this. Should the ship incur a breach of the hull or a fire or bad weather, in most cases we’d have about an hour to evacuate – time enough to go back to one’s cabin.

Each cabin is stocked with life jackets with identifiers unique to your deck and section. In the event of an emergency requiring that we abandon ship, we’re to go back to our cabins and get the life jacket from our room (reason being that the jackets have ID numbers on them that among other things, tell the crew members to which lifeboat to direct us). That way they can keep track of everyone. There are, of course, extra life jackets, but the idea is to remain organized. This ship can normally handle 1,000 tourist passengers and 300 crew members. Our voyage will have about 250 passengers and 150 crew members, so there are plenty of boats. Should anything happen, we will end up filling three boats instead of spreading out amongst the ten that they have. Each boat has enough water to last every person 20 days and food for 30 days as well as some thermal suits, though we should wear the warmest clothing that we have. (Of course I didn’t bring any warm clothing and will need to shop for clothing in Shanghai because the air conditioning is working extremely well, and as per usual, I’ve been freezing my ass off since day one. Furthermore, it’s actually snowed in Shanghai last week).

The whole 20 – 30 day thing made me a little queasy and forced me to really think about that fact that for at least two segments of this voyage, we’ll be in the middle of nowhere – Chennai (Madras) to Cape Town and Cape Town to Barcelona. That’s actually why we’re stopping at the Seychelles and Cape Verde, respectively – so as to have a little break. Anyway, each life boat has 10 flares – 6 that are visible 20 to 30 miles away and 4 for use at a closer range; they are also stocked with three smoke signal canisters for daylight use as well as a mirror for signaling.

If we have to jump directly into the water, we must try to do so from one of the lower decks because jumping any distance greater than five meters will break your neck if you’re wearing your life jacket. Great.

Should anyone witness someone falling overboard, they are to be tossed a life ring, which lights up at night, allowing the victim to see the ring and the ship to be able to turn around or stop and try to reach the person.

There are four security officers whose job it is to patrol the entire ship every ten minutes – 24/7 - to make sure nothing is awry – no nascent fires, no water seeping in anywhere or whatever else could happen.
Being a learned bunch, more than a few people were worried about the Malaga Straits, which we will be passing through. That area of sea is subject to modern day pirate attacks – about three or four per month. We were assured that this is not much of a concern for us. The pirates typically attack cargo ships, not passenger ships, in part because the bridge on most passenger ships is too high for the little pirate ships – which usually attack in packs of three to four - to pull up along side and climb aboard. Also it’s clearly not as lucrative to attack passengers vs. merchandise. Personally I would find it a little thrilling to witness a pirate attack, but of course I don’t want to be part of one. I’ll be out on the deck as much as possible during the crossing : )

I did receive some small comfort from the fact that the crew member giving us the training said that in 30 years of being in the industry, he’s never had to leave the ship. However, I know you can’t go by stats. For instance, the rival program, Semester-at-Sea, averages three medical evacuations per voyage. Check out this stat: the previous voyage of TSS had seven. One was apparently very dramatic, an evac helicopter and all that. I know that one person had appendicitis. Some of the others had “stomach” ailments, but not of the viral kind; apparently they were related to conditions that the people had before coming on board the ship. Also last voyage they had a Russian doctor, who didn’t speak much English and had never worked in this kind of setting; she or he couldn’t read the equipment or something like that. Lame, but suffice it to say that there’s a new doctor. Latin American, not sure where from. I’ve spoken to her, and she has the air of competence – but then so do I, sometimes. ; )

Two people have had acute attacks of motion sickness already, which I find slightly distressing since we’re not really moving. I feel a sway now and then – of the ship, not my stomach - but we’ve been anchored in the same spot for days. I’ve never had motion sickness, but there’s a first time for everything, and I’ve never been in the middle of the ocean, so I’m just keeping my fingers crossed. I mostly feel a little sway when I look in the mirror in the bathroom – not sure why – and also when I first lay down, especially if I lay on my back. But so far, there hasn’t been anything that’s caused me undue distress, so I hope that I prove to have strong sea legs.

As for the other safety stuff, it was a little intimidating, but how can we go wrong when we have an Egyptian psychologist onboard named Isis and a Greek deputy captain named Dionysius? With any luck we’ll have a student named Jesus or Siddhartha. If not, I’ll rename myself in order to make a triumvirate.

Here's wishing all of you the best in 2008! Stories to come....

I start this post by apologizing for the disjointed nature of these posts. There’s so much going on that I would like to share, and it’s difficult to keep things separate as I would prefer to do. In future posts, I may try to use headers within the post themselves, but this is all a crapshoot right now!

For one, there's life on board the ship and the social setting, which includes my fellow program staff, the hotel/cabin crew (a mixture), the food service crew (mostly S.E. Asian), Royal Caribbean’s crew – mostly Greek, although there is at least one Honduran, one Nicaraguan and one Black American - who actually “drive” and maintain the ship (in fact, we’re flying a Greek flag), and soon there will be students! This is truly a melting pot, and everyone’s background and story is amazing.

Though the staff and students are skewed towards Americans, which is something they’d like to address, most of us are nomadic souls in one sense or another. There are people who’ve been in the U.S. Foreign Service, the Peace Corp, a woman who teaches but is a Human Rights Attorney from Maine but has been involved in cases that required her to live in Lithuania for six months, and Armenia for a couple of years; there are first generation people like myself – an Iranian woman for example and an Egyptian woman who grew up feeling like the odd ball duckling in their lily white communities in the United States and have had to grapple with the same identity issues that I’ve had being Black and African and American but not feeling like a Black American. Some people have been in the military or were military brats. There’s a Canadian guy who lives on a sail boat somewhere in British Columbia during the summer breaks and then sails to Vancouver to teach during the semesters, riding his bike to and fro, and then sails back to his secret place; he’s also sailed around the world by himself. The outgoing Onboard Life Director is “New Mexican,” (which I know will rankle at least one person reading this) and the incoming one is a Black South African. Most everyone is well travelled, many people having studied or worked abroad and/or lived in more than one country for significant amounts of time. Many people, though not all of us, are polyglots. The ESL teacher is actually an Italian guy from Rome.

One particularly surprising story is that of a young Black American staff member, who told us that she has lived all of her life in Boston. She has more than ten siblings and something like 56 cousins, and all of them live within 1 mile of their grandmother. Though she is one of the younger ones, she is the ONLY person in her family to have graduated from high school and gone to college. She admits that when she was younger, she was headed down the familial path and destined for trouble, but while still in grade school she had a teacher who helped her see that if she continued as she was – getting kicked out of schools every four months or so – that her life would go nowhere. Believe it or not, she ended up going through Landmark Education, and she credits that for being the other catalyst that changed her life. Those of you who know the reference probably also know that I am of the camp who fully believes that Landmark is a cult or very close to one - it even has a very small tie to Scientology - therefore, it was an eye-opener to meet someone who has genuinely benefited from it in a positive way. (And to be honest, I like that. I like having to reconsider or rethink a firm belief even if it doesn't change my overall opinion. I think that will be a regular occurrance on this trip and of the beautiful things about travelling). Anyway, she eventually ended up getting accepted to the [Bill] Clinton School for Public Service in Little Rock, but one of her mentors encouraged her to apply for this program. She was a student on the previous voyage, and she was so successful that they invited her to stay for this semester with a staff role – now she’s the Mixed Media expert.

The age ranges of the staff members vary – I’d say that most of the Onboard Life people are in their 20s and early 30s. Most all of them have Masters Degrees already. Most of the faculty are in their mid-40s to late-60s. The administrative staff runs the gamut from 20s to +60. Apparently the student ages last time around ranged from 17 to a couple students in their 40s. This time around there will be at least two students in the their 60s.

I also want to share things about life off the ship, and about the TSS program itself, and specifically about my job. Ideally I’d like to write about one aspect or another, but it’s jumbled for me, and I don’t have much time to write, though fortunately I type pretty fast : )

Another caveat: the technology aspect of things has been and will be a challenge. Though the ship is wifi outfitted, our service comes via satellite and is expensive and slow – slower than a dial up connection – not to mention the bandwidth is extremely narrow. There are two “staff” computers and two “research” computers in the library, but there are strict restrictions on usage. All of us have laptops. Most of the students will bring their own laptops and those who are without will be given loaners. But if the connection has been this slow and tedious with just 30 or so of us, I can only imagine what will happen when another 200 people are added.

That’s another thing. The program is intended for 600 students, but their recruitment numbers have been much lower, probably due to the cost. The tuition for this semester is over $US20k. They do provide some financial aid and some scholarships, including full rides, but that’s a daunting figure for anybody let alone a student, even from the United States. However, I think this would be an exceptional opportunity for any undergrad or graduate student who is certain of entering into international business, international relations, or international communications.

Back to tech piece though: staff members get 250 free Internet minutes. After that we have to pay 50 cents per minute to use the Internet. Similarly, we can make phone calls, but they are $3/min. I’ve been able to write so much these past few days simply because they’re not charging us at all – not even cutting into our free minutes – until Jan. 2, so we’re all frantically trying to communicate as much as we can in the next few days. At the same time, we’ve been doing training sessions more than eight hours a day, so I don’t know how often I’ll be able to post or how much I’ll have time to record once we get going. I think it will probably also be difficult to share picture and videos, but I’ll see what I can do at the various ports. I’m sure all of us will be making a beeline for whatever Internet cafes may be available.

Now, besides the fact that we all know I have a pretty hardcore Internet addiction that is clearly not going to be fed on this trip, I think what’s most daunting is that my forte is Internet Research. That’s going to be difficult to do without a reliable Internet connection. The other thing at which I am particularly good at is knowing how to get information that I can’t obtain directly – I usually know who to call or who to email, and I can follow the trail and get things that way. But again, that’s gonna be tough to do. These are pretty much the only aspect of librarianship that I enjoy. Yes, I am worried. To add to the challenge, the physical collection is woefully inadequate. On the one hand, it gives me a fall back in that we just won’t have access to an overwhelming amount of information, which means that in some instances I’ll only be able to say, “Sorry, but I can’t help you.” On the other hand, I want to be able to fulfill my role, and I do want to be able to help people. So, I’m not sure how this is going to play out, and I’m already feeling a disconnect from my “supervisor.” I’ll leave it at that because I don’t want to make any negative predictions.

The one thing that we all share from a professional standpoint is that this is a work in progress. The program is still new and we’re all operating with an unusually high degree of uncertainty. For example, some of the faculty members are only receiving their textbooks this week. They have to teach from the curriculum set by Maquarie, so they have no choice in which texts to use. Imagine knowing that you’re going to be teaching two or three courses and you’ve never seen the books! In addition, they’re all used to being able to provide ample supplemental materials. The LRC, as I mentioned, is sorely lacking in materials directly related to the specific courses. We’ve got the Encyclopedia Britannica and the World Book, but beyond that the collection is scarce! Our best electronic resource is Wikipedia, which is downloaded in its entirely on the intranet. I'm not as skeptical of Wikipedia as many others are, but I would never use it as my primary citing source. We have access to some databases, but connectivity is an issue so even aside from the Internet itself, it’s gonna be hard to get people the information they need – faculty as well as students.

This is true of every aspect of the program, which is extremely complex and ambitious. It’s almost like trying to organize a big dinner but the tables haven’t arrived and the menus are misprinted, but everyone is eager to be together and chow down. The scope of this thing is incredible and there are so many pieces that are incomplete. At the same time, I’m extremely impressed by how successful they have been so far, and how responsive and reactive and committed to the iterative process. Every day in these sessions we makes suggestion after suggestion about how to do this, how to do that, how to change this, how to change that, and the suggestions are very very seriously received.

I think that if they can get their enrollment numbers up, this could end up being a formidable experiential learning program. I would really like to see it succeed and know that I was a part of helping it get there. It feels like trying to build a family business.

Lastly, I just want to add that I don’t even have time to proofread this things, so sorry about any typos. And I apologize that I can’t prettify the pages with more photos and stuff – at least not yet. That’s it for now. I, and most others, have been exhausted. Tonight, I didn't even go to dinner because I as soon as I went to my room after the last session, I konked out for a few hours. I'm writing this at 2am, but I have to be up in not many hours. I hope that the schedule will ease a bit once we start up, but that's truly wishful thinking. All of us have determined that this is going to be far more work than anticipated - yet, I still believe relatively speaking, I'll have the easiest lot. Nonetheless, I don't think it's gonna be a cake walk. P.S. They served the best flan the other day - YUM!

I woke up at 5:30 so I could workout and shower before my 6:55 a.m. drug test. We were all tested and have been told to expect random testing throughout the journey. I’m viewing it as an annoying ritual that is one of the small prices I have to pay to be here. I have no desire or plans to do anything that would be an issue, but I find it intrusive nonetheless. Our rooms are also subject to random searches by crew members when we’re not present, i.e. I could be elsewhere on the ship or totally off the ship. However, I am apparently a whore for this opportunity, so I’ll let them rifle my underwear drawer or pee in a cup whenever they ask.

After my workout, I had just enough time for a quick shower. I lathered and rinsed and tried to turn off the water, but no matter which faucet I turned, the water kept raining down. The shower has four knobs, which I later found are actually two for the tub and two for the shower. I couldn’t navigate that though, and for a moment I felt like I was drowning even though I was standing upright and the drain was open. I hopped out, dressed, and left the shower going. I found it ironic moments later that while my shower was unable to stop giving, my “inner well” was rather low. However, the medical staff administering the urinalysis accepted my scant “donation.” I was dehydrated from my workout – shrug. I found the cabin steward, and he gave me a quick lesson on operating the shower. So much for my having a college education.

Speaking of H20, we’ve got plenty of it onboard, but the drinking water on the ship is awful. I haven’t had water this bad since I was at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan – home of some notoriously brown, bad tasting water. We’re drinking and showering with water that is desalinated right here on the ship, which is equipped with a reverse osmosis facility and an evaporation tanks as well. While I think it’s pretty nifty, my palate can barely tolerate the heavy iodine taste. In fact, I tried to make a cup of yerba mate, which has an extremely strong flavor of it’s, and it tasted like I’d dredged the bottom of the Detroit River and strained out all the body parts and rusty tires. All the coffee drinkers are giving up coffee, so you know it’s bad. However, I’m doing my best to grin and bear it, downing 64 oz. of it a day. I guess I’ve an advantage in that I don’t like the taste of “regular” water anyway, and though there’s definitely a difference between plain water and really really bad tasting water, I’m still drinking something that turns me off.

While on the subject of beverages, I may as well tackle food. I must say that it’s not as good as I’d expected or hoped for. It’s not awful, per se, but I never really eat my fill because not much of it is truly that appetizing. While I’m not starving by any means, I have had some meals where I felt compelled to assess whether I was getting enough calories. The dining hall is buffet style, but the food and service staff attend to us as if we’re paying passengers. They push in the chairs of all the women, they refill our cups if they look empty, they clear away our plates at the slightest hint that we’re about to get up and do it ourselves. I will say that by and large everybody seems uncomfortable with this, and that makes me like my companions all the more. So far, nobody seems to feel entitled to anything. This could change as we “stop being polite and start getting real,” and I’m absolutely sure that some of the students will be little bitches.

At breakfast, I made a beeline for a new arrival – M., who it turns out is a Black American who lives in Germany 8 months out of the year and Houston the other 4, which is the compromise that he and his German wife have carved out. She is on her way but arrives tomorrow. He told me that they always fly separately because they have kids, and he’s superstitious. This may be very forward thinking, but it’s also a bit macabre. Anyway, he was a delight to talk to for a while. He’s going to be teaching three courses, including one on Political Terrorism. He has a lot of interesting perspectives, but by the end of the day, I began to think he might be one of the wildcards. He’s got a grumbly spirit, like me, but I’m really trying to let that drain out of me, whereas he seems like he’s just waiting for the right moment to let it out in his own enactment of interpersonal political terrorism. I’m not sure I want to associate with that, if you know what I’m saying. Still, his presence kind of made the first half of my day.

Later in the day we had another new arrival. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop, C. is the person I’ve been awaiting. She’s a new faculty member, and she has an extremely aggressive, intense, almost confrontational personality. I knew that everyone here couldn’t be as chill as they’re coming across. So, while I don’t enjoy her interpersonal style, I applauded myself for knowing that there’ve got to be a few people who can be counted on to disrupt the apparent serenity that’s been established so far. I figured someone so belligerent – here I’m about to betray one of my prejudices – must be Germanic, but it turns out she’s Israeli. I thought back to the excellent film Munich about the Israeli response to the 1972 Olympic hostage crisis, and I remembered how fierce this people are. Believe me, I will not be crossing her in any way! Even the TSS Executive Officer, a Moroccan guy, and the Vice Dean of Academic Affairs, an American woman, were more tolerant of her behavior than I wanted to see and everyone has been abuzz about her, which is interesting because this doesn’t strike me as a particularly gossipy group. However, I must concede that for the most part she raises very good issues, is extremely knowledgeable and focused, and I think ultimately will be an extraordinary asset to the program.

Honestly though, she ruined my afternoon because we were divided into faculty and Onboard life folks for a three-hour breakout session with no break. I technically fall under the faculty rubric, which sucks for me because it’s mostly the older people – nothing wrong w/ that, but I wanted to get to know the younger folks whom I had clicked with the day before. Also, the issues of the faculty-proper don’t genuinely concern me and academics can be a tough crowd to deal with because they all consider themselves experts. Just like they say that doctors make the worst patients, I think tenured professors make for poor students. They had questions about the grading system, the curriculum, and specific questions about their courses and general policies and procedures, all of which are dictated by Australia’s Macquarie University. (TSS has formal relationships with universities around the world, including Fudon University in Shanghai, the University of Ghana, the University of Cardim-Wales, UC Berkeley, and two universities, one in Mexico and one in Morocco).

Anyway, I was simply trying not to drool on myself during the breakout session, but the Israeli woman badgered and pestered and harassed everyone until the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and you can imagine how difficult a feat that must be for my hairs. In the end, she initiated a monotonous and rather moronic debate about how the students should address the faculty. Most people said they had no preference, but she kept insisting that the Asian students will be offended if the other students are allowed to call any of the professors by their first name. Most people said that either they did have a preference in one direction (to be called by first name or to be called Dr. So-and-So) or that they didn’t care one way or another. This woman kept raging about how it was wrong to offend the Asian students by allowing other students to be less formal. One guy in particular said that part of experiential learning is to experience different mores. While nobody is deliberately setting out to be offensive towards anyone, it’s not such a bad thing to expose someone to something that may push them out of their comfort zone. But no matter what anyone said, she wouldn’t let it go, and she kept it up for 45 minutes. It really killed my energy.

During the “great debate,” I examined the rest of our training schedule, and I have to say I wasn’t too thrilled with it. We’re extremely busy from now until Jan. 2, and that’s when the students arrive. I won’t have much opportunity to explore Hong Kong at all, but I don’t think this will be true at the other ports. Part of the issue here is that we’re not actually docked at the port, so we have to adhere to the tendering schedule. However, at the rest of the locales we will be docked right at the port, so there will be much more flexibility about coming and going. For that reason, I’m glad that Eric wasn’t able to join me in HK after all. We’re still hoping to connect in Shanghai, and I think that will end up being for the best. Meanwhile, G., to whom I report, arrived today. We had a brief talk about the state of things. I’ll get into that more later, but it appears that while we’re at sea, I’ll be working from 8 am to 2pm and she’ll take the 3pm to 11pm shift, per her preference. That’s fine with me. For the most part, the LRC will be closed when we’re at port, so from the sounds of it, I’ll be free* or at least have a great deal of flexibility. But again, I’ll know more in the next several days.

• It will be interesting to see how much “freedom,” I’ll have because there’s an effort to integrate each and every staff member into the overall experiential learning aspect of the curriculum. Two days after writing this post, I am to discover that each of us is assigned to a Learning Circle, which, as I’ll explain, comes with a fair amount of responsibility throughout the journey and particularly when we’re in ports. Each of us is also assigned to at least one Academic Field Program (essentially a field trip), which means I will be playing chaperone at least once. However, most of the AFPs sound intriguing as they are three-day trips off the ship that tend to require overland travel and overnight stays.

The executive staff decided to give us an early break today because so many people are still jetlagged, so a big group of us opted to go back ashore. I ended up tagging along with a bunch of people who were going shopping. Someone needed a laptop; another person wanted a kettle to boil water in her room in hopes of killing the taste (I opined that boiling it won’t help because the tea I had this morning and the coffee everyone is complaining about are made with boiled water, duh); and various other people wanted various other things. We started out as a clump of about eight people but in the end I wound up in a trio. M., in particular, - the young woman from Mexico -is a lovely, lovely person. A. cracks me up. She might live in NM, but she is truly Northern Cal at heart. We’ve already discussed our plans for Amsterdam (wink). We mainly hovered in the Nathan St. area of Kowloon, which was so brightly lit that it seemed like daytime. Hong Kong’s denizens love to shop!

The ferry ride to and from TSS presented an AMAZING skyline. HK is crazy! The Christmas season is renowned for elaborate neon light displays that are spectacular at night – imagine your childhood Lite Brite the size of a skyscraper. It is really something else. Also harbour itself is one of the busiest stretches of waterway in the world. Here you can find the last of the genuine sailing junks to be found in China. Unfortunately my camera takes horrible night shots, and I didn’t have my new camcorder with me (shame on me), but I didn’t grab it because we were going shopping. I’m hoping to have it with me when we go out for New Year’s Eve. We have the option to stay on the ship, which will provide a unique vantage point for the fireworks, but I lament that I won’t have had a chance to explore the city as thoroughly as I would have liked so I’m gonna go out and about for sure.

I really like the energy of the city to the extent that I’ve been able to experience it. HK seems like the perfect melding of East and West. I guess I’ll just have to come back one day. It seems outrageous to say since I’ve experienced so little of it, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it feels like a place I could live; I have the same feeling about it that I did after my first visit to SF some years ago. I don’t know how easy or difficult it would truly be to integrate oneself here, find work, etc. but from an energetic level it speaks to me. It has the city part that I connect to, but it also has easy access to nature and natural settings that I loved about SF, too. Though it’s crowded it doesn’t feel crowded to me. Plus there’s the water, which is important for one who is used to living near big lakes or being in biking distance of the ocean. And there are lots of cultures to encounter. It has a rich history, and from a practical standpoint, most everyone speaks English. If I could find a gig here, I would definitely consider it. I’d have to visit again to confirm, but my preliminary sense is that it could be great.