Glimpsing Asia

In retrospect watching Blade Runner a few days before visiting Hong Kong was probably unwise, given the immersion with which I watch movies. I only had 24 hours there, half of which I slept through, and so only ten more than I spent on the film, but it was enough to get a glimpse.

An inadvertent speciality of mine when travelling is making my way through the rush hours of major cities using public transport. It looked simple on the map. I hadn't allowed for the millions of other people.

Leaving my luggage with the surly operators of Hong Kong airport's Left Luggage facility I trailed my little wheeled cabin bag to the airport express train and thence to the high-pressure circulatory system that is the Hong Kong MTR, or subway system. It was New York all over again; millions of purposeful commuters pouring in arterial streams through a labyrinth of tunnels, platforms and trains. Most of the signage was in Chinese with English subtitles except the ticket machines and some of the overview maps, which were just in Chinese.

I bumbled along, having slept only fitfully in 36 hours, tight-lipped lest the words "does anybody here speak English ?" slip out, finding my way somehow to North Point from which my hotel was - to quote the website - an easy five minute walk. Riding up innumerable escalators I came to a choice of six different street exits, none of which suggested my hotel's address. No matter; it would surely be obvious.

An hour later, in a back-lane street market selling live fish, very recently deceased chickens, interesting dried herbs, long-dead and dessicated cephalopods and packets of steaming rice wrapped in large green leaves I asked a woman street vendor about the road I sought. A shrug and a vague wave down an even narrower alley. I was now in Ankh-Morpork and wishing my luggage had legs. Each little street spilled on to another little market, or occasionally back to one of the thundering main roads clogged with buses, trams, taxis, people, bikes, cars and hand-carts, the floors of skyscraper canyons overhung with electric tram lines, bamboo scaffolding, clothes on drying racks hanging from apartment windows, giant neon advertising signs, and thousands of air-conditioning units. I wasn't in Kansas any more and all the signs were in Chinese.

Wandering in ever-widening circles from the MTR station I had several adventures and did eventually stumble upon the hotel, a fine modern luxurious hotel - thanks to my travel agents for recommending it. There probably is a way to get there from the MTR in five minutes but I - I took the road less travelled by, and that made all the difference.

A shower, a sleep and a change of clothes before setting out again into the city streets.

Nuance

Nuance

With the cathedrals thundering
at him, history proving
him the two-faced god, there were
the few who waited on him
in the small hours, undaunted
by the absence of an echo
to their Amens. Physics’ suggestion
is they were not wrong. Reality
is composed of waves and particles
coming at us as the Janus-faced
chooses. We must not despair.
The invisible is yet susceptible
of being inferred. To pray, perhaps, is
to have a part in an infinitesimal deflection.

R. S. Thomas

Five days to Twelfth Night

I spent the week directing a production of Twelfth Night for a team of homeschooling families in South Auckland. The kids acted and the parents were the production team. A fine week working with fine people, and a superb two nights of performances; sharp, bright, pacy and alternately hilarious and poignant. The cast, many of whom also took part in my drama workshops a few weeks ago, was aged between 5 and 15 but would put the paces on actors twice or thrice their ages.

It was an ambitious project and today I've emerged blinking into the sunshine not quite believing that it's only been six days since we started. The joy of such projects, and the reason for their irresistible gravitational hold on me, is the alchemy of talents and skills they generate. I love directing that traffic, having faith in people's ability to surprise, and even the game of dodging the reflected glory that can so easily make directors think more of themselves than is healthy.

Example: a casual conversation with one of the mums a couple of weeks ago about scenery. I described a three-sided rotatable flat and we sketched something together on paper that might just work. The next day she produced technical drawings from her husband, a few days later he'd made two of them in the garage. We got them to the theatre this week and puzzled over what to paint on them. Another dad, a graphic artist, drew six architectural sketches of Italian streetscapes and gardens. Four mums, two overhead projectors and a can of paint later we had the ideal elements of a stage set that would endure wind and weather throughout the play.

Meanwhile another dad created Shakespeare's father's coat of arms on a banner which decorated an otherwise forlorn corner of the stage, several mums generated exhaustive lists of props, costumes, scene changes, prompts, exits and entrances. Consequently the backstage management rivalled air traffic control over Heathrow. One of the fathers even made REAL SWORDS (we didn't tell OSH) and so on it went. A community of families selflessly blending its skills and talents to produce a golden production which I'm proud to have been part of.

These children and young adult performers have had a rich immersive experience of theatre which will stay with them; an infinitesimal deflection R S Thomas talks about. Who remembers maths lessons with fondness, or at all ? But most of us remember childhood performances on stage, and the impact they had. My interest in, and respect for the homeschooling phenomenon grows as I see the opportunities for rethinking the fundamental priorities we bring to educating our successors.

Peebles, Southland

Thongor and the Boulders of Doom

Last weekend we drove north from Dunedin, stopping at a fine secondhand shop called The Oddity where I picked up all but two of the Thongor series of chronicles - you know the ones - for a few dollars. The titles tell all:
The Wizard of Lemuria (Thongor the Barbarian faces the vengeance of the Dragon Kings)
Thongor In The City Of Magicians
Thongor At The End Of Time (joyfully, not the last of the series !)
and Thongor Fights The Pirates of Tarakus
Several coffees and junk shops later we meandered through Oamaru.

Somewhere up that coast we stopped to view the Moeraki Boulders, an extraordinary collection of spherical rocks each about the height of a man and lying in the surf on a narrow sandy beach. Other tourists wandered, as we did, in a bemused way along the tight strip as waves broke over these dinosaur egg alien pod gallstones, as if luggage had been washed up from an unseen tragedy. I took photos, sat on one and wondered, as I often do, how to respond to them. Thongor would have known what to do.

In Oamaru two motels diverged on a wide street and we took the one less travelled by. It was, you may say, satisfactory.

Thereafter we headed upstream along the Waitaki river, stopping at Peebles.

That's right. Peebles.

there and back again

Just back from a weekend road trip with Brother Martyn taking in some of the beautiful Otago hinterland. We've been half-way to Mt Cook and over a mountain pass through snow and stunning landscapes where Lord of the Rings was filmed.

Photos when I've got them off the camera, I promise. Meanwhile I've caught a cold and enjoyed a day coughing my way around the steep Dunedin streets.

Ukulele albatross

Dunedin city faces, across its long harbour, a peninsula that doubles back and lies parallel to the shoreline. A drive out on this tongue of land ends at a high point where thousands of albatrosses arrive every year to mate, nest and raise their young.

At this Spring equniox, or at least near the first full moon after it, the birds are arriving and pairing so the colony is off limits to the public. I braved the threatening cold today and drove out there to watch the sea pounding the cliffs and see thousands of gulls also gathering and nesting along the edges of the land.

People also nest here in colonies of baches; small shed-like holiday houses that doubtless teem with families in the summer months, though they are closed and shuttered in the last of the wintry season.

I didn't see an albatross, and I contented myself with photographing swirling water and wheeling gulls. On the way back I stopped to look at the little boathouses that sit out from the shore on clusters of sturdy wooden posts. Some are plain and some painted gaudy colours or decorated with bright murals.

Tonight Marty took me to see the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra at Dunedin's last remaining grand theatre. An unlikely treat; dry humoured and still blinking somewhat in the light of their success, they gave a grand evening's entertainment. They look like a collection of Open University lecturers and students clothed entirely from charity shops. The double-bass player, who suggested that his instrument was in fact a ukulele and that he was just very small, looked like a Tim Burton animation, and I'm sure that was Neil from the Young Ones sitting third from the left. Peculiarly New Zealand, with hints of the Conchords and undoubted musical genius.

This weekend is the mid-point of my current sojourn. It's also the full moon, and snow is forecast. I'm the furthest away from Scotland that I've ever been, and now I begin my return journey.