We were really tired but once again our bodies (and Enfys) insisted that we should be wide awake at 2:00am. The result of this was that during the day we all had a light headed floating feeling. Dean Andrew met me at the hotel and we walked to the cathedral. On the way we passed the Filipino catholic church and he told me that on a Sunday they have 20,000 communicants.
I am used to bilingual services, but it was a change to have a Mandarin/English communion. All the clergy from Hong Kong Island were there. After the service we all had breakfast together and then shared in a bible study. After a bible study there was a presentation about the work of the HIV education centre. Like some meetings here this was bilingual with translation provided through headphones. This meeting made Hong Kong Diocese quite different from ours because not only do all the clergy meet every week, Bishop Paul is also there, so there was a real family feeling and a melding together of the churches, clergy and nationalities.
Today would be a day that we would all spend together. Fr. Will picked us up to go to Stanley. This is a very posh part of Hong Kong. Our first port of call was Stanley market. This is very good place for tourists because it has stalls of reasonably priced mementoes. One thing that I was particularly on the look out for was something for Brechfa School. In the end I decided to get a sign with Ysgol Brechfa in Mandarin characters. The usual way that Mandarin is written is that each word has its own character, but for names it is possible to use the characters for sounds like in our alphabet. So I ordered a sign to be written and framed and we arranged to pick it up after lunch. Rhys was keen to have something for himself; of course he wanted big things that it wouldn’t be possible to bring home. In the end we settled for a magnetic spinning top that floated, as if by magic on a magnetic field.
After lunch we went to Will’s house. Will is lucky to have a house and garden as part of his chaplaincy work. His house was on the campus of a school. Having a house in Hong Kong is unusual as most people live in apartments. The disadvantages for him were that snakes would come into the garden and there were a lot of burglaries in the area because it was a rich area of Hong Kong.
We were supposed to have an afternoon off but I wanted us to go and see the women’s refuge. Fr. Dwight met us back at the cathedral and took us. Sometimes the refuge has so many women staying there that they sleep on every available surface. It is not air conditioned so it must be very hot and sticky in the summer. The refuge might be under threat if the building it is in is redeveloped and it would be very expensive to move somewhere else, as rents are very high in Hong Kong.
We decided that Saturday would be for Rhys and
Enfys and that meant, against my better judgement, going to Disneyland
Hong Kong. Going to Disneyland was quite a long journey. We caught the
metro from the central station, what we hadn’t realised was just how
big the station was. We must have walked for quarter of an hour in the
underground station to get to the right train line. It was made more
awkward because there were only automatic ticket machines and we didn’t
have the right change, so I had to change some notes into smaller
denominations to use the machines.
It was a long journey on the train. When we got
off at our destination Disney hit us with force. From leaving the
station to returning there was no quiet, music from Disney films was
our constant companion. It wasn’t cheap going in either, as Saturday
was a peak day for price. Despite being a peak day there were not great
crowds so there weren’t very long queues waiting for the rides. Rhys
enjoyed a ride steering an electric car round a track. He found driving
a bit more difficult than he expected. Although we might think of
Disneyland being for children there were a lot of young adults,
especially couples, there for a day out. It was very good for children,
everything very safe and well thought out. Everything was very slick
and the staff treated everyone politely and kindly. On the other hand
nothing was real, every piece of wooden fence of bamboo was plastic.
What really brought the unreality home to me was a Chinese woman made
up to be Alice – white makeup, dressed in a blond wig and a blue dress.
This struck me as not only being unreal but also degrading. Of course
all these things went quite unnoticed by Rhys and Enfys and they did
have a great time, and of course Akole and I enjoyed their delight. So
all in all it was an interesting experience but I don’t think we will
be rushing off to Disneyland Paris.
We all went to the 9am service in the cathedral. On the way to the cathedral we saw worshipers queuing to go to mass in the Filipino Catholic church, I can believe that many thousands of people take communion in that church. The cathedral had a much bigger congregation that I am used to in these three small churches and it was very heartening to see so many. Rhys really enjoyed himself because there was a big Sunday school. Another thing that was quite different for him was that in the Diocese of Hong Kong, the policy is that all baptised children can receive communion. Although the service was quite formal, there was also a friendly feel about the Cathedral and it was interesting for us to meet the congregation afterwards over a cup of coffee.
In the afternoon I took part on the Filipino mass at the cathedral. This was really packed. Most of the congregation belonged to the independent Filipino church. The Bishop of the Philippines was presiding, one thing that was quite different to the UK was that the Bishop and priests took off their shirts and wore their vestments over their T-shirts. Here, I usually try to put on as many layers as possible.
There was a ladies choir and a small music group to help with the music. As we do in Brechfa, they sang the Peruvian Gloria, but it was much jazzier with many, many more voices. I was asked to help distribute the communion and I must have given communion to at least 200 people, and I was only one of three.
After the service I met some of the Anglican Filipinos and learned that one of them had a husband from Lampeter – what a small world. Fr Dwight was very busy with the Filipino groups that met on Sunday.
In the evening we thought Rhys might like a western meal so we went to a Pizza restaurant for a change.
The big event of Monday was the Bishop Paul Kwong’s enthronement in the cathedral. This is the sort of event that Anglicans excel at. Fr Dwight had arranged for a babysitter for us so Akole and I were free to enjoy the evening – we would have been quite tense if Rhys wanted to run about or Enfys decided to cry during the service or banquet. There was a massive procession of clergy from all over Asia. I was next to a priest from Singapore and it was interesting to talk to him and contrast the west and Singapore. Singapore, like Hong Kong is very clean and tidy, not because people drop less litter but because an army of low paid workers keep it clean.
It would be difficult to describe the whole service but one thing that struck out for me was the music, especially the choir singing Zadoc the priest. Bishop Paul’s sermon showed that he was a wise thoughtful man who will be a good leader of the diocese – indeed the whole province as he was recently elected the archbishop of Hong Kong.
The banquet was also a great experience. There were 10 courses so you only take a small amount of each course. There was also fantastic entertainment interspaced with the meal provided by musicians from Hong Kong’s schools. We started with roast suckling pig but some of the other dishes were more challenging. I enjoyed trying shark’s fin soup, but could only manage a taste of goose feet.
One thing that was very different from banquets in the west was that everyone left straight away after the banquet, where here we are used to chatting for hours after the end of the meal. Another difference was that the speeches were interspaced with the courses of the meal, which seemed to me a much more sensible way of doing it compared to having them all at the end as we do.
We
went for a visit to Discovery bay. Revd Sharon took us to the ferry and
got us our tickets. On the way we went past some of Hong Kong’s most
expensive shops – there was no chance of us buying anything from Armani
– though when the shops have sales there are real reductions and
expensive clothes come within reach.
It was quite a journey to Discovery bay and we got a good view of the harbour. As we progressed the smog of Hong Kong got less and although the air never became as pure and clean as Brechfa, there was a marked improvement.
One of the unusual things about
Discovery Island is that cars are not allowed so people have to walk or
use golf carts for transport. Penny from the local church and Fr
Desmond met us at the ferry and took us 
for lunch. They have new parish offices on
Discovery Island near the ferry terminal so it is very convenient for
people to drop in. It was good to get a feel for the work Fr Desmond
does. There were a couple of things that struck me in our conversation.
He told me about taking a group of poorer children to the airport and
asked me what I thought most impressed them. I thought escalators,
which was close, but the answer was the toilets – because they are like
palaces. He also said that when he asked Chinese people what they most
disliked about westerners the answer was – after shave. Two small but
quite interesting cultural insights.
We have two days of sight seeing and a little shopping. Rhys and Enfys enjoyed the excellent playgrounds and we bought some Chinese clothes for the whole family. It soon seemed time to come home again after an interesting and informative trip. Compared to India and Nagaland, Hong Kong Island hardly felt foreign but of course there were many cultural differences. There was much else I would have liked to have seen in Hong Kong. In the Cathedral they had a service using music from the band U2 – the U2charist the Sunday after I left and I would have liked to have been there as well. I came back inspired by the work and outreach of the cathedral; I think there is much our churches could learn from them. You can find out more about the cathedral on their website www.stjohnscathedral.org.hk .
U2 charist in Hong
Kong cathedral