Fili's World | A different look at Asia, China & Taiwan

Revisiting Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple

Fili — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:43:00 PST

One of the busiest temples in Hong Kong and a well known tourist attraction is the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple.

Though I’ve visited the Wong Tai Sin temple a few times before, it’s always interesting for me to be reminded of what my life at Tainan used to feel like …

with a special Hong Kong flavor…

For more information (and a bit from the blogosphere):

Hong Kong Wetland Park

Fili — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:36:56 PST

The Hong Kong Wetland Park is a bizarre combination of nature and museum concrete in a way that only Hong Kong can pull off successfully. Located at Tin Shui Wan, close to the HK Shenzhen border, far away from where most of the tourists visit in HK, and about an hour and a half (!) from where I live in HK, is a large wetland designated by the Hong Kong government to serve as a tourism meets education nature park. To get there, I had to take a bus to Choi Hong, take the MTR, exchange at Prince Edwards MTR station, then again at Mei Fu MTR station, alight at Tin Shui Wai and change to the circular light rail (which I like, BTW) and get off at the Wetland Park entrance. But, it was worth it.

Even tough I sometimes wondered about the obvious human interference in local nature with the modern museum buildings and well constructed pathways, I must say it is all very nicely done, allowing the visitors to get close to nature without obstructing it, making for a terrific spot to stroll around in and take your kids to, if you have any.

Different parts of the wetland have different types of beauty to observe.

Flowers…

Birds…

Mud loving creatures…

and butterflies.

The museum at the entrance also exhibits a few stuffed versions of animals that are said to be living in the area but a bit more difficult to come across during the visit…

The most common creature at the park, though, was the Camerios Hongkongious whose head extends to long lens and who likes to sit down and stare at single focal point for hours.

You got to admire how much the locals spend on their photography. I don’t think I’ve ever seen cameras as impressive as the ones I saw that day at the park.

The park, in case you wondered, did not escape the legendary Hong Kong view of a series of 80+ floors skyscrapers overlooking the park.

To wrap it up, If you’re into panoramas, here are two captures of the park against the HK background.

For more info about the park :

The Hong Kong Wetland Official Website
Discover Hong Kong website
Admission is cheap (15-30HK$), but still – MTR offers the “MTR x Hong Kong Wetland Park Triple Offer” to make it more worth your while if you’re arriving with the MTR
Bird Watching Festival 2009 from 17 October 2009 – 28 February 201

Taiwan Blogging Awards 2009 @Taiwanderful

Fili — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:11:05 PST

Taiwanderful is again running the Taiwan Best Blog Awards in 2009 following the inaugural competition last year.

(Taiwanderful’s Taiwan Blog Awards 2009 announcement)

It’s been a few years since Taiwanderful came into existence with David’s kind help. Although I’m now located in HK I guess I will always Taiwan is my second home. I keep track of the Taiwan Twitter gang, I have dozens of Taiwan blogs and online resources on my RSS feed reader and I’m still very much excited when I meet others I can talk to about Taiwan (and trust me, in HK/China, it gets sensitive).

So, I’m glad we have a chance to do the Taiwanderful Taiwan Blog Awards again this year. David’s been working to extend the original voting idea to also include influential Taiwan based bloggers voting on different categories (which exclude their own blogs, ofcourse).

A team of Taiwan bloggers will judge the blogs in various categories. The judges are Ben, Portnoy, Carrie, Todd, DJ Marcus, and David .

More details are available on Taiwanderful’s Taiwan Best Blog Awards 2009 post:

The award is for English-language blogs about Taiwan registered in the Taiwan blog directory at Taiwanderful. If you want your blog to be eligible for the awards you must register at Taiwanderful before 1 December 2009. Voting in the awards will take place from 1-20 December 2009 and the winner will be announced on 21 December 2009.

You need to register for Taiwanderful (you can also sign in using Facebook) and then enter your blog’s details in the blog directory. If you have previously registered your blog there is no need to register again. However, you might like to check your entry and update it if necessary.

Information will be updated by David or myself through the Taiwanderful Facebook page or @Taiwanderful at Twitter.

Other blogosphere posts about the awards (send me an email to add yours here and to the facebook page) :

Help spread the word. Don’t forget to register your blog if it’s not there yet.

Study in HK : Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme 2010/11

Fili — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:26:16 PDT

Hong Kong’s getting serious about globalization and attracting global academic talent this year with a new scheme for PhD fellowship that is quite generous. The Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) announced last year that the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme will be offered to student applying for the 2010/11 academic year. Since I’m a PhD student in Hong Kong studying without this fellowship, I’m naturally quite jealous, but see this as a good opportunity to extend the good local and mainland base with high quality international students. In the last 2 weeks alone, I answered 5 emails from different prospect students about my experience of studying in Hong Kong as an international student. Every once in a while I write some of my positive impressions of the academic system in Hong Kong so far (links below). As for the scholarships offered, I’ve sent this information to all to many of those I know are looking into a PhD, and this post would be provided as a summary and invitation for other readers who might be interested.

Following are some details from their website :

Background

Established in 2009 by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC), the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme aims at attracting the best and brightest students in the world to pursue their PhD programmes in Hong Kong’s institutions.

Eligibility

Those who are seeking admission as new full time PhD students in UGC-funded institutions of Hong Kong, irrespective of their country of origin and ethnic background, should be eligible to apply. Applicants should demonstrate outstanding qualities of academic performance, research ability / potential, communication and interpersonal skills, and leadership abilities.

The Fellowship

The Fellowship provides a monthly stipend of HK$20,000 (approximately US$2,600) and a conference and research related travel allowance of HK$10,000 (approximately US$1,300) per year for the awardees for a maximum period of three years. 135 PhD Fellowships will be awarded for the 2010/11 academic year.

Selection Criteria

While the academic excellence is of prime consideration, the Selection Panels will take into account, but is not limited to, the four yardsticks below for the selection of candidates:
i. Academic excellence;
ii. Research ability and potential;
iii. Communication, and interpersonal skills; and
iv. Leadership abilities.

Deadline

The application deadline of the Scheme is 1 December 2009 (23:59 hrs, Hong Kong time).

The first time I heard about this direction was in May, reading an article in SCMP and China Daily HK Edition:

The University Grants Committee plans to offer up to 135 scholarships a year for elite students across the globe wishing to pursue doctoral studies in the city, beginning with the next school year.

The scholarships would cost the committee about HK$50 million a year, said its secretary-general Michael Stone.

Each successful candidate would be awarded HK$20,000 a month to cover tuition fees and living expenses as well as an allowance of some HK$10,000 a year for study-related trips, committee member Roland Chin Tai-hong said.

"We would like to attract elite students worldwide," said professor Chin. "A grant of HK$20,000 a month is not too much. The scholarship we offer must be attractive enough to compete for elite students with institutions like MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)."

He said the committee would assess the applicants on their academic results, references, research proposals and performance in interviews.

Foreign students are most welcome, he said. "Currently, most postgraduate students in the city are Hongkongers and mainlanders. If more foreigners study in Hong Kong, it will bring ideological shocks that will benefit both local and mainland students," said professor Chin.

He also hoped the students winning the scholarships would work in Hong Kong when they graduate.

But lawmaker Cheung Man-kwong, who represents the education sector, criticized the committee for launching the scholarships without consulting the Legislative Council and the public.

He urged the committee to reserve some scholarships for local students.

"It should not only gather talent in the city, but also try to retain the elite here when they graduate, so our society can benefit directly," said Cheung.

In his budget speech in February last year, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen proposed to provide 800 more publicly funded places for postgraduate research programs. The new positions were to be introduced in phases from the 2009-10 school year, at a cost of almost HK$300 million a year.

Committee member Judy Tsui Lam Sin-lai said yesterday that it originally planned to roll out 270 more postgraduate places in the next school year, but had recently decided to offer only 100 more in view of the current financial turmoil.

At present, there are some 4,700 postgraduate students in the city.

Tsang also announced last year intent to provide a one-off grant of HK$18 billion to set up a Research Endowment Fund. He said the fund and its investment earnings would replace the existing annual funding granted by the government to the research grants council of the University Grants Committee.

Committee chairwoman Laura Cha May-lung said HK$15 billion of the fund was currently managed by the Monetary Authority. Tenders are now being sought for management of the remainder of the fund.

The University Grants Committee is a non-statutory advisory committee which advises the government on the development and funding needs of higher education institutions in the city.

Interesting initiative, looks good on paper. Would be nice not to be the only international PhD student in the class. We’ll see how this works out for the campus PhD diversity next year.

Macau – The Venetian – World’s Biggest Casino 2009

Fili — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:15:00 PDT

I heard a few things about The Venetian before I went to Macau – that it’s grand, magnificent, it’s built to resemble Venice and that it’s the biggest in the world – but little did I know how extreme this is going to be. The good folks of the Venetian constructed a series of canals with fake European architecture and blue skies indoors at their shopping mall above the huge casino.

Yep, they even have the gondolas, and those even sing Italian opera when they’re navigating the boat. How cheesy.

From the outside it’s a bit hard to relay just how big the entire complex is.

and how grand the casino is inside.

I’m not much of a gambler, so my pre-allocated 20HK$ ran the whole circle of turning into 80HK$, and then 130HK$ only to go back down to zilch. You’re probably thinking point is knowing to quit when you’re ahead, or whatever, but looking at the sorry excuse for humans that I saw around me pushing buttons mechanically you and I both know it’s impossible to do. It happened that once in a while I saw the occasional gambler winning something, and at rare times it was even something big, but a few minutes later it was already gone. If you ever feeling too positive about human nature, a visit to the casinos will help you get back a dose of sad reality.

Okay, enough of that. One last visit to fake Venice to wrap up.

And to think that some people would actually pay the air-fare to really goto Venice in Italy when they just go to the Venetian in Macau. Phewww… people, go figure…

(One thing I hear –is- worth visiting is the Zaia show. Will hopefully catch it next time)

Macau – A-Ma temple

Fili — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:30:00 PDT

A-Ma in Macau, Matzu in Taiwan, and Tin Hau in Hong Kong, the Mother Goddess Lin Moniang is among the most important Gods in the region. Macau, despite being a Portuguese Christian ruled colony now overrun with huge casinos, still maintains some of the A-Ma worship traditions with various temples and tall statues of the Goddess spread around town.

This next temple, within walking distance from the center of the old town, is among the oldest ones I’ve been to dating back as early as 1488, earlier than most if not all temples in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The temple is still very active, serves as a bustling tourist attraction and is now officially a UNESCO heritage site.