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Lenggu Monastery
A tiny CERS project hidden inside a sacred mountain
By Wong How Man, Hong Kong
From the satellite image on my iPad, our route is penetrating into the heart of the high snow range surrounding what is Ge Nyen sacred mountain (6204 meters). The circular cluster of snowfields somewhat resembles petals of a lotus. A trail with peaks on both sides was what we used as access into the mountain. Beside it was a clear and pristine river cascading down from glaciers and alpine lakes. Between 2017 and 2019, twice, my team and I entered this remote mountain fastness.
Launch of the New CERS Research & Education Base in Lao PDR
By Dr William V Bleisch, Luang Namtha, Lao PDR
As the small twin-engine prop plane touches down at Luang Namtha Airport, I wonder what to expect. After all, the China border is just one hour away, and there were several hundred Chinese overseas workers there just two weeks ago before Spring Festival, most of them from central China. They come to work building the high speed rail line that will someday link Kunming and Vientiane, or to erect the new modern apartment towers in Moding Special Economic Zone on the China-Laos border. Although inside Lao PDR, the currency of Moding is RMB, the phone signal is China Mobile, and the most common language is Putonghua. The last time I passed through Moding, on my way back to China in December, construction was going on at a feverish pitch.
Island Pursuit – Anxiety unfulfilled
By Wong How Man, Kee Lung, Taiwan
I stand close to the boat’s chimney on the aft deck. It is warming to both body and heart, evoking a nostalgic feeling buried deep inside, which I have totally forgotten for over half a century. I am on a large ferry boat, the Taima Star (Tai for Taiwan and Ma for Matsu), with vehicles underdeck, out of Keelung, the northernmost port in Taiwan. It is late in the evening near midnight when we sail out toward the open sea. The four-year-old boat is 5000 tons with a length of over 100 meters. But my heart goes back to another Star, the Star Ferry in Hong Kong, barely 160 tons and one-third the length. Suddenly my teenage years come back to mind.
For six years, from 1961 to 1967 when I was twelve to eighteen years of age, I sat many times close to a chimney on the under deck of the ferry boat in Hong Kong during the winter months, riding across the harbor to Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon where I attended high school. Occasionally I would bring my ten-speed BSA bicycle along, an eye-catching luxury in Hong Kong during the 60s. In that case however, I would have to take the rival and less posh Yaumati Ferry from Wan Chai to Jordan Road, as the Star Ferry catered to a classier set and did not allow cargo, let alone a bicycle.