First Visit to Tin Shui Wai
On my first visit to Tin Shui Wai, I was lucky enough to be the guest of Mrs Grace Kwok, the School Principal of the MFBM Chan Lui Chung Tak Memorial College. I visited Grace's College, and meeting her pupils was a highlight of the trip.
Tin Shui Wai is extraordinary. A few short years ago it was paddy fields and fish ponds, with Mangrove swamp where the earth meets the sea. Now it is a new town, at the end of an efficient rail-link to Hong Kong, with trams, a mall, schools, and what seems like hundreds of government-built apartment towers, housing many thousands of people. It's clean, fresh, efficient and impersonal. The challenge that people like Grace are meeting in Tin Shui Wai is to provide more for people. More to unlock their creativity and talent.
The students of the College welcomed me with a lion dance, and
showed me their current play/sketch about "basic law" in Hong Kong. We worked on theatre games and exercises, and when they took me to their English lab and hang out room, there were photographs of Dunluce Castle and Carrick-a-rede on the wall. It turns out their teacher was from Limmerick. Small world.
Second Visit to Tin Shui Wai
My second visit to Tin Shui Wai was in August 2007. I worked with Terence Sin of Chung Ying Theatre on English language theatre for young people. It was quite a challenge. We had to selected the best students from 7 groups who all staged The Three Questions and over the course of 3 mornings restage the story with them. Whilst over coming the language gap. A wonderful experience due to the quality of the children and the all round wonderfulness of my Chung Ying Colleagues, but it would be nice to have more time for creativity next time! This said, the young people's performance The Three Questions has been performed several times across their district.