UK HKAN HOSTED AN INTERNATIONAL SUMMER REUNION ON SATURDAY 10TH JULY

Posted on July 19th, 2021 by Sue

Written by Sue Jardine

For those who have attended previous online reunions, the joining process will now be familiar – that of your arrival being announced by Debbie to those already on the call. This is usually followed by greetings to one another as you are spotted in the “room” and often a call out of “What’s the weather like where you are?!” Responses can be quite varied because of the international nature of this gathering. This meeting brought together HKAN members who live in the UK, USA, Canada, Singapore and New Zealand.

The meeting opened with a Welcome to everyone, especially those who either had to stay up very late or get up very early to be with us. The big news for the meeting was that our application for a grant from NSUN has been successful. This will support us to continue to have our online meetings and, all being well, to organise our first face to face meeting in the autumn, which will take place in London.

Attendees of this, our Summer reunion, were invited to share photos or images related to the theme of “my relationship/attitude to Hong Kong”. Kate talked about how her relationship to Hong Kong has changed over time and she shared photos she had taken when visiting Hong Kong and the special meaning they had for her. Debbie had selected photos, which were taken from slides she has cleaned and digitised, from a collection on loan to her by Mary Ogden’s son. Mary Ogden was a nurse at Fanling Babies Home (FBH) in 1955.The photos included activities such as a child having a haircut, and the older girls doing everyday tasks of supervising toddlers whilst on their potties, feeding the babies and preparing vegetables for a meal. Serena bought Hong Kong to life by showing us some of her wonderful paintings which were inspired by her visits there. These were scenes depicting Big Buddha, Hong Kong harbour, Hong Hong’s distinctive skyline, street life and the trams near Happy Valley Race course.

Following the presentations breakout rooms were set up to enable small group conversations and the opportunity to get to know other members of the network. 

The last part of the meeting was given to free discussion. A couple of suggestions worth noting were:

*New* Book and the idea of setting up a book club

 Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu, 2020

Cooking tip and an exciting offer of an online cookery lesson for our next international meeting.

Use refined avocado oil when using a wok. In high-heat cooking it has a very high smoke point of at least 400ºF.

As is often the case, final comments before the close of the meeting were about food!

 Another fantastic reunion.

It was great to see everyone and a big Thank You to our presenters, to the organisers, and to all of you for making our time together engaging and fun.

2 Comments

  1. Debbie -

    Thank you to everybody who attended and contributed, it really was so nice to see and reconnect again and of course a Big Thank to both Kate and Sue for helping to organise these events.
    We had a surprise adoptee visitor to our meeting from New Zealand, Jean G, (I think it was about 6am so thank you it was so nice to catch up.) I do hope you can spread the word and encourage more to join from New Zealand..

  2. Debbie -

    At the end of this meeting we closed with a couple of things said by both Lisa A and myself about some experiences that some may have resonated which caused a few laughs.

    Lisa said about how some people talk to us as if we don’t know how to speak English and how she asked people why they were talking so slow and robotic.
    I had followed up briefly with how people were always surprised to see me in person in my work place, especially if I had been talking to them a lot on the phone. Often you would see the person taking a step back when they saw me and then they would follow up with Gosh! you speak good English, well why wouldn’t I, I have been here most of my life. Umpteen questions use to follow this like, How long have you lived in the UK? Can I just check that I have the spelling of your name correct…..

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