Horns and Tales

A car-horn in Hong Kong is not an accoutrement.  It is not even a safety device.  It is a "Necessity of Face."  Automobiles aren't vehicles of transportation -- they are just a necessary appendage of the Horn.  When drivers meet at the local fill-up station, they don't boast about horsepower, or new leather, or car finish.  They boast about horns.  One says, "I have a 96-Decibel Oompahafen with brass finish."  The other retorts:  "It's nothing like my Technolog-Scream-o-puffer.  It can deafen at 200 meters."

When you cross in front of a moving automobile, they have the legal and moral right to bump over you and drive merrily on their way.  They don't because of the amount of paperwork it would cause.  So they lean on the horn.  They don't toot.  Toots are consigned to the world of flatulence.  They lean and keep leaning until you run screaming down the road holding your hands to your ears, or until you pass from sight.  Why not one short blast?  Why do they believe that Sustained Sound will move you faster?  I don't move fast.  Ask my wife.  The best I can do is increase my shuffle a little.

Marcie:

They also perform special cacophanous numbers during nocturnal hours when you're striving for REM sleep.  You can be entirely in dream-state and still be completely awakened in seconds by the  olympic horn competition on Hennessy Road.  Each horn has its own tone and timbre like an instrument in a symphony orchestra.  They never blare in thirds, only in dissident tones that imitates Miss Brill  scratching with her chalk during an arithmetic lesson.

I am just coming up on the completion of having taught a 6-week course to the Phillipina sisters on Money Management and Women's Empowerment.  The stories I could tell about the victimization of these generous women loaning money to a friend would rend your heartstrings.  Many of them are nearing their forties and have worked unendingly to educate their older brothers (all the way through college).  The sacrifice is shameful as they have not yet had a chance for school because they are insuring their siblings' success.  Sadly, many of the siblings are living on the domestics' money and have no intention of finding work; life is too sweet.

Steve Again:
Off to the left is a picture of the graduates of a welfare project in Cambodia.  All these young people were "landfill children" -- finding a living by sifting through the garbage and food in the landfill.  The Church created a baker/chef school.  The bread they produce during their course goes to the poor.  The graduates are highly sought after -- it's a great success story of saving people -- one of the stories we're using for our websites.

Both the branch president and the ward clerk are traveling, fled to distant parts.  There is loneliness and there is total abject destitution.   This is the abject kind -- the sisters keep asking me things they think I should know.  This is a problem -- I have one of those kind, half-grey, half-bald heads -- but that doesn't mean there's a lot of action inside.

 I have stewardship over the branch and my intent is to have it still existing when they get back, but there is no guarantee that will happen.  Yesterday, they celebrated the 169th anniversary of the Relief Society, complete with individually crafted bookmarks, and amazing large sign, a meeting that went over by 40 minutes at which both Mom and I spoke, and a baked chicken dinner.  I managed to double-schedule myself -- I was supposed to be teaching a Priesthood lesson at the same time I was presiding at the RS meeting.  I hear the brethern had a testimony meeting.  They probably gave their testimonies with clenched jaws, since their teacher wasn't present.  I didn't have time to warn them that I wasn't going to be there since I was late to the RS meeting -- these sisters think they can't proceed without the priesthood (only sisters from the US think the priesthood isn't that necessary)-- so I was holding up the entire meeting.  When I got there, they pinned a corsage on me and swept me to the front, where I sat and ran the podium for most of the meeting .  Running the podium was the apex of my contribution to the meeting -- that and smiling benignly.

I wanted to send you a copy of last month's Media Newsletter that Marcie and I edit.  But I don't know how to do this -- maybe I'll send it to my children and if anyone cares, they can ask them.  I think upgrading the electronic media capability of the Church in Asia is like turning the Titanic.  It just takes a while.  People want to help and make things better but getting everyone on the same page is a little like herding cats.

Of course, we miss all of you.  The weather is getting warm here as it is there -- we should hit 80 next week.  The problem is that it is HUMID.  I have been told that we can go to shirtsleeves after conference.  ...another reason to enjoy conference.  I've decided to chop off some of the sleeves of my white shirts-- I'm not the perspiring type, but here in HK, I sweat just like the next guy.  (My deodorant says:  Swagger turns unfresh men into legends of confidence.  That's me:  legend of confidence.  You'd have to bathe in the stuff though to stay dry.)  We love all of you and think of you often.  Thank heaven for pictures and videos.  We sit at the computer and think about kids and grandkids.  I mentioned Megan and Kristen in my RS remarks.  We're glad and proud  for you/of you.    Sister Marcie and Elder Stephen Alley

A Voice From Hong Kong....A Little late

KONG HEI FAT CHOY!  (That was actually for last month, but since I forgot to use it, I thought I'd try it here.)  That means Happy New Year and Much Money or something like that.  Those four words comprise about 40% of my Chinese Vocabulary.  (Little kids say "Licee.  Licee."  after you say that.  That means "Give me the red envelope with the money in it, you large American bozo."  Obviously, their language is more efficient.)  Anyway, they have the right idea -- a big four-day holiday at the first of February.  Things shut down for Chinese New Year -- they roll up the tram tracks and all go home.  Wan Chai becomes deserted -- you can swing both arms walking down the street.

Marcie thought I should write a little about our spiritual experiences.  So...  I'm in the branch presidency of the Island I branch -- (Hong Kong is the island.)  Our branch is Filipino sisters except for a couple of missionaries, the branch presidency, and displaced males who wander in once in a while.  They have all the great things and strange things of the rest of the female world.  They're very organized and spiritually lit.  They also get their feelings hurt.  They're happy and talk a lot.  They also are aware of how long each sister has been in her current calling, etc.

One of my favorites is Sister Maritess.  She stands at 4'6" if she stretches.  She's our missionary committee coordinator.  She's divided up the branch missionaries (10 of them) into five companionships and color-coded them (pink, orange, green -- you get the idea.)  She has them go "finding" on Sunday morning before Church so they can drag the investigators to the building.  She requires weekly reports and has them report orally in the weekly correlation meeting.  Today she said that a few weeks ago she was feeling bad because all the other companionships had an investigator.  (She has no companion.)  They were at the World Wide House over in Central where all the Filipinos hang out.  So she left with the full-time elders and went to Blackman Square.  Just after arriving a young Filipino woman came walking down the path towards her.  She gave a big smile (given her size, it's the only thing big she can manage) and said, "Hi, where are you going?"  (That starts "Magadang Umaga..."   I don't know the rest.)  The young lady said that she was going to Church.  Maritess said, "Why don't you come with me and we'll both go to Church?"  She did.  Her baptism date is set for the 27th of March.

The sisters in the Filipino branches baptize as much as the rest of the mission put together.  They feel apologetic if there isn't a baptism scheduled.  They gather like chicks around each new investigator -- we're having to preach about reverence because they really like V O L U M E ! ! ! !    When they say " I like you" they want it to be loud, so there's no mistake.  I don't know what their job is in the next life, but it's not going to be any of that still small voice stuff.

My goal is to start writing every week - it won't be very long (as this is not very long) but it will be more current.  I'm including an apt picture -- not a great pic but you can see what our place is like.  The picture of the couch (a short couch) with the dragon above it and a view into the bedroom (where the bed occupies the entire room) - -- anyway the picture above is of about 60% of our apartment.  We have about 450 square feet and about 50 oblong feet.  We average about 150 sq. ft. per air conditioner and that little unit by the couch is a "moist-air-sucker" -- de-humidifier.  On a dry day we get about two gallons every six hours.  Don't ask about wet days -- .  The blue glow out the bedroom window is the Hong Kong street glaring at us.  If New York is "the City that Never Sleeps", Hong Kong is the city that "Never Stops Growling."  The tram wheels aren't articulated so they scrape against the tracks as they go around the corners.  All night.  Every night.  Each and every night. " Blaring, city living is one of the things I lay on the altar of sacrifice because this is alien in terms of noise, congestion, air-quality, untoward smells (open grate sewers ), bumpy stone streets and the like."

Marcie:  We've had a burgeoning battle with a mold population that must have been proliferating long before we were born.  Each night when we retired for the night, I'd remark to Dad that it smelled like we were sleeping in a cave, that I could detect the moulder of decaying leaves/dirt, something detectable but not defineable.  For the past four weekends, aside from baking our whole wheat bread (from our Mainland China whole wheat flour which is probably loaded with cadmium, and other metals from the belching manufacturing furnaces of the Mainland), doing our wash, cleaning our bathroom et. al., we have been in constant "scrub mode."

Dad researched the best combatant cleaner for mold and found that it's vinegar; we loaded our shopping cart with litres and litres of the stuff and have been spraying every inch, including ceilings, behind our moving closet, and just about everywhere.  We have then scrubbed each area inch by inch to remove any spores.  After weeks of this, I remarked one night that I could still detect it.  Dad thought I was crazy (rightly so) and so I did some investigation on my own and found a huge mold colony on the back of our night stand and another (after lying down on the bedroom floor and squinching under the bed like a car mechanic) on the underside of our box springs, including the wood support struts..  Needless to say, I'm a good sport but draw the line on sleeping on a bed of ancient mold spores.

The thinking is that our apt. was uninhabited for months before we arrived, and w/o the humidifier on full bore day/night, it's  impossible to win against it.   I applied for a mercy grant of another bed and it was approved after the "Materials Management Dep't." found another used, but mold-free box springs.  It's been installed and it's the first good night's sleep we've had since arriving.  It was a pretty funky scene and reminiscent of "How many Poles does it take to screw in a lightbulb", when six Chinese "helpers" arrived at the apt. ready to set up the bed and de-install the moldy box springs.  There's only room for one person in the bedroom at a time so they all congregated in the door jamb talking (the tonality of the Cantonese language makes it sound like they are really MAD..angry) away like a gaggle of hens, opinions flying everywhere, shaking their screwdrivers for emphasis, and a singular man put the bed together, by himself, grunted and groaned over every turn of the screw, against the back drop of the din of his helpers trying like crazy to insert themselves into the experience.

 I had a good laugh after they left because they brought all the crud in on their shoes from the Wan Chai streets, added nothing to the installation except their cultural color/charm and left like they had ALL just crossed the plains, demonstrating  as they left, the pangs and sounds of much exertion.  It was a hoot.  As I write, I think I can say that we have finally vanquished the critters.  

At the behest of Pres. Perkins and the Asia Area Media Committee, we have just completed a Newletter which we've named the "In-Site".  Michelle Wright, our half-day gift from God serving here as an aid to the public-affairs department, and Steve did the layout in Microsoft Publisher.  It turned out pretty well and will serve as monthly assistance to all the country media committees.  We included a great quote from President Hunter:  "The role of technology in this work has been accelerated by the Lord himself, who has had a guiding hand in its development and will continue to do so.  However, we stand only on the threshold of what we can do with these tools.  I feel that our most enthusiastic projections capture only a tiny glimpse of how these tools can help us -- and of the eternal consequences of these efforts."  Great quote.  I consistently have the feeling that the only way we can reach the billions of Asian people is through inspired, interesting, websites, blogs, posts, tweets, facebook stuff. etc. etc.  Many people won't listen to the missionaries -- they don't even know who they are, but they're happy to click around on a website or read a blog.  (As you are doing right now...)

Dad and I wrote an article stating the purpose of the monthly newsletter which, in part, affirmed our dedication to three means of helping the Gospel spread digitally:
1."  To Inspire:  as disciples of Christ and members of the media committee, we are dedicated to proclaiming the essence and effects of committed Gospel living both to members and those not of our faith.  We believe that the Kingdom can and must also be built digitally, and that the qualiaty and reach of our work is a statement of our devotion.  2.  To Inform  (we listed lots of plans for training for website people and Liahona editors).  3.  Support:  a couple of paragraphs concluding w/ our stated commitment to give mutual aid--we have the resources of our media community  as well as those of the Lord to complete our labors."It has been challenging to put it together, getting articles written and publishing it but I am most pleased with Dad's name for it as a website and Liahona support newsletter:"In-Site".  Just so ya' know.
We send our love and reaffirm our testimony of the restored Gospel, the reality of the Holy Son of God, even Jesus Christ and our Father's desire to save His beloved children, no matter their location on this troubled planet.  Elder and Sister Alley aka mom, dad, marcie & steve