Vignettes of the World
By Ha Jin It was an emotional experience reading this book. Told from the perspective of Anling, a foreman at Jinling Women’s College in Nanjing, the narrative pries open one of the most painful chapters in modern Chinese history—the Rape of Nanking. The story begins …
In the mall at Abu Dhabi, I saw a lady completely covered in black, from head to toe. She was very tall. Her towering figure allowed no exposure of her features except for her height. That was the most conservative expression of Islam that I …
“I have never seen a place with such little soul.”
This was a comment of a friend who visited Dubai last year. It was a provocative statement. When I heard it, I took a step back and probed my memory of Dubai. Was it a place of little soul?
After a lavish time in Abu Dhabi, I returned to Dubai, and with it came a reality check. Unlike the hotels of the paid tour, this time I was staying in a dormitory-type accommodation with three Chinese ladies. I considered it a privilege to be able to experience the reality of the Chinese workers’ life in Dubai.
The church rented these apartments to serve as dormitory for the Christian Chinese workers. One lady was in the express courier business, the other worked in a bank. Unfortunately, they had to work long hours and I did not have a good chat with them. The condition of the apartment was a stark reminder of my time at the poorly-maintained, rent-controlled college apartments at UC Berkeley. The bathroom was nearly atrocious. I was glad though that the bunk bed served its purpose and I slept well at night.
My father’s friend took us to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Perhaps the most significant difference between Chinese culture and Islamic culture is the Chinese people’s daily reliance on pork as a source of protein. The Chinese restaurants in Dubai either did not serve pork, or they had to apply for a special license in order to do so.
I think the soul of Dubai was in the Dubai Museum. The excellent exhibits showed the history of Dubai, its place in the UAE and its humble beginning. During the first half of the 20th century, Dubai traded in pearls. Its people harvested pearl in the Dubai Creek. Those were hard times, and the people of Dubai did not forget the days of poverty before they discovered oil in the 1960s. When they began trading oil, wealth poured in. One of the most brilliant decisions of the rulers of Dubai was to invest in education. The enormous wealth from the oil trade propelled the changeover of the city. It continued to develop into the very modern, sophisticated and business-oriented Dubai that we see today. Surely, much of this glory was man-made, and that explained why Dubai seemed to be a place of little soul.
The exhibits of the museum were very engaging. The descriptions were concise and the English was very good. The wax statues were beautiful. They presented a historical, authentic narrative that tourists would not be able to imagine having only seen the city in its present day.
Yet the oil trade might be coming to an end soon, as the oil reserves are drained now. Dubai is at a cross-road today. The people of Dubai are once again re-making the city to prepare for the days without oil. Tourism is one direction that the city is taking, and indeed many of the infrastructure, innovations and constructions are done with the intention to attract the top echelon of world tourists.
In the afternoon our tour guide led us through many of these sites of wonder, including the river boat ride, the largest man-made island in the world, the six-star hotel with its crisscrossing waterways, and finally the tallest building in the world.
I could hardly enjoy these wonderful sites though, because after lunch I got very sick. On this very last day in the Middle East, the best memory remained that of the Dubai Museum, where I met the soul of Dubai.
It came time to say goodbye finally. The tour group boarded the plane to fly back to Dubai. Yang, a fellow tour member, invited me to her home in Abu Dhabi. We arrived late night after an hour and a half of driving from Dubai. …
Perhaps photographs would better convey the Dead Sea and its wonders. The tour finally made it out of Israel (there were some glitches at the border), and arrived at the Dead Sea’s Jordanian shore. Some of the tour members changed into swimsuits and bathed on …
Literally meaning “the dragon leaps over the mountain,” Lung Yeuk Tau spans a large area in Fanling in the Northern District. It was the second heritage trail in the New Territories that the Antiquities and Monuments Office proposed and promoted. The 2.6km walk takes visitors along many fascinating sites of historical significance because the area is home to many indigenous villages.
Under Hong Kong law, the indigenous inhabitants of Hong Kong are defined as “a person descended through the male line from a person who was in 1898 a resident of an established village in Hong Kong”.[i] Relevant to the indigenous inhabitants is the Small House Policy. It aimed at soothing the relations between the Colonial Government of Hong Kong and the residents of the New Territories. A male descendant of the indigenous population is entitled to one small house upon the age of maturity.[ii] In practice, if an indigenous household has three sons, then the household is usually entitled to the construction of a three-storied structure, with each son claiming one flat in such structure.
There is an overarching feature of the indigenous villages that is unique in character. Many indigenous villages of Hong Kong are walled (“wai” in Cantonese). These stone and brick structures used to serve as bulwark against pirates, bandits and wild and stray animals. Back in the days there were tigers in the rural areas of Hong Kong.
Perhaps these walls would be the one of the last standing structures as reminders of Hong Kong’s indigenous past. So are the ancestral shrines that usually lie at the very end of the central corridor of these villages. While visitors can still see the clear boundaries of each squared plots, the houses that stand on the plots are now modern homes.
I took an excursion on the Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage trail on a beautiful autumn day in 2018. There was plenty of sunshine, yet at the same time generous breezes mitigated the heat. Although the villages are open to entrance by car, I chose to park in the industrial zone of Fanling. I then walked over to the starting point of the trail at Tsung Kyam Church (photo above). The Antiquities and Monuments Office has done great introductions of these sites, and they are hyperlinked below.
Wing Ning Wai
[i] Annex III, The Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984.
[ii] Small House Policy, Wikipedia.
What is known in the West as the Wailing Wall is known to the Jewish people as the Western Wall. It is the famous remains of the Second Temple. Built during King Herod’s time, the remains was part of the wall intended to serve as …
The Old City charmed visitors with its crisscross streets. Bazaars selling all kinds of oddities along the roads form an air of festiveness. The goods and fruits shine incredible colors upon the Old City’s characteristic sandstone buildings. The street signs in Old City displayed English, …
“We think this is where World War III will begin.”
Alla____hu Akbar! Alla_____hu Akbar!
At the Dome of the Rock, groups of men shouted this repeatedly. Meaning “God Allah is Greatest,” this phrase often preceded terrorist attacks in the West. Located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock is the holiest of the holy for three theistic religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
While the general areas outside of the mosque were open to tourists and the Jewish people, the Golden Dome and the mosque only permitted Muslims for worship. At the public area, the Jewish people often encountered animosity. The Arab worshipers that gathered in groups would chant, “alla____hu akbar!” to shoo them (and the secular and the religious tourists) away.
Our tour guide stressed again and again: no Bibles! Security at the Dome of the Rock had to do with the presence (or actually, the forced absence) of the Bible. The rule was very strict. That was just one of the many ways that tension expressed itself at the holiest of the holy. The Muslims believed that Prophet Mohammed ascended to Heavens from the foundation rock at the Dome. The Jewish people and the Christians believed that this was the site where Abraham sacrificed his son Isaac.
The Arabic chant notwithstanding, the area surrounding the dome was serene. I walked around in the wonderful weather, sun-soaked. Although I fancied a sneak-in for a look, I dared not temper with Muslim religious decrees. Nor would I stretch the limits of our Arabic Christian tour guide’s explicit warnings. A close view of the architecture served all my purposes. Furthermore, the Muslim-Jewish tension at play opened my eyes. Their interactions here were representative of the centuries-old strife between these peoples.
Construction for the Golden Dome completed in 691 A.D., by the Muslim Caliph Abd Al Malik. It stood at the former site of a Roman temple, which was built on the yet former site of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. With the Roman invasion came the destruction of the Second Temple in 70A.D. (Matthew 24). [1].
In the Dome’s long history, many religious administrators have overseen and restored the structure. The most notable was the Jordanian Arabs. They shouldered the funds necessary for the gold-plated dome. The Muslim religious trust is the current administrator overseeing the Dome, after years of contentions. The three religions all laid claims on the Dome’s sacredness and significance. Lavish mosaics line the interior of the Dome. The photographs online were the second-best option for me as I did not dare going inside.
There were many ways in which the three religions were still at war with each other over the control of the Dome. As I stood amazed at its beauty and significance, I sensed a history that remained very relevant to us now. The tensions that caused so much miseries in the world manifested in the very dynamics that believers interacted with each other here, right at the heart of Old City.
“We think this is where World War III will begin,” said Nahzee, our tour guide, as we were departing this conflict zone.
[1] Wikipedia on the Dome of the Rock.
By Patrick H. Hase “The leased area [the New Territories] was not seen as an economic advantage to the City (indeed, it was initially assumed that it would be a drain on the Colony’s finances), but it was seen as greatly strengthening the City’s security …