Ryan Ho Kilpatrick

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Category: Eurasians

Eurasians

No Mixed Blood, No Mixed Bones

by Ryan Ho Kilpatrick
Posted on June 8, 2018

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Half in the sky above Okanagan Lake, a very BC chapel—the Saint Elizabeth Seton House of Prayer. For the first time since I arrived here, the heavens finally opened and the still air started breathing again, wind and rain driving away the smoke from nearby forest fires that had brought air quality and visibility levels redolent of Beijing. At last, a glimpse of the Okanagan as God (or at least the Catholic Diocese) intended!

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea.

South of Hong Kong Island, guarding the boundary between leisurely Outer Deep Water Bay and the franetic East Lamma shipping lanes, is an island of many names. In Edward Belcher’s inaugural 1841 chart of Hong Kong, the island is labelled “Maskong”: presumably a scrambled transliteration of 媽宮 “ma gung”—“Palace of the Mother”—a name found elsewhere in maritime China to denote the location of a temple to the sea goddess Matsu. But there is no evidence to suggest there was ever a temple on Round Island and Belcher was known to muddle Chinese place names. In all likelihood it was the name of a nearby settlement on shore. Nonetheless, it is a error repeated in subsequent maps of 1896, 1904, 1913, 1915, 1922, and as recently as 1928. Lt Collinson’s superior 1846 ordinance map rechristened the landmass Coin Island—a fanciful translation of it’s correct Chinese name 銀州 “ngan jau”, or “Silver Island.” Since time immemorial, Hongkongers have indulged in a singular fantasy of seeing their isles as imperial ingots of silver: there are close to half a dozen “Silver Islands”s scattered throughout the territory. To avoid confusion, the Chinese often defers to a literal translation what has been the island’s official English name since at least the turn of the century—圓州 “yuhn jau” (Round Island). Unfortunately, however, “Round Island” is about as commonplace a toponym in the English-speaking world as “Silver Island” is in the Cantonese. If all this weren’t confusing enough, yet another name has been thrown into the mix lately. Young sailors who set out from the yacht clubs at Middle Island to visit the island’s sandy, isolated beach have taken to calling it Shoe Island, imagining it’s contours more redolent of a loafer than a piece of historical currency. I’m partial to Collinson’s vaguely piratical Coin Island personally, but could be persuaded to compromise—Silver Shoe Island, anyone?

In the darkening twilight I saw a lone star hover, gem-like above the bay.

This is Hong Kong, our island home. Enjoy it, treasure it, celebrate it, and most important of all, take care of it. Treat every day as if it were #WorldOceansDay.

Two views from Sharp Peak and the Mai Fan Teng ridge on the most brutally hot day of 2018 so far—en route to Tai Long Wan for a much-needed dip after 12 hours hiking overnight from Sai Kung town. The best thing about hitting the trails in the dead of night, besides avoiding the worst of the heat, is the hours upon hours of uninterrupted solitude and silence broken only by the sounds of wildlife and, in this case, an audiobook of Billy Budd, Sailor. Melville’s words have a way of sticking with you no matter what, but listening to the scene of Billy’s early morning execution just as the first embers of dawn crept over the mountain tops stopped me in my tracks: “The hull deliberately recovering from the periodic roll to leeward was just regaining an even keel, when the last signal, a preconcerted dumb one, was given. At the same moment it chanced that the vapory fleece hanging low in the East, was shot thro' with a soft glory as of the fleece of the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision, and simultaneously therewith, watched by the wedged mass of upturned faces, Billy ascended; and, ascending, took the full rose of the dawn.”

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