Impressions.

A group photo of our visit.

Yesterday I met up with my friend Agnes, her friend Ivy, her T.A. Lok and twenty-six of Agnes's students from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. We were all going to Christian Zheng Sheng College, located in a remote area of the Chi Ma Wan Peninsula on Lantau Island.

Christian Zheng Sheng College is not normally open to members of the public and to get there it was necessary to travel to Cheung Chau, then take the college's own private boat to the school. This trip involved an early start. I had to get up at six o'clock in the morning. When I worked, I did this all the time, but I am now rather out of practice, to say the least. It was still dark when I got up and the weather looked grey and bleak.

The college we were visiting is part of the Christian Zheng Sheng Association which was founded in 1985 by Jacob Lam Hay-sing when he opened a rehab centre in Kam Tin in the Western New Territories. Zheng Sheng translates into English as 'repent and live.' This organisation attempts to help drug abusers overcome their addictions and reclaim control of their lives.

Christian Zheng Sheng College was founded in 1998. At the moment it has thirty students, the youngest of whom is twelve years old. Currently, ten full time teachers work at the school. Most of the students have a background of drug abuse, some have experienced severe problems at home, some have special needs such as: autism or hyperactivity. Whatever their background, they were all being sucked into a downward spiral of failure in the regular education system and some of them even fell foul of the law. Christian Zheng Sheng College aims to give them the chance for a new beginning.

At the ferry pier in Central, Agnes introduced us to Jacob Lam, the founder of the school, and he sat next to me on the ferry ride across, so I was able to ask him lots of questions about the school. It was very obvious that he feels passionately about it.

Students who want to enroll in the college have to commit to attending for a minimum of two years. After that they can choose whether to stay at the school or enter another one. They live in, as boarders and their parents can only come and visit once a month on a designated day.

The students' living accommodation is quite basic. There is no hot water and aircon is only allowed when the temperature rises above a certain point in the summer months. The students spend their mornings at school where they are able to take advantage of a high standard of education and lots of individual help. They are no longer faceless members of an oversized class who can slip into failure without anyone even seeing it happen. They know their teachers and carers well, as they live with them full time like a family. Some of them also take part in zoom lessons, given by volunteer overseas instructors.

In the afternoons the students work. This serves many purposes. It keeps them occupied and out of trouble. It teaches them many skills such as cooking, cleaning and building. I say building, because the students are actually helping in the construction of some parts of the college and in making the furniture inside it, too. Some of the students also learn hairdressing skills and the college runs a hairdressing salon on Cheung Chau. The students grow pineapples on the college grounds. The college also has an excellent photography and video making group known as Zheng Online Offline Media Academy, or ZOOMA for short. The students involved in this group learn photography and film making skills and use their skills to help create films for weddings, social events and sporting events such as races.

These boys are part of ZOOMA.

As you can see some of the students' activities help generate funds for the school. This is necessary as the school is constantly involved in an uphill battle to gain funding to help with its daily expenditures.

Our tour around the school began at the pier, where a group of students were waiting to unload supplies brought across on the boat and carry them uphill to the college. Even managing to get the pier built was a battle and before its construction the students and staff had to carry all supplies up to the college on an uneven dirt path. At the end of the pier a rock is emblazoned with the school emblem, which is a variation on a cross.

Boarding the boat to the college.

Our captain.

The voyage over.

We arrived in sea fog, but later the sun came out.

The school emblem.

Ivy on the pier.

Clean sea and rocky shore.

Before we went up to the school, we had to undergo disinfection. They have already had one outbreak of Covid and they didn't want another.

Walking up from the pier.

Jacob in front of the room with the self disinfecting machine.

Going up to the girls' dormitory.

We walked up to the girls' dormitory where we were met by a group of smiling teenage girls and a rather annoyed barking dog called Happy. Happy wasn't pleased at having so many strangers invade his territory. He was put away inside a large cage and one of the girls climbed in with him to soothe him.

The girls' dormitory .

Friendly faces greet the visitors.

Inside the girls' sleeping area.

Calming Happy down.

The Chinese University students will make some video clips about their visit.

The college.

God Bless You.

Splashes of artwork brighten the place up.

Splashes of artwork brighten the place up. I don't know what the characters say.

Apples decorate the walls.

Noah's ark.

I called this installment of my blog impressions, because on a half day visit I can not claim to know everything about this college. Also while some of the information being presented about the school was translated into English for me and any other non-Cantonese speakers in the group, not everything was, so I may have missed things and can only judge on how I felt. What I noticed about the girls who were students at this school, was their closeness. One of them was called to talk about the school in Cantonese and then in English. Doing a presentation like this in front of a large group of strangers can be extremely nerve-wracking. The young girl did an excellent job and her friends were right there with her to cheer her on. Not only that but the girls stuck together in a clump during our visit and I feel this was a form of mutual support. We were able to see where the girls studied, cooked their food, ate and slept. I feel pretty certain that these girls are forming close bonds that will last them a lifetime.

Next, we began walking towards the boys dormitory. We stopped for a while not far from the basketball court and Jacob told a story about how one time, late at night, two of the students broke into a hut where some medical supplies were kept for the students. They stole four pills. One of them took two of the pills, but could not achieve the high he wanted, so his friend suggested he took all four, which he did. Later that night the boy who took the pills started having convulsions and had to be rushed to hospital. When he recovered, he and his friend were given another chance. To take their mind off drugs, they were asked to copy out the bible. When that didn't work they were given the job of getting rid of a huge, unmovable rock next to the college's playing field. They were given just basic tools. They tried burning materials next to the rock to make it crack and also spent many hours chipping away at it. In the end, it took seven years to remove the rock completely. Jacob told the story to illustrate that at times obstacles may seem insurmountable but with persistence they can be overcome.

Looking down on the college grounds.

On the way to the boys' dormitory.

The seven year rock was located around here.

Basketball court.

In the boys' dormitory, we went to see where they washed. Their bathroom has a huge pool of cold water and they wash by scooping it up in containers and throwing it over themselves. We later saw this on one of the films the students made and could hear the screams that accompanied their early morning ablutions. Jacob pointed out that the school has recently installed solar panels and can generate its own electricity. They can also use this to heat the water, but he's not sure that they will, as he considers the cold showers to be part of their training. His view is life's hard and you need to be tough to deal with it.

Who's for a cold shower?

A simple wooden cross.

Sayings from the bible on the wall.

Crosses and quotes.

Again, if I talk about impressions, my impression of the male students I saw here, was how mature and self composed they seemed. Through the training they receive at the college, they have gone from being completely off the rails to being confident, disciplined, polite and self-assured. This is a great achievement and it shows why so many of the students here have gone on to make successes of their lives, either by getting into good universities or finding themselves good jobs. Remember these were people the world had given up on only a few years before.

The boys dormitories also contained gym equipment which they use to keep themselves fit. Some of this equipment they made themselves for example by attaching slabs of concrete onto a wooden pole and using it for weightlifting. In one of the films we saw, someone was exercising using a storm drain cover.

Gym.

Trying out the gym equipment.

The students here won all of these.

Near the students' gym there was an open area. As we saw later on a film produced by the children, at one point this had been used as a makeshift hospital. The school here is secluded from the outside world, but unfortunately a member of staff unintentionally brought COVID into the school community. During the outbreak, healthy students and staff were kept separate from sick ones and the sick ones slept on mats in this open area. More mats were propped up vertically around them to help them to isolate. The healthy members of the college cooked food for the sick ones and cared for them as best as they could. On one of the videos we watched, a student talked about growing closer together by caring for their sick brothers. I noticed the students referred to the other students as their brothers and sisters, like they were all one big family.

This open space became the hospital ward.

Love.

Near the gym there is a room with computers which the students can use to further their education both in learning about computers and in overseas zoom sessions.

Computers.

Computers.

We passed through the kitchens where students were busily preparing their own food. Jacob paused to introduce us to one of the student chefs.

Preparing lunch.

One of the chefs.

The boys' dormitory.

Then we came to a pond surrounded by blossoming cherry trees and went up some stairs to the newest and most modern part of the college. ZOOMA has facilities here. There were also a lot of musical instruments and a student was playing the piano beautifully in one of the nearby rooms. My impression here was that the school was affording the students the kind of opportunities they would never have obtained in their previous schools. I'm not saying such opportunities wouldn't be available but they would not have gone to students who were already struggling. The students here were learning how to play musical instruments, how to make movies, etc. This is wonderful.

The newest building with blossom.

The newest building with the pond.

The pond.

Cherry blossom.

We watched three films created by the students. The ZOOMA teacher explained that he himself was a former student at the school and that his wife, he had only recently got married, is one of the other teachers. We watched several films made by the students. They covered things like the students battle with COVID, their life at the school and several outdoor activities they take part in. There was also a film showing the ZOOMA group covering an overseas race in Jordan which one of the staff members had taken part in.

We watched the movies here.

The ZOOMA teacher.

At the end of the film there was a question and answer session. Jacob introduced us to several books about the school, which I assume were available for purchase. One of them was written by Agnes.

Jacob holding up books about the school.

That was the end of the tour and we made our way back down to the pier ready to return to Cheung Chau. We suddenly became aware that it had been sunny the whole time we had been at the school. Several of us had become so relaxed, we almost forgot to put our masks back on. It was a different world.

Looking down on the pier.

Leaving the college.

Me on the return journey from the college.

Ivy and I on the return journey from the college.

A farewell look.

Back in Cheung Chau, we walked along the boat filled waterfront, then went for lunch in Hung Lok Seafood Restaurant. We had a creamy corn and crab soup, then prawns cooked in wine, fish, celery and roast chicken with browned crispy skin. It was an excellent meal and good value, too. I always say I don't eat lunch, but whether it was because of the early start or the fresh sea air, I realized I was starving and ate tonnes.

Boats line Cheung Chau Harbour.

Boats line the waterfront in Cheung Chau.

Our restaurant.

Prawns, chicken and celery.

After the meal, I headed back to the ferry pier, but Agnes, Ivy and one of Agnes's students went off to sample mango mochi - one of the dessert highlights of Cheung Chau.

Agnes and I vy had a great day exploring Cheung Chau. There's so much to see here.

Travelling back on the ferry, it suddenly occurred to me that the students who graduate from Christian Zheng Sheng College, despite their unfortunate start, are probably better equipped to deal with life and all its challenges than those with lesser problems who graduated from an ordinary school. That I think says it all.