Standing Tall

Typhoon Mangkhut has come and gone, but the damage it caused to the garden city of Hong Kong is quite substantial. In our old family home garden, my young brother had to recruit a few people to fell tree branches that threatened our neighbour's home. Further, some decades-old trees planted by my grandma got entangled with a local power line and we are awaiting the right condition to clear up the mess.

On Double Yang day, my cousin told me that power chain saws in the Hung Shui Kiu area were once sold out and are in high demand. That reminds me of a bygone sawmill in the area and I liked to watch how large logs were being cut into lumber, despite the high noise levels emitted in the process. As to the community cost, I heard that a petrol filling station paid professionals $200,000 to dispose of a fallen tree.

Whenever I pass by uprooted trees, I check that they share the same characteristic - shallow rooting depth. I associate my sights with the Chinese idiom - "十年樹木,百年樹人" ie "It takes 10 years to grow a tree, 100 years to make a person." Nurturing a person to stand tall like a tree despite adversity and be confident, unyielding and brave in his/her endeavours is a constant challenge to the older generation.

Sharing the moral of the Chinese idiom, I ran an unpublicized internship program during my tenure with the Intellectual Property Department. A former intern has just invited me to celebrate her admission as a Hong Kong Solicitor - I must have shared a few deep messages with her many years back. Life is good to me to be able to see senior ones standing tall, and junior ones flourishing!

#StandingTall