Finished soundslide project: "Language barriers, bricks and bridges"


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Mr. Yiu and Mr. Rhan:
Hopefully we can reach Mr. Thaba's construction site and his dwelling tomorrow.
Weather forecast first: mainly cloudy, chances of rain
Don't hesitate to take photos, but try to get clear ones. Blurry photos will be of no use.

Followings might be subjects of our script. Photos of them are required.

CONSTRUCTION SITE
Keep an eye on all three periods:
1) Working time, 2) break time, and 3) the time when they go home

Bridge (different angles, with workers in frame)-- try to get a good angle to describe how dangerous the job is
Mr. Thaba (close-up shot of his face, mid-range, wide) (painting, communicating with workmates, having a rest)
Workers doing different jobs (also take some non-Nepalese) and the Contractor (with workers in frame)
*Something might be interesting, say food or clothes (both uniform and ones they wear on their way home), or special tools

Two kinds of ambient sounds we should have: sound of hammer and drill, sound of yelling workers (especially when in Nepalese)


DWELLING
Environment (streets, surrounding buildings, with Mr. Thaba in frame)
-we can put pictrues in an order making our viewers feel like approaching Mr. Thaba's flat or following Mr. Thaba

Inside his apartment, if possible, get some B-rolls (like he's learning Chinese at desk, looking up in dictionary)
-If possible, ask Mr. Thaba write down "hello" or one simple sentence in Nepalese, Chinese, and English.
(one possible shot: paper with writings, Mr. Thaba turning back his face to see the camera)

Also record his voices of three languages. (Try to ask him to do that in one sentence like introducing to audiences: "you see, in nepalese, we say *^%$%,
in Chinese, it is @#$, and English, ....")

Fu Lei
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Mr. Thaba's Mobile: 9347-5562
By the way, his full name should be Jrishan Thaba. (the first letter needs to be confirmed)

Gold Coast Visit
- turned out to be Coffee Bay.

Fu and Rahn:

Perhaps we should consider changing our topic a little. Instead of the Gurkhas how about the Nepalese community in general? There aren't that many Gurkhas left in HK as most of them have retried and went to either Nepal or UK. From what we have gathered many of them are working on the bridge project. One thing we found out about the Gurkhas was that they did the most dangerous part of the Tsing Ma bridge back in the late 90s - the cabling. We should take the angle like "the contributions of Nepalese went unappreciated by the general HK public", that sort of thing.

We need to get together as soon as possible. We need to start writing scripts.
I've got a few pictures too @ my flickr account.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30347539@N07/
Yiu


Photos Click

Yiu Wang Leung and Fu Lei paid a visit to Gold Coast Beach at night of Oct. 11, being with Nepalese and their Japanese and western friends, who were workmates in a bridge construction companies. Mr. Graham Hutchinson, the Deputy Commercial Manager (Mobile 6013-1208, Email commercial_3@mhyhjv.com.hk) for Steel Structures Department lent us the idea that former-Gurkhas have done the most dangerous work of Tsing Ma Bridge, now the landmark of Hong Kong.

And we met a very interesting friend Mr. Thaba who had enthusiasm in learnning Chinese characters (and even had some critical views.)

After barbecue and flavor Nepali foods, Nepalese showed us nice dance. On women's head there were rice, red dye, and yoghurt, which was a symbol for blessing.
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Invitation from Mr. Arjun Shah

Time: 5 P.M. until next morning

Venue: Gold Coast Beach

Contact Number: 6731-9012

People: 30 Nepalese plus some Japanese

Festival Celebration Mentioned

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Photos of Dashain Festival on Oct. 5 have been uploaded on flickr.

Click to view our visit.




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Main drift of the story

The Gurkha community itself is an endangered part of Hong Kong's multicultural heritage. The number of Nepalese in the territory is shrinking; the roughly 25,000 who have not left for Nepal or the United Kingdom form rather isolated communities in Kowloon and Yuen Long. Most do not speak Cantonese and do not integrate well with the Chinese majority. They take on jobs at the lower end of the income scale - construction, security, domestic helpers are the most common. In employment, as in education, not speaking the language restricts the available options. In hospitals, communication problems can have even life-threatening consequences.

However, over the last couple of years, Nepali NGOs have launched initiatives to foster integration and combat social problems, often together with Hong Kong government authorities. Programs include campaign to get teenagers of drugs and into schools, intercultural meetings, and skills and language trainings. At the same time, years of campaigning for anti-racial-discrimination legislation have paid off and the Racial Discrimination Ordinance was passed by the Legislative Council and will come into force early next year. The bill allows a number of exemptions where discrimination is still allowed (domestic helpers) and does not address language requirements, but could represent an important legal basis for Nepalis trying to find employment.

This will be the broad background of the story. We should show what this means in practical terms using interviews about personal experiences. then link it with photos from traditional festivals, youngsters, workers, and interview partners, and we should have something cooking.

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Responsibilities of team member

Team member	Tasks until Oct. 16
Cornelius Rahn	interviews CUHK professor Mr. Thaba (about integrating with Chinese) sound editing for previous interviews uploading photos Nepali celebrations Oct. 12 Nepali jobs (security, gastronomy, STILL NEED CONSTRUCTION!) preparing final script
Fu, Lei	research and post community events create map of Gurkha communities in HK
Yiu, Wang Leung	find out about Gurkha's everyday life shopping, food get high-tech camera going
All

About the Gurkha community (to be moved to "history and facts" section)

Stolen from Wikipedia
- A considerable number of ex-Gurkhas and their families live in Hong Kong, where they are particularly well represented in the private security profession (G4S Gurkha Services, Pacific Crown Security Service, Sunkoshi Gurkha Security) and among labourers. Ex-Gurhas left barracks and moved into surrounding urban area. There are considerable Nepalese community in Yuen Long and Kwun Chung (Wikipedia)- British citizenshipo In July 2006, British authorities granted the right to full British citizenship to all Nepalese and their dependants serving the British army during its stays in Britain's former colonial territories, among them Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, which entitles them to stay and work in the United Kingdom. According to the press secretary there are approximately 140,000 eligible to apply. Similar rights were notably not granted to those Hong Kong citizens, with British Dependent Territory passports, serving in the Hong Kong Military Service Corps (although a limited number of those applying were granted residency) or to the Sikh detachment of the ASD guard, many of whom were left stateless in 1997, nor have they been granted to Commonwealth citizens previously or currently serving in the British Army.

o http://www.nrn.org.np/nrna/nrnicc.php

o NRN Association » NATIONAL COORDINATION COUNCIL » China

o Nepalese radio station Saptahik Sandesho Interpretation Support Service for South Asianso Exchanges with other communities in hk?o Cantoneseo Gwailos
Gurkhas to get full British army pensions Hong Kong Military Service Corps http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/southeast/series7/gurkhas.shtml



Notes:
- We seek to establish the atmosphere of their community through the use of image and sound, therefore we approach the community with these questions in mind:

1. Where do they live? Which part of town?
   
2. What kind of places do they live it? Private flats? Government housing?
   
3. Where do they do their grocery?
   
4. What religion, if any, do they practice?
   
5. Where do their community meet? How often? What do they do for fun? Where do their children play? With whom?
   
6. What troubles their community? They must be something.
   

- And of course, something more statistical for the sake of accuracy:

1. the birth rate/death rate of the community - their population trend
2. the community's income level
3. the community's education level - do they have a future...