Despite only having a few hours sleep (due to Friday night running around the streets of HK) I wake up without a single snooze alarm, jumping out of bed, ready to punch my day in the face! Feeling super excited to be hiking in the Tai Tam Reservoir area - also known as a part of Wilson's trail - with a group of selected Zheng Sheng students. We have an early morning meet at 8:50 am at the Cheung Chau Pier on HK Island, so I rush out of my flat and meet them at 9 (I am not a morning person).
After everyone was accounted for (eleven male students, two Zheng Sheng teachers, and ten volunteers) we broke of into smaller groups to take taxi's to the starting location of our hike. Alongside three volunteers we had two students in our taxi. After the initial shy introductions more friendly conversation started, about the dread of being awake at an early hour on Saturday morning. The boys found it funny that we considered this time to be "early" as they usually wake up at a standard 5:30 - 6 am every morning. Due to the lack of Water Heating systems at the school, they shower in icy cold water throughout all seasons of the year. Hearing this, Robin William's character Adrian Cronauer's famous movie quote "Goooood Morning Vietnaaaaam!", from the 1987 film sharing the same title came to mind; cold showers every morning is a definite reminder of being alive.
The hiking expedition re-grouped at the site, and we all headed to the picnic/ BBQ area to get better acquainted. We started playing a few group activity games led by one of the volunteers, to break the ice. Arranging ourselves into a line according to birthday and month... in silence, grouping ourselves into strongly agree to strongly disagree categories about certain topics or statements, with finally circling up and playing a game involving memorising all the names of the people present. With 23 people present, and lots of Chinese and Nepalese names, we were definitely laughing our heads off by the time we reached the last person of the group.
The students standard of English was impressive and made me feel shameful for only having learnt a few words and phrases of Cantonese in the two months I have been here in HK.
We were having a great start to the morning, so set off. The hiking trail is roughly 6 K, elevating 450 metres (Hiking difficulty level 3). SK, our hike leader warns us that this is not a trail for the faint hearted and that there is an alternative shorter trail which is also available to willing hikers. Everyone shouts out that they want the challenge of the harder route, and so we start feeling energised and motivated to beat this trail. The initial climb seems to be the most difficult, but we reach the highest point with ease and stop to soak in the scenery.
The weather was perfect as the sun had still not peaked giving us a light and breezy mood to work with. The trail was tricky and trippy at parts but the setting gave us much opportunity to share our own experiences and stories, allowing us to enjoy the personal challenges of the hike but also to learn and discover about each other.
Along the way at different stages of our three hour hike I was able to learn more personal accounts of the students experiences. The Zheng Sheng College was initially set up in 1985 as a drug addiction treatment centre, and is located on the Chi Ma Wan Peninsula, Lantau Island (1). It currently houses about 100 males and 30 females, both groups kept strictly separate from each other, all arriving from backgrounds of serious drug abuse, Triad involvement (Chinese criminal organisations having an equivalence to the Sicilian Mafia), or petty crime. The existing age group of male students are between the ages 13 to 24 years old, although the youngest student to be admitted to the school so far has been 8 years old (2). Aside of daily study and revision the boarders are promoted to participate in vocational subjects such as Photography and Videography, encouraged by the principal of the school, whom had allowed some of the students to borrow camera equipment for this hiking trip. The college requires a minimum of a two year stay as a boarder to qualify as a student. The group of male pupils on the hike with us were all from mixed backgrounds of varying ethnicity from local to mainland Chinese and Nepalese, between the ages of 16 to 19 years old. They were selected to participate in this event due to their previously observed patterns of good behaviour. This is their first ever leisurely hiking trip. 
We continued on through the muddy, rocky and jagged terrain. On the second half of the hike I got chatting to the two teachers that had joined our expedition. They had both worked at the school for over two to three years, explaining that a teaching position at the Zheng Sheng College also takes on various other roles aside of formal education. They are required to spend night shifts, socialising and relaxing with the students introducing life education which the school highly encourages as a extra curricular activity. Most of these young men arrived at the College with dark pasts, living lonely or controlled lives. Many of them were forced to surpass their childhood, maturing at very young ages. To actually benefit from the facilities offered by Zheng Sheng both the students and the staff must gain levels of trust and form certain bonds with each other. Drug rehabilitation is hell on Earth for adults. It must be the most frightening place for a child.
The pupils of the School are forbidden from use of mobile phones, as they are required to make a real alteration of their lives, starting by cutting off past ties. Reading or looking at Newspapers and Magazines is another activity which is banned due to the pre-pubescent students finding even an innocent picture of a pretty girl or boy to have a pornographic or erotic context. This is again a very important isolation stage during drug abuse recovery. Addiction is a very powerful tool and will strive to find any sort of a substituting matter to guarantee its survival, thus to solve the root of the problem the addictive nature must be eradicated completely.
We hit the final stages of our journey. Everyone was rubbing their stomach's thinking about the feast that was awaiting us back at the picnic site. We all felt a certain euphoria for having completed the trail together.
Bon apetit; the picnic feast was received very well! The teachers explained that the students rarely got chances to eat junk food, so they loved their post-hike meal full of glorious snacks, sweets, and junk goodness.
It has been a great day, not only thoroughly enjoyable but also a complete eye opening experience. 6 K in distance, 450 m in elevation, and 3 hours later we left each other with a peaceful knowledge that life doesn't always throw you what you necessarily want, but every experience is valuable, and never impossible to learn from and conquer.
20th Feb' 2010
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