allan ng’s blog

Today is the last day. It’s hard to say goodbye. I am so happy that they give me a surprise party, with one of my colleagues makes me a chocolate cake; my manager’s gift with a fair trade T-shirt, a book about Canada, and a Just Us calendar; and also a tailor-made card with a “goodbye Kitty”( instead of Hello Kitty) and everybody’s group photo and signatures and messages there.

I give some of the closely working together colleagues the painted seashell I pick fom Price Edward Island. I drew the picture from 12:00pm till 1:30am last night.

I used the straw to make white rose rings for them, and the paper strips to make lucky stars. I think most of the Hong Kong people know how to make a star with a paper strip. My colleagues here are so surprised about this, so it makes me very easy to prepare a little lucky star gifts for everyone.

I took the bus and go back home today, I found that it was the last time I passed through this route in Grand Pre. There are only 3 bus drivers for this route, so we chat with each others every morning. Unlike Hong Kong, passengers are allowed to chat with the driversJ

Everyday when I get on the bus, we will greet each other and also some passengers in the front. “ how are you doing?” “ How’s your weekend”; “Have a nice day!” When I go back from work to home, we will say “Have a nice evening , see you tomorrow!” Today as usual they said this to me when I get off, and I told them it was my last day. It is really a bit of sad,and the “see you” become a very special one.

 I will wish them the very best, and living happily forever in this peaceful wonderland.

I went to Prince Edward Island with host family for 4 days. It was about 3.5 hours drive from Nova Scotia. We brought the dog with us, and there were 9 people in total including their relatives.We spent a lot of time in the beach. The red sand beach was so pretty and peaceful. I thought it may not be as popular as some of the beaches in US, but that’s what I love its humbleness. The sand bars and sunset are extremely awesome. Since there were low tides and high tide, the beaches have different looks and feelings at different time.I met one of my host family’s relatives’ friends staying there. We had such a nice chat, and her friends just gave her a seashell called “sand dollar” which was not that easy to find, she was so happy to show people around this, and she gave it to me as gift before she go.Another person, I just met her randomly by sitting near by the beach. We chatted for around half and hour, she had been to HK and visting HKUST to do some business research , she is a consultant, we talked about my work here working for fair trade,and about the business.People here are so nice and sincere that, even chatting with a stranger can come into some in-depth topics and chat as friends who know each other for quite a long while.When I biked, people inside the car  smiled and even waved to you. And the way they shaked hands with you and said goodbye will really made you feel very warm.There were many people that I popped in and chat for a long time, they became part of my very good memories in Nova Scotia and P.E.I.

Life with Acadia International University Students

I made a very good friend here in this two month internship. There’s a girl from Taiwan studying at the Acadia University in Wolfville. I had her contact through the Board of JUDES and also my host family. She is helping in the Acadia for the international students affairs. I feel so grateful to know her as I’m coming here for such a short time. But I’m also sad that I know her too late, just half a month ago before I leave next week.

The first time she heard of my name, she thought that I was a boy, and I suggested to go to strawberry picking here.  She is so nice to organize a tour to the largest farm zoo in here with her friends.  We have a lot of fun in the Oaklawn  farm. There’s an animal called Llamma which we all loved very much.  It’s so cool and calm. It didn’t move at all after we had taken nearly a hundred photos with it. There were five students there, so there were  lots of pictures .

After I met Carol, we hanged out a lot of time after I finished my work.

Monday, we went to strawberry picking 

Tuesday, we went to play tennis.

Wednesday, we went to the downtown in New Minas which is the major shopping center here.

Thursday, we went to New Minas again, to grasp the ingredients for cooking Chinese meal for the host family. We were told there are 7 people.

Friday, the BIG day, we cooked a Chinese & Cantonese & Taiwanese cuisine for 11 people! The group  become larger as the host family invited their relatives from other areas.

Friends in Nova Scotia, hope we all enjoyed the time there and that must be good memories when we go back to our home countries. Goog Luck for everybody

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 On Sunday, I went to Halifax again! This time I stayed overnight with the host family father’s younger sister. I stayed with the sister in the evening and spent the rest of the day by myself wandering around the inner part of Halifax. Half month ago I went there, it was so foggy, and I visited mainly the museum and historic site along the waterfront. The atmosphere this time was totally different. The inner part is full of shopping mall, bars and lots of interesting small shops.

On 16-20 July, it was the Tall Ship Festival of Nova Scotia. It was the international gathering of 40-50 Tall Ships from different part of the world. Nova Scotia has hosted Tall Ships gatherings four times over two decades; and it was special as part of the maritime heritage of Nova Scotia such as the pirates and the marine battles. I watched the firework along the harbour on the 19^th night and see the sail out on the 20^th. Apart from the ships themselves, there were also carnival and parade in the festival. The sailors from different countries also made Halifax a more lively and international place.In the evening, the sister and I went to the martini night of a brewery pub and we spent a nice dinner there. It was really enjoyable chatting with the sister. She is the most interesting person I met here. She did several degrees and also master degrees, travelled to many different places. I admire her independence and sense of humor. It is really cool for a person to do and study whatever she likes and enjoy her life so much.   

A little thing that made the day more special was the news I read on the other day after I come back. There was a man in Halifax targeting 2 people with his gun and did 3 shoots. Luckily nobody is hurt as he missed. I was just on that road half an hour before the thing happened. This also made people there freaked out, as it is a very safe area normally.

I feel really blessed for what I have here. The host family, the colleagues, the friends, the life and work I am having now. After things are settled down and adjusted, life is so enjoyable here. I Love NS!

I went to Halifax in weekend again, the second visit after I arrived. Last time I just spent less then 2 hours walking in the rain. This time I went with my host family’s relatives living in Halifax. I am really lucky, really, that I can live with such a FABULOUS host family. They always drive me to different places in weekends, and now I’m with their relatives. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

 I saw a lot more than the first time. It was a foggy day. The fog covered not only the harbour but also the inner city. It was so peaceful to walk in the fog in the evening. The sky won’t turn dark until 9p.m. We wondered around and ate in a Greek restaurant.

The next day I went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. It has lots of information about the harbour, Halifax explosion and Titanic. Titantic, a movie I love very much and watched for many times. The ocean scenes were filmed off Halifax and many of the dead were buried in three cemeteries in Halifax. I watched the video in the museum and looked at the real pieces of Titanic under glass.  I just heard that it marks the Centennial in Halifax in 2012. It will be a week-long festival including a concert by Celine Dion who sang the theme song for the movie.

In the afternoon, I went to watch the Halifax International Tatoo. It was a 3 hour show with soldiers and performers from US, Canada and different European countries. The performance is shown from July 1-8, so I just grasped the chance to see it. It was shown in the Halifax International Center. The theatre is almost full with lots of tourists from US and local Nova Scotian. The host family’s relatives go to the show every year. The show is great. There are marching bands from different countries, singings and dance. I love the team from Paris very much!

On the first week, I was given a whole list called “Task For Allan” including work that are to be done this week and also those achievements I can make in the coming two months. I will have a new list every week. I am happy to see the list as I am clear about what I can do in these two months. It is really a precious opportunity to work in such an interesting and lively organization. 

Before I came and worked here, I did not have much understanding about fair trade and I have no idea how large and important the Fair trade market is in the world.I spent my first two days to pick up the things by reading through loads of files and document about fair trade existing in the organization.  I know more about Fair Trade is an innovative model for international trade, which offers not only a fair price, but also respect and empowerment for Third World producers.  As I do the research on the difference between free trade and fair trade, I have more ideas about what fair trade is as one of the emerging market in the world. People may think they are paying more on the products to help the third world producers and it’s some kinds of donation involves and Fair trade cannot generate the maximum profit for the sellers. Some may think that Fair trade is not a practical way of trading without government support. To me Fair trade is a different type of trading by changing the supply chain to help and protect the Third world producers. Disadvantaged groups are made partners in the supply chain; while conventional trade focuses on seeking low cost labour and material through exploitative middlemen as farmers have lower bargaining power in free trade. There are human right, environmental and social issues involved in a fair trade product. Wolfville, the place that I live with the host family, is the Canada’s first Fair trade town. To see more about Fair trade please look at http://www.fairtrade.net/what_is_fairtrade.html 

This is the first week of my work in a fair trade organization. I am working as a marketing and research intern for the Just Us! Education and Development Society( JUDES). This is a very interesting organization. It is founded by a fair trade coffee company called Just Us! Coffee Roaster Co-operative. It is Canada’s first Fair Trade coffee roaster and one of the Canada’s  worker-owned businesses. The firm’s belief in “people and the planet before profits”.The company have several cafés in Nova Scotia in Halifax, Wolfville, Grand Pre. It sells fair trade and organic coffee beans, tea, sugar and chocolate from Third World Producer. The product can be found in the cafés and retailed markets.

I am working in the office in Grand Pre with the Just Us! Company and with my manager working for JUDES.

The whole building have two floors. The first floor is a decent café with some nice seats and display of Just Us! products with information about fair trade and their origins. There is a museum showing all the interesting and detailed information about fair trade and the Third world farmers’ working environment and fair trade’s influence on them. The other part of the museum is about different type of coffee, multimedia room with video showing and display about Art of coffee “cupping”. At the very end of the museum, we will find a window looking through the Coffee Factory with the Roaster and Packaging of beans for sale. I will spend part of the time on the promotion of the museum as a tourism site in Nova Scotia.

The second floor is the office where I am working. The company has more than 30 people working together in the building everyday. The first time I stay in the office, I am not that used to the strong Coffee smell. “EVERY BREATH WITH COFFEE” is exactly what I experience here. I am not a coffee person.  At least I am not very in favour of coffee, compared to some of my friends who are addicted. I think that now it is just another way to intake coffee. I doubt if I will be addicted in coffee or not by working in such a coffee embraced environment.

Here we can have free decaffeinated or normal fair trade coffee in the dinning room and from the café. People here really drink more than I expected. And I love the slogan that I discovered on one of the coffee cup  “Justice in your cup”. I think being a normal consumer, we can really make a change to the world by simply being aware of what we are consuming.

On 12 June, I moved to the host family from Halifax to Wolfville. It  is a big family with a father, a mother, one elder daughter and two sons, one dog and two cats. You can feel the warmth of the family once you saw them. Living with a big family made me think of my family. Since I cannot access the internet with my laptop at home, I just go back to nature. I thought I really depend on the computer too much in HK, in fact it should be the internet. My computer is almost useless without the internet. I am just not getting used to it for the first few days as it seems like I have no connection to the world outside, my family and friends. That’s the time to learn to be independent and enjoy oneself. Here everything is much slower than in HK. The greenery is awesome everywhere. So I only need to use my camera and take pictures randomly, and there will be beautiful photos coming out. It is nothing about the angle and the skill, the view is just so graceful with the sunshine. And I believe that’s the art of the nature. All the people I met here told me I am lucky to come in summer, because in winter it looks sorrow and grey. These are the exact wordings that they used to describe Nova Scotia’s winter. The grey side starts from October to April. So the heavenly time is exactly the period I am having here now. It is really relaxing and perfect season to come. With the bright sunshine every day from 6am to 8 pm. It is hard to find such a lovely sunshine in HK, together with air-conditioned temperature of 18-25 degree celcius,  gentle wind and fresh air. BRAVO!!

On 11June, Satya and I went to Halifax downtown. We went to the market to buy the ingredient for supper and went to the library to meet the price winner of a fair trade competition of JUDES. I was apparently haven’t adjusted my body clock, but we still have a nice walk along Halifax in a gentle rain. We made a supper together at night together, I was happy that everything was going so smooth and I adapted to it quite fast.

We went to the market and bought some beautiful cherries and vegetables and we cooked a tasty dinner together.

Halifax is so pretty and I am sure I will come back and explore more!

With limited access to the internet at home, I just use the computer in the office or the café. Everything just go back to nature..
I try to recall what happened  last week, it seems to me that it’s much longer than it does. I arrived Nova Scotia at Halifax airport on 10/6 at 11:00pm; I earned a day after taking 23 hours of flight.  When I stepped out the airport it was 11/6  0030 already. I have expected all the situation of travelling in dark before I come, but what I didn’t expect  was a rainy day 9 degree celcius. I am with my summer clothes on with the heavy backpack and lugguages. It was lucky that everything goes under my planning I  caught the shuttle bus just in time. (It took an hour to have another one). So I took the shuttle bus in the darkness and switched on my torch to see the things well. It was so cold. I took off the bus in front of the Lord Nelson Hotel and took the taxi to go to my manager’s apartment. It was all silence and I could only hear the sound of the rain.
Finally, I arrived the apartment!! I was so excited! The taxi driver was so nice to make sure I was  going to the correct place. I was so thankful that I could at last find the place and settled down. I saw my manager and her two cats. They were all so nice. So I stayed at my manager’s home for the first two days. I unpacked my luggages together with the cats. I thought the cat has “checked” everything I took out, just another check by the cat customs. It was the funniest cat I have ever seen. She pushed off the things that I put on the table, slept on my luggage bag so I could not open it; she waited for me outside the room and locked the door all the times, and we also shared the same bed sometimes.
I was tired, a bit home sick but I was entertained so much by the cat. I felt much secured after I talked to the people here on the first day, the bus driver, taxi driver and Satya. They are so friendly and helpful. I thought it might be a dangerous thing  for a foreigner to travel alone by taxi in midnight in some other places in the world.  Here is just a safe and nice place to stay for the coming two months.
It was my first time to travel alone at midnight in a new country, first time to share the bed with a cat, I am sure more exciting things are coming.