Hong Kong
My penguin book, Good Day Book, got me invited as a presenter to a wellness convention in Hong Kong last week. Kosmo, a new Chinese company with deep historical roots, held the Kosmo “Living Well Seminar” that was attended by executives from around the world. The purpose of the seminar was to emphasize Kosmo’s commitment to wellness, environmentally friendly operations and to introduce executives of other companies how to develop these concepts into their own organizational missions. This was the first such seminar they had sponsored and to my observation it was successful.
I was in Hong Kong for a week. The very first day I discovered Kosmo shops. They are very contemporary looking and border on Italian Modernism. The shops were filled with young people. My impression of the shops was they were “health-promoting” coffee houses, not unlike Starbucks, that sold organic vitamins, healthy snacks, a wide variety of elixirs and promoted positive ideas.
The seminar itself had a number of presenters like Tom Newmark talking about his New Chapter Vitamins and Richard Eu describing the integration and use of Chinese medicines into ones contemporary life. Claudia Del Veccio spoke about nutrition and Yee Ming Tan introduced her ideas on positive thinking to keep the body and spirit healthy and well. After my short talk with slides, Hunter Johnson spoke about Music and Wellness and used his Antarctica Suite as background music to illustrate his points…this was a big hit. Winnie Ngai’s subject as the contributions to wellness that good communications promoted. Dr. Fabienne Delibata discussed the “sustainability” concept as it applied to corporations.
To my mind the highlight of the seminar was Jill Robinson, Animals Asia Foundation, showing photos and videos of her Moon Bear Rescue Project in China. This is a Hong Kong based charity that is working to end bear farms on the mainland. Bear parts are used in traditional Chinese medicines and since bears are becoming too scarce in the wild some individuals think it is a good idea to raise bears and takes bits and pieces from the living bears for the medicines. This practice is actually illegal in China, but there are nowhere enough officials to curtail this and do all the other things required in a rapidly developing nation. So Jill took it up herself and physically goes to these caged bear “farmacies” and with official backing removes the bears and takes them to her bear hospital and recovery colony where the bears live out there their lives. They are too badly damaged and traumatized to be returned to the wild. The paradigm is that traditionally one thing is believed to promote health and wellness, but in fact may be cruel and destructive of the world we inhabit with other life forms and it takes action in the world to end that idea. Other ideas need to be introduced to replace the dysfunctional ones, but action is still necessary or the behavioral practices will prevail.
You might think that I am an Antarctica sort of person because this site promotes that part of my life, but in fact I am also a fast moving, giant city sort of person too. Hong Kong is a giant of world city. I have been in Hong Kong in the past and fast moving does not even come close to the speed of change and movement of contemporary Hong Kong. I loved the subway systems because you could go from location to location quickly. The streets are awash in people and all seem in a hurry to get somewhere just like New York, London and Paris or probably any number of busy places in the world. Dim Sum for breakfast is wonderful, but now I am back to my California oatmeal and fruit that is also very good. We are presented with such terrific choices and all we have to do is make the ones that are good for our health and the health of the planet.
Finding positives and immersing ourselves in the present generally makes all people less stressful and perhaps happy. Choosing “work” that seeks the good and its manifestation in others, in society, leads to a positive future. Educating people in the myriad of positive and possible futures is a good thing. Changing past behaviors that cause destruction and endanger all of us requires education and knowledge. I like giant cities and immense nature as instructors of us all. One just needs to take informed action.
In a couple of weeks I am off on a great project. The great project is three of us are sailing from New Stanley, Falkland Islands, to South Georgia, on our own-chartered boat with a highly experienced crew of three. The ship is the Golden Fleece, which is owned by Jerome Poncet, who has taken numerous expeditions for the BBC nature projects into the Southern Ocean. His companion, Sally Poncet, is famous in her own right for her work in the region on the birds that I am interested in digitizing. South Georgia, as I have written about in the past, is one of the “magical” places to me. I am going there to take pictures of albatrosses, shearwaters and other seabirds, as well as penguins in order to finish a coffee-table book. Of course there are the panoramic grand landscapes everywhere you turn in South Georgia and the wild-weather darker shots to be gathered, but albatrosses and their brethren are the ones totally endangered at the moment. My two companions will be along to make video that will hopefully become something you might eventually see.
Links:
www.kosmoliving.com
www.animalsasia.com
www.ripplecards.com
www.euyansang.com
www.newchapter.com
I was in Hong Kong for a week. The very first day I discovered Kosmo shops. They are very contemporary looking and border on Italian Modernism. The shops were filled with young people. My impression of the shops was they were “health-promoting” coffee houses, not unlike Starbucks, that sold organic vitamins, healthy snacks, a wide variety of elixirs and promoted positive ideas.
The seminar itself had a number of presenters like Tom Newmark talking about his New Chapter Vitamins and Richard Eu describing the integration and use of Chinese medicines into ones contemporary life. Claudia Del Veccio spoke about nutrition and Yee Ming Tan introduced her ideas on positive thinking to keep the body and spirit healthy and well. After my short talk with slides, Hunter Johnson spoke about Music and Wellness and used his Antarctica Suite as background music to illustrate his points…this was a big hit. Winnie Ngai’s subject as the contributions to wellness that good communications promoted. Dr. Fabienne Delibata discussed the “sustainability” concept as it applied to corporations.
To my mind the highlight of the seminar was Jill Robinson, Animals Asia Foundation, showing photos and videos of her Moon Bear Rescue Project in China. This is a Hong Kong based charity that is working to end bear farms on the mainland. Bear parts are used in traditional Chinese medicines and since bears are becoming too scarce in the wild some individuals think it is a good idea to raise bears and takes bits and pieces from the living bears for the medicines. This practice is actually illegal in China, but there are nowhere enough officials to curtail this and do all the other things required in a rapidly developing nation. So Jill took it up herself and physically goes to these caged bear “farmacies” and with official backing removes the bears and takes them to her bear hospital and recovery colony where the bears live out there their lives. They are too badly damaged and traumatized to be returned to the wild. The paradigm is that traditionally one thing is believed to promote health and wellness, but in fact may be cruel and destructive of the world we inhabit with other life forms and it takes action in the world to end that idea. Other ideas need to be introduced to replace the dysfunctional ones, but action is still necessary or the behavioral practices will prevail.
You might think that I am an Antarctica sort of person because this site promotes that part of my life, but in fact I am also a fast moving, giant city sort of person too. Hong Kong is a giant of world city. I have been in Hong Kong in the past and fast moving does not even come close to the speed of change and movement of contemporary Hong Kong. I loved the subway systems because you could go from location to location quickly. The streets are awash in people and all seem in a hurry to get somewhere just like New York, London and Paris or probably any number of busy places in the world. Dim Sum for breakfast is wonderful, but now I am back to my California oatmeal and fruit that is also very good. We are presented with such terrific choices and all we have to do is make the ones that are good for our health and the health of the planet.
Finding positives and immersing ourselves in the present generally makes all people less stressful and perhaps happy. Choosing “work” that seeks the good and its manifestation in others, in society, leads to a positive future. Educating people in the myriad of positive and possible futures is a good thing. Changing past behaviors that cause destruction and endanger all of us requires education and knowledge. I like giant cities and immense nature as instructors of us all. One just needs to take informed action.
In a couple of weeks I am off on a great project. The great project is three of us are sailing from New Stanley, Falkland Islands, to South Georgia, on our own-chartered boat with a highly experienced crew of three. The ship is the Golden Fleece, which is owned by Jerome Poncet, who has taken numerous expeditions for the BBC nature projects into the Southern Ocean. His companion, Sally Poncet, is famous in her own right for her work in the region on the birds that I am interested in digitizing. South Georgia, as I have written about in the past, is one of the “magical” places to me. I am going there to take pictures of albatrosses, shearwaters and other seabirds, as well as penguins in order to finish a coffee-table book. Of course there are the panoramic grand landscapes everywhere you turn in South Georgia and the wild-weather darker shots to be gathered, but albatrosses and their brethren are the ones totally endangered at the moment. My two companions will be along to make video that will hopefully become something you might eventually see.
Links:
www.kosmoliving.com
www.animalsasia.com
www.ripplecards.com
www.euyansang.com
www.newchapter.com
