School Opinions on the Tuck Shop

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1 Monday, Jan 26, 2015 What s UP? Issue 3 See updates at LKKCWhatUP Also on our official webpage: ~whatsup 1 P.1-2 School Class Performing Arts Competitions P.3-4 Intercultural event The AFS Intercultural Fair P.5-6 School Opinions on the Tuck Shop P.7 Game Crossword Puzzle Just Enjoy the Show - Class Performing Arts Competition 4D Yoyo Yiu, 5F Cece Wong What is it we haven t seen from the Performing Arts Competition, a time honoured tradition of LKKC? While we repeat the routine stuff, we also throw in new elements. Let s revisit the Performing Arts Competition. Trendy Adaptation of and Reference to Politics Recently, the Umbrella Movement and political reforms have been all over the news. Paying a lot of attention to current affairs, our schoolmates showed their concern over the issue while remaining entertaining. The most popular reference of all was to 4 o clock Hui Sir. We all appreciated his care for speakers of both Cantonese and English. I will first speak in Chinese, then repeat in English, I will now recap in English, I repeat,... Teachers and students all followed suit to make bilingual speeches, with Mrs Yau's and Mr Ho s being the most memorable. Mr Ho explained how everyone died drinking water in Cantonese 5F s Reference to 4pm Hui Sir and English, while Mrs Yau went beyond Cantonese and English to make Hakka Chinese announcements, though it could have well been double Dutch. Performers referred to various parties and individuals involved in the Umbrella Movement as well. 3B s play ended the rumoured bromance between Alex and Lester, who were student leaders of the Movement. 4D s play centred around the struggle between Yellow Ribbons, Blue Ribbons and External Forces. It was observed that most performers preferred referring to the funny trivialities rather than pulling a straight face when discussing politics. After all, the competition aimed to entertain. Yet, certain F.6 students stood out by expressing their political views on stage with yellow umbrellas. During their performing sessions, a few students from 6A and 6C sat in silence holding striking yellow umbrellas when their classmates delivered speeches to show gratitude to their teachers. I wasn t representing the whole class, said Wong Ho Kwong, the 6C student who held the yellow umbrella, It was just a personal act to show support for the struggle for universal suffrage. The F.6 students are already actively preparing for public exams, but that doesn't make them apathetic about politics and the future development of our society they still care a lot. A 6C student brought the symbolic yellow umbrella on stage

2 2 5E s video with Ms Cheng giving fashion advice ( Black is a must") Relive Our Joyful School Life as 5D won the Award for the Best Interpretation in the Senior Form. Eye catching Costumes How do you get the whole school laughing their heads off? Extract jokes from your everyday school life, that s how! The audience can really relate to these jokes because they ve had a similar experience. To illustrate the notion, come up with a name of an LKKC student that hasn't heard of Mr Yau's renowned chant of, "4 over 3, pie r cube" (an equation for the volume of a sphere) in his/her 6 years, whether in the theatre or in a classroom. We can bet your bottom dollar that you can't. Convert Mrs Yau s universally feared copying penalty into weapons used in operations to clear protest sites, or ask Ms Cheng to proclaim her love for black clothing, or maybe even Mr Tai to reiterate the importance of punctuality in your class s video. Capture the funny moments in your seemingly tedious school life and put them on stage. That's a recipe for a good show! Among all the materials, the best were probably 5D s constant digs at the controversial English vocabulary book system. Their play went beyond comedy to attempt irony, reflecting many students hard effort put on vocabulary books. The play was evidently a massive success even among teachers, This year, many inspiring costumes were displayed: Maleficent, the Avengers, maybe a Beautiful Guanyin like Beautiful Miss Mak and an angel like Mr. Yau. It was almost torture to pick a favourite. One can never forget the girl in black with menacing horns from 4A. The character was adapted from the eponymous Disney villainess character from the 2014 American dark fantasy film, Maleficent. Also, some of the characters were adapted from the film The Avengers like Thor (portrayed by Mr. Leung) and Loki. A trace of The Avengers could also be found in 4C s performance, when characters fought zombies in the final scene using weapons from the film. Wasn't it incredible to turn Ms Mak, our beloved English teacher, into Guanyin just with plastic bags? And who knew a boy could become the "Goddess" of "Soldier girls" after putting on a precarious wig? From the character design, the costumes to the make up, we could easily see how much effort our schoolmates had put into this show. Having a Talk with One of the Winners of the Best Interpretation Award 4A s Maleficent (right) 4E won the Award for the Best Interpretation in F4 with their unique performance. Dancing has almost become a must in the competition so that it is one of the most frequently told jokes in the competition itself. Therefore, 4E, a class depending entirely on drama and singing and refusing to dance, was an anomaly. Their innovation might have been one of the reasons behind their triumph. They were just as the lyrics of Keep Going ( 自由意志 ), the song they sang, described finding their way to do something unusual, following neither the mass nor the tradition. The director of class 4E, Fung Ho Yung, talked about the idea behind the scene in an interview and mentioned the sweet and sour during the rehearsals. At first, we decided to dance but our class teacher Mr. Chung suggested singing instead of following the herd by dancing, said Fung. We considered his idea thoroughly and finally we adopted it since we wanted to go beyond the rules and to develop our own path, he explained. You can define our class as a singing class since more than half of our class and enthusiastic singers. Fung added. 4E spared no opportunity to stand out. They also revised the lyrics of the song, Keep Going ( 自由意志 ) from Pakho Chau to their own song, 4E Spirits (4E 意志 ). When I first listened to the song, I did feel a connection with the melody and original lyrics. But, we altered the lyrics finally so that the song belonged to us, Fung said. A good plot is an important buddy with the song. Fung added that he hoped to relight the spirit of the schoolmates and encourage them through the play. Don t be defeated by adversity summon your strength to climb over mountains. When awarded, he was surprised. I'm most pleased to see how united my class is, he said. He would like to thank his classmates and also his class teacher, Mr. Chung, who gave excellent suggestions for the performance and his friendly and repeated reminders to avoid being overtime. After appreciating the spectacular performances from the students, the Performing Arts Competition ended with the teachers dedication of the upbeat Cantonese version of, Love Sunshine. It was quite a pity that there weren t any special performances from bands, dance groups or singing contest winners this year, but the school had to end the show on time to meet the conditions set by Tuen Mun Town Hall and the show was already more than awesome. Good job, people!

3 THE AFS INTERCULTURAL FAIR 3 5F Wanda Tsang Wai Yiu Have you ever thought of visiting more than 30 different countries just in a day? Seriously, I am not kidding! Thanks to the AFS Intercultural Exchanges, a round the world travel experience is no longer a fancy dream for me and you. The AFS Intercultural Exchanges celebrates cultural differences with over 1500 local primary and secondary school students and teachers. Exchange students from all over the world, including Brazil, Argentina, Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, showcase their unique ways of living, festivals and history at this one day carnival with the help of over 100 AFS volunteers and alumni. The AFS Intercultural Fair is a rare opportunity for local youth to experience different cultures and befriend people from all over the world without leaving their city. Early in the morning on 29 th November, around 20 students from LKKC, together with our English teacher Ms Leung set off for our trip to Maryknoll Fathers School in Kowloon. The coach didn't get to the Catholic school until an hour later. Filled with excitement, we trotted along the uphill slope, through a couple of twists and turns and finally saw the eye catching banner, AFS Intercultural Fair After a short briefing in the school hall, we kicked off our journey in the romantic seaside country of Greece. We played football with a Greek girl and learned a few greetings in Greek like, Hello. and Thank you.. It is nice to learn other languages though we couldn t remember any of them after the game. Italy and Iceland were our next stop. A funny young man from Iceland led us a merry dance called Superman and a pack of passionate Italians taught us their folk dance. I need to admit that the Italians were really energetic as they suddenly went hopping and hurdling around and singing as well as loudly laughing half way through the dance with no trace of calming down. They invited every single one of us to dance with them and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves so much. Joy and laughter was in the air! One of the day s highlights was the face painting activity held in the playground, where we could pick our favourite countries and have their national flags drawn on our faces or arms! We also went to Germany, Spain, Denmark, Switzerland, Russia so on and so on. We had a lot of fun, and at the same time, we also gained so much understanding of the diverse cultures of many different countries. Unfortunately, the mediumsized campus was packed with people and a lot of other game stalls had long queues so we didn t have a chance to go through all of them. Interested in my unique experience? Hesitate no more and join the fantastic AFS Intercultural Fun Fair in 2015! See you there.

4 4 Look at all these AFSers! 5E Phoebe Ng Ka Laam After looking into our reporters experiences in the AFS Intercultural Fair, we interviewed some of the AFS exchange students and they have shared their impressions on Hong Kong s unique culture and educational system. Let s see what they said! Hong Kong people are more punctual and shyer than people in Argentina. However, Hong Kong s education system places more emphasis more on language such as English and Chinese, while we only have one 30 minute language lesson a week and university education is free for everyone in my homeland. Valeria, 16, Argentina Hong Kong people are friendlier than Austrians but not as open minded about new things. The school curriculum in Hong Kong is more difficult and Hong Kong students face more exam pressure. For example, they have to prepare for their DSE from F1 to F6, while we only have to prepare for two years in Austria. Christian, 16, Austria I think Hong Kong people are very noisy and I even see them shout, while Finns try to keep quiet in order not to disturb others. There is less freedom in high schools in Hong Kong. In Finland it is unnecessary to hand in all homework and you can arrange your own timetables. Veera, 16, Finland Nello, 16, Italy The weather in Hong Kong is hot and humid while it is cool and dry in Germany. There are more subjects in our schools than in Hong Kong. We have to learn Politics, Visual Arts, Music and languages like French, Russian, Spanish, Latin in my homeland. Nicolas, 16, Germany My favourite Hong Kong food is Cha Siu Fan (barbecued pork rice) and I love the great public transport system in Hong Kong. There is more group work in schools here than in Italy. I can learn how to collaborate with others in Hong Kong.

5 What's Your Opinion On The Tuck Shop? 5 5E Patrick Pang, 5F Anson Leung Anything good about the tuck shop that impresses you the most? Any downsides you want the tuck shop to improve? Let s see whether you can find someone with the same stance as you below. Food sold in the second recess is not fresh enough. Take lo mein as an example. It is either too cold or slightly overcooked. Food shouldn t be pre made so as to meet the demand for the whole day At least I believe so, as some of the food seems to have been waiting for us for a long time. The service is quite satisfactory. The only letdown is that one of the cashiers always seems to be in a hurry. The waiting time at lunch and recess is significantly longer. However, streamlining the working structure to one person cooking and the other 2 serving is already a great improvement. Only a few choices of rice are provided. Pork chop rice, one of the most common yet popular types of rice, is not provided. More types of sauces can also be provided, as there are only soy sauce and beef sauce right now. The cashiers' attitudes are praise worthy, though they collect money a bit too slowly. If a student goes there late, he/she has to wait for a considerable amount of time before getting served. It is so caring of the tuck shop to provide students who feel extremely cold in winter with warm drinks. Nevertheless, food shouldn t be pre made so early. Though the food isn t ice cold, I hardly ever enjoy warm food during lunch time or recess, especially in winter. What s more, I found it hard to buy ice cream at the tuck shop as it is usually sold out very soon. The cashiers are quite friendly. One of the major concerns is the long queuing time. The popular lo meins always run out very soon for that reason. It is quite puzzling that when the manager is absent, it is nearly impossible for students to pay for food using their Octopus card. The need to give change really causes inconvenience. Training of staff should be boosted. The amount of food per serve is too much. e.g. Siu mai: Nine per pack is way too much, as I only want about 4 to 5. On the other hand, the chicken fillet undeniably deserves to be the star product of the whole tuck shop. T hough oily it can only be treated as a guilty pleasure. Well, if it is made less oily, the original mouth watering flavour will be lost, so the only choice is to avoid eating too much of it. The overall food quality is acceptable and within my expectation. Price, especially for the drinks, can be lowered. I am also desperate to see some improvements with the lo mein as it is too dry. The cashiers are caring and nice, and they are concerned about the quality of food as they will ask us how the food tastes and whether or not we are full. They will tell jokes sometimes too. There are often wow factors by constant innovation, but I have yet to taste any new release. However, some of the food is unhealthy, like deep fried, oily snacks or non nutritious instant noodles. Hygiene is satisfactory in general.

6 6 Satisfactory service in general, with some nice, kind tuck shop cashiers. However, since there are so many people that they have to line up in 2 queues. More people could be hired so as to further enhance the speed and efficiency of service. The taste of the food is awful! Although there have been several new types of food released, I have never tried them out, but I found that others are actively trying them out. The quality of food was not that good. There s definitely a lack of consistency in the quality of food. For instance, the lo meins I bought at recess are juicy and delicious. However, those sold during lunch time are almost inedible because they are as dry as a desert. I suggest making them right before lunch or at the end of school time, rather than making them all during recess. The diversity of food isn t wide enough to allow students to pick what they want to eat. In winter, the food will quickly become cold. I have experienced the food becoming stone cold ten minutes after purchasing it. However, they do store the cartons of drinks in a heated fridge, which is really considerate on cold days. Summary To sum up, service quality and efficiency are the major concerns of students. Most complaints are about the freshness of the food sold. We suggest the tuck shop try their very best to strike a balance between customers' needs and cost effectiveness. Some students are asking for more diverse food choices. Knowing about the above demands from students, the tuck shop is actively releasing new types of food so as to respond to our request. Studies could be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of innovations, though. Apart from food, students are generally satisfied with the staff. The friendliness and sincerity can greatly compensate for the deficiencies in food quality and freshness. After all, a trade can never be successfully completed without any genuine interactions. On the other hand, we sincerely hope that the operator can put more effort into improving efficiency. For example, faster payment methods could be revised by the training of the staff. All in all, the service of the tuck shop can only be further improved through mutual effort by students and the operator. When you come up with any suggestions or opinions, why don t you express your thoughts to the cashiers? You will certainly gain a lot through communication.

7 Crossword Puzzle: Phrases with Cities and Nationalities 7 Peculiar as it may seem, some countries, cities and nationalities have given unique impressions to the Britons, leading to interesting phrases with those geographical proper nouns and adjectives. Here is a little crossword puzzle for you to fill in, and the answers are all cities, countries or nationalities. Try it out and see what they mean below! ACROSS 3 pardon my 5 double means nonsense 6 in a minute DOWN 1 rip-off 2 all the tea in 4 to me means I can t understand this Pardon my French After swearing, some people may add a phrase, pardon/excuse my French, as an attempt to excuse their rudeness. It is generally believed that the phrase developed from the literal usage of excusing French words and phrases, which are unfamiliar to many Englishmen. This phrase now is used to excuse profanity under the pretense that the rude words are French. Double Dutch! Yes, it means nonsense and is kind of racist. Indeed, many negative concepts are associated with Dutch people in English, such as Dutch widow which means a prostitute, going Dutch/Dutch treat which means splitting the bill or paying one own s expenses. The reason behind this is that during the Anglo- Dutch Wars Englishmen coined a lot of negative phrases like this and associated them with Dutch people. In a New York minute If you have ever been to New York, you will not question the extremely fast pace of people s lives. The phrase was coined by Texans, who live at a more relaxed pace. For them, it seems that a New York minute is shorter than a normal minute. Therefore in a New York minute means very soon. Rip-off Britain The phrase describes the phenomenon that goods and services in Britain are more expensive. The reasons behind the phenomenon are complicated, but the phrase is a useful one to learn, if you want to sound like a Briton complaining. All the tea in China It is clear how obsessed British people are about tea: the phrase all the tea in China means very expensive things. So if you want to say something is expensive, you can say that it costs all the tea in China. Greek to me Can you read Greek? (Oh perhaps you can, but just bear in mind most Englishmen cannot) So, if something is Greek to you, that means that the thing is as incomprehensible as Greek.

8 8 Your Say: Letter from Heaven Letter from Heaven 5F Rosetta Law, 3B Kenneth Law When the day starts without me And I am not there to hear The sun still rises as I find your face, and burst into tears. I asked you many times not to cry. Wipe the tears of sorrow off your face- Don t worry! I m in eternal paradise, Filled with love and peace. I always remember how much you love me, As much as I love you. In the frigid darkness, keep calm As our love will light the way. When the day starts without me, We aren t far apart For every time you think of me, I am right there in your heart! What s UP? Committee Chief Editor: 5F Cece Wong Ngo Yan Deputy Editor: 5E Phoebe Ng Ka Laam Senior Editors: 5E Anson Wu Man Ho 5E Patrick Pang Ming Kin 4A Tina Tang Chi Yau 5F Rosetta Law Wai Chung 5F Nathan Man Kai Kin 5F Anson Leung Tze Kin 5E Cindy Ng Ka Ying 4E Willie Leung Kwong Chun Teacher Advisers: Ms. Christine Langley Ms. Leung Pui Sin Ms. Mak Ka Hung