Awesome Mount Kinabalu

Rising above lush rain forest to barren peaks, Southeast Asia's highest mountain is a study in contrasts

It's 6 a.m. and I'm perched atop Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, waiting for the sun to rise. Zipped tightly into my jacket, I guess that the temperature is just above freezing. It's hard to believe that the balmy rain forest of Borneo is just a few miles away.
            "It's a bit chilly, isn't it?" I say to one of my fellow climbers. He's almost too frozen to reply. "My hands are so cold," he says, fumbling with his camera, "I could easily drop something." And from here, that might mean never seeing it again, for there is little beneath us but empty space.
            During the three hours I climbed since leaving a warm bed in the middle of the night, I wondered whether my goal, 13,432-foot-high Low's Peak atop Kinabalu, was worth the effort. With the first rays of the sun now breaking over the eastern horizon, I'm about to find out.

Scientist Who Fights for the Pandas

Creeping through a bamboo forest in the Qin Ling Mountains of China's Shaanxi province, Peking University zoologist Pan Wenshi and his assistant Lu Zhi are about to witness a sight rarely seen in the wild: a giant panda mother and her newborn cub.

In a cave near a tributary of the Youshui River, Pan discovers Jiao Jiao, an eight-year-old, 80-kilo panda, one of thirty he has been studying for up to six years. In her arms, tiny as a mouse, is her baby, its pink skin showing through its sparse fur.

Squeezing towards the cave, his arm outstretched to her, Pan inches closer to Jiao Jiao.  He has come to know her well, and now the panda, exhibiting amazing trust, allows him to gently stroke her dense fur.  It is a joyous, unforgettable moment for the 55-year-old scientist who has devoted his life to saving these endangered creatures.

Pan and his research team named the days-old, female cub Xi Wang - Hope - the wish they hold for the future of pandas. Since her birth in August 1992, Pan has continued his Qin Ling study, which has been called China's best panda research program by George Schaller, science director of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and author of The Last Panda. Pan's findings have expanded the world's knowledge of the panda and its ecology, overturning some long-held notions about panda behavior and focusing the world's attention on the plight of the panda.

David Melville, executive director of the World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong, which funds the Qin Ling study, says Pan and his research "have contributed greatly to panda conservation." Three years ago, Pan was awarded the Order of the Golden Ark by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, for his unrelenting efforts in fighting for the pandas, including initiating a successful petition to China's President and Premier for a logging ban in a panda habitat.

A Brighter Tomorrow

The best way to get ahead, says this tireless Hong Kong philanthropist, is to help yourself.

Most students who attended Hong Kong City University's diploma course in social work in the early 1990s were aged about 20. Among them sat a woman who had turned 40. She was as attentive as other students, but sometimes had her two young daughters with her. They would draw, do their homework or sleep.

Jessie Yu attended lectures five or six days a week. When there were no lessons, she worked as a helper for three households, returning home to put her daughters to bed and to study. It was tough work, and the money she earned barely covered her living expenses.

But Yu kept going because she had a clear vision. She longed for graduation when she would begin social work, earn more money and have more time for a hotline she had started to help other single parents.

For most of her marriage, it was a future Yu didn't dare dream of. She lived with her husband, her illiterate mother and two daughters in a government flat in Hong Kong's Sha Tin district. She learned to fear the sound of her husband returned home from work and would look at his face. If he was glowering, it was a signal he could explode for no reason.

Yu had learned the truth about her husband too late. Born in India, she traveled to Guangzhou, China, after her father died in 1967. Then she went to Hong Kong with her mother. Yu met her husband-to-be while in a function of the trade union. She married the apparently kind-hearted man, then discovered his other side. He dictated what Yu did - what clothes she wore, what she'd watch on television. He threatened to beat up relatives or friends if she didn't obey him.

One night, when they were in bed, Yu mentioned her brother-in-law. Enraged, her husband abused her again. Yu lay still and reflected. Her mother had recently moved to a home for the aged, so she no longer had to worry about him mistreating her.

Hong Kong's rare dolphin, spoonbill, tree frog, and a dragonfly

There are some parts of the world whose names evoke images of both wildness and teeming cities. Florida, say, conjures visions of swamps with lurking alligators, and the oceanfront and bustling downtown stretches of Miami.
          Hong Kong, by contrast, is typically seen as a metropolis and little else: it’s the place where east meets west, where neon signs overhang crowded streets, and junks drift through a harbour surrounded by concrete jungle. This typecasting is unfortunate, as there is far more to Hong Kong than city – indeed, 40 percent of the land area is designated as country park, and the SAR supports a rich diversity of wildlife, including roughly the same number of reptile and amphibian species as Florida.
          To a fair extent, Hongkongers have themselves to blame for the stereotyping. They’ve been content to market clichés – east meeting west, the sailing junks that are all but extinct in reality. And until very recently, few could have even hazarded a guess at the names of any of the world rarities and unique species found on their own doorsteps. Happily, this situation is changing, with moves underway to promote green Hong Kong, and a growing awareness among local people of the importance of Hong Kong’s wildlife.
          There are even a few stars emerging among local species. Only a few are large enough to be noticed by novices – Hong Kong long ago lost the elephants, tigers, crocodiles and others that once inhabited much of south China – but all are interesting, and deserve to be more widely known. Here is a selection of four of these wild stars.