Not taking things for granted

Sunday, 30 January 2011

As I am often telling the students in my school, it is important not to take things for granted. (I would have preferred to express this as a positive statement, rather than using the negative”not”, but I am not sure how you express “don’t take things for granted” in a positive way without shifting the focus of the central idea, as in the somewhat weaker “appreciate everything”).

Yesterday I spent a cold and windy day in Macau. My aim was simply to explore Macau and have a relaxing day taking photos. The photo taking was certainly successful, as about 500 photos

attest. However, to call the day relaxing would be only half the story - it was mentally recharging but physically arduous. Macau may be tiny, but it is very hilly, and by the time I finally sat down in the seat for the return ferry trip to Hong Kong in the evening, my tired aching limbs were protesting at the demands placed upon them during the day. I had walked more than 25 kilometres, with much of the walking being climbing up steep hills - strangely I can’t remember walking downhill nearly as much.

Macau was the first European colony in Asia, being governed by Portugal from 1557. Macau was also the last European colony in Asia, having been handed over to China in December 1999. Since that time, it has been one of two Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of China under the “One Country, Two Systems” model, the other SAR being Hong Kong.

It had been more than six years since I had been to Macau, and the changes during that time had been remarkable. Some of the changes were very positive, such as the sensitive restoration of many of Macau’s superb Portuguese colonial-era buildings. Other changes were less positive, such as the reclamation of large areas of land for the construction of dozens of gambling casinos in a style that could be most politely described as “somewhat kitsch”. Macau’s aspiration to become the Monte Carlo or the Las Vegas of the Orient seems well on the way to fruition.

I suppose it could be said that I had been taking Macau’s proximity for granted. After all, it is only sixty kilometres from Hong Kong (or a one hour ferry trip each way), it can be visited as a day trip, and yet it is a very different place to Hong Kong. The ease of visiting perhaps had made it too easy for me to delay for too long.

I have posted a new gallery of 49 photos of Macau HERE. It contains 40 photos that I took yesterday, plus 9 that I took on my visit there in 1982. As you will see, Macau has certainly changed!

Taking things for granted can constrict one’s perspective terribly. One of the things I take for granted and use every day, almost without thinking about it, is the internet. This is perhaps surprising, as I still remember the sense of wonder I felt when I was first introduced to the wonders of the world-wide-web and e-mail in the early 1990s, soon after they became generally available.

I was reminded afresh of this sense of wonder during the week as I watched an interview with Isaac Asimov, the great scientist and science fiction writer (and hero of my teen years). The interview was recorded in 1988, before the invention of the world-wide-web, and Asimov talks about its potential in glowing terms that must have seemed like distant science fiction at the time - the interviewer certainly seems to think so. To hear Asimov’s prophetic words almost a quarter of a century after they were spoken was, for me, a revelation, and a mark of his genius.

Let me share them with you in the YouTube clip below:

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