The Ghost Tree

The Ghost Tree is under threat.

I'm not sure how it got that name, but that's what local people have always called it. It's a rubber tree, at least 50 years old and possibly much older, located at the entrance to Wang Tong Village. It's a magnificent multiple cascade of roots and trunks, towering over the village like the Lord of Trees. No single photo can capture its majesty.

The Ghost Tree is home to countless birds and an enormous Burmese python who is occasionally seen swinging from its branches (and twice creeping through our garden!). The tree grows adjacent to the long-vacant house #1, whose last occupant apparently died there in the 1980s and no one has moved in since. Is that one reason for the tree's name?

Several months ago, six roots were chopped off to make room for a small drainage ditch. By the time anyone noticed, the deed had been done. When I had finished choking and hissing my outrage, the foreman assured me that no further work was necessary. The tree was safe.

That was the first lie.

A few days ago I cycled past the tree on my way to the post office. A crew of government contractors were swinging axes at its roots. They explained that they needed to extend the drainage ditch. Already they had severed one major root. The path they had marked made it clear they planned to chop off the single largest root and dig down several feet to pour concrete, killing whatever roots lay directly below.

My Cantonese becomes incomprehensible when I'm red in the face furious, so I called my wife to the scene. She's a born diplomat. Though this time her diplomacy skills were stretched to the limit.

She browbeat the crew into stopping work and demanded to speak to the engineer in charge. Half an hour later he phoned her. He lectured this mere villager, clearly a madwoman, about the necessity of drainage works to protect property from storm water damage (the property to be "protected" being nothing more than a 10-meter-long stretch of concrete footpath which is so close to the village stream that it drains naturally). When she objected that damaging the roots would weaken or sicken an ancient tree, he reassured her:

"If the tree becomes sick as a result of our work, don't worry. We'll be there within one day to cut it down."

Those were the wrong words to say to the world's most fanatic plantaholic. My wife's response is unrepeatable.

Our village is considered an inconsequential pip in a remote outlying district. Government engineers don't waste their time visiting such sites. Plans for everything from a minor drain to the repositioning of an entire river are drawn up from topographic maps in air conditioned high rise city offices. The engineer claimed he knew the site in detail. That was the second lie, as his subsequent description of the site made obvious.

He sunk himself deeper with his next remark. He would be willing to suspend the works under the condition that my wife sign a legal document in which she personally assumes all liability for any claims of flood damage that may have been averted by their drainage ditch. He may as well have declared war.

One of the hardest things about living in a beautiful place is the constant need to do battle with the sinister forces of ugliness, exploitation and concrete addiction. One of the best things about living in such a place is that there is a well-developed network of people willing to join a worthy fight. After a few e-mails, phone calls and stopping neighbors on the footpath, the Ghost Tree has become a cause célèbre.

The Ghost Tree is especially awe-inspiring and photogenic. It's easy to rally the troops on its behalf. I wonder how many less glamorous trees have died in the name of minor and unnecessary infrastructure projects. What will this world look like when the engineers have finished making the environment "safe"?

What's more important? The life of a tree that has lived on this earth longer than most of us? Or not getting our designer shoes wet on a small section of footpath next time there's a torrential rain?

The photo on the right clearly shows the six roots chopped off for the first section of the drain. The fresh earth in the lower right covers the latest severed roots.

UPDATE: In October 2010 we received a letter from the government, which said that, having conducted further studies (undoubtedly costing tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars), they determined that the planned drainage extension was not necessary, and therefore further works were suspended. The Ghost Tree will not become a ghost anytime soon.

Hanging Notice

Like a corpse hanging from a noose, this government notice was discovered dangling from the guard rail today. It contained numerous pages and was laminated, which indicated it was a serious notice.

Indeed it was. They want to pave over part of our garden!

That wasn't the only thing mentioned in 14 single-spaced pages of English and Chinese, but to me it was the most significant.

At long last the government intends to bring a sewer system to Wang Tong. This is a good thing. Houses here rely on septic tanks, not all of which are well-maintained. And when you crowd six generations of a family, plus all their cousins and in-laws into a small house, which is pretty common in this part of the world, it can put a strain on a septic system, as can be seen occasionally in the form of mucky, oily filth leeching into the stream. Many houses rely on septic tanks only for their flushing water, so you can usually tell when certain households are doing their laundry or just finished brushing their teeth. In other words, it can get pretty disgusting. The fish and crabs in Wang Tong Stream, not to mention the human children who play in the brackish outflow where the stream crosses the beach, will live longer, healthier lives once the sewers are in.

But they want to slice off a piece of our garden! They'll need to remove a beautiful (and expensive) granite wall and self-designed cast iron sunflower fence. They'll pave over flower beds and adolescent fruit trees near the border. For what? Most likely just for the temporary purpose of allowing machinery through a narrow section of the footpath. This is government, so expecting them to put things back the way they were after the job is done is like asking Godzilla to clean up after himself when he's finished devouring the population of Tokyo.

Worse, this is the Hong Kong Chinese government. Worse than that, it's Hong Kong Chinese government engineers. Who live and work in the city. If you tell such people that their plans require paving over greenery and killing trees, their response is likely to be: "You mean... that isn't a good thing?"

I'm all for the improvement to the environment the sewerage will bring. But it's depressing that it may happen at the expense of a small but irreplaceable portion of my own environment. I've written a letter of objection and asked for a meeting with the engineers. Please, kind sirs, a stay of execution for our flowers.

Death of a Tree

I regret to report the sad news of the death of an old and stately tree. It's called a rose apple, though I don't recall ever seeing any fruit. It's a gorgeous creature, a muscular tangle of fibrous trunks and branches overhanging an abandoned house and, incidentally, is located directly across the footpath from the entrance to my house.

I'm always suspicious when a government department announces that a tree must be removed. This is a government which views trees as nothing more than nuisances which get in the way of roads and buildings. Ever since a tree in Stanley collapsed after a rainstorm, tragically killing a teenage girl, all trees are viewed with suspicion: potential killers unless proven innocent.

Local people in Mui Wo aren't much better. Trees are simply overgrown weeds. Trees cause mosquitos. Yes, cause. Not "harbor", not "attract"; mosquitoes are spontaneously generated from trees, according to Hong Kong Chinese belief. In some of the other villages they're regularly chopped down or, if they're in a particularly conspicuous spot, poisoned by drilling holes at the base and injecting drain cleaner, to artificially widen footpaths so that people can illegally drive cars there. Sympathy for trees is not in wide supply.

So when we saw the notice pinned to the village notice board regarding the rose apple tree, Cathy and I phoned the number to ask questions. We were given another number to call, then another and another. I wrote a letter of objection. Finally Cathy spoke to the tree inspector himself. He explained that this tree was severely damaged by termites and, being on the side of a steep slope, was in danger of collapse in the event of a typhoon or heavy rainstorm.

But can't they just treat it? Maybe trim the higher limbs to make it less top-heavy, and use some sort of medicine to kill the termites?

Not advisable in this case, he said. The main trunk was so rotten inside that it was beyond saving. He assured my skeptical wife that killing a tree was a last resort measure, not first. But he promised to come take another look and see whether there were any remedial measures. Which he did a couple weeks later. I met him and he showed me in detail why the tree had to go. Even if they treated it, he said, the termites would simply move to the next tree up the hill. Best to remove it entirely. It broke my heart to admit he was right. It overhung our entrance and a public pathway. It posed a genuine danger.

Okay, so we accepted that it's a danger. Go ahead and remove it. Months went by and no one came even to look. Again Cathy phoned number after number in this department or that. "Next Wednesday," they said. Wednesday came and went. Actually, many Wednesdays came and went. It started to get infuriating.

From wanting desperately to preserve this magnificent tree, we were now anxious for them to do their terrible deed.

Here they are today, cutting it down a branch at a time. Euthenasia is never pretty.

Rest in peace, beautiful tree.