Tour of Medieval Europe (7 – 22 July 2007)

Betsy Lai

This was not the first time that I have been to Europe but definitely this was one of the most unforgettable journeys. Not only because it had enlightened me with knowledge and information on architecture, history and culture of Medieval times, but it had also provided me with time to think and reflect on my previous studies in literature, my interest in culture and arts and my own religion – Christianity and its meaning in modern times. There were a number of cities that had given me more memorable moments than the others, and I would like to mention a few.

Our first stop in Germany reminded me of my earliest trip to Europe in the late eighties. I went there with three of my girl friends after working for a short time and saving some money for the trip. At that time, we had taken a backpack trip of 40 days to Europe and the first stop was also Germany. I had to admit that I had a special preference for Germany – its philosophy, literature, its professionalism in studies and work, its history, its organizing power, its attitude towards education (free university studies) and its similarity with Chinese culture and aptitude; use of herbal medicine and aspiration for Nature – all fascinated me. I remembered back in the first trip, when the four of us reached Cologne in the evening, the sky was colored in orange with the sunset. The Gothic Church stood there right in front of us. I knew nothing about Gothic at that time but with the illumination, it was such a piece of art that you had to take a deep breath and couldn’t take your eyes off. The building was surrounded by an aura of holiness and silent beauty. Outside the church in the open space, a young girl with short hair was playing her violin with a cassette recorder that played the background music. She looked like a student learning music at the nearby university, and she was enjoying the piece of music that she played. It was both practice and performance, and she was proud of it. Her violin box was opened with some coins inside. The music that she played echoed in the hollow area. All the buildings nearby (now I realized that there were an arts gallery and some other shops around) were closed. This was such a beautiful and impressive scene.

This time when we visited the area again, we particularly went there to study the gothic architecture. It was broad daylight. The weather was nice and warm. The architecture still stood there as the centre of the city, centre of the market place, and again, you just couldn’t take your eyes off it. What made it different was that it was a Sunday and the areas around the church was noisy, messy and crowded with people – locals, tourists, families, couples with babies, artists that drew beautiful pictures on the ground; mime performers dressed in gold, orange and green, punks with hilarious hairstyle, gays with colorful feathers and dresses to show off at the gay party; bands with drums and instruments that you had never seen; young boys on lorries passing me giveaways (men’s lotion and shampoo???), etc. What an exciting scene! There were also two old men playing violin and trumpet with their violin box opened on the ground. Lots of people passed by and some did throw in coins. They were happy with the crowds and they were “professional”. This was such a festive and commercial mood. Right back in the church, we had the chance to look around the extravagant building with all the typical features of a gothic church. Though there were hundreds of visitors, they showed respect to the church and appreciation of the crafts and design therein. We studied the building, prayed and meditated there, admiring what ancestors had left for us and how they spent days and nights to make this piece of art came true.

After the visit, the question that came to my mind was “What is a Church?” I assumed in the past, like my first visit to the area, that the church implies “solemnity”, “seriousness”, “serenity”, “silence”, “holiness”, etc. But what should or would a Church be in the Medieval Times? Church is definitely a place for us to worship the Lord but it is also a place for people to meet, to say warm wishes, to help and to exchange news, to send blessings and to love. The area outside the church must be as noisy as it is now. It is where people get together, market and sell, meet old and new faces, exchange and gossip, etc. There must be “life” around the area. The Church is not a standalone piece of art that has no connection with the people that live there. The Church, the house of the Lord, is standing there, overlooking what people are doing and talking in different ages. It is part of everyday life. What would be a better city planning other than having the religious building, beautifully crafted, stood in the centre of a town where people could see from afar, gather around and send the blessings, say the prayers, listen to the bible and share the Good News! This is what a Church should be. Isn’t it great that it still serves this purpose now and remains a landmark with life and movement, rather than a monument and walls of stones?

The second place that I would like to reflect on is Canterbury in England. I lived there for twelve months but must admit that I still knew very little about the town. The workload at that time was not light and being the first time living abroad, there were so many exciting things for me to explore. Embarrassingly, I had not been to the Augustine Abbey nor up at the Westgate Tower. Canterbury is a beautiful “flower” city. With all the tourists and students and its proximity to countries in Europe, the city is very international and the standard of living is relatively high. It is quite a well-off city that could spare public spending on beautifying the place. The city council did not turn the place into a solely commercial spot. The Canterbury Cathedral made it a very special place that draws people in. The tower and the city wall remind me of wars, punishment and how it “protected” the people and also separated them from the external world. The walk along the city was so delightful and the illustration kept reminding me of its history and activities that were once so active there. The preservation and the size of the Abbey also allowed one to walk back in the past and meditated what had been happening in those days. Once we stepped in the Abbey, it would be difficult not to experience the greatness and reflect upon the life of those who stayed with the abbey. It enlightened my interest to look into the history and development of the monasteries. I then realized the origin of the Franciscans, the brothers and sisters, and the reason why they wore brown robes and always stayed away from the city; why people turn to them for medicine and basically, what did they do in daily life? With all the clear illustrations and audio guide, all those passages and characters in literature came to life. It was good that we had some time to stay in the Abbey and were able to experience the atmosphere there.

The question that came to mind was what drove people run away from the church and how they set up their own system but also at the end how some of the monks (monasteries) also become corrupted and gradually vanished. Today we still had so many brothers and sisters who had dedicated their whole lives serving people of other nationalities and traveled far away from their hometown to serve. In my place of living, I learnt about the life of the Little Sisters of the Poor and admired all those young women staying with the boat people and how they spent their lives serving them, giving the children education and living with them and suffering what the boatpeople had to suffer during those difficult times. We did go through a lot to become what we are now today.

The third place that I could not take my mind off was the visit to the Leuven University. Though we had only visited a small part of the university, I realized how important education is. The basic questions are : what is a university? What it is supposed to teach? Who determines the curriculum? I had recently visited the first address of the College of New Asia (now amalgamated into the Chinese University of Hong Kong). It was situated in an old building in Mongkok. The early professors of the College went all the way to Hong Kong to set up their own teaching centres there with minimum wage and tiny classrooms. Their core subjects included philosophy, physics, logic, history, etc. Students had to complete all these core subjects before they took a specialty, such as Law and Economics. How similar it is when I compared with what we were briefed on the early curriculum of the Leuven University, and I believed the educators in China and the western world did share their vision in the past. The concept of using “the right to teach everywhere” is also a new concept which is very advanced and practical. There are also so many things to consider as one set up an education institution. The simple thing as what language should be used as the teaching language (Flemish/French or English/Cantonese/Putonghua?) and who and what should be taught in history lessons came to my mind. Later on, I did ask friends from other countries and were told that nowadays, what the teachers would do is to guide students to look for first hand materials, like newspaper cuttings, letters and diaries of that times instead of studying from text. How to ensure students are enlightened with different sources of materials and are curious enough to start their own analysis and judgment must be a difficult area for teachers of history.

Before I close this short article, I would like to add two little anecdotes. The first one is about Morris Dance which I mentioned in one of our de-briefings. Some UK expatriates in Hong Kong set up a Morris Dance group and during the late 80s when I worked in Central and Western District Office, I did invite the group to perform the Morris Dance on the Chater Road Pedestrian Area on Sundays at our district culture events. They were a group of jolly people, about six to eight, wearing white shirts and black boots. They waved their colorful handkerchiefs during the dance and played some folksongs with their instruments. I could no longer see these performances in Hong Kong. Are they still performing in Hong Kong or has it faded away like many other UK tradition? In the tourists’ centre of Thaxted, Essex, I received a tourists’ guide with events and performances of that month, and the cover page was a group of morris dancers. It was so familiar with what I had seen before. All the old memories came back. At the little church in Thaxted, we were greeted by an old man helping out in the church, laying out the tables for the mass in the evening. He told us that he used to work in Cathay Pacific and had just retired from the company and returned to live in this small town. What a coincidence? How could even such a small town had connections with Hong Kong. I had a nostalgic thought that perhaps this was the man who brought the morris dance into Hong Kong and enjoyed performing this traditional dance with his friends and families in the heart of our city like what he did in the market place of the old British town.

The second story is about bears. There are a number of UK bears that are famous in the children’s as well as the adults’ world. Many of us know the Paddington Bear in London, and in Canterbury, there is a bear that is particularly affiliated to place – the Rupert Bear (Appendix II). There is a museum of bears and a bear trail in Canterbury. Unfortunately, we were not able to visit the museum because its opening hours did not match our schedule. The Rupert Bear was in children’s books and when I was in primary school, I remembered that I had watched the cartoons on Rupert Bear and his friends on TV. Rupert Bear wears a warm sweater and has a checkered scarf hanging around his neck. He walks briskly on his two legs and behaves like a little boy, doing all the tricks and making mistakes. The hotel that we stayed, the Chaucer Hotel, was the hotel that the author of Rupert Bear, Mary Tourtel, resided after she got poor eyesight. She stayed there till she died. Mary’s father and brother were the ones who made and repaired the stained glasses of the Canterbury Church. They spent their whole lives serving the church. I read about this story in a notice board near the reception area of the hotel, and it was such a delightful note to add to this magnificent tour.

On closing, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to Fr Louis Ha, Fr Patrick Taveirne, Dr Eileen Kane, Maisie and Vincent for their dedication and passion; for their humour and intelligence and for their love for people and life. They are those special people who have made life different, interesting and full of joy and surprises. It is really my good fortune to have our paths crossed at this time. My sincere blessings to you all!

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Appendix I

Morris Dance

Morris dancers and a hobby horse:

detail of Thames at Richmond, with the Old Royal Palace, c.1620

Before the English Civil War, the working peasantry took part in Morris dances, especially at Whitsun. In 1600 the Shakespearean actor William Kempe morris danced from London to Norwich, an event chronicled in his Nine Days Wonder (1600). The Puritan government of Oliver Cromwell, however, suppressed Whitsun Ales and other such festivities. When the crown was restored by Charles II, the springtime festivals were restored. In particular, Whitsun Ales came to be celebrated on Whitsunday, as the date coincided with the birthday of Charles II.

Morris dancing continued in popularity until the industrial revolution and its accompanying social changes. In the modern day, it is commonly thought of as a uniquely English activity, although there are around 150 morris sides (or teams) in the United States. British expatriates form a larger part of the morris tradition in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Hong Kong.

Appendix II

Rupert Bear

(a history by David Lister)

Rupert Bear is a cartoon character created by the English artist Mary Tourtel and

who first appeared in the Daily Express on November 8, 1920.

Rupert appeared (and still appears) every day in the British newspaper "The Daily Express". It must be one of the longest running children's cartoons in a newspaper anywhere in the world. 

In the 1930s there was a vogue for children's cartoons in British newspapers.  Teddy Tail appeared in the Daily Mail and "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred" in the Daily Mirror. The Express decided that they should have their own cartoon and turned to Mary Tourtel, who was the wife of one of their sub-editors. She invented the little bear, Rupert, devising the stories and drawing the illustrations herself. 

The first Rupert cartoon appeared on 8th, November, 1920. Two drawings appeared each day, with a short text of story beneath them. Mary Toutel continued to draw Rupert until 1935, when her eyesight began to fail. Casting round for someone to take over, The Express asked an artist and magazine illustrator named Alfred Bestall to fill in for six weeks. So Alfred Bestall took over, but the six weeks extended for thirty years until he retired in 1965 and other artists took over. The cartoon continues in the Daily Express to this day. 

Extract from http://nylon.net/rupert/lister.htm