Below the Table Mountain

The story began with the Table Mountain, a flat sweep of rocky highland at the southern tip of the African continent, in the famous Cape Town. It was December 1997, El Nino or Southern Oscillation moulded the weather making the summer there not as hot as it used to be. It was said that even snow was found on the Table Mountain a few days before my arrival.

When my plane arrived from Johannesberg, I once thought we were only a few tens of metres from the ground and were soon to land, but then from the window I saw the uncultivated earth stopped stretching out beneath us, unveiling a much wider view of houses, cars, and everything characteristic of a modern civilization. Cape Town is like this, full of wonders; and the Table Mountain is the wonder of wonders.

The People

IOI 1997 Hong Kong Team

The Hong Kong Team for IOI 1997 consisted of two leaders and four contestants. From left to right, they are Mr. Sin Tak Wah (Education Department, Delegation Leader), Leung Chun Ho (Sing Yin Secondary School), me, Ching Wing On Thomas (Tung Wah Group Hospitals Wong Fut Nam College), Mr. Ng Siu Kai (Education Department, Deputy Team Leader) and Lau Tsz Kit Laurence (La Salle College). This group photo was taken in front of the Jameson Hall immediately after we arrived at UCT.

University of Cape Town

We lived in UCT during the visit. UCT situates directly below the Table Mountain. It is geographically divided into the upper campus, middle campus and lower campus, separated by highways. The picture on the right shows the upper campus. In the middle, we see Jameson Hall. On the left there is Fuller Hall, and on the right there is Smuts Hall. Each of us was allocated a room next to each other in the Smuts Hall during our stay in Cape Town. According to Elizabeth Shum, these two halls were normally reserved for the best students in the university.

University Avenue

Every evening, a large group of black students gather in the place between these two Halls. They sing aloud in their native language, dancing in a circle. Although none of us understood the lyrics, we were influenced by the joyful atmosphere they created. Perhaps they were praising the liberation of the blacks, perhaps they were glorifying the independence of South Africa.

Smuts Hall

At the entrance of the Smuts Hall, there is a tuck shop, where some snacks are sold. Inside, you see a large garden, where huge palm trees were planted. A dining hall divides the garden into two parts. Next to the dining hall, there is a small pub. Looking around from the garden, you find many staircases along the corridor at the periphery, each of which leads to a two storey hostel, with four rooms on each floor. Our rooms were just at the back of the dining hall and we had the Hungarian team as our neighbour.

Woolsack Residence

To get to the middle campus from the Smuts Hall, we pass through a tunnel. Opposite to the Education Building is the Woolsack Residence. Our team leaders lived there. According to Elizabeth Shum, this is for postgraduate students. If I don't tell you that the photo was taken inside UCT, perhaps you might think it is located somewhere in a holiday resort!

We came to UCT for the IOI contest. Except excursion, most of our activities would take place here, including two competition days and a Microsoft International Day. Our opening ceremony took place in the Baxter Theatre in the lower campus. The competition was held in the Leslie Building and the Computer Science Building in the upper campus. We had African barbecue in the Fuller Hall and watched a Portugeese Folk Dance in the Jameson Hall. UCT has a beautiful campus. We all liked it very much.

Excursion

Table Mountain

Iam not going to talk about the competition. Rather, for the time being, I would concentrate on the excursion, where the exoticism lies. I am not going to present my sightseeing in chronological order too. So, where should we start? From everywhere in Cape Town, you can see the Table Mountain. Undoubtedly, it should be our first stop.

Table Mountain is not always promising. Sometimes she is shy, and hides herself in thick clouds. In fact, it rained the first time we approached it. Four days later, the weather became clearer and we went to the Table Mountain again. Much to our satisfaction, the mountain is indeed a great place to visit. On the top, it looks as if I could catch a piece of cloud nearby easily.

The top of the mountain features a narrow ridge of rocky ground, with extensive grass growing from the fissures. A kind of wild rabbit lives there. It has brown fur and short tail. We found one near the cable car station and it looked cute. It seemed to have already accustomed to human visitors. Sometimes when we took photos, it even jumped to the rock swiftly and sat besides us!

As seen in the photo on the right, our next stop would be a beach. By the principle of reversibility, the fact that we could see the beach from the Table Mountain implies (and be implied by the fact) that we could see the Table Mountain from the beach. That's true. And the Table Mountain can be seen not only from the beach, but also almost everywhere in Cape Town.

West Coast Ostrich Farm

West Coast Ostrich Ranch is yet another example. The distant Table Mountain is very clear on a sunny day. In the leftmost photo, we arranged ourselves to spell the word IOI in front of the Table Mountain. At the farm, we bought some ostrich eggs, watched the Zulu dance, and ate ostrich meat too. It was said that ostrich meat has low cholesterol content hence it is an important health food today.

You know, ostrich is the fastest running animal on Earth. It is the largest bird but it cannot fly. Ostrich eggs are the biggest eggs too. They are hard, and can even support the weight of a mature man! South Africa has long been one of the famous habitats for ostrich. We were lucky to have the opportunity to meet some real ones. Well, they are nice animals, except that they would hit your camera with their beaks.

Other Wildlife

African wildlife is world-famous. We have looked at a small rabbit and some ostriches. Of course, we came across with much more. For instance, we saw hundreds of different kinds of birds in the World of Birds, one of the few large bird parks in the world. Moreover, South Africa situates at where the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean merge. The difference in natural conditions of the two oceans causes her east coast and her west coast to have very different species of aquatic life. The Two-Oceans Aquarium has excellent collection of these creatures on exhibit. Above all, a cheetah was brought to both the opening and closing ceremony of IOI, and became a mascot of the event!

It was a pity that we did not have chance to go to the Cape of Good Hope, an even bigger natural reserve. Anyway, from this trip, we learnt to respect wildlife. The conservation of these natural resources is of paramount importance to the well being of human in the 21st century. Soon, we also realised another important problem, maintenance of peace among different human races in the world. I will deal with this issue in the next section.

International Touch

Mandela

Africa had traditionally been the home of the blacks. In the 17th and 18th century, invaders from Europe enslaved many blacks and colonised the territory. After that, blacks were made the lowest and poorest social stratum in South Africa. It was not until very recently, that the national hero Nelson Mandela became the President and announced the independence of South Africa. In the tunnels connecting the upper and middle campus of UCT, we found a lot of slogans claiming equal opportunity of education for the black and white, man and woman alike. This was not only the success of South Africa, but also the success of a new international order, where people should no longer be discriminated by their race nor skin colour. In view of this, we took some photos with a painting of President Mandela, who was also a patron of IOI 1997, in the Baxter Theatre.

HKSAR

By that time, Hong Kong has just returned to Chinese sovereignty for a few months. She also shares some similarities with South Africa, besides the Table Mountain and the Lion Rock Hill, of course. Hong Kong had also traditionally been a Chinese territory. In 1842, the unequal Nanjing Treaty and later Beijing Treaty forced the Qing Dynasty to cede the Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula to Britain. After more than 150 years, Hong Kong finally came back and joined her motherland. This was also a legendary success symbolising the end of colonial administration period of the world. The IOI 1997 was the first time Hong Kong SAR participated in IOI after her Return. We no longer use the blue flag that bears the British crown, but a new red flag with a white flower.

China	German	Ireland
Isreal	Macao	Mexico
South Korea	Taiwan	Ukraine

One of the aims of IOI is to foster good international friendship among the young people. During the event, we also met a lot of peers from other countries. Besides the ones shown on the left, we also had contact with Azerbaijan, Croatia, France, Hungary, Luthuania, Moldova, Singapore, Sri Lanka, etc.

Since it was shortly after Hong Kong's Return to Chinese sovereignty, people were interested at how Hong Kong was then. We gave each of them a key holder that commemorates the handover (it costed us dearly). Although Hong Kong is part of China, under the One Country Two Systems policy, we are still allowed to send our own teams to international competitions under the name Hong Kong, China.

Some of those I met in Cape Town were friends I made in Hungary the year before (i.e. in 1996). It was a pleasure for us to meet each other again after one year's e-mail communication. Examples are Alex Ieong from Macao, Chen Lei from China, Christophe Porteneuve from France, Elnur Seyidli from Azerbaijan, Marimar from Mexico and Toth Laszlo from Hungary (in alphabetical order).

Through these friends, we got to know different cultures all around the world, for instance, interesting festivals that we had never heard of, and various religions including Muslim that we seldom had chance to get to know.

Farewell Africa

IOI 1997 lasted for only 7 days. We had wonderful time there but we could not stay forever. Our plane departed from Cape Town and arrived at Johannesburg. There, at the airport, I bought some South African stamps. One of them bears an image of the Table Mountain. It triggered me to re-think of all the things that happened in the last week.... When the plane took off again, I waived to the land. Goodbye Table Mountain. Goodbye Cape Town. Goodbye South Africa. The stories below the Table Mountain will always be remembered.

Webmaster: POON Wing-Chi
Email me