Small steps to make Hong Kong a more sustainable place

In addition to these extreme commitments, the 73-year-old said, “I take showers ... once every 10 days. This way, I save a lot of power.”

Chau, who taught translation at Baptist University until retiring in 2005, calls himself a “green civilisation transformer” due to his advocacy for sustainable green development in Hong Kong.

Recently, he has been teaching regular farming courses and leading farm visits at the city’s first organic farm in Fanling run by Produce Green Foundation, which he chairs.

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Young Post visited him at his three-storey home nestled on the edge of Plover Cove in Tai Po yesterday.

We couldn’t help but notice that his village house felt cool even without air con.

“We are very lucky to live by the sea, and we survive with the fan on the hottest days,” he said, pointing to his pedestal fan.

Opting out of air conditioning is only one of the many ways he minimises his consumption of water and power. Other things we couldn’t find in Chau’s house included soap, shampoo or any other cleaning products.

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Chau uses a mixture of apple cider vinegar and sea salt as an alternative to shampoo. He uses tea seed powder, which removes grease, to clean household items, such as dirty dishes, floors and clothing.

When we met Chau in the morning – shortly after the Hong Kong Observatory issued the black rainstorm warning – he made a 1.5-litre green smoothie for his first meal of the day. He blended together four bananas and a handful of spinach, which he had grown on his rooftop. Without the ice that keeps most smoothies cold, it tasted like a room-temperature banana drink with a slightly herbal flavour from the spinach.

Green smoothies, he said, have become both a staple food and a daily ritual for him. Turning “raw” was such an important decision for him that he considered it his “rebirth”.

Interview with green activist Simon Chau Siu-cheong in Tai Po. Photo: SCMP/ Winson Wong
A diet of raw food, also called living food, consists of only eating plants in its original, unheated state below 41 degrees Celsius. A raw foodist considers raw food to be “alive” with vital nutrients and therefore consumes a diet of mostly uncooked whole plant foods, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouts.

So everything he consumes, even if it’s just a cup of coffee to start the day, is made as naturally as possible.

His favourite coffee recipe involves mixing walnuts or cashew nuts, cacao powder, coffee extract, dates and some water in a blender.

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Chau doesn’t label his meals breakfast or lunch, because he wants to avoid having a set time to eat every day. He also doesn’t eat anything after the sun goes down.

He follows these eating practices because he wants to follow the diet of a primate, as they are the ancestors of modern humans.

His goal in the coming years is to transition to a mono diet – he will eat only one to three types of food a day, which is similar to how primates eat.

His decision to become an environmentally conscious person started when he spent five years in Europe in the 1970s.

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“I witnessed the first wave of the green movement there,” he said. “Before that time, no one in Hong Kong cared about the environment. No one was aware that we were in trouble.”

“We believe that we have to fight for material comfort and satisfaction to be happy. [But] we must go back to a very natural way of looking at things,” he added.

Chau has gone to great lengths to live his life in the most organic way possible.

Chau follows a raw food diet because he says he wants to live as organically as possible.

“I don’t drink water,” he said. “I have not been drinking pure water for 10 years.”

He prefers getting the water he needs from fruits and vegetables instead. This is why he constantly drinks juice throughout the day.

He justifies this by saying that apes and chimpanzees do not need to drink water to stay hydrated.

In the past 30 years, Chau claims he hasn’t gotten so sick that he has had to see a doctor.

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“I have a lot of energy, and never feel tired,” he said. “Everybody thinks I look 20 years younger than my age.”

He feels that this diet has brought him rejuvenation and happiness. And he believes that the city’s exam-oriented education system has hindered discussions on sustainability and wellness, so he hopes to continue promoting green education in Hong Kong.

Please note that a raw food diet is not suitable for everyone. Remember to consult your doctor if you’re thinking about making significant changes to your eating habits.

Having spent the majority of the pandemic hiking to clear his head from the idleness of online school, it made sense to Jack to turn his hobby into a fundraising challenge. He thought a long trek would do the trick, and why not one of the longest in Hong Kong?

“There’s an element of prestige to completing this trail, and I thought I might as well use this opportunity to do something charitable too,” Jack told Young Post over video call. So he turned to three of his friends, who also enjoyed hiking, to join him.

Before embarking on their adventure, the German Swiss International School students set up a SimplyGiving donation page with HK$100,000 as their target, which they met in a week thanks to their parents, friends, and school.

The GSIS students would go on to raise about four times their initial goal for charity. Photo: SCMP/Xiaomei Chen

The CDC was so impressed with the boys’ commitment that they helped advertise the fundraising effort, bringing in donations that helped them raise more than HK$400,000.

Now that they had collected this much money, it was time to face the trek.

They divided the 10 sections of the trail over the course of three days, which totalled around 36 hours of hiking. On March 27 at 5am, the boys met in Sai Kung to begin the first three.

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“The first day was the hardest,” said Martin.

They had underestimated how hard it would be, and Jaden explained, “It was the ascents and descents that killed us.”

And on top of all that, Gabriel chimed in to say he had forgotten his lunch.

Luckily, others were more prepared. Martin carried everything from medication to hiking sticks, though he regrets not using them sooner, as he felt it was a mistake to rely only on his body so early on.

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As they traversed the trail’s slopes, their biggest fear was of getting injured, and Gabriel said, “We’re young and fit, so we were capable of the journey. But anything can happen.”

Fortunately, nothing too eventful happened, and the time passed quickly as they chatted and observed other hikers, some of whom were having photoshoots. They wrapped up the first day at 5pm, and went home to rest.

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The following day they met to walk sections four through six, and Gabriel brought matzoh crackers from a Jewish holiday event he attended the night before to share with the group and fuel them up the hills. They also relied on power bars, beef jerky, and nine litres of water to keep them going.

But they weren’t the only ones that were eating on the trail.

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Jaden told us, “We were walking by a reservoir, and saw the path full of monkeys. People had barrels of food and were chucking them towards the monkeys to feed them.”

“It’s destructive to the ecosystem,” he explained, and they approached the food-chuckers to tell them to stop.

Unfortunately, the people then threw food at the boys, which soured the mood for the rest of the day.

Macaques (wild monkeys) are seen digging through the rubbish on the Maclehose Trail. It's dangerous for the monkeys to eat human food. Photo: SCMP/ Yves Sieur

By the final day, they felt sore and ready to finish, but they still had the longest way to go from sections seven to ten. They stopped often to eat snacks, drink Pocari Sweat, and talk about memes - which may have distracted them from keeping track of where they were.

“At one point, we were kind of lost,” Jaden said. “We took a break, and just didn’t realise where we were.”

Martin said they were also racing against time because once it gets dark, it’s pitch black.

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After 12 gruelling hours, the boys finished, but they couldn’t celebrate for long - they had to go home to study for mock exams.

“I was pretty sad when we finished because it was a big difference staying home all day compared to being out in the mountains,” said Jack, recalling how the trail was a way to briefly forget the weariness of online school.

Reflecting on their journey, Gabriel said, “It was arduous at times, but doing it together with a nice group of people made it better.”