Wrapping up

One of my nocturnal pleasures when I am away from my wife—this is not going where you think it is—is listening to podcasts in bed without earphones. Mrs. Watson insists I wear them and then complains I don’t answer her when she speaks. Last night, courtesy of a BBC podcast, Laurie Taylor’s “Thinking Allowed,” I heard this joke: “What do you get if you cross a sociologist with a member of the Mafia? An offer you can’t understand.” Well, I laughed.

Despite Mrs. Smith choosing the restaurant—and she chose well—I remain solvent. I had the pleasure of meeting her niece Julia Lee, an architect who studied in the United Kingdom, works in Hong Kong but is returning soon to the UK to complete a master’s degree. Her inspiration for becoming an architect was the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), and we discussed our favourite features of this iconic building, designed by UK architect Sir Norman Foster. Until the construction of Beijing airport—also designed by Foster—HKIA was the single largest enclosed space in the world.

Graeme Smith, Yours Truly, Julia Lee, and Maggie Smith.

Final days of large conferences are always strange. Many people have gone, the exhibitors have all packed up, and the buzz has settled down to a barely audible hum. I always feel sorry for final plenary speakers, but Stephanie L. Ferguson, PhD, RN, FAAN, nailed it in her well-attended and lively closing keynote: “The quest for excellence in international nursing research.” Director of the Leadership for Change Programme at the International Council of Nurses in Geneva, Switzerland, Stephanie is also a consultant for the World Health Organization and a member of GAPFON, the Global Advisory Panel on the Future of Nursing I mentioned earlier.

So folks, that’s it for “POSTMARK: Hong Kong.” It’s been my pleasure and privilege to have been asked to do this, and I thank Jim Mattson, editor of Reflections on Nursing Leadership, and Jane Palmer, the magazine’s assistant editor, for servicing the entries so efficiently. I’ve enjoyed the conference, and I look forward to attending again. I leave Hong Kong tonight (Monday), but it’s only four days until I’m back.

If you haven't taken the Star Ferry across Hong Kong harbour,
you must. Click photo to view YouTube video I shot.

Normal service will be resumed in my “Hanging smart” blog, and the next entry will be from Sydney, Australia. Finally, I’ll bet you’re all wondering if it rained at 0830 this morning. It didn’t.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

The rain in Hong Kong falls mainly at 0830?

It was raining when I awoke and still raining at 0820 this morning, so that might be a severe blow to my theory that it always rains at 0830 in Hong Kong. As someone once said, “The plural of anecdote is not data.”

I’m still not running (for those who read my “Hanging Smart” blog), but the excellent gym in the condominium where I am staying enables me to shed an undignified 500 kCal per day. It’s undignified in the sense that, in addition to the calories, I also shed around a litre of fluid in a huge pool on the floor. For local users of the gym, all Chinese for whom perspiration seems not to be a problem, I must be a disturbing sight.

On the way to the conference, I went to hear Mass at the Holy Rosary Church. When I say “hear,” I must explain that it was in Cantonese. I heard it perfectly, but had no idea what was being said. Luckily, there was the appropriate standing and kneeling at various points to let me have some idea of where I was in the liturgy. I normally attend the earlier English Mass, where the majority of the congregation is Filipino.

Sunday in Hong Kong is the only day Filipino workers—mostly in domestic service—have to themselves. After attending church, they gather in vast numbers in any shaded area to talk, eat, trade, and catch up with friends. It’s a moving sight, because they seem so happy, yet earn so little, most of which they send back to families in the Philippines.

Yesterday, after conference activities, Graeme Smith (entry passim) and I met David Thompson, PhD, RN, FAAN (“Hanging Smart” blog entries passim), who was passing through en route from Australia. A former resident of Hong Kong, he is now professor of cardiovascular nursing at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. He is heading to the United Kingdom and then to the United States.

David Thompson, Yours Truly, and Graeme Smith.
The black substance is purely for medicinal purposes.

At night, I had the pleasure of dinner with Amandah Hoogbruin, PhD, RN, from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Amandah was a master’s student at The University of Edinburgh in my very early days there, and she was responsible for helping me get my first research grant and my first major development of a measurement scale—the Caring Dimensions Inventory.

Yours Truly with Amandah Hoogbruin,
editorial board member of Nursing Open.

Restaurants were packed and people were queuing. I have often seen Western tourists being turned away at these times. However, we got a table without a problem while people still seemed to be waiting. I should explain that Amandah’s parents were Chinese. This gives you a small insight into one of the undercurrents of Hong Kong society. Racism is too strong a word. Rather, it is being comfortable with one’s “own kind,” and I have seen this often enough to report it without fear of contradiction. I still love the place.

My conference attendance today took in an excellent session titled “Publishing: A career road for you?” presented by Susan Gennaro, DSN, RN, FAAN, and Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, PhD, RN, CPNP/PMHNP, FNAP, FAAN, editors, respectively, of Journal of Nursing Scholarship and Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing. It was aimed at novice reviewers but, as a fellow editor, I found this very useful. I am always happy to plunder other people’s PowerPoints for ideas. I should mention, also, that Griselda Campbell, my good friend and colleague and partner at Wiley who oversees the health and nursing portfolio, also attended the conference and “manned” the Wiley stand. Wiley sponsored the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame awards and the session on publishing.

It may not have rained at 0830 this morning, but it rained most of the remainder of the day. Tonight, in return for my free board and lodgings with Professor and Mrs. Smith, I take them out to dinner, their choice of restaurant. Graeme is a fellow Scot, a fellow Aberdonian, who understands how painful we find it to part with money. If he chooses the restaurant, I’ll be solvent. If Maggie, who is Chinese, chooses, it will be expensive.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

No wake-up call needed

My day started at 0500, wide awake. “I must be in the Far East,” I thought. And I was. So I rose in time to see the sun appearing over the mountains in the New Territories and got a really good view of Sha Tin racecourse from the balcony of the apartment where I am staying in Fo Tan. My accommodation is courtesy of Graeme Smith, PhD, FEANS, editor of Journal of Clinical Nursing, who is based out here and lives with his wife Maggie, a mental health nurse. The other thing I saw at 0500 was that yesterday’s entry to this blog had been retweeted.

Sha Tin racecourse

I have been to only one major STTI event in the past, and that was the congress in Toronto in 2006. It was huge, and so is this. We Europeans are used to conferences on a much smaller scale and consider attendance of more than 500 virtually unmanageable.

As I get older and more travelled, I find it increasingly hard to get from the main entrance of a conference centre to where I want to be. The problem—and the privilege—is knowing so many people. I recognise faces better than I remember names but have learned it’s better to ask, “Where did we meet?” than to pretend I remember. So, I miss the start of sessions, and I miss coffee breaks, but connecting with people is the most important aspect of a conference. The sessions are often a framework around which to hang networking and catching up with colleagues.

I’ve struggled with jet lag today, so the seats at the Wiley stand in the exhibitors’ area have been a welcome and strategic haven. I even managed to sell one of my books. However, I’ve attended some sessions, having learned to leave plenty of time to move from one area of this vast Hong Kong Conference and Exhibition Centre to another. I wonder, fancifully, if the Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga—just two of the famous acts to have performed here—managed to find their way around. I was surprised, given the large number of parallel sessions, how well attended they were.

I include another celebrity picture with Professor Smith; Yang Fang, PhD, RN, dean of nursing, Hangzhou Normal University, China; and Hester Klopper, PhD, RN, president of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. This was taken yesterday but only made it to my inbox today.

Graeme Smith, Yang Fang, Hester Klopper, and Yours Truly.

Who will your intrepid reporter have his photograph taken with tomorrow? Watch this space.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.