In our last staff meeting, we decided to add an interview section in CAre News to interview staff, directors, volunteers and supports of CA. This time, we targeted CA’s Chief Executive Mr. So Kwok-yin, Ken as our first interviewee. The in-depth interview has two parts. In part 1, we will ask Ken about his experience before joining CA.

How long have you been with CA?

 “About 3 years. Yes, I joint on 1 July 2007. My first day of work is a holiday!”
 

From a newspaper interview, we know that you had worked as a phonebook salesperson and reporter before you joint the Kadoorie Farm. Those are not very related to what you majored in (Applied Biology and Biotechnology) at college.

“I didn’t want to have a pause after graduation, so I looked for jobs immediately. I saw that the salesperson job offer came with a one-month communication skills training and gave it a go. Three months later, my friend’s friend who was working in Hong Kong Economic Times wanted to quit her job and my friend asked me if I was interested in taking the job. I thought that writing feature articles on health issues was much closer to what I have learnt than selling phonebooks. So I sat for an interview and joint HKET.”

Did your reporter job bring you to the Kadoorie Farm by any means?
“No, they didn’t have any correlation. At that time Billy (Dr. Hau Chi Hang, CA’s Vice Chairman) was experimenting on the culture of native tree species for afforestation use inside the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden (KFBG). Because he realized the need for the promotion of native tree speices, he suggested KFBG setting up a nursery. However, Billy had to travel to the nature reserves in Mainland frequently and the nursery needed another person to take care of. My Final Year Project supervisor back in college knew the manager of Flora Conservation Department and referred me the job.”

 

Ken said that the reason why his supervisor referred him the job should be that he is not calculating. When he was working in HKEJ, he still went back to college after work to help with the experimental work. That’s why he always encourages the colleagues to “give” instead of “calculate”. Sometimes you do things without aiming to get an advantage out of it, but if you paid your effort, someone will notice that and opportunities will come. Maybe environmental protection is something similar. If we do not insist in the convenience and comfort at the moment, the nature will reward you with something beyond your expectation.


A photo of Ken (in red windbreaker) and his colleagues in the KFBG Tree Management Team taken in front of the Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree.

The job in KFBG sounded like a mere gardener. How did you open the door to arboriculture?

“The concept of tree management was not yet developed at that time. What we did was like the government nowadays—when trees collapse, we remove them. Yet after 4-5 years, we found that trees not only lost a few branches during typhoon. Some big trees collapsed without a clue. We started to understand that there should be natural constrains for the trees in the environment and lack of management before.”

“We found out that the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and the Agricultural, Fisheries and Conservation Department hired professionals from the Melbourne University, Australia to train their tree practitioners, we therefore invited them to train us too. At that time I officially got to know what arboriculture is, and KFBG started to establish the tree management team. Later when I took up the team, I was more and more eager to look for proper trainings or professional qualifications. Finally I applied for the ISA arborist exam after its debut in Hong Kong, and I successfully obtained the qualification as the second batch of certified arborists in Hong Kong.”

Ken explained that the all-round trainings in KFBG enabled him to pass the exam even he just had two weeks’ time to read the textbook before the exam day. He also thanked Mr. Sammy Au, the first certified arborist in Hong Kong for introducing him the ISA exam and assistance in textbook purchase. After obtaining the qualification, he didn’t mark time. During days-off, he walked around in the city with his camera and took photos of trees. By categorising his photos according to the domains of arboriculture textbook, he developed a local tree case database. He suggested the arboriculture students learning tree knowledge proactively as they are just around us. If they can learn one thing about trees every day, they will have a great progress after one year.
 

What are the qualities for an arborist?

“First, you don’t mind being dirty. If you do, it’s impossible for you to look for problems of the trees like treasure hunt. Second, you must be curious and find the reasons for abnormalities. Also, you have to be curious in order to learn more. For example, insects are not a domain of study in plant, but you won’t make it if you know nothing about them. Third, you must have strong observations. Tree assessments are like police doing case investigations. No one is gonna tell you what happened. Only those who can spot the trace are able to see the background of the trees and what they have gone through. Why some people would miss the trace in tree assessment. They lack observation power.”

In Hong Kong, arboriculture is not yet included in any bachelor degree curriculum. Ken also admitted that from the perspective of market demand and resources allocation in the tertiary institutes, making arboriculture an official degree course is quite difficult. In spite of that, Ken is studying a remote bachelor degree programme in arboriculture from the UK in order to learn the essence of curriculum domains and designs and see if that can help bringing arboriculture into a degree course. In the next issue, Ken will talk more about CA and environmental protection work. Please stay tuned. 
 
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