CONNECTING CULTURES
More is required of a wannabe St Nicholas than being willing to dress-up and Hans held a series of training days in November for new recruits. “They learn a bit about how to represent, how to pay attention to the children and the family when they go in, how to read out loud and how to interact with the kids,” he explains.
“Everyone needs to make their Golden Book. They can read from the text, and once they get into it, they can improvise a bit.” The big day this year is Sunday, December 4. Hans proudly shows off a new, handmade bishop’s sceptre, something like a shepherd’s staff, for St Nicholas to wield. It’s a traditional part of the costume that’s been missing until now. That was remedied when the Dickerts picked up a headpiece in Schnaittenbach on a visit this summer.
The final touch is the aforementioned Golden Book, which is a list of names, directions for the golf cart drivers, and some notes submitted by parents when they request the visit (check out OWS’s Facebook page for details: fb.me/e/32lcdNMWr). Most of the notes are little things – “Could help clean up,” “Needs to brush teeth better” and “Doesn’t finish breakfast” – but to a four-year-old the fact that St Nicholas knows these secrets must be astonishing.
“They look at us like, ‘How does he know that?’ It’s in the Golden Book,” Hans says with a chuckle. “We can’t let them look inside because it’s a ‘special’ book.” As COVID seems to come under some semblance of control and Hong Kong starts to re-connect with the world (when the Dickerts travelled in the summer, the airport was, “Like an old zombie movie. Everything was closed. We landed in Istanbul in the middle of the night and people were all over the place, life everywhere. It was like night and day.”) OWS is getting back at it, planning a Christmas Bazaar with the German Chamber of Commerce and rescheduling some of those postponed CNY events.
“We’re looking ahead to January, planning a Hanfu Chinese traditional clothing event with Hua Zi at Natural Space, and a series of workshops on Chinese calligraphy, spring couplets and an introduction to tea art,” Shirlee says.
In the meantime, December 4 is fast approaching. For the record, it’s not a one-way street. “We get the kids to sing or draw a picture for St Nicholas, keep them engaged and ask them to reflect on their year,” finishes Hans “Sometimes it can help parents out. I did this for many years in Germany and seeing how the kids grew up and changed. It’s amazing.”