Feature Articles

Teenagers are curious about love and dating. Influenced by the mass media and peers, they desire love and intimacy. Some start casual dating at an early age, but they seldom think seriously about how to establish a long-lasting and healthy relationship. In view of this, the youth volunteer team “Famplus2” initiated a City Orientation Contest on love and intimacy on 18 November 2012.

Local teenagers were invited to form teams of four to participate in the contest. 21 teams entered in the contest (4 Junior Teams aged 13 to 15 years old and 17 Senior Teams aged 16 to 18 years old). They were provided with clues to go to different checkpoints in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island and complete love missions within 4.5 hours. The missions carried themes related to breaking up, staying single, dating, intimate boundaries, marriage, decision about having sex, etc. They were also given photo-taking tasks. Some teams rushed quickly to the places they guessed, only to find that it was a wrong location. They needed to revise their strategies and first study the information provided. Some teams had to decide which checkpoint to go to first when time was running out, or whether to leave a task about the decision on having sex to the end.

At the end of the contest, the participants shared their experience and lessons learnt. The Best Team Photo Award was presented and the three teams who attained the highest scores in the group were given prizes. More important than winning, however, was the opportunity for the young people to think about the different stages of love and develop some insight towards intimacy, such as learning to make smart choices and understanding that maintaining a relationship requires effort.