CRC

Ms. Ng Ying Wai, a veteran guqin player who has been practising the instrument for over thirty years, hosted two sessions of guqin appreciation and experiential activities for Grade 5 students at the ISF Academy. These activities allowed students to learn about the guqin, the oldest stringed instrument in China, or the “seven-string zither”. The guqin is considered one of the “Four Arts” of the Chinese literati, which also includes Go chess, calligraphy and painting. In 2003, it was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. For more details, please click here.

Dunhuang ── A remote, mysterious and fascinating place. Dunhuang art is the art of enlightenment. The Dunhuang Grottoes have been constructed for thousands of years, and now there are nearly a thousand caves preserved, so they are also called “Thousand Buddha Caves”. The Dunhuang Grottoes are rare art sites in the world and were listed as a world cultural heritage approved by UNESCO in 1987, which is the first batch of listed projects in China. The speaker will explain the art of Dunhuang Grottoes and walk into this museum on the Silk Road with you, just like being in this thousand-year-old cultural treasure, comprehending the transcendent spiritual power, and feeling the realm of a thousand-year-old dark cave with a light of wisdom and compassion. For more details, please click here.

Between 1850 and 1950, tens of thousands of Chinese passengers left Hong Kong for different parts of the world to trade, to work as laborers and seamen, and to find gold in Gold Mountain regions such as California, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.  Most of them originated from the Pearl River Delta.  As importantly, many returned to their home villages through Hong Kong.  In the process of these comings and goings, Hong Kong became an entrepôt for people and many aspects of its social and economic developments were deeply affected by these movements.  This talk will also highlight Hong Kong’s place in modern China and in the Chinese diaspora. For more details, please click here.

Land resources are a fundamental element of socio-economic and cultural development, especially for island regions or countries that prioritize land development and utilization. With technological advancements, human society has created or transformed many land environments through reclamation projects. Hong Kong, as a harbor city, is currently planning the “Kau Yi Chau Artificial Islands” project, reclaiming more land to support future economic development. What geological and material conditions need to be considered for these reclamation projects? What are the reclamation projects in Hong Kong? What are the lessons learned from the successes and failures of reclamation projects in the world’s history? The CRC invited Dr. Jacky Chan from ProjecTerrae Limited to share with us his insight on these questions.

CRC hosted the captioned seminar for selected Grade 7 students on April 24. During this seminar, we will explore the elements of Xiqu and delve into the unique characteristics of Cantonese opera, a regional form of Xiqu. We will also discuss how the movements of the stage actors help convey scene information.

To guide us through this journey, we have invited Ms. Man Wah to give a presentation and demonstration. Born into a family with rich history in Xiqu, she Wah possesses a natural talent for writing, creating and acting. Her performances in classic Cantonese operas, such as “The Floral Princess” (帝女花) and “The Purple Hairpin” (紫釵記), have earned her rave reviews. She is a true     example of a “Cantonese opera singer-songwriter” nurtured in Hong Kong. For more details, please click here.

Su Shi, one of the Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, was a talented and diligent writer, painter, and calligrapher. He believed that literature should be “created with purpose” and that it should be natural. Many of his famous works have been handed down for centuries, making him a renowned literary writer, artist, and gourmet in the Northern Song Dynasty. Su Shi’s writing style evolved from early grandeur and boldness to later works with a more ethereal and far-reaching tone.

During his life’s major changes, Su Shi wrote several significant pieces. These works reflected the author’s emotional experiences and insights into life. To explore the different styles of Song poetry, we have invited Professor Chen Zhi to give a lecture on Su Shi’s life and works. For more details, please click here.

CRC is honored to present a fascinating talk by Professor Imre Galambos on Dunhuang, a place of wonder and cultural treasures some of our students and teachers have visited in the past as part of their experiential learning, and will likely visit again in the near future! Professor Galambos will give a general presentation of the mesmerizing world of Dunhuang, as well as his personal research on the historical Chinese manuscripts buried under desert sand. For more details, please click here.

Prof. John Steele gave a fascinating talk as part of a series of events in March focused on the research of history of science by Joseph Needham, organized by the Chinese Research Center and the ISF PTA. Steele is a professor of Egyptology and Assyriology at Brown University, and he shared with us his personal journey from studying Science in the north of England to teaching the history of ancient Babylonian astronomy in New England. He talked about his find of Babylonian tablets describing the eclipse of the sun over 1,000 years ago in the cuneiform writing system. This was a system used for many ancient near east languages (e.g. Sumerian, Akkadian, etc.), often written on clay, stone, or papyrus, and it had evolved from pictograms to symbolic logograms. He related that more than 5000 cuneiform tablets provide evidence for the practice of astronomy and astrology in Babylonia and Assyria in the second and first millennium BC. For more details, please click here.

The “Meet & Greet with the Director of Chinese Research Center (CRC)” was hosted by Dr. Bill Mak, the new Director, who shared his research and experience with the participants. Dr. Mak completed his linguistic training at McGill University in Canada and received his Ph.D. from the Peking University. He has taught and served as a visiting scholar in many internationally renowned universities and research institutions, including Kyoto University, the University of Hong Kong, NYU, Brown University and the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge University.

Starting with the question “Why are there no Chinese masters today?”, Dr. Mak encouraged everyone to consider the challenges of contemporary university education and research, and discussed the causes and impacts of some of the current phenomena. He also highlighted the uniqueness and importance of the CRC of The ISF Academy and hoped that the research center will lead the school toward a greater emphasis of creative, interdisciplinary research, as well as discovering more opportunities to create, present, and publish more innovative scholarly works, and to communicate their ideas with each other and others beyond the ISF community. For more details, please click here.

To enable our students to better appreciate and understand the wonderful art of guqin music, Mr. Thompson gave a special “artist session” to our Grade 6 students. He explained to the students the structure of the guqin as a musical instrument, the notation system of guqin tablature, his personal experience learning the guqin, and his understanding of traditional Chinese culture.

Hong Kong’s veteran movie producer and director Mr. Lau Shing Hon visited the Academy and his documentary titled “Music beyond sound — an American’s world of guqin” was arranged, followed by Director Lau’s exchange with the audience on a variety of topics including the historical transmission of guqin music and its learning. Mr. John Thompson, who was featured in the documentary, also made an appearance at the school and gave a live recital, followed by the sharing of his experience in playing the guqin for over forty years.

Dr. Gao shared with parents and teachers in an international education context: How to learn Chinese effectively by understanding its uniqueness? What approaches and methods should we focus on during the learning process?

Mr. Jacky Chan from ProjecTerrae Limited introduced the history of mining in Hong Kong to Secondary students and brought different mineral samples for students to observe up close.

Professor Chen Zhi shared with Secondary students the lives and anecdotes of celebrated Lingnan literary figures.

Artist Ms. Angela Mah introduced to Primary students the art of “painting” oracle bone script on silk.

Ms. Lindsay Varty, author of Sunset Survivors, shared with Secondary students the captivating stories of traditional craftsmen and women she interviewed in Hong Kong.