University of Hong Kong unit researched maritime silk road long before Beijing formulated ‘One Belt, One Road’
OLIVER.CHOU@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 17 January, 2016, 7:53pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 17 January, 2016, 8:17pm
May Hall at the University of Hong Kong hosts the humanities institute. Photos: SCMP Pictures
An “odd ball” has turned into an international hub for humanities research producing cutting-edge studies long before some become official policy, such as Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative.
The Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, a small research body set up at the University of Hong Kong in 2001, has attracted acclaimed scholars from around the world to undertake field research-oriented interdisciplinary studies, including on the maritime silk road.
“We consciously turn away from the look-north mindset and instead pursue an inter-Asia research agenda that takes us from Korea to the east coast of Africa,” said Helen Siu Fung-har, a professor of anthropology at Yale University and founder of the institute, at a 15th anniversary celebration last week.
“That decision was made almost 10 years ahead of China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ policy of today. No plagiarism here,” she added, drawing laughter from guests, including university president Professor Peter Mathieson.
“Let’s not allow boundary to define us, let us define our own boundary, and that’s very central to our thinking,” said Mathieson on the institute’s unorthodox agenda.
The occasion also marked the completion of a major renovation of May Hall, a grade-one historic building constructed in 1915 and now the institute’s home.
Helen Siu (left) and Angela Leung stand in front of May Hall on the HKU campus.
“We are honoured to take residence in this building of red bricks but with Chinese tiles on the roof which carries a lot of history and value in it over time, and the East-West fusion is what the second system is all about,” she said, referring to the “one country two systems” principle.
Siu, born in Hong Kong and a recipient of a Bronze Bauhinia Star in 2001, recalled her choice of HKU for the institute because “the centre of gravity on Asian studies in the 21st century was shifting from North America to institutions in Asia” and HKU had a “rich humanities tradition that links China to Asia and the globe.”
Professor Angela Leung Ki-che, the institute’s director since 2011, said the humanities-focussed agenda and donations had not been affected by the controversies the university had faced since the Occupy protests in 2014.
“Our research focus is international and not directly political, so that’s our advantage,” she said.
Leung, an expert in medicine and disease in imperial China, called the government’s emphasis on science and technology a “boost” rather than pressure on humanities.
“Our research highlights the humanity element in science and technology, and a key research topic for us is the history of medicine,” she said, adding the institute had recently received HK$30 million in donations.
Both Siu and Leung described the institute an “odd ball” in a challenging period for HKU as much as for the city.
“We welcome challenge because it gets us to reflect on our values without getting complacent,” said Siu.
“I think it’s important to keep the academic integrity and curiosity alive, and inspire the young ones to keep that baseline. If you lose that, you’ll lose everything,” she added.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1902187/oddball-hong-kong-institute-develops-cutting-edge
