A Visit to CUHK

Jieru suddenly called me at about 10:30 a.m. when I'd just woke up, and directly asked me whether I'm interested in visiting Chinese University of Hong Kong. Knowing that another girl (and another boy) would go along with us, I agreed without much hesitation.


The girl turned out to be totally my favorite kind, small and cute, very sweet in my eyes. The boy was a god-damned total pedant. He asked me about chaos and non-linear system immediately he knew my major. They were both biologists, and had both participated in the Olympic Competition of Biology in high school. The girl had even got a gold medal!


We took mini-bus, MTR and KCR in succession, and finally arrived at the KCR station of "University". In Hong Kong, a railway station can be simply named as "University", while refering to neither HKU nor UST, is really an amazing fact. At least, this "university" should has approximately the same fame and significance as HKU or UST, and, it is.


HKU locates in the downtown area of the Island, and is surronded by skyscrapers. UST locates on the coastline of eastern Kowloon, and is flanked by hills and the sea. CUHK locates in the middle of the New Territory, and the view is totally different with the other two eminent universities. When I walked out of the station, the first thing that jumped into my eyes was green, endless hills. The CUHK is totally surronded by hills. The whole campus was built in a mountainous area, which count as one resemblance with UST. However, UST is built on a tremendous slope, and the buildings distributes along the slope, like giant stairs. CUHK, on the other hand, is built on several hills, and the terrain of the campus is far more changeful than that of UST.


A girl from CUHK met us outside the station. She was a friend of the girl I newly met. As none of us had had lunch, she led us to the canteen. We chatted on the way, and I came to know that her major was history, concentrating on the history of China. She was a bit shy to meet so many strangers at the same time, but she soon began to be talkative.


After ordering our food, we sat down and continue chatting. A pure physician as I am, I knew quite a bit about Chinese history, and have studied the Chinese society and politics in depth. Hence, I immediately began a talk about the CP and their policy, and showed my "astounding" knowledge of both history and politics. The young historian turned out to be more than a match to me, her wit and wisdom is just amazing. It seems that Jieru can introduce elites in all sorts of domains to me from time to time, and that's the greatest thing, as my goal of fooling around in Hong Kong is to know more elites.

After lunch, she showed me around in the campus. The "urban" campus of HKU is a strange mixture of traditional and modern elements. Some of the buildings are so "antique" while most of the buildings are too "young", and all of the buildings just crowd in the area of highest land price in Hong Kong, with relatively less trees and grass, making me feel very uncomfortable. The "coastal" campus of UST is somewhat better, with the breeze from the sea and the landscape of the coast. However, the buildings here are even more crowd than those of HKU, and they're too new, just way too new. The "mountainous" campus of CUHK was far better. There were enough plants, not to say the green hills surronding it. The buildings are of modern style, but must have been there for decades. As there're plenty of land, the buildings are not at all crowded together, and distributed very artistically. The whole campus is just like a huge garden, which reminds me of Zhuhai, but far more vital. As a famous Chinese saying goes, "The moral ones love mountain, while the wise ones love water." Are there many moral ones in CUHK?

While the dominant language of HKU is British English and that of UST is American English, CUHK is a Cantonese environmet. As I wandered in the campus, posters and announcements in pure, elegant Cantonese can be seen everywhere. Cantonese language is very exhilarating when and only when it is pure, without any "pollution" from Mandarin, and I found it very nice to read those Cantonese posters.

Eventually, we arrived at a place where the eastern coast of New Territory can be seen clearly, and I took photo with the girls. After that, I left at about 4 p.m.