CUHK student Poon Lok Yan will represent Hong Kong in matches in the badminton Women's Doubles of the Olympics Games Rio 2016! A student of New Asia College, Lok Yan was admitted to the B.Ed. Programme in Physical Education, Exercise Science and Health in 2014, through CUHK’s Sports Scholarship Scheme.

Lok Yan showed her talent in badminton at a young age. She is a recipient of the Hong Kong Most Promising Sports Stars Award 2007. In 2012, Lok Yan and her partner Tse Ying Suet won the championship of the Women Doubles in the Japan Super Series, making them the first Hong Kong women's doubles pair to win a Super Series title. However, the road to success is not easy. Lok Yan’s hope of making it to the Olympics 2016 was jeopardized by a knee injury in a match. With great faith, she struggled to recover and keep a positive attitude even though the chance of joining the Olympics was looking slim. Finally, the pair succeeded in gaining the tickets to Rio with a 22nd-ranking result.

Let’s give Lok Yan a big round of applause for her strong faith and wish her success in the Olympic Games!

Details for the matches:
Group C, Poon Lok Yan and Tse Ying Suet
- 11 August, 21:10 Hong Kong vs Indonesia
- 12 August, 21:10 Hong Kong vs Malaysia
- 14 August, 08:05 Hong Kong vs Great Britain

Image source: 潘樂恩 Poon Lok Yan 謝影雪 Tse Ying Suet Facebook

On the first day of August, the Hong Kong Observatory raised the No 8 signal at 8:40pm when Typhoon Nida was approaching the city. Campus was almost empty as most staff members left for home early. All the windows and doors had been tightly shut to guard against the wind. Compared to the empty campus, the Estates Management Office (EMO) was a busy place, turned into a control centre for the Typhoon and Black Storm Squad during the typhoon. The Squad, which comprises 23 EMO staff members, stayed overnight to answer emergency calls from university residents and monitor the campus closely in the heavy blow.

As early as two days before the typhoon, EMO had been carrying out a series of pre-cautionary checkups for typhoon prevention. They first informed the outsourced reconstruction work teams to ensure safety. In the few hours before the No 8 signal was hoisted, staff from different teams of EMO were sent to all corners of the campus to carry out last minute inspections. Staff from the Building Services Section checked electrical equipment at each building to prevent any potential safety hazard. The ones from Landscaping Section removed leaves and residuals from the drainage. The Buildings and Grounds Maintenance Section checked if there were any shattered windows which needed to be patched up. The Housekeeping and Building Management Section patrolled the whole campus to make sure all windows are shut.

After the typhoon, the windswept campus was covered with fallen trees and branches. The Squad and other members from EMO wasted no time in cleaning up around the campus to ensure that traffic could flow smoothly as soon as possible. For Mr. Wong Chi-chuen, the Estate Manager, who had been working continuously for 21 hours on campus, it was a relief that the damage was not as severe as expected. “The major incidences of damage that we observed were caused by fallen trees, others include a rooftop damage and a broken window at University Residence.”

The video not only records efforts by EMO staff during the typhoon period but also captures the scene of typhoon Nida sweeping the campus.

Yi Xin Qiao, the first modern bamboo bridge was built in Xiaowu Village in Chongqing in July by the ‘One University One Village’ team led by Prof. Edward Ng Yan-yung. The bridge eliminates the danger villagers face when they cross the river.

As the Yao Ling Sun Professor of Architecture, Prof. Ng has been concerned with the transportation inconvenience and living conditions of many impoverished villages in southwestern China. In 2014, Prof. Ng and Dr. Wan Li of the School of Architecture launched the “One University One Village Rural Sustainable Development Assistance Programme”, hoping to help villagers tackle their difficulties with professional knowledge and local resources. Each project under the Programme is supervised by a doctoral student at the CUHK School of Architecture. The project is part of the thesis, while the student’s academic research is put into practice.

The Yi Xin Qiao project was started in June 2015. The project’s person-in-charge is Shao Changzhuan, an Architecture PhD student at CUHK who combined his research on bamboo bridges and practical application. The team made use of the abundance of moso bamboo in southern China and completed the construction in just two months with their improved folk methods of bridge building. Standing under the shadows of trees, the bridge merges nicely with the surrounding environment. Compared to the commonly used steel and concrete structures, the bamboo bridge is more environmentally friendly and cheaper, meeting the need for a sustainable development.

Yi Xin Qiao’s success also demonstrated a united wisdom from various parties. Chongqing Jiaotong University provided the laboratory and student helpers for the project, overseas architects and traditional Chinese bamboo craftsmen got together in Chongqing to give advices, and the study of structure benefitted from the guidance and advice of Tsinghua University Fellow Prof. Chen Zhaoyuan.

Besides bridge projects, the ‘One University One Village’ team has also conducted other projects to improve the livelihood of villages in China, including rebuilding Guangming Village in Yunnan in 2014 with Kunming University of Science and Technology and the University of Cambridge, in response to the aftermath of an earthquake.