Staffing Arrangements on Lunar New Year’s Eve

The following staffing arrangements for the University holiday on Lunar New Year’s Eve will apply on 24 January 2020. Departments/units should arrange for skeleton staff to be on duty on this morning to handle urgent matters and enquiries. Offices will be closed in the afternoon. Skeleton staff (Terms [B] or [C]) on duty on each morning will be given compensation off of half a day.

For essential service units such as the University Health Service, the University Library System, the operations team of the Information Technology Services Centre, the Security Office, the Transport Office, and the Estates Management Office, adequate workforce should remain on duty to provide basic services.

Source: CUHK Newsletter No. 547/548 [11 December 2019]
http://www.iso.cuhk.edu.hk/images/publication/newsletter/547-548/html5/6/

Sharing by Professor Stuart MCMANUS: Academic Visit at Princeton University

Prof. Stuart MCMANUS recently returned from Princeton University where he was a visiting scholar at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, which this year had as its theme “Law and Legalities”. There he participated in the weekly Davis Center seminar with the Princeton faculty and other visiting scholars from universities in Europe and the United States. During his time at Princeton, he also delivered two talks at Harvard University, led a seminar at Hunter College, City University of New York, conducted research in the Library of Congress and presented a paper on the history of Western classical scholarship at the Society for Classical Studies Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Finally, he had the honour of meeting a distinguished alumnus of New Asia College and former Pro Vice-Chancellor of CUHK, Professor YU Ying-shih.

Reported by Prof. Stuart MCMANUS

Recapping the Lecture and Field Trip in Hoi Ha Village by Prof. MATSUBARA Kentaro on 8-9 January 2020

Prof. MATSUBARA Kentaro of the Faculty of Law, The University of Tokyo, was invited by the Centre for Chinese History, Department of History to deliver a lecture and lead a field trip in Hoi Ha Village on 8 January and 9 January 2020 respectively.

Prof. MATSUBARA delivered a lecture entitled “Custom and Colonial Law: Urban Ancestral Property in Hong Kong” on 8 January 2020. He introduced the conception of ancestor and how it was used in managing property in traditional China. He then briefly discussed the legal disputes over the “tang” property (堂產) of the Ip lineage, which were brought to the Hong Kong courts in the 1980s. The case illustrated that property rights were not governed by the Qing Code in traditional China. The courts settled the disputes under the British trust law during the period of British Hong Kong as the colonial government did not recognise the status of “tang” in its legal system. Prof. MATSUBARA pointed out that this colonial history showed how the Western system clashed with traditional society in the legal perspective. It was very useful to the comparative study of legal systems and the operation of societies.

Prof. MATSUBARA and Prof. CHEUNG Sui Wai led a field trip to Hoi Ha Village and Pak She O on the afternoon of 9 January 2020. Prof. MATSUBARA introduced the developing history of Hoi Ha Village and shared his own fieldwork experience in Hoi Ha with the participants.

The next issue of this newsletter will be published on 3 February 2020.
Greetings from the Department of History!
We wish you and your family a prosperous Year of the Rat!
Gongxi gongxi!

For teachers and students who have information to share with the Department,
please email your articles in both Chinese and English to chanfiona@cuhk.edu.hk by 4:00pm every Tuesday.