CUHK Employees General Union
eNews (June 2018)
Editor-in-chief: Chan Yin Ha Vivian | Data: Wong Ka Po | Design and Typesetting: Cheng Chun Wing, Aidan Chau and Dora Lam (e-version) | Translation: Emily Ng
Member Interview
Chan Kin-man: An opened life
(Interview: Vivian, Ah Po, Siu Shan | Text: Vivian, Timothy)
As Kin-man left the lecture hall after his talk for the Shaw assembly, we knew it was about time to say goodbye. So we felt the need to interview him, to invite him to talk to us about teaching, about research, and about his family, as colleague and a union comrade. After a few quick back-and-forths on WhatsApp, he quickly accepted the invitation. We met in his office after his return from a conference. It was mid-April and heat had started to build up.
A serene office much like a study. On the walls were paintings, some by
himself and some given by friends. On the rattan tea table by the door
was a rustic tea set. The quiet desk of a humble scholar. Not that it cannot
be contaminated by vulgar real-life politics, but there is just this incompatibility
by nature. Kin-man himself sensed this mismatch and admitted his unease
with being in the forefront. He would much prefer reading and doing calligraphy
in tranquillity.
“But since secondary school, there has always been something out there
that calls out to you.” Perhaps tranquillity is simply not for those
with a strong sense of social responsibility.
A quiet desk. An absurd society.
“The current Hong Kong is so absurd; it is suffocating. You can’t imagine
things like these would happen in the old days, but these are now daily
occurrences under your own eyes. How can one be tranquil?”
He had been keen on Chinese seal carving and hoped that he could spend
some time on it.
“Yet, can you still silently hide in your study, do what the ancient Chinese
intelligentsia did in times like this?”
This internal conflict is probably in part an influence of the tradition
of the Chinese intelligentsia and partly exactly due to his critique of
the same.
“My greatest concern is why China has not managed to walk out of
despotism after so many years. There are many factors. Family ethics is
one; a lack of the concept of the independent intellectual is another.
There are quite a number of problems with the world of the Chinese intelligentsia.”
To find tranquillity again, one might have to leave Hong Kong to create
a distance. “But I still can’t do that at this moment. There are still
many things that I need to face here.”
Alongside family photos on his desk was also one of Nelson Mandela,
former president of South Africa.
Alongside family photos on his desk were also those of the late Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo and Nelson Mendela, former President of South Africa.
For many, the trial in November suggests that he will need to say farewell to CUHK, a place he has served for almost 25 years. He has already made arrangements with this in mind. He has rejected his department’s invitation to discuss retirement extension; the last few classes of the coming term might need colleagues to cover for him; the last part of the course “Leadership in an Uncertain Era” will be delivered by guest speakers, so that shouldn’t be too much problem. He has made all arrangements for his work. What about his own future?
An open life
“For me, I’m open to everything. This is a strong feeling that I developed
having completed the Trailwalker after Occupy Central. It turns out that
you can do many things that you thought you couldn’t. For me, there are
infinite possibilities for the future.”
In face of an uncertain future, Kin-man feels that his life has been opened.
“One may find a bigger world after leaving the campus.”
About the trial, he is not optimistic: “When a charge as queer as ‘inciting
others to incite others’ can be approved, I am not optimistic about
the primary trial”.
He takes it as his last fight at the forefront of civil disobedience:
“I did my very best and made my utmost contributions for over 20 years
in China. Now that I have returned my focus to Hong Kong. I have occupied,
I have put myself in jail. Shouldn’t that be enough?”
He hopes that after fulfilling this responsibility, he will be able to
do what he desires: “To step back a bit, to respond to society with
my pen. I do not want to get too involved in frontline struggles.” To which
he immediately added: “But who knows? If the sentence is very harsh, maybe
I will fight till the very end, march right to the forefront.”
An open life is probably one with insistence, with passion, but also
with a readiness for whatever changes come. This attitude has to do with
having more time to return to himself and his family after Occupy Central.
“There has been more time over the last two to three years to look after
my own health and my family. I can slow down. I listen more and talk less.
Though my family is worried, they are also happy that we can spend
more time together.”
However, in face of the turbulent times, Kin-man has experienced a lot
of tension in recent years, especially with regards to family.
“Of course I hoped that I could return to a quiet desk. But often
times the world just doesn’t permit it. In the past, I had a very strong
sense of calling to participate in the development of civil society in
China and thus was away from Hong Kong often. Now that I have time to reflect,
I think about returning to my own world and spending more time with my
family. But the currents are hard to predict. Striving for democracy is
a long road. If we are not achieving it in our generation, the next generation
will continue the efforts. Increasingly I feel what the Dharma Master Hongyi
says about planting flowers. I hope that the generations to come can see
the blossoms.”
On the road to democracy, it is each and everyone’s perseverance that counts
The road to democracy is long and the end seems to be farther from us
each day. Where is the way out? Is it going to be useful to step back and
resort to one’s pen? He responded by citing the film
1987: When the Day Comes. “What marks it from the previous ‘Struggle
Series’ is that it is each and every individual guarding the bottom-line
in their own position that leads to the explosive effect .” [
1]
Truly, not everyone can sacrifice for democracy, but everyone has the
experience of their bottom-line being confronted. Chan believes that it
is most important that we stay firm in our position and not let our
society sink into decay.
“For example, Benny Tai was discussing what would happen to Hong Kong
if China collapsed. Even such academic discussion is regarded as the
most offending crime. If you are intimidated and back off, then you can
only back off forever.”
He then cited the example of Andrew Fung, then Information Coordinator
for the Office of the Chief Executive, attacking Kenneth Ka-lok Chan
for inviting students to imagine the PRC flag being lowered. Fung contended
that such exercise was propagating the theory of a China implosion and
promoting Hong Kong independence.
“Thanks to him, I decided right then that I had to introduce this
topic when I teach Chinese society. Why can’t we talk about such a serious
academic topic?”
Half of the students in his class on contemporary Chinese society
are from mainland China. The topic of the last class is in fact the collapse
of China.
“The collapse of China is a topic about the future of China. There
have been a lot of academic discussions about this. You should seriously
introduce these debates to students.”
But these are now the kiss of death. A political figure is finished
if they touch them.
He mentioned how the bottom-line of media and journalism has been moving
back constantly in the last decade. “Next are the universities, the
secondary school’s liberal studies. Will you acquiesce? I don’t think we
need any great leaders. We only need everyone to defend their own bottom-line.
But you pay a price, for example, students may report on you.”
Has it happened?
“I don’t know. Sometimes in class, one may talk too much or overemphasise.
You can’t help it, so I’ll just say what I have to say,” he answered without
hesitation.
At the time of writing, former Chief Executive C.Y. Leung once again
attacked Kenneth Chan on social media about “the 5-star flag not rising”.
We can only regret that there are so many such people with no learning
whatsoever but an excess of ulterior motives.
A utility named research
Journalism is deteriorating every day. More and more people are also learning to play by the rules. Is it also more difficult for our colleagues to defend the bottom-line?
I don’t think so. In fact, colleagues in the university rarely touch on sensitive issues. There is a trend of utilitarianism going on. Some disciplines simply do not touch on these topics, say, science. [ 2] Social science has the closest link to society, but the universities’ assessment mechanism requires that you publish in the top US journals, the most mainstream US journals. Therefore, you have to do mainstream research. Hong Kong studies is on the very fringe of international academia and rarely gets published. Many people therefore just give it up. Sociologists of our last generation, like Rance Lee and Lau Siu-kai, are scholars of Hong Kong studies. Now colleagues in this field have all left. Lui Tai-lok and Stephen Chiu have both left for a more peripheral university where ranking doesn’t mean much and thus where there is more space for non-mainstream, local research. Nowadays, when most universities are competing for ranking, Hong Kong studies will only suffer. You won’t be working much on local concerns because you can’t survive.
The competition for ranking is killing local research
The twisted research scene pains him no less than the deterioration of
Hong Kong. “It is actually very terrifying. We will have a brain drain
of those who have a passion for local research.”
He observed that university recruitment is already prioritizing China
or international orientations over the local: “If you hire a scholar with
a mainland background, he will come with a huge data set for conducting
quantitative research on China. Overseas scholars can do comparative studies
that attract mainstream US journals. This is the recruitment trend in the
university. Meanwhile, the mainstream journals increasingly favour quantitative
research, bringing a big impact on social science.”
Worse still is that there is no scope for individual choice: “It is not
a personal matter whether or not to follow the rules of the game.
Your team suffers if you don’t. When the overall research performance of
the department drops, the university cuts your budget.”
These performance-linked financial implications are more salient each
day, causing a lot of pressure among colleagues–a trend Kin-man regrets.
“When US scholars look at US problems, their research has local impact
and can be published in top US journals. But when you study an issue of
Hong Kong, you can only be published if it has international impact.
This is really absurd. A government official asked me why Hong Kong scholars
are not studying the housing problem of Hong Kong, its pollution problem
and town planning, to make policy recommendations. He had no idea it is
the government which has directed the universities this way.”
Ranking system a threat to teaching
The competition for ranking also affects teaching directly. It is hard
to quantify teaching. For questions like how well a teacher teaches and
whether the students are inspired, there are no objective standards and
thus are difficult to use as indicators for comparison. International ranking
organisations therefore can only take into account factors like teacher-student
ratio and internationalisation in terms of how many overseas students there
are. It is easy to imagine how teaching is not valued under such systems.
“Promotion or substantiation of a professor mostly depends on publication.
Teaching is not really taken into account as long as there is no student
complaint and no real trouble. You can just walk out after your lecture–why
bother to chat with your students, to try to understand them?” he said.
Then how do our students see their teachers? Chan supposes: “A bunch of researchers
hiding in their offices, rarely interacting with students. They are not
role models who can inspire students academically or in their life.”
A university should be an education institute but having put education
aside, they now only see themselves as research institutes.
“The ridiculous thing is that while non-research-oriented universities
should be focusing on teaching, on nurturing students, they are now also
drawn into this game, spending big money in hiring a large number of chair
professors, investing energy in pursuing a better ranking, neglecting the
students.”
Unrealistic international impact
We once asked our management in an open forum what they thought about local research being neglected. Pro-Vice-Chancellor Fanny Cheung, who is in charge of research, told us that the university encouraged local research with international impact.
So they do–you have to be international. It may be comparative study or development of theory. But in reality, how many people can generate theory from local research? When I was at Yale, a professor critiqued that China studies had never come up with theories that were significant for the whole field; that Latin America had produced the Dependency Theory, but vast though China was, there had been no theory. Of course, China was yet to become a rising power then. But if that’s how they look at China, it is easy to imagine what place Hong Kong can take. In the world of top international journals, Hong Kong’s issues like housing, education and culture are very peripheral. Of course, I do not deny that there are people who can generate theory. But if someone can, in a coherent manner, pose questions and offer answers about issues of Hong Kong, why aren’t these taken as important, why aren’t they valued? It is not that those controlling the resources do not understand this problem. That’s why the RGC is introducing “research impact” as an indicator for the RAE in 2020 with the objective of correcting the trend. [ 3]
So is this a positive development?
We’ll have to wait till it is implemented in order to see. There have been too many policies that are only good to look at, too many slogans. Let’s say CU, for example. It always talks about Chinese cultural heritage. But it is only lip service. See what happens when you publish in Chinese? Over the years, I have had a significant number of publications in Chinese published in mainland China, but I have reported none. It would be dangerous to do so in the current assessment mechanism–you will be putting yourself and your department at risk. So the mission of Chinese cultural heritage is just empty words. The Vice-Chancellor can talk grandly, but it has never been realised. This is the same view I hold about this indicator of social impact. We will have to see how important it is in the evaluations. Will they go back to the number of top US journals in the end? Will the problem be corrected? I am rather pessimistic.
How does cultural heritage become an empty slogan?
Does it have to do with the attitude with which the university management implements this?
No. 1 is the individual universities. Second, if an evaluation mechanism is applicable territory-wide, then the room for university autonomy will narrow. How do those at the top view the missions of the university? Or do they think that the university is merely an academic colony–whatever comes from the US is good, even things European are not good enough? For sociology, mostly it only looks at the US. It means you have no self-confidence. When you can only use other people’s evaluation mechanism, your scope is small.
By contrast, even if there are restraints, if the leadership is determined to create room, you will at least not lose your role. Look at the example of the Education University. They have set up the Academy of Hong Kong Studies because they are not in the ranking game; they can do something of their own characteristic. They have just started, and it will take time to see its impact. But I certainly see that things have come from there.
But when the Chinese U says it is promoting Chinese cultural heritage, what kind of space has it created given the structural limitations? Will you pay for research on Cantonese opera? Cantonese opera is not going to get published in first class journals. But forward-looking leaders will come up with ways to support colleagues to conduct meaningful studies of local culture. If CUHK has such strong Chinese cultural heritage, why doesn’t it fully utilise it? Why has it fallen into an empty slogan? Under the current structure, the universities are getting more and more uniform, everyone is more or less the same. It shouldn’t have been like this. Those slogans are just slogans, no matter which Vice-Chancellor is saying them. They have never been actualised.
The reality is stark. But people with faith will never fall silent, no matter how difficult the situation. At the time of writing, Hong Kong was experiencing the hottest May since 1963. The hum of cicadas rose and subsided in tides. It does not matter that they will fall silent after the early summer. Next year, there will be another generation.
Postscript: We talked for over an hour, resulting in almost 20,000 words
of transcript. Due to limited space, here is the first part of the interview.
The second part on teaching will be published in the next issue.
[1] There has been a series of South Korean films depicting the South Korean struggles in the course of the country’s democratisation. Their Chinese titles in Hong Kong all allude to the struggle against power. The other two in the series are A Taxi Driver (2017) and The Attorney (2013).
[2] The interview was conducted in mid-April. In May came the instruction of President Xi that says those who "love the country and Hong Kong" may apply for science and technology funding by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the Ministry of Finance. It would appear that it will be hard for Hong Kong academics to avoid having their bottom-line tested.
[3] According to the RGC website, the RAE 2020 will include “research impact” as an evaluation element for “incentivising the conduct of research of local relevance with high economic and social benefits”.