In 1980, the Li's Chinese Dictionary, compiled by CUHK founding Vice-Chancellor Dr. Choh-ming Li, was published by The Chinese University Press. The dictionary, which includes more than 12,000 characters under over 1,100 categories, marks a breakaway from the traditional classification methods (i.e., by meanings, by initials and finals of Chinese syllables, or by radicals). Instead, most of the characters are categorized in accordance with their phonetic components. Besides, developed by Dr. Li, its 'Fan' indexing system arranges characters with the same number of strokes in accordance with the shape of their first strokes, namely, 'dot', 'left-falling stroke', 'vertical stroke', 'right-falling stroke', and 'horizontal stroke'. This system provides readers with an easy and quick way to access an entry.

This remarkable work took more than 15 years to complete. Dr. Li spent most of his holidays and leisure time on it in order to balance his heavy workload as Vice-Chancellor of the University. 'It was my most effective tranquilizer over the last decade,' says Dr. Li in his 'Foreword' to the dictionary, which is now on display in the University Gallery.