In 1983 when CUHK was about to celebrate its 20th anniversary, several CUHK students organized an essay writing activity called ‘A Day at CUHK’. They were inspired by Ms. Lo Wai-luen (alias Xiao Si), then lecturer at the Department of Chinese Language and Literature. But their idea was not original. Mao Dun, a renowned Chinese novelist, had launched a national essay writing event named ‘A Day in China’ on 21 May 1936, which had resulted in a voluminous collection of essays. Yet Mao Dun’s idea was not original either. It was inspired by in his words the ‘“A Day in the World” project proposed by the great Maksim Gorky’. The Chinese writer had been impressed by Gorky’s idea and decided to follow suit.

‘A Day at CUHK’ was a continuation of a tradition of documentation handed down from Gorky and Mao Dun. It recorded what happened on 8 April 1983 on CUHK campus. Those who responded to the call for submissions included Chen Chih-fan, Professor of Electronics; Lo Wai-luen; and Ms. Sonia Ng, a famous writer and radio host. Teachers like Chen Tien-chi, Fung Kwok-pui, Lee Kam-hon also put pen to paper. Some 60 essays were selected for publication in the book A Day at CUHK.

Readers of the book would know that it rained heavily in the morning of 8 April 1983. On the afternoon of that day, Ch’ien Mu came to the University to give a talk which was attended by many CUHK teachers and students. Ms. Lo Wai-luen said ‘Mr. Ch’ien’s talk was as good as before.’ Chen Chih-fan forgot about the talk and remembered it only after it had begun. He rushed to it and opined that Ch’ien Mu’s talk ‘was much better than that of Zhu Guangqian the other day’. A senior Chinese major who was quite confident in her Mandarin also attended the talk, only to find that she was able to ‘pick up just a few words occasionally’ from Mr. Chi’en’s heavily accented Mandarin.

Thirty years passed. We are now in 2013 and CUHK is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The ‘Power of Words’, in collaboration with University Library System, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, CU Student Press, Department of English and School of Journalism and Communication, is organizing another essay writing activity to capture a moment in history as it unfolds.

Entitled ‘21st Century “A Day at CUHK”’, the event invites all CUHK members to write down what they see, hear, think and sense on 21 March 2013. Submitted works will be posted online and the selected ones will be published in a collection. Prof. Fan Sin-piu, director of the Hong Kong Literature Research Centre of the Department of Chinese Lanaguage and Literature, says, ‘“A Day at CUHK” accepts both Chinese and English works. Xiao Si and Prof. Lee Ou-fan Leo will serve as advisors. I believe that it will be larger in scale than the event that took place 30 years ago and will be more successful in offering a panorama of life at this University.’

In the early 1980s, editors of A Day at CUHK saw a profound sense of loss and bewilderment in the essays in the collection. ‘From individuals to the whole university community, from lower classmen to upper classmen, all are in a state of hesitation and indecision.’ This prompted the editors to ask whether ‘this is an age without hope’. What will we see from ‘A Day at CUHK’ 30 years later? The answer lies in the contributions that University members will submit for the event, which will no doubt present an interesting cross-section of CUHK history.

‘The Power of Words’ is a series of reading and writing events organized by the Independent Learning Centre, Hong Kong Literature Research Centre, the Office of the Arts Administrator, and Tolopoem.