I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour

And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,

…

May she become a flourishing hidden tree

That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,

…

O may she live like some green laurel

Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

(‘A Prayer for My Daughter’)

Yeats wrote this famous poem upon the birth of his daughter in 1919 in the midst of personal uncertainties and political turmoil. In 2011, another father had this wish for his newborn daughter:

‘May you grow up to embrace life, wisdom, and everything that is beautiful in life with passion and zeal. You and I, and your mother and others will work on this together to make the world a better place. We must have faith in this.’ (page 6)

The father is Prof. Chow Po-chung of the Department of Government and Public Administration of CUHK. A passionate teacher and ardent supporter of the educational ideals enshrined in the regulations of New Asia College, from which he graduated in 1995, Chow is acutely aware of the gulf between what he thinks education should be and how it is practised today. The Way To Be, written in Chinese, is a testimony to his Q&A on the subject.

The articles collected in this book are grouped into ‘Students’, ‘Teachers’, ‘University’ and ‘Memories’. The first three groups are about his exchanges with and remembrances of people and events at CUHK. The last group, which tells of his childhood stories, sees the mingling of the bitterness of a young migrant to Hong Kong with the joy of a booklover roaming second-hand bookstores in London.

To Chow, there is no shortcut to the pursuit of knowledge. One has to go back to and immerse oneself in the classics. He remembers the teaching of his philosophy teacher, Dr. Philip Shen, and concludes, ‘The best humanistic education is the diligent reading of classics led by the teacher, to take on classics of all ages and cultures.’ (page 91)

This has led him to start his own literary salon at home. He is one exemplar of many in the humanistic tradition of CUHK which insists on an intimate knowledge of classics from both the East and the West. In an age where PowerPoint presentations are ubiquitous in any lecture theatre, Prof. Chow Po-chung may be an exception.