The world has plunged itself into another financial crisis recently, and European debts have time and again caused fears and alarms to be felt in the market.  This is the result of overspending in the United States as well as the European nations over the years, which has led to the build-up of massive national debts, from which these countries are at difficulty to extricate themselves.

It is beyond doubt that the affluent classes in the United States have been spending recklessly.  Designers’ clothes and expensive limousines are seen everywhere they go. Even the use of private jets is no longer confined to the very small elite of the super-rich.  People in the middle class, who are not really “rich” in any sense, have also picked up the habit of spending money before they own it.  As long as you have a stable job, you can obtain quite a substantial loan from the bank by merely signing on the dotted line, without any form of reference or collateral.  Rampant consumerism has made the market look buoyant and lively.  The myth of the “economic prosperity” of the past few decades has made Wall Street the Holy Land for many young people, and working in an iBank the dream for many of them.  We have gradually come to believe that there is a “price” for everything, and that every act and behaviour carries its “returns”.  All forces that set things in motion are “regulated” by market forces.

So how are things in China?  The Chinese are known for thrift, and our parents and grandparents have all upheld the principles of modesty, frugality and abstinence in the way they conduct themselves and their business.  However, when the economy of the country begins to take flight, the income of citizens generally rises and the standard of living goes up, we have also joined the ranks of reckless consumers.  Nowadays no one is surprised by the long queues outside LV stores, which comprise mainly of visitors from the mainland.  You may also have the experience of attending banquets on the mainland, at which the delicacies and drinks served at tables would invariably exceed the diners’ capacity for consumption.  The rapid development of the national economy, and the high consumer potentials that come with it, have made many Chinese proud of their achievements and, for this reason, the “market” has become the “golden calf” to a lot of people.  Stocks and shares, and fluctuations in the financial market, have taken hold of the moods of many young students, and even old retirees.

How about the people in Hong Kong?   And how about the university students here?  Let us say that our material life has indeed been very well provided for and that food and clothes have never been in short supply.  Can you recall when was the last time you changed your mobile phone for a new one?  And how many new phones did you purchase in the last two years?  How many of us are in possession of an iPod, iPad or iPhone?  When did we begin to appreciate fine wines, and when did our fascination with sashimi and sushi begin?  And, amidst all these, are we ever aware that our debit card is reaching, or has already exceeded, its credit limit?

An unquenchable desire to spend is a major factor in the creation of a “market”.  Let us not fall into the habit of indulgence of some Europeans and Americans, but learn to live a simple life which I am sure will also mean living happily.  You will soon discover that a substantial life does not necessarily require a lot of money.  The basic needs of life actually do not cost much. Quality of life, and the satisfaction and joy of living, are not commensurate with material enjoyment, consumerism or the possession of goods.  To put it simply, owning two iPhone will not make you twice as happy as when you own just one, will it? Enjoying a simple dinner at local market can be a lot of fun.

A genius is dead. A star has fallen. On 5 Oct 2011.

Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 56. This was the man who “revolutionized six industries: personal computer, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing,” wrote Walter Isaacson in aTime article ¹.  He was also called the American Icon. Millions of people sent condolences in the facebook, thousands sent flowers to Apple stores around the world, but for many, the passing of Apple’s founder leaves a hole in their hearts.

I am not an Apple fan although I used a first generation Apple computer to write my thesis back in 1989.  I don’t have an iPhone or an iPod, but have recently received an iPad as a gift. I don’t even know how to use iTunes and Apps. But Steve Jobs is one of my favourite characters in my General Education course: Great People and Great Speeches, as I am more intrigued by his life and his spirit than the clever things he devised.

There are three things that I have learned from him and I would like to share them with our young men and women.

FIRST. Never conform to the values of the world, but invent your own values and create your own “world”. In his famous speech to Stanford students in 2005, retold in another Time article by Lev Grossman and Harry McCracken, Jobs said, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it in living someone else’s life….Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” ² In Hong Kong, I often find students choosing major and minor programmes in college not out of their own interest, but their parents’ or their peers’ interest, or, worse still, the interest of mainstream society. Don’t, because that will not be YOU. I find some graduates hunting for jobs, not because they like what they do and they are inspired, but because those jobs are “available”, they are “nine-to-five” and they are “stable”.  If we all do that, there will be no iPod, iPhone, iPad or “iDream” for our future generations. Strictly speaking, Steve Jobs did not create these gadgets, he “reinvented” them. The greatest talent of Jobs is that he understood people and he knew what they needed. And, he changed the world. There are many opportunities out there, we should think outside the box and follow our hearts.

SECOND.  Have passion in what you do, and dedicate your whole life to it.  Recounted by Grossman and McCracken, Jobs liked to quote Wayne Gretzky (the greatest ice hockey player of our time): you don’t skate to where the puck is, you skate to where it’s going to be. ³ All his life he was trying to think ahead of others: how to make a two-year-old learn to use computer without learning, how to connect people and how to get good music and good movies while on the road. His passion started from taking a calligraphy course after quitting university. He had no training in hardware computing, electronic engineering, or even design. But he aimed to create products that would change the world, and he did. How did it happen? It did not happen overnight. Jobs must have lost so much sleep at night, so much valuable time with his family (and he regretted that), so many opportunities to enjoy life, in order to achieve what he had achieved. Everybody says, “No pain, no gain,” but if your work becomes your passion, then there is no (or less) pain! On the other hand, there is no shortcut to success. Hurdles, rainy days, sleepless nights, frustrations and failures are norms. But success will not be so sweet without turmoil. So, we should learn to see failure as a path to success. “Stay hungry, stay foolish” is what Steve Jobs teaches us. He encouraged young people (and old people) to keep asking and keep learning. One day, we will get there.

THIRD.   Never be bitter about who you are and what you have (or haven’t). Be optimistic, stay focused and always work with a team. Born to a Syrian graduate student, he was sent away for adoption shortly after birth. Jobs was raised by a not-so-rich family, found university too expensive and quit after an unhappy semester at Reed College in Portland. At the age of 21, he founded Apple with his buddy and never turned back. Did he encounter hurdles and setbacks? Oh, you bet. He was fired by the company he founded, sacked by the CEO he hired. He became the laughing stock in Silicon Valley at one point. Your family background might be equally humble. Your education should certainly be better than his. Then what are your chances of success? You may say, “Hey, he is a genius and I am not.” But did he know? Did the world know? Now we say he is a legend and a genius. Back in 1976, when he founded Apple, or in 1985, when Jobs was sacked by Sculley (his CEO), nobody could even imagine the kingdom of Apple could grow so big in just two decades. Despite being criticized as a tough boss, Steve Jobs did not take all the credits. He knew very well that a team was always needed for success and his team was BIG. He once said, “My model for business is the Beatles: they were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people.” Together with Steve Wozniak, with whom he co-founded Apple, John Lasseter the creative chief of Pixar, and his many many engineers and designers, they formed a dream team. Let us try not to be too humble and grumble but work harder for our dream.

I still have the shoe-box like machine called Apple Classic at home. The window is small and the screen is black-and-white. It is ugly but I love it. Steve, I take my hat off to you.

¹ Walter Isaacson, ‘American Icon’, Time, October 17, 2011, pp. 32.

² Lev Grossman and Harry McCracken, ‘The Inventor Of the Future’, Time, October 17, 2011, pp. 50.

³ Lev Grossman and Harry McCracken, ‘The Inventor Of the Future’, Time, October 17, 2011, pp. 44–46.

This summer, I joined a group of teachers and students from S.H. Ho College in a visit to Uganda in eastern Africa.  The eighteen of us spent ten days in an orphans’ village in Watoto.  The journey made me reflect once again on the horrors of war, the suffering brought on by poverty and illness, and my responsibility as a global citizen.

During our stay, we joined hands with the local people to build a dormitory for the orphans.  Our students learned how to take care of infants, while I gave free medical consultation to the orphans and their ‘mothers’.  We from CUHK did what we could to bring laughter to the Ugandan people stricken by war and illness.  The service trip that lasted more than a week has left an indelible mark on everybody’s mind.  I think this experience should form an important part of a university education.

We had brought our teachers and students to a world completely different from Hong Kong, to a place where water and electricity cannot be taken for granted (blackouts occurred on alternative days), where streets are sandy and dusty (not one single road is in good condition), where food is far from fine or clean, and where a mosquito bite can mean malaria or yellow fever.  Yet we hadn’t experienced or seen the worst because we were there for only ten days.  The most disheartening sights were children who had lost their parents or had been abused, women who had been repeatedly raped and caught venereal diseases, and war prisoners who had had their ears or noses slashed.  I couldn’t help thinking that natural disasters are far less horrible than atrocities caused by human warfare. And if I were born in such an environment, would I be able to cope?

Upon returning to Hong Kong and setting foot on campus, I told myself, ‘I’m back to civilization, at last!’  It’s so nice to be back here.  But could I ever put behind what I had seen during those ten days?  Our city, our country, our planet are beset with numerous social problems.  The wide gap between the haves and the have-nots, justice yet to be done, the pollution of our environment and the shortage of food—do we really understand all these issues?  Do we have first-hand experience of the realities behind them?  Are we awake to these crises?  And, most important of all, can we do anything to solve or alleviate these problems?

CUHK will launch the ICARE programme in the new academic year, the ideal of which is to cultivate an inquisitiveness and participation in real-life affairs for building the personality of the young.  We encourage our students, under the guidance of teachers, to walk right into the crowds and gain first-hand understanding of the social problems in various communities in Hong Kong, China and the world.  We hope that by exploring and discussing the problems at length and in depth, we could come up with possible solutions for them.  It is also hoped that by the collaboration between our Colleges and our Faculties, the project could look into and respond promptly to some of these issues of local or universal significance.  This is not just another social service programme such as bringing warm clothes to senior homes or organizing activities at schools, which many of our students have done in their primary and secondary school days.  As university students committed to the well-being of our society and the country, let us prepare ourselves better by delving into the ‘deep-seated conflicts’ so that we can address the problems more meaningfully and serve the community, the country and humankind more effectively in future.

In recent years, university rankings have caught public attention; an example is that in the Asian university rankings recently released by QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd., Hong Kong learns that three of her universities have been ranked among the top five in Asia and three others are positioned in the top 50. Without knowing much of the methodology used in these ranking systems, many take university rankings (or individual subjects rankings) as a holy grail, the most important parameter in assessing the performance of the ranked educational institutions.

Some academics and university leaderships also pay much attention to “playing the game”. In order to win higher rankings, some universities are willing to position themselves “strategically” by recruiting high-profile researchers to boost their research output—which, thus engendered, is strictly speaking ready-made elsewhere. It is even rumoured that some pay professors from abroad to list an affiliation so that their research output can be counted.  Are we no different from football or basketball leagues?  Would these nominal or at the best short-term “star researchers” benefit students or provide quality education? How much can they contribute to building a sustainable research team? How much can their research benefit the local community?

As one plays the ranking game, research in “low impact” areas (as measured by journal impact factors and citation frequencies) may be marginalized. Examples include food safety, environmental science, the humanities and certain social science subjects. Subjects with local relevance but limited global impact are usually considered of secondary importance. However, if the mission of a university is to educate students and create knowledge that can improve the quality of human life, make the world a better place and also promote our culture and heritage, we need to strike a balance between “high impact” science/technology and relatively lower impact humanities.

In his inauguration speech as the President of Yale University in 1993, Richard Levine quoted the famous Nobel Laureate of Yale, James Tobin, who said, “Yale’s primary mission is the preservation, advancement and enrichment of knowledge and culture”. Yale may rank below Harvard, Stanford and Cambridge according to some, but it is a Mecca for higher education. Yale takes pride in promoting natural science, the humanities, the arts, theology, law and medicine. And, according to Levine, they are particularly proud of their tradition of emphasis on undergraduate education. Their mission is to mould young people to have a broad global vision, to unleash their human potential and imagination. Yale focuses on nurturing young leaders; Yale graduates over the last three hundred years include four signatories to the US Declaration of Independence, three out of five US Presidents in the 1990s, great scientists such as Benjamin Silliman and Josiah Willard Gibbs, the first African-American PhD Edward Bouchet, the forefather of American sociology William Graham Sumner; and also numerous musicians, artists and opera writers, as well as the founding presidents of Princeton, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Michigan, Cornell, Georgia and California. Yet, none of these accomplishments would be counted in today’s ranking game. Ten years from now, who will remember whether a university ranks 40 or 50 or 60? But a university will be and should be known for the graduates it has produced.

Do present-day universities put enough emphasis on educating and mentoring their students? In his book Excellence without a Soul, Harry R Lewis, the former Dean of Harvard College, pointed out that today, “Professors are hired as scholars and researchers, not as mentors of values and ideals to the young and confused. Instead of expecting professors to help students, universities hire counselors and advisors, and even take pride in absolving faculty of responsibility by touting peer advising systems that use students to do the job professors should do.” The ranking game has pushed education, the primary mission of a university, to the sidelines.

It is sad to see that society seems to have accepted this change in value of our educational system. Some students apply for university and their major field of studies, not based on interest but the ranking of the programme. Some parents choose the school for their children, not based on quality of education but ranking of the universities. Some employers recruit university graduates, not based on their capability and integrity, but the ranked positions of their universities assigned by some ranking agencies. Sometimes funders of universities provide resources not based on the commitment to quality education, but on superficial research indicators adopted in university rankings. We often lament that our educational system is tainted by the values of the market place, but we (students, parents and employers) ourselves are part of the problem.

Let us go back to the basics. University education is about moulding lives and helping young people to grow up to become mature adults, with knowledge and integrity. College is where students should be guided to understand themselves and to find ideals and objectives for their lives. Professors are recruited to teach and mentor their students, enlighten the young minds and share with them their values and philosophies, while advancing the frontiers of knowledge at the same time. We owe a duty to society for the trust they place in us; we owe a duty to taxpayers for the resources they provide, but above all, we owe a duty to our younger generations for placing their golden opportunities in our hands.

近日《最低工資條例》終於在本港實施，本地工人可以擁有最低時薪保障，本是美事，但由於條例剛實施，不少細節尚待釐清，例如用膳時間及休息日等的計算存在不明確之處，令整個社會非常關注，甚至產生激烈討論。

中大一向關懷勞動階層，除致力為本校員工提供優良的工作環境之外，亦關心到校園外判工友的福祉。就最低工資的實施，近日有同學到飯堂拉橫額，為飯堂工友爭取有薪用膳時間及休息日，並抗議飯堂承辦商與員工重新簽訂僱傭合約，學生會亦向大學提出有關飯堂工友的待遇與薪酬的問題。此外，學生會於三、四月間，向校園內多個地盤共六十二名工友進行訪問，了解他們的工作情況和待遇，並與程伯中副校長及馮通協理副校長會面討論及提出具體意見。

看見同學見義勇為，為基層員工發聲，為公義站起來，我深表讚賞。大學殿堂，既是知識的重鎮，同時應肩負社會責任，向孤苦老弱伸出援手，保護弱勢社群，扶助貧苦大眾，建設更公平更公義的社會。但有關外判工作等事，我認為我們應該從多角度思考，事情往往不是非黑即白，亦需平衡各方利益，共謀最佳解決辦法。中大校園內有不少飯堂，分別由大學及書院各自組成的管理委員會管理，委員會由師生組成，負責監察飯堂承辦商的服務質素及運作是否合乎標書的要求。

在最低工資實施後，大學首要確保承辦商合符法例規定，給予員工每小時最低二十八元時薪。但法例仍存在不清晰的地方，特別是休息日應否計算入薪金之內。承辦商與員工重訂僱傭合約，可使雙方的責任與義務更明確，保證達到新工資水平，避免將來出現争拗。大學飯堂承辦商一般為中小企業，要符合最低工資的法例要求，已需增加成本，倘全數計算用膳時間及休息日的薪金，經營成本更會大幅增加，企業能否承受仍屬未知。經營成本上漲可能導致承辦商經營困難，或會增加食物售價，倘若如此，各同事同學都應當體諒並予以支持。大學作為一所公營機構，必須確保公帑用得其所，但我們亦可作出一定承擔如適度下調行政管理費用，以協助小規模承辦商渡過難關。

至於校園內建築工程地盤工友情況，亦是我們所關注的。校園的建設，有賴地盤工友辛勤付出勞力和汗水，大學有責任確保他們按法例得到合理回報。由於建造行業相當複雜，不同工種及工序必須依賴專門技術人員，因此工程行業有分判制度，而同時政府亦有規管分判的法規。大學會進一步加強監管，無論在施工品質、環境保護和保障工人福利方面都盡量完善現有機制。大學會考慮一些業界良好作業方式，如設有「勞資關係主任」的承辦商，競投校園工程項目時或會獲額外評分。大學並將設電話專綫，以便向外判工友提供多一個協助排難解紛的渠道。

凡此種種，顯示大學承擔社會責任的決心。我和我的團隊都願意多想一點、多走一步，為校內員工以至外判員工的福祉多盡一分力，我更高興見到同學們的積極參與，誠盼我們能夠攜手「同行」，共建關懷校園。

「惟 願 公 平 如 大 水 滾 滾 ，使 公 義 如 江 河 滔 滔 。」( 阿 摩 司 書 5:24)