Honorary University Fellows

Citation for Professor Hou Jiancun written and delivered by Dr Gabriel M Leung at the Honorary University Fellowships presentation ceremony on December 15, 2005:

Esteemed graduate of the University of Hong Kong, honored member of the academy, respected scholar and colleague: Hou Jiancun has, time and again, answered the call to service from his alma mater. In so doing, he has contributed beyond measure to its greatness. Indeed the Hou family has an ongoing relationship with this great University that has spanned generations, where his father, Professor Hou Bao Zhang (侯寶璋教授), was an eminent pathologist and teacher at HKU.

Born in Anhui, raised in Shantong, Hou studied chemistry in Nanjing and lived in Sichuan during the last Great War before enrolling in the HKU medical school in 1949. After graduation, he returned to China to become a researcher at the then Central Institute of Health, the predecessor of today’s Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. In 1957 as a Graham Scholar, Hou read for a PhD at the University of London, followed by post- doctoral work in Sweden, before returning to HKU to assist his father in research and teaching.

He took up a lectureship at the prestigious Peking Union Medical College in 1962, and remained in China during the Cultural Revolution. After his father's passing, Hou moved to the United Kingdom but eventually repatriated to assume the Chair of Pathology at PUMC in 1985.

Hou is a true patriot who has dedicated his life's work to the greater good of his country. He has fostered the development of medical science in China through his personal sabbaticals around the world, but has always returned to his roots to build bridges between western science and Chinese traditions for the future.

The University has been a grateful beneficiary of Hou's tireless bridge-building. We are indebted to him for his instrumental role in the founding and continuing effectiveness of the HKU Alumni Association of Chinese Mainland. Filius sericus, viator indefessus, orbis terrarum discipulus (Son of China, tireless traveller, student of the world).

It remains my privilege and honour, Mr Pro-Chancellor, to present Professor Hou Jiancun for the Honorary University Fellowship.