HKU Bulletin June 2004 (Vol. 5 No. 4)

3 2 Putonghua Triumph A rts student Daniel Lam Ming Kei put on a dramatic performance as a grief-stricken bereaved boyfriend to help the University win a prestigious Hong Kong Putonghua speaking competition. Lam won the non-native prose section of the Sixth Hong Kong Inter- tertiary Institutions Putonghua Recitation Contest and fellow first year student Nancy Zhu triumphed in the native prose section. Their victory represents ample return for the Chinese Language Division of the Department of Chinese, which has been working hard to help Hong Kong improve its Putonghua skills. Lam said: “I was very pleased to win the competition and I am very grateful to my teacher Xie Wei Hua and the Department for inviting me to take “ p P a u rt t . onghua is becoming more important since the 1997 handover and whether I eventually work in the Mainland or stay in Hong Kong it is a language I will do business in. “So for me this is a very practical exercise.” Lam chose to play a boyfriend coming to terms with witnessing the death of his girlfriend in a car accident. He said: “It was kind of like acting. It was really emotional.” The competition – held in March – is just one of many methods that the Department uses to encourage students to upgrade their linguistic skills and have fun in the process. Course co-ordinator Sue Meng, believes that the University’s long term investment in Puntonghua is paying dividends and that the numbers of students signing on is increasing year-on-year. She said: “It was very pleasing to do so well in the competition. We have so many people learning Chinese – both Cantonese and Putonghua – and they come from all over the world.” But it was not always so. She said: “I came to Hong Kong 13 years ago from the Mainland and at the time felt some resistance in accepting the fact that Hong Kong was going to be handed back to China. “It was more a political attitude than anything and that was why people did not want to speak Putonghua. “But after the handover that attitude started to change and now everybody wants to speak a bit of it.” The Chinese Language Division offers four courses: Putonghua voluntary courses for undergraduates; Chinese language courses for international and visiting students; Certificate in Chinese Language Course for foreigners; and commissioned courses. As Lam is only too willing to admit there is a bottom line to learning Putonghua: future job prospects. For graduates and undergraduates the lingua franca of China is no longer a luxury for students or for the University. Meng said: “The University’s mission and vision of the future is that Chinese language is most important if we are to keep HKU at the top of international schools. “Putonghua is also important for graduates to develop and get into the world market and not just China. If you want to get a job it is a must.” NEWS ROUND-UP RESEARCH The Benefits of Going Underground N ew MTR links on the West Island and South Island – running past the University – would save $23 million in health costs each year and more than $1 billion in time and safety costs, and lead to a 12 – 17 per cent increase in property values, according to a University-led study. The study, funded by the Mass Transit Railway Corporation, aims for the first time in Hong Kong to measure the direct external benefits of rail versus road transport in detail. Dr Bill Barron, Associate Professor of the Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management led the study, together wi th Civic Exchange and PlanArch Consul tants Ltd. The government’s Environmental Protection Department and our Department of Community Medicine provided the input. “This has not been done before in Hong Kong at this level of detail,” Dr Barron said. “The important thing is that this (MTR project) is a test case for the way we finance public transport in Hong Kong. We’ve been extremely modest in our assumptions to show that our numbers are robust.” The MTR is hoping the government will provide one-third to one-half of the capital costs of the West Island Line and South Island Line, something it has not done before. Dr Barron earlier did an international survey that found most countries subsidised an average two-thirds of capital rail costs. The general benefits of building rail over roads are that it reduces road congestion, offers shorter journeys, and produces less roadside noise and air pollution. The study aimed to quantify aspects of those benefits for the two proposed rail lines. In terms of health benefits, the savings would amount to $23 million in fewer health care costs and lost productivity. This was based on emissions information from the Environmental Protection Department and analysis by the Department of Community Medicine. An $18.7 billion to $22.7 billion increase in property values was estimated by comparing similar properties in areas which have no direct rail link and over that with. For example, Whampoa Garden was compared with Taikoo Shing. Although on average the properties with and without rail had a 20 per cent difference in value, the team chose 12 – 17 per cent to be conservative. Dr Barron said they also did not include private property owners when assessing time savings, assuming that people had already paid more money to live near a railway line. “Double counting was an issue that was really driving us crazy. We spent a lot of time on the methodology to find ways to avoid this, because we expected a critical response to this study,” he s O ai n d l . y people living in public housing estates within 400 metres of a proposed railway station were included in the assessment of time and safety savings. These are standard measures of the economic benefit of railways, given that faster journeys offer greater time for productivity and leisure and railways experience fewer accidents than roads. Some $1.016 billion a year was expected to be saved through the two rail lines. Dr Barron said it was hoped the study, along with another by Civic Exchange on employment benefits from the proposed rail lines, will help policy-makers have a clearer idea of the benefits of rail over road. “Times are changing. If Hong Kong is going to function well, if we are going to get to the position where we’re not trying to fill in the harbour every few years and build more roads, we need to get more people on rai lways. And to do that , we need to fundamentally change the way we fund railways,” he said. First WTO Regional Trade Policy Course Opens T he official opening ceremony of the first Asia-Pacific Regional Trade Policy Course was held on June 9, 2004. The course will be attended by government officials from 32 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The programme aims to address the need for developing countries to strengthen the skills and knowledge of thei r government of f icials to meet the chal lenges of the Doha Development Agenda. The Uni versi ty was chosen in November 2003, after a rigorous selection process, by the World Trade Organization to become the Asia-Pacific training centre, and to of fer t rade t raining programmes for government officials in the region. Daniel Lam with his award.