HKU Bulletin October 2008 (Vol. 10 No. 1)

COVER STORY Students have also had the opportunity to attend opera performances, and have been invited back stage to watch the performers prepare. The response from schools has been very encouraging with students keen, not only to study the scripts, but to take to the stage themselves. “Traditionally, Cantonese opera was only taught in occasional music lessons,” explained Ng. “Most artists that we see today came to opera through extra-curricula activities or through the Academy of Performing Arts programmes. Our challenge has been to integrate Cantonese opera into the formal school curriculum. There is more to Cantonese opera than just the music, it has a strong basis in traditional Chinese literature, the Cantonese dialect and dance. “The feedback has been beyond our expec t a t i ons . Students at some schools have even been composing their own poetry, inspired by the ancient scripts. They have also been learning how to perform, master the movements, the formulae for expressing themselves and how to sing and apply the make-up. “They have also learned how to move while wearing the costumes. This is very important as these costumes are very, very heavy. The students have now come to appreciate the skills and strength required for acting and conduct ing mart ial arts while weighed down by such heavy costumes,” said Ng. Funding for the project has come from various private donations, including the Yam Pak Charitable Foundation and the Cantonese Opera Development Fund. It was these charities that inspired Ng and her team to launch the project. “Many of the plots are based on Chinese historical events and Chinese classic literature and mythology, and apart from increasing students’ interest in opera, the scripts are also used to improve their writing skills. So, putting Cantonese opera into Chinese language education is very natural,” she said. While delighted with the initial response the project has not been without its challenges for Ng and her team. “It has demanded a lot of resources,” she said. “It’s not just a matter of sitting in a classroom with paper and pen, we have had to get a lot of performing artists involved. We have to work very closely with these people. “We also have to work closely with the Home Affairs Bureau which has provided subsidies and grants and also work together with the teachers and the schools.” But, despite the intense competition that opera faces from different media today Ng is passionate about preserving this part of the Cantonese heritage. “A common problem in Hong Kong, at the moment, is a lack of educational emphasis on the arts in general, whether it’s drama, music or any of the performing arts,” she said. “There is very little funding for this, and for Cantonese opera in particular. We are worried that unless we do something this ancient art will die.” But with Ng’s infectious enthusiasm and determination to make a difference there seems very little chance of that happening just yet. 12 Engineering Safer Buildings in Earthquake Zones HKU researcher sets his sights on helping engineers build safer buildings in earthquake prone areas A n advanced testing device, installed by researchers at HKU, may help engineers construct safer buildings in liquefaction-prone zones. The Automated Cyclic Triaxal Testing System measures the resistance of soil to liquefaction. Liquefaction is a common problem during earthquakes and can lead to catastrophic damage. Dr Jun Yang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, has been studying soil behaviour during earthquakes for ten years. He said: “We have been looking at how the ground responds during an earthquake and how that ground response influences the response of the structure upon it, and the potential damage to those structures. “So in our work it is the soil/structure interaction system, during an earthquake, that we are interested in.” Earthquakes remain one of the world’s major problems, occurring frequently and resulting in high death tolls and crippling economic losses. The recent Wenchuan earthquake alone, resulted in more than 69,000 deaths and up to 15 million displaced people. The economic cost is expected to be in the region of US$20 billion. During the 20th century several massive earthquakes in China, Italy and Japan each resulted in more than 100,000 deaths. Although sand liquefaction was not a major factor in the recent Sichuan earthquake it played a major role in the devastation caused by the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Yang’s testing device can be used to investigate the different factors that may influence liquefaction potential. He explained: “We have rock, then soil, then the structure on top. Different soils respond in different ways to tremors or earthquakes. For example, clay and gravel respond differently to sand, so it depends on the nature of the soil, it also depends on the type of earthquake loading. The response is very complicated which is why we are doing this research. “We have to take into account a lot of factors. We do this by numerical computer simulation, we simulate how the ground responds during an earthquake. What we have found is that our prediction tool is reasonably good. “In terms of sand, it is naturally saturated by ground water and, during an earthquake, when the pore water pressure rises to about the pressure of the weight of the overlying soils, it liquefies. If you have liquefaction the structures suffer a lot of damage because the soil loses its support capabilities. This, in particular, happened in the Kobe earthquake where, in many places, the water and sand rushed to the surface as slurry.” he said. But liquefaction is a complicated phenomenon as not all sand is equal, it seems. “We also have to consider the liquefaction potential of a particular type of sand. There are many different types of sand – some particles are round or angular, and also there is a size difference – all this has an impact on the liquefaction potential. “The density of the sand is also very important, and we have to consider the stress level and the particle size and the cyclical loading nature, whether it’s high or low frequency,” he said. Normally, liquefaction will take place in relatively loose sand, and the stress states of the particular location also play a role. Using Japanese and Chinese standard sand Yang and his team are able to conduct experiments using the Automated Cyclic Triaxial Testing System, analyse the results and then develop theories. Unsurprisingly, his work demands an in-depth knowledge of both earthquake and geotechnical engineering. Now he is hoping to apply that knowledge to developing a relatively simplified programme that will help engineers analyse the complicated site response effects of ground motion on buildings. “At the moment we have several very compl icated programmes to do this, but professional engineers are reluctant to use them because they are too complicated, have too many premises. Our purpose is to develop a practical procedure to analyse soil structure systems. On the other hand this procedure should not only be practical, or simple, but should also be able to help engineers, or help us to account for important effects and expand our understanding of the mechanism. Our programme will allow engineers to do the analysis in a convenient way,” he said. Yang believes his research, financed by the Research Grants Council, will lead to safer and more economical designs to cope with the recurring hazards of earthquakes. RESEARCH 13 Dr Ng Fung Ping