Teaching in Hong Kong, Day 1

The School of Computer Science was fortunate enough to secure an AsiaBound scholarship for a student short visit to an Asian country. Given that Australia is (pretty firmly) surrounded by Asia, the Federal Government has been initiating programs to familiarise out students with their world – an approach that makes even more sense in this increasingly Asian century for Oceania.

So, here I am in Hong Kong, with 10 students from our undergraduate programs, for three weeks at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where we are going to be studying networking. (Well, they’re studying – I’m teaching.) The people at CUHK have been fantastic in helping us to organise this event but they are strongly committed to visiting students and the campus is full of students for the Hong Kong summer. (When I say Summer, I mean it – 80+% humidity and 32C/90F.) The students are staying at the Lee Woo Sing College in twin share rooms – with really good air-conditioning, I’m told. CUHK built a number of new colleges to accommodate planned and future growth so Lee Woo Sing is very new and a good place to put up students for this three week period. I’ve been really helped out by Professor Irwin King, Shally Fan, Louis Wong and Karen Fan and, as this was the first time we’d tried something like this with CUHK, such help is invaluable.

Here are some pictures, first of all the CUHK campus from a vantage point overlooking the University MTR (Mass Transit Railway) station, which is near where I’m staying to be out of the students’ hair. You’ll note that the campus is built on a hill. It’s over 100m uphill and about 30 minutes from the train station to get to the college and I walked it this morning. I got some pitying but friendly looks from people as I trudged up the hill. Locals take the buses, which are free through the campus and run really frequently. I’ll be doing that from now on or I will die before the three weeks are up!

CUHK Campus

This next picture is of the Lee Woo Sing College itself. Everything runs on the Octopus card – an add-value cash replacement that is the bedrock of small-scale Hong Kong commerce. There are also lots of great dining options for the students as well, including lots of places to relax.

Lee Woo Sing Student Hostel

There’s a huge balcony that allows you to look across the harbour to the Bug Buddha so it’s a pretty nice location – AND it’s close to the bus stop and the classroom so my students won’t get too steamed up on their walk to class!

Today we went through administration and started talking about networking. I have lots of great pictures of group discussion but I need to get all of the clearances signed and returned so I can’t show you any pictures yet. Tune in tomorrow for more of the University of Adelaide’s AsiaBound adventures at CUHK.

Joi gin!