Issue May 2019

Po Fung: The Film World of Raymond Chow and His Golden Harvest Studio

Mr. PO Fung, famous film critic, was invited to speak at the College Assembly on 29 March 2019 (Friday) with the title "The Film World of Raymond Chow and His Golden Harvest Studio".  As explained by Mr. Po, Raymond Chow was a Cantonese who was born in Hong Kong.  He graduated from the Department of Journalism of St. John University, Shanghai and came back to Hong Kong in 1949.  He joined Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd. in 1958 and left in 1970 to found Golden Harvest.  There were a number of blockbusters produced by Golden Harvest and among them, The Private Eyes was most representative because it was the movie having the best box office in 1970's. 

The success of Golden Harvest was a miracle.  Its reasons for success included firstly good luck.  When some movies made failed to have good box offices, Bruce LEE joined the company and made "The Big Boss", achieving a $3 million box office.  Having worked in big company like Shaw Brothers, Chow understood well the problems therein and knew how to avoid.  Due to insufficient funding, Chow collaborated with individual producers in order to share the cost.  Riding on the rise of Cantonese in Hong Kong, he grasped the advantage of Cantonese movie.  Many of the movies produced by Golden Harvest were in Cantonese.  To maintain the vitality of his company, he promoted talented staff at appropriate time.  He also knew how to adapt to changes and face new challenges.  Therefore, he made use of the trend and then made a success. 

Prof. WONG Nim-yan of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature was invited to be the speaker for the College Assembly on 12 April 2019 (Friday).  Prof. Wong shared on "Dampened Memories: Liu Yichang and Hong Kong Literature".  Prof. Wong explained that people broadly categorized Liu's novels into "entertain himself" or "entertain others".  She continued her analysis of different meanings of the sentence "why all memories are dampened" from Liu's famous work The Drunkard.  Firstly, it was dampened novel.  Liu did not want to mention much about those popular fictions he wrote when he first arrived Hong Kong.  Those were written in order to earn a living and it was much pain to him.  Another meaning was dampened society.  As a humid place, Hong Kong's humidity easily created dirt.  The Drunkard demonstrated exactly the "humidity" of Hong Kong society: contains germs.  The third meaning of humid was lively.  Despite showing disappointment towards society and emotions towards degeneration, the writing was lively.  The last meaning was the novel itself expressed dampened Hong Kong literature.

College Sports Team Annual Dinner was successfully held on 12 April 2019 (Friday).  Close to 70 guests and College sports team members joined the celebration.  Congratulations once again to our College sports teams which clinched 4 championships out of 17 inter-collegiate sports competitions！ 

The Chinese Painting Class was held successfully on 18, 25 March and 1, 8 April 2019 (Monday).  A total of 10 local and non-local students learnt more about the traditions of Chinese painting.  They were able to experience different techniques and create their own Chinese art masterpiece.

10 students took part in 4 sessions of English Teaching Programme for Fresh Fish Traders' School in the 2nd term of 2018/19.  The volunteers delivered English activities on Saturdays of March and April, for 30 primary 3 to 6 students from the school in Tai Kok Tsui.  The students are eager to join the programme next academic year, and look forward to seeing the big brothers and sisters from Shaw College again!