S.H. Ho College eNewsletter

S.H. Ho College's 5th High Table Dinner on 15 February had Dr. Wong Chung Kwong to speak on adolescent resilience. Dr. Wong has been practising psychiatry for 40 years. Back to the early 90s, he started dreaming of using psychiatry and neuroscience to develop a set of methodology in mental education. That dream was so captivating that he decided to resign from his teaching position at CHUK in 1997. Now Dr. Wong is engaged in both clinical practice and mental education.

Dr. Wong emphasised that we all needed resilience to overcome stress, especially the bad one, which will ultimately lead to mental and physical illness if we did not deal with it properly. According to the statistics from National Institute of Mental Health in USA, among the numerous mental disorders, anxiety and mood disorder are the most common ones.

What is resilience then? It actually means mental power. We face lots of uncertainties in our daily living. If we have a positive notion, our negative mind can be changed and our behaviour can be influenced. Dr. Wong cited two real stories for illustration. A 65-year-old man in USA had suffered from stroke all of a sudden but he recovered after making untiring efforts. A 14-year-old boy in Hong Kong had got bone cancer but he survived the amputation with high death rate. He is now a specialist doctor in a hospital. The life fighters in the stories were indeed in a great danger. The stress on their shoulders turned life miserable and could take away life in the worst case. However, they reacted with passion and courage and increased their mental power.

Mental power is worth our time for enhancement because mental health, as our most important asset, is just invaluable. Dr. Wong encouraged us to focus on our work consciously in the moment and keep up a positive thinking. This would bring peace to our mind and accumulate mental power.

During the high table dinner, the opening ceremony of the 5th S.H. Ho College Master Cup was officiated by Prof. Samuel Sun, College Master. This year the ceremony theme was "The Simpsuns". Student representatives of the two residential halls put on a short play about who should get the yummy doughnut. Prof. Sun then stopped the argument by announcing that the doughnut would only go to the winner of the Master Cup. The two halls will rival in sports and mini games from mid-February to early-March.