Dispersal and Renewal: Hong Kong University During the War Years

Preface: ‘The Time is Ripe...’

Preface: 'The Time is Ripe Clijford Matthews , • • • T o explain how this volume entitled Dispersal and Renewal: Hong Kong University During the War Years came about, I think it will be simplest if I reprint the original letter of invitation I sent to possible contributors and then add material summarizing the substance of subsequent correspondence addressed to all our authors. Hopefully, this approach will succeed in giving a clear account of the genesis and evolution of our somewhat informal publishing venture. Letter 1 (11 August 1995) begins with this Invitation to contribute to Dispersal and Renewal: Hong Kong University During the War Years and After Dear friends and classmates of Hong Kong University, World War II vintage! I am writing to propose that we act promptly to produce a book recounting some of the experiences during World War II that changed our lives and the history of our alma mater so profoundly. Three recent happenings in my own life have led to this line of thought pointing to the need for us to do something soon to define that era and our part in it. xi xii CIUford Matthews 1. Introducing my son Christopher to Hong Kong in the spring of 1994, I enjoyed taking part in many informal gatherings of alumni including a stimulating dinner in the Furama Hotel where ten of us renewed warm friendships from our days together on the old campus before the outbreak of the Pacific War. 2. I received an invitation from the ex-Prisoners of War Association to attend a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of Hong Kong to be held this August 28-September 2. Included will be a Disbandment Parade of the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (the Volunteers) in which I served throughout the war, mostly as a POW in Hong Kong and Japan. 3. As an emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I had the valuable experience this past year of editing a book with contributions by 24 authors entitled Cosmic Beginnings and Human Ends. This was based on a symposium with the same title that I had organized in 1993 for the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago. Lately, too, I had been reading a couple of fascinating accounts of the war years seen from both military and civilian perspectives. They were: British Army Aid Group (BAAG) - Hong Kong Resistance 1942-1945 by Edwin Ride (Oxford University Press, 1981) and Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire by Jean Gittins (Hong Kong University Press, 1982). I also had the chance to read two books of memoirs privately printed in 1992 which told me a lot about distinguished Hong Kong families I knew and their war experiences: All Our Yesterdays: A Song of My Parents is by Brian Yu, whose brothers and sisters were friends of many of us at the university; In the Web, written by Peter Hall, outlines family connections within a major Eurasian community in Hong Kong. Taken together, these many activities, some yet to come, made me realize that it was time to take note not only of the dramatic end of the war fifty years ago but also of the beginning then of a new era for the University of Hong Kong when a budding colonial institution of some 600 students expanded rapidly to today's international centre of learning with a roll call of thousands. I thought that a written record of those eventful times by the participants might be the most meaningful kind of memorial, perhaps in conjunction with an appropriate celebration at the university in the form of a symposium or conference on the war years. Prtface: 'The Time is Ripe .. .' xiii After all, during this watershed period the university did not exist as a physical entity but only through the actions of its students, faculty and staff dispersed mainly in China but also elsewhere in a world at war. As it happens, an attractive volume already exists entitled: The First Fifty Years, University of Hong Kong, 1911-1961, University of Hong Kong Press, 1962. This collection of essays on the history of the university was commissioned for its Golden Jubilee in 1961. The editor, Brian Harrison, concluded his Preface with this prescient paragraph: Many hands have joined together in the making of this book. Although war and the accidents of time have left wide gaps in the record, much has fortunately been...