Executive Vice-president of UIC, renowned historian Prof. Kwok Siu Tong was invited to give a lecture at "Zhuhai Culture Forum", a lecture series that explores the fields of humanities, technology and medicine with the purpose of promoting the role of culture in Zhuhai's societal development. Prof. Kwok's topic at the lecture on Jan 26 was "The Journey of Life: Culture, Living, Life and Death".
A reputed scholar, Prof. Kwok has accumulated an impressive track record of substantial teaching and research experience. With a Harvard University Fellowship, he went to the United States for further studies and obtained his Master's and Doctor's degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. As an expert in cultural matters, Prof. Kwok has served as advisor to the local government and a number of professional bodies in creative cultural industries, heritage preservation, as well as urban development in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta. His new book The Soul of a City started the research of the community history, literature and culture, a new approach of historical research in Hong Kong.
"Reflecting upon my research on Chinese and foreign history and literature in the past a few decades, I think life is like a journey, traveling in and between culture, living, life and death." said Prof. Kwok at the lecture. The death of his mother was a trigger, switching his view of life to a new perspective - he interpreted the relationship between history and life, between the individual and the community, city and country on the basis of his own life experience and realized that life is indeed a journey.
This understanding of "life as a journey" was later developed into a new "network thinking" concept. He conceived that every moment in life is a point in a multi-dimensional space. Starting from each point people can draw their thinking towards different directions, thus inspiring innovative ideas and helping to develop a divergent way of thinking. A mind that is open to divergences will bring about a heart that is tolerant and sincere, with which people can have more harmonious interpersonal relations.
In his lecture, Prof. Kwok also shared his understanding of "the culture of journey" through the analysis of classical literature like the novels Journey to the West and Don Quijote, as well as movies like Somewhere in Time and Narayama Bushiko.
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