10 December 2015
The First Departmental Seminar Held by the Department of Chinese
The Department of Chinese of HSMC held the firstdepartmental seminar on 10 December 2015. Professor Cheung Kwong Yue Alex presented “OnZhuang Zi’s Preservation of Life through the Analysis of an Ancient Graph”.Departmental staff and students participated in the seminar with greatenthusiasm.
Professor Alex Cheung is the Chair Professor, the headof the department and the Director of The Institute for Chinese Language andCulture. He is an expert in the authentication of bronze vessels and the studyof Chu bamboo manuscripts. He is particularly known for his researchmethodology to use excavated materials as evidence for received texts. This isalso clearly demonstrated by his analysis of the ancient graph for kang康 in the seminar. Quoting from a wide range of literature, he revealedthat the graph conveys the Daoist wisdom to embrace the void and has themeaning of well-being and peace of mind. Unraveling the meaning of kang, hefurther explained Zhuang Zi’s ideas on the preservation of health. Despite theerudite nature of the talk, itwas delivered in a simple and clear manner, so that it was easily accessible.Those who attended not only learnt about the wisdom of the ancients, but alsohow such wisdom can be applied to modern life.
