Bulletin Vol. 8 No. 7 Feb 1972

place with unique opportunities for cultural developments. I must say, as a Chinese, that simple assumption not only gave me great pleasure but won my immediate support. Members of the Arts Centre really think the arts are important and they really do intend to see them given their rightful place in Hong Kong. Best of all they have never wavered in their belief that there are more than enough people in Hong Kong who feel the same way to make the project a practical one. They have rejected the argument that because Hong Kong exists by buying and selling the people of Hong Kong are interested only in buying and selling. In the place of that argument they have put the straightforward conviction —which I share and which I am sure everyone here tonight shares - that people anywhere are more complicated and better than vending machines and that the people of Hong Kong are quite certainly better. I want to stress this because I have become, as I think very many people have become, somewhat tired and angry by the constant denigration — and that is what it is —of the people of Hong Kong implied by all the references to a cultural desert, to obsessions with money and trading and so on. Naturally we need money to stay alive and look after our families. What gets overlooked at times is that we equally naturally need other things as well and that some of these other things cannot be bought or sold. They depend upon attitudes of mind, upon understanding, upon thought and quiet reflection, upon enjoyment shared in company and upon the recognition, man by man, of the forces at work in the world, of the problems which may darken and of the pleasures which may illuminate our lives. And they are epitomised by the cultural distillations of experience we call the arts. What is really extraordinary is not that the Arts Centre should be trying to provide more facilities to enable the arts in Hong Kong to flourish, but that anyone should think Hong Kong could go on for very long without such a development. To their credit, and it certainly is to their credit, Government has provided some facilities, but we need a great deal more and not necessarily all of it provided by Government. I am told that every month the people who fail in the balloting for a booking at the City Hall are sufficient to book up at least another one, and on occasions another two City Hall complexes complete with concert hall, theatre, exhibition space and lecturerooms. And this is only the tip of the iceberg, these are only the people who want to make bookings of those particular facilities. What of the people who every week want rooms for practising or rehearsing, for teaching or learning? What o f storage space for materials, of space for small archives, books or manuscripts? What of the small and gallant but totally penniless group —and it is I think the only one in the whole world — trying to keep alive the use of Cantonese stick puppets? What of half a dozen other groups only slightly better off trying so hard to keep their particular patch of the arts alive and green? We cannot in all reason expect Government to provide everything for everybody. We have to do some of it ourselves. Well, we are doing some of it ourselves. We have set up the Arts Centre to cater for the performing as well as the visual arts and with your support and the support of the people of Hong Kong we will fill in some of the gaps. This evening we are filling a gap. The work of Mr, Huang Chu-su would remain unknown except to a very few people if it were not for the Hong Kong Arts Centre. We are very honoured that he should allow us to exhibit his works but the real gainers, and the people for whom we are doing this, are those who will come through the doors for the next four weeks and look at these paintings and poems, the results of a life-time of experience. Mr. Huang Chu-su's dedication to his art is an inspiration but the works themselves are what matter. I cannot cut a tape or lay a stone or even unveil anything but I would like to signify the opening of this first exhibition of the Hong Kong Arts Centre by toasting the arts in Hong Kong coupled with the name of the artist here tonight. Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen, the arts in Hong Kong and Mr. Huang Chu-su. REGISTRAR'S STUDY VISIT ON ‘‘EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY" Mr. Nelson H. Young, Registrar of the University, left on 2nd January for a study visit on "Educational Technology at University Level" in Britain at the invitation of the British Council The study visit, sponsored by the Thomson Foundation, was held from 5th to 21st January in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Sussex and London. The programme was intended to familiarize a group o f senior university personnel from - 4 -