Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 1997

wh i ch is still expanding and go i ng strong after almos t a decade ； Liu Qingfeng, wh o in 1990 together wit h Jin Guantao and myself launched Twenty- First Century, w h i c h in this specialist's age we nonetheless insist on making the journal of all Chinese intellectuals, an d wh i ch miraculously generates great response and finds strong support from both mainland and overseas scholars ； an d Wong Kuan-io, who i n his quiet but efficient manner put the Chinese Language Newsletter founded in 1989 on its feet, and made it into a respected forum for linguists and teachers alike. These are the people who take care to put our resources and hard won support to the very best use, and wh o instill dynamism and quality into ICS. And I do mean dynamism in every sense of that word. Even though China and Chinese culture move but slowly, the manifold ways of looking at and interpreting them are multiplying and changing fast. We therefore have to constantly search for new angles and experiment with new ways of looking at o l d things. For instance, thermoluminescent dating and phase- contrast microscopy add new dimensions to otherwise traditional museu m and archaeological field work, and the very idea of making a Tang verse or a Ming novel not only understood but also appreciated in a totally different language, b y readers of an entirely different culture, demands that the literary work concerned be divested of its linguistic mantle, and its core meaning be unravelled and exposed. Similarly, when the entire corpus of Shang oracular inscriptions and all classical texts up to a certain period have been compiled into an electronic database, their character changes. They are no longer a Kafkaesque maze of byways and back alleys in which one can easily get lost, perhaps for life, but rather a landscape above which one can soar high and take a bird's eye view, or zoom in at w i ll and obtain, at phenomenal electronic speed, answers to queries such as h ow often and where exactly a character, a wo r d or a particular phrase appears in a designated group of texts. The mechanics of studying these texts is thus transformed, and the scholar can reserve his energy for intellectual pursuits on a higher plane. Twenty-First Century and the Research Centre for Contemporary Chinese Culture established i n 1993 brought yet another new dimension to ICS, and reminded us that modern China w i t h all its turmoils and vicissitudes is also an integral part of Chinese culture. As a global f o r um for Chinese intellectuals, Twenty-First Century creates a different sort of space — a kaleidoscopic landscape of fresh views and living ideas evoked by the deep concerns as well as burning issues of our times. These views and ideas clash with one another and induce lively debate among their readers The team which build the Chinese ancient text database: (from right) Mr. K.K. Ho, Prof. D.C. Lau, Dr. F.C. Chen, Prof. Ho Che Wah. Chinese University Bulletin Autumn . Winter 1997 1 0