Bulletin No. 1, 2012

30  Chinese University Bulletin No. 1, 2012 Mapping the Present from Old Papers R esearch findings by CUHK professors on the literar y supplements of old newspapers are now available to general readers. Recently, the Hong Kong Literature Research Centre (HKLRC) of CUHK has jointly published a series titled ‘Dreams To Be Remembered’ with Cosmos Books Ltd., with Prof. Lo Wai-luen , consultant of the HKLRC, as the editor-in-chief. The series comprises five books, namely— The Sharp Maiden Pen: Selected Works from Thirteenth Sister’s Columns ; Words of Awakening: Selected Works from the Diary of the Muddle-head ; Middleman’s View: Selected Works from Agent La Series ; Foreign Mambo: Selected Works of Siming ; and Alien Paradise: Selected Urban Stories in the 1950s —each is a unique portrait of older Hong Kong as painted by celebrated columnists. The literar y supplement s of old Hong Kong newspapers are characterized by the checkerboard-like page layout with each writer occupying a fixed square allowing for a fixed word count. They had to fill this space every day, and in most cases the writer’s alias was the column’s name. The bonds between authors and readers were strong, and their discussions would eventually evolve into public opinion. According to Prof. Fan Sin- piu , director of the HKLRC, starting from the 1950s, Hong Kong’s population soared after Japan’s defeat and as the government was unable to take care of so many social issues, the public turned to newspapers to seek the services they needed, e.g., the ‘how- to’ columns on health care, making friends, and finding missing persons. These were new functions—to establish a communal support network for all. Later in the 1960s, short essays appeared and people liked them. This was regarded as an indicator of people’s growing interest in local affairs. The 1980s were the golden years of literary supplements. The Sino-British negotiations had started and Deng Xiaoping had proposed that Hong Kong should remain unchanged for 50 years. This statement became the most heated topic in the territory and newspaper supplements took part in the debate, which testified to the realization of Hong Kong’s most cherished value—the freedom of speech. At the time, academics began to recognize the social and literary values of newspaper supplements. One of the main tasks of HKLRC is to research on literary supplements. The work is not easy because many originals are lost, and the remaining few archived in the closed stacks of libraries are being forgotten. HKLRC’s mission is to extract the best pieces and compile them into anthologies, not just to promote scholarly research, but to salvage historical gems to help Hong Kong people understand our current situation better. As