Newsletter No. 151

CUHK Newsletter No. 151 4th October 1999 3 New Department Heads Series The C U HK Newsletter spoke to 13 department chairs/directors of studies who assumed chairship/directorship for the first time in 1999-2000. Four of the interviews will bereported on the English pages of this publication. The first one is the interview with Prof. Wong Kin- yuen, head of the Department of Modern Languages and Intercultural Studies. Negotiating Boundaries: A Department that Finds Its Identity in Interdisciplinarity and In-Betweenness The Department ofModern Languagesand Intercultural Studieswill offer a new undergraduate major programme starting from the 2000-2001 academicyear. The new programme, very much in line with the style of the young department, will beinterdisciplinary. Interdisciplinarity is also what madedesigning the curriculum mostdifficult asits three basiccomponents— language acquisition, linguistics, and intercultural studies,haveto bein balance. Chair of the department Prof. Wong Kin-yuen said,'On the one hand, therehas to beintegration to provide a clear and consistent direction. On the other hand, we have to maintain interdisciplinarity, which I believeis an essential direction ofacademicdevelopment owa d a y s . ' Language Students of the programm e w i l l be required to learn a third language (besides Chinese and English), wh i ch could be one of the European languages offered at the department, i.e. French, German, Italian, or Spanish; or Japanese, offered at the Department o f Japanese Studies. For students w i t h backgrounds i n languages not being offered at the University, the University w i l l help them find formal instruction outside to ensure they are given the chance to attain the required level of proficiency i n the language of their choice for graduation. Students of the European languages can also participate i n the summer language courses and cultural tours to Europe organized by the department. L i n g u i s t i c s The department's linguistics component focusses on general linguistics, contrastive linguistics, and socio-linguistics. Knowledge of linguistics is beneficial for language acquisition as it enhances understanding of languages and language acquisition. Socio-linguistic s deal w i t h issues relevant to inter-culturalism and multi-culturalism such as diaspora. Intercultural S t u d i e s The 'inter' in the department's intercultural studies component should be written i n Italics. It does not have the sweeping perspective of the prefix in, say, the Ho ng Kong International Airport. Rather it has the sense of a positive 'in-betweenness' à la H om i Babba. Intercultural studies are based upon the idea that clean-cut individual cultures are no longer possible in our wo r ld today. Prof. Wong pointed out, 'Biculturalism and bilingualism have been the tradition of the University's education. In my view, it should be replaced by interculturalism. What is Chinese culture? We are Chinese but we wear Western clothes, eat Western food, speak English ... It has become problematic to dichotomize cultures.' Based on this theoretical position, the intercultural studies curriculum at the department w i l l guide the students i n exploring how, in accordance w i t h its temporal and geographical space, Ho ng Kong culture can find its identity and position in the global culture, using theories related to postcolonialism, postmodernism, cultural identity, and multi- culturalism. Prof. Wong pointed out that whereas traditional cultural studies emphasize resistance to mainstream culture, intercultural studies adopt a more positive approach. Technology and Culture A n important part of the curriculum w i l l be technology and culture, wh i ch of course includes Prof. Wong's passion, cyber-culture. A n d he won 't be seen demonstrating outside the American Embassy against the invasion of Mickey Mouse. 'I k n ow the American cultural imperialism argument and all that. I don't want m y students to be ignorant of the cultural meaning of Disneyland of course. But Fantasy City, Infotainment, Shoppertainment , Eatertainment, Edutainment and the like — these cultural combinations represent an era. It's futile to resist them just as it's futile to resist the construction of Disneyland in Ho ng Kong. Fantasy City w i l l be the city of the 21st century. Disney has entered every nook and cranny of ou r lives. It used to be an other wo r l d ly fantasy; n o w it's gone into our homes. Ho ng Kong culture is not only what happened 150 years ago. The students need to k n ow what k i nd of wo r ld they're living in. In the end it all goes back to the globalism/ localism dialectic or what is now called glocolism,' he explained. H e hopes that his students, like himself, w i l l learn to observe and think critically, and be 'active and creative consumers' of Disney culture or any culture for that matter. H o n g K o n g I d e n t i t y The Ho n g Kong identity has always been a complex identity. Some wo u ld think that, because of its colonial past, it is constructed at the expense of a Chinese identity, that to be Ho ng Kongers mean having to renounce identification w i t h China, and because of that, the Ho ng Kong identity is not a strong one. H o w could Ho ng Kong people position themselves post-1997 between what's k n own as the 'little Ho ng Kong' mentality and an imposing and reductive Chinese identity? What ways of resolving their cultural identity wo u ld the students find in intercultural studies? Prof. Wong said the me/other dialectic w i l l definitel y be covered in the curriculum. 'The students w i l l be given a chance to think about in what ways they are an integration of a Ho ng Kong person and a Chinese person, and in what ways are the t wo identities separate. Here ideas relating to diaspora, the hybrid, the transnational, the postnational, the "celebration of difference" come in. We may live in a local milieu but we face the global. The space between me and the other is a f l u id space; intercultural studies explores that space. This is the space of the "inter",' he explained. Prof. Wong further pointed out that though the Ho ng Kong identity may not be a strong one due to historical and political reasons, he sees it more as an opportunity than a setback. 'Cities like Ho ng Kong and Shanghai that have undergone colonialization have a far greater chance of becoming the metropoles of the 21st century. The Ho ng Kong identity is an optimistic identity,' he concluded. Emphasis on Theorizing For the past few months the department has been engaged in publicizing the new programme. Besides promoting through the media, staff were sent to local secondary schools to introduce the programme. The principals of 50 secondary schools were invited to come to the University to discuss the contents of the programme and other technical details w i t h the department's staff. The programme w i ll be taught not only by the department's full-time staff but also by staff from other departments such as history, philosophy, religion, and Chinese language and literature, teaching concurrently at the department. Students w i ll be given a lo t of flexibility i n their choice of courses. But whatever their academic orientation, theorizing w i l l be the emphasis. A n d this continuous and unending process of theorizing is itself, Prof. Wong believes, the highest ideal of education. PieraChen