Bulletin No. 2, 2020

Coming Closer at a Distance: Snapshots of CUHK in the pandemic 23 is because she had done her share of world travelling. Over the years, the words of wisdom of the elders and mentors she encountered have sunk to the bottom of her mind and lain there until happenstance calls them to the surface to be savoured, like vintage wine. Now the apprentice has turned master. Wong’s role is to initiate the uninitiated and match talent with the academic programmes on offer at CUHK. At the helm of University admissions and also a College warden herself, Wong is an excellent listener adept at reading emotions and phenomena. A researcher in educational sociology, she traverses institutions and people and has a dialectical way of thinking. She believes the beauty of Information Day lies in building a bridge for the young to see the vista on the other side, one that is full of possibilities. She explained, ‘You have to feel what secondary students feel, and make them identify with and respect the University’s mighty mission of pursuing knowledge and truth.’ Her desk was scattered with files and documents, but she is deep down a lover of string-bound books. How does she get the University’s spirit across in an age of isolation? ——— In early 2020 when the pandemic first struck, Wong and her team in the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid prepared for both online and offline formats of Information Day, clinging onto the tender hope that the event could after all take place face-to-face. It was June when a virtual Information Day was decided upon, and soon they met their first challenge: there were only three companies around the world with the knowhow and reputation to host large-scale virtual events and exhibitions. ‘The world has not prepared for events to move online,’ Wong sighed. Among the three companies, one of them declined right away because they had too much on their plate; the other one charged an exorbitant fee. At last, the team engaged an American company to build the virtual platform. Everything was coordinated online. ‘We had no actual contact, relying just on WhatsApp messages, phone calls and emails.’ And remote control was the least of Wong’s worries. She was more concerned that participants could not step on the campus turf and feel its rolling landscape for themselves.