Bulletin No. 2, 2020

Coming Closer at a Distance: Snapshots of CUHK in the pandemic 25 Inside the virtual Information Day participants could touch a physical robotic arm. Now it becomes an animation, which is interesting.’ However, in a virtual space, one can hardly gauge the feelings of the other. The virtual Information Day recorded a footfall of around 23,000, but the actual number of visitors and its effectiveness are difficult to measure. ‘How long did they stay? Were they leaving the computer on and going out for games, just dropping in from time to time?’ She wondered, ‘If the participants were on campus, they might remember their communication and encounters with others better, and we could manage the impression of the University more deftly.’ If student engagement is to be done online, Wong knows the University could not rely on one single experience of the Information Day. The team has to come up with topics to catch students’ attention and refresh their interest from time to time, and all events must be carefully planned. ‘We keep connecting with students, who are to filter the information and choose for themselves.’ Having spent years abroad, the chief officer of University admissions keeps coming back to Chinese culture in her private moments. She is a big fan of the classical Chinese writer Ouyang Xiu. As a big-hearted figure of prominence in the political and literary circles of the Northern Song dynasty, Ouyang poured the sentiments privy to himself into his poetry. From the poetry she learned that more than any worldly success, what’s being felt here and now is more important. With love, reason and imagination, one can live through any day, rain or shine. She has climbed many hills and seen many blossoming seasons, and stopped being troubled by the question of ‘to be or not to be’. Her eyes and mind nowadays are on who’s coming into CUHK.