Bulletin No. 2, 2020

28 Chinese University Bulletin No.2, 2020 focuses on fieldwork and team activities in the second. At the heart of the I·CARE projects, though, is the opportunity to explore the many facets of life outside the classroom—and what better way to do this than to be with an actual person? Enoch Ng , coordinator of the CRS and the SESS, feels precisely that the chemistry of being physically together is lost in translation as things go virtual. ‘Besides gaining knowledge, participants of the SESS got to know their peers and alumni. They came together naturally as they took part in competitions in teams, talking to and learning about one another without much need for our intervention. This year, we did a lot to encourage the same kind of exchanges on the cloud, setting up Connect Wall and Zoom chats, yet none of them was as good as face-to- face interactions.’ The web is great for communication that goes one-way or involves simple Q&As, Enoch opined, and the turnout of an online event was comparable to that of a physical one. When it comes to fostering deeper mutual understanding, however, it is not exactly the ideal medium. Another challenge online activities pose is how they almost require technical skills matching those of a professional TV crew member. It is remarkable how the past year has turned Chloe Wong , the student development executive in charge of the Dialogues on Character and workshops on compassionate communication, into a pro-streamer managing the button panel and cables on the microphone and the camera. ‘I was fiddling with the switches and cables every day, learning how to avoid poor contact and noises. I let muscle memory do the work. I wanted to know the drill so well that I could do the whole thing with my eyes closed,’ said Chloe with a toughness in her gentle voice. Being tough, indeed, was important as the team seemed to run into problems every step of the way. With just half of the I·CARE activity room being covered by Wi-Fi, Chloe has to set up a cable extension across the room every time there is a webcast before returning to her other position as the sound engineer. And of course, the team had to have the equipment in the first place before they could even start building the set. They had two months before going live, and with the pandemic disrupting supply chains, it took them one and a half months just to get hold of the livestreaming device. And when they were finally ready for an interview with top cyclist Sarah Lee , the Hong Kong Sports Institute was locked down. Now that the star of the show could not be with them, they had to come up with a new plan overnight. Until the on-air light goes off, it is really not the time to celebrate. But as often as things go south, Chloe knows she has her colleagues to fall back on. She said she had come to know her colleagues better than she might have had it not been for the pandemic. When what used to be solo work was about to get out of hand, even the usually quiet ones in the team would come to Chloe’s aid, alerting her to whatever issues there might be as they sat through the webcasts together. Apart from live streaming, technology has gifted us with simultaneous interpretation. ‘Having limited resources, I·CARE conducts most of its activities in Cantonese. With the University’s Zoom platform allowing simultaneous interpretation without any extra equipment, we figured out we could ask some of our students to do the interpretation,’ said Enoch. As Irene explained, simultaneous interpretation usually involves an interpreter listening to the event through headphones in a separate room and delivering the interpretation from there. Viewers who wish to hear the interpretation will need to switch to the correct channel and receive it through their headphones. Leaving a Trace and an Aftertaste —Navigators of the New Normal