Wu Yee Sun College: Erudition and Practice, Innovation, and a Green College

At fourteen, Wu Yee Sun started work at Hong Kong's Tai Loi native bank; nineteen years later, on 25 February 1933, he pooled HK$44,500 with friends and opened Wing Lung Bank at 69 Bonham Strand East, Sheung Wan. The bank stood at the heart of Hong Kong's financial centre for over six decades before being absorbed into the China Merchants Bank system in 2008. Wu Yee Sun College is one of the new colleges established by CUHK from 2007 onwards, named after the founder of Wing Lung Bank. Its motto is 「博学笃行」 ("learn broadly, practise earnestly"), and its defining identity is "innovation and entrepreneurship, social responsibility" — a mid-sized college of roughly 1,200 students, half resident and half non-resident, nicknamed "523" and "sons and grandsons" by students, with the official alias of "The Sunny College".

This is an in-depth profile of Wu Yee Sun College, far more detailed than the Wu Yee Sun section in the volume overview. It focuses on the college's own origins, naming and donation, positioning, landmarks, traditions, and recent institutional upheaval. The new colleges have a short history, and where public material is thin, the entry errs on the side of omission.

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# 1. Basic Overview

Wu Yee Sun College is one of the colleges established by The Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2007 onwards. Together with Lee Woo Sing College, it sits in the "mid-sized" bracket of roughly 1,200 students (far larger than Morningside, S.H. Ho, and CW Chu, but smaller than the three founding colleges). Unlike the fully residential, common-table Morningside, S.H. Ho, and CW Chu, it operates a part-residential model (about half resident, half non-resident).

According to Wikipedia, Wu Yee Sun College sits on the western section of Sirin Lane, built on the former site of the University Guest House, between Shaw College and Lee Woo Sing College, overlooking Tolo Harbour with fine views. The college's alias, "The Sunny College", puns on the "Sun" of Yee Sun and chimes with its energetic, sunny community character. However, the college has no dedicated campus shuttle stop; students must walk to the Shaw College stop or the Terminals 3 & 4 stop to catch a shuttle — among the nine colleges, its transport links are relatively weak.

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# 2. Naming and Donation: Wu Yee Sun

# Wu Yee Sun the Man: From Bank Apprentice to Founder of Wing Lung

According to Wikipedia (Chinese), "Wu Yee Sun"^※, Wu Yee Sun (1900 – 11 May 2005) was born in Shuangfeng Fang, Gulang Village, Xingtan Township, Shunde, Guangdong Province. His grandfather Wu Yikong had founded the Zhao Long native bank in Guangzhou in earlier years, earning a regional reputation, but the family fortune declined amid wars and natural disasters. Wu's childhood was hard: though bright, poverty forced him out of school early — at just 14 he went to work at Hong Kong's Tai Loi native bank, starting as an apprentice.

In 1933, backed by the trust and support of several friends, Wu Yee Sun raised HK$44,500 and on 25 February opened Wing Lung Bank at Bonham Strand East, Sheung Wan. The bank weathered more than sixty years of arduous history, standing firm in Hong Kong, a world financial centre. It was renamed "Wing Lung Bank" in 1960; by 1997, apart from the head office, it had 34 branches across Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories.

Per the Wikipedia entry on Wu Yee Sun, his later years brought various public honours: Fellow of The Hong Kong Institute of Bankers in 1991^※, an honorary Doctor of Letters from Hong Kong Baptist University in 1993^※, and appointment as an honorary citizen of Panyu City in 1994^※. More unusually, in 1997 the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences named asteroid 3570 "Wu Yee Sun"^※ — a rare instance of a banker who started as a bank apprentice being written into the solar system catalogue in later life. The asteroid was discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing on 14 December 1979, and the naming was approved by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in 1997. Wu Yee Sun died on 11 May 2005, aged 105.

# The End of Wing Lung Bank: Sold to China Merchants Bank in 2008

After Wu Yee Sun's death, the bank he founded passed to his eldest son, Wu Po-ko (born 1944; he took the helm in 1985 as third chairman). According to news reports^※ and China News Service^※, in May 2008 the Wu family, through Ng Kit Yee Company Limited, Wu Yee Sun Company Limited, and Yick Hong Company Limited, signed an agreement with China Merchants Bank to sell its 53.12% stake in Wing Lung Bank for HK$19.3 billion (about RMB 17 billion). In October of the same year, China Merchants Bank completed the acquisition and Wing Lung Bank was renamed CMB Wing Lung Bank. Wu Po-ko, together with his brothers Wu Po-kong and Wu Po-him, resigned as chairman, vice-chairman, and chief executive upon completion of the deal, becoming non-executive directors — the transaction was one of the largest bank acquisitions in Hong Kong that year. At the 90th anniversary celebration of CMB Wing Lung Bank in 2023, the three Wu brothers received a "Distinguished Service Award" in recognition of the family's more than seventy years of stewardship. Though the bank has changed hands, Wu Yee Sun's name lives on in the college, in the asteroid catalogue, and in this intertwined history of a family and Hong Kong's financial industry.

# The Donation and Establishment

According to Wikipedia, in 2007 the Wu Yee Sun Charitable Foundation donated HK$170 million to CUHK to found Wu Yee Sun College. Public records show that Wu Yee Sun and his brother Wu Chui-yee had already each donated HK$1 million in 1973 — to establish the "Wing Lung Bank Medical Research Fund" at the University of Hong Kong and the "Wing Lung Bank Fund for the Development of Chinese Culture" at CUHK. In other words, the Wu family's giving to CUHK actually predates the 2007 founding of the college by more than thirty years; the large 2007 donation is best seen as a continuation and escalation of a long-standing relationship, not an isolated one-off act. The family subsequently donated to build the Wu Yue Yee Health Centre in Tsz Wan Shan, Kowloon, the Wu Yue Yee Memorial Health Centre in Kwai Chung, New Territories, and the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Wu Yue Yee Care & Attention Home, a charitable footprint spanning healthcare, eldercare, and more.

The college's foundation ceremony was held on 9 June 2010; it admitted its first batch of about 300 students in 2012 (with the college building not yet complete, the inaugural cohort stayed temporarily in the International House); and in 2013 the building on the western section of Sirin Lane was completed and 600 students moved into the hostel. Per the English Wikipedia, the college plans to complete conversion of the staff quarters "Terminal 4" into student accommodation by 2027, providing an additional 250 beds — which points to a chronic condition for Wu Yee Sun since its founding: hostel places have struggled to keep pace with student numbers. From about 300 in 2012, the student body grew to 600 in 2013, reached 900 by September 2014 with hostel competition emerging, and has since held at a roughly two-to-one ratio of students to beds.

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# 3. The Motto 「博学笃行」 and the Innovation Mission

Wu Yee Sun College's motto is 「博学笃行」, from the Doctrine of the Mean in the Liji: "博学之……笃行之" — "learn broadly … practise earnestly." "博学" means to study widely; "笃行" means to carry through in earnest action; together they stress the unity of learning and doing. Beyond the motto, Wu Yee Sun's core mission is "to exemplify innovative aspirations and bear social responsibility" — making it, of the nine colleges, the one most distinctly themed around "innovation & entrepreneurship". That positioning echoes the entrepreneurial spirit of the banker the college commemorates: Wu Yee Sun himself rose from apprenticeship with just over HK$44,000 to found a bank that stood for more than sixty years — "entrepreneurship" is written through his biography.

In its co-curricular activities and college general education, the college places particular weight on entrepreneurial thinking, social innovation, and sustainable development. The official slogan "Go Green, Be Sunny" is a fixture of orientation camps and everyday activities: "Go Green" speaks to the college's green image, "Be Sunny" to its nickname and its positivity pitch. The college's highest honour is the Wu Yee Sun Award.

According to Wikipedia, the college crest uses a bonsai pine tree as its design element, symbolising unyielding spirit; the crest is circular — in the college's own official explanation, "like an ancient Chinese coin, reflecting Dr. Wu's founding of Wing Lung Bank". The design folds "the pine's resilience" into "the coin's financial imagery" within a single badge — one of the more layered crests among the nine colleges.

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# 4. Positioning and Landmarks

# A Mid-Sized, Part-Residential College

Wu Yee Sun's roughly 1,200 students (600 resident, 600 non-resident) put it on a par with Lee Woo Sing College — the "mid-sized, part-residential" tier among the new colleges, in contrast with the fully residential, common-table Morningside, S.H. Ho, and CW Chu. Though residence is not compulsory, the resident community is active.

# A Green College and the Pine Garden

Per Wikipedia, Wu Yee Sun College counts green architecture and sustainable development among its distinctive features; the bonsai-pine imagery of the crest and the campus's green spaces (the Pine Garden) together shape its "green college" image. The college was built on the former site of the University Guest House, and the first building there — renamed "Sunshine House" after 2016 — was retained for use as a gymnasium, making it one of the few new colleges that deliberately preserved an old building's function rather than demolishing and rebuilding outright.

# Hostel and Living Facilities

According to the college's official hostel introduction^※, Wu Yee Sun's hostel is divided into an East Wing and West Wing, with about 300 double rooms housing 600-plus residents. Rooms are air-conditioned with ResNet network ports, and Wi-Fi covers the whole hostel. Common rooms on each floor are equipped with televisions, hot and cold water dispensers, induction cookers, irons and ironing boards, and first-aid kits, plus balconies. The fifth floor has an open-air garden and vending machines; the West Wing's fifth floor houses a small tuck shop run by the Student Hostel Association; and laundry rooms sit on the East Wing's ninth floor and in the West Wing basement. Both the common rooms and the fifth-floor garden overlook Tolo Harbour, and are the main social spaces for residents — though the college requires residents to bring their own bedding and cookware, a detail worth noting before moving in. In addition to the student canteen, the college has a staff canteen and a coffee corner. For study, the college offers a 24-hour shared study space, self-study rooms, and multi-purpose group seminar rooms, open to all college students, resident or not.

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# 5. Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education in Practice

Wu Yee Sun's most distinctive label is "innovation and entrepreneurship", and the positioning is not merely a motto or slogan — it is realised in a series of concrete facilities and programmes:

The c!ab Creative Workshop: According to the college's official website^※, the college has built a signature "c!ab" creative workshop, equipped with higher-spec tools and machinery, where students can freely experiment and build out innovative ideas by hand. The c!ab links directly to the Year 1 college general education course, and provides group mentoring and space support for final-year capstone projects, so student ideas pass through a full cycle of trial and error. The college's official example: a first-year student used c!ab to prototype a sensor system that detects whether laundry is dry and sends the signal to a phone.

House of Sunny Living: Per official college materials, this programme promotes healthy, sustainable living through organic farming, mindfulness meditation, art for stress relief, and exercise — echoing the "Go Green, Be Sunny" slogan and the core value of "Sunny Living".

The Rance Lee Mentorship Scheme: Named for founding Master Rance P.L. Lee, this scheme pairs senior scholars with students in a mentoring relationship — another strand of student development beyond the formal curriculum. Together with the service-learning programme, exchange programmes, and green activities, it forms the backbone of the college's co-curricular education.

Entrepreneurship Scholarships and Student Projects: The college offers scholarships for entrepreneurial students, such as the "Dorsett Young Entrepreneur Scholarship" (2025/26 academic year). Per public information, students' entrepreneurship and social-innovation projects have won external recognition, including "Chasing the Melting Ice: Last Chance Tourism in a Changing North", about last-chance tourism under climate change, and "SolarGuard", a solar-energy project. These projects in some ways echo the college's stated mission of "exemplifying innovative aspirations and bearing social responsibility" — concrete evidence of the innovation-and-entrepreneurship positioning moving from slogan to student output.

Scholarships and Bursaries: According to the college's official scholarships page^※, Wu Yee Sun's award scheme spans admission, academic achievement, exchange, financial aid, and other performance categories; by official figures about half of all students receive some form of scholarship or bursary. Among these, the ones that map directly onto the innovation-and-entrepreneurship positioning are the Innovation & Creativity Award (HK$5,000–7,000) and the "Sunny Award" (HK$10,000–15,000), pitched around "creativity, passion, and vision":

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# 6. College Traditions and Publications

• Innovation and entrepreneurship activities: echoing the "innovative aspirations" mission, Wu Yee Sun's college general education and co-curricular activities emphasise entrepreneurial thinking, social innovation, and leadership development — detailed in the preceding section on c!ab and entrepreneurship scholarships.
• Wu Yee Sun General Education: according to the University's Office of University General Education^※, the college's general education is designed around its "learn broadly, practise earnestly; innovation, responsibility" philosophy, with the Year 1 course connected to the c!ab workshop. The institutional background of college general education is treated in College General Education and the High Table System.
• Official publication The Sunny Post: the college's official newsletter.
• Student newspaper Sunzine: edited and published by the student publications committee — a platform for students' own voices.
• Green and sustainability: the college's identity — a bonsai pine on the crest, a landscaped campus — makes "sustainable development" part of the Wu Yee Sun community culture.

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# 7. Masters

According to Wikipedia (Chinese), "Wu Yee Sun College"^※ and the college's Master's List 2024/25^※, the founding Master was Professor Rance P.L. Lee (sociologist); the current Master is Professor Anthony T.C. Chan. Per public records^※, Professor Chan graduated from the medical school of University College London in 1988, earned a doctorate in medicine from CUHK in 1998, and joined CUHK in 1993. He is the Li Shu Fan Professor of Clinical Oncology, Director of the Hong Kong Cancer Institute, and Director of the Pao Yue Kong Cancer Centre. He has served as Master of Wu Yee Sun College since 1 August 2017, with successive renewals since; he has also been Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Alumni Relations and Advancement) since August 2021, renewed for a further three years from August 2024. The college has been led in turn by scholars from sociology, oncology, and other disciplines, reflecting its mission orientation toward "social responsibility".

For living persons, only neutral facts are recorded; the list of Masters follows official and authoritative sources.

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# 8. Notable Alumni

According to Wikipedia, Horace Cheung (Hong Kong student movement leader, former spokesman for Scholarship, a former pro-democracy student group, and former president of the CUHK Students' Union Executive Committee) is an alumnus of Wu Yee Sun College. This entry lists this alumni affiliation solely on the basis of public records and offers no further commentary; the college as an institution has no direct institutional connection with the subsequent public activities of any individual alumnus.

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# 9. Student Union Suspension in 2025: The Second Case in a Wave of Four

On 23 December 2025, according to reports^※, Wu Yee Sun College announced that the college's student union was "suspended until it completes its legal registration procedures", on the grounds that the college no longer recognised its representativeness. Per reports^※, a week earlier the college had conveyed "the University's requirement" at a meeting, saying the student union must cease operations, without specifying exactly when this would take effect. The Wu Yee Sun College student union later responded that "despite repeated efforts and negotiations, the University's policy proved hard to reverse" — a phrase that captures the tug-of-war between campus and University over the suspension: the union did not accept the shutdown without objection, but was forced to accept settled policy after negotiations failed.

This was the second college student union among CUHK's nine to be suspended over the requirement that "student organisations must register independently", following CW Chu College's union in January 2025. Shaw (21 December, slightly earlier than Wu Yee Sun), New Asia (27–28 December), and Lee Woo Sing (January 2026) followed in turn, forming a wave of suspensions concentrated in late 2025 and early 2026. The University's public line has been uniform: only student organisations that complete independent registration may operate, and it will not recognise the "claims" of any body that has not registered independently under the Companies Ordinance or the Societies Ordinance as a college student union or its members.

Reliability note: The date of the Wu Yee Sun student union's suspension, the wording "suspended until it completes its legal registration procedures", and the union's response "despite repeated efforts and negotiations, the University's policy proved hard to reverse" are all drawn from multiple media reports. Credibility: corroborated by multiple sources. The broader University-level policy context and the full picture of the five-college suspension wave are treated in Section 6 of college-expansion-334-reform.md.

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# 10. Anecdotes and Rumours (Low Credibility)

Reliability note: This section consists largely of campus folklore, word-of-mouth, and internet forum tales, not confirmed by authoritative historical sources, and of low credibility. It is offered purely as cultural colour — do not cite it as fact. This site does not adopt subjective judgements about living persons; the rumours below correspond to no real individual.

"523" and the "numbers college" pun nickname

Students have long joked about Wu Yee Sun College as "523" or the "numbers college", said to be a phonetic riff on the three characters 「伍宜孙」. Note: this nickname has circulated among students for a long time, but its precise origin — whether it relates to a particular orientation slogan or hostel numbering — has no authoritative written record. Credibility low. This site records only the existence of the nickname and does not adopt any specific origin story.

The "sons and grandsons" nickname

Some students jokingly call Wu Yee Sun College 「儿孙」 ("sons and grandsons"), presumably from a literal reading of the characters 「宜孙」 (literally "apt for grandchildren" / "suitable grandsons"). Note: this nickname too is purely word-of-mouth; no official or written source substantiates a specific origin. Credibility low; noted only as campus cultural colour.

Readings of the "The Sunny College" alias

Wu Yee Sun's alias "The Sunny College" has several folk explanations: one takes the homophony of 「孙(Sun)」, another the college's "sunny, energetic" community character, and another association with a particular orientation slogan, "Go Green, Be Sunny". Note: the homophonic reading 「孙(Sun)」 combined with the official slogan is the best-supported explanation; the other versions are mostly folk glosses. This site presents it accordingly, leaving the rest in doubt.

The "green college = most eco-friendly / lowest electricity use" comparison

Because one Wu Yee Sun is known for green architecture and pine imagery, folk talk sometimes claims it is "the most eco-friendly / lowest electricity-consuming college on campus". Note: Wu Yee Sun is indeed distinguished in parts by sustainable development, but rankings like "most eco-friendly / lowest electricity use in the University" have no official basis and no uniform metric. Credibility low. This site does not adopt any specific ranking.

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