Student Arts, Sir Run Run Shaw Hall, and Campus Radio

Since its founding in 1963, The Chinese University of Hong Kong has held the educational ideal of 「結合傳統與現代、融會中國與西方」 ("combining tradition with modernity, and bringing together China and the West"). On one side are the humanistic traditions of Chung Chi and New Asia, the professional training of the Department of Music and the Department of Fine Arts, and the music that fills Sir Run Run Shaw Hall and the Lee Hysan Concert Hall; on the other is a voice run by students themselves—from the stage of the choir to the campus radio station, which launched in 1999 and fell silent in 2022. This article weaves these two threads together: the first half covers arts groups, cultural venues, public art, college cultural traditions, and CUHK's influence on Hong Kong's literary scene; the second half traces the two paths of student broadcasting—the student union's statutory campus radio, and the practicum media of the School of Journalism and Communication.

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# 1. The Department of Music and Performance Ensembles

# The CUHK Chorus

One of CUHK's most emblematic performance groups had decidedly humble beginnings. In December 1972, a group of CUHK students passionate about choral music spontaneously founded the choir^※, initially formed to compete in a tertiary-level contest, it gradually developed into a professionally polished ensemble. The lineage of its conductors is a miniature history of Hong Kong's music world—early directors included Hong Kong musicians such as Tsang Yip-fat, Chan Wing-wah, Chiang Wai-man, Ng Chun-kai, and Mak Wai-chu; in 1990, the post of Music Director was created, with the Reverend Wood Tak-wing as its first holder; the current Music Director and Conductor, Leon Chu, took up the post in 2006^※.

Its stage has also expanded steadily: in 2006, it made its debut at the 20th Macao International Music Festival; in 2010 and 2013, it was twice invited to Bangkok to perform the Thai premieres of Mahler symphonies; in 2015, it performed the Moscow version of the Yellow River Cantata at the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival^※. As for recordings and awards, it released its first commercial recording in June 2014, winning the IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Award for Best-selling Classical and Opera Album that same year; in 2019, it founded its own record label, CUC Records^※.

# Department of Music Ensembles and College Choirs

The Department of Music, under the Faculty of Arts, offers students a broad range of ensemble and performance opportunities, running a string orchestra, wind orchestra, choir, chamber music ensembles, and specialist groups for African drumming, Chinese music, early music, and jazz. Under the collegiate system, several colleges also maintain their own choirs or choral groups (for example, the Chung Chi College Choir grew out of Chung Chi's Christian and musical heritage), which perform at college assemblies, services, and ceremonies, as well as externally, often holding annual concerts in the college halls, Sir Run Run Shaw Hall, or the Lee Hysan Concert Hall.

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# 2. Arts Societies and the Debating Tradition

Among the many societies under the CUHK Students' Union, the colleges, and academic departments, arts and cultural groups are notably active:

• Drama / Theatre: Each college and the university-wide level hosts drama and theatre societies, which regularly stage Chinese and international works, performing at Sir Run Run Shaw Hall and the various college halls.
• Dance: Covering modern, jazz, street, and Chinese dance, these groups frequently perform during college cultural festivals, orientation events, graduation parties, and major campus celebrations.
• Calligraphy, Chinese Painting, and Chinese Culture Societies: These hold calligraphy exhibitions, fai chun (Spring Festival couplet-writing) events and the like, resonating with CUHK's tradition of Chinese studies.
• Martial Arts (Gwok-seut): Practice in Tai Chi, Changquan (Long Fist), Nanquan (Southern Fist), and weaponry offers both sport and cultural transmission; these groups regularly perform at anniversary celebrations and cultural festivals.
• Debating: CUHK has a long and distinguished debating tradition, with both Mandarin and Cantonese debate teams consistently active in Hong Kong's inter-collegiate debating contests and Chinese-language debating circuits. Debate teams exist under the Student Union and within the various colleges and departments.

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# 3. Cultural Venues

# Sir Run Run Shaw Hall

The largest and best-equipped performance venue on the CUHK campus, Sir Run Run Shaw Hall was completed and opened in 1981^※, named after Sir Run Run Shaw. Its Auditorium seats 1,433^※ and is suitable for concerts, recitals, opera, drama, dance, variety shows, ceremonies, lectures, and film screenings^※, serving as the University's principal venue for ceremonies, large-scale performances, and public events.

# Lee Hysan Concert Hall and College Halls

• Lee Hysan Concert Hall: Located in the building housing the Department of Music and renowned for its excellent acoustics, this is the primary professional venue for recitals, chamber music, choral performances, and various musical events by the Department's staff and students.
• Chung Chi College Chapel and the various college halls/multi-purpose rooms: The Chapel is used for worship and ceremonies by Chung Chi, but its acoustics and ambience also make it a popular music venue. The college halls are used for assemblies, anniversary celebrations, cultural festivals, and performances.

# The Art Museum

CUHK's Art Museum was founded in 1971, under the University's Institute of Chinese Studies (the Institute itself was established in 1967)^※. Its collections span unearthed artefacts, calligraphy, paintings, ceramics, jades, lacquerware, and seals; from 1977 it added a conservation studio, a mounting studio, a photography studio, and a carpentry workshop^※, thus integrating teaching, research, and public arts education. In 2025, a new architect-designed wing opened, adding the Lo Kwee-seong Gallery and the Lee Hau-wo and Luk Yin-kwan Couple Exhibition Gallery^※.

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# 4. Campus Public Art: Gate of Wisdom

Scattered across CUHK's hillside, landscaped campus are several pieces of public art, the most famous of which is the "Gate of Wisdom":

• Creator and Form: Created by Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming, originally titled 「門」 ("The Gate"), a bronze sculpture^※; it was cast in 1986 and unveiled in December 1987^※.
• Artistic Status: It was the first finished work in Ju Ming's "Arch" series, the final major series within his iconic "Taichi Series"^※.
• Renaming: In 2006, during a visit to Hong Kong to conserve his works, Ju Ming renamed the piece 「仲門」 ("Gate of Wisdom")^※.
• Location and Legend: It now stands in front of the main entrance of the University Library^※. Shaped like two figures locked in a martial stance, it is often read as a metaphor for scholarly exchange; a campus legend has also sprung up that students who walk through the gate will fail to graduate^※.

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# 5. College Cultural Traditions

# New Asia College: The Ch'ien Mu Lecture in History and Culture

New Asia College established the 「錢賓四先生學術文化講座」 ("Ch'ien Mu Lecture in History and Culture") in 1978, annually inviting a renowned international scholar to deliver a series of lectures on Chinese history and culture at the college^※. The very first lecturer was the college's founder, Ch'ien Mu (錢穆) himself (in 1978); his lectures were later collected and published as Chinese National Character and Chinese Culture from the Perspective of Chinese History^※. According to public records, past lecturers have included scholars such as Yang Lien-sheng, Joseph Needham (1979), Zhu Guangqian, Hsu Cho-yun, and Liu Shu-hsien^※; their lectures are often published as a book series. In recent years, the lecture has been held each year in March and April^※.

# College Assemblies, Public Lectures, and Cultural Festivals

• Chung Chi College, inheriting the tradition of Christian universities, holds weekly assemblies in Chung Chi Chapel during term time; New Asia College organises fortnightly assemblies and public lectures, a core element of its humanistic education tradition.
• Each college holds an annual cultural festival or anniversary celebration, a mix of music, drama, dance, exhibitions, and carnivals, which serves as the most concentrated occasion for expressing college identity and cultural life.
• The main CUHK congregation (degree conferment ceremony) is usually held at Sir Run Run Shaw Hall; each college also has its own graduation and farewell traditions, meaning college traditions run in parallel with the University's ceremonies.

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# 6. CUHK and the Hong Kong Literary World

• Eminent Writers on the Faculty: According to the CUHK Hong Kong Literature Database, the poet and essayist Yu Kwang-chung joined CUHK in 1974 as a professor in the Department of Chinese at United College, and served as its head from 1975, teaching in Hong Kong for a decade (until 1985)^※; his creative output during this period was prolific and shaped a generation of Hong Kong literature readers.
• Hong Kong Literature Collection and Database: In June 2002, the CUHK Library established the "Hong Kong Literature Collection", now holding over 40,000 volumes, including rare early modern Hong Kong literature, literary periodicals, and manuscripts^※, and also built the Hong Kong Literature Database, one of the comprehensive databases on the subject.
• Literary Research: The university's Department of Chinese houses the Hong Kong Literature Research Centre, which has long been engaged in sorting and researching Hong Kong literary materials (including a research project on the Hong Kong literature archive collected by the scholar Lo Wai-luen, pen name "Xiaosi").

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# 7. Campus Radio: A Student's Own Voice (1999–2022)

Moving from the choir's stage, another kind of "student voice" emerged at CUHK—campus broadcasting. Unlike the print-centred CUHK Student Press, which began in 1969^※, campus radio arrived three full decades later. Amid the wave of internet popularisation in 1999, the Editorial Board of the Campus Radio of the CUHK Students' Union was formally established^※, marking the institutional beginning of autonomous student broadcasting.

# What the Campus Radio Editorial Board (CUCR) Was

Chinese University Campus Radio (CUCR) was one of the statutory, permanent media bodies under the CUHK Students' Union^※, equal in status to the CUHK Student Press Publication Committee. According to the Student Union's constitution, the Board was responsible for 「製作廣播節目」 ("producing broadcast programmes"), was accountable to the Representative Council and all ordinary members, and its mission was to 「反映學生意見、校政訊息，及匯報學生活動」 ("reflect student opinion and university policy information, and report on student activities"), while also 「尋求取得無線廣播牌照」 ("seeking to obtain a wireless broadcasting licence"). The Board was composed of 10 to 15 core members, who had to represent at least six colleges and who were elected annually by popular vote of all CUHK undergraduates^※.

# Location, Content, and Transmission

The physical location of the Campus Radio documented its shared fortunes with the Student Union. According to official CUHK Students' Union documents, the Campus Radio was initially housed in Rooms 113 and 116 of the Li Wai Chun Building at Chung Chi College^※. It later moved in July 2013 to Rooms 301–303 on the third floor of the Benjamin Franklin Centre (BFC)^※, adjacent to the Student Union Executive Committee office and the CUHK Student Press. Wireless broadcasting requires a licence from the Communications Authority, so CUCR primarily used the internet as its distribution channel, with its programming spanning live podcasts, broadcast shows, and multimedia content^※. Its coverage included university policy, campus events, and social issues; it also took on the role of delivering open, live broadcasts of student self-governance activities, such as meetings of the Union's Representative Council and hearings of the Judicial Committee, in effect acting as the campus's 「問責媒體」 (accountability media). Meeting records were also made available for public review via a YouTube channel.

# Curtain Call

On 20 April 2022, the Campus Radio announced it was moving out of Room 302 of the Benjamin Franklin Centre^※. Its statement read: 「1999 年，我們開始廣播，二十三年後的今天，我們走到了終點。」 ("We started broadcasting in 1999. Twenty-three years later, today we arrive at the end.") At the same time, the CUHK Student Press was also asked to vacate Room 307. The university cited maintenance works, but when asked if the media bodies could return afterwards, it offered no direct response. This eviction was directly linked to the prior cessation of the Student Union's operations. On 7 October 2021, the CUHK Students' Union announced it would cease operating, ending over fifty years of history^※, stating its "profound regret." Because the Campus Radio was embedded within the Student Union's statutory structure, its fate was directly tied to that of the Union.

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# 8. Another Path: Practicum Media at the School of Journalism and Communication

Parallel to the "student-autonomous media" path of the Campus Radio, the School of Journalism and Communication at CUHK offered another, more systematised pathway for training in broadcasting and multimedia. The School was founded in 1965, making it the oldest communication research and teaching institution in Hong Kong^※. It has since trained over 9,000 graduates and in the 2025 QS World University Rankings by subject was placed 12th globally, 2nd in Asia, and 1st in Hong Kong for Communication and Media Studies^※. The School now operates four major practicum platforms, which undergraduates can join from their second year, covering print media, English-language media, advertising and public relations, and video/audio production:

Among these, the Creative Media Laboratory^※, founded in 2014, is positioned as 「創意心靈匯聚之所」 ("a hub for creative minds") where students receive professional training in audio-visual production 「從廣播到電視、電影及聲音裝置」 ("from broadcasting to television, film, and sound installations"). The School is also equipped with a 4K ultra-high-definition virtual set studio, a digital radio recording studio, a black box theatre, and a high-definition video editing creative centre^※. Varsity, meanwhile, is far from a simple print organ—its content is split into sections like "Periscope" (in-depth investigations), "Our Community", "Lifestyle", "People", and "Specials", and it now simultaneously produces documentary videos (released via Vimeo), podcasts, photo features, and digital e-books^※, making it a comprehensive student media platform spanning both audio and visual dimensions.

# Two Paths, Different Emphases

CUHK's student media ecosystem has historically been composed of two mutually independent yet complementary systems. The core value of the Campus Radio Editorial Board was "student autonomy"—its members were directly elected by all undergraduates and accountable to them. In theory, it was insulated from administrative intervention by the faculties and could independently take stances on university governance. Its limitations lay in production resources constrained by the Student Union's budget, its inability to secure a wireless broadcasting licence, its reliance on the internet for dissemination, and its ultimate loss of an operational foundation when the Student Union dissolved. The practicum media of the School of Journalism, by contrast, enjoyed more stable institutional support from the School. Over nearly three decades, they have trained a great number of Hong Kong's media professionals^※, achieving a high standard of professionalism, with Varsity and others evolving into multimedia platforms. However, the output of these media serves the School's practicum objectives, and they differ from student-autonomous media in their editorial independence.

These two paths were not antagonistic; they complemented each other. In the same era, a student who chose to "run for office" (sheung-zong) and join the Campus Radio sought student self-governance and social engagement, while another who joined Varsity or U-Beat focused on professional journalism training. Each lived out a distinct media life-journey.

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