CUHK Campus Lore: The Beacon Tower Legend, the Goddess of Democracy, and the Student Publication Controversy

⚠️ This article belongs to the campus-lore module (15 · Campus Lore · Anecdotes · Speech). The Beacon Tower graduation legend is marked as community-sourced and checked per §6.6; the Goddess of Democracy and the 2007 student newspaper incident are supported by multiple news and academic sources. Content involving named living individuals is handled using "[Surname] + Mr./Ms." Highly politicized content from 2019 onward is not covered in this article (see Module 18). For the naming history and donor background of the sculptures, see ju-ming-gate-and-pavilion-of-harmony.md.

A sculpture has been wrapped for decades in a legend about whether it decides who can graduate. A replica Goddess of Democracy statue — after being detained by police, having its sculptor refused entry, and finally being tacitly allowed onto campus amid student protest — stood for eleven years before being quietly moved away just before Christmas. An "erotic section" in a student publication ended up in a Court of First Instance case. Three episodes, three different textures of campus memory — legend, symbol, and speech — together make up some of the most frequently retold chapters of CUHK lore.

# I. The Beacon Tower (Chung Gate) — The Graduation Legend

# 1.1 Overview

"The Beacon Tower" (烽火台) is the informal name CUHK students use for an installation artwork standing outside the University Library (U Library). According to HK01's report on campus culture^※, its formal name is "Chung Gate" (仲門, also referred to in English as the "Gate of Wisdom"), created by the noted Hong Kong sculptor Ju Ming (Zhu Ming), consisting of two tall freestanding columns shaped like a watching gateway. The full background on the work's creation date, its donation (by then-CUHK architect Szeto Wai), and its 2006 renaming is covered in ju-ming-gate-and-pavilion-of-harmony.md; this section covers only the legend itself.

# 1.2 The Graduation Legend (⚠ Community-Sourced)

According to HK01's report^※, several versions of a student legend circulate around "Chung Gate":

• Version A: Walking through "Chung Gate" from the direction of the library toward the Science Centre supposedly means you will not graduate; walking the opposite direction (from the Science Centre toward the library) supposedly means you will graduate with First Class Honours.
• Version B (a later variant): Walking through "Chung Gate" in either direction supposedly means you will not graduate.
• Version C (the sculptor's own response): Ju Ming is reported to have heard the legend when he returned to campus around 2006 for renovation work on the sculpture, and subsequently renamed it "Chung Gate," giving it the English title "Gate of Wisdom," to indicate that the work was originally meant to symbolize "success through passing a gateway" — that passing through it should bring good fortune, contrary to the "won't graduate" version of the story. In December 2011, Ju Ming again shared his creative reflections at a CUHK lecture, which stood in contrast with the legend.

The extent to which this legend has circulated is well documented (Hong Kong media have recorded it repeatedly), but it can be neither confirmed nor disproved, and is a typical piece of campus folklore that should not be cited as fact. One point worth noting: even after the sculptor himself personally "corrected the record" to dispel the taboo, the legend has continued to circulate on its own logic — which perhaps shows that the vitality of campus legends often has less to do with whether an "official version" exists than with whether it keeps being passed down and reproducing itself, cohort after cohort of new students.

# II. The Goddess of Democracy (2010–2021): A Rocky Path to "Tacit Tolerance" and a Quiet Removal

# 2.1 From Tiananmen to Washington to Detention on a Hong Kong Street

According to the English Wikipedia^※, the CUHK campus once had a "Goddess of Democracy" statue — a replica of the original Goddess of Democracy erected in Tiananmen Square, Beijing in May 1989 (the original, made of foam and papier-mâché, was destroyed on June 4, 1989) — created by Chinese-American sculptor Chen Weiming:

• The statue stood approximately 6.4 metres tall and was cast in a bronze-imitation material;
• In 2008, the statue had been displayed in front of the US Capitol in Washington;
• On May 29, 2010, Hong Kong police detained two replica statues (one 6.4-metre bronze-imitation statue, one 2.2-metre white statue) at Times Square in Causeway Bay, citing suspected violations of the Places of Public Entertainment Ordinance; on June 1–2, police returned the statues, citing this as "a gesture of goodwill," but the sculptor Chen Weiming himself was refused entry upon arriving in Hong Kong — according to Democratic Party legislator To Kun-sun, Immigration Department officers questioned Chen about his purpose in coming and then "sent him back directly."

The statue's "arrival" was marked by controversy from the outset — before it had even reached campus, it had already gone through both police detention and the sculptor's own entry refusal.

# 2.2 CUHK's Winding "Reject-Then-Tolerate" Path to Campus

According to the sources, the statue's arrival at CUHK went through a clear sequence of "administration rejects, students protest, administration relents":

• On May 29, 2010, the CUHK Student Union submitted an application to the university administration requesting permanent display of the statue on campus;
• On June 1, 2010, the CUHK Administration and Planning Committee unanimously decided not to approve the request, with the university stating publicly that it needed to maintain "political neutrality" and avoid activities of a "political nature";
• Following the rejection, student protest and public pressure followed;
• On the evening of June 4, 2010 (the anniversary of June 4), more than 2,000 CUHK students and members of the public escorted the statue onto campus after the Victoria Park candlelight vigil — under this pressure, the university changed its position, tacitly allowing the statue to be placed on a "temporary" basis in the plaza near University Station (MTR).

What "tacit tolerance" means: A close look at the timeline shows CUHK's administration never formally "approved" permanent display of the statue — it first explicitly rejected the request (June 1, 2010), then "tacitly tolerated" its temporary presence under pressure from thousands of escorts and public opinion (June 4, 2010). This back-and-forth between rejection and tolerance is precisely why the statue's status remained ambiguous for the following eleven years: from the outset, it was never a campus exhibit approved through formal process, but rather a fait accompli that had been "tolerated" under protest pressure. This same thread runs through the legal basis the university later cited for its 2021 removal ("never authorized"), discussed below.

# 2.3 Eleven Years: From Tolerated Presence to Quiet Disappearance

The statue subsequently stood on the CUHK campus for more than eleven years. According to the sources, during the Umbrella Movement on October 5, 2014, protesters reportedly erected a male figure holding an umbrella next to the statue, displaying it alongside the Goddess of Democracy in a nod to the social movement of the time.

On the night of December 23 into the early morning of December 24, 2021, according to a report by Radio Free Asia (RFA)^※, the University of Hong Kong was first, secretly removing the campus's "Pillar of Shame" memorial to June 4 (created by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt) late on the night of December 22 into the early morning of December 23; just one day later, on the morning of December 24 (Christmas Eve), CUHK staff also removed the Goddess of Democracy statue, which had stood on campus for more than eleven years — the two universities' June 4 memorials disappeared within two days of each other, which public commentary regarded as successive moves in the same wave of removals.

• CUHK issued a statement saying the university had never authorized display of the statue on campus — according to the sources, the statement also noted that after receiving the Student Union's 2010 display application, the Administration and Planning Committee had unanimously decided not to approve it, and that the removal was a "management action" — the final handling of a fait accompli that had never received formal approval;
• Following the removal, according to media reports, some students made small-scale replicas of the statue in response, with organizers describing this as "an act of defiance" because the university had "taken the statue away from the students";
• The near-simultaneous disappearance of HKU's Pillar of Shame and CUHK's Goddess of Democracy also brought up a separate cross-border complication: according to reports, the Pillar of Shame's creator subsequently entered a protracted back-and-forth with HKU over the statue's fate, hoping it could be relocated to Taiwan.

Multiple positions, side by side:

According to the university's statement, the university never approved display of the statue; the 2010 application was also unanimously rejected by the Administration and Planning Committee, and the removal was a management action taken on a fait accompli that had never been authorized;

According to students and their supporters, the statue had stood for more than eleven years and carried significant historical and commemorative meaning; its removal amounted to a suppression of historical memory, and the manner of removal — carried out before dawn on Christmas Eve without prior notice — was itself controversial;

Neither side's position has changed to date.

# 2.4 Historical Context (per §6.2 note)

The political background to the Goddess of Democracy statue (the June 4, 1989 events and the evolution of Hong Kong's political situation) is highly politically sensitive content. This article records only the physical history of the statue at CUHK (how it arrived, how long it stood, how it was removed) and the various parties' publicly stated positions; extended discussion of the political situation from 2019 onward is presented, per this site's rules, as external source links only (see Module 18).

# III. The 2007 CUHK Student Newspaper "Erotic Section" Controversy

According to the Wikipedia entry^※, in May 2007, the CUHK Student Press (CUSP) drew widespread attention in Hong Kong society after publishing a sex-related survey in an "erotic section." The institutional history of this publication (its 1967 origins as a joint publication of the three founding colleges, its 1971 affiliation with the Student Union, its post-2021 reorganization into the Campus Community Press) and its comparison with University Line are covered in student-media-and-press-freedom.md; this section covers only the timeline of this particular controversy.

Points of contention: the boundary between freedom of speech and publication; the university's responsibility for student media; media involvement in an autonomous student publication.

Positions of the parties: The university responded with the nuanced position of "no discipline, but no withdrawal of the warning letter," preserving its discretion over academic and speech boundaries; the students maintained that autonomous publication should not be subject to university control; public opinion was divided, with some supporting freedom of speech and others holding that the content exceeded standards of public decency. The Court of First Instance ruling stands as the final legal conclusion.

# IV. A Common Thread Across the Three Episodes: Who Gets to Define "Normal"?

Placing the Beacon Tower legend, the Goddess of Democracy, and the student newspaper controversy side by side reveals a faint common thread: all three concern who has the authority to define the meaning of a thing:

• The Beacon Tower: the "wisdom" meaning given by the artist and the "taboo" narrative held collectively by students have long coexisted, with neither displacing the other;
• The Goddess of Democracy: the Student Union's application for "permanent display" and the administration's insistence that it was "never authorized" remained in tension for eleven years, between tacit tolerance and eventual removal;
• The student newspaper: student self-governance in the form of "editorial independence" and differing understandings among the administration and public opinion of the boundaries of "public decency" were ultimately left for the courts to decide.

This site records only the factual timelines of the three episodes and the various parties' stated positions, and does not reach a conclusion on behalf of any side. Related reading: Ju Ming's "Gate of Wisdom" and New Asia's "Pavilion of Harmony" — a background note, The lineage of CUHK student media, More Landmarks: Towers, the Mall, and the Lakes.