A History of Student Civic Engagement: The Chinese Language Movement, the New Asia Social Service Group, and Wu Zhi Qiao

The tradition of CUHK students "caring about society" can be traced right back to the University's founding. This article adopts a neutral, fact-based perspective, selecting three episodes on which there is relatively little contention and which have already passed into settled historical record: a movement that secured official-language status for Chinese in 1974; a college social service group founded in 1969 by an economics student, which built roads and ran schools deep inside fishing villages; and a volunteer construction scheme that turned architecture-department blueprints into footbridges in mainland China's villages, earning two Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) awards. One fought for rights, one embedded itself in the local grassroots, and one addressed needs on the mainland — together they sketch out three distinct faces of student civic engagement.

Note on editorial conventions: To preserve objectivity, this article covers only neutral, low-controversy forms of civic engagement. For events involving a high degree of political sensitivity or sharply contested narratives — including the student activism and campus political incidents of the last dozen or so years — the encyclopaedia follows its standard practice of presenting multiple sources side by side or providing a directory of external links only. See the specialist sections on Student Movements / University Governance / Campus Wild History (Sections 13/14/15). This article offers no narrative and reaches no conclusions on those matters.

# 1. The Chinese Language Movement: Making Chinese an Official Language (1968–1974)

In the late 1960s, Hong Kong society pressed for the language spoken by the overwhelming majority of the population — Chinese — to be established as an official language, and CUHK students were part of that effort. This is a social movement now regarded as concluded history, on which interpretations diverge very little; it can be recorded as neutral historical fact.

CUHK's role was a leading one. In 1968, a seminar on the Chinese language held at CUHK's Chung Chi College is regarded as one of the starting points of the Chinese Language Movement; soon afterwards, the "Joint Committee for the Campaign to Make Chinese an Official Language" was established at CUHK, chaired by a Chung Chi College student^※. This was no coincidence — founded in 1963, CUHK was Hong Kong's first university to use Chinese as its principal medium of instruction, and its students were relatively active in the movement.

The movement's progress and outcomes follow a clear timeline: From 1970 onwards, Hong Kong's education sector and tertiary students campaigned for Chinese to be made an official language; in 1971, the Hong Kong Government set up the "Committee to Study the Use of Chinese in Official Communication"^※; finally, in 1974, the Government amended the Official Languages Ordinance, establishing Chinese as having equal official status with English^※ — widely regarded as the movement's major achievement. The movement was one of the most important academia-driven social movements in 1970s Hong Kong^※, together with the contemporaneous Defend the Diaoyu Islands movement and other movements, forming what later generations would call the peak of student civic engagement.

The Chinese Language Movement is an early exemplar of the CUHK student tradition of "caring about society"; its outcome (securing official-language status for Chinese) has long been treated neutrally by commentators across the Taiwan Strait and in Hong Kong itself, and remains relatively uncontroversial — hence its inclusion here. For a deeper exploration of the Chinese Language Movement, see 14-student-movements.

# 2. The New Asia Students' Social Service Group: From Fishing-Village Road-Building to Free Schools (1969 onwards)

If the Chinese Language Movement represents CUHK students reaching "outward" to fight for language rights, then the "New Asia College Students' Social Service Group" stands for reaching "downward" into the local grassroots — it is the longest-running and most thoroughly documented student social service organisation within any CUHK college.

It was started by an economics student. According to the official New Asia College historical archives^※, the Social Service Group was founded in 1969 by Edward Kam Wai-pui (甘偉培, graduating class of 1971), a student in the Economics Department. Its core mission was to cultivate social awareness among New Asia students through community assistance and civic participation.

The group quickly got to work after its founding: In 1970, it took over a free school in Kowloon City that had been forced to close for two years due to administrative difficulties, providing free education for grassroots students and organising tutorial classes and fundraising activities^※ — running a school was this student organisation's first foothold.

The 1974 Quarry Bay / Hang Hau fishing village work camp was the group's most thoroughly documented operation. According to the archives, the work camp's site was "Fisherman Village" (漁村) at Hang Hau, Sai Kung. The team's principal task was to pave a 700-foot-long footpath along the village's main thoroughfare — a stretch that had never been paved before and became a quagmire on rainy days, causing genuine hardship for the villagers^※. This hands-on road-paving experience let the team members grasp the fishermen's living conditions more viscerally, turning abstract social ideals into concrete physical labour.

The work camp wasn't only labour. According to the archives, the camp also included talent shows, games, and a visit to the High Island Reservoir (船灣淡水湖). The "camp book" compiled by the participants collected Chinese and English songs, capturing an atmosphere that gave equal weight to service and fellowship^※.

From the Kowloon City free school to road-paving in Hang Hau village, the New Asia Students' Social Service Group illustrates another pathway of CUHK student civic engagement in the 1970s — not petitions and joint declarations, but direct, hands-on involvement in grassroots life. This service orientation, rooted in "learning by doing," stands in contrast to the more politically charged "Recognise China, Care for Society" currents of that same fiery era (see details in Factional Lines of the Firebrand Era), reminding the reader that CUHK students' civic participation in the 1970s was never a single, monolithic face.

# 3. Wu Zhi Qiao: From CUHK to Footbridges in Mainland China's Countryside

Student civic engagement is not restricted to rights-claiming movements; it also includes long-term, low-controversy social service. The most representative programme of this kind — and one that originated directly from CUHK — is Wu Zhi Qiao (Bridge to China).

It began with the idea of a single bridge. As early as 2005, with the support of Sir David Akers-Jones, Professor Edward Ng Yan-yung of CUHK's Department of Architecture joined a group of like-minded people to launch a bridge-building project called "A Bridge Too Far" (良橋助學夢成真)^※. As the project proved successful and gradually expanded, the Wu Zhi Qiao Charitable Foundation was formally established in Hong Kong in 2007. Its mission is to encourage university students from Hong Kong and mainland China to personally design and build footbridges and improve village amenities in remote, impoverished areas of the mainland, thereby improving villagers' lives and constructing a "heart bridge" between the students from both places and the villagers^※.

In operation, Wu Zhi Qiao encourages university students from both regions to apply eco-friendly principles and volunteer their labour to design and build footbridges and village facilities for remote rural areas in the mainland. Its reach is substantial — according to public reports, since its founding, Wu Zhi Qiao has seen more than three thousand Hong Kong and mainland young students serve as volunteers, and the gabion bridges, rammed-earth houses, and an array of livelihood improvements they have built have benefited villagers in Gansu, Shaanxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Anhui, and other provinces^※.

This "low-tech, high-science" rural-development ethos brought Professor Ng's team international recognition from the architecture profession. According to a ScienceNet.cn report^※, Professor Ng's team won the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Annual Award on two separate occasions: the first was for the "A Bridge Too Far" (Wu Zhi Qiao) bridge-building project, which received an RIBA International Award in 2006; the second was for the "Mao Si Village Ecological Demonstration Primary School" project on the Loess Plateau in Gansu — this school building, whose construction began in 2002, harnesses natural daylight and ventilation and uses local materials such as adobe and rubble, with the goal of creating a comfortable and pleasant learning environment for village children. It was likewise awarded an RIBA Annual Award in 2009^※. According to that report, these two projects "are the two lowest-cost winning entries since the RIBA awards were founded in 1966" — serving the most basic communities with the smallest construction budgets, which perfectly encapsulates Professor Ng's team's consistent design philosophy.

Wu Zhi Qiao has enabled CUHK and other university students to apply their professional training (in architecture, engineering, and environmental design) to rural development — a representative case of combining "study + service." The two RIBA awards also show that a rural-building practice rooted in mainland China's grassroots communities can equally win recognition from the international architectural profession at its highest levels, reflecting the long-term, constructive side of CUHK student civic engagement.

# 4. The Organisational Carriers of Civic Engagement

CUHK student civic engagement has mostly been carried forward by student organisations, and there are also institutionalised programmes coordinated at the university level:

• Student Union and College Student Unions: Historically, these have expressed opinions and organised activities on public issues such as education, language, and social service (for organisational structures, see the specialist section on Student Organisations).
• College Social Service Groups: College-affiliated bodies like the New Asia Students' Social Service Group, with histories dating back decades, focused on community service (free schools, work camps) as their core activity.
• Discipline + Service Combinations: Programmes like Wu Zhi Qiao (architecture/engineering) and various community service projects that blend academic training with social service.
• Institutionalised University-Level Platforms: According to the CUHK Communications and Public Relations Office^※, in 2011 the University launched the I・CARE Programme (博羣計劃), guided by the motto "To serve with aspiration, to learn with passion." The programme coordinates students' social and civic engagement projects locally, on the mainland, and overseas, spanning social service projects, study and research trips, NGO internships, social enterprise schemes, and university lectures. Since the 2016/17 academic year, it has been administered by the I・CARE Centre for Whole-person Development. Projects like Wu Zhi Qiao, whether student-initiated or semi-autonomous rural-building efforts, can also apply for funding and training support through such programmes.

This article provides only a factual account of neutral, low-controversy civic engagement. For movements and incidents involving a high degree of political sensitivity or sharply contested narratives, the encyclopaedia follows its standard practice of presenting multiple sources side by side or offering a directory of links only; these are not narrated here, in order to maintain objectivity.