Research Volume 6 Issue 10 - December 12, 2008 [ ]

Transcription

1 Research Volume 6 Issue 10 - December 12, 2008 [ ] Presidents Forum on Internationalization of Universities in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Mainland China Organized by Hong Kong City University Prof. Da Hsun Feng Senior Executive Vice President, NCKU 18/07/2008 A Speech given in the 3 rd Session: Promoting Chinese Culture s Impact on the World and Enhancing Collaboration and Progress among Chinese Universities in an Internalization Era President Way Kuo and colleague who are leaders of higher education in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Mainland China, I confess that I m the least eligible speaker in this conference, because the theme of the conference is about higher education in the above mentioned four areas. I did not grow up from this region, not did I receive a single day of education from the region. Therefore when President Kuo assigned me to speak about this issue, I was absolutely astonished. Promoting Chinese Culture s Impact on the World and Enhancing Collaboration and Progress among Chinese Universities in an Internalization Era is a topic of a grand scale. In English, we would refer to it as a mouth full. This is a huge challenge for me, but I ll do my best. Today, all of you have introduced your institutions, so I ll introduce National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) briefly. National Cheng Kung University is a large scale university, and in terms of history of universities in Taiwan. it has a long history. It is one of the four leading universities in Taiwan, namely, National Taiwan University (NTU,) National Cheng Kung University (NCKU,) National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) and National Chiao Tung University (NCTU.) In my opinion, NCKU, as well as other Asian universities, are faced with a profound challenge by the global circumstances in the 21 st century, and we must educate a large cadre of leaders with global perspective in this century. If NCKU can maintain her status as the cradle for world class educators, scientists, entrepreneurs, and modern literary writers, such as outstanding alumni Prof. Pual Chu (Ching-Wu Chu, 朱經武 ), Bruce C. H. Cheng ( 鄭崇華 ) and Lung Yingtai ( 龍應台 ), then the day in which NCKU is a world class university is within reach. NCKU has some 10,000 undergraduate students, some 10,000 graduate students, and around 1,400 faculty members. These numbers immediately tell us that there is a problem, namely on the average, 1 of 5

2 each professor has to mentor seven to eight graduate students. Such a workload, in my opinion, is too heavy. When I was a professor, at any point in time, I could come up with two to three good topics for my research students. So to supervise eight research students is a serious and significant challenge for a faculty member. It tells me that we are in serious shortage of faculty members. After I came to NCKU, I realized that the research funding of NCKU is comparatively quite healthy. The annual research funding of NCKU is approximately USD 100,000,000. Before I came to NCKU, I was in Texas, so I am quite familiar with the conditions there. In Texas, as far as comprehensive universities are concerned, only University of Texas in Austin and Texas A & M University have significantly more research funding than NCKU (three to four times). Other comprehensive universities in Texas have either similar level of research funding or far less than NCKU does. Therefore from the perspective of research funding, leading universities in Taiwan do seem to be relatively adequate. Now I will divide what I am supposed to speak on, namely Promoting Chinese Culture s Impact on the World and Enhancing Collaboration and Progress among Chinese Universities in an Internationalization Era into three topics. First, what is an internationalization era? For me, the 20 th century is remarkable. I wonder if you have noticed that the first Asian Nobel laureate is neither Chinese, nor Japanese. He was an Indian literary giant called Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in All of you know that the Nobel Prize Committee always provides for the world a succinct by-line as to why a Noble prize is awarded. For Tagore, the reason is he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of literature of the west. What stares one in the eyes is that this by-line did not specify that Tagore was a great Indian writer. Rather it was that his literary contribution was a part of the literature of the West. To me, that has the smell of naked colonialism and in many ways, this was indeed the global conditions in early 20 th century. As we all know, at the end of the 20 th century, when Gao Xingjian was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, his by-line was because he has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama. Comparing the two reasons for Nobel Prize in Literature, separated by about a hundred years, you can detect the profound change in perception of the world for Asia during the 20 th century. I believe that by the end of the 20 th century rolled around, there was great increase of respect for Asia, and part of that must be due to the economic explosion of the region. The second point of this topic is impact on the world. This morning, President Kuo gave a moving opening remark, and he quoted Thomas Friedman famous book, The World is Flat, which I believe you all have read and know its inherent philosophy. Personally, I have some reflection about this. And what is that? Well, not so long ago, maybe about 30 to 40 years ago, except for a few Japanese universities, no other East Asian universities can be ranked in the same level as European or American universities. From this perspective, I think we realized that after the auduous work of outstanding educators for 30 to 40 years, such as Yi-Chi Mei of National Tsing Hua University, Chia-Wei Woo of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Professor Fujia Yang, former President of Fudan University and current Chancellor of UK s Nottingham University, some of Asian universities now can be considered in the same breath with European and American universities. Recently I attended a QS company s University Ranking s Conference which was put together for the company by Korea s Yonsei University. QS is an English company, which a few years ago took over the annual global universities ranking by London Times Education Section. Perhaps due to the more mature 2 of 5

3 nature of American and European universities, it does not appear that QS could easily break into the European and American higher education market. Indeed, for QS, the fact the rapid rise and the aggressive nature of Asian universities promoting the rise during the latter half of the 20 th century renders Asia an a critical market for QS. With this as background, it is no surprise that throughout today s conference, there were a non-trivial amount of time devoted by a number of speakers to discuss the issue of ranking. As many of you may know, in the past several years, I have often compared the two major internationally often quoted ranking systems: the so-called Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) Ranking and London Times = QS Ranking. If you compare these two ranking systems, you will notice that they produce startling different rankings for many Asian universities, such as those for the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Peking University. In 2005, Shanghai Jiao Tong University invited me to their first international conference World Class Universities to give a keynote speech. Even though it was still the early period for global ranking, I had already been acutely aware of their possible influences, to this end, in my speech, I took the opportunity to say that.indeed, with Cai s ( 蔡元培 ) leadership, Peiking University became not just soul of Chinese universities, but in fact Chinese history and culture in 20 century. How do we measure the intangible impact of Peiking University on the culture of China with Colloquial Speech Movement, May Fourth Movement and so on? Is it even logical to consider that Peiking University is not a world class university when it has profound impact on Chinese culture with nearly quarter humanity for the whole country? It is important, in my opinion, that when we are discussing about university ranking, it is probably essential that we do not leave out the important ingredient of these intangibles carefully. But how can we measure this intangible impact? From what I have pointed out, it appears that if the intangibles are left out, the ranking will be incomplete. This is an issue that cannot be ignored, no matter how difficult it may be included in the ranking. Hence, I think it is incumbent upon the higher education institutions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China area to be cautious about this point. This third question is: how to enhance Chinese culture s impact on the world? During our lunch meeting today, we heard the very learned and profound report from Prof. Tu Weiming, a maestro of New Confucianism.. I think all of you would wholeheartedly agree with me that having heard Professor Tu s talk, adding a single word to his discussion would be equivalent to what the Chinese would refer to as. 畫蛇添足 or adding feet to a snake painting. But if Prof. Tu would allow me to, I still like to say a few words to elaborate on this topic, however insignificant or unnecessary it may be. Since 1980, I ve visited mainland China nearly 130 times, and Taiwan 20 to 30 times. Each visit was short and thus none of them was able to assist me gain a deeper understanding of the local situations. However, having assumed the position of NCKU 10 months ago, what I have learned in just one year far exceeded what I have learned in all my previous Asia visits. I like to share with you some of what I have learned, which is also related to our topic in today s conference. Since coming to Taiwan, I realized that for the public in Taiwan, international general means northeast countries such as Korea and Japan, or further west country such as US, or even extreme west to Europe. I grew up in Singapore. For me, in addition to Korea, Japan, US, Europe, Southeast Asia, i.e. Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are constantly in my mind. I remember that in Singapore, there are 3 of 5

4 Associations ( 會館 ) sponsored by keen and enthusiastic overseas Chinese, such as Fujian Association, Quan Zhou Association, Tong An Association, Amoy Association and Quemoy Association, etc. In southeast Asia, wherever there are overseas Chinese, you will see the existence of such Associations. More importantly, they are the cultural and economic soul of local overseas Chinese. They also link these overseas Chinese with their homeland and hometown.. Another interesting fact I realized after coming to Taiwan is: in Singapore, in addition to the previously mentioned Associations (you might have noticed that they are mainly Fujian Province Associations), another influential Association is Chaozhou Association. As you all know that the Chaozhou dialect is similar to southern Fujian dialect. I checked the Fujian and Guangdong Map recently and realized that Chaozhou is a lot closer to southern Fujian than to Guangzhou. The information gives me profound implications. Another interesting fact is about Kinmen (Quemoy). The bombing of Quemoy and Matsu in the late 1950 s has always been embedded in my mind for decades, which is why after coming to Taiwan a year ago, I ve wanted very much to visit Quemoy. Then two months ago such an opportunity came. Dr. Chin- Cheng Lee, President of National Kinmen Institute of Technology, graciously invited me to give an lecture to his students. I took this opportunity to did some on site observation. I found out that the 1,000-year history of Quemoy can be divided into three parts. The first part I call it ancient southern Fujian culture, which centers on Zhu Xi ( 朱熹 ). As you all know that Zhu Xi was a Confucianist born 900 years ago (1130 A.D.). He qualified as a chin-shih (the graduate of the metropolitan examinations) at the age of 19. During his whole life, he held an important government administrative post as the Chief of Official Documents ( 主簿 ) of Tong An County, Quan Zhou. (According to Wikipedia, Chief of Official Documents is a title of ancient Chinese government official posts, and is a civil official. It started around the Han Dynasty and is in charge of official documents and stamps, which is to compose official documents and manage files and various right stamps, etc. It is sort of an equivalent to the modern post of secretary.) Quemoy was part of Tong An County, and as we all know that 900 years ago was the time when Oxford University began. The second part I call it ancient southern Fujian culture, which centers on General Cheng Cheng-Kung ( 鄭成功 ) ( ). General Cheng s base was around Quemoy and Amoy, which is now called Kin- Xia, with which he was able to dominate the sea at that time. In 1687, Quemoy established a Wu Jiang College ( 浯江書院 ) to revere Zhu Xi. Coincidently, Sir Isaac Newton also published his epic mathematic treatise Principia in Though National Cheng Kung University was named after General Cheng Cheng-Kung, interestingly, not everyone at NCKU knows about this legacy. The third part I call it modern southern Fujian culture, which begins with the latter part of the 19 th century to the 21 st century. During late 19 th century, many southern Fujian people immigrated to southeast Asia. In the latter part of the 20 th century, famous events included KMT-Communist Conflict and the rise of Taiwanese culture. I heard of the Bombing of 823 in my childhood in Singapore, but to my surprise that this year is its 50 th anniversary. Two months ago in Kinmen, I saw its relics, which was impressive, not to mention that after 50 years, higher education leaders from the Greater China area can gather in Hong Kong to discuss the her cultural influence. Recently, Prof. Michael Szonyi of Harvard University wrote a book about Quemoy with the title Cold War Island. Now it comes to my conclusion. Concerning the Associations in southeast Asia, southeast Asia has a profound lineage to southern Fujian, but a weak bond with Taiwan. A very famous Malaysian overseas 4 of 5

5 Chinese businessman named Yeoh Yiong Lay was from Quemoy. If you visit Quemoy, you see his footprints and contribution everywhere. Another famous overseas Chinese was Tan Kah-Kee ( ) who was from Amoy. Accoding to Wikipedia, The climax of Tan Kah-Kee s donation to establish educational institution was in He felt painful about the backward Fujian culture and education and lack of outstanding people, so he decided to invest 1,000,000 dollars to establish Xiamen University. He devoted all he had for this institution: from enlisting president and faculty to choosing site, design and construction of school buildings, he has dedicated himself to make Xiamen University a prestigious higher education institution in China at that time. In Singapore, Tan Kah-Kee was also very enthusiastic about the education of local overseas Chinese children. In 1919, he established the grand scale Singapore Nanyang Overseas Chinese Middle School, which was the highest level educational institution in southeast Asia. Living in southeast Asia for decades did not lesson Yeoh Yiong Lay and Tan Kah-Kee s deep affection for Quemoy and Amoy, respectively. Interestingly, only after I came to Taiwan did I realize that if Quemoy is not within the dominion of the Republic of China, then Taiwan can only have a weak link with southeast Asia, if at all. As I mentioned earlier, in southeast Asia, you can see Quan Zhou Association, Tong An Association, Fujian Association, Quemoy Association, Amoy Association, but there is no Tainan Association or Taichung Association. Hence it is because Kinmen is a part of ROC that Taiwan has a close tie to southeast Asia and southern Fujian. Another interesting instance of southern Fujian culture trace in southeast Asia can be told from English translation of Fujian people s names. In Singapore, the English name Tan Kah Kee is translated from southern Fujian dialect. As I ve mentioned earlier that the relationship among Chaozhou, Shantou and southern Fujian culture, now we can picture a grand culture and living circle encompassing Quemoy, Amoy, Chaozhou and southeast Asia. If our higher educational institutions can start promoting this culture and living circle, it will serve as a terrific collaboration model for Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China. Hence we can establish a ground for academic alliance among NCKU, Xiamen University (even Shantou University) and National Kinmen Institute of Technology. Lastly, if the higher education institutions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China can base their collaboration on history, and render our 5,000-year culture as the cause, then, I believe this will bring about tremendous implication and progress for Promoting Chinese Culture s Impact on the World and Enhancing Collaboration and Progress among Chinese Universities in an Internationalization Era. Thank you. This article is translated by Helen Chang 5 of 5