Eileen Chang and the University of Hong Kong

Unlike Sun Yat-sen, Eileen Chang was not a graduate of the University of Hong Kong, not even a holder of wartime degree like Rayson Huang and Patrick Yu. Chang was one of the many alumni at best who, like many others, briefly studied in HKU before 1942 and was unfortunately interrupted by the Japanese occupation.

Chang came to Hong Kong in 1939 and was admitted to HKU in August of the same year. What led her to HKU is well-known, but her university life and learning experiences are only limited to her own narratives in creative writing. Her two-year-and-a-half university life (seven terms in total) in Hong Kong, however solitary, is least known and like an intellectual game of fill-in-the-blank. I venture to fill in the blanks.

Back in the pre-war era, HKU was a posh British university, being blamed for its high fees and draining almost every fortune of prospective students coming from the North and South, and the West (e.g. Russia). Chang frequently mentioned, and intermittently re-emphasized by researchers, her outstanding academic result and being awarded Ho Fook Prize (Ho Fook being the younger brother of Eurasian tycoon Ho Tung), the only prize for year two Arts students on the base of annual examination at the end of the second year, £25 in value, approximately to $400 at the time; and Nemazee Donor Scholarship (founded in 1921 by a wealthy Persi merchant in HK, Mr. Nemazee, who was also a Life Member of the Court of the University).

In other words, Chang was a self-financed student in year one. How did Chang finance her first year fees and expenses? It seems that she was exempted from the Matriculation Examination set by HKU due to her admission to the University of London. Hence, she was not entitled to the eminent Sir Paul Chater Memorial Scholarship, which carried $800 a year and tenable for four years, to a student with the best matriculation examination result. How much she and her family should have paid for the various fees to the British univeristy has not drawn the curious eyes of scholars of literature and historians.

To be continued...