Cuhk

Mainland Chinese universities' education is of zero quality ...

Nothing can be further from the truth, however, that Chan has never attended any university in Hong Kong. For the record, she was schooled at University of Western Ontario, and, in the most humiliating gesture to HKU, at the National University of Singapore (NUS) for her Masters.

If for some illogical reasons yeung3939 is sick of the THES ranking, we can always use the Newsweek or the Shanghai Jiaotong one. HKU performs “well” time after time, exceeding expectations by consistently ranked behind NUS. [Newsweek: NUS: 36 HKU: 69, Shanghai Jiaotong: NUS: 102-150, HKU: 151-200]
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So this yeung3939 is from that Law faculty at HKU. Wondrous! His English is so superb that he can write sentences like “I would say in some *respects* it is more famous than schools like…”, casually replacing “aspects” with “respects”.

Bananamoonbeam, be warned about CUHK!!

You know, Hong Kong people are so egoistic. They boast how "selective" is their education system, how "difficult" is their own copycat version of "HK A level" exam and how great are their universities, like HKU, CUHK and HKUST, that are not even heard of on foreign soil.

For God’s sake, take pity on them! Their best university, that oh-so-great one-in-a-million University of Hong Kong, did amazingly well and landed 33rd place in the 2006 THES ranking, behind, erm… a second-tier American university like UCLA (31). Oh ok, so that ranking is biased towards US and UK universities. Fine. How about the National University of Singapore then? NUS is no. 19 this year, and has been top 20 for two out of three years since the ranking started in 2004. For the record, 2006 is HKU’s best year yet. It has always been somewhere near no. 43. How can such a great city like HK, with 7 million inhabitants, produce a university that lost even to a tiny island like Singapore with only 4 million people? If for some illogical reasons yeung3939 is sick of the THES ranking, we can always use the Newsweek or the Shanghai Jiaotong one. HKU performs “well” time after time, exceeding expectations by consistently ranked behind NUS. [Newsweek: NUS: 36 HKU: 69, Shanghai Jiaotong: NUS: 102-150, HKU: 151-200]

HKU can dream that they are very “international”. Anyone who has been to HKU for an exchange would know the atmosphere there is not at all cosmopolitan. Students converse with each other in Cantonese, and speak heavily accented Canto-English when coerced or demanded to. It consistently fails to attract foreign students, in stark contrast to NUS, which has students across the whole of Southeast Asia scrambling to apply and willing to give their right arms to get in. In pictures, HKU looks great, with lots of Whites in the foreground. But trust me, 99% of them are exchange students, who will be leaving in 7 weeks’ time to tell tales of how horrendous and artificial HKU is.

So this yeung3939 is from that Law faculty at HKU. Wondrous! His English is so superb that he can write sentences like “I would say in some *respects* it is more famous than schools like…”, casually replacing “aspects” with “respects”.

I am really sick and tired of the arrogance of HK people, especially with their signature “I speak *var-rey good English” expression. They have the location – right at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta of South China, the fastest growth area in the region. They have that deep and beautiful Victoria harbour bestowed upon them. But their air stinks, their city no planning, their harbour smelly, and their people “king of rude” (just to quote CNN). The British gave them a good system to follow upon, but they ruined it and had 10 nice years of recession after the British left in 1997. If not for their dear and benevolent mainland China (which they invariably criticise) rescued them by opening the floodgate and allowing an avalanche of mainland tourists to visit the problem-stricken outpost, only to be cheated of their money to buy fake second-hand “luxury” watches, Hong Kong today will still be in deep recession.

They can criticise China for all they want and no one is going to care. Shanghai is hot and Hong Kong is not. A recent human resource publication advised American companies that hiring top level talents in HK is more difficult than in Shanghai. They pointed explicitly that graduates from the top university in HK, ya… that legendary HKU, speak worse English than those that graduated from Fudan, the top university in Shanghai. Shanghai’s schooling system is more exacting, according to them, and produce people who can speak good English and Mandarin, unlike HKU students, whom, by every measure, can speak both, but master none.

And if anyone here still have the slightest shadow of doubt, I can tell you that you must be a deluded fool to trust that universities in Hong Kong are world-class. As the son of a recruiter of a multi-national corporation which is based in HK (purely because of the low taxes here), my father can attest to this. If anyone bother to watch the Asian segment of CNN Today that is broadcasted every weekday morning at 7:00 am HKT (GMT +8), you see a pretty Asian looking women called Kristie Lu Stout. For all sorts of reasons, this Stanford graduate chose to further her education at Tsinghua University in China, and not HKU, even though she was posted to Hong Kong first before attending Tsinghua. Recently, Hong Kong people are so elated because the new chief of World Health Organisation, Dr Margaret Chan, was a career civil-servant of the Hong Kong government. Nothing can be further from the truth, however, that Chan has never attended any university in Hong Kong. For the record, she was schooled at University of Western Ontario, and, in the most humiliating gesture to HKU, at the National University of Singapore (NUS) for her Masters.

The standard of English is so poor in Hong Kong that lawmaker Bernard Chan (HK legislative council/Insurance) raised the issue twice. He first mentioned the crisis in Nov 2005 that “An expatriate student studying at a local university wrote to the press alleging that although it is stated in the prospectus that the medium of instruction for some university courses is English, they are in fact taught in Cantonese or "cocktail language", thus hampering expatriate students' learning.” [ http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200611/01/P200611010222.htm ] When there was evidently no improvement of the situation and that his company was facing the insurmountable task of hiring people with sufficient English skills, he lost his temper in Nov 2006 by questioning the Education secretary directly about the “Advanced Level language result attained by the students … admitted … to read undergraduate … English Language at local universities.” [ http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200511/09/P200511090156.htm ]

The situation in Hong Kong is disastrous and it is equally disastrous for you to enrol in CUHK. HKU is already sufficiently bad, and CUHK has this tint of Chinese character to it that will make things more than survivable for you in the next three years. It will not only be the most terrible mistake in your life but may really cost your life. Thankfully for my father, he can always rely on hiring students from Singaporean universities like NUS, NTU and SMU over to work in Hong Kong. They speak good English, good Mandarin and pick up Cantonese in a year or two. They have better team-spirit and work better also.

I sincerely hope that I have not wasted one hour of my life typing this caution in vain. The message is clear – don’t attend CUHK, or any other universities in Hong Kong. Amen.

If anyone bother to watch the Asian segment of CNN Today that is broadcasted every weekday morning at 7:00 am HKT (GMT +8), you see a pretty Asian looking women called Kristie Lu Stout. For all sorts of reasons, this Stanford graduate chose to further her education at Tsinghua University in China, and not HKU, even though she was posted to Hong Kong first before attending Tsinghua.

Why make these personal attacks against yeung3939? Also, I can see nothing wrong in his using "respects" instead of "aspects" in that sentence. According to the Compact Oxford English

The majority (not all) HK people are functional in English

You have been totally brain-washed by Lee Kuan Yew's political dynasty!

As far as I know, she chose to attend Tsinghua because she wants to learn Mandarin Chinese (she explicitly reveals this in an interview).

When you choose to study at another university in another country, you always have to be prepared to experience different things. One thing that guided me during my time abroad in high school was: "It's not better, it's not worse, it's just different." You're not going to be there forever, you're there to experience another way univeristy can work, another style of teaching. Not every style is for everybody, so you might end up hating it - or loving it. (I am hoping the later one). If you want to go, then go and don't listen to people who say that the univerisity is no good. After all you will be able to mention in your CV that you did a year there which shows that you can adapt, are willing to challenge yourself etc.

There is nothing wrong with making a careless grammar mistake, esp. for a person like me who consistently only pass my English marginally. But for a top-notch lawyer from a top-notch university at a top-notch city... No. Unforgivable.

Yes dear Bryan. But she was busy working in Hong Kong. Would anyone with a sane mind give up career opportunities at CNN to pursue an education elsewhere that can be attained otherwise locally? No. This Stanford grad knew not in a blue moon can you study Mandarin in HK. She gave up the idea.