Study and Research Environment
Hong Kong provides a vigorous and stimulating intellectual climate. Its geographic location bridges East and West, China and the rest of the world, and Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. The city’s open society and tradition of academic freedom, and its massive flow of people and information, make it an ideal place to carry out regional and interdisciplinary research. This is as true today, as it ever has been in post-colonial Hong Kong.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong is located on a mountain by the sea in the New Territories of Hong Kong, providing breathtaking views of Tolo Harbour and its surrounding peaks, as well as ready access to downtown Hong Kong. The university library system has a rich collection of books and periodicals in English, Chinese and other languages. The Universities Service Centre For China Studies, located on the campus, owns one of the world’s best collections of documents and publications for research on contemporary China. Other research centres on campus, including the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, the Research Institute for the Humanities, the Hong Kong-America Center, Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society and the Institute of Chinese Studies, sponsor research projects and conferences of interest to anthropologists and invite specialists from throughout the world.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong is the only tertiary institution in Hong Kong with an anthropology department. It offers major and minor programmes, as well as Master’s and Ph.D. programmes. Besides local students, the department also has students from mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, South and Southeast Asia and the USA studying in its graduate programmes.
The department has various types of equipment required for research, such as video cameras, video editing machines, and personal computers. There is also a collection of ancient and Stone Age fossils from the different continents, costumes and daily utensils of different ethnic groups in China, as well as handicraft from Japan and Southeast Asia. The department has close collaborative relationships with anthropological research centers and museums in Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan and other countries. Undergraduates can also take part in the summer internship programme to the United Kingdom and Australia, in addition to the academic and cultural exchanges offered by the University.