From the first students admitted in 2012, CW Chu College has by now enrolled thirteen cohorts. With the motto Cultus et Beneficentia, the College offers student-orientated teaching, complementing disciplinary studies delivered by faculties and departments, for the whole-person development of students. In valuing the cultivation of the next generation, in embracing the CUHK college system and in recognition of the educational endeavours of CW Chu College, an anonymous benefactor has made a magnanimous donation to support general education as well as the overall development of the College. This building is therefore named to express the gratitude of the College.

The phrase Feng Yu is taken from the Analects (Chapter 11), in a passage recounting the exchange of ideas between Confucius and some of his disciples about life and philosophy, through dialogue and in a variety of situations. The phrase, now widely associated with lofty Confucian ideals and the close interaction between teacher and students, is a fitting description of the vision that animates the college system.

17 January 2025

Notes

1. In this exchange, Confucius asked four students about their aspirations in life. The first talked about managing a mid-size country wedged between two major powers. The second looked to running a smaller domain perhaps on the scale of a modern city. The third aspired to becoming a minor official who manages court and temple rituals, not unlike a modern director of protocol. All three were looking towards official roles, about which Confucius was lukewarm. The fourth student, Zeng Xi, then spoke of an episode of close interaction between teacher and students, in an idyllic setting. Confucius thought most highly of this response. The dichotomy between the power and rewards of officialdom and the cultivation of self is a recurring tension in the way Confucianism is viewed through the ages — and it is clear from this passage which side of the debate Confucius himself stood for. The same issue is manifested in modern higher education as a tension between vocational training and liberal education — the topic of discussion in the first lecture of the College’s first-year general education course.

2. The quoted passage is translated as follows:

Zeng Xi then said, ‘In the last month of spring I’d put on my springtime gown and with half a dozen men and another half dozen youths, go to refresh body and soul in the River Yi, climb up onto the rainmaker’s viewing stand to savor the views and breezes, and after that, back home singing all the way.’

The Analects, translated by Moss Roberts. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press 2021, p 99.

3. By a play on words, the passage is sometimes said in jest to imply that Confucius had exactly 72 disciples, some adults, some minors. The size and composition of such a group interestingly echoes the make-up of the annual College intake, if the age of majority is given the modern meaning of 18 years. The jocular interpretation is found, for example, in The Legend of the Condor Heroes by Louis Cha, Chapter 30.

4. The word ‘orientated’ (rather than ‘oriented’) is used in the CUHK Ordinance, Statute 14, Clause 4(d).

Addendum: Feng Yu Pavilion

After receiving the donation and confirming the name to be given to the Building, the College was delighted to learn that there is a similarly named Feng Yu Pavilion in Yuelu Academy.

Yuelu Academy (in Chinese shuyuan, i.e., ‘college’) is one of the four famous Academies in China that date from medieval times. Situated on the outskirts of present-day Changsha, on the west bank of the Xiang River, Yuelu Academy was established over a thousand years ago, and is now part of Hunan University. A stone’s throw south of the eastern entrance stands the Feng Yu Pavilion, next to which is the Museum of Chinese Academies (‘Colleges’). A plaque at the eastern entrance is inscribed with a poem jointly composed by Zhang Shi, the Master of Yuelu Academy, together with the great Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi. Therein can be found the lines (our translation)

To probe in depth the mysteries of the universe

….

To feel for contemporary times with the pitying heart of the virtuous person

These lines resonate with words in our College Vision Statement:

… engaged with the world in a spirit of curiosity and generosity

Notes

1. The word ‘pitying’ is prompted by the famous proclamation of Bertrand Russell in the Prologue to his Autobiography: ‘… the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind’ — which echoes the sentiment in both the Zhang–Zhu poem and in our College Vision Statement.
2. The term junzi is impossible to translate in a simple way. In Legge’s translation of the Analects, this term is variously rendered as ‘man of complete virtue’, ‘the superior man’, ‘the accomplished scholar’, ‘student of virtue’, ‘man of superior virtue’, or simply as junzi. Here the term is translated as ‘virtuous person’, removing any implicit reference to gender.