Mercury,
May/June 1997 Table of Contents
George
S. Musser
Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Hong
Kong students are not immune to the anti-intellectualism and commercialism
that plague their peers in other countries.
"Go
now!" he shouted. Though not a star was visible, a roof-full of
students lingered. An occultation by the Moon of the star theta
Aquarii isn't the flashiest of astronomical phenomena, but these
students were determined to see it, or at least the drama: Would
the clouds clear in time or not? Whenever the Moon threatened to
burst through, everyone rushed from their conversations to the eyepieces
and CCD monitor. When the time for the occultation had passed, the
instructor, amateur astronomer Ng Hung-cheung, practically had to
chase his students away.
Ng
held his class--mostly teen-agers, but ranging in age from 9 to
50--atop the Hong Kong Space Museum, located right on the famously
dramatic Kowloon harborfront. In lieu of stars and planets, skyscrapers
became the telescope objects. Directly across the harbor was the
construction site of the convention center where Christopher Patten,
Hong Kong's last British governor, will hand control to China's
man, Tung Chee-hwa, on July 1.
Astronomers
in Hong Kong don't just have the elements to battle. They are also
struggling to improve science education in a society that, they
say, shuns intellectualism in favor of capitalism--where there are
more cellphone stores than bookstores. Although Hong Kong students
top international rankings of mathematical skill, Ng and others
say the enthusiasm of the students on that roof-top is the exception.
"Hong
Kong students don't like to think," says Yeung Chi-hung, vice-president
of the Hong Kong Astronomical Society. A chemistry professor at
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Yeung regales his visitor with
stories of his students. They prefer to memorize; they seldom ask
questions. Those who like science tend to go abroad for their studies,
and seldom return.
"They
told me that the only books that they read were their textbooks
and the magazines that they read were those entertainment-oriented,"
Yeung says. "For the chemistry program that I teach, I have observed
a decline in the number of applicants. I also have observed a decline
in the overall entrance qualification of freshmen of science programs."
"Their
first interest is money; second is TV," agrees Ng, secretary of
the society. And no wonder: The hinterland of Hong Kong is the fastest
growing economy in the world, and fortunes are there for the picking.
Politics likewise fails to excite students, Ng says--despite (or
perhaps because of) the imminent loss of even the limited democracy
introduced by Britain in the eleventh hour of its colonial rule.
The
disdain for science is worsened, Yeung says, by the tracking of
high-school sophomores into either arts and humanities or science.
Four- fifths of students (including, Yeung admits, his daughter)
choose the former track and never see a science class ever again.
These
suspicions have received support from the recently released Third
International Maths and Science Study, a comparison of students'
scores on standardized math and science tests in 41 countries. Hong
Kong came fourth in math--but 24th in science, the worst performance
of any East Asian country surveyed. The United States was 28th and
17th.
Leaving
an Impression
To rebuild
interest in science, the astronomical society has joined forces with
other educators in the colony. Two years ago, Sik Sik Yuen, a Taoist
charity, opened the Ho Koon Nature Education cum Astronomical Centre
in suburban Tsuen Wan, with help from the government and Apple Computer.
Groups of 60 high-school seniors live at the center for a week, during
which they take geography, biology, and astronomy courses and do fieldwork,
such as mapping patterns of urban land use or measuring the acidity
of local streams. In return for teaching the astronomy, amateurs have
free use of the center's HK$6 million ($800,000) observatory and its
0.5-meter Ritchey-Chrétien, the largest privately owned telescope
in Southeast Asia (see photo on p. 9).
The
astronomical society also conducts classes at the space museum,
which opened in 1980 and now attracts 1 million visitors a year.
The 28- meter planetarium dome is equipped with the latest in planetarium
technology: Zeiss and OmniMax projectors, with three-button panels
on each seat for audience interaction. Each show has soundtracks
in Cantonese, English, Japanese, and--added recently for the hand-over
to China--Mandarin.
The
museum's assistant curator, Lawrence Lee, describes activities that
would be familiar to his counterparts anywhere. His exhibits include
an invent-an-alien video game, a simulated moonwalk using bungee
cords, and a demonstration of the opacity of metals to radio waves.
As his visitor tries to turn a broken crank, he moans, "Hong Kong
students are very destructive."
Lee's
colleague, Karen Sit Man, has been busy preparing resource kits
for teachers: sundial templates, Moon-motion models, books. The
museum and astronomical society have co-sponsored an annual astrophotography
contest ever since the museum was in its planning stages in the
mid- 1970s.
Amateurs
have carried their program of popularization into the local media
as well. Ng and Yeung have both appeared on television to dispel
rumors of UFO sightings, and Ng has written a monthly astronomical
column for the English-language South China Morning Post since February
1995. (Meanwhile, most of the other 68 newspapers have daily or
weekly astrology columns.) Three years ago, the society took up
translation of the ASP's Universe in the Classroom newsletter into
Chinese. It distributes 1,200 issues quarterly at a cost of HK$20,000
($3,000) a year.
These
efforts have not gone unnoticed by Hong Kong's political elite.
At Ho Koon last summer, Ng says he showed Saturn and Jupiter to
the secretary of the civil service, Lam Woon-kwong. Evidently they
left an impression on Lam. In November, he was being grilled by
the colony's semi-democratic legislature, the Legco, about apparent
inconsistencies in business travel expenses. Lam, perhaps knowing
that an American astronomer was in the visitors' gallery, had a
novel response.
"If
I look at Mars in August and in November, it will look different,
but actually Mars remains the same thing," he told the legislators.
Translation: Though the policy remains the same, outside circumstances
can change, making the policy seem inconsistent.
Speculation
Amidst
all the outreach activity, the amateurs manage to find time for their
own observing. The society owns a penthouse full of equipment: Meades,
Unitrons, a 17-inch Dobsonian. The penthouse itself is a handy source
of equity in the Hong Kong property market, Ng says. Rising wealth,
it seems, has not been all bad for astronomy in Hong Kong.
But
using the telescopes is another matter. According to the Royal Observatory
Hong Kong, the skies are cloudy for an average of two-thirds of
the time. Comet Hyakutake was visible for a grand total of two hours
last spring. (The weather has been more cooperative for Hale-Bopp.)
Amateurs often travel to rural areas, or abroad. Three members of
the society went to northern China for the solar eclipse in March.
Forty flew to India and another 15 to Thailand for the October 1995
eclipse.
The
nearby provinces of China are especially popular destinations. In
February, Yeung says amateurs flew to Lijiang, Yunnan, 1,400 kilometers
(900 miles) away, and drove up to a 3,200-meter (10,000-foot) site
that had been proposed by Yunnan Observatory for a 4-meter instrument.
Travel to China poses no problem for Hong Kong residents, he says.
The
450-member Hong Kong Astronomical Society, founded in 1970, is the
oldest and largest of four amateur clubs in Hong Kong. On the professional
side, a few theoretical astrophysicists work in the physics departments
of local universities. Ng says the groups seldom interact, though
they did come together at an astronomical convention in late 1993.
According to Yeung, none of the clubs has British, American, Filipino,
or other expatriate members--reflecting a general segregation of
expats and Cantonese in Hong Kong which members of both groups blame
the other for.
No
one knows what will happen to these clubs come July 1. "The return
of Hong Kong to China may have some impact on amateur astronomy,"
Yeung says. "The Chinese government is very sensitive to gatherings
and societies. They will intend to have some sort of control over
these societies and make sure that they will not evolve into political
bodies."
At
first glance, such evolution may seem unlikely; the Hong Kong Astronomical
Society is apolitical. But Chinese scientists were active in the
Tiananmen Square protests eight years ago, so Beijing might not
want to take any chances. Soon, Yeung speculates, the four societies
may be joined by, or replaced by, a fifth: a government-sponsored
astronomy club. In more ways than one, astronomy in Hong Kong is
a microcosm of its society.
GEORGE
S. MUSSER
is the editor of Mercury magazine and The Universe in the Classroom
newsletter. He visited Hong Kong last November as the self-designated
foreign minister of the ASP. His email address is gmusser@stars.sfsu.edu.
For
more information on the Hong Kong Astronomical Society, visit http://www.hk.super.net/~astronet/aas_e.htm;
for more information on Ho Koon, visit http://hkein.school.net.hk/~hokoon.
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