university waltz

It would probably be a stretch of the imagination to describe the Chinese University of Hong Kong (ChineseU) as a tourist attraction, but the university campus is a pleasant place to spend a few hours. I almost wrote ‘strolling’ there, but the university is built on a steep hillside, so you would have to be extremely fit to walk from the MTR’s University station to the highest point on the campus.

However, over the past two days, I’ve done just that. Paula, who works here, had asked me to join her for lunch. But not just any lunch! Students in the School of Business had been assigned the task of running a ‘restaurant’ for a day, and we would be customers. We enjoyed the food provided on both days, and it seemed appropriate to go for a walk afterwards.

On the first day, we stayed at ground level, where I took these photographs:

However, on the second day, Paula suggested that we visit some of the higher reaches of the campus. We could take the (university-provided) bus, she added as an inducement. But we didn’t! The following photographs are presented in the order in which they were taken, except where indicated.

I featured some of the various paving patterns to be seen around ChineseU in both Tile Styles and Pavement Mathematics, but here is one pattern that I didn’t include in either of these posts:

I took the next photo simply because I liked the geometry:

This is a wall that forms part of a building. The photo is of the entire wall, so it is clearly a decorative feature:

There are a lot of delightful, quiet paths away from the roads:

In the same area as the last photograph, I couldn’t help but notice four paper-bark trees growing so closely together that it’s hard to believe that they are separate individuals:

I do believe that they are separate though, because there is little difference between them, and if they did share the same root system, my expectation is that there would be some kind of preferential treatment for one of the four.

Between the location of the previous photo and that of the next, we had to negotiate a flight of several hundred steps, but at the top I couldn’t help but notice this entrance:

The writing announces that plants used in Chinese medicine are being grown within.

The next photo shows an ornamental species of bamboo to the left of the entrance in the previous photo:

Contrast this species with the type of bamboo that is used in scaffolding, which is seen in this photo of a building that we passed higher up the hill:

Not all the ‘tile styles’ hereabouts are outdoors. I photographed this pattern in the foyer of a building that I believe is part of the Faculty of Engineering:

The next photo is a view of the Run Run Shaw Science Building:

If the name seems familiar: Run Run Shaw was one of the Shaw Brothers, who produced a distinctive and very successful genre of kung fu films during the 1970s. The colouring of the windows appears to be random and thus not science-based.

I’ve not included the next photo, of the Li Dak Sum Yip Yio Chin Building, for æsthetic reasons. I just wanted to point out that it is nothing more than a glass façade, behind which the profile of the hillside continues uninterrupted.

The building in the previous photograph adjoins the university library, and this abstract sculpture is located in the middle of the piazza in front of the library:

I couldn’t help but wonder why the university authorities located the library so far up the hill—hardly an incentive for students to check out references provided in lectures—and I also imagined what would happen if this ‘stone stomper’ were to come to life!

And this is a view of the same location from even further up the hill:

I had the distinct impression that the colouring of some blocks in this retaining wall was both deliberate and significant in some way:

…like the next image, which is a bas-relief plaque set into the wall of a building:

I can’t interpret everything here, but I see a woman and child just right of centre, and a reclining man down and to the left. I’ve cranked up the colour saturation and contrast to make this more obvious.

I had to photograph the retaining walls seen in the next two photos because there were obvious abstract qualities to exploit:

In terms of where to go around the campus, I’m totally reliant on my wife, but when we ended up on the roof of a particular building on our way downhill, I simply had to take the next photo:

You can see why! In fact, Paula told me later that she had come this way deliberately because she knew that I would want to take this photograph.

My final photo is of a tile pattern that I’d photographed on the way uphill, but I decided to take this one from the opposite direction.

If, like me, you enjoy tile and brick patterns, then ChineseU is a must-visit location. But even if you don’t, there is still a lot to see.