Professor Yu Dan of Beijing Normal University today (12 June) gave a talk on the wisdom of Confucius at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). This event was one of the talks in the “Read & Red: Pillars of PolyU” series organized by PolyU’s Faculty of Humanities (FH) to promote a reading culture in the university.

The topic of the talk is “Reading Chinese classic, To learn more about life”. According to Prof. Yu, Analects are far from being merely interesting quotes from ancient lore, of little use in our hectic, stress-filled world. Instead, they are simple truths that can speak to each and every one of us and help us lead better, happier, and calmer lives.

The “Read & Red: Pillars of PolyU” talk series is an initiative of FH which aims at arousing students’ interests in reading books that are within or outside their professional disciplines. “Red” in the title carries multiple meanings. It refers to the geographical location of PolyU, Hung Hom, as the pronunciation of the word “Hung” is the same as “red” in Cantonese.  It also refers to the red brick buildings of PolyU. Most crucially, “red” is homophonous with the past tense of “read”. Reading involves more than eye movements. Critical thinking after reading the book is also part, or more important, of the reading process, other than the actual visual activity. Putting the emphasis on “thinking is part of the reading process”, the series brings in speakers and authors of books in different areas to stimulate thinking and discussions.

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