So Tak-hung
Office assistant, Central Administration Support Service
35-year award
So Tak-hung—Ah Hung—will be familiar to anyone who works in the University Administration Building. Beneath his shyness, the long-serving office assistant possesses a kind, caring heart.
In 1987, Ah Hung was spending his days working as a messenger for a company, while attending school at night. One day, he spotted a CUHK job advert in Wah Kiu Yat Po, or Overseas Chinese Daily News. Wanting to work in the contemplative atmosphere befitting a university campus, the fresh high school graduate applied for the post. “Though you’re coming to work, the University’s quiet, scholarly ambience holds immense appeal for me,” he says.
Stable work at CUHK gave Ah Hung room for further study while allowing him to make ends meet. After decades of diligent work, he also started his own family. In the early days of his job, the central campus fell within his purview; now, he mainly supports offices in the University Administration Building, taking care of setting up venues for meetings and conferences, delivering mail and documents, cleaning and making tea for members of staff and guests. What Ah Hung misses most is the calm, relaxed campus atmosphere in his earlier days, before bulldozers and piling machines moved in to densely line the hilly campus with tall modern buildings.
“There were more face-to-face encounters in the past, making for a warm, collegial atmosphere. Now the partitions in the offices keep people apart and even alienated.”
A keen follower of current affairs, every day, while delivering newspapers to offices, he will study the headlines. A sports aficionado, he is good at table tennis, tennis, badminton, swimming and windsurfing. In his spare time, Ah Hung enjoys getting together with friends, where they share their favourite reads with one another.
Looking back on his 36 years in the University, he laments that time flies, and it seems like only yesterday. “People and things vanish like water that flows away. There is no way to hold onto them.”
His memories with colleagues from the Central Administration Support Service and the former Information Services Office, with whom he comes into frequent contact, however, are there to remain. Once, he was admitted into hospital, and to his pleasant surprise, colleagues visited him in hospital after work. “The deep impressions one has in life are all from people.”
Whatever the circumstances, Ah Hung holds fast to two convictions. “It is important to acknowledge that there are people who do not see and feel things as you do. Smooth relationships are possible only when we accommodate each other’s differences.
“Focusing on one’s work, without caring too much about the noise from the outside world, makes for a roomy heart.”
By Amy Li
Photos by Matthew Wu
