Why did I open this online school?

The first of September is the annual start date for schools in Hong Kong. So I chose today as the 'opening' day for this online school.

Since moving to the UK a few years ago, I have been pondering how I could continue to contribute to my hometown of Hong Kong. My drama practice had been rooted in Hong Kong, and I had run some successful training courses there. How can I build on these experiences to continue teaching? COVID 19 encouraged me to explore the possibilities of online teaching. I realised that I can still offer some form of teaching even when I am no longer in Hong Kong. Through online teaching I may even reach out to my friends in Macau, Taiwan and mainland China who had always wanted me to teach classes for them but I had to turn them down due to lack of time.

I also aspire to reach out further to an even wider international audience. Over the years, I have been part of the international drama education circle. I have seen different works from various places and realised that Hong Kong has done some great work no lesser than those from abroad. However, there haven’t been enough writing about these works, so our peers in the international field were unable to fully understand our contributions. Through this website, I hope to write more about drama education in Hong Kong, so that our practices can be presented on the international stage and be communicated with the rest of the world.

The endeavour to achieve this goal requires a lot of effort. In the past, I have always tried to connect Hong Kong with the international – by bringing to Hong Kong new thoughts, research and discourse, and by presenting the case of Hong Kong overseas. As a result, my workload multiplied. I wrote in Chinese and I wrote in English; I created my own works and I also translated for others. Ideally, I wish that all my publications could be done bilingually. In reality, it is hard. This website is a challenge to myself: All content is bilingual. Besides allowing my teaching to reach learners with different language backgrounds, I hope the bilingual setting will also bridge communication between Hong Kong, the UK and the international community. This may sound very ambitious, but it is only by thinking big that I can find the real meaning of this work and feel satisfied about what I do.

Having accumulated thirty years of teaching experience, I don’t worry about the standard of my teaching content. However, I do have concerns about how to make the best use of online teaching. After all this is something rather new to me. Fortunately, the process of setting up this website has given me confidence – at least I am enjoying it as I have learned a lot about online teaching while DIY-ing everything from designing the website to creating the courses, shooting videos, translating materials… and so on.

I look forward to the adventures this new endeavour will bring me!