ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY
PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1991/92
May I first of all welcome you and any of your guests this evening to our Annual General Meeting and that you will enjoy what we hope will be a very enjoyable and stimulating time. It is particularly gratifying to welcome our immediate past President, Dr. James Hayes who again has flown back from Australia to be with us.
Giving a President's report to the Royal Asiatic Society is not an easy task: I need to ensure that you will actually listen to a rather factual lecture, not think of the excellent dinner we will be having later, and be prepared to come to next year's Annual General Meeting. I cannot like a chairman of a company report on sales turnover, profits, or declare a dividend which could be considered as the usual criteria of success for organisations of that kind. Our society's measures of success are more subtle, hidden and full of mystery: our performance indicators, to use an academic phrase very much in vogue in tertiary educational establishments, are not tangible: they are intangible and are perceived in the mind of the members and also non-members who if they are not members would pose the question to themselves, “Would I like to join the Royal Asiatic Society,” and would reply “Yes, I would like to join, I have heard they publish annually an outstanding academic journal, have a good monthly lecture, and have very excellent visits to places of historical interest with occasional tours outside Hong Kong. They seem to be good, the sort of society that will help me to understand the history and customs of Hong Kong and China outside the political and financial problems which usually dominate my life here.
The above profile is perhaps a little too simplistic: I believe there are other factors which make members retain their membership, and which non-members will soon perceive once they become members. Yes, we are a society interested in historical aspects of Hong Kong and the friendships and academic interaction we obtain by this common interest binds us to carry out multifarious activities which really cannot be done without the existence of the Royal Asiatic Society. Yes, we are a society which strives to bring together and expand upon East and West relationships - Yes, we are a society which provides a platform for several of our members not only to publish in the Journal but also to encourage members to seek out areas of interest and publish themselves, and you
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