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(b) Chinese
feeling
1923/31
A second obstacle was the growth,
Nationalist especially in the years after 1923, of intense
nationalist feeling in China. During one period this took the form of an acute antagonism against Great Britain, and herein Hong Kong was the chief sufferer. It is worth recording, however, that in the long continued strike which paralysed the commercial activities and the services of the Colony, the students did not take part, but continued their studies and added to them the performance of domestic and menial duties in their hostels.
(c) high costs.
(a) language.
This period of acute nationalist fueling was a time of very active establishment and development of Chinese Universities, a work in which Chine had generous aid from America. Not unnaturally, popular disfavour visited those who chose to pass by the Chinose Universities in order to study in Hong Kong. There are now Universities in China, many of them of a high standard. The University of Hong Kong, better than many in equipment and resources, yet falls bolow the best. Long before the Japanese invasion of China, antagonism ho died down, and after the invasion, moro Chinese applied for admission than the University could take.
A third difficulty has boon that the scale of costs at Hong Kong was much higher than that at Chinese Universities. The cost of living in Hong Kong, for all classes, is higher than it is in interior China. Salaries of Government officers and of teachers are very much higher. It was a principle of revolution austerity in China to pay all public servants, including University teachers, salaries that by Western standards are totally inadequate. Hong Kon University, following local standards of remuneration has paid its lecturers a salary nominally higher than that of a Governor of a Chinese Province. This difference of pay must continue; though the disparity of cost of living in Hong Kong and China may lossen, it will romain great; therefore, is the training of Chinese in Hong Kong is in a political sense dosirablo, subven- tions to bridge the gap must be generous.
and,
and
There has been a minor language difficulty. Cantonese is the normal speech of Hong Kong, Hong Kong generally, including the Colonial Education Department, has buon conservative in adopting the simplified spoken Mandarin, Kwok Yu, which has made great headway in China. But
conservatism