For all interactive connections with the Chinese mainland, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region mostly emerges as a beneficiary. This time it is the impressive gains in technology education for local students through the livestream science teaching session given by the three mainland taikonauts on board China’s spaceship Shenzhou 13. A total of around 60 million students in 80,000 schools and colleges attended this space lecture from across the country, including the Hong Kong and Macao SARs.
This science lecturing session from the cosmos offered a precious opportunity for students to interact live with the taikonauts currently in outer space — Wang Yaping, Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu. Apart from briefing participating students about their living conditions and daily routine in the spacecraft, the three taikonauts conducted experiments, raised questions and provided answers. They performed scientific tests in microgravity environments which enabled the student audiences to understand that experiments in science disciplines can be conducted in varied physical settings.
Lessons presented included cytology, water buoyancy, water surface tension and more. As a case in point, taikonaut Wang Yaping, who holds a PhD in psychology and who this year became the first Chinese woman to walk in space, responded to a question from a Hong Kong student by illustrating to the student gathering for the lecture the complete water recycling system while in orbit, with an exhibition of the process of drinking the liquid by releasing floating water balls in a gravity-free area. Recounting her remarkable experience in the first-ever instructional initiative in outer space back in 2013, Wang also put into a floating water ball an origami flower design produced by her and her daughter. It caught the eyeballs when the flower swelled and “blossomed” in the water under gravity-free conditions.
Without even the slightest doubt, this stunning extraterrestrial scientific research show marks another “special gift” from the central government to the HKSAR. It has reaffirmed the positive admiration on the part of students about the country’s marvelous advancement in the space program, from scratch to the setting up of a space station. Others applauded the rare opportunity to attend an enlightening lecture conveyed live by the three taikonauts in space. This is in addition to the cherished opportunity of communicating directly with the taikonauts on research questions of great curiosity to the student community.
Relays from the video exchange early in September with the three taikonauts aboard the Tiangong space station — Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo — this once-in-a-blue-moon event signifies the central authorities’ ongoing efforts to care for the city’s youth population, this time again in respect of their educational well-being. Of the 300 local students attending the extraterrestrial lecture, many felt honored to have the chance to be part of the rare learning occasion and to communicate live with the taikonauts. They were excited about the increase in knowledge of the astronomical field, believing that the improved comprehension of the STEM disciplines in practice will enhance enthusiasm for further academic pursuit in this direction, thereby equipping them to play a role in the nation’s future development.
Apart from the eye-opening impact of the experimental demonstrations on the local youth’s comprehension of the unlimited possibilities for space conquest ahead, attendees witnessed in-person the splendid progress attained by the country’s scientists which opens up paths for promising scholarly endeavors to motivate students. The heightened appreciation of the nation’s success in the space program will hopefully prompt local teenagers to do a rethink on their identity and nationhood.
The country’s huge accomplishments in space ventures, global sports, poverty alleviation and others serve to deliver the city’s young people from misunderstanding and ignorance of the effective functioning of its governing institutions. With anticipated growing feelings of attachment to their motherland in place, young people in the SAR are in gear to take steadily rising pride as Chinese nationals.
Amid bursts of applause from the education circle over the outstanding performance of the team of taikonauts, it is crystal clear that the special favor bestowed upon the HKSAR by the central authorities through engagement of its students in the laboratory demonstrations is tantamount to recognizing their yet-unrealized potential for moving forward in great strides in science and technology study. This is a most stimulating encouragement to the city’s education community. With the local school sector having been put on the same page with the mainland’s ambitious undertakings on high-end science and technology development, the SAR will reap another big bonus for its basic and higher education on both the teaching and research fronts, which can hardly happen in the city working only on its own. A stronger foundation will thus be established for the grooming of local young talent for the city’s innovation industries in future.
The author is a member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.