Tsang Hing Ho

The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Exchange to the University of Melbourne, Australia

First of all, I am very grateful to receive the 2005 Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Award. The Award enabled me to further my research into earthquake engineering and to explore a new research area of impact dynamics and protective technology for six months at the University of Melbourne. I believe this experience will be very helpful for my contribution to society in the future.

As the same for other awardees, I was very proud to receive this Award. It was evidenced by two high profile receptions:one hosted by the Governor of Victoria, Mr John Landy, and theother by the Minister for Education, Science and Training, theHon Dr Brendan Nelson MP, on our arrival to Australia in June.I was very honoured to be one of the delegates from Hong Kongvisiting the Government House of Victoria and Parliament House in Canberra.

Besides the two receptions hosted by the Australian Government, a reception was also held by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne in August. My story of winning such a prestigious Award and my research have also attracted the interest of the university’s media and articles have appeared in a number of university publications, as well as some other foreign media. Some quotations are copied below:

Hong Kong student makes waves with quake research.

A 24 year-old Hong Kong PhD student modelling the effects of large-scale earthquakes has a plan that could potentially save lives, targeting the same volatile shelf that was devastated by the Boxing Day disaster.

“Earthquakes kill many people, with nine out of 10 deaths occurring in developing countries,” he says. “We want to develop technologies to assess hazard and reduce loss in the event of an earthquake.”

“I hope that what I develop now can be useful in the future - useful to all mankind. This is my ultimate goal.”

“The cutting-edge knowledge will be transferred to Hong Kong, and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region. The whole methodology will be further developed and I will definitely play an important role in those collaborative works.”

“I want to do earthquake engineering research because I want to do something interesting, challenging and meaningful,” he says.

I would also like to seek this opportunity to thank my supervisor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Associate Professor Nelson Lam, for his patient guidance and invaluable advice to my academic and professional growth. He gave me a precious chance to expose other cutting-edge researches currently undertaken within his department, in particular the rapidly evolving research area of impact dynamics and protective technology, in which his department is in a leading position in Australia. I believe this Award can further strengthen the linkages between universities in Melbourne and Hong Kong, and is expected to continue in the future.

I also made good use of the opportunity to attend two conferences during my stay in Australia and met many world-renowned experts in my field of research. The first one was the Annual Conference organised by the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society at Albury, New South Wales, in November. The second one was the Sixth International Conference on Shock and Impact Loads on Structures at Perth, Western Australia in December, in which our research was recognised by a Highly Commendable Paper Award, awarded by the Research Network for a Secure Australia (RNSA).

I was deeply impressed by the multi-cultural environment in Australia. It was demonstrated in the laboratory where I was working, where colleagues and students are from different countries in different continents, including Mainland China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Africa, Italy, United Kingdom, France, United States, and so forth. All of us worked together and shared with each other information about our home countries, enabling us to understand the cultures of different nations, different religions, as well as different lifestyles.

Besides, I was living in an area where many immigrants were living together, including people from China, Vietnam, Africa and Turkey. In spite of the different cultural and religious backgrounds, they lived together in the same building, shared the same facilities and community centre. It was the great diversity of cuisines that I enjoyed most. It also gave me an opportunity to understand more about the welfare system, such as housing for immigrants, of the Australian Commonwealth Government.

Living in such a cultural, historical and relaxing city – Melbourne. I was able to try a lifestyle that is completely different from that in Hong Kong. I spent my leisure time exploring the city, appreciating every picture seen in my eyes, admiring the mix and match of historical and modern architecture, enjoying a cup of cappuccino by the Yarra River, feeling the relaxing and enjoyable way of Aussie life.

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