The Consortium of Global Hakka Studies is Officially Established
The Consortium of Global Hakka Studies (GHAS) successfully held its inauguration ceremony with the participation of six international member institutions outside of Taiwan. Their representatives arrived at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan on December 8 and December 9, 2019, and they attended the ceremony the morning of December 10. The general meeting started with speeches by the distinguished guests. The chair, Professor Wei-An Chang of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at National Chiao Tung University began by welcoming the representatives from the member institutions and describing the preparation and processes for the project. Next, Mr. Yung-Te Lee, Minister of the Hakka Affairs Council spoke about the Hakka Affairs Council’s vision for global Hakka Studies (Pic. 1). Finally, the section was concluded by Professor Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, Chairperson of the Hakka Academic Development Commission of the Hakka Affairs Council, who introduced all attendees to the consortium’s future plans and anticipated academic achievements.
The highlight of this general meeting was certainly the exchange of memoranda of understanding (MOU) (Pic. 2.). MOUs were signed by the five member institutions in Taiwan in June, 2019, then mailed to San Francisco State University in the U.S. Signatures were also collected by mail from member institutions in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan and Malaysia. By November 2019, all of the signatures had been collected and the documents were sent back to Taiwan. The drafting and exchange of MOUs represents a new stage of Global Hakka Studies, with international academics joining forces.
After the exchange of MOUs, the representatives from member institutions took turns at the podium to introduce their own departments or universities to the attendees. Carefully crafted presentations with PowerPoint files and video clips ensured that member representatives in attendance learned a lot about each other. Following the presentations, all of the representatives stood together and held the consortium flags for a group picture to witness the establishment of GHAS (Pic. 3.)
The most important item on the first day’s agenda was the meeting of the Executive Committee (Pic. 4.) The purposes of this meeting included electing the Committee’s chairperson and vice chairperson, planning of the Biennial Conference in Taiwan and discussing Young Scholar Workshops in various countries. The meeting of the Executive Committee was chaired by Professor Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao. Professor Chin-Hung Chou, Dean at the College of Hakka Studies of National Central University, was elected as Chairperson, and Professor Danny Wong Tze Ken, Dean at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Malaya, was elected as Vice Chairperson. The committee also decided to delegate the 2020 Young Scholar Workshop to the University of Malaya and the first Biennial Conference in 2021 to the College of Hakka Studies of National Central University.
After the members got to know each other’s institutions during the introduction section, the next item on the agenda was aimed at sharing experience to allow member institutions to gain more insights into each other’s teaching specialties and research energy. Toward that end, the general meeting scheduled several meetups for these representatives to visit and shared experiences with teachers at the Graduate Institute of Hakka Culture Studies of National Kaohsiung Normal University and the College of Hakka Studies of National Chiao Tung University (NCTU.) The consortium also arranged for representatives to meet the Acting President, Dr. Sin-Horng Chen, at the Guangfu Campus of NCTU (Pic. 5) and to tour the NCTU’s Museum and library. The first day of the general meeting came to a rousing conclusion with a dinner enjoyed in a traditional three-section Hakka compound, Zhong Xiao Hall at the College of Hakka Studies of NCTU. (Pic. 6)
The second day’s agenda called for a visit to the College of Hakka Studies at National Central University, in Tao Yuan county. Professor and Dean Chin-Hung Chou, accompanied by several teachers, chaired the meeting. Six teachers from his faculty presented their own areas of research and exchanged ideas and experiences with the representatives. During the meeting, they also discussed future plans for student exchanges and the possibility of setting up off-site courses. (Pic. 7 and 8)
In the afternoon, the representatives visited the College of Hakka Studies of National United University (NUU). They were welcomed by Professor and Dean Chen-Chi Chang and Professor Pen-Hsuan Lin, Dean at the Division of Student Affairs of NUU. Five teachers from the faculty also attended the meeting. These GHAS representatives were highly interested in learning about the new developments at the NUU College of Hakka Studies related to applying AI technology to Hakka language studies. (Pic. 9) The tour of the Hakka Culture Museum at the NUU College of Hakka Studies was also included on the agenda and the participants were intrigued at the differences and the common traits of the material cultures of different Hakka communities. Furthermore, NUU made a special arrangement for the representatives to visit Taiwan Hakka Museum in Tongluo township, Miaoli county, where they viewed Taiwan from the Hakka perspective. The scholars were very impressed by the development of the Hakka ethnic group in Taiwan. Evening saw the happy conclusion of the general meeting of GHAS: a dinner in Kungkuan township in Miaoli county. Representatives from different countries brought home with them the MOU and the consortium flag. It signaled the success of the general meeting and set the stage for starting GHAS’s official work to promote and organize related academic cooperation and conferences.
News links:
Hakka TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJE8tnWW_sU
Liberty Times Net https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/breakingnews/3004274
Dailymotion https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7oz8yl