There are so many paragraphs in this book that I want to quote.
Freedom is the lifeblood of an university, without freedom, university is nothing.
Updated@09/03/2022:My thoughts so far:
The title of this collection of essays is 'Our Golden Age', by Chow Po Chung, an intellectual teaching in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The title of this book can actually be seen as an irony because we all know that since 2014 to the current days, Hong Kong society has been plunged into a fucking Dark Age: people are fired from their jobs or lost their chance of getting an education because they went to protests; politicians, reporters, medics, elderly, workers, students and teachers etc got thrown into jail for fighting for democracy and demanding social/political reform or by just simply saying things that CCP doesn't like.
Things are gloomy (it has been gloomy for a long period, ever since the first mass protest in the year 2003) and to be frank there is no light at the end of the tunnel for most HongKongers.
And no one can say for sure, for how long can free-thinkers such as Mr. Chow keep his job in the university and continue to teach?
Despite the grim situation, Mr. Chow's essays are of hope and optimism, but he is optimist not because he believes our situation will be improved any time soon or the CCP will have a change of heart or everything will be back to normal. It won't. But what is hopeful is the fact that men and women of Hong Kong did stand up to fight for their rights and paid the heavy prices, and Mr. Chow believes it's our duty (to ourselves and to history) to do our own parts to make sure their bravery and sacrifice will not be in vain.
On the surface, what the author said in this book are mostly common sense and commonplace, for example: the society should be free and open, the government and its policies should be opened for all to discuss and decide, different voices should be respected in the education system and the media, etc. But in a dark age like this, common sense is not so common and it's getting increasingly difficult to keep common sense intact.
盧梭曾經對波蘭人說:“You may not prevent them from swallowing you up; see to it at least that they will not be able to digest you. No matter what is done, before Poland has been placed in a position to resist her enemies, she will be overwhelmed by them a hundred times. The virtue of her citizens, their patriotic zeal, the particular way in which national institutions may be able to form their souls, this is the only rampart which will always stand ready to defend her, and which no army will ever be able to breach. If you see to it that no Pole can ever become a Russian, I guarantee that Russia will not subjugate Poland.”