Your President’s Babble: Our no wishful thinking wish list
Dear Alums,
Earlier this year, at the changing of the guard cocktail reception of our alumni association, I told all those who attended that first, my preferred mode of operation is 無為而治 a.k.a. I intend not to do a lot. Second, not doing a lot still means doing a bit of something, and this something is spelled out as follows:
1) Try to figure out a better use of our website and Facebook to communicate with you, the alums, and to facilitate networking, whether for sharing fond memories of school, professional viewpoints, career prospects, business opportunities, hobbies, and the like, among ourselves
2) Organize 1 fun event per year
3) Organize 1 (hopefully interesting and not some boring CPD-like) talk per year
Anything more than the above = don’t even think about it.
Now, I have just had a dinner-meeting recently in August with a few of the alumni association committee members and collectively we shall begin to work on item 1 and 2 above initially. Thereafter, we may proceed with 3. Assistance of every kind is always required and volunteers are always welcomed. Some of you might also hear from us.
On item 1, as writing is one of my hobbies and being a real estate columnist, I shall, or at least hope to, write regularly to you dwelling on topics and issues which I hope may be of some interest to some of you at some of the times (I harbor no illusion that whatever I write would receive your undivided attention, and I will already be celebrating if just 5% of you actually read what I write…and thank you for reading up to this point too!).
Who? Me? I would also assume most of you don’t know who I am and I am a) a BSc Building Studies 1981 and Bachelor of Building 1982 graduate of the department – i.e. old cake – it was a ‘school’ back then – and these degrees are now extinct, thus are very precious; b) I am MRICS MHKIS RPS-QS and so on; c) I am with Zeppelin, a Hong Kong-based real estate consulting company involved in real estate development, investment, and management generally in China / Hong Kong; d) I focus on crunching real estate numbers these days i.e. analysis; e) I write real estate analyzes for a few newspapers, magazines, and websites; f) I have had a couple of books published – the recent one called [translates into] “The Real Estate Market Turning Point” – a water-downed title decided by the publisher – I had suggested calling it “The QE Induced Dangerous Real Estate Market” but the publisher feared scaring the hell out of potential readers; g) I do occasional lecturing and teaching at universities, our alma mater being one; h) I also develop and run www.real-estate-tech.com.
So much for now. In case you wish to contact us, please email Daniel Lo at danielyf@hku.hk.
Have fun, and regards,
Stephen Chung BSc ’81 BBldg ’82
Your not doing a lot President
HKUSAA
September 2013
