"So ancient, but so modern"
- Modern Learning of Chinese Tradition

The motto of the Chinese Civilisation Centre might be “Promoting Chinese Culture from a New Angle.”

The goal of the Centre is the creation of a flexible, innovative, and complete teaching and learning platform that combines the Internet and information technologies with traditional teaching methods.

With the ever increasing connections between Hong Kong and Mainland China, the Centre's academic focus has turned toward its huge neighbor. The people of Hong Kong have seen that a profound understanding of Chinese culture can enhance their professional and personal lives.

To satisfy its new orientation, the Centre has identified three main goals:

• To educate City University's undergraduate students about Chinese culture and their special cultural identity
• To offer courses on Chinese culture to the general public
• To develop a Web-based international network to promote Chinese cultural education in collaboration with renowned Mainland Chinese and overseas institutions

The Three D's

By emphasizing Discovering, Doing, and Digitization the Centre hopes to arouse student interest in Chinese culture.

Key components of the Integrated System of Conventional and Web-based Teaching platform include:

• A Web-based, multi-media teaching and learning platform
• Open lectures by over twenty guest speakers every semester
• Regular small-group tutorial sessions
• Field trips, art workshops, group projects, and online discussions

Learning by Discovering: Field trips, Exchange with mainland China's universities

The Centre holds over 50 open lectures every semester, inviting distinguished scholars and artists from Hong Kong, China, and around the world to share their expertise with students and the general public. Local undergraduate students are required to attend three lectures each semester, after which they engage in online discussions with tutors and classmates.

Learning by Doing: Workshops

Students can participate in various arts workshops. Accomplished artists provide individual guidance and instruction in such Chinese art forms as music, dance, opera, painting, calligraphy, the tea ceremony, and martial arts.

Students are also encouraged to attend guided field trips as part of their course requirements. To better understand the Chinese past and present they visithistorical sites, Daoist temples, and fishing villages in Hong Kong, Macao, and Mainland China, places that inevitably yield insights into how communities and social relations change over time.

Small group tutorials are a very important component of the Centre's courses.

To provide real-life experience and interactions with the people of Mainland China, exchange programmes with Chinese universities were introduced in 2004. Beijing University, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou University, Shandong University, Sichuan University, and Nanjing University host City University students, exposing them to renowned scholars and providing them with daily opportunities for rich communication with local students and citizens.

Learning by Digitization: E-learning

The Centre's dedicated website at www.cciv.cityu.edu.hk is a rich and expanding intellectual resource.

• The website is updated daily, providing students with the latest course information.
• It is an inexhaustible database connected to prominent libraries worldwide.
• Each student has a password-protected “e-folder”through which she or he registers for courses online, downloads lecture notes, participates in online discussions, checks test scores, and so on.
• A Web-based Teaching Toolbox enables tutors to upload notes and manage student records.
• The Culture Navigator Website(www.culture.cityu.edu.hk) provides video clips of various lectures, a virtual Chinese art museum, and Chinese culture quizzes.