Chinese Civilisation: a source book was originally a guidebook intended for students taking CityU’s General Education (GE) course. Published by the Joint Publishing Company, the book has been compiled by scholars from the mainland , Taiwan and Hong Kong. The book is especially useful as an introduction for university-level Chinese Civilisation courses.

CityU and the publisher held a seminar in Beijing on Jan 10^th under the theme “Traditional culture, education and the general education - the publication of Chinese Civilisation: a source book”. Guests included Mr Xu Jialu, the Vice-Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and experts from cultural and educational sectors. They discussed topics relevant to cultural heritage and general education.

At the seminar, Professor H K Chang, University President, said even though most courses at CityU fell into the science, engineering, applied science, management and marketing camps, the humanities and general knowledge were ‘must’ elements for professionals in the 21st century. Thus CityU set up the Chinese Civilisation Centre in 1998 to promote general education in this field.

“We are entering a highly developed information and technology era,” Professor Chang said. “If we don't use creative means to learn about the rich Chinese culture, one that spans thousand of years, our efforts may be wasted.”

The Chinese Civilisation courses at CityU were developed to merge the old and the new, to integrate traditional Chinese culture and contemporary needs, Professor Chang continued.

He pointed out that Chinese Civilisation: a source book was written by numerous scholars and had been in use at CityU for six years.

Mr Xu, who has visited CityU campus before, praised the book,

Last but not least, Mr Zhang Weimin, the Acting General Manager of Joint Publishing Company, said the book was concise and comprehensive, with an interesting background on history and containing topics of special interest, photos and diagrams.

He said the new publication used visual means to help the reader understand Chinese culture, and he described it as a “good textbook for General Education at university and excellent reading material for learning about Chinese culture”.