University of Hong Kong

This course discusses various political and security issues in the Korean Peninsula. The course begins with the ongoing Korean denuclearization negotiations involving the two Koreas, the United States and China. The course then traces the origins of the Korean conflict back to the Korean liberation from Japanese colonial rule, the 1950-53 Korean War, and the emergence of the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It also examines how the two countries diverged politically, economically and culturally for the past several decades. Then it comes back to current issues: nuclear proliferation in the Korean Peninsula, prospects for Korean unification, and Korea's relations with its neighbors, namely China and Japan. Towards the end of the class, students conduct a policy exercise simulating the denuclearization negotiations, which helps them develop policymaking skills. Students are required to keep abreast of current events in the Korean Peninsula. We discuss major Korea events in class.

This course specializes in the study of one of the most intriguing sets of bilateral relations in East Asia: Sino-Japanese relations. The overall theoretical approach of the course is interdisciplinary in nature and draws heavily from the disciplines of history and international relations. The course examines contemporary Sino Japanese relations broadly conceived; introduces topics by means of broad survey lectures, and various controversial topics within this set of bilateral relations; and examines the following themes from the perspective of Sino Japanese relations: legacy of history (e.g., textbook writing, disposal of chemical weapons, wartime apologies), nationalism and identity, the Pinnacles (Senkaku/Diaoyu) Islands dispute, the Taiwan issue, the Korean Peninsula crisis and the competition for energy sources between China and Japan.

This course studies basic issues concerning the nature, justification, limits, and problems of democracy. Topics include the meaning of democracy; democracy, political equality, and majority rule; justification of political equality and the challenge of elitism or guardianship; judicial review as it protects or undermines democracy; classic Athenian democracy; modern representative democracy; participatory democracy and its critique of liberal democracy; the effectiveness of participatory democracy, rational choice perspective, and facts about political participation; responses to the problems of participatory democracy; and the Marxist critique of capitalist democracy.

This course explores and evaluates early Chinese philosophers' answers to questions of morals, ethics, philosophy, and psychology as presented in selected early Chinese philosophical texts related to people's nature, motivation, moral cultivation, moral reasoning, and action. Topics discussed include: people's typical moral dispositions; morally relevant features of people's nature (xing); the role of the heart (xin) in guiding action; the role of desire, emotion, and normative judgment in motivation and action; methods of moral education and training; the nature and function of virtue; and the structure of action. The course focuses on four major texts—Mozi, Mengzi, Xunzi, and Zhuangzi —and devotes much attention to how these texts criticize and respond to each other's views. Comparisons and contrasts with major Western thinkers such as Aristotle, Hume, and Kant are drawn.

Financial crises are common and occur quite frequently in market economies. What is a financial crisis and what are its possible causes? Can it be anticipated and hence prevented? What government policies can be implemented to alleviate its impact? This course explores financial crises to understand the conceptual underpinnings of the issues that lie at the heart of it. The course focuses on how the financial crisis in 2008 began, how it developed, how the different countries dealt with it with their own politico-economic means and measures, what are the effects on people, and what is its implication for the global economy, and its broader ramifications for our society.

This course introduces key terminologies and concepts, and describes key considerations in transportation engineering. The course uses the application of mathematical and statistical skills to derive or obtain key results in transportation engineering. The course teaches how to identify, formulate and solve transportation engineering problems and design the geometry of highways with the considerations of safety and physical constraints. The course analyzes transportation engineering problems, transportation survey data, and transportation model results. Assessment: written exam (80%), and in-course assignment (20%).

Culture is a way of life. Popular culture is about how ordinary people eat, drink, play, think and feel in their everyday life. In the past few decades, popular ways of living in Hong Kong have changed dramatically. Departing from the state of relative poverty in the 1950s, people now participate actively in the world of modern media and consumption. This course reviews the latest knowledge in the field, and does a multi-level encounter with Hong Kong popular culture. Some topics include: comic books and Golden Hits as mass culture; the ideology of TV drama and women's magazines; multimedia prosumers in the Internet age; problematic youths or problematic adults; global culture and local city scape; the birth of local identity; Hong Kong story and collective memories, urban heritage, national education and post-colonialism.

This course is a general introduction to the study of bilingualism from a psycholinguistic perspective, emphasizing various aspects of bilingual behavior, such as code switching and language mixing. Topics include the influence of the first language; language acquisition in bilingual children; bilingualism, intelligence, and mental growth; mental representations of two languages in bilinguals; reading development in bilingual children; age-related differences; bilingual speech perception and production; and the bilingual brain.

This course examines beauty, skin, and cosmetics from the nineteenth century to today. The course considers the similarities, differences, and interconnectedness of beauty practices across time and place, examining how they reveal global and local structures of gender, race, and class. The course also considers how entrepreneurs shaped beauty markets, how advertisements visually represent ideals of feminine and racialized beauty, and how people have felt about their physical beauty.

This course focuses on the legal, political and institutional structure of the Hong Kong government. The course examines the political culture and attitudes of the Hong Kong people. Other topics include the Chief Executive, legislative politics, constitutional politics, public opinion, pressure groups, political parties, mass media, and Beijing's policy toward Hong Kong.