--A few days ago, I casually talked to the social worker who tends to a family elder. I told her I'm a movie fan and I also do quite a bit of video editing--Her immediate response:" You watch lots of soccer matches and korean soaps?" I said I watch something more stimulating like Naked Lunch, Night Porter, Mariinsky theatre video...
--Yesterday I strolled along an area where HKU kids displayed their club activities.
I bumped into a booth said to be somekind of chinese creative writing club. I asked one of the girls(Chinese literature majors) at what age did she read 'The Romance of 3 kingdoms' and other chinese classics. She said when she was in senior secondary. I told her I read them during the summer of my primary grade 4. I didn't read during that summer "the dream of the red chamber" because it contains some adult contents.
I mentioned so far there has only been one attempt to translate James Joyce's Ulysses into chinese and they've no idea whatTF James Joyce's Ulysses is.
-- I also asked the girls at the booth of a dance club. I was curious and I asked them what kind of dances. They said 'street dances' like break dance.
--The kids at the movie club booth haven't heard of 'cabaret', 'Death in venice', 'Watership down'...
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Some 10 years ago, I also talked to someone with a math degree from HKCU, I asked him did he take courses in Measure theory, Manifolds... He said he didn't; hey, it's not unusual that math majors take courses in applied math rather than abstract math; the funny thing was he hadn't heard of math disciplines like Measure theory...