A Lifetime in Academia

Rayson Huang began his studies at the University of Hong Kong in 1938. Thirty-four years later, in 1972, he became the University’s first Chinese Vice-Chancellor and served in that position until 1986. He sat on the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and on the Drafting Committee that formulated China’s Basic Law for Hong Kong after its return to China in 1997. In this lively and frank autobiography, Huang reflects on his diverse university career of almost half a century—in Hong Kong, China, Britain, the United States, Singapore and Malaysia—and on his experiences during World War II, when he moved, as a refugee, into Free China to study and teach. This expanded second edition includes substantial additional material on his childhood, his experiences in occupied Hong Kong, and his activities as vice-chancellor.

A distinguished chemist, Rayson Huang took his undergraduate degree at the University of Hong Kong before pursuing doctoral research at Oxford University and post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago. He taught at universities in Malaya and Singapore and became Vice-Chancellor of Nanyang University in Singapore in 1969. He served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from 1972 until his retirement in 1986. He was a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1977 to 1983 and served on the Drafting Committee for the Basic Law for Hong Kong after the territory’s return to China in 1997.

“an outstanding academic, a sensible and perceptive administrator, and a talented man endowed with a sense of humour, a certain generosity of spirit and sensitivity to the needs of others.” —J. Brian Heaton, China Quarterly, on the first edition of A Lifetime in Academia