Oral History and Cultural Sustainability

On 13 April 2026, our staff and students, along with volunteers from the music organization "Fragrant Village", and staff and elderlies from the St. James' Settlement, visited and carried out a beach cleanup in Kat O, embodying intergenerational cooperation.

The participating students were from CLB9022 Music and World Cultures. As an extension of their classroom learning, this activity allowed students to reconnect with their local community after exploring music and culture from around the world. Through the beach cleanup, we actively contributed to sustainable development, hoping to protect both the environment and the culture of the Kat O indigenous people.

Following this Kat O trip, our students were inspired and would like to know more about local cultural heritage. Therefore they also participated in the Arts Festival held in May.

In fact, many villages in Hong Kong, far from the city center, possess unique cultural traditions, such as fishing songs and festivals. This year marks the once-in-a-decade "Anlong Taiping Qingjiao" festival in Kat O. Our collaboration with "Xiangcun" aims to help students learn more about Kat O's environment, as well as about music and cultural sustainability. We hope to create more artworks together in the Kat O community later, and even have the opportunity to have Lingnan students perform music during the festival. We will become the first tertiary institution group to conduct intergenerational and culturally sustainable activities in Kat O.

In collaboration with the music organization Fragrant Village, our Unit led MPA2002 students on a field trip to Sha Tau Kok on 8 October 2025, where artist Ms. Sze Ka Yan arranged an experiential learning session for the students.

Ms. Sze shared her projects in rural areas of Hong Kong in recent years, including collecting records of different village school anthems. She also invited Indigenous resident Sister Ma Fa to share the languages ​​and fishermen songs of the "Hoklo" and "Hakka" people. Additionally, a senior student Ms. Kan Wai Sze from the Lingnan Elderly Academy, accompanied the group. Having worked in Sha Tau Kok for an extended period dealing with local housing issues, she shared many stories that occurred in Sha Tau Kok before 1997, providing oral history material for the students' learning.