My Year in Bristol

    Before commencing my postgraduate studies in public policy at the University of Bristol, I was a Hong Kong-based political journalist. I returned to student life having in mind the goals of learning more about public policies and exploring different cultures. Now one year has passed and what I have gained proved to be beyond my expectations.

   During the whole time there my academic studies mingled with everyday life in Bristol, my travels in the UK and other European countries as well as my continued pursuit in journalism. Occasionally I found time to write column articles and report for Hong Kong newspapers and a website. This allowed me to share with readers what I saw abroad and also widened my scope of writing.

    Soon after settling in Bristol, I had the luck to witness the first-ever mayoral election there. It was an exciting real-life case for my study of city governance under the Masters of Public Policy course. Later throughout the year, the abundance of civil organisations of various natures in Bristol offered me ample learning opportunities outside of classes, either directly relating to my areas of study or otherwise. While taking a course on poverty and social exclusion, I joined the local branch of RESULTS UK, a charity campaigning against global poverty. As a newbie in the area I received very kind support from other volunteers and in fact learned more than contributed. Working along with a colleague, I helped with the publicity of an event and learned how to write to our local Member of Parliament as a common way of campaigning in the UK. Out of my interest in gender equality issues I also took part in workshops conducted by Feminist Archive South, a volunteer research organisation collecting materials which document the history of feminism both in and outside of the Britain. This furthered my interest in the area and I later wrote about the history of the British suffragette movement for a Hong Kong newspaper.

    Another policy field I read at Bristol University was urban development. Not at all planned to complement my course, I happened to have the chances to interview a group of German activists campaigning for the conservation of the East Side Gallery and its neighbourhood against the development of luxurious flats on my visit in Berlin during a holiday, and to interview Hong Kong's former Director of Public Works Mr. Michael Wright in London to hear his review of Hong Kong's housing and urban planning policies. I was happy to bring these discussions relating to development issues back to readers at home and to explore the policy area in which I was studying in different parts of the word.

    While I will not attempt to list everything I experienced during the year, I must say the rich cultural and community life in Bristol itself and the advantage of convenient connection to other parts of Europe are ideal for students to widen their horizons. The university has attracted many foreign postgraduate students, mostly from Asia, while the city has attracted many young people from European Union countries to work there. In this international environment I met new friends from various cultural backgrounds and have learned a lot from them. After completing my dissertation, I travelled to Montenegro to attend an academic conference on the global economy. This gave me yet another precious chance to exchange ideas with political science students from different countries and to learn about transitional democracy in the newly independent nation. Looking back I am really glad to have spent this extraordinary year and I feel truly grateful for the opportunity which the Bristol University Alumni Association's Hong Kong scholarship offered to me. At present I am back in Hong Kong and have returned to my full-time journalistic career.