President

Welcome to the CityU!

Humour is a wonderful thing. During turbulent economic times, people often turn to humour. With that in mind, it is worth noting that education is also a wonderful thing. During turbulent economic times, people often turn to education as well. After all, if you couldn’t sign your name you’d have to pay cash. So education, like humour, clearly offers salvation in troubled times!

Humour varies greatly from place to place, culture to culture. It is probably no coincidence that living in Hong Kong, I have managed to conjure a link between money and humour. Finance is probably not the most obvious source of humour, but in Hong Kong people are too frequently obsessed with the former to indulge in much of the latter … which is unfortunate. Humour has an integral role to play wherever there is human interaction.

In my line of work – education - there is probably no better way to bridge the generational gap that frequently exists between student and teacher. The Chinese diaspora, from Chengdu to Chinatown, has a rich, incisive and of course, funny, comedic tradition. The problem I have found is that this sense of humour is often left at home with the weekend casual clothes. As humour is not factored into GDP, it can be seen as somehow inappropriate in the workplace … which, again, is unfortunate. Although no one seems to measure the data, humour can clearly boost morale, diffuse tense moments and even limit staff turnover.

So with that in mind, City University of Hong Kong is very much looking forward to hosting a conference that I think our city really needs. At CityU, we pride ourselves on our ability to nurture students into professionals. We often use to depict our approach to holistic learning. So in the case of the 2010 International Society of Humor Studies Conference, the part of the person we will develop is the medial prefrontal cortex, thought to be the part of the brain that processes humour.

There is no line of work, no area of research, no human activity that cannot benefit from an injection of well-timed humour. Another mantra at CityU is that we aim to work towards the betterment of society. A conference that can help to promote the use of humour in a professional environment, be it a classroom, hospital or office, can only be a good thing for society. And I am willing to bet money on that!

Thank you and all the best!

President and University Professor

City University of Hong Kong

Dr. Way KUO

June 10, 2009