最好的新年礼物——58 岁，我被香港大学录取了

晓希

最好的新年礼物

  

——58岁，我被香港大学录取了

2026 年 2 月 16 日，农历除夕，我收到了香港大学文学院中国历史研究专业的硕士录取通知。这份 offer，是马年最厚重、最温暖的新年礼物。

或许有人会意外：我已是 58 岁，再过两年便至花甲，本该安享退休时光，为何还要重返校园读硕士？答案很简单：我不想停下学习的脚步，更想让自己的人生，过得更有意义。

来香港定居后，我遇见了书法老师王辉博士。她同是南京人，如今在香港浸会大学做博后，闲谈间和我说起，校园里不乏头发花白的研究生，问我有没有兴趣试试。那时我只当是一句鼓励，并未往心里去。

真正让我下定决心的，是一次商议公益活动时遇见的 Francis。那天我和盛敏莉副会长等人，商量去树仁大学做武术公益展示的事，Francis 姗姗来迟，进门先致歉，说刚从课堂赶过来。细问才知，他是 50 后，长我十余岁，公务员退休，现在香港理工大学攻读硕士。那一刻我深受触动，他这般年纪尚且伏案苦读，我又何来 “年纪大” 的借口？

我想读硕士，不是为了文凭镀金，而是真心想补齐自己的短板。这些年我一直致力于凌氏拳艺的传承与推广，始终守着文武兼修的初心，可深知自己文史底子薄弱，若能用系统的学术方法研究武术传承，将来在香港推广拳艺，定会更有底气、更有根基。

念头落定，便立刻行动，第一通电话打给了儿子,他在北欧做玛丽. 居里学者，研究暗物质，从硕士到博士再到博士后，所有申请皆是自己完成，在这方面最有经验。“妈想申请读个硕士，你看如何？” 我问他。儿子的回答很干脆：“妈，你有这份心就很了不起，只要你受得住累，我全力支持。”

7月，我们一起梳理香港多所大学的研究生专业，逐一筛选、对比、制表，最终定下 7 所高校的 11 个专业，按申请截止时间有序推进。申请路上的第一个难关，便是英语成绩。香港硕士普遍要求雅思 6.5 以上，且成绩需在两年内有效，而我从未考过雅思。儿子却很有信心：“妈妈你英语基础不错，裸考也有希望。”

他为我买来雅思真题集，我又靠着 “雅思哥” 和 “百词斩” 两款软件，每日从早到晚听听力、做阅读、记单词、练写作，扎扎实实恶补了两个月。10 月 15 日，我去旺角参加雅思机考，考场上阅读题没来得及做完，心中咯噔一下，料想过不了关了。没想到次日出分，听力 7 分，其余三项皆是 6.5，总分刚好 6.5。凝望着屏幕上的成绩，我忍不住笑了，总算过了第一关!

语言关过了，材料认证的关卡却格外磨人。本科成绩单、学位证、学历证，都需经学信网认证，可旧成绩单字迹模糊，多次提交都未能通过，前后折腾了近十次。后在儿子建议下，请人将模糊的科目名称修清晰，才终于过关。中英文各三份认证材料，前前后后耗了三个多月，才全部搞定。

申请材料里，推荐信和个人陈述最为关键。儿子叮嘱我，推荐信要兼顾实践与学术。我有幸请到肖力行老师执笔，肖师以半文言文写就，言简意赅，立意高远，在一众材料中定然与众不同。学术方面，有王辉博士与香港科技大学家办研究中心主任彭倩教授相助；香港的实践经历，则由盛敏莉副会长鼎力背书。

个人陈述要求全英文撰写，我和儿子逐句打磨，我写一稿，他提修改意见，我再斟酌修改，前后五易其稿，他才点头说 “可以了”。

曾经因为申请过程太麻烦想找中介帮忙，可儿子说：“他们哪有我了解你？中介费要好几万，不如咱俩自己搞。” 母子合力，其利断金，这话在申请路上，我体会得格外真切。

11 月起，我开始陆续提交申请，各学校的网申系统不同、要求各异，一个月里，我仔细完成了 5 份申请。12 月29日，我先收到岭南大学的面试邀请，面试老师问我为何年过半百仍选择读书，我坦然作答：“为了更好地传承武术，我学术底子薄，想补上这一课。” 儿子听了我的回答后说：“你目标清晰，这正是学校最看重的。” 果然，两周后，岭南大学的录取通知书如期而至。

但我心中最向往的，始终是香港大学。1 月 20 日，港大的面试通知来了，巧的是，那天恰逢香港江苏妇女联合总会就职典礼，我身为理事兼筹备委员，面试一结束便匆匆赶往会场，身虽忙碌，心却一直悬着。

等待的日子安静又漫长，2 月 4 日，港大发来邮件，要求补充中文版的学信网认证材料，幸好我早有准备，立刻整理材料回复。终于，2 月 16 日除夕早晨，港大的正式录取通知推送而至，大半年的奔波、准备、忐忑与坚持，在这一刻尘埃落定！我被心中排名第一的学府录取了，欢喜漫上心头，连窗外嘈杂的鞭炮声，都格外悦耳。

回望这段历程，心中满是感恩。感谢肖师一直以来的鼓励与鞭策，他年过七旬仍勤学不辍，是我一生的榜样；感谢盛副会长、王辉博士、彭倩教授一路相助，感谢向雪专程跑上海帮我去学校盖章；更感谢儿子全程的陪伴与耐心指导，始终做我最坚实的后盾。也感谢那个不曾因年龄退缩、不曾因困难放弃的自己。

未来两年，我将和一群二十出头的年轻人一起上课，其中的难度可想而知，我早已做好脱一层皮的准备。待到六十岁花甲之年，若能顺利拿到硕士学位，于我而言，便是人生一场小小的壮举。

除夕的红联贴起，年味渐浓，港大的录取通知握在手中，忽觉年岁从不是前行的枷锁。岁月有声，学无止境，只要心有热爱，心怀期许，每一个年纪，都可以是新的起点。

晓希

2026 春节

晓希

晓希

Personal Statement

Applicant: Liu Kanxi (劉侃希)
Programme: MA in Chinese Historical Studies (Taught Programme), School of Chinese, The University of Hong Kong

I graduated in 1989 from China Textile University (now Donghua University) in Shanghai, and since 2001 I have built and managed my own garment import–export business. From a young age I have been drawn to Chinese culture, and in my daily life I have long kept two main aims: to run my company responsibly, and to deepen my engagement with Chinese culture. Over the years I have enrolled in classical studies programmes at Peking University’s Qianyan Guoxue (乾元國學) and the Houpu Chinese Medicine Institute (厚樸中醫堂) in Beijing. In 2015, while attending a traditional culture course at Fudan University, I first encountered Ling’s Shui Lang Quan（凌氏水浪拳）. From the outset, I felt that this art was strikingly different and far from ordinary.

Later, I was fortunate to become a student of Grandmaster Ling Biao (凌彪), whose martial-arts name is Xiao Lixing (蕭力行), lineage-holder of Ling’s Shui Lang Quan (凌氏水浪拳) and founder of Ling’s Martial Arts (凌氏拳藝). Under his guidance, I have continued to practise and teach Shui Lang Quan – a branch of internal martial arts passed down in modern times from Mr Wu Yihui (吳翼翬), who served as Director of the Academic Affairs Office at the Central National Martial Arts Institute (中央國術館) in the 1930s. and was later passed down through the Ling family line. Through repeated practice, I have come to see traditional martial arts as a way to train the body while also cultivating balance, self-reflection, and moral character. Over the past decade, I have been running regular Shui Lang Quan classes in Nanjing, Suzhou and Hong Kong, and at the East China University of Political Science and Law.

For me, the saying “文以载道，武以证道” is a real thread running through Chinese culture. It means that literary work carries and gives expression to the Dao, while martial practice gives proof of the Dao. Reading establishes one’s zhi-yi (旨意)—the orientation of one’s ideals, moral stance and direction in life; practising martial arts tests one’s qi-gu (气骨)—the strength of one’s vital energy, integrity and inner backbone as they are expressed through the body’s movement. The deeper a person’s learning, the more their practice can move beyond external forms into a distinctive inner spirit and bearing. When a practitioner is deeply grounded in this cultural tradition, there is a real possibility that their martial art reaches a higher realm.

With this aspiration, I founded a non-profit in Hong Kong, Ling’s International Academy of Martial and Cultural Arts (凌氏拳藝國際文武學院), which I established under the motto “文武兼修，德健並養“- cultivating wen（文） and wu （武）together, and nourishing both moral character and physical health.  I hope it can be a space where reading and practice continually inform and deepen one another. In recent years, we work closely with the Chinese Culture Exchange and Promotion Association and the Federation of HK Jiangsu Women Organisations to run cultural lectures and introductory classes in galleries, community venues, and school campuses. These experiences have made me feel more sharply how much I still need to strengthen my own foundation on the “wen” side, and how necessary it has become for me to seek more systematic training.

For this reason, I hope to set aside a period of time from my life to return to university and receive more systematic training. At fifty-seven, I am no longer at the usual age for a postgraduate student, yet my wish to learn is clearer than it was in my youth. I also take heart from figures such as Mr. Jin Yong(金庸), who in his eighties went to the University of Cambridge to study Tang history, showing that serious study can continue at any stage of life. Confucius taught that learning is a lifelong task: as long as one is alive, one should keep learning and keep putting what one has learned into practice, even in later years. Although I am past fifty, I believe that receiving systematic training in scholarly methods in a rigorous academic programme would be of great value for both my personal cultivation and my work in cultural transmission in the second half of my life.

The MA in Chinese Historical Studies (Taught Programme) at the School of Chinese, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), is especially attractive to me because of its emphasis on Chinese historiography and research methods. It also trains students in the close reading and organisation of historical materials within a cultural-historical perspective.  In this programme, I hope to learn how to judge the reliability of different kinds of sources; how to sort and classify large bodies of material and draw out clear structures and lines of development; and how to master research methods and academic norms that I can use consistently in my future teaching and practice. I also hope to sharpen my sense of what constitutes a meaningful historical question and to develop sound academic judgement. HKU’s longstanding tradition of scholarship and open, interdisciplinary environment would provide an excellent setting for my aims, and would give me the chance to consolidate my years of practical experience into a more solid academic understanding of China’s intellectual tradition.

In the longer term, I hope that through my own teaching and writing, people who encounter internal martial arts will not picture a vague image, but a living Chinese cultural practice that they can learn and experience as a source of health and joy.
  To “carry on the sages’ line of learning so that it will not be cut off” (為往聖繼絕學) has long been the aspiration of many Chinese scholars; I dare not place myself among them, but I hope that my work can move in the same direction. By applying to your programme now, I wish to make a small contribution to that aspiration—so that genuine Chinese culture can keep growing in today’s society, benefit more people in concrete ways, and remain alive from generation to generation.