St. Stephen's College

Virtual Tour

Beauty and Serenity of Campus

Can you find them in virtual tour?

Having completed my primary school education at St. Stephen's College Preparatory School in 1990, I was promoted to St. Stephen's College. It is one of the most spacious secondary schools in Hong Kong, and occupies about 1,700,000 square feet in Stanley Peninsula on Hong Kong Island. It has beautiful campus, good teachers, numerous above-standard facilities and ample opportunities for extra-curricular activities. I am going to share with you the beauty and serenity of my campus, the excitement of my school life and my deep love for my mother school.

Boarding Life

North House

Not many secondary schools in Hong Kong provide boarding facilities, and St. Stephen's College is one of the few. There are three dormitories for boys and one for girls. I lived in North House, which was mainly for Form 1 boys like me at that time. North House is a two-storey building next to the Principal's mansion. There are three tennis courts in front of it while the rest of the school is hided behind a small hill and the School Chapel. Generally speaking, we return to the school in Sunday afternoon and stay there until Friday afternoon. The school provides everything we need, including canteen, laundry services, recreational facilities, etc.

Every morning, we were woke up by the morning call of cuckoo and the orchestra of the birds. Occasionally we also heard the cock crows. In the evening, we were blessed with beautiful glow of sunsets. In spring, snails, caterpillars, butterflies and bees all come out to grace the roses, rhododendrons, bauhinia, hibiscus, and all sorts of flowers. In summer, the chirp of cicada is resounding over the campus. In autumn, squirrels jump from pine to pine. In winter, migratory birds stay and have a rest, preparing for their next breeding season. When it is going to rain, dragonflies crowd over our big sports field while moths and flying ants get their way into our dormitories. When it is a clear night, stars shine high above in the sky, pouring down light peacefully and silently. All these are luxurious in the bustling city of Hong Kong.

School Chapel

After we had dinner in the canteen on Sunday, we went to the Schoool Chapel to sing a hymn, to give a prayer, and to listen to the teachings of our chaplain. The Chapel is built on top of the highest hill in the school, behind the Ng Wah Hall. It is a small church, furnished with everything needed in the rituals and ceremonies for a Christian church. Stepping into the Chapel, you are immediately overwhelmed by its solemnity. St. Stephen's College is a Christian school, and Christian education is emphasized here. This is also evident from the fact that we are required to pray together before every meal. Two lessons in Monday morning are also set aside for assembly of all students in Ng Wah Hall, during which one of the most important themes is to praise our Lord.

Old Lab Road

Me, Mr. Ip

There are three kinds of rooms in North House, a large room accommodates 14 boarders, a middle-sized room can hold 6 students while a small room 4 students. Each room has a prefect, usually a Form 4 student. There is a head prefect for North House, by a Form 6 student call Mr. River Lau, who is a very pious Christian. I lived in one of the middle-sized rooms. Each of us was also assigned a warden, and we met once a week to discuss our progress, be it academic or spiritual or mental or physical or whatever. My warden was Mr. S. W. Tong, who was also my music teacher. The school provides free apartments on campus for all teachers, and in return, the teacher must act either as a warden or provide free tutorial classes at night to boarders. I chose to attended English tutorial classes at night and my tutor was Mr. C. H. Ip.

Canteen for Boarders

Every morning, one of the wardens come and inspect the tidiness of our beds, drawers, cupboards, wardrobes and also our clothes. If everything is alright, we are allowed to go and have our breakfast. It takes slightly more than five minutes for us to walk from North House to the canteen, which is, in fact, nearer to the teaching premises. After school, the dormitory is not opened immediately. This is to encourage us to participate more in extra-curricular activities and make use of the school facilities. Usually I go to the library first and stay there until it closes. Then I play around in the school or watch newspapers in the common room. There is no television, so we won't be distracted by the television programmes. When the dormitory re-opens, we take a bath, after which it is about time for dinner. There are two sessions at night dedicated for doing homework and revision. Sometimes, it is also used for us to attend the tutorial classes. Before the dormitory locks again at night, one of the wardens come again to see if everything is going on properly.

Barbeque Pit

Once a year, we have barbeque together with our wardens in the barbeque pit of our school, which is located below the chapel. In normal days, my roommates like to play with model cars and robots. They assemble the parts and paint them with bright colours. They also like to listen to pop music in the dormitory, too. Lau Yuk-Kwan Kenneth and Tse Man-Chun Gary slept next to me. They are my good roommates. We lived together very well and became friends. We still have contacts occasionally now.

Distinctive Curriculum

With all sorts of above-standard facilities, my school provided us with a distinctive curriculum in many respects. Let me illustrate this in music class, physical education class, art class, design & technology class and English literature class.

Our music room is always furnished with the latest audio visual equipments. Elaborate stereo hifi system was installed and four big speakers were put up one at each corner. We often listened to many masterpieces in the classical, baroque, romantic period, etc. For instance, The Four Seasons, On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Peter and the Wolf, Symphonies of Beethoven, solo of the famous Italian singer Luciano Pavarotti were played frequently. The music room also features a wealth of collection of musical instruments, including wind, string, percussion, etc. Most, if not all, schoolmates play at least one or two kinds of instruments. Some of them are experts in piano or electronic organ, others in violin or cello, others in clarinet or oboe, others in flute or reed pipe, others in trumpet or bass horn.... I tried to learn violin in the primary school and piano in form 1, yet perhaps I am not talented in music so my progress had always been slow. Although I do not play any instrument well, I still developed a love for listening to music.

Swimming Pool and Sports Field

The physical education class aimed at exposing us to different kinds of sports. Every one to three weeks, my teacher switched to a new topic and taught us something new. In Autumn, we were taught swimming. The college owns an olympic size swimming pool joinly with her Preparatory School. We went there and practised crawl stroke, breast stroke, etc. In winter, we learnt topics in track and field. The college has a big sports field and we practised hurdles, relay, discus throw, shot put, etc. We also ran cross country in winter. My school is so large that the whole cross country trail is contained within the campus, around her periphery. You run pass different kinds of ground throughout the trail, including rocks, sand, grassland and earth. The background of this homepage shows part of our cross country trail. In spring, we played basketball and free exercises in the gymnasium. Though I am not good at sports, I still enjoyed these lessons. I especially enjoyed walking through the cross country trail in my spare time. It is nice, little, away from the buildings, and surrounded by green plants.

Totem Poles

In arts class, besides the pencil drawing and watercolour painting, we were also introduced many other forms of arts. Sculptures are displayed outside the arts room and canvases are put up inside. I remembered very well how Miss Lee taught us how to make porcelain without using that fast rotating machine. A special kind of earth is first made into small plates and short strings, with which we then constructed our containers. She selected some good ones from us and baked them in the electric kiln. Besides all these, we also tried to carve wood blocks for printing, embossing coloured papers against cut cardboards to make birthday cards, designed pictures out of semi-abstract figures, etc. At roughly the same time, I also attended classes on pencil drawing on Saturdays in Mongkok. Maybe you are interested to have a look at my art gallery.

Although all students are free to choose between Design & Technology class or Home Economics class, most boys, including me, chose the former while most girls chose the later due to strong stereotyping. But that is not my emphasis. What I want to say is that Design & Technology classes are really exciting and interesting. We made a few projects, covering plastic works, wood works and metal works. For plastic works, each of us was given three pieces of acrylic plastics of different colours. I cut them into different shapes, glued them together with chloroform and polished the edges. Then I drilled a hole near the edge to make a key holder. For wood work, again, I cut the wood into shapes and peeled it until its surface is smooth and flat, then I made it into a pencil stand. For metal work, I drew shapes on a piece of brass with a corrosion-resistant ink and then hang it over a barrel such that it was immersed in a corrosive liquid. After some time, took it out, polished the edges and drilled a hole, another key holder was made.

English classes may seem boring to some of us but English Literature classes are surely fun. We studied English poems, sang English songs and practised some tongue twisters together. I like the song Puff the Magic Dragon very much. We also studied some selected English idioms and proverbs. When I was in Form 1, through recitation of The Lost Shoe by Walter de la Mare, my class even won the first-runner-up in English Choral Speaking in the Hong Kong School Speech Festival.

I chose to elaborate on these classes because they are really free of the endless and pointless memorization characteristic of education in Hong Kong. Instead, we learn through participation, so everybody enjoyed these lessons very much. If you want me to criticize such system, then all I could say is that perhaps the school pushed us too hard in all aspects so nobody could absorb everything provided at once. Nonetheless, the opportunity to get in touch with all these different variety of things proved to be a vital and invaluable experience for all of us in our lives.

Extra-Curricular Activities

Although St. Stephen's College is famous for her achievement in sports and music, these are unfortunately my weaknesses. I did not join the school choir nor orchestra, nor did I participate in the physical trainings offered by the Priestley House, which I belonged to. Despite that, I still found ample opportunities to try other kinds of extra-curricular activities. I joined two interest clubs, Green Movement and Science Society and also acted as a student librarian.

Since I founded the Small Friend of the Earth in the Preparatory School, I was known to some of the secondary school teachers here before I finished my primary education. There is an interest club of similar nature here, called Green Movement. Originally, they only recruit members from Form 2 or above. At that time, when I was still in Form 1, they broke their tradition and welcomed me to join them.

Tree Labelling

Organic Farm

There are three subgroups within Green Movement. The first one is responsible for newspaper recycling, the second one responsible for designing and updating our notice board, while I chose the last one, which is the most exciting of all -- organic farming. We have a small piece of land behind the Executive Building. There, we planted banana, cucumber, peanuts, and some other vegetables. We need to water the plants and do the weeding. It is a true pleasure to watch the plants growing up day by day. At first, the seedlings tend to be destroyed by some unscrupulous dogs chasing each other, but then the situation improves after our teacher advisor, Mr. H. B. Tang, erected fences surrounding our land. Throughout the whole process, we did not use any chemical fertilizers but only organic ones. Finally, when harvest comes, each of us was given our share of agricultural produce. I brought home mine and ate them with my family. I like the cucumbers. They are sweeter and fresher than the ones bought in the market.

The next year, we had a tree labelling activity. We first worked in the Design & Technology laboratory. Each of us prepared one tree label and then we set out in groups to put them onto the correct trees in the campus. This gave us a chance to know the names and characteristics of plants common in Hong Kong. The photo on the left was taken with my groupmates after we just labelled a plant. (This plant is called ´²§À¸ª in Chinese, how to call it in English?)

Science Quiz

Besides Green Movement, I also joined Science Society. During our meetings, we were led by our teacher advisor Mr. W. M. Wong to make an acrylic table stand and a sundial. I also represented my class to participate in the inter-class science quiz and we won the champion in Form 1. The photo on the right was taken during the competition in AV Theatre. From left to right, they are Leung King-Ho Eddie, me and Cheng Pak-Yeung Patrick.

In Form 2, I also acted as a student librarian. As a librarian, we were responsible for the loans and returns of books, putting returned books back onto the bookshelves, sorting the books on the bookshelves according to their call numbers, and also the photocopying service. I was one of the most hard working librarians at that time so I was awarded a certificate afterwards even though I did not work for one complete year there due to my leave from the College. Well, our library is very large, with two floors. It has undergone extensive renovation after I left the college. If you visit my school one day, remember to come and see the grandeur of the present-day library!

After-thoughts

Originally, I also planned to include a section on my beloved teachers and classmates. However, I decide to leave this to another webpage dedicated to my friends. Well, I left the school in April 1992 and I changed to La Salle College. Thereafter, I visited St. Stephen's College and its preparatory school at least once a year. I also joined the re-union dinner in January 2000 organized by the SSC Alumni Association. I really love my mother school. Let me wish her a better future in the 21st century!

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