Introducing the Morningside College Essay Competition
Writing Between the Lines: Nathan Thrall, Israel and Palestine
Healing People Through Music and Medicine
LETTER FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD 02
MC VIEW
Introducing the Morningside College Essay Competition 晨興書院散文比賽簡介
FEATURE
Writing Between the Lines: Nathan Thrall, Israel and Palestine 字裡行間的意思：Nathan Thrall、以色列與巴勒斯坦 07
MC SPACE
College Photography Competition 晨興書院攝影比賽 15
Healing People Through Music and Medicine 以音樂與醫術療癒人心 19 25 03
MC MEETS
Dear Reader,
In this issue, we are celebrating the winning works of the inaugural Morningside College Essay Competition and the annual Photography Competition, as well as welcoming a special guest for this year’s One Book Programme—Pulitzer Prize-winning author Nathan Thrall. You will also live through the experiences of talented Morningside students and alumni who have found success in various fields.
Creativity and curiosity are the uniting forces of the Morningside Community. From expressing oneself through art to writing about some of the world’s most complex issues, this edition highlights a plethora of human talent that only scratches the surface of our multifaceted community. We look forward to seeing our community members’ new and old projects come to fruition next year.
Thank you for your continued support!
Morningside Magazine Editorial Board
MORNINGSIDE MAGAZINE. Published annually by Morningside College. Editorial Office: Morningside College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong. Tel: +852.3943.1406. Fax: +852.2603.6159.
Publication of material in MORNINGSIDE MAGAZINE does not necessarily indicate endorsement of the author’s viewpoint by the magazine, Morningside College, or The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
MORNINGSIDE MAGAZINE reserves the right to edit and, when necessary, revise all material that it accepts for publication. Unsolicited artwork will be published at the discretion of the editor.
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INTRODUCING THE MORNINGSIDE COLLEGE ESSAY COMPETITION
晨興書院散文比賽簡介
Over the past years, Morningside College has hosted many renowned writers of narrative nonfiction, including Robert Fisk, Peter Hessler, Lulu Miller and, most recently, Nathan Thrall. In the spirit of inquiry and scholarship, Morningside College is thrilled to announce a new, university-wide essay competition open to all CUHK undergraduate students, the first iteration of which was held this year. Students were encouraged to submit their original narrative nonfiction essays of between 1,000 and 2,500 words in English on the theme of ‘Soundscapes’. The theme was selected in conjunction with the Photography Competition. We are pleased to present the winning essay, titled ‘Life Notes’, by Nalini Dhiman.
Karen Cheung is a writer from Hong Kong. She is the author of The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir, which was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post and The Economist. She has written for The New York Times, Feeld Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Oxonian Review, The Rumpus, and other publications. She has an MA in Creative Writing (New Prose Narratives) from Royal Holloway, University of London. 評審簡介
Karen Cheung 是一位來自香港的作家，著有《 The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir 》，該書曾入圍卡內基獎章最佳非虛構作品， 並被《華盛頓郵報》及《經濟學人》評選為年度最佳著作之一。她亦曾於 《紐約時報》、《Feeld Magazine》、《洛杉磯書評》、《牛津人評論》、《The Rumpus》等多份刊物發表著作。她擁有倫敦大學皇家哈洛威學院創意寫 作（新敘事散文）碩士學位。
LIFE NOTES by Nalini
Dhiman
First Place Prize
Our brains are constantly chronicling life through five distinct channels — sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. But memory is selective because it only captures fragments of our sensory storm. Of all these sensory imprints, it’s the acoustic memories that seem to echo longest in my chambers of recollection. Each sound is a key that unlocks not just the memory of the noise itself but the entire moment in which it existed.
Thus, when I close my eyes and think of childhood, it is not the images that come but the sounds. These ghosts arrive uninvited and they carry with them entire worlds of context and emotion. Thinking of my father’s gentle “Neha? I’m home!” resurrects not just his voice, but our brown door framing his dark blue shirt, my joy at his arrival mingled with sudden panic over forgotten chores. In that moment lives the scent of his cologne, the race to his embrace, and my brother and I competing to share our day’s stories.
Scientists tell us that sensory memories last mere milliseconds as fleeting impressions that fade unless our attention anchors them into something more permanent. But some sounds demand attention without reason; they carve themselves so deeply into our consciousness that they become part of our inner landscape. Let me take you through some of the chapters in my life that have been randomly marked by these acoustic bookmarks.
In Gurgaon, electrical signals from sounds moved differently than they do here. The walls were thick, we were close to the ground, but somehow every noise found its way through. Morning began with the pressure cooker’s whistle, four sharp whistles that meant rajma or chole were on the way, and my mother’s favourite bhajan. I used to be bothered by the bhajans, but later I realized how it made me feel. As the house filled with positivity, steel utensils would clang against each other in the kitchen. It created a metallic hypnotic orchestra that meant comfort and home.
From outside, the street vendors’ calls formed our daily soundtrack: the vegetable seller’s singsong announcement of fresh potatoes, tomatoes, and the seasonal vegetable, the neighbouring-village’s farmer who would send his son to ring our bell which became my cue to rush down with two vessels for fresh cow’s milk, the evening ice cream man's distinctive horn that had my brother sprinting to call mama for cash. When I think of the passage of time, even in a day, I think of how time was marked by these sound-stamps instead of clocks. You would know it is 4:00 pm when the ice cream vendor came, and 7:00 pm when the milkman arrived.
Have you ever stolen something? I have, and it was memorable. My brother and I became thieves of teenager-y whispers. Pressed against the door's cool wood, we would eavesdrop on my sister’s daily secret phone call with her boyfriend. Her laughter, so syrupy and unfamiliar (and funny to us), would seep through the cracks as I motioned silently at my brother to take notes, and he scribbled furiously. I say furiously because I remember the sound of his pencil on my paper. We carefully harvested these secrets. Each word was meticulously catalogued in our Reporting Book, and all we asked for ransom from her was salt-kissed fries and premium 20-rupee chocolate. A fair deal if you ask me.
When the power went out, as it often did, the sudden silence would be broken by the collective groan of aunties in our building. The ceiling fans would slow to a stop, and we would begin to hear the smallest of things, such as the various birds outside and our deep breaths. Sometimes we would go stand in the shower until we heard the coughing of the generator motoring on.
Soon thereafter, a different kind of sound entered our lives. The beeping of hospital monitors, the squeak of nurses’ shoes on polished floors, the whispered consultations outside my father’s room… The landscape of illness has its own symphony, its own tones, and a painful recollection that I feel more in my heart than my brain. Time was marked by the sound of the pulse oximeter becoming as familiar as my mother's bhajans had once been. Its steady beeps were both tormenting and comforting; each electronic pulse was a reminder of illness, yet its very persistence meant that his heart was still beating. That is why I found myself dreading the sound and praying for it in the same breath, I knew that its silence would bring a peace I was not ready to accept. When that silence eventually and suddenly came, it stretched across continents and was broken only by the empty roar of airplane engines descending into Hong Kong.
If I listen very closely, I can still hear the silence at this very moment.
The transition to Hong Kong came with its own soundscape, so different it felt like learning a new language (which is both a symbol and a fact). The apartment buildings were taller and the spaces between them narrower. The loud coolers in India now replaced by the air conditioners which hum silently. The trains in India used to roar, announcing themselves with pride, while the trains here come gently.
My high school classroom was my first experience of peace within the noise. Twenty teenagers speaking at once, their Cantonese rising and falling like ocean waves, but to my ears it was all white noise. I learned to float in this acoustic limbo which was punctuated only by the occasional word I recognized. “Ngo” (I) and “lei” (you) became little lifeboats in this sea of sound. Though they were brief, they left me triumphant for the day.
An “Om” found me later, during my university years, when the cacophony of life-academic pressure, family worry, career dilemmas-became too much. During my yoga practice I discovered that sound could come from within, that it could resonate through bone and tissue until my whole body became an instrument, a vessel. My mother resonated with this too. In fact, it is due to her that I ever started my practice.
Sometimes, during video calls with mum, I could hear how empty the apartment felt, how her voice echoed slightly where it once had to compete with three children’s and one father’s chaos (a sound I would hate because it disrupted my studies, now I yearn to hear it again). The pressure cooker still whistles at home, but only for two now. There is a loud silence… It lies in the space where my father's evening cough used to be. The missing sound of TV shows that once played in the background. The gap where my sister's outburst should be.
There are new sounds. My mother’s iPad playing Western TV shows she has now discovered, it is a proud moment indeed because once upon a time, English was just murmur to her. New sounds describing home… My brother’s iPad playing anime shows, the rice cooker’s electronic pings, my mother’s gentle chuckle when I tell her about my love life, then insane roars of laughter when I would tell her a funny story (this is my most favourite sound in the world), my brother’s “but when did I ask?” jokes. Nothing remains the same, everything changes, and though this change is different, I love it still.
As you know, there was a time when I felt an endless void inside me. It was a deafening silence that echoed despite a life that otherwise seemed to shine. Then I found my best friend. First came a nervous laugh during Transformers, it is the movie forever etched as the backdrop to his surprising confession. Slowly, the silence you could only find if you dipped your head deep into the well in my heart started transforming into something louder, more alive. Heartfelt laughter that bubbled up unexpectedly, and even some quiet tears as I finally acknowledged the echoes of my past. I found myself resting my head on his chest and listening to his heartbeat. It was a steady rhythm, one that my mother, too, was grateful for because, for a long time, she had yearned to hear me laugh again. My inner world was no longer mute but a vibrant soundscape of laughter, whispers, and the irreplaceable sound of a loving heart!
These sound-filled moments are just fragments of my story, bookmarks in a life that keeps turning pages. As my university years, filled with an orchestra of sounds I will forever be grateful for, draw to a close, I find myself wondering what sounds will fill the next chapter. Life has taught me that change is the only constant, and change brings with it new rhythms and melodies. The same way my mother’s bhajans gave way to hospital beeps, then emptiness transformed into the sound of ringing laughter, I know these familiar campus echoes will soon become memories. But I’m not scared. I am both nostalgic and curious. As these familiar sounds fade, new ones wait to be discovered. Isn’t that the beauty of life, though? It never truly falls silent, only transforms, and in doing so it creates space to experience new notes. Sometimes, the most beautiful melodies are the ones we haven’t heard yet.
About the winner
得獎者 簡介
Nalini Dhiman is a final year student from Morningside College, studying Integrated Business and Business Administration.
Second place prize: Suan Yeon, Year 4, Journalism and Communication, Morningside College.
Third place prize: Ariel Migliorini Mercado, Year 4, Global Studies, Morningside College.
Nalini Dhiman 為晨興書院應屆畢業生，主修工商管 理學士綜合課程。
第二名得獎者： Suan Yeon ，四年級，新聞與傳播 學系，晨興書院。
第三名得獎者：Ariel Migliorini Mercado，四年級， 全球研究學系，晨興書院。
Suan Yeon, Nalini Dhiman, Karen Cheung, and Ariel Migliorini Mercado at the Essay Competition Awards Ceremony.
Nathan Thrall’s nonfiction book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, was selected for Morningside College’s One Book Programme in 2024. Photograph by Umberto Costamagna.
Nathan Thrall doesn’t believe in objective journalism, but you would be hard-pressed to arrive at that conclusion from his writing, or from his interviews. He speaks carefully and selects his words precisely; he does not dither or embellish, but gives every question its due weight. His recent Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, attained the kind of widespread success that would not be possible for a book on Israel-Palestine if it could not be defended as impartial against every conceivable claim. His previous book, a collection of essays titled The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine, is so thoroughly grounded in research that it has nearly as many pages of notes as it does pages of prose. By his own admission, Thrall lives in fear of factual error. But to mistake Thrall’s commitment to neutrality as apolitical—or less correct still, as idealization of objective journalism—is to underestimate how strongly Thrall feels about the injustices of occupation.
Instead, his neutrality is dictated by a stance much more anachronistic in today’s world than a journalist who does not believe in objectivity. “It sounds terribly naïve,” Thrall says in an interview published one day before the attacks of October 7, “but I do believe that the truth is its own value, and nobody is served by obfuscating the truth.” Thrall’s belief in the primacy of telling all sides of a story irrespective of political aims would be contested harshly the following day, but in the midst of the obliterating war that would ensue, it would prove to be his most effective tool in swaying readers.
The Only Language They Understand
Thrall was born and raised in California, the son of Soviet emigres to the United States who had moved there shortly before his birth. His family was a secular Jewish one, and he was raised just as much by his parents as his grandparents, to whom he was very close. Israel was far from Thrall’s mind when, as a fresh graduate of UC Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in biology and a film editing job in Hollywood, the death of his grandmother in a car accident upended his life. In her memory, Thrall’s mother suggested he visit Jerusalem—a trip his grandmother had always wanted to make with him. Thrall took her suggestion and travelled to Jerusalem in 2004 on a free Birthright trip offered to young Jewish adults by the Israeli government. Thrall describes that experience as pivotal. Upon returning to the United States, he pursued a master’s degree in political science and headed right back.
“I hopped on a plane and moved to Israel-Palestine, and I started enrolling in courses in Hebrew and Arabic. I didn’t know anything about journalism—I showed up at the door of a newspaper saying: ‘I’m here, I’m ready to report, send me to the frontlines.’” It was the summer of 2006, and a war between Hezbollah and Israel had just broken out. Instead of a post to the frontlines, Thrall was sent to cover Kaparot, a chicken slaughtering ritual practiced in Israel’s ultra-orthodox Jewish communities.
Nathan Thrall 不相信客觀新聞，但若單從他的文 字或訪問，卻很難得出這個結論。他言談謹慎、措 辭精確；從不拖泥帶水、不加修飾，問的每條問題 卻鏗鏘有力。他最近憑著著作《A Day in the Life of Abed Salama 》獲得普立茲獎。這本談及以色列與 巴勒斯坦議題的書籍，若無法在面對各種可能的質 疑時仍堅守中立，都不會取得如此空前的成功。他 的上一本著作，是一輯名為《 The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine 》的文章合集，背後做的研究極為扎 實，注釋部分幾乎與正文篇幅相當。Thrall承認自 己對於事實錯誤抱有恐懼。但若果將Thrall對中立 立場的執著誤解為「去政治化」，或更不正確地說， 是對客觀新聞的理想化，便是低估了他對以巴佔領 制度的不公深感不滿的立場。
After a year with limited opportunities, Thrall found himself once more returning to the US to further his learning. He enrolled in a writer’s institute in New York on a fellowship and got a job as an editorial assistant at The New York Review of Books. “I was told there was a tradition of previous editorial assistants who’d wind up becoming writers for The New York Review and that I should go and ask the editor—Robert Silvers, this legendary figure—if I could write my own things while working there. I did that, and he shot me down in the most brutal way.” After one particular rejection, it took Thrall months to work up the courage to ask again. It was 2010 and the United States had recently begun training Palestinian security forces in the West Bank as part of an effort to enhance cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. When Thrall proposed he could write about that for The New York Review, he was finally given his chance.
Thrall travelled to Israel yet again, but this time to report on a topic of his own choosing. It proved to be a telling moment. “There was all of this enthusiasm in the West for the project, which was characterized as Palestinian state building from the ground up, but what I found was that this system was actually going to do the opposite of build up a Palestinian state—it was going to make the occupation easier for Israel.” Back in New York, the contrarian view presented in his article attracted the attention of the head of the Middle East Programme at the International Crisis Group—a global think tank that would employ Thrall for the next ten years, starting with a post to Gaza.
然而，一年所獲得發揮的機會有限，Thrall 再次返回 美國進修。他憑獎學金進入紐約一間作家學院，同 時在《The New York Review of Books》任職編輯助 理。「有人告訴我，以往有不少編輯助理都能成為該 刊的作家，建議我向總編 Robert Silvers 這位傳 奇人物詢問我能否在任職期間撰寫自己的文章。我 真的去問了，他卻以極為殘忍的方式拒絕了我。」在 其中一次被拒後，Thrall 花了數個月的時間才能重新 鼓起勇氣再次開口。當時是 2010 年，美國剛開始在 約旦河西岸訓練巴勒斯坦安全部隊，希望能推動以 色列及巴勒斯坦自治政府之間的合作。Thrall 提議撰 寫有關這個合作項目的文章，最終被答應。
Nathan Thrall and Professor Saskia Witteborn in conversation during a public talk organized by Morningside College on November 27, 2024.
Gaza was Thrall’s first immersion into the complex politics that would shape his writing for the next decade. Although he was only there for six weeks in the fall of 2010 before moving to Jerusalem (where he has since lived), it accelerated the process of learning and unlearning that Thrall describes as his evolution. “There was a time where I thought like most liberal Zionists, that the conflict is primarily about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and not about 1948. Going to Gaza was like time travel, because it was like going back to an earlier phase of Palestinian nationalism.”
Thrall advanced quickly within the International Crisis Group, whose mission—to prevent deadly conflict by influencing policy—suited him well. (“I had long been concerned with the practical issue of how to change things,” he says.) His writing, analytical and non-ideological, would be read and cited at the highest levels where diplomacy is shaped, such as the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, as well as by organizations such as Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch. Thrall’s first book was a collection of essays he penned during this time. Bound by a soberingly level-headed thesis and backed by a wealth of research, The Only Language They Understand presented another contrarian argument: without sufficient force (primarily from the United States and Europe, but also from neighbouring Arab countries), the conflict would remain intractable because it was less costly for Israel to maintain the status quo—and the occupation—than to address it.
And yet it was also around this time that Thrall began facing a disconcerting reality: the primary audience for his work, like decisionmakers in positions of power, were not being moved. “I really realized it way too late. I think many people wouldn’t have needed to go through ten years at the International Crisis Group to reach the conclusion I was banging my head against a wall. I was having so many conversations with leading policymakers who were telling me, over and over, it doesn’t matter how convinced I am personally of what you are writing—I am not going to change my behaviour.”
It was the dawning of Thrall’s realization that if he wanted to effect change, he would have to do it differently. “There is a real limit to how far [policymakers] can go in the absence of a change in public opinion.”
But to change public opinion, particularly on a topic as divisive as this, the kind of analytical, thesis-driven writing he had been doing appeared increasingly inadequate. The political moment Thrall found himself in, marked by the proliferation of reactionary rhetoric around the world and the rapid dissolution of middle ground, suggested that reason had ceased to matter—or otherwise had ceased to move people. But Thrall’s belief in the intrinsic value of truth was unwavering; he would put aside his intellectual writing and attempt at emotional appeal, and he would do so using nothing but facts.
In 2020, a friend of Thrall’s in Jerusalem mentioned in passing an incident that had taken place nearby eight years earlier. Soon after crossing an Israeli checkpoint, a bus full of Palestinian kindergarteners and their teachers had been hit by a semi-trailer truck, overturned, and burst into flames. Six children and a teacher died in the fire before emergency services arrived at the scene. Thrall’s friend mentioned that one of his relatives had lost his five-year-old son in that accident. That relative was Abed Salama, and after years of silent grieving, when Abed agreed to meet Thrall he was hungry to talk about his son.
Thrall decided to turn Abed’s story into a book because he believed it had the power to move people. It became a story not just of Abed and his son, Milad, but of a myriad of characters—Palestinian and Israeli—whose lives intersected around the fatal bus crash. There was, in the circumstances leading to the crash and its nightmarish aftermath, a microcosm of the injustices of occupation. Thrall found instrumental value in this, but he also found himself caring deeply about the characters at its heart. He had spent so many days with Abed, tallying hundreds of hours as they pored over his life, watching videos of Milad as Abed cried—and Thrall, who had become a father to three young girls, cried too. Thrall spent four years working on the book, and, driven by the feeling of doing justice by Milad’s memory, he created a work he felt could be a bridge across the political divide. “I really had the hope that this book was going to be embraced by liberal Jews throughout the world. I thought that this is something that every reformed Synagogue readership would be passing around. And I really think I had a chance at that prior to October 7.”
“I didn’t want to have a reader close the book and stop reading because they felt I was imposing my views on them. But I wanted them to walk away from this book feeling what I want them to feel.”
「我不願意讀者因感到被強輸觀點而擱書不讀，唯願他們合書時，能感我所欲其感。」
Four days after A Day in the Life of Abed Salama was published, the events of October 7, 2023, upended everything. Thrall knew immediately that this episode of violence would be different than anything that had come before. It also placed a question mark on his previous four years’ work. Many of his interviews in the US and the UK alongside Abed were cancelled, and book reviews that had been scheduled for release never appeared. “It made it a thousand times harder for people to be open to hearing a sympathetic story about Palestinian life under occupation.”
But as the weeks passed and the death toll of Israel’s attacks on Gaza soared, killing twenty thousand Palestinians in just over two months,2 Thrall’s book would reach many audiences around the world. Thrall could not have anticipated the unprecedented events of October 7 or the media blitz that followed it, yet, in a period marked by heightened sensitivity and extreme polarization, Thrall’s book was presciently designed to walk a very fine line. Thrall’s readers would not find a discussion of Gaza or historical analysis of Hamas or the occupation. In fact, they would not find in it much argument or opinion at all, and this was Thrall’s intention. “I didn’t want to have a reader close the book and stop reading because they felt I was imposing my views on them. But I wanted them to walk away from this book feeling what I want them to feel.” Thrall wanted them to feel the injustice of a system he had, for over a decade, seen so closely, a system best demonstrated through a single word: ‘apartheid’.
‘Apartheid’ appears only once in the text when Thrall quotes an Israeli colonel who uses it. Like many, Thrall believes that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians it governs amounts to apartheid, but he does not say that in his book. This is perhaps most emblematic of the change in approach Thrall decided was needed for this book. “I’m just going to give you facts. You’re going to observe, let this story unfold, and you’re going to be devastated by the facts of the matter.” When an acquaintance of Thrall’s told him that after reading the book, her mother—whom she had been trying to convince for fifteen years that it was apartheid—became convinced, Thrall received it as a sign of success. Success came in other forms too; in May 2024, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama would be awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
It was in the thirteenth month of his book tour, in November of the same year, that Thrall visited Morningside. It was also the thirteenth month of the war in Gaza, and Abed Salama, who appeared alongside Thrall for much of the beginning of the tour, had returned home to his family in the West Bank. In Abed’s absence, Thrall appeared as someone on a mission.
《A Day in the Life of Abed Salama》出版僅 4 日後， 就在 2023 年 10 月 7 日發生的事件，徹底改變了一 切。Thrall 立刻知道，這次暴力衝突將會與以往的全 然不同。這亦為他過去四年的心血添上問號。他與 Abed 在美英安排的多場訪談被取消，多篇原定發 表的書評亦未有刊登。「這令人們願意聆聽一個關於 巴勒斯坦人在佔領環境下，值得被人同情的生活故 事變得難上千倍。」
「種族隔離」這個詞在書中只出現過一次，是 Thrall 引述一位以色列上校的話時所提及的。跟許多人一 樣，Thrall 認為在以色列統治下巴勒斯坦人所受的對 待構成了種族隔離問題，但他在書中並沒有明言這 一點。這或許正好展示出他撰寫這本書時所採取的 新方法。「我只會提供事實，讓你觀察、讓故事自己 發展，但你就是會被事實所震撼。」當 Thrall 一位友 人告訴他，相比十五年來她自己不斷說服其媽媽都 未曾成功，她媽媽在閱讀完這本書後終於相信這就 是種族隔離，Thrall 視之為一種成功。當然，這本書 的成功不止於此。 2024 年 5 月，《 A Day in the Life of Abed Salama》獲得了普立茲獎。
“I still feel like this book has more people that it can reach,” Thrall said. It was not newfound optimism but rather his same pragmatic attitude.
“I think emotional attachment is more long-lasting and deeper and more powerful than any kind of intellectual argument. If I’m really trying to change public opinion, or make a dent in public opinion, I think doing it through stories that touch people is the best way and the reception of this book has really affirmed for me that that was the right strategy. It was a gamble. I didn’t know if it would work… The kind of writing I did in The Only Language They Understand has its value, but I don’t think it had a chance to be received in the same way as A Day in the Life.”
「我仍然覺得這本書可以觸及更多人。」Thrall 說。
這並非突如其來的樂觀感覺，而是他一貫務實的 態度。「我認為情感的連結比任何理性辯論都來得 深遠而有力。如果我真的想要改變公眾的觀感，甚 至只是稍微撼動它，我相信透過觸動人心的故事是 最好的方式，而這本書所得到的回應，讓我更加肯 定這是正確的策略。這本來是一場賭注，我並不 知道是否可行……我在《 The Only Language They Understand 》那種寫法確有其價值，但我不認為它 能像《A Day in the Life》同樣地廣被接受。」
Nathan Thrall delivered the final GEMC1001 lecture of the semester to the Morningside College freshman class. By encouraging students to read one book and participate in related events and conversations, the College’s One Book Programme aims to unify the community in deeper inquiry around a different topic each year.
Certainly, the change in approach was a matter of ability as well as of choice. Thrall describes the book as the “greatest structural challenge I have ever faced in my life.” There are some sixty characters in the book whose stories are nested within one another; characters of all backgrounds whose separate arcs had to be reconciled to construct a coherent whole. There was also much that had to be cut from the first draft of the book—a process that is not easy for any writer, let alone one whose writing involves the lives of real people.
Yet even then, it is the decision itself—not the ability to execute it—that stands out. The decision reflects nearly two decades of accumulated experience writing about Israel and Palestine, but just as that experience deepened Thrall’s knowledge and intuition, it intensified the strength of his convictions, as well as the desire to assert them. To remove himself entirely from the page, to confine his own arguments and thoughts to the last few paragraphs of the epilogue (and remain, there as well, non-ideological), makes the book not just a gamble or an immense structural puzzle, but a masterful act of self-denial. Thrall’s desire to effect change became the guiding hand that put the book together and left no trace of its having done so. In its seeming absence, there is room for readers to suspend their judgement and become absorbed by what Thrall has created: a book not about occupation or injustice or a bus crash, but a book of people—a book that humanizes.
When he sent the first part to Abed, the part that detailed his complicated marriages and revealed thorny family secrets, Abed called Thrall to express his shock. There was much he did not expect to see written. But Thrall’s fixation with the whole, unobscured truth paid off. When Abed finished reading the entire book, he told Thrall he hugged it like it was his son.
Abed Salama holds a photo of his son, Milad. Photograph by Ihab Jadallah. Abed Salama 拿著兒子Milad的照片。攝影：Ihab Jadallah
1 Omer-Man, “Nathan Thrall on the Daily Tragedies of Palestinian Life and Israel‘s ‘Architecture of Segregation.‘” DAWN, October 6, 2023. Omer-Man撰文，〈Nathan Thrall on the Daily Tragedies of Palestinian Life and Israel‘s ‘Architecture of Segregation.‘〉，《DAWN》，2023年 10月6日。
2 Jobain and Magdy, “Israel-Hamas War: Gaza Death Toll Exceeds 20,000.” AP News, December 23, 2023. Jobain及Magdy撰文，〈Israel-Hamas War: Gaza Death Toll Exceeds 20,000〉，《AP News》，2023年12月23日。
Morningside College held its 12th annual Photography Competition this spring. All CUHK undergraduate students were invited to submit photographs to three categories: ‘Duet’, ‘Distortion’, and ‘Decay’. Thank you to Morningside Fellow, Associate Professor of Practice in Cultural Management, and Director of the Master of Arts in Cultural Management Programme, Benny Lim, for his support as this year’s competition judge.
Amsterdam University College, Morningside College Exchange 2024-2025
Decay: 1st Place and Student Choice
Echoes of the Sunbeam
Ching Man
Shaw College
HEALING PEOPLE THROUGH MUSIC AND MEDICINE
以音樂與醫術療癒人心
By Ekaterina “Rin” Tsavalyuk
Tsz Ho performing at the Toyama International Contemporary Music Festival in Japan 子皓於日本富山國際現代音樂節演出。
Lam Tsz Ho, a Year Four Morningside College student from Hong Kong, seamlessly bridges the worlds of medicine and music. By day, he is a dedicated student in the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) program; by night, he is an accomplished musician, serving as a musical director, conductor, violinist, and pianist. With a rich musical background in Hong Kong and abroad, Tsz Ho is a Musical Director at Face Productions—a stage school, production company, and talent management agency—and an Assistant to the Musical Director for Hong Kong Singers, one of the longest-established community theater companies in Hong Kong. He also performs as a violinist in The CUHK Chung Chi Orchestra and previously played the keyboard for the MC Band.
Tsz Ho was awarded the Licentiate Diploma in Violin Performance and Piano Performance (LTCL) in 2017 and 2019 respectively, along with a Licentiate in Music Theory (LMusTCL) in 2020 from Trinity College London. Currently, Tsz Ho also serves as a music director for Face Production’s Anastasia. His recent musical directing credits include productions of Shrek the Musical, Mamma Mia!, High School Musical, Beauty and the Beast, and Spring Awakening
Tsz Ho is the current conductor for The CUHK Chung Chi Orchestra and the assistant conductor of Cantabile. He was recently chosen as one of just two conductors to participate in a conducting masterclass led by the renowned Christoph Eschenbach, as part of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s Jockey Club Tutti Programme. Last summer, Tsz Ho was awarded a scholarship to conduct in the Toyama International Contemporary Music Festival where he worked with Neil Thomson. In 2022, he had the opportunity to assist Dominic Wheeler, Head of Opera studies at Guildhall, in the production of Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers at the Berlin Opera Academy.
In addition to conducting, Tsz Ho is an accomplished violinist. He is currently the concertmaster of The CUHK Chung Chi Orchestra and actively performs with the Ponte Orchestra. He recently performed Bruch’s Concerto for Violin and Viola with The CUHK Chung Chi Orchestra as a violin soloist.
Junior Fellow Rin Tsavalyuk sat down with Tsz Ho to discuss how he balances his passions for music and medicine, and how he manages to excel in both fields.
Rin: When did you decide to study medicine? Did you consider pursuing music as your primary field of study?
Tsz Ho: Some people know that they want to be in the healthcare field from a very young age. That was not me. I was curious in school and a wide range of subjects interested me. Over time, I narrowed my focus to music and medicine. I thought about what each path would look like in practice and realized that they share many similarities. Fundamentally, whether you are practicing medicine or playing music, you are trying to heal people, to alleviate something within them.
To be honest, I don’t often listen to music for pleasure. I prefer podcasts or audio books instead. The joy comes from performing music for others—that’s where I find my dopamine. So, when it came to choosing my area of study, medicine seemed like a more straightforward path to fulfilling the abstract goal of helping people. Societal pressure also played a role in my decision not to pursue music through formal education.
來自香港的林子皓，是晨興書院四年級學生，他一 直無縫遊走於醫學與音樂世界。白天，他專注修讀 內外全科醫學士課程；晚上，他則是位才華洋溢 的音樂人，身兼音樂總監、指揮、小提琴家及鋼 琴家。子皓擁有豐富的本地與海外音樂背景，目前 正擔任舞台劇學校、製作公司及演藝人才管理機構 Face Productions 的音樂總監，以及香港歷史最悠 久的社區劇團之一 Hong Kong Singers 的音樂總監 助理。他亦是香港中文大學崇基管弦樂團的小提琴 手，曾為晨興樂團擔任鍵琴手。
子皓分別於 2017 年及 2019 年獲得倫敦聖三一學院 小提琴及鋼琴演奏執業文憑，並於 2020 年獲得樂 理文憑。現時，他正擔任 Face Productions 音樂 劇《 Anastasia 》的音樂總監。他近期的音樂作品包 括《 Shrek the Musical 》、《 Mamma Mia! 》、《 High School Musical 》、《 Beauty and the Beast 》以及 《Spring Awakening》。
子皓現為香港中文大學崇基管弦樂團的指揮，並為 合唱團 Cantabile 的助理指揮。他最近更獲選為香港 賽馬會齊奏音樂夢計劃中，唯一兩位參加 Christoph Eschenbach 大師班的指揮之一。去年夏天，他獲獎 學金前往富山國際現代音樂節擔任指揮，並與 Neil Thomson 合作。 2022 年，他亦曾於柏林的一間歌 劇學院裡協助倫敦市政廳音樂及戲劇學院歌劇系主 任 Dominic Wheeler 成功演出 Jacques Offenbach 的《Orphée aux Enfers》。
除了指揮，子皓亦是一位出色的小提琴手。他目前 是香港中文大學崇基管弦樂團的首席小提琴手，活 躍於樂團 Ponte Orchestra 的演出。他最近亦與香港 中文大學崇基管弦樂團合奏 Max Christian Friedrich Bruch 的《小提琴與中提琴協奏曲》，並於當中獨奏 小提琴。
這次通識教育導師 Rin Tsavalyuk 有幸與子皓展開對 談，探討他如何能夠同時在音樂與醫學兩個不同的 世界裡保持熱情與卓越的表現。
Rin: It seems you remain equally committed to both music and medicine. Speaking of your medical studies, I understand you are spending more time in the hospitals this year.
Tsz Ho: Yes, the first three years of the MBChB program are preclinical, with most of our time spent at CU. Starting in fourth year, we begin clinical practice. For example, in the mornings, we accompany doctors during their rounds. It is quite amusing because hospitals are very hierarchical. You’ll see the senior consultant doctor leading, followed by assistant consultants, medical officers, and then students. If you step back and observe, it’s an entertaining sight—a line of twenty or so people moving in formation.
The experience varies depending on how willing a doctor is to engage with you. They’re often very busy. Sometimes, there are scheduled bedside tutorials where a doctor dedicates an hour to teaching students. In outpatient clinics, we might sit in and observe how doctors interact with patients.
Rin: It seems the Morningside medical students spend a lot of time together.
Tsz Ho: Yes, the medical community at Morningside is very tight-knit. Our schedules are different from everyone else’s—our breaks don’t align. We share unique struggles, which brings us closer. That said, we all have friends outside of medicine, too.
Rin: Speaking of tight-knit communities, I know that you have been involved with the music community at Morningside. Now you are also very involved with the Hong Kong and CU music scenes. Can you tell me more about your musical journey and your progression as a musician?
Tsz Ho: Like many Hong Kong students, I started playing the violin and the piano at a very young age. However, I didn’t realize I was passionate about music until middle school. In Hong Kong, it is customary to learn how to play musical instruments, so it took me time to recognize my own interest. My musical training was classically based, but I also started to play in orchestras from primary school onward. At university, I had the freedom to explore different styles and experiment.
Rin ： 說到歸屬感，我知道你也參與不少晨興的音 樂活動。後來，你亦很活躍於香港與中大的音樂圈 子。可以分享一下你的音樂旅程嗎？
子皓（後排右三）與一眾醫科同學合影留念。
Tsz Ho (back row, third from right) and fellow medical students
I chose CU because of its music community, which is larger than at most other universities. I also knew I could continue music at Morningside. I joined a couple of jam sessions with the MC Music Community and eventually I started playing the keys for the MC Band. Those jam sessions are some of my fondest memories at Morningside.
I joined The CUHK Chung Chi Orchestra in my first year and I still play the violin with them. I already knew some members from primary and secondary school. The music world in Hong Kong is small, and we all know each other. That sense of community means a lot to me.
Rin: You’ve also pursued exciting opportunities outside the university.
Tsz Ho: I’ve always wanted to work in musical theater. I find it more accessible for audiences to connect with emotionally. I participated in some amateur productions in high school, which, frankly, weren’t very good. Yet that experience inspired me to find other opportunities related to musical theater. In my first year, I was full of energy and eager to be more involved. I was bold, too—I reached out to people on Facebook, sent cold emails. I wouldn’t do it now, but as a freshman, I had nothing to lose.
That is how I got involved with Face Productions. Their music director was going to be away for some time, and they needed someone to teach kids how to sing. I helped with that, and eventually, they offered me the role of musical director for one of their productions.
My other major music commitment is with Hong Kong Singers, a community musical theater group. I emailed them expressing my interest, and though they replied six or seven months later, it led to an opportunity. Putting yourself out there is a slow process but it pays off.
They initially asked me to help with sound checks, and for their next production, I was offered the role of Assistant to the Musical Director. My responsibilities include teaching songs to different groups of singers, facilitating communication within the team, and ensuring rehearsals run smoothly. The Musical Director emphasized the importance of communication and creating a positive atmosphere. How do you make sure people want to come back for a second rehearsal or a second
Tsz Ho performing during Morningside College Music Night
production? How do you make a four-hour rehearsal enjoyable? And at the end of the rehearsal, how do you make people say, “Oh, I wish that was longer…”?
Rin: This is very impressive and certainly requires a lot of personal growth.
Tsz Ho: Much of this work involves learning on your feet. You’re constantly picking up little insights and techniques. Conducting, for example, is an art that’s hard to quantify—it’s something you observe and experience. When I first had to lead a rehearsal with a student orchestra, I was terrified. But with each experience, it becomes less daunting. I’ve learned to embrace mistakes and be upfront about them. That mindset has been invaluable in medicine, too. Many people are too proud or scared to admit when they don’t know something, but in medicine, that can have serious consequences.
Rin: It seems that you have access to so many different small communities. Is there any overlap between the music and the medicine communities?
Tsz Ho: Yes, there are many parallels between music and medicine. Both are about healing, but they also share practical similarities. They are hands-on disciplines that require intense focus. You need a strong theoretical foundation, but ultimately, it’s about practice.
For medics specifically, music is a form of escapism. I am part of an established community called Medical Musicians. It is composed of medical students, doctors, healthcare professionals, public health professionals. We come together to play chamber music and occasionally orchestral performances. The community is very strong. I remember in my freshman year, a quintet of doctors in their first year of residency were performing at one of the Medical Musicians concerts. They used to record videos of them rehearsing. I remember seeing a video of their 3AM rehearsal in someone’s house. They had just gotten off call and this was the only time they all had free in common.
Taking time to step away and focus on something else helps you return to your primary work with renewed energy.
Rin: I see now how both these fields attract similar types of people. You mention that having multiple commitments helps you to shift your focus and relax more. How do you manage your time?
Tsz Ho conducting The CUHK Chung Chi Orchestra 子皓擔任香港中文大學崇基管弦樂團指揮。
子皓（左下）於香港醫樂人演出中。攝影：香港醫樂人
Tsz Ho: I’m not naturally the most structured person, but to make this work, I had to become one. In my second year, I overcommitted and burned out. The workload in medical studies increases significantly in the second year, and I did not anticipate that. At the same time, my efforts to find music opportunities were paying off, and I took on freelancing, orchestra, and teaching. And I burned out. I learned to say ‘no’ the hard way. It is a difficult but necessary lesson. Being half-committed is unfair to yourself and others.
Rin: And yet, even with this new learned lesson of saying ‘no’, you’ve been involved in various things not just domestically, but also internationally. I know that you took a conducting course in Wales, and you worked as an assistant for an opera in Berlin.
Tsz Ho: A few years ago, there were not many opportunities to learn conducting in Hong Kong. It is becoming more common now, which I am glad to see. I mentioned how conducting is learned from observing. During primary and secondary school, I saw how conductors shaped the music and dynamics of an orchestra, and that sparked my interest. I wanted formal training, so I took a short course in Wales. It was part of the festival Musicfest Aberystwyth in Wales, and it was led by Toby Purser, the Head of Conducting at Royal College of Music.
The Opera Academy in Berlin was recruiting assistant conductors because they have many singers and needed additional support. I applied to be an assistant conductor and miraculously was selected as one of the two assistant conductors. It was a very intense experience—a month and a half in Berlin of nonstop rehearsals—but I have certainly learned a lot from the experience.
Rin: This is fascinating. To close, what are your aspirations in music and medicine?
Tsz Ho: In medicine, I am still in the process of discovery. I don’t think I will be a surgeon. I am quite clumsy with my hands. There are also specialties like anesthesia or radiology that require less patient interaction, but I enjoy connecting with patients, so I’m keeping my options open.
In music, I would love to continue conducting and performing in orchestras. Conducting a musical with a live orchestra would be a dream—it would combine so many of my musical interests.
Whatever comes next, both music and medicine will undoubtedly be part of it.
Tsz Ho (bottom left) at the Medical Musicians performance. Photograph by Medical Musicians
By Kaitlyn Roukey
Myles Ng ’23 discusses challenges facing migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong and what steps we can all take to help (TEDxHKU February 2023).
MYLES NG: FOUNDER OF HELPBRIDGE 黃忠文：HelpBridge創辦人
If you ever have the pleasure of meeting Myles Ng, he will probably introduce himself as an education entrepreneur, people professional, and community builder. Back in 2018, he was just getting started as a first-year student at Morningside.
Each summer, the service learning trip to Morocco introduces students to founders and service providers at nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social enterprises that focus on women’s empowerment and environmental sustainability. Myles was one of the youngest students to participate in the programme in 2019. Verdaterre, a Rabat-based social enterprise that recycles waste into fertile soil for local farmers, proved to Myles that a civil society organization could productively operate at scale. “I found it amazing how the founder was able to strike this balance between entrepreneurship and helping underprivileged parts of the community improve their lives,” Myles shared. “It helped me understand that social entrepreneurship was a great way to make capitalism impact-driven.” This model became a blueprint for Myles when he and other cofounders developed their own social enterprise, HelpBridge, just a few years later.
In its most original form, HelpBridge was an app and information sharing platform for migrant domestic workers; migrants could ask questions and connect with NGO communications officers. The goal was to provide workers with accessible information about their rights in Hong Kong. Once the app was up, running, and being accessed by over 2,000 migrant domestic workers across Hong Kong, Myles and his team reflected on their long-term goals for this young social enterprise. “I realized, especially when it comes to creating anything socially impactful, people, including myself, can be so obsessed with the solution without fully understanding the problem,” Myles explained.
To that end, migrant domestic workers had a prominent voice in deciding HelpBridge’s next move. Through a variety of conversations and surveys, it was clear that what workers needed was empowerment and the tools necessary to reintegrate back into their home communities as successful small business owners. Whether it was starting a family restaurant or tindahan convenience store, they were eager to contribute to their local economies and establish entities to help their families thrive for years to come. Thus, HelpBridge Academy was born. The social enterprise is now a hybrid business school that helps domestic workers learn advanced business. The curriculum, authored and taught by Myles, covers digital marketing, bookkeeping and accounting, budget planning, business planning, and business law. In the last year, about 3,000 migrant domestic workers have participated in the course and brought themselves closer to living successfully in their home countries.
Myles and HelpBridge’s growing success were recognized by the Hong Kong Jockey Club last fall when he was selected as one of the Inaugural Philanthropy for Better Cities (PBC) Fellows. “Ultimately, what I want to be is a leader who helps underserved people all around the world reach their dreams. I've seen how reaching one's dream can change a person’s life,” Myles reflected. “I’d love to be able to do that by the millions.”
JAMES A. MIRRLEES POSTGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIP AWARDEE:
MAXWELL CHOI
莫理斯研究生獎學金得獎者：崔晉彥
The James A. Mirrlees Postgraduate Scholarship was established to create opportunities for Morningside graduates to pursue advanced postgraduate studies in the UK and Ireland. This year, the College is pleased to announce that Maxwell Choi ‘24 is the first recipient of this award. Maxwell will continue his studies this fall in the Neurosurgery MRes program at University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology.
During his time at CUHK, Maxwell studied Medicine (MBChB) and graduated with bachelor’s degrees in both Medicine and Surgery through the Global Physician-Leadership Stream (GPS), but he credits his ability to think in critical and complex ways to experiences he had at Morningside. “I vividly remember one communal dining experience with fellow Morningsiders studying architecture, biomedical engineering and fine arts,” he recalled. “That conversation first led me to conceptualize the human skull base as a structure with intricate corridors carrying blood vessels and nerves, akin to a building’s inner framework. The challenge of skull base surgery, I thought, would be to navigate these corridors to reach a target without causing collateral damage.” This discussion with his peers over communal dinner sparked his interest in using advanced neuroimaging to plan minimally invasive pathways to treat deep-seated brain tumors.
The College looks forward to following Maxwell’s progress and is deeply grateful to our donors for ensuring that Professor Mirrlees’ belief in the power of research lives on.
exchange programme that led me to the life I live now, so why not give back?” The Yunfan Exchange Scholarship is established to encourage students to embark on their own exchange journey and to maintain an optimistic and positive spirit even in challenging circumstances.
Olivia Zhong ‘22, Joshua Ngai ‘14, Kelvin Choy ‘16, and Poh Chaichon Wongkham ‘21 由左至右：鍾涵（2022 年）、魏俊（2014 年）、蔡君恒（
The Morningside College Alumni Association (MCAA) is working hard to cultivate productive, consistent, and long-lasting relationships between current students and alumni. Over the course of the 2024-25 academic year, the MCAA hosted a series of small discussions; alumni with varying professional experiences proved how having diverse interests during undergraduate studies can translate to the workforce.
Full of entertaining stories, embarrassing moments, and lessons learned, the Alumni Mentorship Series left current Morningsiders with thoughtful advice and new perspectives through which to think about their own futures. The MCAA plans to use the momentum brought by the Series to establish a more personal mentorship program between alumni and current students in the coming year.
Serag Heiba graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2023 with a BEng in Energy and Environmental Engineering. This is Serag’s first year as a Morningside Junior Fellow.
Kaitlyn Roukey graduated from Saint Michael’s College in 2020 with a BA in Secondary Education and English. This is Kaitlyn’s third year as a Morningside Junior Fellow.
Ekaterina “Rin” Tsavalyuk graduated from Wellesley College in 2024 with a BA in Economics and French. This is Ekaterina’s first year as a Morningside Junior Fellow.
