HKU Campus Lore, Anecdotes & Speech (Module Index)

Unofficial-history zone · Module 15 · index hub. This module collects HKU campus legends, hall traditions, and the history of student media and speech spaces. Pure folk legends are physically isolated in vermilion-marked legend cards, labelled "circulated unverified" or "tall tale"; sourced entries carry a note on source strength and a credibility label; contested entries present multiple accounts side by side without adjudicating. Any individual is referred to only as "Mr. [surname]"; current leadership is referred to by title, not by name. Specific on-campus events touching 2019 / the unrest / Hong Kong independence are, per §6.2, link-only; see Module 18.

# Files in this module

# Two threads at a glance

# 1. Legend vs. sourced account (see Campus Legends and Hall Traditions)

• Physically isolated folk legends: the Lotus Pond female ghost, the curse of the University Hall statue, the medical school morgue — all orally circulated, with no official or archival corroboration, labelled "circulated, unverified." Taking the two most widely circulated as examples: according to a "Twelve Legends" series compiled from popular sources^※, the Lotus Pond legend tells of a female student in an unrequited relationship with a professor who, after being stood up, drowned herself in the pond and has since asked passing students for the time at night; the medical school morgue legend concerns a 1980s orientation dare said to have offered eligibility to dance with the "faculty belle" in exchange for spending a night alone with a corpse, and the story is said to end with a horror twist. Both belong to the same "seven wonders" genre of campus folklore found at other Hong Kong universities — such as CUHK's "oxtail soup" and HKUST's "red eyes" — none of which has archival or official corroboration; they are presented here as folklore, not treated as historical fact.
• Tall tales the university has officially clarified: according to HKU's official "University Identity" page^※, the "Vniversity" spelling on the Main Building was a deliberate imitation of Latin inscriptional style (Roman inscriptions rendering U as V), not, as popularly claimed, a "construction error" or something connected to the Japanese occupation — a tall tale that the university's own account directly contradicts.
• Sourced hall traditions: according to the Antiquities and Monuments Office^※, the Main Building's great hall was renamed "Loke Yew Hall" in 1956 in honour of early benefactor Loke Yew; also noted are the St John's high-table dinner (1916), the Round-the-Island run (RTI, 1984), the "Three Treasures" of University Hall, and the honorary university fellowship awarded to Ms. Yuen So-mui ("Sister Sam") in 2009.

These two categories are physically separated throughout this module: unsourced legends are placed within clearly marked "legend cards" labelled "circulated, unverified" or "tall tale"; sourced hall customs and naming histories are presented as ordinary text with sources noted. This layout is itself the module's core method — campus "unofficial history" is not "fake news," but material arranged by strength of evidence, letting readers judge credibility for themselves rather than having the editors decide what is true.

# 2. History of student media and speech (see Student Media and Free Speech)

• Publication history of Undergrad: according to Wikipedia^※, the magazine was founded in 1952, switched to Chinese in 1959, served in the 1960s as an early voice of the Chinese-language movement, published the special issue Five-Coloured Stone in 1996, and ceased publication in 2021 after the student union's recognition was withdrawn.
• Democracy Wall: as a general category of campus public noticeboard, this is well sourced — such boards are common across Hong Kong universities, used by students to post views on university governance and wider social issues. according to the general description in the Wikipedia entry for the Democracy Wall (City University of Hong Kong)^※, such noticeboards typically require posters to comply with local law and take responsibility for their content. according to reporting and on-site photographs from Hong Kong Free Press, 2020^※, HKU's Democracy Wall was taken down by the university in October 2020; the report placed this within the wider context of Hong Kong university campuses "becoming a free-speech battleground." The specific evolution of the Democracy Wall after 2019 touches highly sensitive matters and, per §6.2, is link-only (see Module 18); this index states only the verifiable public fact of the board's removal, without further comment.
• The 2022 "reputation" clause: according to the South China Morning Post^※, the Council proposed listing "bringing the university into disrepute" as a disciplinable offence (with penalties including suspension and expulsion); the university said this was intended to "close a loophole in the regulations and safeguard the university's reputation," while staff, students and academics criticised the wording as overly broad and warned it risked suppressing speech — accounts from both sides are presented side by side, without adjudication.

# 3. Why does "unofficial history" need its own module?

The relationship between HKU's official narrative (reference zone, modules 00–12) and this module (unofficial-history zone, module 15) is not one of "true vs. false," but a division of labour by type of evidence and narrative function: the official reference zone covers verifiable institutional facts, data, and biographical detail; the unofficial-history zone covers material that is equally present in campus collective memory but varies widely in evidentiary strength — some of it is pure urban legend (such as the Lotus Pond ghost), some of it is a tall tale the university has itself debunked (such as the "Vniversity" spelling), and some of it is well documented but simply outside the "main line" of institutional history (such as the Three Treasures of University Hall or the St John's high-table dinner).

Excluding all three categories from the official reference zone might seem "safe," but it would distort the campus historical record — for instance, the rise and fall of the Democracy Wall is itself a mirror of how HKU's campus speech environment has changed over the past decade, and avoiding the subject would leave the picture incomplete. This module's approach is physical separation plus credibility labelling: ensuring that readers always know, for any given item, whether they are reading a "verified archival fact," an account "cross-corroborated by multiple sources," or a piece of "folklore to be taken with caution" — without having to rely on the editors' subjective judgment. This is one concrete attempt to balance the site's "unofficial" positioning with "responsible narration." The demand this method places on readers is, in turn, an invitation: readers are invited to read this module more actively and critically — not passively accepting either an "official narrative" or a set of "circulating rumours," but learning to distinguish tiers of evidence and judge for themselves what is worth believing and what should be taken only as folklore.

# See also

• 07 · Student Media — the nature and founding dates of various publications (factual record)
• 10 · Colleges/Halls — factual records of individual halls (University Hall, St John's, Lady Ho Tung Hall, etc.)
• 13 · Governance and Reform — governance disputes such as the 2015 pro-vice-chancellor selection controversy
• 14 · History of Student Movements — a general history of the student union, Undergrad, and student movements
• 18 · Wilder Student Movements — matters relating to 2019 / the unrest / Hong Kong independence: link-only directory