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| Professor Tony.F.Chan, President, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology |
Yet another normal day, yet another "i-am-sick-and-tired-of-millions-of-emails" attitude towards the UST Webmail and yet another have-to-do-it email check. "One new and unread message", myPortal told me. "Oh Lord, get a life! What is it this time? Credit Suisse? Fencing? Typhoon(hopefully!)?", I grumbled. "Welcome to HKUST", yelled the subject. Reading further, it was addressed to Lise, Shen and I and made some mention of some random Family Host Program at the Chinese Restaurant on the 30th of September, 2011. It was signed "Tony and Monica Chan"...Tony Chan...Tony Chan...the name seemed familiar. Tony Chan...I kept thinking for a while and then a thunderbolt lit up the skies. OMG!!! Tony Chan as in the THE Tony Chan had written to me. The President of the Hong Kong University and Science and Technology with his wife wanted to meet me and it was no April Fools Day' prank!
The assignments and deadlines of the next few days sort of eroded the initial excitement and on Friday, when I stared idly into my diary, I was taken aback to find a tiny note decorated with x's (Meeting with the President, G/F, 4 PM). Paying careful attention to my otherwise African tribal chieftain attire and letting the razor kiss my chin for the first time in months, I embarked on my historic journey to meet the President. Physics, Humanities and Language classes passed the usual sleepy way and I made it a point to remind every one that I was meeting the President and they were going back home. The "OMG! You are so lucky"s, needless to write, uplifted my otherwise morose spirits.
LANG1007 ended at 4.20 PM and I shot past the Cantonese Class mumbling my apologies to June towards the Chinese Restaurant. Messing up my hair little, indulging in a frantic last minute pressing of my shirt, I made my way nervously to the scheduled venue. With Shreya by my side, I signed against my name, quickly scanned through the list, found a few friends, reassured, entered the banquet hall. A few "Hi!"s later, I found myself talking to Florence Fung, the Manager of the Scholarships and Financial Aid Office at HKUST and we discussed about the exciting lives vegetarians lead at UST. A couple of orange juices and in between a particularly delicious bite of watermelon, a GSO aide rushed to me, asking me to hurry. Completely caught unawares, I made this gallant effort to swallow the humongous watermelon and asked her what happened. Before she could reply, the crowed thinned around the middle making way for someone, obviously VVVVVIP. Dressed in a suit accompanied by his wife in a violet dress, there he was, Professor Tony.F.Chan, the President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, standing right there, offering his hand to me and saying "Hi Sathish!".
"Hel...Hello Sir, it is a pleasure to meet you, ", I stammered, thanks to a courage God alone knows, originated from where. Bragging "I'm meeting with the President" every five minutes was cool but actually meeting him in person was nerve-wrecking. Imagine you are an American and you get to meet Obama for a full two hours...how would you feel? I felt the same! But, my nerves were completely unfounded. President Chan was this rather cool person, humorous and extremely fun to talk to. He asked me about my parents, Singapore and unbelievably, Tamil and Chennai!. He went on to address the gathering explaining how excited he was to be a part of the Family Host Program and introduced Professor Forster of the Global Student Office to me. Mrs. Monica Chan, made me feel completely at ease, inquiring about my Hall VI experience, my ECAs, etc and how I felt about living away from home. Later, Professor Chan and I along with Kelly, Philip and others spoke about the higher education system in different countries(Indonesia, India, IB, Canadian Curriculum, etc), 3 Idiots(everyone in China loves it!), Hong Kong, Professor Chan's work, his past students and his college life. Soon, we were joined by Professor Steven Dekrey, Head of the HKUST's world famous Executive MBA Program and the conversation drifted towards how unique the FHP was and what everyone could do to improve it. Professor Dekrey, for his part, regaled us with how his hostees had become an integral part of his family and how his family was growing with each coming year.Upon his return from Korea, Professor Chan told me that we could go downtown along with Lise and Shen.
All good things come to an end, and awesome things faster still. Without anyone of us realizing it, the minute hand sneaked its way to 12 and it was time for the curtains to fall. The President's Secretary pointed out that it was getting late for his next appointment with the MHSS and he took our leave soon after. Shaking hands once again, the President invited Shreya and I to his home sometime in the near future. Mrs.Chan asked me to email her if I required anything at all and promised to write very soon. I bid her goodbye and thanked her for her kind offer.
Soon, the Chinese Restaurant started emptying. I, however, stood at its doors replaying the whole episode again in my mind. The exhilaration on receiving a mail from the President, the three days of inexplicable euphoria at meeting someone so busy and important and of course, the near-nervous breakdown I had when I actually saw him with Mrs.Chan. I stood there for a long time, savoring every second of the past two hours...the adrenaline rush, the hesitant steps forward, the surrounding crowds, of course, those magical words "Hello, Mr.President"...
