George She Memorial Dedicated at DBS

Rev. George She served as headmaster of the School from 1955-1961. What makes George She special to DBS? For a start, he was the first Hong Kong-born old boy to become headmaster, his tenure fitting between that of Mr. Goodban and Mr Lowcock. As headmaster George She brought about many innovations. Firstly, he opened wide the school gates to pupils from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Secondly he de-colonized DBS by affirming Chinese in the school's culture. In these two aspects, George She's leadership was ahead of his time and established a new pattern for decades to come.

Old boys of the 1953-65 era rallied to the call of Class 58 which called for donations to renovate the School Chapel and dedicate a memorial plaque to George She as a permanent memory of this beloved headmaster just as other former headmasters are remembered.

It was not possible to record all the memories of George She on the memorial plaque, so a group of 4 editors, led by Dr. Teddy Leung of the class of 58, volunteered their efforts to compile a tribute book to tell the George She story as remembered by his former students for future generations to know. The result is a beautifully prepared book which shall be housed on the adjoining wall of the chapel as well as kept in the school library for all to see and read about.

To read and learn about headmaster George She, students can go to the School Library to browse through the book.

Alumni should contact the headmaster's office to purchase a copy as keepsake and souvenir. The cost per copy at the time of issue (November 2004) was HK$120 or US$15 or Canadian $20.

Talk given at the George She Plaque Dedication Ceremony

George She was the first local boy to become headmaster of DBS. I remember him as the first one to practise Chinese in equal status as English, some 40 years ahead of his time when you consider the political reality of present day Hong Kong.

For Class 58, the wish to honour this former headmaster just simmered below the surface for a long time until the coming of the Internet Age with its unprecedented opportunity for communication between classmates all around the world which began with the formation of the dbs58 website. The discussions led to the George She Project which resulted in a 2 pronged approach.

One was a donation campaign for the renovation of the School Chapel plus a memorial plaque for Headmaster George She. Donors I am happy to report have spanned all the years of George She's headmastership and includes both teachers and students of his time.

The other part of the project was the production of the 'Tribute to Reverend Canon George She' book which aims to tell George She's story for future generations. You will hear more about the book from the editors' representatives momentarily. I urge you to buy a copy for yourself because it is a limited edition!

Additionally, in California, alumni representatives have created a scholarship to aid students in the graduating classes to further studies in the US, and they have kindly named their scholarship 'The George She Scholarship' in his honour. This scholarship is additional to the DBS internal George She scholarships. More information on the GS Scholarship of North America is available in the tribute book.

This evening, as we celebrate the life of Headmaster George She who has left so much to students of his days, we have to thank current Headmaster Terence Chang for entertaining our ideas in the first place, for completing this beautifully renovated chapel and for hosting us all for dinner following this ceremony.

I should mention that we invited Dr. David Zimmern, the son of Reverend George She, (some of you may remember David personally), to come from England to attend this service and to perform the unveiling of the memorial plaque in honour of his late father. Unfortunately, owing to his work schedule, Dr. Zimmern is not able to come.

George She himself might have used the words 'Man proposes, God disposes ...' to describe this situation!

We thank God for DBS, and we thank God for George She.

I now call upon alumni Bruce Chan and Fung Yee Wang, representing the book editors to present the Tribute Book and to say a few words.

To conduct the unveiling of the George She memorial Plaque, I call upon:

Mr. Joel Wong, President of DBS58 website and Headmaster Terence Chang to carry out the unveiling,

Professor Cheng Yiu Chung to represent DBS58 in Hong Kong,

Former Headmaster Mr. Lowcock to join the official party, and

Reverend Paul Tong to bless this activity.

by Paul Young (Class 58 coordinator of the George She Project)

Remarks on the George She Book

Ladies and gentlemen, I feel very honoured to be asked to say a few words on behalf of the Editors about this book, A Tribute to Rev. Canon George She. As you can see from the Title Page, this book was jointly edited, designed and published by four DBS alumni:

Fung Yee Wang (55)
myself, Bruce Chan (57)
Teddy Leung (58)
and Harold Wong (65)

Four "Old Boys" (some of us are also getting a bit old in the usual sense of the word!)

Why and how did this come about? From very early on, when Class '58 and other alumni proposed to the School a Chapel commemoration to honour the Rev. George She, the idea of creating a book of remembrance about him was embraced and this formed a parallel branch of the Chapel project. On the GeorgeShe Yahoo group site created by Class '58 last October, members of the group from different school years posted messages of personal fond memories of our beloved former Headmaster. This had a snowballing effect. By late April, the present editorial team was assembled and set to work in a more structured manner.

Since we are spread around the globe - Yee Wang in Hong Kong, Harold and I in Toronto, and Teddy in Washington, DC - nearly all the editing had to be conducted in cyberspace - via a separate Yahoo group site named "GSBookEditors". Also, as none of us had any publishing expertise of this kind, we had to learn how to do it the hard way - by trial and error. Using the Internet also meant that between May and October, over 2,700 emails, plus numerous uploads and downloads of files were exchanged to achieve our final text for printing.

Enough about our efforts, however. The focus and raison d'etre of all this is to commemorate George She. To this end, we were guided by two main goals. Firstly, the publication would serve as a forum for old boys and former DBS staff to share their thoughts and pay their personal homage to Rev. She. Secondly, the book would be a means to remind the current generation of DBS staff, students and their families that we collectively owe a deep debt of gratitude to an outstanding headmaster. Though he held office for only six years (1955-1961), George She made major lasting contributions to DBS and had a profound impact on the lives of all whom he taught and helped. In this book we have tried to present glimpses of his accomplishments and put them on record for posterity.

To tie this book meaningfully to the Chapel memorial plaque that will soon be unveiled today, two special hardcover editions have been printed besides the 500 paper bound copies. One will be placed within this Chapel as a permanent memento of George She's legacy; the other will be presented as a souvenir keepsake to Dr. David Zimmern, the son of Rev. She. Dr. Zimmern has graciously written for the book a lovely memoir about his father and his life on the school campus. We have invited him to participate in this ceremony as our guest but, most regrettably, due to prior commitments in England, Dr Zimmern is unable to join us, so his copy will be mailed to him instead.

Before I finish my remarks, I wish to express our heartfelt thanks to all who have helped to make this book a reality - to all the former teachers and old boys who contributed their articles, to the present Headmaster, Mr. Terence Chang for permission to quote from back issues of Steps, as well as other DBS archives, to Class '58 for their financial support towards the printing costs, and to those who kindly helped with the distribution of the books delivered by the printer. I'm also pleased to announce that any net proceeds of funds collected for the book orders will be donated to the DBS (USA) George She Scholarship Fund.

From a broader perspective, the Chapel and Book Project is not just about George She: it is about reclaiming our past, and cherishing our DBS legacy. It has been well said, "How can we know where we are going if we do not know where we have been?" To my knowledge, this is the first book of tribute to a former DBS headmaster; let us hope that there will be others in the years ahead.

Now I call upon my fellow-editor Yee Wang to come forward and present the book to the Headmaster.