Article

2020 QESAAUSA ANNUAL REPORT

2020 QESAAUSA ANNUAL REPORT

A. Board of Directors

B. The First Virtual Meeting During the Pandemic - 46 attendees from 7 USA locations and HK

C. 2020 QESOSA ANNUAL REPORT

 

A. Board of Directors

President: Doris Tse Siu Fong 謝少芳 69FA

Vice President: Peter Poon Tin Yau 潘天佑 60FA

Secretary: Katherine Wong Chan Wai Ming 陳惠明 69FA

Treasurer: Teresa Tam Mei Mui 譚美梅 73FA

Membership Director: ALex Wong Siu Shun 黃紹舜 69FA

Technology Director: Chi Wo Chung 鍾志和 73FA

Social Director: Shung Keung Lam 林宋強 75FA

Social Director: Keith Cho Ho Chuen 曹浩全 60FA

 

B. The First Virtual Meeting During the Pandemic

There were 46 attendees at our First 2-hour Virtual Meeting on Feb 27, 2021. We were honored to have the presence of Former Teacher Dr. Kai C Leung  梁啓昌博士 and two Past Presidents, Nelson Tsang 曾劍輝 and Joyce Yau 游樂 (from Hong Kong). For the first time, we had all 8 Board of Directors and members from all over (CA, HK, NY, PA, TX, VA, WA, WI) joining us.

 

Because of the pandemic, our 2020 Annual General Meeting in March was cancelled. It was definitely not safe to hold any in-person events in the Fall. Towards the end of 2020, our Board of Directors decided to take a bold step to hold a virtual meeting online around the Lunar New Year on Zoom, even though none of us was skilled with the technology.

 

The Program was fun- and information-packed, covering a wide variety of topics. It was conducted in Cantonese or Chinglish, whichever was comfortable to the speakers. Our IT Director, CW Chung 鍾志和  was in charge of Tech Control and Screen Display while Social Activities Director Keith Cho 曹浩全  & spouse Teresa were our cheerleaders behind the scene. Unfortunately, the meeting was not recorded.

 

Nelson Tsang, the First President of our Association, kicked off the Program by leading us singing the school Song.

 

Social Activities Director,l Shung Lam 林宋強 conducted the segment 「贺新春」。President Doris Tse 謝少芳 greeted everyone with the song 恭喜恭喜. Shung revealed that the song was originally written to celebrate the liberation of the war-suppressed living in 1945. It was then adapted as a happy CNY song in the following year. One by one, the Board of Directors then sent their CNY well wishes to all our guests.

 

Then our Secretary, Katherine Wong 黃陳惠明 delivered the Business Report on the issues concerning the well being of the Association. We were supposed to have an Election of a new Board at this time. Because of the Special Shelter-in-place Order, we had been inactive for a year. To make up for the lost time, the Board proposed to postpone the Election to 2022 and all the Directors had graciously agreed to stay on Board for another year. These proposals were unanimously approved by member voting. We also approved to remove the initial membership fees,  hoping that more alumni from all States will participate in our future functions.

 

Our Treasurer, Teresa Tam 譚美梅, had invited Dr. Abraham Law 羅裕康醫生, a QES Graduate of 1958, to give a keynote presentation on 疫情与疫苗.  Thanks to Dr. Law for explaining and analyzing the concerns on COVID-19 that were in the minds of everybody.

 

Dr. Law’s talk covered the three different vaccines available in US, i.e.  Pfizer, Moderna,  and Johnson & Johnson.  With the help of tables and graphs, he explained the mechanism of how the vaccines triggered the human body to generate antibodies to mount a defense against the virus.

 

He quoted numbers side-by-side to show how the three different vaccines stacked up against each other, in terms of efficacy rates in clinical tests and the possible side-effects.

 

He also touched upon the issue of virus mutations, the different known virus mutants discovered so far (South Africa, Brazil and UK) and the potential impacts on existing vaccines. 

 

Dr. Law’s talk was very informative and easy to understand.  The take-home message of Dr. Law’s talk was that the COVID-19 virus was very damaging to human health, not just fatal. Even for people who were infected and later survived, the infection caused permanent damage to lung tissues (calcification of lung tissues) which would compromise (to various extent) the functional capacity of the human lungs.

 

After the heavy topic on COVID19, our Vice President, Dr. Peter Poon 潘天佑博士, a manager for about a dozen missions at NASA/ JPL/ Caltech, took us 太空漫遊. Dr. Poon showed us videos of the fascinating Mars, Saturn and Voyager Interstellar Exploration trips from projects under his management.

 

1.  Cassini, the biggest mission at JPL, took about seven years to fly to Saturn. 

It brought back fantastic image of Saturn’s rings    Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech 

Video of Cassini mission to Saturn & Titan

https://youtu.be/xrGAQCq9BMU

 

2. Voyagers 1 & 2 of Voyager Interstellar Mission, have been flying for about 44 years. They transmitted fantastic images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and crossed the termination shock. They are the farthest human-made objects from the Earth and will continue to fly in Interstellar Space even after our Earth no longer exists.

Credit: NASA/ JPL/ Caltech

Video of  Voyager 1 and 2

https://youtu.be/xZIB8vauWSI

Article on Voyager Interstellar Mission

https://web.archive.org/web/20180721043427/http://www.telescopemart.com/...

 

3  The Mars missions involve a much shorter flight time of about eight months. They brought back valuable scientific data, amazing pictures including sand dunes, rocks, a mountain three times the height of Mount Everest, and a much longer “Grand Canyon” on Mars. (Note: Another QES alumnus, 李復國 /was the key manager of this at JPL.)

Credit: NASA/ JPL/ Caltech

Video:   Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech 

https://youtu.be/4czjS9h4Fpg

 

In the 天南地北話家常 segment, two alumni Dennis Wong 黃子斌 and Roy Chan,陳思萱 shared with us "Life in Seattle" and "五分钟養生小貼士” respectively.

 

The Program was concluded with an interesting & interactive game-talk on "用眼寫字的藝術” by our Membership Director, Alex Wong 黃紹舜, a 69FA alumnus.

 

Alex started the talk with a little quiz.  He showed the audience two renditions of the same Chinese character 春, both renditions in the Standard K’ai Shu 楷書style.

 

 

He then asked the audience what differences they found in the two different renditions, how they differed and what they liked/disliked and which of the two they liked better. Several responded with their impressions and told the audience what differences they saw. Alex then revealed how the two renditions are different in the eyes of the calligrapher.  When Alex pointed out to us the differences, we were amazed at the sharp discerning eyes of Chinese calligraphers. The fact is most of us missed these differences.  One rendition is better than the other very much exactly and squarely because of these differences. According to Alex, these differences are the result of deliberate and conscious efforts by the calligrapher to maintain stability and balance (平正) while at the same time achieving precarious imbalance (險絕). The calligrapher, according to Alex, if capable of achieving 險絕 while maintaining平正in his calligraphy works, is comparable to the motor cyclist at the circus circling at high speed with one wheel on the ground, and the other wheel up in midair, a feat that testifies to the skillful mastery of two opposing elements, 平正and 險絕.  The take-home message from Alex’s talk is that one learns Chinese calligraphy not just with one’s hand but more so with one’s eyes. Only when one sees in the brush strokes what the master calligrapher was trying to achieve does the calligraphy student have a chance of achieving parity with the master.

 

At the end, Alex even gave us a piece of his calligraph 「福」to take home. 

 

After we 接福後, we took a virtual group picture for reminiscing this wonderful gathering!

 

C. 2020 QESOSA ANNUAL REPORT

Due to the pandemic, the Report was published in late 2021. Please click the dropbox link below to view.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jxbcv51r6mraxvt/Annual%20Report%202020.pdf?dl=0

 

The 2020 and prior years of  QESOSA Annual Report can also be seen and download here:

www.qesosa.org/annual-report/

Member Area: