The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, a place full of artistic atmosphere

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Location: No. 1 Gloucester Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Re : Leslie Cheung Memorial Scholarship
Now: One of the biggest scholarships in the institute

The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts is located at Wanchai. Although the institute is not big, yet it is well scattered and organized and full of artistic atmosphere. After Leslie Cheung passed away for a year, his family set up a “Leslie Cheung Memorial Scholarship” there.
The scholarship will be awarded in May every year.

Ms. Chen Yunhui 陳蘊輝女士has already been working in the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts for 20 years. She recalled that before Leslie Cheung passed away, he already had the idea of setting up a scholarship already . She said, “He had a lot of affections towards the institute. A long time ago, when he was filming his musical TV movie 'Sunset in Paris', I had made some arrangements for him. I could feel his kindness already at that time. He was very polite and respected arts. He talked about his wish to set up a scholarship. Afterwards probably due to busy schedules, no agreement was reached after several discussions."

The exact date that the “Leslie Cheung Memorial Scholarship” was established was in 2004. At that time, Ms. Chen Yunhui was the Manager of the Public Affairs of the institute. She said, “After he passed away, his nieces and Mr. Tong attended our institute. They were thinking of establishing a scholarship under his name. The scholarship is divided into two parts, one is a scholarship in the amount of $100,000 to be granted to the most outstanding student; the other part will be funds to aid those students who have financial difficulties. Each student will receive $35,000 a year. Such assignment is to encourage outstanding students, as well as to help students from poor families.”

The scholarship will be granted in May each year. In the first year, Ophelia Cheung (the eldest sister of Leslie Cheung) who was very close to Leslie was there to attend the presentation of the scholarship. Then in the following years, the scholarships were presented by Leslie’s nieces and Mr. Tong. So far, four students have been benefited from the scholarship. Li Huiyun was one of them. She started to receive this scholarship in 2005 until 2007 when she was fully finished with the curricula of the institute.

“This scholarship had been a great help to me because although I had already obtained the Master Degree in mass media communication at the Baptist University, to continue study in order to get an arts degree was very difficult. Because this was the biggest scholarship offered by the institute, it had supported my school fees and living expenses for three years”, she said. After receiving the scholarship in the first year, Li Huiyun wrote a letter to Leslie’s nieces expressing her gratitude. Every year, when the Leslie Cheung Memorial Scholarship is given out to the recipient, Leslie’s family will come to the institute to meet with the recipient. “The number of people who receive this scholarship is very few, therefore they feel exceptionally close to each other.”

Li Huiyun has now graduated. She teaches English drama in a high school. In her spare time, she holds the post of a theatre director. She was not a Leslie fans in the past, yet “because of the scholarship, I feel so much closer to him. His song ‘Chase’ touches me especially. Every time when I listen to it, I feel that he is telling me that very often we try hard to chase something, yet what we really should look for and treasure is our family!”

Translated by Daydreamer