CLS International Newsletter

Ministry of Defence Chinese Language School Hong Kong

40^th Anniversary Reunion

 By Major (Retd.) Mick Roberts RAEC

Seventy former staff and students of the Chinese Language School together with their families and friends gathered from all over the world in Hong Kong in November 2007 to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the opening of the school, at a dinner in the magnificent surroundings of the Jockey Club in Shan Kwong Road, Happy Valley.

The school opened in Lyemun Barracks on Hong Kong Island in 1967 and enjoyed 25 years of existence before closing in 1992.  Although originally established to provide Chinese language training for British military personnel of all three services, during its time hundreds of students of various nationalities studied at the school on tailor-made courses in the National Language (Mandarin) and in Cantonese, to suit their particular requirements.  From Lyemun the school subsequently moved to temporary, followed by permanent, accommodation in Osborn Barracks, Kowloon.

Prior to 1967 British military personnel had studied Chinese at universities in Britain and in Hong Kong on courses lasting three years.  It was considered more cost effective that tuition should take place ‘in-house’, and following the opening of the school under the direction of its first Commandant, Squadron Leader Bob Sloss RAF, the course length was immediately cut to two and a half years.  Students sat the Civil Service Linguist level examination after eighteen months, followed by the Interpreter level examination at the end of the course.  During the 1970s the course length was reduced to two years, with the Linguist level examination removed and students working towards the Interpreter level examination only.

By the end of the 1960s officers of the RAEC in the rank of Major had taken over the duties of Commandant and Chief Instructor at the school, with the normal pattern being one year as Chief Instructor, followed by a second year as Commandant.  Before taking up these appointments, they had themselves undertaken the Interpreter course and it was desirable that at any one time one of them had qualified in Mandarin and the other in Cantonese.   Apart from the elementary stages, all tuition was carried out by native speakers of Chinese (both languages) who were recruited locally.  The timetable for an individual student always included a high proportion of one-to-one lessons.

As the school’s reputation grew, military and foreign service personnel from other nations joined courses on a fill-up basis, normally coming to the school in Hong Kong after a first year in their own countries.  For example, personnel of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Britain destined for diplomatic posts in China arrived after completing a first year at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.  From the 1970s onwards military and foreign service students from Australia, New Zealand and the United States could usually be seen at the school, with on occasion students sponsored by the governments of Canada, India, Hong Kong and others.

For British readers, the school’s best known former student is probably Captain Paddy Ashdown of the Royal Marines, now Lord Ashdown, who studied Mandarin in the late 1960s.  Several foreign service students from Australia and New Zealand have gone on to ambassador rank, including Tony Browne, the current New Zealand ambassador to China, and many others have held posts as Defence Attachés in Beijing.  The former military student at the school achieving the highest rank to date is US officer Karl Eikenberry, who recently completed a tour of duty as Commander of Combined Forces in Afghanistan in the rank of Lieutenant General and is now the Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee in Brussels.  As Chief Instructor at the time, it was this author’s privilege to work with Karl in the 1980s when we were both captains; he was the US Liaison Officer at the school.

Frailty unfortunately prevented Bob Sloss, the school’s first Commandant, from attending the 2007 reunion and he sadly died a month later.  However, a message from him was read to the party, which included several former Chief Instructors and Commandants from the RAEC, including (in no particular order) Geoff Chadwick, Kevin McMahon, John Prince, David Syme, Cyril Thomas, Kim Winfield and this author.   Since 1994 a newsletter has been distributed internationally to around 160 former staff and students twice each year and this has helped to keep alive the spirit of an institution which did so much to enrich the lives of those associated with it.   The picture shows former staff and students at the reunion.