ssuni86

My Gwulo user name--ssuni86--is an homage to the SS Universe, the ship that first carried me to Hong Kong in 1986 as a university student in the Semester at Sea program.  In the 1960s this program partnered with C.Y. Tung, who planned to use the Queen Elizabeth as a floating university campus.  Regrettably, the Queen Elizabeth burned in Victoria Harbor before it could be refitted for the Semester at Sea program, then known as World Campus Afloat.  C.Y. Tung offered the SS Universe as a replacement ship.  Semester at Sea is still going strong today with Colorado State University as its academic partner.

Since the waning colonial days of 1986 I have visited Hong Kong numerous times and in various capacites--tourist, travel writer, transit lounger, teacher, and academic researcher.  Over time my interest in Hong Kong's history has focused on the American air war over the occupied colony during the Second World War.  I have published articles on this subject in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong and have written a book as well: Bold Venture: The American Bombing of Japanese-Occupied Hong Kong, 1942-1945 (University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, 2019).

I am a now tenured professor of English at Central Michigan University, which is located in the center of the mitten.  If you know Michigan, you'll get the reference.

--Steven K. Bailey