Hong Kong professor brings expertise to rural bridge building project

Professor Edward Ng Yan-yung's life over the past 11 years has been about building bridges on the mainland, both figuratively and literally.

In a literal sense, the bridges he helped design and build have helped people get from town to town and saved lives. And figuratively, he is bridging a culture gap, whereby people from different backgrounds can understand and relate to each other, connecting at both the spiritual and the human level.

Ng's credentials speak for themselves - he has a PhD in architecture from Britain's Cambridge University.

After a number of years lecturing abroad in Britain, the United States and Singapore, he returned to Hong Kong in 1999 to work at Chinese University's school of architecture.

More importantly, he is a man who likes to be kept busy. If he's not in his office or lecture rooms on the CUHK campus, he's likely to be found building a bridge in some faraway village in northwestern China.

It all began in 2002.

Shocked and distressed by a news broadcast about children from the village of Maosi, Gansu province, living in appalling conditions and risking their lives to cross a raging river to go to school, he decided to do something about it.