CHIEF Secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang will follow in the footsteps of some famous folk when she gets her honorary degree from Tufts University this week. The university has doled out special degrees to, among others, US diplomat Winston Lord and King Juan Carlos before getting round to Hong Kong's front-runner for post-1997 top dog.
But when Chan steps up to the podium, she will find someone else hogging the limelight - America's most infamous student.
Tufts has found itself in the middle of student protests after it last week allowed Gina Grant to enrol at the college. Grant, 19, who earlier gained admittance to Harvard, made US headlines when dons expelled her from the college after finding out that she had neglected to mention a salient fact in her application: she killed her mother.
Grant is by all accounts a model student, and even if some of her future colleagues don't want her around, it seems Harvard's loss will be Tufts' gain. But with all the brouhaha, the Chief Secretary may find it hard to interest the US press in the more intricate details of the transitional arrangements for the Special Administrative Region.
