Beautiful minds

Dressed in a leather trench coat and high heels, 17-year-old Carolyn Lau Wan-tung projects an air of sophistication far beyond her years. But there's more to her precociousness than meets the eye: Lau speaks as eloquently about North Korea and US politics as Hong Kong's television culture.

Although most teenagers find the subjects yawn-inducing, she has a prodigious appetite for such knowledge. 'I'm curious about the world,' says Lau, a sixth-former at Diocesan Girls' School.

And the material feeds her ambitions to write social commentary. It's a challenge like no other, she says. 'With a novel, you can make it all up and readers would still appreciate it for its creativity,' she says. 'But good commentary has to have substance and feeling. Finding this delicate balance makes it the trickiest literary genre for me.'

Lau was among 20 people, mostly university and high school students, who took part in a young commentators' training programme organised last year by the Roundtable Community. Its success has encouraged the group, which was set up in 2004 to promote social awareness among young people, to run a second three-month programme at the end of February.

Roundtable began as a project by academic Simon Shen Xu-hui to study the local electoral process, but evolved into a network of people from different sectors with an interest in social science.

'We wanted to form a network where members can contribute to society,' says Ian Li Chi-fai, its general manager. Activities are funded mainly by donations from patrons and its 900 plus members, who come from fields as diverse as education and finance.