Professor Ling, Members of the Organising
Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am most delighted and honored to be invited to participate in this conference to celebrate Professor Wai Keung Li’s 70th birthday. I must thank the organizing committee, and, in particular, Professors Shiqing Ling, Stephen Li and Guodong Li for making my trip possible.
As the conference material has already given a nice description of Wai Keung’s career and achievements, I will start with a few personal reminiscences. If my memory serves me properly, I first met Wai Keung in the summer of 1982, shortly after my arrival at CUHK. The meeting took place, not in my office as I had none at the time, but somewhere inside or near my CUHK residence. Wai Keung was keen to return to Hong Kong from the National University of Singapore, where he held his first job after his PhD from Canada. He impressed me so much that I offered him a lectureship in my new department. Alas, Professor John Aitchison of HKU beat me inthe game. HKU’s gain was CUHK’s loss.
I left CUHK in 1986.
As Laozi said, “Good luck hides within bad luck!” About 15 years later, Wai Keung was instrumental in getting me a distinguished visiting professorship at HKU in 1997, that important year in the history of my birthplace. So, I was not unhappy to leave the University of Kent at Canterbury UK after serving it for more than 10 years.
Some of you might wonder how I, as a visitor, became the Founding Dean of the Graduate School of HKU. Once again, it was all due to Wai Keung. He suggested that I should attend their Senate meeting shortly after my arrival at HKU. This I did. During the senate debate on whether HKU should set up a graduate school, I noticed that among dissenting voices were mostly those senate members speaking immaculate Queen's English, acquired, no doubt, from some public schools in the UK! So, I spoke up and said, ‘I have just arrived from England. Let me share with Senate members some recent developments in the UK. An increasing number of universities in the UK have established Graduate Schools. Despite the fact that it might be an US invention, I personally think that we are witnessing anirresistible international trend.’ After my interjection, the motion was carried. The Vice Chancellor (i.e., the President), Professor Patrick Cheng, was very happy, so much so that he asked me to be the Founding Dean. Thanks to Wai Keung and my own big mouth, I lost the chance of a quiet life!
Now, please allow me to say a few words about Wai Keung's research. What has impressed me most is his adaptability and versatility. He has always managed to have his hands on the pulse of current research trends. In his younger days, he caught the Box-Jenkins fever, specialising in goodness-of-fit tests and made lasting contributions there. Witness his delightful book on the topic. He even corrected some serious errors committed by others in thearea! His joint work with his mentor, Professor A I McLeod, on fractional time series modelling paralleled Clive Granger's contributions. That was mostly in the 1980s and confined to the linear world. Although he continued his linear works, starting fromthe 1990s onwards, he has widened his horizons considerably and attacked problems in nonlinear time series modelling, (such as the threshold models, the GARCH models), semiparametric and nonparametric modelling, high dimensional data, machine learning, finance, etc., all at the cutting edge of modern statistics. I am sure many more goodies will come out of Wai Keung's bags.
Since our first meeting in 1982, our friendship has lasted more than 40 years. Therefore, it remains for me to wish my longtime friend, Professor Wai Keung Li, many happy returns and many productive years!
Thank you all!
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