Campus Slang, Food Culture and the Continuing-Education Schools

"Let's go to P Block." "Eating at AC1." "Heading down to Festival Walk." — To anyone outside CityU, these casual refrains from students mean almost nothing. This piece collects CityU's nicknames, campus jargon and building abbreviations, along with the eating culture built around Festival Walk and the campus canteens. It also sorts out CityU's continuing-education and self-financing institutions — CityU SCOPE — and a piece of self-financing history that is often misremembered: the UOW College Hong Kong, which once belonged to CityU but is now independent. For CityU's place among Hong Kong's eight UGC-funded universities, and the common confusions over names, see <Positioning CityU in Hong Kong's Higher Education Landscape>.

The nicknames and slang below are colloquial speech; this archive simply records them neutrally. Where specific prices or figures are involved, we try to attach a source. Slang is described as "commonly used in the campus community" rather than given authoritative definitions. The affiliations of self-financing institutions have gone through repeated renamings and de-linkings, making them all too easy to confuse. Each entry below is marked "formerly belonged to / currently belongs to / never belonged to" — and anything that cannot be verified is marked "unverified".

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# 1. Names for the University

• The Chinese nickname "城大" (Sing Da): This is the most common short form for City University of Hong Kong, used across media in the Chinese-speaking world and on campus alike.
• The English nicknames "CityU" / "City": In English contexts, the University is usually shortened to CityU; in speech, students and the public often just say "City" (as in "I study at City"). In recent years, the University has also adopted CityUHK as a more explicit abbreviation, to distinguish itself from other "City Universities" around the world.
• Name history: CityU began as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, founded in 1984 and upgraded to a university in 1994. Older generations may therefore still call it "City Poly" — a historical name.

# 2. Campus buildings and landmark terminology

CityU's main campus sits on Tat Chee Avenue in Kowloon Tong. The main buildings are strung along the Academic Building, and the commonly used abbreviations are as follows:

The "AC + number" shorthand is extremely common in CityU student speech (e.g. "eating at AC1"). The academic buildings are linked by walkways and lifts, and connect directly into Festival Walk. For architectural details on the three academic buildings, see 05-campus/buildings-landmarks.md.

# What exactly is "P Block"? The colour-zone room-numbering system of AC1 and the BOC Tower

The "go to P Block" that opened this piece does not refer to a standalone building. It is shorthand for the colour-zone system used in CityU's wayfinding. According to CityU's official wayfinding guide^※, room numbers in the Yeung Kin Man Academic Building (AC1/YEUNG) and the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Complex (BOC) are encoded as "colour-zone initial + four digits":

So "P5612" means room 612 on the 5th floor of AC1's Purple Zone. When students say "going to P Block for class / an interview", they are referring to this colour-zone coding, not to a separate "P Block building". The Bank of China (Hong Kong) Complex stands next to AC1 and uses the same scheme, with the Red Zone (R). The Career and Leadership Centre (CLC) has its offices in that building (see <CityU Students in Everyday Life: Internships, Employment and Overseas Exchange>).

Alongside the colour zones, various informal nicknames circulate in student guides. The "time tunnel"^※, for instance, is student slang for the shaded walkway linking Festival Walk and the main campus; the "3M Bridge" is the footbridge connecting the Runme Shaw Building and the Mong Man Wai Building at the 3M level, with the undergraduate admissions office — where new students collect their IDs — near the 5th floor of the Runme Shaw Building; and the front entrance of AC1 is commonly called the "Red Gate", a long-standing colloquial name (not an official designation — this archive records it purely as campus speech, without any superstition attached). These are handed-down student tips, not official names, and may shift over the years.

# 3. Festival Walk and CityU

The campus sits cheek-by-jowl with the large shopping mall Festival Walk, and the two are directly connected — Festival Walk is in Kowloon Tong and links directly to both CityU and MTR Kowloon Tong station^※. This unusual "university stacked on a shopping mall" arrangement makes Festival Walk almost an extension of CityU life:

• Food: Festival Walk hosts over 200 retail and dining outlets^※. Its food court pulls together TamJai SamGor Mixian, Café de Coral, Yoshinoya, Satay King, Pepper Lunch, KFC and the like — one of the main stomping grounds for everyday meals and meet-ups among CityU students.
• The "Glacier" ice rink: Festival Walk is home to one of Hong Kong's larger indoor rinks, Glacier^※, a familiar landmark on the edge of campus.
• Transport hub: Reached directly via MTR Kowloon Tong station (Kwun Tong line / East Rail line), CityU is a highly accessible urban campus (for commuting routes and the history of the "time tunnel" walkway, see 05-campus/transport-and-facilities.md).

Students sometimes refer to the area where Festival Walk meets AC1 as the "white zone", after the mall's white architectural palette — again student slang, not an official zoning name. This archive records it only as a colloquial usage.

Festival Walk is not CityU property — but CityU has lately been deepening its "ownership" relationship with it. Historically, Festival Walk has been an independent commercial property (successively in the hands of Swire Properties, CITIC Pacific and others), not a CityU asset — see the clarification in Section 5.4 of <Positioning CityU in Hong Kong's Higher Education Landscape>. However, according to media reports in late 2025, Festival Walk's owner Mapletree is selling the mall's office tower for close to HK$2 billion, reportedly to CityU, while retaining full ownership of the retail portion^※ — meaning the "university over a mall" arrangement is evolving from a purely physical connection into CityU holding partial ownership at least of the office-tower interest. This is a media report (the account itself says "reportedly"); the precise floors and closing details await CityU's official announcement, and it should not be read as "Festival Walk now belongs to CityU".

# 4. Campus canteens and food culture

Beyond Festival Walk, the campus itself has several canteens and food outlets. Based on the international-student dining guide and common student lore:

• Canteens in the academic buildings: AC1, AC2 and AC3 each have a canteen. Student word-of-mouth generally rates AC1 as the cheapest, with AC2 and AC3 serving rather more polished fare — these are student taste judgments, not official designations.
• City Express (student canteen): Located on the 5th floor of the Amenities Building, run by the Maxim's fast-food group, and described in campus parlance as one of CityU's largest dining outlets.
• Eating out nearby: The campus is close to Nam Shan Estate (about a 10-minute walk), where the wet-market precinct offers Hong Kong-style cha chaan tengs, wok-fired dishes, Japanese and congee shops — a favourite "second round" destination for CityU students.

CityU's official international-student guide introduces the food scene as "campus dining + more than 30 restaurants in Festival Walk", underscoring the convenience of the dual-track "campus + mall" arrangement. Specific stalls, operators and prices change year to year; what is on the ground today is what counts.

The following breakdown of dining outlets by floor^※ comes from a student-produced newcomer guide (a student-media source; stalls and operators as found on the day):

The table above reflects a student-guide snapshot and complements the "official + word-of-mouth" description in the previous paragraph. Stalls change frequently; if reality differs, defer to CityU's official Catering Outlets page and on-site notices.

# 5. Common abbreviations at a glance

The abbreviations above are the ones in common on-campus use, handy for reading the rest of this site. Official full names and structures are as per CityU's website (some structures have been adjusted in recent years; see the college modules on this site).

Beyond institutional abbreviations, students also use a set of everyday colloquial terms, collated here from freshman guides (student-media accounts, not official definitions — recorded only as commonly used campus speech):

These terms, together with the building abbreviations such as "AC1/AC2/AC3" and "P Block", make up the shared vocabulary by which CityU students recognise one another. As orientation and course-registration arrangements change, individual terms may shift.

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# 6. School of Continuing and Professional Education (CityU SCOPE)

# 6.1 Basic positioning

The School of Continuing and Professional Education (CityU SCOPE) is CityU's continuing and professional education arm, founded in 1991^※, positioned as a provider of continuing education and lifelong learning in Hong Kong. It belongs to CityU as one of its Schools — a faculty-level unit — not as an independent legal entity.

# 6.2 Course scope

According to the School, CityU SCOPE's courses fall into three categories:

CityU SCOPE's programmes are self-financing — a funding stream distinct from CityU's mainstream UGC-funded undergraduate degrees. Aimed at working adults, retrainees and people seeking self-improvement, it is CityU's window onto Hong Kong's lifelong-learning needs.

# 6.3 Where it sits: sharing a building with the main campus, yet a separate system

CityU SCOPE's administrative offices and learning centres are mostly on the main campus — the principal administrative office is at LI-2410, i.e. the 2nd floor of the Li Dak Sum Yip Yio Chin Academic Building (AC2/LI)^※; SCOPE students' dedicated Career Support Centre, meanwhile, is at P5612 — 5th floor, Purple Zone, AC1^※ — using exactly the colour-zone room-number scheme described in Section 2 above (P = Purple Zone). This neatly illustrates that although CityU SCOPE is, in structure, a self-financing school under CityU with its own funding and curriculum separate from the main campus, it physically shares the same academic buildings as main-campus staff and students rather than having a separate campus of its own. SCOPE and the main campus each run separate career-support channels — for main-campus postgraduates and undergraduates, career services are provided by the Career and Leadership Centre (CLC), whose office is in the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Complex (the R zone of the same system) — the two services serve different student groups; see <CityU Students in Everyday Life: Internships, Employment and Overseas Exchange>.

# 7. The self-financing institution that once belonged to CityU: Community College of City University → UOW College Hong Kong

This is the most important, and most easily misremembered, strand in the history of CityU's self-financing arms.

# 7.1 Origins: Community College of City University (CCCU)

In 2004^※, the Hong Kong government announced the phased withdrawal of subvention for sub-degree programmes; CityU set up the Community College of City University (CCCU) to offer self-financing sub-degrees (associate degrees / higher diplomas). At that time CCCU was a self-financing affiliated institution of CityU.

# 7.2 Teaming up with Australia's University of Wollongong, then gradually leaving CityU

On 21 November 2014^※, Australia's University of Wollongong (UOW) and CityU announced a partnership, and the college operated for a period under the joint name UOWCHK / CCCU. A transition of about five years followed, during which the institution moved steadily towards independence; in 2019^※ it was accredited as an independent institution. In July 2020^※ it was formally renamed UOW College Hong Kong (UOWCHK) and officially de-linked from CityU — from then on CityU "focused on academia", while the independent college developed towards becoming a "degree-awarding university / college" in its own right.

# 7.3 Current status (affiliation checked)

# 8. Untangling the common confusions

The self-financing institutions have similar names and shifting affiliations, and the following points in particular must be kept straight — do not mistake these for CityU affiliates:

• Centennial College ≠ CityU: Centennial College is a private college under the University of Hong Kong (HKU)^※, established in 2012 by HKU SPACE in Pok Fu Lam as HKU's private affiliated college. Centennial has no affiliation whatsoever with CityU — crediting it to CityU is a straightforward case of mistaken identity.
• HKCT ≠ CityU: HKCT (Hong Kong College of Technology) is an independent vocational / post-secondary institution, with no affiliation to CityU. Its subsidiary CTIHE (HKCT Institute of Higher Education) is likewise not a CityU affiliate.
• Hong Kong Community College (HKCC) ≠ CityU: HKCC is the self-financing affiliated college of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), and has nothing to do with CityU.

In one sentence: in Hong Kong's self-financing post-secondary landscape, CityU's only genuine self-financing affiliate in its history is CCCU (today's UOW College Hong Kong). Centennial (under HKU), HKCC (under PolyU) and HKCT (independent) are not CityU affiliates and must not be folded into CityU's system.

# 9. Other continuing-education and articulation arrangements at CityU

Alongside CityU SCOPE, the main campus also offers professional development and articulation pathways (CityU SCOPE takes on courses under government-funded frameworks such as CEF and ERB) and postgraduate and professional programmes (offered by the faculties and the Chow Yei Ching School of Graduate Studies, within the main campus's UGC-funded / self-financing postgraduate scope — not elaborated here).

On the mainland, CityU also runs a cross-border joint institution, "City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan)". That is a cross-border jointly established university, different in nature from the "self-financing affiliated post-secondary institution" discussed in this piece; see the internationalisation module of this site rather than this article.

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# 10. Summary

CityU's campus culture is deeply "urban and mallified": a city-centre university seamlessly connected to Festival Walk and the MTR, giving its food, social life and commuting a distinctly "urban convenience" character. In terms of vocabulary, "城大 / CityU / City", "AC1/AC2/AC3" are the high-frequency terms of everyday speech — the shared language by which CityU people recognise one another. On the continuing-education side, CityU SCOPE (1991) is CityU's operating self-financing school of continuing education; and the only self-financing post-secondary affiliate CityU ever had, CCCU, became independent as UOW College Hong Kong in 2020 and is no longer part of the University. Centennial College, HKCC and HKCT, despite their similar-sounding names, have no affiliation with CityU — do not mix them up.

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# Sources

• Study @ CityU — Catering (international student dining guide) — official
• About Festival Walk (mall's official website) — official
• Festival Walk (Wikipedia) — secondary
• CityUHK SCOPE official website — official
• School of Continuing and Professional Education (CityU SCOPE) — DMU partner page — secondary
• UOW College Hong Kong (Wikipedia) — secondary
• Centennial College (Hong Kong) (Wikipedia) — secondary
• Hong Kong Community College (Wikipedia) — secondary
• Way-finding System on Campus (CityU official) — official
• 【CityU】CityU freshman's guide: halls, campus landmarks, canteens, Reg, transport (Knowdable) — secondary (student media)
• Mapletree sells Festival Walk office tower for close to HK$2bn; CityU reportedly the buyer (Orange News, 2025) — news
• CityU SCOPE Career Support Centre — Contact Us — official

# Cross-references

• Positioning CityU in Hong Kong's Higher Education Landscape · Campus Landmarks and Buildings · Transport and Facilities · The Dongguan Campus · CityU Students in Everyday Life: Internships, Employment and Overseas Exchange