Dr. Kwok Kin Poon (潘國鍵, 1949– ) was born in Guangdong, China. He is a historian, a teacher, a Chinese calligrapher as well as a columnist.[1] He studied under the renowned Chinese historian, Keng-wang Yen (嚴耕望),[2][3] at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in the seventies, and eventually obtained his B.A., M.Phil. degrees, as well as a Diploma in Education from the CUHK. Subsequently, he obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Hong Kong, and a M.Ed. degree from the University of Toronto.[4] One of his major contributions to the studies of Chinese history is his book The Northern Wei State and Juan-juan Nomadic Tribe《北魏與蠕蠕關係研究》.[5][6][7][8]
Aside from his academic achievements, Dr. Poon has studied and practiced Chinese calligraphy for more than sixty years. At the age of 18, he won the first prize in the Hong Kong Chinese Calligraphy Open Competition in 1967. Between 1986 and 1988, Dr. Poon held his first series of Chinese calligraphy exhibitions in Hong Kong and in Toronto.[9][10] His calligraphic works has been extensively catalogued in A Collection of Kwok Kin Poon's Calligraphy《潘國鍵書法集》published in 2019.
Dr. Poon was also an active columnist in the Chinese media both in Hong Kong and Toronto. He wrote for the Hong Kong newspaper Wah Kiu between 1984 and 1987, the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao between 1992 and 1995, the Canadian newspaper Ming Pao between 1997 and 2002, and the Canadian newspaper Singtao between 2003 and 2005.[11][12][13] His articles have been archived in a five-volume series, A Collection of Kwok Kin's Newspaper Columns 《國鍵文集》, published in 2019.
In 2018, along with his son KS Vincent Poon, he published the line-by-line English translation of A Narrative on Calligraphy by Sun Guoting 《英譯書譜》, an important document in the study of the art of Chinese calligraphy.[14] A revised version has since been published in 2019 along with other publications. In 2020, along with his son KS Vincent Poon, he published the line-by-line English translation of Laozi's Tao Te Ching.[15]
