Author Archives: Phoebe Chow

Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture – Leung Ping-Kwan

Wat Lecture 2011The Department of Asian Studies is pleased to invite you to attend the 2011-12 Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture and its associated activities.

Transformative Identities: Literary Adaptation and Cultural Negotiation in Hong Kong Cinema of the 1950s
Leung Ping-Kwan
Chair Professor of Comparative Literature, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Wednesday, October 5, 7-9pm (reception starts 6pm)
Auditorium, Asian Centre

EVENTS IN CONJUNCTION

Research Seminar: “The Second Writing Career of Eileen Chang”
Monday, October 3, 4-6pm, Room 604 Asian Centre

October Harvest: Chinese and English Poetry Recital (Oct 6)
Thursday, October 6, 3-5pm, Dodson Room, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre

Workshop: “Intersecting Critical & Creative Practices in Academia”
Friday, October 7, 3-5:30pm, Room 2200, Harbour Centre, SFU

For more details, please visit http://www.asia.ubc.ca/watlecture/2011leung.

Mingle @ Asian Library

Mingle @ Asian LibraryCome and join us on September 28th in our 2011 orientation event! In a relaxed atmosphere, grab a cup of coffee, chat with our friendly librarians on anything you want to know about the Library.  You can also check out the new look of our website and our first orientation video.  If you think you know Asian Library pretty well already, challenge yourself with the library games and you will win a prize! So drop by anytime between 3:00 and 6:00pm and say hi to us!

Works by Chinese American Writers

Jia de xi feng

嫁得西风 / 李彦

The Asian Library is happy to announce that we recently received a donation of 67 Chinese titles of monographs from the Society for Chinese Canadian Literature Studies (加拿大華人文學學會).  All are works written by Chinese American writers, including Huang Helang (黃河浪), Lin Tingting (林婷婷), Li Yan (李彥), Zeng Xiaowen (曾曉文)…etc .  Some of them are now on display at the Asian Centre entrance.  The books will be processed and available for circulating in the near future.

WCILCOS 2012 Conference: Chinese Through the Americas

University of British Columbia’s Asian Library is pleased to announce that, in cooperation with the Ohio University Libraries, it will host the 5th WCILCOS International Conference of Institutes and Libraries for Chinese Overseas Studies on Chinese through the Americas. The event will be held May 16th to 19th, 2012 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

The conference now seeks roundtable, panel and paper proposals as well as poster presentations. Please visit http://wcilcos.library.ubc.ca for details.

New Westminster Multicultural Festival (May 21)

UBC Asian Library and the CHRP program will join the Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society (VAHMS) this Saturday (May 21) at the New Westminster Multicultural Festival.

From 12 noon to 5:30pm, visit our booths at the Fraser River Discovery Centre, say hi to our friendly Indic Librarian and Chinese Language Community Archivist, or watch a few educational short films at the theater.   Learn more about the Asian heritage and culture through the interactive games and demonstrations.  You’ll also find music performances, fashion shows and other fun proprams  at the River Market and Hyack Square.  For more information, please visit VAHMS website at http://vahms.org/2011/04/new-westminster-multicultural-festival/

Where Did the Immigrants Actually Come From?

UBC Asian Library, in collaboration with the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum and Archives remounts the exhibit “Where Did the Immigrants Actually Come From?” This exhibit was first shown in the Asian Library in 2010 followed by a two-year project on mapping the villages and towns recorded in the Head Tax database.

The very idiosyncratic dialects of the immigrants from a myriad of villages and towns of southern Guangdong left behind a pool of sometimes indecipherable documentation of their roots. The inadequacies of custom personnel to accurately capture and document the villages and towns of origin in verbatim form culminated in a host of Romanized forms for reported places.  As a result, research based on the place of origin has been rendered fuzzy and inaccurate. Since 2008, Asian Library has organized 20 rounds of community-based meetings with Taishanese / Zhongshanese-speaking participants to match the towns and villages of origin reported by 90% of the immigrants with the original geographical names in Chinese scripts.

The exhibit is now on until July 3rd, Tuesday to Sunday daily 11am-5pm at the Chinese Culture Centre Museum in Chinatown (555 Columbia Street, Vancouver).

Click here for the detailed description of the project and the Head Tax database.

Asian Library Summer Hours (Apr 28- Sept 2, 2011)

Monday to Friday 9:00am-5:00pm
Closed on Saturdays, Sundays & holidays
Visit here for UBC Library open hours

Film on the making of Asian Centre now in cIRcle

The Consulate General of Japan recently made us aware of a short film entitled “The Big Idea“, which looks at Dr. Iida’s proposal to transport the roof of the Sanyo Pavilion (at the 1970 Osaka Expo) to UBC to create the Asian Centre. The film includes footage from the Osaka Expo, as well as UBC Campus at the time. UBC Archives has now digitized this film and has made it available through cIRcle. Please click on the following link to get to the item page, and then select “view in browser” (under files in this item) to quickly open and view the film.
https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/33023

Easter Open Hours

Asian Library open hours during the Easter weekend
(April 22-25):

Friday:  closed
Saturday: 12:00 noon – 5:00 pm
Sunday: closed
Monday: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Visit www.library.ubc.ca for branch hours.

Asian Library Open House 2011: Spring Book Sale

Spring is back, so is our popular annual book sale! As the part II of Asian Library Open House 2011, this book sale carries new, used, and hard-to-find books and magazines in different Asian languages (mainly Chinese and Korean) and some in English.  Prices range from 10 cents to $5 but most of them are 50 cents only!   You should find books you like!  Bring a tote bag with you.  ALL ITEMS CASH and CARRY.

Same day at Asian Centre:

IDENTIVERSE: Group Exhibition of UBC 3rd Year Painting & 4th Year Art Theory – Some of the exhibit shown in our Open House Part I continues to be on display on the upper floor of the Library.

Vancouver Mokuyokai’s 27th Annual Ohanami
(Cherry Blossom Viewing Festival)

Celebrate spring under the cherry blossoms with a tea ceremony, garden tour, haiku writing, kamishibai (Japanese storytelling), origami, yukata-dressing, Japanese food and traditional music at UBC Nitobe Garden, an authentic Japanese garden illuminated by lantern-light for this special event. At 6pm, ring the Pacific Bell outside UBC Asian Centre and send your prayers to those affected by Japan earthquake. For details please visit Vancouver Mokuyokai Society’s website.