Category: Events
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More on the First Joint Celebration
I was just criticized for not updating the blog. I feel pretty shamed to see the last posting was almost 4 months ago. So here some more photos, we used Instagram the first time at this event.
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Partner up in the Year of the Horse
It’s going to be the 11th Annual Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration, and very first time to partner up between our Asian Library and the Department of Asian Studies. Mr. Li has kindly wrote us the couplets, that elegantly describe our library from the scholar’s point of view. They are facing the front entrance of the Asian Center. Dr. Wang is still working on tomorrow’s program, almost midnight.
The Manchuria Workshop was hosted by our own Norman Smith at the IAR co sponsored by the CCR. I helped Norman when I first started at UBC, with his research on women writers and the Japanese occupation. Glad to know he made that project into the first book in English on women’s history in twentieth-century Manchuria. More impressive was that he has published two more books.
I was glad to see Prof. Sun from St. Mary’s and David Luesink, who is moving on to U. of Pittsburgh in August, and asked me to introduce him to Haihui. I enjoyed the chat with Victor from Harvard and CJ from Yale. Their Mandarin is equally fluent as their English. They have been working with a large amount of archives from China, Japan, Russia, and even resources from Korea. I will trace some archives in June from various institutions in Beijing for 4 requests from our PoliSci and History Ph.Ds.
The Grant proposal was the only thing on my mind for over a week. Finally, I could left it with UW colleagues. Replied all messages by 6:45 pm, and felt like I need something to refresh my mind this Friday. Chris‘ talk at RPL was perfect! Not too academic, and very refreshing! 
He brought the audience back to 100 years ago on Chinese comic cultures. Unlike our common impression of that historical time, the print media was full of jokes and funny stories. I was especially impressed by the 1928 story of Female Toys, very funny. As Chris said, 80 years ago, the word humour made its way to China, but Chinese writers, like Han Yu, Wu Jianren talked about it in different ways before.
Glad to experience the wonderful program at my own community library, and found out a series of Chinese literature programs have been scheduled by Wendy. More UBC folks are coming to Richmond. I can’t make to another Chris‘ talk next week, but, Alison and our Chris will be back in April on Mo Yan. Rea (老雷） used mandarin through out the entire talk, and he made the audience wonder if he was half Chinese. He even made a couple of jokes afterwards with me and his students in Mandarin. Good sense of Humour!
The 10th year, and a couple of new changes: some mature students in 100 level Chinese language courses and they made the best performers. Preschool kids in the neighbourhood came and turned out to be the best audience. Yves, representing IAR, attended the event and gave speech in Chinese. Next year, the Asian Library should really work with the two departments from the very beginning. Some things never change at this annual event: our happy students and instructors. I am very proud of them making the largest program outside of China so strong and the lunar new year celebration so attractive.
I enjoyed learning from this Symposium held at the Sun Yat-sen U. Libraries. Just received the email on finalizing my paper to be included in the proceeding. Although
I understand the connection to Guangzhou, I was suprised by how many people approached me on collaboration proposals. I remember the complement of Mr. Yao Boyue from Peking U. and Prof. Lu Jintang from Taiwan U.
I made many new friends and feel lucky meeting those experts I only met in the virtual space before. Prof. Pan Jianguo, Mr. Wei Li, Ms. Li Yonghui, etc. I was happy to renew our friendship and learning from the mentors. Mr. Shen Jin, happily moved on from Harvard, he was very busy as the organizer. I was humbled by his closing remarks as my presentation “brought the attendees new knowledge”. Kept Soren waiting for the Li Erqiao’s manuscript and lots of interests in our collection, such as manuscripts and seals. Will try to email them this weekend.
Very impressed by the following presenters: Prof. Wang Guoliang from Taiwan U. on Qian Qianyi’s collection, Princeton’s Dr. Ma on Hong Yu Lou, Dr. Wang Lei from SYS U. on their Huizhou contract documents, NLC’s Li Jining, etc.
11月9日的飞机居然准点到达白云机场。在咖啡座等了树勇片刻，欣赏着窗外繁茂的草木。
晚饭时分，广州外商酒店的大堂被这帮老朋友的reunion渲染得其热无比。虽然每年都在美国见Soren，但他和沈津老师一样，到国内工作，这次在广州有机会向他请教实在难得。
大师兄一见面就高喊，“比北京好多了吧？！” 我忍不住大笑，想起他几天前穿衬衫在北京大雪中奔跑的情形。他还是怀念春天在温哥华的聚会。遇到不少港台的同仁，都对敝校环境津津乐道，让我有了想家的感觉。
在这岁末冬初的季节，漫步在中山大学的校园。除了闹中取静的图书馆的书香，还有各种岭南花草暗香浮动。深深地呼吸，我告诫自己要好好地学习和感受。
Stayed behind in Beijing for UBC access privelage and new requirements for vendors.
Presenting at CASS , suprisingly with new discovery and project proposals. Xu Huan at PKU and Joe from Apabi also asked for meetings, but it didn’t work out due to time restraints. Students and young librarians started sending me follow-up questions from Japan and Beijing. They and ref questions from home kept me busy working from hotel rooms.
We saw this winter’s first snow in Beijing and it didn’t stop people from attending the PKU conference. More people showed up at the Opening than expected despite the slushy road condition. Mary Lee Kennedy and Ingrid’s speeches were quite impressive.
Catherine Quinlan, our former UL, and now at USC, was presenting on her current library in a super fast pace. Zhijia was humble as usual. Her experience and tips of working with the National Central Library in Taiwan are quite useful for our projects, such as: to get the conservation money ready before they started their rare book digitization.