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Events Professional Development Reference Questions

Developmental diasporas in China and India

Professor Kellee Tsai from Johns Hopkins was invited to Political Science as a distinguished speaker. Lots of my friends attended Johns Hopkins Nanjing Centre. Prof. Tsai’s talk was held in Buchanan Penthouse in the unusually warm and bright Friday afternoon. She compared migration and diaspora capital flows in China and India, which she thinks should be incorporated into explainations of development. Prof. Tsai proposed to reconsider conventional capital in the two countries. She used the stats of 56 millions of Chinese residing in 120 countries and regions, which is pretty close to the Chinese official number–45 millions in the past 30 years, just difference time span. She explained that the number is more general and diasporas more refers to network. She made a joke of herself as not networked, alone and from New Jersey.

I wasn’t suprised to see many familiar faces at the talk. Reference requests from PolSci are increasing, and now with a list of new book purchasing request. I can’t wait to read Prof’s Tsai’s two most cited books in her field. Hope to see her new book soon.

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Events Experience Professional Development Tech Trends What others are saying

Highlight of the Trip

Toronto CentreThis year’s CEAL conference focused on the TS restructure, and we at UBC have been there and have done it. Keynote speech by Prof. Dai Jinhua, Friendship with my fellow CEAL members and ROM visit are some highlights of the trip.

Thanks to Stephen’s invitation and arrangement, I was able to skip the official visit to UT and ROM on the 15th, and made it to the keynote. We arrived in the Grand Ballroom earlier to occupy the front seats. Gail Hershatter, the president of the association greeted Haihui and chatted about the necessity of the English version of her book. Zhong Jing had an exciting catch-up with her Peking U prof. Dai. I only read Dai’s writing on Chinese cinema for the MAPPS. She’s tall, has a firm voice, which makes her speech more poweful. Instead of movie or popular culture critic, she criticized both communism and developmental capitalism in the post cold-war era. She tried to redefine current nature of the Chinese society, its class structure and a new global position.

ROM

Haihui has gained all my respect from previous years’ workshops and conference. No matter how intensive the programs are, she always makes time talking and encouraging me with her insights and ideas as a historian. I have found the book she recommended in Koerner: The Warmth of Other Suns.

The Royal Ontorio Museum special visit from its back door was once in a life time experience. We were amazed by Dr. Shen’s intro–over 30,000 objects from imperial China, and only less than 10% is on current display. Over 8,000 people visit the museum everyday during the spring break. We spent a whole afternoon there and were still excited at dinner time reflecting on our visit. Like those stories behind the artifacts and our rare books, there is a fate in everything, so is in our friendship. Feel lucky among my kind and knowledgeable CEAL fellows. Stephen is especially helpful with the Council and Society’s official programs and our small group annual tradition. No regret on this trip. When I rushed through the city centre blocks between meetings, I saw the CN Tower behind some skyscrapers, but had no time to pay a visit. Caught my evening flight with very sleepy eyes. Is it the jet lag? or the bright sunset in Toronto?

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Events Experience Professional Development

Midnight in Toronto

The flight convinced me how large Canada is. It was late, but I am glad that the pilot didn’t take sick leave. Caught the airport express and arrived at Sheraton around midnight.

Wonder if that is the old City Hall outside of our hotel room window

Our room on the 17th floor faces the City Hall, the landmark building opened in 1965, and the only one I can recognize during this first visit. I am sure Stephen will fill my knowledge gap on his city and entertain us with great programs.

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Experience Life Professional Development

温哥华的冬天

本来这里的冬天就不冷,而今年尤其如此。 阳光灿烂的日子很多。但是又有几位同行朋友离开。沁沁已经荣获西安大略大学的职位,朱磊乔迁硅谷,黄祺也将告别温哥华。假期忙着给他们送行,心中难免有些失落。但是,我们不都随着工作四海为家吗?收到他们的来信或者电话,语气中已经没有了最初的惆怅。 龙年将至,祝那些在温哥华相识相知的朋友们过得更好!

下班时月光下的校园

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Events Experience Instructions Libraries in China Professional Development

Wuhan, 10/29 to 11/3

Glad to see Wuhan as one of the stops of the TGAG trip. On top of the work, it’s like a reunion event. Jingxia successfully worked out the program held in her City Library, just like she brought her library into IFLA. I felt pressure after I saw the program package already in my hotel room.

The group had a meeting after dinner to clarify what we each need to work on. Thanks for the well equiped auditorium, I could move freely on the stage and had my eyes on the entire audience.

Glad to learn the Wuhan Library’s weekend workshops. Some library directors grabbed me to the side and told me their dilema and they had to activate all kinds of connections in order to survive.


Wuhan U just built and was about to open another new library. Marble floor and walls in the lobby. We used to have dance parties in the dinning hall near our dorm, it would be nice to dance here.

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Events Experience Instructions Libraries in China News & Announcement Professional Development

In Guiyang, 10/24-10/29

Our TGAG team was finally formed in Beijing and I flew back down south to Guiyang to attend the Society’s annual meeting and to train the librarians in Guizhou Province. Although our trainees work in an underdeveloped province, they asked good questions and have strong desire to contribute to their communities. I was impressed by the girl who stood up and asked me questions. We had similar experience, and she is keen volunteering on top of a full-time job. Her email reached me right before I start to teach in Wuhan.

与严秘书长和邱学长合影

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Taiwan Impression

It’s very hot and humid. People are friendly, especially the Library staff. My classmates are from all over the world. I am glad getting to know the ladies from Australia, Mr. Shen from Singapore, Brian from Michigan and Roger from Sweden, a serious scholar and very funny person. Hye-jin was the last one registered. She’s lucky having the support from Notre-Dame even months before she starts to work there. Our academic programs are properly recorded here, so just some quick notes on this post.
Evening outing to Yuanshan Hotel. Yilan Musuem
My favourite is the program on Oct. 19.
Hu Shi Park near Academia Sinica. (Picture at the bottom)

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Events Experience Instructions Libraries in China Life News & Announcement Professional Development

怀念黄宗忠教授

武汉市馆的开幕式上,陈传夫突然低声说, 黄老师走了。 培训的事就在眼前, 各位领导还在讲话, 我却忍不住走出了报告厅。徐鸿和我在厦门黄老生日那天想打电话祝寿,可是很晚都没人接电话。刚到武汉就听到噩耗,走廊里魏主任看出了我的异常,我说只是需要安静地怀念一下我的老师。

我高考那年是黄老师代表武大到北京招生的。受〈女大学生宿舍〉的影响一心想上武大,第一志愿新闻系,第二才是图书馆系。高考成绩比我想像的高出不少,满以为这辈子会当上记者,不料到了武汉, 出席的是图书馆的迎新会。 黄老师找到我, 说是他看到我的成绩,主动把我录取到图书馆专业。新闻系刚成立,无法与图书馆系相提并论。我当时实在不能理解这一生就如此注定了。现在想来,黄老师的决策和教诲至关重要。遗憾的是我不能参加他的葬礼,但是我回来了,是反馈培育过我的导师和我度过4年青春岁月的城市。 黄老师,您的话都应验了。 我以身为您的学生为荣,我知道您也为我骄傲!

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Experience Libraries in China Professional Development

Sleep Over and First-class Home

The longest stay in Chicago was 10 months in 1997, and this trip was counted by hours. The taxi receipt shows 6:56 pm of Sept. 1st. I beat the heavy traffic and had time to change into a dress and snap a shot of the sunset from my room. The dinner meeting was fun and relaxing. First time meeting Paul and Barbara, very suprised by Jiaxun joining U. of Chicago. I like his sincere and confucian smile.

Had a quick morning walk near our hotel Club Quarters, and saw how tall its tower is from the opposite side of the river. No time for breakfast. The hotel’s business centre has coffee, and Shuyong brought us treats. The meeting is important to have my questions answered and bond us as a team. Weird! Very first failed check-in online with United, better leave for the airport earlier.

Shared a taxi with Dr. Cheng, who invited my writings to his series. We had a non-stop talk and the ride seemed to be short! Checked in at the front counter without a seat number on the boarding pass?! We two picked a central location for the last meal in Chicago and chatted more before we waved good-bye. I didn’t realize that I had to walk that far to reach my gate, packed and ready for boarding! I questioned if I could still use my e-ticket seat since it’s not printed to my boarding pass. The busy lady looked up right away, said: Where were you? I called you so many times and now it’s all full, you can’t get onto this flight!

Ha! that’s why, all the weird things happened to me! I told the lady that I promised my kids to have dinner together at home and please help me to keep my promise. She put me on the direct flight instead of transferring in Seattle, first class with future travel credits. Didn’t mean to irritate others at the counter, I told the lady: It must be my lucky day, having yummy lunch with my friend, first-class home and dinner with my family. I ran passing 20 more gates to catch my new flight. I had no room for the 1st-class food, but did have different drinks to celebrate the successful trip and the meeting of TGAG. Waking up from a nap, we were already above Mount Baker.

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Awards, Grants & Scholarships Events Experience Libraries in China News & Announcement Professional Development

THINK GLOBALLY, ACT GLOBALLY

Although thinking globally almost every day through out the last two years, I’ve only worked locally. As a bunch of new programs calling my name, I really like to take a part in them–presenting at Area Studies International Conference at Xiamen U. , attending the workshop in Taiwan by the NCL. Now this TGAG project picked me and makes the trip tightly scheduled together with generous funding outside of UBC. I could sense the trouble and extra work of the TGAG by choosing a Canadian. Can’t wait to meet and get to know them in Chicago.

Received many congrats from colleagues since the TGAG news was exposed in the HR Bulletin. Glad to know that I might hang out with several UBC folks in Asia if my schedule allows. Besides revisiting the potential projects with Peking U and NLC, I’d love to meet the librarians at the Xiamen Children’s Library. We stayed in touch for so many years, but never met in person. The annual reports, thank you letters and drawings from the little readers always light up my holiday seasons. Love to volunteer in person during this trip even just for a few hours . Better to conact the Foundation now.

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