Posted on

Olivia Philips, Highgate School ~ ‘On Harmony’

Professor Sun Hua of Peking University with prizewinners Olivia Phillips (Highgate School) and Desmond Zee (King’s College School Wimbledon)

In this week’s Blog I am proud to present the award winning essay of Olivia Philips.

Here is her self- introduction:

My name is Olivia, I’m 17 years old, and I go to Highgate School in North London. I recently moved to London after living in Hong Kong for 13 years, and now study Mandarin, History, Politics and Biology for my A-levels, and I am hoping to study Chinese and Politics at university. My hobbies include baking, playing netball and reading, in which after I started learning about politics for A Level, have become more and more interested in international relations and global politics.  

I think SACU’s mission to promote cultural understanding and co-operation is extremely important in bridging societies which have previously evolved apart, politically, economically and socially due to globalization and polarizing politics. This mission is critical in creating cohesive governments and promoting inter-governmental co-operation between the UK and China, which can ease hostilities and reduce tensions amplified on an international level. I think that political cohesion and harmony will promote economic unity and ease (including in trade). I hope that this can positively impact society, through politics bridging different cultures, identities and people with different social and traditional values in the UK and China, which can create a more harmonious and accepting society.  

And here is her essay:

In modern day Chinese society, harmony is an embedded philosophical notion, stemming from Confucianism and Taoism which dictates the foundations of Chinese society: in terms of its values, social hierarchy and social norms. However, such an ambiguous and equivocal word also intersects with Chinese political systems, origins of traditional customs and the economy. Accelerated under the leadership of Mao Zedong, who aimed to create a socio-communist society rid of oppression and inequality, achieving harmony (within China) and with other nations (including the UK) has become synonymous with success.

‘ This essay will explore the theories and realities of harmony and how China’s various leaders have influenced its previous harmonious relationships with international nations, often forcing China to reconsider the definition of harmony. Personally, I view harmony in the cultural context of the UK and China as a sharing of a deeply embedded philosophical idea, which is shared with international nations to strengthen their political relationship and create a bridge between two vastly different social and cultural nations. Therefore, this essay will explore harmony in the cultural context of China and the UK in two critical domains: through its philosophies and sharing of intellectual ideas through its literature and through international relations.

Harmony is an intellectual concept which Chinese society orientates itself around, and under the leadership of Chairman Mao, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, China now has the notion of the “Chinese Dream”. Despite these political leaders spanning over over 70 years, harmony has always had an overarching influence over China’s political elite. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Deng Xiaoping generated the impulse for the “invigoration of China”, which in the latter inspired Jiang Zemin’s “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and sparked Hu Jintao’s “harmonious society” idea. Despite differences in slogans, they all have one motivation: to achieve harmony for China.

In terms of international relations, harmony is achieved through a mutual acceptance of political differences and ideology, and with mutual respect for each nation, but without threatening action against one country for their political standing. Regarding this notion of respecting political philosophies, the UK and China have consistently remained independent in terms of their political standing by refusing to comment on practised political ideas. The UK accepted and legitimised China’s political philosophies in 1950, after Mao’s commitment to a cultural and political revolution led to a majority of the nation practising communist ideas.

Further hope for engagement and cooperation between these two powerhouse nations is exemplified by the 2015-2017 Conservative Government and its generation of the “golden era” image, which signified collaboration between such nations. This exemplifies a willingness for the UK and China to cooperate in political fields, by not challenging one anothers political stances, despite varying government formations, including more right wing Conservatives in the UK, and the introduction of the New Labour government which induced immense internal changes within the UK, let alone a change in outlook regarding diplomatic relations.

Conversely, this idea of political harmony has been violated many times over the course of the UK’s relationship with China. First shown by the multiple Opium Wars in the 1800s, which both nations engaged in, which also violated this idea of mutual respect. The UK continued to import opium (from its Indian colonies), which disobeyed the known Chinese policy which banned imports of opium to prevent addiction problems. By directly violating the policies of the Chinese government (at the time), the idea of political harmony was threatened and undermined, by prioritising economic gain (opium for tea) instead of political harmony, in which an effective trade relationship could have been formed, and would have generated the opportunity for these two nations to cooperate in the political field. International conflicts over trade were amplified into territorial gain for the British Empire (in terms of gaining land in Hong Kong, such as Kowloon and Hong Kong Island).

Through small territorial gains, hostilities between China and the UK were accelerated, especially during an era of increasing territorial expansion by the Chinese, as they attempted to revolutionise society. These two major political conflicts led to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which the UK conceded its control of Hong Kong to China, but clarified that Hong Kong was to remain a politically independent state.

( Editor’s clarification : ‘The 1984 Sino-British Declaration established Hong Kong as a special administrative region that would be self-governing with a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign affairs and defence. This is called 一国两制 – yīguó-liǎngzhì, or ‘one country, two systems.)

More recently, the UK has heightened political tensions between the two (already) politically polarised nations. The UK has openly supported sending military support to the South China Sea to directly combat Chinese policies, which are portrayed as expansionist. Such military action has been supported by government issued speeches, including speeches by Rishi Sunak, which have publicly emphasised a lack of willingness to promote collaboration between two countries who fundamentally rely on one another, socially (in terms of immigration) and economically (in terms of trade).

This public condemnation emphasises how the UK Government has taken a series of passive and active approaches, all of which prioritise healing and calming down relations with China, all in the interest of promoting harmony and cooperation. Since a combination of these events from both countries has exponentially increased hostilities, various Conservative Governments have adopted the “protect, align and engage” framework. Although harmony remains the target for both countries to reach (in diplomatic ways), the two nations have become more politically polarised, by their long history, internal political actions, and a change in government agenda and motivation, which have led to a degraded relationship.

Overall, from a diplomatic lens, I view harmony as a mutual respect for one’s political alignment, with a mutual respect for their domestic policy. I also see harmony as a tool which is used to create a boundary to prevent countries from overstepping their power and damaging foreign relations. This harmony cannot be limited only between the UK and China, but this philosophy of maintaining good relations between the two would create harmony and more stable political conditions in the wider world.

Second, from a literature perspective, harmony in the cultural contexts of China and the UK can be viewed as the sharing and open-mindedness of unique pieces of literature to diversify different people’s opinions. Particularly, institutes including the Confucius Institute in London have become inclusive organisations which promote Chinese literature, through young children and aspiring adults learning about China’s unique cultural history and how history has shaped modern day literature. Literature is integral to learning about past social problems, and how society has evolved to become more harmonious and inclusive. Notably, pieces of work by the renowned author Lu Xun elicit how past social problems, including impoverishment, famines, taxes and a burden to work were taken into account by the government, and were used to motivate Mao in the cultural revolution, when simplifying the Chinese language to increase literature levels, and when promoting a society of equality and prosperity.

Therefore, traditionalist pieces of literature promote harmony by uniting the public on domestic disputes and common areas of bitterness, whilst generating harmony in a cultural context by generating meaningful stories which unite a Chinese and UK public, thereby creating a common basis of understanding, and creating a metaphorical bridge between differences in styles of literature. Furthermore, educational systems (internationally) are becoming more open to ideas of linguistics, especially Chinese A Levels, which have a necessary component of literature analysis. This literature analysis not only shapes the minds of young individuals by exposing people to past social issues, but also allows children to resonate and respect traditional literature much more.

Additionally, for children who come from culturally diverse backgrounds, literature allows children to have a form of cultural identification and association with their culture, and in a modern society whereby the sharing of cultural norms and enlightenment is promoted, younger, more easy to influence children will be exposed to the diversity of Chinese culture, thereby generating a desire to discover more about China’s deep rooted and complex history. This promotes harmony which targets younger generations and bridges two socially hyperpolarized societies because of their social norms. Therefore, literature is integral to learning about a country’s social context, and promoting people to making active efforts to understand social problems, thereby promoting an environment of being curious and respectful of cultures, which ultimately promotes harmony and a balance between two very different cultural societies.

Therefore, this essay has explored how harmony can be promoted within the cultural contexts of China and the UK, through the problems each country has faced diplomatically, but also through overcoming historical obstacles and using literature and politics to promote a “golden era” of collaboration, respect and harmony. As harmony is the most deeply embedded traditional value which dictates society, it is important to realise that harmony means the “agreement of ideas, feelings or actions”, which is what can be achieved through the sharing of art, and through politics.

Although politics has created a hostile and degrading environment, it is in the common interest of every successful politician to maximise their diplomatic relations and improve their relations with other countries to the utmost of their potential for the purpose of international security, and most importantly to promote internal and external harmony. In conclusion, harmony (without us realising) is the most critical philosophical ideal which bridges different social, cultural, economic and political societies, and is what keeps the earth rotating to prevent a breakout of anarchy, given that we are all dictated by the values of harmony.

( Disclaimer : The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of SACU)

Posted on

Ella-Mae Cox, Marlborough College

Ella Mae’s self-introduction:

The ‘star flower’, commonly use in Traditional Chinese Medicine to restore harmony to the body.

I am deeply grateful to have received the second-place winner of the SACU essay competition. This recognition means a great deal to me, as I have always been profoundly interested in the link between Chinese and Western cultures. Having spent ten years of my life in Malaysia, I was immersed in a rich cultural diversity that enhanced my curiosity and appreciation for different traditions and perspectives.

From a young age, I have been fascinated by the Chinese language and its cultural significance. It has provided me with a deeper understanding of China’s profound history, vibrant culture, and its evolving relationship with the Western world.

How do you see harmony in the cultural context of China and/or the UK?

Harmony can be seen as ‘an ideal’ or a ‘happy balance of mutual benefit’; Ancient Chinese Confucians believed harmony to be ‘the ability to generate unity or interconnectedness through diversity’. As time has evolved, Harmony has become a concept that many philosophers have struggled to define in simple words but suggest that the harmony between the body and the mind are necessary to enable one’s ability to flourish – Li and Dascha Düring.

The harmony of nature has certain principles: Diversity, Interdependence, Adaption, Health, Geometry, and Oneness. Many argue that the idea of interdependence is crucial to the balance of harmony due to its defining culture being the importance of reliance and understanding. Therefore, the harmony between nations, cultures, and ideologies has large significance to the peace that is upheld within life. The relationship between the UK and China since 1637 has seen harmony in forms of philosophy, science and economics, yet also experienced the effects that inadequate harmony can achieve.

He (和) is the Chinese equivalent of harmony, holding a meaning of ‘harmonious. The Chinese character was often carved onto tortoise shells; it was developed by the philosopher Confucius who preached the idea that harmony can occur without uniformity. This means that the world is full of differences, but the righteous man should be able to achieve balance.

Chinese culture emphasises the importance of togetherness and collaboration to maintain harmony. Within the theory of harmony, different parties, cultures, perspectives form a collective which promotes wellbeing and equity for all. In most cultures, harmony has a role within discussion, politics and foreign affairs. Whereas in Western Cultures harmony does not have an as significant role in society, it is centralised within meditation, mindfulness and more.

Over the years there has been a wavering harmony between the Uk and China’s world of science. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is an important factor in China’s culture and pride, yet the difference in the basis and theories that Western Conventional Medicine has compared to TCM has disrupted the Harmony between the two nations. The concept of ‘harmony of man and nature’ is a very holistic hypothesis that has been the basis of the ancient ideologies of TCM. TCM theories have a deep involvement in the idea of harmony, and they argue that humans and nature have an intertwined relationship of ‘mutual inclusion, connection and coordination’. Nonetheless, harmony is disrupted between the two sciences as Conventional Medicine is famous for its analytical and structural approach regarding evidence based science, whereas TCM is known for its highly synthetic, ‘healing art’ styled perspective.

Additionally, this contrast between the two medicines can be described as the ‘black box theory’ vs the objective anatomy theory. The Western view of the body structure is described as human anatomy, and the structure of the tissue is definite. The TCM view is the black box theory, for example: the kidney has no specific definition, but it is ‘the origin of the 5 viscera and 6 bowels’, this illustrates that there is no simple ‘one definition’ for the kidney, and prove it is much harder to understand than in Western anatomical terms. Another difference between the two concepts is that one is seen as a ‘thought experiment’ and the other is seen as a ‘scientific experiment’. The importance of medical testing in modern-day medicine is large, it allows researchers to collect data, and observe in a controlled environment. The use of these medical experiments allows professors to form hypotheses and find cures and more details about different treatments and illnesses.

This systematic approach has allowed Western Medicine to move forward in its findings. To contradict this Traditional Chinese Medicine takes a different approach, mainly focusing on human emotion and their experience. It is seen as a therapeutic process, which includes the concept of Yin and Yang. Therefore, it is hard for harmony to exist between the two theories if they have completely different notions. Although, in modern times because of the integration of acupuncture into the Western culture, the idea of unity between the two medicines has allowed them to coincide more with one another.

Acupuncture was first used in China around 2000 years ago, it is based on a theory of channelling ‘qi’ (energy). Once other countries (such as the UK) began to see the effectiveness of acupuncture, globalisation of the method occurred, and countries began adjusting their therapy methods to include acupuncture. Whilst acupuncture first became more accepted in France and Germany in the 17th century, a British physician named Felix Mann expressed the values it can have on a person. Within the 1950s, he taught acupuncture to multiple British medical practitioners, proclaiming its significance, which then led to the creation of the British Medical Acupuncture Society in the 1980s. The Western Culture was so accepting of the idea of acupuncture methods, and it has led to a development in Western Medical Acupuncture (WMA).

As well as this, there is known harmony between specific philosophies of TCM and Conventional Medicine. Xu DaChun was a medical author who believed that medicine was there to assist the body, and he researched whether the body was able to heal itself without medical intervention, which was not a common belief written in Chinese texts. Xu DaChun –

‘I believe that there are some people who, when they get sick, recover spontaneously withouttreatment, others who struggle without medical intervention, and yet others who cannot recover without medical help and will die.’

This concept is a European/British theory of self-healing and not all diseases need treatment, which is not a theory created by TCM. Therefore, this proves that the two have some ideas which coincide with one another, or medical professors from the two sides of medicine can agree on certain aspects. This demonstrates that even in the past, there are small fragments of harmony between TCM and Western Medicine, despite having such different groundwork and belief systems. Consequently, suggesting that harmony is present, even corresponding to old traditional ways of thinking; as the future succeeds us, methods are constantly altered to create harmony within science.

Artemisia was used to cure malaria by traditional Chinese healers and its efficacy has been affirmed by Western medical research

In relation to international affairs, the Chinese government has recently signified the prestige of a harmonious society. The UK and China have always had an ongoing relationship with around 400 years of diplomacy and cooperation through trade, investment, education and more. Due to the transfer of government in Hong Kong between the UK and China in 1997, relations and harmony have improved significantly. Both nations in modern day society have a certain reliance on another (interdependence) which leads them to continuously govern and run strong and stable economies. In December 2015, China was labelled “the great economic success story” for the Uk and has created a “huge and expanding market for U.K businesses” – stated Holly Ellyatt from CNBC.

The UK and China have had a turbulent past, which lacked harmony, but the consistent trade and partnership between the two economies has led to a relationship that cannot be damaged, as it would lead to a great downfall for the two nations. Therefore, harmony can be seen in this perspective. Although, as the future draws closer, the harmony between China and the UK has turned from ‘Gold to Dust’. Recent events have led to the loss of trust between the two nations. For example, the UK banning Chinese companies from 5G network development, sanctioning China for its human rights abuse allegations, as well as participation within the US military operations in the South China Sea to counter territorial declarations has all proclaimed a rocky path for securing harmony between the two nations in the future. For an economy to run smoothly, harmony and balance is key, harmony can be seen as the basis and important value to follow in many different decisions and policies which are formed.

Many Chinese political leaders and scholars promote the view of a harmonious and peaceful rise, due to China’s long standing traditional view of harmony. By portraying its nation as ‘harmonious’, many Chinese leaders aim to attract international, as well as domestic onlookers. The notion of ‘harmony’ is important to China’s politics and has been used in the promotion of soft power. President Xi – an important figure who became a general secretary of the Chinese Communist party in 2012 – argued that China is inclined to exercise soft power, due to its ‘tradition of valuing harmony that has been passed from generation to generation’. This is due to the great diversity of the historical meaning of harmony. This argument of promoting harmony in Chinese politics is important, as it resonates with all different types of groups within China; it is a common theme amongst the Daoists, Buddhist, Confucian, and Maoist believers. Hence, proving that the idea of harmony drives the thoughts, ideas and decisions made by Chinese Politicians, due to the significance it has on the varying religious and cultural groups.

Therefore, to conclude, there is no one singular definition of harmony, but the different forms, ideas and perspectives of it is seen often within China, the UK and both unanimously constantly. The effect that it has on Chinese culture is extensive and limitless. This could be due to the value that China gives to its culture and traditions, as harmony is a salient part of this. There is proof of this in the way that China continues to expand and grow, whilst maintaining its original beliefs, and encouraging the maintenance of harmony within these policies. In terms of medicine, there is harmony within the ways that both the UK and China work together to form the best possible outcome. And especially within years to come, the two will grow closer together due to the realisation that both concepts are important and useful to modern day illnesses and health-problems.

Ancient philosophies have taught many that harmony can mainly be achieved through the ability of interdependence within asociety, meaning the respect for diversity of people, opinion and more. Harmony has faltered as time has passed, especially in recent years between the UK and China, therefore ensuring steady harmony within the future is uncertain, hopefully it can be restored again, resulting in peace between both nations once again.

Posted on

What are some important differences and similarities between the Chinese and British economies?

Shenzehn in south China shows the current emphasis on ‘harmony’ in Chinese economic thinking

What are some important differences and similarities between the Chinese and British economies?

This is a question that has been raised by some of our SACU members. I must make it clear from the start of this article that I am not an economics expert. What I’ll do in this blog is to share some of my understandings and open a space for others to share theirs.

To write this blog as always I’ll draw on my own first-hand experiences in China. However I will also be drawing heavily on an excellent recent book called ‘The New China Playbook’ by Professor Keyu Jin of the London School of Economics. If you’re fascinated by this topic I really recommend you read this.

This is a business partnership by WH Smith locating stores in Chinese airports

The strength of China’s economy is a subject of constant speculation. One reason for this I’m sure is an ongoing disbelief about how China can have made so much progress in such a short period of time. On a day to day basis it certainly feels as though the Chinese economy is in good shape.To the best of my knowledge there are no food banks anywhere in China. I have travelled to some of the remotest villages in what used to be the poorer areas of China and seen no signs of this type of poverty. I vividly remember in one Guizhou village where the people were still living in traditional houses, a large red banner was hanging across a wall celebrating the first ever students from the village to be accepted into the local university.

As someone who has worked in the education sector all his life I tend to see the quality of education as a critical factor in the economic health of a country. Just as in the UK, the private Chinese education company that I work for, provides alternatives to state education. When I started working here ten years ago, I was frequently told by parents and students that limitations in the state sector were driving them to consider buying our education services. Ten years later improvements in state schools in Beijing mean that I hear this complaint a lot less often.

At the same time, I can gauge the strength of the economy by ongoing increases in the demand for private, fee paying education. In the spring of every year there are education fairs in very up market Beijing hotels where an increasing number of schools compete for the attention of an ever increasing aspirant Chinese middle class.

The author’s school team at a Beijing Education Fair

Another factor in Chinese economic success that I have seen for myself is the distribution of the new wealth of the country. In the UK we have a version of this in the arguments about ‘levelling up’. The Chinese have their own parallel term – 小康社会 – xiǎokāngshèhuì, which translates as ‘moderate prosperity for all’. This is strongly linked to the concept of 和谐社会 – héxié shèhuì, which can be translated as ‘a harmonious society’. The meaningfulness of this economic goal can be seen first hand again by visiting the remoter Western areas of the country. Again in Guizhou, I remember standing in the countryside, looking down the sweeping modernity of a newly laid highway, stretching from horizon to horizon. At that point there were ten locals and a couple of buffalo using it to get from village to village, which might have made it seem an inappropriate investment. But the very same road is now carrying tourists by the busload and all of their rmb into the local economy and at the same time carrying tonnes of local produce out of Guizhou to wealthy consumers in the cities who can pay above the board prices for ‘fresh’, ‘organic’, ‘grown in Guizhou’ produce. Every week in Beijing I bring my teacher team new fruit to try from a different region of China.

Modern infrastructure in rural Guizhou

Another example of this economic resilience and innovation is the boom in ‘live-streaming’. Investment was key. 5G digital infrastructure has been installed in most rural regions of China. This has enabled all sorts of local entrepreneurs to take to the internet, promoting locally grown fruits and vegetables and locally made products in an amazing diversity of new formats.

Turning to the research of Keyu Jin, we find evidence to support this diversification of the Chinese economy. She argues that one of the misleading misconceptions about the Chinese economy is that it is all centralised and state run. She reports that contrary to this, one of the critical factors in the growth of China’s economy has been the success of de-centralisation.

‘It is local officials in provinces, municipalities, counties and towns who push for local development, meet growth targets, implement reforms and attract foreign investment. These are the local cadres who have transformed fishing villages and rural backwaters into modern export hubs, manufacturing centres and high tech economic zones.’

I have first hand experience of this too. One of the ambitions of local officials across China is to secure improvements in education. As illustrated by the story of the red banner celebrating the first university entrant, educational achievement really matters. Behind this is the centuries old tradition of the kējǔ – the Imperial Examination, which from 650 CE until 1905 enabled the smartest and most aspirational from any level in society to enter the equivalent of the civil service.

The Chinese Education company that I work for is part of the China Dream of levelling up education provision. Along with other company officials I am invited to meet local government members and entrepreneurs to discuss the possibilities of opening one of our schools for families and communities there. This takes place even in what appear to be relatively small, modest towns. These local committees are incredibly professional, earnest and well informed. Sometimes they proudly show us models of the infrastructure and developments they are working towards. They know that there are virtuous cycles of economic development to pursue, because better quality schools attract hard-working aspirational families and produce better educated, higher qualified young people prepared for the high tech industries now flourishing across China.

Live streaming is a significant new economic tool

There is a further benefit of this economic de-centralisation. In effect it generates the capacity for economic experiments to take place in a controlled way. There are incentives for private and local government innovation at a grass roots level. It won’t surprise you to hear that for politicians the rewards of successful economic management at a local level are opportunities to move to the larger cities or more developed areas and bring in new thinking, building on existing economic success in innovative ways.

The reverse of this is also true. There is a form of rotation which means that leaders from the cities are in turn transferred to smaller areas, allowing them to bring in economic ideas tried and trusted to see if they have the same benefits in rural settings. For enterprises this same flexibility allows for the small scale trial of new products and services in controlled local markets. If successful, these can then be scaled up across wider markets.

Linked to this, another piece of first hand evidence of my own, is a high degree of entrepreneurial thinking amongst young people in China. As part of my job I speak to countless Chinese young people aged between 15 and 18. It’s worth pointing out that the parental demographic of these students is not one of wealth or privilege. The overwhelming number of parents of these young people have come from cities and towns outside of Beijing, from hard-working, aspirational families. When I talk to them about the opportunity international university education will bring to gain lucrative, stable employment with international corporations, most say this is not what they want. Their instinct is to set up their own businesses and have more direct control of their economic lives. There is a Chinese phrase for this – xiàhǎi – which literally means to ‘go into the sea’, but has the modern meaning of stepping into the large and unpredictable world of managing your own business. Some of my students even prefer this to following the traditional university route.

For example, one young man turned down international university places to start his own highly successful rap music clothing brand and now, in I think a highly typical Chinese business decision, is ploughing the profits from the clothing label into opening an international school in his home town. I absolutely will not support any thoughts of a ‘Chinese entrepreneurial gene’, but it is self-evident that both economic growth in China and an entrepreneurial culture are currently coming together to create an environment in which there are high levels of confidence about beating the risks attached to being your own boss.

Many young Chinese aspire to xiàhǎi ~ to open their own business

Another theme which Keyu explores is the critical role of technology in driving Chinese economic growth. China’s investment in ‘research and development’ is staggering. In 2022 the United States invested 760 billion dollars in research, with China breathing down its neck at 620 billion. We can compare this to 84 billion in the UK. There are times as you travel around China where this scale of investment becomes something you can see and even taste for yourself. Chongqing, the city where Joseph Needham was based in the 1940’s, is now a mega-city of 15.4 million people. There are times when it looks and feels like a city from a futuristic science fiction movie like Bladerunner. It was here, for example, that I witnessed my first 3D advertising hoarding, with a hologram appearing to come out of the flat screen and become a ‘real entity’. Many hotels in China now have robot waiters who will collect food or other deliveries in the hotel foyer and bring them to your door. At an education fair in Beijing, I had my first experience of fully immersive virtual reality driven learning. I pulled a pair of VR goggles over my eyes and found myself inside a digital environment that brought a classical Chinese poem to life, with voices, film, animations and music.

As the arguments about computer chip technology between China and the US show, China is pushing hard to be at the cutting edge of new technology. However as Keyu points out, the real driver in contemporary China is not currently pure innovation, but the innovative application of technology in new forms of business. There’s a commonplace statement that the ‘new oil of business is data’, in other words that just as oil drove the economic growth of the 20th century, so data is driving the economic success of the twenty first century. If that is true then China is at the forefront of driving this digital transition. Digital transactions are already deeply embedded in Chinese business practice. Here in the UK I pay electronically by tapping my bank card. In China every transaction goes through ‘we-chat’, a social media app which started as a Chinese version of ‘WhatsApp’, but is now embedded in the finances of nearly every Chinese citizen.

Keyu’s research includes some amazing data. She claims that any given day in China, the number of digital payments exceeds those made in the US in a whole year! She states that on-line food delivery is ten times more prevalent in China than in the US.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see from a sustainability point of view that there are environmental concerns linked to this volume of consumer activity and I constantly bemoan the amount of protective plastic which surround every delivery in China. However, from a simply economic perspective, consumerism is a significant driver of economic health in China.

Here’s a final example from first hand experience. We recently had an end of year show at school, with some lovely costumes for the children. A mother in front of me held up her mobile phone and I was sure she wanted an adorable photo of her child. Amazed I watched as she used a number of APP on her phone to identify the fabric and design of the costumes, to create an AI driven image of how she might look in a similar costume, identify the on-line creator and seller for the outfit (a small independent retailer) and complete an on-line retail purchase which meant she would be wearing the new outfit for the following day! And all of this in ten minutes while still watching the show.

Is this ‘shopaholic’ behaviour, or does it streamline the shopping process to a point where it fits unobtrusively into a life full of more meaningful activities?

3D advertising hoarding in Chongqing city

Finally in this introduction to my impressions of the current economy of China, I have to comment on the transition to a ‘green economy’. Coming to the UK in the midst of the current election, it seems there is still uncertainty about whether this is the right path to the future. Once again, with its determination to put in place infrastructure which supports further development, China is investing in a clean energy future right now. Wherever you travel in China the numerous mountain tops are now sprouting with elegant white rows of wind turbines – the onshore wind farms that are proving so controversial here in the UK. In 2023 the data tells us that China made one third of total world-wide investments in clean energy. In 2022 the amount of clean electricity generated by wind turbines grew by 66%. In 2023 industries involving the three clean energies of lithium batteries, solar cells and electric vehicles grew by 30%. If you have been watching the current European Football tournament, I’m sure you’ve noticed that a major sponsor is BYD. If you’ve never heard of the BYD, ‘Build Your Dream’, is a Chinese company which until 2009 was a manufacturer of car batteries. In 15 years it has grown to become the world’s largest supplier of plug in electric vehicles. It employs 704,000 of whom 102,000 work in research and development.

Enormous on~shore wind~farm in Gansu Province

As I said at the start, this article is non-judgemental. I have simply tried to set out important components of the economic system in contemporary China, both from my own experiences and the well received research of Keyu Jin. It’s my view that there is much here that the United Kingdom could learn from and potentially partner with, but it’s for you to reach your own conclusions on this.

What is objectively undeniable is that economic changes in China will continue to have important consequences for the world as we go forward. The Oxford University professor, Peter Frankopan, in his thought-provoking book, ‘The Silk Roads, a new history of the world’,published in 2015 makes the argument that what we are living through is not a new economic trend in the world, but actually a return to the situation from the fall of Rome through to the industrial revolution, where the Chinese economy was pivotal to the world.

If this should turn out to be the historical reality, then bridges of understanding to the people and economy of China will be more vital than ever.

Taking a long view of the Chinese economy and how it relates to the world

Posted on

SACU / Peking University Essay Prize winners 2024

Lv You, her mother and her Headmaster celebrate her prize-wining essay

SACU is dedicated to supporting each new generation of bridge builders between the people of China and the people of Britain. One of our most important expressions of this commitment is our annual essay competition which offers young people in both China and Britain the opportunity to research themes of mutual interest to both countries. In 2024 the given topic was both challenging and very rewarding:

“How do you see harmony in the cultural context of China and/or the UK?”

As Headmaster of a Chinese International School in Beijing, I found this topic to be inspirational. I was able to weave around the concept of ‘harmony’ a series of stimulating and thought provoking discussions with my students aged 15-18, most of whom will come to study in the UK. This in turn led to very productive critical and creative thinking. In short, through participating in the SACU competition, my students had a superb introduction to the research that will be required of them in their English universities.

Today in the Blog I want to share extracts from the prize-winning essay submitted by Lv You. Lv You is seventeen years old and following international A Level courses. Her hometown is in the Xinjiang area of North-West China. She describes herself as being ‘infected by’ our school’s ‘self-taught educational philosophy, and the school’s social environment’. She says that her aim in life is to be ‘a pioneer’, like the character of Larry Darrell in the Somerset-Maugham story ‘The Razor’s Edge’.

Lǎozǐ, the philosopher of Chinese Dàojiā

The sentence ‘Dao produced one, one produced two, two produced three, three produced everything’ is attributed to Lao Zi, one of the earliest philosophers in China and appears in the Tao Te Ching. This text has been improved to adhere to desired characteristics such as objectivity, comprehensibility, logical structure, conventional format and language register. No changes have been made to the content. The concept of Dao refers to achieving harmony which has been a long-standing goal for Chinese people. In any environment, the aim is to achieve self-harmony by remaining calm and cultivating a peaceful attitude. Initially, harmony refers to inner peace and alignment with one’s temperament and body. As awareness expands towards the outside world, harmonious coexistence between humans and nature emerges.

Additionally, when living in groups it becomes important to strive for harmony which encompasses personal well-being as well as that of our surroundings. It also plays a crucial role in the growth of both plants and animals. Nations and societies also aspire towards achieving harmony as their ultimate goal. Therefore, it can be concluded that harmony is essential worldwide. If there were a continuous presence of harmony within countries, it could prevent global conflicts from occurring.

The conflicts during the colonial period in North & South America serve as bitter lessons from history. War represents a serious lack of social harmony both between nations & within them. In society, disharmony arises due to class inequality, for example, between slaves & slave owners. Clear class division often leads to disharmony seen on the lower end spectrum, resulting in quarrels or fights among ordinary civilians.

If there were a continuous presence of harmony within countries, it could prevent global conflicts from occurring.

It is crucial for society and the world to maintain harmony, which signifies peace between nations and fewer conflicts among citizens. The most significant benefit of harmony is the prevention of war, enabling countries to focus on economic growth and development, ultimately improving living standards for all. Taking Germany as an example after World War II, the country prioritized economic reconstruction and demilitarization of its national economy. This policy allowed for the concentration of limited resources towards rebuilding the economy, leading to a quick recovery and maintaining Germany’s position as a powerful nation.

In summary, throughout history, harmony has been essential in the coexistence between nature and humans as well as among individuals. It enables positive development and creates a better society.

Zhuāngzǐ, a famous Daoist author

Zhuangzi was a famous Chinese philosopher from 369 to 286 B.C. He had a profound philosophical revelation in a dream. He was transformed into a happy butterfly and lost all memories of his original Zhuang Zhou. Upon awakening, he could not tell whether he was Zhuang Zhou or the butterfly in his dream. Zhuangzi himself was a great lover of nature, and he put forward the idea that “Heaven and earth are symbiotic with me, and all things are unique to me”. In my opinion, his idea is that the development of human beings needs to follow the laws of nature, and if the laws of nature are followed, then human beings will survive and reach the realm of symbiosis with nature and longevity.

True Chinese thinkers often harshly demand that they first achieve a state of harmony within themselves, then tolerate others, and then teach others to reach a state of harmony as well. Moreover, filial piety is one of the most important elements in the profound Chinese culture, and one of the most famous stories is “Rong, at the age of four, was able to give up a pear to his elders”. Filial piety is in fact one of the main factors of family harmony, which has been proposed since the beginning of Chinese history. If one is obedient to one’s elders, the elders will patiently teach the younger ones, and this is a kind of family harmony.

Confucius once said in his own work, The Analects of Confucius, “A gentleman stores up but does not contend; a group is not a party.” Another example is the Rites of Passage, which says, “Therefore, people do not only kiss their relatives but also do not only give birth to their children. So that the old have an end, the strong have a use, the young have a growth, and the widowers, widows, orphans, invalids and the sick are all supported.”

Confucius, Mencius and Taoism’s most fundamental idea of social harmony is that in a harmonious society, there is no need for a monarch’s leadership, and that the people can distribute production and coexist peacefully with each other on their own. Although the idea of a commonwealth society devised by the ancients was utopian, the culture of harmony it advocated as a noble goal and ideal state has led China for thousands of years and continues to this day as a socialist communist state.

In terms of relations between peoples and nations, and between nations and countries, it advocates harmonious coexistence and concord among all nations. In the Shangshu and Yao Dian, it is said, “The people are in harmony, and all nations are in harmony.” Zhou Yi Qian Gua says: “The first of the common people, all nations are in peace.” In other words, it advocates the unity of all nations and harmonious coexistence. Advocating the way of the king and opposing hegemony. Authority is the opposite of hegemony; hegemony is the use of force as a backing for domestic and international relations; authority is the use of peaceful means to expand one’s influence through the establishment of a relationship of mutual trust at the international level. This is exactly how China today has established friendly relations with various countries in the world.

The philosopher Shāng Yāng

Throughout Chinese history, politicians and rulers have pursued harmony as a means of creating a harmonious nation. During the Spring and Autumn Period in the state of Qin, a renowned statesman named Shang Yang introduced numerous political reforms that fostered harmony. One particularly noteworthy reform was the establishment of a legal system that prohibited private fights. In the past, seeking revenge through physical combat was considered an act of filial piety encouraged by society.

However, Shang Yang believed that punishment for crimes should be a public matter and not hindered by personal rights. He asserted that the right to seek revenge fell within the jurisdiction of the state’s public authority, thus forbidding private fights among individuals. This practice significantly contributed to societal harmony at that time. Although it involved coercion at a legal level, it successfully promoted peaceful coexistence and resolved grievances, leading to improved social development. This transformation turned the country into a powerful nation within one generation.

In the course of the development of today’s Chinese communist society, China has continued to uphold the principle of ‘building a harmonious socialist society’, as it has in the past. Since the construction of China 70 years ago, the government has consistently upheld the principle of developing a harmonious society. As a result of China’s reform and opening up, the per capita disposable income of residents has increased from RMB 171 yuan to RMB 28,200 yuan. The number of poor people in China has been reduced from 770 million in 1978 to 16.6 million in 2018, contributing to the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Chinese society has made significant efforts to improve the living environment, resulting in a better quality of life. This has led to a gradual convergence towards a harmonious society.

Conclusion

Harmony in British philosophical thought is still somewhat different from that in Chinese thought. In Chinese philosophical thought, philosophers tend to emphasise harmony between man and nature, and between man and man. Harmony is regarded as an important value and concept of life in traditional Chinese culture. The concept of harmony proposed by Western societies may be more influenced by Christian culture and philosophical thought, which emphasises individual freedom, equality and justice, and respect and tolerance in social relations.

However, whether it is the ideal state proposed by the great Western philosopher Plato thousands of years ago, or the idea of harmony as the most precious thing advocated by Confucius in the Analects of Confucius, the emphasis is on the important role of harmony in the relationship between human beings and society.

True harmony cannot exist in the real world, where strife occurs all the time because of factors such as war and social disputes. Yet most people still follow the will of Plato and Confucius to maintain harmony. In my opinion, every citizen of the world should be educated in the philosophical idea of harmony, so that harmony exists in everyone’s heart, and the world will become an ideal utopia. Only then will the world become an ideal utopia, whether it be social communism, represented by China, or the Western capitalist free market, which will remain in a state of harmony and equilibrium.

(Images sourced by Lv You)

Posted on

Come with me to Nánjīng and Wúxī

A view of Wúxī by night

One of the benefits of working for a Chinese International Education company as I do is that compared to an ex-pat job for a British, American or Australian school in China, I get to access a lot more of China for direct experience of the country, the culture and the people. It’s true that I’m not paid the same salary as principals at some of the large western owned international schools in China, but personally speaking the opportunity for ‘close encounters with China’, more than makes up for this. The most recent of these school trips, we call them ‘study tours’, has been to the southern cities of Nanjing and Wúxī. Join me, and I’ll try to share with you local cultures and flavours.

Let’s start with a little geography and history to set the context. Nanjing and Wúxī are both in the eastern centre of China, close to Shanghai and in a province called Jiangsu. Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu. A critical part of the geography is that both cities are located close to significant waterways, the Chángsānjiǎo as it’s called in Chinese, the three chief river corner, or in English, the Yangtze River Delta. Water transport was enormously important to the development of both cities as they grew by selling local products all over China.

This can be emphasised by the fact that Wúxī stands on the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal is one of the wonders of China. The Grand Canal ties northern and southern China together. A key to understanding Chinese history is the famous opening line of the fourteenth century classic novel ‘The Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ which starts ‘The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.’ Up until 1949 the history of China has been a story of fragmentation and unification. Running through this long history, the Grand Canal is like a knot tying south and north together, running from Hangzhou in the south to Beijing in the north.

The Cháng Jiāng river at the heart of Nánjīng

The first sections of the canal were cut as early in history as 4th century BCE, and since then it has been added to, particularly in the sixth century (Sui dynasty) and the 13th century (Yuan dynasty). When I visited the Canal in Wúxī there was a constant flow of barge traffic, proving that the Grand Canal is a living waterway even in hyper-modern China.

Nánjīng means ‘south capital’, just as Běijīng means ‘north capital’. Nánjīng has been the most important city in China at many times in the past. In fact, twice during the period of Republican China, Nánjīng took on the role of capital city. One of the major patriotic sites in China is the Zhōngshānlíng, the Sun Yat Sen mausoleum and it’s located in Nánjīng, which was the leader’s chosen capital. I had the privilege of visiting the mausoleum. Sun Yat Sen was elected as the founding President of Republican China in December 1911. Sun died in 1925 and his body now rests in the mausoleum. Sun made a significant contribution to the modernisation of China before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. In particular, he established three foundational principles – nationalism, democracy and social equality.

The Zhōngshānlíng

The architecture and layout of the mausoleum is a fittingly harmonious blend of Chinese and Western thinking. The mausoleum is built on the side of the Zhōngshān, the Purple Mountain and must be approached by climbing 392 steps, representing the 392 million Chinese people at that time. You enter the mausoleum area passing under an archway inscribed with the characters, 博爱坊, ‘Bo Ai Feng’ or simply ‘Universal Love’. Half way up the climb you come to the three arched marble gate. Over the central arch are words from Sun Yat Sen himself, ‘天下为公’, ‘tiānxià-wéigōng’ or ‘the whole world is collectively owned’. In the main mausoleum hall are three arches representing the three pillars of Sun Yat Sen’s political leadership – “Nationalism” (民族), “People’s Rights” (民权) and “People’s Livelihood” (民生). The mausoleum also features a striking statue of Sun Yat Sen himself.

It was fitting that I went with my Chinese students to show respect to such a change leader. Like them, he came from a humble background. We hope that like him, our students will use their international experiences and education to make their contribution to improvements to the country and the lives of its people.

tiānxià-wéigōng

There is another aspect of Nánjīng’s history that we must pay respect to. In 1937 the Chinese fought heroically to protect their then capital city from the invading Japanese Imperial Army. In a horrifying and shameful event, when soldiers from the Imperial Army entered the city they behaved appallingly, slaughtering and torturing the civilian population against all the international rules of war. There are sites you can visit to reflect on the full horror of the ‘Nánjīng Massacre’ as it is called.

However we chose to remember this era in a different way. Also on the mountain is a very modern museum dedicated to the resistance to the Japanese armies at that time. In Chinese it’s called the ‘ Kàng Rì hángkōng lièshì jìniànguǎn’ or the ‘The Memorial Halls for the Pilot martyrs killed in the anti-Japanese resistance’. It is the final resting place of 170 pilots who lost their lives in the air battle above Nánjīng. We can think of it as the equivalent of the Battle of Britain fought to save the United Kingdom from invasion in 1940. Amazingly, just as the RAF in Britain was assisted by pilots from across the world, including nearly 200 from Poland and nearly 500 of Afro-Caribbean heritage, the skies above Nánjīng and south China were also defended by international forces opposed to fascism.

The modern design of the The Memorial Halls for the Pilot martyrs killed in the anti-Japanese resistance

In particular this museum pays tribute to the sacrifices of American airmen who fought alongside Chinese comrades in arms as ‘the Flying Tigers’. This is a fascinating story that needs much more detail than I can give here. It took place in 1941 when the Japanese Imperial Army seemed certain to overrun China. Chinese forces remained in control of areas in the southwest around Chongqing and Yunnan. The Japanese forces were attempting to complete a pincer movement, moving up from what was then Burma and down from the north.

A volunteer force of pilots, mainly American, but with a few British, formed alongside Chinese aviation units to deny the Japanese the control of the skies that would have paved the way for their victory. The museum is full of fascinating and poignant exhibits, paying testament to the shared heroism of all who gave their lives to save China and her people at that awful hour. The visit was especially poignant for me because my grandfather on one side was an RAF pilot and my grandmother on the other side, was part of an artillery crew defending Southampton from bombing raids. I felt an enormous connection to the lives and sacrifices recorded in the museum.

The American Eagle and the Chinese Dragon, joined in the badge of the Flying Tigers

Now let’s move on to Wúxī. Wúxī is part of an area that is sometimes called Jiāngnán, that is a geographical and cultural complex around the delta of the river that we call Yangtze in English. As you might imagine from its location, water plays a big part in the lives and culture of this area. It is in Jiāngnán that you can find the best examples of the phenomena of the ‘ water-town’. These are urban developments that took place entirely based around the networks of rivers and canals that flow everywhere through the delta.

In a water-town, houses nestle right up to the waterfront, often backing onto it directly. This was a reflection of the fact that the lives of water-town dwellers entirely revolved around the waterways. Research has shown that before the twentieth century, transport links in Jiāngnán were almost entirely by river or canal with very few roads. These towns prospered on trade carried up and down the watery arteries. Wúxī for example was the heart of a thriving brick and tile industry. From here, construction materials were carried all over China, bringing employment and wealth to local people. People washed their clothes from steps leading down to the river. People lived on diets of fish and fowl sourced from the waterways. Parallel to the rivers and canals were lanes crowded with businesses, busy buying and selling goods and products traded by boat.

A carving shows the importance of the waterways to water-town economics.

And these water-towns are still engines of economic growth today! The new trade is in tourism. It probably wasn’t the intention of the original town designers, but the layout of these water-towns are perfect sites for visitors. Along the waterside itself are the picturesque buildings themselves. In Wúxī the Watertown area is called Huìshān. In Huìshān many of the water front houses have been whitewashed, making for harmony with the flowing water. At night the river area is filled with neon light which reflects in the waves and off of the white screens of the houses to create what is called ‘son et lumiere’ – a sound and light show, which looks intriguingly like the famous Van Gogh painting ‘Starry Night over the Rhone’.

The Huìshān starry night look

Furthermore, these riverside houses and the surrounding lanes are perfect for the favourite Chinese pastime – snacking. We English have our abilities in this area-just think of the sandwiches, pasties, crisps and cakes that we fuel ourselves with. However if snacking was an Olympic event, the Chinese would certainly be in a medal position. The cobbled and charming streets that thread their way parallel to the waterfront are thronged end to end with an inescapable array of 小吃, xiǎochī, or ‘little bites’. There will be local delicacies, national favourites and of course now, an increasing number of international temptations, especially KFC. As I’ve remarked in other blogs, the Chinese people certainly share a sense of wanderlust with we Brits. Amazingly at its peak in 2019, internal travel and tourism earned the Chinese economy over 6.5 billion rmb, about 700 million pounds!

Wúxī tourism and the Van Gogh effect

Let me share with you my favourite Wúxī savoury. I find something called ‘xiǎolóngtāngbāo’ irresistible. xiǎolóngtāngbāo are little parcels of paper thin pastry, containing a filling – meat, seafood or vegetable, which swims in its own little serving of delicious broth. Yummy! Wúxī has its own versions of these and I was able to enjoy them on the visit. The pastry skins are just as light and delicate as xiǎolóngtāngbāo across China, but the Wúxī speciality has a sweeter taste to the soup. The sugary broth makes an interesting contrast to the saltiness of the filling. However I should share with you that in my humble opinion these snacks taste even better with a tiny sprinkling of chilli sauce so that you have a blend of sweet, salt and spicy flavours in one.

Wúxī xiǎolóngtāngbāo

There is another shared love between the Chinese people and the British people that I’ve written about before – gardens! You cannot leave Wúxī without visiting at least one of the incredible courtyard gardens that bring green spaces to the town. So come with me now and we’ll visit Jichang garden, in Huìshān ancient town in Wúxī.

The design of this garden is very different from English ideas. English gardens usually create a single landscape so that from a vantage point you can see and appreciate the whole garden. There might be a variety of beds with different plant varieties, but the gardener will work towards an overall harmony that can be appreciated from different viewing points, usually strategically placed seats.

One of the ‘natural’ courtyards of the Jichang garden

The Jichang garden is more like China herself, a complex of different environments, interconnected by a range of intriguing pathways. There is a lake environment, where a range of lush trees and trailing vegetation surround a lake, well stocked with plump fish. To move around, you cross aesthetically designed bridges that cast graceful reflections into the still waters. There is a mountain environment, where roughly hewn rocks have been assembled into narrow mountain passes, with streams cascading through the centre, forcing you to take precarious steps. There is a temple landscape, where the chiming bells and smoky incense of Buddhism harmonise with the complex roots of ancient trees and the mantra of bird song. Each environment is artfully arranged, to look as natural as possible.

Jichang garden water-scape

You can’t help but wonder about the wealth and privilege of the family for whom this garden was originally built. Maybe like me, it will bring to mind the luxuries of the lives of the characters in ‘Hónglóu Mèng’, ‘The Dream of the Red Mansion’, the famous novel written by Cáo Xuěqín in the eighteenth century, describing the mansions and gardens of a wealthy family. And then another thought comes to your mind. Up until the modern China, this garden would have been out of the reach of nearly all of the Chinese people. And now it is the property of everyone, not a few. The garden walls have been broken down and anyone with a few rmb to pay the entrance ticket can enjoy the garden design and take whatever ideas it inspires in them back home with them after their visit.

Gardens like that at Jichang at Wúxī are a practical expression of Chinese poetry and philosophy, art made nature. The seed of it is planted in my mind. How wonderful it would be to have more Chinese style gardens like this in England.

The deep harmony of Chinese garden design

If you haven’t done so already, I hope that one day you might have the chance to visit this beautiful corner of China and experience the Inspiration of connections to the UK yourself. Until then I hope that my article has shared something of the local flavours with you.

The author and his students invite you to enjoy the inspiration of Nánjīng and Wúxī

天下为公’, ‘tiānxià-wéigōng!

( all photos are originals by the author)

Posted on

zhāocáimāo – the beckoning cat

zhāocáimāo – the beckoning cat

I wonder if like me you’ve always been intrigued by the cat figures that can be seen everywhere at the entrances to both Chinese and Japanese restaurants- you know the ones with the waving paw. They are just as popular in China as they are in Asian restaurants and shops across Britain. If you’re intrigued, but not at all sure what they mean, I hope you’ll enjoy this article where I try to to find out about the beckoning cat’s significance.

In the interests of being even-handed, I’d better declare that I have found both Chinese and Japanese origin stories for this iconic figure. In the article I’ll share both versions with you. All or none of the stories may be true, but whatever the origins there is no doubting the popularity of the figurines themselves. Usually made from ceramic or plastic, they show a cat in a beckoning gesture. Its paw moves back and forth in a swinging motion, and some even have motorised arms so that they can wave all day long. These statuettes are typically displayed at the entrances of businesses—such as restaurants, bars, and laundromats—in order to entice customers to come inside.

In businesses across the world

The first thing we have to understand is the arm movement itself. In western cultures the typical gesture for beckoning is with an extended arm and a hooked, moving finger, calling someone in. In Asian cultures signs of pointing people out are generally considered offensive. The reason for this might be that Asian cultures are in many features, collective, in contrast to the stronger individualism in western societies. A commonly understood way of beckoning someone in Asia avoids pointing at them directly and is done by extending the whole hand, palm down, and then beckoning by folding all of the fingers up and down.

So now we can understand the cat’s gesture and the swinging arm. We can add a little more detail to this. If you look carefully next time you see a beckoning cat, see if it is the left or the right arm that is moving. These cats are versatile. A swinging left arm is inviting customers into the establishment. However a bobbing right arm is sending a different signal – because this is a way of inviting in wealth and money. You may even have seen figures where the right arm is muscular and out of proportion with the cat’s body. Can you guess what that means – yes of course, it’s a way of attracting even more riches in through the door.

There are other symbolic features of this little creature. The classic colours of these lucky cats are white and gold. The white colour represents happiness while the gold is for prosperity. But if you’re looking for alternatives in life, you can alter the colour of your cat. A pink cat is usually thought of as helping you to find love. A green coloured cat brings protection to the whole family. And I am going to have to buy a blue coloured cat to post at the doorway to my school because the blue colour is associated with success in education.

Beckoning cats of different colours

What are the back stories that help to explain why it should be a ‘lucky cat’ and not some other animal. Let’s start in China. In Chinese thinking, cats are not particularly associated with luck. For example, cats are not part of the Chinese zodiac of twelve animals. You probably know that the order of the zodiac animals was decided by a race across a river. Well, the story goes that on the day of the race the lazy cat trusted her brother rat to wake her up, which of course he failed to do, and went on to win the race himself.

Despite this, cats are common and positive symbols and what they symbolise is protection. This association can be traced back to ancient times. Grain, on which the people depended for nutrition, had to be collected and stored in large granaries. Naturally such granaries made perfect feeding grounds for hungry mice and rats, which of course made protective cats very popular animals to have around. In fact in the still largely rural province of Yunnan you can spot ‘cat tiles’ prowling along the rooftops where the owners have placed them to ward away evil spirits.

Yunnan Tile Cat

What of the little cat figurines we see in the shops? Is there a Chinese origin story for them? Well, yes! According to Chinese legends, the characteristic movement of the arms can be traced back to the T’ang dynasty which was the early medieval period in China, from 618 to 907 CE. Evidence linking the beckoning gesture to cats has been found in the form of a T’ang dynasty piece of literature. This text, which is full of information about ghosts, immortals and temples, has a chapter devoted to the symbolism of cats washing their faces. This is described as an auspicious act. One association with with cats raising their ‘arms’ and washing them up and down in front of their faces, is that it is a sign of coming rain. Now this certainly would have been a lucky sign to farmers waiting for rain to water their vital crops. But more importantly for our story, whenever a cat raised its ‘arm’ over its face, as our little cat figures do, it was a sign that important guests were coming to your house. I guess that it seemed the cats were cleaning themselves ready to greet the guests, in their role as protective guardians.

Cat figure in traditional Chinese paper-cut

Now let’s turn to the Japanese version. In Japan these cat figures are known as ‘maneki-neko’, which translates literally as ‘beckoning cat’. The origin story for maneki-neko, goes back to the 17th century. The cat in question lived with a poor monk in Gōtoku-ji temple in Setagaya, Tokyo. One day a wealthy samurai called Ii Naotaka visited the area to hunt. The Lord got caught in a terrible storm and took shelter under a tree. While sheltering, the samurai saw the beckoning gestures of the cat, inviting him to take shelter in the temple. Just as the samurai stepped out from under the tree to go to the temple, a terrible thunder bolt caught the tree and it burst into flames. The beckoning cat had saved the lord’s life.

Naotaka was so grateful to the cat for saving his life, that he became the patron of the temple. He helped to repair it and make more space for the poor monk. When the cat died, a statue of maneki-neko was made to commemorate its life, and the location continues to be considered sacred today. We can see maneki-neko illustrated in Utagawa Hiroshige’s ukiyo-e woodblock print, Flourishing Business in Balladtown (Jôruri-machi hanka no zu), made in 1852. Historical evidence suggests that by the start of the twentieth century maneki-neko cats were popular all over Japan. At this time links between Japan and China were deepening with increasing numbers of young Chinese choosing to study in Japan And it’s not hard to see how these symbols of fortune might have travelled to China and across first of all Asia and then across the world.

Maneki-neko in traditional Japan

So there we have it – the story of the zhāocáimāo – the beckoning cat! Next time you step into your favourite Asian restaurant, following the cat’s beckoning arm, you will know the secrets of its welcoming charms.

Posted on

Dragon Boats from China to the World – Duānwǔjié!

Dragon boat race in southern Guangzhou

I’m sure you’ve all noticed that Dragon Boat festival has arrived. We can look forward to the spectacle of exciting and colourful dragon boat races across the globe!

Since 2008 this festival has been a public holiday in China. In 2009 it was added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity’. UNESCO states, ‘”Dragon Boat Festival strengthens bonds within families and establishes a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature. It also encourages the expression of imagination and creativity, of contributing to a vivid sense of cultural identity.’ In this article, let’s see if we can get beyond the sporting images of dramatic races, to find some of the spirit of harmony at the festival’s source.

Let’s start with the name. If you know any Chinese at all, you’ll quickly see that the name ‘端午节 – duānwǔjié’ has nothing to to do with dragons, or even boats. It means, ‘the fifth day of the fifth month’. If you’ve been following my Chair’s Blogs, through the year, you will have noticed a theme. Every festival in China has ancient origins which tie it back into the changing seasons and the relationships between people and nature. I believe the same is true in England. Take away the Christian customs and you’ll find the old ‘pagan’ traditions linked to the land, the rivers and the skies.

So what was important about the fifth day of the fifth month? For the ancients, it was the time of two critical and linked events. The heartlands of China, the central areas around the great rivers, were very vulnerable to flooding. Flooding brought a series of threats to human life, including outbreaks of fatal diseases caused by waterborne insects and bacteria. Balanced against this was the fact that controlled flooding had the potential to significantly improve the fertility of farmlands and so the amount and quality of crops to feed the people.

In the days before technology, ordinary people had no way on earth to control any of these natural forces. There’s a Chinese idiom that expresses the puny powers of people in situations like this – ‘tángbì-dāngchē’ – like an insect trying to hold back a chariot. From this understanding it’s easy to see that rituals and traditions would be used as a way of trying to gain control, or at least, influence over these unpredictable events.

Enter the Dragon!

Enter the dragon! Since the very origins of Chinese culture, dragons have been associated with the strength and the power to control nature, especially the wind, the rain, rivers, lakes and seas. One of the nine types of dragon, the Lóngwáng, was able to control the wind and the rain. In fact if you think about it, there’s a powerful visual harmony between the long, winding, serpentine bodies of Chinese dragons and the shape of rivers. So at a time when the rivers were both a powerful threat and a powerful friend, what was more natural than putting a colourful, carved dragon head on the front of a boat and taking to the river to invoke protection from friendly local dragons.

Dragon boat racing is only one of a number of protective customs followed in order to ensure a harmony between people and their environment. Some of these are directly related to the medical threats to life caused by flooding. Maybe now they seem quaint and out of date, but their origins are very practical. One example is a type of alcohol called ‘xiónghuángjiǔ‘, made from Chinese cereals, but also containing traces of arsenic. The alcohol makes a powerful disinfectant and one past tradition was to sprinkle some of the wine in the corners of the house to cleanse it and keep away harmful insects. Another fascinating custom linked to this is to paint a protective character on the foreheads of children with a little of the spirit, again for protection. Don’t worry about the arsenic, in modern China ‘xiónghuángjiǔ’ has been replaced by plum wine!

xiónghuángjiǔ – Dragon Boat festival wine

Another example is the use of a herb which in Chinese is called ‘àihāo’. In English it can be called ‘mugwort’ or ‘artemesia’. As we know from ‘Harry Potter’, English culture used to be very rich in ‘herbology’, or the use of herbs for medical or magical practices. Mugwort is abundant in May and June. It’s leaves are very fragrant. During the festival it was the custom to hang bunches of the herb over doors and windows to keep away poisonous insects. Some would even make bracelets of the leaves and stems to wear to repel insects. As with many of these so-called superstitions, modern science has found that indeed mugwort does have medicinal properties which help with conditions of the liver or kidney. Mugwort leaves are antiseptic and can reduce fevers! They knew a thing or two, those ancients!

àihāo herbs for Dragon Boat festival

If you have followed my blogs, you will also know that numbers are frequently very important in Chinese festival thinking. As we’ve already seen the significant number for Dragon Boat is ‘five’. Alongside the ‘fifth day of the fifth month’, it was also considered that there were five poisonous pests, snakes, centipedes, scorpions, lizards and spiders. There are two traditional ways to protect people, especially vulnerable children against these dangers. The first is to paint pictures of these pests on red paper – of course red is always a lucky colour in China. Another is to make silk cut outs of the creatures. Then either the silk images or the paintings would be pinned on the wall, especially in bedrooms, in the belief that the pin or nail was impaling the insects themselves.

A linked custom is called the ‘five colour silk thread’. This was done specifically to look after children. Parents used to tie a five colour band of silk threads around the wrists of their child. The braids must be kept on until the first rainfall in summer when the pests were less frequent. And of course, the braid had to be thrown into a river, returning it to the source of protection. Intriguingly at around the same time of year there is a similar tradition in India called ‘Raksha bandhan’ which also involves tying protective bracelets around the wrist.

It’s easy for us to scoff at such superstitions but as anyone who’s slept in a room plagued by mosquitos will know, anything that restores your mental balance and helps you to get rest and sleep is to be welcomed. And we can only begin to imagine the terrible suffering of child mortalities in earlier times.

A modern five colour bracelet

And here comes the part you’ve been waiting for – the food! Again, if you’ve been following my excursions through the alleyways of Chinese festivals throughout the year, you will know that every festival in China features a favourite foodstuff. In the case of ‘duānwǔjié’ we are talking about ‘zòngzi’. The heart of zòngzi is sticky rice which has been left to soak overnight and then cooked till it becomes a glutinous mass. The sticky rice is parcelled out onto bamboo leaves. A filling is then added. In South China the fillings tend to be sweet. In North China there is a preference for savoury fillings. The tricky bit is then to wrap the rice and filling into a neat pyramid shape, held together by the bamboo leaves and some cotton thread. Finally you will need to simmer your Zongzi for several hours until the filling is ready to eat. ‘Yummy!’ as Chinese people are fond of saying.

zòngzi

Which leaves one more duānwǔjié topic – the poetry! I know not everyone is a poetry fan so I thought I’d put this part conveniently at the bottom so you can choose to skip it. However there is a dramatic, even tragic poetry story connected to Dragon Boat. It happened in the period of Chinese history known as the Warring States – around 300 BCE. To put this in context, it’s the time the Celtic peoples were moving into Britain, the time of the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, the time that Euclid was writing his famous books on geometry and that the ‘Ramayana’ was being composed in India.

Previously, central and northern China had been more or less united by the Zhou rulers. However as the power of the Zhou diminished, seven smaller states began fighting amongst themselves for hegemony. Our hero, Qū Yuán, was an advisor to the King of one of these warring states, Chu. He was also an accomplished poet. Unfortunately for Qū, he backed the wrong party in court and like many poets of ancient China, he was forced into exile. He turned his wanderings to good advantage, composing poems and learning about the customs and traditions of peoples living south of the Yangtze River. However, driven by a mixture of sadness about his endless exile and his bitter despair over the disasters besetting his country, he threw himself into the Mìluó River and drowned.

Qū Yuán has become part of the Dragon Boat festival. On the fifth day of the fifth month, local people are supposed to have begun a desperate search for his body in the river. They used local boats, similar to Dragon Boats, to look for his body. The villagers splashed the water with their boat paddles to frighten evil spirits away. They threw zòngzi into the waters so that the fish would eat the rice and other ingredients, instead of the poet’s body. Unfortunately Qū Yuán did not survive, but his remarkable poetry has. He was an extraordinary innovator who introduced new styles of writing and rhythms into Chinese poetry.

Qū Yuán, the poet of Dragon Boat

His most famous work is called 离骚 , Lísāo or ‘Parting Sorrow’. I’ll finish by introducing you to two remarkable parts of this poem. The first is its unique use of some the ideas of the ancient religions of China, which were a little like shamanism. On his travels Qū Yuán studied the herbal wisdom of communities he met on his way, leading to magical lines like these:

‘ I made a coat of lotus and water chestnut leaves

And gathered lotus petals to make myself a skirt

I will no longer care that no-one understands me

As long as I can keep the sweet fragrance of my mind.’

The second remarkable feature of ‘Lísāo’ is its humanism, especially its ability to face up to the full suffering of exile and yet still to try to find some inspiration. This gives insights into the mind of a poet who was later to end his own life from despair:

“ 路漫漫其脩遠兮，

lù mànmàn qí xiū yuǎn xī,

the road is boundless – cultivation so distant;

吾將上下而求索。

wú jiāng shàngxià ér qiúsuǒ.

I shall explore it from beginning to end.”

So, duānwǔjié, is about far more than dragon boats. As others have carried the sporting aspects of this event from China to the four corners of the world, let’s see what we can do to bring the deeper thoughts and harmonies of this festival to the world.

Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

( all images courtesy of CGTN)

Posted on

Why Bridges of Understanding to British Universities really matter!

Wang Xiao Yu at UCL

As we all know education exchange is one of the best ways to grow friendship and understanding between the people of Britain and the people of China. So today I’d like to share with you some thoughts from one of my ex students – Wang Xiao Yu. Wang studied IGCSE and A Level courses with me in Beijing, before successfully completing first a BSc in Psychology with Education and then an MSc in the same subject this year. Here she reflects on the importance of choosing a British university.

Wang Xiao Yu organises the timetable of our volunteer school in Yunnan

“ A Chinese Student’s Journey: Navigating University Life in the UK

Studying abroad is an adventure that promises both challenges and rewards. As a Chinese student pursuing my education in the UK, I embarked on a journey fuelled by aspirations and curiosity.

 Choosing the UK: A Blend of Practicality and Passion

Selecting a destination for higher education is a pivotal decision, one that requires careful consideration of academic excellence, cultural fit, and personal aspirations. 

For me, the UK emerged as a compelling choice, blending practical considerations with a passion for exploration and learning. British universities have high academic reputations. They attracted me with their rigorous curriculum, innovative research opportunities, and highly respected and professional faculty. As a student who aspires to excel in my chosen field, studying in an academically rich environment with world-renowned professors held immense appeal. The UK’s commitment to academic excellence, with its global recognition for pioneering research and innovation, affirmed my belief that pursuing my studies here would provide me with the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in an increasingly competitive world. 

Beyond academic aspects, my decision to choose a UK university was also influenced by personal experiences of previous visits to the UK. The rich cultural heritage and diverse atmosphere, each encounter left an indelible mark on my consciousness, sparking a desire to delve deeper into the cultural tapestry of this dynamic nation. It is a place where I could interact with individuals from all walks of life and broaden my understanding of the world, making it a natural choice for my higher education pursuits. It symbolised not only a strategic step towards my future career but also a profound voyage of self-exploration and development. As I ventured into this new phase of my life, I embraced it with eagerness, expectation, and appreciation for the myriad opportunities awaiting me.

Wang Xiao Yu shares her views at an international education conference

The Reality Unfolds: Surprises, Pressures and Balancing

Upon arrival, the reality of studying in the UK unfolded before me, blending seamlessly with my expectations in some aspects while challenging preconceptions in others. 

The classroom dynamic, characterised by open discussions and encouraged participation, mirrored my anticipations. The emphasis on critical thinking and independent learning fostered a stimulating academic environment conducive to personal growth. Since I experienced such a classroom environment in my high school, I was able to integrate and immerse myself quickly in this style of teaching. The multicultural milieu provided opportunities for cross-cultural exchange and broadened my perspectives. Engaging with students from diverse backgrounds enriched my learning experience, fostering friendships and transcending geographical boundaries. 

Shifting from learning to living experience, the UK provides vibrant cultural and recreational activities, offering avenues for exploration and enrichment outside the classroom. I explored endless enriched culture from world-renowned museums and galleries showcasing historical artefacts and fine art collections to the vibrant theatre scene and music festival of London’s West End.

Christmas in London

Alongside this cosiness and surprise, there were also things in the UK that differed from my initial perceptions and caused me to feel stressed. Homesickness and cultural adjustment were the initial challenges for me, as being far away from family, friends, and familiar surroundings sometimes triggered my feelings of loneliness and disconnection, especially when I had not fully adjusted to the UK culture. I spent a long time integrating into new social circles, navigating unfamiliar social dynamics, and overcoming behavioural differences. Thanks to the support from my parents, friends, and tutors from the university, I was able to adjust my emotions to maintain good mental health and well-being.

Adaptation to a more independent way of life, including managing finances, accommodation, and daily tasks, posed subsequent obstacles. Compared to the structured support systems prevalent in China, navigating the intricacies of daily life in a foreign country demanded resilience and resourcefulness. Balancing academic pursuits with social engagements and personal responsibilities became a pivotal aspect of my university experience, and I am still trying to cope with them.

Adapting to brunch, English style, with a side order of Chinese porridge

Friendship and Collaboration: Bridging China and UK Together

Reflecting on the relationship between English universities and China, it is evident that collaboration and exchange play a significant role in fostering mutual understanding and academic progress. Living in the UK offers students access to a vast network of professionals, industry experts, and alumni associations. Engaging in networking events, internships, and work placements provides valuable opportunities to build connections, gain practical experience, and enhance employability prospects. My university offers platforms for career plans and volunteering opportunities targeting individuals’ preferences and aims for their future jobs. They also organised workshops on teaching job CVs and interviews systematically to help students better face future challenges.

The growing partnerships between institutions facilitate research collaborations, student exchanges, and cultural initiatives, enriching the academic landscape for both nations. Student exchanges play a crucial role in fostering mutual understanding and building bridges between the UK and China. When studying in another country, I have the opportunity to immerse myself in a different academic environment, gain cross-cultural competencies, and form lasting friendships with peers from diverse backgrounds. I became friends with an Indian girl in one of my postgraduate classes. While the interaction and discussion of our ideas fulfilled my understanding of education and life in her country, she also gained more ideas about the history and interesting things that happened in China.

International friendships

Studying in the UK as a Chinese student has been a transformative journey marked by personal and academic growth. While challenges abound, the experiences were invaluable in broadening horizons, developing lifelong friendships, and fostering a global perspective. As I navigate the complexities of university life, I am reminded the journey itself is as enriching as the destination, shaping me into a more resilient, adaptable, and culturally aware individual.”

Wang Xiao Yu celebrates her international success to date in English fashion, with cake!

In 2022, Wang Xiao Yu was one of nearly 700,000 international students who chose to study in a UK university, a figure second only to the US. In 2023 approximately 27,000 Chinese students chose to study in the UK. Every one of them will have a story similar to that of Wang Xiao Yu, a story of challenges, of opportunities, a story of the inevitable loneliness of leaving your native country and of the remarkable power of international friendships.

Posted on

China and Me

The author at Black Dragon Pool, Lijiang

I have lived and worked in China since 2013, during which time I’ve led the start up and development of an innovative Chinese international school in Beijing. I spend ten months out of every twelve in China. I live in a district of Changping in north Beijing where I am the only foreigner. I work every day in the friendly company of my Chinese colleagues. In the UK I live in a southern town called Southbourne. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the approximate 5000 miles in between, I could walk down Bellevue Road in Southbourne and turn the corner into Beishahe Road in Changping, without batting an eyelid. China is my home.

The great bridge of friendship between Britain and China is education. I’m proud of the fact that every year over 90% of my students choose British universities for their further education. The cultures and traditions of learning and knowledge are long and venerable in both our histories. But I have to make a shameful and humbling admission. I was educated to the highest level in the UK, having had the privilege of studying at Cambridge University. But not once in my whole educational journey was China introduced so I, like so many British people, grew up almost entirely ignorant of the country, its people, its history and its culture.

The author promoting British education in China

That’s why after ten years of immersing myself as deeply in China as I can, I’ve become Chair of a friendship organisation in Britain called the Society for Anglo Chinese Understanding, which was founded to build on the legacy of that great friend of China, Joseph Needham. Inspired by the traditions of abiding friendship between China and Britain I am determined to build as many bridges of understanding as I can.

As the famous British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:

‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.’

Let’s start with my love of the amazing diversity of places I’ve been able to visit across this incredible country.

We start in Beijing, strolling through the tranquil winding maze of traditional alleyways called the ‘hutong’. Sit awhile to enjoy the garrulous 叽叽喳喳 – jījizhāzhā, the birdsong gossip of the old timers sitting out in the soft Beijing autumn sunshine, the distinctive tones of their 北京话 – Běijīnghuà – the Beijing dialect.

The author in the Beijing Hutong alleyways

But now, let’s leave Beijing and jump on the dragon’s back – the amazing network of high spec, high tech, high speed trains which can whizz you at speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour the length and breadth of this land. Sit back and enjoy the service as delicious hot meals are delivered to your comfortable seat and the cinematic panorama of a nation opens up outside of your window.

First stop on our journey to the incredible – the Mogao Caves in far flung Dunhuang in Gansu Province. Shake the sand from your shoes and the darkness from your eyes and blink in the presence of the beauty of Buddhist art from the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE). Immersed in the swirling colours and diversity of faces you journey back to a time when this very place was one of the great crossroads of world trade and culture. Here in this cave complex where you stand they found the world’s oldest printed book – a text of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra produced in 868 CE.

Detail from the 莫高窟, Mògāokū
Mogao caves in Dunhuang 敦煌, Gansu

Hurry, back on board, we’re heading south and east down through the mountains into Sichuan and the ancient city of Chengdu. Using an app just developed in China we can call up a restaurant in the town of Lanzhou and have a delicious fragrant bowl of local 拉面 – lāmiàn, hand pulled noodles, delivered freshly to our train. And now here we are in Chengdu, with its all year round balmy climate and we’re following in the footsteps of one of China and the world’s greatest poets, Du Fu, who enjoyed some of the best years of his harsh life of exile in this city and wrote of it:

‘I’ve heard a lot about this city

Listen, there’s a sound

Of people making music.

That doesn’t cure

My loneliness.’

The author at 杜甫草堂, Dù Fǔ cǎotáng, Du Fu Cottage

But there’s no time for loneliness for us. Just a short bus journey out of Chengdu and we’re at the site of Sanxingdui, staring deep into the profound and mysterious masked eyes of one of China’s, one of the world’s, most ancient civilisations, rapt in wonder at their sophisticated bronze artistry, works as intriguing and expressive as modern surrealism. And of course even a whistle stop tour of China could not be complete unless you joined the adoring throngs, wandering the beautifully landscaped panda sanctuary, peering among the swaying bamboo poles for the alluring, elusive patches of black and white, that are China’s gift to the natural iconography of the world.

The author with a Sanxingdui mask

The high speed train welcomes us back and we’re off again, whizzing through the mountain passes, the deep ingenious tunnels threading under the mountains and flying over the elegant bridges that span the valleys, south to fabled Yunnan! In 2021 the COP 15 world bio-diversity conference took place in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan and with good reason. The eco-systems of Yunnan are critical to the environmental health of China and the whole planet. 18,000 different high plant species are found here, 1836 vertebrate species and 72.5% of China’s protected animal species. And here the great and largely unknown story of China’s great struggle to harmonise humanity and nature is unfolding.

In Yunnan we need to leave the high speed rail network behind and slow down to nature’s pace. Sit awhile by Black Dragon Pool in Lijiang and lose yourself in the sublime beauty of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain soaring nine miles distant in the low lying Yunnan clouds.

‘We sit together, the mountain and me

Till only the mountain remains.’

(Li Bai – Zazen on Ching T’ing Mountain, trans Sam Hammill, 2000)

Yunnan invites you to wander far from the beaten track, in your heart and your mind. Here we are now in wandering through the historic rows of tea bushes of Pu’er, the deep well of the world’s tea culture. Let’s take a seat in a tea-tasting room, heady with fermented fragrances. The afternoon sunlight dances through the window and refracts with earthly radiance through your glass tea bowl. This ignites the flavours of a history of tea cultivation and tea culture with roots in the tenth century when the local Blang and Dai ethnic minorities worked with the wisdom of the Tea Ancestor to develop this unique tea landscape. As you sip at the eco-system in a cup, the 茶艺师, the ‘chayi shi’ or ‘tea master’, a young lady from the Yunnan Wa or Va ethnic minority proudly tells me she is studying tea culture at the local ‘Tea University’, set up with government funding to preserve the knowledge and wisdom of Pu’er for future global generations.

The Yunnan Tea University

The high speed train from Kunming to Shanghai is waiting. There’s one more thing we must do – eat! We need some soul food! For me there is one simple dish that represents the 味道, the wèidao or flavour of Yunnan, 米线, mǐxiàn – rice noodles. You stood 2000 metres up on Aliao Mountain, about 300 kilomtres distant from Kunming and had your breath taken away by the myriad of rice terraces dug by the Hani ethnic minority on the mountain side, shimmering like dragon scales in the rising sun. Now steaming in front of you on a wobbly table in a street side restaurant, is a bowl of fragrant broth where the terrace rice swims in the form of long, white, strands of noodles. There are many local varieties of Yunnan rice noodles but perhaps ‘guò qiáo mǐ xiàn’ or ‘Cross the Bridge noodles’ are the most famous. There are slices of locally cured meats, glistening green fresh Yunnan vegetables, perhaps some delicate quail eggs, pickled vegetables and some ‘làjiāo’, chilli pickle sauce, to be added to your personal need for a spicy kick to your meal

Soon your taste buds are dancing to the harmony of natural, organic, earthy flavours. As you eat you slip into a little revery about the legendary origins of this dish. The story tells it was first created by a devoted wife for her struggling scholar husband, who studied hard every day, a bridge away from home and would eat nothing until his wife ‘crossed the bridge’ carrying this life-saving recipe. Inspired by her culinary art the scholar passed the imperial exam with flying colours and although he is long forgotten, his wife’s gift to the world lives on.

Yunnan, 米线, mǐxiàn – rice noodles

So we’re ready for the final leg of our travel embrace of China, the G1372, high speed train from Kunming South to Shanghai Hongqiao. As the kilometres slip by you remember all of the faces of the people, the other main ingredient of your love of China and its people. So many kind smiles and welcoming looks, in ten years not one glance of hostility or prejudice. So many hesitant, shy words of English to welcome you wherever you’ve been. Inevitably some faces stay longer in your memories than others. Let’s meet two of them.

His boyish face lit up in a warm smile, Along comes to meet you at the exit to Kaile Railway station, in Guizhou Province. For the next two weeks he’s offering you homestay in Langde village, a village of the Miao ethnic minority. His quiet charm makes you feel relaxed and at home right from the moment of meeting. 50 kilometres through the mountains later and he is guiding you up the stone steps, past the villagers offering you the traditional greeting of small but ferociously potent mǐjiǔ – rice wine. ‘Be careful’, he warns with a laugh. He guides you through the winding rough stone paths under the stone and wooden 吊脚楼 diàojiǎolóu houses, raising themselves along the mountainside on stilts.

At the house I’m introduced to Along’s mother and father, wizened by age but still spry and sprightly. We are sitting in the kitchen which has a roaring wood fuelled fire on top of which a pan of food is bubbling merrily. Feeling curious to taste a new dish, and feeling hungry, I shyly ask if I could try some. Along, mother and father all smile conspiratorially. ‘Why not?’ A bowl is produced and I’m given a ladle to spoon up a serving of piping hot delicious local cuisine. At the last minute Along’s mother mutters disapprovingly and gently but firmly stops me in mid motion. Along and his father fall silent. The mother guides me over to the dark corner of the kitchen and pulls up a trap door. Totally confused I peer down into the darkness below until out of the shadows comes the unmistakable snuffling of pigs and three large snouts are poked up towards me, sniffing greedily. Mother makes a sign that confirms what I’m now thinking – that this bubbling pan of food is for the porcine beauties kept under the stilted kitchen floor. There’s an awkward moment of silence, how will the foreigner react? And when I burst into waves of warm, good natured laughter they join in. Barriers of language and culture are dissolved and we pass the next two weeks as family, sharing both the joys and challenges of village life.

The author joins a 苗族 Miáozú festival

My second unforgettable encounter was in the far south-west Yunnan city of Tengchong, which is very close to the border with Myanmar. Come with me now to meet an authentic Chinese hero, Lu Caiwen. Lu is in his nineties, but as you sit in his living room, enchanted by his merry shining eyes it’s impossible to believe this is his real age. Impossible that is, until he tells his life story. You see Lu Caiwen came of age in one of the most terrible periods of recent Chinese history, when the invading Japanese Imperial Army threatened to overrun the whole of China. It’s 1943 and the invasion has captured Tengchong and is attempting to drive north to take a grip over the whole country. Lu Caiwen tells how he was technically too young to join the Chinese Expeditionary Force but still did so and joined the heroic struggle to delay or halt the invaders. It’s at this point that Joseph Needham, now honoured by the Society for Anglo Chinese Understanding, enters the story. As a well known scientist he was sent to China by the British government to find out what resources the Chinese needed to continue their struggle and organise supply and delivery.

Moist tears cloud Lu Caiwen’s heroic eyes as he tells the story of the battle for Laifeng Mountain. where the Japanese were dug into defensive lines. Inch by murderous inch the CEF crawled up the mountainside to reclaim the strategic advantage. At the foot of the mountain is a 53,000 square metre cemetery where rest the 10,000 CEF soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice. Even now, decades later, Lu’s voice shakes with emotion, as he remembers the comrades who fell around him. Every few days Lu Caiwen visits the graveyard to lay chrysanthemums in memory of his fallen comrades. Their incredible courage and dedication to the cause were a major turning point in the war. Thanks to them the back door route into China was closed.

We don’t give enough historical credit to the Chinese role in the defeat of Fascism. The Chinese denied Japan control of valuable resources. Chinese resistance meant that Japanese troops had to stay in China, which allowed American and Russian allies vital breathing space to focus on the defeat of Germany. History should remember Mr Lu and his comrades for their part in freeing the world from the plague of fascism.

But the bonds of friendship stretch far beyond this. Listening to Lu you remember that almost at exactly the same time he crawled his way up Laifeng Mountain under murderous fire from the enemy, 11,000 kilometres away in central Italy, my grandfather, Alfred Nash, was crawling up another mountain, called Monte Cassino, under equally withering gunfire from the German army. Monte Cassino was as pivotal in the war in western Europe as Laifeng was in the war in Asia. When I sat next to Mr Lu in his Tengchong home in 2019 I knew my grandfather was there in the room, listening as attentively as I was. They shared the same slightly mischievous twinkle in their eyes, maybe the light in the eyes of those who have looked on the brutality of war and know better than us, the precious everyday beauty of peace.

The author and Mr Lu Caiwen

Look, it’s dusk outside and right on time the train is pulling into Shanghai Hongqiao station. We’ve completed our high speed embrace of a country and its people. We’ve arrived in the city where in July 1921 the rebirth of this great nation started. Gather round friends of China, new histories of understanding and harmony are waiting to be written.

The author welcomes you to join him on a 高铁 – gāotiě – high speed train tour of China

Posted on

Growing People to People Connections

Guangzhou Garden, Bristol

Did you know that the city of Bristol has its own garden dedicated to expressing the connections between the people of Bristol and the people of the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou?  Neither did I! In this blog I will briefly introduce a short history of the fascinating city of Guangzhou but as quickly as possible get to the garden itself.

Guangzhou is a very appropriate city to be twinned with Bristol, because in history they were both once the trading capitals of their respective countries.  It was from Bristol that Atlantic sea journeys to West Africa and then the eastern seaboard of what became America started, with the voyage of John Cabot to Canada in 1497.  Tragically this maritime activity quickly developed into the Atlantic slave trade.  Modern Bristol has evolved as a vibrant, multi-cultural city which is the gateway to the west of England and Wales.  

Bristol Docks today

Moving to Guangzhou, I wouldn’t mind betting that all of you actually do know this city, but under the former name of ‘Canton’. Canton was the name given to Guangzhou by European traders, Portuguese explorers first arrived in the Guangzhou region in 1513.  By that time Guangzhou was already a thriving trade centre under Ming Dynasty rule.  From the Tang Dynasty onwards the city had been a vital part of the ‘Maritime Silk Road’ with sea-routes spinning out across south-east Asia as far as the Red Sea.  It was also a fabulously diverse, multi-cultural centre, home to traders and merchants from every part of Asia and Africa. 

 Tragically in the mid-nineteenth century, the ‘Opium Wars’ in which Britain fought to exploit and control trade with China, focused largely on this area. In the twentieth century Guangzhou became the hot-bed of revolution as first the Nationalists and then the Communists claimed the city for New China.  In the New China founded by the Communist Party in 1949 Guangzhou prospered, first as an industrial centre, and then from the 1980’s becoming one of the financial and trading hubs of China herself and then the world. In 2023, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the city of Guangzhou in China amounted to approximately 3.04 trillion yuan.

Guangzhou – a world trade hub

Now we can see the context for both cities, the idea of a partnership seems a natural step.  An agreement between the two cities was first signed in 2001. In 2013 this was expanded by the adoption of a Bilateral Agreement signed by the Councils of the two cities.  One of the outcomes of these agreements was the setting up of the West of England China Bureau with a mission to connect the people of Bristol and the South West of England with the people of China and in particular Bristol’s Sister City Guangzhou in Southern China. They work to encourage greater mutual understanding between the two countries.

The Guangzhou Garden is a horticultural expression of this partnership. Moreover it makes a statement not just about the connections between the peoples of the two cities, but connections between people and the natural environment, which we know from previous Blogs, are deep at the roots of both British and Chinese cultures. Both Peter Chmiel and Chin-Jung Chen of Grant Associates, Bath, wanted to design the Garden in ways that addressed issues of sustainability and eco-diversity, particularly in relation to urban planning. Some of you might know that since the year 2000 sustainable urban planning (sometimes called ‘green’ or ‘eco’ cities) has been an important focus in China.  The importance of the design concepts presented in the Guangzhou Garden can be seen by the fact that it won a Gold Medal and Best in Show at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Chin Jung-Chen, garden designer

Let’s take a tour of some of the features of the Guangzhou Garden. Just as in so many classical gardens I have seen in China, a pool of water is at the heart of the design.  Around the pool are ranged a variety of interesting shrubs and tree specimens, all with origins in China.  One particularly beautiful sample is the Dove or Handkerchief Tree, also known as a ‘Ghost Tree’ because in May they are covered in reddish purple-brown flowers with white bracts (bracts are small, modified leaves, that hang beneath a flower) and these flutter together mysteriously in the Spring breezes.  The tree originates from mountain forests in Northern Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, West Hubei and West Hunan provinces, but it is becoming rarer in the wild and actually red listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

A Ghost Tree

Another noteworthy tree in the Guangzhou Garden is the Dawn Redwood.  This tree has a perfectly symmetrical shape and soft feathery leaves.  It is a very ancient tree.  Fossilised versions of the tree have been found which are 150 million years old.  It grows extensively in Hubei Province in China.  This beautiful tree is especially spectacular in Autumn when the leaves turn russet and golden. Interestingly, it has been found out that the Dawn Redwood makes a perfect street tree, because it needs little water, tolerates poor soil and rids itself and the surrounding area of dirt and pollution when its leaves fall and decompose.  Coming soon to a roadside near you.

Dawn Redwood –
Metasequoia glyptostroboides 

Gardens are one of the treasures of Chinese history and culture. There is evidence of gardening stretching all the way back to the period of the Shang in China, (1600 to 1046 BCE). It was in the Han Dynasty (206-220 CE) that the idea grew of a garden as a place of rest and relaxation. Thereafter, each generation of Chinese history saw the development of new aesthetic ideas and forms of horticultural expression.

In the Sui Dynasty (581-618CE) and Tang Dynasties (618-907 CE), it became the fashion to introduce rocks, waterfalls and other mountain features into gardens, features which remain popular to this day. Emperor Kangxi of the Ming Dynasty (1386-1644) and Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) focused on the part structures played in garden design, decorating gardens with pagodas, little palaces and rooms for rest and contemplation.

If you visit the Chinese city of Suzhou I recommend a visit to the Humble Administrator’s Garden (拙政园) which is the largest garden in Suzhou and recognised as one of the four most famous gardens in China. This garden was constructed in 1509 during the Ming Dynasty and is a masterpiece of Ming Dynasty garden landscaping. The garden is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Humble Administrator’s Garden ( 拙政园), Suzhou

Sadly, such travel is not available to us all, in which case a visit to the Guangzhou Garden in Bristol will be perfect. I want to thank the Botanic Garden Curator Nicholas Wray for his generous help in writing this article. You can find out more about the Garden here : https://botanic-garden.bristol.ac.uk/. And as you potter around your very own garden patch of paradise next time, remember you are tending yet another source of deep connection between British and Chinese culture.

Two cultures rooted in a shared love of gardens

Let’s finish with a little Chinese poetry, written to celebrate gardens. There are many but these lines are by 林逋, Lin Bu (967-1028), a Northern Song poet.

众芳摇落独暄妍   

占尽风情向小园   

疏影横斜水清浅   

暗香浮动月黄昏   

霜禽欲下先偷眼   

粉蝶如知合断魂 

This is the flower that shows us springtime beauty,

When the others have wobbled and fallen.

It’s the reason we love this small garden.   

Its thin shadows slant across the clear, shallow water,

Its hidden fragrance floats beneath the yellow moon.

A snow-white bird steals a look before landing.

If the pink butterflies knew it was here, their hearts should break.

( Translation by Jean Yuan, 2021)