Author: SACU Admin

A new Pax Mongolica

This week brought upsetting news of more conflict and chaos in areas of the world that were once integral to the Silk Roads between China and Europe. Geopolitics has filled the streets of Georgia with protests. The violent struggle for power in Syria has re-erupted after a period of smouldering calm. My dream of a peaceful land journey from Beijing to Europe, retracing the steps of the Silk Road, seems more distant than ever. In my last Blog I wrote about the benefits of increasing trade links between China, Europe and Britain. Here I want to look back to a […]

China Meets the World

I’m sure that all SACU members will join me in welcoming the steps taken by both Britain and China to improve their relationship recently. Foreign Secretary David Lammy met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing and with representatives of the business community in Shanghai. Then, at the G20 Summit in Brazil, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. China’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom Zheng Zeguang has said, “We stand ready to work with the UK side to follow up on the common understanding between the two leaders, and enhance dialogue, communication, and collaboration […]

St Cuthbert’s Silk – Connections, ancient and modern

Here in Beijing, a significant academic conference has just come to a close. From November 6th to November 8th, Beijing hosted the world’s first World Conference of Classics. The event was co-hosted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Ministry of Education of China, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, the Ministry of Culture of Greece, and the Academy of Athens. An important outcome of the event was the establishment of a China Classical Civilisation Research Institute in Athens. The event gathered four hundred and eighty-five scholars from over 30 countries and regions. The event reminds us […]

A Tale of Two Supermarkets

Aldi stores are becoming a familiar presence in Shanghai One of the undoubted changes in the UK over the last few decades has been the rise of the German supermarket chain Aldi. As we will see in this blog, the same phenomenon is now happening in China. In this blog I also want to contrast the approaches to retail in China being adopted by the Aldi company with those used by Tesco, which exited the China market in 2020. First a little bit of background. The very first ‘Aldi’ store opened in the German town of Essen in 1913. It […]

Halloween Special!

Superstitions are a deep part of the roots of every culture. Anyone dropping into the West on October 31st without a knowledge of the culture and customs of Halloween would be very confused by what they saw, children and adults wandering the streets in macabre outfits and demanding ‘trick or treat’. A festival like Halloween is a complex cocktail of centuries of influences, some modern and commercial, but others stretching back to the earliest attempts of people to make sense of their world. In the dark origins of Halloween we can find echoes of the ancient Celtic festival of ‘Samhain’, […]

Quirky China Connections

Blame it on the rhubarb! In this blog I want to look at the more humorous aspect of building bridges of understanding between the people of China and the people of Britain. Why rhubarb? Well, last Friday, at a very prestigious banquet in Beijing, I found myself sitting next to the wonderfully witty Michael Crook, who interrupted an earnest discussion about cross cultural Educational philosophies to inquire if I’d ever managed to buy rhubarb in China. It was a question of Johnathon Swiftesque absurdity. As far as I knew, after ten years of trying every Chinese culinary delight possible, the […]

Building Bridges of Understanding

2024-10-09 15:22:00Source：China TodayAuthor：staff reporter ZHOU LIN British educator Chris Nash brings innovative ideas to build understanding and promote communication between young Chinese and Britons. Chris Nash first visited China in 2008 as a guest of the BBC and it was “love at first sight.” Nash, now the new chair of the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU), is an old friend of the Chinese and has long been engaged in international education in China. Integrating Chinese and Western Ideas  A postgraduate in education, Nash was a school headmaster in England for 10 years, when he introduced many innovative ideas, especially e-learning […]

The Needham Question Re~visited

As you know from my previous Blog, this October is the 75th anniversary of the New China which started in 1949. I hope you know too that next year is the 60th anniversary of our own SACU, which was inaugurated in May 1965 when Joseph Needham himself gave a speech to an audience of over 1000 at Church House Westminster. As my last Blog explained, since 1949 China has made spectacular progress in Science and Technology, so much so that China now has the most patents in terms of ranking of patents by country globally. By the end of 2023, […]

75 Years of Progress!

Starting this weekend the people of Beijing and visitors to the city will be able to experience a spectacular light show. Over 2,800 sites across the capital will be bathed in glorious illumination bringing their nocturnal beauty to full expression. This weekend also sees the opening of the National Day holiday all across China. This holiday takes place from October 1st to October 7th every year. It is often called ‘Golden Week’ and it is an annual celebration of the inauguration of New China on October 1st 1949. Those of you who are good at Maths will have worked out […]

Zhōngqiū ānkāng

Wishing you a Healthy and Tranquil Mid-Autumn Festival! This year the Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival will take place on Tuesday 17th September. The day of the festival changes every year because like many Asian events it follows a lunar calendar. In this article I’ll talk about some interesting aspects of this festival. Let’s start with a poem: ‘ rēn yǒu bēi huān lí hé yuè yǒu yīn qíng yuán quē cǐ shì gǔ nān quān 人 有 悲 欢 离 合， 月 有 阴 晴 圆 缺，此 事 古 难 全。 People may have sorrows and joys, partings and reunions, […]