Category: Events

SACU/Peking University Essay/Art Competition 2020-2021 Launched 5 December 2020

We launched the fifth SACU-PKU Essay/Art Competition online on 5th December, this year online due to the unprecedented global pandemic. SACU members, schoolteachers and students as well as some non-members from both China and the UK attended the event.   The event opened with remarks by SACU Chair Zoe Reed and Professor Sun Hua of Peking University. Both expressed their encouragement to the younger generation of the UK to learn more about China and to promote further understanding between the two countries in the future. Professor Sun Hua also took the opportunity, with the forthcoming 120th anniversary of Joseph Needham’s […]

The Story of China: Michael Wood, SACU/HSBC Joint Event

Michael Wood, SACU’s President, gave a special online talk to the joint HSBC China Connect Group and SACU members on 19th November 2020 on the subject of his new book The Story of China.  Michael has the gift of summarising not only his own book but the whole history of China and its people in a short vivid talk, gripping our attention by focusing on some key episodes and outstanding characters in the long saga of Chinese history and culture.   In the discussion, he mentioned that he is basically a film-maker, which is obvious when he ‘zooms’ into these scenarios […]

SACU/Peking University Essay Competition Launched at Oundle School, Wednesday 29th January 2020

We launched this year’s Essay Competition at Oundle School on Wednesday 29th January at the invitation of Ms Shuling Russo-Lai, Head of Chinese, and we thank the school for their hospitality. SACU has close links with Oundle School because our founder Joseph Needham attended the school and SACU’s Archives are stored here.   Interested students gave up their lunchtime to come along to SACU’s presentation in the Modern Languages Building. Zoe Reed, SACU Chair, talked about Joseph Needham’s wartime support of China’s scientists and how he sponsored a young K.C. Sun to study textile engineering in the UK. K.C. Sun became […]

China at 70: Looking Back; Looking Ahead

On 16th October 2019 SACU held a panel discussion to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China with an evening reflecting on China’s past achievements and future challenges. More than 70 SACU members, friends and King’s College London students joined us for a stimulating evening of presentations and discussion with our expert panel. Panel of speakers: Minister Counsellor Wang Qi: we were honoured to have him join us from the Chinese Embassy View summary of his presentation here Dr Jenny Clegg: SACU Vice President, independent writer and researcher, author and China specialist speaker View […]

Living history in Babaoshan: Our SACU pilot event in Beijing, China

We are delighted to report on the first event of SACU’s newly formed SACU Beijing Chapter. This report has been written by SACU member Tamara Treichel, cosmopolitan and creative writer, based in Beijing:    A tour of Beijing’s Babaoshan Cemetery given by Michael Crook on October 12, 2019   Our Babaoshan guided tour, Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU) Beijing chapter’s first event, given by SACU member Michael Crook, a British expat in Beijing, was a big hit! Michael did the heavy lifting, and he was the perfect person to give the tour because he knew some of the foreign friends […]

From Old London to New Milton Keynes: Chinese Identities in Britain

On Saturday 20thJuly 2019, following our morning AGM, we held an afternoon event jointly with our partner The Meridian Society, in St Columba’s Church in Knightsbridge. Our event included talks and a film, timed to coincide with the Lao She symposium held earlier this year in Beijing to commemorate the 120thanniversary of the birth of novelist and playwright Lao She. He was one of 20thcentury China’s most significant literary figures who came to London in 1924 to teach Chinese at the School of Oriental Studies (now SOAS). Out of the four years he lived here, came his novel Mr. Ma […]

The Story of China with Professor Michael Wood

We were delighted that Professor Michael Wood could join us on Friday 15 March to talk on ‘The Story of China’. Illustrated with film clips, Michael reflected on some of the themes in his recent highly-praised series on Chinese history. He also gave us a preview of his forthcoming film on the 40th anniversary of Deng’s Reform and Opening up. SACU is grateful to EY (Ernst & Young) for their generous support of this event at their prestigious offices in Canary Wharf. The film team from China Minutes interviewed Michael just before his talk:- Here is a short introduction on Facebook (3 minutes): […]

Jessica Darling speaks at SACU ChinaCafé

2019 SACU ChinaCafé Series is underway: SACU ChinaCafe 1 took place on 19 February 2019. The theme of this year’s three café-style meetings is ‘Health and Wellbeing’, co-hosted by the Lau China Institute, King’s College London (KCL) at Bush House, Strand Campus. SACU and the Lau are working in partnership to create a UK-Chinese understanding of Health and Wellbeing with a particular focus on supporting KCL students and their mental health needs. Our first session featured Jessica Darling who spent her childhood in China with her father Dr Joshua S. Horn, author of Away with All Pests: An English Surgeon in People’s […]

Joseph Needham SACU / Peking University Essay Competition Awards 2018

And the winner is …! On Tuesday 4 December the Awards Ceremony of the ‘Joseph Needham China / UK Friendship and Understanding SACU / Peking University Essay Competition’ took place at Oundle School in Northamptonshire.   Oundle School is the former school of Professor Joseph Needham of Cambridge University who founded SACU, with others, in 1965. SACU is proud to be associated with Professor Joseph Needham and has a longstanding relationship with Oundle School which houses SACU’s archives.   SACU and Peking University jointly sponsor the annual essay competition on the theme of friendship and mutual understanding between the peoples […]

George Hogg SACU / Peking University Essay Competition Awards 2018

  It is Awards Season again! On the evening of Wednesday 28thNovember, the Awards Ceremony of the ‘George Hogg China / UK Friendship and Understanding SACU / Peking University Essay Competition’ took place at St George’s School in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.   George Hogg (1915-1945) grew up in Harpenden and attended St George’s School. He was a journalist reporting in wartime China and a vocational teacher who ran a school for war orphans. He is celebrated in China for his work in the wartime co-operative movement with a museum and memorial to him in rural North West China.   SACU and […]