Category: Member News

Iris Yau (SACU Trustee) and Weien ZONG (SACU) represented SACU again at this year’s Armistice Day Commemoration at the Cenotaph in Whitehall on Monday 11th November. They joined a contingent in honour of the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) (中国劳工旅). Iris Yau (SACU Trustee) laid a wreath in honour of the Chinese Labour Corps on behalf of SACU. The Western Front Association organises this major commemorative event every year on 11th November.  Footage from SKY News, ‘Chinese Labour Corps’, 1 hour 38 minutes in here SACU joined the wreath-laying ceremony here The ‘CLC’ contingent entering the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London here The […]

Firstly, I thank Iris Yau丘靜雯, SACU Council member and the event organiser, for encouraging me to share my reflection on attending my first SACU event “Open-Air Cinema: Su Tong in conversation with Dr Frances Wood.” I knew SACU (Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding) for a long time, through my line manager Bryan Sitch, Deputy Head of Collections of the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester. We jointly published a research article entitled “An Umbrella of the Chinese Labour Corps in the Manchester Museum Collection” in China Eye in 2018. As we have been working together to develop a permanent Lee Kai Hung […]

This SACU ChinaChat was for members only, designed to allow discussion of the various aspects of the controversy. Excerpts from two contrasting videos – one by Martin Jacques and one by Rachel Harris, an academic and leading campaigner for the Uighurs – were shown and two SACU members, John Baruch and Keith Lamb, who have some local experiences, followed up by sharing their views. Some particular friends of SACU were also invited to join the session to help us with our considerations. Dr Jenny Clegg, SACU Vice President, chaired the discussion, which was not recorded. Jenny wrote, “Questions about the […]

SACU members joined with students from both the UK and China for this year’s Awards Ceremony of the Essay/Art Competition, organised jointly by SACU and Peking University. The SACU/ Peking University Essay Competition began in 2015 as part of SACU’s 50th Anniversary celebrations. Now in its 5th year, the aim of the competition is to help young people learn about the development of friendship and understanding between the UK and China and to consider how this might be further promoted. The submissions can be an essay or an artistic form, which could involve for example photography, other visual art, or choreographed […]

SACU ChinaChat meeting for members:  “A Moral Question, A Moral Duty” – Behind the scenes with SACU member Iris Yau, Curator of the recent exhibition “Opium, Silk and the Missionaries in China” held May – June at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS. The Exhibition: “Opium, Silk and the Missionaries in China” retold one of the largely forgotten histories of the relationship between Britain and China in the 19th Century. It drew on several collections, using artefacts to explore the history of the Opium Wars. Botanical arts and tools, historical artefacts about silk, missionary work and intercultural shared experiences in China recorded by British Missionaries throughout […]

SACU’s first Virtual ChinaChat, Thursday 25 June 2020, 6.00-7.30pm by Zoom. Dr Jenny Clegg led the discussion on the Opium Wars based on the American historian, Stephen Platt’s Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Golden Age (2018). With the first salvos of the first Opium War in 1839, Britain opened China to a ‘Century of Humiliation’ where the once mighty Qing dynasty faced internal rebellion and rapacious imperial powers.  Platt sets out both the British and the Chinese sides as events moved inexorably to war. This potent turning point in China’s history ‘stands for everything that today’s […]

SACU and Peking University’s joint UK/China Friendship and Understanding Essay Competition 2020 has taken place and the winners were announced online in a Zoom ceremony on Wednesday 17 June 2020. Zoe Reed, SACU Chair, hosted the Awards Ceremony which this year was moved online because of the current pandemic crisis. The entrants joined the event from as far away as Shanghai.   There were 27 entrants from 7 schools who submitted entries on this year’s theme of ‘Overcoming the Cultural Gap between China and the West’. The schools taking part were Marlborough College; King’s College School (Wimbledon); Highgate School (London); […]