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 […]

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 […]

ICCIC Delegation visit UK, 26-30 September 2018

  SACU welcomed an ICCIC delegation for their short stay, 26th-30th September, which they made as part of the 80th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives – Gung Ho movement. For this trip the delegation wanted to follow in the footsteps of George Hogg. ICCIC stands for the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (Gung-Ho-ICCIC) (www.gungho.org.cn) which has been helping people establish member-owned co-operative enterprises since 1937. In an extremely short trip the delegation managed to visit all the main British sites associated with George Hogg (1915-1945), journalist, vocational teacher and key player […]

Team SACU raises money for the George Hogg Education Fund

Congratulations to Team SACU! SACU Treasurer Yuan Gao and SACU Council member Cai Chen teamed with friends She Zhou, Yunxi Xu and Amally Ding to run the Music Fun Run on Saturday 21 April 2018, raising £60 for the George Hogg Education Fund. The SACU team ended in 27th position out of 48 teams in the Team Relay with a total team time of 50.35 minutes. CUKRUN is a not-for-profit Chinese community running club in London which generously offered to help SACU’s fundraising at this running event by donating the team’s registration costs to the George Hogg Education Fund. The […]

SACU’s Early Days – Spring Social 2018

SACU members, long-standing and new, had a chance to get together at the SACU Spring Social, held on Tuesday 17th April 2018 at the Strand Campus of King’s College London. This was the first of this year’s SACU ChinaCafés, members-only events with informal discussions and refreshments. Anyone interested in SACU is welcome to come along to a SACU ChinaCafé and join on the evening and we were delighted to welcome several new members at this event. The theme for the evening was “SACU’s early days”. Zoe Reed, our Chair, gave an introduction to SACU and its early days for the benefit […]