Language learning and Friendship

In this Chair’s Blog I want to give a platform to our talented, possibly younger SACU members, so that we hear from a diversity of voices about our theme of Anglo-Chinese friendship. So in this blog I’m handing over to an article by Arron Van Rompaey. Arron is a SACU Council member who relocated to Nanjing, China, in August 2023 to take up a post as a teacher of Literature and Inter-cultural Studies in a Chinese middle school. Arron’s topic is learning Chinese. I think this is at the heart of friendship between two peoples. Arron’s article is delightfully honest […]

So much to learn from each other.

One of the key things that drives me in my work for SACU is the knowledge that there is so much the people of China and the people of Britain could benefit from if we had genuine opportunities to learn from each other. I was reminded of this recently. One of my former students now studying Urban Design in a UK university sent me her essay about Environmental Impact Assessments – which are legal mechanisms used in the UK to protect vulnerable environments. And there in one amazing paragraph she was paralleling and comparing an annual report into Teeside Incinerators […]

What’s the connection between Stonehenge and Chinese dumplings?

Can you solve this Christmas conundrum? The answer is Winter Solstice. Britain and China share the same northern hemisphere location. On Friday 22nd December Britain and China shared the experience of Winter Solstice, the day when the northern half of the Earth tilts farthest away from the sun. Consequently Solstice Day has the shortest numbers of daylight hours and the longest hours of darkness. Let’s start at Stonehenge. Most of us know about the link between Stonehenge and the Summer solstice in June, when visitors flock to the monument to celebrate the sun rising between the stones. However archaeologists generally […]

Keeping China Connections Live !

First of all let me send festive good wishes to us all. I thought I’d try to bring some seasonal joy to this particular blog by celebrating the fun and merriment of live performance. I think this is particularly poignant since this is the first festive period since the end of COVID. I hope that all of you will enjoy the opportunity to cheer yourselves up by joining the audience of a show or performance. At this time of year I always look back with a merry tear in my eye to the christmas shows in the school where I […]

Changing faces of Chengdu

For the last week I have travelled with Grade 9 and Grade 10 students from my school in the city of Chengdu, which is the capital of the south-westerly province of Sichuan. You’ll be familiar with the name from countless restaurants in England claiming to serve ‘Szechuan’ dishes. It is not my job to act as an advertising agent for ‘Travel China’ so I’ll get the publicity out of the way immediately. If you have the chance to visit this fascinating location, please do so! In this blog we are in the business of building bridges of understanding between the […]

To travel a thousand miles beats reading a thousand books

行万里路胜读万卷书 (xíngwànlǐlùshèngdúwànjuǎnshū) For this week’s Chairs Blog let’s get our hiking boots on and head out of town to the remote mountains of the south-western province of Guizhou. It’s a good time to head south from Beijing where temperatures are dropping to freezing. Go, go, go Guizhou Guizhou for me is one of the most fascinating places in China, second only to its neighbour Yunnan. It is still a largely rural province but thanks to government investment it is also fast becoming a digital technology hub of China. Its terrain is folded into mountains and valleys where now high speed […]

双十一, Double Eleven, more than just a shopping festival?

Double Eleven! One of the most important events of the year for many Chinese people is taking place right now in November. It’s called Double Eleven and it’s the biggest shopping festival in the world. It’s a bit like Boxing Day and the January sales in the UK but on steroids. And curiously it takes place at almost the same time as the western shopping festival called ‘Black Friday’, which this year is on November 24th. In this article I’ll share information about the Double Eleven phenomenon and some thoughts about what it means for the Chinese people. What is […]

Double Ninth Day

This Friday, 27th October, all of the students in my school in Beijing with all of their teachers and the company of some parents will make a 20 minute bus journey to the outskirts of Beijing and climb a mountain. For those of you who don’t know Beijing, it is a city in a bowl of mountains. One of the joys of my apartment is that I can see the mountains very clearly from the windows. But why are we climbing the mountain together on Friday? In the UK this might be an outdoors activity, designed to promote healthy lifestyles […]

A Journey Through Civilisations

SACU members Iris Yau, Richard Poxton, Ros Wong (membership secretary), Zoe Reed (former Chair) and Frances Wood at the ‘Journey through Civilisations’ event. SACU is very proud to have been one of the sponsors of a recent event in London hosted by the China Media Group. The event was held to mark the launch of a new on-line exhibition. Through immersive and digital technological innovations overseas audiences can immerse themselves in a digital scroll of time spanning ancient and modern times. This allows the audience a virtual experience of the early stages of Chinese civilisation and an appreciation of the […]

Which films can I watch to improve my understanding of China?

The Goddess – 神女 – 1934 This is considered by many to be the finest silent film ever made in China. The plot of the film concerns the struggles of a young single mother to escape from poverty and patriarchy. She is forced to work as a prostitute to feed her child. She also has to escape from the predatory attention of a vicious gambler. Her chances of finding happiness are threatened by social prejudice towards her as a woman. The main character is brilliantly portrayed by the actor Ruan Lingyu, who in a terrible irony, committed suicide herself as the […]