China in Context Festival: London 5 - 18 March

[Luxi]

For those lucky to be in or near London over the next fortnight, here's the program of events for the 2nd annual China in Context festival.  Links to book tickets can be found in the individual events.

http://chinaexchange.uk/exchanges/chinaincontext/

Unfortunately, I am too far and currently can only get to the nearest village by walking on snow drifts.

 

There's also a book fair on the 15th to 18th March.

http://chinaexchange.uk/events/china-in-context-book-fair/

[Wippen (inactive)]

18 hours ago, Luxi said:

can only get to the nearest village by walking on snow drifts.

 

Thanks for posting about these events. If I happen to be in the UK I would go.

 

I am intrigued about the snow comment. I live in Germany and they get a decent amount of snow and for a long period.

 

Is it because they are not prepared for it that it creates "chaos"?

[Luxi]

27 minutes ago, Tøsen said:

Is it because they are not prepared for it that it creates "chaos"?

 

That's the usual excuse (at least we had real snow this time), but they should also mention lousy infrastructure, inadequate roads and lack of public transport.

I live in a rural area, the main roads have been cleared but not the side roads leading to them. From my place on the side of a hill I can see a main road in the distance that is completely clear of snow but has had hardly any traffic at all the last 4-5 days. I can't drive to the main road and there is only 1 bus a week going by. 

[Wippen (inactive)]

2 hours ago, Luxi said:

lousy infrastructure, inadequate roads and lack of public transport.

I live in a rural area, the main roads have been cleared but not the side roads leading to them

That makes sense. I can tell you how they do it in Germany: Farmers are on stand-by to deal with sudden snowfall. They have the right equipment for it and make extra money in the winter when the crop is in the ground and there is nothing to do. It is very organised in Germany. But I guess we pay for it in taxes.

 

2 hours ago, Luxi said:

hardly any traffic at all the last 4-5 days

But this experience must be a nice one to have. Takes you back to before the industrial revolution.

 

Incidentally the Germans have an idiom. They say "yesterday's snow" It means irrelevant, old news.

Explanation

[Luxi]

 

53 minutes ago, Tøsen said:

"yesterday's snow"

That applies well here, it never lasts a full week.

Not the same for Ice Boy / Frost Flower Boy back in Yunnan...

 

[Wippen (inactive)]

12 minutes ago, Luxi said:

Not the same for Ice Boy / Frost Flower Boy back in Yunnan...

 It will be three year's of snow then :-)

[LiMo]

If it only happens once every 3 years we can hardly be expected to plan for it properly now can we? Far more important things to do, like vanity railway projects!

 

I can't believe I'm not on the China Exchange mailing list yet. Thanks for posting about this, I will be in London and will enthsiastically attend as the snow has almost completely gone now. 

[somethingfunny]

Snow disruption in England (I don't think I can include Scotland in this) happens on maybe one or two days a year.  I think people have decided it's easier for everything to just collapse for those two days than it is to put a load of infrastructure in place so that everything can still run smoothly.  For example, the snow we had in the midlands last week was some of the worst I can remember, but it only affected road transport for half a day.  I think one of the big things that makes a difference is that none of the vehicles here have winter tyres - but let's be honest, who is going to change the tyres on their car for the one day of the year that it snows?

[DavyJonesLocker]

British do tend to have a full on hissy fit when a bit of snow happens.

In London people were buying out supermarkets as if a nuclear winter was coming. The Sainsbury near me almost ran out of food. Snowed for 2 days and completely gone by day 4

[Luxi]

16 hours ago, LiMo said:

I will be in London and will enthsiastically attend

 

Oh, good! I was hoping someone here was able to attend. There wasn't much notice of this festival, I only found out through the Paper Republic page. Would you mind reporting here if you attend any events?

The snow is gone from here too, but I'm tied up with too many things here to be able to make it.

 

PS Don't go mad at the Book Fair!

[Wippen (inactive)]

20 hours ago, LiMo said:

happens once every 3 years

I was using a metaphor referring to the fact that China aims to eradicate poverty within three years. The 留守儿童 will then have three years of show.

8 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

winter tyres - but let's be honest, who is going to change the tyres on their car for the one day of the year that it snows?

It is a safety feature that is useful when the temperature goes below 7 degrees.I think is the number Germans use.

[LiMo]

@Tøsen

By some coincidence or qwerk of psychology I picked that number out randomly because 10 seemed too long and few was too vague. Perhaps I read your post and was subconsiously influenced. 

 

@Luxi

 

I'll make an effort to report on anything interesting. I've suddenly been hit with some unexpected commitments so I'll be busier than I thought but I'll do what I can regardless

[Wippen (inactive)]

@LiMo you could have said "blue moon" :-) anyway three years is an ambitious goal, don't you think. 

[realmayo]

On 03/03/2018 at 2:41 PM, Luxi said:

For those lucky to be in or near London over the next fortnight

 

Thanks for the link, I'm probably too lazy to go to any of these things but the arty stuff on the 18th looks interesting. No doubt I'll lose some money at

the book fair too....

[Luxi]

Don't worry @LiMo, @realmayo, the organizers may produce some videos for the China Exchange website (and I hope Su Tong's lecture is one of them)。They have several already though most don't seem to have anything to do with China

http://chinaexchange.uk/past-events/

 

...but nothing can replace a good book fair.

[amytheorangutan]

Thanks for the tip! Most likely I will be going to a couple of the talks. I was going to book the calligraphy workshop but it's already fully booked 

 

 

[amytheorangutan]

So my husband and I went to the discussion on Jin Yong with the Swedish translator Anna Holmwood who translated his book, Legend of The Condor Heroes into English recently. My husband is into wuxia so that was interesting, she discussed a lot about the difficulties of translating the essence of the book into English and we also went to the Chinese Labour Corps talk by historian Frances Wood. We weren't sure about the topic initially (if we would be interested in it), but I've heard Frances Wood discussions previously on a few BBC 4 programs and I enjoyed listening to her so we went. It was actually a very interesting talk on Chinese Labour Corps in WW1 "employed" by the British and French. We are both only beginner-elementary level in Mandarin so we didn't buy any Chinese books, just the translation of Legend of The Condor Heroes part 1 and a graded level reader book. They have some of the books that are on the 2017 bestsellers in China. Found weird stuff in the book fair, Bob Dylan's lyrics translated into Chinese printed in books packaged in chips (or crisps) packaging  We'll definitely come back next year.