The Friends of East Asia’s next lecture will take place on Saturday 31st October, when FEA member Philip Cheung will talk to us on the use of the Chinese writing script, in history and up to the present day.
Title : How to live with a non-phonetic writing script: China and her neighbours from ancient to modern times.
Speaker : Philip Cheung, member of the Friends of East Asia
Date : Saturday 31st October
Venue : The Allen Room, 1/F, St. Anne’s Church, 55 Dean Street, W1D 6AF
Time : 2:30 pm
Lecture : Chinese characters constitute the only writing script in the world today that is not based on the sound of the spoken language. My talk looks with seriousness and humour into the difficulties and tricky situations faced by users of the script, and the solutions they have come up with, in ancient and modern times. Think typewriter, dictionary, … or the roundabout way you arrive at a Chinese name (if you are non-Chinese and have one). But, ultimately, it is the difficulty of learning to read and write characters that makes some change necessary. We look at modern reforms and why it is so hard to live without characters, given the way they have shaped poetry, calligraphy …etc. I shall recite a Tang poem or two as illustration. The Chinese are not the only users of Chinese characters. We count also the Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese as former users who have kept ‘some’ use for characters today. We shall see how their countries have partially or wholly abandoned the use of characters, and how Tibet, Mongolia and Manchuria have gone their own way ‘from the start’.
Lunch: An optional dim sum lunch beforehand at the New Loon Fung restaurant, 42-43 Gerrard Street, London W1D 5QG. Lunch will begin at noon at a cost of £27 per person including Chinese tea and service.
Booking: Please book now with Florence on Florence.lkcan@gmail.com and say if you wish to join the lunch. Guests are always welcome at our lectures and lunches.
Lecture cost: £10 for members of Friends of East Asia, £12 for guests, to include refreshments after the talk. Free of charge to full-time students – please book in advance or on the day and bring your Student ID card to the lecture.