Summer 2011

CHINESE CULTURAL

GROUP, MERTON

Inside this issue:

Antiques Road Show

2

Christmas Party 2

The 18 Tai Chi Shibashi

2

Spring Rolls dem-onstration

2

The Mid Autumn Festival

3

The World’s Long-est Sea Bridge

3

2 Great Chinese Writers

4

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT—Eugene Byrne

On 11th July, five of us visited the Museum of Asian Music at Acton

to see the exhibition.

The journey from Wimbledon included one easy train change and

walking through beautiful Acton Park. It was a glorious, warm day.

We found the museum after getting lost twice. The museum is little

known but modern and well equipped. There are no guides, but the

displays are well illustrated. They feature all of the six components of

the Chinese opera wardrobe: long garments, separates, armour,

head-dress, footwear and accessories. The garments are brought

Chinese proverbs

(ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING on the 21 June 2011)

The Group has completed a busy year in the eight months since our inaugural meeting. We have 37 paid-up members but the average attendance at our meetings has currently dropped

to about 11 to 14. I would thank the hard core of members who attend so regularly. But we

would like to hear the ideas of members as to how this decline could be reversed, and also about what contributions they may be able to make to any of the activities mentioned below.

For the regular meetings the basic format has continued. The taichi appears to be the most

popular of the different activities and we are grateful to Maggie Woo, Alex Roney and Lee Monczakowski for taking turns in leading the exercises. Maggie‟s recent trial of DVDs that can

be followed seems to be the way forward. Thanks also to Maggie for her hard work on

traditional festival celebrations and the New Year dinner. The Confucius Restaurant has also

been generous.

The newsletter produced by Lee Monczakowski is a vital communication tool that is also useful

in public relations promotion. I thank her most sincerely for her hard work on this very attractive production and I would urge members to come forward with any contributions that

they can provide.

We have worked on PR promotion in various directions. The London South West Chinese

Community Association, a large and active body meeting in the Acasia Intergenerational Centre, Eastfields, with its Chairman Patrick Lauson, has promoted a friendly social

collaboration with us which has been mutually beneficial. I hope to develop a similar contact with an active group in Kingston, and to have our name included on local activity websites. For

the past two years we have sponsored talks in the Wimbledon Bookfest which have been very

successful and have produced a few new members. This October we hope to sponsor a

showing of the new type of Chinese documentary films, with an introduction by Prof Chris Berry who is perhaps the leading UK expert on Chinese cinema, but the Bookfest

arrangements for this remain to be confirmed.

Finally, the Committee. Sadly, other commitments have forced Gregory and Soot Yee Liaw to

leave us but we hope to have them back one day. We are very glad that Lee Monczakowski

has been able to rejoin. The Guild has been supportive as always and Helen Marti who had to

resign some time ago still works there part-time and has been very helpful. I-Chen Tsai has worked hard but has had to be away recently. We are badly in need of an assistant secretary

since at the moment much of that work is falling on other committee members. But

fortunately for me, my colleagues‟ attitude is gong he (pronounced “goong her”, work

together) a slogan which, although it was devised by the Communist Party, in my view reflects an ancient cultural characteristic. So feichang ganxie, heartfelt thanks, to each of them.

By EUGENE BYRNE

Programme Jul to Dec 11

4

The Beijing Opera Costumes Exhibition

A Poem by Bao Zhao

4 (continued page 3)

If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words. To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. If you want to know your past - look into y o u r p r e s e n t conditions. If you want to know your future - look into your present actions.

Page 2

Tuesday, 20th December 2011

Believe it or not, we are already planning for Christmas!

Those of you who came to the Christmas party for the

last two years participated in singing carols and other

songs in Mandarin Chinese. This year, you will be

accompanied by 4 recorders, a guitar, and a mandolin. The

recorder players have enlisted the help of two virtuoso

string players who will make their guest appearance for

the first time at Wimbledon Guild House.

We aim to give you a good selection of carols, and

t r a d i t i ona l a nd m od ern

international pieces for your

delight. With Christmas cakes,

mince pies and much more being

the order of the day, do not

forget to keep the date in your

diary to come and take part in

the festivities. Friends are very

welcome, but please let us known

numbers for catering and seating

purposes.

By Maggie Woo

GENERAL NEWS

(Tuesday, 1st November 2011)

We have dubbed this session after the popular BBC

TV programme of the same title, putting a slant on

what you might expect

to find. Many of our

members are owners of

Chinese curios, arte-

facts, and even antiques

which they have col-

lected along the way,

and would be very

proud to share their

aesthetics with fellow

members.

Please come and join in the fun by bringing along

your own pieces of pride and joy. There will not be

anyone qualified to evaluate them, but we could

learn from each other.

Chinese snacks and China tea will be served during

the afternoon. It promises to be an enjoyable ex-

perience.

By Maggie Woo

Christmas Party Antiques Road Show

The members who weren't

able to attend the meeting on

5th July missed a real treat

when Rosetta Chak gave us a

demonstration of making

Spring Rolls.

We all "had a go" at carefully

peeling apart the square pastry

cases and doing our best to

copy Rosetta's example of

filling just the right amount of

her previously prepared

mixture, then folding and

sealing with the "glue" made

with flour and water. A

plentiful supply of somewhat

mixed shapes were then fried

and enjoyed by all. It‟s

delicious! Many thanks

Rosetta.

By Ivy Salvage

How about a Spring Rolls demonstration?

1. Opening v Raising the arms

2. Opening the Chest

3. Dancing with Rainbow

4. Gathering Qi & Separating the Clouds

5. Changing Palms & Rolling Arms

6. Rowing The Boat

7. Lifting the Ball

8. Carrying the Moon

9. Pushing Palms

10. Playing with Clouds

11. Scooping the Sea & Searching the Sky

12. Pushing the Waves

13. Spreading your Wings

14. Punching

15. Flying like a Goose

16. Turning the Wheel / Spinning Wheels

17. Bouncing a Ball

18. Balancing the Qi + Final Closing

The 18 Tai Chi Qigong Sequence

Page 3

alive by the stories they tell, and the characters they fit.

A DVD presentation on face make- up for both male and female characters was most

informative, and fascinating. The face make-up, colours and pattern together tell the

audience the personality and status of the character. It is obviously a laborious task,

over an average of two hours, making up a „dan‟ (a part as a young, beautiful and

vivacious lady). We guess it takes just as long for her to disrobe after the performance.

We had a good two and half hours at the exhibition, but it was most enjoyable, and

time well spent. The exhibition runs from 22nd June to 31st July. It is a pity it has not

been well publicised, and the venue is a little difficult to find.

By Maggie Woo

Worlds Longest Sea Bridge—The Jiaozhou Bay bridge

Continuation from page 1—Visit to the Beijiing Opera Costumes Exhibition

The Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival

(Zongqiujie), determined under

the lunar calendar, will fall on 12

September this year but we will

be celebrating it early, at our 6

September meeting, when Lee

Monczakowski and Rosetta

Chak have kindly agreed to

organise it. It is sometimes

called the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival

(in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines). Families

and friends gather to admire the harvest moon,

drink tea with moon cakes and pomelos.

Classical poetry is strong on poems often about

wives gazing at the same moon that is shining on

their loved ones far from home. The mandarin

class who ran the country locally and wrote much

of the poetry were always posted away from their

home district. A woman academic once cynically

pointed out to me that it was a woman missing her

husband because these poems were written by men.

Perhaps on 6 September, weather permitting we

could gather outside and recite in Mandarin and

English almost the most famous classical poem, by

the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bo (701 – 762).

By EUGENE BYRNE

Li Bai: Night Thoughts 李白: 夜思

The bright moon shone before my bed,

I wondered – was it frost upon the ground?

I raised my head to gaze at the clear moon,

Bowed my head, remembering my old home.

床前明月光 疑是地上霜

擧頭望明月 低頭思故鄕.

China has opened the world's

longest cross-sea bridge - which

stretches five miles further than

the distance between Dover and

Calais.

The Jiaozhou Bay bridge is 26.4

miles long and links China's eastern

port city of Qingdao to the off-

shore island Huangdao.

The road bridge, which is 110ft

wide and is the longest of its kind,

cost nearly £1billion to build. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009748/That-bridge-far-Worlds-longest-sea-bridge-opens-traffic-China--hold-title-

years.html#ixzz1QmHCMD32

Mona at the Exhibition

For further information, please contact Eugene

Byrne on 020 8947 1346

Next Quarterly

Newsletter

Please email Lee if

you have any

interesting article to

be considered.

surreylee@gmail.com

It‟s a sad fact that Chinese literature, whether classical or

modern, can boast no author of world renown, no

Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky or Solzhenitsyn. The two

leading modern writers are insufficiently known outside

China, so we hope to feature both of them in our 2012

programme.

LU XUN 鲁迅 (1881 – 1936) was born in Shaoxing

(where a well-known wine comes from) south of

Shanghai and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. The leading

modern Chinese writer, he was a leading left-wing author

and polemicist but produced only short stories, notably

Ah Q (see below) and Diary of a Madman: as far as we

know, none of them became films. Visit:

www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/12/rereading-julia-

lovell-lu-xun. Read:

The Real Story of Ah

Q and other Tales of

C h i n a : P e n g u i n

Classics

LAO SHE 老舍 (1899

– 1966) was a Beijing-

born Manchu and best

known as an author

and playwright of the post-May Fourth generation, mainly

but not wholly of comedy. He was a teacher, learnt

English and taught Chinese at the School of Oriental &

African Studies in London in the twenties. He was a

victim of the Cultural Revolution, during which he

committed suicide. He was influenced by the novels of

Charles Dickens and his two best-known novels are

Chaguan (The Teahouse) and Luotuo Xiangzi (Camel

Shangzi), both of which were made into films: we hope to

show one of them next year.

By EUGENE BYRNE

TWO GREAT CHINESE WRITERS

Prepared for the Chinese Cultural Group Mer-

ton

Our social group programme: Meetings are at the Guild House, 30 – 32 Worple

Road SW19, on Tuesdays and begin at 3.30 p.m. with

40 minutes of Tai Chi Qi Gong Shibashi exercises. The

items shown below commence at 4.30 p.m. and end by

5.30 p.m.

19th Jul Social

(I-Chen Tsai)

AUGUST NO MEETINGS

6th Sep Mid-Autumn Festival

(Lee Monczakowski & Rosetta Chak)

20th Sep

Buddhism in Thailand

(Russell Humphreys, Chief Executive Officer,

Wimbledon Guild)

4th Oct

Talk “Looking at classical Chinese

calligraphy” (Eugene Byrne; preparation for BL

visit)

18th Oct

Visit to the British Library—meet there at

5.00 p.m. N.B. “BOOKINGS ONLY”

(Eugene Byrne)

1st Nov Chinese Antiques Road Show

(Ivy Salvage and Maggie Woo)

15th Nov Quiz

(Alex Roney and Maggie Woo)

6th Dec Talk “The Encounter with the West” (Eugene

Byrne)

20th Dec Christmas Party & Carols

(Maggie Woo et al)

Page 4

Why mope, why sigh, why sit and grieve?

Just pour some wine to bring you cheer

Toast your health and sing some songs

The human heart is not of stone

And yet my voice is quiet, alone

My sorrow will escape, I fear."

Shared by Alex Roney

A Poem by Bao Zhao 鲍照

Northern Wei Dynasty