Renowned Chinese novelist Yan Lianke was born in an impoverished region of Song County, Henan Province in 1958. His parents, illliterate farmers who lacked the means to send him to university, encouraged him to enlist in the army, where he rose in the ranks to become a propaganda writer. Upon returning to civilian life, Yan embarked on a career as a novelist. Over the last 30 years, he has produced an extensive body of work that ranges from novels, novellas and short fiction to essays and criticism. Although he has had two of his novels banned in China and was, for a period of three years, prohibited from obtaining a passport or travelling abroad, Yan continues to speak honestly about the impact that government censorship - and self-censorship - have had on contemporary Chinese writers.

His full-length novels include:The Dream of Ding Village (丁庄梦, Ding Zhuang Meng), a tale of the blood trade and subsequent Aids epidemic in a rural Henan village;The Joy of Living(Alt title:The Living,受活, Shou Huo), a sweeping tale of the lives of disabled rural villagers from the Chinese Communist revolution through the years of reform and opening;The Sunlit Years (日光流年, Riguang Liunian);Solidity of Water(Alt title:Hard as Water,坚硬如水, Jianying Ru Shui) andServe the People (为人民服务, Wei Renmin Fuwu), which was banned in China and later translated into English, French and Japanese.

He has published ten collections of novellas and short stories: among them, the critically acclaimedDays, Months, Years (年月日, Nian Yue Ri),Song of the Plow (耙耧天歌, Palou Tiange)and a five-volume set of his collected works. He is a member of the Chinese Writers' Association and the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the first and second Lu Xun Literary Prizes and the Lao She Award for literary excellence, awarded in recognition of his novelThe Joy of Living (受活, Shou Huo), considered by many to be his master work.

On the 16th of March, we will be co-presenting a Chinese opera performance at the State Theatre with Australian International Trade and Commerce Inc.

This year's opera troupe is from the internationally renowned Tianjin Youth Opera Company and will be performing Scenes from the Legend of White Snake.

The story tells of a young scholar who falls in love with a beautiful woman, unaware that she is a white snake who has taken on human form. A monk intervenes, revealing Lady White Snake's true identity.

We are pleased to inform you that we are giving away free tickets to friends of the Confucius Institute.

RSVP:Click here to RSVP your free tickets to the Opera performance.

Speaker: Professor Suisheng Zhao, University of Denver and editor of the Journal of Contemporary China.

Co-presented with Sydney Ideas, China Studies Centre and The Confucius Institute,University of Sydney.

The financial crisis that started from the US and swept quickly across the globe seems giving the Chinese style state capitalism an advantage in its rivalry with Western style democratic capitalism. While the West countries continue struggling to recover slowly from the recession, the Chinese economy rebounded quickly and strongly. For some people, China's impressive rebound from such a precipitous recession proves that a China model has emerged and will work better for China and some other developing countries than the Western model of modernisation. To what extent has China provided a distinct model of modernisation and what are its appeals and limitations? Seeking answers to these questions, Suisheng Zhao argues that while China indeed presents a unique model of rapid economic growth and relative political stability, it is hardly a victory of state capitalism. For all its appeals, the China model has serious flaws that may threaten its sustainability.

Professor Suisheng Zhao:

Professor Suisheng Zhao is Professor and Executive Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary China, the only English language journal edited in North America that provides exclusive information about contemporary Chinese affairs for scholars, businessmen and government policy-makers. He is a Research Associate at the Fairbanks Center for East Asian Research in Harvard University, and an honorary jianzhi professor at Beijing University, Renmin University, China University of International Relations, Fudan University and Shanghai Foreign Studies University.

Free event,to RSVP email:confucius.institute@sydney.edu.au

Cancer is a disorder due to progressive accumulation of genetic and epigenetic alterations that induce normal cells forming malignant derivatives. Despite medical advances, there are only few examples of conventional therapies leading to cure; toxicity due to chemotherapy or radiation is a major problem. Cancer remains a burden of public health worldwide.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)-based therapies have gained increasing acceptance in recent years. Two major directions have been set out to make used of this experience-based medical practice. Well-documented Chinese medicinal materials (CMM) with anti-cancer activities are being pursued by academia and pharmaceutical companies as rich resources for drug discovery with some success. Individualised TCM prescriptions containing several CMM components are co-administered with chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Similarly other non-chemotherapy TCM therapies such as acupuncture and qigong are requested by cancer patients. Such approaches have been shown beneficial to give better quality of life for some cancer patients at terminal stages. Yet this individualization treatment is not accepted by the conventional randomized clinical trial (RCT) methodology as evidence-based approach.

The lecture reviews some of the progresses and attempts to brain-storm the possibility of how to get the best of both entirely different medical concepts of therapies from an integrative approach of linking user-reported outcomes and science-based parameters.

Professor Kelvin Chan is Joint Chair in Traditional Chinese Medicine at the Faculty of Pharmacy.

Professor Chan's research sits predominantly under the Faculty's research theme of Healthy Ageing and Cardiovascular and Diabetes.

Academic Background 

Professor Chan has held senior appointments as Chair Professor and Director of various disciplines at Liverpool JM University (1992), Abu Dhabi Ministry of Health, UAE (1997), Hong Kong Baptist University (2000), and University of Wolverhampton (2005). He has built an international reputation in R & D of Chinese medicine and natural products; focusing on good practices in QC of CMM, laboratory practice in bioactivity screening and clinical studies in linking biomarkers, patients' reported outcomes and quality of life measure on herbal products development.

On the 18th of April, The Confucius Institute and Tai Ji Australia will be hosting a free public seminar with Master Li Deyin, the primary designer and the author of Tai Ji Simplified 24 Forms.

Don't miss this rare opportunity to gain insight and knowledge from a true master.

Click here to register.

Following our popular Tea Appreciation Lunch at Zensation Tea House last November, we are holding another tea appreciation event on Saturday the 7th of May - the day before Mothers' Day.

Join us to experience the muscle relaxing and blood cleansing properties of White Peony tea, understand the cancer fighting components of Oolong, and taste a cup of rare Du Hong Pao tea, which legend has it healed a Ming Dynasty Emperor.

The lunch includes three teas tasting, a dim sum lunch, and a tea appreciation talk by a Zensation Tea House tea expert.

Click here to register online.

Jointly organised by the School of Languages and Cultures at the Faculty of Arts, the China Studies Centre of the University of Sydney and the Chinese Department of Fudan University.

Sponsored by the University of Sydney Confucius Institute.

The Conference will bring together scholars from mainland China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia, Germany, Sweden and North America to analyse the latest developments in Contemporary Overseas Chinese Literature.

Click here for more information.

Renowned scholar Professor Chen Sihe, Chinese Literature Department of Fudan University in Shanghai, will discuss the evolution of contemporary Chinese literature.

Professor Chen is opposed to a blanket definition of 'Contemporary Chinese Literature'. He argues there are significant differences in contemporary Chinese literature, starting with the 1949 May 4th Movement and progressing through the Cultural Revolution, the 1980's and into the 'New Century Literature' of the mid 90's onwards.

如何看待新世纪十年中国文学?
讲演人:陈思和教授

5月16日，复旦大学中文系主任、著名学者陈思和教授将在悉尼大学发表公开讲演：(如何看待新世纪十年的中国文学)，欢迎各界朋友参与。陈思和反对不加分析地使用"中国当代文学"一词，他说"新世纪十年中国文学"不等于"中国当代文学"，因它既不同于"十七年"和"文革文学"，也不同于贯穿80年代的"新时期文学"。"当代文学"前三个阶段延续了"五四"到1949年作为"共名"的"现代文学"洋溢着的"少年情怀"，新世纪文学（90年代中期已见端倪）经过艰难的徘徊与选择，终于从"共名"走向"无名"，从"广场"回归"岗位"，显出冷静沉稳的"中年心态"。基于这种宏观叙述，陈教授对"新世纪中国文学"提出独特评价，认为它脱离了"十七年"和"文革文学"的窠臼，超越了"新时期文学"，与现代文学相比也毫不逊色。其中"知情"和"后知情作家"的贡献尤其重要。

讲演中许多概念术语都是陈教授自创，但这并不妨碍他从自己的理论出发，与近来国内外学界诸多热点展开对话。届时听众会从他本人的讲演中，直接了解他对上述诸命题的详细阐述，看他如何据此评述近年来围绕中国当代文学的诸多争议。陈教授此番来澳，专程出席悉尼大学孔子学院主办的"世界华人文学：理念与实践"国际学术研讨会，会议期间应主办方邀请，特为公众做这场学术讲演。

When modern Chinese art and literature emerged in the first half of the twentieth century, it was the modern woodcut movement that thrived in China in the 1930s that was one of the consequential expressions of the avant-garde. In his presentation for Sydney Ideas Xiaobing Tang will discuss the logic of experimentation at different stages in the development of modern Chinese printmaking.

Professor Tang Xiaobing is the Helmut F. Stern Professor of Modern Chinese Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. Professor Tang's work focuses on twentieth-century Chinese literature and engages a wide range of genres, periods, and theories.

Click here to visit the Sydney Ideas Website for more information regarding this lecture.

Chinese Director Chen Kaige is one of China's most respected filmmakers. His 1993 film Farewell My Concubine was the first Chinese film to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Chen will be interviewed by Shelly Kraicer to talk about his latest film, the historical drama Sacrifice, which screens at this year's festival.

Shelly Kraicer is a Beijing-based writer, critic, and film curator.

Shelley's interview with Director Chen Kaige is sponsored by the Confucius Institute.

He is President of the Jury for the 2011 Sydney Film Festival.

Free, no registration necessary.

For more information regarding this event, visit the Sydney Film Festival website.

On the 20th June, Chinese film festival curator Shelly Kraicer and Professor Stephanie Donald will join in a free public conversation on Chinese film.

Since 2007, Shelly has been a programmer of East Asian films for the Vancouver International Film Festival, and has consulted for the Venice, Udine, Dubai, and Rotterdam International Film Festivals. He will be interviewing Chinese Director Chen Kaige for the Sydney Film Festival (click here).

Stephanie Donald is Dean of the School of Media and Communication at RMIT, Melbourne and Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. With her research focus on film, she is interested in the independent Chinese film scene, its origin, main filmmakers, and its public profile in China and overseas film festivals.

Please register by email at the address below.

Australian Chinese Artist Shen Mo will deliver a talk on his artwork at KerrieLowe Gallery in conjunction with his exhibition Ink Flows on Rice Paper.

Shen Mo is a landscape artist and has exhibited internationally. He graduated from the Artistic School of Nanjing, majoring in traditional Chinese painting in 1980 and is ranked as a 1st Class National Artist in China. He is also Dean of the South - Yangtze River Painting School. He immigrated to Australia in the early 90's and has held many exhibitions of his work over the years since, in many countries. These include Australia, Canada, Singapore, Japan, France, USA and Taiwan. Four books have been published of his works.

Shen Mo's works show the scenery from the water villages of the south Yangtze river area using his unique style. He aims to present nature and beauty in his work as a contrast to the surroundings of modern day cities. He says, "When I wake every morning my eyes are confronted by new buildings, new highways, new fashion; new technology is changing our lives but something is missing. I cast around in my memory for remote and peaceful places and these are what I represent in my work. Ink flows on rice paper to form the texture of nature, colour depicts shade and describes the variety of light. A vivid and endless panorama of nature is presented."

The talk is free for Confucius Institute members and friends. Please RSVP by email below.

The Confucius Institute and The Sydney Conservatorium of Music will co-present a Gu Qin Workshop and Concert with Chinese musician Jin Wei on the 6th of August 2011. The gu qin has been played since ancient times in China and has traditionally been favoured by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement.

Jin Wei is internationally recognised as a world authority and master of the gu qin. He has given solo recitals and lectured on this ancient instrument throughout China and Europe.

Professor Jonathan Stock, Associate Dean (Research) at The Conservatorium, will open the concert and give a short introduction on the gu qin. Prof. Stock is currently co-editor of the journal The World of Music and has spent a year at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

Gu qin players and students will have an opportunity to meet Jin Wei at a pre-concert Guqin Workshop.

Concert Venue: Recital Hall East

Workshop Venue: Seminar Room 2158

The event is now booked out.

Map

Co-presented by the Confucius Institute and the Department of Art History & Film Studies

Language: Mandarin Chinese with English translation

Cui Xiuwen, Angel No. 3, photograph, 2006. Collection of the National Art Museum of China.

Chinese art scholar Xu Hong will talk on the current state of post 1990's women's art in China. Xu Hong is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing and previously worked at the Shanghai Museum. She has a reputation as a very well-informed and wide-ranging contemporary art historian and has long published on women's issues in art. She has also been curator and key organiser for art exhibitions in China, the United States and Europe.

The key themes of her lecture will be:

• Issues Relating to Women in Contemporary Chinese Society
• The Cultural Significance of Chinese Contemporary Women's Art
• The Formation and Characteristics of Chinese Contemporary Women's Art
• New Trends in Chinese Women's Art

Xu Hong's Recent Publications and Articles

Echo of Thinking,2010,coauthored,Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House
Lin Fengmian and Historical Experience of Chinese Fine Arts,article,2010
Transformation of Characterizing Peasant in Chinese Art History in 60 years,article,2009
Conversation: History and Historic Painting,article,2009
Turner's Painting,article,2009
Spiritual Landscapes:A Journey through German Art(From Friedrich to Richter) ,article,2008
The Complete Works of Wu Guanzhong,2007,coauthored,Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House

Recent Exhibitions

"Passing Through the Horizon---Contemporary Chinese Art Exhibition", San Diego in 2010
"Turner From The Tate Collection" Beijing in 2009
"Speak•Describe" cross-strait contemporary art exhibition in China in 2009
"Prism---Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition" hold in Vienna in 2005

RSVP by email is recommended.

Professor Bonnie McDougall

Professor McDougall has just returned from a residence for distinguished writers and artists in Italy with the Santa Maddalena Foundation, where she was the first participant ever to be invited with a specialisation on Chinese literature. She was also one of the first literary translators to be awarded the prestigious Fellowhip.

Professor Bonnie McDougall will talk about her fellowship and the interest of her fellow residents in contemporary Chinese literature. Global interest in contemporary Chinese literature is an issue of concern for Chinese writers and readers as well as for people who teach or study Chinese literature in English translation.

RSVP by email recommended.

Bonnie S. McDougall

An outstanding scholar and translator, Professor Bonnie S. McDougall has made extraordinary contributions to the study of China's modern literature. Born in Sydney, she first studied Chinese at Peking University (1958-59). Academic appointments include teaching and research at Sydney University, followed by SOAS, Harvard, Oslo, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong. The founding professor of Chinese at the University of Edinburgh in 1990, she was appointed Emeritus Professor in 2006.

While a full-time translator at the Foreign Languages Press in the 1980s, McDougall translated poetry, fiction and film-scripts by new writers emerging through the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, among them Bei Dao, Ah Cheng, Chen Kaige, Gu Cheng, Qiu Xiaolong and Wang Anyi. Her other translations include poetry, fiction, drama and essays by Guo Moruo, He Qifang, Ye Shengtao, Yu Dafu, Ding Xilin and Zhu Guangqian, and Hong Kong fiction and poetry by Xi Xi, Dung Kai Cheung and Leung Bing-kwan. She has taught literary translation at the College of Foreign Affairs in Beijing as well as in the UK and Hong Kong.

Recent books include Love-letters and Privacy in Modern China: The Intimate Lives of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping (Oxford, 2002); Fictional Authors, Imaginary Audiences: Modern Chinese Literature in the Twentieth Century (Hong Kong, 2003); the translation into English of The King of Trees by Ah Cheng (New York, 2010) and Translation Zones in Modern China (Amherst, 2011).

Professor Daniel A. Bell

Co-presented with Sydney Ideas and The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

"Political Legitimacy in China: A Confucian Perspective"

Professor Daniel A. Bell

Daniel A. Bell was born in Montreal, Canada. He obtained his B.A. at McGill University and his graduate degrees at Oxford University. He is Zhiyuan Chair Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Jiaotong University (Shanghai) and Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy and Director of the Center for International and Comparative Political Philosophy at Tsinghua University (Beijing). His recent books include China's New Confucianism (Princeton University Press, rev. ed. 2010), the co-edited book Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power (Princeton University Press, 2011), and the co-authored book The Spirit of Cities (Princeton University Press, 2011). He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, and to Chinese language publications (Chinese name:贝淡宁). His writings have been translated in 22 languages.

Guan Wei, Play on the Beach No.12, 2011

The University of Sydney Confucius Institute and Martin Browne Contemporary Gallery are pleased to invite you to a talk by one of Australia's premier contemporary artists - Guan Wei. The talk coincides with Guan Wei's latest solo exhibition Play on the Beach at Martin Browne Contemporary Gallery, to be opened by Oscar award winning actress Cate Blanchett on the 12th of October.

A Sydney resident for nearly 20 years, Guan Wei returned to Beijing in 2008. Troubled by Beijing's increasing social problems, environmental pollution, large-scale urban migration and materialism, he returned to his Sydney studio earlier this year and embarked on a series of paintings of the Australian beach with its warm sunshine, floating clouds and strange inhabitants.

In Play on the Beach, Guan Wei brings his voluptuous pink figures, stylised clouds and Australian native plants and animals to the beach setting. This talk is an excellent opportunity to hear Guan Wei elaborate on the creative ideas behind his new artworks.

Guan Wei in the Sydney Morning Herald