Tag: lecture

Familiar Strangers: Social Media and the Outsider in China

Anthropological accounts of social relations within Chinese society have traditionally viewed both kinship and familiarity as the basis of relationships between persons, which has inevitably led to the exclusion of strangers from the majority of attempts to theorize such relations. This lecture draws on ethnographic evidence collected during 15 months of fieldwork studying the impact of social media use in a rural Chinese town, which revealed the nature of these novel relationships with strangers which are facilitated by social media.

Through these ethnographic cases and observations, Tom McDonald will argue that participants do not position strangers that they meet on social media outside of their network of social relations. Instead, the mediatized relationships offered by social media come to represent a ready source of potential friends with whom they are both eager and willing to interact. On occasion,the stranger as integral, rather than antithetical to sociality, and it is actually these strangers who individuals feel they can most easily confide in, and share intimate feelings – or experiences – with.

Familiar Strangers: Social Media and the Outsider in Chinese Kinship
Hong Kong Anthropological Society, Tom McDonald
Date: 7pm, 18 January, 2017
Venue: Hong Kong Museum of History
Tickets: Free
More info: www.facebook.com/hkanthro

I Chose to Climb”: Celebrating 65 years of Climbing the World’s Greatest Peaks

chris-bonnington

The Royal Geographical Society Hong Kong welcomes back to Hong Kong Sir Chris Bonington, one of the greatest mountaineers in history, and an eloquent and entertaining lecturer. On this occasion, Sir Chris lectures on “I Chose to Climb”: Celebrating 65 years of Climbing the World’s Greatest Peaks”. This is the story of his extraordinary career, from his first adventures on mountains in the early 1950s to his ascent of the Old Man of Hoy, a repeat of his famous first ascent, at the age of 80 last summer. The lecture covers the best of his amazing adventures in between, including a tour of his first ascents in the great ranges, as always accompanied by unrivalled mountain photography. He gives a very personal story of adventure, triumph and tragedy, shared with some of the greatest characters of mountaineering, illustrated with superb images and video.

I Chose to Climb”: Celebrating 65 years of Climbing the World’s Greatest Peaks
Date: 7:30pm, 22 June, 2015
Venue: Jockey Club Lecture Theatre, Olympic House, 1 Stadium Path, So Kon Po, Causeway Bay
Tickets: $250

Gifts to a Former Mentor: Hong Kong’s contribution to the rise of China and the consequences of that rise for the current relationship

The Shek Kip Mei Myth: Squatters, fires and colonial rule in Hong Kong, 1950-1963

An Anthropological Talk by Alan Smart – Gifts to a Former Mentor: Hong Kong’s Contribution to the Rise of China and the Consequences of That Rise for the Current Relationship

Hong Kong made a crucial contribution to China’s rise, but in the last fifteen years the balance of influence has shifted. China’s rise has changed the relationship between China and Hong Kong since 1997. Rather than Hong Kong offering important mentorship, increasingly its economy is dependent on Beijing’s goodwill, a wealthy supplicant whose economic importance is hostage to political considerations that make preserving the SAR’s economic vitality desirable to China’s leadership. A series of “gifts” from Beijing to Hong Kong have made the SAR increasingly dependent on Beijing’s goodwill.

Alan Smart (PhD, U of Toronto, 1986) is Professor, Department of Anthropology, U of Calgary. Research in Hong Kong, China and Canada, on housing, cities, borders, agriculture and transnationalism. Author of “The Shek Kip Mei Myth: Squatters, fires and colonial rule in Hong Kong, 1950-1963” (Hong Kong U Press, 2006), and numerous articles.

Following the talk, you are invited to a self-paying dinner with the speaker.

An Anthropological Talk by Alan Smart – Gifts to a Former Mentor: Hong Kong’s Contribution to the Rise of China and the Consequences of That Rise for the Current Relationship
When: 7pm, 4 March 2015
Where: Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, Hong Kong Museum of History, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Ticket: Free
More info: All are welcome! Space, however, is limited to 139 seats. The lecture is conducted in English.
For more information please contact Stan Dyer on 9746 9537 or [email protected]

From Wild Swans to the Empress Dowager Cixi – Jung Chang, in conversation

The Royal Geographical Society of Hong Kong welcomes ex-red guard Dr Jung Chang to speak on “From Wild Swans to Empress Dowager Cixi”, in conversation with James Riley. At the event, the world-famous author Dr Jung Chang discusses the themes of her celebrated book, Wild Swans, leading on to talk about the subject of her most recent book, the Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China.Jung Chang (Jon Halliday)

In Wild Swans, Dr Chang’s family autobiography, she tells the story of her family, primarily during the Cultural Revolution, an extraordinary tale which led her to international fame. While Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China examines the life of one of the most important women in Chinese history, who ruled China for decades, bringing a medieval empire into the modern age. The 16-year-old Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor’s numerous concubines. Her five-year-old son having succeeded to the throne, Cixi at once launched a palace coup making herself the real ruler of China, behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her male officials.

Book signing and complimentary drinks reception 6.30pm; lecture 7.30pm.

What: From Wild Swans to the Empress Dowager Cixi: Dr Jung Chang in conversation
When: 6:30pm, 29 October, 2013
Where: The Jardine Penthouse, 48/F Jardine House, One Connaught Place
How Much: $150 for Royal Geographical Society of Hong Kong members and $200 non-members, tickets from [email protected]