Founding Professor of Chinese Studies
@univofstandrews
. 香港人文學院院士. Past: SOAS/PKU/Cambridge/UChicago/HKU/BBC/社科院/Founding Dir
@IETT_ITTS
;Threads gblee_lidaying
Dear All, I have been offered, and I have accepted, the position of Founding Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of St Andrews
@univofstandrews
.
I shall start there in July, and am very much looking forward to building a Chinese studies programme for the 21st century.
In pursuance of our aim of diversifying
@univofstandrews
#Chinese
Studies programme, we've designed a new undergraduate module:
Pearl River Cultures:
#HongKong
#Macau
1
*History of Macau
*Macau's Languages
*History of Hong Kong
*Colonialism and (de)colonial cultures
1/2
"I want to tell the world that the Chinese army killed the Chinese people. I hope the Chinese people’s blood was not shed for nothing. I hope the Goddess of Democracy will stand again in Tiananmen Square."
—Duo Duo, London, June 1989
📷 Gregory Lee
To commemorate my grandfather Chan Chin Lee's death 60 years ago today, I burnt some incense, ate magnificent dim sum surrounded by the buzz and hum of dozens of Cantonese-speakers, and mused on his fate and China's after his arrival in England in 1911.
Some of you may recall earlier in the year I reported that my mother Sue Lee – one of the oldest survivors of the old "mixed-race"
#Liverpool
#Chinatown
– could no longer recall who I was.
An early Christmas present: I visited her today and she recalled perfectly well who I was.
“Sixteen university labs around the world are identified as being run jointly by Chinese defence companies, or have major investments from them. Ten are based in the UK, with the University of Manchester and Imperial College London hosting six between …”
'Chinese embassy coordinating efforts to curb academic freedom'—
I've been trying to say this to colleagues and university authorities in the UK for the past seven years. It has always been blindingly obvious. But avarice & naivety have triumphed so far.
Now that my mother is dead, and there's no danger she'll be deported to China, I can reveal that she was a "stateless" person. My grandfather took out Chinese nationality for his children in 1940. After the war she was left in limbo, eventually forgotten by the Home Office.
Great day for the Chinese British community!
A gold medal in the morning for triathlete Alex Yee, and the maiden speech of Labour MP Yuan Yang
@YuanfenYang
in the afternoon! 🙌
Recognition and inclusion have been a been a long time coming.
I don't know who wrote the UK Foreign Secretary's policy speech on China delivered yesterday, but it sadly reiterates the same old "eternal China" myth.
Well-intentioned article, but unhelpful in referring to languages such as Wu (Shanghai) and Cantonese and Hokkien as dialects. These are Chinese languages.
@DGTam86
#GBLeeArchive
Sneak preview from the recently digitized movie archive (8mm), 1982-1987. It's now ready for editing. Between B&W negatives, colour slides and 8mm we now have a visual record spanning 1978-1987.
40 years ago today, I arrived in Beijing. I'd spent two days in
#HongKong
, walked over the footbridge at Lo Wu, caught the "express" train at Canton station. 39 hours later I was in Beijing. It was another world, another time, full of hope.
#COVID2019
So it just became horribly real. My mother in in the UK has developed symptoms & has been isolated in her care home. I'm locked down in southern France. I can't go and see her. She can't receive visitors.
I sympathize with the thousands in a similar position.
Pearl River Cultures:
#HongKong
#Macau
2
*1950s Hong Kong: Exiled Cinema, Emigre Writers
*1960s-1980s: Cultural Re-Invention of Hong Kong
*Cantonese- a literary language?
*Hong Kong Cinema
*Music in Hong Kong
*Post-1997 Challenge to Hong Kong Identity
*HongKongers in the UK
2/2
Preparing a class for next week, came across this picture of Ding Ling 丁玲. Maybe I'd seen it before and blotted it out, but I don't think so. It brought tears to my eyes.
For those who don't read Chinese, the words on the placard around her neck read "Big Rightist: Ding Ling".
Delighted to announce from my COVID sick-bed that publication of my new book in English and 粵文 is imminent. More details on price and how to purchase very soon....
I am delighted to announce that
@hkbaptistu
's Dr. Tammy Lai-Ming Ho
@myetcetera
is at present Visiting Scholar
@univofstandrews
@StAModLangs
and is collaborating with us on the CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA 1976-2025 research project
We're working on the
@univofstandrews
ug
#Chinese
Studies syllabus to allow prior-learning students (AP, A level, Advanced Higher, IB) to take a 2nd Chinese Language in Year 2 alongside Putonghua普通話
2nd Chinese Language A.
#Cantonese
2nd Chinese Language B.
#HokloTaiwanese
Good news! A big thank you to all those who sent prayers, vibes, wishes and thoughts. My mother seems to be doing well. I spoke to the care-workers today - a big shout out for them - and they say the symptoms have abated. I did say she was a tough old bird. Let's hope it lasts!
All the bureaucracy is completed. The cremation can go ahead. Time now to celebrate her life, rather than to weep.
I shan't Tweet any more on my mother's demise, but you can always visit
Here's a photograph taken in July 2022.
Bye Ma!
A big thank you to all those who have wished my mother well. As with many Chinese British citizens, her long life has not been easy and she has faced anti-Chinese racism for many of those years. She'll be heartened to know she has so many well-wishers.
Because of COVID and other obstacles this happy event has been delayed until now. So, I am very happy to be able to give my official inaugural lecture as Founding Chair of Chinese Studies
@univofstandrews
on 13th March 2024.
To kick start the Chinese collection at the
@univofstandrews
I am donating the majority of my Chinese and China-related books to the library there
@StAndrewsUniLib
.
If others have collections they would like to donate please let us know.
@jollymaria
Putting the finishing touches to
@aiww
's St Andrews schedule. He will be with us in person for the "Launch" of the
@univofstandrews
Chinese Studies Department on 16th September – updates to come.
"
#Cantonese
is a useful language to know, with Cantonese being spoken by 70% of the Chinese-speaking population in San Francisco, Oakland and Hayward; 60% of the Chinese-speaking population in the Bay Area and 48% of the Chinese-speaking population in California" 1/2
The Undergraduate Senate passed a resolution to restore Stanford’s Cantonese Language Program and enable its courses to fulfill the University Language Requirement.
"As the space for academic freedom and artistic expression shrinks in
#HongKong
, guardians of the city's culture are springing up around the world" via
@citylab
#GBLeeArchive
"Lu Xun amidst the ruins"
@GBLee
I took this photograph in Tianjin 天津 in Oct 1979. 魯迅Lu Xun's statue, now vanished, sat in post-1976 earthquake rubble where people had built make-shift homes.
The title I've given this image also has a metaphorical intent.
Oe Kenzaburo, a very decent human being, died on 3rd March. it was announced today by his publishers.
I had the great honour of spending time with him in Chicago in 1992, and talking about French symbolist poetry in translation, Horiguchi Daigaku 堀口 大学 and Dai Wangshu 戴望舒
Then there were 4!
The
@univofstandrews
Chinese Studies Department search to fill 2 positions in modern Chinese has been a success. The two new colleagues will join
@ros_holmes
and myself shortly. We're in the starting blocks for 1st September! More details soon.
#Covid_19
#carehomes
Damage is done for hundreds of thousands of care home residents and their families.
My first real visit with my mother today in a year. She doesn't remember me, was surprised to learn she'd ever had a son. There must be many people in my and her situation.
'Institut Liu Xiaobo', rumour has it, is the new name favoured by the city of Lyon for the Nouvel Institut franco-chinois
@NIFC_Lyon
(a 'charity' established to manage the heritage of the Institut franco-chinois/Sino-French University 1921-46 which trained 400+ Chinese students).
#GBLeeArchive
10 Nelson Street, Liverpool
'My grandfather's house'
Seat of UK's "Chinese Freemasons" 致公堂 or "Chekungtong". I waited for my grandfather here while he did his business in Chinatown. By 2018 it was being recuperated by the United Front Work Department 戰線工作部
'[W]e are stuck with the proper noun “China”, and the adjective “Chinese” to identify people, country, ethnicity and language. These terms are woefully inadequate to describe the complexity behind them, bt extremely useful to those who would mask reality."
50 years ago, Japanese philanthropist Zenya Hamada gave the burgh of St Andrews 1000 Japanese flowering cherry trees. Here are the ones behind the house I live in.
On
#Cantonese
Hugh Baker, former Professor of Chinese
@soas
:
"It would be a great shame if such a vibrant and fun language should be allowed to rot away, so
@univofstandrews
would be doing the world a good turn if it can get this off the ground and flying."
Thanks, Hugh!
Despite the ravages and delays caused by
#COVID2019
, the new Chinese Department at
@univofstandrews
is taking shape. People are being hired. Degrees are taking shape. Books will arrive. Seminars for colleagues & students interested in
#China
will happen in the Martinmas semester.
We planted this rose bush in memory of my mother Gwenllian Sou Kang Chan Lee, known as "Sue".
I believe she would have appreciated this colour.
This climbing rose is called "HAPPINESS" .
Her ashes are scattered here.
It seems my mother's final days are approaching. She's been given weeks rather than months to live, and is receiving palliative care. I know several of you have painted/drawn her in the past. When the time comes, an exhibition in lieu of a memorial service might be envisaged.
Blind peer reviewing is essential to academic publishing. But it is a "service to the profession" and not a licence to kill.
I try in my reviews to be constructive and encouraging, especially when younger scholars are involved. I don't understand those who abuse this power.
粵語 Cantonese
@univofstandrews
Cantonese-speaking PhD students (second-year and above) who would like to teach Beginners Cantonese 1 hour a week, please get in touch with me.
1/3
I am working on a couple of articles and special issues of journals to do with Hong Kong/Cantonese culture and history. I want to avoid pinyin. I have devised a procedure to refer to people's names. Feedback welcome.
My vision for today's and tomorrow's "Chinese" studies, with a good, long glance at the past 40 years.
Just published:
Gregory Lee (2023) “CHINESE” STUDIES FOR THE 21st CENTURY, Asian Affairs
DOI: 10.1080/03068374.2023.2244313
And this homogenizing generalization:
"And long before they coalesced into one polity, the Chinese people created their language and their civilisation."
Ein Volk – ein Territorium – eine Sprache?
The CCP itself could have written this.
#Stoxbridge
"It is the first time the Fife university [
@univofstandrews
] has been ranked highest in the Guardian’s annual guide to undergraduate courses, pushing Oxford into second and Cambridge into third."
I couldn't disagree more with this "tip" for students about to go to university: "Never buy a book you can borrow from a library."
If you are serious about your subject, you'll want to start building up your own library, especially in the humanities.
Alongside
@britishmuseum
China’s Hidden Century exhibition, *Creators of Modern China* - edited by Jessica Harrison-Hall & Julia Lovell.
My contribution on Huang Zunxian; like many of the creators of modern China, Huang Zunxian was Cantonese.
廣東人黄遵宪
我手写我口,古岂能拘牵
Sneaky dismantling of monuments by
#HongKong
's universities: during the night, just before Christmas, and during the vacation.
Sadly, one has come to expect such underhand behaviour.
Discriminatory & racist university fees finally come to France. Non-UE students will pay thousands next academic year. I fought against this in the '70s when such fees were introduced by a UK Labour govt. Look what it led to. So kindly stop thinking of
#Macron
a nice kind of guy.
Students with prior learning of Chinese starting an undergraduate degree in Chinese Studies
@univofstandrews
in 2021 will be taught a 2nd Chinese Language (Cantonese or Taiwanese) from their second year onwards.
The only UG course in Europe to do this.
@ucas_online
@bacs_china
Early days but the take-up rate of our
@univofstandrews
Chinese Studies undergraduate degree is looking good, with a healthy contingent of prior learners, which means that Second Chinese Language (
#Cantonese
#Hokkien
) will be "on the books" as of next year.
Until recently when you Googled "St-Andrews Chinese", you got only the addresses of three local restaurants (which I'm sure are excellent eateries). However, now you also get:
Chinese-University of St Andrews
中國研究系. The Chinese Studies Department...