What a precious opportunity for us to have held the lecture series here at New Haven Free Public Library. Our first and foremost thanks goes to our dearest Carrie, for she is the one who stayed in touch and communicated with Xia Feng, the Public Services Administrator at New Haven Free Public Library, who made the lectures probable.
And my thanks also goes to my dear colleagues; but for their knowledge and courage, this lecture series would not have been possible.
Special thanks goes to Patrick, who helped us with those important chores; to Siggy and Susan, for their patience and time to be the best audience each and every time, from the very beginning till the very ending of the series.
Thanks all that helps make the lectures a reality and a success.
Our Lecture Series of "A Walk into China" at New Haven Free Public Library
The past three Thursday had witnessed our effort in getting Chinese culture through to English-speaking Westerners. It's not as easy as ABC, but we managed to make it.
The lectures are divided into three parts with different themes. The first, on July 16, focused on Chinese political, economical and population policy; the second, on July 23, concentrated on Chinese tradition like festivals, Kungfu, food,etc.; the third on Chinese family including marriage, extended family, pets, ways of parenting and the core value we Chinese cherish - filial piety.
See our Poster below.
It was designed by Cherry Chen and several other colleagues and revised by Xia Feng. we posted it everywhere we could on the second and third lecture, yet we failed to recognize the necessity on the first occasion.
What relieved our tension is the fact that lectures here are not as big events as we considered back in China, where we would call a lecture a lecture only when the lecture hall was fully packed with people. With our observation of several lectures at Yale lecture hall, we happily came to the conclusion that lectures and presentations to Westerners are what water is to fish. They would probably do it casually, take it less seriously, feel satisfied with limited numbers of audience. Of course this is only my observation, which, to be frank, is not necessarily the truth.
I don't want to make this post a chronological one, to take down every detail in its time order. Allow me to recall it in my own fresh memory. The first thing that jumped into my mind is that rehearsals did contribute to the success of the final presentations. For each formal presentation, Carrie asked us to rehearse one day or two ahead of the schedule. Through rehearsals we collected a lot of useful feedback from Carrie and our colleagues, which contributed significantly to the final success. One may get shocked at the different performances at the rehearsal and the formal presentation. We all improved a lot, thanks to those valuable suggestions and advice.
What has to be mentioned is the unity of our fifteen colleagues. We did help each other throughout the course. When the group dedicated themselves to the preparation without having dinner, the rest of us would prepare food for them. When those presenters were on the stage, the rest of us would take photos or videos for them. Everything went on smoothly. We had 16 to 18 people to listen to our lectures.
The audience were amazed by our introduction of Chinese culture. Carrie, I remember, was deeply impressed by the one-child policy; while Susan said humorously she would like to go to China after she retired, since the pension policy is so nice. What some of the audience admired is the fact that Chinese young people would live with their aging parents, which is so different from American culture, in which the elderly people go to nursing homes to be taken care of.
As for me, I planned to introduce the Yin and Yang Theory in traditional Chinese culture, and the Bagua (Eight Diagrams). Yet no plan goes without change. The first speaker of our group talked for twenty two minutes, long exceeding the time limit of 10 minutes for each speaker. I was left only four minutes to finish my talk, as I was the last one, so I decided on the spot to focus on methods to build up our health. With composure, Polly and I gave a live show of Taichi and Bagua walking meditation. Then I shortly introduced its basic principle of Yin and Yang Theory, and its health-building energy. The audience were caught by the presentation, and one of them even left his phone number in order to learn from us.
Adjusting one's plan is not as easy as ABC, yet I did it, though not that fluently was it delivered. We performed Taichi and Bagua walking meditation for two and a half minutes or so; then I spent one more minute to express its basic principle of Yin and Yang. Seeing the audience absorbed in my lecture, I decided to open my PPT and talked more about it, though I knew it would be a little bit past seven thirty, the time to wrap up. The audience didn't show any reluctance. Nobody was impatient. Nobody looked at their watch or stood up to leave. I finished my talk within eight minutes.
Siggy was as worried as me when she noticed time would not be enough for five presentations. When it was finished, she delightedly said to me, "It's not too long nor too short, just appropriate." And I remember Carrie said to me, "Oh, Leo King, Siggy and I want to make appointment with you to learn it!" What a compliment to me! It's my pleasure to teach Carrie and Siggy walking meditation of Bagua!
All these has gone forever. But anything that is beneficial and anything that carries our good intention would not perish. It would long exist in our mind and contribute to our future career and life.
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