Center for East Asian Studies
Kansas Asia Scholars
Kansas Committee for International Education in the Schools
Kansas Consortium for Teaching About Asia
East Asian Languages and Cultures
East Asian Library
Kansas Enrichment Network
KU Edwards Campus
首届堪城中国电影节
Shanghai: Between the Past and the Future
上海的前世今生


Community events:
Kansas City Chinese Association
堪城中华联合会
2008 Chinese New Year Celebration
迎春联欢会
Master of Ceremonies: Surae Chinn of Channel 5 News and CJ Wei, KCCA Vice President
Chinese New Year traditions with red-packages (gifts), Red Drum Dance featuring 30 children in traditional dress; performances also include the Lion Dance, martial arts, Traditional Chinese Music, Chinese Folk Dance, and more..
Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008,
7:00-9:00pm
Yardley Hall, Carson Center, Johnson County Community College
12345 College Blvd., Overland Park, KS 66210
Admission: non-KCCA members $10/person, $5/student
(see KCCA website for KCCA member admission)
details at www.kcca-ks.org
Kansas City Society for Friendship with China
2008 Chinese New Year celebration dinner
Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008
InterContinental Hotel (401Ward Parkway)
Host: Jeannette Nichols; Master of Ceremonies: Surae Chinn
Speaker: Consul General Huang Ping
Topic: "China-Great Business Opportunities for 2008 and Beyond
Tickets: $75/person, available at UMKC Central Ticket Office
Table sponsorship: $750/table
Details at www.chinagardensociety-kc.org
Join us for three hours (and lunch!) of Chinese basics aimed specifically at K-12 teachers. We'll cover the fundamentals of pronunciation, structure and writing and provide you with teaching tips and activities that will enable you to take what you've learned back to your classroom and introduce this fascinating language to your students. No prior knowledge of Chinese necessary.
A docent-led tour of the Xu Bing Exhibit at the Spencer Museum of Art will follow the workshop at 2:30. This exhibit is all about writing and words and language and is well worth seeing. For more information, see Xu Bing's Book Works
This workshop is FREE but REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED because numbers are limited. To register, please contact rhacker@ku.edu.
A number of important discoveries such as printing, the compass and gunpowder were made by the Chinese well ahead of similar developments in the West. As China becomes a major world power again, Americans can benefit from studying China especially the concepts underlying its language, medicine and society. Dr. Livia Kohn, a noted scholar of Chinese long-life practices and Daoism with more than twenty books in the field, will discuss how these concepts can help us see the world in new ways and feel more at home in it.
Dr. Kohn’s talk will address how the Chinese language can bring about an openness of mind and a new level of creativity, offering the opportunity to approach the world from a completely different consciousness, to see how reality can be construed without an alphabet, inflection, or grammatical complexity.
Dr. Kohn’s talk will address the worldview underlying Chinese medicine focusing on the concept of “qi” or cosmic energy. Acknowledged by science today as bioelectricity or biomagnetic force, “qi” is the key to understanding the human body and the natural world as a complex network of vibrating energetic patterns and pathways leading to a new approach to healing, wellness, and ecology.
Dr. Kohn’s talk will address the Confucian vision of a harmonious society that foregoes the tendency to order everything through law and settle all differences through litigation. It works instead with what the philosopher Immanuel Kant called “the unenforceable” or an inner sense of propriety and basic human decency to create a society where people can trust each other and work for the common good of all.
Livia Kohn graduated from Bonn University, Germany, in 1980. She then spent six years doing research at the Institute for Research in Humanities of Kyoto University in Japan, after which she joined Boston University as Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies. She has also taught and conducted research as visiting professor and adjunct faculty at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, the Stanford Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, and San Francisco State University. She has served on numerous committees and editorial boards, and organized a series of major international conferences on Daoism.
Her specialty is the study of the Daoist religion and Chinese long life practices. She has written and edited over twenty books in this field, including Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques (University of Michigan, 1989), Daoism and Chinese Culture (Three Pines Press, 2001), Monastic Life in Medieval Daoism (University of Hawaii, 2003), and will soon publish Chinese Healing Exercises. In addition to English, she is fluent in German, Chinese, and Japanese.
The Confucius Institute and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute presented a three-week seminar on modern China on Tuesday evenings in Rm.110 of the Regents Center, from 7:00 to 9:00pm, March 20 and 27 and April 3. The three part series covered China's educational system, Buddhist and Daoist influences on Chinese art, and social, economic, and cultural changes of the past two decades in China. For more information on this event, see the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute page on Globalization: Edwards Campus World Tour Series: China.
On Saturday, February 24, the Kansas City Chinese Network Association presented a celebration of the Chinese New Year with an evening of Chinese music, dance, martial arts and more at JCCC, cosponsored by the Confucius Institute.
On November 28, the Confucius Institute and the KU Athletics department provided streaming audio commentary on the KU men's basketball game in Chinese! The game was called by experienced basketball sportscaster Liang Zhiqun, one of CIKU's visiting scholars from Huazhong Normal University. During this historic first for KU (and possibly for any NCAA basketball game), fans around the world, including those from China, were able to listen to the game in Chinese on the KU athletics website. Local fans also gathered at the Kansas Union to watch the game with the Chinese broadcast. For more information, see events. Students of Chinese can prepare to talk bball with Chinese friends by brushing up with terms from our Chinese basketball vocabulary page or even listen to some basketball commentary in Chinese! Jiayou!
A group of Chinese publishing houses and educational institutions plan to exhibit a variety of textbooks, multimedia materials, and other resources for teaching Chinese language at the annual ACTFL Meeting and Exposition scheduled for November 16 to 19 in Nashville, Tennessee. Sponsored by Hanban, activities associated with the exhibit will also include workshops on teaching strategies and other related topics. For more details, see the Hanban Announcement on Chinese Language Corps Exhibition for ACTFL.
The Kansas Summit on Strategic Languages, held December 19, 2006 in Topeka, brought together policymakers, legislators, educators, and business leaders to develop a statewide action plan for increasing the capacity of Kansas schools to teach critical world languages like Chinese, Arabic, and Russian. Click here for more information.
The Kansas Task Force on Chinese Language Training has released a public report detailing the current status of Chinese language programs in Kansas, opportunities and challenges for future development, and a series of specific policy recommendations. Click here to read the report.
Public Symposium offered as part of the official opening of the Confucius Institute May 4, 2006
China in Transition:
Language, Culture, Business
1:30 pm Chinese language education in the United States today: How can we meet our needs for the 21st Century?
Keynote Speaker: Vivien Stewart (Asia Society, New York City)
Panelists: Jan Heinen (Olathe School District), William Tsutsui (University of Kansas), Ke Changqing (Huazhong Normal University) and Crispin Williams (University of Kansas)
3:00 pm The importance of language and culture in business interactions with China: How can we make the connection with the world\'s fastest growing market?
Keynote Speaker: Joe Patterson (consultant and former Hallmark executive)
Panelists: Tailan Chi (University of Kansas), James Hipps (Black & Veatch), April Chiang (Kansas Department of Commerce) and Jeff Willis (China Leads, LLC)
The public symposium is presented with the support of the University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies, the Kansas Committee for International Education in the Schools, and the Kansas Consortium for Teaching about Asia.
A showcase of talent in traditional Chinese performing arts by the Kansas City Chinese Music Ensemble, the Le Yue Chorus, and the KCCNA Dancing Group, with a special performance by erhu super virtuoso Xu Ke.
