Category: Helen T. Lin Legacy Initiative Tiger Talk Recording

The first empress of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) had such humble beginnings, her impoverished family gave her away to be raised in the household of a local military leader in present day Anhui Province, towards the end of the Yuan dynasty. In 1352, she married an insurgent soldier of equally humble origins, Zhu Yuanzhang. He went on to become the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty and she the empress of a dynasty that would last nearly 300 years. Her literacy and that of many other women who were members of the imperial family and the imperial household became an important part of the narrative of the history of the Ming dynasty. The ability to read and write poetry was a key facet of women’s literacy.

In recent years, scholars have identified a dramatic increase in the number of collections of poetry published by Chinese gentry women and courtesans from the middle of the 16th century onwards. They have also drawn attention to the high levels of literacy of imperial women poets of the Tang and Song dynasties. A handful of poems can confidently be attributed to imperial women and women officials of the Ming dynasty. A close reading of some of these poems provides new perspectives on their literacy and insight into their thoughts, feelings, and distinctive voices within complex and rapidly changing historical contexts from the 14th to the early 16th century.

Please join us for an exploration of women’s literacy and their self expression through poetry during a fascinating period in Chinese history.

Ellen Soulliere: Ellen started her study of Chinese language in 1967 at Wellesley College, the second year Mrs Lin had been teaching at Wellesley. After graduating from Wellesley with a major in History, she spent two years as a Wellesley-Yenching Tutor at Chung Chi College, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Subsequent to her time in Hong Kong, Ellen returned to the US and earned her Master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Princeton University, with her areas of interest being Chinese cultural history of the Ming and Qing periods, History of Chinese Art, and Chinese Intellectual History; she completed her PhD. in East Asian Studies from Princeton with her doctoral thesis entitled Palace Women in the Ming Dynasty: 1368-1644.

After moving to New Zealand, Ellen completed a Diploma in Teaching English as a Second Language at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. She served for many years as Wellington Regional Director of Massey University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages. She presently is an Honorary Research Associate of the School of Humanities.

Her research interests include Chinese history, the history of Chinese women, the history of Chinese art and material culture, second language acquisition in English and Chinese, linguistics, applied linguistics and translation.

America’s civil rights movements have all had their Martin Luther Kings, their César Chávezes and their Gloria Steinems. But to whom can Chinese Americans point? More than 70 years before Dr. King dreamed of an America that judged people according to the “content of their character,” Wong Chin Foo (王清福, 1847-1898) defied those who wished to exclude Chinese by declaring that only “character and fitness should be the requirement of all who are desirous of becoming citizens of the American Republic.” His story is a forgotten chapter in the struggle for equal rights for all in America.

Wong’s biographer, Scott D. Seligman, who studied Chinese at Middlebury in the summer of 1973 under Mrs. Lin’s tutelage, will discuss Wong’s remarkable life and achievements, which include coining and defining the term “Chinese American,” founding America’s first association of Chinese voters and New York’s first Chinese newspaper, besting the standard bearer of the “Chinese Must Go” movement in a public debate, and testifying before Congress – the first Chinese ever to do so – in support of Chinese citizenship rights.

Please join us for this timely talk, as those of us in the United States witness a rise in anti-Asian violence, a result of terms like “kung flu” and blame on China for the pandemic having amplified racial stereotypes and exacerbated longstanding anti-Chinese and anti-Asian attitudes in the US.

Please join us for another “living history” conversation, this time focused on business in and with China, as two pioneers in the China-US finance and business sectors, Terry and Steve, look back over the past four decades, and contemplate what the present day portends for the future. Both Steve and Terry coincidentally have shared a commitment to sustainability, whether clean technology or renewable energy. The moderator for this conversation, Kerin, has been a pathbreaker in this area, as well.

Steve and Terry will reflect on their first decades working in China, in the 1980’s and 1990’s. They will ponder the remarkable trajectory of China’s economic development, including the transformation of finance, business, and trade, and how doing business in China has evolved as the technological, as well as geopolitical, balance of power has shifted. As they consider the present day, Terry and Steve will gaze forward and share thoughts about the future.

Steve is Chairman of Still Waters Green Technology, a UK based renewable energy developer. He serves as independent non-executive director of four publicly listed companies: Fanhua, Inc., Jinko Solar Inc., ZZ Capital International Ltd., and Hexindai. Steve is also a trustee emeritus of Princeton-in-Asia. From 1998-2006, Steve worked for GE Capital. During his time with GE, Steve led GE Capital’s business development activities in China and Asia Pacific, primarily acquisitions and direct investments. Prior to GE, Steve worked with the Boston Consulting Group throughout Asia. Steve was a banker for ten years in London, Chicago, New York, Hong Kong and Beijing with Chase Manhattan Bank and First National Bank of Chicago. Steve began his career with the US-China Business Council, in Washington D.C. and Beijing. Steve earned a BA in East Asian Studies from Princeton University in 1976, an MA in international affairs from Johns Hopkins University in 1980, and an MBA from Columbia University in 1991, where he was class valedictorian. He lives in suburban Chicago with his wife and three children.

The Ford Foundation opened its office in Beijing at the beginning of 1988, after starting to program in China in 1983. From the beginning, legal reform and governance were core parts of Ford’s work in China, at the request of Chinese law schools and government ministries. Over time, that work broadened to more explicitly include program support for rights-related initiatives In this session, three former Ford program officers, who served at quite different times in China, will talk about working at the Ford Foundation in Beijing and the challenges and rewards of working with Chinese colleagues and institutions on legal reform, rights and governance in China.

This talk will explore the vexing question, “How do you verify someone is Chinese?” What constitutes being “Chinese” — physical attributes, the language you speak, where you were born, your family’s culture, or other characteristics? Please join anthropologist ChorSwang Ngin and attorney Diane Young-Spitzer in a conversation about ChorSwang’s work verifying the identity of Chinese Indonesians claiming persecution in Indonesia due to their Chinese identity when applying for asylum in the United States.

Neil Kubler, who has devoted his career to Chinese language teaching and learning, observes as a polyglot that all languages are subject to the influence of other languages with which their speakers or readers come into contact. English, for example, has borrowed numerous words and expressions from French, Latin, and many other languages.

Neil notes Chinese, which for centuries flooded the vocabularies of Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese, while taking relatively little in return, has also — especially since the beginning of large scale contact with the West– been strongly influenced by foreign languages.

This Tiger Talk will explore, among other things, the influence of European languages on Chinese grammar; the influence of Japanese on Chinese vocabulary; and the influence of Sinitic languages like Cantonese and Taiwanese on modern spoken Mandarin.

Priscilla will share her perspective not only as someone who served as a China Analyst at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, but also as a child of parents who had been missionaries in China and maintained a lifelong love of Chinese culture and the Chinese people. Over her 35 years at the US Department of State, Priscilla learned to shed ideological filters to focus on history, context, and facts. China faced many challenges during that time, and more challenges lie ahead. In Priscilla’s view, China has three unique characteristics that give it an advantage moving forward. The challenge for the US will be to form and maintain a relationship with China that is mutually productive.

Katharine will reflect on the merit of serendipity and chance, mixed with a large dose of stubbornness and perseverance, in developing her career as an art historian and academic. The role of Helen Lin, Wellesley College (and Middlebury), and the Wellesley motto, Non Ministrari sed Ministrare (“Not to be ministered unto, but to minister”) figure prominently in Katharine’s personal account of how she “discovered” China, tea, and (eventually) herself.

Katharine “discovered” China in a Chinese Art History class her junior year at Wellesley. A classmate encouraged her to study Chinese, which she did with Helen Lin her senior year in college. With Mrs. Lin’s encouragement, she attended the Middlebury Chinese Summer Language Program and then lived in Taiwan for three years, working as the Wellesley College Intern at the NPM for two years, and at the Taipei Art Guild for two years, where she served as Director for the last year. When she returned to the US, she earned her doctorate in Art History at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She returned to Taipei for a Fulbright year of dissertation research as a doctoral student, again at the NPM.

Katharine Burnett is currently Professor and Chair, Department of Art History; and Founder and Director of the Global Tea Initiative for the Study of Tea Culture and Science (GTI) at the University of California, Davis. In research and teaching, she explores definitions of culture and how culture is formed. Her publications include Shaping Chinese Art History: Pang Yuanji and His Painting Collection (2020), one of Book Authority’s 16 Best New Art History Books To Read In 2021,https://bookauthority.org/books/new-art-history-books); and Dimensions of Originality: Essays on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Art Theory and Criticism (2013; Chinese version forthcoming 2023). Her new projects include research into Art History without the Art: The Curious Case of Sino-Vietnamese Teapots before 1700. Indeed, it was a fascination with teapots and the philosophy and politics involved in shaping them that led her to found GTI. Dr. Burnett’s efforts for GTI have been recognized locally by UC Davis (Chancellor’s Award for International Engagement, Global Affairs, 2021); nationally by the US/Canada tea industry (Best Tea Health Advocate, World Tea Expo, 2018), and internationally (O-Cha Pioneer Award, World Green Tea Association, Shizuoka Prefectural Government, Japan, 2021).

Jim will share findings from his recent research on the origin of place names (diming 地名) in China in the period before Qin unification in 221 BCE. Since all China scholars, especially those who work in the imperial era (Qin Dynasty and thereafter through to the Qing Dynasty), on some level work with place names, this topic should interest many academics, as well as curious lay people. The presentation will address place names in terms of two questions:
How were place-names first formulated during the Shang and Zhou periods?
What is the role or function of place names in subsequent Chinese history?

Jim will offer some new ideas about the function of place names in imperial China.

Edith used a Chinese metaphysical model to outline the end of One Country, Two Systems and the likely next version of Hong Kong as it integrates more tightly with the mainland, based on her insights as a former journalist and current strategic consultant. Among the first business people based in Beijing in 1980, Edith has been involved with China, as well as Japan and Southeast Asia, for the past 40 years. She has lived and worked in Hong Kong for the past two decades, where she has engaged in work shaping Hong Kong’s sustainability and post-1997 political economy, as well as its relationship with Mainland China.