Departments
|
Week of 18 September 1998 |
Vol. II, No. 6 |
Feature Article
Moon over BU
Growing Chinese program to celebrate traditional festival
by Brian Fitzgerald
"Be not afraid of growing slowly," says a Chinese proverb. "Be afraid only of standing still." The Chinese program in the CAS department of modern foreign languages and literatures (MFLL), which began modestly in 1985, has matured gradually, and it certainly hasn't been stationary of late.
|
|
|
Preceptor Hsiao-Chih Chang,
Visiting Professor of Chinese Literature Zhu Hong,
and Lecturer Xioyang Zhou. Photo by Vernon Doucette
|
"We now have 260 students taking 11 Chinese courses at Boston University," says MFLL Lecturer Xiaoyang Zhou. "It's a far cry from the mid-1980s, when we had two classes and 70 students. Those were first- and second-year language courses. Now we have literature and civilization courses at the advanced undergraduate level as well."
CAS Visiting Professor of Chinese Literature Zhu Hong points out that there have been numerous requests for Chinese films at the Geddes Language Center, which now holds more than 50 such videos, ranging from dubbed episodes of television's The Cosby Show to a documentary on the Yangtze River to the 1993 epic movie Farewell My Concubine, which was banned in China.
Hong has also spearheaded a drive to add more Chinese books to Mugar Library, and has received $27,000 over the past three years from the BU Humanities Foundation to do just that. Hong, widely known for her efforts to introduce contemporary Chinese writing to a Western audience, teaches Post-Mao Fiction and Society. In 1996 she published a book of essays with the same name. "The course and the book are a showcase for writers in a new literary generation," she says. "The styles include hard-core realism, black humor, myth, and mystery."
Hong, who divides her teaching between BU and the Institute of Foreign Literature in Beijing, explains that building up Mugar's Chinese book collection will help spare students numerous trips across the Charles to Harvard University's Yenching Library.
"There has been a lot of interest in our program," says Hong. "Some of our students take Chinese to fulfill the CAS foreign language requirement. Others come from Chinese families, but were born in the U.S. and can speak Chinese, but can't read or write it. And BU has such a large number of East Asian students, many of whom will work in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. They need to learn the language."
Hong notes that BU students who have had at least two years of college-level Chinese also have the opportunity to master the language by taking advantage of the University's Beijing internship program.
The University has a long history of ties to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Last year, BU presented an honorary degree to Lee Teng-hui, president of the Republic of China on Taiwan. BU has also presented honorary degrees to Madame Chiang Kai-shek (1989), K.T. Li, senior advisor to the president of the Republic of China on Taiwan (1990), and former Chase National Bank Chairman Aubrey Fook-Wo Li (SMG'37), who served as a member of Hong Kong's Executive Council (1991). In 1991 a scholarship program for students from the Republic of China on Taiwan was established. Those who have studied at BU also include Chinese emigré and author Ha Jin (GRS'94) and Shen Tong (UNI'98), a Chinese dissident who was jailed in China in 1992.
The BU Chinese program's Moon Festival party in the Geddes Language Center, on the fifth floor of CAS, will take place on September 18 from 3 to 5 p.m. The celebration, which marks China's mid-autumn festival, or zhong qui jie, will include Chinese cuisine and a calligraphy demonstration. Everyone is welcome.