“On the path of Genghis Khan:

Mongolia and Northern China”

with Pam Frahm

Next meeting: Friday 30 October

The full pdf of this newsletter is available at: NZCFSNelsonOctober2015.pdf

As usual, NZCFS tours have had good representation from Nelson members in 2015 and in July the Mongolia and North Central China Tour was boosted by four Nelson members: Sally Warren, Pam Frahm, Barbara Harford and Isabelle Jones.

Following the path of Genghis Khan in Mongolia and northern China, tour members were able to learn more about his immense influence. The trip was also timed to be in Ulan Bataar for the famous Nadaam festival, with its horse-riding, archery and wrestling. 

In China, the itinerary included the cliff-hugging temple of Xuankong and the walled town of Pingyao in Shanxi Province. They also joined up with Ma Baoru to learn more about the story of Kathleen Hall (He Ming Qing) in Anguo and Dingzhou in Hebei Province.

You will have the opportunity to enjoy this tour with Pam’s wonderful photography and travel stories.

As usual, we will begin at 5.30 p.m. and then enjoy our buffet meal (cost $12), at 6 o’clock. Our speaker’s presentation will begin about 7 o’clock. Friends and visitors are most welcome but please notify Barbara when you contact her so that we have accurate numbers for the meal.

Friday 30 October  ..  Hearing House  ..  5:30 pm

To book please contact:

Barbara Markland   ph. 544 4712   by Tuesday 27 October

text: 021 447 180 or e-mail: [email protected]

PRESIDENT CHANGES: Christine Ward is stepping down as Nelson Branch President after six very busy and incredibly productive years. Members might remember that Christine took on the presidency in 2010, when June Clark retired and Vice President Ferry van Mansum had gone overseas with Aukje, teaching in the Netherlands first and then Gansu Province in China, until the end of last year.

In the normal course of events, Christine would have stood down at the last AGM but, with so many activities and projects already underway for this year, especially the Mandarin programmes, the National Conference and the Huangshi Schools’ Art Exchange, Christine continued on as president until the many 2015 projects were brought to their highly successful conclusions. She has been amazing.

Ferry van Mansum will be Acting President until the AGM early next year. And we wish Christine and Bruce a wonderfully relaxing driving holiday in the North Island as they visit family over the next couple of weeks – they both very much deserve a well-earned break.

MEMBER NEWS:

•  We welcome Lainey McGeorge as a new member. Lainey has had many Chinese boarders at her home in Motueka and is planning on going to teach in China.

•  Congratulations go to Pat Jones who was recently presented with a City of Nelson Crest, to recognise her contribution to Sister City relationships since 1990. The crest is a very special recognition of a high level of service to Nelson.

Pat served as a a member of the Sister Cities New Zealand board from 1992 to 1996. She was one of four SCNZ board members invited to visit China in 1995 as guests of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. Her main focus has been on Japan and the first visit to the City of Miyazu happened in 1990. She floated the idea of the establishment of the Miyazu Gardens within Miyazu Park.

During her time as the Nelson City Council Sister City Coordinator, Pat has worked closely with four mayors and several councils, encouraging and promoting the links between the cities with whom Nelson City Council has sister city agreements.

Pat says she has made many friends through sister cities and many of these friendships are ongoing.

– with thanks to Gail Collingwood and the SCNZ Newsletter

HANDCRAFT DELEGATION: Planning for the visit of some Women’s Handicraft Co-op leaders from NW China has been delayed due to visa problems.

Liu Guozhong has informed us that the 6 delegates will not be here for the first 10 days of November as planned, but possibly a fortnight later.

Three of the delegates are embroiderers, one is a hand-knitter and cross stitch worker, one a paper cut worker and one does Shehuo lianpu (a type of facial makeup for Shehuo – traditional activities during spring festival time).

Nelson will be hosting them for two nights (dates as yet unknown) on their way from Christchurch to Wellington. We are still hoping for offers of home-stays for three or four of the visitors. A programme of visits with local embroiderers, quilters and spinners and weavers is planned but, again, the lack of certainty with timing is a problem at the moment. 

PROMINENT PERSONS AND LEADERS TOUR: This year the PP&L tour was designed with a medical focus. Two nominations from Nelson were accepted by the National Executive for the October trip: Alyson Hobbs specialises in ultrasound techniques (Koru Ultrasound and Care Centre in Richmond), and Chris Gaul is at NMIT as the Year 1 Coordinator for the Bachelor of Nursing Programme. The eight medical people on the tour will be visiting some NZCFS projects, experiencing some Traditional Chinese Medicine, and enjoying a variety of other visits with a medical focus. Alyson and Chris will be reporting on their adventures at our November meeting. 

MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL IN THE HUANGSHI CHINESE GARDEN: 

The spring blossoms made a lovely show on a beautiful Nelson spring day, and our decorations and banners added even more colour to the scene, as we celebrated the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival with mooncakes and Chinese teas on the afternoon of Sunday 28 September.

This event took the place of our September meeting as, this year, the full moon was conveniently close to the last Friday of the month.

CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE MANDARIN LANGUAGE ASSISTANTS IN NELSON: Dr Adam Lam and Dr Hong Hu from the Confucius Institute at Canterbury University first came to Nelson in 2008, setting up an on-going relationship with NZCFS Nelson, and helping, in 2010, with our first stall at Race Unity Day. Later, with the help and support of the Confucius Institute, a Mandarin Resource Centre was established at NMIT and we welcomed Nelson’s first Mandarin Language Assistant, Alicia, who home-stayed with Bev Harvey. 

Last year three primary schools had lunchtime Mandarin classes with Alicia, and the Chinese Association hosted a Monday afternoon class for younger children at the Library. Nelson Intermediate ran three Mandarin classes as part of its extension programme on Friday mornings.

This year the interest has exploded and MLA Gina, who has been here since March, has been so busy that another MLA, Emma, arrived to help. There are now classes in school time in 5 primary schools and two Intermediates, with more being signed up for next year. They think, between them, that they are teaching Mandarin to 400+ children each week. Emma will be staying on, and will possibly be joined by two more Confucius Institute interns for 2016. These Confucius Institute Mandarin programmes for schools are free, as part of a Ministry of Education contract.

Gina (Qianlan Zhou) will be returning to China on December 19th, and she is already feeling sad about leaving Nelson. She has participated fully in NZCFS activities, with the Children’s Holiday Programme in July being a highlight. Her contribution to Nelson children’s knowledge of Mandarin and Chinese culture cannot be underestimated. Thanks, Gina!

We will be saying our thanks and goodbye to Gina with a “Christmas” pot luck on Friday 18 December.

More details next month.

HE MING QING SCHOLARSHIP REPORT: Thanks to all the support for our fund-raising efforts from Nelson Branch members, we will soon be making our annual contribution of $500 to the HMQ Scholarship Fund. This money has been raised through donations at meetings and sales tables, raffles at our Chinese New Year Banquet and the NZCFS Conference dinner, and tea sales at Race Unity Day and the China Week Community Day.

Here, Deborah Rhode, Chair of the HMQ Scholarship Committee, reports on the current HMQ scholars and other HMQ projects:

The two students in Nanchang, Zhu Caixia and Wang Xuejun, were selected from Shandan, Gansu Province, in 2012. Two students were selected as they were both excellent candidates, and it has also provided them with mutual support as they are training in Nanchang, many thousands of kilometres from their hometown. They also had to make considerable adjustments from rural Shandan to life in a large city. They have been visited by NZCFS President Dave Bromwich, Tauranga President John Hodgson, and members of NZCFS tours and delegations. They have both studied very well, achieved good reports and have now successfully completed their studies and are doing their practical year in a hospital – Wang is at Zhejiang Zhoushan Hospital and Zhu is in Hangzhou. We hope to have a personal update from them on their nursing experiences soon.

This year we will be looking for new applicants for the Nursing Scholarship programme.

In July, members of the Mongolia/China Tour visited Anguo Hospital, accompanied by Ma Baoru, and were able to hear firsthand about the work of the HMQ project there under the stewardship of Mr. Lu. The Anguo Hospital has a strong TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) tradition and is committed to strengthening a relationship with New Zealand in the name of Kathleen Hall. (According to Ma Baoru, she is in fact better known in Anguo as Kathleen Hall rather than He Ming Qing – which was the name given to her in the village of Songjiazhuang.)

Together with RMB8,000 (approx. $NZ2,000) from NZCFS, Anguo Hospital has pledged a further RMB20,000 to the ‘Kathleen Hall Memorial Fund’. This will go towards providing education courses in community health in the countryside around Anguo, assisting groups of volunteer nurses to take health clinics to rural villages and also to assist rural medical professionals to up-skill themselves at Anguo Hospital. This part of the project has not been undertaken yet as they are keen for Ma Baoru to be involved, and she has been unwell for most of this year. However she is optimistic that it will begin very soon.

In the meantime, Mr Lu has been co-ordinating a programme within the hospital, to teach nurses about the work of Kathleen Hall (which was new to most of the young members of staff). To facilitate this, he has organised competitions to promote the ‘spirit of Kathleen’ by awarding certificates to nurses who have been nominated by patients to have been extra caring, and also running essay competitions on their knowledge of Kathleen and her work. 

In October this year, the Prominent Persons Tour will have a medical focus and, among other places, it is planned to visit Anguo Hospital. It is hoped this may lead to further co-ordination between Anguo Hospital and NZ medical personnel on a voluntary basis. It is quite an exciting proposition. Although this would not directly be an HMQ project, the connection is that Kathleen Hall was instrumental in starting up this hospital and was its first Matron.

Keep an eye out for more information at:

https://nzchinasociety.org.nz/he-ming-qing-kathleen-hall-memorial-scholarship/

– Deborah Rhode, He Ming Qing Chair