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Rotorua Branch Newsletter – May 2016

94

BRANCH MAY NEWSLETTERNZCFS-Logo

Greetings to everyone:

Thank you for coming to the AGM on 1 May. Our branch’s cash flow is still very healthy and the numbers attending were record-breaking! We had several new friends from different countries joining us and Tony also brought us wonderful stories about his childhood and his high school life. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to hear all of his stories. However at this month’s meeting, Tony will continue his stories and bring a satisfying ending for us.

This month’s meeting time will be:

DATE: SUNDAY 22 MAY

TIME: 12:30 P.M.

VENUE: ROTORUA ARTS VILLAGE, 1240 Hinemaru Street

Don’t forget we will start with our sheared lunch.

The week after our May meeting is the NZCFS national conference in Tauranga. If you have decided to go please do not forget to plan accommodation and transport. John Hodgson is looking for assistance with hosting of conference accommodation and transportation for delegates. Also if you can provide the transporting of the Rewi Alley Photography collections in Auckland to Tauranga please contact him at [email protected]. Patricia and Karyn will represent Rotorua at this years conference. We thank them for their help.

It is time to renew subscriptions for another year. Thanks to our treasurer, Norma, and everyone else’s hard work our branch’s cash flow remains positive for another year so we decided to keep subscription fees unchanged as follow:

For payment please contact Norma Millard Lake View Villa, 2/285 Vaughns Rd Rotorua 3010 07 345 5016

Type of subscription Fees   Individual ($) 15; Couple ($)25;  Organisation ($)25

Our next regular meeting will be 26 June at the usual time. At this meeting we will welcome the Chinese Language Assistants by providing lunch for everyone so do not worry about bringing food to this meeting.

In July Prof. Yang, the Deputy Director of the Victory University Confucius Institute, will be our guest speaker.

At the AGM, everyone was very happy to see some more things about China and Chinese culture included in the newsletter. Therefore I will start with a brief introduction and a review on the book “Chinese Characteristics (1894)” by Arthur H Smith. Click here for a link. Points covered in the book include: Face, Economy, The disregard of time, The Talent for Misunderstanding, to name a few. The book discusses what Mr Smith found during his trips to China when China was still governed by Qing Dynasty. Unfortunately over the last one hundred years or so, the characteristics of Chinese people changed very little. For example, there are still a lot of ‘Three miles village’ in different cities although none of them are about three miles to the city centre.

As Mr Smith mentioned in the introduction, ‘No single individual, whatever the extent of his knowledge, could by any possibility know the whole truth about the Chinese’. He just tried to explain the phenomena from his point of view. Therefore bias is unavoidable, but his opinion is very sharp and worthy reading.

For the next newsletter, I will site the most interesting and criticizing parts of the book. I hope you enjoy reading and take something from this book.

Editor Tony Li