Back from a night at the U of M’s Institute for Advanced Studies.\u00a0 The occasion was a lecture on Chang’an, the capital of the Tang empire and site of the present day city of Xi’an.\u00a0 The lecture, as well as a pipa concert on Sunday at 3 PM at Kaufman, celebrates the 25th anniversary of a relationship between Minnesota and Shaanxi province as sister states.<\/p>\n
A supper preceded the event, paid for by somebody, and had a variety of Chinese dishes, whether indigenous to Shaanxi or not, I do not know.\u00a0 Over supper I met a Korean woman, a Catholic, who is a professor of history at the Catholic University of Seoul.\u00a0 She’s here on a one year research fellowship to study Asian history.\u00a0 Why Minnesota?\u00a0 We have a good Asian history contigent here at the U.\u00a0 Her name was Seon-Hye.\u00a0 Next to me was a graduate student in history, a Chinese woman, who has as her dissertation project women’s writing in China from the 18thC on.\u00a0 Seems women wrote poems to celebrate their locality.\u00a0 Beside her was Yoshimi, a Japanese graduate student.\u00a0 We got to talking about Korean soap operas.\u00a0 Yoshimi said they were very popular in Japan, so much so that Japanese young women take tours to Korea to see sites where their favorite soap operas happen.\u00a0\u00a0 The Chinese woman, whose name I didn’t learn, agreed, saying the Korean dramas were very popular in China, too.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Huang, a young Mandarin man, is a student of the Qin dynasty.<\/p>\n
The lecture that followed supper was on Chang’an and its cosmopolitan nature, demonstrated through art and a mini-history of the silk road.\u00a0 The lecturer was Kathy Ryor, a professor from Carleton College.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also picked up a pair of new sunglasses today.\u00a0 Snazzy and gray\/blue in tint.\u00a0 Gives the world a slight wintry cast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back from a night at the U of M’s Institute for Advanced Studies.\u00a0 The occasion was a lecture on Chang’an, the capital of the Tang empire and site of the present day city of Xi’an.\u00a0 The lecture, as well as a pipa concert on Sunday at 3 PM at Kaufman, celebrates the 25th anniversary of … Continue reading Korean soap operas and the Silk Road<\/span>