Friday May 10, 6.30pm
5月10日，周五，晚上6：30

M Wine Talk: Chile, Where the Old World Meets the New World
DRINK. TALK. THINK.
米氏葡萄酒讲堂：智利，旧世界与新世界葡萄酒
美酒、妙谈、畅想

RMB 138, includes a wine tasting
RMB 138, 包含葡萄酒品鉴

This month, we explore the wines of Chile, discovering the elements that make Chilean wine so loved around the world.  ASC’s wine expert, Mila Dorosh, leads the presentation and tasting.

本月，我们为您推荐的是智利葡萄酒，发现智利葡萄酒为世界所爱的各种秘密。ASC精品酒业葡萄酒专家，Mila Dorosh 将为您带来这次品评会。

For details of wines to be tasted, click here.
详情请点击这里

Reservations required, click here.
预约请点击这里

Saturday May 11, 4pm
5月11日，周六，下午4点

M Literary Salon: Rangoon: Then and Now …and Then Again with Kate Baker & Tess Johnston
米氏文学沙龙：仰光（缅甸首都）：过去和现在…Kate Baker，Tess Johnston与您一同探讨

RMB 75, includes a drink
RMB 75, 包含一份饮料

An architectural tour of Rangoon, home to some of Asia’s most significant colonial buildings: Hear about the characters who flocked to Burma during the heady days of the late 19th and early 20th century and sip the Pegu Club Cocktail, the signature drink of the exclusive Pegu Club.

这是一次饱览缅甸首都仰光的风格建筑的文学之旅，亚洲最典型的殖民地建筑：十九年末二十世纪初，人们疯狂涌入缅甸的历史；寻找传说中的勃固俱乐部；曾经是 亚洲最高级的俱乐部。更多的故事等待与您分享。

For details, click here.
详情请点击这里

Reservations required, click here.
预约请点击这里

Friday May 17, 12pm
5月17日，中午12点

M Food Talk: “Simply Good Food”
– A Food Revolution Day Panel
EAT.TALK.THINK.
米氏美食讲堂：“简单却美味无比的佳肴”-食品革命日的讨论会
美食、妙谈、畅想

RMB 188, includes a three-course lunch, coffee or tea
RMB 188，包含三道午餐，咖啡或茶

Food Revolution Day is a global day of action to raise awareness about the importance of good food and better food education for everyone. Our panel discusses local food, seasonal eating, food knowledge, nutrition and more.

全球饮食革命运动日-为食起革命是人们支持美食和优秀烹饪技术的革命，这一天让更多人关注优质食品和美食教育的重要性。传承这一理念，开展一次关于当地美食、季节性饮食、食品知识，以及营养学的讨论会。

For details, click here.
详情请点击这里

Reservations required, click here.
预约请点击这里

Saturday May 18, 11.30am-5pm, on the M terrace.
5月18日，周六，上午11：30-下午5点，米氏西餐厅露台

End Polio Now Campaign: Be Part of the World’s Biggest Commercial
根除小儿麻痹症：成为世界最大广告的一员吧

Free
免费

The world is “this close” to eradicating polio. To get to the final stretch, Rotary Clubs worldwide have organized a worldwide awareness-raising campaign that will be the world’s biggest commercial. Join in by getting your photo taken on our terrace, against the iconic Shanghai skyline.

我们是“如此接近”彻底根除小儿麻痹症。为了共同达到这一目标，国际扶轮社组织了一次倍受全球瞩目的活动，一旦完成，它将成为全世界最大的广告。欢迎您到米氏西餐厅的露台，以上海浦江天际线为背景拍摄一张照片参加本次活动。

For details, click here.
详情请点击这里

Saturday May 25, 4pm
5月25日，周六，下午4点

Shanghai on Film with Linda Johnson
Linda Johnson与您相约－上海电影

RMB 75, includes a drink.
RMB 75, 包含一份饮料

RAS Film Club organizer Linda Johnson takes a look at Shanghai as a distinctive urban space in Chinese films across several distinct periods, and how images of Shanghai conveyed different meanings as the political and social context changed.

RAS电影俱乐部的创始人Linda Johnson将与我们一同分享这座美丽城市在电影中展示的独特空间，探讨随着政治和社会背景的变化，上海这座城市形象所传递的不同意义。

For details, click here.
详情请点击这里

Reservations required, click here.
预约请点击这里

Sunday, May 26, 4pm
5月26日，周日，下午4点

Crystal Chamber Music: MBQ Quartet
水晶室内乐: MBQ四重奏

RMB 75, includes a drink, RMB 20, students
RMB 75, 包含一份饮料, RMB 20, 学生

The first prize winners in the second Shanghai Chamber Music Competition, the MBQ Quartet performs Bach’s three-part inventions for violin, viola and cello.
第二届上海室内乐比赛一等奖获得者，MBQ室内乐团将演奏巴赫为小提琴、中提琴和大提琴所作的三部创意曲。

For programme, click here.
曲目详情请点击这里

Reservations required, click here.
预约请点击这里

I received this call for submissions in an email, and thought it might be of interest to some readers here:
Tea Magazine is a lifestyle publication celebrating tea and tea culture. It exists to encourage people to drink fine tea. Online
and in print it articulates a forward-looking vision of nourishing, healthy, modern tea. TEA’s content educates and excites enthusiasts.  It offers new energy, new direction – with opportunities for tea  enthusiasts young and old to share their discoveries.

Pays up to $200 for articles.

No word count.

Tonight, there is Chinese Corner at the Suzhou Bookworm, starting at 7pm.  It’s a good chance to brush up your Chinese.

Here’s what’s coming up for the rest of the week:

I just realized that it has been some time since I gave an update of the China-related works I currently have in progress.  Since it’s been a busy/productive year, this list is going to make it look like I am much further behind on updates than I actually am.

First, I’m working on translating another of Sheng Keyi’s novels, Death Fugue.  An excerpt from the novel appeared at Words Without Borders last year, and I am excited to say that Giramondo Press liked what they saw there and have contracted me to translate the entire book.  It is well under way as I write this post, and should be out by early 2014.

I am also working with Epigram Books in Singapore to translate Chew Kok Chang’s short story collection.  Chew is a Cultural Medallion winner in Singapore, and so is a part of a series of books that Epigram is bringing out for English-speaking audiences.  The draft is nearly complete, and the book should be out later this year.

Most recently, I’ve also been engaged to translate Li Na’s memoir for Penguin Books.  I enjoyed reading her book when I first encountered it last year, and am very excited about this project.  Li Na is a dynamic figure, and it is fun working with her words.  This is the most recent project I’ve taken on, but it is progressing quickly, thanks to the very readable, enjoyable nature of the original work.

I have also been working for a while on a book on classical gardens in Shanghai, to be published as a part of the RAS monograph series in cooperation with Hong Kong University Press.  The first two books in the series, Lindsay Shen’s Knowledge is Pleasure and Anne Witchard’s Lao She in London, have set a high standard, and I will do my best to maintain it.  That is slated for release in early 2014, with two additional books coming out as part of the series this year.  I should take this opportunity to say that RAS has been a big supporter of my interest in gardens, having invited me to do a series of events with them over the past couple of years that have included both lectures and walks through gardens.

In other, non-China-related news, my fourth poetry collection, Harps Upon Willows, has been accepted for publication by Alban Lake, a newly opened publishing house.  I am looking forward to its release sometime shortly after the release of a poetry collection I edited, A Demon in My View.  I hope to see both out this year, but it might spill over into early 2014 as well.

Here are a few photos from Yi Yuan, in Suzhou.

I recently finished Liu Hong’s Startling Moon, a book I’d picked up in Shanghai at the Confucius temple’s weekly secondhand book sale some time back. It took me some time to get around to reading it, and then took me some time to get into it once I started reading it. I did enjoy the end of the book more than the beginning, but it was overall a bit slow-moving for me. The portions that tell of Taotao’s childhood are a little tedious, despite the fact that her great grandmother and her paternal grandfather are two of my favorite characters in the book. When Taotao leaves for school, it becomes somewhat more interesting, and begins to move along at a better clip.

The book frustrates me a bit in its insistence on using English equivalents of Chinese names. It is bad enough to read “Steel” and “Willow,” but “Building the Country” and… “Hair”? Seriously? It is grating to read through a narrative that uses this sort of names. I prefer names to be Taotao, and am even in favor of using Tainainai (great grandmother) in some cases. Since those were both used in Startling Moon, it makes the choice of using these direct translations in other instances all the more strange. Just let “Building the Country” be “Jianguo.” There’s no reason to distract with such literal translations that don’t feel like names. (And anyway, who really thinks of those meanings when calling the names in Chinese?)

That said, my ambivalent reaction to the book might otherwise merely be a case of me being saturated with China narratives at the moment. There is nothing in Startling Moon that gets me excited, one way or the other, though it does deal with the Tiananmen Incident in a way that might interest many Western readers. I did like the way the book ended, for the most part, in that it is a bit open-ended, and somewhat understated. I was less thrilled with the reliance on the Western man coming in to save the Chinese woman, but it wasn’t quite as badly handled as that makes it sound.

If you are not someone already flooded with books to read on China, you might like Startling Moon. If, on the other hand, you’ve got other options, you might prefer to stick with those.

Note: For the sake of disclosure, it might be fair for me to point out that I grew up in the US during the same time as Taotao would have been growing up in China, were she real. I know that the character is a fairly good representative of many members of that generation, especially those who migrated elsewhere after ’89. For those who stayed, they shared much of the same childhood as Taotao, but their experiences during Reform and Opening up, and especially post-’89, seem quite different from those now living overseas. I understand why the experiences of those who left have become the prevailing narrative that Western readers have access to, though I wish there were a more dialogic representation of that period available in English.

…this has been going on around me:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21732457

Um. Wow. I don’t quite know what to say to that.

It’s been a busy week for me at the Shanghai International Literary Festival, and a very enjoyable one.

Yesterday was my poetry reading, moderated by Miho Kinnas

And today I was able to take part in a translation panel with Zhang Kun and Linda Jaivin, moderated by Deb Fallows

Photos courtesy of Tina, one of the main drivers of the literary festival