Advance ticket sales have ended but plenty of additional tickets remain available at the door.
Profs and Pints DC presents: “China, Empire of Stories,” an exploration of myths, folktales, and historical fables in celebration of the Chinese New Year, with Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States and frequent lecturer on Chinese culture.
[Under current District of Columbia regulations attendees will be required to be vaccinated and to wear a mask except while eating or drinking. The Bier Baron will be requiring event attendees to purchase a minimum of two items, which can be food or beverages, including soft drinks.]
On February 1, 2022, China will launch the Year of the Water Tiger with a week of family gatherings, food, music, and stories. Come celebrate the New Year—a cultural high point of the Chinese calendar—by learning about Chinese traditional culture and how it shapes the People’s Republic today.
Robert Daly, a leading expert on China who has delivered several outstanding Profs and Pints talks, will give us a thorough grounding in Chinese myth and legend, including Chinese origin stories. He also will introduce us to the past heroes—The Yellow Emperor, The Divine Peasant, and Yu the Great—to whom Chinese leaders still refer when describing China’s historical greatness and global destiny. And, finally, he will analyze the morality tales used to instruct children in traditional China about the value of filial piety, education, and patriotic sacrifice.
It will be a fascinating night of storytelling, including animal lore such as the story of the origin of the 12 Chinese zodiacal animals, with asides on Chinese cuisine, the Yellow River, and bamboo. You’ll come to appreciate how there is much to celebrate in China as a world culture, despite mounting criticisms of that nation’s human-rights record and growing tensions in U.S.-China relations. (Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, or $13 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in.)
(Image photo by Bernard Gagnon.)