Stephen in his normal research on things to do found out about a Sacred Harp Music singing group which meets in Bloomsbury at St George’s once a month on Monday night. Because we were going into the city anyway, he decided to visit the British Museum again during the afternoon.
We enjoyed seeing a couple of things together, then I went off to amuse myself and he did some more areas of the Museum. In the course of that, he met up with an English couple, and they treated us to afternoon tea. We found we appeared to have much in common and really enjoyed their company.
I showed Stephen how to photograph the exhibits by putting the iPhone camera lens against the glass casing, which eliminates reflections.
We had a small meal at a Chinese restaurant, then went along to the church. The Sacred Harp music session was enjoyable, but it did not really appeal as something we would like to do in future. It’s easy to find out more about it using Google.
This morning, Tuesday, we went to a U3A meeting on China. It was led by someone who has a lifetime of working in China (Taiwan). His wife is from Taiwan and he says he has one English daughter and one Chinese daughter and both speak Mandarin. We were very interested in his knowledge of China and we have bought his latest book, which was available as a Kindle e-book. It is looking at the future of China 2018 – China Goes Critical by Barnaby Powell and Alex Mackinnon.
The conversation on China took part in Barnaby’s house, with pumpkin cake and Chinese tea to follow. People were interested in what he had to say about the bilateral relationship between Britain and China and Chinese investment here. The Chinese investors want to be able to build high rise apartment blocks as they do in China. It makes sense by having the greatest number of people possible living on the one plot of land and avoids the issue of possible shrinking of the green belts. However, it is not something that the English people will necessarily embrace easily.
I was asked to speak a bit about Australia’s relationship with China. Stephen said that he asked for a pass because he couldn’t think of anything to say. I did say that our views are probably not representative because of our experiences of being in China a lot in the past few years. Still, it sparked more conversation with the group.
We walked home with a few of the other participants in the group. It was raining heavily by the time we got home and I was very glad to be using an umbrella that I found here in the house, rather than the cheap and flimsy one that I bought a couple of weeks ago.
2 responses to “British Museum, Sacred Harp Music and U3A China Group”
Glad you enjoyed our Croydon U3A China Group. You certainly gave an added dimension to our discussion. Given your knowledge of China, how helpful do you think our book is for people not so familiar with the country? Grateful your comments.
Best wishes for the New Year,
Barnaby
Hi Barnaby, this reminds me to get back to reading the book as I only got half way last time. I think it is really helpful for me to read it as it puts into words a lot of my half thoughts about China, especially how our thinking changed because of our experiences. I do believe it will be helpful to people without that background. There is certainly some interest amongst mature aged educated Australians, as evidenced by the popularity of a short course on modern China given by Gary Sidley from the University of Western Australia in Perth. kind regards, Susan.