2024 - 2025 Season Schedule
Welcome to the First Saturday PDX 2024 - 2025 Season!
Our diverse collection of in-person and online programs of China-related subjects will include a walking tour through Hoyt Arboretum to view Chinese Species, an examination of The Daily Lives of Women in Shanghai Under the Japanese Occupation, a tour of the works of the exhibit Collecting Stories: Chinese Art through the Historians' Lens, a presentation on A Brief History of the "Golden Temple”, a discussion on The Chinese Dialect of Xining, Chinese "Paintings of Beautiful Women" in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, and we also visit Late Medieval Chinese Entombed Epitaphs (muzhiming 墓誌銘) and their collaborative memories of the deceased.
Each program will be followed either by a half hour of further discussion and socializing in our virtual First Saturday PDX Tea House for the online programs, or typically a casual no host lunch family style at a Chinese restaurant for in person programs. This season begins on 14 September, 2024 running through 7 June, 2025.
Although all our events are free, registration is required for both online and in person events; available on the Upcoming Presentation page and program announcements. We look forward to you joining us!.
Our diverse collection of in-person and online programs of China-related subjects will include a walking tour through Hoyt Arboretum to view Chinese Species, an examination of The Daily Lives of Women in Shanghai Under the Japanese Occupation, a tour of the works of the exhibit Collecting Stories: Chinese Art through the Historians' Lens, a presentation on A Brief History of the "Golden Temple”, a discussion on The Chinese Dialect of Xining, Chinese "Paintings of Beautiful Women" in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, and we also visit Late Medieval Chinese Entombed Epitaphs (muzhiming 墓誌銘) and their collaborative memories of the deceased.
Each program will be followed either by a half hour of further discussion and socializing in our virtual First Saturday PDX Tea House for the online programs, or typically a casual no host lunch family style at a Chinese restaurant for in person programs. This season begins on 14 September, 2024 running through 7 June, 2025.
Although all our events are free, registration is required for both online and in person events; available on the Upcoming Presentation page and program announcements. We look forward to you joining us!.
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Lesser and Well Known Chinese Species at Hoyt Arboretum
Martin Nicholson, Curator 14 September, 2024 More than 30,000 plant species are native to China, representing nearly one-eighth of the world's total plant species, with thousands found nowhere else on Earth. For our first program of the season join First Saturday PDX on a tour of the living museum in Washington Park with a focus on native plants of China. Further information and images here |
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First Saturday PDX's Dim Sum/ Yum Cha Brunch
Excellent Cuisine Restaurant 12 October, 2024 Come join us for dim sum also known as "yum cha" - a casual no host brunch where we catch up over many mouth watering dishes of "heart's delight". The diversity of the dishes allows us to include gluten free selections and we will try our best to accommodate other food allergies. Further information and images here |
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Heroism and Survival: Women’s Daily Lives in Japanese-occupied Shanghai (1937-1945)
Susan Glosser, PhD 2 November, 2024 How did the Shanghainese make it through the Japanese Occupation (1937-1945)? Although we have very little direct testimony from those who survived the war, newspapers, memoirs, municipal surveys, propaganda, journals, and photos provide glimpses of their strategies for survival. Moreover, these sources tell us more about women’s lives than they do men’s; in times of scarcity, the mundane becomes news – and women were central to the essentials of survival.
Further information and images here |
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COLLECTING STORIES: CHINESE ART THROUGH THE HISTORIANS' LENS
Betty and John Soreng Gallery Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at University of Oregon 7 December, 2024 A tour of an exhibition of selected ceramics, metalwork, sculpture, paintings, and textiles ranging in date from the fifth millennium BCE through the present as primary research materials to study social history, art symbolism, technological innovation, and the history of collecting. Further information and images here |
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Imperialism, Architecture, and Oberlin College: A Brief History of the "Golden Temple"
Kevin Greenwood, PhD 4 January, 2025 An online presentation This brief presentation will explore the intriguing history of the "Golden Temple," a structure that was kept in storage at Oberlin College in Ohio for several decades. Dr Greenwood will examine the concept of architectural reproduction as a microcosm, serving as a tool of imperialist ideology in both 18th-century Qing China and early 20th-century Europe and North America. Further information and images here Video of this program will be available on our YouTube channel in the late spring. |
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Spring Banquet Lunch Fundraiser
Welcoming the Year of the Snake 蛇, 4723 Golden Horse Restaurant 2 February, 2025 SUNDAY 春節 ! We celebrate our continuing education programs, the new Year of the Wood Snake and the coming spring with our Spring Banquet. This is a delicious multi-course lunch including a raffle with unique items. |
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Down the Cultural Crosswords: The Chinese Dialect of Xining
Keith Dede, PhD 1 March, 2025 The city of Xining in Qinghai Province is in the high altitude Tibetan Plateau of SW China. Explore an examination of the Chinese Xining dialect to reveal its unique features which are the result of its ethnolinguistic position at the crossroads between the Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian civilizations. |
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Chinese "Paintings of Beautiful Women" and their Global Circulation in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Dawn Odell, PhD 5 April, 2025 The category of meiren hua (paintings of beautiful women) has a long tradition in Chinese art. As "global" objects, paintings of beautiful women often took on surprising forms and were created in innovative media, including paintings on mirrored glass. This talk aims to explain the role of "beautiful women paintings" within the homosocial worlds of port cities such as Guangzhou and Macao. |
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Remembering the Dead in Late Medieval China (7th–10th c.)
Alexei Ditter, PhD 10 May, 2025 This talk, focuses on collaborative remembering that occurred during the production of the late medieval Chinese entombed epitaph (muzhiming 墓誌銘), an important form of funerary epigraphy. Different objectives—personal, social, political, and commercial—that shaped the content of the epitaph text will be discussed. |
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"For Here or To Go" - A Conversation with Curtis Chin
Curtis Chin 7 June, 2025 An online presentation In addition to being a documentary film writer, director, producer, and activist, Curtis Chin is the author of “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant,” a memoir celebrating his family restaurant's cuisine and community of his youth in the Michigan Asian American experience. Also in his memoir he talks about the history of Chinese restaurants and how they’ve touched so many lives. |
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Our instructive program series has been developed with support from Reed College, Northwest China Council, Lan Su Chinese Garden and Portland Chinatown Museum. It is free and open to the public.
