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“Ni Hao”. It’s 10 AM on Monday morning again, and I’m greeting the rest of Malvern U3A’s ‘China Study Group’ with the words used by a fifth of the World’s population. Pronounced “knee how” it literally means “you good”. The reply is another “ni hao”.

Should someone however, add the little word “ma?”, you are then at liberty to regale them with all your latest ailments!

Originally the China Group was envisaged as a sequel to the other groups who operate under the ‘history’ banner, with a touch of ‘modern language’, both popular U3A activities, however, we soon found that China is making history faster than we can absorb it.

Having retired at 70 with a background in industrial sales and no teaching experience, I found it daunting, at first, when thirty or so people signed up for ‘Chinese Studies’, as many of them had spent a lifetime teaching at one or more of the many private schools which are such an important part of life in this town.

However my 20 years as a translator in Hong Kong during the Cold War gave me a certain grounding in the subject and a desire to pursue it further.

I had bright ideas about teaching the wonderfully musical Mandarin language, with its four tones and impossible ‘characters’, but this met with a polite reluctance.

This is quite understandable, for even fifty years ago when I spent a year at London University at the School of Oriental and African Studies while serving with the RAF and trying to absorb the language, it was no easy task.

What the group really wanted, it seems, was to know more about the Chinese people, how they live, and what makes them tick.

So in order to keep up-to date with events in China we all check our newspapers for any reference to that part of the world, and bring along our cuttings, which we pin up on our ‘bulletin board’.

Subjects range from pollution, corruption, and occasionally Chinese achievements, all of which we analyse before embarking on the main topic for the day.

Subjects we have covered, have included most of recent history in some detail, from the European influence on China to the rise of Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalists and their defeat at the hands of the Communists; serious subjects like Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ and ‘Cultural Revolution’ to more light-hearted topics, such as whether the Chinese eunuch Admiral Zheng He really circumnavigated and mapped the globe in 1421.

Not bad value, I’m sure you will agree, at 50 pence per session, which covers the room hire at the Manor Park sports club.

Some of our members have visited China in the past and we have been able to enjoy their slides and experiences, particularly a botanist from Kew, who has made several research trips, and a lady whose husband was Military Attache in Beijing at a time when no ordinary foreigners were allowed into the country.

As a group, we have already made a successful visit to ‘The Three Emperors’ exhibition at the Royal Academy in pursuit of our researches and now 13 of us are going all the way to the ‘Middle Kingdom’ itself, on a three-week journey which will take us to the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and up the mighty Yangtze River.

We’ve come a long way in 18 months.

This article was created: 25 July 2006.
This article was last edited: 1 December 2006.

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