Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an essay by Daniel Bell, a noted scholar of Chinese philosophy who teaches at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The essay came with the intriguing title “Why Anyone can be Chinese”. Now I call this going down the rabbit hole of identity politics. To do so is like stepping onto a minefield, and Dr. Bell bravely if somewhat naively did so when publicly expressing his wish to be considered Chinese.

My previous journal entry was about my transformation from a science and math nerd to a China/Asian Studies nerd and how the liberal arts experience at Dartmouth enabled that transformation. Perhaps I overstated the case a bit. Looking back on those days, while I professed to have an interest in science, ironically it was more from a humanities perspective all along. Maybe that's why I felt an affinity with the scholars of ancient China with their multiple interests all grounded in a basic love for humanities and arts.

I know them as the Eagle Bar band. While some of the band members have come and gone, they have remained fairly stable. Marvin has always been the band leader and lead guitarist. Ama is the singer, though the others also take turns singing. Jerlon, another guitarist and a great singer himself, joined in the past two years since I moved to Kunshan and became a habitué of this bar. Carlos has always been on drums. Kenneth was the bassist, then left for a while, and recently returned. It's a fabulous band. I blogged about them in my previous blog on Kunshan bars and clubs. 

Here are several establishments I've visited in the past two years and some of my impressions of each. Obviously there are many more clubs and bars in Kunshan than I cover here, including bars catering to specific ethnicities and nationalities (e.g. Japanese) and perhaps another installment will follow eventually (hence the Part One in the title of this entry). My one big caveat is that I almost never spend the weekend in Kunshan (I weekend in Shanghai) so some of these observations might pertain more to weekday than weekend nights...

I have been meaning for quite some time now to write a piece about my experiences at the 25th Reunion for our class of 1991, held on June 16-19 2016 at Dartmouth College. Several hundred '91s joined the reunion and it was quite an experience to see so many faces I hadn't seen in 25 years or more, and to rekindle memories and re-experience some of the youthful vigor of our Dartmouth days. 

On Friday we welcomed our new group of 65 students for the Global Learning Semester. We also welcomed our professors for the first session of our program, who are flying in from Duke or elsewhere to teach.

Continuation of a rundown of my favorite albums from high school days in the 1980s, featuring artists Peter Gabriel, XTC, Kate Bush, Violent Femmes, Big Audio Dynamite, Depeche Mode, King Krimson, Prefab Sprout, Shriekback, and U2

A list of my favorite reads in the year 2016, not necessarily published in that year but mostly recent publications, including books on music, history, Shanghai, and autobiographies of two British gents.

In the days leading up to our 25th reunion of the Class of 1991, I remember fondly our president Dr. James O. Freedman, who tried hard to create a more intellectual climate for the campus, encountering much opposition along the way.

A blog about an event sponsored by the Shanghai American School that brought three pre-1949 alumni to talk about their memories of the 1940s. And a weekend tour of Shanghai with Duke Kunshan faculty.

As I gear up for the 25th reunion of our class of 1991, I recall with great fondness the choral group known as the Chamber Singers, which was one of my best experiences at Dartmouth.