General Education Office (GEO) had a new book launching ceremony on the Belt and Road Initiative as well as an Interdisciplinary Workshop on Chinese medicine on 3 December.
Book Launch
At midday, the new book entitled ‘Silk Road to Belt Road: Reinventing the Past and Shaping the Future’ was launched, which is published by Springer. The book was edited by GEO Associate Professor Dr Nazrul Islam and is the outcome of The Second Interdisciplinary Forum hosted by GEO last semester.
Unveiling the new book
Dr Islam began the event by thanking the guests in attendance, who came from the US, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, mainland China and more. He then explained how he has noticed a transition with Asian medicine and how it is actually experimental science.
Dr Nazrul Islam welcomes the guests
UIC Associate Vice President Prof Lilian Kwan gave a warm welcome before explaining how she agrees with the book’s publisher, Springer’s review that mentioned how, “This volume approaches China’s Belt and Road Initiative as a process of culturalisation, one that started with the Silk Road and continued over the millennium”.
Directly afterwards, Dr Islam, Prof Kwan, GEO Director Prof Mildred Yang and UIC Designated Associate Vice President Prof CX George Wei unveiled the book to announce its launch. This was followed by a group photo of all the authors and members of the UIC Senior Management Team.
Group photo
Dr Islam remained on the stage to talk about the book from three perspectives, the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) as China’s geo-economic vision, BRI as China’s geo-economic ambition and finally BRI as a process of cultural interaction and exchange.
There was an author’s sharing session that included GEO Associate Professor Dr Shawn Wang, DHSS Professor and Chief Student Affairs Officer Prof Johnston Wong, as well as GEO Assistant Professor Dr Wei Chin Wong.
Author’s sharing session
Interdisciplinary Workshop
Later on in the afternoon, there was a workshop entitled ‘Interdisciplinary Workshop on Chinese Medicine along the Silk Road: Transition and New Discovery’.
It began with a panel session with Prof Wei as Chair. The Key Note speaker was Director of the School of Chinese Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, Prof Lixing Lao. His discussion was titled ‘The impact of evidence-based Chinese medicine on practice and education in Hong Kong’.
Prof C.X. George Wei as the Chair for a panel session
Panel Session
Also in attendance were three panel speakers, the first being GEO Professor Prof Sookja Kim Chung, who spoke about ‘Drug Discovery to Alleviate Stroke Outcome from the Traditional Chinese Medicine’. Dr Islam returned to talk about ‘Chinese medicine in Malaysia: Transition and Changes’ while Chinese Studies Programme Lecturer at Ateneo De Manila University in the Philippines, Mr Francisco V. Navarro, spoke about ‘The Challenges of the Practice of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture in the Philippines’.
Following a short tea break, the workshop continued with a panel session, which was chaired by Director of GEO Prof Mildred Yang. Dr Fang Xiaoping from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore then spoke about 'Chinese Medicine in the Global Pandemic in China in the 1960s'. Dr Fang was followed by Xiamen University Malaysia Assistant Professor Kim Yunjin, who discussed the 'Current status of TCM Education in Xiamen University Malaysia and Student's Self-esteem Scale'. The final person to speak on the panel was Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, Japan, Prof Yoshihiro Chiba. Prof Chiba gave a talk about 'Cholera Epidemics under Spanish and American Imperial Medicine: Policies and Response'.
Reporter: Samuel Burgess
Photographers: Marissa Furney, Ivy Liao
Editors: Deen He, Marissa Furney, Étienne Fermie
(from MPRO)
