The 9th CSAA biennial conference took place at Chinese Dragon Museum in Bendigo, Victoria from June 30 to July 3, 2005. The
conference was well organized in terms of panel sessions, venue, services and facilities including internet access, photocopying, and transportation
between Bendigo and Melbourne airport/city. There were 130 attendants from 18 countries including China, Italy, France and USA. The majority are
academic researchers. But we met quite a few independent researchers. Some had used our collections before and been happy with our
services. The others who did not know about us were surprised when we told them the size of our Chinese collection.
The opening ceremony was led by a lion dance performed by the Bendigo Lion Dance Association, followed by speeches delivered by Prof. John
Fitzgerald and other important figures, and ended with two very impressive documentary films about the history of Chinese in Bendigo by young Chinese
Australian scholars, Emily Chew and En-hua Chua.
In general, there were 3 to 5 parallel panel sessions going at the same time. Each session had 3 to 4 speakers and last one and half hours.
Topics covered ranged from overseas Chinese in Australia and other countries, contemporary political and social issues of China, economic relations
between China and Australia, history of China, to Chinese languages and literature.
The keynote speaker is Professor Ellen Widmer of Wesleyan University, Connecticut. Her specialties include missionaries and literature by Chinese
women of the late imperial period. She talked about new research areas that can be explored by Ph.D. students who are interested in
researching Ming-Qing Chinese women.
My colleague at the NLA Wan Wong chaired the Library forum at the lunch time on the 2nd of July. It was quite successful, attracting more
than 20 people. The three speakers were Dr Luigi Tomba, ANU, Mr Niv Horesh, Ph.D. candidate at ANU, and Ms Bick-har Yeung, East Asian Librarian
at the University of Melbourne Library. They all made interesting presentations on the experience of using electronic resources in Chinese studies
from the perspectives of end users and librarians respectively.
These are some of the sessions I attended:
The Best Presentation
Prof. Henry Tsai from the University of Arkansas, USA, presented a paper on how the oversea Chinese confront the issues of their identities in
relation to political events that took place in the past and the present in China and Taiwan. His speech is short and right to the point but very
informative. His excellent presentation skill made it the best session for me.
The most eye-opening presentation
Anna Hayes from the University of Southern Queensland talked about the cover up of HIV/AIDS epidemic in Henan Province by the Chinese
authorities who said "There is no HIV/AIDS in Henan Province" in 1995-1996. However, by 2000 it became evident that around 500,000 to 700,000 people
living in Henan Province had contracted HIV/AIDS. Now it was estimated that around 2 million people have AIDS in Henan Province alone. Xinjiang
Autonomous Region is the second largest HIV infected province in China.
The most unexpected presentation
Dean Chen from the School of Visual Arts, Edith Cowan University, presented a paper titled "A cultural analysis of computer games in China". He
centered on the current proliferation of massive multiplayer online games. I was surprised by the fact that the computer companies can sell
virtual objects in our real world and make huge profits. Not to mention that some people could murder others because of arguments over these
virtual objects.
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