Lev Lafayette's journal

A great deal of my voluminous spare time in the past week or so has been spent on various China-related projects. The first was a social dinner with the Australia-China Friendship Society last Thursday week at the well-regarded "David's Hot Pot". It was an opportunity for Kate to meet another vector among my friendship circles, and I was pleased to have the presence of Dr Fiona, who will be speaking to the society in a month's time on various cross-cultural matters. A few days after this social event, there was a trade and cultural delegation from Sichuan that hosted a mini-conference at the University of Melbourne. I provided a short speech on the history and activities of the ACFS, whilst speakers from Sichuan and city associations and the Deputy Consul-General made their contributions as well, along with a charming presentation by a young journalism student from the University - a bright future awaits you.

Then, two days later, a high-level delegation from Guizhou Province came to visit as well, and the ACFS hosted a small meeting, which, due to a mutual interest, also included a discussion on the philosophy of mind. Both delegations included future invitations to their respective provinces, so perhaps that will become a combined trip in the new year. In the meantime, on Sunday, I take the great silver bird to Beijing for a two-week visit to that city, the Great Wall, Longmen, Suzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. When I return to Melbourne, I have only a week here before I have to head off again to Nanjing to attend the 70th anniversary conference of the Jiangsu Friendship Association.

On a related tangent, this week I also managed to get to visit the Melbourne Immigration Museum. Despite living here for more than half my life and with the building's architecture rather suiting my tastes, I have neglected in all these years to actually enter the place. With the last week of their Notre Dame exhibition in place, I took the opportunity to take a look and was very impressed by pretty much everything except the Notre Dame exhibition. Nevertheless, I am going again Saturday to the final night that includes a concert.