Judith Farquhar and Qicheng Zhang’s Book Launch Event

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  Qicheng Zhang and Judith Farquhar

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  Judith Farquhar

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  Qicheng Zhang

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  Lili Lai

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Faculty Director Judith Farquhar’s 2012 book Ten Thousand Things: Nurturing Life in Contemporary Beijing, has just been published in Chinese. This anthropological study of wellness practices and everyday life in Beijing was co-authored by Qicheng Zhang, a Beijing philosopher, medical school professor, and popular on-line lecturer, who conducted field research with Farquhar in the early 2000s. The Beijing Center and Sanlian Bookstore Press, the publisher, hosted a convivial book launch on Thursday May 30. Professors Zhang and Farquhar signed about fifty books for the more than seventy visitors who came for the reception. The authors expressed thanks to the two translators (He Lei and Shen Yi), to the Press, and to several scholars who have been supporting this project for more than five years (Min’an Wang and Lili Lai). Qicheng Zhang reminisced about the ways the two scholars learned to do urban anthropology together, and Judith Farquhar read several paragraphs from the English edition, followed by the translators reading their elegant renditions of the same paragraphs in Chinese. Yang Yingxi, a graduate student at Renmin University, spoke as a reader of the Chinese edition. Prof. Zhang concluded the celebration by making a piece of calligraphy, which he presented to the Center as a gift. The sentence he chose to write was: “The great virtue of heaven and earth is called life.”

The Chinese translation of Ten Thousand Things: Nurturing Life in Contemporary Beijing by Judith Farquhar and Qicheng Zhang was recently published by San Lian with the title of 《万物·生命——当代北京的养生》.

On May 30, 2019, a special book launch event was held at the University of Chicago Center in Beijing. 

Yangsheng is not just a mental or bodily commitment, but a total participation; it is a form of attachment – not just to Chinese culture, but to the living of life.  Come to join anthropologist Judith Farquhar and traditional Chinese medicine scholar and philosopher Qicheng Zhang for their introduction to the book and sharing their understanding of yangsheng and modern life in Beijing.