Bloomsday pops `Cork' in Shanghai
17/6/2005 7:39
Shanghai Daily news
The annual celebration of
Bloomsday -- the day commemorating the adventures of the hero of James Joyce's
ground-breaking novel ``Ulysses'' -- will take place on Sunday and this year
another event has linked Shanghai with Ireland.
Nicholas O'Brien, the Irish
consul-general in Shanghai, has just returned from Ireland where representatives
of the Shanghai government and officials from Cork have signed an agreement to
``twin'' the two great port cities. And to open this year's Bloomsday
proceedings O'Brien will introduce as the first two readers from ``Ulysses'' --
one from Cork and one from Shanghai. As in past years, the readings will be in
English with the same passages then read in Mandarin from the Chinese
translation of ``Ulysses'' by Xiao Qian and Wen Jieruo. Chinese participants
will be reading from the revised edition of the book which was released across
China on June 16, last year, the 100th anniversary of the day on which Leopold
Bloom, the hero of the literary classic, began his 24-hour ``Odyssey'' around
Dublin. Joycean fans, both Chinese and expatriate, did their own Homeric
wanderings for the Bloomsday centenary last year with readings in the Irish pubs
of Shanghai -- from the Dublin Exchange in Pudong to O'Malley's and The Blarney
Stone in Puxi with stops at M on the Bund, Sasha's, the Equatorial Hotel and
Mesa along the way. This year, the action will be confined to the Glamour Room
at M on the Bund where there will be bilingual readings from ``Ulysses'' and a
lecture by Professor Li Weiping from the College of English Language and
Literature at the Shanghai International Studies University. Dr Li will be
talking about ``Joyce in China'' and Chinese studies of the author. Those in
attendance next Sunday afternoon will also be served the repast Leopold Bloom
enjoyed in Davy Byrnes' pub in Dublin on June 16, 1904 -- Gorgonzola cheese
sandwiches and a glass of Burgundy. Another event currently running in Shanghai
in honor of ``Ulysses'' and James Joyce is the International Joyce Art
Exhibition at Tongji University. Date: June 19, 4pm Address: 7/F, 5 on the Bund
(entrance at 20 Guangdong Rd) Admission: 50 yuan (student concession) Tel:
6350-9988
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