We are pleased to announce that the next Stories of Things will take place on January 31st, from 4-6pm at the Sketch Yard Art Restaurant.

Luke Lin, who is a long time and very active RAS member, will bring his traditional Chinese string instrument, the erhu, and tell us all about the object itself as well has its long history. Luke has been playing the erhu since he was 4 years old; he is superbly qualified to demonstrate for us why the erhu is referred to as the "voice of China's soul". Professionally, Luke is an insurance professional with a degree from The University of Hong Kong. However, his musical interests stretch beyond the erhu and Luke leads the tenor and bass section of the HKU Shanghai Alumni Choir.

Ryder Kouba is the Archives and Special Collections Librarian at Duke Kunshan University (DKU). Ryder will bring a pre-1949 guidebook about Kunshan as well as other unique items in the university's archival collection. He will talk to us about what goes into creating archives and collections at a relatively new university like DKU. Those of us who work closely with the RAS Reading Room know Ryder well. He has led the effort at DKU for bringing our Reading Room collection into a state of the art library system, as well as assisting in the digitalization of much of our own archives, historical RAS Journals as well as other rare books.

Come to hear two passionate speakers about erhu music and archival collections. Beverages and light snacks will be served. Entry for members is rmb 100. Non members is rmb 200.