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Silicon Valley Reads 2008—Cupertino

 

Story by Barbara Rogers Photos by Donna Austin

 

Silicon Valley Reads 2008-Cupertino,  co-sponsored by the City and the Cupertino Library Foundation on Feb.  23, 2008-while the day was damp and cold, the crowd, at Community Center was warm and appreciative. More correctly, the word should be ‘crowds,’ as there were, 2 separate programs, morning and afternoon.

The morning program featured 3 presentations: Janice Sung of the American Tea Culture Assn.  gave the opening remarks, followed by the origins of the tea–white, green, oolong, and black–and how they are grown, picked, and brewed differently, followed by a demonstration of the Chinese Tea Ceremony. Tea was then served to the audience, to background music by the Firebird Youth Chinese Orchestra. Leader Gordon Lee introduced 4 musicians who played traditional instruments: the guzheng, erhu, bamboo flute, the pipa and lute. Members of the Chinese Performing Artists of America presented several Chinese dance programs. Erin Woo, a dancer, was commentator. Perhaps the most enchanting was the New Year’s dance performed by 5 young dancers from 5 to 12 years old. This group had just returned from San Francisco where they placed first in a competition. There were 4 other dances, from hip-hop and tai chi, danced by Erin, performing as a young girl and a bird dancing.

Cupertino author Bo Caldwell and her book, The Distant Land of My Father, were showcased in the afternoon to a full house. Her book is the choice of the County Library’s Silicon Valley Reads 2008 for the year throughout the county library system. Since Caldwell is a Cupertino resident she was given more time for the Silicon Valley Reads program, so the two authors could be featured. The stage was set for Bo Caldwell’s remarks by author Beverly Jackson, who wrote Shanghai Girl Gets All Dressed Up, with her slides of pre-World War II Shanghai and talk about the people who lived there. She spoke of how the ex-patriots residing in Shanghai, some of whom she knew personally, lived and thought.

Caldwell talked about her own life and how it affected her writing and particularly, how she came to write her book. Her uncle seemed to have had a dramatic impact on her thinking about the ex-patriot ‘scene’ in pre-World War II Shanghai, and her research and attention to detail were self evident and lent credibility to her writing about another culture in another time We learned that Bo Caldwell extensively studied Shanghai in the 30s.

She created her own map after studying others, so that she could describe her characters going down real streets and visiting cafes, nightclubs, hotels and restaurants. When writing, she often writes chapters out of sequence, because she is clear on how the book will flow. As the final event of the day, Bo Caldwell signed copies of her very popular book as did Beverly Jackson.

 

Tags: Beverly Jackson, Bo Caldwell, Cupertino Community Center, reads, Silicon Valley

Posted by donna on Feb 27th, 2008 and filed under Books, Local News, People, Schools, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.