Weekendist: Lit Fest, Lit Fest, Lit Fest (and more)

SATURDAY

Hello, Lit Fest day 2! Our picks of today’s sessions:

Yuan-Tsung Chen discusses her most recent book Return to the Middle Kingdom: One Family, Three Revolutionaries, and the Birth of Modern China, which blends personal and national history over a period of 150 years. Often compared to Jung Chang's Wild Swans, Chen's book is an epic spanning three generations, mainly focusing on the life of her father-in-law Eugene Chen, an early cross-cultural kid: educated in London, Trinidad’s first Chinese attorney, a trusted aide of Sun Yat-sen, and eventually becoming Foreign Minister in the Kuomintang. 
2PM, Crystal Room, 7/F, 5 Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu, The Bund, near Guangdong Lu, 中山东一路5号6楼 近广东路. 65 RMB, call Mypiao at 400-620-6006

Åsne Seierstad, author of The Bookseller of Kabul, discusses The Human Side of Catastrophes: Chechnya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq. She’s had quite the global life, with extended experiences in France, Mexico, Russia, China, Serbia, Italy, and Germany, and is fluent in a mind-boggling number of languages. Come listen to the experiences of a respected war reporter who gets personal with her subjects. A lot of serious stuff to think about, like the ethics of war reporting today.
3PM, Glamour Bar, 6/F, 65 RMB

Hyejin Kim, Global Voice’s Regional Editor for Korea, is the author of Jia: A Novel of North Korea, a fictional account of people’s lives in the closed state inspired by the stories of North Koreans she met while living in Northeast China. Her book has been referred to as the first account of life in present day North Korea to be published in the West. An interesting opportunity to hear insights into the human rather than the political when it comes to the DPRK.
4PM, Crystal Room 7/F, 65 RMB

Okay, now we're on to the non-Lit Fest stuff. First up, the Dutch Cultural Center is opening in the former factory building 800Show, and is officially launching with a fabulous ORANGE PARTY, an onslaught of all things Dutch and Chinese - DJs, food, drink, tulips, performances and more! DJ Missing Links (Holland), DJ Ben Huang (Shanghai) and DJ Liman(Beijing) will keep you moving while you enjoy free flow Heineken beer and Gouda & Edam cheeses. Also enjoy exhilarating performances by Chinese and Dutch BMX bike tricksters Yang Ming Kai and Henri Van Hoeve.
9:30 PM, 800Show, Building 6, No. 800 Changde Lu, just south of Changping Lu. RSVP for guest list to events@2010dcc.com

Sub-Culture presents influential German producer/DJ Mark Ernestus from Berlin, one half of the legendary duo Basic Channel aka Maurizio aka Rhythm and Sound, and his longtime collaborator Tikiman aka Paul St. Hilaire, a reggae vocalist from Dominica. Their tunes are a hybrid between electronic and more vocal-lead dub and reggae. Supporting them are B6, Deville, Drunk Monk, dji.
9PM, The Shelter, 5 Yongfu Lu near Fuxing Xi Lu, 永福路5号, 60RMB

SUNDAY

Some more exciting sessions at the Lit Fest coming up! 

Our favorite Shanghai historian Paul French has been added to the list of authors, and he'll be talking about The Down and Dirty Secrets of Seedy Shanghai and Perverted Peking. From his website: "Pimps and pros; gangsters and gamblers - from Shanghai’s ‘Line’ and its notorious luxury bordellos full of ‘American Girls’ to the illegal casinos of the Badlands; the sexual-sadist cults of Peking’s Legation Quarter to the secret cabarets of the Tartar City - foreigners were mad, bad and depraved on a scale few can imagine. They murdered and robbed, procured and pimped in a haze of drugs, sex and debauchery." Sound exciting enough?
3PM, Glamour Bar, 6/F, 65 RMB

Chinese author, screenwriter, and two-time winner of the Lu Xun Prize for Literature, Bi Feiyu (毕飞宇) will be at the Lit Fest with a translator, so it's a great chance for fans to hear his opinions and pose questions. Maybe you can ask him what he thinks of being frequently referred to as "China's best male writer on the female psyche".
4PM, Crystal Room 7/F, 65 RMB

2008 Dominican-American Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Díaz, of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao fame, talks to Nancy Conyers about his title character and the restless eternal quest for home, a topic that should be close to heart for the majority of Shanghai's expat population, a.k.a. all you cultural schizophrenics out there. Don't miss this session! It's the perfect end to a successfully nerdy, and enriching, weekend.
5PM, Glamour Bar, 6/F, 65 RMB