THE GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA
Invites you to join us for a MARCO POLO TRAVELOGUE
“The Tibetan Buddhist Shoton Festival”
By Paula Roberts and Lucille Pilling
and
"A Brief Journey through Space and Time with Music of the Pipa"
By David Dettmann
These experts in East-Asian studies and passionate travel enthusiasts will regale you with photographs and stories from their journeys through Tibet and China's western borderlands, culture and history, and live music of the Pipa, the Chinese lute. Enjoy an elegant four-course dinner, cash bar
You won’t want to miss this illuminating and entertaining evening of feasts for mind and body.
About the Speakers and their Presentations
“The Tibetan Buddhist Shoton Festival”
In August-September 2019, Lucille Pilling and Paula Roberts were part of a small group that traveled to Tibet to experience the Buddhist Shoton Festival in Lhasa. Buddhist pilgrims come here from throughout Tibet each summer to pay their respects to a giant hillside thangka (religious painting). They stay on to enjoy a performance of Tibetan opera in the garden of the summer palace, Norbulingka, and watch horseback racing and pageantry.
The group explored the old city of Lhasa, visited Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and a convent, and crossed the vast Tibetan Plateau on an overnight train. In Yunnan, they visited the ancient towns of Lijiang and Dali, met members of the Bai, Yi, and Naxi ethnic groups, picked tea at a mountain plantation, took cooking lessons in a local home, and investigated indigenous fiber art traditions including colorful tribal clothing.
Paula Roberts has had careers in publishing and university administration. Until 2015, she was Associate Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for East Asian Studies, which she helped establish in 1996. She developed East Asia-focused outreach programs, such as high school summer camps in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language, seminars for regional teachers, and study-tours abroad for educators. She planned and co-led several study-tours of Japan and traveled to China and Korea to plan other programs. She traveled to Tibet in 2007, a visit that offers a basis of comparison for her second visit, in 2019. She is now Associate Editor for an on-line academic publication series on China. Paula has been a committed world traveler from her first trip abroad, on a gap year traveling around Europe and North Africa, in 1972-73. She became fascinated with East Asia on her first visit to Japan, in 1985, and has returned often.
Lucille Pilling is an inveterate traveler. “Give me a ticket and I will travel anywhere!” Pilling’s passion is access to health care, particularly for women. She has over 30 years of global public health experience managing complex, multi-organizational initiatives. Pilling was vice president of International Programs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, senior program officer for a Bill & Melinda Gates initiative, and provided short-term technical assistance around the world. Dr. Pilling taught at Thomas Jefferson University School of Population Health and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She volunteers at Planned Parenthood Southeastern PA, Christ Church and UPenn Hospice. Pilling graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BS in nursing and from Columbia University with an MPH and EdD.
“A Brief Journey through Space and Time with Music of the Pipa”
David Dettmann will highlight the diverse politics and cultures of China's western borderlands, and will demonstrate the music of the Pipa, the Chinese lute, with a compilation of modern pieces and examples of "minority music" that are now well-known pieces in the pipa repertoire.
Mr. Dettmann is the Associate Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania where he conducts educational outreach programming about East and Inner Asia (i.e. China, Mongolia, Turkic Central Asia). His interest began with a study abroad trip to China in the mid 1990s, when and where he also began studying the Chinese lute "pipa". Early experiences traveling around China's Uyghur regions inspired David to focus on Turkic Languages and Literature for his Master's degree (UW-Madison). Since then he has been studying and teaching about the diverse cultures of China's Northwestern borderlands, and is regularly involved with student programming in China and Mongolia. He also writes about foods and cooking of these regions with specialized ingredients from Philadelphia Asian Markets at his blog Asian Markets of Philadelphia asianmarketsphilly.com.