SGM and New Era College Co-organise Lecture on East-Asian Countries

On July 30, 2011, the director of the Institute of Malaysian and Regional Studies of New Era College, Dr Voon Phin Keong delivered a lecture entitled "Culture on the Ground: Places and Spaces in Ancient China, Japan and Korea" at the International Conference Hall, 11th floor, Wisma Kebudayaan SGM. He looked into the similarities and differences of names of places in these countries from the geographical point of view. China, Japan and Korea share many closely-related cultural resources.

The talk was jointly-organised by SGM and New Era College. Dr Mok Soon Chong, the Deputy Principal and Acting Head of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of New Era College chaired the lecture. The lecture was attended by around 130 people.

Dr Voon based his talk on an ancient Chinese book that discussed the "Nine States" and the names of places found in these states. "Nine States" was the ancient name of China and Japan has an island of the same name. Then he talked about smaller units such as the names of roads, cities and capitals, which are common references in these countries.

From the angle of space organisation, Dr Voon talked on the common features of ancient cities of these countries, all of them consisting the elements of "Heaven and Man"; the "Centre" and the "Four Directions". The cities were built in squares, enclosed within walls with main gates and patterned after chess-boards. He stressed that these structures, unlike the patterns found in the West, were made to protect the sovereign and not for economic purposes.

Finally, Dr Voon said that names of places and space have great historical significance and cultural heritage and values for further research. Dr Mok pointed out that Chinese culture has brought about immense contributions to the world.