Anniversary celebration

Fast forward to a recent Saturday in late September. Around 200 people are gathered at King's College London, a mix of scholars, diplomats, writers, artists, students, and businesspeople. Like those who had listened to Needham's speech in 1965, all of them shared a deep interest in China.

They had come to celebrate the 60th anniversary of SACU.

Among the attendees was Ravi Bhoothalingam, now an emeritus fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies in Delhi. As a young science student at Cambridge University in 1965, he studied at Gonville and Caius College, where Needham was president, and encountered SACU in its earliest days.

Bhoothalingam recalled that he knew little about China but was curious about the country. Needham showed him his collections from China, and once took him and several students to an early SACU meeting at Jesus College. The guest speaker, an ethnomusicologist, played the erhu, a Chinese two-stringed instrument, and explained the foundations of Chinese music and how they differed from Western traditions.

"At the end of the meeting, the professor invited us to join the new society," Bhoothalingam said. "Needham gave me a nudge, and I signed up. But as a student, I had very little money, so Needham kindly paid my fee — that's how I became a member of SACU in 1965."

Bhoothalingam's story captures something essential about SACU that has endured through the years — it was a community built on curiosity, friendship, and a desire to promote understanding through cultural exchanges.