China: 5,000 Years of Culture and History
90 minutes / $120
This comprehensive primer is ideal whether you’re doing business in China, preparing for a visit, celebrating Chinese New Year, or just curious about this spectacular civilization. Watch as five millennia of history give birth to this incredible culture: An intricate language evolves from ancient oracle bones to abstract calligraphy. Taoism, Confucianism, and other philosophies emerge during the Warring States Period. The First Emperor centralizes authority and standardizes money, language, and culture during the Qin Dynasty. The Confucian meritocracy and traditional arts flourish in the high imperial era before the Chinese people grow humiliated and restless under Western imperialism, seek modernization in the turbulent Republic of China, suffer and resist Japanese occupation, and undergo massive upheavals under the Maoist reign. Find out what all this means for the China of today and tomorrow.

The Art of Chinese Writing
60 minutes / $120
90 minutes / $150 (with brush painting activity)
Calligraphy is the quintessential art of traditional China, so this lesson provides a vital introduction to Chinese culture, language, and aesthetics. Explore the multi-layered significance of Chinese characters, from the earliest pictographs on oracle bones, to standardization under Qin Shi Huang 秦始皇, and elevation to pure art with the nearly abstract 草書 “grass style.” Participants will try their hand at writing calligraphy, have their name written in calligraphy by a museum educator, learn to pronounce and recognize some basic Chinese characters, and understand how 214 simpler radicals carrying phonetic or ideographic meaning are combined in various ways to form over 45,000 distinct characters.

Five Dynasties of Chinese Pottery: from Potsherds to Porcelain
90 minutes / $120
Based on Mr. Stewart’s original research for a landmark SDCHM exhibition, this broad look traces Chinese pottery from its humble, utilitarian beginnings to its culmination as an elite art form. Inscriptions on Han Dynasty 漢朝 (206 BCE-220 CE) roof tile ends reveal ancient social structure, grave goods intended for use in the afterlife shed light on daily life and death in a bygone era. Sculptures of horses capture the dominance of the equestrian Mongol culture during the Yuan Dynasty 元朝 (1279-1368 CE). And porcelain vessels illustrate the expertise of Ming Dynasty 明朝 (1368-1644 CE) craftsmen who increased firing temperatures and used white kaolin clay to create the fine china that was coveted worldwide.

Elite and Popular Culture: An Anthropological Look at Traditional Chinese Arts
90 minutes / $120
This presentation explores the stratification of traditional Chinese society into a majority of common farmers and an elite minority of scholar-officials chosen by imperial exam. It also challenges this conventional dichotomy by examining the role of monks, entertainers and wealthy merchants in critiquing and challenging elite hegemony. Participants will explore the arts, entertainments and handmade utensils of each class: from operas featuring folk stories about villainous officials to ancient script etched into stone chops that served as status symbols. Farmers cultivated the soil while scholars cultivated the mind, but these and other, less prestigious, occupations each served an integral role in shaping and maintaining the Chinese culture that has endured into the present.

Crescent Moon over the Celestial Empire: Islam Arrives in China
90 minutes / $120
In the Tang Dynasty 唐朝 (618-907 C.E.), Buddhism flourished in China, Nestorian Christians arrived and soon disappeared, and Muslims founded what is now the oldest Muslim minority on Earth. Based on research for his dissertation project, Alex Stewart examines how small influxes of traders, soldiers, and diplomats became the Hui 回族 minority nationality, the largest and most assimilated of China’s Muslim minorities that produced scholars to serve emperors of each major dynasty since the Tang, was the first minority to receive official recognition from the Communist Party, and still has thriving communities in every major Chinese city today. The second largest Muslim minority, the Uyghurs, is much more restive and gets more media coverage, but examining the historical evolution of the Hui into a uniquely Chinese Islamic community could reveal lessons for integrating Muslim and other religious minorities elsewhere.

Temporary Exhibit Lectures $120
Delve deeper into the current display in the Sun Yat-Sen Extension Building in an informative PowerPoint presentation with our education coordinator. Contact the museum to find out what is currently available.

Museum & Garden Tour
$50 / $30 with a presentation
This docent-led tour provides an overview of the history of San Diego’s Chinatown, Chinese art and culture, the museum’s Asian garden, and an explanation of the current featured exhibit and permanent collection. This tour is for groups of up to 30 people.

Asian Pacific Historic District Walking Tour (includes museum admission)
Every second Saturday of the month. 11AM – 12:30PM
$4 per person / $60 per group on request
Explore old Chinatown and the Japanese and Filipino districts in San Diego’s old Stingaree red-light district. The tour is co-sponsored by the Asian Pacific Historic Collaborative. Includes museum admission. Reservations are required. Please RSVP by 3:30pm on the Friday prior to the walking tour. Offered on the second Saturday of every month or upon request. For more information, please contact the museum.

Asian Pacific Islander Americans and the Formation of San Diego
60 minutes / $120
Celebrate San Diego’s diversity or Asian Pacific Islander Month with a lecture about immigrants from Asia and the Pacific who have made contributions to San Diego history. From the pioneering spirit of William Heath Davis, to Ah Quin: the unofficial mayor of San Diego’s Chinatown, to the growth of Japanese agriculture, to the influx of Filipinos associated with the U.S. Navy, and the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees, learn how San Diego became a unique and diverse place to live. **Presentations by Alex Stewart at the museum include a walking tour of the Asian Pacific Historic District.