Chinese Studies-University of Houston

Chinese studies hosted our annual mid autumn festival celebration and it had a great turn out! Many students showed up with mooncakes and showed off their talents. How fun!

We're excited to be following Mapping Houston's Old Chinatown! Check out their new website (https://mhoc.projects.dhcf.uh.edu/ ) and be sure to follow them, too! https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16poqQBPCK/

We’re excited to announce the launch of the new Mapping Houston’s Old Chinatown website!

This project brings together archival research, oral histories, and interactive digital tools to preserve and share the stories of Houston’s first Chinatown. Our site features:

✨ Interactive StoryMaps
✨ Oral history interviews
✨ Archival photos and documents

Visit the site to explore Houston’s diverse history and discover how communities built resilience and connection: https://mhoc.projects.dhcf.uh.edu/

A big thank-you to our partners, mentors, and volunteers who made this possible. This is just the beginning! Stay tuned for updates and opportunities to get involved!

“Before displacement and redevelopment, this neighborhood thrived for decades as a hub of immigrant life, family-run businesses, and vibrant pan-Asian celebrations. Today, Mapping Houston's Old Chinatown (MHOC) works to preserve what the city's rapid growth threatens to erase. Through interactive maps, oral histories, and archival research spanning the 1950s to 2000s, we document not just buildings and businesses, but the people and relationships that made this place home.”

https://mhoc.projects.dhcf.uh.edu/

Check out this very cool Digital Humanities and Public history project organized by Dr. Melody Yunzi Li in Chinese Program!

Mapping Houston's Old Chinatown Unlike the dense, centralized Chinatowns of cities like San Francisco or New York, Houston's original Chinatown was a small, close-knit community spread across East Downtown, a neighborhood now rebranded as "EaDo," stripped of its cultural identity and history.Before displacement and redevelopment,....

Last semester student group Calco UH and Dr. Li from Chinese Studies formed a Chinese dance team with students (mostly residential students but also others). Since formation they’ve already performed in many occasions on and off campus, in and out of town, including the UH dance competitions, CV1 dorm events, ASIANetwork in San Antonio etc. Tomorrow they are going to perform in the AsiaFest at Asia Society Texas Center ! We are so proud of their dedication and artistry (despite all of them do this as hobby), dancing and hanging out with them over the year adds a lot of joy and energy to our program and our res life community. Come out and support tomorrow!

Huge congratulations to Dr. Melody Yunzi Li for winning the 2024-2025 Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Award (at the rank of Assistant Professor) at UH! As one of the only two winners at the whole university at this rank, Dr. Li has demonstrated her commitment to scholarship and creative activity since she joined UH in the fall of 2018. Well earned and well deserved! Congratulations to Dr. Li, Chinese Studies and MCL!

We are happy to announce that Chinese Studies program students Taylor Hart and Sarah Rantala received $5000 and $8000 respectively from the Benjamin A. Gilman scholarship for our summer study program! They both additionally received the Gilman-Taiwan scholarship which added to their total award amount. Congratulations to Taylor and Sarah!

Good news: Dr. Sharon Xiaohong Wen just joined the Editorial Board of Chinese as a Second Language, a top journal in the field of Chinese language pedagogy.

Yesterday we have recorgnized numerous awardees in Chinese studies students in MCL award ceremony, Sino-US friendship awards, Louis Wu scholarship, Critical Language Scholarship and the National Chinese Expo of Student Works. Congratulations to all!

Thanks Ms. Yang from Taipei Economic & Cultural Office in Houston for sharing valuable information about studying in Taiwan with our program students. Hope many of our students can take advantage of these precious scholarship opportunities!