Thomas Bird is an author and journalist who has lived and travelled throughout East Asia over the past 18 years. He will give a talk on his newly published book Harmony Express: Travel by Train Through China, a travelogue that recounts a five-year period from 2014–2019 when Bird worked as a travel writer in the PRC.
It was a transformative decade, one where China became a predominantly urban society for the first time in history. Between the 2010–2020, the size of PRC’s economy doubled, as did the average salary of its citizens, even if social reforms did not keep apace. Amidst a building boom the like of which the world has never seen, China’s railway network expanded massively, as more high-speed rail tracks were laid than the combined length of the rest of the world’s HSR.
Finding himself free from any serious commitments, amidst this maelstrom of change, Bird hit the railroad to explore The People’s Republic of China by train. The scope of the book soon expands as Bird comes to view the story of China’s convoluted journey to modernity analogous with the development of the national railway network. He investigates the impact of “railway imperialism” a century ago when China’s railways lagged sorely behind the rest of the world and considers Beijing’s obsession with “catching-up”. And via several epic railway trips, he paints a picture of a country that, despite its best efforts to present a unified picture, is as diverse as it is unequal.
Significantly, Bird puts the people he meets on Chinese trains front and centre, telling their stories, communicating their dreams and trepidations to English-language readers. The result is a portrait of an era, and a great introduction for anyone interested in China’s twenty-first century, high-speed transformation. [source: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Harmony-Express-Travels-Train-Through/dp/9888843265]
The Speaker
Thomas Bird escaped the rain-soaked British suburbs for China in 2005, and has scarcely looked back since. A Chinese-speaker who spent 15 years living and working in Mainland China, first in the local print media, and then as a freelance scribe, his writing has been published in BBC Travel, CNN Travel, Geographical Magazine, Lonely Planet Online, DestinAsian Magazine, the New Statesmen, The Guardian, as well as several other sympathetic publications. He is a regular contributing writer to the South China Morning Post and has contributed to over twenty guidebooks, most recently, The Rough Guide to Thailand and Insight Guide to The Philippines. When he’s not rolling around Asia on trains, he enjoys craft beer and the teachings of Zhuangzi.
Admission: $175 for members, $220 for guests /non-members
(Light refreshments are included in the admission fee)
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Registration will be closed at 12:00 noon on 24 January 2024 Walk-in guests are welcome depending on availability.