The Chang-Lin Tien Center for East Asian Studies will be an especially appropriate addition to the Berkeley campus, which is home to a vast array of Asian books, art, film, music, and cultural exchange. Many of these resources have resulted from private gifts.
The East Asian Library traces its origin to 1898, with the deposit of John Fryer’s Chinese collections at Berkeley. Formally established as its own subject-specialty library in 1947, the East Asian Library offers one of the nation’s two most comprehensive collections of East Asian materials outside of the Library of Congress.
The Berkeley Art Museum houses one of the finest university Asian art collections in the United States, developed mainly through private gifts and bequests. It contains more than a thousand items, including hanging scrolls, screens, fans and ceramics from China, Japan, and India as well as a number of important individual works in Yangchow and Japanese Nanga paintings and woodblock prints.
The art museum’s Pacific Film Archive (PFA) has maintained a long-standing commitment to the exhibition and collection of Asian films. It houses the largest collection of Japanese films outside Japan — especially those made in the 1960s and 1970s from the Shochiku, Daiei, Nikkatsu, and Toei studios. The PFA has also presented film series from China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and India, often with the participation of native directors or scholars.
Cal Performances frequently sponsors programs featuring Asian music and dance. Recent performances include the Central Ballet of China, the International Taiko Festival, the Asian Youth Orchestra, the Ying Quartet, and the Dancers and Musicians of Bali.
Berkeley’s Department of Music offers a strong ethnomusicology program which includes courses in the music of Japan and in the East Asia and Southeast Asia traditions, as well as a performance course in the Javanese gamelan.
For further information please contact:
Director of Development