JF Salon Announcement of October

這個十月，我們將連續八晚，與八位來自不同學科與世代的講者同坐一室：有人曾在戰場與獨裁者正面交鋒，也有人以傳記寫史、以歷史追問當下；有人從制度與資本的高處反思中國的政治經濟結構，也有人從移民、收養與跨文化情感中尋找命運的交匯處。
無論是人權鬥士 Kenneth Roth 對抗威權三十年的經驗，還是歷史學者 Stephen MacKinnon 與 Scott Seligman 帶來的民國與滿洲舊案，從經濟學家許成鋼對體制“基因”的拆解，到 Terry Lautz、Andrew Lam 與 Vivian Ling 關於中國人與世界互動的個人記憶——十月的每一場對談，都在追問一個共同的問題：人與結構之間，我們能否仍然選擇、仍然發聲？

This October, our space will be ignited eight nights in a row —with voices that have faced down dictators, historians who defend biography as serious history, economists dissecting the DNA of political systems, and storytellers tracing the intimate crossings between China and the world.
From Kenneth Roth’s three decades battling abusive governments, to Stephen MacKinnon and Scott Seligman’s excavations of forgotten China, from Chenggang Xu’s institutional critique of authoritarian durability, to the deeply personal narratives brought by Terry Lautz, Andrew Lam, and Vivian Ling — each conversation this month circles back to one urgent question: Between individual and structure, do we still have agency — and the courage to speak?

---

October 3rd, Friday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English

Righting Wrongs: Lessons for China from Three Decades of Battling Abusive Governments

Ken Roth spent nearly three decades directing Human Rights Watch and building it into a powerful global institution with a staff of more than 500 working regularly in some 100 countries. His first book, Righting Wrongs, is part a memoir, part a history of Human Rights Watch and its role in the human rights movement. 
At a time when the world faces plenty of problems, from the rise of autocrats to the outbreak of highly abusive wars, Roth provides an insider’s view of how it is possible for a relatively small group of people through persistence and creativity to move even the most powerful governments. 

About the Speakers

Kenneth Roth is the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Until August 2022, he served for nearly three decades as the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s leading international human rights organizations. 

Yaqiu Wang is a Chinese human rights and democracy advocate. She is currently a fellow at the University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression.

 

---

October 8th, Wednesday, 6:00–7:30 PM

HISTORY AS BIOGRAPHY: LIFE AND TIMES OF CHEN HANSHENG, China's Last Romantic Revolutionary

The presentation is framed as a defense or 捍卫/hanwei of zhuanji/biography as serious history when the subject is viewed in historical context.  Chen Hansheng (1897-2004)  was a major public intellectual, political activist, social scientist, and international figure whose  life encompassed the entire 20th century. This talk demonstrates an examination of his life and times throws new light on the political, economic, social history of twentieth century China – including the often neglected international dimension of the Chinese revolution. 

About the Speakers

Stephen R. MacKinnon is an emeritus professor of 20th century Chinese history, and former director of the Center for Asian Studies at Arizona State University. He often lived in China, which has been the focus of his work since the early 1960s, having last visited for two months this summer. 

 

---

October 9th, Thursday, 6:00–7:30 PM

Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China

In Murder in Manchuria, Scott D. Seligman explores an unsolved murder set amid the chaos of northeast China before World War II. Semyon Kaspé, a young Jewish musician, is kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by antisemitic White Russians, secretly acting on orders of Japanese military overlords who covet his father’s wealth. When local authorities obstruct the search, a young French diplomat launches his own investigation. Part cold-case thriller and part social history, the book also tells the larger story of the twenty thousand Jews of Harbin and their hasty exodus. It won the 2024 Independent Publisher Book Awards and the American Bookfest 20th Annual Best Book Awards.

About the Speakers

Scott D. Seligman (蘇思綱) is a national award-winning writer of narrative nonfiction and biography with interests in Chinese and Jewish history. He headed the Beijing office of the U.S.-China Business Council shortly after normalization of U.S.-China relations, and has also served as a congressional legislative assistant, managed a multinational PR agency in China, and worked as communications director for a Fortune 50 company. He holds a history degree from Princeton and a master’s from Harvard. He is the author of four books on early Chinese-American history and several Jewish-themed books.

 

---

October 10th, Wednesday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English

Chenggang Xu 許成鋼：Understanding China’s Political Economy from Its Persistent Institutions

This talk introduces Institutional Genes: The Origins of China’s Institutions and Totalitarianism (Cambridge University Press) 制度基因 and analyzes China’s political economy through its framework. By presenting the concept of Institutional Genes (IGs), it shows how a durable totalitarian regime with Chinese characteristics emerged from the fusion of Soviet and Chinese imperial IGs. The book explains how this hybrid produced a Regionally Administered Totalitarian (RADT) system, which enabled rapid economic development during reform and opening, preserved CCP rule, and transformed China into a totalitarian superpower. It also examines how the system has led to reversals in politics and economic development.

About the Speakers

Chenggang Xu is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI), a Board Member of the Ronald Coase Institute, and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). His research focuses on political economy, institutional economics, law and economics, and the Chinese political economy. He has served as President of the Asian Law and Economics Association and as a consultant to the World Bank and the IMF. Dr. Xu received his PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 1991. He is the recipient of the 2013 Sun Yefang Prize and was the inaugural laureate of the Chinese Economics Prize in 2016

註：🔹 本場為「季風會員活動」，月捐會員可免費參加，請直接來信 info@jfbooks.org報名即可。This is a JF Member Event. Monthly donors may RSVP for free by emailing info@jfbooks.org

🔹 非會員可透過以下報名連結參加，酌收入場費 $15。Non-members are welcome to join via the ticket link below ($15 admission).

🔹 我們也誠摯邀請您加入季風會員計畫，支持更多自由思想的公共講座與策展：We warmly invite you to become a JF Monthly Member to sustain our nonprofit programming and enjoy exclusive access to future events:

📩 Become a JF Monthly Member
— $29/m｜季承者計畫｜支持我們每月持續舉辦深度對話與講座｜加入JFer 季承者計畫
— $99/m｜JF VIP 會員｜優先邀請、精選贈禮、年度會員活動｜加入JF Founding VIP計畫

 

---

October 15th, Wednesday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English

Chinese Encounters with America 

Chinese Encounters with America tells the stories of twelve women and men whose American experiences transformed their lives and influenced China’s quest for modernization. Their professions range from diplomacy, business and science to sports, education and the arts. At a time when US-China relations are contentious, this book shows that personal encounters have been instrumental in finding common ground between our two countries.

About the Speakers

Terry Lautz is co-editor of Chinese Encounters with America. He is former vice president of the Henry Luce Foundation, and has served as board chair of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Lingnan Foundation, and Yale-China Association. After retiring from the Luce Foundation, he was a visiting professor and director of the East Asia Program at Syracuse University. He graduated from Harvard College and holds a PhD from Stanford University. Terry is currently a fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Vincent Ni is the Asia Editor at NPR, where he leads a team of Asia-based correspondents whose award-winning reporting spans from Afghanistan to Japan, and across all NPR platforms. Prior to joining NPR, he worked for The Guardian and the BBC in London. In 2024, he and his team won an Edward R. Murrow journalism award in the category of Feature Reporting. In 2025, he was a part of the NPR team that won the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for "The War in Gaza" coverage.

 

---

October 17th, Friday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English

Stories from the Edge of the Sea

At times humorous and ecstatic, other times poetic and elegiac, the fourteen pieces in Stories from the Edge of the Sea explore love and loss, lust and grief, longing and heartbreaks through the lives of Vietnamese immigrants and their children in California. A younger dancer is haunted by memories of almost dying on a boat when they escaped from Vietnam, a widow processes her husband’s death through frantic Facebook postings, a writer enters an old lover’s home and sees a ghost at twilight. If the human heart is a vast, open-ended terrain, then Andrew Lam’s short stories are its mountains, valleys, and lakes. Together they seek to chart a barely explored country.

About the Speaker

Andrew Lam and his family fled Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war at age 11 and resettled in the Bay Area where he grew up. A writer of many essays and stories, Lam was among a handful of Vietnamese who wrote in English and whose work made it to the mainstream media. His books include the Pen Award winning memoir "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora," "East Eats West: Writing in two Hemispheres," A collection of stories "Birds of Paradise Lost," which won the Josephine Miles Literary award, and his latest "Stories from the Edge of the Sea," exploring love and loss and identity among Vietnamese in the Bay Area. 

 

---

October 23rd, Thursday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English

How to succeed in China, and how to fail

This talk offers an unvarnished look at the realities of doing business in China, beyond headlines and policy debates. Drawing from firsthand experience, Wilcox explores how business ethics and practices in China have remained remarkably consistent since the 1980s, shaped by the enduring influence of the Chinese Communist Party. While the global context continues to shift, Western approaches to China often remain rooted in naivete and misplaced optimism. The book challenges common assumptions, urging readers to confront the complexities of “de-risking,” the opacity of Chinese business networks, and the cultural and historical logic behind how the game is played in the PRC.

About the Speaker

Ken Wilcox was the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) from 2001 to 2011, then the CEO of SVB's joint venture with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB-SVB) in Shanghai until 2015, followed by four years as its Vice Chairman. He currently serves on the boards of the Asia Society of Northern California, the Asian Art Museum, and UC San Diego's 21st Century China Center, as well as Columbia Lake Partners, a European venture-debt fund. He is on the Board of Advisors of the Fudan University School of Management in Shanghai and an Adjunct Professor at U.C. Berkeley.

 

---

October 30th, Thursday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English

Interview with Vivian Ling on Love Without Borders –a Sino-US Collaborated Book About International Adoptions of Chinese Orphans

30 years ago, China and the US were in a honeymoon. It was a good time for Americans to be in China, whether they were businessmen, consultants, journalists, scholars, or tourists. In 1998, the American President Bill Clinton was welcomed to China by the Chinese president Jiang Zemin. The two of them walked side-by-side across Tiananmen Square, before a throng of people from around the world. Meanwhile, China’s internal one-child policy brought on an unintended consequence – a surge in orphans, mostly girls. Many were adopted abroad, over half of them by Americans. Eventually, about 86,000 Chinese children joined American families. Today, US-China relations has taken a 180-degree turn, international adoption has become controversial, and China has terminated the adoption program. In the current era of geopolitical tension, an American academic collaborated with a Chinese author to produce Love Without Borders, to shine a light on a bright spot in US-China relations. The book is unique in presenting both the Chinese and Western perspectives. 

About the Speaker

Vivian Ling was born in wartime China, educated in the U.S., and had an academic career in the US and China. Through her Chinese language teaching and management of language/cultural immersion programs for American students in China, she devoted herself to building bridges of dialogue between the peoples of the world’s two superpowers. Love Without Borders exemplifies a candid conversation between people on two sides of a divide about a controversial, sensitive, and highly personal topic. Her prodigious publications include the historical compendium The Field of Chinese Language Education in the U.S.: A Retrospective of the 20th Century. In recent years, she has turned her attention to publishing popular works on Chinese folklore and traditions for a global audience young and old.

 

我們的網上購書平台 (https://jfbooks.org) 已全面上線並持續更新，歡迎您選購心儀的作品！在這個初秋季節，無論身在何處，閱讀都會是您心靈的歸屬，讓思想的種子在讀書中生根發芽。季風書園攜帶知識的力量與人文的關懷，始終陪伴您左右。期待我們在DC相見！
Additionally, our online book platform (https://jfbooks.org) is fully launched and continuously updated. Welcome to purchase your favorite works! In this autumn season full of vitality, no matter where you are, reading will be the spiritual home of your mind, allowing the seeds of thought to take root in books. JF Bookstore brings the power of knowledge and humanistic care, always accompanying you. Looking forward to seeing you in Washington D.C!

敬請留意我們隨後公佈的每場活動的報名通知！

Please stay tuned for upcoming registration announcements for each event!

我們的活動會通過電子郵件通訊的方式進行註冊和報名，你可以在“About Us”頁面登記成為我們的讀者會員，活動消息亦同步發佈在我們的Twitter/Instagram/X/Facebook 平台，請您留意每場活動的報名通知。季風書園期待您的參與！

Our events are registered and signed up through email communications. You can register as our reader member on the "About Us" page. Event news is also simultaneously posted on our Twitter, Instagram, X, and Facebook platforms. Please pay attention to the registration notices for each event. JF Books looks forward to your participation!