Five events are scheduled in the next seven days as the China semester comes to an end.

The first presentation is today at 1:00p.m. Dr. Zhou Long presents “Composing Music Between Countries: in Webster hall Auditorium, free admission. Long will be discussing the challenges he faces while “improving the understanding between peoples from various backgrounds.”

Later on tonight, beginning at 7:30 p.m., the Southern Symphony Orchestra will perform “Sound of China,” an all-Chinese concert. This performance will include compositions by Zhou Long, featured speaker from “Composing Between Countries.” Dr. Kexi Liu will direct this concert, which also includes “Chinese music of different styles, traditional and modern.

Guest pianist for the evening is Langning Liu, who will perform The Yellow River Piano Concerto, a patriotic piece based on the Yellow River Cantata (1939). Other pieces for this concert include the Yang-ge dance, “a folk dance popular in Northern China” and Dance of the Yao People, “based on the ‘long drum dance,’ in which dancers carries long drums, of the Yao people living in the Northern Guangdong Province in Southern China.” This program includes several pieces; opening with Spring Festival Overture and concluding with West Rhapsody, a Zhou Long World Premiere.

The last foreign film showing of the China semester takes place on Tuesday Nov. 13, 2007. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Xian Cai Feng) begins at 7:00 p.m., Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall, admission is free. This film shows how love emerges from even the darkest times in China.

On Friday Nov. 16, 2007, Dr. Ethan Michelson presents “Family Planning in Rural China.” Michelson will be speaking “of the crushing pressure China’s enormous population exerts on limited natural resources.”

Later on in the morning, at 11:00 a.m. in Webster Hall Auditorium. Dr. Michelson will give another presentation. This presentation, entitled “Sources of Conflict in Rural China, uncovers the truth behind “conflict in the China countryside.”

Michelson will explain what causes these conflicts and why many villagers are lead to not trust their local government.

“These issues are important because they profoundly affect the lives of so many Chinese people,” Michelson said. “For example, I estimate that over 100 million Chinese people have been directly exposed to family planning disputes.”