In February 2025, the School of Culture and Creativity, together with the UIC Union and the Department of Human Resources, successfully held a unique Scottish Burns Night event, which attracted many faculties and students to participate.

This Burns Night event is the first traditional festival that UIC has held. It not only provides the faculties and students with an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Scottish culture, but also demonstrates the power of culture as a bond. The organizers of the event said that similar cultural events will continue to be held in the future to promote the exchange and integration of multiple cultures.

After the event, participants said that Burns Night not only allowed them to appreciate the customs of Scotland, but also allowed them to feel the breadth and depth of Scottish culture. As Dr. Bill Aitchison from the School of Culture and Creativity mentioned: "Culture is broad and is not just an object of study but it’s also the glue that binds us.”

(The above content is adapted from Dr. Bill Aitchison's preview.)  

Dr Bill Aitchison's preview:

Traditionally a Burns Night is held in late January to celebrate the birthday of Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns. This year it fell during Spring Festival so we waited till everyone was back on campus at UIC. To those unfamiliar with a Burns Night the prospect of celebrating the life of an 18th Century Scottish poet is probably not one to clear the calendar for. A Burns Night, however, is not only about an exceptional poet, it is a traditional festival that includes music, food, clothing, dancing, speeches and Scotland’s most famous export: whisky.

We started with a bagpipe parade that took us outdoors and to the lake in the centre of the campus. The pipes are a loud and very distinctive instrument that used to be used on the battlefield to strike fear into the hearts of enemies. Nowadays it is just as loud and stirring but it had the effect of alerting the university that something unique was unfolding: the Scots were gathering for a Burns Night. Sporting kilts and tartan accessories we followed our piper Tony as he lead us down steps and around the water’s edge.

We next sat down to eat. We started with a traditional lentil soup that was made fresh on the spot and served with bread and butter.  As we were digesting, SCC’s Andrew Peat gave us our first speech of the evening, an introduction to whisky. As a whisky connoisseur and film-maker who has made a popular documentary about whisky, he was the perfect guide to this most Scottish of drinks. Its long history is peppered with interesting stories and is, naturally, the subject of some poems of Burns. We concluded with a tasting that brought a warm glow to faces up and down the table.

The main dish, the haggis, was now ready and was brought in with the piper leading it triumphantly to the table. Our big chieftain and master of ceremonies Professor John Corbett gave the traditional speech that welcomes it, The Address to the Haggis, a poem of Burns. John being an expert in Scottish literature and native of Ayr, where Burns too hails from, was able capture the meaning and tone of the poem quite wonderfully. As with the speech on whisky, this too concluded with a toast, an indeed did all of the speeches.

Haggis is not at all easy to find in China, it is a specialist Scottish dish that combines several meats with grains and spices. With a little effort and creativity we managed all the same and supplemented it with vegetarian haggis that was prepared especially for the occasion. Alongside these were served the two traditional sides of mashed potato and mashed swede. These too required some experimentation to find Chinese equivalents as swede is not grown in the same form in China. The final result was quite satisfactory and would not have been out of place on a dinner table in Edinburgh.

The next speech in a Burns Night is one called the The Immortal Memory and it was Dean MacKinnon Thomson of the ELC was gave it. The point of this speech is to draw out why Burns is still significant to us today. Dean did this admirably by connecting and contrasting the compassion and dignity of working people that runs throughout the poetry and songs of Burns with our present concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the Elon Musks of the world. The radical spirit of Burns would have been proud!

The final two speeches are traditionally more light in tone and engage in banter and entertainment. The Address to the Lassies was given by SCC’s Dr Bill Aitchison, a tongue in cheek tale of Scottish sailors and ladies of Glasgow who’d drunk too much. The Reply to the Laddies was given by Daisy Li, Professor of Translation Studies at Macau Polytechnic University who played with the form of the speech and, appropriately for our times, AI’s attempts to produce it.

With the speeches and toasts concluded we were suitably merry and in need of stretching the legs. Right on cue came the ceilidh. This is a dance party set to traditional music with a number of group dances. John first demonstrated the dances then called them as we tried to follow the moves to the incessant fiddle music. The result was a very enjoyable mix of collective choreography and barely controlled chaos. We turned, held hands, trotted and kicked our legs one way and another as everyone danced with everyone in circles, lines and pairs. Young and old from six to sixty, we all shared this special moment and made some new friends in the process.

A Burns Night then is a special sort of festival where everything is connected and flows. In a university setting where we all have our disciplinary foc.us, it is good to be reminded that music goes with dancing, that costume goes with space, that food goes with poetry, that whisky can take us to politics and just as easily to new friendships. Culture is broad and is not just an object of study but it’s also the glue that binds us together. This was the first time for UIC to host a Burns Night and we’d like to thank SCC, the Union and the HR department for their support of it. We hope to see you at another one in the future.