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The era between empire and communism is routinely portrayed as a catastrophic interlude in China's modern history, but this book shows instead that the first half of the twentieth century witnessed a qualitatively unprecedented trend towards openness. The book argues that the years from 1900 to 1949 were characterised at all levels of society by engagement with the world, and that the pursuit of openness was particularly evident in four areas: in governance and the advance of the rule of law and of newly acquired liberties; in freedom of movement in and out of the country; in open minds thriving on ideas from the humanities and sciences; and in open markets and sustained growth in the economy. Freedom of association, freedom to travel, freedom of religion, freedom to trade, and relative freedom of speech wrought profound changes in the texture of everyday life. While globalisation itself was a vector of cultural diversification, pre-existing constellations of ideas, practices and institutions did not simply vanish on contact with the rest of the world, but on the contrary expanded even further, just as much as local industries diversified thanks to their inclusion into a much larger global market. Arguably the country was at its most diverse in its entire history on the eve of World War II — in terms of politics, society, culture, and the economy.

Large public screens have now become a ubiquitous part of the contemporary cityscape. Far from being simply oversized televisions, the media experts contributing to Ambient Screens and Transnational Public Spaces put forward a strong case that such screens could serve as important sites for cultural exchange. Advances in digital technology spell the possibilities of conducting mobile modes of interaction across national boundaries, and in the process expose the participants to novel sensory experiences, giving rise to a new form of public culture. Understanding this phenomenon calls for a reconceptualization of "public space" and "ambience," as well as connecting the two concepts with each other. This pioneering study of the impact of media platforms on urban cultural life presents a theoretical analysis and a history of screens, followed by discussions of site-specific urban screen practices on five continents. There is also a substantial examination of the world's first real-time cross-cultural exchange via the networking of large public screens located in Melbourne and Seoul.

This book brings studies of modern Thai history and culture into dialogue with debates in comparative intellectual history, Asian cultural studies, and postcolonial studies. It takes Thai Studies in new directions through case studies of the cultural hybridity and ambivalences that have emerged from the manifold interactions between Siam/Thailand and the West from 1850 to the present day. The central aims of the book are to critique notions of Thai “uniqueness” or “exceptionalism” and locate Thai Studies in a broader, comparative perspective by arguing that modern Siam/Thailand needs to be understood as a semicolonial society. In contrast to conservative nationalist and royalist accounts of Thai history and culture, which resist comparing the country to its once-colonized Asian neighbours, this book's contributors highlight the value of postcolonial analysis in understanding the complexly ambiguous, interstitial, liminal, and hybrid character of Thai/Western cultural interrelationships. At the same time, by pointing to the distinctive position of semicolonial societies in the Western-dominated world order, the chapters in the book make significant contributions to developing the critical theoretical perspectives of international cultural studies. The contributors demonstrate how the disciplines of history, anthropology, political science, film and cultural studies all enhance these contestations in intersecting ways, and across different historical moments. Each of the chapters raises manifold themes and questions regarding the nature of intercultural exchange, interrogated through theoretically critical lenses.

This revised edition collects in one place the chapters from the three volumes of Ancestral Images originally published in 1979, 1980 and 1981. The 120 chapters and photographs explore everyday life, customs and rituals in Hong Kong's rural New Territories. They investigate religion, food, language, history, festivals, family, strange happenings and clan warfare. The book documents much that can no longer be found. But it also provides an understanding of a world which has not yet entirely disappeared, and which still forms the background of life in modern urban Hong Kong and its neighbouring cities. Esoteric nuggets of information are scattered through the book: How do you ascend a pagoda with no staircase? How can you marry without attending the wedding? When is it wrong to buy a book? The text answers these and many other questions in this well-rounded picture of a vibrant, quirky people painted with affection and informed by many years of scholarship and research.

Infernal Affairs has received journalistic, popular and corporate notice but little vigorous critical attention. This book explores the way this example of Hong Kong's cinematic eclecticism has crossed borders as a story, a commercial product and a work of art; and has had an undeniable impact on current Hong Kong cinema. Moreover the author uses this film to highlight the way Hong Kong cinema continues to be inextricably intertwined with global film culture and the transnational movie market.

The pioneering independent filmmaker Ann On-wah Hui has drawn much acclaim for her sensitive portrayals of numerous Hong Kong tragedies and marginalized populations. In a career spanning three decades, Hui has been director, producer, writer, and actress for more than thirty films. This work analyzes a 1990 film considered by many to be one of Hui's most haunting and poignant works, Song of the Exile. The semi-autobiographical film depicts a daughter's coming to terms with her mother's Japanese identity. Themes of cross-cultural alienation, divided loyalties, and generational reconciliation resonated strongly amid the migration and displacement pressures surrounding Hong Kong in the early 1990s. Even now, more than a decade after the 1997 Handover, the film is a perennial favorite among returning Hong Kong emigrants and international cinema students alike.

This is a biography of Anna May Wong, legendary Chinese American actress. Its covers her upbringing as second-generation Chinese America in Los Angeles. It uncovers early career in Silent Films, struggling to maximize value of her popularity move to Europe to gain greater fame and resist stereotyped racial roles. The book reflects her immense stardom in 1920s and 1930s and controversy over yellow-face casting in film The Good Earth. The reaction to Wong in Europe and her controversial reputation in China are also discussed. The book also mentioned her fifty-five films, television and radio shows and stage performances. Her personal struggles and accomplishments, support for China during World War II and later life can be seen through the book. It concludes with Wong's impact on Asian American cinema.

The growth of Shanghai in the late nineteenth century gave rise to an exciting new art world in which a flourishing market in popular art became a highly visible part of the treaty port’s commercialized culture. Art Worlds examines the relationship between the city’s visual artists and their urban audiences. Through a discussion of images ranging from fashionable painted fans to lithograph-illustrated magazines, the book explores how popular art intersected with broader cultural trends. It also investigates the multiple roles played by the modern Chinese artist as image-maker, entrepreneur, celebrity, and urban sojourner. Focusing on industrially produced images, mass advertisements, and other hitherto neglected sources, the book offers a new interpretation of late Qing visual culture at a watershed moment in the history of modern Chinese art.

This volume poses new challenges to queer studies and demonstrates the study of Chinese sexuality as an emergent field currently emanating from multiple disciplines. Issues related to sexuality have acquired a new visibility in China in the past several years. The growth of religious fundamentalists and global gay discourses, heightened media attention and even more intense censorship, LBGTIQ activist movements, and the struggles of sex workers, have all contributed to this visibility. There is an urgent need for intellectual work to articulate and analyze the complexity of issues of sexuality, and the ways in which different norms line up and become synonymous with one another, in order to build situated knowledge in strengthening the discursive power of non-normative sexual-subjects-in-alliance. This book showcases the work of scholars working mostly outside Euro-America and focuses on cities including Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. It is a sustained collections on Chinese non-normative sexual subjectivities and contemporary sexual politics published in English. It highlights the various ways in which different individuals and communities — including male sex workers, transsexual subjects, lesbians, and Indonesian migrants — negotiate with notions of normativity and modernity, fine-tuned according to the different power structures of each context, and making new and different meanings.

The fourteen chapters in this book examine various topics and contexts of travel writings on China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. From the first Colombian on a trade mission to China, to French women travelers in Asia, and the opening of Japan Fairs in the US during the latter half of the nineteenth century, this book offers a kaleidoscopic glimpse of the various cultures in the eyes of their beholders coupled with understanding of the various politics and relationships that are involved.

This book is an account of how the modernization processes for postcolonial societies in Asia such as India, Malaysia, and Singapore are fraught with collaborations and conflicts between different socio-political, historical, economic, and cultural agents.

Assessment is an important part of effective teaching and learning. It allows achievements to be recognized and helps both teachers and learners to reflect on and review their performance and progress. While assessment has long been an end-of-learning activity to measure what learners can do, the outcome-oriented approach does not always foster learning motivation effectively. A new perspective now encourages ongoing appraisal in the classroom to improve learning. This book reflects current thinking of assessment with a stated focus on assessment for learning (AfL). It informs teachers about the latest developments and provides teachers with important tools for integrating assessment in the classroom. The discussions on assessment theories are in-depth and the examples used for illustrating the concepts are plentiful.

After the Second World War, the Australian military prosecuted almost a thousand alleged Japanese war criminals. These prosecutions were not only an attempt to punish Japan for its wartime militarism, but also a move to exert influence over the future course of Japanese society, politics, and foreign policy, as well as to cement Australia’s position in the Pacific as a regional power. During the Allied occupation of Japan (1945-52), Australia energetically pursued Japanese war criminals, and took a tough stance on Japan in general. The U.S. authorities, who dominated the Occupation, initially took the same line. As the Cold War in Asia intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s, however, the U.S. government ceased to consider Japan a threat to Pacific security, and instead began to cultivate Japan as a potential democratic ally against communism. By the end of the Occupation, U.S. officials were firmly committed to pursuing good relations with the Japanese government. Gradually, in the 1950s, the Australian government came to share the U.S. view of Japan. As Japan shifted in official thinking from being a former foe, to a potential economic and political partner, concerns about the guilt of individual Japanese soldiers made way for pragmatism and political gain. The war criminals became entangled with Australian moves to establish good relations with Japan, and to draw the U.S. into a close alliance. Variations to their sentences - through repatriation to Japan, and later through parole or other forms of early release - became diplomatic bargaining chips. By the end of 1957, all of the surviving war criminals prosecuted by Australia had been released.

This book explores interactions between Japanese and Chinese writers during the golden age of such exchange, 1919 to 1937. During this period, there were unprecedented opportunities for exchange between writers, which was made possible by the ease of travel between Japan and China during these years and the educational background of Chinese writers as students in Japan. Although the salubrious interaction that developed during that period was destined not to last, it nevertheless was significant as a courageous essay at cultural interaction. Major writers in this work include Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren on the Chinese side and Tanizaki Jun'ichiro and Hayashi Fumiko on the Japanese side.

Questions regarding whether a first or a second/foreign language should be used as a medium of instruction (MOI) in schools, and if yes, for whom, and when, have been enthusiastically debated in recent years in Hong Kong and many Southeast Asian societies. The public debates, however, have largely not been able to benefit from the existing international body of research in bilingual education as well as the educational experiences of other countries. The reason is that such knowledge is often either couched in specialized, technical language or scattered over diverse journals and books, which are often off-putting to teachers, parents, school principals, policy makers and the general public. There is an urgent need to critically integrate and review the international research literature with a view to informing public debates and policy making regarding the medium of instruction in Hong Kong and other Southeast Asian contexts. This book aims at meeting this urgent need by discussing, in accessible language, research findings on key concepts of bilingual education, and recent developments of bilingual education policies in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. Teachers, students and researchers in the areas of bilingual education, language policy and planning (LPP), and studies of medium of instruction policy and practice both in Hong Kong and other Southeast Asian contexts will benefit from the book. Government officials and policy makers involved in language policy and planning, as well as school principals, parents and university administrators will also find this book especially useful in providing them with a research-based LPP framework for discussing and studying the pivotal issues in LPP in their respective contexts.

This volume provides the first comparative survey of the relations between the two most active book worlds in Eurasia between 1450 and 1850. Prominent scholars in book history explore different approaches to publishing, printing, and book culture. They discuss the extent of technology transfer and book distribution between the two regions and show how much book historians of East Asia and Europe can learn from one another by raising new questions, exploring remarkable similarities and differences in these regions’ production, distribution, and consumption of books. The chapters in turn show different ways of writing transnational comparative history. Whereas recent problems confronting research on European books can instruct researchers on East Asian book production, so can the privileged role of noncommercial publications in the East Asian textual record highlight for historians of the European book the singular contribution of commercial printing and market demands to the making of the European printed record. Likewise, although production growth was accompanied in both regions by a wider distribution of books, woodblock technology’s simplicity and mobility allowed for a shift in China of its production and distribution sites farther down the hierarchy of urban sites than was common in Europe. And, the different demands and consumption practices within these two regions’ expanding markets led to different genre preferences and uses as well as to the growth of distinctive female readerships. A substantial introduction pulls the work together and the volume ends with an essay that considers how these historical developments shape the present book worlds of Eurasia.

Chinese-speaking popular cultures have never been so queer as in this digital, globalist age. In response to the proliferation of queer representations, productions, fantasies, and desires, especially as manifested online, this book explores extended, diversified, and transculturally informed fan communities and practices based in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan that have cultivated various forms of queerness. To right an imbalance in the scholarly literature on queer East Asia, this volume is weighted toward an exploration of queer elements of mainland Chinese fandoms that have been less often written about than more visible cultural elements in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Case studies drawn from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the flows among them include: the Chinese online Hetalia fandom; Chinese fans’ queer gossip on the American L-Word actress Katherine Moennig; Dongfang Bubai iterations; the HOCC fandom; cross-border fans of Li Yuchun; and Japaneseness in Taiwanese BL fantasies; among others.

For more than four centuries, Macau was the center of Portuguese trade and culture on the South China Coast. Until the founding of Hong Kong and the opening of other ports in the 1840s, it was also the main gateway to China for independent British merchants and their only place of permanent residence. Drawing extensively on Portuguese as well as British sources, The British Presence in Macau traces Anglo-Portuguese relations in South China from the first arrival of English trading ships in the 1630s to the establishment of factories at Canton, the beginnings of the opium trade, and the Macartney Embassy of 1793. Longstanding allies in the West, the British and Portuguese pursued more complex relations in the East, as trading interests clashed under a Chinese imperial system and as the British increasingly asserted their power as “a community in search of a colony.”

This volume draws upon art historical, anthropological, and religious studies methodologies to delineate the structures and details of late Burmese wall paintings and elucidate the religious, political, and social concepts driving the creation of this art form. The combination of architecture, paintings, sculpture, and literary traditions created a complete space in which devotees could interact with the Buddha through his biography. Through the standardization of a repertoire of specific forms, codes, and themes, the murals were themselves activating agents, spurring devotees to merit-making, worship, and other ritual practices, partially by establishing normative religious behavior and partly through visual incentives. Much of this was accomplished through the manipulation of space, and the volume contributes to the analysis of visual narratives by examining how the relationships between word and image, layouts, story and scene selection, and narrative themes both demonstrate and confirm social structures and changes, economic activities, and religious practices of seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century Burma. The visual material of the wall painting sites worked together with the sculpture and the architecture to create unified spaces in which devotees could interact with the Buddha. This analysis takes the narrative field beyond the concept that pictures are to be “read” and shows the multifarious and holistic ways in which they can be viewed. To enter temples of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries was to enter a coherent space created by a visually articulated Burmese Buddhist world to which the devotee belonged by performing ritual activities within it.

Cosmetic surgery in China has grown rapidly in recent years of dramatic social transition. Facing fierce competition in all spheres of daily life, more and more women consider cosmetic surgery as an investment to gain “beauty capital” to increase opportunities for social and career success. Building on rich ethnographic data, this book presents the perspectives of women who have undergone cosmetic surgery, illuminating the aspirations behind their choices. The author explores how turbulent economic, socio-cultural and political changes in China since the 1980s have produced immense anxiety that is experienced by women both mentally and physically. This book will appeal to readers who are interested in gender studies, China studies, anthropology and sociology of the body, and cultural studies.