Andrea Louie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479890521
- eISBN:
- 9781479859887
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479890521.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Chinese adoption is often viewed as creating new possibilities for the formation of multicultural, cosmopolitan families. For white adoptive families, it is an opportunity to learn more about China ...
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Chinese adoption is often viewed as creating new possibilities for the formation of multicultural, cosmopolitan families. For white adoptive families, it is an opportunity to learn more about China and Chinese culture, as many adoptive families today try to honor what they view as their children's “birth culture.” However, transnational, transracial adoption also presents challenges to families who are trying to impart in their children cultural and racial identities that they themselves do not possess, while at the same time incorporating their own racial, ethnic, and religious identities. Many of their ideas are based on assumptions about how authentic Chinese and Chinese Americans practice Chinese culture. Based on a comparative ethnographic study of white and Asian American adoptive parents over an eight-year period, this book explores how white adoptive parents, adoption professionals, Chinese American adoptive parents, and teens adopted from China as children negotiate meanings of Chinese identity in the context of race, culture, and family. Viewing Chineseness as something produced, rather than inherited, the book examines how the idea of “ethnic options” differs for Asian American versus white adoptive parents as they produce Chinese adoptee identities, while re-working their own ethnic, racial, and parental identities. The book analyzes how both white and Asian American adoptive parents engage in changing understandings of and relationships with “Chineseness” as a form of ethnic identity, racial identity, or cultural capital over the life course.Less
Chinese adoption is often viewed as creating new possibilities for the formation of multicultural, cosmopolitan families. For white adoptive families, it is an opportunity to learn more about China and Chinese culture, as many adoptive families today try to honor what they view as their children's “birth culture.” However, transnational, transracial adoption also presents challenges to families who are trying to impart in their children cultural and racial identities that they themselves do not possess, while at the same time incorporating their own racial, ethnic, and religious identities. Many of their ideas are based on assumptions about how authentic Chinese and Chinese Americans practice Chinese culture. Based on a comparative ethnographic study of white and Asian American adoptive parents over an eight-year period, this book explores how white adoptive parents, adoption professionals, Chinese American adoptive parents, and teens adopted from China as children negotiate meanings of Chinese identity in the context of race, culture, and family. Viewing Chineseness as something produced, rather than inherited, the book examines how the idea of “ethnic options” differs for Asian American versus white adoptive parents as they produce Chinese adoptee identities, while re-working their own ethnic, racial, and parental identities. The book analyzes how both white and Asian American adoptive parents engage in changing understandings of and relationships with “Chineseness” as a form of ethnic identity, racial identity, or cultural capital over the life course.
Josephine M.T. Khu
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520223400
- eISBN:
- 9780520924918
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520223400.003.0030
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter explains that although the search for identity is a personal task, in both the reasons prompting such a search and its results are entwined larger questions involving the nature of a ...
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This chapter explains that although the search for identity is a personal task, in both the reasons prompting such a search and its results are entwined larger questions involving the nature of a society. It notes that scholars of Chinese diaspora have discussed that most of the large numbers of emigrants from China in the late nineteenth and through the first half of the twentieth centuries initially regarded themselves as sojourners and not as permanent settlers in the countries to which they had journeyed in search of better opportunities. The chapter explains that without necessarily diluting earlier local Chinese identities, different developments led to the creation of a new Chinese national identity among ethnic Chinese communities abroad. It discusses three developments in overseas Chinese identities observed during the post-World War II era that have led to an emerging debate about the meaning of “being Chinese.”Less
This chapter explains that although the search for identity is a personal task, in both the reasons prompting such a search and its results are entwined larger questions involving the nature of a society. It notes that scholars of Chinese diaspora have discussed that most of the large numbers of emigrants from China in the late nineteenth and through the first half of the twentieth centuries initially regarded themselves as sojourners and not as permanent settlers in the countries to which they had journeyed in search of better opportunities. The chapter explains that without necessarily diluting earlier local Chinese identities, different developments led to the creation of a new Chinese national identity among ethnic Chinese communities abroad. It discusses three developments in overseas Chinese identities observed during the post-World War II era that have led to an emerging debate about the meaning of “being Chinese.”
Andrea Louie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479890521
- eISBN:
- 9781479859887
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479890521.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This book explores the ways that Chinese American and white adoptive parents, and their children as they become teens, approach issues of Chinese identity, and how they imagine the Chineseness of ...
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This book explores the ways that Chinese American and white adoptive parents, and their children as they become teens, approach issues of Chinese identity, and how they imagine the Chineseness of their children in relation to blacks, whites, Asians, and other groups. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and extensive participant observation and focus group discussions with more than seventy-five individuals conducted intermittently between 2001 and 2009, the book considers the processes by which adoptive parents negotiate Chineseness and Chinese culture within the politics of race, class, and culture of the Midwest and in the San Francisco Bay Area. It discusses the ways that new family identities—incorporating forms of whiteness and Chineseness as well as ideas about multiculturalism and race—are being created out of the practices surrounding Chinese adoption. It also examines how productions of Chinese culture become salient for Chinese adoptees who are living them.Less
This book explores the ways that Chinese American and white adoptive parents, and their children as they become teens, approach issues of Chinese identity, and how they imagine the Chineseness of their children in relation to blacks, whites, Asians, and other groups. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and extensive participant observation and focus group discussions with more than seventy-five individuals conducted intermittently between 2001 and 2009, the book considers the processes by which adoptive parents negotiate Chineseness and Chinese culture within the politics of race, class, and culture of the Midwest and in the San Francisco Bay Area. It discusses the ways that new family identities—incorporating forms of whiteness and Chineseness as well as ideas about multiculturalism and race—are being created out of the practices surrounding Chinese adoption. It also examines how productions of Chinese culture become salient for Chinese adoptees who are living them.
Melissa Brown
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520231818
- eISBN:
- 9780520927940
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520231818.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
The “one China” policy officially supported by the People's Republic of China, the United States, and other countries asserts that there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of it. The debate over ...
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The “one China” policy officially supported by the People's Republic of China, the United States, and other countries asserts that there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of it. The debate over whether the people of Taiwan are Chinese or independently Taiwanese is, this book argues, a matter of identity: Han ethnic identity, Chinese national identity, and the relationship of both of these to the new Taiwanese identity forged in the 1990s. In a comparison of ethnographic and historical case studies drawn from both Taiwan and China, the book shows how identity is shaped by social experience—not culture and ancestry, as is commonly claimed in political rhetoric.Less
The “one China” policy officially supported by the People's Republic of China, the United States, and other countries asserts that there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of it. The debate over whether the people of Taiwan are Chinese or independently Taiwanese is, this book argues, a matter of identity: Han ethnic identity, Chinese national identity, and the relationship of both of these to the new Taiwanese identity forged in the 1990s. In a comparison of ethnographic and historical case studies drawn from both Taiwan and China, the book shows how identity is shaped by social experience—not culture and ancestry, as is commonly claimed in political rhetoric.
Yeh Wen-hsin
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520219236
- eISBN:
- 9780520924413
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520219236.003.0020
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the history of Chinese modernity during the period from 1900 to 1980. It examines the role of modernity in the ...
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This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the history of Chinese modernity during the period from 1900 to 1980. It examines the role of modernity in the transformation of Chinese identity and highlights the city and the nation as the twin loci for the construction of Chinese modernity. It discusses the politics of the Westernized educated professional, the transnational orientation of an emerging bourgeois class and the transformative capacity of the modernizing state.Less
This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the history of Chinese modernity during the period from 1900 to 1980. It examines the role of modernity in the transformation of Chinese identity and highlights the city and the nation as the twin loci for the construction of Chinese modernity. It discusses the politics of the Westernized educated professional, the transnational orientation of an emerging bourgeois class and the transformative capacity of the modernizing state.
Wen-hsin Yeh (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520219236
- eISBN:
- 9780520924413
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520219236.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This volume evaluates the dual roles of war and modernity in the transformation of twentieth-century Chinese identity. The chapters argue that war, no less than revolution, deserves attention as a ...
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This volume evaluates the dual roles of war and modernity in the transformation of twentieth-century Chinese identity. The chapters argue that war, no less than revolution, deserves attention as a major force in the making of twentieth-century Chinese history. Further, they show that modernity in material culture and changes in intellectual consciousness should serve as twin foci of a new wave of scholarly analysis. Examining in particular the rise of modern Chinese cities and the making of the Chinese nation-state, the chapters provide new ways of thinking about China's modern transformation up to the 1950s. Taken together, the chapters demonstrate that the combined effect of a modernizing state and an industrializing economy weakened the Chinese bourgeoisie and undercut the individual's quest for autonomy. Drawing upon new archival sources, these theoretically informed, thoroughly revisionist chapters focus on topics such as Western-inspired modernity, urban cosmopolitanism, consumer culture, gender relationships, interchanges between city and countryside, and the growing impact of the state on the lives of individuals. The volume makes an important contribution toward a postsocialist understanding of twentieth-century China.Less
This volume evaluates the dual roles of war and modernity in the transformation of twentieth-century Chinese identity. The chapters argue that war, no less than revolution, deserves attention as a major force in the making of twentieth-century Chinese history. Further, they show that modernity in material culture and changes in intellectual consciousness should serve as twin foci of a new wave of scholarly analysis. Examining in particular the rise of modern Chinese cities and the making of the Chinese nation-state, the chapters provide new ways of thinking about China's modern transformation up to the 1950s. Taken together, the chapters demonstrate that the combined effect of a modernizing state and an industrializing economy weakened the Chinese bourgeoisie and undercut the individual's quest for autonomy. Drawing upon new archival sources, these theoretically informed, thoroughly revisionist chapters focus on topics such as Western-inspired modernity, urban cosmopolitanism, consumer culture, gender relationships, interchanges between city and countryside, and the growing impact of the state on the lives of individuals. The volume makes an important contribution toward a postsocialist understanding of twentieth-century China.
Peter Hays Gries
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520232976
- eISBN:
- 9780520931947
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520232976.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Three American missiles hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and what Americans view as an appalling and tragic mistake, many Chinese see as a “barbaric” and intentional “criminal act,” the latest in ...
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Three American missiles hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and what Americans view as an appalling and tragic mistake, many Chinese see as a “barbaric” and intentional “criminal act,” the latest in a long series of Western aggressions against China. This book explores the roles of perception and sentiment in the growth of popular nationalism in China. At a time when the direction of China's foreign and domestic policies have profound ramifications worldwide, the author offers an in-depth look at the nature of China's new nationalism, particularly as it involves Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations: two bilateral relations that carry extraordinary implications for peace and stability in the twenty-first century. This new nationalism is traced through recent Chinese books and magazines, movies, television shows, posters, and cartoons. Anti-Western sentiment, once created and encouraged by China's ruling PRC, has been taken up independently by a new generation of Chinese. Deeply rooted in narratives about past “humiliations” at the hands of the West and impassioned notions of Chinese identity, popular nationalism is now undermining the Communist Party's monopoly on political discourse, threatening the regime's stability. The book analyzes the impact that popular nationalism will have on twenty-first century China and the world.Less
Three American missiles hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and what Americans view as an appalling and tragic mistake, many Chinese see as a “barbaric” and intentional “criminal act,” the latest in a long series of Western aggressions against China. This book explores the roles of perception and sentiment in the growth of popular nationalism in China. At a time when the direction of China's foreign and domestic policies have profound ramifications worldwide, the author offers an in-depth look at the nature of China's new nationalism, particularly as it involves Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations: two bilateral relations that carry extraordinary implications for peace and stability in the twenty-first century. This new nationalism is traced through recent Chinese books and magazines, movies, television shows, posters, and cartoons. Anti-Western sentiment, once created and encouraged by China's ruling PRC, has been taken up independently by a new generation of Chinese. Deeply rooted in narratives about past “humiliations” at the hands of the West and impassioned notions of Chinese identity, popular nationalism is now undermining the Communist Party's monopoly on political discourse, threatening the regime's stability. The book analyzes the impact that popular nationalism will have on twenty-first century China and the world.
Peter Hays Gries
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520232976
- eISBN:
- 9780520931947
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520232976.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter focuses on Chinese identity and Chinese nationalists' view of the West. It discusses Westerners' observation that the Chinese threat to both America and Japan is real and that it is the ...
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This chapter focuses on Chinese identity and Chinese nationalists' view of the West. It discusses Westerners' observation that the Chinese threat to both America and Japan is real and that it is the same as that from all dictatorships. The chapter comments on China's anti-American 1997 diatribe The Plot to Demonize China and highlights the repeated efforts of nationalists to construct a positive Chinese national identity at America's expense.Less
This chapter focuses on Chinese identity and Chinese nationalists' view of the West. It discusses Westerners' observation that the Chinese threat to both America and Japan is real and that it is the same as that from all dictatorships. The chapter comments on China's anti-American 1997 diatribe The Plot to Demonize China and highlights the repeated efforts of nationalists to construct a positive Chinese national identity at America's expense.
Andrea Louie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479890521
- eISBN:
- 9781479859887
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479890521.003.0008
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This concluding chapter reviews how the book has explored how Chinese American and white adoptive parents learn about issues of culture and racism and gain insight into how their children are being ...
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This concluding chapter reviews how the book has explored how Chinese American and white adoptive parents learn about issues of culture and racism and gain insight into how their children are being racialized. It has shown how meanings surrounding Chineseness are negotiated within the daily lives of adoptive families as well as the ways that Chinese adoptees, including teens, use and reinterpret Chineseness. It has also highlighted the dynamic and ongoing process of Chinese identity construction among Chinese American adoptive parents that often involves the interpretation of practices and values as “Chinese,” along with white adoptive parents' conceptions of the relationship between Chinese and Chinese American culture. As a conclusion, the book considers the importance of looking at Chinese culture being produced in relation to shifting and multilayered discourses on race, culture, and adoption that circulate around adoptees.Less
This concluding chapter reviews how the book has explored how Chinese American and white adoptive parents learn about issues of culture and racism and gain insight into how their children are being racialized. It has shown how meanings surrounding Chineseness are negotiated within the daily lives of adoptive families as well as the ways that Chinese adoptees, including teens, use and reinterpret Chineseness. It has also highlighted the dynamic and ongoing process of Chinese identity construction among Chinese American adoptive parents that often involves the interpretation of practices and values as “Chinese,” along with white adoptive parents' conceptions of the relationship between Chinese and Chinese American culture. As a conclusion, the book considers the importance of looking at Chinese culture being produced in relation to shifting and multilayered discourses on race, culture, and adoption that circulate around adoptees.
Baogang He
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748699711
- eISBN:
- 9781474416139
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748699711.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Chapter 3 examines the historically-based thesis on empire that argues that the democratic process evolving from ‘empire’ to nation-state presents a challenge for China’s territorial integrity. It ...
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Chapter 3 examines the historically-based thesis on empire that argues that the democratic process evolving from ‘empire’ to nation-state presents a challenge for China’s territorial integrity. It analyzes the impact of China’s national identity question on Chinese democratization, and explores why China has difficulty establishing democracy. Through demonstrating the conflictive logic between democracy and state nationalism in the context of China’s national identity issue, it provides an explanation or an understanding of, not a justification for, the Party/State’s resistance to democracy. The chapter also argues against a strong historical determinism and emphasizes the importance of agency. It explores the possible democratic solutions through which China could avoid the logic of “the empire thesis”.Less
Chapter 3 examines the historically-based thesis on empire that argues that the democratic process evolving from ‘empire’ to nation-state presents a challenge for China’s territorial integrity. It analyzes the impact of China’s national identity question on Chinese democratization, and explores why China has difficulty establishing democracy. Through demonstrating the conflictive logic between democracy and state nationalism in the context of China’s national identity issue, it provides an explanation or an understanding of, not a justification for, the Party/State’s resistance to democracy. The chapter also argues against a strong historical determinism and emphasizes the importance of agency. It explores the possible democratic solutions through which China could avoid the logic of “the empire thesis”.
Julia María Schiavone Camacho
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835401
- eISBN:
- 9781469601786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882597_schiavone_camacho.5
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This book follows the paths of Chinese Mexican families, tracing the transpacific journeys and the emergence of a Chinese Mexican identity. It also explores complex intersections of identity, ...
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This book follows the paths of Chinese Mexican families, tracing the transpacific journeys and the emergence of a Chinese Mexican identity. It also explores complex intersections of identity, citizenship, racialization, gender ideology, and class in Mexico, the United States, and China in a single narrative frame.Less
This book follows the paths of Chinese Mexican families, tracing the transpacific journeys and the emergence of a Chinese Mexican identity. It also explores complex intersections of identity, citizenship, racialization, gender ideology, and class in Mexico, the United States, and China in a single narrative frame.
T. H. Barrett
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266120
- eISBN:
- 9780191860010
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266120.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
The continuity of Chinese history, through the unfolding of the ‘dynastic cycle’ of its successive imperial regimes, has been taken as one of the great truisms of discourse on China. Yet assertions ...
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The continuity of Chinese history, through the unfolding of the ‘dynastic cycle’ of its successive imperial regimes, has been taken as one of the great truisms of discourse on China. Yet assertions of cultural continuity in China have emerged in recent research much more as tendentious fictions, cultural artefacts themselves designed to stitch together disparate elements over time—the daotong or ‘Transmission of the Way’ proposed by Neo-Confucians, is one good example. And looking at Chinese history as a sequence of political powers, the transmission of what was seen as a form of imperium, zhengtong, or ‘Correct Succession’, has also long been considered as technically problematic. The modern scholar Rao Zongyi has a well-researched monograph on these debates that deserves to be better known, especially as history as an element in Chinese identity is now coming to assume an increased contemporary importance.Less
The continuity of Chinese history, through the unfolding of the ‘dynastic cycle’ of its successive imperial regimes, has been taken as one of the great truisms of discourse on China. Yet assertions of cultural continuity in China have emerged in recent research much more as tendentious fictions, cultural artefacts themselves designed to stitch together disparate elements over time—the daotong or ‘Transmission of the Way’ proposed by Neo-Confucians, is one good example. And looking at Chinese history as a sequence of political powers, the transmission of what was seen as a form of imperium, zhengtong, or ‘Correct Succession’, has also long been considered as technically problematic. The modern scholar Rao Zongyi has a well-researched monograph on these debates that deserves to be better known, especially as history as an element in Chinese identity is now coming to assume an increased contemporary importance.
Kenneth Chan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622090552
- eISBN:
- 9789882207356
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622090552.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The dramatic surge of Chinese visibility in Hollywood has been spurred by Sino-chic talents such as directors Ang Lee, John Woo, Wong Kar-wai, Wayne Wang, and Zhang Yimou, and stars such as Jackie ...
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The dramatic surge of Chinese visibility in Hollywood has been spurred by Sino-chic talents such as directors Ang Lee, John Woo, Wong Kar-wai, Wayne Wang, and Zhang Yimou, and stars such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, and Michelle Yeoh. Analyzing well-known films by Chinese stars and crew, and the influence they have had on Hollywood directors, this book describes how post-1997 notions of Chinese identity and cultural genres have been reinvented and repackaged by major US studios. Highlighting numerous contradictions and cultural anxieties evident in transnational Hollywood films, the book suggests that many Chinese stars and directors have made painful compromises to get their films successfully launched into the global capitalist stream of cultural commodities.Less
The dramatic surge of Chinese visibility in Hollywood has been spurred by Sino-chic talents such as directors Ang Lee, John Woo, Wong Kar-wai, Wayne Wang, and Zhang Yimou, and stars such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, and Michelle Yeoh. Analyzing well-known films by Chinese stars and crew, and the influence they have had on Hollywood directors, this book describes how post-1997 notions of Chinese identity and cultural genres have been reinvented and repackaged by major US studios. Highlighting numerous contradictions and cultural anxieties evident in transnational Hollywood films, the book suggests that many Chinese stars and directors have made painful compromises to get their films successfully launched into the global capitalist stream of cultural commodities.
Crossley Pamela Kyle, Helen F. Siu, and Donald S. Sutton
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520230156
- eISBN:
- 9780520927537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520230156.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Other than China, no empire of such cultural and ethnic diversity has survived modern statehood and the twentieth century in one piece. While the concept of ethnicity is certainly modern, it is clear ...
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Other than China, no empire of such cultural and ethnic diversity has survived modern statehood and the twentieth century in one piece. While the concept of ethnicity is certainly modern, it is clear that, empire-wide, Chinese cultural and local identities have undergone repeated shifts and transformations in recent centuries. This book does not see immutable cultural differences behind ethnic conflict and coexistence. Imperial policies could simultaneously promote cultural diversity and assimilation, and the different strands in imperial discourse, or the spaces beyond the imperial gaze, allowed many individuals and groups the flexibility to redefine and relocate themselves. There is much evidence, while China's leaders continue the search for a unity that is as inclusive as empire yet as integrated as the nation-state, and while its diverse population responds to the opportunities and pressures of post-socialism and globalization, that all these uncertainties and spaces persist.Less
Other than China, no empire of such cultural and ethnic diversity has survived modern statehood and the twentieth century in one piece. While the concept of ethnicity is certainly modern, it is clear that, empire-wide, Chinese cultural and local identities have undergone repeated shifts and transformations in recent centuries. This book does not see immutable cultural differences behind ethnic conflict and coexistence. Imperial policies could simultaneously promote cultural diversity and assimilation, and the different strands in imperial discourse, or the spaces beyond the imperial gaze, allowed many individuals and groups the flexibility to redefine and relocate themselves. There is much evidence, while China's leaders continue the search for a unity that is as inclusive as empire yet as integrated as the nation-state, and while its diverse population responds to the opportunities and pressures of post-socialism and globalization, that all these uncertainties and spaces persist.
David Der-wei Wang
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231170468
- eISBN:
- 9780231538572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231170468.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter focuses on the journey of Jiang Wenye, a Taiwanese composer and poet based in Japan, in search of his Chinese identity. More specifically, it examines the artistic choice Jiang made ...
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This chapter focuses on the journey of Jiang Wenye, a Taiwanese composer and poet based in Japan, in search of his Chinese identity. More specifically, it examines the artistic choice Jiang made during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the political consequences he had to cope with. In the summer of 1936, Jiang made his first trips to Beijing and Shanghai. Through select musical pieces, poetry, and theoretical treatises, the chapter considers Jiang's modernist sensibility as a reflection of his colonial and cosmopolitan bearings. It also looks at the way Jiang's engagement with Confucian musicology brings about an unlikely dialogue between Chinese cultural essentialism and Japanese pan-Asianism. Finally, it analyzes how Jiang's lyrical vision was occasioned by, and confined to, historical contingencies. It suggests that, because of the contested forces his works and life brought into play, Jiang dramatizes the composition of Chinese modernity at its most treacherous.Less
This chapter focuses on the journey of Jiang Wenye, a Taiwanese composer and poet based in Japan, in search of his Chinese identity. More specifically, it examines the artistic choice Jiang made during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the political consequences he had to cope with. In the summer of 1936, Jiang made his first trips to Beijing and Shanghai. Through select musical pieces, poetry, and theoretical treatises, the chapter considers Jiang's modernist sensibility as a reflection of his colonial and cosmopolitan bearings. It also looks at the way Jiang's engagement with Confucian musicology brings about an unlikely dialogue between Chinese cultural essentialism and Japanese pan-Asianism. Finally, it analyzes how Jiang's lyrical vision was occasioned by, and confined to, historical contingencies. It suggests that, because of the contested forces his works and life brought into play, Jiang dramatizes the composition of Chinese modernity at its most treacherous.
Wen-Chin Chang
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801453311
- eISBN:
- 9780801454516
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801453311.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter focuses on the migration history of contemporary Yunnanese Muslims in Burma and their Islamic transnationalism. The narrators relate their marginality in Burma, owing to both their ...
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This chapter focuses on the migration history of contemporary Yunnanese Muslims in Burma and their Islamic transnationalism. The narrators relate their marginality in Burma, owing to both their ethnicity and their religion, and talk about how they deal with social and religious discrimination through Islamic networking beyond Burma. The narrators, who are located in both Burma and Taiwan, employ various motifs and strategies to overcome obstacles and adversities in order to reach their goals. Moreover, they thread together two common themes referred to by James Clifford—“roots” and “routes”—to portray how they understand their life trajectories in relation to time, localities, peoples, and their multiple roles or positions. The chapter examines the elements that connect diasporic Yunnanese Muslims across a wide range of places and distinguish them from Yunnanese Han and other Muslim groups. It shows that their connection to Islam and their Chinese identity help strengthen Yunnanese Muslims' communal and transnational Hui networks and also underscore their ethnic boundary vis-à-vis other Muslim groups.Less
This chapter focuses on the migration history of contemporary Yunnanese Muslims in Burma and their Islamic transnationalism. The narrators relate their marginality in Burma, owing to both their ethnicity and their religion, and talk about how they deal with social and religious discrimination through Islamic networking beyond Burma. The narrators, who are located in both Burma and Taiwan, employ various motifs and strategies to overcome obstacles and adversities in order to reach their goals. Moreover, they thread together two common themes referred to by James Clifford—“roots” and “routes”—to portray how they understand their life trajectories in relation to time, localities, peoples, and their multiple roles or positions. The chapter examines the elements that connect diasporic Yunnanese Muslims across a wide range of places and distinguish them from Yunnanese Han and other Muslim groups. It shows that their connection to Islam and their Chinese identity help strengthen Yunnanese Muslims' communal and transnational Hui networks and also underscore their ethnic boundary vis-à-vis other Muslim groups.
Russell M. Jeung, Seanan S. Fong, and Helen Jin Kim
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190875923
- eISBN:
- 9780190875954
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190875923.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The conclusion provides a summary of the book chapters, including the genealogy, transmission, translation, and yi and li of Chinese American familism. The conclusion discusses the theoretical ...
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The conclusion provides a summary of the book chapters, including the genealogy, transmission, translation, and yi and li of Chinese American familism. The conclusion discusses the theoretical implications of employing a liyi framework to understand Chinese Americans and Asian Americans in relation to religious, ethnic, gendered, and sexual identities, as well as mental health and political organizing. The authors explore the implications for employing the theory of liyi in current debates about the category of religion as well as the study of religious “nones,” especially among American millennials. Future directions are discussed.Less
The conclusion provides a summary of the book chapters, including the genealogy, transmission, translation, and yi and li of Chinese American familism. The conclusion discusses the theoretical implications of employing a liyi framework to understand Chinese Americans and Asian Americans in relation to religious, ethnic, gendered, and sexual identities, as well as mental health and political organizing. The authors explore the implications for employing the theory of liyi in current debates about the category of religion as well as the study of religious “nones,” especially among American millennials. Future directions are discussed.
Tan See Kam
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888208852
- eISBN:
- 9789888313518
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888208852.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The Introduction contextualizes Tsui Hark’s Peking Opera Blues both in the light of the many struggles for democracy in modern China since Republican times, and in the light of his own filmmaking ...
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The Introduction contextualizes Tsui Hark’s Peking Opera Blues both in the light of the many struggles for democracy in modern China since Republican times, and in the light of his own filmmaking career. It suggests that politically committed youth, and so-called revolutionaries, seeking social transformations in the post-imperial China depicted in this film, may well have parallels in contemporary Hong Kong especially post 1997. In addition to highlighting Tsui’s specific, and well-received, contributions in cinema, some social, political and cultural contexts, particularly related to questions of Chinese identity, culturation, citizenship and colonialism, together with some of the issues specific to contemporary Hong Kong and Sinophonic filmmaking, are raised in order to prepare the ground for situating five different acts of reading film (through multiple theoretical and analytical lenses) in the chapters to follow.Less
The Introduction contextualizes Tsui Hark’s Peking Opera Blues both in the light of the many struggles for democracy in modern China since Republican times, and in the light of his own filmmaking career. It suggests that politically committed youth, and so-called revolutionaries, seeking social transformations in the post-imperial China depicted in this film, may well have parallels in contemporary Hong Kong especially post 1997. In addition to highlighting Tsui’s specific, and well-received, contributions in cinema, some social, political and cultural contexts, particularly related to questions of Chinese identity, culturation, citizenship and colonialism, together with some of the issues specific to contemporary Hong Kong and Sinophonic filmmaking, are raised in order to prepare the ground for situating five different acts of reading film (through multiple theoretical and analytical lenses) in the chapters to follow.
Elizabeth Sinn
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9789888390847
- eISBN:
- 9789888455010
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888390847.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Wang Tao, a prominent member of the Chinese literati, arrived in Hong Kong in 1862 and found it a baffling place, inhabited not only by foreigners but also by southern Chinese, who were (in his view) ...
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Wang Tao, a prominent member of the Chinese literati, arrived in Hong Kong in 1862 and found it a baffling place, inhabited not only by foreigners but also by southern Chinese, who were (in his view) uncivilized, unable to speak his dialect and possessing weird tastes in food. Merchants, who belonged to an inferior class in China, played a prominent role in society, flaunting their wealth and status with little restraint, funding charitable works, claiming political influence over the colonial government and earning respect from officials in China and Chinese overseas. During his 20 or more years in Hong Kong Wang Tao came to terms with the colony. He made history by founding the first Chinese-language newspaper, the Xunhuan ribao. He came to appreciate the different versions of Chineseness that had at first bewildered him, and molded new versions of Chineseness out of this jumbled assortment of Chinese identity.Less
Wang Tao, a prominent member of the Chinese literati, arrived in Hong Kong in 1862 and found it a baffling place, inhabited not only by foreigners but also by southern Chinese, who were (in his view) uncivilized, unable to speak his dialect and possessing weird tastes in food. Merchants, who belonged to an inferior class in China, played a prominent role in society, flaunting their wealth and status with little restraint, funding charitable works, claiming political influence over the colonial government and earning respect from officials in China and Chinese overseas. During his 20 or more years in Hong Kong Wang Tao came to terms with the colony. He made history by founding the first Chinese-language newspaper, the Xunhuan ribao. He came to appreciate the different versions of Chineseness that had at first bewildered him, and molded new versions of Chineseness out of this jumbled assortment of Chinese identity.
David Der-wei Wang
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231170468
- eISBN:
- 9780231538572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231170468.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the artistic transition made by Tai Jingnong from literature to calligraphy amid a mid-century crisis. A native of Anhui, Tai belonged to the May Fourth generation aspiring for ...
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This chapter discusses the artistic transition made by Tai Jingnong from literature to calligraphy amid a mid-century crisis. A native of Anhui, Tai belonged to the May Fourth generation aspiring for cultural reform and national rejuvenation through literature. During the early years of Nationalist rule in Taiwan, he tried to find solace in figures such as Tao Qian and Ruan Jin, both witnesses to a tumultuous time in medieval China, the Wei-jin era. This chapter explains how Tai, by turning to the graphic “surface” rather than the textual depth of writing, came to a different understanding of artistic agency and historical representation. Where literature betrays its finitude, the performance of writing generates new configurations of history, nationhood, and “Chinese” identity. The chapter explores three issues: the dissemination of modern Chinese writing in visual terms, calligraphy and its geopolitical implications, and the poetics of “muted” Sinophone articulations.Less
This chapter discusses the artistic transition made by Tai Jingnong from literature to calligraphy amid a mid-century crisis. A native of Anhui, Tai belonged to the May Fourth generation aspiring for cultural reform and national rejuvenation through literature. During the early years of Nationalist rule in Taiwan, he tried to find solace in figures such as Tao Qian and Ruan Jin, both witnesses to a tumultuous time in medieval China, the Wei-jin era. This chapter explains how Tai, by turning to the graphic “surface” rather than the textual depth of writing, came to a different understanding of artistic agency and historical representation. Where literature betrays its finitude, the performance of writing generates new configurations of history, nationhood, and “Chinese” identity. The chapter explores three issues: the dissemination of modern Chinese writing in visual terms, calligraphy and its geopolitical implications, and the poetics of “muted” Sinophone articulations.
