Baby-Boomers to ‘Beanstalkers’

ABSTRACT

In the 1950s and early 1960s, the British teenager was presented as a symbol of generational rebellion in the popular press, social investigations, and much political debate. We draw on oral histories, newspapers and the archives of prominent social surveys to question this presentation. By examining how working-class teenagers and their parents experienced and remembered the post-war years, we identify a disjuncture between the literature on moral panic and the widespread evidence of intergenerational cooperation between parents and children. Many working-class parents, enjoying newfound economic security, felt able to encourage their children to enjoy more adventurous lives.     

Chinese Acupuncture Added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List

On November 16, 2010, Chinese acupuncture was proclaimed as a Masterpiece of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity at the 5th UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee     

Artistic Finale to China-France Cultural Years

The imposing oil painting “Bonaparte Crossing the AIps at Grand-Saint- Bernard Pass” by French portraitist Jacques-Louis David, Antoine-Francois Dezarrois＇ chalcographic rendition of Leonardo da Vinci＇s mysterious “Mona Lisa”, and soul-stirring streetscapes of Paris over the last century captured by master photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Marc Riboud have been shipped to the National Art Museum of China in downtown Beijing, to the delight of art lovers.     

Designer Brings Cultural Awareness to Fashion

The appointment was delayed. I didn‘t want to disturb Hu Xiaodan when I saw he was so busy with his work. Sporting a crew cut and lightweight casual clothes, he looked more like a university professor than the ““““the pride of Chinese fashion designers““““. It was hard to picture him as the cenfroversial figure in the circle of fashion design, and he spoke with quiet conviction about his dedication to ““““borrowing““““ ideas from the Chinese culture.     

Cultural History’s Absent Audience

ABSTRACT

This article reconsiders Peter Mandler’s essay ‘The Problem with Cultural History,’ and the complexities of locating evidence of culture’s impact upon ordinary people, or ‘throw.’ A brief examination of the history of market research and public opinion surveys in the 20th century offers important lessons for the cultural historian faced with locating and interpreting evidence of audience response that is either rarely there, or more disturbingly, rarely meaningful by our current standards of interpretation. Ultimately this paper asks of my fellow cultural historians: Does culture matter as much as we cultural historians want it to?     

Do EFL Teachers ‘Critically’ Engage in Cultural Awareness? A Mixed-Method Investigation

ABSTRACT

This study explored 150 EFL teachers’ perceptions of critical cultural awareness (CCA) considering their teaching context, academic degree, and professional development programs. The participants all completed the CCA questionnaire, fifteen of whom also sat a semi-structured qualitative interview. Our findings showed, a) EFL teachers’ perceptions of CCA located at a medium level, b) the PhD participants showed significantly higher engagement in CCA than their BA and MA counterparts, c) private language institute teachers reported higher levels of CCA than their state-run school counterparts and d) local professional development programs did not emphasize culture teaching in general and CCA in particular.     

What the ‘Third World’ means to me

Abstract

This essay offers an experience of how the author comes to understand the terms ‘Third World’ in a specific social, historical, and political context in Taiwan. For the author, his deepest understandings of the ‘Third World’ did not come from theoretical readings, but from several concrete personal experiences.     

Reform of China’s Cultural Undertakings

CHINA’S reform of culturalundertakings started in 1979,when the Communist Partyof China(CPC)proposed a generalreform and opening to the outsideworld and began China’s economicrestructuring.The key and difficultreform was in the operation of per-forming troupes.The reform under-went four stages.     

Interpreting Vienna Cafe Culture‘from A to Z’

The Viennese publisher Christian Brandstatter spent half his life in hometown cafe since he couldn't find a better way to pass the time.In this article,he inter...     

How to understand Stuart Hall’s “identity” properly?

Some scholars specializing in racial issues attempt to explain ethnic “identity” and its awakening as the intrinsic logic that runs through Stuart Hall’s academic life. My paper disagrees with this explanation and finds three problems in it: first, it has not fully understood the applicable object of Hall’s politics of “identity,” thus it leads to the inappropriate employment of the theory; second, it does not fully recognize the involvement of Hall’s academic research, and exaggerates the effect of Hall's early experience on the development of his academic thoughts; third finally, there is a tendency to use essentialist reductionism in the attempt to find an essential Hall or the essence of Hall. I argue that one needs to comprehend three key words in order to understand the “guarantee-free” Hall, that is, “resistance,” “openness” and “articulation.” Therefore, if one wants to grasp Hall’s “identity,” one must go back to the social history and its evolving process where Hall existed.     

Exploring the Potential to Expand Cultural Exchange:A Review of CICA’s Past Work

China International CulturalAssociation (CICA) is a nationwide socialgroup under the direct guidance andsupport of Chinese Ministry of Culture.Since its founding on July 3, 1986, CICAaims to enhance understanding andfriendship between Chinese people andpeople of the rest of the world and hasconducted nearly one thousandexchange events and projects, includingperforming arts, design arts, publication,personnel exchange as well as variouskinds of multi-lateral exchange. Thoseevents and proj…     

The representation of ‘Asia’, ‘occupational forces’ and ‘women’ against the backdrop of post‐war Japanese culture: from the system of censorship to the present

This paper is one of the attempts to show how each East‐Asian regional country’s memory of the war has been related to the post‐war literatures and movies restricted by the structure of the Cold War. In particular, this paper takes up the issue of how the structure of Japanese culture after World War II was heavily influenced by the Cold War. When Japan was under the Occupational Forces, Japanese writers and film directors settling on the subject matter of the war were not free from the strain of the systematic censorship by GHQ. Translating into mechanisms of their works using the body or woman (comfort woman) by squarely facing the facts of the East‐Asian history, this paper reconsiders the body of post‐colonial Japan.     

妻子的‘眼睛’

一场突如其来的意外事故,让妻子的眼睛彻底失明了,她的世界从此陷入了黑暗之中.     

‘Bloodhounds as Detectives’

ABSTRACT

This article explores the nineteenth-century origins of the sniffer dog in one of the most notorious homicide investigations in British history, focusing on Scotland Yard's attempts to use the reputed olfactory powers of pure-bred English bloodhounds in the hunt for London's East End serial murderer Jack the Ripper in 1888. This episode has been historiographically overlooked in part because the dogs were never actually deployed. However, the failure to unleash dogs on the Ripper's trail turns out to be critically significant, opening up a space through which the historical contingencies and social meanings of dog-breeding and training practices can be explored and scrutinized. As a crime-solving tool, utilized for the purpose of investigating metropolitan crime, canine detection posed distinct problems. Proponents of bloodhound detection had to contend with various cultural, material and practical challenges, in order to guarantee the canines as reliable hunters in an environment that was contaminated by slum odour.     

China’s Cultural Industry Clusters: Path of Regaining Profit

Over the past years, cultural indus- try clusters mushroomed rapidly all over China, which is partly due to the state＇s policy guidance of encourag- ing cultural industry development. However, among over 2,500 clusters, more than 70% are in a loss, with less than 10% that are making profits.     

Shared Cultural Characteristics Similarities in Malaysia’s Multi-ethnic Society*

The dimension of cultural characteristics is essentially ignored by the growing literature on organizational diversity, focusing on demographic diversity and general perceived similarity instead. This study aims to identify the similarities in cultural characteristics among ethnic groups in Malaysia. Ergo, conducted within the context of interethnic relations in Malaysia based on a phenomenographic approach; thence, found four categories namely the community embeddedness, the survival culture, the conformity culture and the respect culture. These exemplify the interethnic relations based on cultural characteristics and norms similarities. The cultural characteristics similarities between major ethnics in Malaysia in this study are indications of dynamic and interactive exchange occurring between ethnics. The consequences of these findings are discussed and elaborated in this article.