Asia Pacific studies in an age of global modernity

This article argues that the end of the Cold War and the attendant globalization of capital call for a reconfiguration of areas, including the Pacific, has played a significant part in the ideological formation of globalization. The resultant formation is ‘global modernity’, representing at once the globalization and the fragmentation of capitalist modernity. The article discusses five intellectual responses to this situation in studies of Asia and the Pacific that propose new configurations to substitute for earlier area studies: civilizations, oceans, diasporas, Asianization of Asia studies, and indigenous studies. It argues that these substitutes themselves are tied in with new formations of power, and should not be taken at face value. Most important is to remain attentive to configurations from the bottom up that are products of struggles against oppression and exploitation.     

中国丧服的尚白礼俗

丧服指丧礼中亲属们根据与死者的亲疏关系而穿着的各种服饰。晚辈为长者服丧穿用的丧服称孝服。由于民族风俗及宗教信仰等因素，丧服的颜色有所不同。正如法国作家拉伯雷所说，大部分国家的丧服颜色通常为黑色，这是因为许多国家都以黑色表示悲哀，以白色表示喜悦和快乐。[第一段]     

Rhodo Flower Blooms in April Chinese Artists Group attends the Spring of April Arts Festival in DPRK

In April 2009, the Chinese Artists Group, consisting of 150 artists, attended the Spring of April Arts Festival in Pyongyang, Democratic People＇s Republic of Korea.     

中国丧服尚白礼俗

丧服指丧礼中亲属们根据与死者的亲疏关系而穿着的各种服饰,晚辈为长者服丧穿用的丧服称孝服。由于民族风俗及宗教信仰等因素,丧服的颜色有所不同。正如法国作家拉伯雷所说,大部分国家的丧服颜色通常为黑色,这是因为许多国家都以黑色表示悲哀,     

Korean wave: Enjoyment factors of Korean dramas in the U.S.

From a disposition theory perspective, successful dramas are driven by the development of strong dispositions towards characters. Thus, disposition theory logic is used to predict the enjoyment of American viewers when watching two different Korean dramas (Personal Preference and Secret Garden). The influence of sex, affective dispositions, empathy, open-mindedness, and past exposure to Korean culture on audience enjoyment is measured. The findings support the basic premise of disposition theory that the development of strong dispositions towards characters is needed in order to develop emotional responses necessary for successful dramas. Disposition theory can be used to explain viewing dispositions in order to predict enjoyment cross-culturally.     

Between tradition and modernity: Social work-related change processes in the Jewish ultra-orthodox society in Israel

The present research attempts to present the experience of the encounter between Jewish ultra-orthodox society – a closed and isolated group – and social work – with its cultural, western, secular and professional characteristics. The study explores this topic by describing the work and experience of the social workers who treat this population, and the encounter's meaning for them. This experiential and challenging encounter is exemplified through different social work contents such as: child sex abuse, miscarriage, adolescent girls in distress, mental health, divorce, etc. A qualitative-phenomenological approach was adopted in this study. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 social workers with different religious identities in daily contact with ultra-orthodox Jewish clients across the country. Participants included 6 men and 27 women. A total of 9 participants defined themselves as ultra-orthodox, 13 were national religious, and 11 were secular, with 1–20 years’ experience. Three major themes emerged: 1. Community and social change processes in the ultra-orthodox society. 2. Treatment content-related change processes in the ultra-orthodox society. 3. Change processes in the ultra-orthodox society and the role of social work in the ultra-orthodox-public environment. Multicultural sensitivity is the starting point when relating to the encounter between an ultra-orthodox client and a social worker. An awareness of the social worker's personal values, acquaintance with the client's personal and community values, and the encounter between them are crucial factors for treatment success.     

Reception of Stuart Hall in the Korean intellectual field

After Stuart Hall’s death in 2014, Korean newspapers ran detailed obituaries praising him as an influential British intellectual figure. The broad media attention appears to be unusual, given that he maintained a relatively unknown presence in the Korean cultural fields compared with other theorists. This work examines how and in which context Hall’s writings have been cited, or not cited, and emphasized in the Korean cultural studies. The incorporation of Hall’s writings into the resources of the academic field entangled him in scholarly rituals of parochial citations and applications, resulting in the fragmentation and de-contextualization of Hall’s overall problem. The selective focus on and occasional absence of certain aspects among his intellectual and political legacies may demonstrate how imported British cultural studies have, or not yet, been indigenized and localized in Korean cultural and political contexts.     

关于“皕宋楼事件”罪责之我见

皕宋楼主人陆心源（1834—1894）,字刚父,号存斋,晚称潜园老人。浙江归安人（今属湖州市）。他存世的年代正是中国封建社会末期即将进入近代的时候,是从鸦片战争到甲午战争历史发生巨变,清廷已日渐走向衰弱的时候。他在咸丰九年（1859年）获取举人身份后,即在大吏的提携下,从军功的渠道走向仕途。曾任广东知府、南韶兵备道、福建盐法道等中层官员。     

Somewhere in the Middle: The Measurement of Third Culture

This study explores the concept of “third culture,” which has not been tested by quantified measures since it was introduced. This study develops the 10-item measurement of third culture based on three dimensions—equality, commonality, and transcendence. Two hundred and fifteen international married individuals from 42 countries participated in a self-administered email survey. The findings indicated that the new scale is reliable and functions as a single dimension instead of as three subdimensions. Suggestions for future study as well as several implications on theory and methodology are discussed, drawing on the experience of this study.     

A Chinese in the new world: television dramas,global cities,and travels to modernity

Abstract

After having lain dormant for some 20 years during 1973 and 1991, the Singaporean film industry is experiencing a revival. Films produced since the early 1990s have been resolutely ‘local’ in their portrayals in an effort to ground this emergent cinematic modernity. Only a handful of these films have, however, received any international attention; most remain ‘too local’, ‘too colloquial’ to be exported further afield. This paper explores those visions or versions of the local presented in contemporary films from Singapore that simultaneously manufacture a brand of foreignness assimilable by international audiences. Through an overview of films from the revival period, this paper will show that the images that do travel successfully overseas are those that portray the dark side to Singapore’s road to economic modernization, the failed processes of an Asianized modernity. It is these images, representing one vision of an ‘authentic’ social reality, that is recognizable by international audiences in the context of previous successes by Asian films utilizing a shared form of (local) expression. My question is whether we can read these images as a particular kind of ‘slang’ – a vagabond expression that represents a filmic vernacular that also strategically invokes a cinematic modernity for the Singaporean film industry. This argument may extend to other (emergent) Asian cinemas that also participate in the production of this particular brand of foreignness. The paper will therefore provide some initial speculations towards the regionalization of cinema and ask whether such a move might be desirable and what its purpose might be.     

A Tale of Two Funerals: Civic Ritual,Public Mourning and Community Participation in Late Nineteenth-Century Middlesbrough

In the late nineteenth century, British funerals became increasingly rational as they began to strip away the excesses of Victorian custom. Yet imposing public funerals for well-known figures continued to take place. Historians have previously underestimated the entertainment value which a public funeral could offer. As this article demonstrates, attendance at such funerals could only be guaranteed if the occasion held particular emotional resonance, personal appeal or came with a degree of novelty. Focusing on Middlesbrough in 1889, the circumstances surrounding two particular funerals are considered in order to understand both local shifts in values and priorities concerning death ritual, as an indicator of a broader national trend.     

Yoko's Story and the battle of memory: fragmentation and suture of national memory and gender in the age of globalization

Abstract

Since its publication in 1986, Yoko Watkins’ So Far from the Bamboo Grove has been used as a textbook by some primary and middle schools in the US. The book is an autobiographical novel about the experiences of a Japanese girl named Yoko who returns to her home country with her mother and sister with an anti‐war and peace message. However, it became the center of attention and was referred to as the Yoko incident when, in January 2007, it became known to the Koreans that the book was being used as a textbook by American students and contained a story about Japanese women raped by Korean men at the end of Japanese colonial rule. It immediately incited outcries from the Korean media and online communities, complaining that any suggestion of the rape of Japanese women by Korean men at the end of Japanese colonial rule is a grave distortion of history and a reversal of the perpetrator and the victim. This paper analyzes how the memory structure of the Koreans regarding colonialism is based on a victim nationalism and how Korean feminism has intervened in the fragmentation and suture of national memory since the 1990s. Furthermore, the paper reveals how American multiculturalism turns a blind eye to, or even promotes, the clashing of collective identities in the age of globalization. The so called Yoko incident illustrates how the competition of East Asian countries for a historical position of ‘victim’ in a battle of memory in the US not only strengthens exclusive nationalism in the area but also connives in ‘Americanization of world justice’.     

Mandarin lessons: modernity,colonialism and Chinese cultural nationalism in the Dutch East Indies,c.1900s

The Chinese Association in the Dutch East Indies, known locally as the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan (THHK) was first established in Batavia in 1900. A key objective of the THHK’s foundation was the creation of modern schools instructing in Mandarin for local Chinese students. At the turn of the 20th century, this odd choice of instructional language led to highly charged debates about languages, pedagogical efficacy, practicality, modernity-tradition and cultural authenticity. Using underutilized source materials in the local Malay-Hokkien vernacular, this article revisits these debates amongst the Chinese in the Dutch colony. This article interrogates the transparency of common ethnicity in analyses of Chinese nationalisms that developed outside of continental China. Drawing on the concept of “literary governance” as well as comparative work by scholars on Indian and continental Chinese nationalisms, it demonstrates the significance of the colonial context which provoked the THHK to adopt the vocabulary of modernity in reworking progressive ideas circulating in displaced Chinese nationalistic circles. Notwithstanding the THHK’s promotion of Mandarin, such reworking was accomplished through vigorous acts of transliteration and translation in the hybridized Malay-Hokkien vernacular. The THHK was hardly on the receiving end of nationalistic influences emanating from the proverbial China core but was an active agent in what has been described as a “global moment of Chinese nationalism.” The case of the THHK demonstrates the need for a finer understanding of multivalent histories of Chinese nationalisms as well as how these histories intersected with those of European colonialism in Southeast Asia.     

"Asterix Repelling the Invader": Globalization and Nationalism in News Coverage of Jose Bove and the McDonald's Incident

This article examines Associated Press and Agence France-Presse wire service coverage of Frenchman Jose Bove's 1999 ransacking of a Millau, France, McDonald's, as well as his subsequent trial. News media coverage of this incident represents an opportunity to examine deeper issues surrounding globalization, nationalism, and the media's-in this case, international news agencies'-role in constructing and maintaining both. Analysis suggests that both services covered the Bove incidents similarly, downplaying the broader context of corporate capitalism and the global movement to resist it, while elevating Bove to be a key representative of the movement. At the same time that they anointed Bove as a French icon (contributing to "Bovemania"), the wire services constructed a comical caricature of him, which ultimately discredits the activists and the movement he represents.     

Affirming conflict and identity in the Korean Peace Park (DMZ) proposals

Abstract

According to their advocates, Peace Parks represent a real and symbolic hope for peace and reconciliation. Peace Parks both create a buffer and a “bridge” for cooperation to generate peace. The South Korean government and elite-led green NGOs are placing the DMZ military buffer zone as a “soft power” Peace Park instrument for peace between the two Korea's. This paper argues that the conventional approaches to explaining the Korean DMZ Peace Park initiatives/proposals fail to address the underlying national identity questions and narratives. These conventional approaches can potentially reinforce conditions for inter-Korean hostility. This is because inter-Korean hostility is based on ongoing contestations from each Korea over what counts as the historically authentic and unified Korean heritage/identity. Contests are also based upon which of the Korea's has the legitimate right to monopolize these master-narratives of what counts as genuine Korean identity. Further investigations of the practices and processes of (South) Korean identity construction through inter-cultural tensions between the two Korea's need to be addressed before a Peace Park as concept and policy can move away from the initiatives that potentially reinforce these contested identity constructions.     

The construction of national identity in South Korea and the tradition of masculinity in Korean Abstract Painting

ABSTRACT

Korean Modern Art History began to be produced in the 1970s, when Western Modernist Art History, based on Formalism, was introduced as a matrix to map the ‘evolution’ of 20th century Korean Art. Korean modern art history is based in the same paradigm as the West, beginning with Impressionism and ‘ending’ with Abstract Expressionism. First introduced to the country from the West immediately after the Korean War, Korean Abstract Expressionism is now deemed as South Korea’s ultimate ‘progressive’ and ‘modern’ art form, a ‘Korean’ painting style combining the Western art form with traditional artistic concepts of ‘Scholarly Painting’ (muninhwa). Japanese‐influenced painting styles originating in the colonial period (1910–45) are rejected as ‘non‐authentic.’ The problem is that Scholarly Painting was a gender and class specific art born from the rigid Confucian culture of pre‐modern Korea, and thus its revival as an ‘ultimate modern’ and ‘Korean’ form has the consequence of locating traditionally‐gendered notions of art and artist at the core of the South’s modern art. This essay uses a Semiotic approach to deconstruct this gendered modernist rhetoric by tracing the emergence of the sign ‘Koreaness’ in South Korean modern art, showing how it is defined within Korean Abstract Painting as an ‘ultimate Korean sign’ and how its use of anti‐Japanese rhetoric covers up the traumatic history of the Korean War.