The White Water Terrace and Dongba Culture

The White Water Terrace, located in a valley in Shangri-La County, Yunnan Province, forms the second largest natural limestone terrace in the world. When I arrived at the White Water Terrace-one of the destinations for my trekking adventure, I lodged in a resort featuring Dongba Culture. The resort is set against green-covered mountains and faces the terrace. The resort gate is decorated with Dongba pictographic characters. I walked through a winding alley and in its end are rows of woo…     

A modern Odyssey on the Ancient Trade Route

For thousands of years,only humans and horses treaded the mountains of Southwest China as they follwed an ancient patheway through the Chinese hiterlands and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.[第一段]     

The Art of Stone： Records of Ethnic History of Guizhou

Guizhou Province, located in southwest China, boasts numerous mountains and valleys. Over the sweep of history, local people have created many calligraphic and painting works on cliffs and rocks, leaving much information about the culture and traditions of the ancient society.[第一段]     

Seal-shaped Houses in the Old Town of Miao Ethnic Group

The old town of Zhenyuan, standing among high mountains with a long river winding through it, is a strategically important town in southwest China. In ancient times, it was located on a road linking Southeast Asian nations and the capital of the Chinese Empire. As an old town and gateway in eastern Guizhou Province which is dwelled by Miao people, Zhenyuan enjoyed many historical remains and the most famous is Black Dragon Cave. In fact, it is not merely a single cave, but refers to a lar…     

ANCIENT PAGODAS IN BEIJING

Pagodas, an architectural type unique to Buddhist cultures, are widely distributed over the vast land of China, available in high mountains and deep valleys, ancient temples, snow-covered plateaus and the depth of deserts. Pagodas were not indigenous to ancient China but introduced together with Buddhism.     

Historic Town of Xuanhua

Driving northwestward from Beijing and after crossing over the Great Wall at Badaling Pass, you will soon arrive at Xuanhua, a historic town nestling in a valley in the eastern part of Yinshan Mountain Range in the northeast of Hebei Province.[第一段]     

MIAO PEOPLE CELEBRATES NEW YEAR BY OFFERING SACRIFICE TO TREES

Miao people is an ethnic group with a long history and mainly dwell in Asian countries like China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. China is the birthplace of Miao ethnic group. They originally dwelled in north China but later moved to the depth of mountains in southwest China in order to escape wars. Today Miao people are mostly distributed in mountainous areas in Hunan,     

The Logic of Conquest: Tripoli, 1289; Acre, 1291; why not Sis, 1293?

In 1289, Tripoli was taken from the Franks by the Mamluk Sultan Qalāwun. In 1291, Qalāwun's son al-Ashraf Khalīl captured Acre, the last capital of the Crusader "kingdom of Jerusalem", and the few surviving Frankish outposts on the Levantine coast were swiftly abandoned. Next in line seemed to be the Armenian kingdom in Cilicia and the Taurus mountains - but it was to be a further 84 years before Sis, the kingdom's capital, was to fall to the Mamluks. It does not seem unreasonable to ask why the Mamluks should have let it survive so long: indeed, how did it survive the 1290s?     

冬雪

多美啊，初雪飘临。它整日整夜那么静静的飘着，撒向山巅，铺满草地，落在生的屋脊，降在逝的坟茔。在一片茫茫之中，只有弯弯曲曲的河流，留下道道黑线，装点出一幅美丽的画图。那叶儿落净的树木，映衬着铅灰色的天空，尽显它枝桠交错，姿态万千。初雪飘落时，何等安宁，多么静谧!万籁无声，把一切声响都化作那柔和的音乐。再也听不见马蹄哒哒，再也听不见车轮辚辚!唯有雪橇的铃声，奏出和谐的音乐，那明快欢乐的节拍就像孩子们的心房，咚咚地跳动。     

House of Netflix: Streaming media and digital lore

This article focuses on the emergence of a nascent streaming industry. The media industry studies conceptualization of “industry lore” can be read during times of transition for media industries. Streaming lore is a re-articulation of existing industry lore accompanying the advent of streaming technology and distribution. Contemporary streaming acts as a site of rupture, wherein industry discourses related to digital media are rendered visible. The article proposes three categories of emergent streaming lore and analyzes their relation to a growing streaming media industry. These categories include (a) Netflix as “quality” streams, (b) the algorithmic audience, and (c) cord-cutters and cord-nevers.     

Measuring globalization-based acculturation in Ladakh: Investigating possible advantages of a tridimensional acculturation scale

Theories and methodologies within acculturation psychology have been advanced in order to capture the complex process of intercultural contact in various contexts. Differentiating globalization-based acculturation from immigrant-based acculturation has broadened the field of acculturation psychology to include groups who are exposed to global cultural streams without international migration. The globalization-based acculturation process in the North Indian region of Ladakh appears to be a tricultural encounter, suggesting an addendum to the bidimensional acculturation model for this group (and perhaps for others as well). This study explores the development, usability, and validity of a tridimensional acculturation measure aiming to capture the multicultural orientations initiated by the process of globalization in Ladakh. The tridimensional acculturation scale was found to fit the data significantly better compared to the bidimensional scale. Implications for the study of globalization-based acculturation are discussed.     

Conflict-induced migration in Kashmir: A phenomenological study of lived experiences of non-migrant Kashmiri Pandits

This interpretative phenomenological study addressed the question, “what are the lived experience of Non-Migrant Kashmiri Pandits who have witnessed the mass migration during the insurgency period of 1989 in Indian administered Kashmir?” Literature indicated that the insurgency of 1989 in Kashmir resulted in the mass migration of the Kashmiri Pandit population from the valley to Jammu and other parts of India. Current academic discourse about migrant Kashmiri Pandits highlights their social, economical, and psychological repercussions of migration however there is minimal exact work on non-migrant Kashmiri Pandits. This study captured the lived experiences of the non-migrant Kashmiri Pandit population. From the analysis of the data, four themes emerged were; A period of Victimization and Uncertainty, Perceived Isolation, Potential threat to Identity and, Kashmiriyat: Co-existence and brotherhood. Key findings from the study found that migration has caused severe injury to social, cultural, and religious identities of non-migrant Kashmiri Pandit. However, the inter-group relations with Kashmiri Muslim community was found to be positive source of living in Kashmir     

The Almohads and the Qur’ān of Uthm ān: The Legacy of the Umayyads of Cordoba in the Twelfth Century Maghrib

The sixth/twelfth century geographer, al-Idrīsī, alludes to the presence of the so-called Qur’ān of Uthmān in the great Mosque of Cordoba and a ceremony in which it was brought out and paraded daily after the Umayyads proclaimed themselves caliphs in 317/929-30. Around 552/1157, the same Qur’ān appeared in the processions of the Almohads, a Ma?mūda Berber dynasty from the High Atlas mountains, who also claimed to be caliphs. Ibn ?ā?ib al-?alāt, al-Marrākushī and the unknown author of the ?ulal al-mawshiyya, who describe the Almohad parades, all mention the Qur’ān's Uthmānic antecedents and possession by the Umayyads. Using this as a starting point, this paper will explore the image the Umayyads projected in the Maghrib, and the later significance of Cordoban Umayyad prototypes to the ruling Mu’minid dynasty of the Almohads. This contributes to a larger discussion of the evolution of a paradigm of imperial power in the Islamic west and its manipulation to legitimise a succession of dynasties whose actual origins, ambitions and praxis diverged widely.     

The eloquence of the taciturn: an essay on Hou Hsiao‐Hsien

Abstract

Dust in the Wind, a color film set in the verdant mountains of Taiwan, includes two scenes almost identical to the black‐and‐white and silent films by the Lumières, shot at the end of the nineteenth century: Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat and Passage Through a Railway Tunnel. As Hou’s mise‐en‐scène consists of the fixed camera angle with its long takes, it is the means of transportation that brings motion to the film, controlling dramatic elements of each work. The luxury cars, which appear in his first three romantic comedies, symbolize the rich and the motorbike the common people. The drivers are all young women, but an automobile cannot be a setting for love. In Daughter of the Nile and Goodbye South, Goodbye, the cars offer no protection to men trying to escape. Compared with the thematic negativity that the automobile possess in Hou’s universe, the motion of the passing trains, taken from many angles, offers rich and profound significations. When the camera is inside the train, the protagonists are taciturn, such as the two adolescents in Dust in the Wind who show their intimacy with each other without saying words. When the camera is next to the tracks or on the platform, the situation changes. In A Time to Live, A Time to Die, Hou depicts the grandmother sitting next to her grandson at a shop by the train and sipping sweet ice while behind them passes a freight train that emphasizes the anxious solitude of the old woman exiled from her homeland. A sublime depiction of the sense of powerlessness of both the deaf‐mute photographer and his family before a passing train is the scene on the deserted platform in A City of Sadness. In Café Lumière, the young woman and her friend in the passing train recognize how valuable they are to each other without saying words. This taciturnity suggests a certain kind of love that needs no sexual language.     

An initial analysis of the effects of face and concern for OTHER in chinese interpersonal communication

The present study investigated two of the most frequently used concepts in Chinese communication processes—face and other. A popular TV series in China was selected as the primary context in which face and other were analyzed. It was found that face and other played important roles in Chinese interpersonal communication. Specifically, the two dimensions of face, lian and mian, conveyed different messages in the everyday discourse of the Chinese. The notion of lian used in its negative form was related to a persons moral character and personal integrity. Mian, however, was used in compliance gaining, conflict mediation, and requesting. Results also revealed that the concept of other was important in self reproach, decision making, behavior regulation, and effectiveness of requests.     

The left‐wing movement in Malaya,Singapore and Borneo in the 1960s: ‘an era of hope or devil’s decade’?

Abstract

The 1960s was a period of Leftwing resurgence in the world. As Britain was disengaging from its empire, the ethnically plural societies she had generated within her protectorates and colonies in Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei threw up anti‐colonial movements that began struggling towards self‐determination and national independence. These movements manifested the ideologies of communism, socialism, nationalism and communalism. As British imperialism began planning its retreat, the competition for power among the local movements became intense. In Malaya, the largest of the five colonial territories, the communist party launched an armed rebellion in 1948 in the name of national liberation and independence, but made little headway. As Singapore and Malaya were closely linked and ruled, Britain introduced emergency rule in both territories. Most leftwing parties disappeared. Nationalist and communalist parties in Malaya emerged and eventually succeeded in securing national independence from Britain in 1957. Singapore was given a measure of limited self‐government in 1955, while Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei were gradually awakened towards self‐government. Leftwing parties re‐surfaced in Malaya, and in Singapore, Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei in the 1950s and 1960s, and made some headway in parliamentary elections. This paper presents a historical account of their resurgence, which was however short‐lived.     

Global Activist Network involving Asia: global continuation and evolution in Japan

Since Seattle 1999, plenty of summit protests around WTO, G8/20, IMF, WB, COP, and so on happened in each of the different summit sites in the last decade. Such incidents were amazingly accepted because of their mass actions and widespread networks of activists sustaining a series of mass actions. As some researchers argue, those of generating networks are based on horizontality and autonomy, and they have already prefigured a powerful model for (re)organizing society. However, on the other hand, some researchers also argue the major shortcomings. In theory, the ‘Global Activist Network’ has been constructed since Seattle, although in practice there has still been a serious spatial gap between the Western part of the world and the other side of the world. Actually, the global activist network has excluded Asia. However, in 2008, the G8 summit was held in Japan. This paper, thus, aims to show that the global activist network since Seattle, which was limited to Europe and North America, has expanded to involve Asia through the 2008 G8 summit in Japan. The 2000 G8 in Japan was right after the Seattle in 1999, yet, due to its single-issue and national character of the movements, globally expanding networks didn't reach Japan. However, movements around the 2003 anti-Iraq war brought in the autonomous character of the alter-globalization movement and referred to the legacy of autonomous activisms. During the 2008 G8, some autonomous activists in Japan took over the diversity of tactics and networks of activists inherited since PGA, DAN and ‘Dissent!’.     

An interview with Marie-José Mondzain: what is an image?

ABSTRACT

Marie-Jose Mondzain is one of the major philosophers writing about image, iconography, and representation today. In this interview, she discusses a few of the central ideas in her approach to and thinking about the nature of image and image-making as they bear upon the emergence of subjectivity and visibility in general. According to Mondzain, images are not visual objects we may or may not see; rather they are the site where the visible and its invisibility crisscross each other in opening the field of presence. Images, as Mondzain says in the interview, are cracks or leaks in being. They are where lights first come in and where man and beings are born to each other in their being-in-the world, that is, in their truth. Moving beyond historical and theoretical reflections, Mondzain turns to discuss things and scenes of mass media of late, addressing issues of pleasure, anxiety, desire, and the like, wherein ideologies, power, and the lure of images can be seen to intersect with our everyday life that has become irrevocably one of passive mobility. To the point at every turn, her answers to questions in this interview provide a glimpse to her forceful thinking and insights.     

Inter-ethnic preferences and ethnic hierarchies in the former soviet union

One-thousand two-hundred and ninety university students from twenty-seven ethnic?national groups across six locations in the former Soviet Union (Novopolotsk in Byelorussia, Kharkov in the Ukraine, Moscow and Nizniy Novgorod in Russia, Ufa in the Bashkir Autonomous Republic and Ulan-Ude in the Buryat Autonomous Republic) participated in 1991–1992 in a survey investigating the existence of ingroup preference in inter-ethnic contact, ingroup consensus on an ethnic hierarchy of outgroups and the measure of intergroup consensus on an ethnic hierarchy among the ethnic?national groups in each location. Hypotheses about ingroup preference, ethnic hierarchies and consensus were derived from realistic group conflict theory, social identity theory and from the assumption that outgroup preferences reflect considerations of the status effects of intergroup contact. It appeared that the last type of hypothesis could explain most of the results.     

Nobility,women and historical narratives of the crusades and the latin east

Historical narratives of the crusades and Latin settlement in the Levant, like other medieval literature, provide slim details about women. In medieval society Latin literary education was dominated by a predominantly male and ecclesiastical hierarchy, which reflected the views of a patriarchal social system and marginalised the public role of women. Crusade narratives in particular have been criticised for their negative attitude towards women, mirroring a lack of ecclesiastical enthusiasm at their involvement in the crusade movement. Histories about crusading and events in the Latin East were often written for, and in some cases by, the lay nobility who took part in crusades and settled in the holy land. These texts were sometimes used as propaganda to encourage nobles to take the cross, and much of the imagery within them had didactic elements. In the case of women, they provided models for behaviour according to social and marital status. A consistently negative portrayal of women was doubtless impossible due to the number of important noblewomen who took the cross, and their value in cementing political alliances between western Europe and the Latin East through marriage. This article contends that it is the complex links between crusade narratives and the nobility, in terms of participation and patronage, audience, subject matter and values – crusade as a “noble” pursuit – which helps to explain the discrepancy between established ecclesiastical views and the portrayal of women in historical narratives about crusading and settlement in the East. In order to establish this idea effectively, several main themes must be addressed, including the role of crusade texts within the context of contemporary noble culture, and crusade narratives as source material for noble values concerning women. To begin, however, it is necessary to provide some background on attitudes towards women and crusade, as well as the concept of nobility and the noblewoman's place in medieval society.