Chinese Studies Commons^™

No Man An Island: The Cinema Of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, James N. Udden

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Hou Hsiao-hsien is arguably the most celebrated Chinese-language film director in the international film festival realm. However, this is not due to an inert cultural tradition so much as to numerous historical/contextual factors – most of all his being from Taiwan -- which together explain the accomplishments of Hou.

從香港想像中國 : 香港南來作家研究 (1937-1949), Guixin Hou

Lingnan Theses

二十世紀三四十年代的香港南來作家在中國現代文學史和香港新文學史上都產生了深遠影響，本文以之為研究對象，所要研究的核心問題是：在這一時間段（1937－1949）， 南來作家在其香港書寫中展現了怎樣的現代民族國家想像？與此相關的問題則是：中國現代文學在香港發生了什麼？它為香港文學帶來了什麼？

論文第一章為〈緒論〉，簡述研究動機、研究目的，討論現有研究概況，提出本文的研究思路及架構。第二至第八章分為上下兩篇，上篇為「文學生產」，包括第二至第三章，重點分析當時香港的文化空間及文學生產。其中，第二章簡述作家因戰爭 幾度南下香港、將香港建成為一個全國性「臨時文化中心」的史實，分析作家們如何利用當時殖民統治下的公共空間，進行多元言說。第三章討論作家們如何利用現代傳媒進行文學生產，塑造現代民族國家這一「想像的共同體」。

下篇為「話語實踐」，包括第四至第八章，重點討論南來作家在文學創作和批評活動中如何實踐民族主義話語與階級／革命話語。第四章討論南來作家現代民族國家想像與土地的關係。第五章分析南來作家作品中對革命的敘述，這種敘述以階級鬥爭為中心，目的在於尋求革命的合法性。第六章集中討論南來作家在香港進行的两次大規模文學論爭，包括「民族形式」論爭與「方言文學」討論，這些論爭都以大眾化為目標，但也存在誤區。第七章專門論述戴望舒、徐遲等幾位現代詩人如何通過寫作向人民和革命靠近，在此過程中逐漸失去「自我」，將「小我」融入「大我」之中。第八章闡釋1948－1949 年間南來作家在香港展開的文藝批判運動，通過批判對文藝界進行意識形態清理，使得「中國現代文學」轉向「中國當代文學」。

最後，本文第九章〈結論〉部分在以上論述的基礎上，總結香港南來作家的現代民族國家想像的基本特點，嘗試對南來作家在文學史上的地位提出個人見解。

三蘇小說研究（1950 年代）, Ka Chun Cheung

Lingnan Theses

本研究會從兩個方向進行討論︰一、）作為報人、知識份子、文化人的高雄與五十 年代報章與文壇（通俗文化及嚴肅文學兩個場域）的關係。二、）以經紀拉、旦仃、石 狗公、史得等筆名寫連載小說的三蘇，其作品與社會、時代的關係。在第一部分的討論 中，除了探討作家與媒體、文化場域的關係外，也會個別討論到作品所涉及的特有問題， 如「三及第」文體於小說創作，及時代文化的意涵。而第二部分的討論，則集中對五十 年代兩類連載小說進行分析，透過文本細讀的方法，結合時代、社會背景進行比對，從 而探討作品在通俗文學的類別中所跨越及達到了的意義和貢獻。最後，就現存有關三蘇 作品資料整理的部分，進行必要的修正及補充。

三蘇（1918-1981），原名高德雄（或名高德熊），香港五、六十年代知名作家，先 後為多家報紙寫社論及連載小說，有筆名三蘇、經紀拉、石狗公、小生姓高、旦仃、周 弓、史得、許德、吳起、凌侶、區品器、禹伯等。對五、六年代的香港社會而言，報張 除了作為一種資訊傳播的媒介，更是流行文化的載體。於一定程度上，更是當時社會東 西文化交流、漸趨國際化的具體表徵。報紙連載便是這個時期特殊的文化產物，深受普 羅大眾歡迎。通俗文學作家中，作品題材之廣、產量之多、語言風格之奇尤以三蘇為箇 中佼佼者。他的創作由四十年代末一直持續到八十年代初，見證香港報業的黃金時代， 同時也是作家本人創作的高峰期。

《說文》籀文與商周古文字關係之研究, Wing Kin Lee

Lingnan Theses

籀文，一般認為出自童蒙識字課本《史籀篇》，故其文字稱為「籀」。然《史籀篇》早亡，迄今能確證為籀文者，僅餘東漢許慎（68－148）《說文解字》（下 稱《說文》）所錄的227 形籀文。

過往，學者對《史籀篇》的作者及成書年代多有研究，但看法並不一致。傳統觀點根據東漢班固（32－92）和許慎的說法，以《史籀篇》為周宣王時太史籀 所作。然而近代王國維（1877－1927）提出新說，他認為史籀並非人名，懷疑《史籀篇》並非作於西周，而是「春秋戰國之間」秦人所作，並進而提出「所謂秦文， 即籀文也」的觀點，以籀文為戰國時秦國通行之文字。此後，學者對此說多有評 述，但至今未有定論。本文旨在結合商、周的甲骨金文和戰國古文字材料，與《說文》籀文作比較分析，重新審視班、許舊說與王國維說，以確定籀文的時代，並 以此為基礎，進而考察《說文》籀文與殷商、西周、春秋、戰國文字所存在的關係。

通過《說文》籀文與古文字材料的逐字系聯和對比，本文發現籀文與西周金文的相合程度最高，二者應為同時期的文字。換言之，傳統以《史籀篇》為西周宣王時作的觀點並不容輕易推翻，王國維把《史籀篇》成書時代推遲的說法似乎未能成立。此外，針對籀文的流傳範圍，本文系聯了籀文與戰國各系古文字材料， 發現籀文在春秋戰國時期固然行用於秦國，但東土六國使用籀文的情況亦甚普 遍，故此，王氏的「秦用籀文」之說並不符合出土古文字材料所反映的實際情況。

中文寫作與世界詩歌 : 北島詩歌研究, Sai Ho Ma

Lingnan Theses

北島 ( 趙振開1949- ) 是當今中國最具代表性的詩人之一，於1970 年開始創作。1978 年，他創辦《今天》及對外發表詩作，與芒克、多多、顧城和舒婷等年青詩人同受注意，被評論界譽為朦朧詩派的重要代表。然而，他的創作經歷不同階段，首先在1980 年他主編的文學刊物《今天》被勒令停刊，其後又經過朦朧詩論爭，作品不斷被批評為晦澀難懂，1989 年後更流亡海外，足跡遍 及歐美等地，直至2001 年才得以短暫歸國探親，現任教於香港中文大學。

本篇論文將北島放入世界文學的視野，透過討論他在不同時期的詩歌創作。論文以宇文所安於1991 年所寫的一篇書評“The Anxiety of Global Influence: What is World Poetry?” (中譯〈世界影響的焦慮：什麼是世界詩歌〉) 的提問切入，探討北島怎樣在跨文化和跨語言的情況下創作詩歌。本文並不是論證宇文所安對北島的評論是否正確，但希望從他對世界詩歌和世界文學的論述，尋找討論北島的詩歌創作新的切入點。論文第一章是導言，說明研究題旨和範圍，簡述研究概況。第二章探討北島的創作經歷。第三章分析北島，身處的革命背景怎樣影響他早期的創作，討論詩歌如何表達革命意識。第四章討論北島怎樣 運用現代主義進行中文詩歌創作。第五章討論北海流亡海外後的詩歌，透過表達懷鄕和放逐的主題，呈現回歸故地和流動異域的矛盾心理。第六章是結論。

Five Stylish Recent Books

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As New Year’s is often a time of glitz and glamour (and last-minute holiday giving), we thought we would feature a few books that often include text with smart things to say, but would also be worth getting just for the pictures.

1. Lynn Pan’s Shanghai Style: Art and Design Between the Wars

An examination of the polyglot artistic influences in early twentieth century Shanghai, by one of the city’s acute observers.

2. Claire Roberts and Geremie R. Barme eds.,The Great Wall of China

This book features essays by many scholars about the varied history and uses of the Great …

Taiwan Top Five, Paul Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As we prepare to ring out 2008, here are a few thoughts about some of the leading stories that have shaped Taiwan during the past year:

1. Back and Blue: Ma Ying-jeou sweeps into office as Taiwan’s new president, winning a convincing majority of the popular vote based on a platform promising a more stable relationship with China, economic prosperity, and clean government. Cross-Straits tensions have declined markedly, while the opening of direct links should bring great benefits to the citizens of both China and Taiwan. At the same time, however, the economy remains in the doldrums (see #2) …

Zeng Jingyan Accepts Hu Jia’S Sakharov Prize

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In late October, the European Parliament announced that it would award this year’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Hu Jia, an activist for HIV/AIDS and the environment currently imprisoned in Beijing. Hu and his wife, Zeng Jingyan, have been adept at using new media to share their message of human rights activism with an international audience, making Hu Jia better known outside China than inside it.

The award ceremony was held December 17. China has continued to protest the award.

Zeng Jingyan, who remains under surveillance at the couple’s apartment, accepted the award via video, subsequently posted on …

Rock Is Not Revolution, Part Ii, Chris Heselton

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One of the early rock musicians to make the jump to mainstream and become a household name was Xu Wei. His popularity is probably due to a style that some have called Chinese country or folk rock. This style does not have the explosive rage of heavy metal that many in the popular audience find hard to accept. Instead, he Xu Wei style is a more calm and relaxing melodic rock. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Xu Wei’s music is how similar it is to many of the romantic and nostalgic lyrical themes of pop music. Hometown (故乡, 2000), …

Philosophical Tours Of China, From Dewey To Derrida, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Peter Zarrow’s piece last month on Bertrand Russell’s writing on and travels to China may have gotten some of our readers curious about the other two members of the triumverate of famous philosophers mentioned in the introduction to that post: the Indian poet and thinker Rabindranath Tagore and the American pragmatist and educational theorist John Dewey. What each of these two men thought about and did while in China could be well worth a posting. And perhaps in 2009 the blog will run such pieces, as it would be a very appropriate year to do so, at least in Dewey’s …

Rock Is Not Revolution, Chris Heselton

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Rock is revolution! Rock is rebellion! Rock is democracy! Well, at least Axl Rose seems to think so with his new album Chinese Democracy. A rock legend singing to democracy in China seems almost poetically fitting. When people tend to think of China and rock music, it almost always comes back to democracy, more specifically, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Rock was the theme genre of the liberal, underground democratic movement. Ever since Cui Jian (崔健) played “I Have Nothing” (一无所有)—sometimes translated as “Nothing to My Name”—at the protest, rock music has been associated with democracy in China, and …

More Last Minute Gifts: Books From China Beat Contributors

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Many of our regular contributors have recent books out on China as well. We highly recommend the following as gifts for those many China non-experts in your life.

1. Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang

For: The Worldly Progressive

Chang’s book, published this year to positive reviews (including this one at the New York Times by Howard French, where Factory Girlswas also recently named one of the Times‘ 100 notable books for 2008), follows the lives of young factory workers in Dongguang. Read an excerpt, published earlier at China Beat, here.

2. Socialism is Great!, Lijia Zhang

For: The Memoir Maven …

Divine Justice, Paul Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As China ascends to its place as a leading nation on the world stage, questions have arisen concerning the role of its legal system. As Joseph Kahn noted in a feature article entitled Deep Flaws, and Little Justice, in China’s Court System, “Justice in China is swift but not sure.” Many protests in China today center on the issue of justice, with one blogger responding to the January 2008 fatal beating by parapolice officials of a man trying to videotape a protest by lamenting “Where is justice? Where is the law? Aren’t there any rules in China?”

My newest book, …

Last Minute Gifts: China Books

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

So you’ve put off holiday shopping until now. If you’d like to share your love of China this year, here are a few recommendations for old classics and more recent releases for the recipients on your list. All these books are widely available and relatively affordable.

1. Fortress Besieged, by Qian Zhongshu

For: The Literature Lover

We’ve written about this 1947 novel at China Beat before. It is a classic of Chinese literature, but not particularly well known in the West, making it the perfect gift for a well-read friend or relative.

2. The Question of Hu, Jonathan Spence

For: …

Chinese In Laos, Caroline Finlay

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Chimes jingle on gold-painted stupas and teenagers strum guitars to the beat of passing tuk-tuks in Luang Prabang, Laos’ UNESCO World Heritage sight nestled on the Mekong. Sadly, a more obtrusive rhythm has hit the scene: the squawk of walkie-talkie phones. Like a large percentage of Lao’s motorbikes, clothes and electronics, the walkie-talkie phones are a Chinese import, strapped to the belts of the increasingly numerous Chinese tourists visiting Luang Prabang, famous for its now fragile serenity.

China has begun to re-establish ties with sparsely populated Laos, which has historically aligned with Indochina War ally Vietnam. The Chinese have made …

Selectivity In Imaging The First Emperor, K. E. Brashier

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The story of Qin may vaunt grandiose armies and new empires that encompass all under heaven, but it also extends to more humble images:

Li Si, [the chief minister of Qin], was a man of Shangcai in Chu. In his youth, when he was a minor clerk in the province, he noticed rats eating filth in the latrines of the clerks’ hostel; and if they approached a man or dog, they were generally scared of them. But when Si entered a granary, he observed that the rats in the granary were eating the stored-up grain, living underneath the main chamber …

China Celebrates Human Rights, Jeremy Paltiel

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Today, December 12, 2008 Xinhua reports that China’s President and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Hu Jintao sent a letter to a symposium held by the China Association for the Study of Human Rights to commemorate International Human Rights Day, the 60th Anniversary of the passage by the UN General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In his letter, Hu avers that since the founding of New China in 1949 China has made steady progress in the protection of human rights according to China’s “national situation” culminating in the solemn enshrinement of the principle …

Reclaiming Old Shanghai?

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A few weeks ago, it was reported that horseracing had returned to China for the first time since 1949. Though this time, the horses are running in Wuhan, horseracing in China was for a long time almost synonymous with Shanghai. In case that history is new to you, here are a few places to go for more on Shanghai’s racing history:

1. When news came earlier this year that the government might allow horseracing in Wuhan (and that spectators would be allowed to participate in a “lottery”—gambling remains illegal), Far Eastern Economic Review posted a short excerptfrom a 1983 book …

Reading Recommendations

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Gems on China often appear in unexpected places, and we were recently alerted to a handful worth looking into at the Literary Review of Canada. These three pieces review recent works in Chinese studies that touch on issues central to current discussions on the China blogosphere. We’ve included short excerpts below, but encourage you to make the leap to the longer versions.

The first is a review by Timothy Cheek, the author of a book on Mao that we flagged in one of our first posts last January, and a regular commentator on contemporary China, as here and here. In …

Charter 08: Five Links

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The biggest China news story of the moment is the issuance of Charter 08, a declaration that was created to mark the 60th anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is inspired in part by “Charter 77,” the famous Czech group, and the arrest and detention of some of its signatories. Here are five things to read to help put the document into context, or learn more about those being help because of it.

1) Charter 08 itself, translated into English by Perry Link, can be found here.

2) A sophisticated exploration of the events of 1989 …

From Iron Girls To Oriental Beauties, Hongmei Li

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In a piece I did for the Huffington Post on women and the Olympics, I provided a brief overview of the history of ideas about feminine beauty in China and their links to concepts of modernity. This post supplements it by looking at the shift in representations of women from celebrating iron girls to extolling Oriental beauties over the course of the still relatively short history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

During the three decades that followed the 1949 founding of the PRC, one goal promoted in official discourse was that of erasing gender differences and promoting gender …

Dead Man Talking, Zhang Lijia

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On July 1 this year, a masked man named Yang Jia forced his way into the Zhabei police bureau in Shanghai, armed with a knife. In a killing rampage, he left six policemen dead and four injured. Last Wednesday, the 28-year-old unemployed man from Beijing was executed by lethal injection after the Supreme People’s Court decided to uphold the death sentence.

There was little surprise for the fate of a cop-murderer in a country where more people are thought to be killed by the capital punishment than the rest of the world combined. Yet the accused seems to have become …

Global Shanghai News

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Regular readers of this blog may think it is a bit redundant for me to do a “Self-promotion Saturday” post about Global Shanghai, 1850-2010: A History in Fragments, since I’ve managed to slip references to and images of the cover of my new book onto the site already in recent a piece about the 1980s and one about the Beijing Forum, cell phones, and a Chinese Obama joke.

Still, when you’ve worked on a publication as long as I labored on this one (even though it is a short, it took well over a decade to get from first inspiration …

Epicurean China: A Book Report, Kate Merkel-Hess

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Browsing the new book shelf of the local public library this week, I noticed not one but a whole selection of books that delve into the regional cuisines of China. Just last summer, Nina and Tim Zagat wrote an op-ed for The New York Times titled, “Eating Beyond Sichuan,” in which they called for greater diversity in the Chinese cuisine dished up around the U.S.—something more akin to the taste bud thrills anyone visiting or living in China experiences on a daily basis. There are intimations of Chinese cuisine diversity to come—such as the much-hailed developments in areas populated by …

Early Critics Of Deng Xiaoping—A 1978 Flashback, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Americans associate bottom-up challenges to Deng Xiaoping with images of the massive 1989 protests. But those demonstrations were not the first acts of dissent Deng had to deal with by any means. More than a decade earlier, right after his Reform era began, came the “Democracy Wall Movement”—named for a Beijing area where critics started putting up posters (some of which warned of Deng becoming a dictator) in 1978. The term “democracy wall” had been used for comparable spaces back in the 1940s (when Chiang Kai-shek’s authoritarianism was being attacked) and again during 1957’s “Hundred Flowers” campaign. The 1957 precedent …

Whose Peoples’ Games?, James Leibold

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With the self-professed slogans of the Green Olympics, High-tech Olympics and the People’s Olympics, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) should have anticipated criticism. It left nothing to chance in hosting the world’s athletes and spectators—gleaming stadia, smiling faces and blue skies: all as ordered. But as many Western observers noted, BOCOG forgot to invite the Chinese people—with security guards, CCTV cameras and robot-like volunteers ensuring little spontaneity or popular emotion at the so-called People’s Games.

In the wake of the unprecedented media coverage of China’s global “coming out party,” few have paused to consider who and …

A Soulful Memoir Of 1980s China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I think that no matter when I read it, I would have been impressed by Lijia Zhang’s“Socialism is Great!” A Worker’s Memoir of the New China. There is simply a lot to like about any book that is well crafted, unsparingly honest, and alternately poignant and amusing. And these adjectives all apply to Zhang’s tale.

One sign of the care the author takes is that she neatly bookends the part of her life story she gives up with a pair of very different sorts of acts of rebellion. Readers first meet the narrator as she chafes at the idea of …

Zhao Ziyang’S Legacy And 6/4 Memories

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As we prepare to mark the 30th anniversary of one turning point in the history of Chinese dissent (the appearance of Wei Jingsheng’s “Fifth Modernization” poster on December 5, 1978, the subject of a post we’ll run later this week), a debate on another major turning point (the 1989 protests and June 4th Massacre) may be re-emerging within China ahead of its 30th anniversary. One of the earliest reports (in English) that the Ministry of Culture had sought the resignation of the editor of the well-regarded magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu over its recent cover story praising purged leader Zhao Ziyang was …

Catch That Pepsi Spirit: Photo Update

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

When Micki McCoy and Kelly Hammond sent China Beat the interview they conducted about Hammond’s participation in an international Pepsi commercial shoot in Xinjiang, we had a tough time tracking down images or videos. Though we still haven’t seen the commercial in full (let us know if you find it online), Hammond did recently send this photo of a “Mexican Uyghur” taken during filming. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, take a look at the original interview‘s discussion of the issues of nationalism, ethnicity, and commercialism that the Pepsi shoot raised for Hammond. Tags: Pepsi,

Web Portals To Taiwan’S Past

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One of the blessings of the Internet Age is the availability of valuable information about the past, in this case Taiwanese history. This post introduces a few English and Chinese websites that I have found most interesting/useful. The list is hardly meant to be exhaustive, and people should feel free to recommend other sites that would benefit all those interested in this topic.

1. The Gerald Warner Taiwan Image Collection — Put together by Paul Barclay at Lafayette College, this website contains 340 photographs and postcards gathered by Warner from 1937 to 1941 during and after his tenure as U.S. …