Source: China Daily (6/28/22)
A 360° tour of Hong Kong Palace Museum
By chinadaily.com.cn
Scheduled to open to the public on July 2, the Hong Kong Palace Museum will display on rotation more than 900 treasures from the collections of the Palace Museum in Beijing. Built over four years, the design and construction of the HKPM reflect the charm of traditional Chinese culture.
Check the video to get a 360° tour!
See also: Director of the Beijing’s Palace Museum speaks on cross-culture exchange
Source: NYT (6/25/22)
‘Wild Swimming’ in Restricted Beijing Offers Refreshing Break From Rules
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China’s congested and highly regulated capital is not known for either its natural refuges or its rule-bending. But swimming in the city’s lakes and waterways is a cherished, if contested, tradition.
By Vivian Wang
Swimmers in June in the Liangma River in Beijing. Staircases have been fenced off to prevent people from easily entering the water, but this hasn’t stopped enthusiasts. Credit…Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
BEIJING — Beneath a curving concrete overpass, behind a wall of green fencing, surrounded by the roar of traffic, a swimming hole beckons in the heart of Beijing.
The water, a slim current running along Beijing’s often-congested innermost ring road, may not look like an ideal spot for a dip. Vaguely oily-looking algae drifts on its surface. In places, it is a bit pungent.
But for those in the know, it’s an oasis.
The shore is lined with willows, and a concrete ledge doubles conveniently as a diving platform. And some regulars have made the hideaway their own: They have set up chairs, a cream pleather couch and even a makeshift shower station of plastic water jugs strapped to the beam of a shed.
Every day, from early morning until dark, two dozen or so people filter in and out of this unlikely retreat, one of several destinations for what is sometimes locally called “wild swimming.” They sunbathe, gossip, eat takeout — and, of course, swim. The bravest arrive year-round, even when Beijing temperatures plunge below freezing, with knives for breaking up the ice. Continue reading
Source: SupChina (6/24/22)
‘A Lifelong Journey’: A family saga through China’s past five decades
A drama focusing on the shifting fortunes of a Chinese family beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, filled with struggle and bittersweet nostalgia, has won over audiences both young and old.
By Brian Wu
Lifelong Journey
How have the past five decades of momentous change shaped the lives of ordinary Chinese families? That is the focus of the recent TV series A Lifelong Journey (人世间 rén shìjiān), which has been one of the most talked-about shows of the first half of 2022. Scoring a respectable 8.1 out of 10 on the popular ratings platform Douban, it has captured the attention of audiences both young and old.
The series is directed by Lǐ Lù 李路, who is best known for his 2017 anti-corruption hit In the Name of the People. Based on a prize-winning novel of the same name, it chronicles the shifting fortunes of the Zhou family, starting in 1969 with their humble beginnings in a shantytown located in the fictional northeast city of Jichun, where most of the story takes place.
With A Lifelong Journey, Chinese viewers found parallels with their own families’ experiences, from the rustic simplicity that characterized life in the ’70s and early ’80s to a shared bewilderment at the breakneck speed of social change as Reform and Opening transformed the economy.
The drama focuses on the three Zhou siblings — eldest son Zhōu Bǐngyì 周秉义, middle daughter Zhōu Róng 周蓉, and youngest son Zhōu Bǐngkūn 周秉昆 — who begin the story as teenagers sent far from home during the Cultural Revolution. Continue reading
The Future Story of Chinese Calligraphy: An Online Workshop
Bringing together scholars and artists from East Asia, Europe, and North America, this workshop seeks path-breaking approaches to the studies of Chinese calligraphy especially in transmedia contexts.
The event will take place virtually on Wednesday July 13 from 1 PM to 4:30 PM (London Time). Register here:
1 PM to 2:30 PM, Panel 1: Calligraphy × Painting 書畫
Michael Cavayero, Tang Dynasty Finger Painting and Buddhist Connections: Records of Zhang Zao
Shuo Hua and Sarah Ng, Semiotic Scripts and Calligraphic Expression: Capturing the Spirit of Antiquity in Modern Chinese Paintings
Yuetong Wang, My Story about Calligraphy Practice and the Current Situation of Chinese Contemporary Calligraphy Continue reading
The Chair of Chinese Culture and Society, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of St.Gallen (HSG) explores contemporary trends in Chinese visual culture, media, literature and society. The Chair wishes to recruit a Research Fellow/Assistant in Chinese Studies (70%) to conduct innovative research, assist with teaching materials, and organise the Chair’s activities. The Chair welcomes applications from candidates with a PhD in Chinese Studies, or MA for PhD candidates near completion, whose expertise lies in visual arts, literature, cultural studies, media studies or history with a focus on China. The person appointed will dedicate most of their time to research and publish research findings, including two peer-reviewed journal articles co-authored with the Chair. They will organise and coordinate workshops, guest lectures and other academic activities. They will present at conferences with the Chair and work in a small team. Applicants must have native or near-native language skills in English and Mandarin Chinese and an excellent publication record. The position is open from 1 November 2022 for three years, with the possibility of renewal. Continue reading
Greetings,
Trans Asia Photography invites submissions for a general issue, Volume 13, no. 2 (Fall 2023). The journal examines all aspects of photographic history, theory, and practice by centering images in or of Asia, conceived as a territory, network, and cultural imaginary. It welcomes:
Deadline for research articles and shorter pieces: October 31, 2022.
Trans Asia Photography is an international, refereed, open-access journal based at the University of Toronto and published by Duke University Press. It provides a venue for interdisciplinary exploration of photography and Asia.
Guidance for authors on submissions can be found at: transasiaphotography.org/submit
For more information, contact the editors: transasiaphotography@gmail.com
The TAP Editorial Team
Deepali Dewan, Royal Ontario Museum & University of Toronto
Yi Gu. University of Toronto
Thy Phu, University of Toronto
transasiaphotography.org
PRISM 19.1 (2022)
THEMED CLUSTER CHRONOTOPIA: Urban Space and Time in Twenty-First-Century Sinophone Film and Fiction
https://read.dukeupress.edu/prism/issue/19/1
Introduction: Chronotopia: Urban Space and Time in Twenty-First-Century Sinophone Film and Fiction
By Astrid Møller-Olsen
ARTICLES
Dialogical Representation of the Global City in Chinese New Urban and Rural-Migrant Films
By Jie Lu
Ghostly Chronotopes: Spectral Cityscapes in Post-2000 Chinese Literature
by Winnie L. M. Yee
Spatiotemporal Explorations: Narrating Social Inequalities in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction
By Frederike Schneider-Vielsäcker
Reconfiguring the Chronotope: Spatiotemporal Representations and Cultural Imaginations of Beijing in Mr. Six
By Xuesong Shao and Sheldon Lu
Take the Elevator to Tomorrow: Mobile Space and Lingering Time in Contemporary Urban Fiction
By Astrid Møller-Olsen Continue reading
Source: China Digital Times (6/21/22)
VOICES OF MAY: “NO MORE IS THIS THE SHANGHAI WE ONCE KNEW”
Cindy Carter
“Voices of May” is the first in CDT’s monthly “Voices of …” series of viral audio-visual content from pandemic lockdowns in Shanghai and other Chinese cities. Inspired by the original audio-visual compilation “Voices of April,” which was the target of intense government and platform censorship, the “Voices of …” series seeks to circumvent censorship by amplifying the voices of Chinese citizens under various forms of lockdown and quarantine. CDT will continue to compile, translate, and publish these videos for as long as Chinese government censors seek to silence them.
Like the “Voices of April” video that inspired it, “Voices of May” begins with a summary of the month’s COVID case-count data and snippets of government press conferences, and segues into a series of audio and visual clips revealing the true experiences of Shanghai residents under lockdown. May’s content includes scenes of Shanghai residents being threatened by police for various minor infractions, students and householders objecting to “hard quarantine” measures such as metal fences or barbed wire, a peek inside a “refugee-camp-style” quarantine facility, a mother begging a hospital to treat her ill daughter, a retired professor denouncing “hygiene theatre,” and citizens wondering why they remain trapped at home despite the announced relaxation of Shanghai’s stringent citywide pandemic measures.
The eight-minute “Voices of May” video on CDT’s YouTube Channel features both Chinese and English subtitles.
Source: NYT (6/21/22)
Four Takeaways From a Times Investigation Into China’s Expanding Surveillance State
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Times reporters spent over a year combing through government bidding documents that reveal the country’s technological road map to ensure the longevity of its authoritarian rule.
By Isabelle Qian, Muyi Xiao, Paul Mozur and Alexander Cardia
A Times investigation analyzing over 100,000 government bidding documents found that China’s ambition to collect digital and biological data from its citizens is more expansive and invasive than previously known.
China’s ambition to collect a staggering amount of personal data from everyday citizens is more expansive than previously known, a Times investigation has found. Phone-tracking devices are now everywhere. The police are creating some of the largest DNA databases in the world. And the authorities are building upon facial recognition technology to collect voice prints from the general public.
The Times’s Visual Investigations team and reporters in Asia spent over a year analyzing more than a hundred thousand government bidding documents. They call for companies to bid on the contracts to provide surveillance technology, and include product requirements and budget size, and sometimes describe at length the strategic thinking behind the purchases. Chinese laws stipulate that agencies must keep records of bids and make them public, but in reality the documents are scattered across hard-to-search web pages that are often taken down quickly without notice. ChinaFile, a digital magazine published by the Asia Society, collected the bids and shared them exclusively with The Times. Continue reading
I would like to draw your attention to my new book Ruling the Stage: Social and Cultural History of Opera in Sichuan from the Qing to the People’s Republic of China (Brill, 2022).
In it, through an innovative interdisciplinary reading and field research, I analyse the history of the development of opera in Sichuan, arguing that opera serves as a microcosm of the profound transformation of modern Chinese culture between the 18th century and 1950s. I investigate the complex path of opera over this course of history: exiting the temple festivals, becoming a public obsession on commercial stages, and finally being harnessed to partisan propaganda work. The book analyzes the process of cross-regional integration of Chinese culture and the emergence of the national opera genre. Moreover, opera is shown as an example of the culture wars that raged inside China’s popular culture.
For more details please see the book’s webpage: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004519398
Igor Chabrowski <i.chabrowski@uw.edu.pl>
We are pleased and honored to announce Professor Dame Jessica Rawson as the newest Tang Prize Laureate in Sinology.
The 2022 Tang Prize in Sinology is awarded to Professor Dame Jessica Rawson for her gift and mastery of the craft of the visible to read the art and artifacts of Chinese civilization. By giving voice to the ancient world of objects, she has taught generations how to see when they look at things, and her acuity and vast visual learning have given new insight into the world of the lineages, transformations, and migrations of mute things.
For the press release, please visit https://bit.ly/3xGwyFe
To learn more about Professor Rawson, please visit https://reurl.cc/d2o6Yz
To hear Professor Rawson’s reaction to receiving the Prize, please visit https://youtu.be/I-Vv2YZCyZE
Tang Prize in Sinology <sinology@tang-prize.org>
The University of Warwick invites applications for a 3-year fixed-term post, 0.7 FTE, of Teaching Fellow in Chinese Translation and Transcultural Studies (teaching only) at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, to start in September 2022. The closing date for applications is fast approaching on 4 July 2022.
The successful candidate will have previous experience of teaching translation studies at higher education level; they will have a postgraduate qualification, and an excellent command of spoken and written Chinese and English. They will be expected to teach and supervise postgraduate students to a high standard, and to participate as appropriate in the administration of departmental and School-wide activities, with a particular focus on duties related to Overseas Admissions at PG level. They will be familiar with the UK postgraduate experience and prepared to support our lively and engaged body of postgraduate students both academically and as a personal tutor.
For further details and submitting an application please click here. Online interviews will be held on 14 July 2022.
Please contact Dr Mila Milani, Translation and Transcultural Studies Lead (School of Modern Languages and Cultures), m.milani@warwick.ac.uk if you have any questions or require more information.
Qian Liu
Assistant professor in translation and Chinese studies
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
University of Warwick
Source: SupChina (6/17/22)
‘Moneyboys’: A provocative, atmospheric film about Chinese hustlers
A Taiwanese and Viennese coproduction, “Moneyboys” follows Fei, a gay sex worker, as he explores love amid his life of secrecy.
By Catherine Zauhar
Still from Moneyboys
C.B. Yi’s debut feature, Moneyboys (金錢男孩 jīnqián nánhái), is a beguiling and disturbing exploration of a Chinese community hiding in plain sight. It follows the protagonist, Fei, through the arcs of two loves, both of which have a lasting impact in dramatically different ways.
Fei (Ko Chia-kai 柯家凱) is a charming and popular hustler who starts off in the smaller leagues in the town of Yiwu. After being severely roughed up by a client, Fei’s protective lover, Xiaolai (JC Lin 林哲熹), comes to his defense and ends up fighting for his life. Once word spreads of the lover’s heroic defeat, Fei flees his home and his love — fearing his secret life will be revealed — before the law gets involved (prostitution and homosexuality are illegal in China).
We meet Fei five years later, where he now lives a far more luxurious life, still as a hustler, in the bustling mega-metropolis of Shenzhen. His home has an icy elegance reminiscent of the decor of the big house in Parasite, with items better off looked at than touched (perhaps like Fei himself). News of an ailing grandfather coupled with a traumatizing brush with the cops leaves Fei shaken, and he makes the journey back to his native fishing village. On the way, he runs into Long (Bai Yu Fan 白宇帆), who from the get-go cannot hide his long-harbored crush on Fei. Long is handsome, gawky, bright and goofy like a teenager, his demeanor the complete foil to Fei’s gentle and measured poise. When Long asks how long Fei’s staying, he responds with a noncommittal “Depends.” It’s unclear what he wants, though. What does anyone want from a homecoming? Closure? Safety? Warmth? Continue reading
TAP 12.1
We are thrilled to announce the release of the Spring 2022 issue ofTrans Asia Photography. Our first issue with Duke University Press, this issue explores the meanings of the third key word in the journal’s title: “Photography.”
Table of Contents
“Photography”: An Introduction, by Deepali Dewan
Articles
Photographing the Invisible: Immortal Spirit Photography and China’s En(light)enment, by Menglan Chen
Daubing Titipu: Transnational Material Contexts of 19th-Century Hand-Coloured Photography in Japan, by Rahul Sharma
The Feedback and Noise of Komatsu Hiroko’s Photographic Materialities, by Franz Prichard
Portfolio
Toward Understanding the Photogenic New Citizen: Performance in Vernacular Photography from the Early Turkish Republic, 1920s-1940s, by Özge Baykan Calafato Continue reading
Call for Papers: Ming Qing Studies 2023
edited by Paolo Santangelo (Sapienza University of Rome)
We are glad to inform you that the new edition of Ming Qing Studies 2022 will be published by WriteUp Books before the end of this year (see table of contents below).
Applicants are encouraged to submit abstracts for the next issues of Ming Qing Studies. The contributions should concern Ming-Qing China in one or few of its most significant and multifaceted aspects, as well as on East Asian countries covering the same time period. All articles will be examined by our qualified peer reviewers. We welcome creative and fresh approaches to the field of Asian studies. Particularly appreciated will be the contributions on anthropological and social history, collective imagery, and interdisciplinary approaches to the Asian cultural studies. All submitted papers must be original and in good British English style according to our guidelines and editorial rules. Please email an abstract (300-500 words, plus a basic bibliography) in MS Word or pdf attachments along with your biographical information to the addresses listed below. Please mention your full name with academic title, university affiliation, department or home institution, title of paper and contact details in your email. Continue reading