Representation of Tibetanness Through Food in Taiwan

Postcolonial Play: Constructions of Multicultural Identities in ABC Children's Projects

Performing Community:A Comparison of Korean-Language Newspapers in Beijing and Sydney Sung-Ae Lee (bio) More than six million Koreans now live outside Korea, in 173 countries, according to data released in 2003 by the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Jungang Ilbo 7 Feb. 2004). This number represents 13% of all Korean people and hence constitutes a diaspora of highly significant proportions. As migration from Korea continues, and the number of generations born outside Korea increases, identifiably "Korean" identities both proliferate and diversify. As Stuart Hall argues, identities undergo constant transformations and are "increasingly fragmented," "fractured," and "multiply constructed across different, often antagonistic, discourses, practices, and positions" ("Introduction" 4). As people with a common ancestry and a shared history follow diverse itineraries of migration, the diasporic identities that emerge are necessarily heterogeneous. Identities are constituted and reconstituted within differing host cultures and are variously marked by a desire to recuperate what has been "lost." My focus in this essay is on the quite different identities developed by Koreans in Beijing and Koreans in Sydney as a result of the very different social formations, ideologies, and political agendas of each host country; in particular, I will be concerned with the role played by Korean-language community newspapers in this process. Here, I consider issues of the Beijing Journal (henceforth BJ) and the Sydney Korean Herald (henceforth SKH). Allan Bell has argued that The stories people tell are a core part of their social identity, and the construction of a life story is crucial to our self-identity. The idea of the story is also central to news media. Journalists do not write articles, they write stories—with structure, order, viewpoint and values. So the daily happenings of our societies are expressed in the stories we are told in the media. [End Page 227] In addition, the media are important social institutions. They are crucial presenters of culture, politics and social life, shaping as well as reflecting how these are formed and expressed. Media "discourse" is important both for what it reveals about a society and because it also contributes to the character of a society. (64–5) Bell's triad of "culture, politics and social life" is formulated a little differently by Norman Fairclough when he proposes that the discourse of newspapers constitutes social identities, social relations, and systems of knowledge and belief (55). An examination of how community-language news media reflect and shape systems of knowledge and belief pertaining to the culture, politics, and social life of diasporic communities, linking individual and group identity to social identity, offers considerable insight into the relationships between host and diasporic cultures. There are substantial Korean communities, of comparable size, in Beijing and Sydney: 55,000 Koreans in Beijing (BJ 28 Jan.–3 Feb. 2005, 9) and 46,000 in Sydney.2 Their size enables a useful comparison between them: they are relatively small diasporic communities in comparison with the large communities in the United States, for example, and they do not (yet) have support networks comparable to those of the United States. Their relationship to the host country is also strongly shaped by the strongly contrasting political systems of China and Australia. Common traditions and cultural practices deriving from the home (originary) country are performed within each host country, but negotiations with the sociocultural circumstances of the host country may modify or reinterpret ideas of Koreanness. Like many other diasporic communities, diasporic Koreans are constantly negotiating the implication that they are culturally "inauthentic" or culturally fractured in comparison with Koreans living in Korea, and this issue of status affects cultural negotiation with both home and host societies. What constitutes the essence of being Korean is a challenging question in a globalized world, where many people migrate, travel, exchange ideas and goods, and negotiate identity in an expanded intersubjective field. In addition, diasporic conceptions of home culture are at perpetual risk of becoming anachronistic, as Koreans in Korea themselves change under the influence of globalization. Significant changes emerge from, for example, the aspirations of students returning home after studying abroad and of returning migrants; cultural exchange through multimedia and Internet use; and the pressure on cultural representation stemming from...

This article contributes to the changing landscape of fieldwork practices within sociolinguistic research, specifically the practice of online ethnography. It makes a case for the significance of online chats in observing the construction of ethnic identities and social intimacy among young Malaysian English (henceforth Manglish) speakers. The rise of Manglish discourse has been hardly ignored in digital settings. Thus, the rationale for choosing Manglish as a language of communication within online spheres such as Instant Messaging is unclear. This article argues that the socially structured meanings that underlie Manglish practices deserve exploration as it would benefit from online ethnography. Drawing on Androutsopoulos’s (2008) discourse on online ethnographic approach, this paper shows how researchers could use WhatsApp chats to explore the linguistic and social behaviour of Manglish speakers. The findings suggest that the interrelation of speakers’ online behaviour and linguistic choice can denote their ethnicity, in-groupness, stances, and regional identity. Online ethnography is therefore significant and should not be limited to linguistic sources but also used as a mode of participating in, as well as observing, the construction of identity that reflects the ‘offline’ aspect of speakers’ social lives.

The aim of this research is to provide an overview of the Islamic Religious Education of the Indonesian migrant community in Taiwan, its learning methods and its impact on the Indonesian migrant community in Taiwan. The approach used in this study is a qualitative approach. This type of research is field research. This research design uses a case study of the expression of Islamic Religious Education. The data collection strategy is carried out in natural settings, primary data sources, and data collection techniques include participant observation, in-depth interviews and documentation. As a result, community groups, mosques, information technology, and social media have played a significant role in providing Islamic educational resources. Islamic education methods are grouped into three; covers aspects of teaching, learning, and organizing Islamic activities. Islamic religious education has a positive impact on the social life of the Indonesian migrant community in Taiwan, increasing religious identity, social integration, and fostering attitudes of tolerance.

This chapter shows how elements of nostalgia are embedded within the food recipes of this particular diasporic community as well as in their songs. I analyse and show how the recipes and the songs function as pieces of nostalgia. I show how the idea of autonetic consciousness can be applied to recipes in diaspora. I explore the notion of mnemonic strategies employed to maintain culinary practices. My work is informed by writers who have concentrated on the value of culinary fiction in diasporic communities. My analysis focuses on the cultural practices which occupy the domestic sphere of those who reside in diaspora in Lockwood. I explore how aspects of nostalgia are embedded within the psyche of first-generation immigrants and how nostalgia is transmitted to the following generations. I call this particular type of nostalgia ‘migrational nostalgia.’ I show how the subjects from my cohort engage with this particular type of nostalgia and memory.

In his article “The Ethnomusicology of Music Learning and Teaching,” Timothy Rice argues that the practices of teaching and learning music are fundamental to the ways in which music is conceptualised, transmitted, and invested with symbolic meanings (2003). Ethnomusicologists studying music and diaspora have also drawn attention to the significance of music education as a key medium for the construction and maintenance of diasporic identities.1In diasporic communities, music education can be a principal means for transmitting perspectives on the historical and political forces that have shaped the diaspora and for developing the linguistic and cultural competency of younger generations. Music schools and other institutions of musical learning can also play important roles in the public representation of diasporic communities and in articulating the relationship of the diaspora to the linguistic, musical, religious, and national heritage of its perceived homeland.

Recent decades have seen a growing interest in qualitative and ethnographic studies of people who belong to different communities and cultures (Blunt and Dowling 2006; Miller 2009; Daniels 2010; Rose 2010), which has resulted in researchers creating innovative methodologies to explore these groups (Pink 2004; O’Neil 2011). Sociologists who deal with studies of personal and community life move beyond traditional methods of social enquiry and deploy a wide range of methods that cut across such areas as visual sociology, human geography, and ethnography (Blunt 2005; Pink 2006; Daniels 2010; Rose 2010). The phenomenon of transnational migration and the emergence of new global diasporas have shifted the way in which concepts of culture and identity are theorised and explored by social researchers. Over recent decades the focus of sociological enquiry has changed, and it now pays more attention to the complexity of relationships and networks maintained by migrant and diasporic communities. Correspondingly, studies of diasporic homes and identity have begun to involve both tangible (material) and intangible (sensorial) dimensions of social and personal life. In the following sections I will discuss in detail several key interlinked approaches to accessing diasporic identities and homes: by using the multidimensional/sensorial understanding of the concept of home, through the materiality and symbolism of diasporic objects, and by exploring the diasporic quality of migrant fashion and clothing practices.

The chapter explores how the complex relationships between food, memory, and culture are represented and evoked in ethnic American cultural texts. Memories of food are more than just personal recollections of a particular dish—they are both intensely personal and embedded in larger collective memories, dietary traditions, and culinary practices. They also play an important role in identity formation and sustain social and cultural worlds, not only in the place in which they were formed but also in diasporic communities far away from that place of origin. This is particularly obvious in a country like the United States with its long history of immigration. For successive waves of immigrants, the dishes they consumed and cherished became a means of negotiating the degree of their assimilation to mainstream U.S. culture, on the one hand, and a means to hold on to their cultural roots, on the other. The chapter considers a conjunction of literature and film—among them Shoba Narayan’s Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes, Jumpha Lahiri’s short story “Mrs. Sen’s,” Jason Zeldes’s Ugly Delicious episode “Don’t Call It Curry,” and David Kaplan’s feature film Today’s Special—that represent and remember the culinary traditions of India and, by extension, those of Indian Americans. Making connections between empirical-scientific and historical-interpretative levels of analysis, the chapter demonstrates that narrated food memories, along with the sensual evocation of the remembered dishes and their preparation, play an important role in how writers and filmmakers invite their audiences to appreciate and celebrate the food and cultural identity of an ethnic minority group. Whether it is the visceral evocation of specific dishes and/or their preparation that is foregrounded or characters’ personal relationship to them (or both), such acts of narrativization always comment to some degree on issues of identity and U.S. racial politics.

In this thesis, I propose a study of Toni Morrison's novels with attention to her fictional representations of African-American communities. I demonstrate how she contests constructions of a homogeneous American communal identity through representations of diverse African-American experiences. Further, I examine the processes of communal identification depicted in her work. Some literary critics have analyzed Morrison's representations of community as either a hindrance or a help in the development of individual characters. But, because Morrison's communities are situated in different regions and decades, and formed under different circumstances, my study of her novels involves an exploration into how, why, and where these communities are formed with attention to space, place, history, and function. I argue that the communal spaces, places, and identities in the novels The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Paradise are constructed by, and out of, social interactions. I also demonstrate how communal identity is a process, not a product, and how it is consistently and continually subject to the forces of history, culture, and power. This particular perspective on identity demands an acknowledgment of the past and how it informs the present, but it also demands a recognition of the ways in which communities are constructed relationally. I also explore the significance of history, memory, and storytelling in Jazz, Tar Baby, and Beloved. I point to how these elements are vital to processes of healing and how they are important to the survival of her varied communities.

Food writing that runs through Anita Brookner’s three Holocaust novels resonates with the theme of Jewish national identity construction. This paper aims to examine the food images, culinary practices, and characters’ attitudes toward Jewish food in these novels through semiotics, and to explore the way Jewish immigrants deal with their dietary habits in different social contexts and food’s function in building Jewish nationality. The results show that the protagonists’ stances concerning Jewish food range from repulsion to adherence to transcendence, reflecting the psychological transformations of the Jewish immigrants confronted with the traumatic history of the Holocaust and their cultural adaptation thereafter. Through her meticulous portrayal of food, Brookner successfully transcends the narrative dilemma surrounding “writing poetry after the Holocaust,” creating an archive of collective memory for those who perished while expanding and deepening a narrative model within contemporary British literature. The findings can be applied in the exploring of Jewish identity construction in literature. The exploration of the correlation between food and identity construction in literature can unveil insights into human behavior patterns, cultural migration, and adaptation.

This research investigates the complex interplay between language and power in the formation of ethnolinguistic identities within diasporic communities. As globalization accelerates, diasporic groups navigate a complex landscape where traditional linguistic practices intersect with new socio-political realities. This study aims to critically examine how language functions as a tool for negotiating identity and power within these communities, emphasizing the role of language ideologies and practices in shaping social dynamics. The primary objectives are to explore how language serves as a medium for the construction and negotiation of ethnolinguistic identities and to understand the influence of power relations on these processes. Specifically, the study seeks to identify the ways in which language practices reflect and challenge power structures within diasporic contexts and how these practices contribute to the formation of collective and individual identities. This research is a multi-sited ethnographic approach,and integrates discourse analysis across several diasporic communities. Findings reveal that language serves as a strategic resource for negotiating social status and ethnic belonging. Diasporic individuals employ code-switching, language reclamation, and multilingualism to assert identity and resist assimilation pressures. The study highlights how language ideologies both reinforce and contest existing power structures, demonstrating the dynamic role of language in shaping ethnolinguistic identities amidst shifting socio-political landscapes.

This research examines the multifaceted role of food and culinary practices in South Asian diaspora narratives, focusing on literary and cinematic representations from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Through close textual analysis of selected works by diaspora writers and filmmakers, this study explores how food functions as a powerful vehicle for identity formation, cultural memory, intergenerational transmission, and resistance in diaspora contexts. The research identifies and analyzes recurring culinary tropes and metaphors in South Asian diaspora narratives, including the kitchen as a gendered space of both oppression and empowerment, food preparation as a site of cultural preservation and innovation, and commensality as a means of negotiating cultural boundaries. Employing theoretical frameworks from food studies, diaspora studies, and postcolonial theory, this investigation reveals how food narratives serve multiple purposes: they articulate complex hybrid identities, challenge cultural stereotypes, preserve ancestral memories, and create spaces for cross cultural dialogue. The findings demonstrate that food in South Asian diaspora narratives functions not merely as cultural symbolism but as an active agent in the negotiation of diaspora identities and the creation of new cultural formations. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the embodied nature of diaspora experience and the role of everyday practices in the construction of transcultural identities.

Notions of culture, ethnicity and identity are highly political (and also personally meaningful) issues within diasporic communities. Complementary schools are particularly interesting sites in this respect, as they are often set up with an explicit cultural agenda of ‘preserving’ or ‘maintaining’ ‘traditional’ culture and language within diasporic communities. In this paper, we draw on qualitative data from an ESRC funded study conducted in six Chinese complementary schools to consider how pupils (n=60), parents (n=24) and teachers (n=21) in these schools construct and negotiate issues of culture and identity. We consider the ways in which the cultural agenda of the schools is constructed and experienced, teasing out the ways in which cultural discourses and pupil identities are deployed (and resisted, reworked) within the space of Chinese schools. Finally we consider the extent to which the schools are perceived by the young people to be ‘successful’ (or not) in their efforts to make pupils feel ‘more Chinese’.

To isolate, characterize and identify lactic acid bacteria (LAB) in yan-tsai-shin (fermented broccoli stems), a traditional fermented food in Taiwan. A total of 226 LAB were isolated; 111 cultures were isolated from samples collected from seven different markets and 115 from six fresh broccoli samples. These isolates were characterized phenotypically and then initially divided into nine groups (r1 to r9) using restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis and sequencing of 16S ribosomal DNA. Some isolates were further divided into four additional groups by other genetic analysis. The most common bacterial genera in yan-tsai-shin and fresh broccoli were Weissella, Lactococcus and Lactobacillus. Regional similarities in the LAB, with differences in diversity, were observed in this study. On the basis of phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA, rpoA, rpoB and pheS gene sequences, two strains were included in the genera Enterococcus and Lactococcus, respectively, and identified as potential novel species or subspecies. In addition, the novel enterococcal strain, and 33 L.lactis subsp. lactis and two Weissella cibaria strains were found to have bacteriocin-like inhibitory substance (BLIS) producing abilities. These results suggest that the LAB play important roles in the fermentation of yan-tsai-shin. This is the first report describing the distribution and varieties of LAB existing in yan-tsai-shin and fresh broccoli. In addition, two potential novel LAB species or subspecies and one potential novel BLIS were also found in this study.

Lactobacillus pobuzihii is a novel species which has been previously found in pobuzihi (fermented cummingcordia), a traditional fermented food in Taiwan. However, the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) microflora in pobuzihi has not been studied in detail. In this study, LAB from pobuzihi were isolated, identified, and characterized. A total of 196 LAB were isolated; 79 cultures were isolated from the sample collected from a manufacturing factory, 38 from pobuzihi samples collected from 4 different markets, and 79 from 2 fresh cummingcordia samples. These isolates were characterized phenotypically and then divided into eight groups (A to H) by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis and sequencing of 16S ribosomal DNA. Lactobacillus plantarum was the most abundant LAB found in most samples during the fermentation of pobuzihi. On the other hand, Enterococcus casseliflavus and Weissella cibaria were, respectively, the major species found in the two fresh cummingcordia samples. A potential novel species or subspecies of lactococcal strain was found. In addition, seven L. plantarum and five W. cibaria strains showed inhibitory activity against the indicator strain Lactobacillus sakei JCM 1157(T). This is the first report describing the distribution and varieties of LAB existing in the pobuzihi during its fermentation process and the final product on the market.