Contemporary Chinese Culture Research Articles

Network Unavailable


 
 
 This paper problematizes assumptions of global all-pervading ‘available’ network culture by examining ‘network unavailability’ phenomenon in contemporary Chinese network culture through a post-colonial critique. The central argument of ‘network unavailable’ in China is contextualized by the performativity of the Great Firewall and the Golden Shield Project, Chinese media artist Fei Jun’s net art project Interesting World (2019) in the Venice Biennale and network happenings during the 2019 Anti-extradition Law Amendment Bill protests in Hong Kong. Through these examples the author argues that network culture in China is political and geopolitical and the discussion of networks should go beyond mere structuralism and emphasize the everyday life, tactical, and microscopic decision-making process.
 
 

Marketing Strategy of Marine Resort: An Exploratory Study

Liu, P. and Sun, J., 2020. Marketing strategy of marine resort: An exploratory study. In: Gong, D.; Zhang, M., and Liu, R. (eds.), Advances in Coastal Research: Engineering, Industry, Economy, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 106, pp. 42–44. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.An ocean resort is a tourism cultural environment that stimulates the holiday consumption motivation of tourism consumers. By catering to the aesthetic concept of tourists, the marine resort sets unique characteristics according to its local culture and marine natural landscape, such as the business model integrating leisure and health preservation, spa, catering and entertainment, performances, and conference accommodations. The fast-food marine holiday culture is an integral part of the contemporary Chinese marine culture, which is a world-wide culture. Western countries have several natural, excellent harbors, and they continue to develop these perfect marine cultures, which makes their marine resorts a typical international representative. The essence of Chinese culture is the foundation of Chinese marine culture. By absorbing nutrients from the world's marine holiday culture, a modern Chinese marine culture is formed. Through the rich marketing theory of tourist attractions, this paper proposes a marketing mode of a marine resort, which can improve the overall competitiveness of the resort. By enriching the marketing mode, we can promote the stable development of enterprise sales, which provides ideas for the marketing programs of other marine scenic spots.

Improvised songs of praise and group sociality in contemporary Chinese banquet culture

In China, banquets are an important means of maintaining and negotiating social relationships. Based on fieldwork conducted with professional folksingers in Shaanxi Province and the Ordos region of Inner Mongolia from 2006 to 2011, this article examines how for-hire folksingers who perform improvised songs for guests at banquets play into the promotion of group solidarity. Building on research about socialization strategies in Chinese banquets and the social effects of publicly-performed praise songs, this article examines the use of oral formulae, some of which describe individuals by referencing recognizable archetypes of shared acclaim, such as successful officials, brilliant scholars, and beautiful women. When integrated with toasting rituals common to banquets across China, such archetypes are mobilized to promote the social connections (guanxi) that are an important goal in Chinese banquet culture, positioning the assembled guests as a cohesive group of distinct individuals in a manner that avoids potential competition in favor of strengthening social ties.

Practice and Exploration of "Cultivation Education" for College Students Under the Gestation of Chinese Excellent Traditional Culture

Culture refers to the sum total of material civilization and spiritual civilization of human creation. Chinese excellent traditional culture is the people of all ethnic groups in China in five thousands, a perennial struggle to create brilliant achievements. Confucianism, Taoism, legalism and Mohism and other schools of thought and their exponents, but also had a profound influence on Chinese society. Including the influence of Confucianism on the Chinese society is the largest, their minds fully involved in the traditional ethics, is the core of Chinese traditional culture. Confucius advocated opened up, is the hope that everyone in society has a heart of love, know how to love others, how to understand others. To improve the contemporary Chinese excellent traditional culture, the comprehensive quality of students plays a very important role. They are also a special educational resource. If it can be put into practice in a gradual and subtle way, it can not only improve the humanistic quality of college students, but also enrich their spiritual connotation.

Porous Personhood in Contemporary Chinese Culture: a Dialogue with Cross-Cultural Psychology

This paper proceeds from the seminal distinction made by Markus and Kitayama between independent and interdependent selves as a way of explaining differences in the self-construct of individuals of, respectively, European-American and East-Asian cultural descent. As influential and productive as this cross-cultural distinction has been, this paper points out that the reproduction of the distinction across generations remains poorly understood. As various disciplines continue to reveal the degree to which our minds are embodied and engaged in constant interactions with our environment, it becomes increasingly obvious that the reproduction of both the independent and interdependent selves must be understood in their cultural context, rather than simply being conceived of as long-lasting effects of ancient agricultural systems or disease vectors. Pursuing this line of inquiry in the contemporary Chinese context, this paper shows that in the very important domains of religion, medicine, and architecture, a certain ontological porosity of personhood is both enacted through daily life actions and—through the medium of popular literature—represented with great momentousness in contemporary Chinese culture. It is suggested that this perception of ontological porosity characteristic of Chinese culture underlies the inclination towards interdependent self-construal that has been vested with such strong explanatory power in cross-cultural psychology. As such, this paper does not disprove the distinction between independent and interdependent self-construals, but it provides more fruitful ways of investigating and thinking about personhood that allows for the fact that human thought processes work themselves out within experiencing bodies who are enmeshed with their cultural environment.

Mapping Modern Beijing: Space, Emotion, Literary Topography

Mapping Modern Beijing: Space, Emotion, Literary Topography

The Rivalry of Spectacle: A Debordian-Lacanian Analysis of Contemporary Chinese Culture

In 1967 Guy Debord published the pamphlet-sized The Society of the Spectacle, a book written in the form of a collection of short theses. Debord was criticized for inventing the “spectacle” out of thin air by thinkers of his time such as Michel Foucault. We can, however, detect salient manifestations of the Debordian spectacular society in China of the 2010s. This paper demonstrates a deep and pervasive trend of spectacularization in China by analyzing (a) Taobao as a desire-creating machine producing the buy-buy-buy fanaticism, (b) the beautifying operation that has engendered perverted effects in sexual relationship, (c) the spectacular dialectic epitomized by the celebrity culture, and (d) the reality-twisting effects of the spectacles. The paper further offers a comparative analysis of the contemporary spectacles vis-à-vis the Maoist spectacles of the 1960s, which sheds light in understanding the enactment of antientertainment actions in recent years. The spectacles in contemporary China, in the fashion depicted by Debord half a century ago, have effectively produced a specific worldview of commodity and consumption, and this worldview transforms itself, through blind trust, into a type of objective force. The social terrains needed for spreading and cultivating socialist values were heavily colonized by the such spectacles (consumption, beautification, celebrity culture, entertainment); the latter have significantly absorbed the masses’ attention in the last decade to such level that it has almost occupied all spaces for communication and played the leading role in regulating people’s daily lives. The “Beauty is justice!” slogan that has been extremely popular in contemporary China reveals one significant change in Chinese culture and its sociopolitical effect: the trend of spectacularization, through elevating spectacle to the supreme value and turning the country into a spectacular (un)reality, has not only homogenized China but also effectively depoliticized the country.

East Meets West: Identity and Intercultural Discourse in Chinese huaju Shakespeares

This article examines two huaju performances of Shakespeare—The Tragedy of Coriolanus (2007) and King Lear (2006), which are good examples of cultural exchanges between East and West, integrating Shakespeare into contemporary Chinese culture and politics. The two works provide distinctive approaches to the issues of identity in intercultural discourse. At the core of both productions lies the fundamental question: “Who am I?” At stake are the artists’ personal and cultural identities as processes of globalisation intensify. These performances not only exemplify the intercultural productivity of Shakespearean texts, but more critically, illustrate how Shakespeare and intercultural discourses are internalized and reconfigured by the nation and culture that consume and re-produce them. Chinese adaptations of Coriolanus and King Lear demonstrate how (intercultural) identity is constructed through the subjectivity and iconicity of Shakespeare’s characters and the performativity of Shakespeare’s texts.

Reach and influence of contemporary Chinese culture

Reach and influence of contemporary Chinese culture

Panorama as Method

Abstract Diverse artifacts in contemporary Chinese visual culture—from urban screens to architectural models, art exhibits, and viral media—share a panoramic breadth. This article suggests, however, that we should regard panorama not as a preordained form but as a discursive construct that posits an imaginary vantage point. Panorama as method notes the use of scale, recording of the skyline, and mediation of the cityscape. The article asks what material conditions and ideological circumstances allow for the existence of the images at hand and what brings us to identify them as panoramic. The implications reach far beyond specific artifacts: panorama as method challenges accepted paradigms about the relationship between the modern subject and urban space, including the distinction between cartographic vision and street-level immersion. The article focuses on what may be called the panoramic imaginary in contemporary Chinese urbanism: a visual emphasis on expansive space by scaling the built environment up and down, thereby recalibrating social relations and relocating civic engagement to virtual spaces.

Ragpicking as Method

Abstract This article explores the relationship between precarity, waste, and the ragpicker in contemporary Chinese visual culture. It asks first why precarity has come so little and so late to the theoretical scene in China, a society in which precarious experience is so rife as to be almost endemic. The essay then goes on to show how some of China's leading artists now work profusely with refuse—as a core theme of the precarious present—while noting the strange anomaly that their works offer up scant if any space for the figure of the waste picker. The artist, instead, has taken over her mantle as the sifter and sorter of garbage. This missing human figure matters, in part because waste is always about people—and their absence from aesthetic space suggests that art is responding to a felt sense that personhood is coming under assault as basic life sureties fray. But this essay also argues that the garbage takeover is part of a sustained practice of appropriation, effacement, even cruelty in the artistic representation of precarity in China. China's wasteworks are art forms born at the tense interface between different class actors, and they disclose fraught fears over where brittle life experience begins and ends in a society that has tried to eliminate class as a category of political action and analysis.

오사 100년, 「신화」에서 「역사」로: 현대 중국 문화담론의 반전

오사 100년, 「신화」에서 「역사」로: 현대 중국 문화담론의 반전

論“醜書”在當代中國文化中的不被兼容: 對於“射墨”事件引發的“醜書”批判熱潮的反思

In 2018, a video of the Shaoyan's calligraphy creation process, which was widely circulated on the internet, triggered a critical upsurge of '醜書'（ugly calligraphy）on the internet and in academia. This paper carries on the research to this critical upsurge. Superficially, the criticisms revolve around the creative process, artistic form and pure abstractness of 'ugly calligraphy'. In fact, some of the criticized artistic aesthetic characters can also be accepted by Chinese contemporary culture. That is to say, 'ugly calligraphy' can not be accepted by Chinese contemporary culture for another reason. Through the analysis, we could draw the conclusion that the debate about 'beauty and ugliness' does not get to the essence of this problem. In fact, the critical upsurge reflects the cultural conflict. The reason why 'ugly calligraphy' is not compatible with contemporary Chinese culture is that, on the one hand, it destroys the 'schema' of traditional calligraphy, more importantly, it loses a sense of reverence for traditional culture.

Issues in Sino-Christian theology

ABSTRACTSino-Christian theology is a relatively recent phenomenon in China, largely pursued in university settings by scholars many of whom are not Christian or are ‘cultural Christians’. It is set apart from the churches in China, and is deeply rooted in classical Chinese, Taoist and Confucian, roots. As Sino-Christian theology seeks contextualisation in contemporary Chinese culture, it begs many questions as to the nature of theology when this becomes a cultural rather than an ecclesial exercise.

Chongming islanders in Great Shanghai: an investigation of cultural ecology

ABSTRACTThe present study investigates the living conditions of taxi drivers in Sanshan Village of Chongming Island, in contrast with those of the long-lived population, a distinct demographic group on Chongming Island as well as in China, whose natural and healthy lifestyles represent a culture of sustainability of people and society. It examines the contributing factors and implications of this culture; such understanding is strongly relevant in the attempt to ease people’s anxiety about the environmental crisis facing China now. At the same time, a study of Chongming Island, a representative case of China’s urbanization, makes it possible for us to weigh in this development path, with a hope to explore and construct a sound relationship between China’s urban and rural areas. In addition, we can gain an insight of the way of life of present-day society through a closer look at “Chongming Islanders in Great Shanghai.”1 The issue of Chongming Island is therefore of great importance to contemporary Chinese culture.

Cultural Assimilation and Hegemony: On the Translation of “Human Rights”

This essay intends to discuss the interaction in essence between translation and culture through the translation case of “human rights”. Since translation studies have many links with historical, political and cross-cultural research, an analysis of translation will be a powerful approach to exploring the cultural assimilation and hegemony hidden behind the term “human rights”. The term of “human rights” was translated as <i>renquan</i> in Chinese language in the 18^th century when China was experiencing a period of impoverishment and long-standing debility. Because formal and dynamic equivalences could not be found in the target language, rewriting process is involved in <i>renquan</i>. Individualism is “missed” in <i>ren</i> and <i>quan</i> is very likely to be misunderstood by Chinese people as “power”. As a matter of fact, the idea of “human rights” has been assimilated into contemporary Chinese culture, unleashing a rush of power in China’s politics, legislation and education, so on and so forth. Those influences not only indicate a result of cultural blending, but also reveal the existence of cultural collisions. While this concept brings advances for the Chinese nation, it is often manipulated as a cultural hegemony weapon by some Western countries. Claims about human rights of hegemonic countries sometimes are ironically conflicted with the action they take. Cultural assimilation and cultural hegemony shown in the translation case of “human rights,” give rise to the enlightenments about the evaluation of a good translator. The role of translators is never static, mostly importing foreign cultures in hard times and exporting domestic cultures in taking-off times. Besides, the translating strategy of the term “human rights” is not the fundamental reason that leads Chinese indigenous ideologies to have been influenced by the West and the translators’ role in countering against cultural hegemony seems to be very tiny, but these does not mean they can do nothing. Translators should strengthen self-efficacy and they themselves should believe their roles are able to imperceptibly attract or block readers. Lastly, translators must be fully aware of cultural self-consciousness. Great translators should strengthen their sensitivity to inter-cultural communications, being neither cringing nor arrogant about different cultures and enhancing the technological literacy in this digital era.

New Explorations of Archetypal Folk Criticism: Explanations for a few Theoretical Issues of the Research Subject &amp;quot;Contemporary Chinese Literature and Folk Culture&amp;quot;

New Explorations of Archetypal Folk Criticism: Explanations for a few Theoretical Issues of the Research Subject &amp;quot;Contemporary Chinese Literature and Folk Culture&amp;quot;

The Culture of Science as a New Direction for the Development of Chinese Culture: A Review of Studies of the Culture of Science in Contemporary China

The rise of studies on the culture of science at the beginning of the 21st century in China is not merely an extension of studies on the split between scientific culture and the culture of the humanities, which stemmed directly from the introduction of CP Snow's thesis into China, but also a consequence of the re-meeting, conflict and fusion of Western and Chinese cultures since the 1980s. From the perspective of cultural conflict and cultural integration, the author examines the development of studies of the culture of science and some resulting academic tensions over the past 20 years. He points out that the new direction of contemporary Chinese culture lies in the promotion of the culture of science, which is, together with the building of a culture of innovation to make the economy more prosperous, aimed at the promotion of national intelligence.

Cross-Lagged Panel Analyses of Child Shyness, Maternal and Paternal Authoritarian Parenting, and Teacher-Child Relationships in Mainland China

The goal of this study was to explore longitudinal associations among child shyness, harsh maternal and paternal parenting styles, and close teacher-child relationships in the cultural context of contemporary urban China. Participants were N = 1,154 third through seventh-grade students (566 boys, 588 girls; Mage = 10.78 years, SD = 1.55), recruited from schools in Shanghai, P. R. China. Data were collected at two time-periods over a one-year period using multi-source assessments. Children provided self-reports of shyness, mothers and fathers rated their own harsh parenting, and teachers assessed teacher-child relationships. Among the results, shyness predicted increased incremental change in harsh parenting (for both mothers and fathers) and incremental decrease in close teacher-child relationships one year later. Results are discussed in terms of the evolving meaning and implications of child shyness in contemporary Chinese culture.

Understanding values of souvenir purchase in the contemporary Chinese culture: A case of Shanghai Disney

Abstract This research explores souvenir values under the influence of contemporary Chinese culture. Taking Shanghai Disney as the study context, a total of 32 onsite interviews with Chinese visitors to Shanghai Disney were conducted. Based on the analysis of 246 pages of interview transcripts, this research identifies three overarching souvenir values germane to modern Chinese culture, encompassed by sign value, meaningfulness, and hedonic value. In addition, a list of seven other values are found to uniquely exist depending on the specific recipient of souvenirs. These are classified as family orientation, and knowledge and positive education for children; individuality, instrumental value, and conformity for oneself; and kindness, and trust and harmony for others. These values provide insightful explanations for Chinese consumers’ souvenir purchase behavior in contemporary Chinese society. Theoretical and managerial implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.