ISBN: 978-80-244-6347-6 | ISBN online: 978-80-244-6348-3 | DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476

Continuity and Change in Asia

Filip Kraus (Ed.), Renata Westlake (Ed.), Kateřina Šamajová (Ed.), Blanka Ferklová (Ed.)




The theme of ‘continuity and change’ is generally acknowledged as an important and a highly complex problem. Asia is considered as one of the most dynamically changing parts of the worlds. The quick economic, political and socio-cultural changes are generating interesting topics in those scholarly fields such as anthropology, ethnography, linguistics and literary studies, or in other fields of social, political  and economic science. Especially after the years of anti-Covid 19, measures it is important to understand what remains stable or what had been changed and may be  lost forever.

1. edition, Published: 2023, online: 2023, publisher: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, Křížkovského 8, 771 47 Olomouc


Contents

INTRODUCTION: THE INTERPLAY OF ECONOMIC, POLITICAL AND SOCIO-CULTURAL CHANGES IN ASIA

Filip Kraus (A.), Kateřina Šamajová (A.), Renata Westlake (A.), Blanka Ferklová (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.01


The introduction demonstrates how the recent economic transformations of Asia led to political, social, and cultural changes that are, at least discursively, counterbalanced by a certain traditionalism and continuity in patterns of sociocultural behavior. The introduction consequently introduces the structure of the book, which is divided into five thematic parts to indicate how the interplay of continuity and change in Asia produces and reproduces itself. As a result, the book begins with an excursion into various historically relevant studies on this phenomenon. The final part is organized according to different fields of study to demonstrate how economic and technological development triggers socio-political changes and transformations in contemporary art production. 

FAMINE RELIEF MANUALS AS A MEANS OF CRISIS MANAGEMENT: PLANTS BETWEEN PRAGMATISM AND IDEOLOGY

Kateřina Šamajová (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.02


The genre of Chinese botany was well established even before its confrontation with its Western counterpart in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, representing a continuous effort of the Chinese imperial state to distribute knowledge about plants to the masses. This chapter postulates that maintaining the production and compilation of state-commissioned literary works about plants constitutes a pivotal role in maintaining the validity and legitimacy of imperial rule. Studying the Chinese canonical plant knowledge revealed recurring patterns in preventing and managing subsistence crises in Chinese history. Through the lens of environmental history, famine is never an isolated phenomenon but rather a direct cause or consequence of other crises, whether man-induced or natural. By providing the common folk with the crucial knowledge of strategies for combating hunger, the Chinese imperial state apparatus has provided us with a unique (sub) genre to study in greater detail. This chapter will explore and postulate potential incentives by reading between the lines of what Needham scholars consider a famine manual by focusing on its form and content. The role of ideology in the Chinese plant-studying tradition will be discussed, primarily focusing on the context of its conceptualization in what is perceived as ‘scientific’ while drawing parallels with the current topicality and salience of studying the conception and dissemination of famine-preventive manuals in our time.

KOREAN A-BOMB VICTIMS’ MOVEMENT AND THE POWER OF NATIONALISM

Yuko Takahashi (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.03



This chapter discusses ”the A-bombed nationalism” that emphasizes the victimhood of the Japanese nation, and that developed through the redress movement of the Japanese victims of the 1945 atomic bombings. A-bombed nationalism has unintentionally excluded other atomic-bomb victims, most notably Koreans who experienced the bombings as colonized subjects of the Japanese Empire at that time. These Korean victims brought nationalism to the fore throughout their own movement, by attributing their victimization to Japan’s colonization of Korea. Their A-bombed nationalism, however, showed a positive potential unlike that of the Japanese victims, as it stimulated a sense of atonement among Japanese citizens as former colonizers who consequently determined to work for redress of Korean atomic-bomb victims. While the diplomatic rift over the colonial past still lingers between Korea and Japan, Korean victims’ A-bombed nationalism may present a possibility where citizens of the two countries can face the past and work together towards a new relationship. 
 

MODERNIST PROTESTANTISM TRIUMPHS OVER CHINESE SUPERSTITIONS: SUN YAT-SEN'S RELIGIOUS QUEST TO OVERTHROW THE YELLOW EMPIRE

Jasper Roctus (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.04



Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), the first provisional President of the Republic of China in 1912, spent most of his formative years in what Marie-Claire Bergère called ”coastal Blue China” – a dichotomic concept she put in opposition to ”continental Yellow China.” Bergère’s Blue China consisted of the treaty ports in (mainland) China where Western forces enjoyed considerable privileges after the advent of the unequal treaties, as well as overseas areas with Chinese communities under Western control/influence. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the increasingly Modernist teachings of Protestant missionaries in Blue China aligned wellwith the revolutionary aims of Sun and his followers, allowing for a ”window of opportunity” for considerable mutual cooperation to take place. This chapter expands upon Bergère’s concept of Blue China by linking Sun and his revolutionary movement to the influence of Protestant modernism in Blue China – this in contradistinction to an often generalized ”Western learning” or ”Christianity” in (all of) ”China.” The sequential focus is on the first part of the aforementioned ”temporal window,” when the goals of the Chinese revolutionaries prominently aligned with those of the Protestant missionaries (i.e., from just before the turn of the twentieth century until Sun’s short tenure in office in 1912). To emphasize that Protestant modernism – specifically – has been understated as a formative influence on the Republic of China, this work provides a ”zoomed-in” case study of the religion’s influence on Sun in inspiring him to change China. This is done through an overview of his educational background and occasional replication of his religious credo. 
 

CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN US-ASIA TENSIONS: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF US-JAPAN TRADE WAR IN THE HEADLINES

Damien Ng (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.05



This chapter argues that trade wars between an established superpower and a rising contender are influenced by contemporary commercial and geopolitical realities that are subsequently reflected in media discourse. It offers a timely discussion of the great-power politics involving the United States and China by examining the similar 1987 power struggle between the United States and Japan. Specifically, this chapter explores the depiction of the US–Japan trade war in the headlines of four Western newsmagazines — Time, The Economist, L’Express and Der Spiegel. The analysis employs Van Dijk’s (1980) concept of macro-rules to determine the prevailing topics in the headlines of these newsmagazines, followed by an application of Van Leeuwen’s (2008) socio-semantic inventory of social actor representation. In doing so, this chapter analyses a historical event similar to the current US–China trade war—albeit involving a different Asian rival—to explore continuity and change in US–Asia tensions. The findings reveal that the broadly unfavorable coverage of Japan was restricted to the realm of economic affairs in contrast to the coverage of China, which spans economic, political and military affairs. The four newsmagazines did not speak in one collective voice regarding their coverage of Japan due to their respective countries’ economic situations vis-à-vis Japan. While some lessons can be drawn from the earlier US–Japan competition to understand the contemporary US–China rivalry, the latter duo’s divergent political systems and China’s growing global ambitions may present a greater challenge to the incumbent power for years to come. 
 

SOCIAL OMISSIONS ON CHINESE ENVIRONMENTAL NGO AGENDAS: KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION THAT SILENCES

Taru Salmenkari (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.06



This anthropological study examines how middle-class domination on the Chinese NGO scene is reflected on environmental NGO (ENGO) agendas and in their interactions with rural residents. Investigating environmental education, recycling, conservation and advocacy, this study demonstrates that many ENGO-promoted environmental projects render farmers and migrant workers invisible as stakeholders and neglect economic costs to them. It finds that civil society development, which responds to urban middle-class concerns, borrows global models, and relies on certain technologies of knowledge production, contributes to the omission of rural interests on ENGO agendas. When ENGOs’ green values are translated into projects to be implemented in the real world, environmental protection for the good of the planet can have social impacts that infringe on someone else’s concrete interests. Simultaneously, ENGOs’ green approaches naturalize and depoliticize the environmentally unsustainable lifestyles of the urban middle class. This study reassesses the common spatial metaphor of civil society based on the distance from the state and argues that civil society actors’ distance from other actors in society is equally important. The beliefs that the environment can be protected by projects for future-oriented transformation and that rural areas can be managed from the urban centers bring ENGOs closer to the government and to global environmental standards than to local people. This study therefore questions how much the rise of the Chinese NGO scene can alleviate systemic social inequalities now and in the future for reasons that are internal to NGOs, rather than attributable to the Chinese political system. 
 

RE-SETTING SUSTAINABILITY AMIDST THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A SYSTEM THINKING-BASED PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE TWO SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES IN MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA

Marco Zappa (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.07



Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are a common policy instrument used by governments globally, but most significantly in developing countries, to achieve a number of targets ranging from attracting Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in the country to spurring socio-economic development. However, to what extent are SEZs socially and environmentally sustainable? Governments in developing countries across East Asia have established SEZs since the 1960s, and have supported their transformation in specialized and innovation-driven manufacturing and service areas. According to a 2019 UNCTAD Report, there are 737 in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Here, industrial and infrastructural development remains key to consolidating local political leaderships. In fact, this chapter will argue that SEZs can be seen as ”abstract spaces” aimed at governing and at supporting capital reproduction in a context of global standardization. The cases of Thilawa in Myanmar and Van Don in Northern Vietnam will be analyzed. 
 

CONSTRUING "THE PUBLIC" IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE WENMING DISCOURSE

Aran Romero-Moreno (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.08


This chapter sheds new light on the analysis of the concept of ”civilization” (wenming) in the People’s Republic of China. The author employs the empirical data that he collected in Nanjing, that is, hundreds of photographs and descriptions of billboards, banners, audiovisual clips, posters, textbooks, and pamphlets on public manners and civic behavior, to create a four-layered classification of the political wenming discourse. He then analyzes each category individually delving into their theoretical context to conclude that wenming, as a cohesive ideology, serves to construct an absolute, free from circles of familiarity and social positionality, notion of the public good. 

CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN THE CONTEMPORARY TENSIONS OF REGIONAL AND RURAL PLACES

Anthony Scott Rausch (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.09



This chapter adopts a neo-endogenous development approach in viewing regional and rural Japan, identifying a number of specifically regional and rural tensions that portray both continuity and change, and interpreting the continuity and change associated with these themes in terms of both positive and negative implications. The themes are: urban to rural regional relocation; a neoliberal tax policy and regional tax inequalities; regional think tanks and leadership development; local vitality and regional revitalization volunteerism; and the evolving meaningfulness of the regional newspaper. For each of these, there are conditions that represent continuity, with that continuity implying stability for the area in some cases versus obsolescence of practice or policy in others. Likewise, for each theme, there are responses to the inherent and emerging tensions, proposed changes that reflect innovative policy creation as well as unintentional bias and that lead to both successful outcomes as well as unintended consequences. The content of the chapter draws on several long-term case study research projects undertaken in regional Japan, in an area that represents well the contemporary reality of regional and rural places. It is, however, when the inherent tensions of these cases are contextualized, on the basis of continuity and change, that the trajectories can be generalized to speak to the broader reality of regional Asia. 
 

RIPENING BANANAS: A CASE STUDY OF INTERGENERATIONAL CONFLICTS WITHIN THE VIETNAMESE DIASPORA IN CZECHIA

Filip Kraus and Mai Thi Thu (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.10


To show the nature of the inter-generational conflicts within the Vietnamese  diaspora living in the Czech Republic (CR), the chapter analyzes four main areas  of these conflicts, i.e., disputes between children and their parents over education and future career, the children’s intimate relationships and choice of marital  partner, and following the Vietnamese traditions of the 1.5 and second-generations of the diaspora. Also the endless efforts of the first-generation Vietnamese to  maintain the good reputation of the family in the diaspora is depicted as aditional  source of inter-generational conflicts. The analytical data were collected through  participant observation in four families over a period of three years, and through  semi-structured interviews with 20 members of the second-generation and 19  members of first-generation. The chapter also shows that those conflicts, together  with the racist/xenophobic attitudes of the society at large, are the main agents in  the identity formation of the 1.5 and second-generation Vietnamese living in CR.  It argues that, as a result of those antipodal identity-making agents, the identity  of the young Vietnamese living in the CR is articulated as an exclusive cultural  identity located somewhere in between the Czech and Vietnamese socio-cultural  environments.

THE EMERGENCE OF AN ALTERNATIVE PUBLIC SPACE IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN: THE (TRANS) FORMATION OF CIVIC MOVEMENTS IN A WORKING-CLASS DISTRICT IN OSAKA

Jeehwan Park (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.11


This chapter aims to explore the emergence of a new form of public space in precarious Japan by ethnographically examining the formation and transformation of social movements in Kamagasaki, a working-class district in Osaka. Since the 1990s, Japan has become a divided society: having lost their belief in postwar order based on the seamless linkage of family, school and company, Japanese citizens have been left with bewilderment by the infiltration of neoliberalism. This study shows that activism in the most excluded district has, paradoxically, offered an alternative form of self-reliance and solidarity through the assemblage of various forms of publicness. On top of counterspace that creates work and residence for the homeless, as well as the public sphere where their unheard voices can be represented, the third public space or ibasho, in which their self-worth is confirmed, emerged, whereby they could avoid being isolated and become self-reliant. Given that ibasho spreads to diverse domains such as education, the labor movement, and community development in Japanese society, it can be said that it is moving to the next stage, where one aspires to compatibility between freedom and stability. 

VULNERABLE SELVES: THE LONG DECLINE OF JAPANESE MASCULINITY

Maria Grajdian (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.12



Based on 36-month empiric-phenomenological fieldwork in the elusive area of virtual interactions as well as in-depth literature research on new media, masculinity studies, and the entertainment industry with a specific focus on Japan, this chapter aims at clarifying some of the major – and to a certain extent, central – themes recurrent in the obsessive, radicalized consumption of virtual leisure practices among Japanese men: online dating, video games, and digital pornography seem to have slowly, steadily, quietly conquered the Internet, involving large segments of the male population. Previous academic research on the digital space and its relation to masculinity, particularly the seminal studies of Azuma Hiroki (2000, 2001) and Morikawa Kaichirô (2008), deal mostly with the otaku (”nerd”) phenomenon classically linked to the cyber-industry and digital culture. The current chapter analyzes two additional paradigms of masculinity in Japan framing the otaku social appearance – the salaryman (”corporate samurai”) and the ”herbivore men” – in a historical-comparative perspective while highlighting the complex gender dynamics in late-modern Japan, in the dialectical interplay of power, (cultural) consumption and state-driven reproduction politics. It eventually suggests some possible strategies towards a more social-friendly future of the digital universe and of the challenges masculinity is facing currently, in a global perspective. 
 

TRADITION AND CHANGE: NAMING PRACTICES IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN AND TAIWAN

Ivona Barešová (A.), Petr Janda (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.13


This chapter explores commonalities in current naming practices in Japan and Taiwan, focusing on whether they have changed over the last two or three generations, and what general social trends they reflect. Based on data obtained from interviews with ten Japanese and ten Taiwanese parents, it provides a glimpse into the actual process of name selection in these two societies. The analysed examples of the naming process displayed some tendencies unique to each society (such as proceeding from the sound to the graphic form in Japan, and from the characters to the sound in Taiwan), and some tendencies common to both societies (such as weakening links among names within the extended family and increased parental control over the process). Similar tendencies in the naming process in Japan and Taiwan manifest similar general social trends in both societies, such as the growing independence of the nuclear family. 

CASTE, GENDER AND SOCIAL DISTANCING IN THE TIMES OF THE PANDEMIC

Madhu Madhu (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.14


The present chapter discusses the meaning of social distancing amid the pandemic with patriarchy and caste in the foreground. It revisits the idea of social distancing, normally understood as the physical distance between any two individuals. In Indian caste-based society, social amalgamation is an alien concept and practicing social distancing from certain castes is a norm. With over 95% of Indians observing endogamy (marrying within their caste/clan groups), ”permanent social distancing” has prevailed in India for centuries, with now many of them thinking science has offered them one more reason for holding the beliefs they do. With the help of reports and data from various government and non-governmental organizations, the chapter focuses on the extreme exclusion and discrimination faced by Dalits, 1 especially Dalit women, who comprise the majority of the informal sanitation workforce, having a low income and almost no social security. These women experience triple oppression by the men and women of the dominant castes for being Dalits, by the rich and affluent for being poor, and face patriarchal oppression from men of all communities, including their own. 

WHAT INCREASING CONTINUATION OF WOMEN IN EMPLOYMENT MEANS FOR GENDER ROLES IN JAPAN

Yuko Ogasawara (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.15



Due to the fact that women traditionally retired from the labor market at the time of childbirth in Japan, they were disadvantaged in firms that emphasized lifetime employment. Using an interview survey of 26 men and women from two large companies, this study investigates the causes driving the increase in the number of women who continue working throughout their child-rearing years and its implications for gender relations in Japan. The data suggest that companies take measures to support work-family balance, and women continue to work using them. Inspired by role models in their workplace, more women commit to having a career, resulting in the majority of men and women planning their future lives based on the assumption that both spouses will be working. While women’s stronger commitment to employment is generally believed to be associated with the dismantling of traditional gender relations, the study’s findings show that in Japan, the more companies promote work-family balance and the more women rely on such support, the more men seem to be exempt from doing the work at home. In other words, Japanese women’s stronger commitment to work is accompanied by a surprisingly stronger fixation on their traditional mothering and housewife roles. 
 

"AI ART" AND DELEGATED DIGITAL CREATIVITY: VICTOR WONG’S TECH-iNK PAINTINGS AND CHEN QIUFAN’S NOVELLA "STATE OF TRANCE"

Giorgio Strafella and Daria Berg (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.16


This chapter investigates new forms of conceptual experimentation with so-called ”artificial intelligence” in visual art and literary fiction. Drawing on theories of generative art and delegated art, we propose the term ”delegated digital creativity” to describe art and literature that explicitly delegate part of the conception as well as realization of a given work to ”AI” models. In visual art, this chapter examines ”TECH-iNK” paintings by Victor Wong – ink-and-wash landscapes executed by a machine programmed by the artist. In literature, the chapter discusses a science-fiction novella by Chen Qiufan in which the authorship of some passages is assigned to a machine-learning model. By placing these case studies within the history of avant-garde experimentation, this chapter shows how the adoption of such technologies, as it occurs in these works, foregrounds the issue of control and deception while it establishes complex relations of continuity and innovation with tradition. 

THE TRADITIONAL AND THE MODERN IN YONE NOGUCHI’S WRITINGS ABOUT JAPANESE WOMEN UNTIL 1906

Andrea Szilagyi (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.17



This chapter analyses Japanese women’s image described for an English-speaking audience in the works of the poet and writer Yone Noguchi (Noguchi Yonejirō, 1875–1947) between 1899 and 1906. By 1904, Noguchi had shifted his focus from the ideal of a pure and traditional girl, towards figures of women who could represent the duality of Meiji era’s elements, traditional and modern. These shifts can be connected to two known women figures, Onoto Watanna (1875–1954) and Sada Yacco (1871–1946), who also embodied those elements of the Meiji era by the time Noguchi met them. Discussing Noguchi’s diary novel, short novels, and his essays on women writers and geishas, the chapter highlights the way Noguchi presented two ideals, the traditional Japanese beauty, and the modern Japanese beauty. 
 

GENDER MATTERS?: THE EVOLUTION OF GENDERED VOICES IN THE CINEMA OF COLONIAL AND POSTWAR KOREA (1936–1961)

Gabor Sebo (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.18



The following chapter examines Korean film narratives of romance starting from the late colonial era until the Second Republic of Korea (1960–1961). The altered attributes of Korean womanhood under the control of men stress a shift in the voice of females, emphasizing their hardship and temporary victories in tandem with the crisis of competitive male counterparts. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of the cinematic representation of gender roles in Korean film towards the end of the colonial rule and at the dawn of the newly founded Republic of Korea. Transformations in the aesthetic and formal depictions of feminism, coupled with the desperate effort of Korean women to rid themselves of social conventions, are strikingly encompassed. The goal is not merely to highlight the impossibility of Korean women’s independence during these significant historical periods but also to address its roots in constant rebellion against the male-dominated social space. 
 

NEW WINE FROM AN OLD BOTTLE: REMANING "THE DUNHUANG LIBRARY CAVE" THROUGH THE LONG TWENTIETH CENTURY

Zhenru Zhou (A.)

DOI: 10.5507/ff.23.24463476.19


The famous Dunhuang library cave epitomizes not only the adaptive reuse of caves in late-medieval China, but also, as I would argue, the epistemological shifts from religious artifacts to works of art and cultural heritage in the long twentieth century. Multiple interventions in the library cave were conducted by the local clergy and laity who aimed to revitalize the sacred site, by explorers who searched for antiquities, by artists who looked for lost art, and by researchers who retrospectively narrated the history of the legendary cave. Despite their different goals and means, all claimed to have restored the cave and revealed some truths about it. As byproducts of the restorations, the inscribed objects were mobilized, rewritten, added, and made to refer and respond to one another. By analyzing the inscriptions and the inscription-bearing objects, the study shows the triangulation of international, national, and local interventions that have been continuously reshaping the library cave.