Author: Po-Shek Fu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190073764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Hong Kong was a key battlefield in Asia's cultural cold war. After 1948-1949, an influx of filmmakers, writers, and intellectuals from mainland China transformed British Hong Kong into a hub for mass entertainment and popular publications. While there was no organized movement for independence, largely because of its location directly next to Mao's China, Hong Kong was central in the cultural contest between Communist China, Nationalist Taiwan, and the United States. Hong Kong Media and Asia's Cold War discusses how China, Taiwan, and the U.S. fought to mobilize Hong Kong cinema and print media to sway ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and across the world. Central to this propaganda and psychological warfare was the emigre media industry. This period was the "golden age" of Mandarin cinema and popular culture. Throughout the 1967 Riots and the 1970s, the emergence of a new, local-born generation challenged and reshaped the Cold War networks of émigré cultural production, contributing to the gradual decline of Hong Kong's cultural Cold War. Through untapped archival materials, contemporary sources, and numerous interviews with filmmakers, magazine editors, and student activists, Po-Shek Fu explores how global conflicts were localized and intertwined with myriad local historical experiences and cultural formation.
Hong Kong Media and Asia's Cold War
The Cold War in Asia
Author: Yangwen Zheng
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004175377
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
The Cold War stayed cold in Europe but it was hot in Asia. Its legacy lives on in the region. In none of the three dominant historiographical paradigms: orthodox, revisionist and post-revisionist, does Asia, or the rest of the Third World, figure with much significance. What happens to these narratives if we put them to the test in Asia? This volume argues that attention to what has been conventionally considered the periphery is essential to a full understanding of the global Cold War. Foregrounding Asia necessarily leads to a re-assessment of the dominant narratives. This volume also argues for a shift in focus from diplomacy and high politics alone towards research into the culture of the Cold War era and its public diplomacy. "As a whole, the essays contribute to enriching our understanding of what was really happening in an era that is too often understood in the catch-all framework of the Cold War." - Akira Iriye, "Harvard University"
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004175377
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
The Cold War stayed cold in Europe but it was hot in Asia. Its legacy lives on in the region. In none of the three dominant historiographical paradigms: orthodox, revisionist and post-revisionist, does Asia, or the rest of the Third World, figure with much significance. What happens to these narratives if we put them to the test in Asia? This volume argues that attention to what has been conventionally considered the periphery is essential to a full understanding of the global Cold War. Foregrounding Asia necessarily leads to a re-assessment of the dominant narratives. This volume also argues for a shift in focus from diplomacy and high politics alone towards research into the culture of the Cold War era and its public diplomacy. "As a whole, the essays contribute to enriching our understanding of what was really happening in an era that is too often understood in the catch-all framework of the Cold War." - Akira Iriye, "Harvard University"
Chineseness and the Cold War
Author: Jeremy E. Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000450198
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
This book explores contested notions of "Chineseness" in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong during the Cold War, showing how competing ideas about "Chineseness" were an important ideological factor at play in the region. After providing an overview of the scholarship on "Chineseness" and "diaspora", the book sheds light on specific case studies, through the lens of the "Chinese cultural Cold War", from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. It provides detailed examples of competition for control of definitions of "Chineseness" by political or politically oriented forces of diverse kinds, and shows how such competition was played out in bookstores, cinemas, music halls, classrooms, and even sports clubs and places of worship across the region in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The book also demonstrates how the legacies of these Cold War contestations continue to influence debates about Chinese influence – and "Chineseness" – in Southeast Asia and the wider region today. Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000450198
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
This book explores contested notions of "Chineseness" in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong during the Cold War, showing how competing ideas about "Chineseness" were an important ideological factor at play in the region. After providing an overview of the scholarship on "Chineseness" and "diaspora", the book sheds light on specific case studies, through the lens of the "Chinese cultural Cold War", from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. It provides detailed examples of competition for control of definitions of "Chineseness" by political or politically oriented forces of diverse kinds, and shows how such competition was played out in bookstores, cinemas, music halls, classrooms, and even sports clubs and places of worship across the region in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The book also demonstrates how the legacies of these Cold War contestations continue to influence debates about Chinese influence – and "Chineseness" – in Southeast Asia and the wider region today. Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Hong Kong and the Cold War
Author: Chi-kwan Mark
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199273707
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
After 1949, the British Empire in Hong Kong was more vulnerable than the lack of Chinese demand for return and the success of Hong Kong's economic transformations might have suggested. Its vulnerability stemmed as much from Britain's imperial decline and America's Cold War requirements as from a Chinese threat. It culminated in the little known '1957 Question', a year when the British position in Hong Kong appeared more uncertain than any time since 1949.This is the first scholarly study that places Hong Kong at the heart of the Anglo-American relationship in the wider context of the Cold War in Asia. Unlike existing works, which tend to treat British and US policies in isolation, this book explores their dynamic interactions - how the two allies perceived, responded to, and attempted to influence each other's policies and actions. It also provides a major reinterpretation of Hong Kong's involvement in the containment of China. Dr Mark arguesthat, concerned about possible Chinese retaliation, the British insisted and the Americans accepted that Hong Kong's role should be as discreet and non-confrontational in nature as possible. Above all, top decision-makers in Washington evaluated Hong Kong's significance not in its own right, but inthe context of the Anglo-American relationship: Hong Kong was seen primarily as a bargaining chip to obtain British support for US policy elsewhere in Asia.By using a variety of British and US archival material as well as Chinese sources, Dr Mark examines how the British and US government discussed, debated, and disagreed over Hong Kong's role in the Cold War, and reveals the dynamics of the Anglo-American alliance and the dilemmas of small allies in a global conflict.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199273707
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
After 1949, the British Empire in Hong Kong was more vulnerable than the lack of Chinese demand for return and the success of Hong Kong's economic transformations might have suggested. Its vulnerability stemmed as much from Britain's imperial decline and America's Cold War requirements as from a Chinese threat. It culminated in the little known '1957 Question', a year when the British position in Hong Kong appeared more uncertain than any time since 1949.This is the first scholarly study that places Hong Kong at the heart of the Anglo-American relationship in the wider context of the Cold War in Asia. Unlike existing works, which tend to treat British and US policies in isolation, this book explores their dynamic interactions - how the two allies perceived, responded to, and attempted to influence each other's policies and actions. It also provides a major reinterpretation of Hong Kong's involvement in the containment of China. Dr Mark arguesthat, concerned about possible Chinese retaliation, the British insisted and the Americans accepted that Hong Kong's role should be as discreet and non-confrontational in nature as possible. Above all, top decision-makers in Washington evaluated Hong Kong's significance not in its own right, but inthe context of the Anglo-American relationship: Hong Kong was seen primarily as a bargaining chip to obtain British support for US policy elsewhere in Asia.By using a variety of British and US archival material as well as Chinese sources, Dr Mark examines how the British and US government discussed, debated, and disagreed over Hong Kong's role in the Cold War, and reveals the dynamics of the Anglo-American alliance and the dilemmas of small allies in a global conflict.
Confucianism, Colonialism, and the Cold War
Author: Grace Ai-Ling Chou
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004182470
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
By tracing the history of Hong Kong’s New Asia College from its 1949 establishment through its 1963 incorporation into The Chinese University of Hong Kong, this study examines the interaction of colonial, communist, and cultural forces on the Chinese periphery.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004182470
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
By tracing the history of Hong Kong’s New Asia College from its 1949 establishment through its 1963 incorporation into The Chinese University of Hong Kong, this study examines the interaction of colonial, communist, and cultural forces on the Chinese periphery.
Rethinking Transnational Chinese Cinemas
Author: Jeremy E. Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000155145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
The Amoy-dialect film industry emerged in the 1950s, producing cheap, b-grade films in Hong Kong for direct export to the theatres of Manila Chinatown, southern Taiwan and Singapore. Films made in Amoy dialect - a dialect of Chinese - reflected a particular period in the history of the Chinese diaspora, and have been little studied due to their ambiguous place within the wider realm of Chinese and East Asian film history. This book represents the first full length, critical study of the origin, significant rise and rapid decline of the Amoy-dialect film industry. Rather than examining the industry for its own sake, however, this book focuses on its broader cultural, political and economic significance in the region. It questions many of the assumptions currently made about the ‘recentness’ of transnationalism in Chinese cultural production, particularly when addressing Chinese cinema in the Cold War years, as well as the prominence given to ‘the nation’ and ‘transnationalism’ in studies of Chinese cinemas and of the Chinese Diaspora. By examining a cinema that did not fit many of the scholarly models of ‘transnationalism’, that was not grounded in any particular national tradition of filmmaking and that was largely unconcerned with ‘nation-building’ in post-war Southeast Asia, this book challenges the ways in which the history of Chinese cinemas has been studied in the recent past.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000155145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
The Amoy-dialect film industry emerged in the 1950s, producing cheap, b-grade films in Hong Kong for direct export to the theatres of Manila Chinatown, southern Taiwan and Singapore. Films made in Amoy dialect - a dialect of Chinese - reflected a particular period in the history of the Chinese diaspora, and have been little studied due to their ambiguous place within the wider realm of Chinese and East Asian film history. This book represents the first full length, critical study of the origin, significant rise and rapid decline of the Amoy-dialect film industry. Rather than examining the industry for its own sake, however, this book focuses on its broader cultural, political and economic significance in the region. It questions many of the assumptions currently made about the ‘recentness’ of transnationalism in Chinese cultural production, particularly when addressing Chinese cinema in the Cold War years, as well as the prominence given to ‘the nation’ and ‘transnationalism’ in studies of Chinese cinemas and of the Chinese Diaspora. By examining a cinema that did not fit many of the scholarly models of ‘transnationalism’, that was not grounded in any particular national tradition of filmmaking and that was largely unconcerned with ‘nation-building’ in post-war Southeast Asia, this book challenges the ways in which the history of Chinese cinemas has been studied in the recent past.
Hong Kong Media and Asia's Cold War
Author: Poshek Fu
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190073787
Category : Cold War
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"British Hong Kong was a historical anomaly in the Cold War. It experienced no "hot war" or organized movement for independence, and yet it was a key battlefield of Asia's cultural Cold War thanks largely to its unique location right next to Mao's China. The large influx of filmmakers, writers and intellectuals from the mainland after 1948-1949 made the colony a hub of mass entertainment and popular publications in the region. Based on untapped archival materials, contemporary sources, and numerous interviews with filmmakers, magazine editors and student activists, this book sheds lights on the contest between Communist China, Nationalist Taiwan, and the US to mobilize the colony's cinema and print media to win the hearts and minds of ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and around the world. At the front and centre of this propaganda and psychological warfare was the emigre media industry. It was the "golden age" of Mandarin cinema and popular culture. In the wake of the 1967 Riots through the 1970s, the emergence of a new, local-born generation challenged and reshaped the Cold War networks of émigré cultural production and led to a gradual winding down of Hong Kong's cultural Cold War. This brings to light specifically the ways in which global conflicts were localized, intertwined with myriad local historical experiences and cultural formation. British Hong Kong was, in fact, a crossroads in the Cold War where the global, the regional, and the local intersected"--
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190073787
Category : Cold War
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"British Hong Kong was a historical anomaly in the Cold War. It experienced no "hot war" or organized movement for independence, and yet it was a key battlefield of Asia's cultural Cold War thanks largely to its unique location right next to Mao's China. The large influx of filmmakers, writers and intellectuals from the mainland after 1948-1949 made the colony a hub of mass entertainment and popular publications in the region. Based on untapped archival materials, contemporary sources, and numerous interviews with filmmakers, magazine editors and student activists, this book sheds lights on the contest between Communist China, Nationalist Taiwan, and the US to mobilize the colony's cinema and print media to win the hearts and minds of ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and around the world. At the front and centre of this propaganda and psychological warfare was the emigre media industry. It was the "golden age" of Mandarin cinema and popular culture. In the wake of the 1967 Riots through the 1970s, the emergence of a new, local-born generation challenged and reshaped the Cold War networks of émigré cultural production and led to a gradual winding down of Hong Kong's cultural Cold War. This brings to light specifically the ways in which global conflicts were localized, intertwined with myriad local historical experiences and cultural formation. British Hong Kong was, in fact, a crossroads in the Cold War where the global, the regional, and the local intersected"--
The Cold War and Asian Cinemas
Author: Poshek Fu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429757298
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
This book offers an interdisciplinary, historically grounded study of Asian cinemas’ complex responses to the Cold War conflict. It situates the global ideological rivalry within regional and local political, social, and cultural processes, while offering a transnational and cross-regional focus. This volume makes a major contribution to constructing a cultural and popular cinema history of the global Cold War. Its geographical focus is set on East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. In adopting such an inclusive approach, it draws attention to the different manifestations and meanings of the connections between the Cold War and cinema across Asian borders. Many essays in the volume have a transnational and cross-regional focus, one that sheds light on Cold War-influenced networks (such as the circulation of socialist films across communist countries) and on the efforts of American agencies (such as the United States Information Service and the Asia Foundation) to establish a transregional infrastructure of "free cinema" to contain the communist influences in Asia. With its interdisciplinary orientation and broad geographical focus, the book will appeal to scholars and students from a wide variety of fields, including film studies, history (especially the burgeoning field of cultural Cold War studies), Asian studies, and US-Asian cultural relations.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429757298
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
This book offers an interdisciplinary, historically grounded study of Asian cinemas’ complex responses to the Cold War conflict. It situates the global ideological rivalry within regional and local political, social, and cultural processes, while offering a transnational and cross-regional focus. This volume makes a major contribution to constructing a cultural and popular cinema history of the global Cold War. Its geographical focus is set on East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. In adopting such an inclusive approach, it draws attention to the different manifestations and meanings of the connections between the Cold War and cinema across Asian borders. Many essays in the volume have a transnational and cross-regional focus, one that sheds light on Cold War-influenced networks (such as the circulation of socialist films across communist countries) and on the efforts of American agencies (such as the United States Information Service and the Asia Foundation) to establish a transregional infrastructure of "free cinema" to contain the communist influences in Asia. With its interdisciplinary orientation and broad geographical focus, the book will appeal to scholars and students from a wide variety of fields, including film studies, history (especially the burgeoning field of cultural Cold War studies), Asian studies, and US-Asian cultural relations.
Japan’s Cold War
Author: Ann Sherif
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231518345
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
Critics and cultural historians take Japan's postwar insularity for granted, rarely acknowledging the role of Cold War concerns in the shaping of Japanese society and culture. Nuclear anxiety, polarized ideologies, gendered tropes of nationhood, and new myths of progress, among other developments, profoundly transformed Japanese literature, criticism, and art during this era and fueled the country's desire to recast itself as a democratic nation and culture. By rereading the pivotal events, iconic figures, and crucial texts of Japan's literary and artistic life through the lens of the Cold War, Ann Sherif places this supposedly insular nation at the center of a global battle. Each of her chapters focuses on a major moment, spectacle, or critical debate highlighting Japan's entanglement with cultural Cold War politics. Film director Kurosawa Akira, atomic bomb writer Hara Tamiki, singer and movie star Ishihara Yujiro, and even Godzilla and the Japanese translation of Lady Chatterley's Lover all reveal the trends and controversies that helped Japan carve out a postwar literary canon, a definition of obscenity, an idea of the artist's function in society, and modern modes of expression and knowledge. Sherif's comparative approach not only recontextualizes seemingly anomalous texts and ideas, but binds culture firmly to the domestic and international events that defined the decades following World War II. By integrating the art and criticism of Japan into larger social fabrics, Japan's Cold War offers a truly unique perspective on the critical and creative acts of a country remaking itself in the aftermath of war.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231518345
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
Critics and cultural historians take Japan's postwar insularity for granted, rarely acknowledging the role of Cold War concerns in the shaping of Japanese society and culture. Nuclear anxiety, polarized ideologies, gendered tropes of nationhood, and new myths of progress, among other developments, profoundly transformed Japanese literature, criticism, and art during this era and fueled the country's desire to recast itself as a democratic nation and culture. By rereading the pivotal events, iconic figures, and crucial texts of Japan's literary and artistic life through the lens of the Cold War, Ann Sherif places this supposedly insular nation at the center of a global battle. Each of her chapters focuses on a major moment, spectacle, or critical debate highlighting Japan's entanglement with cultural Cold War politics. Film director Kurosawa Akira, atomic bomb writer Hara Tamiki, singer and movie star Ishihara Yujiro, and even Godzilla and the Japanese translation of Lady Chatterley's Lover all reveal the trends and controversies that helped Japan carve out a postwar literary canon, a definition of obscenity, an idea of the artist's function in society, and modern modes of expression and knowledge. Sherif's comparative approach not only recontextualizes seemingly anomalous texts and ideas, but binds culture firmly to the domestic and international events that defined the decades following World War II. By integrating the art and criticism of Japan into larger social fabrics, Japan's Cold War offers a truly unique perspective on the critical and creative acts of a country remaking itself in the aftermath of war.
Asia as Method
Author: Kuan-Hsing Chen
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822391694
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
Centering his analysis in the dynamic forces of modern East Asian history, Kuan-Hsing Chen recasts cultural studies as a politically urgent global endeavor. He argues that the intellectual and subjective work of decolonization begun across East Asia after the Second World War was stalled by the cold war. At the same time, the work of deimperialization became impossible to imagine in imperial centers such as Japan and the United States. Chen contends that it is now necessary to resume those tasks, and that decolonization, deimperialization, and an intellectual undoing of the cold war must proceed simultaneously. Combining postcolonial studies, globalization studies, and the emerging field of “Asian studies in Asia,” he insists that those on both sides of the imperial divide must assess the conduct, motives, and consequences of imperial histories. Chen is one of the most important intellectuals working in East Asia today; his writing has been influential in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and mainland China for the past fifteen years. As a founding member of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society and its journal, he has helped to initiate change in the dynamics and intellectual orientation of the region, building a network that has facilitated inter-Asian connections. Asia as Method encapsulates Chen’s vision and activities within the increasingly “inter-referencing” East Asian intellectual community and charts necessary new directions for cultural studies.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822391694
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
Centering his analysis in the dynamic forces of modern East Asian history, Kuan-Hsing Chen recasts cultural studies as a politically urgent global endeavor. He argues that the intellectual and subjective work of decolonization begun across East Asia after the Second World War was stalled by the cold war. At the same time, the work of deimperialization became impossible to imagine in imperial centers such as Japan and the United States. Chen contends that it is now necessary to resume those tasks, and that decolonization, deimperialization, and an intellectual undoing of the cold war must proceed simultaneously. Combining postcolonial studies, globalization studies, and the emerging field of “Asian studies in Asia,” he insists that those on both sides of the imperial divide must assess the conduct, motives, and consequences of imperial histories. Chen is one of the most important intellectuals working in East Asia today; his writing has been influential in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and mainland China for the past fifteen years. As a founding member of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society and its journal, he has helped to initiate change in the dynamics and intellectual orientation of the region, building a network that has facilitated inter-Asian connections. Asia as Method encapsulates Chen’s vision and activities within the increasingly “inter-referencing” East Asian intellectual community and charts necessary new directions for cultural studies.