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May. 15th, 2010 05:18 pmThe Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Reader - Edited by Kuan-Hsing Chen and Chua Beng Huat. This is a dense, 600-page academic anthology & as such took me ages to work through. Very much worth it, though, to read cultural studies stuff about Asia by Asians living in Asia; there just isn't enough exposure for this sort of writing in the West yet. Particularly important to me was that the anthology focused on how countries & cultures relate to each other; while the West is still referred to within the texts, to some degree, it's not the main point for comparison.
The most interesting articles to me tended to focus on pop culture, for example how two stars (one Taiwanese, one Korean) faced significant setbacks in their careers because they didn't fulfill cultural expectations about stars being patriotic. Another article discusses how one would frame an East Asian popular culture; how do Japanese or Korean dramas, for example, fare in other East Asian nations? How do alternative bands in Hong Kong, & the emotional energies they create, tie in with political unrest (even when the bands themselves may be largely apolitical)? How was World Cup fandom in Korea gendered & why was women's increased participation as fans such a big deal? There were also articles on peace activism & social movements more generally, state violence, colonialism & war.
Though there were articles covering a fair number of Asian countries in total, I did feel like the book was still rather lopsided in what countries and cultures were most represented. Perhaps a future anthology could help rectify that. Overall a tough but important read; some of the pieces were too academic in tone for my taste but that's usual with any anthology of this type. I really wished I had friends around who were reading this with me to discuss things with!
The most interesting articles to me tended to focus on pop culture, for example how two stars (one Taiwanese, one Korean) faced significant setbacks in their careers because they didn't fulfill cultural expectations about stars being patriotic. Another article discusses how one would frame an East Asian popular culture; how do Japanese or Korean dramas, for example, fare in other East Asian nations? How do alternative bands in Hong Kong, & the emotional energies they create, tie in with political unrest (even when the bands themselves may be largely apolitical)? How was World Cup fandom in Korea gendered & why was women's increased participation as fans such a big deal? There were also articles on peace activism & social movements more generally, state violence, colonialism & war.
Though there were articles covering a fair number of Asian countries in total, I did feel like the book was still rather lopsided in what countries and cultures were most represented. Perhaps a future anthology could help rectify that. Overall a tough but important read; some of the pieces were too academic in tone for my taste but that's usual with any anthology of this type. I really wished I had friends around who were reading this with me to discuss things with!