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Bringing traditional chinese culture to life.

This issue of Education About Asia addresses the question, “What should we know about Asia?” Based on my experiences teaching courses on China and East Asia, traditional Chinese culture is one of the most important topics in understanding both past and present Asia. China has one of the world’s oldest civilizations. This poses many challenges to teachers who desire to make this rich and complex tradition accessible to their students. On both a temporal and spatial level, traditional China may seem far removed to Western students of the modern world. To bridge these gaps in time and space, and to make it more relevant to my students, I often connect its significance to contemporary society by highlighting the current appeal of learning about traditional Chinese culture in modern China. To demonstrate this process, this article examines examples from three cultural fields: Chinese philosophy, focusing on Confucius and his thought; Chinese history, with an illustration from the Shiji ; and Chinese literature, with a case study on plum blossom poems. Moreover, this article discusses how to develop course questions that are relevant to the students’ needs, as well as how to update teaching styles by incorporating multimedia sources, such as current news and films, in the classroom in order to appeal to students of the digital age. Furthermore, the examples and approaches outlined in this article are applicable to a wide variety of courses, including, but not limited to, Chinese literature, history, philosophy, or world history. It is hoped that this article may therefore encourage teachers across many disciplines to incorporate these techniques, as well as their own innovations, in their classrooms.

Confucius and His Thought

Confucian thought played an important role in shaping Chinese culture and identity. In order to make this complex philosophy more engaging, I utilize the “What Did Confucius Say?” articles from the Asia for Educators website, which is hosted by Columbia University.1 This reading material is concise and contains seven major sections grouped according to various topics, including primary sources and discussion questions. The first two sections cover the life and major ideas of Confucius, and provide the background and main features of the Analects of Confucius . For instance, the reading informs users that the Analects of Confucius is not a single work composed by Confucius (551–479 BCE) during his lifetime, but rather multiple writings compiled by Confucius’s disciples after his death. The Analects are also a useful starting point for students to encounter traditional Chinese culture due to the format of the text itself. Students frequently perceive that in many of these stories, Confucius engages in either a monologue or a conversation with his disciples or a ruler to articulate his ideas. Moreover, Confucius’s words are terse and concise, leaving room for various interpretations, thereby promoting a lively class discussion.

When designing class activities, I include some of the discussion questions from the reading material on the website into my own questions in order to unpack both the meaning of his sayings in their own cultural context, as well as their current appeal in contemporary society. These questions are well-designed for high school and undergraduate instructors. The first few questions come from the website and are always based on a primary source in order to ensure the students understand the text. I then follow up these general comprehension questions with my own questions in order to place Confucius’s sayings into a larger intellectual and social context by asking students to apply Confucian thought to modern and contemporary issues. To prepare for class discussion, I may ask students to read some passages together or invite individual students to take turns reading them aloud, followed by their interpretations of the text’s meaning and broader significance. For example, one primary source comes from “On Confucius as Teacher and Person,” which includes Confucius’s sayings on education. I assign students the following discussion questions:

Why is Confucius often called a great teacher? Please note several qualities of Confucius’s teaching philosophy as demonstrated by his sayings.
If Confucius were your teacher today, how would you evaluate his teaching approaches and methods? Would you want to attend his class? Why or why not? Students are then able to discuss these questions based on a close reading of the document itself. For instance, the students learn that Confucius broke away from the traditional education system of his time, which had been limited to teaching the sons of noble families. In contrast, he allegedly would teach anyone who was willing to learn. In addition, he taught students with different approaches according to their own situations and characters. As a teacher, he showed his eagerness to learn from other people and improve his knowledge and skills, stating that “Walking along with three people, my teacher is sure to be among them.”2

Another important Confucian thought is the concept of ren (humanity). In this section, I demonstrate that some of Confucius’s sayings possess universal value, and thus, everyone can relate Confucius’s primary beliefs regardless of their own personal knowledge and backgrounds. The discussion questions below are used to facilitate students’ understanding of this concept and allow them to compare it to other traditions:

Based on the reading section, what qualities does humanity include? Could you use some examples to illustrate Confucius’s ideas on humanity?
Humanity is a universal value in many philosophies and religions. Please discuss the similarities and differences between Confucians’ humanity and other traditions that you are familiar with, such as Christianity or Buddhism. Although Confucius’s beliefs, such as humanity, have many similarities with other philosophical and religious traditions, some of Confucius’s values, such as filial piety, are different from Western cultural traditions. Filial piety is the core of Confucian moral philosophy, but it may be difficult for students outside of the Chinese tradition to understand, thus instructors must explain it and similar concepts in detail. To this end, I provide the following discussion questions:
What are the major ideas of Confucius’s filial piety?
Why do Chinese rulers promote and advocate this concept?
If you were to apply filial piety to your family, what would happen? Do you think that filial piety applies to modern Western society? Why or why not?

To make these abstract concepts more concrete, I also ask students to offer specific examples to explain filial piety and its reciprocity. For instance, Confucius teaches that younger family members should respect their family elders, and in return, the elders have an obligation to take care of their younger family members. When explaining this, instructors should emphasize that this kind of relationship is hierarchical and that it was later advocated by rulers in different dynasties to legitimize their power by equating the ruler to the head of the family. When discussing filial piety, the instructor must also highlight its societal significance and philosophical ramifications. For instance, Confucian scholars maintained that if family members showed filial piety, then they would become peaceful and harmonious. Moreover, because society consists of many small families that make up the state, following this logic, a society that practices filial piety will naturally become well organized. Therefore, these scholars argued, a ruler should not rely on severe laws and regulations to govern his state; instead, a ruler should lead by exemplary deeds and moral values. Thus, students will learn that Confucian values such as filial piety affected all aspects of traditional Chinese culture, from the individual household to the governing state itself.

After students have grappled with the original texts and their historical significance, I then assign them Jeremy Page’s 2015 Wall Street Journal article “Why China Is Turning Back to Confucius”3 in order to further demonstrate the current appeal of Confucian thought on modern Chinese society. Page begins by describing a lecture on Chinese philosophy that many senior Chinese officials attended in order to further understand Confucian values and how to apply them in their daily lives. He then discusses the causes behind this revival of traditional Chinese culture (i.e., Confucianism), such as coping with domestic social problems, legitimating the Communist Party’s rule by arguing that it has inherited the Confucian tradition, and opposing Western influence. In addition, the article briefly traces the reception of Confucianism from the 1840s to the present and discusses many ways that contemporary Chinese society commemorates Confucius, such as establishing monuments, opening Confucian academies and training centers, and holding museum exhibitions and lectures.

In class, I first briefly discuss Confucius’s fluctuating status from the late Qing dynasty (1644–1911) to the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), when his thought was largely criticized and condemned. This provides a historical context behind the return that contemporary Chinese society is making toward the study and appreciation of Confucian ideology. It also enables students to understand how the traditional Confucian value of obeying a ruler’s orders is being utilized to keep the present government in power . As students discuss this article, many observe that the top Chinese leaders attend Confucian classics courses and workshops, and even tune in to national television broadcasts and lectures on Confucian thought during primetime. In addition, they discover that school textbooks include more materials that encompass traditional values, and parents send their children to learn Confucian rituals as part of their extracurricular activities. After discussing these newly developing trends in Chinese society today, students often conclude that the Chinese government wants to revive traditional Chinese culture rooted in Confucianism in order to promote the “China Dream” and build a harmonious society. Moreover, Chinese leaders want to gain wisdom from indigenous Chinese culture to help solve contemporary problems, such as government corruption and the decline of moral integrity, while simultaneously opposing strong Western political and cultural influence. However, I make sure that students also know that Confucianism is but one historical tradition that influences China’s political leaders. For example, legalism, which dates back to even before the establishment of China’s first empire, the Qin in 221 BCE, is equally influential on the policies of Chinese leaders in many ways. Historically and in contemporary times, it can sometimes have ominous results for elements of the Chinese population. Instructors interested in making sure their students have an understanding of legalism are advised to access the Columbia University Asia for Educators website.4

Record of the Grand Historian

Another important aspect of Chinese culture is Chinese history. The Shiji ( Record of the Grand Historian ), written from the late second century BCE to 86 BCE, is the foundational text of Chinese history and covers a broad historical spectrum from the mythical Yellow Emperor to Emperor Wu (156–87 BCE) of the Western Han dynasty (202 BCE–8). The class is introduced to the Shiji through a survey of its content, time span, the motivations behind its compilation, and major subdivisions within the work. For instance, students learn that the government did not sponsor the Shiji , and so did not dictate its contents. Rather, it was Sima Tan (ca. 165–110 BCE) who initially conducted the Shiji project, but his son, Sima Qian (ca. 145–86 BCE), actually compiled this monumental masterpiece in order to fulfill his father’s posthumous will. Moreover, Sima Qian fell out of favor with Emperor Wu because he defended Li Ling (134–74 BCE), a Han dynasty general, who defected to the Xiongnu nomadic tribes to the north of China. Sima Qian was ultimately punished for this by undergoing the humiliation of castration. In addition to these family and personal reasons for compiling the Shiji , Sima Qian also sought to establish a lineage of great historical figures who would otherwise have been forgotten in history. These factors strongly influenced what type of historical figures Sima Qian selected for the Shiji , the ways in which he narrated their accounts, and the conclusions he reached about them, as well as the lessons they represented for society as a whole. In general, Sima Qian emphasized the moral value and social impact of historical figures rather than their social or political status.

In my class, I select some biographies to discuss, among which is “The Biographies of the Assassin-Retainers.”5 Here I use the biography of Jing Ke (d. 227 BCE) as an example of how I lead class discussion, integrate the Shiji through film, and highlight its appeal in a contemporary context for students.6 The Jing Ke story took place toward the end of the Warring States Period (475–221 BCE), when the state of Qin had already annexed several rival states and had set its target on the state of Yan in the north. Prince Dan of Yan (d. 226 BCE) consulted his officials about this important issue, and a senior official named Tian Guang (d. 227 BCE) suggested that the prince should hire Jing Ke to assassinate the King of Qin (259–210 BCE). In order to gain an audience with the King of Qin, Jing Ke requested three items: the map of Dukang (part of Yan’s territory), a poisonous dagger, and the head of General Fan (d. 227 BCE), a traitor to the state of Qin. After obtaining these items, Jing Ke was granted an audience with the king in the Qin court. Jing Ke concealed the dagger inside the map scroll and unrolled it to its end. Suddenly, he grabbed the dagger from the scroll and attempted to kidnap the king as a hostage, but was unsuccessful. Eventually, the king and his courtiers killed Jing Ke. After reading this story, students must first summarize the text’s plot, as well as the major characters and their personalities. To engage critically in understanding the historical narrative, students discuss the following questions:

Why is Jing Ke willing to accept Prince Dan of Yan’s order and carry out this assassination?
How do you understand Jing Ke’s complex personality and psychological state? • Jing Ke was a failed assassin, yet he is glorified in Sima Qian’s record. Please consider Sima Qian’s own situation to explain why Jing Ke is immortalized and praised.
In your opinion, is Jing Ke a hero? Why or why not? Students brainstorm different points and piece them together on the whiteboard to understand the history of the Warring States, the knight-errant culture, and the reception of the Jing Ke story. In addition, I explain the possible connection between Sima Qian’s choice of Jing Ke and his own life experiences.

To relate the Jing Ke story with contemporary Chinese society, I then show students parts of two film adaptations of the tale: Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin and Zhang Yimou’s Hero , which are available through YouTube for a nominal fee. The former follows the standard historical narration fairly closely, while the latter changes the content substantially; however, students are still able to link the story with the film. In order to make this discussion more lively, students are required to complete a homework assignment on the following questions: How have the two films adapted the Jing Ke lore? What are their major changes? How do you evaluate these changes; are they successful or not? Through this exercise, students learn that the major plot of The Emperor and the Assassin is based on historical narration, with the exception of a new character— Lady Zhao—who is not found in any historical narrative. Students are to explain why this new role might have been created. Several factors shed light on this addition: since this is a three-hour-long, big-budget movie, the director may have been considering the box office results. More importantly, the purpose behind creating this role could have been to create a more complex and romantic plot. Even the director acknowledged in an interview that “Designing such a character like Lady Zhao cannot be said to have been done out of a lack of consideration for the plot. If I produced and shot a purely twoman story, it may not have had such a good effect.”7

Lady Zhao ultimately provides a link between the King of Qin and Jing Ke. When she is young, she admires Yingzheng’s (the King of Qin) courage and political ambition. However, when she later realizes that Yingzheng occupies the state of Zhao by slaughtering many innocent people, she turns to Jing Ke for help to stop such brutality. This additional character provides new possible interpretations of the motivations behind Jing Ke’s assassination attempt, which stems not only from his loyalty to Prince Dan, but also from his righteousness in desiring to remove a brutal ruler. This modern adaptation increases the significance of Jing Ke’s mission. In Zhang’s film Hero , students identify the major change of the assassin abandoning his mission to kill the king, where the assassin instead engages in a direct dialogue with the king in the Qin court. Through their conversation, the assassin comes to understand that the king wants to defeat all other kingdoms and unify China in order to bring peace to all people under heaven. Students then discuss their implications of this change. Often, students are critical towards this adaptation because it glorifies the King of Qin and conveys a problematic and debatable message to the audience that a ruler can adopt any method or make any sacrifice to achieve one’s goal, as long as one’s intention is good or meaningful.

These films demonstrate how contemporary approaches to narrating the story of Jing Ke continue to provide different interpretations of the story and its significance. The discussion about the Jing Ke lore has switched from focusing on the details of his assassination attempt to adapting his story to fit the contemporary needs of strengthening nationalism and Chinese identity. The promotion of a strong “nation-state” ideology by Chinese leaders has played an important role in shaping this reception. Contemporary society portrays him as a national hero, a strong man attempting to remove an evil and despotic ruler, and a knight-errant who embodies the traditional moral values of China in the face of Western influence during China’s rapid economic development, through which intellectuals can further probe China’s recent past and thus bring history to life.

Poems on Things and Objects

Along with Chinese philosophy and history, literature also plays an important role in Chinese culture, particularly poetry, which was the dominant literary subgenre throughout premodern Chinese history. This section provides a creative approach not only on how to teach classical Chinese poems, but also on integrating them within a type of traditional art—blow painting. By exploring this topic, students develop a solid understanding of Chinese poetry, learn the cultural meaning of the plum blossom, and express their own appreciation for Chinese poetry. 8

The plum blossom is famous, along with the orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum, as one of “The Four Gentlemen” in China. Furthermore, it is considered one of “The Three Friends in Winter,” together with pine trees and bamboo. However, plum trees are not common in the US, nor do they carry a significant cultural value, so the topic naturally stimulates student interest. Before we approach the topic of the plum blossom, my students have already studied other Chinese poems, so I briefly review some basic features of Chinese poetry, particularly the Chinese quatrain, which is often made up of four lines with five or seven characters in each line, and regulated verse, which is often made up of eight lines, and each line includes either five or seven characters. These two types of poetry were popular in the Tang dynasty (608–907), known as the golden age of Chinese poetry.9 Next, students gather information on the cultural meaning of the plum blossom and answer the following questions: How and when do Chinese people discuss plum blossoms? What does the plum blossom mean in Chinese society? What interesting facts do you know about the plum blossom? What can you learn from the symbolic meanings of plum blossoms? Students find appropriate information online and in the library about plum blossom culture and outline their primary ideas on the topic. Through class discussion, students also discover that the plum blossom has profound cultural connotations in China. The plum blossom symbolizes courage and strength because the fragrance of plum blossoms comes out of bitterness and coldness. The plum blossom also represents endurance and perseverance because plum blossoms flower in winter while most other plants do not survive. Furthermore, the plum blossom also embodies purity and lofty ideals, possibly because they bloom in winter, often covered with snow. To explore this motif, I incorporate several poems on plum blossoms in the lesson. Here are two examples from Shao Yong (1011–1077) and Wang Anshi (1021–1086):

A Leisure Walk by Shao Yong Once upon a time, we walk leisurely for two or three miles On the way, we see four or five misty villages Six or seven temples and Eight, nine or ten branches of plum blossom10

This poem is easy to understand but demonstrates the major characteristics of Song (960–1279) poetry, which focuses on the details of daily life. The poet’s focus gradually shifts from distant scenery to a closer look at his surroundings. At the beginning, the poet is far away, so he cannot see things clearly. When he moves closer, he sees the pavilions and houses. Looking even closer, he notices plum blossoms. The language in this poem is simple and clear without any descriptive words, but students still identify the poet’s cheerful mood and recognize that this is a pleasant experience. This is typical in Shao’s poems; as modern scholar Xiaoshan Yang states, “Shao Yong was always keen on distinguishing himself as a man of true joy and leisure from those who could only ‘steal leisure’ for a fleeting moment.”11 After discussing the content of the poem, I highlight the word “misty” in the first couplet, which, rather than denoting smoke caused by fire, instead is used to depict the remote villages. Because one cannot see the villages clearly in the distance, it seems like they are surrounded by mist. Another possibility is that many families had been cooking, hence smoke from their chimneys could be obscuring the poet’s vision and creating this phenomenon.

The second poem that I use on this topic is a five-character quatrain:

Plum Blossoms by Wang Anshi In the nook of a wall a few plum sprays, In solitude blossom on the bleak winter days, From the distance, I see they cannot be snow, For a stealthy breath of perfume hither flows.12

In this quatrain, the poet encourages his readers to make use of their senses such as sight and smell. This poem does not focus on the appearance of the plum blossoms, but rather on their character and spirit. Students often note that these plum blossoms appear in the corner of a wall during winter, which is unlikely to draw the attention of many people, revealing the unique character of the poet. In addition, without much nutrients, they still manage to blossom, demonstrating their hardiness. Furthermore, the last couplet forms a reverse causality: the third line tells the reader the result of noticing that the things in the distance are not snow; the fourth line informs the readers why the poet believes this is so: they are fragrant and cannot be snow. Thus, without describing the color of the plum blossoms themselves, the reader knows that they are either a white variety or are covered by snow, so they seem like snow when one looks at them far away. In terms of language, this poem does not employ overly ornate syntax. Yet through this simple and tranquil language, the poet conveys the spirit of plum blossoms: strong endurance and vibrant life. They are not afraid of cold weather, an analogy for people who do not fear power or authority. This allows the class to understand that the subtext of Chinese poetry often has political implications. Based on students’ discussions, I further explain a possible hidden reading: this poem may also allude to the poet’s own frustrated situation, when his political reform efforts faced resistance and gradually lost the Emperor Shenzong’s (1048–1085) support. However, through such adversity, like the plum blossom in winter, he was determined not to yield.

To make this topic even more lively, I integrate blow painting into the section on plum blossom poetry. The instructor should finish a complete blow painting before class so that students can see what the final product looks like. A simple blow painting requires some basic items, such as paper plates, calligraphy brushes, ink, red paint, and water. Ideally, one should use xuan paper made of different fibers, such as blue sandalwood, rice straw, and mulberry, which is specially designed for painting and calligraphy. However, it is difficult to obtain in the US, so I use paper plates instead. The procedure is simple: first, one puts drops of ink in the middle of the paper plate, blowing the drops slowly and patiently in different directions as the first several blows shape the main stem of the tree. Then, blow a little harder, so the stem becomes thicker. Once the main stem is shaped, one can blow the ink quickly in various directions, which become different branches. One may use a straw to do the blowing to expedite the whole process. After the basic painting is completed, one may use a brush to dip into the red ink and put the petals or flowers around the branches and twigs. This combination of poetry appreciation and blow painting demonstration enables students to understand Chinese culture more vividly and concretely.

Many colleges and universities have some type of traditional Chinese culture courses, whether they be premodern Chinese literature, history, philosophy, or other China-related courses. This article offers personal insight and unique methods of diversifying approaches to teaching Chinese culture effectively. It investigates avenues for bringing traditional Chinese culture to life by demonstrating how to integrate multimedia (such as recent news and films), as well as fine arts (such as blow painting of plum blossoms) into a culture class. These examples and approaches, including discussion questions, are used to explore the current appeal of traditional Chinese culture, which continues to shape Chinese identity and character. In addition, these practices include useful materials for designing extracurricular activities in Chinese clubs, film presentations, or guest lectures. A combination of Chinese culture, multimedia, and hands-on experience in the classroom has proven to increase students’ interest and motivation, as well as broaden their horizons with regards to Chinese civilization and society.

Acknowledgements :

This article is made possible by Valparaiso University’s Research Expense Grant and the East Asian Studies Library Travel Grant of the University of Chicago. I also appreciate useful comments from two anonymous reviewers, EAA Editor Dr. Lucien Ellington, Dr. David Chai, Amanda S. Robb, and James Churchill.

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Literary Identity/Cultural Identity: Being Chinese in the Contemporary World

Essay by Arif Dirlik [ * ]

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright September 2013)

World Map displaying density map of Chinese literature origins

Source: wikipedia.org

Recent work on the mapping of Chinese literatures offers telling testimonial to the demographic and power reconfigurations at work in a changing world situation, their conceptual and political challenges, and their impact on national and ethnic self-identification. I have in mind such works as: Global Chinese Literature: Critical Essays , edited by Jing Tsu and David Der-wei Wang (2010); a special issue of the Asian American periodical, Amerasia , “Towards a Third Literature: Chinese Writing in the Americas,” edited by Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Russell Leong, and Ning Wang (2012); Shu-mei Shih’s (2007) Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations Across the Pacific ; a volume Shih co-edited with Chien-hsin Tsai and Brian Bernards (2013) with evidently canonical aspirations, Sinophone Studies: A Critical Reader ; and finally a special issue of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (IACS), “Asian American Studies in Asia” (2012). These works do not necessarily reject the modern convention that presupposes mutual constitution of nation and literature, but they are informed by a sense of “cultural complexity,” in Ulf Hannerz’s (1992) term, that calls for recognition of cultural spaces beyond and within the nation that subvert the integrity of national cultural identity, including the identity of literature. Their differences over these issues are as revealing as the goals they have in common.

My interest here is cultural dimension of these works and its implications for the field of literature and beyond. The identity of literature presented in these works is a national and ethnic-cultural identity—namely, what constitutes Chinese literature. The IACS special issue extends the question of identity to other Asians as well. The question leads ultimately to issues of the identities of authors and readers (which receives surprisingly little attention), the locations they hail from, cultural affinities, and, above all, language. Of particular interest is what these mappings of literature have to say about issues of space and place, which in turn reveal assumptions about history and structure in the making and understanding of cultural identity.

These works and the mappings they offer are products of a new sense of the transnationalization of Chinese populations and cultural practices. Designations such as global, Sinophone, “third space,” and “between nations and across the ocean” represent alternative conceptualizations of “Chinese” spaces that accommodate transnationalization. As with other populations subjected to the forces of globalization, however, this Chinese transnationality brings in its wake a compelling sense of difference—most important, differences of place, cultural practice, including language, and multiplicity of social differences as well. As a consequence, the reconstruction of “Chinese” spaces appears at one and the same time as their deconstruction. To make matters more complicated, the disposition of difference is subject to struggles over hegemony instigated by the reconfiguration of global power relations. What distinguishes these competing mappings, ultimately, is not the spatial scope implied by their terminology or differences over the cultural dynamics of “Chineseness,” on which they mostly agree, but their stance over issues of hegemony. In the end, what is thrown into question is the very idea of “Chineseness” as it is appropriated for conflicting ideological and cultural orientations. [ 1 ]

Book cover for Global Chinese Literature

We choose the title “global Chinese literature” for this volume in full awareness of its various settings, temporalities, omissions, and contradictions. Our aim is to make explicit the conceptual, historical, linguistic, and geographical tensions that occasion the emergence of Sinophone literature ( huayu yuxi wenxue ). In our view, the point of departure is best staged at the gathering of consensus as well as dissensus among multiple disciplinary perspectives, each born from a different academic context and its created audience.

In a similar vein, Hu-DeHart and Leong (2012: iv) qualify their proposal for a “literature of the Americas” with the stipulation that “by the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries . . . Chinese outside of China had become cosmopolitan and globalized on different levels, with their attendant literary and cultural identities taking on diverse forms, including ‘multicultural’ and ‘pluralistic’ forms in liberal democracies, or in postcolonial forms in the nations of Central and Latin America.” By bringing together in the volume “diverse writings, written in English, Spanish, or Chinese,” the editors hope to “open a window into Sino-American and Latin American relations, and, perhaps most importantly, document the independent intellectual and political positions the Chinese outside of China have taken and continue to take, in the global arena” (xiv). In their contribution to this same volume, Wen Jin and Liu Daxian (2012: 45) write with astute irony that, “in the ongoing search for the proper terminology for Chinese diasporic and transnational writings, ‘Chinese Writing in the Americas’ appears to have surfaced as a good solution, a solution that refuses the very logic of finding solutions.” “Chinese writing in the Americas,” the authors continue, “groups certain writings provisionally, while avoiding the imposition upon them of a certain ‘essence’” (45).

Place-difference appears most prominently and persistently in Shu-mei Shih’s various writings as a fundamental defining feature of her particular version of the Sinophone. She writes in her contribution to Global Chinese Literature that “the Sinophone is a place-based, everyday practice and experience, and thus it is a historical formation that constantly undergoes transformation to reflect local needs and conditions” (Shih 2010a: 39). In a more recent essay, published in Sinophone Studies , Shih offers further elaboration:

Sinophone studies allows us to rethink the relationship between roots and routes by considering the conceptions of roots as place-based rather than ancestral or routes as a more mobile conception of home-ness rather than wandering and homelessness. To decouple home-ness and origin is to recognize the imperative of living as a political subject within a particular geopolitical place in a specific time with deep local commitments. (Shih 2013: 38)

Indeed, the essays in Sinophone Studies are notable for their questioning of homogenized notions of “Chineseness.” [ 2 ] Similarly, in their choice of case studies, the editors draw on literary production in diverse locations across the Pacific, with subject matter ranging from issues of national and regional to women’s, ethnic, and indigenous literatures, including the literature of “colonized” minority groups within the PRC. As with the theoretical essays, most of these case studies display the influence of questions associated with postcolonial criticism. Indeed, the Sinophone appears here as little more than the application of the postcolonial to Chinese literature—and not necessarily to literature in the Chinese language either.

At its broadest, the new space of Chineseness is global, as is indicated in the title of the volume edited by Tsu and Wang. Global in this usage needs to be understood metaphorically. Its importance lies not in its reference to the globe as a whole, but to the removal of preconceived boundaries that delimit the space of analysis. The space they have in mind is unrestricted in its inclusiveness. As they say of their understanding of “Sinophone writing,” nationality does not determine the geographical parameters of Sinophone writing.

Geographical location, moreover, is no more fixed than the place of origin. To use what Edward Soja once said about the study of urban geography, the space of urban geography, the space of diaspora may be more instructively thought of as a malleable space, created by new social relations, rather than as a geometric, inert “container” that does not come under the influence of such relations. Thus looking at Sinophone writing as an interaction between the production of literatures and moving agents, one might subject the narrative of customary disciplinary divides and national literary histories to similar shifts. More important than the coinage of new terms is the creation of new dialogues among the fields of area studies, Asian American studies, and ethnic studies. (Tsu/Wang 2010: 3).

The essays in this collection are conceptual in orientation, mostly exploring problems presented by the idea of the Sinophone from a variety of spatial and disciplinary perspectives. With the conspicuous exception of Shih, the editors and most contributors to the volume use Sinophone in a denotative sense, referring to Chinese language speech and writing. The contributions by Shih and Sau-ling Wong are the only ones to address the question of place directly, although the issue of locatedness appears in most of the essays. Wong’s contribution is particularly significant because she long has stressed the importance of place in Asian American literature against its erasure in diasporic and transnational orientations. A rare scholar in her use of Chinese-language literature in Chinese American literary studies, she raises in this essay a question crucial to the notion of place that revealingly receives little attention in the discussion of place and language in these volumes—namely, the implications for place-consciousness of excessive emphasis on the global and the Sinophone. She writes,

This essay examines Sinophone literature outside China in the context of China’s preoccupation with quanqiu . As an Asian Americanist who has been teaching and researching both Anglophone Chinese American literature and Sinophone Chinese American literature since the 1980s, I am curious about the implications of shifting nomenclature for Chinese American literary studies, especially the transition from shijie huawen wenxue to shijie huaren wenxue , which I translate as “world literature in Chinese” and “world literature by Chinese” respectively. . . . I note the uneasy coexistence, under a shared “global” rubric, of nuanced, heterogeneity-respecting criticism from China and essentialist discourse that seeks to level differences in the name of a triumphalist “Chineseness.” (Wong 2010: 49-50)

I will return below to further discussion of the distinctions Wong offers, and their implications for questions of place and hegemony.

Hu-DeHart and Leong offer a similarly unbounded and malleable space, although their idea of “third literature” (or more broadly, “third space”) is indeed delimited by “academic context and its created audience.” “Third space” is intended to overcome the opposition between native (meaning US-born) and immigrant (or diasporic) in Asian American writing. [ 3 ] They believe that “forming a third space for Chinese literature of the Americas would address . . . concerns around limiting experience and its telling to the works of native-born speakers, while excluding new immigrant writers, for example, or blindly viewing immigrant writing in the Americas as ‘diasporic,’ deriving its meaning solely from an original ancestral Asian homeland” (Hu-DeHart/Leong 2012: ix). The volume seeks to achieve this goal in two ways. One set of essays address the work of Ha Jin, a distinguished immigrant writer writing in English “who most saliently captures the complications of identity, literature, language and politics facing a Chinese American immigrant writer today.” [ 4 ] The other set seeks to offset the monopolization of “America” for the US by discussions of Spanish American fiction, including, interestingly, translation into both English and Chinese of a short martial arts story by Siu Kam Wen originally written in Spanish. Other essays in the volume extend the discussions across the Pacific with contributions by specialists in Asian American studies from Taiwan and the PRC. Particularly noteworthy is a discussion of the Yi minority scholar-poet Aku Wuwu from the PRC and his interactions with native American writers, made possible, interestingly, by the distinguished anthropologist Stevan Harrell from the University of Washington.

Book cover for Towards a Third Literature

And yet “Chinese writing in the Americas” conveys a strong impression of the “uneasy coexistence” in Sau-ling Wong’s diagnosis “of nuanced, heterogeneity-respecting criticism from China and essentialist discourse that seeks to level differences in the name of a triumphalist “Chineseness.” This is not just due to intangible factors such as the tone of the contributions and the apparent privileging of the “Chinese” and the diasporic in most of the contributions. As in the case of all these studies, the volume brings together scholars from the US, Taiwan, and the PRC. The main difference may lie in the assignment of the rather privileged theoretical introduction to a PRC scholar, Wang Ning, and the insistent intrusion of “Chineseness” in his analysis that does not deny Chinese Americans their “Americanness” but seeks to draw them closer to the PRC not just as a matter of ancestry but in service to its global aspirations. Wang’s discussion eschews distinctions between native and immigrant or diasporic that justify the formulation of a “third literature,” but includes both in the designation Asian American. The discussion suggests that if the immigrant may be assimilated to the native, the procedure also allows for a reverse assimilation of the native to the immigrant. It is difficult to tell which group he is referring to when he writes that, “Chinese who live outside of China are struggling for their lives in this global age in which their identity has undergone a sort of splitting: on the one hand, these writers have both Chinese blood and faces; on the other hand, they cannot speak, read, or write Chinese for the most part” (Wang 2012: xv-xvi). The latter part of the statement surely is more applicable to “native” Asian Americans than to writers such as Ha Jin who write in English by choice, or because they cannot publish their works in the PRC. Wang, moreover, speaks not just of identity formation under globalization but of the necessity of the “(re)construction of Chinese identities in a global age,” which aptly captures what may in fact be the processes at work. The reference to “Chinese blood and faces” is an instance of what Sau-ling Wong (2010: 56) has described as “genocentrism,” which is a more technical way of referring to the racialization of Chinese and other populations in the course of their globalization.” Despite their cultural distance from their origins, therefore, Chinese American writers in Wang Ning’s (2012: xvii) formulation represent “a sub-stream of both Chinese literature and American literature.” Addressing his remarks as much to an imaginary PRC as to an English-language readership, Wang writes that,

international Chinese literature studies will become, like its counterpart in English, a sub-discipline within the context of comparative and world literature. In this way, we will appreciate all the more the great efforts made by Chinese American writers who have helped promote Chinese culture and literature worldwide, pushing it closer and closer to the mainstream of world literature. (xxi)

The issue of hegemony appears throughout Global Chinese Literature but most prominently in the introduction and the contributions by Jing Tsu, Shu-mei Shih, and Sau-ling Wong. It is also the subject of the concluding commentary on the volume by Eric Hayot in an extended discussion of “Chineseness,” with reference to the tendency of some PRC scholars to claim “real” Chineseness for mainlanders while denying it to Chinese outside of the PRC. His anecdotal introduction to the problem recalls “an otherwise lovely dinner earlier this year” where “I listened to a senior scholar of Chinese literature tell the rest of the table that Shu-mei Shih’s recent arguments about the Sinophone should be considered in light of the fact that Shih grew up mostly in South Korea and Taiwan, and therefore she wasn’t ‘really’ Chinese” (Hayot 2010: 219). The senior scholar’s attitude is a widespread one, not just among scholars but the Mainland population in general, directed not only at Chinese minority populations overseas, but to Chinese from other “Chinese” majority societies such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It no doubt derives some legitimation, we may add, from a global tendency to identify China and Chinese with the Han mainland as a matter of everyday language and official discourse. [ 5 ]

Questions of authenticity aside, the scholar’s remarks about Shih are not to be dismissed offhand unless we are prepared to claim that there is no connection between ideas and ideologies and the location and experience of their authors. If Shih’s version of the Sinophone is not to be attributed with addlebrained reductionism to her South Korean and Taiwanese origins, it is difficult to imagine that her formulation of the Sinophone could be authored by a mainlander, scholar or otherwise. The relationship of Chinese Overseas to the PRC is the central question raised in her particular version of the Sinophone. The relationship she posits is not complimentary to the PRC. The question of hegemony she raises, moreover, is likely appreciated most directly by Chinese Overseas, which accounts for the widespread attention to place-differences in all the works discussed here, as well as the enthusiastic reception given to her work, which has benefited from “a new diasporic politics” that has arisen out of “strong objection to the dominance of mainland nationalism” (Tsu 2010: 110).

In his contribution to Global Chinese Literature , Tee Kim Tong offers a critical survey of the different senses of the term Sinophone as it has been used in literary studies since the 1980s. The term has acquired currency over the last decade, not just among literary scholars but also among historians of minority populations in the PRC as well as those seeking a more inclusive term that would transcend in scope the term “Chinese” that is not only identified with a national unit but also foregrounds the Han ethnic majority. [ 6 ] In an intervention calling for a “new Sinology,” Geremie Barmé published in 2005 an essay by that title that called for “robust engagement with contemporary China” and indeed with the Sinophone

world in all of its complexity, be it local, regional or global. It affirms a conversation and intermingling that also emphasizes strong scholastic underpinnings in both the classical and modern Chinese language and studies, at the same time as encouraging an ecumenical attitude in relation to a rich variety of approaches and disciplines, whether they be mainly empirical or more theoretically inflected. In seeking to emphasize innovation within Sinology by recourse to the word ‘new’, it is nonetheless evident that I continue to affirm the distinctiveness of Sinology as a mode of intellectual inquiry.

He stresses later in the essay that “implicit in the inquiry of ‘New Sinology’ then is an abiding respect for written and spoken forms of Chinese as these have evolved over the centuries.” [ 7 ]

Barmé’s emphasis on “sinology” may not be shared by all, but it is the same “denotative” and inclusive sense in which the term appears in most usages, including by the editors of Global Chinese Literature . The reconstruction of China in global, transnational, and, importantly, translocal spaces has been motivated by deconstructive goals: to “de-nationalize” and “de-sinicize” Chinese language literature (Tsu 2010: 110). In linguistic studies, this has appeared in the deconstruction of “Chinese” or Sinophone into idiolects or, in Victor Mair’s (1991) term, “topolects.” “Sinophone” is taken by most of its advocates as a better term to express this simultaneous commonality and difference than the term “Chinese,” which is closely identified by both Chinese and non-Chinese with the Han nationality, with alleged attributes so persistent that they are barely distinguishable, if at all, from racial characteristics.

The distinguishing feature of Shih’s use of “Sinophone” in this discursive field is the exclusion of PRC literary products from the Sinophone. Her deployment of the term was inspired initially by her colleague and collaborator Francoise Lionnet’s (2009) interventions in debates on French and Francophone that were entangled in issues of nationalism, colonialism, and diversity in the identity of literature. Shih (2007) has pursued advocacy of her version of Sinophone with missionary zeal since the publication of Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations Across the Pacific , where she first broached it. Over the last half decade, she has added new dimensions to the scope of the Sinophone to accommodate the alternative uses of the term referred to above. But despite criticism of her exclusion of PRC literary work from the Sinophone, she has held fast to her position. [ 8 ] As she puts it in her most recent publication, “I coin the term Sinophone to designate Sinitic-language cultures and communities outside China as well as those ethnic communities within China, where Sinitic languages are either forcefully imposed or willingly adopted. The Sinophone, like the history of other nonmetropolitan peoples who speak metropolitan and/or colonial languages, has a colonial history” (Shih 2013: 30).

Still, how these theoretical issues are deployed does have consequences. I will return to the issue of diaspora by way of conclusion, as it does present a central question in the reconstruction of Chinese identities and societies. I also happen to think that while controversial in the Chinese self-image, there is much to be gained from the application of the paradigm of colonialism to Chinese nationalism—both to the Han as settler colonialists within or without China, or to the colonized minorities within.

One question that needs some comment here is that of “places,” which appears prominently in Shih’s version of the Sinophone, and which bears directly on the question of new hegemonies in the reconstruction of Chinese cultural identities. [ 10 ] For all her stress on places, Shih strikes me as being quite oblivious to the implications of the Sinophone for places. The question here involves the multiplicity of languages in local literary production, which is raised in the works discussed above, most insistently in the essay by Sau-ling Wong as well as the volume edited by Leong and Hu-DeHart, but also by Tee Kim Tong. Shih is no doubt correct when she observes a tendency to the marginalization of Chinese language writing in Asian American literature. But the stress on a Sinophone that is oblivious to the multiplicity of languages is equally problematic when it comes to issues of place. [ 11 ]

If place as concept is to be more than a cliché, the construction of place (or place-making) calls for closer theoretical attention to the interaction of different language communities within the same ethnicity, as well as the relationship of the languages of any one ethnic group to those of others (say, Asian Americans in general, not to speak of the larger environment in which they live). It is indeed the case that an exclusive emphasis on Anglophone Chinese literature in the past has marginalized the Sinophone. A place-based Sinophone needs to be comprehended (and theorized) in terms of its articulation to the multiplicity of its linguistic environment in different locations, and not just to an abstract “Sino-sphere.” [ 12 ] The latter, contrary to the author’s stated intentions, ends up diasporizing Chinese places in a linguistic reification of “Chineseness.” If there is anything to be said for the “affective affinity” that scholars such as Shan Te-hsing have spoken of with reference to “Chineseness” across spaces, through the medium of language or other cultural commonalities, it is the case also between different ethnicities brought together in places. It is, to say the least, challenged by transnationalization in the fragmentation of places: the deployment of “affective affinity” in the construction of transnational ethnicity is at odds with the inter-ethnic “affective affinity” crucial to place-making, with potentially divisive consequences. [ 13 ]

Similarly, as both Tsu and Tee point out in the discussions cited above, the relationship between Chinese Overseas and China is not a relationship between a nation and its nationals abroad, but a translocal relationship between places, both in terms of social and cultural traffic and in terms of language. The deconstructive implications of these relationships are quite significant: places are important not only among Chinese overseas but in the constitution of China itself. The idiolects and topolects linguists speak of, similarly, are fundamental features of the Sinophone conceived inclusively. To separate “China” out and exclude it from the sphere of the Sinophone not only undermines a defining characteristic of diasporic Chinese populations, but also leaves unfinished the job both of deconstruction and reconstruction. [ 14 ] There may be much to be learned in this respect from the application of the metaphor of place to PRC literary production, as Franco Moretti did, for example, with the European novel (Moretti 1998). The question is very much worth pondering.

The issue of hegemony, as a broader issue in US-Asia relations, is also the subject of the IACS volume about which I have said little so far. While not strictly about Chinese literature, in the breadth of its coverage this volume further underlines the struggles over hegemony in literary studies in scholarship and more broadly the organization of scholarship on Asians that places issues of Chinese literary studies in a broader spatial and geopolitical perspective. Not the least important aspect of the collection are the questions it raises concerning the hegemonic implications of methodological choice. Wang Ning and other PRC scholars are not alone in staking claims to Asian American studies. The reconstruction of Chinese identities Wang alludes to is suffused with the ethos of PRC cultural aspirations to globality. It is not therefore just a nationalist fantasy; it is as much a reality of changes triggered by the most recent round of globalization as it is about the designation of an imaginary “third space” to accommodate the social and cultural pressures of diaspora. The “third space,” moreover, is not just metaphorical. It derives its plausibility and force ultimately from materially grounded exchanges that range from the economic to the academic. The essays gathered in this special issue were garnered from conferences on Asian American studies in Taiwan and the PRC. Asian American writers have benefited from the Chinese-language publication of their works in Taiwan and the PRC. And, perhaps most intriguingly for a community oriented academic discipline, Asian American studies are in the process of deterritorialization and “Asianization” with the establishment of “Asian American studies in Asia.” The “roots” that the Asian American movement claimed in its origins to force recognition of the citizenship that had been denied to them because of their “Asiatic” differences have, maybe not so surprisingly, turned under pressure of these changes into “routes” back to “Asia.” [ 15 ]

This redirection of Asian American studies is indeed the purpose of the special issue of IACS, “Asian American Studies in Asia,” which proposes to “re-orient Asian American studies through Asia as a geo-historical nexus and interactive plurality” (Chih-ming Wang 2012: 165). While not explicitly concerned with issues of space and place, there is nevertheless an implied space informing the contributions that is captured in the title of the editor’s introduction: “between nations and across the ocean.” The nations in question are Japan, Korea, and Taiwan in their relationship to the US across the Pacific, more or less the “Pacific Rim” in its early formulations in the 1970s and 1980s, minus Canada and the Philippines.

The volume is more interesting for what it says about transformations in intellectual and academic relationships across the Pacific than about Asian American studies here and there, however one might take those locations. It is unfortunate that rather than discuss the political and cultural forces that shape Asian American studies in different locations in “Asia,” [ 16 ] as the volume’s title promises, the contributions in the volume for the most part use Asian American studies in its birthplace as an excuse for criticism of US imperialism, hegemony, and orientalism. Indeed, in one of the contributions, US Cold War imperialism and hegemony serve as an excuse for including in “Asian American Studies” an analysis of a book primarily on intra-Asian migration in Taiwan that stretches Asian American studies beyond recognition, which the editor seems to acknowledge, somewhat obliquely, as “differing from the normative subject of Asian American studies” but therefore challenging and problematizing “such normative categories as ‘Asian American’ and ‘modernity.’” [ 17 ] This reader cannot but wonder if it is the conceptualization of Asian American studies that justified the inclusion of such a piece in the volume, or the inclusion for whatever reason that drives the conceptualization. [ 18 ] In either case, the inclusion may say something about forces shaping Asian American studies in “Asia,” in this case Taiwan.

Several of the contributors to the volume are products of Asian American studies programs in the US, and no doubt are quite aware that Asian American studies and its orientations to “Asia” have been the subject of much criticism and debate in its unfolding as a discipline. What constitutes Asia, who is to be included in that category, how to reconcile Asian differences in the formation of an Asian American movement or scholarly undertaking in an environment in which they were brought together are fundamental questions that Asian Americans have had to struggle with, and still do, now within the context of changing relationships between the US and “Asian” societies. Orientalism, too, has been a problem, especially with the first generation of Asian American scholars who were neither scholars of Asia nor had any direct experience with the region they made into a marker of their identity by virtue of ancestral origin. If Asian American scholars such as Sau-ling Wong and King-kok Cheung struck some as “over bearing” in their “Asian” overseas visits over issues of race and ethnicity, as one contributor avers, it may indeed be due to their unawareness of struggles over such issues in Taiwan or Japan (Nakamura 2012). Or it may be due, for better or worse, to the unequaled salience of those issues in US politics and culture. None of this, however, justifies the invocation of Gayatri Spivak as an alibi in support of the allegation that Asian Americans are unaware of or oblivious to the “vastness,” “complexity,” “heterogeneity” or “interactive plurality” of “Asia,” when the statements attributed to her are about the exploitation of Asians in US multiculturalisms and model minority myths, no doubt with the complicity of some Asians. It may be noteworthy that both Gayatri Spivak and Lisa Yoneyama, who provides the concluding warning not just against US hegemony but Asian American complicity in neoliberalism, are American scholars of “Asian” origins, though I am not sure whether they carry US passports or green cards (Yoneyama 2012). At any rate, even perfunctory perusal of a periodical like Amerasia Journal should provide ready evidence that much of this criticism rests on selected evidence and reductionist generalization.

Put bluntly, the criticisms directed at Asian American studies and scholars in these contributions come down to one fundamental issue: their Americanness. “Asianizing” (“re-orienting”) Asian American studies is the stated goal of the volume, which implies re-viewing it through the lens of “Asia as method,” an idea floated by the Japanese scholar Takeuchi Yoshimi in 1960 that has found an enthusiastic proponent in Chen Kuan-hsing in recent years. Chen provides the concluding essay to the volume, and “Asia as method” is cited repeatedly by the contributors as a means of overcoming US methodological hegemony. [ 19 ] It is not clear from the analyses, however, if “Asia” provides a method or simply a perspective. Perspectives from Asia are important to be sure, but it is a mystery to me how “Asia as method” may claim responsibility for the criticism of hegemony or orientalism. Indeed, there is some irony to the use of the term itself in light of the protests in the volume against the reification of Asia by Asian Americans, among others. The notable exception is the discussion by Tee Kim Tong who delves in some depth to the analytical consequences of reading from Malaysian and Taiwanese perspectives.

To appreciate the significance of the mappings proposed in these works, it is necessary to view the questions they raise in historical perspective. The perspective I take up in this discussion is that of Chinese Americans. One reason for my choice is some familiarity with the unfolding of Asian American studies, having served for nearly two decades on the editorial board of the premier publication in the field, Amerasia Journal . But there is another reason as well, in my opinion a more important one. A product of the 1960s movements in the US for ethnic self-assertion and demands for full citizenship both politically and within universities, the apparent tilt toward Asia in Asian American studies presently offers revealing insights into changes in the topography of Chinese and other Asian populations as well as their intellectual and affective orientations. The IACS special issue on “Asian American Studies in Asia” offers eloquent evidence that Asian American Studies is no longer just American but also Asian; as the issue editor puts it, the goal of the special issue is “reorienting Asian American studies through Asia as a geo-historical nexus and interactive plurality” (Chih-ming Wang 2012: 165).

Less obvious but no less significant, the authors and editors of the works I focus on here are all residents of the US. I am not sure in some cases how these scholars identify themselves. Changes in the US in recent years have led to another identity term, “America-based Chinese.” [ 20 ] The terms “Asian American” or “Chinese American” were all along blurred around the edges. Ambiguities about belonging were not eliminated when postcolonial studies endowed with positive valence the term “hybridity” which long had suggested an undesirable product inferior to its progenitors. The shift from “neither fully Chinese nor fully American” to “both American and Chinese” is quite significant but anxiety-ridden nevertheless. More immediately here, it is less certain than ever “where anyone is from.” However they may self-identify, the fact that US scholars of Asian origin are engaged in the construction of alternative Chinese spaces suggests a reinvention of self and history that is an unmistakable sign of a significant shift in identity-making.

While the mappings offered in these works may claim some novelty, the questions they grapple with have been around for some time. As I noted above, the works included in Sinophone Studies as theoretical alibi were all published in the 1990s. These works represented theoretical efforts to address issues of “Chineseness” within the context of globalization, which itself emerged as a problem during that decade. The theorization, moreover, was increasingly infused with the language of postcolonial criticism, which also acquired currency during this same period. In the case of Eastern Asian societies, the turn to globalization as a political and ideological concern was heralded from the late 1970s by the ascendancy of the Asia Pacific idea, already perceived by its promoters as a regional foundation for a globalizing world. The ultimate product of these developments would be the rise of the People’s Republic of China from the late 1990s, once the 1989 Tiananmen crisis had been weathered, and a decisive turn had been taken by the Deng Xiaoping leadership toward incorporation in a globalizing capitalist world economy. The rise of China, which has brought in its wake a new discourse of “the rise of Asia,” has been the immediate source of the new ferment over cultural identity among Chinese populations in particular but also more generally among Eastern “Asian” populations. As Tsu and Wang (2010: 5-6) put it, “as China continues to reestablish itself as a world power in the twenty-first century, the centripetal pull of its economic presence creates a renewed cultural gravitation.”

Mainland China is not just the physical origin and source of the roughly 50 million Chinese people who have settled elsewhere around the globe during roughly five centuries of overseas migration. It has also been their cultural center of gravity. But a revolutionary China that largely shut out the outside world for three decades after 1949 was only a remote and abstract cultural presence that did not permit easy cultural affiliation, especially for those who disagreed with its politics. PRC culture did not enter to any significant extent into the construction of cultural affinities in societies that the Chinese settlers had made their homes.

The postrevolutionary opening of the PRC, and its subsequent emergence as a global economic and political power, has triggered dramatic changes in the cultural self-identification of Chinese populations around the world. This is quite evident in the case of Chinese-Americans. When a self-consciously political and cultural Chinese-American literature appeared in the 1960s, its goal was to assert a Chinese presence in American literature. As part of a broader Asian-American movement informed by the ethnic liberation movements of the 1960s, this literature sought to overcome racist marginalization or exclusion by reaffirming Chinese “roots” as a source of pride rather than embarrassment. But its orientation was to carve out a social and cultural space in the society of arrival. The literary output that mattered was written in English. Few of the writers of this generation had access to the Chinese language, and literature written in Chinese by Chinese-Americans was ignored by all but a handful of scholars and cultural activists.

The last half century has witnessed a significant reorientation in the literary aspirations of Chinese Americans. There are, I think, two major reasons for this shift. One reason is change in demographic composition. Cultural activists of the 1960s were for the most part descendants of immigrants who had resided in the US for several generations and who had been insulated from their origins first by restrictive immigration laws and subsequently by the self-isolation of the PRC (60% of all the Chinese in the US as of 1960 were from a single county—Taishan—in Guangdong) (Hsu 2000). An important change in US immigration law in 1965 opened the way to a renewed influx of Chinese immigrants that would rapidly transform the ratio of foreign-born to native-born Chinese. During the decade of the 1960s, the Chinese population in the US doubled, mainly due to new immigration. This would become the pattern for subsequent decades. It drew additional impetus from the intensification of economic activity across the Pacific with the result that, as part of a surge in the Asian American population as a whole, foreign-born immigrants had by 1980 already come to outnumber US-born Chinese. Initially, most of the new immigration was from Taiwan, with fewer numbers from Hong Kong and other Chinese populations in Southeast Asia. With the reopening of the PRC after 1978, they were joined by immigrants from the PRC (including Hong Kong) who now constitute the largest share of Chinese immigrants. The number of Chinese Americans has increased over the last fifty years from nearly 240,000 in 1960 to somewhere around 3,350,000 in 2010. During the last decade, 700,000 immigrants from the PRC (including Hong Kong) were issued green cards. The demographic shift has transformed not only the composition of Chinese America but its cultural and linguistic profile as well. It has also reconnected descendants of US-born Chinese with other Chinese populations, most importantly with that of the PRC.

Secondly, the increase in PRC wealth and power has given unprecedented credibility to its claims to be not just the physical but also the cultural source of Chinese everywhere. Already in the 1960s, a new generation of Chinese radicalized by the movements of that decade had called for a shift in Chinese allegiance from the Republic to the People’s Republic of China. While the PRC’s turn to incorporation in capitalism after 1978 disappointed some among these radicals, the disappointment was more than compensated for by the increased visibility of the PRC, the new opportunities it offered to Chinese populations in the development of “the motherland,” and active efforts to court the Chinese overseas in the promotion of “Chinese” culture. If changes in demographic composition encouraged renewal of ties to the Chinese Mainland, the Mainland in turn has been more than willing to cultivate those ties in an effort to re-make Chinese populations into diasporic extensions of a new global Chinese nationalism. [ 21 ]

“China’s rise,” so-called, has empowered the globalization of claims to Chineseness, as well as interest in things Chinese. It is not to impugn these authors’ scholarship to suggest that under whatever sign, China scholarship like Chinese cultural production in general is very much in demand. New brandings that respond to changes at work in China and Asia are necessary for reorganizing academic work in teaching and research, as well as to market proliferating publication in these fields. Not the least important, a theoretical discourse that can claim “interdisciplinary” and “transnational” credentials is more marketable than a nation-based one at a time when these terms have become slogans of change in educational work and institutions. The reverse may also be the case: that comparative and interdisciplinary work has opened up new questions in the study of China and other Chinese societies. [ 22 ]

Re-configurations of economic and cultural power in eastern Asia as well as across the Pacific have created new pressures on the identities and self-identifications of Chinese populations globally. The PRC’s expanding gravitational field intensifies both pressures to re-sinicization and the urge to difference. Shifts in power across the Pacific have also emboldened calls for “Asianization”—not just from within but also among populations of Asian origins elsewhere. It is important to remember that most of the authors of the works discussed above are what Nakamura describes as “US based Asian” or “US-based Asian American” scholars—in other words, what has been described in postcolonial studies as “diasporics.” The question of place that appeared in the 1990s simultaneously with accumulating evidence of diasporic transnationalism has become more important even as places have become more fragile with the pull of global multiculturalism. [ 23 ]

In spite of their stands on the valorization of diasporas, Shih and Leong and Hu-Dehart in their arguments take diasporas as extensions of the national interests and cultures of origin. On these grounds, the one seeks to repudiate the term while the others try to accommodate it by articulating place to diasporas. In my understanding of postcolonial usage of the term, “disaporas”—whatever the merits of that reductionist term—are realms of fluidity and uncertainty. Stuart Hall, one of the progenitors of this usage, attributed to “the diaspora experience . . . the process of unsettling, recombination, hybridization, and ‘cut-and-mix’—in short, the process of cultural diaspora-ization (to coin an ugly term) which it implies” (Hall 1996: 447). The metaphor of “third space” as diasporic space has been popularized in postcolonial criticism (see Rutherford 1990). It is the space of dialogical encounters, oppositions and hybridizations, of people and spaces, including places. It is the space where essentialized notions of self and other are overcome. The hybridization of place is foremost in the minds of the contributors to “Towards a Third Literature: Chinese Writing in the Americas.” It is what Shih overlooks when she writes that “the Sinophone is a place-based, everyday practice and experience, and thus it is a historical formation that constantly undergoes transformation to reflect local needs and conditions” (Tsu/Wang 2010: 39). “Local needs and conditions” are significant to be sure, but so are translocal and diasporic pressures, to which the last three decades in the US bear eloquent witness. [ 24 ]

It is the fluidity of identity that makes diasporas into sites of struggle among their constituents in the places of origin, places of arrival, and the people in diaspora themselves. [ 25 ] To historicize our own present, the works discussed here are articulations of just such a struggle. It is to create out of the fluidities of the present new identities and identifications that suit interests and visions in conflict.

The other important aspect is the struggle over history. Shih is correct to point to places as the locations of history (see Dirlik 2002). On the other hand, place-based histories and identities are already recognized, even if they are rather misleadingly identified with national entities rather than with translocal social and linguistic relationships: Chinese literature, Taiwan literature, Hong Kong literature, Malaysian Chinese literature, Chinese American literature, etc. If there is any point to the Sinophone (or to any of the other alternatives discussed above) as a criterion for mapping literature and culture, it is to call for a spatiality that enables dialogue between different, place-based, histories in the creation of a new cosmopolitan space of “Chineseness.” While they all insist on the recognition of place-based differences, neither Shih nor the other authors discussed above delve very far into the implications for place-based histories and identities of the relationships they propose across spaces, structured by assumptions of linguistic or more broadly cultural affinity.

The contradictory relationship between place and space appears at one and the same time as a contradiction between history and structure: between the localizing demands of history and the deterritorialized pull of forces generated by economic, political, social and cultural transnationality. To take the case of Asian Americans, the Asian American Movement and Asian American Studies were born in struggles to establish history in the place of arrival. That history has been challenged as a source of identity by transnationalization and translocalization, which draw attention to the force of relations across spaces in the structuring of new identities. In the Sinophone dialogue they promote, these works are themselves part of the transformation they seek to comprehend. While they question the confinement of cultural identity by the nation-state, moreover, they open the door to a new kind of global trans-nationalism that is very much in keeping with cultural tendencies in contemporary global modernity. Whether or not a new history can be created out of “global relations” remains to be seen. Anthony Smith, the distinguished historian of nationalism known for his emphasis on the ethnic historical roots of nationalism, quipped somewhere that globalization has no history. Is a new history in the offing, arising out of Sinophone interactions across borders, including the borders of the PRC? Too early to say.

What needs guarding against, given the reality of cultural difference among “Chinese” populations, is the slippage of cultural commonality into “Chinese blood and faces” as the point of departure—what Sau-ling Wong describes as “genocentrism.” That would make for bad but also perilous history. It is a peril of our times to which none is immune. Perhaps a conglomeration of histories would serve better than the search for a single history in avoiding such an eventuality.

Arif Dirlik Independent Scholar, Eugene, Oregon

[ * ] I am grateful for their readings and comments to Ya-chung Chuang, Ruth Hung, Nick Kaldis, Sheldon Lu, Victor Mair, and Jing Tsu. They bear no responsibility for the views I offer. I have also presented versions of this essay at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the Taiwan Studies Program at the National Normal University in Taiwan, as well as seminars at the Ch’eng-kung University Taiwan Studies Program and The Institute of Literature and Philosophy of the Academia Sinica. The enthusiastic response of the participants in these seminars was much appreciated.

[ 1 ] The questions presented by the terms “China” and “Chinese” are legion; these terms are used in a multiplicity of senses to refer to a country and a nation-state, its citizens, to the majority Han population—both as a cultural entity and a racial group— with easy slippage from one sense to another. These questions are discussed at length in the theoretical essays included in Sinophone Studies and Shu-mei Shih’s contribution to Global Chinese Literature . I have discussed the problems of the term “China/Chinese,” as well as its Chinese counterparts, Zhongguo , Hua , Xia , HuaXia , etc. See Dirlik 2011: 157-96, esp. 173-196. While the English (and various European) terms are particularly reductionist, none of the other terms escapes reductionism and partiality. This may be one reason for the enthusiastic reception of Sinophone by many, although that term, too, is subject to many of the same qualifications, as it is little more than a Latinized equivalent of “Chino-phone,” and is restrictive both in its linguistic basis and its methodological traditionalism. The term, Zhongguo, while an ancient term going back to the Zhou dynasty, is a modern term in its use as the name of a nation-state. For a recent work affirming the use of the term for the state since the Song dynasty, see, Ge 2011. For Hua and Xia , see, Ren Jifang 1998: 35-40. (I am grateful to Victor Mair for bringing this article to my attention.) In 1900, in an essay discussed in my book cited above, the seminal thinker Liang Qichao wrote that while Zhongguo was not really the name of the country, it might well become that as everyone used it already. I have a similar feeling about “Chinese.”

[ 2 ] Shih acknowledges that the influential authors of these essays, gathered here as “fellow travelers of Sinophone studies,” “had expressed ideas and sentiments akin to what are now more critically and historically envisioned as Sinophone studies” (Shih/Tsai/Bernards 2013: ix).

[ 3 ] The Taiwanese scholar of Asian American studies, Shan Te-hsing, apparently used the term “third space” nearly a decade earlier in a work published in Chinese with reference to “the scholar-subject dangle[d] between two centers and their peripheries.” See Tong 2012: 286.

[ 4 ] Hu-DeHart/Russell 2012: xi. Ha Jin himself seems to identify more closely with other writers who have experienced exile from Joseph Conrad to Milan Kundera than with any particular ethnic or national group (Cheung 2012: 2-3). Ha Jin is also included in Sinophone Studies without any explanation of why a writer in English belongs in a volume ostensibly about “Sinophone” writing. See Ha Jin 2013: 121.

[ 5 ] We may also recall that until the 1970s, in the eyes of foreigners, including many scholars, the Guomindang represented the “real” China against Red usurpers.

[ 6 ] Tee 2010: 77-99. For discussions with reference to minorities in the PRC, see Crossley/Siu/ Sutton 2006.

[ 7 ] See Barmé 2010. “New Sinology” has been translated into Chinese as HouHanxue , literally “post-Sinology.” While the linking of “Sinophone” to Sinology may be problematic, Barmé’s intervention offers an important reminder of the importance of language as the defining feature of the term. After all, the “Sino” in both terms is nothing but a Latinized version of “Chino,” and there is little semantic difference between “Sina” and “China.” What makes “Sinophone” useful as a term, as distinct from “Chinese,” is its de-linking of a “Sino-sphere” from the name of a national entity, especially these days when “China” and “Chinese” are commonly equated with the People’s Republic of China. By convention, if not semantically, the term demands accounting for other “Chinese” societies, not by excluding the PRC but by calling attention to other Chinese-language (or more broadly “Sinitic”) literary and cultural production.

[ 8 ] Notable follow-ups are Shih 2010a; 2010b; 2011; and 2013. For the critique, see Sheldon H. Lu 2012: 21-24.

[ 9 ] It seems important to recall here this seminal term Fredric Jameson (1981: 52-53) offered in his discussion of the ideology of literary texts in in The Political Unconscious .

[ 10 ] Issues of place and space, too, acquired increased visibility from the 1980s, in conjunction with processes of globalization. For examples pertinent to the discussion here, see Prazniak/Dirlik 2001 and Dissanayake/Wilson 1996.

[ 11 ] On one occasion where this issue is raised, it is to argue for the “Americanness” of Sinophone language and culture, without further attention to the implications of a transnationalized Sinophone for places. See Shih 2013: 714-715.

[ 12 ] An eloquent example, given its colonial context, is Chen Shu-jung 2011. I am grateful to Dr. Chen for sharing this publication with me.

[ 13 ] See Dirlik 1996. For “affective affinity,” see Chih-ming Wang 2007.

[ 14 ] Hence Tee (2010: 81), for example, insists on further qualification of the Sinophone: “as Chinese [in its localized idiolects and topolects] is the mother tongue and not an ex-colonizer’s language, the diasporic Chinese writers should be termed specifically Sinophone Chinese American, Sinophone Chinese Malaysian, etc.” This, of course, still leaves out the Anglophone, Hispanophone, Francophone Chinese writers, one of whom is the recipient of the two Nobel prizes that have been given to Chinese writers, creating major problems of identity for the PRC. See the discussion (pre-Mo Yan) by Julia Lovell 2010. A similar though not equally severe crisis was created for the Turkish government by the granting of the Nobel Prize to Orhan Pamuk, for his views on the ethnic cleansing of Armenians early in the twentieth century.

[ 15 ] Roots: An Asian American Reader (Tachiki et al. 1971) was the title of the first reader for courses in the new field. The juxtaposition of “roots” and “routes” we owe to James Clifford (1997).

[ 16 ] Three essays in the volume (Hihara 2012; Kun Jong Lee 2012; and Tee 2012) survey the development of Asian American studies in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, respectively. As surveys, these discussions do not go into analytical depth. The essay by Lee is revealing in suggesting that Korean scholars all along have viewed Korean American literature in whatever language as extensions of Korean literature. Most interesting is Tee’s perspective on the entanglement in hegemonic relations of the differential reception given to Asian American studies in Taiwan as compared to Malaysian Sinophone or Anglophone literatures.

[ 17 ] Chih-ming Wang 2012: 168. Wang’s accommodation of this expansion of the scope of Asian American studies is curious because of his recognition of the importance of place in shaping that field. He wrote, with reference to “the huaren market” in Taiwan in literature, film and music that, “taken out of its local history, ‘Asian American’ becomes a desirable and accessible identity in Asia” (Chih-ming Wang 2007: 141). This statement may be as applicable to intellectual production as it is to the production of popular cultural commodities.

[ 18 ] The contribution in question is Amie Elizabeth Parry 2012.

[ 19 ] Kuan-hsing Chen 2012. Chen (2010) is also the author of a book of that title, Asia as Method-Toward Deimperialization .

[ 20 ] Indeed, a new terminology has appeared that once again turns Asian Americans into sojourners, which was one of the targets of Asian Americans in their struggle for citizenship. Two of the authors in the IACS special issue refer to “US-based Asian scholars” (Kun Jong Lee 2012: 282) and “US-based Asian American Scholars” (Nakamura 2012: 251). I encountered the term “US-based” recently in a circular from the Center for Asia Pacific Studies at the university of Oregon dated 2013/08/20, “In Honor of the 80th Anniversary, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is Raising Funds for New Chinese Art Acquisition.” We may recall here by way of contrast that one of the founding scholars of Japanese American studies who was also responsible for coining the term “Asian American,” Yuji Ichioka (2000: 43-45), adamantly resisted appropriation of Japanese American studies for Japanese history, insisting that Asian American history was part of American history.”

[ 21 ] See, for example, Andrea Louie 2004. An important organizational product of these changes was the founding in 1992 of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO), of which Wang Gungwu and Ling-ch’i Wang played leading parts. The society included Chinese from all parts of the world as well as non-Chinese scholars. Another example of the gathering of “Chinese” from different societies (PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong) at this time was the 1993 conference in Taipei out of which issued a volume edited by Pang-yuan Chi and David D. W. Wang, Chinese Literature in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000). The Preface describes the excitement of the occasion, and while the editors clearly recognize the heterogeneity of Chinese literature, they display little qualm about references to Chinese literature or culture as a unifying characteristic (Chi 2000: 14). Interestingly, among social scientists, such “inter-Chinese” meetings got under way shortly after the PRC’s opening after 1978.

[ 22 ] I am grateful to Nick Kaldis for drawing my attention to the relevance of the market in comparative studies.

[ 23 ] Most of the theoretical works included in Sinophone Studies , written in the 1990s by prominent scholars, are devoted to refutation of the reification of “Chineseness,” with colorful titles such as “Can One Say No to Chineseness” (Ien Ang). The most colorful title, not included in Sinophone Studies, was Allen Chun’s, “Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguity of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity,” boundary 2, 23.2 (Summer 1996): 111-138.

[ 24 ] This was already apparent in the 1990s. For an extended discussion on that period, see, Dirlik 2010. I argued in that essay that distinction between native and newcomer does not enable easy prediction of commitment to place of arrival, as new comers sometimes display stronger commitment than “natives.” On the other hand, the complications should be obvious. A recent case is the campaign of John Liu for the mayor of New York City. Liu is of the so-called “one-and-a-half” generation of Taiwan origin. And he obviously has strong commitments to place. On the other hand, his campaign got into trouble over issues of illegal fund-raising on the part of his managers, one of them a newcomer from the PRC and involved with a Beijing association through her father, the other another PRC newcomer charged with involvement in the illegal activities of the Fujian Association. As “Asian Americans,” they had drawn strong hope and support from the “Asian American” communities across the country.. A concise discussion of his career and the scandal is offered in the Wikipedia article under his name.

[ 25 ] Further discussion is available in Dirlik 2004. For a general discussion, see Gabriel Sheffer 2006.

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Cultural Identity Theory: “How to Be Chinese” by Celeste Ng Research Paper

The idea of cultural identity, particularly the sense of cultural belonging, might seem fairly simple at first since it is immediately associated with the attributes of the culture in question. However, after entertaining the idea of defining a cultural identity, one will realize the complexity of the notion and the challenge of avoiding referring to stereotypes as the means of explaining cultural identity as a phenomenon (Croucher et al. 72).

In her essay “How to Be Chinese,” Celeste Ng examines the complexities and challenges of retaining one’s cultural identity in an entirely alien cultural environment, thus, questioning the role of the community as the identifier and prerequisite of one having a cultural identity. By combining the use of metaphor, a unique style, and several other literary tools such as alliteration, Ng amplifies her argument by making the setting and characters more relatable.

Remarkably, applying the cultural Identity Theory to Ng’s narrative, one will realize that, being deprived of the chance to reconnect with her community, the leading character becomes particularly vulnerable to the stereotypes perpetuated in American society regarding Asian people and their culture. Ng even points out that the tendency to resort to stereotypical perceptions of themselves as a shorthand to convey certain ideas can occur in Chinese American people as well by mentioning the realities such as a Chinese restaurant in the middle of the U.S., a Chinese Barbie, and other cultural elements (Ng par. 2).

Thus, while recognizing the role that the specified cultural signifiers have for Asian American people in their attempts to retain their cultural identity, Ng also demonstrates the urge to introduce immediate change to prevent the rest of the Chinese legacy of her family, as well as her own one, to dissolve in the mainstream American cultural environment.

Therefore, Ng’s story transforms into an existential search for the cultural characteristics that would allow her leading character to reconnect with the elusive nature of her culture, which is becoming increasingly thin in the overwhelming context of the American cultural environment. The perpetual pursuit thereof rings in every sentence of the story, particularly when Ng asks her friend to say something, literally anything, in Chinese (Ng par. 9-12). While this dialogue might seem casual and nonchalant, it, in fact, screams of the urge to reconnect with one’s roots, therefore, becoming the pivotal point in the narrative where the Cultural Identity Theory regains its meaningfulness (Hills and Atkins 195). Specifically, Ng’s attempt at talking her partner into speaking to her in Chinese reveals the long-lasting need for reviving Chinese culture alongside other community members.

The plight for reviving the Chinese cultural tradition and the despair that the character develops as she fails to do so are expressed quite powerfully with the help of the literary devices used by Ng. For instance, despite representing the characters that belong to the Chinese American heritage, the story features little to no Chinese language in it. One could assert that it would have been easy to incorporate the elements of the Chinese language to make the story feel more authentic (Yeboah-Banin et al. 4).

However, the narrator avoids including any attributes of Chinese culture in the body of the text. Instead, every cultural signifier included in it, from Barbie to the “Titanic,” is either profoundly American or thoroughly divorced from any cultural context. The specified literary approach to the style of the narration allows Ng to convey the sense of emptiness that she experiences as she watches her culture being slowly washed away.

However, while the short story does not contain references to Chinese culture that lie on the surface, it conceals a range of metaphors that help to convey Ng’s message to all readers, their culture notwithstanding. Creating nuanced and powerful images for rendering her state of emotional confusion and need to locate her true self, Ng makes her story emotionally resonant for all of the readers, even if they have a rather vague idea of the challenge that Chinese people have to endure in the U.S. cultural setting (Heng 837). For example, Ng creates a token character, Winston, who is supposed to embody a stereotypical American man.

The use of the specified character as a metaphor for a Chinese man who has adapted to the U.S. cultural setting to the point where his ethnic and cultural identity has nearly dissolved is particularly important.

It helps to juxtapose Chinese culture with the American one, emphasizing the rift that has been created between the two. The polished and culturally unremarkable image of Winston represents an average acculturated and culturally uprooted Chinese American, a warning for Chinese immigrants striving to keep their culture alive. In turn, applying the Cultural Identity Theory lens to Ng’s character interacting with Winston, one will recognize the same wistful idea of the lack of personal and emotional connection due to cultural differences (Odinye 2). Specifically, even though the protagonist creates new friendships successfully, she still needs the support of the nearly nonexistent community that has become increasingly fragmented over several decades.

However, at the heart of the story’s expressivity and its masterful application of literary devices lies the simile. Ng utilizes comparison to its full extent, allowing the reader to observe the nuances of Chinese and American cultures that would not even register on the radar otherwise (Kuijpers and Hakemulder 622).

Simile occurs in Ng’s short story so frequently that it becomes the glue that holds the narrative together, allowing the main character to relate the elements of the alien culture to those that make sense to her: “’And I said, you know, I don’t think m-m-m really m-mm, but it’s like m-m-m.’ Parts fall out of the conversation like paper snowflakes you cut out in kindergarten, mostly holes.” (Ng par. 9). Thus, Ng creates a relatable character with an understandable dilemma of dissolving into American culture without effort or fighting endlessly to keep the remnants of her Chinese culture without even knowing if she can succeed.

From the cultural Identity Theory perspective, the conversation above is also quite meaningful since it represents the power of a community as the entity capable of preserving culture and traditions. Namely, the fact that Ng’s protagonist does not even have to name a specific issue that she discusses with her friend shows the power that a culture-based community has for an individual. Creating the presence of a group identity serves as the source of strength and a massive support system (Ali and Mujiyanto 38; Ashworth 3). In turn, since the protagonist’s community is very scarce and fragmented, the conversation above becomes particularly desperate despite its neutral subject. Thus, the short story provides an important insight into the current sociocultural setting of the U.S. and the challenges that the Chinese community is facing in it.

Finally, the use of anaphora, namely, repetition, as a literary device allows Ng to end her narrative in a powerful and emotionally resonant manner. Specifically, the connective “that” is carried through most of the concussion instead of complete sentences, creating a sense of wistfulness for the state of being culturally uprooted: “Don’t explain that she’d always wanted a baby but never found the right man”; “That when she came to China to pick you up she had horrible stomach cramps,” “that when she first picked you up in her arms” (Ng par. 50). Creating a cadence of sentences, the specified literary device allows Ng to introduce a rhythmic pattern that, in turn, leads to an effective and thought-provoking ending: “Say, ‘Good thing my mother acted fast’” (Ng par. 50).

As a result, the story becomes emotionally resonant with the readers, while also legitimizing the analysis that Ng introduces in order to examine the challenges of maintaining the cultural identity (Schleifer and Vannatta 12). Moreover, the specified approach allows introducing a certain sense of rhythm into the story, which amplifies the message and makes it more obvious to the reader (Thus, the application of anaphora helps to make the text unique while keeping it easy to perceive for the readers.

By dissecting several examples of the experiences that Chinese American people have had in the U.S., Ng challenges the notion of a personal cultural identity being tethered to a certain community, thus, representing a critique of the Cultural Identity theory. “How to be Chinese” demonstrates the possibility of connecting to one’s culture in circumstances that do not allow one to reconnect with one’s community. Thus, Ng suggests that a cultural identity extends beyond the scope of a certain community and, instead, stretches to embrace one’s cultural legacy and the unique experiences that accompany it.

Works Cited

Ali, Ali Mohamed, and Yan Mujiyanto. “The Influence of Cultural Identities in Second Language Acquisition: A Perspective from Secondary Program (Semarang Multinational School).” English Education Journal , vol. 7, no. 1, 2017, pp. 34-41.

Ashwoirth, George. Language and Literature for the IB MYP 4 & 5: By Concept . Hachette UK.

Croucher, Stephen M., Mélodine Sommier, and Diyako Rahmani. “Intercultural Communication: Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going, Issues We Face.” Communication Research and Practice , vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 71-87.

Heng, Tang T. “Voices of Chinese International Students in USA Colleges: ‘I Want to Tell Them That…’.” Studies in Higher Education , vol. 42s, no. 5, 2017, pp. 833-850.

Hills, Rodney C., and Paul WB Atkins. “Cultural Identity and Convergence on Western Attitudes and Beliefs in the United Arab Emirates.” International Journal of Cross Cultural Management , vol. 13, no. 2, 2013, pp. 193-213.

Ng, Celeste. “How to Be Chinese.” Gulf Coast , n.d. Web.

Kuijpers, Moniek M., and Frank Hakemulder. “Understanding and appreciating literary texts through rereading.” Discourse Processes , vol. 55, no. 7, 2018, pp. 619-641.

Odinye, Sunny Ifeanyi. “Language as a Tool for National Integration: The Chinese Example.” Nigerian Journal Online-Published Articles , vol. 1, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-14.

Schleifer, Ronald, and Jerry B. Vannatta. Literature and Medicin:e A Practical and Pedagogical Guide. Springer, 2019.

Yeboah-Banin, Abena A., and Emmanuel Silva Quaye. “Pathways to Global versus Local Brand Preferences: The Roles of Cultural Identity and Brand Perceptions in Emerging African Markets.” Journal of Global Marketing , vol. 1, 2021, pp. 1-20.

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Bibliography

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Chinese Identity Essay

Author: arsalan
Posted on: 2 Sep 2019
Paper Type: Free Essay
Subject: English
Wordcount: 1378 words
Published: 2nd Sep 2019

According to the scholarly article, Chinese identity is unique and distinct to other cultures all over that the world. The community history and culture is major because of being geographically aligned to one specific place. China today geographically stretches from Korea in the north all the way to Burma in the south. It is prudent to acknowledge the fact that such a territory comes with internal variations. China incorporates the entire empire in eighteen century, and every expansion drew in variations of customs, land, language, and culture. According to studies, regional aspect of identity is term as a complicating factor in agreement of the whole china identity (Thompson, 2015).

It is worth noting that China has undergone considerable changes in the past century, especially since the fall of the imperial order in 1911. As varying understandings of the country’s past and future are interpreted to meet China’s present needs, discussions regarding identity are expected to be thorough, complex and shifting. China’s governing elites profoundly, though selectively, documented the people’s history. It is critical that the Chinese are conscious of the images of their country that are spread by local media or films and fiction.

History plays a major role in China today because it describes the past of the Chinese culture. According to studies, China has a five-thousand year past that dated back to an estimated time, 2600BC supported by the archaeological record. China people value their past a lot and that is why there are historical centers where past events are kept for other generation to learn what China looks like years back. Pre-modern Chinese history points out negotiations of power leading to identity construction of imperial China.

Furthermore, China has a unique culture that is passed from generation to generation. Even the most radical proponents of the Chinese culture are themselves deeply rooted in the tradition. Moreover, Chinese identity is rooted in shared traditions that are perceived in shifts interpretations and principles. Chinese philosophers, political and social beliefs were most visible in Confucianism among elite power. During the imperial era of Chinese history, social and political beliefs among the Chinese elite were primarily shaped by the ideas of Confucius. However, the ideas of Confucianism among both the common people and elite changed considerably over time. The influence and dominance of Confucianism over the history, identity and social structure of the Chinese cannot be overstated. It is the bedrock of traditional Chinese culture.

It is worth noting that the foundations of Chinese identity are variable. The Chinese cultural identity is characterized by utmost diversity and richness. Indeed, several articles have tried to figure out Chinese identity, but the real identity of Chinese people is never fixed. The past, place, and tradition provide multiple ideas that can be used to address the needs of the time. It is critical to acknowledge the fact that Chinese identity is rooted in the community culture and traditions that are passed from generation to generation through Confucianism.

Ritual and life cycle

The study of ritual rites of a group of people helps the researcher to understand the way certain society behaves. Almost every society has different ritual ways to commemorate, regulates and demarcates various stages of life. Through studying rites in the life cycle, one is able to achieve a more profound understanding of a given society. China, have deep-rooted ritual rites that are effective right from the childhood all the way to adulthood. For instances, China community has certain measures to be followed before marriage is commemorated. Hence, married couples are mandated to go to the temple to seek the power of goddess to give the ability to have children.

Additionally, the Chinese families prefer the male child in the family than the female because he will be carrying the families name in the future. In fact, many hospitals today prefer not revealing the identity of the fetus because the female unborn child is likely to be aborted. However, there are some people who have deviated from that belief, but the general population still hold on to the community rituals life cycle (Dean, 2014). Furthermore, the newly born babies were given jewelry by the grandparents to keep evil away from harming the child.

Most Chinese children are enrolled in kindergarten at a young age. This is primarily because a majority of Chinese mothers work fulltime. Most of these children join the primary school at about six years and subsequently go through the education system for at least nine years. Upon a child earning admission to a university, family and friends congratulate his/her parents, showering them with presents such as money in a red packet. In return, the parents host their family and friends to a great banquet. Such banquets may even go on for several days, especially if the family is well connected.

Just like in many other societies across the world, marriage is one of the most valued events among the Chinese. Marriage ceremonies in China entail a variety of rituals. Most traditional rituals in present-day Chinese society are actually retained in marriage. Some rituals and practices with regards to marriage in the Chinese culture have changed over the years. For example, traditional China required that the bride is in tears when she left her parents’ home. However, this particular practice is hardly followed in contemporary Chinese society.

According to research, Chinese community had guan ceremony which allows the respected members of the community to perform rituals that allowing passage from childhood to adulthood. Important events like marriage and funeral were dealt with according to set traditions and any mistakes were seen as a taboo to those involved. While some traditional rites and rituals have been passed down from the traditional Chinese society to contemporary China, others such as guan ceremonies are rarely practiced and have thus faded away from daily lives of most Chinese people. Most of the Chinese in society still practice rituals in the present day. However, few have embraced the western way of life.

Family and marriage

Chinese society according to the articles still values a lot the importance of family and marriage. Chinese society perceives family as an imperative social unit because they depend on families for basic needs. Chinese believe that the family is responsible for raising children, caring for the old, sick and the needy one in the society.

The family structure of the Chinese people consists of multi-generational families that are believed to be composed of five generations staying together under the same compound. Scholars have found that extended families live in one commonplace for security reasons. Even today, extended families stay together has persisted over the years with the urban population taking the nuclear form of family.

However, Chinese family traditions are facing reduction factors regarding family size due to several factors. Family income affects the size of the family size implying that the lowest income earning family will consist of 3.3 people while families earning substantial income will statistically consist of 2.52 persons. In imperial China, marriages could be terminated as a result of reasons such as theft, chronic illness, barrenness, jealous, wanton conduct or even neglect of the husband’s parents. However, only men had the power to initiate divorce proceedings.

Men generally avoided termination due to strong cultural norms and negative social pressures. In both traditional Chinese society and contemporary China, divorce and remarriages are associated with high costs for the relevant parties. Just like in many other societies around the world, globalization has had a considerable impact on modern Chinese society. More changes in the Chinese family systems are anticipated as a result of China’s market reforms and increased participation in the global capitalist system.

It is worth noting that love and romance are a necessary but insufficient precondition for a long-lived relationship in China. For example, research suggests that fairy tales are a major idea for American young adults. However, the same cannot be said for the Chinese young people. Marriage, on the other hand, is a crucial factor in Chinese society whereby, the woman is taken to the man family after the bride price is paid to her parents (Hareven, 2018).

According to Chinese traditions, it is not a must that the couple romance of date to get married, arranged marriages were made and the two stay in a marriage without any problem. By the age of 30, most of the Chinese women are required to have to get married while the male counterpart could even marry past that age. However, marriage could end up breaking up due to some factors such as chronic illness of the spouse, jealousy and sometimes fading of romantic love other reasonable factors.

Gender and sexuality

According to research, gender plays a major role influencing how the Chinese society organized itself in the past and the present day. Sexuality and gender influence various aspect of life in Chinese histories such as work, family role, political participation, and education. Moreover, sexuality converged more on a specific aspect of life which includes experiences and organization around gender. Pre-modern Chinese histories rely on Confucianism for principles that will regulate everyone in the society (Zang, 2015). The principles of sexuality and gender accord how men and women were supposed to behave in the society. Men were accorded much respect than women who were to be submissive to their male counterpart.

Confucianism emphasized on family and lineage. Therefore, in traditional China, sexuality was a priority in order to enhance procreation of a new generation. As a result of the communist revolution in 1949, many aspects of social life such as sexual relations in the Chinese society were rearranged. As in other societies around the world, the sexuality picture in China is characterized by complexity especially with regards to issues such as homosexuality, and sex and economy.

During the pre-modern history, Chinese elite embraced Confucianism as the main principle to regulate the people. Everybody was expected to know and behave according to their level in the Chinese society. This was not only aimed at promoting harmony among the people but also establishing a hierarchical order. It is unfortunate that women were at the bottom with regards to their position in the society, and were thus expected to be submissive. Confucianism established a family system where men were dominant over women. The idea of inferiority of women served as the code for women’s traditional Chinese society.

The cornerstone of the family system was that the primary purpose of sexuality and marriage was for procreation. Ensuring future generations was thus a critical aspect. Love and pleasure were thus less important than procreation. Males in pre-modern Chinese society were allowed to have more than one woman in throughout his entire life. The society permits the man to marry another wife as long as he is comfortable to be responsible. However the woman was never to involve in infidelity activities, in fact, a woman should be loyal to only one man according to Confucian laws. The Chinese traditions even permit the woman to take her life in the event of rape to keep her virtue as a woman of integrity.

Sexuality aspect in pre-modern Chinese society was majorly purposed for procreation and making sure that next generation is brought in. Also, it is important to note that sexuality as a factor, did not allow women to work in an environment where men work. It is the responsibility of the woman to do domestic jobs and be a good wife to her husband and leave men task to men. According to studies, there was a time the government retrieves to go and do domestic chores and to create more vacancies for men.

Contested ground, Community, and neighborhood

Community needs governorship and leadership to develop politically and socially, hence pre-modern Chinese is no different. After the Maoist era, the local and the state representative become competing for the available resource in the land of China. Local leaders advocated resist of the state rule on the basis that the government is set to demoralize the society through imposing of state policies such as birth control (Yunling, 2016). According to studies, during the pre-modern era, informal social networks work wonders in resisting state rules. In fact, the introduction of tax policies initiated more strategies plans to resist the government.

Moreover, policies open up solidarity accumulation spaces both in a rural community and the local government. Villagers were set to defend their interest after provision of public services and goods deteriorated. The community fears that the government lead by corrupt people will soon exploit them and that is what they did not want hence resisted. As a result of the fall of the pre-1978 commune structure, distribution of infrastructure in the rural community has been altered. It is critical that the village community is not treated as an autonomous entity protected against state domination.

The Chinese authoritarian system has been credited with controlling the Chinese society to discourage and prevent alienation and social and political crisis. Many state intervention programmes have resulted from the need for political stability and effective governance. Significant Changes in urban neighborhoods have been realized as a result of the increased competition for community space. Such competition leads to disputes and mobilization against government policies. As a result of the increased urban transformation, differentiation of organizational infrastructures has been achieved. Also, there has been the rapid growth of locally based collective actions for community space.

The role of state power in the creation of civic spaces cannot be overstated. However, varying aspects of the community and society as a whole must be viewed as due to relevant interventions and strategic institutional choices by the government. The state is striving to validate and revalidate its authority and influence in both rural community and urban neighborhoods.

This is achieved through enhanced village democracy and implementing proper rural welfare programmes. In summary, it is vital to acknowledge the fact that Chinese people are one of a kind with a unique identity regarding culture, past, and place. Chinese tradition in pre-modern days plays an important role in shaping present-day China. Up-to-date, Chinese identity is still unique because Chinese traditions are still practiced in most of the country. There are a lot of other societies that still hold on to their heritage, but China is one of a kind.

Thompson, E. P. (2015). Customs in common: Studies in traditional popular culture . New Press.

Hareven, T. K. (2018). Families, history and social change: Life course and cross-cultural perspectives . Routledge.

Zang, X. (Ed.). (2015). Understanding Chinese Society . Routledge.

Dean, K. (2014). Taoist ritual and popular cults of Southeast China . Princeton University Press.

Yunling, Z. (2016). China and its neighbourhood: transformation, challenges and grand strategy. International Affairs , 92 (4), 835-848.

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Cultural Fusion: the Identity Evolution of American Born Chinese

This essay about the evolving identity of American Born Chinese explores the intricate interplay between heritage and assimilation within the diverse landscape of American culture. The term “American Born Chinese” encapsulates a dual reality, reflecting the convergence of two distinct worlds. Rooted in the legacy of Chinese immigrants seeking opportunities in the U.S., the narrative unfolds through the lens of linguistic dexterity, cultural fusion, and culinary exploration. The bilingual reality of many ABC individuals becomes a poignant symbol of their connection to both heritage and the contemporary American experience. Negotiating between collectivist values and individualistic ideals, ABC individuals navigate a distinctive worldview, shaping an identity that transcends stereotypes and rigid expectations. Through this ongoing and dynamic process of cultural fusion, ABC individuals contribute to the diverse tapestry of American life with resilience, adaptability, and a unique synthesis of their dual heritage.

How it works

In the intricate kaleidoscope of American diversity, the vibrant threads of identity weave a tale as colorful as it is intricate. Amid this captivating mosaic, the story of American Born Chinese (ABC) individuals unfolds—a narrative marked not only by the perpetual evolution of cultural fusion but also by the dynamic sculpting of identity.

At its essence, the ABC journey embodies a graceful dance between the embrace of heritage and the currents of assimilation—an exploration of self that entails negotiation, adaptation, and a profound sense of acceptance.

The term “American Born Chinese” encapsulates a dual reality, resonating with the convergence of two distinct worlds, each boasting its unique tapestry of traditions, values, and expectations. The expedition of cultural fusion embarked upon by ABC individuals becomes an engaging odyssey, where the interplay of diverse influences crafts a narrative as multifaceted as the individuals themselves.

Steeped in the legacy of Chinese immigrants seeking opportunities on American soil, the ABC journey navigates the complexities of dual identity. The inaugural generation carried with them the vibrant tapestry of their ancestral homeland—imbued with traditions, languages, and customs. In contrast, their American-born descendants traverse the intricacies of dual identity, embracing the fusion of two cultures and reveling in the nuanced shades emerging from this amalgamation.

Language emerges as a poignant symbol in the cultural fusion experienced by American Born Chinese. The bilingual reality of many ABC individuals not only showcases linguistic dexterity but also signifies a deep connection to their cultural roots. The melodic cadence of Mandarin or Cantonese harmonizes seamlessly with the rhythmic tones of English, creating a linguistic tapestry mirroring the nuanced identity of ABC individuals—a harmonious synthesis of heritage and the contemporary American experience.

Cultural fusion extends beyond language to encompass the melding of traditions, customs, and familial expectations. ABC individuals find themselves negotiating the terrain between the collectivist values of their heritage and the individualistic ethos pervasive in American society. The traditional emphasis on filial piety and respect for elders coexists with Western ideals of independence and personal autonomy, sculpting a distinctive worldview rooted in cultural tradition yet attuned to the ever-evolving dynamics of American surroundings.

The culinary landscape, too, transforms into a vivid canvas for cultural fusion, where the aromatic notes of traditional Chinese dishes blend seamlessly with the flavors of American cuisine. ABC individuals embark on a gastronomic journey reflecting the synthesis of their dual heritage—from festive Lunar New Year banquets to the comforting allure of pizza and hamburgers. The dining table becomes a microcosm of their diverse cultural influences.

The evolution of the identity of American Born Chinese individuals is also characterized by the negotiation of stereotypes and the quest to transcend preconceived notions. In a society prone to perpetuating stereotypes and rigid expectations based on ethnicity, ABC individuals strive to break free from these constraints. Their journey unfolds within a landscape where the expectations of being “too Chinese” or “not Chinese enough” prompt a nuanced exploration of self-identity that transcends external perceptions.

In conclusion, the cultural fusion experienced by American Born Chinese individuals manifests as an ongoing and dynamic process of identity evolution. Through the intricate interweaving of language, traditions, values, and culinary experiences, ABC individuals craft a narrative uniquely their own—a tale that embraces the richness of their dual heritage. This journey embodies resilience, adaptability, and the enduring spirit of cultural fusion, contributing to the diverse tapestry of American life in a way that is authentically and distinctly theirs.

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Call for Papers | ‘You are What you Eat’: On Food, Culture(s), and Identity

Editors-in-chief: Rissa L. Miller, Federico Bossone

Few sentences can express the significance of food for our being human as concisely and pointedly as ‘You are what you eat’. This saying is found in different languages and could be one of those transversal notions that has existed in some form throughout history. From French gourmand Brillat-Savarin to German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, belief in the entanglement of food habits and identity can be observed across time and cultures, in that food constitutes an indispensable aspect of human existence, serving not merely as sustenance but also as a mirror reflecting culture, history as well as individual and collective identities (Shapin 2014, 377). Culinary traditions, rituals, and practices have profoundly influenced how individuals dine, socialize, and forge connections with one another. As a potent medium for expressing cultural identity and safeguarding traditions, food embodies a compelling narrative about humans, encompassing countless social aspects that vary across regions, communities, and even individual households.

Food can also be a measure of prestige within a given social order: it can serve as a symbol of power within social hierarchies and status structures. Interestingly, the cultural interpretations of its symbolism are intricate and sometimes conflicting. Claude Lévi-Strauss (1966) delved into this complexity in his culinary triangle, suggesting that boiled food signifies refinement and sophistication compared to roasted food. However, the consolidation of gender roles reversed these associations, as boiled dishes are often linked to familial intimacy and traditionally prepared by women. At the same time, roasted fare is associated with public celebrations and a more masculine domain. Not only have these assumptions shaped gender roles within families, but they have also shaped the male-dominated world of fine cooking in terms of prestige and social status [1] .

Looking at the brighter side, food acts as a unifying force, nurturing a feeling of camaraderie and inclusion among people. Regardless of cultural background, the act of cooking or partaking in a meal carries significant symbolism, deeply intertwined with rituals and ceremonies. Certain dishes are important in religious and cultural contexts and are crafted with utmost respect and attention. These culinary practices frequently serve as a means to pay homage to ancestors and deities alike, commemorate significant life events, and express profound convictions. Beyond nourishment, these traditional foods are vital in transmitting cultural heritage and strengthening familial bonds (Fieldhouse 2013).

Patterns of migration significantly shape and sometimes come to define culinary landscapes. Assimilation theories suggest that as individuals adapt to a new culture, there is a corresponding cultural exchange that occurs. This exchange becomes visible when mainstream societies include culinary practices originating from outside ethnic groups who have been excluded from access into the prevailing society – whether previously or currently (Boch, Jiménez, Roesler 2020 64-65). The culinary traditions brought by migrant communities have often been subject to alienation by the mainstream surrounding society, being perceived as unclean or too ‘exotic’. This is the case for Chinese and Italian immigrants who settled in the U.S. starting in the mid-1800s. Up until the 1950s U.S.-American society perceived the “newcomers as barbaric” (Inness 2006, 41) and as not integrated. Nowadays, many of those dishes that were introduced by those communities have become a staple of the mainstream culinary habits of U.S.-Americans. On the other hand, for migrant communities, traditional foods provide a tangible connection to ancestry, recounting historical migrations and cultural interactions. As ingredients, methods and tastes blend, fresh culinary customs develop, fostering lively and evolving food scenes. One example among many, Louisiana’s Creole cuisine history exemplifies this cultural fusion, drawing from French, Spanish, African, and Caribbean culinary legacies to create a uniquely multi-layered and symbolically loaded culinary tradition (Smith 2013, 423).

We look forward to receiving contributions addressing these or related questions. Topics include but are not limited to:

● Culinary Traditions: Delving into the intricate tapestry of traditional food practices, rituals and customs within specific cultural contexts, as evidenced in literature and various cultural artifacts.

● Food and Identity: Investigating how food shapes both individual and collective identities, from the culinary memoirs of immigrant communities to its symbolic significance.

● Representations of Food in Media and Literature: Analyzing depictions of food across different forms of media – the arts, literature, film, television – and their influence on cultural perceptions and practices.

● Globalization and Food Cultures: Examining the ramifications of globalization on culinary traditions, including the dissemination of cuisines, culinary fusion, and the commercialization of food in today’s fast-paced world.

● Food and Power: Scrutinizing the complex dynamics of foodways, especially in relation to social inequalities and justice as portrayed through literature and cultural narratives. How do gender, race, and class impact culinary heritage? Who decides what is ‘palatable’?

● Food Rituals: Exploring the deep-rooted significance of food-related rituals, festivals, and ceremonies as reflections of cultural values and beliefs, as depicted in arts, literature and/or liturgy.

● Food’s Role in Memory and Heritage: Investigating how food shapes personal and collective memory, nostalgia, and cultural heritage, as seen through literary reminiscences and historical narratives.

● Food and the Climate Crisis: examining the environmental footprint of food production and consumption practices and exploring cultural responses to sustainability challenges through literature and cultural representations.

● Food and Health: the intersections of food culture, nutrition, and public health policies, as portrayed in literary works and cultural discourses.

Submission and review process

Abstracts will be received and reviewed by the Diffractions editorial board who will decide on the pertinence of proposals for the upcoming issue. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit a full article. However, this does not imply that these papers will be automatically published. Rather, they will go through a peer-review process that will determine whether papers are publishable with minor or major changes, or if they do not fulfill the criteria for publication.

Please send abstracts of 150 to 250 words and 5-8 keywords as well as a short biography (100 words) by MAY 15 th , 2024, to [email protected] with the subject “Diffractions 10”, followed by your last name.

The full papers should be submitted by SEPTEMBER 30 th , 2024 , through the journal’s platform: https://revistas.ucp.pt/index.php/diffractions/about/submissions .

Every issue of Diffractions has a thematic focus but also contains a special section for non-thematic articles. If you are interested in submitting an article that is not related to the topic of this particular issue, please consult general guidelines available at the Diffractions website at https://revistas.ucp.pt/index.php/diffractions/about/submissions . The submission and review process for non-thematic articles is the same as for the general thematic issue. All research areas of the humanities are welcome.

[1] A survey by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown that 81.5% of head-cooks and chefs in the US were male in 2008. As of 2023, the percentage of women employed as head-cooks or chefs increased by only 4,8% (23,3%). ( https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm and Carolan 2012, 298).

Bibliography

Boch, Anna, Jiménez, Tomás, and Roesler, Katharina. 2021. “Mainstream Flavor: Ethnic Cuisine and Assimilation in the United States.” Social Currents, 8 (1), 64-85.

Carolan, Michael. 2012. The Sociology of Food and Agriculture . Florence: Taylor & Francis Group.

Fieldhouse, Paul. 2013 . Food and Nutrition: Customs and culture . Dordrecht: Springer.

Inness, Sherrie A. 2006. Secret Ingredients. Race, Gender, and Class at the Dinner Table . New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 2008. “The Culinary Triangle.” In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik (ed.).  Food and Culture: A Reader. (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge, 36–43.   Originally published as : Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1966). “The Culinary Triangle.” The Partisan Review 33 , 586–96.

Shapin, Steven. 2014. “‘You Are What You Eat’: Historical Changes in Ideas about Food and Identity.” Historical Research 87 , 377-392.

Smith, Andrew F. 2013. Food and Drink in American History: A “Full Course” Encyclopedia. Volume 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

Author Interviews

Legendary editor marty baron describes his 'collision of power' with trump and bezos.

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

Northwest Indigenous author’s new essay collection highlights her Coast Salish identity

The front cover of author Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe's book, Thunder Song. It’s a collection of essays examining the intersection of her Indigenous ancestry, Coast Salish history, queerdom and punk.

CounterPoint Press Publishing

Northwest author Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe’s newest book is called Thunder Song. It’s a collection of essays examining the intersection of her Indigenous ancestry, Coast Salish history, queerdom and punk.

OPB’s Paul Marshall spoke to LaPointe about the book. The following is a transcript of the conversation.

Paul Marshall: Your great-grandmother’s presence is evident throughout the book. She’s such a powerful figure while writing this book. Did you learn anything new about her?

Sasha LaPointe: She was such a huge part of my life. She helped in raising us and educating us on our Coast Salish culture. I constantly feel like I’m learning new things about her.

A friend of the family, who was one of her former language students, wrote a really beautiful book about her life called “ Where The Language Lives .” I was reading that shortly after the publication of “ Red Paint ” (LaPointe’s 2022 autobiography), and there were really interesting things about her younger life. I had no idea that she knew how to read tea leaves.

Throughout this book, I knew about the symphony “ The Healing Heart of the First People of This Land ” and how adamant she was in getting that completed. I already knew the basics of that, but digging into that story and talking to my mom a lot about it and just seeing how dedicated she was, reading the details and of course the documentary “ The Healing Heart of Lushootseed ,” I got to know more intimately what that meant to her. Her ambition, care and compassion. I learned more of the extent and the intensity of her commitment.

Marshall: In the book, your uncle asked the question, what kind of Indian are you? Has any part of your answer changed since writing this book?

LaPointe: No. In fact, that first Salmon Ceremony, it’s one of my favorite essays. It was one of my favorites to write.

There’s so much joy as a Native person and empowerment, this sense of pride in my identity and that took a long time to arrive at. It wasn’t until adulthood. It’s a hard thing to be proud of who you are and also in the face of settler colonial trauma. Being a survivor, sometimes it’s hard to really embrace that part of your identity.

Marshall: You start to find your footing in the punk space. But you know that you had to be punk first, then Native person second and you’ve touched on it. How did you reconcile your identity in the space?

LaPointe: It took a long time, to be honest. There are a lot of incredible things that I experienced, and the punk community was such an important part of my life. I think for any folks who are feeling misfit or a sense of displacement, we seek friends and family, we seek community, and the punk scene provided that for a while. I both love and have a massive critique of it. I think both can exist, but it was really hard.

As I continue to grow as a human and want to have these conversations about Indigenous issues. I over time started discovering that it wasn’t the right space or community to have these conversations.

I started to feel more lonely. I can’t talk to a white anarchist about settler colonial trauma to the extent that they’re really going to get where I’m coming from and see me as a person. I started having these ideas and really wanting to process them and work them out as an artist, a person, a weirdo in the punk scene and realizing there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for connection and to do that.

Going to the Institute of American Indian Arts really opened up my world. I can be in a room with other indigenous artists, writers, poets, painters, filmmakers and I feel less alone. I’m in a space where we can have these conversations back and forth.

I think that making those connections and meeting my Native art community made me realize just how othered and different I felt in some of those spaces.

Marshall: You’re a woman who comes from salmon people and there was even a point where you denied your salmon privilege. What helped to repair that relationship over time?

LaPointe: I really couldn’t shake that memory of my uncle. When he passed I felt an immense amount of grief — our family felt that loss.

I remember sitting in the driveway on that wintry, icy, snowy night and him dropping that massive king salmon in my arms and when I said, “Uncle I’m a vegetarian,” the look on his face. It’s one of those memories that is so concrete and stays with me. What kind of Indian are you? I couldn’t shake it.

That speaks to younger teenage Sasha and wanting to fit into these punk spaces in this community where everyone was vegan and everyone was an animal rights activist. But in doing that, I was denying this very, very deep part of myself.

It’s not simply about food. Food is nurturing, but salmon is a sacred resource. So much of our culture is built around the salmon returning. It’s just such a huge part of my Coast Salish identity that I can’t believe I spent years denying that simply to try to fit in.

When I thought about my uncle asking me that question, I’m like, “Wait a minute. As a Coast Salish woman, I’m not the problem. The overfished oceans are not because of Coast Salish people.” That was a long journey, a long learning lesson, to arrive at this place. “Why are you denying this sacred resource that’s part of your culture?” I will never deny myself salmon again. It is a gift that we have salmon returning that haven’t left us.

Marshall: You wrote “The first time I ever heard the term two-spirit. I felt a sense of relief wash over me.” Why? And where did that shame you felt growing up queer come from?

LaPointe: I want to start by saying two-spirit can mean different things. I know it’s been kind of adopted as this kind of pan-Indian identity, but it means different things depending on the tribe or the community.

The way that it was explained to me, I was young, my mom had just come back from a two-spirit gathering in Montana and she was telling me about it and sharing photos and all of a sudden I felt this massive relief. For me, growing up with a sense of pressure to have to decide: Are you queer? Are you straight? What are your relationships like? There was this shame built up around that.

When my mom approached me with two-spirit, explaining that a two-spirit person can have both a masculine and feminine spirit, all of a sudden, I felt this kind of relief wash over me where I felt understood.

Having partners throughout my life ask: “Are you gay? Are you straight? Are you bisexual?” None of these labels seem to fit. Falling in love with people based on their gender identity has never occurred to me. I felt really conflicted. Certain partners would be angry or confused by my identity as a queer woman and if I didn’t fit into the way that they wanted to see me, or their idea, it was a disappointment or this point of frustration or conflict.

For a long time that really just built up a lot of shame in me. It’s not an easy thing to want to fit into someone’s idea of who they want you to be. The idea of embracing myself instead of these two halves of me. It’s this kind of journey of loving yourself and accepting yourself and really celebrating yourself. As a queer Coast Salish woman, there is nothing wrong with me and I am allowed to embrace all of that and be proud of that.

Northwest author Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe’s newest book is called Thunder Song. It’s a collection of essays examining the intersection of her Indigenous ancestry, Coast Salish history, queerdom and punk.

Blaine Slingerland

Marshall: The relationship between you and your parents, it’s complicated as you describe it, they’re your heroes and you draw strength from them. But then you also see that there are ways where they’re dealing with their own issues. What helped you to understand that duality more over time?

LaPointe: There’s a point in most people’s lives where you realize that your parents are human. For me, it was this moment of incredible compassion and care for them. I think I spent a lot of my teen years being really angry and that wasn’t necessarily fair to them. When you stop and sort of reach this point of adulthood where you see your parents, not as either superheroes or supervillains in your life, you see them as just people who are also struggling. They were young Indigenous parents trying to make it with five kids living in a trailer. I was really angry and had a lot of unresolved anger and frustration towards them. Looking back now having this realization of how hard they were trying to make it work.

Even without having five kids and trying to make it work, it is a difficult thing to navigate this world as Indigenous people. They already had a lot on their plate and realizing that they did the best that they could.

Marshall: There was something in the earlier part of the book, you wrote all these white people on Pinterest are baking loaves of sourdough and I am trying to time travel. On one front it was funny but also a little tricky because that’s your history.

LaPointe: It’s interesting whenever I read that part of the essay the audience laughs. It is kind of sassy but also a very serious thing. That was deeply emotional and sad and lonely feeling. As a descendant of survivors of smallpox, The pandemic hit a little different for me. There was a sense of anxiety and sort of this generational trauma. This fear coded deep in my DNA to feel unsafe. The idea of losing our elders to this illness was terrifying to me.

I’m not gonna lie, the pandemic was hard for all of us. We have this kind of collective trauma in lockdown. It was a really strange and alienating thing for me to see people saying ‘I’m watching Great British Baking and baking tons of cakes. I’m looking around the reservation from my roof, terrified that the elder next door is going to pass. What does that mean for me as a Coast Salish person?

It is strange when people laugh, I’m also not mad at them for laughing, because it is a little snarky, but also it hits on such a deeper fear and a deeper sense of loss and fear of erasure. There is this split. It’s snarky but this is a little serious for me. You’re the only person who’s asked me about it in this way and I deeply appreciate it.

Marshall: You wrote that songs have the power to heal and can be medicine. The book title is Thunder Song. What does the title mean to you?

LaPointe: It comes from the title essay ‘Thunder Song’ which is sort of an homage to my great-grandmother. It’s a kind of a love letter to all that she did in her life and all that she was. Choosing to title the collection after that was important to me because in recognizing that 20 years ago, she had this vision.

She felt called to do this work to commission a symphony because she believed very deeply in our Coast Salish culture and our ways: the fact that our songs are medicine and she wanted to share that. It’s as true as it was 20 years ago as it is today, if not more.

I imagine if my great-grandmother was with us today, looking around the state of the world she would be deeply disturbed and concerned. Her whole goal with that symphony was to remind people to be kind to one another to take care of one another which is a very basic part of our Coast Salish ways of being.

She just wanted to share that. The issues in my book aren’t site-specific. They’re not simply Coast Salish problems. These are problems all over the world. Titling it “Thunder Song” was a way to honor her and to also say the world still needs this medicine.

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