THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Jermaine R. Gordon-Mizusawa
Guilt, Shame, and Social Responsibility: What Does Sex and Virginity Mean in Japan?
Thursday 13 December 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Information on sex in Japan especially in the media is constantly conflicting and contradictory. One image is a sexualized Japan with its soaplands (where men get bathed by women and sometimes sex occurs), enjo-kosai ���U��� (compensated dating), and ero manga �u�f���e (erotic comics). A second Japan that exists is one characterized as sexually repressed as the title of a 2004 article in USA Today suggests, "No Sex Please. We Are Japanese," while citing a survey on twenty-eight countries that reported Japan as last in frequency of sex. How can we understand these conflicting meanings of sex and virginity in Japan? In my on-going research on this topic, I combine person-centered ethnography with psychoanalytic theory to temper research analysis with the voices of the respondents themselves. In this talk I report on my initial findings.
Jermaine R. Gordon-Mizusawa is a PhD student of Anthropology Department at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Wai-chi Chee
Schooling in Transition: Experiences of Teenage Immigrant Students in Hong Kong Secondary Schools
Thursday 8 November 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
This research investigates the schooling experiences of low-income teenage immigrant students coming to Hong Kong, predominantly from mainland China and South Asia. While these students have internalized and shouldered the family expectations for their upward social mobility through access to the perceived better education in Hong Kong, they are ill-prepared for the unfamiliar education system and curriculum, and the disparities between idealized aspirations and constraints in reality. This paper discusses the institutional forces and the discursive and symbolic structures that circumscribe their lived experiences, and seeks to illuminate the interplay between education, ethnicity, and socioeconomic factors in the socialization, aspiration shaping, and accommodation and constriction of educational attainment of immigrant students.
Wai-chi Chee is a part-time lecturer in Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Katrien Jacobs
Internet Sex and Erotic Self-Display in Hong Kong
Tuesday 18 October 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
The talk is based on theories of participatory ethnography and media activism. It assesses Internet sex as "cybertyping" by elaborating on the self-profiling methods of Chinese web users--their sexual transgressions and play with stereotypes of gender and ethnicity. It dissects the erotic imaging choices and correspondences of culturally diverse web users by means of selected case studies, in which the author functioned as participant observant and interviewer, or "coaxer", of specific people and sex communities. The aim is not only to analyze changing social relations and inter-racial dating strategies, but also to show how researchers can use sexual subjectivity and online personalities to be emotive participants within internet sex environments.
Katrien Jacobs is associate professor in cultural studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her work investigates the role of digital networks in people's experiences with the body, art, and sexuality.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Richard Abrahams
Tourism in Rural China: Its effect on place-based and group Identities
Tuesday 19 September 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Tourism has been a key policy and economic area during China's post-1978 reform period, being utilised by the State as a tool which both aids with the economic development of rural areas whilst being simultaneously mobilised as a vehicle for the 'civilising' of rural ethnic minority toured groups. Consequently, tourism has been responsible for huge changes in the intervening years as China's rural ethnic minority peoples and landscapes have been foregrounded into nationalistic tourist discourses, providing a counterpoint to rural-urban migration by creating places of contact where China's rural ethnic minority and urban majority groups can interact.
In this talk I will discuss both the opportunities and problems tourism offers to visited communities, and will describe the ways in which it plays a role in the reconfiguration of group identities, and understandings of ethnicity in modern China amongst both the visitors and the visited.
Richard Abrahams is a PhD candidate at the University of Hong Kong's Department of Geography.
Annual Meeting of the East Asian Anthropological Association
6-8 July 2012
Lecture Theater 3, Esther Lee Building, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The East Asian Anthropological Association is a scholarly association of teachers and students of anthropology based in East Asia and engaged in anthropological work on East Asia. It has existed for several years now, and has had conferences in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.
Please click here to download a preliminary programme for the conference; you can see who is coming, and what you might find interesting.
Attendance to the panels is free for HKAS members; however, if you wish to attend any meals with the participants, you are asked to make small payments as per the schedule below:
Full Registration covering meals for all three days: $390
First day lunch ($70), dinner ($180)
Second day lunch ($70), dinner ($70)
Third day lunch ($70)
Attendance without meals (Free)
Please note that if you wish to join us for the meals, you must register in advance by sending us an e-mail and letting us know which meals you would like to attend. Payment can be made directly at the registration counter on the days of the conference.
For more information, check out the EAAA's website at www.cuhk.edu.hk/ant/EAAAconf or send us at e-mail at anthrohk@gmail.comTHE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Leo Pang
What's on the menu? 'Authentic' Chinese Food in Sydney
Tuesday 3 July 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
There have been Chinese restaurants in Sydney since the late 19th century. Recently, Chinese food in Sydney has changed from being Cantonese-based to including a range of regional cuisines from other parts of China including Shanghai, Sichuan and Beijing, with the arrival of new immigrants since the opening up of China. How do these immigrants decide what dishes to include on their menus? Do they stay authentic to the part of China that they came from or do they serve dishes that are familiar to local Australian customers? How do they serve unfamiliar dishes to customers who are accustomed to a certain type of Chinese food? Chinese restaurant owners and chefs have either adapted to Australians tastes and preferences or catered to their fellow Chinese immigrants. This study shows how Chinese immigrant restaurant owners have changed local perceptions of Chinese food and local tastes in Australia.
Leo Pang is an M.Phil. candidate at the Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Justin Gaurav Murgai
BUSTED! Illegal South Asians in Hong Kong
Wednesday 20 June 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Over the past year, much attention has been paid in the media to illegal immigrants in Hong Kong. Despite attempts to raise awareness of their needs, there remains a major stigma against them. Often faring worse are the South Asians in Hong Kong who are seen merely as economic migrants—as thieves, stealing from Hong Kongers' home. But not many people in Hong Kong know of the huge personal sacrifices made by these illegal migrants in pursuing their dream of providing for their families. It is for this dream that each year, more and more people from the subcontinent come to hunt the mirage of success created by imaginations back home, and by failed migrants in Hong Kong trying to hide from the shame of not keeping the promises of wealth that they made when leaving. In this talk, I discuss who these migrants are, why they come to Hong Kong, what their lives are like in the city, and why, even after failing, they encourage still more migrants to come.
Justin Murgai is an M.Phil. candidate at the Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Mick Atha
From Geomancy to Geophysics: Designing research into Hong Kong's historic landscape
Wednesday 30 May 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
The historian W.G. Hoskins famously wrote that the landscape was "the richest historical document we possess" (Hoskins 1955). Hong Kong's abandoned agricultural terraces and rice paddies, depopulated villages and fung shui features reflect the lives, labour and beliefs of countless generations of farmers who designed, constructed and managed the NT landscape. While beneath that historic landscape surface, archaeologists have found a succession of buried landscapes stretching right back into prehistory.
This talk explores how the rich multi-period landscape of Hong Kong came into being – a story of balance and conflict between human agency and natural processes. The kinds of landscape research ongoing in other parts of the world and the (so far) limited attempts to investigate and understand the cultural landscape of the SAR will be then examined. The talk will then be rounded off with a vision for future interdisciplinary research into Hong Kong’s unique historic landscape which, in true Hong Kong fashion, involves a combination of Western-style landscape archaeology in concert with Chinese understandings of landscape.
Mick is a HKSAR licensed archaeologist, researcher and part-time university lecturer with interests in Hong Kong's early historical archaeology, geophysical survey and interdisciplinary landscape research.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Mette Halskov Hansen
Is there room for the rise of the Individual in the Chinese State School?
Wednesday 2 May 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
How are young people in China's hundreds and thousands of schools trained to become citizens in the neo-socialist state? What do they learn about hierarchies and democracy? This talk is based on on-going fieldwork in a rural high school. I will not discuss textbooks or official curricula, but rather take a close look at how students are trained through two kinds of organizational practice: The “student cadre system” and the "student association". How do students and teachers experience this training? What are the intentions behind it? What does this tell us about changes in contemporary Chinese society?
Mette Halskov Hansen is professor in China studies at the University of Oslo, Norway. She has written about minority education, Han migrations to minority areas, rural youth, and processes of individualization.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Wu Liang
Sailors on Container Ships in a Neoliberal Era: "Breadwinners", "Guards" and "Prisoners"
Wednesday 21 March 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
What is it like to be a sailor when his ship plies the sea routes between coastal ports of the globe, and when he works and lives with crewmembers of different nationalities for long periods on board? As around 90% of international trade is carried by shipping, without which our production and consumption scales would be unimaginable, it is important that we know about the lives of these transport workers. The speaker is going to introduce his research on seafarers on ocean-going container ships, and share what he learned about their working, living and social conditions in the neoliberal era. In doing so, he will focus on gauging the impact of techno-economic developments such as containerization, and thus explain why many a sailor of the international shipping industry is a "breadwinner", a "guard" and a "prisoner" all at the same time.
Wu Liang is a former M.Phil. student of the Department of Anthropology of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Candy Yu
The Manila Hostage Crisis and Hong Kong Interethnic Relations
Wednesday 29 February 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
A year after the Manila Hostage Crisis, which caused 8 Hong Kong people’s deaths, a black travel alert is still imposed on the Philippines by the Hong Kong government, indicating that Hong Kong citizens should avoid all travel. After the crisis, anti-Filipino sentiment was aroused among the general public of Hong Kong. In this study, conducted in the wake of the hostage crisis, I examined how the crisis transformed how Hong Kong employers and Filipino employees saw each other. The “moment of crisis” revealed different perceptions towards the "ethnic other." Nonetheless, despite the main discourse which placed a binary relation between the “evil” employers and the “subordinated”, “ill-treated” employees, in fact the relationship between the two groups was remarkably supportive, even in the high time of the crisis.
Candy Yu is an M.Phil student of the Department of Anthropology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by John Whelpton
Missionary Positions: Christianity and Nepali Society
Thursday 12 January 2012,
7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Although the first Christian missionary probably traveled through Nepal in 1626, they were barred from entering the country after the Hindu Shah dynasty unified the country in the late 18th century. From 1951 onwards, missionaries were again admitted but a legal ban both on proselytizing and on individuals’ abandoning Hinduism meant that their activity was restricted to providing educational and medical services. After the establishment of parliamentary democracy in 1990, Hindus were legally permitted to convert to another religion and have done so in substantial numbers but active proselytizing remains a criminal offence, even though Nepal is now officially a secular state. The talk examines how different Christian denominations have adapted to this situation and also how they relate to a Hindu-majority society in which Maoists are now the strongest political force. These issues raise the larger question of the balance between tolerance for diversity and the right to try to convince others of the truth of one’s own beliefs.
John Whelpton, currently an honorary research associate of the Catholic Studies Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has been a student of Nepali history and society since working as a college lecturer in the country from 1972 to 1974. He is the author of A History of Nepal (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and co-editor and contributor to Nationalism and Ethnicity in Nepal (Vajra Books, 2008).