September 30, 2011

The other day I read a book review of Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong, a study by Gordon Mathews, Professor of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. For many people Chungking Mansions is a place that you would avoid walking past, let alone enter. 

But Professor Mathews actually stayed in Chungking Mansions to understand what goes on in the building, a place which: ‘A remarkably motley group of people call [the building] home; Pakistani telephone stall operators, Chinese guesthouse workers, Nepalese heroin addicts, Indonesian sex workers, and traders and asylum seekers from all over Asia and Africa live and work there—even backpacking tourists rent rooms.’ (from the blurb)

In this context I was reminded of what one of my teachers said during his lecture on a social labeling theory, which is that ignorance breeds fear. In other words, just because we have no idea of what goes on or who lives in Chungking Mansions, we are worried and scared. 

As the reviewer points out Mathew’s ultimate goal was to show that there is a human side to the complex culture within the walls and he hopes that Hongkongers will not discriminate against the residents of Chungking Mansions. Because even though local Hong Kong people don’t know anyone in the Mansions, they have a lot in common, e.g. striving to become middle class residents.

Written by: Audrey

September 21, 2011

Next week the Centre will launch a new exhibition ‘The Spirit of Flowers—Chinese Paintings of Shen Mo and Shum Hon Shui’. The opening ceremony will be held on Wednesday 28 September 2011 at which Mr Shen Mo, Mr Shum Hon Shui, Dr Sze Chi Ching, Dr Sun Li Chuan and Professor Cheng Pei-kai will officiate.

The painters Shen Mo and Shum Hon Shui are both from Fujian. Though they share the same surname  沈 in Chinese, Shen in Hanyu Pinyin and Shum in Cantonese spelling, I was told that they are not related.

Mr. Shen Mo is currently a lecturer in Chinese painting at the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Visiting Professor at the Huaqiao University. His work has been on display at several national exhibitions in China and can also be found in private collections local and abroad.

Mr. Shum Hon Shui came to Hong Kong in 1961, the year he graduated from the Fine Arts Department of the Fujian Normal University. Currently he is on the Board of the Calligraphy and Painting Study Association of Hong Kong Fukienese and Lecturer at the Quanzhou Art Institute. Mr Shum’s paintings have been displayed at local exhibitions and abroad and appeared in many publications. His works are in the collections of many museums as well as those of art aficionadoes.

Top right is a painting of flowers by Shen Mo and bottom left you can see birds painted by Shum Ho Shui. Although the title suggests that the paintings are in the spirit of flowers, there are also many other themes. You can see the art works at the CityU Gallery, 6/F, Amenities Building, City University of Hong Kong, in the period from 29 September until 6 November 2011, open daily from 10 am to 7 pm.

Written by: Audrey

September 16, 2011

In the Dutch newspaper there is some brief report on the Beijing International Book Fair where the Netherlands was guest of honour. It says that Amnesty International had called on the delegation of Dutch writers, publishers and scholars to stage a demonstration against the imprisonment of Liu Xiaobo during the opening ceremony of the Book Fair. But the delegation ignored the call because they figured that it would not be such a wise act.

There are other ways to express your views. Just like Dutch State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science Halbe Zijlstra did in his speech in Beijing: he emphasized that the Netherlands is an open country, and the Dutch are recognized for their tolerance, transparancy and freedom of speech and press. At the same time he also expressed his worries about the arrest of writers and critics of the Chinese regime.

But the participation at the book fair was primarily to introduce Dutch literature to China. Which they did. Their books were on display at the fair and there were sessions with Dutch and Chinese writers. There is no need to expect that they made an impact on the human rights issue. What does matter is that there was cultural exchange which hopefully will lead to better mutual understanding.

Written by: Audrey

September 8, 2011

While writing an essay on images of sixteenth to nineteenth century China in the eyes of the Dutch, I came across views which reflect the Eurocentric attitude and expectations of the Orient at the time. For instance one reviewer of a Chinese novel which came out in Dutch translation in 1844 notes that in China ‘Romanticism’ was lagging behind his European counterparts and that Dutch readers would be unable to appreciate the novel’s contents.

One way of explaining this is of course from the study of ‘Orientalism’ a term which Edward Said used ‘to describe a pervasive Western tradition, both academic and artistic, of prejudiced outsider interpretations of the East, shaped by the attitudes of European imperialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.’

In such case, the Dutch likely had ‘prejudiced outsider interpretations’ of China which stood in the way of appreciating the Chinese novel, and from the perspectives of European literary movement the Chinese novel did not meet the expectations. This sounds reasonable enough but the intriguing question remains: what were these prejudiced outsider interpretations of China?

Written by: Audrey