scholarly journals Queer vernacularism: Minor transnationalism across Hong Kong and Singapore

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 49-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvin K Wong
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Gay Male ◽  
Postcolonial State ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Finance Capitalism

This essay explores the queer literary modernism of Hong Kong and Singapore since the 1990s to make several interventions. While the two cities have been studied as exemplars of postcolonial state formation in which finance capitalism contributes to the rise of modernity, their queer modernism in the literary and cultural spheres has largely escaped comparative studies. To address this blind spot, I examine two literary texts of gay male urbanism, namely Bryan Yip’s 2003 Hong Kong queer novel, Suddenly Single and Johann S. Lee’s 1992 coming-of-age queer Singaporean novel, Peculiar Chris, as cases of “queer vernacularism.” Specifically, Yip and Lee’s queer vernacular modernism—especially their references to Hong Kong and Singaporean popular culture, urban space, and soundscapes of modernity—altogether exceeds the familiar boundary of queer transnationalism and actualizes other modes of minor transnational desire. This essay concludes with a brief analysis of Yonfan’s 1995 Hong Kong film Bugis Street, which visualizes the bygone past of Singapore’s 1950–1970s sexual utopia and transgender imaginary.

scholarly journals Today in Guangzhou, Tomorrow in Hong Kong? A Comparative Study of the Language Situation in Two Cities

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-232
Author(s):  
Barry Sautman ◽  
Xinyi Xie
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
General Public ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
And Migration

Many in Hong Kong voice concerns about the fate of Cantonese, including nativists (“localists”) and the general public. Guangzhou is seen as a harbinger of diminishing Cantonese in Hong Kong. News and commentaries paint a gloomy picture of Cantonese in Guangzhou. Yet rarely do we read about surveys on the range of Cantonese use and identity in Guangzhou. Neither do we see analyses on how the social context differences between Hong Kong and Guangzhou may have contributed to the two cities’ unique language situations. Our study delineates the Guangzhou and Hong Kong language situations, comparing mother tongues, ordinary languages, and language attitudes. Cantonese is unrivalled in Hong Kong and remains vital in Guangzhou. We put the two cities’ different use frequency and proficiency of Cantonese and Putonghua (“Mandarin”) in the sociocultural context of motivation and migration. We conclude that some claims of diminishing Cantonese are unsupported. We also address how likely it is that Cantonese will diminish or even be replaced in Hong Kong.

scholarly journals HETERO-TEXTUALITY AND CO-SPATIALITY: FROM THE SEMIOTICS OF THE CITY TO THE TRANS-SEMIOTICS OF THE POST-CITY

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-79
Author(s):  
Dmitry N. Zamyatin ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
General Context ◽  
Research Material ◽  
Single Text ◽  
Urban Narratives ◽  
Key Features ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The City

Literary texts can be considered as the most attractive research material for analyzing the key features of both the semiotics of the city as a whole and the semiotics of individual cities, to which many works of art are devoted. The urban space of Modernity as a result of the processes of powerful semiotization can be considered as both textual and intertextual. The intertextuality of Modern urban spaces presupposes sets of “floating” topological signifiers corresponding to similar sets of “floating” topological signs. In the traditional semiotics of the city, the existence of two realities is assumed — the “real” reality and the “semiotic” reality, between which clear logical correspondences and/or relations can be observed and analyzed. The appearance of non-classical/post-classical urban narratives focused on the problems of dis-communication at the beginning of the 20th century became one of the important signs of the primary formation of the post-city and post-urbanism phenomena. The post-city is not a text and can not be regarded as a text; at the same time, it can generate separate texts that are not related to each other in any way. Post-urban texts, which are the communicative results of specific co-spatialities, remain local “flashes” that do not form a single text or meta-text (super-text). Hetero-textuality is a phenomenon of post-urban reality, which is characterized by the coexistence, as a rule, of texts that do not correlate with each other, relating to certain stable urban loci. Trans-semiotics in general context is understood as the study of any texts that involve the creation of sign-symbolic breaks or “gaps” with any other potentially possible correlating texts in the process of signification. Trans-semiotics of post-cities are studies of (literary) texts that involve the creation of sign-symbolic breaks or “gaps” with any other potentially possible correlating texts related to a particular urban locus in the process of signifying any urban loci. The post-city heterostructuality can be considered as the co-spatiality of mutually exclusive texts corresponding to “non-seeing” post-city loci. Post-urban trans-semiotics in the course of their development form a kind of “dark zones” that reject or neutralize any attempt at any semiotic interpretation.

scholarly journals Aspectos de la desaparición

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enric Bou
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Many ◽  
Point Of Departure

This essay discusses issues related to disappearances in urban space, in particular cases that affect streets and subways, the mismatched equivalences of lines on the surface of urban space and what lays underground. Taking as a point of departure David Pike’s concept of threshold, which is key to defining a topography of the “vertical city”, a reading of plans and literary texts and films is proposed. This will illustrate the ways in which surface and other underground spaces overlap and the many differences that exist.

Urban governance and social sustainability

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kin Sun Chan ◽  
Yeung Fai Philip Siu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Urban Renewal ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Government Leadership ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
People First

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of urban renewal policy by comparing urban renewal in Hong Kong with that undertaken in Macao. Design/methodology/approach – This study reviews the concepts of urban renewal in the two cities and examines related policies in Hong Kong and Macao. Findings – The study finds that the emphasis of urban renewal policy rests on the principles of self-financing, holistic planning and public-private partnerships. In order to deal with urban renewal issues, the Chinese Government has adopted a “People First, District-based, Public Participatory” approach based on public engagement and, to this end, it has introduced various measures, such as the District Urban Renewal Forum and the Urban Renewal Trust Fund. However, compared with Hong Kong, Macao’s efforts at urban renewal policies have been disjointed and piecemeal. Originality/value – The study adopts the principle of public management and compares the two cities’ urban policies to highlight the importance of both government leadership and public engagement for successful urban renewal.

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