scholarly journals Qipao: The Carrier of Chinese Cultural and Philosophical Symbols

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
Cheng Fung Kei
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Chinese Values

The qipao has become the symbol of identity for Chinese women. It is a tight-fitting dress with a standing collar, an asymmetric left-over-right opening and two-side slits. Chinese knot buttons are also an essential part of the qipao. While the garment serves to express Chinese values and has philosophical connotations, its colour, fabric pattern and Chinese knot buttons express wishes for happiness, luck, fortune, longevity as well as a yearning for peaceful interpersonal relationships and harmony with nature. The qipao was developed not only from a traditional gown used by the Han (the majority Chinese ethnic group), but also integrated minority cultural elements and has recently added Western sartorial patterns. This has resulted in a national dress that is more harmonious with contemporary aesthetics, manifesting the adaptability, versatility and inclusiveness of Chinese culture.

scholarly journals Nightclub as a Liminal Space: Space, Gender, and Identity in Lisa See’s China Dolls

Humanities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 126
Author(s):  
Melody Li
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
Chinese Americans ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Chinese Values ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Chinese American Women ◽  
A Site

Nightclubs flourished in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late 1930s when it became a nightlife destination. To Chinese Americans, however, San Francisco nightclubs became a new site at the time for them to re-explore their identities. For some, visiting these nightclubs became a way for them to escape from traditional Chinese values. For others, it became a way to satisfy Western stereotypes of Chinese culture. Lisa See’s China Dolls (2015) describes three young oriental women from various backgrounds that become dancers at the popular Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco in the late 1930s. Through the three girls’ precarious careers and personal conflicts, Lisa See proposes the San Francisco nightclub as both a site for them to articulate their new identities beyond their restricted spheres and a site for them to perform the expected stereotypical Asian images from Western perspectives. It was, at that time, a struggle for the emergence of modern Chinese women but particularly a paradox for Chinese-American women. The space of the Chinese-American nightclub, which is exotic, erotic, but stereotypical, represents contradictions in the Chinese-American identity. Through studying Lisa See’s novel along with other autobiographies of the Chinese American dancing girls, I argue that San Francisco nightclubs, as represented in Lisa See’s novel, embody the paradox of Chinese American identities as shown in the outfits of Chinese American chorus girls—modest cheongsams outside and sexy, burlesque costumes underneath.

scholarly journals A survey of knowledge, attitudes and behaviours regarding sexual wellbeing among Chinese women living in New Zealand – a pilot study

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-30
Author(s):  
Polly Yeung ◽  
Awhina English
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Chinese Values ◽  
Reinforcing Factors ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Sexual Wellbeing

The aims of the study were to assess sexual wellbeing knowledge and attitudes among Chinese women living in New Zealand and to investigate the factors that prevented them from seeking support from sexual wellbeing services. Seventy-nine Chinese women from Hong Kong, China and Taiwan were recruited through community and personal networks to complete a self-report survey, which included questions on socio-demographics, self-rated adjustment, knowledge of sexual wellbeing, importance of understanding sexual wellbeing, cultural influences, structural influences, and willingness to seek information and assistance. The findings in this study suggested that younger Chinese women lacked sexual wellbeing knowledge and were less likely to seek support when compared to their older age group counterparts. Three out of the eight variables assessed were found to make a significant contribution in the willingness of Chinese women seeking support from sexual wellbeing services. These were knowledge of sexual wellbeing, self-perceived importance of gaining an understanding of sexual wellbeing issues and cultural influences. Our results suggest that despite the length of residency and self-rated adjustment in New Zealand, traditional Chinese values and beliefs continue to influence the perceptions of Chinese women regarding their sexual wellbeing. Interventions to improve sexual and reproductive wellbeing in this population, particularly younger Chinese women, should be tailored to the specific enabling and reinforcing factors that include cultural views, communications between Chinese women and health and social services providers, and access to healthcare information. 

scholarly journals Sociocultural Mechanisms of Conflict: Combining Topic and Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models in an Analysis of Afghanistan, 1979-2001

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Karell ◽  
Michael Raphael Freedman
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Semantic Network ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Conflict Studies ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Cultural Domain ◽  
Do So

How do sociocultural dynamics shape conflict? We develop a relational understanding of how social relations, culture, and conflict are interwoven. Using this framework, we examine how combatants' associations with cultural elements affect the interpersonal relationships underlying conflict dynamics, as well as how these relationships engender associations to cultural elements. To do so, we first introduce a novel analytical approach that synthesizes computational textual analysis and stochastic actor-oriented models of longitudinal networks. We then use our approach to analyze a two-level socio-semantic graph representing both the cultural domain and social relationships of prominent militants operating in one Afghan province, Balkh, between 1979 and 2001. Our results indicate that militants' interpersonal comradeships rely, in part, on their connections to cultural elements and relative power. Comradeship, in turn, fosters militants' connections to cultural elements. We conclude by discussing how conflict studies can continue to build on insights from cultural sociology, as well as how cultural sociology and socio-semantic network research can benefit from further engaging conflict studies and developing our analytical approach. We also highlight provisional insights into endogenous mechanisms of conflict resolution and cultural change.

scholarly journals Guanxi, Trust, and Long-Term Orientation in Chinese Business Markets

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Y. Lee ◽  
Philip L. Dawes
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Business Markets ◽  
Latent Construct ◽  
Chinese Business ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

This research focuses on buying firms’ trust in a supplier's salesperson and posits that this type of trust is determined by characteristics of the salesperson, the interpersonal relationships between a salesperson and the buying firm's boundary personnel, and characteristics of personal interactions between these two parties. More important, the authors discuss the concept of interpersonal relationships in the context of Chinese culture and model it as a three-dimensional latent construct, which, in some literature, is called guanxi. A key aspect of this research is that the authors investigate the impact of each dimension of guanxi on salesperson trust separately. Moreover, the authors consider the buying firm's trust in the supplying firm and its long-term orientation toward the supplier the consequences of salesperson trust. To test the model, the authors use data collected from 128 buying organizations in Hong Kong. The sampled firms are from both the government and private sectors.

Chinese Women and Rural Development: Sixty Years of Change in Lu Village, Yunnan. By Laurel Bossen. [Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. 391 pp. Hard cover $80.00, ISBN 0-7425-1107-3; paperback $29.95, ISBN 0-7425-1108-1.]

2003 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 214-251
Author(s):  
Elisabeth J. Croll
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Rural Development ◽  
Field Study ◽  
Yunnan Province ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
Everyday Practice ◽  
Market Driven ◽  
Hard Cover

This study constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of women, gender and rural development within and beyond China. Examining 60 years of economic, political and social change in one village in Yunnan province, this book has both depth and breadth. Research in Lu village, also the site of Fei Xiao-tong's very fine field study conducted in the 1940s and reported in Earthbound China, enables the author to examine how larger concepts and abstractions such as Chinese culture, communist planning and market-driven reforms shape and are shaped by gender definitions and relations in everyday practice.

scholarly journals SYSTEM AND GENESIS OF ETHNIC DIASPORA CULTURE

THE BULLETIN ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (388) ◽  
pp. 355-360
Author(s):  
Garifolla Yessim, ◽  
◽  
Sarkulova M.S., ◽  
Amen A., ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Theoretical Study ◽  
Intercultural Dialogue ◽  
Ethnic Culture ◽  
Cultural Elements

The problem of the historical formation of the culture of ethnic groups and the identification of their specific features is very urgent, since the diaspora culture is able to significantly transform depending on environmental conditions, among which socio-economic and ethnopolitical ones can become decisive. The result of transformational processes in each case can be individual, therefore, studies of specific conditions and the specifics of the formation of a culture of ethnic diasporas are quite significant. A theoretical study of the features of the historical formation of the culture of various resettlement groups makes it possible to identify possible common structures in the model for studying such phenomena, to study the features of intercultural dialogue of diasporas, and, as a result, to predict the results of intercultural dialogue of diasporas with the environment, thereby ensuring the comfortable functioning of the diaspora culture as a whole. The relevance of the topic in practical terms is caused not only by the increased needs of representatives of different ethnic groups and diasporas to preserve their culture, but also by the desire for its development, the formation of stability in it. The article builds the logic of the concepts of culture-ethnic culture - culture of the ethnic Diaspora. The culture of the ethnic Diaspora is studied as a specific way of people's activity to preserve and create a set of cultural elements and structures that have ethnic specificity, and by performing ethno differentiating and ethno integrating functions, contribute to the awareness of their unity by various, often dispersed, parts of a particular ethnic group. The article describes the features of implementing the main functions of the culture of the ethnic Diaspora: ontological, aesthetic, sociological, historical, reflexive, axiological, ethical, communicative, and psychotherapeutic.

scholarly journals Culture under Complex Perspective: A Classification for Traditional Chinese Cultural Elements Based on NLP and Complex Networks

Complexity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Lin Qi ◽  
Yuwei Wang ◽  
Jindong Chen ◽  
Mengjie Liao ◽  
Jian Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Complex Networks ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Detection Algorithm ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Scale Free ◽  
Northern Song ◽  
Reliable Classification ◽  
Community Detection Algorithm

The cultural element is the minimum unit of a cultural system. The systematic categorizing, organizing, and retrieval of the traditional Chinese cultural elements are essential prerequisites for the realization of effective extracting and rational utilization, as well as the prerequisite for exploiting the contemporary value of the traditional Chinese culture. To build an objective, integrated, and reliable classification method and a system of traditional Chinese cultural elements, this study takes the text of Taiping Imperial Encyclopedia in Northern Song Dynasty as the primary data source. The unsupervised word segmentation methods are used to detect Out-of-Vocabulary (OOV), and then the segmentation results by the THULAC tool with and without custom dictionary are compared. The TF-IDF algorithm is applied to extract the keywords of cultural elements and the Ochiia coefficient is introduced to create complex networks of traditional Chinese cultural elements. After analyzing the topological characteristics of the network, the community detection algorithm is used to identify the topics of cultural elements. Finally, a “Means-Ends” two-dimensional orthogonal classification system is established to categorize the topics. The results showed that the degree distribution in the complex network of Chinese traditional cultural elements is a scale-free network with γ = 2.28. The network shows a structure of community and hierarchy features. The top 12 communities have taken up to 91.77% of the scale of the networks. Those 12 topics of the traditional Chinese cultural elements are circularly distributed in the orthogonal system of cultural elements’ categorization.

scholarly journals Until We All Rise: Aspects of Traditional Muslim Burial Practices and Ceremonies in Tajikistan

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barakatullo Ashurov
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Impact

Islam, which spread out to Central Asia after its conquest by the Arab armies in early 8th century, has expanded and taken roots in the spiritual and everyday life of each ethnic group of the region in its own way. In its Central Asian geo-cultural contexts, similar to other regions where it came to be the faith of majority, it is more prone to integrated characteristics, including traditional ethnic beliefs and ritualistic elements. The study of Islam among other things in the context of local traditional rituals, particularly the funerary traditions and observances, which has also kept many cultural elements pre-existing the arrival of Islam, has profound meaning in many aspects; such as re-interpretation of the afterlife views and development of cycle of observances and ceremonies that are performed in the hope of earning merit on behalf of deceased and a hope for the day when all who died rise again. The focus of this paper is to present the funerary ritual cycle of Tajik Muslims. The limits of the contribution are set to Tajikistan; but also refer to corresponding and parallel ceremonies observed among the Tajiks living in other neighbouring countries. The impact of this contribution is both in its inventory of the literature on the topic but also on discussion of the importance of these rituals and how the communities feel about the reasons and performance of these ceremonies. The ceremonies that provide merit for both deceased and their kin award them with a sustaining hope that they all will rise and unite in the Last Day. The material for this contribution was collected through group and individual interviews of people from various regions of Tajikistan (April-September, 2014), personal observations and from previous studies on the topic. In what follows I will provide a short literature review on existing studies on funerary traditions of Tajik Muslims and also a descriptive compendium of all currently practiced cycles of funerary ceremonies.

scholarly journals IN THE MASK OF A MARTIAL ART FILM: A CHINESE FILM ADAPTATION OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (41) ◽  
pp. 95-102
Author(s):  
Zhang Ying
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
Martial Art ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Cultural Ideology ◽  
Art Film ◽  
Symbolic Approach

Abstract: The release of Chinese film director Feng Xiao Gang’s The Banquet in 2006 declares the first Chinese Hamlet film adaptation. Feng chooses to sinicize the play and interweaving cultural elements by framing the play into a Chinese martial art film and by applying Chinese Nuo mask and its variation in his filmic interpretation of the play. The frame of martial art film is heavily featured as the Chinese cultural touch deployed by the director in the transformation of a western play into a Chinese film, which proves to be an effective tool for displacing the western cultural elements with Chinese cultural ideology and principles. The use of the Nuo mask motif throughout the film is discussed with the following examples: 1. The director’s choice of using the Chinese Nuo mask in his adaptation of the play-within-the-play scene in the film, displacing the Mousetrap with its Nuo drama counterpart. 2. The director’s re-interpretation of Hamlet’s hesitation and madness, his representation of the Ghost and his symbolic approach to the building of characters by adopting a white paper mask. 3. The director’s transfer from the Ghost of Old Hamlet to copper carved mask symbolization. 4. The director’s building of characterization by using one’s own face as the mask. The framing of martial art film and the adoption of Nuo mask are the tools of sinicization in the process of the intercultural film adaptation of the western classic. The success of the film has explored the connections between the two cultures and challenged the transfer of Chinese culture into a western play.

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