Protestant Publishing in Chinese at the Anglo-Chinese College, Malacca, 1818–1843

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-300
Author(s):  
Ryan Dunch

Established in Malacca in 1818 by Robert Morrison, the Anglo-Chinese College ( Yinghua shuyuan 英華書院) became an important centre for translation and publishing of Protestant books and tracts in Chinese in the formative decades before the Opium War (1839–42). The extant publications in Chinese from the Anglo-Chinese College in this period shed light on the process of experimentation followed by missionaries and their Chinese collaborators, about how to make books that would appeal to Chinese readers – a necessary prelude to making converts to Christianity. This article traces that process of experimentation through an examination of the publications in Chinese from the Anglo-Chinese College press over the twenty-five years of the College’s operation there, prior to its relocation to Hong Kong in 1843. After an overview of the publications, the article discusses the books as physical objects and then considers the content and language within them. These examples suggest common ground between Chinese and Protestant print cultures: both saw close connections between reading, education and virtue, and both employed selective appropriation of excerpts from longer canonical texts as a reading practice. 1

By the late second century, early Christian gospels had been divided into two groups by a canonical boundary that assigned normative status to four of them while consigning their competitors to the margins. The project of this volume is to find ways to reconnect these divided texts. The primary aim is not to address the question whether the canonical/non-canonical distinction reflects substantive and objectively verifiable differences between the two bodies of texts—although that issue may arise at various points. Starting from the assumption that, in spite of their differences, all early gospels express a common belief in the absolute significance of Jesus and his earthly career, the intention is to make their interconnectedness fruitful for interpretation. The approach taken is thematic and comparative: a selected theme or topic is traced across two or more gospels on either side of the canonical boundary, and the resulting convergences and divergences shed light not least on the canonical texts themselves as they are read from new and unfamiliar vantage points. The outcome is to demonstrate that early gospel literature can be regarded as a single field of study, in contrast to the overwhelming predominance of the canonical four characteristic of traditional gospels scholarship.


2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 151
Author(s):  
Paul Fehrmann

It is clear that the world of Islam is profoundly important, and also that there are wide and conflicting views on Islam today. Similarly, it seems clear that we should pursue efforts to promote the understanding of Islam. In response, a goal of the four volume Islam: A Worldwide Encyclopedia (IAWE) is to give “basic information on Islam” and to “shed light” on “controversial issues” (xxvii). In his opening comments, the editor, a Professor of International Law and Politics at Eskişehir Osmangazi University and Senior Researcher at the Wise Men Center for Strategic Research in Turkey, notes that there have been “a wide range of different interpretations and variations of Islam throughout history” (xxvii). He suggests that Muslims need to revive the “strong tradition of academic debate” that was integral to Islamic studies “in early decades of Islam,” and affirms support for the “diverse and plural nature of contemporary Islamic scholarship” (xxviii). At the same time, he is concerned that “disputed issues” may lead to “biases and stereotypes in the minds of Western people,” and hopes that this new resource can both “contribute to the pursuit of a common ground” between those of different faiths, and help a Western audience become more familiar with what Islam has to offer (xxviii).


Author(s):  
Liu Ming ◽  
Guofeng Wang

Abstract Protests and social movements have become part of Hong Kong’s local politics since the 1970s. However, protests against the proposed extradition bill in 2019‒20 turned out to be the most violent political mass movement in Hong Kong after its return to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. It not only drew wide international attention but also evoked another round of “news war” over Hong Kong (Lee et al. 2002). This special issue collects six articles which address the representations of the protests in Hong Kong by different parties on different media platforms. Adopting a critical discourse analysis approach, these studies examine discursive strategies employed in media representations of the protests and the ideologies and power struggles at play. It aims to present different perspectives towards the issue and shed light on the complex relations between language, media and politics in the representations of the Hong Kong protests.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-59
Author(s):  
Kendall A. Johnson

The US missionaries Elijah Bridgman and Samuel Wells Williams leveraged authority from extraterritorial printing in South China to rebut the oratorical eloquence of ex-President John Quincy Adams on the First Opium War. They did this by editing Adams’s ‘Lecture on the War with China’ (1841) for The Chinese Repository that they published monthly from Guangzhou, Macao, and Hong Kong. Adams presents the British as righteous Christians defending ‘free trade’ from pagan China. The missionaries’ editorial strategies challenged Adams on points of fact to signal disagreement with him over the moral implications of opium smuggling and China’s status under international law.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lusha Huang ◽  
Newman Lau

Sustainability studies in tourism are increasingly emphasizing social matters, for instance, “Accessible Tourism for All.” Research on people with visual impairments with smart tourism has so far been sparse. In order to resonate with the global call for sustainable tourism development, this paper aims to contribute to understanding the aspirations of people with visual impairments in terms of tourism and to explore how smart tourism destinations could potentially enhance the tourism experience they offer. We utilized multisensory participant observations and interviews to empathize with the target users and gain insights into their needs. The results showed that they were generally positive about travel, particularly autonomy, achievement needs, and socializing with other individuals. The findings also shed light on their desire to play games on their phones. Consequently, based on the findings and the theoretical groundings of PERMA model and MDA framework from positive psychology and game design, the study proposed a gamified approach to future tourism app design for people with visual impairments, which could enhance engagement, motivation, and enjoyment in the tourism experience.


2019 ◽  
pp. 39-68
Author(s):  
Ruben Arnandis-i-Agramunt

Tras más de cincuenta años estudiando el desplazamiento de las personas con fines de ocio, argumentando por ello el desarrollo de equipamientos, infraestructuras e instalaciones, implementando políticas y planificaciones turísticas, evaluando programas y actuaciones, todavía la materia prima de la actividad turística, la que justifica la existencia de todos los elementos anteriores, sigue sin tener un espacio consensuado entre la academia. Esta investigación, tras una amplia revisión bibliográfica que evidencia esta situación descrita, implementa un Delphi entre veinticinco personas de la academia hispana cuyas investigaciones están directamente asociadas al tema de estudio. El objeto no era otro que encontrar los puntos de confluencia en torno al concepto de recurso y su relación con el turismo para, posteriormente, articular una propuesta que identifique los elementos básicos de todo recurso turístico. Los resultados obtenidos, tras dos rondas y un cuestionario de treinta y cuatro afirmaciones encontradas en la literatura valoradas con una escala Likert de 1 a 5, muestran un alto grado de acuerdo (hacia el consenso o el disenso), en la mayoría de aspectos evaluados en las tres dimensiones. Estos hallazgos aportan luz a algunos temas de debate. Sin embargo, también se manifiestan ciertas discrepancias, sobre todo alrededor de la tercera dimensión (la relación recurso–adaptación al uso turístico). Es, pues, una primera aproximación a la conceptualización de recurso turístico. After more than fifty years of looking into people's movement due to leisure purposes, and therefore arguing the development of equipment, infrastructures, and facilities, implementing policies and tourism planning, evaluating programs and actions, the raw material of tourism, which justifies the existence of the previous elements, has not still reached an agreement among researchers. This investigation, which demonstrates the previous evidence after a wide bibliographical review, set up a Delphi among twenty-five Hispanic researchers whose works are directly related to this matter. The aim was to seek areas of common ground, regarding the concept of resource and its relationship to tourism, in order to articulate a proposal to identify the key elements of a tourism resource. Results (after two rounds, a questionnaire with thirty-four statements found in literature, and a Likert 1–5 scale) have revealed a high level of agreement (towards consensus or dissent), in most assessed aspects of the three dimensions. These findings shed light on some points of discussion. Nevertheless, discrepancies about the third dimension (resource and adaptation to tourism purpose) have been observed. This is thus a first approximation of what tourism resource should be considered.


10.1068/b3198 ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winky K O Ho

The author adopts reduced-form equilibrium models to investigate the relations among vacancy, employment, space consumption, and rent in the Hong Kong office market under economic structural change. The models are estimated with the aid of data from Hong Kong during the period 1980–2002—a total of twenty-three yearly observations. It is hoped that empirical results will shed light on the adjustment mechanism of the local office market. In line with the existing literature, the author shows that, on the one hand, office rent is positively related to office employment, but inversely related to office stock. On the other hand, the demand for office space is inversely related to rent, but positively related to office employment. Moreover, the elasticity of space consumption with respect to rent is estimated to be inelastic. Historical simulations of the model are performed, and it is suggested that the equations simulate reasonably well as indicated by Theil's inequality.


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