“Between Japan and California”: Imaginative Pacific Geography and East Asian Culture in Penelope Aubin’s The Noble Slaves

Penelope Aubin’s mixed-up representation of Japan and the Pacific in The Noble Slaves (1722) has long been considered as an indication of the author’s insufficient geographical knowledge. In this essay, I reassess the East Asian setting of The Noble Slaves in the context of eighteenth-century geographical discourses. By examining Herman Moll’s maps as possible source materials, I argue that Aubin’s imaginative geography reflects not her personal ignorance but the limitations and uncertainties of contemporary cartographical knowledge about the North Pacific. Aubin uses the speculative nature of early Enlightenment geographical discourses for a narrative experiment and reimagining of East Asia. Aubin’s unique representation of East Asian cultures, such as Japanese Christian “Indians” and the ancient pagan temple, hinges on the emotions of wonder and curiosity, which can be read as a criticism of Robinson Crusoe’s hostile attitude toward the Far East in Daniel Defoe’s The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719). This essay ultimately situates Aubin as a significant participant in early eighteenth-century knowledge production about the world.

The Influence Of Political Correctness On Stand Up Comedy

Over the past 20 years, stand-up comedy has been part of the public debate within a prevailing ideology of non-discrimination and inclusiveness – most notably in relation to political correctness. In this context, a trend seems to be emerging, in which a person’s taste in humour is defined by their political identity (Healy, 2016). In other words, a joke is not funny unless it meets a person’s taste conventions prescribed by a political paradigm (Healy, 2016). While the current humour and comedy research aided the analysis of this paper, they present dichotomous views that either allow or disallow joking about certain topics. This dichotomy suggests that the current humour and comedy research does not do justice to the complexity of the topic and that there is a need for further research. This major research paper examined stand-up comedy in an age of political correctness and argued that an ideology of political correctness, non-discrimination and inclusiveness influences the content of stand-up comedy performances and the audience’s responses to them. I analyzed YouTube videos containing race-based and rape jokes as well as jokes about gender stereotypes. Moreover, I examined YouTube users’ comments to the three different joke-tokens. Examining both the jokes and YouTube users’ comments gave me insight into how these joketokens are understood and perceived by YouTube users. None of the jokes can be considered politically correct. This implies that these jokes can ignite political debates, which was observable in YouTube comments about feminism, liberals, gender stereotypes, sexism, misogyny, racism, East Asian culture, rape myths and misandry. The YouTube commenters’ perception seems to be that political correctness has been attempting to influence the stand-up comedy environment with the aim to dictate the content of stand-up comedy performances. However, the YouTube users see political correctness as a “killer” of stand-up comedy and as a negative concept mainly promoted by liberals, the leftist society and feminists. The most dominant theme across all YouTube comments seemed to be the aversion to feminism. Regardless of the joke, feminism was the concept that commenters blamed for the existence of political correctness, the censorship of stand-up comedy performances, for a joke’s lack of funniness, and for the lack of awareness and importance of male rape in research and society. In stand-up comedy, it is an art and talent to convey the literal meaning of a joke so that the subtext is clearly derivable – and even then, the audience’s interpretation depends on experiences, emotions, values, beliefs and political ideologies.

The Influence Of Political Correctness On Stand Up Comedy

Over the past 20 years, stand-up comedy has been part of the public debate within a prevailing ideology of non-discrimination and inclusiveness – most notably in relation to political correctness. In this context, a trend seems to be emerging, in which a person’s taste in humour is defined by their political identity (Healy, 2016). In other words, a joke is not funny unless it meets a person’s taste conventions prescribed by a political paradigm (Healy, 2016). While the current humour and comedy research aided the analysis of this paper, they present dichotomous views that either allow or disallow joking about certain topics. This dichotomy suggests that the current humour and comedy research does not do justice to the complexity of the topic and that there is a need for further research. This major research paper examined stand-up comedy in an age of political correctness and argued that an ideology of political correctness, non-discrimination and inclusiveness influences the content of stand-up comedy performances and the audience’s responses to them. I analyzed YouTube videos containing race-based and rape jokes as well as jokes about gender stereotypes. Moreover, I examined YouTube users’ comments to the three different joke-tokens. Examining both the jokes and YouTube users’ comments gave me insight into how these joketokens are understood and perceived by YouTube users. None of the jokes can be considered politically correct. This implies that these jokes can ignite political debates, which was observable in YouTube comments about feminism, liberals, gender stereotypes, sexism, misogyny, racism, East Asian culture, rape myths and misandry. The YouTube commenters’ perception seems to be that political correctness has been attempting to influence the stand-up comedy environment with the aim to dictate the content of stand-up comedy performances. However, the YouTube users see political correctness as a “killer” of stand-up comedy and as a negative concept mainly promoted by liberals, the leftist society and feminists. The most dominant theme across all YouTube comments seemed to be the aversion to feminism. Regardless of the joke, feminism was the concept that commenters blamed for the existence of political correctness, the censorship of stand-up comedy performances, for a joke’s lack of funniness, and for the lack of awareness and importance of male rape in research and society. In stand-up comedy, it is an art and talent to convey the literal meaning of a joke so that the subtext is clearly derivable – and even then, the audience’s interpretation depends on experiences, emotions, values, beliefs and political ideologies.

The Last Confucians of Mid-20th Century Vietnam

The Vietnam Association of Traditional Studies (VATS) took the initiative in promoting Confucian cultural practices in South Vietnam from 1955–1975. The association strove towards collecting, researching, translating, interpreting and circulating classical Sinographic documents in order to preserve traditional East Asian culture in relation to up-to-date moral education and practical science. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research material related to the organization during the period after the two halves of Vietnam were reunited in 1975. Thus, the Association’s activities after 1975 cannot be discussed. To bridge the gap, this article is based on rare documents mostly collected by the author, describing the history and activities of this Confucian organization, including its establishment (1954), regulations, organizational structure, and membership. This article will also focus on the VATS’s Confucian cultural practices, such as (i) publishing as a way to promote Confucianism and traditional morality, (ii) Confucianism and Literary Sinitic education, (iii) public speeches, (iv) organizing the annual commemoration of Confucius’ birthday on September 28th, (v) and promoting international cooperation related to Confucianism. These activities demonstrate the organization’s attempt at popularizing Confucianism and making it compatible with ideas and practices introduced by modernization and Westernization in the middle of the twentieth century.

Temporal self-appraisal in a Chinese context: Distancing autobiographical memory following self-uncertainty salience

On the premise that individuals are inclined to self-enhance, in temporal self-appraisal (TSA) theory it is suggested that people can motivationally reconstruct subjective distances from their past self to serve that goal. However, given the mixed evidence found in an East Asian cultural context (i.e., Japan), it is important to test the cultural applicability of TSA in a different East Asian culture. Thus we tested the TSA of a Chinese sample, focusing on past-self distance reconstruction. The results supported the prediction suggested in TSA theory, in that participants tended to feel farther away from negative (vs. positive) past experiences. Further, this effect was greater when people were primed with a self-threat (i.e., self-uncertainty salience). These patterns were found independently of whether the past experience was recent (3 months ago) or in the distant past (3 years ago). Implications for crosscultural applicability of TSA theory are discussed.

幻の春の声. 近現代日本文学における「亀鳴く」/ The illusory voice of the spring: the motif of ‘crying turtle’ in modern and contemporary Japanese literarure

The turtle (kame) is of great importance in East Asian culture and it is seen as a supernatural creature. In Japanese literature, we can find examples of the turtle in works dating back to the Nara period, such as Tangokuni fudoki and Nihonshoki. Just like the crane, the turtle is a symbol of longevity. However, from the Kamakura period a new and unique interpretation of the turtle as the “singing/crying turtle” makes its appearance. Of this topos, known as kame naku, we can find only very few examples in literature until the Meiji era and the most known are the waka anthologies Shinsen waka rokujō and Fuboku wakashō, and Kyokutei Bakin’s kigo collection Haikai saijiki shiorigusa. However, from the beginning of the modern age, kame naku has been used by many poets as a kigo connected to spring and its frequency has hugely increased. After the war, it began to appear not only in poetry but also in novels and essays. The best known examples of this being Mishima Yukio’s short novel Chūsei, Uchida Hyakken’s essay Kame naku ya, Kawakami Hiromi’s work Oboreru. Using kame naku as a keyword, in this paper we will analyze the attitudes and approaches of modern and contemporary poets and novelists toward the topos.