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Studies on care in Chinese transnational families often rely on bi-generational exchanges, failing to capture how care circulates within the families from a fully-generational perspective. The so-called 'elderly' is a key group for understanding care and mobility in these families; nevertheless, the existing research focuses either on their role as children caregivers or sees them as dependent people, resulting in a polarized perspective which also fails to understand the fluidity of care roles along the life course. Moreover, the generic term 'the elderly' may refer to one of several generations (grandparents/ great-grandparents). Based on qualitative data from a multi-sited ethnography (in China and Spain), this paper explores the circulation of care within four-generation transnational Zhejianese families. In these, the gendered construction of care work is the norm, despite the fact that new spaces for challenging specific gendered roles and practices are being created. In contrast, a high level of plurality and fluidity in care exchanges and care roles across generations, time and space has been observed. These factors are shaped, to different degrees, by local and transnational contexts, with the Chinese culture-system playing a key role. Finally, the paper highlights the contributions of the grandparents' generation to families and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This ethnographic paper documents the gendered spaces created by China's returned dagongmei (factory girls) in the context of industrial relocation from coastal regions to neoliberalizing hinterlands. It finds that these rural women's locality selection decisions for industrial work, either in the new local industrial park, or in their own upstart living-room factories, help them bargain with patriarchy upon their return. By utilizing market forces and entrepreneurial mindsets in the relocated industrial sectors prioritized by local governments, they eventually shift the familial patriarchy. They also penetrate the hegemony of neoliberalism, and strategically align with patriarchal resources when disadvantaged in the capital chain. This study uncovers the simultaneous presence and dynamic interactions of intersectional structural power systems and the women's multiple forms of practices. In doing so, it also documents the Chinese versions of 'bargaining with patriarchy' and neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through ethnographic research, this paper explores narratives of failure constructed within a private Australian accounting college in China. The accounts provided by teachers and students are problematized in order to address how racialization is enacted through accounts of failure within the research site. Through an interpretive theoretical framework and the methodology of Michael Burawoy, racialization is exposed as a form of justification for the concerns teachers and students faced. Within accounts of failure, racial framing of the body and the acculturated minds of students were simultaneously ascribed negative attributes deemed in contradiction with this form of transnational education. In unpacking how these processes of racialization are tied to the very structure of transnational education itself, this paper addresses how standardized and globalized curricula produce unintended local effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do university students participate in extra-curricular activities in China? What do they seek in a meaningful education? This paper explains the rising interest in extra-curricular activities by looking into students’ frustration about classroom-bounded education in China’s universities. A transforming socio-economic landscape and increasing imagination about global modernity have inspired new neoliberal demands for practical knowledge and personal meaning. And yet, China’s universities have failed to keep up with students’ changing visions of education, success, and productive personhood. This paper explores students’ agentive pursuit of sociability and emotional sensitivity through extra-curricular activities as a lens to examine the fluidity of meaning-making in contemporary China. In the process, I discuss why self-reported aspirations in skill cultivation cannot encompass the range of motivations that have driven students to extra-curricular participation, and explain how the ethnographic method can help to address gaps of knowledge in inquiries about youthful aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes to use ‘multi-discursive ethnography’ to move critical discourse analysis/studies beyond an analytical enterprise so that it may transcend the ‘critical/positive’ dichotomy and the language dilemma researchers confront. As an alternative form of critical discourse study, multi-discursive ethnography seeks to explore different discourses of a subject matter and weave them together for dialogue and diversity. As such, it not only challenges dominant discursive construction of the subject matter at stake, but also endorses corresponding local, cultural ways of speaking and thinking. Using the Wenchang Palace in a transdisciplinary project at a historical neighborhood in Quzhou, China, as the case, the paper illustrates how a multi-discursive ethnography of this no longer materially existing heritage site is written to facilitate critiquing of the ‘authorized heritage discourse’ from the West and simultaneously promote pertinent local voices and deep-rooted cultural language for multi-discursive dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has instigated language policies in education ostensibly designed to foster trilingualism in ethnic minority groups. The policies, which, as this paper shows, vary from region to region, encompass the minority group's home language, Chinese, and English. Based on data arising from interviews, documentary analysis and secondary sources, this paper examines the tensions behind these trilingual education policies by comparing the implementation of policies for three minority groups: the Zhuang, the Uyghur and the Yi people. It identifies some of the facilitators and barriers that affect the achievement of trilingualism, and finds that ethnic minority languages are at a disadvantage compared with Chinese and English. The paper concludes by making some suggestions for enhancing the effectiveness of the trilingualism policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the linguistic landscape (LL) signs of an "urban village" inhabited by rural–urban migrant workers in suburban Beijing. Migrant workers have moved to urban centers for low-skill low-income jobs on a massive scale over past decades as China has undergone rapid economic changes. Some of them start to invest their time and energy in building a new workers' community and in constructing urban workers' identities through linguistic and semiotic practices. Producing and displaying LL signage is part of this identity construction process. In this study, I present three examples to analyze the relationship between space, LL signs and identity construction. Ethnography allows me not only to observe the LL signs as semiotic resources but also to approach the authors and the audience and to find out their uptake of the signs. The results show that the LL signs shape social meanings of the space and the space in turn is agentive in constructing its inhabitants' identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic Koreans in China have been widely recognized as a 'model minority' primarily for academic success. Using the data collected as part of a larger ethnographic research on Korean elementary school students, this paper examines how 27 Korean families construct meaning out of the model minority stereotype in the context of their lived experience in Northeast China. Research results indicate that Koreans constructed the multi-faceted nature of 'model minority' as a matter of cultural superiority and dual economic marginalization in the Chinese and South Korean mainstream societies, and valued education as a practical means to achieve economic upward mobility into the Chinese mainstream. This paper argues that the model minority stereotype with the cultural explanations for Korean success may reinforce the cultural deficiency argument about the academic failure of 'backward' minorities, silence the disadvantages suffered by Koreans in China's reform period and lead to no active intervention to remedy them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data collected in Lanzhou, this paper examines the effect of minority ethnicity on neighbourly relations in China. It shows that the Hui as a whole express a higher level of satisfaction at relations with neighbours than the Han do. It also shows that the Hui advantage is removed with key background characteristics controlled. Finally, this paper shows intra-group variation among the Hui. These findings suggest that social status is a better predictor of neighbourly relations than the focus on inter-group contrast in traditionality in the existing scholarship of the Hui. Both inter- and intra-group variation in urban life must be examined to attain a more balanced picture of Hui Muslims in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A given political communication practice is firmly related to the structure it locates in. This paper concerns such communication in the Chinese context, with a focus on the case of the Chinese Premier's Press Conference (CPPC). Informed by sociological institutionalism, it divides the CPPC's evolution into three stages – habitualization, objectification, and sedimentation, each of which has different characteristics of structural evolution due to different historical and cultural conditions. It argues that the structure of the CPPC has evolved to a ‘semi-institutionalized’ one, involving both formal and informal components. The informal components within this structure lead to negotiations among different decision-makers on the information that is delivered at the CPPC and to the public. It reveals the nature of Chinese political structure today, that is, wherein every decision-making undergoes a bargaining process within the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the interplays between media organisations, platform affordances and governance logic on Douyin, one of the most popular short video platforms in China, and how these forces work together to construct the narratives of frontline care workers during the Xi'an lockdown. A digital ethnography was conducted on Douyin through the first two months in 2022. After sorting the videos based on their popularity, the first 100 'most liked' videos were documented and coded thematically. The results show that official media accounts were the main providers of the 'most liked' videos during the lockdown. Frontline workers were seen in over half of the videos (n = 58). Nearly a quarter of the 100 'most liked' videos (n = 22) featured frontline workers as the focus. The prevailing sentiments manifested by the videos when focusing on frontline workers include uplifting, endearing, touching, grateful and empathetic. Only four videos took on a critical tone. This study contributes a Chinese perspective to the current knowledge of Internet celebrity culture by expanding the discussions on the nexus between political and commercial forces during a pandemic lockdown and the implications on China's celebrity culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a sensory ethnography of an ethnic Hakka specialty known as 'Luodai Bean Jelly' (or the Sad Bean Jelly) in Luodai Ancient Town in the suburban area to the east of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. From the perspectives of objectivity, historicity, modernity and sociality, the metaphorical meanings of the Sad Bean Jelly as an ethnic food used for the transformation of a place through tourism are explored. Individual feelings and collective memories of the ethnic food are constructed in the context of tourism-driven commercialization, which is felt to have transformed the ancient town into a place for out-of-town visitors. The research sheds light on, and hence has implications for managing change of a place associated with ethnic culture, food and tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African economies are currently characterised by the increasing penetration of made-in-China products, resulting in a resurgence of academic interest in the 'country of origin' (COO) studies. The existing literature has described Chinese products as 'inferior' and patronised by the poor who cannot afford 'superior' brands from elsewhere. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with 65 consumers and 15 suppliers of made-in-China products in Ghana, this paper unpacks the notion of 'inferiority' of 'made-in-China' and the process of uptake in Ghana. The findings indicate that increasingly, Ghanaians of different socioeconomic statuses patronise made-in-China and employ various approaches including foot-in-the-door technique, the demand for product warranty and reliance on product reviews to guarantee their purchases. The findings, therefore, challenge the constraining effect of COO as a determinant of purchasing behaviour and reiterate the creativity and innovativeness of consumers to safeguard their private interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Open-Door Policy has brought significant changes in terms of economic, education and cultural development both inside and outside China, creating valuable opportunities for understanding the cultural stereotypes Asians and Westerners have about each other. In this paper, I interrogate my experiences as an English as a foreign language (EFL) learner and then as a lecturer in multilingual and multicultural environments from the early 1990s until a lecturer in a Chinese university in the twenty-first century. My series of auto-ethnographic dialogues between a cast of characters, recalling experiences, perceptions and emotions provides readers with opportunities to actively respond to the text. Through this auto-ethnographic memoir and performance, I hope to contribute to new directions for narrative research in intercultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the religious revival of rural areas in China related to ethnographic reflections of state and morality in China. It focuses on the survival or renewal of traditional practices. It offers information on the Chrysanthemum Festivals, in the Pearl River delta with the accommodation to the activities of market economic reform and political institutions.

This collection of essays opens a critical examination of compassionate acts responding to social suffering in the intensely complex moral context of a rapidly changing and globalizing China. Jeanne Shea describes self-compassion among older women in China as a post-revolutionary response to changing opportunities and resistance to consumerism. Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce's essay frames the Buddhist organizations as NGOs and shows compassion being mobilized and its acts being spiritual-philanthropic, not political. The next three papers illuminate the complexity of mobility in a moral sea of changing values. Even as modernity facilitates movement of people away from suffering, the grinding of entangled moral experiences within the mobile group can be the cause of suffering. Shu-Min Huang critiques ‘cultural petrification’ as the diasporic Yunnan Chinese community in Thailand attempt to preserve the cultural forms and procedures of the world they left behind. Likewise, Richard Madsen shows that the idea of a universalized cultural heritage fails in the face of the ‘micro-ecologies’. And yet the modern impulse to universalize beyond China has important implications for transnational compassion and cooperation. The work of the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières in China, discussed by Kuah-Pearce and Guiheux, challenges the universality of global humanitarian actions. Following the series of essays threaded across intersections of compassion, suffering, and a morally-divided China, the collection closes by looking at the West. Iain Wilkinson discusses the origins of social suffering as a focus of the social sciences, as well as the difficulties of making engaged compassion its task in a morally-divided world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper opens with a critical analysis of a paradox in contemporary educational research in and about Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC): the assumption that national boundaries coincide with those of a distinct and homogeneous culture, which consistently renders a rather homogenous set of educational phenomena, and collides against a more widely accepted discourse – culture transcends geographical frontiers and is ever evolving in character. It is claimed that this paradox is due to the fact that a thin conception of CHC competes neck-and-neck with a thick conception of it. This paper also addresses the possibility of an ad hoc education research methodology in and about CHC and its compliance issues regarding the mainstream Western research dynamics and philosophy of science. Confucian elements relevant to CHC research rationale are discussed to argue that: first, research is inextricably a moral act insofar as free actors are involved in it; second, most sui generis methodological problems attached to CHC occur in the sphere of ethics; and, third, a research methodology that takes into account phenomenographic variation could be the best suited to ease emic–etic tensions inherent to CHC-based research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper employs ethnographic method to theorise about the ethnic contribution networks enabled by major Australian political parties, with specific regard to Chinese Australian formations, and in the context of globalisation's impact upon 'de-nationalising' political institutions. The paper expands upon the notion of the contribution network by situating it within network theory literature, asserting the need for stability in the diffuse forms of resource exchange indicates that it is sustained by mixed and weak network ties. The character of the contribution network as a significant mode of political engagement by ethnic Chinese network actors, moulds participation in the political process that is both party ambivalent and politically apathetic. Its impact upon Chinese Australian political incorporation raises important questions about the role of progressive political theory, which through the politics of recognition has sought to legitimate modes of group representation, including clientelistic formations, as a means to enhancing the political inclusion of marginalised Australian migrant and ethnic communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major goal of education for Tibetans, as for all China's ‘minority nationalities’, has been to encourage patriotism towards China and to foster a sense of nationhood. This paper considers the ways in which this priority has conditioned the schooling of Tibetans since 1950. Although this priority is unchanging, the paper looks at how it varies in degree and content as political leaders or policies change. An analysis of the primary curriculum reveals the process whereby Tibetan ethnicity is recreated through selective rendering of elements of Tibetan culture, history and religion to reposition it in the Chinese national context. It argues that while in central China the ideological content of the curriculum may have diminished with economic development, in Tibet, as in other border regions, the particular blend of patriotic and moral education is likely to continue as long as the Chinese state feels threatened by outside cultural and political influences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how an incorporated ethnic community has gradually lost its agency for change or subjectivity to face the state. Contrary to what a postcolonial writer wants to see, in the diasporic Shui community of Yizhou (a city in China's Guangxi Autonomous District) there is a lack of agency for change or self-empowerment. The paper reports how the Shui identity is reduced to a by-product of ancestor worship within each family. The loss of agency for change and willing acculturation do not necessarily confirm the state-promoted modernization theory's linear historiography. What the Shui example proves is that the agency for change cannot be taken for granted. Although the hybrid component in the Shui ethnicity is not felt today, the chances that some revived ethnic consciousness can reinvent cultural customs should not be ruled out, as long as the Shui communities continue to carry the name of Shui. The invention of ‘The Shui people grabbing the flower lamp’, and the interpretation of keeping old trunks in the ancestors’ place are two such possible starting points. However, hybridity of this sort is reinvented from, and not embedded in, their identity. Nevertheless, the quest for being different from the larger community is both a matter of internal need and an external construction. This is why the simple name of Shui cannot guarantee itself as a basis for revival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of an eight-month ethnographic study of a small group of at-risk youths in a school of a southern coastal city in China. The process leading to the young students being marginalised by the school system and how they developed a ‘muddling through’ subculture to counteract this marginalisation is revealed. It is argued that this small group of at-risk youths has capitalised on their subculture and used it to resist authorities, to acquire social skills and to safeguard their psychological well-being. The present study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, the in-depth description of the subculture of a group of at-risk youths in a Chinese school provides a Chinese angle for youth (post-) subculture studies. Second, the critical discussion about the ‘empowerment’ role that the ‘deviant’ subculture plays enriches the literature about the functions of youth culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A core mode of governance in the era of neoliberalism is through the production of ‘entrepreneurial self’. This paper explores how the ‘entrepreneurial self’ is produced for 21 Chinese immigrant women in Canada. The women displayed extraordinary entrepreneurialism by investing in Canadian education. Becoming entrepreneurial, however, is more than an individualised ‘choice’. It is imbricated with the ideology of meritocracy cultivated in China, the ‘credential and certificate regime’ in Canada, and the gendered expectations in the host labour market and at home. Given the ideological confluence, and the material conditions the women lived, a feminized and racialized labour is reproduced. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What Western academic literature described as ethnic or cultural Tibet in fact implies something composite and processually constructed: Tibet then often appears as a typical example for explanations of collective identity (and ethnicity). Such approaches increasingly are applied in present-day anthropology and historical studies, highlighting the historical conditions and the politically, socially and ideationally constructed features of identity. In Tibet, identity-building was strongly related to the spread of Buddhism. The new religion was introduced in the time of the Tibetan Empire (seventh to ninth century), but it was only its later spread (from the eleventh century) that led to the effective, all-embracing establishment of Buddhism in the Highlands. It was interlinked with regionally different forms of political manifestations—the founding of Buddhist kingdoms at the periphery and the emergence of monastic hegemonies in the central regions. These developments correlated with processes of conversion, which in its narrative model is described as an act of conquest, taming and civilizing the physical universe and which in theory actually never ends. Apart from considering current anthropological discussions of the phenomenon of religious conversion, this paper will include a comparative view of the history of Christianization in early medieval Europe (especially in Western Europe—the Frankish kingdom and the barbarian zones North of the Rhine and the Danube, fifth to tenth century). Inter alia this also raises questions about the initial social forces and interests promoting the new religion's adoption, and to what extent formal similarities with the Tibetan case are ascertainable in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographic note-taking in the field is often imbued with emotions, shaped by power relations and influenced by participants' voice and agency. Though enough has been written about ethnography, discussions on the specific challenges of taking notes, particularly in research with children are limited. Drawing on three ethnographic field studies with children in schools in the UK, India and China, this article discusses fieldwork experiences to understand the challenges, dilemmas and complexities around note-taking in the field. Using a reflexive and intersectional lens, this article discusses the role of agency, power and emotions in the experiences of taking notes in child-centred research with children. It conceptualizes the need to understand the complexities when theories are operationalized in real-life research contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with reading, writing and listening, there has been a paucity of empirical data documenting learners' experiences of speaking English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language (EFL) in different learning contexts in spite of the fact that developing the ability to speak in a second or foreign language is widely considered a daunting task for most language learners. This paper reports on the findings of a questionnaire survey of the English speaking difficulties experienced by two Chinese populations: one group of university students from mainland China and one group of university students from Hong Kong. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the students' perceived difficulties are analysed in relation to linguistic deficiency, oral language processes, conversational skills and academic speaking conventions, affective influence as well as affordance of opportunities to use English for spoken communication in the students' learning contexts. Important implications of the results for pedagogical practices that foster development of ESL or EFL speaking skills are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2000, the Chinese Communist Party established the Xinjiang Class (Xinjiang neidi gaozhong ban), a program that funds middle school-aged students from Xinjiang, mostly ethnic Uyghur, to attend school in predominately Han populated cities located throughout eastern China. This paper examines the efficacy of the Xinjiang Class in promoting ethnic unity and Chinese nationalism. By examining the extent to which Uyghur students participating in the Xinjiang Class interact with Han students; speak Chinese outside of the classroom; and by considering if these Uyghur students are returning to Xinjiang, I argue that many Uyghurs are resisting integration, and the Xinjiang Class is largely failing to promote ethnic unity between Han and Uyghurs. Conversely, this program has even strengthened some Uyghur students' sense of ethnic identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a study of Lik Lu Pu Khwan Khao, a chant used in the worship ceremony to the god of rice Pu Khwan Khao of Dehong Tai in Yunnan. The ceremony is performed after the harvest to express gratitude to Pu Khwan Khao. Related ceremonies are found among other groups of Tai peoples. The ceremony is related to the rice myth of Dehong Tai in which Pu Khwan Khao claimed that his merit was comparable with that of the Buddha since nobody could stay alive without him, including the Buddha who could attain awakening only after consuming rice. The Buddha accepted this claim and told people not forget to worship Pu Khwan Khao. The myth reflects a compromise between ancient Tai belief and Buddhism. However, the compromise between and combining of these two sets of belief are also expressed in the Lik Lu Pu Khwan Khao chant. People express their gratitude to Pu Khwan Khao for providing them with rice, not only for nourishment but also for giving alm to monks, one of the most significant practices in Buddhism. Moreover, when people present offerings to Pu Khwan Khao, they form the aspiration to be reborn in the time of the future Buddha, Maitreya, and to attain Nirvana after listening to him preach. This traditional aspiration shows how the ancient ritual of Pu Khwan Khao worship is now intrinsically associated with the Buddhist practice of generosity as a kind of gift giving. From this we may conclude that, for the Dehong Tai in Yunnan, the aim of Pu Khwan Khao worship is not only fertility but also the ultimate Buddhist felicity, Nirvana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Chinese genealogical records, also called pu die , zong pu , zu pu , jia pu , zi pu , or jia cheng , have been used for thousands of years to record the genealogical history of a family, including a family''s origin, its collateral lines, names and ages of the members, records of marriages, births and deaths, merits and deeds, and brief biographical information of the male family members. This paper examines the current documentation status of Chinese genealogical records. It begins with the historical background of genealogical records and describes the existing sources, including primary sources for researching Chinese surnames and secondary sources for reading on immigration history, the Chinese diaspora, foreign settlements, and ethnic identity. The paper proceeds to investigate the nature of extant genealogical records and provide author''s own genealogy of He shi zu pu as an example to analyze the contents of a typical genealogical record. The importance and value for the study of names and genealogical records are emphasized. The paper concludes with comments on how to make the best use of genealogical records to enhance the research on Chinese overseas studies through resource-sharing and collaboration with libraries, museums, and institutions, locally, regionally, and internationally. Display Omitted Display Omitted Display Omitted Display Omitted Display Omitted Display Omitted Display Omitted [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

China is not only the most populous country in the world, but also a multinational country with 56 ethnic groups. Tibetans (4.6 million in 1990) ranked in number as the ninth largest minority group. The Tibet question has attracted wide publicity in the Western media in recent years. The Chinese government is frequently criticised for political oppression and human rights violation in Tibet, particularly in three population-related areas: genocide, forced birth control programmes and population transfer. Surprisingly, international demographic circles show little interest in these controversies. This paper aims to re-examine the myths and facts about the Tibetan population in China, in an attempt to achieve a better understanding of the Tibet question as a whole. This paper is organised roughly into four parts: introduction, including the definition of Tibet, total Tibetan population in China, an examination of the 'genocide' myth, and a review of family planning programmes and population transfer in Tibetan inhabited areas. Government data used in this paper come primarily from various publications of the 1990 National Census results. Information compiled by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGIE), is used as a comparison, in addition to some other Western sources. Analyses show that the 'genocide' myth is not supported by indirect estimates on Tibetan mortality, and the 'forced birth control' allegation lacks solid demographic foundation. On the contrary, Tibetan population has experienced an unprecedented growth since the early 1960s. Still dominant in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), Tibetans were only slightly outnumbered by non-Tibetans in other Tibetan prefectures in neighbouring provinces. However, the number of non-Tibetans transferring into ethnographic Tibet is on the rise. Instead of explicit resettlement programmes, the migration flow is triggered primarily by structural transformation and the Government's modernisation policy. It is historic coincidence if the current policies run counter to the interest of Tibetan nationalists. However, under no circumstances should one believe that time is running out for a political solution of the Tibet question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of work that has examined Chinese immigration to the US has coined the term "culture of remittances": money that is sent home not only provides economically but also elevates the "face" of the family. However, using qualitative data from a multiyear ethnographic study of three undocumented and mixed-status Chinese families in the US and their families in China, we find that garnering face for the family is less of a motivator than the fear of losing it. This dynamic plays a role at all stages of immigration and amplifies existing norms in a way that perpetuates disadvantage experienced by Chinese immigrants. As these undocumented Chinese immigrants craft an idealized narrative of their lives in the US, more members from their sending communities are motivated to immigrate, leading to precarious consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on ethnographic and demographic findings on AIDS and HIV infection in China. Also, it elaborates those cultural, social and political factors involved in China's attempt to manage its growing HIV epidemic. Data from the First Sino-American Management of HIV Diseases Symposium are also blended with the ethnographic material to further clarify the cultural and epidemiologic status of HIV/AIDS in China. Since HIV predominates among drug users, this fact aroused great attention from the Chinese government early on. Laws introduced in 1988 aimed at strengthening existing statutes to insure that drug dealers, traffickers, and users were prosecuted. Not only is drug-dealing illegal in China, but so is drug-taking. Also, it is argued that providing sexuality education as a means of preventing HIV infection offers no guarantee of reduced behavioral risks. It is concluded that HIV/AIDS and its management pose a transforming challenge to: (1) realistically appraise sexual expression, (2) change traditional sexual language symbols, and (3) revamp the avenues by which China presently addresses "sex."

In 2011, Burma/Myanmar one-sidedly halted the billions-worth construction of Myitsone Dam, derailing China's then-largest-ever hydroelectric project abroad and creating a lasting controversy in China–Burma relations. This decision followed an unprecedented public outcry in Burma and a decade of inter-ethnic resistance against this mega-project. This article explores how, throughout the Myitsone Dam controversy, actors at different scales and in three national societies speculated about hidden hostile inter-national plots behind the project or the resistance. Drawing on more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork in 2010–2019, interviews, and media analysis, this article takes seriously many Chinese, Burmese, and Kachin voices – from ambassadors and journalists, to activists and village elders – who claim or dispute various hidden hostile inter-national strategies. The Myitsone case shows how deeply inter-national speculating shapes Burma, often in ways that erase ethnic-minority actors, popular movements, or dispossession. More broadly, it shows how nationalist thinking and competing nationalisms can shape ideas about a frontier of resource extraction. Finally, ethnographic research has often revealed how marginalised people's conspiratorial narratives can reflect realities, but this study suggests using ethnography to let people challenge dominant conspiracy theories about themselves. Researchers across ethnographic disciplines, International Relations, and critical geopolitics face the analytical and ethical challenge of both contextualising and evaluating any people's claim that someone plots against them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study of statistical properties of phonemes in Standard Chinese in terms of frequency of occurrences, statistical models for frequency distribution and synergetic relations. The results indicate that vowels and nasals are used most frequently but un-aspirated consonants and sounds articulated at the back of the mouth are pervasive in Standard Chinese. The vowels with the falling pitch are significantly more frequent than those with the other tones and the phonemes /i4/, /a4/ and /ə2/ are the top three vowels in the speeches. The usages of phonemes are relatively stable across 20 years. The Cocho/Beta function has a best fit to the ranked frequency distribution of phonemes. The synergetic analysis reveals a strong dependence of phoneme frequency on phoneme complexity and word frequency. The more complex a phoneme is, the less frequently it is used, but the more frequently a word is used, the more it is composed of frequent phonemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how Chinese queer males explore various affordances on an open platform that is accessible to everyone. After recruiting 14 queer male informants for semi-structured interviews and employing the method of cyberethnography, we conducted a thematic analysis and identified three main affordances perceived by queer males on Zhihu, a Chinese question-answering online community: intragroup text-sociability, identity reflexivity, and community (un)expandability. Based on these practical findings, the study proposes the concept of "queer attention" to explain why queer males explore these specific affordances and further develops the discussion around the role of attention in influencing the generation of affordance effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the migration of the Chinese people. During the 19th century, the first migration of the Chinese people occurred as a result of many factors including poverty. In the assessment of the diaspporic trajectory of migration, the reproduction of social institutions such as family and voluntary organizations flourished. The process of migration emphasized assimilation in the host society. Thus, it led to the reformulation of self-identification of the Chinese community.

The article presents an ethnographic interview with a self-disclose male homosexual from a Western province in mainland China. To the author's knowledge, this is the first documented face-to-face interview with a Chinese male homosexual to reach the Western professional press. Segments chosen for focus include the self-perceptions of the individual, his sexual orientation and liaisons, and the manner in which he negotiates his alternate lifestyle in a cultural system largely negative to homosexuality in any form. It is hoped that this brief ethnographic interview also articulates those intricate details and hidden experiences of living as a homosexual in contemporary China. Excerpts from this brief interview reveal something about the cultural parameters which impinge upon the male homosexual in mainland China, and about the strategies developed to negotiate these. The interviewee did not present any information to suggest there were developmental or physiologic factors which would distinguish a rationale for his orientation.

Over the last decade, the Chinese Communist Party has built an unprecedented surveillant assemblage in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) with the region's Uyghur Muslim minority as the chief target of augmented Party-state controls. This article interrogates the mechanics, logic and implications of Xinjiang's surveillance society. It demonstrates how Party-state monitoring comes not only in the form of physical monitoring and forced kinship but also automated, technology-driven tools such as GPS tracking, voice and facial recognition technologies, machine learning algorithms, and other software and hardware. The Chinese Party-state employs surveillance to delineate 'correct' thought and behaviour among its citizens, and then persuade (through coercion and inducement) self-alignment with Party and Han-defined norms. The results are fewer spaces for autonomous, bottom-up social mobilization by the Uyghurs and other minorities, the abolition of non-Han cultural, linguistic and religious practices, and the erosion of social trust in Xinjiang society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has been an uncomfortable fit within the Chinese state. However, XUAR's location on the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) has increased the importance of this frontier region and it is now an important element in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and China's future. Moreover, given the BRI now underpins Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, XUAR has increasingly become interwoven into the China Dream, the BRI and Xi's legacy, resulting in serious human rights violations there. This article argues that the repressive control of XUAR demonstrates Beijing's acute anxiety over opening this region up to external influences, particularly from Central Asian and Middle Eastern SREB states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the multilayered meanings of classroom seating order -- a crucial spatial element of school life -- and its influences on children's experiences. Drawing on fieldwork in a secondary school in northwest China, I ethnographically examine how school educators impose a hierarchy of seats in moral terms. My study shows that classroom seating arrangements in China's underprivileged public schools are perceived as a hierarchy. Teachers motivate students to take learning seriously by strategically assigning the students to hierarchical seating locations and manipulating the proximity of their seats. I contend that classroom seating order has been transformed into a symbolic hierarchy to cultivate students' attitude, a moral attribute considered crucial for achieving educational success. This study contributes to the emerging literature on the space in relation to educational processes. By situating the classroom seating into broader social-cultural-economic processes, it also demonstrates the methodological value of ethnographical examination of classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participants from the Netherlands (n = 52), China (n = 50), and South Africa (n = 166) either read a self-targeted or a family-targeted fear appeal message about chlamydia. Seven aspects of individual cultural orientation were measured, and six effects of the different messages. Interactions between nationality and target of threat were found on perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, and danger control. Only for perceived susceptibility, a difference in cultural orientation partly explained this interaction. The outcomes add to the doubts about claims in earlier literature about the relevance of receivers' nationality and cultural orientation for developing a fear appeal message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese are often said to 'self-segregate' in Africa. Chinese ethnocentricity is typically offered as an explanation for the putative non-interaction. Meanwhile Chinese are not compared to other non-indigenous people in Africa, implying unique Chinese self-isolation. Due to China's semi-peripheral dynamics however, the contemporary Chinese presence in Africa cannot be generalized into a single category. Based on surveys, interviews, and documents, we examine the varied presence of Chinese in Africa, including residential patterns acquisition of local African languages, and socialization patterns, and draw distinctions between Chinese expatriates and Chinese migrants. Factors affecting Chinese adaptation include local political environment, recentness of migration, language barriers, and corporate policies to mitigate crime and conflict. We argue that most Chinese in Africa are not self-isolated and not more isolated in Africa than are other Asian migrants and whites there. Claims of Chinese self-isolation reflect a longstanding, global Yellow Peril discourse that persists despite discrediting evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction presents background information to a special issue exploring the complexities of the Chinese identity and forms in which 'Chineseness' is expressed by Chinese migrants in Africa. Existing literature and media reports on the Chinese in Africa assumes that they are a homogenous group, this introductory article argues to the contrary. The Chinese diaspora in Africa range from descendants of migrants that settled in Africa in the seventeenth century to twenty-first century migrants. This historical and contemporary engagement between China and African countries is essential to understanding the diversity and hybridity of Chinese identity in Africa. This observation provides the basis for the six articles in this special issue. Based on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with the Chinese diaspora and locals in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Zambia and South Africa, the articles provide a compelling argument on why there is no single Chinese identity in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the identity construction process of China’s rural-urban migrant children through analyses of their discourses and of their use of language. Rural children have relocated to the urban centers with their parents on a massive scale over the past decades as China has undergone rapid economic changes. Many migrant children are able to attend urban public schools, and their identity construction emerges as an important issue that attracts increasing public and scholarly attention. This study draws on ethnographic data and presents four examples to illustrate the complex process of migrant identity construction. The results show that the migrant children deploy a range of linguistic features and claim multiple identities; in order for their identities to be established in social reality, they have to go through negotiation processes in which their identities are evaluated, ratified, challenged, or denied. Language is at the center of such processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People in a society share collective memories about numerous historical events simultaneously, but not every event is equally salient all the time. This study examines the implications of memory mobilization on recall of historical events. Memory mobilization is treated as a process that involves communication activities via a wide range of platforms. Focusing on Hong Kong people's memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident in Beijing, this study found that more people recalled the event during the period of memory mobilization, and communication activities involving interpersonal exchanges were related to recall of Tiananmen mainly in that period. In addition, the findings showed that the process of memory mobilization operated differently for different age cohorts. The theoretical implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, the academic discussion of graffiti culture in Greater China borrows a set of theoretical assumptions or preoccupations based on Euro-American graffiti subculture practices, focusing on the artistic dimensions of graffiti. This article, based on an ethnography in Macau, tries to re-examine two forms of local graffiti culture – the one influenced by hip hop culture, the other by the Chinese writing tradition – and endeavours to analyse the logic of their different spatial strategies and embodied practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article first presents a brief review of the historical development of anthropology in China. Anthropology and ethnology were introduced to China together with other Western social sciences at the beginning of the twentieth century. But in the early 1950s, anthropology was eliminated as an academic discipline and replaced by ethnology in universities and colleges in China. Then in 1981, as a result of China’s reform and open-door policy, anthropology was revived as a discipline; however, its academic status still remains ambiguous in China today. Despite all its difficulties, Chinese anthropology has developed substantially since the 1980s. This article summarizes the significant contributions that Chinese anthropology has made so far, and foretells what it can do in relation to world anthropology in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rapid expansion of cultural tourism has led to increased numbers of visitors to rock art sites throughout the world. The rise of rock art tourism has affected not only the preservation of rock art sites, but also the social values attributed to the sites by communities in the immediate vicinity. Social values refer to the social and cultural meanings that a place of heritage holds for a particular community. This article aims to discuss the influence of tourism on the social values that uphold local communities’ emotional attachment to rock art heritage, using the Huashan rock art area in China as a case study. Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is the first rock art heritage in China proposed to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and officially obtained World Heritage Status in July 2016. This article argues that many of the changes generated by the endeavour towards tourism promotion by the authorities in their pursuit of World Heritage designation have contributed to the reinforcement of the social values under discussion. However, negative feelings among the communities in response to the undesired consequences of the designation campaign might have resulted in the attenuation of such values. The ultimate goal of the research is to prompt further reflection on existing rock art heritage management mechanisms both in China and worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Cross-Straits Relations’ is the title given by the protagonists to the relations that evolved in the past 20 years between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China. Designed to create confidence-building measures and trust and avoid military confrontation in a frozen, abeyant intractable conflict, these ties have grown enormously in trade volume, investments and people’s exchange. The following article poses the question of whether such relations between two hostile regimes might serve as a model for future conflict management of the hot and active intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and eventually the Arab countries with which Israel does not yet have peace treaties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]