Performing ‘Chinese‐ness’ in Singkawang: Diasporic moorings,festivals and tourism

Through an examination of two festivals – Qing Ming and Cap Go Meh – in the town of Singkawang in Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan), we show how Singkawang‐bound Chinese Indonesian tourists and their Singkawang‐based relatives produce a diasporic heritage network through ‘moorings’ generated by both transnational and internal migration. Instead of returning to a singular ‘homeland’ in distant China, these tourists return to Chinese‐majority Singkawang as a result of their personal genealogical roots and of their broader cultural allegiance with a kind of Chinese‐ness that Singkawang has come to represent within a post‐Suharto Indonesia. Through these two festivals, we demonstrate how personal heritage practices like ‘roots tourism’ and visiting friends and relatives are intimately bound up with identity and developmental politics at local, national and international scales. In so doing, we identify a range of ways in which migratory and tourism flows by Chinese Indonesian internal migrants shape relations to their ancestral hometowns and cultural ‘homelands’ in Indonesia within the context of membership to and participation in a broader transnational diaspora.     

Recreating place,replacing memory: Creative destruction at the Singapore River

Abstract: The transformation of urban landscapes is as much a physical process as it is a symbolic one. Material changes in the form of demolition and redevelopment are often accompanied by changes in the image and identity of places, as well as the personal and collective memories associated with these places. Focusing on the Singapore River, we explore how waterfront redevelopment has rendered certain activities, people and place memories invisible, to be replaced by other landscape elements and their associative identities. Through ‘creative destruction’ and ‘destructive creation,’ the waterfront's transformation is evident in three areas: its built environment (‘builtscapes’), activities and events (‘eventscapes’) and displays of public art (‘artscapes’). We contend that landscapes reflect the tensions between ‘remembering to forget’ and ‘forgetting to remember’ in ‘New Asia‐Singapore,’ a city attempting to blend modern Asian dynamism with tradition and heritage.     

Place,memory and identity: Imagining ‘New Asia’

Abstract: The rapid transformation of Asian societies and landscapes, especially since the mid‐1990s, has engendered much conjecture of the ‘Asian renaissance’ and the rise of a ‘New Asia’. This Special Edition of Asia Pacific Viewpoint explores the intersecting themes of ‘urban place’, ‘social memory’ and ‘cultural identity’ in the articulation of and contestation towards New Asia. Specifically, the six articles here offer various interpretations of New Asia – as tourism marketing tool, political vision and social identity – and the politics involved in urban, tourism and cultural development. From colonial hotels in key South‐East Asian cities to the historic waterfront of Singapore; from festivals and rituals in Hong Kong, Hoi An (Vietnam) and Penang (Malaysia) to the clash of cultural values in Manggarai (Indonesia), ‘selective remembering’ and ‘ideological forgetting’ are central to the construction of New Asian identities. Ultimately, this Special Edition hopes to provoke continuing discussions on the rhetoric of New Asia and its imaginative and contested geographies, sociologies and histories.     

Negotiating ‘home’ and ‘national identity’: Chinese‐Malaysian transmigrants in Singapore

Abstract: Part of the globalisation phenomenon involves an increasing number of elite transmigrants traversing national boundaries in response to the global demand for skilled labour while maintaining multifaceted social ties astride political, geographic and cultural borders, linking home and host countries together. As transmigrants ‘live’ in several communities simultaneously, their identities, behaviour and values are often not limited by location. Thus, notions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ are also being reviewed given the discrepancies between these concepts and locality. In this context, this paper explores questions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ among skilled Chinese‐Malaysians working and residing in Singapore, portraying them as active participants of two (or more) countries. It focuses on their strategies and struggles in negotiating ideologies of ‘home’ and ‘national identities’ across borders in a setting of two neighbouring countries umbilically linked in a volatile political relationship. It further examines their degree of concern in the political affairs of both countries. Between ‘home’ and ‘host’, Chinese‐Malaysians redefine their practices of home(‐making) in relation to their national identity, drawing on the resources and resilience of familial ties, nostalgic memories and other practical lifecourse needs.     

Roasted pigs and bao dumplings: Festive food and imagined transnational identity in Chinese–Vietnamese festivals

Abstract: This article explores the ways by which special dishes prepared for the Chinese community festivals in the Vietnamese town of Hoi An negotiate and expand the notions of ethnic identity and place of origin of migrant groups. Although the festivals stress specific regional identities in (Imperial) China, the food consumed in the communal feasts defines much wider scopes of ethnicity and territory. By discussing these alternative scopes and comparing the feasts in two festivals, the article suggests that a new transnational ‘greater‐Chinese’ identity is celebrated in contemporary Chinese‐Vietnamese community festivals. The scope and importance of this new identity is analysed in relation to an imagined ‘greater‐China’ as a dominant player in the forthcoming ‘Pacific Century’. The position of the culinary sphere as a privileged arena for sociocultural negotiation, especially in post‐socialist authoritarian regimes, is also discussed.     

Negotiating China's rise: The dynamics of Chinese business associations and the Belt and Road Initiative in Brunei Darussalam

With an increasingly assertive China and the intensifying influence of the Sinocentre, Chinese overseas who have access to Chineseness can exercise their agentic power in using their cultural capital for economic gains. Beijing has recognised the potential for diasporic Chinese entrepreneurs to contribute to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) given their influence in Southeast Asia's economy. Correspondingly, these entrepreneurs hail the BRI as a strategic opportunity for them to turn their cultural capital into fiscal capital. Considering the increased global connectivity and new Chinese migration geographies led by the BRI, this article examines the case of Chinese business associations in Brunei Darussalam. The heterogenous responses of these ethnic Chinese and their associations to China and the BRI attest to the multiplicity and contestations of Chineseness based on different migration histories and sentiments to their ancestral land. We focus on the dynamics between the old Chinese Bruneian business elites and the more recent Chinese business migrants from Malaysia and China. An investigation of the cultural and economic politics within the Chinese Bruneian business community will provide insights into the modality of Chineseness as an economic asset that can be tactically used by diasporic Chinese entrepreneurs to maintain their social position and to respond to China's economic rise.     

Reviews

Books reviewed: Joel S. Kahn (ed), Southeast Asian identities: culture and the politics of representation in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand Peter Dauvergne, Shadows in the forest: Japan and the politics of timber in Southeast Asia Geoffrey Murray, China: the next superpower: dilemmas in change and continuity Lynne T. White, Unstately Power, Volume I: Local causes of China's economic reforms; Volume II: Local causes of China's intellectual, legal and government reforms Amarjit Kaur, Economic change in East Malaysia: Sabah and Sarawak since 1850 Josieana Cauqueline, Paul Lim and Birgit Mayer-König, Asian values: encounter with diversity     

‘Asian values’ as reverse Orientalism: Singapore

It is possible to demonstrate, using Singapore as a key example, the way in which the attribution of a set of ‘Asian values’ represented a Western project which is best labelled ‘reverse Orientalism’. This process entailed the attribution of a set of cultural values to East and Southeast Asian societies by Western social scientists in order to contrast the recent dynamic progress of Asian development with the stagnation and social disorganisation of contemporary Western economies and societies. The contrast provided legitimation for some of the nation‐building policies of political leaders in such countries as Singapore and was incorporated in attempts to identify and institutionalise core values.     

Reviews

Rodan, Garry (2004) Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia: Singapore and Malaysia. London: Routledge‐Curzon, xvii, 261 pp. references, indices, £70, hbk, ISBN: 0415335825.
Reviewed by James Chin
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia.
Email: jchin@ieas.unimas.my Khai Leong, Ho (ed.) (2005) Reforming Corporate Governance in South East Asia: Economics, Politics, and Regulations. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), 387 pp., US$29.90, ISBN: 981‐230‐291‐3.
Reviewed by Meidyah Indreswari
Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Email: m_indres@yahoo.com     

Reviews

Lee, Edwin (2008) Singapore: The Unexpected Nation. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, xxii, 707 pp., US$39.90, pbk, ISBN: 978‐981‐230‐795‐8; US$49.90, hbk, ISBN: 978‐981‐230‐796‐5.
Reviewer: Michael D. Barr
Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia.
Email: michael.barr@flinders.edu.au Cramb, Robert A. (2007) Land and Longhouse: Agrarian Transformation in the Uplands of Sarawak. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 422 pp., US$45.00, pbk, ISBN‐10: 8776940101, ISBN‐13: 978‐8776940102.
Reviewer: Carol J. Pierce Colfer
CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia.
Email: c.colfer@cgiar.org Lee, Hock Guan (2008) Ageing in Southeast Asia and East Asia – Family, Social Protection and Policy Challenges. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 247 pp., US$28.50, pbk, ISBN: 9789812307651.
Reviewer: George W. Leeson
Oxford Institute of Ageing, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Email: george.leeson@ageing.ox.ac.uk Tyner, James A. (2008) The Killing of Cambodia: Geography, Genocide and the Unmaking of Space. Burlington, Vermont and Hampshire: Ashgate, x, 209 pp., US$99.95, hbk, ISBN: 978‐0‐7546‐7096‐4.
Reviewer: Melissa Marschke
School of International Development and Global Policy, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.
Email: mmarschk@uottawa.ca     

Inducing male sterility in Brassica napus L. by a sulphonylurea herbicide, tribenuron-methyl

A sulphonylurea herbicide, tribenuron‐methyl, methyl 2‐[[[[(4‐methoxy‐6‐methyl‐1,3,5‐triazin‐2‐yl) methylamino] carbonyl] amino] sulphonyl] benzoate, was used to induce male sterility in rapeseed. Application of 0.2 μg tribenuron‐methyl per plant at the bolting stage with the longest floral bud <2 mm and repeated 15 days afterwards, resulted in 94.5–100% plants being male sterile in six different breeding lines, but combined with low phytotoxicity. However, excessive double application of the chemical (>0.2 μg per plant) did have some significant impact on rapeseed, including stunting, fading leaves and petals, reduction in the size of floral parts and a shortened duration of flowering. The percentage of hybrid seeds from ‘84004‘ treated with 0.2 μg × 2 tribenuron‐methyl per plant and pollinated by a male parent ‘Huaye’ was 92.7%, which met the hybridity requirement in China. The results suggest that tribenuron‐methyl could be used as an efficient chemical hybridizing agent.     

Interspecific hybrids between three eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) cultivars and two wild species (Solanum torvum Sw. and Solanum sisymbriifolium Lam.)

Three Greek eggplant cultivars, ‘Langada’, ‘Tsakoniki’ and ‘Emi’ (2n= 24), were crossed with two wild species (Solanum torvum Sw., 2n= 24 and Solanum sisymbriifolium Lam., 2n= 24). Ovules isolated 15-27 days after pollination were cultured in a modified MS medium at 24°C and a 16h photoperiod. Fifty days later, the ovules were dissected and the interspecific embryos were cultured in the same medium. Interspecific hybrids were achieved only from crosses between the eggplant cultivars and S. torvum. The hybridity of the putative interspecific F¹ hybrid (Solanum melongena×S. torvum) was confirmed by using morphological and biochemical (isozyme isocitrate dehydrogenase A, phosphoglucomutase A, phosphoglucose isomerase B, 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase A, 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase B) markers. The F¹ plants (‘Langada’×S. torvum) were selfpollinated and backcrossed to both parents. Fruits, however, were produced only when the F¹ hybrid was backcrossed as female with the eggplant cultivar ‘Langada’.     

Regionalism and tourism: exploring integral links in Singapore

Traditionally, tourism development in Singapore involves creating and promoting tourist attractions to lure inbound visitors. Today in the 1990s the focus is on regional tourism, and Singapore is being developed as a ‘tourism capital’ and a hubbing centre for visitors travelling to and within Asia. Tourism development now has a regional focus and tourism enterprises are being encouraged to invest in overseas projects in the Asia Pacific. This paper explores Singapore’s forays into regional tourism. Specifically, it argues that ‘regionalisation’ and tourism enjoy a mutually reinforcing relationship. This means that regionalism provides an avenue for the tourism industry to expand and, conversely, the tourist industry provides an opportunity for Singapore to regionalise its economy. The turn towards regionalisation hints at local problems faced by Singapore’s maturing economy as a whole and its tourism industry in particular. Such local problems include: geographic constraints of site and the lack of natural attractions; limited market and investment opportunities within Singapore; increasingly sophisticated leisure needs of Singaporeans; and strategic concerns for political survival. ‘Tourism regionalisation’ helps to circumvent both real and perceived problems but this paper also warns that many challenges and difficulties will be faced even as Singapore’s regional economy takes root.     

Reviews

Emmerson, Donald K. (ed.) (2009) Hard Choices: Security, Democracy and Regionalism in Southeast Asia. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 398 pp., $31.88, pbk, ISBN: 9789812309143.
Reviewer: Alex Bellamy
Asia‐Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Email: a.bellamy@uq.edu.au Ivarsson, Soren (2008) Creating Laos: The Making of a Lao Space between Indochina and Siam, 1860–1945. Copenhagen: Nias Press, 238 pp., $35.43, pbk, ISBN: 9788776940232.
Reviewers: Michael Dwyer
Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Email: mdwyer@berkeley.edu
Keith Barney
Graduate Program in Geography, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Email: kbarney@yorku.ca Chong, Terence (ed.) (2008) Globalization and its Counter‐Forces in Southeast Asia. Singapore: ISEAS, 416 pp., $38.98, pbk, ISBN: 9789812304780.
Reviewer: David Ip
Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
Email: davidf.ip@inet.polyu.edu.hk     

Reviews

Neher, Clark D. and Marlay, Ross Values, Culture, Development and Democracy in Southeast Asia: The Winds of Change Ravenhill, John (ed.) The Political Economy of East Asia: Vol. 1 Japan Vol 2: China, Korea and Taiwan Vol 3: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand Lim, David Explaining economic growth: a new analytical framework Naya, S.F. and Tan, J.L.H. (eds) Asian Transitional Economies: Challenges and Prospects for Reform and Transformation Tilton, Mark Restrained trade: cartels in Japan's basic materials industries Province, Guizhou The population atlas of Guizhou Province Smith, Michael French Hard times on Kariru island: poverty, development and morality in a Papua New Guinea Village Dalziel, Paul and Lattimore, Ralph The New Zealand macroeconomy: a briefing on the reforms     

Dual-facing bridges and brokers: Diaspora politics and Chinese voluntary associations

This commentary introduces the term ‘dual facing’ to describe the way that Chinese voluntary associations orientate themselves as collectives situated between the ancestral land (China) and their countries of settlement. The commentary uses examples of Chinese voluntary associations in Singapore and Myanmar to reflect on China's longstanding presence and expanding reach in Southeast Asia, including through its diaspora engagement with the Chinese abroad. It argues that such associations are embedded not only in the nation-building efforts of their countries of settlement, but also the ancestral land. However, this dual-facing orientation also means that they can become embroiled in conflictual domestic and foreign politics at both ends, potentially jeopardising how they are otherwise seen as bridges and brokers by China and in the countries where have settled.     

Practices of place‐making: Globalisation and locality in the Philippines

Abstract: Global flows of people and information in the Asia–Pacific region are creating new forms of place that stretch across national boundaries and rural–urban distinctions. These new mobile forms of place link long‐inhabited rural areas to cities, national centres, and to rural frontiers within the nation. Here, we describe new forms of place that are being produced by contemporary migration and economic change, using data from the Philippines and applying Appadurai's theorisation of translocality. Our analysis links these flows of overseas migrants to concomitant processes of economic change, migration and new rural livelihoods. We outline changing practices of place within the Philippines, exploring ways that transnational migration can articulate with apparently ‘local’ development and the flow‐on effects from migration on the spatial patterns of rural livelihoods.     

Voluntary immobility and existential security in a changing climate in the Pacific

With the expectation of adverse climate change impacts, some (often majority) Indigenous populations of the Pacific are expressing a preference to remain on Indigenous lands for cultural and spiritual reasons. In some cases, Indigenous people express preparedness to die on traditional territory rather than relocate, representing a new type of agency and resistance to dispossession. This is a prominent politics of place of relevance to emerging debates and decision‐making around retreat and relocation. If climate change is experienced by populations as an existential threat to culture, identity and place‐based connections, voluntary immobility can be an important adaptation strategy that helps to strengthen cultural and spiritual resilience among those facing the prospect of a lost homeland. This paper argues that voluntary immobility decisions need ethically robust and culturally appropriate policies and practices, particularly when a site is deemed by external experts to be no longer fit for human settlement. National governments, civil society groups, international organisations and donors will need to: engage in culturally meaningful dialogue with communities about relocation and immobility; respect, protect and fulfil the rights of ‘immobile’ people and those on the move; and confirm that in situ adaptation options have been exhausted.     

Hong Kong and the globalisation of the Chinese diaspora: a geographical perspective

This study examines the processes of spatial restructuring in the Hong Kong–South China region. The paper analyses urban‐rural interaction in a historical and transnational context. Based on detailed census data collected in 1961 and 1996, this study traces the origins of the Hongkongers and maps out their spatial distribution according to their native place identities. The heightened population movement between the rural hinterland in the South China region and the Hong Kong metropolis is inseparable from territorial organisation on the Chinese mainland. The great spatial mobility demonstrated by the Hongkongers, or, their ‘refugee mentality’ as it is known, is found to be deeply rooted in their marginal sub‐ethnic identity in the nation. A systematic analysis of spatial data reveals that the diasporic landscape developed in Hong Kong has been polarised by the élite English and Shanghainese speakers on the one end and the Kejia people on the other end. Despite the processes of globalisation, the great spatial mobility of the Hong Kong sojourners and the diasporic landscape they have created have been effectively shaped by their place‐based ethno‐linguistic identities. If the transnational movement of people is considered an important component of globalisation, then this study reinforces the importance of locality and contests the fashionable notion of globalisation as a ‘placeless’ phenomenon. The seemingly displaced empire of Chinese diaspora capitalism, in which Hong Kong has played a crucial part, has remained grounded by pre‐existing place‐specific conditions.     

GIS技术在城市历史遗产保护管理中的应用研究进展

传统的历史遗产保护方法在信息处理和管理等方面具有较大的局限性。以世界遗产保护和管理机制发展为目标,通过国内外成功的案例解析遗产资源调查和信息整合GIS数据库的构建过程。分别阐述了GIS在文化遗产保护、区域文化与自然遗产保护、风景园林遗产保护等方面的实践应用情况。指出国内遗产保护领域应当多借助新的思维方式和研究方法,将GIS与其它数字化技术综合运用到遗产保护管理研究,今后尤其需要加强遗产价值和遗产文献资料保存、GIS系统检测等方面的研究。研究结果表明,信息处理、编写遗产文件、绘制专题地图是动态GIS数据库建设过程中的核心环节,可以有效挖掘历史城市突出的遗产价值,并有助于管理部门制定不同城市遗产文献保护和管理战略,从而为中国未来遗产保护和可持续发展提供可借鉴的创新思路。