This article studies internet celebrity culture as a crucial site of public learning and pedagogy, exploring the capacity of celebrated foreign speakers of Chinese to popularize discourses and knowledge of the language on social media. It specifically focuses on the YouTube channel MYBY founded by Martin Wiley Woods and Blair Sugarman, two foreign television personalities in China who have successfully extended their fame from traditional media to the internet. Through a multimodal discourse analysis of their bilingual ‘talk shows’ in which they evaluate the Chinese pronunciation and accents of other non-native speakers and share their own learning experiences, we discuss how Woods and Sugarman perform their identities as both model learners and language influencers by producing and challenging the language ideologies of normativity and speakerhood. We argue that internet celebrity pedagogy is an increasingly important genre of popular culture that discursively shapes the global transmission of Chinese language and linguaculture.
{"title":"Internet celebrities, foreign speakers and Chinese learning: The case of MYBY on YouTube","authors":"Xuan Wang, Elaine Chung","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00108_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00108_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article studies internet celebrity culture as a crucial site of public learning and pedagogy, exploring the capacity of celebrated foreign speakers of Chinese to popularize discourses and knowledge of the language on social media. It specifically focuses on the YouTube channel MYBY founded by Martin Wiley Woods and Blair Sugarman, two foreign television personalities in China who have successfully extended their fame from traditional media to the internet. Through a multimodal discourse analysis of their bilingual ‘talk shows’ in which they evaluate the Chinese pronunciation and accents of other non-native speakers and share their own learning experiences, we discuss how Woods and Sugarman perform their identities as both model learners and language influencers by producing and challenging the language ideologies of normativity and speakerhood. We argue that internet celebrity pedagogy is an increasingly important genre of popular culture that discursively shapes the global transmission of Chinese language and linguaculture.","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":"200 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134961638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent years, there have been numerous English-language reports on the purported censorship of Peppa Pig in China. This article goes beyond this discourse to explore both how this British animation was translated into Chinese popular culture and how English-language news outlets subsequently responded to Peppa’s presence in China. Firstly, it examines how the dubbing of Peppa Pig into Chinese facilitated promotional claims about the universal appeal of this animation. Secondly, it shows how Peppa Pig ’s subsequent popularity in China prompted a promotional shift towards a self-conscious localization of the brand with the release of the film 小猪佩奇过大年 ( Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year ). Thirdly, this article explores how English-language news reporting became distorted in its claims about the extent of Peppa Pig ’s censorship in China. Theoretically, I argue that both the localization of Peppa Pig and English-language journalistic discourse about the animation in China have been permeated by an afterlife of Orientalism. As an afterlife, this is a discourse that lacks the all-encompassing qualities of Edward Said’s classic Orientalism, but that continues to draw upon the Orientalist idea of an absolute distinction between ‘the East’ and ‘the West’.
{"title":"Orientalist afterlives: Theorizing discourse about Peppa Pig and China","authors":"Paul Kendall","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00107_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00107_1","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, there have been numerous English-language reports on the purported censorship of Peppa Pig in China. This article goes beyond this discourse to explore both how this British animation was translated into Chinese popular culture and how English-language news outlets subsequently responded to Peppa’s presence in China. Firstly, it examines how the dubbing of Peppa Pig into Chinese facilitated promotional claims about the universal appeal of this animation. Secondly, it shows how Peppa Pig ’s subsequent popularity in China prompted a promotional shift towards a self-conscious localization of the brand with the release of the film 小猪佩奇过大年 ( Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year ). Thirdly, this article explores how English-language news reporting became distorted in its claims about the extent of Peppa Pig ’s censorship in China. Theoretically, I argue that both the localization of Peppa Pig and English-language journalistic discourse about the animation in China have been permeated by an afterlife of Orientalism. As an afterlife, this is a discourse that lacks the all-encompassing qualities of Edward Said’s classic Orientalism, but that continues to draw upon the Orientalist idea of an absolute distinction between ‘the East’ and ‘the West’.","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134962229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chinese online literature has attracted wide overseas attention over the past decade. As a newly emerging form of literature in the twenty-first century, the ‘digitalness’ of this literary form enables its translators to overcome the cultural gap and introduce this subculture to the rest of the world. The translation of Chinese online literature plays a significant role in its worldwide dissemination, greatly facilitates the promotion of Chinese culture and also sheds new light on multimedia translation studies. This article will focus attention on the translation of Chinese online literature in the anglophone world, aiming to map out a detailed overview of its overseas journey, namely how it made its way to the anglophone audience, to elaborate on the role of translation in this process, and how the translation of Chinese online literature facilitates the reception of the novels and contributes to their popularity outside China. Finally, this article argues that the human translation of online literature, tailored to this digital form, could bring insights into the promotion of Chinese culture and also into studies on multimedia translation.
{"title":"Chinese online literature in the anglophone world and beyond: Translation, dissemination and impact","authors":"Di Zhao","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00109_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00109_1","url":null,"abstract":"Chinese online literature has attracted wide overseas attention over the past decade. As a newly emerging form of literature in the twenty-first century, the ‘digitalness’ of this literary form enables its translators to overcome the cultural gap and introduce this subculture to the rest of the world. The translation of Chinese online literature plays a significant role in its worldwide dissemination, greatly facilitates the promotion of Chinese culture and also sheds new light on multimedia translation studies. This article will focus attention on the translation of Chinese online literature in the anglophone world, aiming to map out a detailed overview of its overseas journey, namely how it made its way to the anglophone audience, to elaborate on the role of translation in this process, and how the translation of Chinese online literature facilitates the reception of the novels and contributes to their popularity outside China. Finally, this article argues that the human translation of online literature, tailored to this digital form, could bring insights into the promotion of Chinese culture and also into studies on multimedia translation.","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134962139","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article uses the framework of literary Occidentalism to study how an unequal power relationship is staged between Japan and Europe within isekai, a popular genre of contemporary Japanese fiction. Within the standard isekai plot, a teenage Japanese boy is suddenly transferred into a fantasy version of medieval Europe. There, the protagonist is bestowed superpowers that let him exert great agency over this second world, where he embarks on an exciting adventure and generally acts as he pleases. This superpower mediates and assures the protagonist’s introduction of western modernity, under the mantle of Japanese custom, back to the West. By negating medieval Europe, ‘Japan’ thereby becomes its own fantasy, a site at once more modern than the West and yet identifiably Japanese. Engaging in close readings of two key isekai light novels, Yamaguchi Noboru’s The Familiar of Zero and Nagatsuki Tappei’s Re:Zero: Starting Life in Another World , this article specifies and identifies common narrative tropes within isekai such as an identification with Japan, a dismissal of Europe as irrational and misguided, a moralized rescue of Europeans with the protagonist’s superpower, and a dismissal of potential counterarguments to the protagonist’s moral presumptions.
{"title":"Fantasies of Europe, fantasies of Japan: Isekai and the narrative logic of Japanese Occidentalism","authors":"Scott Ma","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00111_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00111_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses the framework of literary Occidentalism to study how an unequal power relationship is staged between Japan and Europe within isekai, a popular genre of contemporary Japanese fiction. Within the standard isekai plot, a teenage Japanese boy is suddenly transferred into a fantasy version of medieval Europe. There, the protagonist is bestowed superpowers that let him exert great agency over this second world, where he embarks on an exciting adventure and generally acts as he pleases. This superpower mediates and assures the protagonist’s introduction of western modernity, under the mantle of Japanese custom, back to the West. By negating medieval Europe, ‘Japan’ thereby becomes its own fantasy, a site at once more modern than the West and yet identifiably Japanese. Engaging in close readings of two key isekai light novels, Yamaguchi Noboru’s The Familiar of Zero and Nagatsuki Tappei’s Re:Zero: Starting Life in Another World , this article specifies and identifies common narrative tropes within isekai such as an identification with Japan, a dismissal of Europe as irrational and misguided, a moralized rescue of Europeans with the protagonist’s superpower, and a dismissal of potential counterarguments to the protagonist’s moral presumptions.","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134962143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of: Regimes of Desire: Young Gay Men, Media, and Masculinity in Tokyo , Thomas Baudinette (2021) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 262 pp., ISBN 978-0-47203-861-9, p/bk, £27.95
{"title":"Regimes of Desire: Young Gay Men, Media, and Masculinity in Tokyo, Thomas Baudinette (2021)","authors":"Jamie Coates","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00114_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00114_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Regimes of Desire: Young Gay Men, Media, and Masculinity in Tokyo , Thomas Baudinette (2021) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 262 pp., ISBN 978-0-47203-861-9, p/bk, £27.95","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134962140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The introduction to the Special Issue, ‘Chinese Popular Culture in Translation and Transmission’, provides an overall view of the theme. It starts with a discussion of the definition of popular culture and its powerful presence in today’s world assisted by technological development. To follow is a sketch of Chinese popular culture in the contemporary political and cultural context. We then propose a translational perspective, through which modes and issues of exchange, mediation and intervention when Chinese popular culture enters the western cultural and ideological landscape can be located, examined and analysed. Finally, five articles in this special issue – respectively on ‘tai chi’, Peppa Pig and China, internet celebrities and Chinese learning, Chinese online literature in English translation and fan translation of BL web novels – are briefly introduced. When read together, the collection reveals some paradigms and trends of Chinese popular culture in global cultural flow.
{"title":"Chinese Popular Culture in Translation and Transmission","authors":"Yan Ying, Weiqing Xiao","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00105_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00105_2","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction to the Special Issue, ‘Chinese Popular Culture in Translation and Transmission’, provides an overall view of the theme. It starts with a discussion of the definition of popular culture and its powerful presence in today’s world assisted by technological development. To follow is a sketch of Chinese popular culture in the contemporary political and cultural context. We then propose a translational perspective, through which modes and issues of exchange, mediation and intervention when Chinese popular culture enters the western cultural and ideological landscape can be located, examined and analysed. Finally, five articles in this special issue – respectively on ‘tai chi’, Peppa Pig and China, internet celebrities and Chinese learning, Chinese online literature in English translation and fan translation of BL web novels – are briefly introduced. When read together, the collection reveals some paradigms and trends of Chinese popular culture in global cultural flow.","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134961636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There are a growing number of studies of the history and spread of taijiquan and qigong. However, there are few studies of taiji or qigong in the media. Based on a study of British media archives, this article traces the construction and representation of taijiquan (‘tai chi’) in British media. In doing so, it establishes and evaluates the meanings and values that have been imputed to the practice in British media discourse. It first examines key representations of tai chi before the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, but proposes that the pandemic changed its status. It argues that popular understandings of COVID-19 as a respiratory infection led to an upsurge of interest in ‘breath-focused’ practices. In this context, taiji could have stood to gain in popularity. However, the article suggests that the difficulties of learning taiji – especially during a time of social isolation – meant that it was not taiji but the related and hitherto lesser-known practice of qigong that saw an increase in popularity. It concludes with a reflection on ‘authenticity’ and the status of some new translation-constructions of hybrid taiji-qigong practices.
{"title":"Translating tai chi and transforming qigong in British media culture","authors":"Paul Bowman, Izzati Aziz, Xiujie Ma","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00106_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00106_1","url":null,"abstract":"There are a growing number of studies of the history and spread of taijiquan and qigong. However, there are few studies of taiji or qigong in the media. Based on a study of British media archives, this article traces the construction and representation of taijiquan (‘tai chi’) in British media. In doing so, it establishes and evaluates the meanings and values that have been imputed to the practice in British media discourse. It first examines key representations of tai chi before the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, but proposes that the pandemic changed its status. It argues that popular understandings of COVID-19 as a respiratory infection led to an upsurge of interest in ‘breath-focused’ practices. In this context, taiji could have stood to gain in popularity. However, the article suggests that the difficulties of learning taiji – especially during a time of social isolation – meant that it was not taiji but the related and hitherto lesser-known practice of qigong that saw an increase in popularity. It concludes with a reflection on ‘authenticity’ and the status of some new translation-constructions of hybrid taiji-qigong practices.","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134962149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The genre of boys’ love (BL) has enjoyed huge popularity since its Japanese beginnings in the 1960s, and it has taken root in popular cultures in many countries. BL arrived in China via fan translations of Japanese manga into Chinese. With the rise of online fiction platforms in China, local writers produced widely popular male–male romances that gained traction locally and abroad. The outflow of Chinese BL mirrors fan activities that led to the popularity of Japanese manga and anime in the United States. Fan translations of Chinese-to-English BL fiction are one of the most important links in introducing Chinese BL to the rest of the world. This article focuses on the cultural outflow of Chinese BL through fan translations in gloBLizing the genre. Through interviews with five teams and one individual fan translator, this article examines their roles played in the dissemination of BL web novels beyond the native Chinese-speaking world. These fan translators all resided in anglophone countries, and are diverse in their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, ages and BL interests. We interviewed fan translators that translated works from fantasy, alternative history and contemporary romance. Some of these works have been adapted into multimedia and some have not.
{"title":"Labour of love: Chinese-to-English fan translations of BL web novels","authors":"Kirk Kanesaka, Gladys Mac","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00110_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00110_1","url":null,"abstract":"The genre of boys’ love (BL) has enjoyed huge popularity since its Japanese beginnings in the 1960s, and it has taken root in popular cultures in many countries. BL arrived in China via fan translations of Japanese manga into Chinese. With the rise of online fiction platforms in China, local writers produced widely popular male–male romances that gained traction locally and abroad. The outflow of Chinese BL mirrors fan activities that led to the popularity of Japanese manga and anime in the United States. Fan translations of Chinese-to-English BL fiction are one of the most important links in introducing Chinese BL to the rest of the world. This article focuses on the cultural outflow of Chinese BL through fan translations in gloBLizing the genre. Through interviews with five teams and one individual fan translator, this article examines their roles played in the dissemination of BL web novels beyond the native Chinese-speaking world. These fan translators all resided in anglophone countries, and are diverse in their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, ages and BL interests. We interviewed fan translators that translated works from fantasy, alternative history and contemporary romance. Some of these works have been adapted into multimedia and some have not.","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134962145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of: Manga: A Critical Guide , Shige (CJ) Suzuki and Ronald Stewart (2023) London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 280 pp., ISBN 978-1-35007-235-0, h/bk, $90.00 ISBN 978-1-35007-234-3, p/bk, $29.95
{"title":"Manga: A Critical Guide, Shige (CJ) Suzuki and Ronald Stewart (2023)","authors":"Mikhail Koulikov","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00115_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00115_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Manga: A Critical Guide , Shige (CJ) Suzuki and Ronald Stewart (2023) London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 280 pp., ISBN 978-1-35007-235-0, h/bk, $90.00 ISBN 978-1-35007-234-3, p/bk, $29.95","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":"200 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134962150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What does humour do to us and our relationship with the society? This article examines political humour in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and asks how hegemony is mediated through political humour in China. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) of two Spring Festival Gala sketches, 春晚小品 (‘chunwan xiaopin’), is applied not only for its ontological fit with the literature of hegemony but also because of its potential to unravel the hidden power relations. I argue for the social and psychological significance of xiaopin to the general public because they reveal the fragility of the intellectual hierarchy that places the rural population at the bottom, play with the heavy historical episode of the Great Leap Forward, and create the illusion of empowerment. Furthermore, it reveals that humour can be subversive on the textual level and simultaneously hegemonic on the discursive level.
{"title":"Mediating hegemony through political humour: A discourse analysis of Spring Festival Gala sketches in China","authors":"Heidi Wang-Kaeding","doi":"10.1386/eapc_00101_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/eapc_00101_1","url":null,"abstract":"What does humour do to us and our relationship with the society? This article examines political humour in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and asks how hegemony is mediated through political humour in China. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) of two Spring Festival Gala sketches, 春晚小品 (‘chunwan xiaopin’), is applied not only for its ontological fit with the literature of hegemony but also because of its potential to unravel the hidden power relations. I argue for the social and psychological significance of xiaopin to the general public because they reveal the fragility of the intellectual hierarchy that places the rural population at the bottom, play with the heavy historical episode of the Great Leap Forward, and create the illusion of empowerment. Furthermore, it reveals that humour can be subversive on the textual level and simultaneously hegemonic on the discursive level.","PeriodicalId":36135,"journal":{"name":"East Asian Journal of Popular Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48092232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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