Papers by Boon Seng Cheow
This paper centres on the translingual Singaporean Mandarin adaptation of the now canonized femin... more This paper centres on the translingual Singaporean Mandarin adaptation of the now canonized feminist classic The Vagina Monologue (hereafter called ‘TVM’). Produced by local theatre company Drama Box, The vaginaLOGUE (hereafter called ‘vaginaLOGUE’) received critical acclaim. In this paper, rather than treating it simply as a “culturally appropriate” adaptation, I argue that the production has critically engaged with the original work beyond textual translation. Without negating the tempting universality of the original work, the creator avoided essentialising the female experience and embodied the diversity of voices from local women. Through locating women within a patriarchal network of interlinking social institutions, the experiences of women were reconstructed and represented theatrically. Together with the use of estrangement techniques, the audiences were able to actively reflect on issues of oppression meta-theatrically. I use ‘meta-theatricality’ to refer to techniques whereby a performance comments on itself, refer to real world circumstances and enacting ceremony within a performance.
This is a paper that is close to heart. My father passed away in 2007. During the Buddhist funera... more This is a paper that is close to heart. My father passed away in 2007. During the Buddhist funeral, tensions and conflicts emerged as certain family members had converted to Christianity. Beyond my family, similar narratives have been circulating in Singapore regarding the actions or inactions of Christians in the management of death. Commonly cited, concurring with my experience and interviews, are the unwillingness of Christians to participate in Chinese religious rituals. For example, the reluctance to hold joss sticks, eat offerings, burn joss papers, chant, and setup altar or ancestor tablets. The difference in religious beliefs not only seeds tension within the family, but results in incomplete rituals in the eyes of others as well. The compromised ritual, often seem as a loss of “face” (Lee, 2003; Tong, 2004), further fuels dissatisfaction among family members.
Viewing family as a microcosm of social institutions and relationships, we should investigate the reasons behind and the processes involved in reconciling the differences. A comprehension of the choices people make and the way they resolve tensions may serve to provide insights into the relationship between the individual and collective. Instead of seeing religious tension as conflict, it is better perceived as a process of negotiation that continuously shapes the Chinese culture of death management and ancestor worship. Culture is dialectically a coherent system of symbols and meanings, and a set of practice, that changes over time (Sewell, 1999). What we need to examine are the conditions that precipitate these changes. In this paper, I argue that beyond individual religious beliefs, other factors like structure, power, modernity and identity are more important.
This paper centres on Big River Big Sea – Untold Stories of 1949 大江大海一九四九 (Hereafter called “BRBS... more This paper centres on Big River Big Sea – Untold Stories of 1949 大江大海一九四九 (Hereafter called “BRBS”). Published in 2009, BRBS was written by Lung Yingtai after extensive fieldwork, mainly through interviews and material research, conducted in both mainland China and Taiwan. It is structured in eight chapters with 73 essays, interrelated through numerous protagonists and their stories. She represents the struggles of individuals in the period leading to and after the retreat of the Republic of China’s government to Taiwan. In drawing parallels with 1949, she not only depicts conflicts in modern Chinese history (from late Qing to early 50s in Taiwan), but also episodes from World War II in Asia Pacific and Europe. This is a mammoth experime¬¬¬nt for a cultural critic who is famed for her incisive and critical essays like those collected in The Wild Fire野火集 and A Hundred Years' Reflections百年思索as well as her sentimental family trilogy Take Your Time孩子你慢慢来, Dear Andreas親愛的安德烈and Seeing Them Off目送that observed the dynamics of intergenerational relationships. In her works, Lung has advocated extensively her understanding of democracy, civil society, universal values, humanities and freedom of expression, which have made her iconic among her contemporaries. She is one of the most influential writers in the whole of the Sinosphere.
Her foray into the field of history was, however, met with mixed responses. Gao Hua (2010), a Mainland Chinese historian whose work on the 1940s was considered controversial for revealing power struggles within the Communist Party, hailed it as a “refreshing new way of interpreting that period of history” and applauded Lung for employing a humanistic historiography centred on individuals to overcome the master-narrative of history. Despite his unstinting praise, he went to great lengths to provide additional historical evidences to support Lung’s ideas put forth in BRBS, which gave the impression that it was lacking in historical scholarship as criticised by others (Li, 2011). Zhang Dachun (2011), a renowned Taiwanese writer wrote that “literature cannot conceal her deficient ‘fast-food’ historiography”, while Leo Lee (2009) and Lam (2009a, 2009b) felt that it was simply “overwriting” that killed the book. If history is inevitably represented by language of narration, how do we position the historicity, narrativity or authorial intervention of such a book, which is mainly a mosaic of oral histories ‘re-presented’ by a public intellect who is trying to advocate certain values?
This dissertation centres on a series of theatrical adaptations of canonized Chinese Classical no... more This dissertation centres on a series of theatrical adaptations of canonized Chinese Classical novels by Hong Kong director, Edward Lam. His adaptions are avant garde and postdramatic, grounded in his use of subversive theatre aesthetics. Elements of the original novels are deconstructed to make them relevant for contemporary audiences, while reflecting his continual attempt to confront dilemmas perpetuated by mainstream ideologies. Parallels are drawn between the rise of Chinese novels in the Late Ming Era and the present Mainland Chinese theatre in the areas of political relaxation, booming economy and growth in personal wealth. In both cases, the market phenomenon in the rise of consumption powers does not contradict the liberation of alternative values and identities. Lam’s critical attitude in theatre is similar to the writings undertaken by the literati novelists for its advocacy to liberate individual consciousness. Through a comparative analysis of the post-dramatic structure in What is Man and What is Success, one sees more than just a convergence of central concerns, but also a development of and elaborations on gender issues. Lam has shown that the division between superficial constructs of masculinity and femininity contribute to the dilemma of modern human beings. While men are often recognized as the source of patriarchy, women can be unknowing accomplices. Although Lam’s works engages on Chineseness, they are as foreign as they are Chinese and they alienate as much as they resonate. The metatheatrical nature of his works empowers individual audience members to continuously reassess their relationship within their communities, and to reconstruct their identity so that it is firmly grounded in the understanding of themselves. Lastly, Lam’s works provides an excellent case study in debunking the dichotomous myth often posited between artistic merit and commercial success.
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Papers by Boon Seng Cheow
Viewing family as a microcosm of social institutions and relationships, we should investigate the reasons behind and the processes involved in reconciling the differences. A comprehension of the choices people make and the way they resolve tensions may serve to provide insights into the relationship between the individual and collective. Instead of seeing religious tension as conflict, it is better perceived as a process of negotiation that continuously shapes the Chinese culture of death management and ancestor worship. Culture is dialectically a coherent system of symbols and meanings, and a set of practice, that changes over time (Sewell, 1999). What we need to examine are the conditions that precipitate these changes. In this paper, I argue that beyond individual religious beliefs, other factors like structure, power, modernity and identity are more important.
Her foray into the field of history was, however, met with mixed responses. Gao Hua (2010), a Mainland Chinese historian whose work on the 1940s was considered controversial for revealing power struggles within the Communist Party, hailed it as a “refreshing new way of interpreting that period of history” and applauded Lung for employing a humanistic historiography centred on individuals to overcome the master-narrative of history. Despite his unstinting praise, he went to great lengths to provide additional historical evidences to support Lung’s ideas put forth in BRBS, which gave the impression that it was lacking in historical scholarship as criticised by others (Li, 2011). Zhang Dachun (2011), a renowned Taiwanese writer wrote that “literature cannot conceal her deficient ‘fast-food’ historiography”, while Leo Lee (2009) and Lam (2009a, 2009b) felt that it was simply “overwriting” that killed the book. If history is inevitably represented by language of narration, how do we position the historicity, narrativity or authorial intervention of such a book, which is mainly a mosaic of oral histories ‘re-presented’ by a public intellect who is trying to advocate certain values?
Viewing family as a microcosm of social institutions and relationships, we should investigate the reasons behind and the processes involved in reconciling the differences. A comprehension of the choices people make and the way they resolve tensions may serve to provide insights into the relationship between the individual and collective. Instead of seeing religious tension as conflict, it is better perceived as a process of negotiation that continuously shapes the Chinese culture of death management and ancestor worship. Culture is dialectically a coherent system of symbols and meanings, and a set of practice, that changes over time (Sewell, 1999). What we need to examine are the conditions that precipitate these changes. In this paper, I argue that beyond individual religious beliefs, other factors like structure, power, modernity and identity are more important.
Her foray into the field of history was, however, met with mixed responses. Gao Hua (2010), a Mainland Chinese historian whose work on the 1940s was considered controversial for revealing power struggles within the Communist Party, hailed it as a “refreshing new way of interpreting that period of history” and applauded Lung for employing a humanistic historiography centred on individuals to overcome the master-narrative of history. Despite his unstinting praise, he went to great lengths to provide additional historical evidences to support Lung’s ideas put forth in BRBS, which gave the impression that it was lacking in historical scholarship as criticised by others (Li, 2011). Zhang Dachun (2011), a renowned Taiwanese writer wrote that “literature cannot conceal her deficient ‘fast-food’ historiography”, while Leo Lee (2009) and Lam (2009a, 2009b) felt that it was simply “overwriting” that killed the book. If history is inevitably represented by language of narration, how do we position the historicity, narrativity or authorial intervention of such a book, which is mainly a mosaic of oral histories ‘re-presented’ by a public intellect who is trying to advocate certain values?