詹杭倫《澳門媽閣廟題壁詩賞析》於《澳門人文學刋》出版

Source: Macao Daily

港大中文學院副教授詹杭倫博士的論文《澳門媽閣廟題壁詩賞析》被《澳門人文學刋》（二○一五年）收錄。

該刋創刋於二○○八年，力圖以深厚的人文關懷為基礎，以文學、史學、哲學等各人文領域學者的專業視野為觸角，推動人文學科全方位的發展與對話。

本期分設“比較文學與哲學”、“文藝前沿”、“嶺南文史”、“中國現代學人研究”、“文論研究”、“國學新證”及“書評”等欄目，涵蓋比較文學、比較哲學、現當代文學、文藝理論、國學、嶺南文化等不同學科的研究，視野新穎，內容豐富，不僅融匯了澳門本地學者和各地區人文學者的才思，且融合澳門本地的人文現象和其他地區的人文特色。

《澳門人文學刋》立足澳門，放眼大中華地區，立刋求文，致力於加強海內外交流互通，既開拓澳門人文研究的空間，也進一步挖掘澳門的人文印跡。龔剛在前言中概述人文研究的意義說，“人文研究者，名山事業也，性靈之學也，有化成天下之功，薪傳文明之效，亦有益人神智之用，引領時代之力。” 由連家生等題寫書法。

新一期學刊收錄十餘篇論文，作者來源廣泛，除澳大、城大學者，分別為美國加州大學、香港大學、北京大學、復旦大學、上海外國語大學、北京師範大學、上海師範大學、深圳大學等海內外高校教授、博士。其中……詹杭倫的《澳門媽閣廟題壁詩賞析》以澳門媽閣廟之中的題壁詞為研究中心，發掘澳門的人文情懷和深厚的人文底蘊。

瀏覽全文：http://www.macaodaily.com/html/2016-01/06/content_1058244.htm

Kam Louie and Chinese Masculinities in a Globalizing World

Chinese Masculinities in a Globalizing World
Kam Louie
2015, Routledge, 168 pp

This book explores how the traditional ideal of Chinese manhood – the "wen" (cultural attainment) and "wu" (martial prowess) dyad – has been transformed by the increasing integration of China in the international scene. It discusses how increased travel and contact between China and the West are having a profound impact; showing how increased interchange with Western men, for whom "wu" is a more significant ideal, has shifted the balance in the classic Chinese dichotomy; and how the huge emphasis on wealth creation in contemporary China has changed the notion of "wen" itself to include business management skills and monetary power. The book also considers the implications of Chinese "soft power" outside China for the reconfigurations in masculinity ideals in the global setting. The rising significance of Chinese culture enables Chinese cultural norms, including ideals of manhood, to be increasingly integrated in the international sphere and to become hybridised. The book also examines the impact of the Japanese and Korean waves on popular conceptions of desirable manhood in China. Overall, it demonstrates that social constructions of Chinese masculinity have changed more fundamentally and become more global in the last three decades than any other time in the last three thousand years.

Please click on the link below for more information from the publisher: https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415711289

School at the Crossroads: New Head of the School of Chinese and Her Visions

The School of Chinese has always occupied a special and somewhat separate place at HKU. It is the only unit where Chinese is the medium of instruction and, largely, of research output. And there is the challenge.

The School’s achievements have tended to be overlooked because of the language barrier and also because of a natural reticence of the minority to speak out. It is often mistaken as a “quiet” unit compared with others in the Faculty and the University.

Now, the new Head of the School, Dr Wu Cuncun, hopes to reach out to the university community and beyond.

“Many colleagues have a very strong Chinese education which makes us a little different from other schools in the Faculty. Part of my job is to get people to understand that,” she said. “I also hope colleagues can actively engage and keep in touch with the rest of the Faculty. We should feel comfortable to speak out and say what we think.”

One thing on Dr Wu’s mind is that the School’s research reputation has not been given its due recognition. While the School has a strong recent record in securing GRF grants, it did not do so well in last year’s research assessment exercise.

“I think one of the reasons is that more than 50 per cent of our publications are in Chinese-language journals. Theoretically, they are supposed to be treated equally [to English-language publications] but there are problems. I would like to see that change,” she said.

Recent recruits will help the cause because most have overseas qualifications from the West and are comfortable in English. (Dr Wu, after teaching at Nankai University in China for 10 years, spent 12 years teaching at Australian universities.) This should help the School to achieve her bigger ambitions.

“HKU is the leading university in Hong Kong and our School should play the leading role in Chinese studies. I hope we can consolidate the School’s international profile,” she said.

Dr Wu also wants to bring teaching more to the forefront and provide additional support for those teaching in the Chinese Language Enhancement Programme and Chinese Language Centre, which employ more than half of the School’s academic staff.

Her deep and infectious enthusiasm for HKU will undoubtedly be a help in her new position. She came here in 2010 because of the proximity to China, the research environment and the extensive networks with overseas universities – connections that have enabled her to spend 10 months at Harvard University as a Harvard-Yenching Visiting Scholar and two months at both Cambridge University and King’s College London.

“I love HKU and I think it’s a great place to do research. Most School members would agree there are lots of opportunities here,” she said.

“People have been really nice to me, so when my colleagues approached me to take up the headship, I felt I should do something to repay the School.”

The one trade-off is having to reduce her research activities, which focus on a topic that fascinates whatever the language and culture: sexuality in the late Ming and Qing dynasties, including homoeroticism, prostitution and pornography. “I really love my research, but I also like having the opportunity to support my colleagues and strengthen the School’s position,” she said.

See the original article in Arts Faculty Newsletter Winter 2015.

What’s the Chinese For ‘Grexit’? Eva Ng's Bilingual Glossary Website

A new website launched under the School of Chinese is providing interpreters, students and the public with a bilingual repository for translating terms from the news and other everyday sources that have not yet made it to the dictionary.

The “Resources for Interpreting” website has received more than 5,000 visits since its launch in July, as well as positive feedback and endorsements from scholars and professional interpreters in Hong Kong and abroad.

Dr Eva Ng instigated the website after spending more than a decade asking students to submit Chinese-English bilingual terms from the news on a weekly basis, which she compiled into a list and kept on her personal website. That list became the basis for the website’s searchable glossary database.

“I’m a former court interpreter and I know glossary compilation is an indispensable part of the practice of interpreting. Students in my interpreting class often come across terms that they don’t know the equivalent of in the target language, so it’s very important for them to have an extensive vocabulary in both languages and to build up that vocabulary from daily life,” Dr Ng said, citing buzzwords such as “Grexit” and “smartphone addicts.”

The bilingual glossary is turning out to be useful to more than students and teachers. Even professional interpreters use it as a handy toolkit.

The website also contains information on the practice, learning, teaching and research of interpreting, developed in collaboration with scholars from the University of New South Wales and Hong Kong Baptist University. “I wanted to create a website where all the information about interpreting is a click away,” Dr Ng added.

Dr Ng received two Knowledge Exchange Fund grants, one to set up the website in the 2014-15 academic year and the other to sustain and expand it during the current academic year. “It’s meaningless if we stop here, especially for bilingual terminology. You have to update it regularly to make it useful, so this continued support from the KE office is important,” she said.

Apart from news sources, Dr Ng and her research assistants have also drawn terminology from court proceedings that she obtained through her other projects. In 2009 she was given rare permission by the High Court to access the audio recordings of nine trials for teaching and research purposes. She received a grant from the Leung Kau Kui Research and Teaching Endowment Fund in 2009 and a Teaching Development Grant in 2014 to transcribe and develop the materials.

The recordings contain terms relating to such things as triad slang and sexual offences, which have been added to the website. The transcripts have been used in class to let students test themselves against the court interpreters and critique the professionals’ work, and in a mock trial with the Faculty of Law. Students have also visited the High Court to see interpreters live in action.

“I try to bring in authentic materials and give students a chance to learn from real people rather than just listening to a tape,” said Dr Ng, who hopes to further develop these court-based tools, as well as the website, to bridge the ever-evolving complexities of English and Chinese.

Resources for Interpreting is at http://www.interpreting.hku.hk/.

See the original article in Arts Faculty Newsletter Winter 2015.

Cultural Musings on the Dinner Table: Isaac Yue on Chinese Food Culture

Dr Isaac Yue uses food as a vehicle to travel to the past and bring ancient times back to life. Ironically, it would have been difficult for him to openly pursue this interest in times past because of the Confucian precept that men of virtue should steer clear of the kitchen.

“That saying was misinterpreted over time [it originally applied only to the slaughterhouse], but it became so widely accepted, that if men wrote down recipes they did it in private, in secret, because they didn’t want people to know,” Dr Yue said.

Fortunately for Dr Yue, enough Chinese sages were secretly interested in food that there are written recipes dating back to the Tang Dynasty. Recipes have even crept into classical literary texts. Taken together, these snippets provide insights into the status and preparation of food over time.

For example, pork was shunned at one point during the Song Dynasty, despite its centrality to Chinese cuisine before and after. Lamb had come into favour instead under the influence of the north and because it was more difficult and costly to obtain.

“In one particular menu from that period, we know the emperor was a guest at a general’s household. Pork was not served on the emperor’s table, but it was served on the other tables. They were ranking food,” he said.

“Anywhere in the world you will notice this pattern in which people don’t eat specific foods not because of the taste, but because of the ideas associated with them.”

The Night Revels of Han Xizai by 10th-century Chinese artist Gu Hongzhong

Tastes of long ago

Dr Yue is also interested in the elaborate preparations of certain dishes. In The Golden Lotus there is a detailed description about a pig’s head cooked using one log to control the fire and keep it at a low temperature, and in Dream of the Red Chamber of fetching mountain snow to make tea.

Dr Yue’s interest in food is not confined to ancient China. He has also been studying the first Western recipe book written in China, by the missionary Martha Crawford of Alabama in the mid-19th century. It instructed servants how to make beef stew, carrot cake and other foods for their Western employers, and also found an audience among Chinese readers interested in these new foods.

“Usually when we study history, we look at dead people. But food is something that can be brought back to life. I am asking, is what we eat today the same as what we ate 100 years ago?” said Dr Yue. Apart from reading about food, he has also tested some of the recipes in his modern kitchen and found they stand up. Men can cook.

See the original article at: http://www4.hku.hk/pubunit/bulletin/cover_story/page5.html

Wang Aihe and Painters' Secret Community during the Cultural Revolution

It's hard to imagine how doing a still-life painting of something as serene as a peach blossom in a vase can be called an act of counter-revolution, but that's the risk Dr Wang Aihe took every time she painted with her friends in the last years of the Mao Zedong era. Long before Wang joined the School of Chinese, she spent several years at the latter end of the Cultural Revolution as a member of an underground collective of young artists known as the Wuming (No Name) group in Beijing.

The group was formed spontaneously and comprised artists from different social classes, occupations and educational backgrounds. Their clandestine meetings were in direct contravention of the ban on free association and their individualistic work was a challenge to the orthodoxy of the day, which demanded that art represent and serve the state. Many of them sunned the social realist style prevalent at the time in favour of Western styles of painting.

They produced thousands of paintings but apart from a series of secretive exhibitions, little was known or recorded about the artists until 2010, when Wang put together a 13-volume publication and online database of their work. It also includes autobiographical essays by the artists on the historical and social contexts in which the paintings were produced. The 13 bilingual volumes help provide an important insight into the counter-culture of the day, and mark an important step in the research of modern Chinese art history.

(Text reproduced from Faculty of Arts 100: A Century in Words and Images.)

Please click on the following link to access the publisher's page: http://www.hkupress.org/Common/Reader/Products/ShowProduct.jsp?Pid=1&Version=0&Cid=16&Charset=iso-8859-1&page=-1&key=9789888028344