published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Kung fu is a cinematic genre investing on the discourse of the “real”. From Kwan Tak Hing, Bruce Lee, Jacky Chan, Jet Li to Donnie Yen, cinematic representations of kung fu are inextricably intertwined with realism – real techniques, real fighting and real body. This paper is a theoretical reflection of “real kung fu” as a cultural imaginary and its transfiguration since the 1950s. The discussion will focus on recent developments of the genre in two major industries – digitalization of kung fu in Hollywood and recent return of kung fu masters in Hong Kong through coproduction. Through a parallel analysis of kung fu productions in a global context, this project outlines and predicts possible reinventions of the genre in the first decade of the 21st century. On the one hand, the notion of “real kung fu” is reinvented by digital technology. By applying Jean Baudrillard’s idea of “simulacra and simulation” to the context of kung fu cinema, Leon Hunt’s tripartite scheme of authenticity and Edward Said’s Orientalist discourse are (de/re)constructed in an age of digital production. Through a scrutiny of The Matrix (1999) and Kung Fu Panda (2008), I will demonstrate that the convergence of digital cinema and digital gaming creates a new spectatorship that redefines kung fu with an alternative understanding of body, time and space. On the other hand, the Ip Man trilogy (2008-2010) and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010) show that there is a possible return of kung fu masters in local martial arts co-productions. Instead of a nostalgic return to the established genre in the 1970s, these realist kung fu films reinvent the genre by synthesizing different paradigms of realist styles and renegotiating the longstanding difficult relationship between nationalism and modernity. / published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

Self-translation is essentially a translation activity that involves one undertaking the task of rendering his/her own writings. A fundamental difference between conventional or third-party translators and self-translators is the fact that the latter has better access to their original intentions and the original cultural context of their work than the former. In spite of this seemingly ideal condition, together with the fact that self-translation has been practiced for centuries, the amount of academic interest it has received does not accurately reflect its true value and potential. Consequently, this dynamic practice has been underrated and frowned upon in literary studies until recent years. On the other hand, for many years, Yu Kwang-chung has been noted as a prolific and versatile poet and prose-writer but not so much as a translator and still less as a self-translator. This study, therefore, seeks to identify the efforts and contributions made by Yu Kwang-chung within the translation arena and to raise awareness on the usefulness of self-translations in helping us to understand Yu Kwang-chung’s works as a whole. Through conducting detailed investigations on existing literature, this study reveals the conscientious attitude Yu holds towards his translation career. Based on a complementary reading and analysis of Yu’s views on translation and the self-translation strategies he employs in rendering his bilingual book, The Night watchman, this research project identifies two unique features of Yu’s self-translation: in terms of sound, Yu tends to give musicality priority over mere correctness so as to maximize the musical qualities in his self-translation; with regards to sense, Yu’s manipulation on the meanings of imageries and cultural allusions reflects and reinforces the bicultural consciousness that is unique to Yu Kwang-chung’s works and himself as a literary figure. Two contrastive studies are also conducted to contrast the nature and characteristics of self-translation and third-party translations. These two studies demonstrate that Yu treats his self-translations and his translations of other people’s work very differently. While Yu generally follows the original closely when translating the works of other poets, his self-translations are proved to be much more liberal and flexible in nature. Finally, this study attempts to answer the question of whether Yu’s self-translation is a translation or a new creation. Despite the numerous alterations made, Yu faithfully translates the essence of his own originalities and tries to stay true to himself in the English text. In addition, since no translation can be completely new, this study takes the stance that Yu’s self-translation is not a new creation although the few extreme cases found in The Night Watchman may be treated as rewritings of the original. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

China entered its revolutionary stage of commercial development in the 10th to 13th centuries. Provided with its relatively stable political and economical environment, its rapid development in commercialization, urbanization and population was obviously recorded in history. Commercial performing spaces of the Chinese drama and opera, also known as the “Goulan theatres”, were vastly developed in a number of cities and towns in the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties (960-1279). This paper would study the influence of this kind of commercial performance on the development of the Chinese Opera. Adopting the methodology by Alan P. Merriam (1923-1980) on ethnomusicology, the work of this paper was divided into three stages. First, the relevant data, including a large amount of notes written by Song scholars, and the unearthed historical relics were collected. Then the collected data was put into contextual analysis. Finally, the conclusion obtained was applied on explain another relevant phenomenon, how the mature Chinese Classical opera became so well developed in the late Song Period and early Yuen Period(1271-1368). The first chapter is the introduction, which had been divided into three parts, the significance of the study, the past studies, and the research method. The second and third chapters tried to define the terms: Chinese drama, Chinese Opera and the conception of commercial performing areas in Song Period. The fourth chapter tried to explain why the commercial theatres could be well developed in the Song Period. The fifth chapter studied the development of the commercial theatres in the cities in the Song Period. The sixth and seventh chapters studied the architectural environment and the inter-personal relationships of the commercial theatres. The eighth and ninth chapters studied the ecology of different dramatic and non-dramatic genres of classical performing arts in the commercial theatres. The last chapter emphasized the entertaining and competitive properties of the commercial theatre, in where different cultural exchanges are processed. Therefore, the mature Chinese Opera was well developed in the Goulan theatres in the late Song and early Yuen Period. / published_or_final_version / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts

The thesis was an in-depth study of the poetics and poetry of Jing School京派in modern Chinese literature. Jing School was a loosely formed but comprehensive and influential literary school emerged in Beijing in the early 1930s. It was an all-round literary school, which produced almost all kinds of literary works, including literary critic, fiction, prose, drama and poetry. However, only few studies focused on its achievements in the field of poetry. This study was undertaken to provide some insights into the poetic nature of Jing School and its contributions to the development of modern Chinese poetry. Unlike the Leftist and Right-wing writers in the same period, poets of Jing School persisted in composing pure poetry, which was advocated by the French symbolists. However, it was also the main aesthetic feature of traditional Chinese poetry, especially the poetry in the late Tang period. In this way, poets of Jing School successfully integrated the modern techniques and ideas employed in the western symbolist poetry, such as symbols, metaphors and synaesthesia, with those traditional artistic conceptions used in classical Chinese poetry. As a result, their works stayed away from political topics and emphasized on literary techniques. Together with poetry of other literary schools, they thereby created the golden age of modern Chinese poetry in the mid-1930s. To fully explicate the poetic nature of Jing School, the first chapter of the thesis reconstructed the background, the memberships as well as the literary pursuits of Jing School by analysing their publications on journals and supplements of newspapers that edited by Jing School members. The literary salons held by inspiring leaders of Jing School, Zhu Guangqian 朱光潛 and Lin Huiyin 林徽因 had also been re-examined. The following two chapters looked into the characteristics and significances of poetry and poetics of Jing School respectively. Poems of Feiming 廢名 and Bian Zhilin 卞之琳, poetics of Zhu Guangqian, Liang Zongdai 梁宗岱, Feiming and Lin Gen 林庚 have been taken as examples for further exploration of the aesthetic pursuits of Jing School. The last chapter proceeded to examine the fate of Jing School during and after the Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945). During the war time, some poets of Jing School shifted their lyrical writing style to realistic and political writing style. Among them, He Qifang 何其芳 was the most prominent figure and his case has been studied thoroughly in this chapter. Besides, the decline of the aesthetic pursuits of Jing School has also been reflected in the failure of resuming the publication of Wenxue Zazhi 文學雜誌, the most important journal of Jing School, after the victory. In short, the most distinguished feature of the poetics and poetry of Jing School was the flawless integration of the essence of western modernity and that of Chinese tradition. The significance of the integration and the controversial issues aroused by this aesthetic pursuit have been scrutinized and summarized in the concluding chapter. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis aims to point out primarily the layered meanings behind Taiping art. It will provide an overview of the art made by the Taipings, and thereafter show how different political parties in post-Taiping China have manipulated the images and values of the Taipings to their advantage. A discussion of each party’s ideology will also be included. The contextual approach adopted by this thesis intends to illustrate the relationship between art and the Taiping Rebellion over time. The visual materials discussed in this thesis are the murals and wood engravings of the Taipings, a series of paintings made in 1886 as part of an imperial project and Shanghai lithographic illustrated publications in relation to the project, and the visual propaganda of Nationalists and Communists of the twentieth century which embody the two parties’ own interpretations of Taiping history. In view of the complexity of the subject, this thesis is primarily an information collecting exercise, offering a wider academic perspective, and revealing the characteristics of the visual works related to the Taipings, so that there can be more interpretations of the nuances of the Taiping Rebellion in the study of Chinese art history. / published_or_final_version / Humanities / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese Language and Literature / Master / Master of Arts

“Lianzhu” style (連珠體) is a kind of miniature parallel prose (駢文) created by Yang Xiong (揚雄53 B.C.–18 A.D.) in Western Han Dynasty (西漢).It was one of the most popular literary styles in Six Dynasties (六朝).The first great author of “Lianzhu” style was Lu Ji (陸機261 – 303) in Jin Dynasty (晉代). His “Lianzhu”, named “Yanlianzhu” (演連珠). After Lu Ji, Yu Xin’s (庾信513–581) “Nilianzhu”(擬連珠) presented the most successful achievement of Southern and Northern Dynasties (南北朝). “Nilianzhu” presented his sorrows of home country (鄉關之思), whose contents were completely different from the traditional Yang Xiong’s and Lu Ji’s “Lianzhu” styles. His consummate techniques influenced the later authors. It is undeniable that Yu Xin was one of the best authors of “Lianzhu” style. Consequently, this dissertation aims at discussing the literary value of Yu Xin’s “Nilianzhu”. The dissertation consists of 8 chapters. The first chapter introducesthe purpose of research, results of previous studies ,framework and method of this dissertation. The second chapter is divided into two parts. The first part aims at defining “Lianzhu” style and Yu Xin’s “Nilianzhu”. The second part is a brief introduction of 6 representative writers before Yu Xin. The third chapter introduces the biography of Yu Xin and investigates on the creation year of Yu Xin’s “Nilianzhu”. The fourth chapter is a version inquiry of Yu Xin’s “Nilianzhu”. / published_or_final_version / Chinese Language and Literature / Master / Master of Arts

This thesis explores the ways in which the Opium War has been represented in both non-fictional and fictional Anglophone narratives. It looks at the construction of various 19th century discourses surrounding this historical event and the different meanings it has been endowed with through such discourses. It then examines the ways in which some of those meanings have been challenged in more recent accounts. The purpose of this thesis is to show how and why certain ideas are constructed and propagated, and how these in turn can be questioned, challenged and reinterpreted, giving us a wider perspective, and thus better understanding, of the said event. The study is divided into two parts: non-fiction and fiction. The non-fiction section includes two chapters on the discourses of the Opium War, one on translation and one on historical texts while the second section focuses on two contemporary fictional narratives of the Opium War. Chapters one and two are based on a selection of 19th century archival documents and constitute a discussion of the discourses that have been formed around the Opium War in five specific fields: political, economic, religious, medical and legal. An analysis of these discourses will show them to be part of a larger sinophobic discourse that constructed China as Britain’s cultural inferior around the time of the conflict. To view the Opium War in terms of cultural encounter requires a discussion of translation. Chapter three investigates the role and importance of translation and translators in creating and/ or sustaining the meanings created by these various discourses. Chapter four is an analysis of two more recent historical narratives: one a history of opium, the other a history of the Opium War. These texts contribute to an expanded understanding of the 19th century conflict as they offer different and more contemporary meanings with regard to the war that partly challenge earlier ones. Because of that, they also mark a transition towards my discussion of fictional narratives where the focus is on introducing new speaking positions that contest those ideas, images and ‘truths’ propagated by narratives such as those that are part of the Opium War discourses. Chapter five investigates how Timothy Mo’s An Insular Possession goes against an important aspect of such discourses, that of hierarchy, by emphasizing cultural incommensurability and cross-cultural miscommunication between the British and the Chinese while refusing to stratify the two into cultural and civilizational hierarchies. Chapter six examines the ways in which Amitav Ghosh invents a new narrative of the Opium War in the first two parts of an intended trilogy: Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke. This last chapter looks at how, by focusing on the silenced Indian aspect of the Opium War and the unexplored Sino-Indian side of the conflict, Ghosh transforms the war from an exclusively Sino-British to a more global event. / published_or_final_version / English / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy