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Book Review Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form by King-Kok Cheung

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Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan | Date of Publication: 2016 | Language: English | ISBN: 978-1137453532

Reviewed by

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Windy Xiao Xue [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]

Department of English, University of Macau

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.23

Received: 30 April 2021 | Revised: 29 July 2021 | Accepted: 23 Aug 2021 | First Published: 5 February 2022

(This review is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Book Review Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form by King-Kok Cheung

Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form is a compelling model in the transnational comparative study, which examines the consciousness and aesthetics of Chinese American literature by throwing off shackles of language, culture and literary traditions.

“It looks to and from both the United States and China to reveal the multiple engagements of American-born and Sinophone writers”(1).

The author King-Kok Cheung, professor of Asian American Studies at UCLA, is an intellectual migrant standing at the crossroad between American and Chinese culture. This background affords her insight into the commonalities and differences between Chinese and Chinese American literature and the awareness of the significance of making the muffled voice heard on the two shores.

The whole book is divided into two parts, focusing on gender and genre & form respectively. The first part begins with the long-standing feud between Frank Chin and Maxine Hong Kingston, which Cheung points out seems to center on the problem of literary authenticity, but reveals the crisis of masculine identity in Asian American men, that is, males fear that their already asexual image would be further tarnished by Kingston’s memoir. To fully analyze this, in Chapter 2 Cheung introduces wen-wu dyad in traditional Chinese norms to disclose that reconstructing masculine identity by emphasizing wu (martial arts) and ignoring wen (arts) is a mistake as it merely caters to the western ideal; after using protagonists in China Boy by Gus Lee and Pangs of love by David Wong Louie to support this view in Chapter 3, Cheung further argues that this way to revive the image of Asian males is “a double bind” (p.94): if simply chasing the western ideal, they always fall short of it and risk restoring the patriarchal order; if sticking to Chinese wenren (poet-scholar), they feel afraid to perpetuate the existing stereotype. To solve this dilemma, Cheung proposes that Asian Americans should “resist one-way adaptation and turn racial stereotype on its head and into a source of inspiration” (p.95), recodifying traditional Chinese male image as manly, sexual and seductive, and teaching people from other cultural backgrounds to appreciate the charisma. Thereupon, in Chapter 4 and 5, she propounds and analyzes her ideal of masculinity—— Xu Zhimo, a romantic poet, and protagonists from American Knees by Shawn Wong, The Winged Seed by Li-Young Lee and Phoenix Eyes by Russell Leong, whose masculinity is demonstrated through arts and solicitude.

Part Two explores various innovations that Chinese and Chinese American writers have attempted. It first, in Chapter 6, zeros in on the innovation in the genre of autobiography, arguing that Chinese and Chinese American writers have fused familial, social and ethnic subjectivity into this genre, making this navel-gazing genre cross the boundaries of “generations, nations, epochs, race, gender, class, languages, accents, even across fact and fiction” (p.195). Chapter 7 examines a short story The Photograph written by Chinese author Bing Xin about a white woman’s life in China. Its uniqueness lies in its reversal of white gaze, and its description of the complexity of dynamics between two cultures. The last two chapters focus on innovation in language done by immigrant writer Ha Jin, who explores his bilingual style of expression, and poets Marilyn Chin and Russell Leong, who manoeuvre slanted allusion to Chinese tropes to bridge the gap between two cultures. 

One of the strengths of this study, in my opinion, is that the innovation of autobiographies is read through a transcultural lens. Going beyond the prolonged controversy of literary authenticity in this field, Cheung turns to analyze the root that generates the transformation of the autobiography. She adopts the concept of Gish Jen’s “two very different models of self-construal, independent and interdependent self” (p.173): the former is associated to the west, particularly America, while the latter is associated to the east, including China. Normally, autobiography is a western genre constantly showing the independent and individual self, while Asian American writers infuse this American “independent self” with the Chinese “interdependent self”. Thus, compared with Chinese autobiography writers, they stress self-invention and empowerment; compared with western autobiographers, they write less subjectively, constructing a multi-voiced narrative, taking account of the history and social environment, and fighting against the dominant culture. This fresh way to look at the innovation of Asian American literature is insightful and incisive. From such a vantage of point, we should not appreciate Asian American literature according to a single standard or mores but treat it as a convergence of two cultures.

Since this book covers literary works in both Chinese and English, an inconvenience that readers might encounter is the different translations of one single word or character. For example, Chapter 2 mentions several times Guan Yu, a character from a Chinese Classic The Three Kingdoms. But due to the different translations, he is expressed as Guan Yu (his name in Pinyin), or Guan Gong (his honorific in Pinyin), or Kwan Kung (his honorific in Cantonese). Therefore, it might be confusing for readers who are not familiar with Chinese culture. However, Cheung, who has predicted this potential difficulty for non-Chinese readers, adds an index at the end of this book which lists all the works and writers that she has mentioned in the book with different versions of names. In this way, readers can refer to this part for the clarification of these proper names.

To conclude, Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form is an inclusive comparative study on Asian American Literature, which covers a wide range of works written by Sinophone, American-born, and immigrant writers, be they autobiographies which rewrite feminine codes, novels which present alternatives to masculinity, short stories which critique orientalism, or poems which assert heritage from both Chinese and Western cultures. The eclectic selection of literary works and the embracing attitude towards innovations in Asian American literature are not only intriguing to readers but also illuminating to postgraduate students and scholars in this field.

References

Cheung, K. (2016). Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form. Palgrave Macmillan.

Windy Xiao Xue is currently an MA student in the English department of the University of Macau. She is researching in the field of Asian American literature.

Book Review: Translingual Words: An East Asian Lexical Encounter with English by Jieun Kiaer

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The book examines the history and reasons for the development of the translingual process, its two-way influence on culture and the lexicon of both parties combined with clear interpretations of linguistic terms.

Publisher: Routledge. Date of Publication: 2019. Language: English. ISBN: 9780367607517

Reviewed by

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Yi Xuan Jia [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]

University of Macau, Macau

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–4. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.22

Received: 16 Mar 2021 | Revised: 9 June 2021 | Accepted: 22 Oct 2021 | First Published: 5 February 2022

(This review is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Book Review: Translingual Words: An East Asian Lexical Encounter with English by Jieun Kiaer

The book examines the history and reasons for the development of the translingual process, its two-way influence on culture and the lexicon of both parties combined with clear interpretations of linguistic terms. The first chapter lays a theoretical foundation for the following two parts, which respectively introduce two formation pathways of the words. The author strives to raise awareness of translation theories beyond Europe and promotes the legitimacy of translingual words.

The author Jieun Kiaer is a Korean linguist who is currently the Associate Professor of Korean Language and Linguistics at the University of Oxford, UK. Kiaer’s research interests lie in theoretical linguistics, applied linguistics as well as Korean and East Asian linguistics. Before this book, Kiaer has published works in relevant fields, such as The History of English Loanwords in Korean (2014) and Hybrid Words in Korea and Japanese: A strange Brew or an Asset for Global English (2017). Based on previous research, this work expands the topics to East Asia. Familiar with both European and Asian culture, Kiaer gives down-to-earth examples of translingual words and analyzes them from linguistic, cultural and sociopolitical perspectives.

In terms of methodology, the online database Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is used as a criterion for tracing translingual words and defining their degree of fusion in English culture. The book also includes a large amount of content analysis of social media, such as how the words are used in the context of local culture, which also provides examples used in the book. Google Trends and Google N-gram are deployed for tracing the use of English words for both inner and outer English speakers.

 Basics of Translingual Words

The author considers terms like “borrowed words” or “loanwords” inappropriate given that English has a global identity and does not grant ownership to anyone. Therefore, Kiaer introduces and clarifies the definition of related terms, such as “foreign words,” “hybrid words,” “subcultural words” and “translingual words” in the four chapters of the first part. This is crucial because these terms are referred to throughout the book. Translingual words include the former three terms, and they can be English words in the form of Eastern languages or the romanization of Eastern languages.

Kiaer introduces the lexicon interaction model and the sunflower model to show how words’ meanings are negotiated and transformed between cultures, emphasizing the function of English as Lingua Franca (ELF). A large number of examples in Chinese, Korea and Japan are used to explain terms and theories. The author compares the translingual process of the three countries, revealing how socio-political and historic factors can affect the speed and way of lexical integration. Colonization was identified as the initiator of translanguaging, and words flow mainly from European countries to Asian countries in the earlier historical stage, though the distinction between foreign words and native words is blurred in the age of globalization and digitalization. According to ELF, the existence of hybrid words is justified since they are integrated into local culture (p. 20). This kind of words faces prejudice, though they are “an indispensable part of a multilingual society and may even be the greatest asset of our future lexicon” on the way to “a new world order in languages” (Graddol, 2006, p. 23) along with globalization. Subcultural words, the once considered short-lived words, are valued for allowing people of international backgrounds to communicate on the internet, especially in Japan and Korea, where non-English words enter the English lexicon despite the prejudice they receive in reality. Emoji is compared with translingual words since they both have shareability and semantic value.

 Words from East Asian to English Lexicon

As is mentioned above, translanguaging can be carried out in both directions, from East Asian to European, and vice versa. The second part of the book focuses on the analysis of East Asian words in English. The author starts from the history in the chapter “First Arrivals, ” then analyzes various media platforms with case studies to explore the settlement of the words and examines attitudes of the locals towards translingual words.

Kiaer sorts out the sequences of major historical and political stages that affect the process and differentiates degrees in which Chinese, Japanese and Korean enter the English lexicon. Graphs and statistics are used to demonstrate the difference in amount and categories of settled words from the three languages. Problems in defining East Asian words are carried out since most of them are of Sinitic origin, making it hard to categorize which one of the three countries the words come from. East Asian words’ popularization through Southeast Asian English is identified as a shortcut to translanguaging, but the author does not include a large number of ethnic Chinese as a possible explanation.

Content and data analysis in registers such as OED (dictionary), magazines and newspapers, and social media platforms are then used to discuss the settling patterns of the words. The three categories of media have incremental tolerance for translingual words. The author suggests that the conventional attitude of OED to translingual words should be shifted given that English is entering a “multilingual era” (p. 83). Case studies on The Times, New York Times, and The Economists show the life span and diverse preferences of Asian-born words in different press or countries. Social media platforms are where Asian words are treated as part of the English lexicon and used in daily life by the general public. Hashtags are used to trace the variation of Romanisations and the combination of the words. The former results from the unsmooth procedure (p. 89) and controversial pronunciation adaptation methods. Kiaer uses graphs to show the declining frequencies of “special treatment” (p. 93) to selected Asian words, which indicates their integration into the English lexicon in time.

To explore the effect of translinguism in the socio-linguistic field, the author takes a survey among British native university students and concludes that young British are open to translingual words and are more familiar with Japanese words. However, it should be noted that this result does not reflect the general attitude of young British, since education level may be a variable to openness to Asian words and culture.

 Words from English to East Asian Lexicon

The last part is about the existence of English words in East Asia. Kiaer introduces the directly imported words which closely link with history in the chapter, analyzes the formation mechanism and attitudes towards localized English words in the next chapter, and eventually identifies global words.

To analyze why and how the words are directly imported, the author introduces the linguistic landscape shift from Chinese (Sino-centric) to English in Korea and Japan, which results in the increasing familiarity of English rather than Chinese among citizens. Following Japan, Korea and China start to accept English as a language which brings in western culture and modernity. The expansion of the usage of words originated from English from science to genuine lexicon of daily life, from culture borrowing to westernization of local words can be observed and studied through media, where the author generalizes the way language usage pattern changes. Kiaer refers to survey results in Japan and Korea to conclude that the use of English words results simply from convenience with little prejudice towards the English words, though some scholars argue that the phenomenon reflects “flunkeyism towards the West” (Shin, 2009, p. 104). Linguistic experts believe it is beneficial for communication, though it raises awareness of the negative influence on the native lexicon.

Compared with Korea and Japan, China is much slower in exchanging lexicon with English words. Lexical exchanges are visible mainly on brand and shop names, in which semiotic values are adopted. The “non-sensical” (p. 134) use of English words in Taiwan is justified because of this. Kiaer refers to terms and theories in word-formation to explain the patterns of locally made word formation in Japanese and Korean as well as difficulties to hybrid Chinese with English. Four categories of global words are chosen for exploration and analysis: food words, fashion and cosmetic words, socio-cultural words and foreign branding. The author introduces their evolution and impact on the international lexicon, in which process the meaning of words expand.

The overall structure of the book is clear, presenting a complete view of the translanguaging phenomenon between the western and eastern worlds throughout history. The book shows the influence of history, politics, culture and language on each other, the fact that language is dynamic and is always negotiated by people, and forecasts the future trend of further translinguism. Terms and theories of linguistics are introduced with adequate frequency, plain explanation and examples, making the book both academic and friendly to newcomers. Nevertheless, the third part seems to be flooded with examples, making the logic harder to follow than previous chapters. The way of interpretation in this book respects the countries or regions mentioned in the book and the author puts the languages and their hybrid versions in equal positions. Kiaer sees the translingual process from a global view, which may result from her positive attitude towards translingual words, though it should be noted that the effect should be viewed more critically concerning its influence on local culture, education, and ideology. The book uses unsophisticated language to show research data and examples, which makes the book easily understood, even for those unfamiliar with Asian languages or without linguistic background.

References

Kiaer, J. (2019). Translingual Words: An East Asian Lexical Encounter with English (1st ed.). Routledge.

Kiaer, J. (2014). The history of English loanwords in Korean. Munich: LINCOM Europa.

Kiaer, J., & Bordilovskaya, A. (2017). Hybrid English words in Korean and Japanese: A strange brew or an asset for Global English? Asian Englishes, 19(2), 169–187.

Graddol, D. (2006). English Next (Vol. 62). London: British Council.

Shin, M.-S. (2009). The ‘Almighty English’ phenomenon in our era. Foreign Language Education Research, 12, 78–94.

Yi Xuan, Jia is currently finishing her bachelor’s degree at the University of Macau. Jia is especially enthusiastic about linguistics, cultural studies and education, where she wishes to continue her graduate studies.

 

Book Review: Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives edited by Olga Castro and Emek Ergun

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Publisher: Routledge. Date of Publication: 2017. Language: English. ISBN: 9780367365813

Reviewed by

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] John Chi Chon FONG [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]

Department of English, University of Macau, Macau

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–4. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.21

Received: 13 Sept 2021 | Accepted: 22 Oct 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This review is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Book Review: Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives edited by Olga Castro and Emek Ergun

Currently, there are hardly any works that explicitly claim the political title “feminist” or “activist” while fully exploring feminist translation. Without necessarily embracing and recognizing the transgressive or reactionary processes of translation in feminist movements and activisms, existing collections generally explore the “connections between gender and translation or women and translation” (p. 2). This essay collection suggests that the important role of translation in the trans/formation of feminist politics requires more analytical recognition. Hence, the authors put the “F word” back into the discussion in their chapters, focusing on the roles of translation in the development of feminisms.

The editors also claim that the recent Feminist Translation Studies (FTS) scholarship fails to reveal the current cross-cultural increased amount of attention given to feminist translation. They point out this gap “not only perpetuates the false impression that feminist translation is exclusively on and of the west, but also discourages further knowledge production on and of non-western realities by keeping new scholarship deterred or invisible” (p. 3). However, the book is still in English, and Europe and Anglo-America still take a large space in the collection. The very gap regarding FTS scholarship produced in non-hegemonic languages that they are criticizing remains a crucial one.

The essays collected in Olga Castro and Emek Ergun’s Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives seek both to address some major gaps in FTS and to inspire “the formation of new connections between translation studies, feminist theories, queer theory, linguistics, anthropology, postcolonial studies, history, philosophy, cultural studies, globalization studies, comparative literature and critical pedagogies” (p. 4). The essay collection is organized into three sections: Feminist Translation in Theory; Feminist Translation in Transition and Feminist Translation in Action. Theoretical frameworks in the feminist translation are the main focus in Section I, while case studies framed in different geohistorical contexts are detailed in Section III. The second section of this collection takes the form of a roundtable conversation that serves as a hinge and brings together seven leading scholars across disciplines as they discuss and share their opinions about what feminist politics of translation means to them.

As explained by the editors in the introduction, this collection is devoted to emphasizing the roles of translation in the making of the feminist transnational. They hope to re-envision “the future of the transnational as a polyphonic space where translation (as a feminist praxis) is embraced as a tool and model of cross-border dialogue, resistance, solidarity and activism in pursuit of justice and equality for all” (p. 1). In doing so, the editors argue for new, innovative feminist approaches to the study of translation in the era of transnational feminism.

The essays in Section I, “Feminist Translation in Theory”, propose inventive theoretical frameworks for feminist translation practice and study. José Santaemilia, in “A Corpus-Based Analysis of Terminology in Gender and Translation Research: The Case of Feminist Translation,” engages in a corpus analysis of the key terms used to define the field, focusing particularly on the usage and definition of “feminist translation” over the years. As Santaemilia put it, “in order to better understand where the field currently stands and is heading, we need a critical look at its key terms” (p. 6). The chapter presents an overview of the main concerns, debates, and current status of FTS in academia. In “Transnational Feminist Solidarities and the Ethics of Translation,” Damien Tissot draws on the philosophy of Paul Ricœur, Etienne Balibar, and Judith Butler. The author argues that, when conceived in translation, the universal can be a useful tool to achieve the project of politics and ethics of translation. Readers of this chapter will learn about what he calls “a feminist ethics of translation,” which sees translation as a way of “recognising and embracing the differences of the Other without fetishising them” (p. 6).

On the topic of English hegemony, María Reimóndez raises accusations that “an Anglo-Euro-centric epistemology is privileged over other kinds of knowledge” (p. 45), highlighting the shortcomings of the feminist translation praxis. The author proposes the notion of polyphony with references to Mikhail Bakhtin to argue that “the goal of feminist and postcolonial translation is to create a space for multiple voices to be heard” (p. 44). Similarly, Lola Sánchez, in her case study of the titles selected for publication in the Spanish book series Feminismos, reveals that while the presence of feminist knowledge/voices from other parts of the world is inexistent or scarce, most of the translated works are from countries with imperial powers (the US, the UK, France, Italy, and Germany).

Cornelia Möser, in “Gender Travelling across France, Germany and the US: The Feminist Gender Debates as Cultural Translations,” reconfigures translation “as a productive act of meaning-making … [that] undermines dichotomous gendered ideas about translation (when conceptualized as a copy, secondary and feminine), original (when conceptualized as authentic, primary and masculine) and nationality (that is conceptualized around claims of ‘authentic’ and ‘pure’)” (p. 80). The author analyzes the travels within feminist debates on “gender” in France, Germany and the US, exploring the productivity of translation. She also invokes scholars, such as Edward Said, Walter Benjamin, and Naoki Sakai, to emphasize the creative potential of translation for feminist knowledge production. The first section is concluded by Ergun and Castro’s chapter in which they present the theoretical framework behind their vision of feminist translation as a promising pedagogical tool and explain how it can be practised in different courses that aim to promote equality and help students appreciate differences.

The second section of the collection is a cross-disciplinary roundtable chapter where seven prominent feminist scholars—Richa Nagar, Kathy Davis, Judith Butler, AnaLouise Keating, Claudia de Lima Costa, Sonia E. Alvarez and Ay?e Gül Alt?nay—engage in a discussion about a variety of issues linked to the feminist politics of translation. This chapter demonstrates the rich epistemic potential of interdisciplinary studies and conversations on feminist translation. The participants explore the essential role of translation in the development and success of transnational feminist activism. As Butler states, “there can be no solidarity without translation, and certainly no global solidarity” (p. 113).

The book’s third section opens with Justine M. Pas and Magdalena J. Zaborowska’s essay, where the authors analyze the feminist translation strategies used in English translations of interviews conducted in Polish, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil, and Hindi for the Global Feminisms project (GFP), an oral history project initiated at the University of Michigan, the US. The chapter illustrates how GFP’s translational strategies help explain to the readers the complexity, diversity, and legitimacy of international feminisms. In the next chapter, Annarita Taronna studies Italian writer Joyce Lussu’s activist translations and her intersectional feminism. Taronna discusses how Lussu has challenged the prescriptive translation norms with her translation method. In Lussu’s translations, concerns of local and global equality and justice prevail over preoccupations with “faithful” linguistic transfer.

In “Donne è bello and the Role of Translation in the Migration of ‘Consciousness-Raising’ from the US to Italy,” Elena Basilio presents an analysis of “Un programma per le femministe: prender coscienza” which was published in Donne è bello—a 1972 volume comprising a selection of translated essays of US-American radical feminists by the Italian feminist collective “Anabasi”. This chapter underlines the important role played by translation and translators’ strategies in the diffusion of radical feminist practices from the US to Italy. Similarly, focusing on the cross-border travels of feminist theories, Sergi Mainer contextualizes the historical and geopolitical development of anarcha-feminism and translation from Germany to Spain.

Rebecca S. Robinson, in her essay, attempts to explore how movements, such as SlutWalk, translated into other receiving cultures by examining the Moroccan case. The author focuses particularly on the translation of its controversial use of “slut” in the title of their campaign. In doing so, this chapter proves the dialogic power of translation and that SlutWalk was transplanted in Morocco to trigger public debates about street harassment and related gender norms. In “The Translator and the Transgressive: Encountering Sexual Alterity in Catherine Millet’s La vie sexuelle de Catherine M.,” Pauline Henry-Tierney highlights the relevance of feminist translator. Henry-Tierney’s analysis explains the subjective transformative experiences of the feminist translator by employing theoretical concepts devised by thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler. In the final chapter, Serena Bassi examines the Italian localization of the US-based “It Gets Better” (IGB) campaign. The chapter offers practical lessons for students of translation to rethink translation as a form of activism to construct their own identities.

The essays in “Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives” set out to be a major contribution to the field of Feminist Translation Studies. The diversity of voices and visions expands the definition of feminist translation from the conventional framing to a more intersectional one. The information covered in this volume provides the student of translation studies some additional and welcome relief to feminist theories and practices, enlarging their focus of feminist politics beyond a gender-only agenda. The volume will no doubt be valuable to those relatively new to FTS, as it provides innovative models and insights that are vital in the study of translation in the era of transnational feminism. This collection of essays is indeed a useful reference book for FTS.

Reference

Castro, O., & Ergun, E. (2017). Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives. Routledge.

Author’s bio-note

John Chi Chon FONG obtained his B.A. in English Studies from the University of Macau where he worked as a Research Assistant over the summer. His research interests include feminist translation, gender and language.

Book Review: Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration by Carlos M. Piocos III

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Publisher: Routledge. Date of Publication: 2021. Language: English. ISBN: 9780367279165

Reviewed by

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Jose Kervin Cesar B. Calabias [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]

Department of Cultural Studies,  Lingnan University

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.19

Received: 27 April 2021 | Revised: 22 Oct 2021 | Accepted: 22 Oct 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This review is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Book Review: Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration by Carlos M. Piocos III

Carlos Piocos’s ground-breaking book, Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration published earlier this year by Routledge, provides an in-depth analysis of the intimate labour(ed) landscape of Filipina and Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong and Singapore, and how their (im)mobilities are not just hastened and aggravated by the neoliberal framework of global labor and the policies of their sending and receiving nation-states, but also in terms of the emotionality that circulates within the global care chains network. Piocos specifically turns our attention to the “felt” politics that emanate from films and fictions of and by Southeast Asian migrant workers and how these cultural productions create an affective economy that, according to him, is not just “sticky” as feminist critic Sarah Ahmed describes, but demonstrates varying viscosities of “thickening and thinning out,” reflecting a “messiness” of feelings that do not necessarily coalesce in these texts (p. 10).

The author tracts the unevenness of affect within the textual tropes of “belonging and displacement, shame and desire, vulnerability and victimization, and their sacrifices for their home and homeland” (p. 5) that are imbricated in the featured migrant print and visual media; Xyza Cruz Bacani’s photographs in her book, We are Like Air; the short stories of Indonesian migrant worker-writers, Susie Utomo, Erfa Handayani, Maria Bo Niok, Tiwi, Juwanna, Susana Nisa, Arista Devi, Indira Margareta and Etik Juwita; the novels Soledad’s Sister by Jose Dalisay and Sebongkah Tanah Retak (A Lump of Cracked Land) by Rida Fitria; the films Remittance by Patrick Daly and Joel Fendelman, Anthony Chen’s Ilo Ilo, Still Human by Oliver Chan Siu-Kuen, and from Filipino directors Mes de Guzman and Zig Madamba Dulay, Balikbayan Box and Bagahe, respectively; and migrant documentaries Mengusahakan Cinta (Effort for Love) by Ani Ema Susanti and Sunday Beauty Queen by Baby Ruth Villarama. These are structured into five chapters that illustrate the landscape and politics of migrant “feelings.” While each chapter focuses on a certain affect(s), these chapters “affect” each other by consciously aligning the discussions to connect structurally and emotionally. In this way, migrant feelings emanating from these cultural productions are not discrete emotional categories but are thickening and thinning out beyond the generic constraint and, by extension, permeating within the actual spaces and bodies of domestic migration in both countries. The analysis drawn across generic and formal considerations shows that “border crossing” among migrants does not just happen geographically but extends to the genres of migrant cultural production from which this “rhizomatic” quality merits equal attention. Piocos interfaces his close reading of these texts against the wider discourses impinging Southeast Asian migrant labour and how the affects teased out from these texts influence government “mood” and policy on domestic migration (such as in the featured opinions of Indonesian president Joko Widodo, former Philippine president Ninoy Aquino, and Hong Kong legislator, Regina Ip), reinforce or negate popular representations of migrant labourers, and ultimately show how the interiority of feelings can be harnessed to affect the on-going political movements and struggles of migrant workers in Singapore and Hong Kong. All these shows what Piocos argues as the migrant affective economy where these cultural productions and representations or “viral texts” (p. 156) are reiterated, reproduced, consumed, and/or repudiated by Filipina and Indonesian migrant labourers alongside the precarious narratives and politics of their supposed national heroism as bagong bayani or pahlawan devisa. From alienation and belonging discussed in the first chapter down to grief and/in anger, the book shows not just a spectrum of emotions and feelings, but the journey of migrant political identification that ends in the hopeful note of resistance borne by the on-going transnational migrant labour rights movement shaped and buoyed by an array of migrant affect, proving how “literary and visual texts can take on the political task of affecting a social movement” (Piocos, 2021, p. 167). In this way, Piocos highlights agency in the immobility of migrants by showing how these women subvert their precarious conditions through movement itself.

Overall, the strength of this book is not just how it pioneers the affective turn within migration and migrant studies that are classed, gendered, and racialized in predominant scholarly analyses and activisms, but how Piocos steers this intersection to account for the “thickening of emotionality” as migrant remittances accrue in nation-states whose coffers are bellied by their suffering. Begging the question, how do we turn suffering into empowerment? And while it sounds unfortunate that migrants need to be subordinated to come into the agency, this paradoxical, albeit violent, relationship is precisely what makes emotions, feelings, and subjectivities complex and therefore cannot be decoupled from the migrant subject formation. Non-representational theories such as affect and how Piocos highlights how cultural productions are “aesthetic mediations and political interventions” (p. 6) show how upward social mobility and/or migrant political struggle require fluid motions of emotional negotiations found in the interstices of being accepted in the home/host country against knowing one’s “place,” being allowed certain intimacies while wholeheartedly accepting exclusion, and accepting sacrifice as a necessary catalyst for radical change, all illustrated by the fictions and films featured in this book. Ultimately, this shows how emotionality and the viscosity from which it moves migrants are not just ambivalent, dichotomized, or even dialectically opposing but are contronymic, which is to say how these presumably subordinated, negative feelings of alienation, sexual othering, and sacrificial motherhood are understood to be the necessary affective drives to claim or arrive at positive migrant agency.

However, while there remains so much more to say about what this book can potentially “affect” in terms of migrant scholarship, it has ironically shown a minor shortcoming in what it has chosen to privilege. The cultural productions of fiction and film featured by Piocos in this book leave out the dynamism of the everydayness of lived “emotionality.” And there are clear opportunities from which this book could have benefitted from the equally “thick” description from ethnographic data such as the author mentioning his engagement with his network of Filipina and Indonesian domestics in his “Sunday group” from his stay in Hong Kong from 2012-2016 (p. 156) that informed much of his own “feelings” and textual analyses. It would have been equally fascinating if the researcher’s own ethnographic notes from this immersion or certain interviews conducted by him with these migrants as both subject and creator of these featured texts would have been included in the shaping of affect. While this book’s success can also be attributed to its material density where Piocos has analyzed 19 “texts” in total, the potential to further the affective through ethnographic detail remains. Arguably, emotions are made to be “trackable” within the curated frames and borders of these films and fictions, revealing how emotions can sometimes be predicated on or affected by the prevailing standard, rules, and/or conventions of a given genre, and this leaves the readers wanting to know more how they can observe and/or apprehend migrant emotions as actual lived experiences, vocabularies, and gestures in the field.

Perhaps the book’s possibilities can be an opportunity for scholars of varying levels of academic career to use this book not just as an illuminating introduction to Southeast Asian migration, affect theory, and emergent migrant fiction and film but as a field guide in ethnographic studies as well. As I write this review, I am also immersed in my own ethnographic work among Filipina migrant workers in Hong Kong and I can see how this book opens the possibility of tracking and apprehending these felt politics as gestures, discourses, and emotions that unfold and circulate in the field. This book also engages with critical ethnographic concerns such as adapting a certain sensitivity in decoupling our interlocutors from their perceived subordinate status and disengaging ourselves from the paternalistic intentions of well-meaning research for and about Southeast Asian migrants, and where the book’s resounding recognition of hope in migrant political movements can help ethnographic researches document a more nuanced migrant agency.

Reference

Piocos, C. M. (2021). Affect, narratives and politics of Southeast Asian migration. Routledge.

Jose Kervin Cesar B. Calabias is an Igorot Kankana-ey scholar from Baguio City, Philippines. He holds a BA and MA in Language and Literature from the University of the Philippines, and he is currently a PhD candidate of the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong where he is a recipient of the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme and the Belt and Road Scholarship awards. Before commencing his fellowship, he taught courses on literature and arts at De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines.

English in the Philippines from the Perspective of Linguistic Imperialism

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[wp-svg-icons icon=”users” wrap=”i”] Jie Zeng1 [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”I”]  & Tian Yang2 

1School of Foreign Languages, Chendu Normal University, China.
2Department of International Exchange and Cooperation, Nanyang Normal University, China.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–12. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.18

Abstract received:  27 Feb 2021 | Article received: 28 May 2021 | Revised: 14 Aug 2021 | Accepted: 11 Dec 2021 | First Published: 5 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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English in the Philippines from the Perspective of Linguistic Imperialism

Abstract

This essay analyses English linguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 1992, 46) in the Philippines and identifies the features of linguistic neo-imperialism in the current era. The study rethinks and investigates how English linguistic imperialism plays a dual role in promoting and destroying the Filipino linguistic ecology. The present situation of English imperialism analyzed in this essay shows that the new stage of English linguistic imperialism embodies language hegemony mainly driven by political influence and business interests. At present, English linguistic neo-imperialism is not confined within post-colonial territories but maintains and expands both the language’s positive and negative influences as the world’s lingua franca. The authors also discuss the Filipino ownership of English and whether linguistic imperialism is entirely applicable to the Philippine context. Evidence shows that the continuing use of English, to a great extent, is Filipinos’ choice, not only for the benefit of the United States.

Keywords: English linguistic imperialism, neo-imperialism, the Philippines.

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Pop Song Translations by Rolando Tinio as Script and Subversion of the Marcos Regime

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[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Niccolo Rocamora Vitug [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]  

Faculty at the University of Santo Tomas and PhD Scholar at the College of Music, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–21. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.17

Abstract received:  10 Feb 2021 | Complete article received: 13 June 2021 | Revised article received: 14 Aug 2021 | Accepted: 6 Sept 2021 | First Published: 5 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Pop Song Translations by Rolando Tinio as Script and Subversion of the Marcos Regime

Abstract

Philippine National Artist for Theater and Literature Rolando Tinio was well-known for his translations. Though attention is rightfully given to the theatrical works he translated into Filipino, he is also known to have translated songs. One of the enduring sets of song translations that he made are recorded in the album “Celeste,” rendered by the singer and actress Celeste Legaspi. This album was released in 1976, not long after the establishment of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). Then First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos had an interest in the arts, looking at it as something to uphold because it served a function in the vision of the Marcos regime. What I seek to problematize is how the song translations followed a script—in line with the ideas of music theorist Nicholas Cook—based on the said vision. Such a script, according to Michel Foucault, might be the locus of both obedience and subversion. The identification of this script will be done by a reading of a representative pop song translation by Tinio, in the context of other materials that elucidate the script of the time—from the former first couple and one who held a key position in their regime. The reading will be supported by a reading of Tinio’s last translation work, that of Nick Joaquin’s A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, which was turned into a musical entitled Ang Larawan.

Keywords: music as script, translation, pop songs, Rolando Tinio, Teatro Pilipino, Marcos regime.

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Experiencing and Writing East Asian (Post)modernity

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Yue Zhang 

Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities; Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–4. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.00

Published: February 5, 202

(This editorial is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Experiencing and Writing East Asian (Post)modernity

Experiencing and Writing East Asian (Post)modernity

The articles on China and Japan in this special issue deal with modernity and postmodernity as exemplified by modern Chinese writers, such as Yu Dafu (1896–1945) and Fei Ming (1901–1967); contemporary Chinese and Japanese writers, such as Can Xue and Sayaka Murata; and the connections between modern life and antiquarian book collections in Macau. These articles, hailing from the different perspectives provided by history, philosophy, and translation studies, collectively contribute to our understanding of the literary manifestation, reflection, and representation of modernity and postmodernity in twentieth-century China and Japan.

Yidan Wang’s article, “Translingual, Transcultural, and Transboundary Scenes: Aesthetic Ideas and Discursive Practice in Yu Dafu’s Landscape Writing,” examines a representative writer of “New Literature.” Previous research on Yu Dafu has largely focused on Yu’s fiction (Denton 1992: 107-123; Levan 2012: 48-87). Wang’s article switches the focus to Yu’s travel writing and investigates his cross-cultural understanding of nature and landscape, arguing, “This paper aims to further explore the mechanism with which Yu began these works, selected multiple discourses, cooperated with authorities and commercial powers, and built a new imaginary of nature in modern China.”[i] Yu’s travel writing, such as “A Sentimental Journey,” “The Trifles of a Fuzhou Journey,” and “Travel Notes in Malacca,” integrates Western culture, such as German Baedekers, with Chinese travel literature in a way that highlights lively personal experience and the narration of local lore. Yu’s fusion creates a unique way of depicting beautiful natural scenery that surpasses the pedagogical approach of traditional travel guides.[ii]

A contemporary of Yu Dafu, Fei Ming is the focus of Candy Fan Wang’s article, “The Poesis of Fei Ming: How Does the Classical Merge with the Modernist.” This article investigates the characteristics of modern Chinese writer Fei Ming’s literary writing, focusing on his free verse modern poetry, by placing it in the context of Chinese literature and philosophy and Western symbolism. This cross-cultural comparative approach lends itself to analyzing Fei Ming, who was influenced by both the traditional Chinese culture of Confucian classics, Daoist canons, and Buddhist sutras as well as Western and especially British literature and culture (Liu 2001: 30-71). Concerning how Fei Ming handled this commingled influence, Wang argues, “[Fei Ming’s] ontological approach enabled him to treat classical Chinese poetry without prejudice and diminished the rupture between tradition and modern with the proposal that modern poetry should take the content of poetry and language of prose.” Fei Ming’s new literary concepts and practice made him a representative writer of the Peking Style.

Tingting Chen and Minhui Xu’s article, “Foreignized Translation of Onomatopoeia in The Last Lover” moves us from modern Chinese literature to a contemporary Chinese writer, Can Xue. Chen and Xu categorize the strategies that Annelise Finegan Wasmoen adopted in translating onomatopoeia in Can Xue’s novel The Last Lover. As a way of providing background for Wasmoen’s foreignizing translation strategy, this article defines the term onomatopoeia and introduces different ways of translating onomatopoeia from other languages into English: “italicized transliteration with target onomatopoeia,” “italicized transliteration with explanation,” and “italicized transliteration with context.” For these three approaches, this article investigates the possible reasons for the translator’s choices, focusing on the background of the translator (in particular, her background in comparative literature) and Can Xue’s engagement throughout the entire translation process. This article reveals the collaborative dynamic between the author and the translator: “The uncompromising author and the unwavering translator successfully delivered a difficult but interesting reading for target readers to experience a dreamlike irrational surrealism with the help of the exotic sound effects.” The article supports its major arguments by examining the text itself, several dictionaries, and appropriate peer-reviewed scholarship. Translation plays an important role in promoting contemporary Chinese literature abroad.

With Chon Chit Tang’s article, “Introduction to Antiquarian Chinese Book Collections in Contemporary Macau,” the issue expands beyond mainland Chinese writers to investigate Macau, a cultural hub that has brought together Chinese and European civilization for centuries. Tang’s article outlines the overall socio-political environment of Macau and then investigates the trajectory of antiquarian Chinese books in the context of Macau culture: their categorizations, preservation history, and contemporary usage and significance. The previous scholarship usually focuses on rare books in mainland China, but this article investigates the overlooked topic of antiquarian Chinese book collections in Macau and their interactions with contemporary Macau society. Government bureaus, educational institutions, religious sites, and individual bibliophiles have collected and preserved these antiquarian books. Based on his many years’ academic experience with antiquarian Chinese books in Macau and mainland China, Tang states, “The study of Macau’s antiquarian books will require an in-depth examination of the antiquarian books available to the public, including their editions, collations, prefaces and postscripts, the situations in which they were circulated, and so on. We should not only focus on enhancing the protection of antiquarian books but also learn to utilize and develop these resources.” The development of digital humanities methods, the publication of studies of antiquarian books, and consistent support from the government of Macau will lead to further investigations of antiquarian Chinese book collections in Macau. These collections will become a window into Macau’s rich local culture, a local culture with international heritage.

From China and Macau, we turn to contemporary Japanese literature with Jaseel P and Rashmi Gaur’s article, “Precarity and Performativity in Post-Fordist Japanese Workplace: A Reading of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman.” This article adopts Judith Butler’s theories of gender to interpret the Akutagawa Prize-winning novel. In specific, the authors examine “how anxiety-ridden precarious living conditions can also become a foundation for alternative performances troubling gender categories, thereby transcending the narrow social scripts rooted in exclusion and inequality.” This article engages existing scholarship on Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, such as that of Ayako Kano, Machiko Osawa, Barbara E. Thornbury, and Bryony White. A symbol of postmodernity, the convenience store epitomizes the fast rhythm of capitalist Japanese society. Murata draws on her own work experience in a convenience store to narrate the story and push its development. In order to survive and integrate into this utilitarian society, the leading female character, Keiko Furukura, has to abandon her personality and learn to imitate other people to become part of a homogeneous community. The authors actively apply Butler’s theories to the novel’s plot, providing new insights into the gender and identity issues of Japanese women working in precarity.

During the first half of the twentieth century, Chinese writers actively studied Western technology and culture, and applied it to the task of revolutionizing, restoring, and renovating China. Yu Dafu and Fei Ming both blended Western culture, such as British and German literature, into traditional Chinese ways of depicting nature and articulating one’s voice. They both attempted to improve Chinese literature and make it more lively and interesting with modern narrative methods. Can Xue actively participates in translating her novel into English and experiments with modern translation techniques, which demonstrates the author’s engagement in shaping the reception of contemporary Chinese literature. Just as writers have experimented with different approaches, including those that drew on the past, for experiencing and writing modernity, Macau’s antiquarian books have been digitalized, preserved and integrated into the contemporary life of the city. In postmodern Japan, Murata’s Convenience Store Woman demonstrates how Keiko, a part-time worker in a precarious work situation, deals with anxieties and other people’s expectations. These articles investigate many aspects of Chinese and Japanese literature, spanning multiple forms and genres. The authors, who are from mainland China, Macau, India, and Japan, bring a multidisciplinary approach to bear on modernity and postmodernity in China and Japan. Their different backgrounds contribute to the diversity of this special issue.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Thanks go to my colleague and friend, Jeremy De Chavez, who provided me with this opportunity to co-edit this special issue. My speciality is premodern Chinese literary studies; so for this special issue on modern and contemporary literature, I sincerely appreciate the assistance of the reviewers, who helped me to select the articles through their reports and to improve their overall quality. This is sponsored by my MYRG project (MYRG2020-00018-FAH) at the University of Macau.

Notes

[i] The direct quotes in this introduction all draw from the articles in this special issue, sometimes with slight modification, so the footnotes of these quotes are omitted. The sources for all quotes not from this special issue will be identified through footnotes.

[ii] Yu Dafu is not alone integrating the narration of lore with literary genres. It is a practice that has a long tradition in China. For the treatment of lore and literature in premodern China, see Zhang 2022.

References

Denton, Kirk A.  (1992). “The Distant Shore: Nationalism in Yu Dafu’s ‘Sinking’.” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, vol. 14.

Levan, Valerie. (2012). “The Meaning of Foreign Text in Yu Dafu’s ‘Sinking’ Collection.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, vol. 24, no. 1.

Liu, Haoming. (2001). “Fei Ming’s Poetics of Representation: Dream, Fantasy, Illusion, and ?layavijñ?na.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, vol. 13, no. 2.

Zhang, Yue. 2022. Lore and Verse: Poems on History in Early Medieval China. State University of New York Press.

Yue Zhang is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature and Graduate Programme Coordinator at the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, Macau, China.

From Private Eye to Public “I”: The Chinese Filipinos in Charlson Ong’s Hard-Boiled Fiction

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[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Joseph Ching Velasco [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]  

Department of Political Science and Development Studies, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines. 

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–11. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.16

Abstract received:  31 March 2021 | Article received: 1 August 2021 | Revised: 1 Sept 2021 | Accepted: 4 Sept 2021 | First Published: 5 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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From Private Eye to Public “I”: The Chinese Filipinos in Charlson Ong’s Hard-Boiled Fiction

Abstract

Charlson Ong’s Blue Angel, White Shadow (2010) is a hard-boiled fiction that revolves around the issues of crime, corruption, and death in a postcolonial Southeast Asian state. Predominantly dark, gloomy, and mysterious, the mood of the narrative establishes a strongly morose reading experience. The narrative world portrayed in the novel is simultaneously sorrowful and somber. Binondo, the historical ethnic Chinese epicenter of the Philippines, is depicted with excessive chaos and moral disarray. I argue that the novel has attempted to reshape the usual form of hard-boiled fiction by systematically interrupting the narrative’s serious and cynical tone. More specifically, humor was deployed by the author as a mechanism to intervene in the novel’s subscription to the norms of hard-boiled fiction. The novel puts into perspective different facets of Chinese Filipino identity mediated through the Philippine postcolonial landscape. Ultimately, I initiate a discussion on the intersection of Chinese Filipino literature, identities, diaspora, and genre theory. I maintain that Chinese Filipino literature, like the subject of the present inquiry, is borne out of the diasporic experience through collective histories and memories.

Keywords: Postcolonialism, Charlson Ong, Hard-Boiled Fiction, Chinese Filipino, Binondo, Manila.

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Skinned Performance: Female Body Horror in Joko Anwar’s Impetigore

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[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Anton Sutandio [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]  

Department of English, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–12. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.14

Abstract received:  13 March 2021 | Article received: 30 April 2021 | Revised: 20 July 2021 | Accepted: 9 Sept 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Skinned Performance: Female Body Horror in Joko Anwar’s Impetigore

Abstract

This article discusses the 2019 Indonesian horror film, Impetigore (Perempuan Tanah Jahanam) directed by Joko Anwar. In 2021, Impetigore became the first Indonesian horror film to represent the country at the Academy Awards. This article focuses on the film’s mystification of the female body, which points towards gender relations. This research utilizes the concept of body horror, particularly relating to the skin, gender relations, and wayang mysticism. The findings show that the film metaphorically underlines the ongoing disconcerting perspective of contemporary Indonesian society on women’s embodied agency. The film’s portrayal of non-traditional female characters suggests an attempt to challenge the mainstream patriarchal narrative in contemporary Indonesian horror cinema, and at the same time hints at the perpetuating subjectification of woman’s bodies as a threatening yet desirable agency.

 Keywords: body horror, mystification, female body, Impetigore, Indonesian horror film

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The Teleserye Story: Three Periods of the Evolution of the Filipino TV Soap Opera

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[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Louie Jon A. Sanchez [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]  

Department of English, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–16. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.13

Abstract received:  5 March 2021 | Complete article received: 7 June 2021 | Revised article received: 24 August 2021 | Accepted: 29 August 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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The Teleserye Story: Three Periods of the Evolution of the Filipino TV Soap Opera

Abstract

The essay chronicles the history of the teleserye or the Filipino TV soap opera, one of today’s transnational televisual products making waves in different parts of the globe. It covers three periods—the period of transition from radio to TV (1962 to 1986), the period of competition (1986-2000), and the period of transformation (2000-present). Traversing through 60 years of the form’s enduring presence in Philippine television, it traces the format’s beginnings as it was introduced to the medium in a highly volatile social environment, and assesses its continued flourishing in democratized, contemporary times and consequent entry into the highly competitive global drama market, where it serves both foreign and its very own Filipino diasporic audiences. The essay echoes the abiding thesis of my studies about the cultural history of the teleserye—that the form is indeed the drama of Filipino life.  As domestic, serial form, the teleserye’s intimate relation to the Filipino everyday ultimately makes it reflective of the country’s life and times, its evolution interconnected with the ebb and flow of Philippine history. These are illustrated by representative texts from the said periods, as well as key contexts that unravel the evolution of the form, now gleaned from a global, as well as diasporic context.

Keywords: teleserye, soap opera, telenovela, Asianovela, Koreanovela, Philippine television.

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