​2016 International Conference on
Sounds, Images, and Texts on China's Periphery

Hiroshi AOYAGI (Kokushikan University)
Topic: On the Ethnographic Implications of Chinese Musical Heritage in Contemporary Okinawa: Drawing Some Inferences from Rujigaku Performances
 

In this intellectual venture, Aoyagi wishes to share with his audience aspects of Chinese influences on the music of Okinawa, or former Lewchew (琉球), in reference to a conspicuous genre of street-band performance called rujigaku (路次楽). Building on previous studies on the influence of Chinese music on Okinawan music, and in an attempt to move beyond text-, instrument- and/or content-focused analyses, Aoyagi will try to depict ethnographically how traces of Chinese heritage can be observed in the lived experiences of contemporary Okinawan performers and audiences. Participant perceptions on Chinese musical heritage and its classification within contemporary musical landscape of Okinawa will also be demonstrated through informant interviews.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Siu Woo CHEUNG (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
Topic: Batik Art as a Contending Practice for Identity: Politics of Ethnic Classification in Southeast Guizhou

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The Gejia ethnic group inhabiting Southeast Guizhou province in Southwest China are renowned for their distinctive batik art works. Women use melted bee wax to draw natural objects and symbolisms on white cloth referring to their folktales, which are then turned into eye-catching contrast of white patterns against the deep blue background after dying with indigo. While serving as common decoration on their distinctive traditional costumes, batik works of the Gejia have become popular tourist commodities since the flourishment of ethnic tourism in the region in the late-1980s. Meanwhile, it also became an ethnic marker distinguishing the Gejia from the neighboring Miao groups in the Gejia’s struggle for official recognition of their self-claimed minzu identity independent of the Miao category imposed upon the Gejia by the state.
                       
Central to the analysis in of this paper is about how Gejia batik was developed into an ethnic boundary in the politics of recognition about the people’s pursuit of their minzu status. The paper explores the use of batik arts in the revival of Gejia ritual ceremonies to show the group’s unique cultural tradition to outsiders, the emergence of new batik patterns in handicraft commodities demonstrating Gejia identity, and the contestation against mis-representation of Gejia batik as Miao tradition in the public media.
 

 

 

 

 

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Charlotte D’EVELYN (Loyola Marymount University)
Topic: Borderland Stories: Mongolian Fiddles and Fiddlers in Horchin, Inner Mongolia ca. 1900-2015

 

In his well-known monograph on Chinese music history, Yang Yinliu writes that, "Of all instrumental categories, bowed instruments, from their emergence to today, have all developed with close affinity and relationship to vocal arts" (1983). This paper attests to this prominent role of bowed fiddle traditions in the transmission of vocal narratives in the border regions between north China and the Mongolian grasslands. While the plucked lute became the accompanying instrument of choice for vocal storytelling genres in much of Central Asia, the bowed spike fiddle became the instrument of choice for storytellers in China and the steppe areas of central Mongolia. During Qing Dynasty and likely even much earlier, the Horchin Mongols living in the Hinggan region of northeastern Inner Mongolia participated in dynamic cultural and musical contact with increasing numbers of Han immigrants from north China. The dynamism of this cultural mixing in Horchin provided a fertile ground for the development and transmission of new forms of oral storytelling by huurch (singer-fiddlers) who played instruments now known as the two-string choor spike box fiddle and the four-string huur spike tube fiddle. In this paper, I draw from my own field research and previous work conducted by scholars in Inner Mongolia to offer a glimpse at the rich musical expressions that emerged at this cultural, geographic, and political intersection between the Yellow River basin and the grassland steppe.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Loretta KIM (The University of Hong Kong)
Topic: Representing Names in Non-Han Genealogies: Dagur Clan Records as Onomastic Tapestries

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This presentation examines how clan records of the Dagur, one of Northeastern China's indigenous populations, shed light on the ethnic and linguistic maintenance in the past and present. Although the compilation of genealogies has not been a common practice among the Dagur, state-sponsored scholarship from the 1980s onwards has generated a substantial amount of information about Dagur clans and their members. Analysis of these clan records yields valuable insights into the questions of how Dagur social and cultural practices, as exemplified by the selection of personal names, were influenced by Qing imperial rule and gradual Hanicization, and what it means to be Dagur in modern and contemporary China.