Table Of ContentHong Kong University Press thanks Xu Bing for writing the Press’s name in
his Square Word Calligraphy for the covers of its books. For further information,
see p. iv.
TransAsia: Screen Cultures
Edited by Koichi IWABUCHI and Chris BERRY
What is Asia? What does it mean to be Asian? Who thinks they are Asian? How is
“Asian-ness” produced? In Asia’s transnational public space, many kinds of cross-
border connections proliferate, from corporate activities to citizen-to-citizen linkages,
all shaped by media — from television series to action films, video piracy, and a variety
of subcultures facilitated by internet sites and other computer-based cultures. Films
are packaged at international film festivals and marketed by DVD companies as
“Asian,” while the descendents of migrants increasingly identify themselves as “Asian,”
then turn to “Asian” screen cultures to find themselves and their roots. As reliance
on national frameworks becomes obsolete in many traditional disciplines, this series
spotlights groundbreaking research on trans-border, screen-based cultures in Asia.
Other titles in the series:
The Chinese Exotic: Modern Diasporic Femininity, by Olivia Khoo
East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave, edited by Chua Beng Huat and
Koichi Iwabuchi
Series International Advisory Board
Ackbar ABBAS (University of Hong Kong)
Ien ANG (University of Western Sydney)
Yomi BRAESTER (Washington University)
Stephen CHAN (Lingnan University)
CHUA Beng-Huat (National University of Singapore)
Ian CONDRY (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
DAI Jinhua (Peking University)
John Nguyet ERNI (Lingnan University)
Annette HAMILTON (University of New South Wales)
Rachel HARRISON (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)
Gaik Cheng KHOO (Australian National University)
KIM Kyung-Hyun (University of California, Irvine)
KIM Soyoung (Korean National University of Arts)
Helen Hok-Sze LEUNG (Simon Fraser University)
Akira Mizuta LIPPIT (University of Southern California)
Feii LÜ (National Chengchi University)
LÜ Xinyu (Fudan University)
Eric MA (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Fran MARTIN (Melbourne University)
MOURI Yoshitaka (Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music)
Meaghan MORRIS (Lingnan University)
NAM Inyoung (Dongseo University)
PANG Laikwan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Michael RAINE (University of Chicago)
Bérénice REYNAUD (California Institute of the Arts)
Lisa ROFEL (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Krishna SEN (Curtin University of Technology)
Ubonrat SIRIYUVASAK (Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok)
Eva TSAI (National Taiwan Normal University)
Paola VOCI (University of Otago)
YOSHIMI Shunya (Tokyo University)
ZHANG Zhen (New York University)
Edited by
Ying Zhu, Michael Keane, and Ruoyun Bai
Hong Kong University Press
14/F Hing Wai Centre
7 Tin Wan Praya Road
Aberdeen
Hong Kong
© Hong Kong University Press 2008
Hardback ISBN 978-962-209-940-1
Paperback ISBN 978-962-209-941-8
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording,
or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing
from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Secure On-line Ordering
http://www.hkupress.org
Printed and bound by Kings Time Printing Press Ltd., Hong Kong, China.
Hong Kong University Press is honoured that Xu Bing, whose art
explores the complex themes of language across cultures, has written
the Press’s name in his Square Word Calligraphy. This
signals our commitment to cross-cultural thinking and the distinctive
nature of our English-language books published in China.
“At first glance, Square Word Calligraphy appears to be nothing more
unusual than Chinese characters, but in fact it is a new way of rendering
English words in the format of a square so they resemble Chinese
characters. Chinese viewers expect to be able to read Square Word
Calligraphy but cannot. Western viewers, however are surprised to find
they can read it. Delight erupts when meaning is unexpectedly
revealed.”
— Britta Erickson, The Art of Xu Bing
1
Contents
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Ying Zhu, Michael Keane, and Ruoyun Bai
I Tradition, History, and Politics 19
1. Yongzheng Dynasty and Totalitarian Nostalgia 21
Ying Zhu
2. Family Saga Serial Dramas and Reinterpretation of 33
Cultural Traditions
Janice Hua Xu
3. “Clean Officials,” Emotional Moral Community, and 47
Anti-corruption Television Dramas
Ruoyun Bai
4. Global Imaginary, Local Desire: Chinese Transnational 61
Serial Drama in the 1990s
Li Zeng
vi Contents
II Gender and Domestic Sphere 73
5. Family Matters: Reconstructing the Family on the 75
Chinese Television Screen
Shuyu Kong
6. Maids in the Televisual City: Competing Tales of 89
Post-Socialist Modernity
Wanning Sun
7. Pink Dramas: Reconciling Consumer Modernity and 103
Confucian Womanhood
Ya-chien Huang
III Production, Reception, and Distribution 115
8. A Brief History of Chinese Situation Comedies 117
Di Miao
9. Carnivalesque Pleasure: The Audio-visual Market 129
and the Consumption of Television Drama
Rong Cai
10. From National Preoccupation to Overseas Aspiration 145
Michael Keane
11. A Trip Down Memory Lane: Remaking and 157
Rereading the Red Classics
Gong Qian
IV Co-productions and Pan-Asian Markets 173
12. Looking for Taiwan’s Competitive Edge: The Production 175
and Circulation of Taiwanese TV Drama
Yi-Hsiang Chen
13. From the Margins to the Middle Kingdom: Korean TV 187
Drama’s Role in Linking Local and Transnational Production
Dong-Hoo Lee
Contents vii
14. Rescaling the Local and the National: Trans-border 201
Production of Hong Kong TV Dramas in Mainland China
Carol Chow and Eric Ma
Notes 217
References 251
Index 269
viii Contents
Notes on Contributors
Ruoyun BAI is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities
(Scarborough) and the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University
of Toronto. Her research interests include television criticism, television drama
in the global context, media institutions and practices in East Asia,and digital
media. She has published in the Global Media Journal and Studies in Symbolic
Interaction. She is completing a book on Chinese anti-corruption television
dramas.She was assistant professor of Media, Culture, and Communication
of NewYork Universityfrom 2007 to 2008.
Rong CAI is an associate professor of Chinese at Emory University, Atlanta,
USA. Her recent publications include The Subject in Crisis in Contemporary
Chinese Literature (2004) and “Gender imaginations in Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon and the Wuxia World,” positions (2005) 13(2).
Yi-Hsiang CHEN is an associate professor in the Department of Public
Relations and Advertising at Shih Hsin University, Taiwan. She has received
grants from Taiwan’s National Science Council for a research project in
media diversity. Her current research interests include diversity studies in
television programming, prime-time TV dramas, and language variety in
Taiwan TV programs. Her English-language publications include a chapter
co-authored with Liu Yu-Li in Television Across Asia: Television Industries,
Programme Formats and Globalization, edited by Albert Moran and Michael
Keane (2004).
