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2022
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Video
In this CIHK webinar, we will discuss the material conditions of and historical background to the use of Classical Chinese or Literary Sinitic in writing-mediated brush conversation between literati of Sinitic engaged in cross-border communication within Sinographic East Asia or the Sinographic cosmopolis, which corresponds with today’s China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan (including Okinawa, formerly the Ryukyu Kingdom) and Vietnam. Compared with speech as a modality of communication, real-time writing-mediated interaction between talking humans, synchronously face-to-face, seems uncommon. In any society, speaking is premised on one condition: the interlocutors must have at least one shared spoken language at their disposal, but even then, there are circumstances under which speaking is either physically not feasible or socially inappropriate. Could writing function as an alternative modality of communication when speaking is not an option due to the absence of a shared spoken language, as in cross-border communication settings? Whereas real-time writing-mediated face-to-face interaction is rare where a regional lingua franca was known to exist (e.g., Latin and Arabic), there is ample historical evidence of literati of Classical Chinese or Literary Sinitic from different parts of Sinographic East Asia conducting ‘silent conversation’, synchronously and interactively in writing mode using brush, ink, and paper. Such a pattern of writing-assisted interaction is still practiced and observable in pen-assisted conversation – pen-talk – between Chinese and Japanese speakers today, thanks to the pragma-linguistic affordance of morphographic, non-phonographic sinograms (i.e., Chinese characters and Japanese kanji). We will outline the historical spread of Classical Chinese or Sinitic texts from the ‘center’ to the ‘peripheries’, and the historical background to the acquisition of literacy in Sinitic by the people there. Their shared knowledge of Sinitic helps explain why, for well over a thousand years until the 1900s, literati from these places were able to speak their mind by engaging in ‘Sinitic brush-talk’ 漢文筆談 in cross-border communication.
Event date: 13/5/2022
Speaker: Prof. David C. S. Li
Hosted by: Confucius Institute of Hong Kong, Department of Chinese Culture
- Subjects:
- Language and Languages and Chinese Language
- Keywords:
- History China Written communication Chinese characters Chinese language -- Written Chinese East Asia
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
Focusing on tensions and links between national formation and international outlooks, this talk shows how classical world visions persist as China’s modernizers and revolutionaries adopted and revised the Western nation-state and cosmopolitanism. The concepts of tianxia (all under heaven) and datong (great harmony) have been updated into outlooks of global harmony that value unity, equality, and reciprocity as strategies of overcoming interstate conflict, national divides, and social fragmentation. The talk will delve into two debates: the embrace of the West vs. aspirations for a common world, and the difference between liberal cosmopolitanism and socialist internationalism.
Event date: 16/9/2022
Speaker: Prof. Ban Wang
Hosted by: Confucius Institute of Hong Kong, Department of Chinese Culture
- Subjects:
- Chinese Studies
- Keywords:
- Diplomatic relations World politics China Civilization
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the relaxation of the Ming sea ban, along with the arrival of the Europeans, generated a multipolar environment in East Asia. It revolved around the intra-Asian exchange centered upon Chinese silk and Japanese silver, and a nascent global flow of New World bullion to China and spices for Western Europe. The situation changed during the mid-seventeenth century amid mounting restrictions on overseas contacts from the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan and the consolidation and militarization of Chinese merchants under the Zheng family. By 1683, when the Qing forced the Zheng to surrender and occupied their bastion of Taiwan, China had achieved naval preeminence in the East Asian sea lanes. Other than a few outposts, the Europeans had largely withdrawn from the area north of island Southeast Asia, which remained under the hegemony of the Dutch East India Company. In 1684, the Qing court legalized private trade and travel abroad, prompting another wave of overseas migration. Authorities in China and across eastern maritime Asia enacted policies that kept the Qing merchants and immigrants separate from the earlier Ming loyalists. Additionally, both groups of Chinese were accorded significant political, economic, and legal privileges. This infrastructure, backed by Qing naval power, paved the way for the “Chinese century” in maritime Asia.
Event date: 09/11/2022
Speaker: Dr. Xing Hang
Hosted by: Confucius Institute of Hong Kong
- Subjects:
- Area Studies and Chinese Studies
- Keywords:
- Chinese diaspora Chinese Qing Dynasty (China) Southeast Asia
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
As a recent New York Times editorial proclaimed, "The Global Order Isn't Working. It's Time for Something Different." To teach environmental history and environmental ethics is to reacquaint ourselves with the facts that we need to try to build, while there is still time, a new cooperative order that understands this: simple fact: that other people and other countries are quite literally "the air we breathe." Moreover, all who claim to be ethical persons must take seriously the notion of inter-generational equity and try to act upon it. This notion should, in theory, come more easily to countries whose traditions have built upon classical/ Confucian learning, for those traditions say that the most important marker of human behavior is working toward common ends (qun 群) while "learning what is enough" (zhi zu 知足). Put another way, many resources within the Chinese tradition may strengthen our resolve to act more constructively in less short-sighted ways.
Event Date: 14/11/2022
Speaker: Prof. Michael Nylan (University of California, Berkeley)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
- Keywords:
- Environmental ethics Intergenerational relations Philosophy Confucian Confucian ethics
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
The notion of expertise is integral to all forms of institutional and professional practice in many domains – in education, healthcare, social welfare, law, journalism, banking, information technology, marketing, translating and interpreting services etc. It is a concept addressed by scholars across many disciplines – cognitive science, sociology, anthropology, psychology, language/communication studies, among others. There are, however, enduring problems of definition, description and measurement of expertise. Some scholars draw attention to the ongoing ‘crisis in expertise’ and others pronounce the ‘death of expertise’ in contemporary society.
More humbly, I begin with a characterisation of professional expertise very broadly to include scientific, experiential, technological, organisational, legal, ethical and communicative knowledge. This then leads me to the notion of ‘distributed expertise’, which extends beyond the individual remit and the conventional lay-expert divide. For instance, in the healthcare domain, a significant development afforded by internet-based technology is the increased level of patients’ e-health literacy and, consequently, democratisation of expertise. This amounts not only to accessing health information digitally, but also the phenomenon of patients ‘doctoring’ themselves in ‘the now of its presence’, i.e., ‘expert patients’ becoming instrumental in self-diagnosis and even self-treatment.
Additionally, ‘distributed expertise’ is also constitutive of ‘expert systems’, e.g., diagnostic and interventionist technologies as well as decision aids mediated by algorithms and templates. This is what I refer to as the technologization of expertise. I suggest that there is overreliance on ‘expert systems’ by both experts and lay persons in everyday decision making. Access to and use of ‘expert systems’ in optimal ways inevitably necessitates a reconfiguration of the very conditions and consequences of professional expertise.
Event Date: 25/11/2022
Speaker: Prof. Srikant Sarangi (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
- Keywords:
- Information technology -- Social aspects Democratization Expertise
- Resource Type:
- Video
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MOOC
Owing to its rapid development in recent years, China has been in the spotlight of the international arena. While understanding modern China's economy, technology and politics is important, knowing its cultural roots and evolution is no less crucial for seeing the full picture of Chinese culture. This course introduces 5 interesting aspects of Chinese culture in transformation.
Key questions of the course:
(1) What are the Four Great Classical Chinese Novels? What are the stories about? Why are they so famous and influential in Chinese literature?
(2) What is special about the art of Chinese operas? What are the symbolic meanings behind the face make-up, gestures and costumes? How do the operas serve as a medium for transmitting knowledge in Chinese culture?
(3) Why did the private Confucian academies thrive in the Song dynasty? Why was the famous Donglin Academy suppressed by the state in the Ming dynasty? How were the private academies engaged in the state educational reforms in the late Qing dynasty?
(4) How did New Confucianism emerge as a movement in the 20th century? What were the aspirations of the New Confucians? How did they address modern challenges to the development of Chinese science, democracy and cosmology? Did they succeed in modernizing Confucianism?
(5) What were the traditional expectations of gender roles in China? How was gender politics heightened in the labour force in early New China? What light does the film Li Shuangshuang shed on the gender awareness of Chinese socialism?
- Subjects:
- Chinese Studies
- Keywords:
- China Manners customs Civilization Philosophy Chinese Chinese drama Politics culture Chinese fiction Confucianism
- Resource Type:
- MOOC
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MOOC
Owing to its rapid development in recent years, China has been in the spotlight of the international arena. While understanding modern China's economy, technology and politics is important, knowing its cultural roots and evolution is no less crucial for seeing a full picture of Chinese culture. This course introduces 5 interesting aspects of Chinese cultural exchange and interaction with other countries in history.
Key questions of the course:
(1) How did the Silk Road emerge in history? Who was Matteo Ricci? What happened in history regarding the Chinese cultural exchange of religions, arts and sports with the West?
(2) Where is Central Asia? What was Pax Mongolica? What role did silver play in the Saga of the Silk Road?
(3) What cultural exchanges occurred between Vietnam and China? How did Vietnam contribute to the introduction of Buddhism to China through the maritime Silk Road? Which of the Vietnamese princes served as a high-ranking official in the Chinese court of the Ming dynasty?
(4) How did China confront Western colonialism as a global trend in the early 20th century? Who was Sun Yat-sen? How did he connect China with the rest of the world? How did Pan-Asianism arise and go bankrupt?
(5) What is the relationship between rituals, ghosts and alcohol in China? What are the stories behind Chinese medicinal food, correlative cosmology and tea? How many major types of Chinese cuisine are there? What sorts of food were exchanged between China and other countries in history?
- Subjects:
- Chinese Studies and Area Studies
- Keywords:
- China Manners customs Politics culture Diplomatic relations
- Resource Type:
- MOOC
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MOOC
With rapid globalization and proliferation of social media, businesses and organizations are in face of enormous communication challenges. How to communicate effectively on social media, how to manage social media data analysis as well as handling fake news are definitely at the top of the list.
By seeing challenge as opportunity, this course aims to unfold the communication challenges induced by the rise of social media in business corporations and most importantly, offer solutions to overcome these challenges. In addition, the course serves presents a vantage point to forge an interface of synergy between academics and practitioners to discuss and address global communication challenges. Participants can benefit from meaningful synergy between academics and practitioners as well as learning materials and meaningful multilateral discussions surrounding authentic communication cases and industrial practices engaging both instructors and participants. In sum, this course provides insights for business leaders, senior managerial members, and communication professionals by discussing the major communication challenges encountered by businesses around the world which in turn, helps the participants to advance their career in the ever-changing communication environment.
- Subjects:
- Communication
- Keywords:
- Social media Information technology -- Management
- Resource Type:
- MOOC
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MOOC
Owing to its rapid development in recent years, China has moved into the spotlight of the international arena. While understanding modern China's economy, technology and politics is important, knowing its cultural roots and evolution is no less crucial for seeing a full picture of Chinese culture. This course introduces 5 interesting aspects of traditional Chinese culture.
Key questions of the course
What was the origin of ancient Confucianism? How does ancient Confucian wisdom help us address the modern human predicament?
How does Daoism enlighten us with a butterfly and fish? What is the connection between Daoism and the equality of all living organisms?
Why does Buddhism see our present lifetime to be nothing but suffering? How do the Four Noble Truths help liberate us from suffering?
What is special about Chinese ancient warfare? Who is Sunzi? What is his book The Art of War about? What can we learn from this famous book?
- Subjects:
- Chinese Studies
- Keywords:
- China Religion Painting Chinese -- Song-Yuan dynasties Philosophy Chinese
- Resource Type:
- MOOC