Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
open access
The Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province is often seen as the success story of China’s reform policies that were initiated by Hua Guofeng in the late 1970s, and popularised by Deng...Show moreThe Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province is often seen as the success story of China’s reform policies that were initiated by Hua Guofeng in the late 1970s, and popularised by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. Shenzhen – China’s first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) – is also representative of the ideal of a new, modernized, and economically strong China. The communist ideals of the Maoist era have long been pushed aside to make way for newer ideologies such as ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’, or more recently, Xi Jinping’s ‘Chinese Dream’. These shifts in ideology have had a significant influence on the identity that the Chinese state wishes to convey to its citizens and beyond. This paper examines how national and regional identities and their subsequent narratives interact or conflict in the permanent exhibition of Shenzhen museum. Furthermore, I will look at how similar exhibition practices (Shenzhen Museum and the National Museum of China) are used to convey a different message. Shenzhen Museum plays an important part in communicating the city’s identity and its position in China as a model city both to the local population and beyond. Shenzhen illustrates that the way we perceive nationalism has to change in an ever-globalising world, where large cities within a nation can play as large a role in defining the nation as the country at large.Show less
Beijeren Bergen en Henegouwen, Gabe Geert van 2015
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
open access
One third of the food worldwide goes to waste. This has an impact on natural resources such as water and energy resources. Research on underlying processes of food waste in specific contexts are...Show moreOne third of the food worldwide goes to waste. This has an impact on natural resources such as water and energy resources. Research on underlying processes of food waste in specific contexts are important as it will give insights on how to resolve this issue. Singapore is a country with an high GDP for its region. Because of this developed status, it may be an predictor for other surrounding countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia. In Singapore, approximately 158 kg per capita per year of food was wasted in 2014. In comparison to Malaysia, which wastes 177 kg food per capita per year, this is a lot: Malaysia is producing food itself, where food is lost. Singapore produces almost nothing itself yet almost equals the amount of food waste. The reasons behind food waste in Singapore come from the love for food and abundance from wealth, in combination with the reflection of government policies on clean and green Singapore. Through fieldwork and literature research, it is found that the Singaporean government is aware of the food wastage problem in Singapore. Not only because of the global impact, but also for reasons of local impact. First, as Singapore is small, limited space is available to use as landfill. Second, the government has, since independence in 1965, sought to show an image of clean and green Singapore, and food sustainability is seen as green. Paradoxically, this image of a clean and green Singapore may also be the pitfall for food waste in Singapore: as Singapore is promoted by the government to be clean and green, this may have its effect on the quality of food consumers want: high quality and no blemishes. However, the Singaporean government has recently started to introduce measures against food waste, in educational campaigns, but also at hawker centres by educating hawkers and introducing food waste recycling machines. The government stimulates other businesses in Singapore to also reduce food waste. Supermarkets and in the service sector have introduced measures to reduce food waste as well. Not only measures in existing business, new business opportunities and charities are found as well through reducing food waste. Rooftop farming, advice business on being green, but also charities. Willing Hearts, Food from the Heart and Food Bank are leading charities that reuse food waste to provide needy with food.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
closed access
This thesis explores how discourse of heritage has been constructed in Taiwan, under the great influence of the world-leading heritage organization, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational,...Show moreThis thesis explores how discourse of heritage has been constructed in Taiwan, under the great influence of the world-leading heritage organization, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and its affiliated international organizations. This thesis does not attempt to give a single definition of the heritage discourse being constructed, knowing there is no one discourse about “the heritage”, but focuses on the mechanism for making discourse and the power relations that underpin it. This thesis expects to answer three main questions as follows: to what extent can the definitions and values of heritage constructed by UNESCO be applied in the context of Taiwan? What actors can be identified in the process of discourse making? What are their motivations and interests? The discussion will be developed from three aspects: 1) the changes in heritage categories in the Taiwanese heritage preservation law, Cultural Heritage Preservation Act, 2) the reproduction of World Heritage system in Taiwan, and 3) the heritage discourse and power-relation shown in the text of the international declaration launched in Taiwan, Taipei Declaration for Asian Industrial Heritage (2012).Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
open access
In this thesis I conduct discourse analysis on the traditional values of talent show The Voice of China (TVoC). Whereas former talent shows have been suspended because of ‘low moral standards and...Show moreIn this thesis I conduct discourse analysis on the traditional values of talent show The Voice of China (TVoC). Whereas former talent shows have been suspended because of ‘low moral standards and vulgar content’, TVoC already finished its third season in 2014. In this thesis I show that traditional Chinese values can intertwine perfectly with the Western values of TVoC, and that the discourse of harmony is reinforced multiple times in the end. The traditional values and the concept of harmony are in line with what the Chinese government propagates. Taking this and the restrictions on former talent shows into account I therefore argue that self-censorship of TVoC due to soft-power of the government has been the case in talent show TVoC.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
closed access
In this study, An Kuk-sŏn (also known as Chŏngang,1876-1926), a leading writer of the Greater Korean Empire period, is regarded as one prototype of Korean reformist intellectuals in the face of the...Show moreIn this study, An Kuk-sŏn (also known as Chŏngang,1876-1926), a leading writer of the Greater Korean Empire period, is regarded as one prototype of Korean reformist intellectuals in the face of the global expansion of imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Based on An’s Chŏngch’i Wŏnnon (政治原論, Basic Principles of Politics, 1907), the first modern political science textbook in Korea, the study explores the adoption of modern Western political science, which some of these intellectuals regarded as a means of national survival. This study also revalorizes Chŏngch’i Wŏnnon and the act of translation, the most common way of learning the West yet has been undermined in the discourse of nationalist historiography, by applying the frameworks of translation studies.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
closed access
This thesis has focused on the transition of the 798 Dashanzi factory from 'artist village' to 'art zone' to show the positive and negative effects of the implementation of creative industries in...Show moreThis thesis has focused on the transition of the 798 Dashanzi factory from 'artist village' to 'art zone' to show the positive and negative effects of the implementation of creative industries in the Chinese urban context. I traced its evolution from its origins as an electronics factory, to an appropriation of urban land by artists and workers of the creative field, to an institutionally-accepted and promoted centre for 'creativity' and innovation. This evolution is deeply intertwined with socio-economic factors which the Chinese government supported as vehicles of (urban) development since Deng's 1978 'Open-door Policy': the dismantling of the danwei (work unit) structure; urbanization; the emergence of a real-estate market, and the rise of an urban upper-middle class. In addition, since the mid-2000s and following the explosion of Chinese contemporary art in the global art market, the government has supported the implementation of Culture Creative Industries as a strategy to build Chinese soft-power and capitalizing on intellectual property. If, on the one hand, these policies had indirect positive effects, such as the preservation of former industrial structures and the incrementation of the local economy, on the other hand they had dramatic consequences on the social environments which were subjected to them. In particular, in the case of 798, the artist community that gave rise to the artist village has been dismembered in favour of commercialization and gentrification of the area. Contemporarily to 798, the Caochangdi artist village sprang up as an urban village on the fringes of Beijing and has constituted itself as an independent reality, taking advantage of the semi-regimented rural status and falling into the cracks of Beijing's residential administration system. Thanks to its semi-illegal configuration, it has managed both to take advantage of the new creative policies implementing local economy, and to maintain the local community somewhat untouched by top-down urban rehabilitation. By adopting a perspective from the theories of place-making and place-branding, the comparison among the two artist villages and the analysis of their transformations helped me to stress the importance of the role of communities in the management of these areas.Show less
