Philanthropic Action of Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia: Shaped by Family, Ancestry, Identity and Social Norms

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-281
Author(s):  
Marina Tan Harper (陈美月)
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Chinese Values ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Times ◽  
Push And Pull

Abstract Due to push and pull factors, millions of Chinese migrants fanned out into the Nanyang from the mid-1800s onward. The G1 (first generation) diasporic Chinese left China with a sojourner mentality, compelling their philanthropic action back to motherland China. As G1 diasporic Chinese and their second or third generation ethnic Chinese (G2, G3 …) eventually settled as nationals into various countries in Southeast Asia, their Confucian Chinese values were confronted, severely tested, remolded, and evolved as they assimilated and converged with the political, social, and economic circumstances of the times. With self-help and mutual aid philanthropy, they thrived and prospered in the Nanyang and were soon propelled to lead local communities. As they engendered gratitude to where they built their wealth, raised families, and honored ancestry in their resettled new homes, their loyalties, generosity, and philanthropy also began to shift away from China. This study investigates these traditions, ethos, and value systems through the lens of philanthropy.

Minority Participation in an Islamic Negara

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Li Pang
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Media ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Minority Participation ◽  
Brunei Darussalam ◽  
Muslim Minorities

On the 1st of May 2014, Negara Brunei Darussalam declared the implementation of an Islamic criminal code of law, thus becoming the first country in modern Southeast Asia to declare so. Inevitably, Brunei was scrutinised by the international media, particularly over its relations with its non-Muslim minorities. This paper investigates the causes of the international media’s anxieties by analysing the socio-political circumstances of the non-Muslim minorities in Brunei, with particular focus on its ethnic Chinese citizens, and with reference to the Islamic Law of Minorities, or ahle dhimmah. Perspectives of the Islamic Law of Minorities toward Brunei’s Chinese citizens are also examined within the political-cultural context of Negara. Thus, exploring simultaneously these concepts, Islam and Negara, this paper asserts that the Islamic Law of Minorities has long been upheld in the Brunei Negara, serving to foster the coexistence of peoples of various ethnic and religious affiliations within the Abode of Peace.

China's great transformation: from duty to personal rejuvenation and well-being

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-101
Author(s):  
William Jankowiak
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Cultural Model ◽  
Chinese Values ◽  
Provincial Capital ◽  
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

If the freedom to choose is important for personal well-being, what happens when there are drastic restrictions on personal choice? China represents an opportune case to explore this question. Its fifty-plus years of experimenting with a redistributive command economy, combined with periodic bursts of political fever, made extreme egalitarianism more important than other Chinese values recognising individual merit, vision, and achievement. Throughout much of Chinese history, these values were widely shared; but in the current era, an alternative cultural model was stressed: social responsibility for the community and nation. Individuals were ideally expected to de-emphasise their individuality in favour of "the common good". In China, the juxtaposition of the two competing value systems—extreme egalitarianism versus individual choice, responsibility, and personal achievement—engendered confusion, anger, angst, and unhappiness. In China, from 1949 to 1976, this accounts, in part, for much of the suffering people experienced in living their lives. In this article I examine the Chinese cultural model for life satisfaction or wellbeing in two different eras: work unit (danwei), socialism (1981–1983), and market reform (1987–2000). My sample was found in Hohhot, the provincial capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China, where I lived from 1981 to 1983; six months in 1987; five months in 2000 (a total of 35 months). I will also examine the ways Chinese sought well-being in four different domains: friendship, family, occupation, and fun activities. By analysing how Chinese conceptualised their lives over time, I will identify the conceptual frameworks individuals used to assess their relative well-being.

Between East Asia and Southeast Asia: Nanyang Studies, Chinese Migration, and National Jinan University, 1927–1940 (在東亞與東南亞之間：南洋研究、華人移民、與國立暨南大學,1927–1940)

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-56
Author(s):  
Leander Seah (謝枝嶙)
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Port Cities ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Chinese Migrants ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese Migration ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals ◽  
Trading Networks

Global port cities have played important roles in the migration of ethnic Chinese worldwide. This article argues that the scholarship on Chinese migration between port cities in East Asia and Southeast Asia has overemphasized business and trading networks. It suggests instead that other topics should be examined since Chinese migration has been complex and multi-faceted. This article does so through analyzing the history of Nanyang studies, a Chinese-language scholarly field that is renowned among Chinese intellectuals in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Nanyang studies began with the establishment of the Nanyang Cultural Affairs Bureau at Jinan University, the first school in China for Chinese migrants, because the Bureau was the first systematic attempt by China-based scholars to study the Nanyang (Southeast Asia). This article analyzes the history of Nanyang studies from the Bureau’s founding in 1927 to 1940, when the center for Nanyang studies shifted to Singapore in the Nanyang. 全球港口城市和全球華人移民已有密切關係。本文認為，關於東亞和東南亞的港口城市之間華人移民的學術著作過度注重商業貿易網絡。它建議由於華人移民是複雜的，多方面的，所以其他議題也有重要性。因此，本文將通過南洋研究的歷史而分析華人移民。南洋研究在東亞和東南亞是個著名的學術領域。它的起源於南洋文化教育事業部之暨南大學的創辦。這是因為暨南是中國第一所華僑華人學府，而南洋文化教育事業部是中國學者第一個正式研究南洋(東南亞)的機構。本文將分析南洋研究的歷史，從成立於1927年到1940年轉移到南洋之中的新加坡為止。 (This article is in English).

Opportunities and Anxieties for the Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia

2016 ◽  
Vol 115 (784) ◽  
pp. 312-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Liu
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Rising China ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship

[F]or the first time in modern history, a rising China is shaping the relationship, transforming the diaspora's identity …

scholarly journals Living in the Shadow of Mainland China - On Delineating Social and Political Constrains Among Southeast Asian Chinese Entrepreneurs

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 28-49
Author(s):  
Michael Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Chinese Economy ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
Chinese Entrepreneurs ◽  
The Individual

Abstract Taking a point of departure in the fluid political and economic landscape of East and Southeast Asia, this paper focuses on ethnic Chinese SME entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia, who are gradually becoming the focus in a discussion of whether a rising Mainland Chinese economy is a positive or negative force in Asia. Contrary to the coherent nature usually associated with this particular ethnic group, this article argues, that in fact it is divided into many smaller factions. This differentiation of the ethnic Chinese community in Southeast Asia, it is argued, is a reflection of many different influences from, especially, colonialism, and different contemporary social and political developments within the individual Southeast Asian countries. This increasing societal complexity makes ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs vulnerable in the wake of a rising Mainland Chinese economy, as they await to see if the latter impacts positively or negatively on the various Southeast Asian economies, thus indirectly influencing how they are embedded within their societies. Keywords: China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Chinese entrepreneurship, national politics, ethnicity.

scholarly journals COMPARISION COGNITIVE IDENTITY BETWEEN HONGKONG CITIZENS AND CHINESE DIASPORA IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhang Guannan
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Cognitive Problem ◽  
Chinese Citizen

In this paper, my topic is related to the cognitive identity case in Hong Kong. To research this topic, the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia will also be discussed and compared to illustrate what factors may caused the case occurred in Hong Kong. The topic of this paper will be discussed in terms of historical development, with this comparison, I will explain how the historical development of cognitive identity in Hong Kong from the colonial era to the present. Meanwhile, unlike the case of Hong Kong which is disappearing their cognitive identity which is national identity in China, there are Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia who still consider themselves as the successors of Chinese culture. With this comparison, I want to find a solution to avoid cases like this that occur in Hong Kong so that the cognitive problem of identity of people who has followed the Hong Kong case will also be changed and also truly be considered their identity as Chinese citizen. To research this topic, I will use the literature review method.

scholarly journals The Self-Help Book in the Therapeutic Ontosphere: A Postmodern Paradox

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-771
Author(s):  
Jean Collingsworth
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Space ◽  
The Self ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Advice Giving ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Generic Term ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
Stable Core ◽  
Critical Theorist

he self-help book is a prominent cultural and commercial phenomenon in the therapeutic ontosphere which permeates contemporary life. The generic term ’ontosphere’ is here co-opted from IT to describe a notional social space in which influential conceptualisations and shared assumptions about personal values and entitlements operate without interrogation in the demotic apprehension of ’’. It thus complements the established critical terms ’discourse’ and ’episteme’. In the therapeutic ontosphere the normal vicissitudes of life are increasingly interpreted as personal catastrophes. As new issues of concern are defined, it is assumed that an individual will need help to deal with them and live successfully. Advice-giving has become big business and the self-help book is now an important post-modern commodity. However a paradox emerges when the content and ideology of this apparently postmodern artifact is examined. In its topical eclecticism the genre is indeed unaligned with those traditional ’grand narratives’ and collective value systems which the postmodern critical project has sought to discredit. It endorses relativism, celebrates reflexivity and valorizes many kinds of ’personal truth’. Moreover readers are encouraged towards self-renovation through a process of ’bricolage’ which involves selecting advice from a diverse ethical menu along-side which many ’little narratives’ of localized lived experience are presented as supportive exemplars. However in asserting the pragmatic power of individual instrumentality in an episteme which has seen the critical decentering of the human subject, the self-help book perpetuates the liberal-humanist notion of an essential personal identity whose stable core is axiomatic in traditional ethical advice. And the heroic journey of self-actualization is surely the grandest of grand narratives: the monomyth. Thus the telic self-help book presents the critical theorist with something of a paradox.

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