The Twelfth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS 12)

Latin America was invited in 2018 to be a “natural extension” to a set of new infrastructure projects with aims to improve regional integration and economic development with the label of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). If successful, the new regional integration scheme proposed by the BRI may reshape global politics and have implications for Latin America’s regional institutions and economic blocs. In this article, we argue that many Latin American institutions can play a relevant in the dynamics of the BRI in Latin America. We conclude that the future of the BRI in Latin America is linked to (1) China’s capacity of mobilizing Latin American regional institutions to expand the initiative; (2) to Latin American countries' ability to design a joint strategy towards China's increasing influence in the region.

The traditional concept of architecture in Japan has the distinct feature of connecting the construction process with the result, the building itself. In recent years, however, this link is somewhat diminished, because of the change of the stakeholder’s roles, and the new challenge that heritage is facing. Digital surveying technologies are often used as tools for taking static snapshots of the present to archive. As such, they also have the potential to build dynamic virtual bridges between the tangible form of objects or buildings, the materials, and the concepts of the creators rooted in the cultural background of their time. This paper introduces a Dynamic Heritage model, a complex representation of Japanese architectural heritage to help the integration of digital tools for the maintenance of buildings in not just a practical but a conceptual way. The application of this model is illustrated by several projects executed in the field of archiving and preservation of Japanese heritage monuments during the corresponding author’s participation in the Design Researcher in Residence program at the KYOTO Design Lab of the Kyoto Institute of Technology. The 3D scanning project of the Shobo-ji and the enshrined Great Buddha in Gifu, for example, is delivered as a web browser-based Augmented Reality (AR)-application, to help visitors to understand the spatial concept of the building. Another example is the early 19th-century building designed by Goichi Takeda that was used to propose and execute an array of possible renovation directions for decorative elements based on a system of value transmission. These examples are aimed not merely to introduce isolated applications of the archived 3D data, but to propose the base for the development of a future framework to help the coordination of various stakeholders in Japanese heritage management.

Studies in the environmental archaeology of the mountains of Central and South Asia focus on the exploration of the millennia-old river valleys in the foothills of the Hindu Kush, Karakorum and Himalayas as corridors of exchange of agricultural practices, technical knowledge and skills. The region considered in this study is the Swat Valley situated in the North of Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa District which will be compared to the Himalayan regions of Almora-Kumaon valley (State of Uttarakhand in India) and to the Kashmir valley. These valleys are all located at an altitude between 800 and 2500 meters above sea level and are characterized by an similar alpine landscape. The Swat Valley in particular has a large water-basin area, enclosed by mountains, which give the valley the characteristics of a "mountain plain" rich in natural resources, forest wood and water. Compared to other Himalayan regions where climatic and environmental constraints are much greater, the environmental variety of Swat, Kashmir and Kumaon has made these valleys privileged eco-areas for settlement, agricultural development, cattle breeding - activity since antiquity and have favored the emergence and creation of important urban centers since the past. It is in these valleys therefore, that the majority of villages are concentrated, surrounded by very habitable landscapes, a rather hospitable climate and characterized by the development of common agricultural practices, mainly linked to the “double cropping” of dry mountain rice and grain (polyculture). My investigation will focus on the dynamics of contemporary landscape and habitat changes and the adaptation of the domestic architecture of the semi-nomadic Gujars and sedentary Pashtuns communities to their environment.

This small-scale study aims to trace the changes that have occurred in the Korean marriage culture in a time span of about one hundred years, more specifically, since the beginning of the 20th century, when Korea opened its borders to foreigners, until the present, as well as to identify the causes that have led to these changes. The theoretical framework I employed is content analysis, whereas the content (data) subjected to analysis is represented by fragments excerpted from a number of novels authored by Korean and Korean-American writers, which are categorized according to their themes and coded in terms of non-verbal elements. The focus is on such nonverbal codes as rituals, exchange of artifacts, eligible age for marriage, as well as on the status roles created by marriage in the Korean culture. The primary data is supplemented with information coming from the Korean society trend survey, conducted by Statistics Korea. The findings of the analysis reveal a slow, though obvious change in the marriage traditions that can be related to Western influence, the spread of Christianity, as well as to the massive industrial, technological, and economic development of Korea.

The sentence 夷狄之有君，不如諸夏之亡也from the chapter Bayi八佾is one of the controversial sentences in the Analects for its possibility of being read as the exact opposite meanings: besides its literal and obvious meaning as 1. “The barbaric people with rulers are inferior to Chinese polities that are without ones.”, most scholars from Song dynasty (968-1279) chose, however, to understand it as 2. “Unlike the Chinese polities that are without their rulers, the barbaric people are with theirs (and hence being better).”, including one of the Cheng brothers (Cheng Zi “程子”), recognised founders of Neo Confucianism. Instead of a philological study of the “correct” meaning of the sentence, the focus of this paper lies on how this sentence was read from Song to Qing, with a focus on how Manchurian monarchs in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) have ingeniously used one of the interpretations to support their legitimacy of rule in China.

Since late 2000s, moving to certain tourism destinations such as Lijiang, Dali and Lhasa for a short term from cities and opening a hostel during the stay have become a phenomenon among young urbanites in China. It is commonly described as a rebellious gesture against humdrum city living, which has a significant cultural impact on the young in China. Among the destinations, Lhasa has become a popular choice for those “hostel keepers” since 2006 when its tourism market started expansion. After fifteen years of development, the “hostel lifestyle” practiced by these hostel-keepers has become an important aspect of youth sub-culture in China and Lhasa’s hostel sector a cultural icon for domestic tourists. This paper presents ethnographic information about the hostel-keepers in Lhasa based on the fieldwork conducted in 2018 and 2019, including the demographic feature of the hostel-keepers, migration motivations, its history in the local tourism sector, as well as the common business mode. It also adopts a new theoretical framework built upon the concept of “lifestyle migration” (Benson and O’Reilly 2009, 609-10) to better understand this rarely examined but important ongoing cultural phenomenon in China.

Since early this century multiple urban regeneration projects in Shanghai and other Chinese cities incorporate heritage assets as landmark or attraction by means of de-contextualization and restoration, frequently after rebuilding or even relocating them. Based on a tabula rasa approach, by clearing up almost all pre-existing structures and context, the restored buildings are re-used. This means a discontinuity of the use that local communities gave to these heritage buildings and a redefinition and re-appropriation by a group of new users in a new context of consumerism. This paper studies the cases of Jing An Kerry Centre and Greenland Bund Centre in Shanghai, where heritage buildings related to the memories of Communism, trading societies and Christianity are incorporated into high-density high-end commercial redevelopments located in central areas of the city. At first sight it seems to be a tabula rasa approach, but beyond the heritage buildings there are other continuities in the urban design and architecture on this site that we will also discuss in this paper. The paper will study architectural restoration methods, heritage designation policies, urban design approaches and real estate strategies. By using a grounded theory and approach that incorporates interviews, site visits and data analysis this paper puts forward two main arguments. Firstly, that restored buildings are re-signified according to new narratives in the context of large-scale commercial real estate complexes that surround them and offer new interpretations of the past that contributes to the desired image of Shanghai as a global city. Secondly, that restoration brings the heritage assets to a new pristine state for new users, contributing to the outplacement of low-income groups in the central areas where new values and lifestyles dominate. The cultural capital of these assets re-formulates its authenticity into new political or economic capital for the key stakeholders.

During the seventeenth century, rapid developments in urbanization and sightseeing activities increased the popularity of woodblock prints that advertised famous sites. One of the most remarkable collections was Newly Compiled Striking Views within the Seas (1609) by Yang Erzeng. The collection served as a travel guidebook and included visual images along with geographical information about places of interest. This paper focuses on its two fascicles of West Lake and discusses how these incorporate geographical knowledges from the Song Dynasty with adapted images from both landscape-painting manuals and woodblock drama illustrations. Comprised of a combination of poems, paintings, and calligraphy, this book was appealing to both sophisticated and mass-market audiences. Consumers of the book and its images saw these as tangible embodiments of cultural tropes, suggestions for sightseeing, and a particular way of seeing. As a new model for circulating knowledge about famous places, this work meditated between traditional gazetteers and the newly developed tourist market to reshape concepts about place and mobility.

This paper presents first-hand accounts produced by members of the British garrison of Yokohama (1864-1875) as valuable sources for examining the history of early treaty port era Japan. As the garrison itself, despite its notable influence and size, remains largely unexplored in the English language scholarship, these accounts arguably take on even greater significance than they otherwise might. Through looking at two aspects of the content of these accounts: the leisure activities of the garrison, and the views they contain of the Japanese, the value of the sources is revealed. The initial analysis of some of the leisure activities of the garrison serves as an example of the value of the accounts in providing additional detail of their life in the treaty port. The second area of value that the accounts offer is that of revealing the views of the authors of the population of Japan. Although these views are Victorian and militarised, due to the historical context and profession of the authors, in their framing and assumptions they are indicative of emerging Western views of Japan in the era and deserve greater attention as one potential influence on the process of image formation of Japan, both internationally and domestically.

This study aims to explain the current conditions of video games in Bhutanese society and clarify the realities of the Bhutanese gaming community. Bhutan, the tiny and landlocked Himalayan Kingdom, is globally well-known as ‘the last Shangri-La’. However, over the past two decades, Bhutanese society has drastically modernised. The first TV broadcasting, Internet connection, and mobile communication services were introduced only after modernisation. Currently, the Bhutanese people enjoy the most advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs, e.g., 4G networks, smartphones, and 3D mobile games). According to recent game studies, playing video games (digital games) has become regarded more as ‘social play’ than ‘child’s play’. Hence, the video game players’ community can be considered a ‘society’ in sociological terms. Before the 21st century, gaming culture was almost similar to the so-called otaku culture. Now, consumers are more diverse, and the social position of video games has improved, despite negative outcomes like gaming disorders. In Bhutan, most adults seem to believe that video games are harmful and bad. Although such hostility exists, the number of mobile gamers is increasing. Regarding ‘PUBG’, a globally popular online multiplayer game, thousands of Bhutanese players have formed a Facebook community, despite the game’s risk of being banned in Bhutan due to its addictive and violent nature.