Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self 9789048535514

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Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

Publications The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a research and exchange platform based in Leiden, the Netherlands. Its objective is to encourage the interdisciplinary and comparative study of Asia and to promote (inter)national cooperation. IIAS focuses on the humanities and social sciences and on their interaction with other sciences. It stimulates scholarship on Asia and is instrumental in forging research networks among Asia Scholars. Its main research interests are reflected in the three book series published with Amsterdam University Press: Global Asia, Asian Heritages and Asian Cities. IIAS acts as an international mediator, bringing together various parties in Asia and other parts of the world. The Institute works as a clearinghouse of knowledge and information. This entails activities such as providing information services, the construction and support of international networks and cooperative projects, and the organization of seminars and conferences. In this way, IIAS functions as a window on Europe for non-European scholars and contributes to the cultural rapprochement between Europe and Asia. IIAS Publications Officer: Paul van der Velde IIAS Assistant Publications Officer: Mary Lynn van Dijk

Asian Cities The Asian Cities Series explores urban cultures, societies and developments from the ancient to the contemporary city, from West Asia and the Near East to East Asia and the Pacific. The series focuses on three avenues of inquiry: evolving and competing ideas of the city across time and space; urban residents and their interactions in the production, shaping and contestation of the city; and urban challenges of the future as they relate to human well-being, the environment, heritage and public life. Series Editor Paul Rabé, Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) at International Institute for Asian Studies, the Netherlands Editorial Board Henco Bekkering, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands Charles Goldblum, University of Paris 8, France Xiaoxi Hui, Beijing University of Technology, China Stephen Lau, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Rita Padawangi, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore R. Parthasarathy, Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Gujarat, India Neha Sami, Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bangalore, India

Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West Care of the Self

Edited by Gregory Bracken

Amsterdam University Press

Publications Asian Cities 14

Cover illustration: Lu Xun Park, Shanghai Photograph by Gregory Bracken Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 472 1 e-isbn 978 90 4853 551 4 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462984721 nur 758 © Gregory Bracken / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2020 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

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Introduction

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Gregory Bracken

1 The Western World as Utopia?

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2 How Does Space Have Meaning?

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Thames Town, Songjiang and New Chinese Residential Habits Martin Minost

A Multifocal Approach to Korean Jimjilbang (찜질방) Vera Marie Hälbig

3 Transforming the Self in Contemporary Korean Ki Suryŏn (氣修練) 67 Water, Wood, and Stone in Two GiCheon (氣天) DVDs Victoria Ten

4 The Relationship between Architecture and Ritual in the Hindu Crematorium Srivalli Pradeepthi Ikkurthy

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5 New Bodies in Cities

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6 Family, Everyday Life, and the Making-up of Society

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7 Mental Health Scenario of Asian Americans

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8 ‘Care of the Self’ and Discipline in Smart Cities

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Contested Technologies of the Self in Urban India Rachana Johri

A Case Study in Yokohama’s Chinatown Wong Yee Lam Elim

Social and Environmental Determinants of their Well-being and Service Utilization Susheelabai R. Srinivasa and Sudershan Pasupuleti

Sensors in Singapore Joost Alleblas and Steven Dorrestijn

Afterword

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Index

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The Right to the City Gregory Bracken

List of Figures and Tables Figures Figure 1.1 One City, Nine Towns plan in the Municipality of Shanghai Figure 1.2 British-style architecture in Thames Town Figure 1.3 Urban themes in Thames Town Figure 1.4 Chinese furniture and decoration in homes Figure 1.5 Appropriation of outside spaces Figure 4.1 Shodasha Samskara Figure 4.2 Antyesti Figure 4.3 Growth patterns: Varanasi and Hyderabad Figure 4.4 Pyre typology diagram Figure 4.5 Pyres: generic Figure 4.6 Pyres: looking behind Figure 4.7 Pyres: looking beyond – Mahaprasthanam and ­Vaikuntha Dwaram Figure 4.8 Waiting area: typology diagram Figure 4.9 Waiting area: gallery and pavilion forms Tables Table 7.1

23 26 28 32 34 90 92 99 100 101 102 102 104 104

Depression among different racial/ethnic adolescents, 155 gender, and ages Table 7.2 Distribution of mental illness among different ethnic groups156

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden for their generous support while working on this book. I would like, in particular, to thank Paul van der Velde, IIAS Publications Officer, for his unfailing support in this and all of my projects at IIAS. I also want to thank Paul Rabé and Mary Lynn van Dijk, also of IIAS, for their dedication, professionalism, and friendship. Without their help on this and other projects, none of them would have been possible, and none of them would have been as good as they are. I would also like to thank the Spatial Planning and Strategy section at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft for their vital support in this and all of my academic endeavours, in particular, Professor Vincent Nadin who has been an inspirational leader and a pleasure to work with. A special word of thanks goes to Saskia Gieling, Jaap Wagenaar, and Mike Sanders at Amsterdam University Press. They and all their team did a stellar job on this collaboration, as they do with everything we have worked on over the years. It is the hard work and dedication they bring to all their projects that makes them such a pleasure to work with. Finally, I would also like to thank the two people who reviewed this book. All their constructive, helpful, and insightful suggestions have greatly benefitted the finished product which I hope you, the reader, will enjoy as much as we enjoyed working on it.

Introduction Gregory Bracken This book continues the investigations published in its companion volume, Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self, in which Chapter 1, ‘Citizenship and the Good Life’ (by this editor) pointed to Cicero’s view that the good citizen was a politically engaged one. Cicero eschewed the fashionable New Academic scepticism of his era, which, like postmodernism, seemed to advocate a denial of truth. Michel Foucault, in the critique of structuralism he called poststructuralism, sought to lead theories of the care of the self into the real world, into real spaces, real time, so that they could be immediately beneficial to people. Cicero was all for human agency but understood that we never act alone. We are part of a community, part of society. Some of the essays in this book examine how communities and societies act and interact; some, like Overseas Chinese native-place organizations can give a valuable helping hand, others, like vicious village attitudes expressed in what should otherwise be the freedom of the city, can have the opposite effect, with tragic consequences, as we shall see. Cicero’s philosophy was never particularly original, he was not seeking new truths (neither was Confucius, as we also saw in Chapter 1 of Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West), they were both trying to relate philosophy to current situations, which is also the task of this book: to investigate current situations. Confucius, like Cicero, respected received wisdom, but even he did not accept it uncritically, and this underscores one of the most important themes of this book, which will be highlighted in the Afterword: The Right to the City: that we must dare to think for ourselves. Confucius’s philosophy placed humans at its centre but it was not abstract, it was practical, just like Cicero’s. We need to practice our humanity; any abdication of this agency can curb its power to effect change. And abdication can come in many guises, whether they be faith-based systems, or village mores, or, more recently, letting machines do our thinking for us.

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Are there answers to these problems? Possibly, but they are not going to be easy, but then sometimes the job of a good researcher is to pose intelligent questions, provoking other people to come up with answers, maybe even solutions to the problems highlighted in the papers here. Many of these papers shed much-needed light on some of the issues that have emerged for people caught in twenty-first century urbanization, what we can perhaps call the world’s new urban turn, now that more than 50 percent of us live in cities. An urbanized world should be an improved world, a better place to live in. It should be a place where humans and their social practices, especially those that seek to take care of the self, can flourish. Or, at the very least, where everybody has the chance to try and let them do so.

The background to this book As noted at the beginning of this Introduction, this book continues the work that was done in Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self, and like that book, it features papers from a variety of different but related disciplines, underscoring the importance of the multi- and transdisciplinary nature of this entire project: a series of investigations into the care of the self in the urban environment. While Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West featured a number of papers that looked to the past for practices of citizenship, as well as also taking into account current practices, this book is more firmly grounded in the present: investigating contemporary practice of citizenship, including challenges to the right to citizenship, as in the case of untouchables in India, and Asians with mental health issues in America (Chapters 5 and 6 respectively). These investigations also include exploring the right to the city in the digital age (the subject of Chapter 8, and something that will also be mentioned in the Afterword). For the moment, we now turn our attention to the papers in this book, which examine contemporary practices of care of the self in cities in Asia and the West. They have been written by researchers representing a range of different experience levels, from young PhD candidates to well-established academics. They also come from a variety of different academic backgrounds, ranging from architecture and urbanism, through anthropology, social science, psychology, and gender studies, to history and philosophy. Yet one thing unites all of these papers: their people-centred approach. This trans- and multidisciplinary approach sheds valuable new light on what are sometimes quite old problems, to lead to fresh perspectives in ways

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of thinking about them and, more importantly, dealing with them, which is entirely in keeping with the series of books that have come out of the IIAS-TU Delft seminars held in Leiden each spring between 2010 and 2017, the time I was fortunate enough to be a research fellow at the International Institute of Asian Studies, Leiden. If there is one thing these books tell us, it is that cities are not simply buildings and spaces between them; cities are people and their networks of interaction. Chapters 1 to 5 look at how these practices are conducted at home, where some can be enriching and enabling, while others are more problematic, as we shall see. Chapters 6 to 8 examine practices abroad, again with the same advantages and disadvantages highlighted. And the book’s final chapter, Chapter 9, raises important issues about such practices for the future, leading to the question if humans will still have agency to affect their practices and care for themselves as they should as cities become ‘smarter’ and such decisions are taken out of our hands by sensors, algorithms, etc. The Afterword, which is titled ‘The Right to the City’, builds on this final chapter to question what role human agency can still have in such practices, and harks back to the first chapter of Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self, ‘Citizenship and the Good Life (by this editor), where the Ancients insisted that to be a proper citizen one had to be an engaged one, making for neat bookends to these two related books.

The papers We begin this book with a chapter by anthropologist and sociologist Martin Minost, ‘The Western World as Utopia? Thames Town, Songjiang and New Chinese Residential Habits’. This looks at cross-cultural representations that have led to the hybridization of domestic space in Shanghai. It questions our understanding of the all too often Western-inspired concept of authenticity. Middle- and upper-class Chinese families have been moving into new residential neighbourhoods where architectural styles and even names have been inspired by the West. This is done to convey an exotic and presumably desirable way of life, but because it is perceived as being based on imitation, these constructions have received a lot of criticism from both Chinese and Western observers who see these new neighbourhoods as ‘fake’ or as some sort of a theme park. Most of these critics have been architects and urbanists, what Minost does, thanks to his anthropological background, is look at how these spaces are actually inhabited by the people

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who call them home. This reveals that they are very far from being merely an outcome of China’s increasing integration into the world system, and through his detailed study of the families’ living habits in Thames Town, Songjiang (part of the One City, Nine Towns plan) we are given insights into some of the complex social transformations that are taking place in China’s cities today. Minost convincingly shows that although these people may live in a neighbourhood that is stylistically a copy of a number of different but identifiably British architectural styles, the residents are not trying to imitate the Western way of life, neither are they experiencing some sort of acculturation process; they are, in fact, generating a new way of living, one that is open to other cultures but which remains specifically their own. This hybridization of spatial practice is a fascinating development in China’s contemporary urban transformation, and what we are beginning to see emerge here is a culture that is confident enough to borrow elements from the West without being overwhelmed by them. This could be showing the route to a rich Asian urban future where globalization no longer means Westernization. Chapter 2, ‘How Does Space Have Meaning? A Multifocal Approach to Korean Jimjilbang ( 찜질방)’ is by Vera Marie Hälbig, a scholar whose background in transnational studies has been enriched by investigations into the intersection between literary and cultural studies. Her chapter examines the spaces of the traditional Korean jimjilbang (찜질방 bathhouse) and does so from a geocritical perspective that includes spatial theory and literary studies to interpretatively realize the narrative and social production of the jimjilbang. Due to its cross-cultural point of departure, this chapter scrutinizes both global and local conceptualizations of space. It attempts to sensitize how cultural meanings come into being, and how particular narratives and performances are inherent in the creation of spatial experience. This approach to space needs to be transdisciplinary, and here both narrative and visual representations of space are analyzed to see how meaning is produced. The use of Bertrand Westphal’s ‘geocriticism’ makes sure that space is placed at the centre of this research and marks its point of departure, with literary analysis. This geocritical approach also understands place as a space that is continuously being made meaningful. The multifocal approach to this research attempts a description of a methodologically new step in a field of studies which has previously been determined by author- and genre-centred approaches to space, and the outcome provides substantial material for future interdisciplinary research. Chapter 3: ‘Transforming the Self in Contemporary Korean Ki Suryŏn (氣修練): Water, Wood, and Stone in Two GiCheon (氣天) DVDs’ by Victoria

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Ten examines practices of self-cultivation in contemporary Korea. Ki suryŏn is a Korean method of cultivation for the mind and body that uses ki (氣life energy) and is akin to Chinese qigong (气功) and Indian yoga. GiCheon is one type of ki suryŏn, which Ten sees as an ‘alchemical practice of embodied knowledge’. Using a theoretical framework based on Michel Foucault’s technologies of the self, this chapter examines the visual iconography of DVDs that advertise GiCheon, particularly their focus on elements such as water, wood, and stone, investigating how they are instrumental for the viewer’s self-cultivation. This makes a very literal interpretation of the term ‘technologies of the self’, to embrace actual technical tools, such as videos, DVDs, films, and websites, all of which are employed in Korean ki suryŏn for the purpose of the transforming of the self. The next two chapters highlight some of the more problematic aspects for the care of the self in contemporary urban environments, in this case India. Chapter 4, ‘The Relationship between Architecture and Ritual in the Hindu Crematorium’ by Srivalli Pradeepthi Ikkurthy, notes that in Hindu philosophy death is seen as just another passing phase of life, and that in the cycle of birth and death, death has to be celebrated. Despite this, crematoria and cemeteries have been largely ignored in Indian architectural treatises. India’s recent and rapid urbanization, which has caused many cities to sprawl, has meant that many crematoria now find themselves in a much more urban environment, contrary to the ritual requirement of their being in peripheral places. This chapter tries to explain the architectural variations of these funerary spaces, and takes two case studies, Hyderabad and Varanasi, to show how they have been influenced by three vital, centuries-old layers of religion, region, and time. An understanding of all three of these is needed if these ancient traditions and their architectural articulations are to be passed on for future generations to celebrate ways of life and death. Rachana Johri’s ‘New Bodies in Cities: Contested Technologies of the Self in Urban India’ is located at the intersection of psychology, gender, and culture and effectively uses both real and cinematic narratives to argue that cities in India are characterized by the highly contested nature of physical spaces, bodily practices, and technologies of the self. India’s urbanization has, in part, been fuelled by rural-urban migration. Cities are attractive to young people because they offer a chance to reinvent themselves. Moving away from the villages, where women and Dalits are fettered by caste- and gender-based identities, those who move to the city should find it possible to reinvent themselves – ‘city air’, as the old German saying has it, ‘makes you free’. Sadly, as this paper shows (using examples from both real life

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and cinematic depiction), sometimes it is not possible to escape from the suffocating mores of the village because those narrow, cruel, even vicious practices of restriction and censure can follow people to the city, with tragic consequences, as the examples of suicide, rape, and murder in this thought-provoking paper show. The next two chapters also contain a mixture of positive and negative practices, this time ones that take place abroad. Chapter 6, by Wong Yee Lam Elim, entitled ‘Family, Everyday Life, and the Making-up of Society: A Case Study in Yokohama’s Chinatown’, examines the Overseas Chinese diaspora here and their successful ways of making a life for themselves in a foreign place without losing cultural identity. One of the key concepts of this paper is the Chinese notion of home (家jia), which means more than simply a living space for human beings; it is living space for the family. Taking as its case study a Cantonese family called Xie, we see the connections between family, everyday life, and the making-up of the Overseas Chinese community in Yokohama. The next chapter, Chapter 7, highlights problems that can come with migration to a foreign place, this time in a group that is usually thought of as successful (or at least not usually problematic): Asian-Americans. This chapter is by Susheelabai R. Srinivasa and Sudershan Pasupuleti, the former is a social scientist and the latter a psychologist, and both of them investigate issues relating to social work. Called ‘Mental Health Scenario of Asian Americans: Social and Environmental Determinants of their Well-being and Service Utilization’, it looks at Asian-Americans’ mental health and their surprising (at first glance) reluctance to make use of mental health services. Asian-Americans are numerically a minority group in the United States, accounting for only 5.7 percent of the country’s 325 million population. They are also a group that receives limited attention in terms of policy and programme focus when addressing America’s mental health needs. There is a disproportion in their lack of utilization of available mental health services, due to feelings of shame that are a throw-back to the attitudes in their countries of origin. This chapter raises vital questions about this group’s needs, particularly their under-reporting of mental health issues. It also includes a helpful look at the social and environmental factors that affect this under-reporting and under-utilization. It is also a timely warning, because unless something is done about this issue it may well mean major problems for what until now has been considered a ‘model minority’. The final chapter in the book, Chapter 8: ‘“Care of the Self” and Discipline in Smart Cities: Sensors in Singapore’ by Joost Alleblas and Steven Dorrestijn, looks at Singapore’s role as a front runner in developing a society that uses urban sensors to control movement, access, and interaction. Their backgrounds

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in the ethics of technology (Dorrestijn) and the design and philosophy of technology (Alleblas) give them unique insights into what is going on in this gleaming futuristic global city. Their paper is firmly grounded in an astute reading of Michel Foucault’s care of the self and surveillance theories and asks if current trends in urbanism, particularly those of the ‘Smart City’, have created a tension between discipline and self-care. They ask what is the meaning of the care of the self in Sensor Societies such as Singapore, where discipline and control seem to come first? Where passes, chips, and biometric data determine who moves in the city and who can be admitted to its functions and benefits. This thought-provoking chapter develops a critique of the Sensor Society that acknowledges both the disciplinary tendencies and (emerging) forms of self-care. But now it is time to turn our attention to the papers themselves.

Bibliography Bracken, Gregory. 2019. ‘Citizenship and the Good Life’ in Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self, Vol. I, edited by Gregory Bracken. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Bracken, Gregory (ed.). 2019. Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self, Vol. I. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

About the author Gregory Bracken is an Assistant Professor of Spatial Planning and Strategy at TU Delft and one of the co-founders of Footprint, the e-journal dedicated to architecture theory. From 2009-2015 he was a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) Leiden where he set up (with Dr. Manon Osseweijer) the Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) with a €1.2 million grant from Marie Curie Actions. While there he also established the annual IIAS-TU Delft conference series, the events that engendered this series of books, which includes Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self (Amsterdam University Press, 2019). Other publications include Asian Cities: Colonial to Global (Amsterdam University Press, 2015), The Shanghai Alleyway House: A Vanishing Urban Vernacular (Routledge 2013, translated into Chinese 2015), and Aspects of Urbanization in China: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou (Amsterdam University Press, 2012). Email: [email protected]

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The Western World as Utopia? Thames Town, Songjiang and New Chinese Residential Habits Martin Minost Abstract Chinese middle and upper classes are moving into new neighbourhoods in which the architecture, names, and atmosphere are inspired by Western patterns, a new fashion that is intended to convey an exotic way of life but which has received much criticism from commentators, both Chinese and Western. This paper makes a detailed study of families’ living habits in Thames Town, Songjiang to show that residents are not experiencing an acculturation process, neither are they trying to imitate Western ways of life, they are in fact generating new logics in managing their homes and families, which enables us to better understand their aspirations. By using Foucault’s concept of the heterotopia, the paper also establishes a genealogy of Western postmodern contemporary thought on the concept of utopia. Keywords: cross-cultural representations, hybridization, domestic space, Occidentalism, authenticity, Shanghai

Introduction Opened to the public and residents since the end of 2006, the residential and tourist area of Thames Town, located on the outskirts of Songjiang, a city near Shanghai, has garnered a lot of attention for its British-style architecture; it has also been the target of much criticism. The occurrence of Western architecture in China is not a new phenomenon. During the eighteenth century, Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) had Jesuit missionaries design the ‘Western Mansions’ (Xiyang lou 西洋楼) inside the domain of his summer residence of Yuanmingyuan. These mansions were replicas of

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European palaces and landscapes that were destroyed along with the rest of the imperial gardens in 1860 by British and French troops (Sahlins 1988, Finlay 2007). During the nineteenth century, with the construction of the Foreign settlements as one of the outcomes of the Opium Wars and the forced opening of China, foreigners imported their own architectural and urban models into Treaty Port cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, or Ningbo (Bergère 2002, Goodman and Goodman 2012). Even more recently, after the Chinese revolution of 1949, the Chinese Communist Party favoured the Soviet model of spatial organization in order to install Maoist principles at every level of society (Bray 2005). Yet, the current phenomenon cannot be compared with these past occurrences of Western architectural models in China. The Western Mansions of the Emperor were a symbol of his integrative power dominating ‘everything under the sky’. The Western architecture built within the Foreign settlements was imposed by the colonial powers, and the Soviet model, though generalized for the whole population, was set up to serve the logic of the Communist revolution. On the contrary, contemporary Western-style neighbourhoods, even though they feature foreign architecture, are not imposed by another nation, nor are they meant to belong to only one individual. Moreover, conveying the image of an exotic landscape, they seem to disprove the nationalist discourse of the Party State, questioning, thus, the relationship between the spatial organization of a society and its own values. In a 2014 article published in The Globalist, an online magazine, Anna Greenspan intended to present the fake, yet more noticeable, buildings of the area. She described Thames Town as a ‘Potemkin Village’ referring to the myth of fake paperboard villages quickly erected and almost as quickly demolished to deceive Empress Catherine II of Russia during her tour of the Crimea in 1787. According to the journalist, Thames Town, as an occurrence of the copycat culture characterising Chinese society recently, is only a backdrop décor for newlywed couples’ pictures. The neighbourhood fails to become a dynamic urban area as it remains empty of inhabitants, and this is despite what Greenspan says about the suburban residential space as being ‘bound to its particular history, socio-economic conditions, culture and dreams’ (Greenspan 2014). In this sense, she analyses the numerous Western-style constructions in China that are similar to Thames Town as being, on the one hand, a manifestation of a copycat culture, and on the other, a sign of the modern aspirations of the Chinese population craving something different from their own culture – something they can dream of. Her point of view is not unique. One of the main discourses concerning the neighbourhood of Thames Town and life in the British-style environment

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develops the idea that Western architecture is correlative with a shift of cultural identity among a part of the Chinese population, therefore projecting the image of an exotic cultural belonging associated with spaces represented as different. In 2010, the Dutch urbanist Harry den Hartog published a collection of essays about the way of production of new cities in China through his study of the Shanghai One City, Nine Towns programme – the origin of Thames Town. This type of municipal urbanism programme results from, according to Den Hartog, a search for urban identity within the context of a lack of identificatory spaces (Den Hartog 2010). The area, through the essays, is depicted as fictional and decontextualized (Nieuwenhuis 2010), failing to provide any place material to identify with (Li 2010), and even entailing a cultural confusion (Fujita 2010). One of the participants, Li Xiangning, a Tongji University professor, categorizes Thames Town and the other experimental areas of the programme as a heterotopia (Li 2010, 2017). Heterotopian spaces, as defined by the French philosopher Michel Foucault, are localized utopias, in that they can be found on a map. Moreover, these places, existing in every society, distinguish themselves and are separate from normal spaces by their populations and other criteria, making them radically different from the rest of their surrounding environment. For instance, Foucault mentions cemeteries or asylums, which are marginalized spaces where the norms of social behaviour change from the ordinary places of daily life (Foucault 1984). This concept, presented during a conference in the late 1960s, had a huge success among architects and urbanists. More recently, it was rediscovered by sociologists and anthropologists who appropriated the concept to define new kinds of places produced within the context of the postmodern era and the neoliberalization of societies (Dehaene and De Cauter 2008). In this perspective, places like shopping malls, theme parks, and gated communities, just like contested spaces and camps, have a material and direct impact on the developmental aspect of cities, transforming the traditional modes of interaction between citizens, and so they are seen as modern heterotopias. Within this frame of analysis, Den Hartog and his fellow authors compared Thames Town (and other Western-style areas) with theme parks, like Disneyland, or themed malls, placing them within a range of neoliberal places of consumption, and also as urban objects that developed within a Western environment. In doing so, they analyse and project onto China a particular transformation of Chinese society that is a peculiarly postmodern one. They use Western-grounded reflections, similar to ones developed by American researchers like Michael Sorkin (1992), Mike Davis (2007), and Daniel Monk (2007) regarding processes such as the disappearance

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of public space, more controlled and segregated urban places, and the decontextualization and territorial de-anchoring of urban constructions in Western cities to draw their conclusions. With its British-style architecture and ‘English Disneyland’ appearance, it is completely decontextualized from the Chinese environment of Songjiang. Thames Town is deemed to belong to the heterotopian type of spaces: a localized fairyland dreamed up by wealthy Chinese. Neither is this dimension absent from the Chinese debate. In a 2008 article that analysed the development of the One City, Nine Towns programme within the historical and economic context of Shanghai, authors Zhou Minghao and Xue Qiuli referred to the ‘utopian flavour’ (wutuobang de secai 乌托邦的色彩) carried by the architecture that was criticized during the implementation of the project (Zhou and Xue 2008). As a consequence, the area of Thames Town is only perceived through its British features and its consumption of a Western image. The residents of Thames Town, when moving into the neighbourhood, were seen as looking for a Western way of life, which they could reach via the British-style domestic space of the housing. This Westernization of daily life, thought to be generated by the particular, even peculiar aspect of the residential space, whether because it would have a performative quality that influences the lived experience of its inhabitants or because it would represent a dream, triggered much criticism as well as nationalistic responses. In March 2016, the Minister of Civil Affairs, Li Liguo, targeted the Westerninspired names and styles of these sorts of urban spaces. He identified these places as undermining local Chinese culture and memory and promised measures to contain the spread of foreign names. The public debate that followed his announcement was supported by the media and referred to these Western names with the term yang diming (洋地名). The word yang (洋) which characterizes things that came from the West gained a pejorative connotation during the time of Shanghai’s foreign settlements (1842-1943) as the term was used in expressions such as chongyang meiwai (崇洋媚外) which means ‘worship of the foreign things and try to flatter the foreigners. Consequently, the use of the expression yang diming, literally ‘Western (yang 洋) toponyms – or place names – (diming 地名)’, gives a negative characterization to the phenomenon. It is generally accepted that residential areas like Thames Town are the occurrence of a Westernization of Chinese society: the new home is thought to provide the residents with the Western way of life they were dreaming about, and consequently entailing a cultural and memory loss regarding their own local traditions. To this peculiar point of view, in spite of China’s

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rich cultural background and the gradual liberalization and enrichment of society, the appeal for Western homes and Western-style everyday areas seems higher than ever, and the Western world is thought of as a new utopia by the wealthiest individuals in the country. The Western-style residential area could then be considered as the first step before going to settle abroad, a first step in ‘escaping from China’, as is sometimes believed. However, the matter of a cultural identity shift is flawed as analyses of daily life in Thames Town, and other residential areas, is only founded on the material aspect of the environment, which is the foreign-inspired architecture, and on the observations of temporary visitors’ use of the British-style space. There are no accounts of the daily practices of permanent residents, or the way they live in their homes, neither are there any reasons given for why these people choose to buy their houses in Thames Town. The understanding of the borrowing phenomenon and of the potential acculturation process occurring in Thames Town is thus problematic in two ways: first, as the area is compared with Western urban objects, like theme parks, and categorized as a heterotopia based on its material appearance, it is thought that China is undergoing exactly similar processes as Western postmodern societies only ‘with Chinese characteristics’, such as the so-called ‘copycat culture’. Chinese cities and their evolution are then apprehended through Western experiences and Western values (with concepts such as ‘authenticity’ and ‘fakery’) which take no regard of Chinesespecific spatial features and urbanities. Second, because the use of space in Thames Town is only seen through the lens of temporary visits, by tourists, weekenders, or newlywed couples that come for the British architecture, the area necessarily appears as a place to experiment with Western ways of doing things. Yet, the daily experience of residents is completely different, and their use of the neighbourhood, as they appropriate their living space, reveals social aspirations and logics where questions of identity and culture are simply non-existent. Keeping this in mind, what then is the real impact of the British dimension of the space on residents’ daily lives? How do they perceive this spatial feature? and how is it integrated into the construction of a better life? Only an ethnography of the daily life of the residents, their way of making and representing their homes and their neighbourhood through their own appropriation of these, can provide enough data to understand the social processes they experience, and thus show how a place like Thames Town is perceived and lived-in by a part of the Chinese population. Material for the following analysis was collected during several fieldwork trips in China between 2011 and 2016. During these research journeys, I was able to share the daily life of half a dozen families

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living in Thames Town and to follow twenty more households. I also conducted interviews and used questionnaires to get information from shopowners, officials, and visitors in the area of Thames Town, gathering points of view and experiences from all types of users of this particular space. First, I will provide an overview of Thames Town in order to introduce the historical context of the production of such a place in the Greater Municipality of Shanghai. Second, I will analyse the arguments that developed depicting Thames Town as a theme park in order to highlight the epistemological logics that led to the discursive association between the residential area and a dreamed utopia. Finally, I will analyse some of the techniques of space appropriation put into practice by the residents who adapt their houses to their habits, and which reveal how they integrate the British architecture into their construction of a better life. In doing so, I aim at providing a better insight into the processes experienced by a part of the Chinese urban population, and underlining, through this epistemological detour, the Orientalist values attached to Western dual concepts such as ‘authenticity’/‘copy’ and ‘utopia’/‘heterotopia’ as they are understood in postmodern societies.

A brief overview of Thames Town, Songjiang Thames Town is an experimental area of the new city/suburban district of Songjiang. It belongs to the greater urbanism plan called One City, Nine Towns. The neighbourhood is situated in the western part of the new city, itself located about 40 kilometres to the southwest of the city centre of Shanghai. The construction of the new city started in 2001 within the urbanism programme implementation initiated by the Municipal Government with the purpose of developing the suburban spaces of Shanghai and freeing the city centre from overcrowding and congestion. The programme foresaw the construction of ten new cities and towns, Songjiang being the main project – the one ‘city’ among the nine new ‘towns’, which were Anting, Zhujiajiao, Pujiang, Luodian, Gaojiao, Chenjia, Fengjing, Fengchen, and Lingang (Wang and Li 2006, Henriot 2013). In each case, the local authorities held an international competition for the best urban plan and design. In most cases, foreign practices won the competitions, which led to a specific architectural style for the experimental areas of each new town. For instance, a German firm won the competition for the new city of Anting and was asked to design a German town, a Swedish company won the plan for Luodian, Italian architects in Pujiang, etc. In Songjiang, the competition was finally won by the British firm W.S. Atkins for most parts of the new city.

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Figure 1.1 One City, Nine Towns plan in the Municipality of Shanghai

Even though the imitated styles have been analysed as a reference to the old foreign settlements (Franklin 2007, Den Hartog 2010, Law 2012), the original purpose of the programme was not to copy Western architecture in the suburban area of Shanghai, nor to export to the outskirts the memory of Old Shanghai, but to develop the peripheral spaces that had been forgotten by urban-development policies so far. The winning competition plans delivered by W.S. Atkins did not integrate a ‘British style area’, neither did the first master plans of 2001 (Wang and Liu 2003). The designs for a British-style residential area appeared during the second year of implementation. The construction of Thames Town began shortly thereafter, in October 2002, alongside the initial parts of the project, such as a central park, a university town with international monumental buildings for each relocated academic institution, and a new administration headquarters. In this perspective, the One City, Nine Towns plan cannot be analysed as a ‘self- or auto-colonization’ process, nor as a manifestation of ‘nostalgia’ (Pan 2005, Law 2012) for 1930s’ Shanghai.

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As it is stated by Borgmann and Sneep (in Chapter 7 of Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: ‘Constructing Each Other: Contemporary Travel of Urban-Design Ideas between China and the West), the programme, in its conceptualization, has little to do with the remembrance of the colonial past of Shanghai, neither does the inspiration conveyed by the forms and styles the buildings of Thames Town with the architecture of the old settlements of Shanghai. At the beginning of the new millennium, within the context of China’s integration into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and international events such as 2008’s Olympic Games in Beijing and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, the One City, Nine Towns project aimed at modernizing and internationalizing the suburban areas of the Municipality (Henriot and Minost 2017). In this regard, the slogan which characterized the development of the district of Songjiang was ‘One City, Two Expressions’ (yicheng, liangmao 一城两貌), echoing both the international new city, where Thames Town is situated, and the old traditional city of Songjiang. The neighbourhood of Thames Town is one square kilometre in area and gathers together several different British architectural styles, inspired by different times in Britain’s history. The construction was managed by the semi-private f irm Shanghai Songjiang New City Development and Construction Company which took care of the viability of the land, the equipment, and the centre of the neighbourhood. The development of other areas was left to a number of different subcontracting companies. Thames Town was opened to the public four years later, by the end of 2006. Taking the small towns of England as a model, the British architects juxtaposed within the neighbourhood several architectural styles and urban forms. In doing so, they aimed at giving the place the impression of an historic and ‘organic’ development, as stated in the practice’s official catalogue of works (Atkins 2011). The place is composed with an ‘old-style’ core, a centre of small pedestrian cobblestone streets with three- or fourstorey buildings inspired by post-medieval architectural styles, generally from the Tudor period (1485-1603). Their fronts display façades of red brick topped by a timber-framed lime infill structure. This is just the external aspect; all the buildings are actually made of concrete. There is also a Catholic church inspired by Bristol’s Christ Church of Clifton (the original one was built in the nineteenth century, i.e., during the Victorian period, but in a gothic-revival style). Some buildings recall the modern industrial period (with red-brick and metal structures), while others were made for use as offices in the neoclassical style of the Edwardian period at the beginning of the twentieth century. The multi-functional

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centre, with residential as well as tourist and commercial buildings, is surrounded by areas that are exclusively residential. The ones closest to the centre are composed of small groups of housing, with some semi-detached homes, while the areas located more towards the exterior are composed of villas and detached houses. Each one of the residential areas is different: in Chelsea Garden and Hebin Apartments one can find four-or five-storey residential buildings. Kensington Garden is composed of three- or four-storey collective housing with Victorian-style townhouses with small private gardens. Finally, the villas and detached houses of the surrounding areas (Hampton Gardens, Leeds Gardens, Nottingham Greenland, Rowland Heights, and Windsor Island) differ from one another in size, style, and the possession of a private or shared garden. This particular design gives its particularity to each neighbourhood. Indeed, compared, on the one hand, with the orthogonal streets of the rest of the new city, and, on the other, with other British-style neighbourhoods that do not have so many different kinds of housing, Thames Town does indeed have a very British atmosphere. Because of the housing variety, ranging from apartments to large single houses, the residents’ population is somewhat heterogeneous, even though most of them belong to the upper-middle-class social strata. Most of the residents are CEOs of private companies or are private entrepreneurs with businesses in Songjiang, Shanghai, or some other districts close by. Some of them are employees of the local administration or are academics working at the nearby university. Some apartments can be rented or even sublet, enabling individuals from lower social backgrounds to live in Thames Town as well. When asked about salary, all interviewees who gave an answer, informed me that their household was earning at least RMB60,000 per year, which places them among the middle classes according to the official definition proposed by the government (Zhou 2008). The size of the housing in Thames Town also reveals the wealth of its inhabitants. Even though the smallest apartments in the neighbourhood have a floor area of between 45 and 90 square metres, the single family detached houses can be huge. The villas of Leeds Garden range from 290 to 390 square metres, while in Windsor Island they can have a floor area between 600 and 1,500 square metres. The neighbourhood, opened in October 2006, numbered 901 inhabitants in 2008 and more than 2,300 by 2014 (of an estimated total population of 3,500 people). Thames Town is, therefore, neither a ghost town nor mere décor for temporary visitors because it has clearly attracted many residents. So, let us now look at what role or impact the British features played in residents’ relocation processes?

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Figure 1.2  British-style architecture in Thames Town

Social production of British residential space and the discourse of a dreamed-for life The image of Thames Town as a place where the Chinese way of life is undergoing a dream version of Westernization is generated by several discourses that draw a link between the spatial features and forms and the way of life of the inhabitants, projecting a performative and deterministic

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quality onto the space. In this way, three main arguments are supposed to reveal the Westernization process occurring in Thames Town: 1) the material aspects of the space (the architecture, the spatial arrangements, and the urban furniture and signs), 2) the promotional strategy developed by the real-estate agency, and 3) the practices seen in the public spaces. The British-style architecture is the most important characteristic of Thames Town. In addition to the architectural styles already described above, one of the most striking features of the neighbourhood is the urban ‘theming’, all the elements used to set up a British décor. This feature is perceived as being similar to Western contemporary ways of producing urban spaces (such as collage design) entailed in the numerous comparisons with Western urban spaces of consumption. The urban furniture and decoration also refer directly to British history and culture. Indeed, for instance, some typically British-looking red telephone kiosks displayed in public areas (modelled on Giles Gilbert Scott’s iconic 1920s’ original). The streets, alleys, and residential areas have English names (with Chinese translations). One can therefore wander in Church Street, Oxford Street, and Prince Street, or park a car on Soho Street or Harry Street, etc. Parallel to the urban furniture, the public areas have been decorated using temporary fake signs that recall those of an English town: shopfronts indicating a pub, a ‘fish ’n chips’ restaurant, shops, etc. Those features are seen as elements that undermine the local Chinese culture and history, as mentioned in this chapter’s introduction. Moreover, although the shop signs are temporary and purposely faked, they have been taken for granted and analysed as proof that the residents are experiencing a Western way of life. There are also quite a number of statues of British celebrities – historical, or fictional – displayed in the neighbourhood. Visitors can take pictures of themselves standing next to copper representations of historical or cultural figures such as Winston Churchill, Lady Diana, Shakespeare, and Lord Byron, among others, as well as fictional ones, like James Bond and Harry Potter. In Thames Town, the statues are quite numerous. There are also some more artistic ones, quite abstract and figurative, representing animals or ordinary people. Yet, British celebrities outnumber the others, and play a role in the theming of the space, aimed at a deepening of the impression of a British atmosphere. From this perspective, the themed environment is perceived as performative: transforming the way of life of its inhabitants by providing them with a copy of an English living space. According to this logic, which intertwines the material aspect of the place with individuals’ aspirations, the British theme reveals the dreamed-of life of the residents.

28  Figure 1.3  Urban themes in Thames Town

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The discourse producing an association between space and a way of life is also spread by the developers of Thames Town as an advertising strategy. The promotional books and flyers highlight the many similarities between Thames Town and England. The promotional slogan of the neighbourhood ends with the sentence: ‘Dreaming of Britain, Live in Thames Town’. The information booklet also provides numerous pictures taken in England alongside digital projections of Thames Town, thereby creating a strong visual link between both places. According to this promotional logic, individuals who buy a home in Thames Town are ones who dream of living in England. This kind of strategy is not specific to Thames Town but is widespread in China. These advertisements, as Pow Choon-Piew has analysed in his study of gated communities in China (Pow 2009), aim at projecting the image of a rich way of life in the magnificent and distinct architecture of the residences, echoing the wish of buyers for upward social mobility and status. The material aspect of the house is then associated with a particular social status and calls on the buyers’ aspiration for this social mobility. In the case of Thames Town housing, a British way of life is sold along with the house. This phenomenon is amplified as the Tudor-style houses and apartments are seen as British middle-class housing associated with values such as self-dependency, self-reliance, and social status (Ballantyne and Law 2011). In this sense, the marketing strategy developed by the real-estate agency is projected onto the foreign – British – architecture as an image of a dreamed-for life in another country. Finally, most of the reviews and news articles concerning Thames Town refer to the neighbourhood as photographic scenery for newlywed couples, all dressed in Western-style clothes. Even though these couples are temporary visitors, they are viewed as putting into practice Western ways of behaving, and therefore legitimizing the image of Thames Town as a place of Westernization. However, the phenomenon occurring in Thames Town, as it is described, is actually quite contradictory. On the one hand, the neighbourhood is seen as a British Disneyland, being used only by temporary visitors craving its British atmosphere, who are finally able to have an opportunity to experience life in a foreign country, on the other hand, it is described as a ghost town, being visited only by temporary visitors, etc. How is it possible that a Westernization of daily life occurs while there are no permanent residents to experience it? In a similar study, the anthropologist Ren Hai analysed how themed spaces, such as the Beijing Ethnic Culture Park, create a controlled environment enabling a soft education of the population into a middle-class one through a set of permitted and forbidden behaviours (Ren 2013). Nevertheless,

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despite his keen analysis of the themed environment as a socialization tool, we may be less convinced by Ren’s claim about the lack of information on individuals’ behaviour outside the park. The park is defined as a particular place, almost heterotopian, where consumers can experience new practices, yet it is assumed that when leaving this place they will integrate their new behaviour into their life. How then would the park, or Thames Town, still be a place that differs from its surrounding environment? Can we assume that the temporary behaviour enabled by a specific place will transform the way people act in ordinary space? The fieldwork chosen by Ren is different from Thames Town, as it is a museum. It does not have a residential function, but touristic and educational ones. Moreover, being an ethnic museum, it generates political matters directly related to the official line of the one-party state regarding its 56 ethnic minorities. On the contrary, Thames Town is a residential space where people stay for more than a single day. Space within a particular society is both a material and a symbolic reality. It is made according to specific economic and historical contexts (Lefebvre 2000) because it is experienced through a particular set of cultural and social habits (Low 2016). To apprehend the real impact of the British features of these residential spaces on the daily lifestyles of their inhabitants it is necessary to take into account the practices and representations of the actual residents of Thames Town. In order to understand the transformations of the way of living, we have to analyse their habits and usages related to their spaces of living, as well as the personal representations attached to them.

The construction of the home: techniques of appropriation, and aspirations for a better life developed by the residents of Thames Town The way the residents of Thames Town arrange their homes not only reveals that their domestic space is not the place of a completely one-sided acculturation to a Western logic and way of doing things, but it also shows that this space is not even necessarily perceived through its British features. The decoration and furniture display a diversity of cultural references. In every home, it is possible to observe Chinese elements either separated from Western objects, or all of them exposed in the same rooms. For some of the families, there is an obvious separation between two kinds of space inside the home. Decorating some of the rooms with Chinese furniture while other parts are decorated with other styles creates a delimitation between the more private spaces and the rooms where guests are received.

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For instance, one family furnished the ground floor of their home with elements bought on their trip around the world, while the second level, composed of the bedrooms and a study, was decorated with Chinese objects. Therefore, on the first level, an Egyptian papyrus was hung on the wall in front of the entrance, along with its authenticity certificate. Guests could sit on a Malaysian sofa or eat at an Indonesian table. Upstairs, on the other hand, the study and bedrooms were furnished with Chinese-style elements and the walls were decorated with calligraphy. Another family, living in a detached villa, used Chinese decoration to separate one specific room within their house. They used to live in the United States, so they arranged their home to echo this past residence. Yet in the attic they organized a space for their parents with Chinese-style furniture: Ming-style chairs ( fushouyi 扶手椅), lanterns (denglong 灯笼), and a calligraphy set with its related materials (wenfangsibao 文房四宝), etc. In some other cases the decorative elements are shown together in every room of the home. In one home there is a fengshui compass (fengshui luopan 风 水罗盘) and a ruyi (如意) sceptre laid out on European-style bourgeois marble tables with the wooden structure painted in gold. The residents can sit either on leather sofas or on small Chinese-style square stools ( fangdeng 方登). All the elements, whether they come from a European cultural background or from a traditional Chinese one, are integrated into the daily life of the family: the home is, at one and the same time, harmonically organized according to fengshui principles and comfortably furnished with Western sofas. These elements reveal that the residents do not arrange their home with the purpose of expressing an aspiration for a life abroad, as can be seen by the fact that the most private parts of it are often decorated with Chinese-style elements. Chinese culture, represented either through the symbols of a still-living tradition, or through idealized images, is still present in the daily lives of these residents. Besides the decorations of the house which represent a direct and material appropriation by the residents, some heavier arrangements and renovations are made to adapt the space to habits and ways of living. The most common example among all the households of Thames Town is the transformation of one part of the home into a laundry room. In the case of apartments this is a balcony. This space, instead of being used as a relaxation and comfort place (as it is supposed to, according to the houses’ and apartments’ catalogues as provided by the real-estate agents), the residents prefer to enclose it with glass windows and a glass roof, producing a sort of oriel window, and arranging the space for laundry. They add a sink and some clothes-racks next to the washing-machine. In doing so, the residents transform the primary function of relaxing initially attributed to the balcony, into an inside space

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Figure 1.4  Chinese furniture and decoration in homes

opened toward the outside, an enclosed space dedicated to washing clothes and bed sheets, etc. In other words, they adapt the domestic space to their own habits and needs. A similar transformation of an interior can be observed in the kitchen and in the entrance to the house. For instance, in larger detached houses,

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where space is not an issue, some of the residents (with the same aim as those who changed their balcony’s function) enclose a part of the entrance to create an inside space where visitors and family members can take off their shoes before going inside the home. This arrangement, doubled with duilian (对联), and other types of signs and symbols to mark the separation from the outside, is also used to block the view of the house from the outside. These transformations, as well as the diversity of decorations, reveal that Chinese families are not experiencing a mere Westernization of their daily life. On the contrary, the space is adapted to fit previously acquired habits. In this perspective, the daily life of the residents does not seem to change, at least on a cultural level, after moving into Thames Town. The residents themselves do not mention any changes when asked about their daily life. The entanglement of culturally different elements – or elements perceived as being culturally different – is not related to the exotic appearance of Thames Town. It is connected to the personal history and trajectory of each individual, through his or her own experience of the Other. In this sense, the residences in Thames Town do not differ from residences in other, less peculiar, wealthy neighbourhoods. If the British space is transformed by the residents to fit their habits, then what was the point of living in Thames Town in the first place? Why did these Chinese people decide to move into this particular neighbourhood? When explaining the reasons why they settled in Thames Town, and what has changed since that time, the inhabitants did not mention the British-style architecture, or at least they did so only superficially and in passing. To them, the main argument for choosing this neighbourhood was its ‘good environment’, that is to say fresh air, green space, less pollution, fewer people, less stressful situations. Thames Town is compared with the city centre of Shanghai, where they (usually) lived before, and is almost considered part of the countryside. The only exotic feature that tends to be evoked is that it is ‘beautiful’ or ‘elegant’, or some other aesthetic judgment. The residents were looking for a better life, whose improvement is defined by the near-natural environment and the living surroundings, not the architecture nor the material forms of the space. Therefore, the domestic space is not generating a cultural shift within the residents’ identity, and they do not adhere to the idea that living in Thames Town could be seen as a first step towards moving to a foreign country, as has been suggested by the area’s promotional strategy. However, even though the Chinese families are not experiencing a cultural shift of identity, the new homes in Thames Town do reveal social reconfigurations within the households as well as new social logics of representing themselves.

34  Figure 1.5  Appropriation of outside spaces

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With the development of private property from the end of the 1990s and the progressive transformation of the hukou (户口 household-registration) system, the house becomes an investment as well as a mean of social representation. Individuals and families experience a residential trajectory and each home is a symbolic step within this new mobility. In this context, owning a house in Thames Town enables the owners to socially distinguish themselves. Apart from the aesthetic judgements that the residents mentioned about their neighbourhood, another argument was given to explain their choices. To them, in Thames Town every house is ‘different’. They can thus display the uniqueness of their home as well as their wealth because the housing in the neighbourhood is the most expensive in the new city of Songjiang. The social behaviour of the residents reveals the social asset of living in Thames Town: when receiving guests, the host has the opportunity to show them around, take pictures of the nice environment, and take them to expensive restaurants. The neighbourhood, as well as being home, has a function of self-representation by owning a house in Thames Town which provides direct access to high-ranking equipment and amenities, what the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu used to call the ‘site effects’, or the ‘address effects’ (Bourdieu 1993). In this sense, the foreign architecture of the residential spaces is not oriented toward Western nations, with the purpose of showing the capacity of producing more of the same, nor is it intended to integrate an international elite class, as Bianca Bosker analysed (Bosker 2013). Instead, it serves the residents within their own social networks. Therefore, the British feature of the domestic space plays a social role in the residential trajectory of the Chinese individuals. From their point of view, it is integrated into a logic of upward social mobility and is used as a means of social self-representation. Yet, the foreign architecture, as a culturally marked object, seems to have little to do with the residents’ aspiration for a better life, but according to them, they have found the good life, away from the overcrowded and polluted city centre of Shanghai.

Conclusion: which heterotopia are we talking about? Eventually, an anthropological study of the daily life in Thames Town enables us to get another picture of the neighbourhood. Far from being a heterotopian space, disconnected from local history and culture, and far from representing a dreamed-of utopia for its inhabitants, it is, on the contrary, firmly anchored in the present for the residents, as being one of

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the daily situations they experience. Yet the heterotopian comparison is not completely uninteresting because it in turn reveals some of the core values in Western thoughts about urban development, and some of the differences in these between China and the West. Initially, ‘heterotopia’ was a biological term. It defines an organ that is not at its normal site within the body, but which is still functioning. Michel Foucault gave the concept a utopian dimension by defining a heterotopia as a localized utopia, a ‘utopia that has a site’ (Foucault 1984). In doing so, he first injected a dimension of dream and imagination into the given spaces. Secondly, he opened the door to dystopian discourses, as most – if not all – utopias turn into dystopian worlds. On the one hand, the dream dimension permitted a categorization of places such as World Expos and Exhibitions, theme parks and other recreational spaces, and, later, any ‘fairyland’ or Disneyland, Thames Town, as well as cities like Las Vegas or Dubai, are analyzed as urban entities whose modes of production are derived from themed spaces. On the other hand, following a train of thought started at the beginning of the twentieth century and criticizing mass culture, standardization, and the consequences of capitalism, consumerist copies, and imitations developed under the ‘neo-capitalism’ banner were strongly criticized as avatars of globalization and neoliberalism. Again, the project of Thames Town, considered only as a place of image consumption, was blamed for undermining Chinese culture. However, as we saw, the dream dimension does not appear in the residents’ discourse, nor in their behaviour. It only exists in the thoughts of external observers shaped by the Western experiences of urban development. Henri Lefebvre had another use for the concept of the heterotopia, one that is closer to its original meaning, with no relation to any utopian dimension. To him, in the history of a city and of its relation to the rural areas, heterotopias were spaces rejected and situated outside the city but still essential to its dynamic, and little by little absorbed into its development (Lefebvre 1969). Nowadays, as Thames Town’s residents flee the city centre and see Songjiang almost as the countryside, this suburban area could be analysed as a heterotopia: a space outside the city inhabited by individuals with urban behaviour who are also working in the city. In the context of Thames Town, a rural-urban framework of analysis fits better the understanding of the phenomenon than the idea of a dreamed space of living, as people are looking for a better, greener, and fresher environment. Finally, the discourses defining Thames Town as fake and kitsch, using the concept of authenticity, rely on Western thoughts that do not necessarily apply to the Chinese context. ‘Authenticity’ is a Western-developed

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concept (Handler 1986). Gregory Bracken, introducing the work of Li Shiqiao (see Introduction to Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West) reminds us of the risks of dislocation between reality and its intellectual understanding held by such an analytical posture. Even though the concept of ‘authenticity’ comprises different definitions and practices in China, using such a concept to analyse Chinese urban productions necessarily creates a mirror effect: of ‘fake’ Chinese productions echoing ‘authentic’ Western objects. In this perspective, the ‘kitsch’ Chinese productions and ways of doing things are undermined, especially in comparison with Western ones. Thus, these discourses are part of the Orientalist process of domination by the West of other cultures, as defined by Edward Said (1994). They even extend it to its ‘Occidentalist’ dimension (Carrier 1992) by praising the authenticity of Western productions. Yet, as the anthropologist Richard Handler put it: as everything that exists is authentic, ‘authenticity’ as a concept reveals the modern Western anxiety against the existence and the flaws of reality (Handler 1986). The Chinese ability to imitate may render authentic productions useless or unappealing and generate a fear in Western nations that they are no longer the dominant centre of the world.

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Lefebvre, Henri. 2000 [1974]. La Production de l’espace [The Production of Space]. Paris: Economica. Li, Xiangning. 2010. ‘Heterotopias: Themed Spaces in Shanghai and Los Angeles’ in Shanghai New Towns: In Search for Community and Identity in a Sprawling Metropolis. 223-238. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers. Li, Xiangning. 2017. Shanghai Regeneration: Five Paradigms. New York: Applied Research + Design Publishing. Low, Setha. 2016. Spatializing Culture: The Ethnography of Space and Place. Abingdon: Routledge. Nieuwenhuis, Marijn. 2010. ‘Tracing the Politics of Space in One City Nine & Towns’ in Shanghai New Towns: In Search for Community and Identity in a Sprawling Metropolis. 291-304. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers. Pan, Tianshu. 2005. ‘Historical Memory, Community-building and Place-making in Neighbourhood Shanghai’ in Restructuring the Chinese City: Changing Society, Economy and Space. 122-137. Abingdon: Routledge. Pow, Choon-Piew. 2009. Gated Communities in China: Class, Privilege, and the Moral Politics of the Good Life. Abingdon: Routledge. Ren, Hai. 2013. The Middle-Class in Neoliberal China: Governing Risk, Life-Building, and Themed Spaces. Abingdon: Routledge. Sahlins, Marshall. 1988. ‘Cosmologies of Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Sector of “the World System”’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 74: 1-51. Said, Edward W. 1994 [1978]. Orientalism. New York: Vintage. Sorkin, Michael, ed. 1992. Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space. New York: Hill and Wang. Wang, Zhenliang, and Liu, Jiafeng (eds.). 2003. Zhongguo xincheng guihua dianfan. Shanghai songjiang xincheng guihua sheji guoji jingbiao fang’an jingpin ji [A Classic Planning of New City]. Shanghai: Tongji daxue chubanshe. Wang, Zhijun, and Li, Zhenyu. 2006. ‘“Yicheng jiuzhen”: dui jiaoqu xinchengzhen de qishi’ [‘One City, Nine Towns’: lessons from the suburban new towns], Jianzhu xuebao [Architectural Journal], 7: 8-11. Zhou, Minghao, and Xue, Qiuli. 2008. ‘“Tazhe” celve: Shanghai “yichengjiuzhen” jihua zhiyuan’ [“Otherness” Strategy: the Origin of “One City and Nine Towns” Plan in Shanghai] in Guoji chengshi guihua [International Urban Planning], 23/2: 113-117. Zhou, Xiaohong. 2008. ‘La classe moyenne chinoise. Réalité ou illusion?’ [The Chinese Middle Class: Reality or Illusion?], La Société chinoise vue par ses sociologues. Migrations, villes, classe moyenne, drogue, sida [Chinese Society as Seen by its Sociologists. Migration, Cities, Middle class, Drugs, AIDS]. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po: 141-160.

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About the author Martin Minost is a doctoral candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Paris School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS, Paris), and affiliated to the Research Centre on Modern and Contemporary China (UMR8173 – CCJ). He taught Sociology and Anthropology at the EHESS and at the Paris-Malaquais School of Architecture. Since 2011 he has been investigating the residential practices of Chinese families living in Western-style neighbourhoods in Shanghai and Chongqing, China. Email: [email protected]

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How Does Space Have Meaning? A Multifocal Approach to Korean Jimjilbang (찜질방) Vera Marie Hälbig Abstract This paper uses a geocritical approach (developing Bertrand Westphal’s work) to interpretatively realize the narrative and social production of the Korean jimjilbang (찜질방 bathhouse). The multifocality of this approach represents a methodologically new step in a field of studies which has been determined by author- and genre-centred approaches to space, and understands place as space continuously made meaningful (Cresswell 2004). The paper scrutinizes global and local conceptualizations of space, where narrative and visual representations are analysed to display how meaning is produced. By attempting to sensitize how cultural meanings come into being and how particular narratives and performances are inherent in the creation of spatial experience, it also makes evident that any approach to space needs to be trans-disciplinary. Keywords: geocriticism, spatial theory, literary studies, jimjilbang (찜질방 bathhouse), space

Introduction In the summer of 2012, while I was planning a trip to South Korea and trying to find a hostel for the night, a Korean friend of mine in Germany sent me a text message saying that there was always the jimjilbang (찜질방 bathhouse). She described it as a kind of sauna/bathhouse with accommodation. A Google picture search gave me my first hint of the place: a photo of four middle-aged Korean women in pink pyjamas and matching towels wrapped like turbans around their heads smiling brightly. Immediately I decided to stay at a jimjilbang for the night.

Bracken, Gregory (ed.), Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984721_ch02

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It can be hard to describe what a jimjilbang is exactly. Intentionally, I am not providing any introduction to the place itself. This is due to the fact that it is the aim of my analysis to show the place in all its complexities and those cannot be narrowed down so easily. In this paper, Bertrand Westphal’s Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces (2011) will be appropriated in order to investigate literary representations of the jimjilbang. A geocritical approach marks the basis for the following analysis because it ‘places place at the centre of debate’ (Westphal 2011: 112), in contrast to other literary approaches investigating space. Thus, the following analysis will be structured along the analytic focal points suggested by Westphal, namely the ‘elements of geocriticism’ (Westphal 2011: 111-147) with multifocalization at the forefront. The corpus which is subject to analysis includes various texts on spatial representations of the jimjilbang (in English and German). All excerpts deal with the jimjilbang, or at least parts of it, and are taken from short stories, tourist guides, blogs, adoptee life writing, and newspapers. Evidently, while including texts from a range of genres, this corpus is not exhaustive. However, with regards to the purpose and scope of this paper, it provides substantial research material. The jimjilbang has not been the focus of literary analysis before. In the field of urban studies, Jaz Hee-jeong Choi, Markus Foth, and Greg Hearn have been concerned with the bang (방 room), however, there is still plenty of scope for further interdisciplinary research and I hope that my chapter will evoke further interest in this field. First, I will briefly present Westphal’s geocentred concept and critically engage with this theory. Second, I will analyse the jimjilbang as depicted in the texts I have outlined above, where the diverse and complex nature of the jimjilbang will become apparent as will, of course, the multiple ways in which meaning can be created through it. Finally, I will conclude with an attempt to answer the main question, what is a jimjilbang? Where it will become apparent that the question behind this question is: how can space have meaning? This is based on West-Pavlov (2009: 250), since the literary analysis of diverse, spatial representations is going to establish a multi-faceted picture of the space in question.

Geocriticism Geocriticism opens up a new way of conceptualizing space in literary studies. Bertrand Westphal’s methodology adds a fresh and highly

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important perspective to the academic field, which has been dominated by more author- and epoch-centred literary approaches (Westphal 2011: 112). The question of perspective is not only prominent in Albert Einstein’s relativity theories on time and space but are also at the centre of postcolonial and postmodern literary and cultural theory. Constructivism puts emphasis on position and context, which are understood to be crucial for all constructions of knowledge. Consequently, it also relates to any notions of time and space. Now, when conceptualizing those forms of knowledge, taking multiple standpoints is paramount. In this context, geocriticism in the English-speaking academic world, with its multifocal approach, can be regarded as part of a wider spatial turn in academia. In the course of this theoretical and practical turn, and in the wake of the groundbreaking work of Edward Soja, Henri Lefebvre, et al., single-voiced narratives and universal explanations, especially those with relations to space, have been increasingly subjected to interdisciplinary research. Bertrand Westphal’s critical approach ‘inscribe[s] space in a mobile perspective’ (Westphal 2011: 113). This methodology comprises four focal points which enable a structured close-reading of place: multifocalization, polysensoriality, stratigraphy, and intertextuality. As Westphal indicates, ‘[a]s long as one accepts the principle of a geocentred approach’, which puts place at the centre of investigation, ‘one is free to employ a methodology that allows the space to be seen from a new angle, an angle that resituates the entire field’ (Westphal 2011: 113). The following literary analysis is grounded on Westphal’s analytic approach and makes use of his methodological theory. However, there are two aspects which need to be scrutinized. Those points can be seen as major contradictions to the basic approach taken in geocriticism, which aims at de-territorialization of space and places itself within an anti-essentialist discourse. Firstly, in the English translation of Westphal’s Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces the terms ‘place’ and ‘space’ seem to be used interchangeably. For reasons outlined below, I will make a differentiation between both of these terms. This distinction is based on Tim Cresswell’s claim that ‘[s]pace is a more abstract concept than place’ (Cresswell 2004: 8). He argues, ‘[w]hile we hold common-sense ideas of what places are, these are often quite vague when subjected to critical reflection […], places as “things” are quite obscure and hard to grasp’ (Cresswell 2004: 11). Westphal underlines the complexity of space/place, as well. He employs a multifocal approach to what Cresswell calls ‘a given referential space’ (Cresswell 2004: 114) in order to be able to encounter spatial complexities.

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Still, geocriticism does not comment on the differences between place and space. With reference to John A. Agnew, Cresswell states that the majority of writing about place focuses on the realm of meaning and experience. Place is how we make the world meaningful and the way we experience the world. Place, at a basic level, is space invested with meaning in the context of power (Cresswell 2004: 12).

Since Westphal argues for the assumption that spatial referent and its literary representation are ‘interdependent and interactive’ (Westphal 2011: 113) and that ‘[g]eocritical analysis involves the confrontation of several optics that correct, nourish, and mutually enrich each other’ (Westphal 2011: 113) we can see that he is working with an understanding of space that Cresswell would conceptualize as place, a space which is continuously made meaningful. Secondly, Westphal asserts that through multifocalization ‘we come closer to the essential identity of the referenced space’ (Westphal 2011: 114). This statement is contradictory, because it suggests that there is an essential identity of space or place that can be uncovered. It contradicts the notion of continuous creation of place that Westphal stresses throughout his theory. Due to the fact that it stands out against the rest, I will replace ‘essential identity’ with ‘complexity’ in Westphal’s argument quoted above. Both alterations make the geocritical methodology and theoretical argument more coherent. This is how geocriticism is going to be applied in the following analysis of the jimjilbang, ‘a place under whose aegis are gathered a series of narratives’ (Westphal 2011: 112).

A geocritical analysis of the jimjilbang (찜질방) According to Bertrand Westphal, ‘[t]he space must cease to appear obvious’ (Westphal 2011: 139). Putting the spatial referent at the centre of this literary analysis, my geocritical approach is to deal with the elements of the multifocalization, polysensoriality, stratigraphy, and intertextuality that can be found in the respective literary representations of the jimjilbang. As noted before, ‘multifocalization is the chief characteristic of geocriticism’ (Westphal 2011: 122). The texts which deal with the jimjilbang in one way or the other are written from various points of view and thus display multiple perceptions and meanings.

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The subsequent text analyses are going to be structured according to those theoretical categories and will also deal with the interconnections that can be found. The reason for this strategy is that my paper is ‘less a study of different types of perception than of the effects, in terms of representation, of the intersecting points of view’ (Westphal 2011: 129). Therefore, the analytical focus has to be placed on intersections of re-presentations within a certain text, as well as between different texts. Although I chose not to give a detailed introduction to the practice of geocriticism beforehand and prefer to apply the methodology directly, I am still going to provide further theoretical context where required. Besides, in order to prevent misunderstanding, I would like to refer back to the explanation I got from a friend of mine when I first read the word jimjilbang. She said that it was some kind of sauna/bathhouse. This marks the vantage point of my research and as the vast majority of texts on the jimjilbang I have found support my friend’s translation, my corpus contains texts which may not mention the term directly. In the end, all texts deal with the spatiality which is at the centre of this analysis but may call it (or even parts of it) ‘bath’, ‘sauna’, or ‘mogyoktang’ (목욕탕 a bathhouse that does not contain sleeping accommodation).

Mogyoktang (목욕탕) ‘When I am in high school and whenever I fly home to Korea during college [sic], my mother and I visit the mogyoktang, the bathhouse, once a week.’ (Lee 2002: 90) Here, the narrative voice of a traveller is speaking. The female narrative perspective can be categorized as an exogenous point of view informed by endogenous points of view which comprises her memory and her mother’s perspective(s). Situated in-between both points of view, it could then also be considered to be an allogenous point of view. More generally, this opens a discourse on diasporic consciousness which connects the narrator to Korean culture, differently than a traveller who had never been in touch with any form of Korean culture before. However, it is not unlikely that the narrator (and probably also her mother) are regarded as ‘foreigners [to] indigenous population’ (Westphal 2011: 128), thus, falling into the allogeneic perspective category. Here, I have attempted to classify the narrator’s perspective according to the basic focalization pattern brought forth by Westphal (2011: 128): endogenous, exogenous, and allogenous. Yet, it is obvious that the typology suggested cannot be applied that easily.

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The point of view is relative to the situation of the observer with respect to the space of reference. The observer engages with this space through a number of relations […] This reflects the fact that the point of view alternates between endogenous, exogenous, or allogenous characters (Westphal 2011: 128).

The relational side of these perspectives is also made clear in this quote. It is but one example which stands for the ‘significant diversification of views’ (Westphal 2011: 125) and it openly breaks with supposedly obvious binaries of self and other, it also foregrounds the ‘incompleteness of the gaze’ (Westphal 2011: 126). Therefore, in this geocritical analysis, the three basic types of focalization ‘will be taken into account at the same level, in the play of their interactions’ (Westphal 2011: 129). ‘The confrontation of subjective points of view […] moves away from all that tends to be singular’ (Westphal 2011: 130). In the case of the passage taken from a Korean-American short story quoted above, it can be seen that every perspective has a relational side. This makes a point of view a multi-faceted instance. Focusing on the spatial referent, there are multiple perceptions of it, which again, result out of multiple relations to it. The mogyoktang is imminently linked to the Korean-American narrator’s visits ‘home to Korea’ (Lee 2002: 90). Going to the bathhouse together with her mother has become a habit. The meaning of this place is construed by the fact that it is a common visit and a regular action which structures the week. The relational character that determines the connection between the individual and the environment becomes even clearer when applying another lens of Westphal’s geocritical approach: polysensoriality (Lee 2002: 131). We sit on pink plastic stools so that she is sitting behind me. She dips the small rough towel into the bowl of water and scrubs my back until it turns red. All the sweat and dirt roll off into grey eraser marks, which are then rinsed off with the shower head. The dead skin cells slough off, allowing the fresh skin underneath to breathe. My mother runs her soapy hands over the curves of my blades and down the deep crease along the center. She rinses again until my back is smooth and clean. We both turn around, and I do the same for her (Lee 2002: 90).

The washing procedure is outlined in every detail. Its visual effects on the skin are neatly described, as are the utensils that are used in the bathhouse. Also, the positioning of mother and daughter is depicted in a very precise manner. What is more, non-visual senses are addressed: the touch of the mother’s hands on her skin and the feeling of sloughing portrayed

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by skin personified. The mother’s moves are in the centre of this literary representation which shows how one’s senses influence the perception of one’s environment (Westphal 2011: 132). In fact, it is this reciprocal nature: ‘We both turn around, and I do the same for her’ (Lee 2002: 90), which stands for their mother-daughter relationship. ‘Where sensation and meaning meet’, according to Russel West-Pavlov’s interpretation of Julia Kristeva’s work in Space in Theory: Kristeva, Foucault, Deleuze, ‘space comes to the fore’ (West-Pavlov 2009: 97). Cresswell would call it ‘place’. Also, stratigraphic analysis can be conducted at this point. It is concerned with the diversity of temporalities. Westphal notes: ‘Space is located at the intersection of the moment and duration […] Examining the impact of time on the perception of space is therefore another aspect of geocriticism’ (Westphal 2011: 137). The passage above is written in the present tense. However, the wider context makes clear that this passage refers to some time in the past, to the female narrator’s youth, for example, ‘When I am in high school’ (Lee 2002: 90). Consequently, the events presented in this excerpt must have happened some time ago and yet the descriptions of the experiences continue and provide evidence for the theory that memories are present. The presence of memories works against all notions of linearity of time and space and shows that ‘human space (like the instant) is [instead] part of several temporal curves’ (Westphal 2011: 139). It is reminiscent of Kristeva’s arguments on memory and the self, which West-Pavlov summarizes as follows: ‘The linearity of time as the tragic locus of existence is thus re-oriented towards the compensatory synchronicity of multiple spaces of sensory immediacy’ (West-Pavlov 2009: 103 (emphasis added)). The place described exists through her memories of common visits with her mother during which they were washing each other’s backs. Linear concepts of time cannot capture the meaning of the place. Meaning comes into being through experience, which, according to Kristeva, is a set of both narrative and sensorality (West-Pavlov 2009: 97). This can be supported by all of the texts that are part of my analysis.

Badehaus (bathhouse) Deine Mutter wünscht sich mit dir in ein Badehaus zu gehen’, übersetzt Kum-Hwa, die neben uns steht. ‘Oh. Baden gehen? Welch ein seltsamer Wunsch, nachdem wir uns doch gerade erst kennengelernt haben’, denke ich (Schinkel 2007: 85) [‘Your mother wishes to go to a bathhouse with

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you’, translates Kum Hwa, who is standing next to us. ‘Oh. Going for a bath? What a strange wish’, I wonder, ‘since we have only got to know each other a few moments ago’ (author’s translation)].

The narrator, a female adult adoptee, is taken by surprise and astonishment that directly after their reunion, her birth mother wishes to visit a bathhouse with her. She cannot guess the meaning which is implied in her Korean mother’s desire. To the daughter this request seems to be out of place, unconventional. Next to different perceptions of their relation, one can detect a clash between diverging concepts of privacy. The bathhouse carries the meaning of cultural difference. The first-person narrator has grown up in Germany and has been socialized there. It constitutes her primary context of reference, in which it would be rather unlikely that two people who meet for the first time decide to go to a bathhouse together. To speak in terms of focalization, the narrator’s view with regards to the space concerned is detached; a traveller’s perspective. It represents an exogenous point of view. However, as already noted above, this scene does not only reveal cultural differences but, especially, an imbalance with regard to the perception of their mutual relationship. While the older woman accepts her as her daughter and immediately makes known her wish to do something with her together, the narrator feels overwhelmed by the situation. To her, the woman she has just met is still a stranger. It is obvious that it takes her some time to develop a relationship with her ‘new’ mother. The place is a site which displays two different perceptions of a relationship. Als es Mitternacht ist, habe ich allmählich das Bedürfnis, schlafen zu gehen. Doch So-Hyeun ruft: ‘Hast du Lust auf Badehaus?’ ‘Badehaus?’ Ich gucke irritiert. ‘Nackt baden… Sauna’ ‘Nackt baden? Und Sauna? Um diese Uhrzeit?’ Ich bin völlig verwirrt. Jetzt fällt mir Ommas Wunsch gleich nach der Sendung ein (Schinkel 2007: 114). [At midnight, a desire to go to bed sometime soon creeps up inside of me. Yet, So-Hyeun shouts, ‘Do you want to go to the bathhouse?’ ‘Bathhouse?’ I look at her, irritated. ‘Bathing naked… sauna.’ ‘Bathing naked? And sauna? At this time of the day?’ I am totally confused. Then I am reminded of Mom’s wish after the end of that television show (author’s translation)].

Here, the narrator’s Korean sisters mention their mother’s wish to go to the bathhouse with her. Again, a cultural difference between narrator and birth mother can be noticed. This time the difference between self and other is

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stressed by different perceptions of time, especially, in relation to space and social practices. In contrast to the previous scene, however, now the narrator is in a position in which she can draw on memory which has added to her understanding of the space in question. The location’s meaning has changed. This is equally true with respect to the relation to that woman who is no longer a total stranger to her. She calls her umma, which is the Korean word for ‘Mom’. Again, spatial reference mirrors the relationship between the two women. Their relationship has gained new meaning and also influences the perception of space in the eyes of the daughter, making it a place. Although, literally speaking, certain question marks remain, it is due to her umma’s repeated request that the daughter acquires an idea of what a common visit to the bathhouse means to her birth mother. As to the place, a clear change of meaning can be found when they are actually visiting a bathhouse (Schinkel 2007: 115-119). The place’s meaning is that of social relations. With reference to Cresswell’s understanding of place and Henri Lefebvre’s concept of space as production and product, one can see that both theorists highlight the making of place via social practices. An important literary means to picture the latter is that of polysensoriality as it will be made clear later on. In the present text, a sense of shame causes the narrator to blush when she has to undress before entering the bathing area. Once more, cultural differences which are the result of different socialization processes become obvious. The narrator also comments on this observation later on (Schinkel 2007: 170). At first, she perceives the bathhouse from an exogenous point of view. She sees it from the outside and declares the building as unscheinbar, ‘nothing special’ (Schinkel 2007: 115). When entering the bathing area, she is constantly comparing it to similar places in Germany. She wonders about unfulfilled expectations, which originate in mental images of similar places. Moreover, she does not know about any customary washing procedures conducted in the bathhouse. This underlines her alien state. Therefore, the feeling of being washed by her birth mother’s hands and sitting in a pool together with her Korean mother, grandmother and sisters is unfamiliar at the beginning. Nonetheless, she gets used to it and even comes to enjoy the session in the end. In the course of the washing procedure, which is truly a polysensual experience, a shift in her perception of the space and people around her is noticeable. The space becomes place. This is due to the fact that relations to space are interwoven with social relations. Focalization moves into the direction of that of an allogenous perspective while not abandoning

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the exogenous completely. The narrator continues to stress, verbally, and sometimes somewhat unintentionally, cultural differences (Schinkel 2007: 119). At the same time, she opens up to her Korean family. Outwardly, she conforms to the rules of the space: undressing, sitting on a stool, letting her mother wash her back, soaking in the common pool. She dives into the spatial experience, whereas her thoughts reveal feelings of alienation and reservation. Both forms of experience taken together, ‘sensuality’ and the ‘process of narrativization’ (West-Pavlov 2009: 97), make this space the place it is from her point of view. Looking at the bathhouse from her perspective, it is a place which brings her closer to her Korean family by engaging in rituals that are familiar to them. The place has become a meaningful location, just as her ‘Korean origin’ has become meaningful to her. It is an environment which foregrounds that socialization is inscribed in ways of social interaction and that resulting differences with regard to notions of intimacy and aesthetics are inscribed on the bare female body, literally. Opposite meanings are attached to physical features. ‘Culture forms our beliefs’ (Anzaldúa 2007: 38). This becomes very clear in the scene depicted above. Especially, when the women compare the length of their pubic hair and the respective meaning attached to it (Schinkel 2007: 119). Moreover, obviously, an othering is taking place in this autobiographical narrative. The narrator is constantly comparing herself to members of her Korean family, which could easily lead to stereotyping. However, the present text stresses the representation’s instantaneousness and therefore tends to avoid the manifestation of stereotypes, which are based on the ‘permanent state’ (Westphal 2011: 144). The non-permanency of the situations represented is communicated most noticeably through the tense in which the narrative is written, which is the present tense. The literary examples discussed so far reveal that experiences change the perception of space and, therefore, lead to the creation of different places. The jimjilbang, the bathhouse, is not one but many.

Spa The jimjilbang we visited was the Dragon Hill Spa, located next to Yongsan Station in Seoul. Yongsan is a little world of its own in Seoul and Itaewon is right around the corner. Many tourist attractions such as the National Museum of Korea, Yongsan Family Park and the War Memorial of Korea are located in Yongsan […] Travellers who have 2-3 hours until their departure time often come to the Dragon Hill Spa (Lee 2010).

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Dragon Hill Spa is introduced as one tourist attraction among many, as if situated within an amusement park. It is quite evident that Jean Baudrillard’s and Umberto Eco’s references to Disneyland in their concepts of simulacra and simulation and hyperreality can also be applied to Dragon Hill Spa. When the article asserts that Dragon Hill Spa is how a ‘traditional’ jimjilbang looks it suggests that this space ‘can give us more reality than nature can’ (Eco 1986: 44). The spa gains meaning through adverts and tourists who frequent it, because they like to believe in the promises of authenticity and are willing to pay for this reality. The jimjilbang’s name ‘dragon hill’ serves foreign tourists’ stereotypes of exotic authenticity. Besides, it is termed spa, as if to make sure that it does not sound too strange to non-Koreans. This hints at the marketing concept behind this ‘attraction’. Similar to this customer-oriented strategy is the newspaper article’s tenet: ‘If you have not visited a jimjilbang, you cannot say that you know Korea’ (Lee 2010). The text is part of a regular column on tips for tourist outings in Seoul and written from the endogenous point of view of a female Korean reporter. Sensory perceptions of the jimjilbang dominate its representation. The adult observer describes what she sees, ‘walls plastered with salt’ and what she touches with her feet, ‘coarse salt pebbles underfoot’, whereas the nine-year-old boy ‘tasted the wall’ and ‘confirmed that it was really salty’. She states that because of the heat in the salt room, ‘[s]weat ran down our backs and foreheads’. Moreover, she explains that this experience ‘is considered to detoxify your body’. Although one may not perceive any medical effects directly, the sweat is felt and seen, which means that the room’s direct impact on one’s body becomes visible through its effects on the individual. Next, all the different rooms in Dragon Hill Spa are enumerated: ‘the main hall’, ‘the pine-log fire sauna’, ‘the Japanese cypress room’, ‘the ice room’, and ‘the swimming pool’. Besides, references to ‘jimjilbang clothes’, ‘must-eat snacks’ and ‘lamb’s head towel heads’ are employed to support the alleged authentic character of this place and also to provide advice for how to enjoy the jimjilbang best, eating boiled eggs and drinking sikyhe ( 식혜 a traditional Korean sweet rice beverage), for example. The immediate effects of everyone’s adjustment to the environment in the way depicted, is expressed by the reporter’s comment, ‘we all felt united and chatted with each other’ in spite of different cultural backgrounds. The article describes the jimjilbang experience in retrospect. The use of the past tense stresses that the actual visit is over. It is an experience which was made and can be placed, as the ‘71st in a series of articles highlighting tourism spots in Seoul’ (Lee 2010).

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Repeatedly, the text lists positive characteristics and effects of the jimjilbang: ‘good for the immune system’, ‘relieve[s] stress while we have fun with our families and friends’, it is ‘a place for all ages’. All of them stand for relaxation, health, and community – the place’s meanings displayed throughout the article. The element underlined the most frequently is a certain originality and authenticity of the jimjilbang experience with regard to wider Korean culture. Historic roots are invoked and the social significance of the hot rooms displayed. The way in which its rooms are still used today are taken as testimonies of the reason behind the popularity of bathhouses in Korean society. One of the most unique and interesting aspects of Korea is the jimjilbang. Going to one is a very Korean and very popular activity that ordinary people can afford. Korean women, especially, love jimjilbang. This may be because Korean mothers sometimes take care of themselves in hot rooms made of red clay for three weeks after giving birth. In addition, in days gone by, people cooked rice on the fire in red clay furnaces (Lee 2010).

The tourist is asked to adopt certain rules so that he or she may create place through assimilation. Of course, the meaning he or she attaches to the place might differ from that of a Korean woman who visits the jimjilbang after she has given birth. The individual’s point of view has to be considered at all times. It makes the location meaningful to him or her. This meaning is open to negotiation and may overlap with but can also differ from others’ perspectives. And this is exactly why one representation cannot be regarded as more valid than another. The present text claims that ‘the jimjilbang is a microcosm of Korean leisure culture. When you go to a jimjilbang, you can find gyms, baths, massage rooms, cafeterias, restaurants and swimming pools’ (Lee 2010) The jimjilbang gathers all those facilities under one roof. In the eyes of a tourist this could make it a convenient site to explore ‘Korean leisure culture’. As if to underline this ‘fact’, at the end of the article, three jimjilbangs are listed with convenient locations and discount options for travellers. Moreover, the text gives two short theories about the contested origin of the jimjilbang. These theories stress that, besides contemporary culture, the jimjilbang shows elements that date back more than a thousand years. One of those theories is based on the first literary reference of some kind of jimjilbang in the ‘Sejong Sillok [1413-1865], the royal chronicles of the Joseon Dynasty [1392-1910]’ (Lee 2010). The second theory is that at some point in time people experienced the positive effects of kilns on their health and have continued to make use of them ever since.

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An online version of the Sejong Sillok refers to it as hanjeongmak (한 증막steam or sauna), yet Lee’s article refers to hanjeungso, which ‘was [supposedly] similar to today’s jimjilbangs’ (Lee 2010). There is no reference to this history found in the Sejong Sillok. The story found in the chronicles differs from the passage outlined in the article: the writer compares the heat felt in a private prison in summer, to that of a hanjeongmak. The fact that such a comparison already existed at the time could be taken as a hint that something like saunas already existed in the Joseon Dynasty. The geocritical approach proves to be an ‘archaeological vocation’ (Westphal 2011: 122). The analysis of this article reveals the produced side of places’ meanings which are open to change. It entails both the chance of agency and conformity when it comes to the creation of meaning.

Jimjil (찜질 poultice/compress) and bang (방 room) Next, the focus will be on the ‘The Wonder of Fusion Life at Jimjilbang’, which is part of a compilation of photographic encounters by foreign observers. It is a short note which is accompanied by four photographs which display experiences made in a jimjilbang. Foreign tourists’ views on jimjilbangs can be found in numerous blogs on the Internet1. Although blogs are a valuable resource for further investigations, it would go beyond the scope of this paper to try and reflect on all of them, even if that were possible. I decided, instead, to focus on one particular text that consists of elements that are characteristic of travel blogs. It goes without saying that it can be neither representative of form nor content of all the blogs that are out there. The text privileges ‘the visual over other forms of sensory perception’ (Westphal 2011: 131), which is stressed by the textual focus on the pictures that were taken by the author himself. The following analysis of the present text and pictures is going to show that an individual’s perception of one thing must not be equated with one type of focalization. Just as the native point of view is not one, the travellers’ points of view are not singular. To Chad Walker, the first line makes clear that it is a subjective, personal point of view from which the visual and textual picture of the jimjilbang are taken (Walker 2007: 153). The stress on self-reflexivity sensitizes the reader as far as perception and bias is concerned and, thus, may help avoid the formation of rigid stereotypes on the reader’s side. 1

I have added one myself: https://openseyes.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/multiple-faces-of-jeonju

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As an introduction, the compound term jimjilbang is analyzed, with regards to both etymology and semantics: ‘jimjil (a Korean word meaning poultice or compress) and bang (a Sino-Korean word meaning room or chamber), hence its common translation as “sauna”’ (Walker 2007: 153) The narrator states that it is a Korean type of sauna so that a reader from another cultural background can relate more easily to it, given that he or she is acquainted with the concept of sauna. It is a translation act in itself which adds meaning to the place. Furthermore, the personal narrator discusses the answer to the question that might have formed in the reader’s mind by stating ‘what a jimjilbang is not’ (Walker 2007: 153). He makes clear that comparing it with one location a foreigner might be familiar with does not suffice to capture the whole. ‘It is, to be sure, all of the above, plus more’ (Walker 2007: 153). The narrator states that ‘jimjilbang, or Korean-style saunas, offer one of the most unique and convenient ways to experience Korea. I like them so much I had my last birthday party there!’ (Walker 2007: 153) The meaning this place has to him becomes very clear. On the one hand, jimjilbang seems to be a space that he and other tourists can use and enjoy in order to get to know ‘Korean culture’. On the other, it is also obvious that jimjilbang is something, a place, he has become very familiar with. He even celebrated his birthday there. This is a reference to the place’s socializing side and at the same time, to the (dif)fusion of public and private spheres. Focalization shifts within the text and shapes his perception of the place. His statements reveal the blurred line between an exogenous point of view and one which is supposedly more familiar with the place concerned. On two pages, one can see the four pictures he has taken inside a jimjilbang. They show that the spatial is a communal experience. Many people can be seen. Besides, it becomes clear that the place’s floor can be used in many ways. People are sitting, sleeping, or reading on it. Explaining the two different colours of the clothes that the people on the first picture are wearing, the narrator highlights, ‘All of the jimjilbangs that I have visited will separate the jimjilbang attire into two colours according to gender’ (Walker 2007: 154). It reminds one of a uniform that is supposed to make everyone ‘look’ equal and yet, makes a distinction along gender lines, going in accordance with and strengthening gender conceptualizations. Thus, clearly, it is not only the cake which has been ‘brought in from the outside’ (Walker 2007: 154), it is the clothes’ function to replicate gender classifications also inside, within the jimjilbang. Besides, on the second picture, people are watching a World Cup game. Once more, the non-seclusion of the place is stressed. Transnational

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television ties are connecting the jimjilbang and its visitors to the outside world and make watching television a communal event with a socializing quality inside. One television screen for all, as in times gone by. In the third picture, the attention of the viewer is directed towards the people who are already sleeping, while the television is still on. The hall’s character is slowly transforming from that of a living room to that of a bedroom, speaking in terms of rather European and North American ideas of socializing and architectural concepts. Whereas the latter display compartmentalization, the ‘room’ on the photo cannot be classif ied that easily. There is less compartmentalization present. An important factor behind this is the fact that traditionally in South Korea ‘floors are warmed by ondol [온돌 underfloor heating]’ (Walker 2007: 154). The floorheating transforms the floors into a sleeping ground. This asset makes the jimjilbang a changeable place and refers back to the introduction to this text, which stated that ‘it is not simply an adjunct to a health club, gym, or hotel. It is not simply a hot spring […] It is not simply a massage parlor’ (Walker 2007: 153) and claimed that the jimjilbang was all of that. This place comprises all of the functions that individual spaces fulf il elsewhere. The last picture shows how concepts of time can be seen. After midnight the lights are switched off and it turns dark. It foregrounds the way in which night and day are created and regulated by artificial lighting. There is another reference to the interrelation of place and time. The non-existence of limits to the length of time that a paying visitor can stay at a jimjilbang makes it ‘common for travellers and students to use them as cheap alternatives to hotels’ (Walker 2007: 155). ‘Entire families’ and ‘all age groups’ spend their leisure time there (Walker 2007: 155). They can make themselves at home, eat, sleep, meet, read, watch television, etc. Domestication is displayed by a feeling of homeliness that is expressed by all visuals and short texts compiled in this article. To speak in terms of public and private dichotomies one could say that it is a public space turned into private places.

Home base ‘I used a jimjilbang – public bathhouse and sauna – as my home base’ (Yoon 2007: 87). This quote is taken from the English translation of the Korean short story ‘To Bury a Treasure Map at the U-turn’. The parenthesis defines jimjilbang as public bathhouse and sauna, which the personal narrator calls

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home, her base. Her usage of the jimjilbang not only merges two spheres of social life, domestic and public, but most of all, it provides a social and architectonic frame that is desired by the female narrator. This is stressed in the following: They gave a twenty percent discount if you paid one month’s fee in advance. Every day I slept tight after taking a bath. I didn’t desire anything that didn’t fit into my locker at the bathhouse. New appliances did not tempt me, or pretty clothes (Yoon 2007: 87).

Time and space are regulated by steady bath-sleep patterns and the size of her locker. Therefore, the place gives her something she can rely on, a feeling of security. One day I stepped on someone’s foot while walking out of the bath. ‘I’m sorry!’ She nodded as if to say she was okay, and she continued wiping off the floor. The next day, I sat on her leg while she was folding towels. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t see,’ I apologized again. I collided with her the next day as she opened the door and emerged from the bath. We lay side by side on the floor clutching our throbbing foreheads (Yoon 2007: 87-88).

The friendship between the two women is evidently linked to the place where they first meet. She is called ‘W’ and lives in the jimjilbang as well. W seems to have become one with the place. People do not see her, unless they bump into her. The haptic is paramount in any definition of W, literally. She has ‘countless bruises on her body’ from those incidents when people have bumped into her (Yoon 2007: 88). People touch her and then they see her. Suddenly, she is taking shape. Consequently, W can be regarded not only as an inhabitant but what is more, as a literary manifestation, a personification, of the jimjilbang. As previous analysis has shown, in any attempt to define the place called jimjilbang the haptic plays an important role. The jimjilbang evokes ‘haptic geographies’, which are generally uncommon in literary representations according to Westphal and might only ‘emerge from the tactile impressions of a person struck blind (like Oedipus), or they might be erotic, as with hands touching the lover in the dark (like Psyche)’ (Westphal 2011: 135). The senses of touch, taste, and sight are predominant in the presentation of the relationship between the individual and its environment. One could say that it is a ‘polysensory’ (Westphal 2011: 132) relationship. Further, the place’s meaning is defined by the narrator’s meetings with other people while staying there. They create spatial habits.

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W and I paid frequent visits to naegmyŏn (냉면) noodle places. We soaked our bodies for about thirty minutes in the hot tub, then we went out with dishevelled wet hair to look for a cold and spicy noodle place […] While W was at work, Q and I learned yoga and jazz dance. We bought and drank sikhye rice drinks when we were thirsty. They were too sweet, but cleared up the chest when they were chilled until slightly frozen (Yoon 2007: 89).

Moreover, one can see that every occasion asks for a specific kind of meal, meaning a certain taste. In the previous cases, it has been more or less obvious that the play between cold noodles or drinks and hot bodies created through water or sports have entailed the meaning of the search for inner balance. However, when the friends start to bet and the winner buys seaweed soup for all at the end of the day another taste comes into the narrative. The narrator’s question, ‘Why do people sell seaweed soup in a bathhouse?’ remains unanswered. It is a custom which has survived but has lost its meaning. ‘After finishing the seaweed soup, we went our separate ways and had a relaxing nap. We were not interested in the weather outside. We never watched the weather forecast’ (Yoon 2007: 89) There is no interest expressed in the (weather) conditions outside. Hot or cold temperatures can be experienced inside as well. There is free choice between both; there is nothing that cannot be regulated inside. Many forms of amusement are provided inside and, ‘as the number of families visiting the jimjilbang increased, they added a room for various games. When W finished work, the three of us went there and played word games’ (Yoon 2007: 89). The jimjilbang, or rather its operators, can adjust it to their customers’ needs through the provision of extra-facilities which are in current demand. It is place of change, a multifunctional space which can be a home to anyone who needs a frame which allows for an ostensibly stable life with few responsibilities. As in the story, it can be left behind easily without having any further obligations to fulf il. This narrative shows ways in which a jimjilbang can be used and adapted to one’s needs. Its wide spectrum of spatial facilities is foregrounded as well.

Hanjeungmak (한증막 sauna) The article titled ‘Some like it Hotter’, found in the online version of New York magazine, compares bathhouses worldwide. It lists ‘ethnic baths’

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(Turkish hammam, Japanese onsen, Korean jimjilbang, Swedish saunas, and Russian banyas) with the aim of ‘increasing agony’ by high temperatures in their respective steam rooms. Whereas all other so-called ethnic baths’ names are written in italics, sauna marks an exception and can, therefore, be identified as the space of reference in this international comparison. As it is not put into italics it is supposed to be known, a familiar term referring to a familiar concept. It indicates that this article was written from an exogenous point of view with regards to the perception of the jimjilbang. The jimjilbang is ranked third out of five and its steam rooms are depicted as follows: ‘The signature fixture of a Korean bathhouse are the Hanjeungmak: dome-shaped, kiln-like saunas heated by a wood fire. They get so hot that hard-boiled eggs are often cooked inside’ (Campbell 2011). A polysensory landscape of the jimjilbang is expressed by its alleged core element which radiates extreme heat. It is not only used to make people sweat but also to boil eggs, which are then ready to eat. The short paragraph also mentions that ‘bathers are wont to protect themselves from the dry heat with potato-sack-like jute blankets’. This short representation plays with stereotypes concerning what is often and generally practiced in a ‘typical’ hanjeungmak, as part of a jimjilbang. It is a comparison of facilities which are attributed to different cultures and still similar to each other. The angle of comparison taken in the text tells about how the environment we socialize in shapes our world views. The jimjilbang’s effects are narrowed down to that of providing extreme heat, which again can be used in different ways: for cooking and sweating.

As in Japan ‘Some visitors may like to try two traditional Korean experiences, the barbershop and the bath’ (Hoare, 2005: 104) Tourist guide texts invite us to apply Bertrand Westphal’s classification of narrative focalization to potential readers. James Hoare’s tourist guide presents a visit to a bathhouse as a chance to experience Korean culture. Although it seems to be for an exogenous readership, the present text ought also to guide because certain assumptions of readers’ previous travel experiences are made. For instance, the text says that ‘Korean public baths are similar to those found in Japan, with large communal bathtubs’ (Hoare 2005: 104) The comparison of spatialities tells about the writer’s cultural knowledge. What is more, it presupposes that a considerable number of readers knows what bathhouses in Japan look like. This means that a rather

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allogenous points of view with regards to Japanese baths is assumed to exist on the side of the readership. As in Japan, you must soap yourself thoroughly several times before entering the main bath. Again, as in Japan, this is likely to be at a hotter temperature than most Westerners are accustomed to, and you should be careful. Sit still and pain eases! (Hoare 2005: 105).

Furthermore, repeated stress of the comparisons between Japanese and Korean culture reveals that this text is probably written from a non-Korean point of view. A Korean tourist guide written from a more endogenous point of view from that of someone born and socialized in Korea is not likely to stress any similarities with places of the former colonizer to such an extent. It is said that Korean baths have existed for quite a long time, at least where they survive (Hoare 2005: 104) and that they are subject to consumerorientated change: ‘they will now often offer specialized pools. As South Korea becomes wealthier, they are being supplanted by similar, but more expensive, “saunas”, often in the bigger hotels’ (Hoare 2005: 104-105). Furthermore, ‘Public baths are segregated’ (Hoare 2005: 105), which means that gender binaries are taken up and shape the place. This piece of information is considered to be of value to foreign travellers, as well as the impression that a positive atmosphere dominates the space of concern: ‘They are friendly places, where inhibitions disappear’ (Hoare 2005: 105). ‘Many baths are equipped with saunas and resting rooms […] Hot springs can be found all over the country, and today there are often fitness centres with elaborate gym facilities’ (Hoare 2005: 105). Here, two types of Korean baths are mentioned which provide further facilities which add to the individual character of each ‘bath’. Those similarities between spaces that have been mentioned throughout the text shed new light on representations which only stress a place’s alleged originality. Authorship and readership play an important role in the creation of images of the space in question, especially, in tourist guides. Mental images make certain places evolve from an individual’s perception, even before an actual visit to the respective space.

City of the bang (방 room) The curator of the South Korean Pavilion at the Ninth Architecture Biennial of Venice 2004, Sung Hong Kim, states that the Korean exhibition under

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the title of ‘City of the Bang’ is based on the interest in ‘established spacedesignations [that] have shifted and been refigured’ (Kim 2004) with special regard to urban life and spaces. One such space-designation is the Korean bang (방), roughly translated as ‘room’. While the room has traditionally been considered a walled segment in a domestic space, the banghas infiltrated the Korean urban landscape of commercialized space with enterprises such as the PC bang, Video bang, Norae bang, Jjimjil bang, Soju bang, and others. The Norae bang, a scaleddown version of the Karaokebar, is the primeval cave festival in the midst of the contemporary city. Visual, audible, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory sensations are simultaneously experienced in this tiny black box […] Meanwhile, the Jjimjil bang, which combines a steam bath, fitness room, lounge, restaurant, and sleeping area, provides space where half-clothed bodies intersperse between a variety of functional areas. The Jjimjil bang blurs the lines between the collective and the individual, normal and deviant behavior, privacy and voyeurism (Kim 2004).

Comparisons to other spatial conceptualizations, stemming from Western cultures, Kim makes clear that the bang cannot be equated with any of them, ‘The bang is an incarnation of the room, the house and the city’ all in one, actually. ‘The city of the bang oscillates between the domestic realm, institutionalized place, and urban space’ (Kim 2004). The high quantity and popularity of the bang in South Korean cities is to be seen with relation to the national master narrative, which is based on a sense of the ethnic homogeneity of the Korean people (Kim 2004). Koreans do not simply retreat from the public to these privatized milieus, but use these places to relieve their fear of alienation by constantly reconfirming their sense of relatedness; which Emile Durkheim called mechanical solidarity (Kim 2004 (emphasis added)).

The bang is depicted as an instance in-between the public and private, which is needed to maintain the national consciousness. According to Homi K. Bhabha, the latter depends on the pedagogical, as well as on the performative (Bhabha 1994). One can say that the performative takes place in the bang, because people use them to foster relatedness. Often many different kinds of bang are situated within one building. ‘The city of the bang absorbs these seemingly heterogeneous but exclusive socio-cultural networks into its fabric’ (Kim 2004).

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The bang does not generate a new typology, nor is the bang accommodated in an indeterminate space. Instead the bang is in a constant state of metamorphosis to accommodate the banal but strict prototype of the building itself (Kim 2004 (emphasis added)).

It is noteworthy that Kim explains that there is no new typology created with the spread of the bang. It presupposes that the bang already existed. As a site of change it simply makes the continuous production of place visible, more visible than when one applies static and linear notions to place-making. Concepts which stress the latter and regard place and meaning as one and fixed tend to hide the constructedness of this relation. It is the bang which celebrates this non-linearity openly: It [the bang] is fundamentally beyond the control of architect and planner: it is ‘other’ architecture without architects. The city of the bang leaps directly from the village to the city of information technology, without passing through the utopias of the modernist city and the revisionist model of the postmodern city. The holistic concept of a continuous and organic spatial configuration spreading across the city is replaced by the discontinuous and transpatial network instantiated by the emergence of the bang (Kim 2004 (emphasis added)).

Room? The cultural research under the title of ‘Site specific mobility and connection in Korea: bangs between public and private’ conducted by Jaz Hee-jeong Choi, Markus Foth, and Greg Hearn at the Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, puts the focus of analysis on ‘media experience in the lived space of the Korean “bang” (room) culture’ (Choi et al. 2009: 1). ‘These rooms provide various social spaces such as DVD-, jimjil- (sauna), norae (karaoke)-, and PC-bangs’, it is said (Choi et al. 2009: 1). In the course of their work, the researchers position mobile technology along a blurring border between work and leisure and conceptualise the use of mobile phones for the symbolic creation, demarcation, and integration of public and private spaces in a digitally connected urban environment. (Choi et al. 2009: 1-2).

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They claim that ‘[t]he complex techno-social conf iguration of Seoul is accompanied by the emerging erosion of spatial boundaries not only in a conceptual sense but also sensorial and structural’ (Choi et al. 2009: 7). One prominent element in this development is the ‘[a]rchitectural metamorphosis of lived space into media infrastructure’ (Choi et al. 2009: 8) which is mirrored by a multiplicity of screens wherever you go. The presence of virtual spatiality augments and heightens collective spatial sharing through the ubiquitous inter-media communication afforded by screens, as well as the strong collective cultural tendencies of Koreans, as evidenced in the contemporary bang (room) culture (Choi et al. 2009: 9 (emphasis added)).

Evidently, they draw upon the curatorial statement of Sun Hong Kim (2004) and especially on the passage that deals with the jimjilbang and place it in a wider concept, the so-called city of the bang (see above). It is made clear that bang is a word whose meaning comes close to that of what is understood as ‘room’ in Western common usage. Yet, Choi et al. stress that when bang is translated as ‘room’ it lacks a highly important connotation: the social construction of space, especially the types of social activities that take place within, which evidently redefine the space for the occupant. Essentially, bang is an architectural manifestation of a multifunctional space contrary to the Western definition of the room, a single-purpose space that is designated for a specific function (Choi et al. 2009: 10 (emphasis added)).

A translation which equates bang with room risks omitting the act of possible transformation, how space is made into place. Moreover, definition of the bang as an ‘architectural manifestation of a multifunctional space’ by Choi, Foth, and Hearn shows the actual social production of meanings and places. Especially, its continuity and total dependence on those actions which make a certain place possible are expressed. Furthermore, their statement reveals characteristics that are attributed to Western concepts of the room, such as the linear equation of purpose, function, and space. It creates the impression that a space can be made meaningful and thereupon, becomes a place: it will carry one meaning and function, which are not to be changed. Notions of f ixity and clear boundaries are evident. While the bang stresses agency in order to make space useful, the room asks for conformity in order to make use of a space’s meaning.

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A jimjilbang, according to Choi, Foth, and Hearn is but one ‘spatial experience portrayed in our case study of South Korea [which] appears to merge, break, and connect many forms of techno-social dynamics present on ubiquitous screens and bangs’ (Choi et al. 2009: 16). They note, ‘[s]creens […] are palpable features in bangs, even in jimjilbang, which has sub-bangs with temperatures that can be high as 70°C’ (Choi et al. 2009: 15). Concluding, the study refers to different and changing understanding of private and public spheres (Choi et al. 2009: 17). The jimjilbang is situated on the blurred line between those conceptual dichotomies. Being visited by many people and generally being open to any (paying) person, the jimjilbang is public. At the same time, a private side is added when people decide to go there alone or in the company of friends or their family, in order to take a bath or stay over. It is of a private nature, because it is chosen by the individual and thus, an expression of a mobile and modular understanding of space.

Conclusion The Author Instructions used by Amsterdam University Press for this publication states that foreign words used in an English text should to be italicized (AUP 2007: 4), as is common practice, and has been done throughout this chapter. However, I conclude from my previous analysis of the spatial referent’s complexity that the jimjilbang must not be labelled ‘foreign’. The literary analysis makes clear that there is no spatial representation which can ever capture the complexity of its referent. To be coherent, every spatial designation would have to be put into italics, or none, since meaning attached to space creates diverging places. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, another style guide widely used in the humanities, recommends the highlighting of ‘foreign’ words, unless they have been ‘anglicised through frequent use’ (MLA 2009: 79). Frequently used, a word previously unknown is accepted and granted meaning. My analysis has shown that only by taking as many perspectives into consideration as possible, can one open up place and create room for meaningful discussion. This way one can gain an understanding of the spatial referent no single designation can provide. The analysis of narrative representations of the jimjilbang displays how meaning of space is produced and that the narrative itself is part of this process of production. The previous analysis has foregrounded some of the multiple faces of the jimjilbang.

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Julia Kristeva’s perception of experience as a set of both narrative and sensorality, which brings meaning-making to life, has proven to be useful in the conceptualization of place. The ways in which experiences are perceived, narrated, and felt, depend on the individual’s socialization, which is under the influence of power structures. The latter are often cloaked by ‘culture’. The multifocal analysis, however, has assured that those powerful imaginations come to the fore. The repeated move from place to narrator or assumed reader has led to wider insights about a narrator’s or a reader’s respective context. The comparison of multiple relations offers the chance to get closer to an understanding of how meaning is produced and certain cultural meanings come into being, such as the spread of the bang or public-private dichotomies. The literary analysis conducted shows that the jimjilbang is there and not there, it is a site of change that spatializes place-making. It separates and connects inside and outside, the individual and the collective, feelings of freedom and unity, past and present, and public and private. Besides, different focalizations are present, at the same time. In the end, it is the individual, informed by multiple narratives and polysensorial experiences, who makes use of the space and adds meaning to it, in one way or another. Whether sweating, soaking, eating, or living there for longer, the jimjilbang is a place which offers many opportunities and is generally open to anyone. If one decides to go there on one’s own or as part of a group, the relations between the members are influenced by the environment, and vice versa. Those characters depicted in the texts analysed here, the ones who go to the jimjilbang on their own, experience a change in their relationship with their immediate environment, as well as in their self-perceptions. The jimjilbang seems to require certain performances that aim at purification and the bettering of health. Metaphorically speaking, it is a place where social relations may start from scratch and are open to change, just like those bare bodies which shine like blank pages. Most literary representations draw on attributes of the jimjilbang that are commonly accepted as being associated with the female gender, such as washing, nurturing, and overall domestication. The replication of gender classification is one aspect that calls for further interdisciplinary studies on the jimjilbang, as well as the fact that the jimjilbang’s multiple faces can be traced back to diverse reasons, such as prevailing concepts of gender, nation, race, and identity. Multiple perceptions of a space represent diverse relations to that space in question and this is how a field for further research is opened up.

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Bibliography Amsterdam University Press. 2007. Author Instructions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, retrieved on 29 August 2017 from http://en.aup.nl/en/books/ authors.html Anzaldúa, Gloria. 2007. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. Baudrillard, Jean. 1988. ‘Simulacra and Simulations’ in Selected Writings, edited by Mark Poster. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bhabha, Homi K. 2008 [1984]. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Campbell, Geraldine. 2011. ‘Some Like It Hotter: Ethnic Baths Ranked in Order of Increasing Agony’, New York Magazine (10 April 2011) retrieved on 29 August 2017 from http://nymag.com/beauty/features/hot-ethnic-baths-2011-4 Choi, Jaz Hee-jeong, Foth, Markus, and Hearn, Greg. 2009. ‘Site Specific Mobility and Connection in Korea: Bangs (Rooms) between Public and Private Spaces’, Technology in Society, 31(2):133-138 retrieved on 29 August 2017 from http:// eprints.qut.edu.au/13004 Cresswell, Tim. 2004. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Eco, Umberto. 1986. ‘The Fortresses of Solitude’ in Travels in Hyperreality: Essays, translated by William Weaver. Orlando: Harcourt Brace. Hoare, James. 2005. Culture Smart! Korea. London: Kuperad. Kim, Sung Hong. 2004. ‘Curatorial Statement for the Korean Pavilion of the 9th Venice Biennale: City of the Bang’, 2004 Venice Biennale retrieved on 29 August 2017 from http://korean-pavilion.or.kr/04pavilion/e_2004_02.htm Lee, Annabelle. 2010. ‘Jimjilbang: A Microcosm of Korean Leisure Culture’, The Korea Herald retrieved on 29 March 2017 from http://nwww.koreaherald.com/ view.php?ud=20100331000120 Lee, Mijin. 2002. ‘A Collective Voice’, Echoes Upon Echoes: New Korean American Writings, Elaine H. Kim and Laura Hyun Yi Kang, eds. New York: The Asian American Writer’s Workshop. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space, translated by Donald NicholsonSmith. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. The Modern Language Association. 2009. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: The Modern Language Association. National Institute of Korean History. 한증막 [The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty] retrieved on 29 August 2017 from http://sillok.history.go.kr Schinkel, Anneli. 2007. Seidentochter: Ein Adoptivkind aus Korea findet seine leiblichen Eltern [Silk Daughter: An Adopted Korean Child Finds her Biological Parents]. Bergisch Gladbach: Bastei Lübbe.

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Soja, Edward W. 2000. Postmetropolis: Critical studies of Cities and Regions. Oxford: Blackwell. Walker, Chad. 2007. ‘The Wonder of Fusion Life at Jimjilbang’ in Korea Up Close: Photographic Encounters by Foreign Observers, edited by Craig White. Seoul: Seoul Selection. West-Pavlov, Russell. 209. Space in Theory: Kristeva, Foucault, Deleuze. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Westphal, Bertrand. 2007. La Géocritique: Réel, Fiction, Espace [Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces], translated by Robert T. Tally, Jr. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Yoon, Sung-Hee. 2007. ‘To Bury a Treasure Map at the U-turn’, translated by Ji-Eun Lee, Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture, 1: 81-96 retrieved on 29 August 2017 from http://must.jhu.edu/article/253601

About the author Vera Marie Hälbig is an employment adviser for refugees in Germany. She holds an M.A. in National and Transnational Studies: Literature, Culture, Language from Münster University and an interdisciplinary B.A. from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Anglophone Studies and Economics. Her research interests can be located at the intersection of literary and cultural studies, spatial and migration studies, and postmodern cross-cultural anthropology. Her focus on cross-cultural spatial studies was intensified during an internship in Seoul, where she realized the challenging potential of the concept of the bang to dichotomies of private and public. The pursuit of Cultural and Media Studies as a DAAD scholarship holder at Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India intensified her interest in cross-cultural meaning making. Making research serve action, Vera currently employs her academic research skills and intercultural competence in her work as job counsellor for refugees by facilitating capacity building. Email: [email protected]

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Transforming the Self in Contemporary Korean Ki Suryŏn (氣修練) Water, Wood, and Stone in Two GiCheon (氣天) DVDs Victoria Ten

Abstract Korean ki suryŏn (氣修練 cultivation of body and mind using ki-life energy) is becoming more popular internationally. GiCheon (氣天), a particular type of ki suryŏn, is portrayed here as an alchemical practice of embodied knowledge. The term ‘technologies of the self’ (from Michel Foucault) means practices of the self, but here also includes technical tools, such as videos, DVDs, films, and websites. This paper will show how the visual iconography of DVDs advertising GiCheon reflect the values of their creators but also are instrumental for self-cultivation by subtly programming our ways of living, acting, feeling, and perceiving. And when the human body is represented on screen, as it is in ki suryŏn DVDs, then this programming intensifies. Keywords: GiCheon (氣天), ki suryŏn (氣修練), technologies of the self, Foucault, self-cultivation

Introduction This chapter analyses a few aspects of visual symbolism in the two DVDs which promote GiCheon (氣天), a South Korean practice of mind-body cultivation, approached here as a school of internal alchemy.1 I study the symbolism in the DVDs as a technology of the self, a concept developed by 1 Also Don Baker, the only other scholar besides myself who mentions the existence of GiCheon in an English-language academic work, calls it ‘a school of internal alchemy’ (2007: 508).

Bracken, Gregory (ed.), Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984721_ch03

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Michel Foucault. My study of iconography and symbolism in the DVDs is likewise inspired by the theory of visual arts of Erwin Panofsky.2 Using an auto-ethnographical methodology, I rely also upon my own perceptions of the DVDs and the GiCheon training, formed by 20 years of practicing and teaching. GiCheon was among the first ki suryŏn (氣修練 training methods related to ki – life energy) groups which were established in South Korea in the early 1970s. In studying ki suryŏn in general and GiCheon in particular I utilize the theoretical framework of ‘technologies of the self’ elaborated by Michel Foucault. In a broad sense, technologies of the self include any activity studied in a perspective of its influence on the formation of the self and the other. We build houses, and in the process of lifting heavy stones our own bodies get stronger; our minds prepare strategies for better utilization of strength. This way our bodies and minds get modified, formed anew. We teach others how to build houses, instructing them and bringing modification in their selves. These processes of constant formation of the self and the other occur throughout our lives. In a narrow sense, technologies of the self ‘permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality’ (Foucault 1988: 18). Here, Foucault talks about a very particular set of practices and activities. In the West, practices of the self are now re-emerging, after having been banished to the fringes about four centuries ago. Michel Foucault held that care of the self, directed at intellectual, moral, and physical transformation, was a common ethical axis of Ancient Greek and Roman culture. However, within the narratives of Western subjectivity Foucault also identified a ‘Cartesian moment’. This climaxed in the seventeenth century with the relegation of the care of the self to the periphery of Western intellectual life where it survived in the occult realm, culminating in a figure of Faust, who turns away from classical scientific knowledge in favour of occultism and alchemy (Foucault 2001: 296-297). Of course, the ideas and practices of self-care persisted in religious (Christian) practices, in art, and in other spheres of life, but the process of diminishment in their value continued. Practices of the self are rooted in archaic techniques of purification, concentration of the spirit/breath, interiority through abstinence from the external, and practices based on the endurance of pain and hardship 2

Panofsky 2012 [1932]; 1972 [1939]; 1960.

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(Foucault 2001: 15, 46). These techniques were shared by a number of civilizations and, having travelled through a number of avatars, are visible in the contemporary era in traditions reinvented, rediscovered, and exported westwards from Asia, such as Indian yoga, Chinese qigong and Korean ki suryŏn. These training methods of perfection of the self rooted in the bodily stances are re-invented in modernity on the basis of ancient Asian traditions. The words yoga, qigong, and ki suryŏn have ancient roots. In contemporary times these concepts have been re-formulated as a part of nationalistic discourse and came to represent a vast variety of respectively Indian, Chinese, and Korean practices, all of which belong to the culture of the body.3 In Europe, they have recently fought their way into academia as ‘alternative medicine’; technologies of the self have thus been rediscovered by Western science (and we see the need for them to be so when looking at the mental health of Asian-Americans in Susheelabai R. Srinivasa and Sudershan Pasupuleti’s ‘The Mental Health of Asian-Americans: Social and Environmental Determinants in their Well-being and Service Utilization’, which is Chapter 7 in this book). The concept of technologies of the self has multiple meanings. It includes the sense of ‘practices of the self’, and I have examined GiCheon as a practice of the self elsewhere (Ten 2017). However, the term technologies of the self also has a meaning of ‘technical utensils’. In a way, any new invention of humanity constituted such a utensil: paper, ink-brush, TV, and computer all shape our ways of being and our selves (Dorrestijn 2012: 109). Static and dynamic positions in GiCheon are such technical means, employed for the purpose of self-cultivation. However, additional technical tools also serve the same purpose. Those are GiCheon books and texts, flyers, videos, DVDs, films, and websites. They constitute technologies of the self in the sense of technical utensils, employed for the purpose of the transformation of the self. Being primarily a practitioner, and only secondarily a scholar-practitioner, I began training and teaching GiCheon in South Korea in 2001. With my teachers, Lee Ki-t’ae, Kim Hyŏn-t’ae, and our Grandmaster, Lee Sang-wŏn, I learned first the static postures, the basis of the practice, and then the moving disciplines, including sword art. In 2010 I began my Ph.D. research on GiCheon at Leiden University, the Netherlands. This was an anthropological study based on interviews with adepts. This is when I found myself in the ambiguous position of being a scholar-practitioner, accompanied by the stereotypical connotations and values attached to this label. One form of the 3 See Van der Weer (2007) on yoga, David Palmer (2007) on qigong and Victoria Ten (2017) on ki suryŏn.

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vast mind-body culture in East Asia, GiCheon favours verbal articulations even less than other similar practices. The motto of GiCheon is ‘ 말과 글 에 집착하지 말고 몸으로만 수행해라’ (Do not cling to words and letters just practice with your own body). Facing a requirement to communicate GiCheon in a manuscript thus constituted a problem. In 2014, the encounter with the academic discourse of art and craft shaped by feminist critique marked for me the beginning of a capacity for writing on GiCheon. I started reading Pamela Smith on the connection between crafts and alchemy (2002) and Rebecca Brown on the deployment of particular visual symbols in nationalist movements (2010). In this chapter I do not discuss the nationalistic aspects of GiCheon, although there is no doubt that they are strongly present in the GiCheon narrative (Kim Hŭi-sang, Kich‘ŏnmun Ponmun 2000: 29-31, 37, 39, 49, 59-60, 66, 121-122, 242). Undeniably, there is much in common between Gandhi’s use of a spinning wheel image for his anticolonial struggle, discussed by Brown, and the deployment of visual iconography in GiCheon and other mind-body practices. Simple semi-abstract images of mountains, of a particular mountain stream, of a lake, of a tree, of buildings and architecture in general, anchor the conscious and unconscious perceptions of the viewer. These plain symbols carry a heavy weight of meanings, allowing the creator of the visual narrative a wide spectrum for manipulation. GiCheon flyers, books, and websites abound with such visual iconography. As a scholar-practitioner studying a mind-body discipline, I rely also upon my own body, viewing it as a source of information. This bodily awareness includes my perspective on the visual imagery contained in the DVDs. The ethnographical approach calls for a clarification of the relationship between the researcher and the object of research. The researcher is never completely ‘objective’, her or his attitude is defined by cultural background and other factors. As Erwin Panofsky notes in his essay ‘On the Problem of Describing and Interpreting Works of the Visual Arts’, any description of visual imagery already includes the sensory perception of the describer, dictated by his preexisting knowledge and cultural conditioning (2012: 469-470).4 In the course of his lifelong study of European art, Panofsky worked out a differentiation between three levels of meaning distinguishable when approaching a work of visual art. The first level is the phenomenal meaning, directed by our life experience. This first level can be further divided into factual meaning – I see a human being on a picture, and an expressive meaning – a human 4 Panofsky has developed his ideas on the levels of meaning in interpretation of artworks in his later work (1972 [1939]: 3-17).

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being is beautiful. The second level of meaning is dependent on content, it includes the ideas conveyed by an artwork. Panofsky notes, that in order to grasp the experiential conceptions in a picture (first level of meaning) and offer an appropriate description of an artwork, the familiarity with the general representational principles which govern its design is needed (2012: 470-471). In case of my work, my familiarity with East Asian culture in general and with GiCheon in particular, provide the required familiarity with the context necessary for analyzing GiCheon DVDs. Beyond their phenomenal meaning and the meaning dependent on content, the products of art are governed by an ultimate intrinsic meaning. Here Panofsky talks about the unintentional and subconscious self-revelation of a fundamental attitude towards the world contained in a work of art. This ultimate intrinsic meaning is characteristic of the individual producer, the period, the people, and the cultural community in general. The magnitude of an artistic achievement relates directly to the extent to which the energy of such a particular worldview has been channelled into moulded matter and radiates towards its viewer. The ultimate task of the interpretation is to reach into this level of intrinsic meaning. In an enterprise like this the exegesis of a work of art is elevated onto the same level as that of a philosophical system or a religious belief. The present chapter attempts to analyze the two GiCheon DVDs as works of art, working through the multiple complex images and trying to make sense of them utilizing the tools developed by Panofsky. The goal of this analysis is to achieve the level of interpretation which he calls the unravelling of the ultimate intrinsic meaning. This meaning has its sources deep within the worldview of the interpreter, and is no less subjective than the work of an artist (Panofsky 2012: 479-480). The first DVD, titled ‘Ki – The Science of Internal Energy’, produced and directed by Kim Sang-hwan, was shot in May 2002 and released by Turtle Press in 2004. The second, ‘GiCheon Instructional DVD, Volume One’, was shot, produced, directed, and released in June 2002 by Lee Ki-t’ae. It was shot after the first DVD, but released earlier. In this chapter I briefly relate the common features as well as some of the differences between these two media, examining the audiences they address, and what policies they follow. The two DVDs employ different visual technologies, thus constituting two different technologies of the self, in the sense of technical utensils. By utilizing differing strategies for representing Korea and GiCheon, the DVDs define and construct a different ‘Korean self’ as well. I interpret these ways of representation as an alchemical transformation of the self. The focus of my analysis is on the images of water, wood, and stone and the ways they are deployed in visual rhetoric as carriers of particular

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concepts and themes, the second layer of meaning in the terminology of Panofsky (1972 [1939]: 6, 11). Of course, such overarching visual icons as water, wood, and stone have a very deep symbolism in various cultures and languages worldwide. This chapter touches upon some of the meanings of this symbolism in the contemporary culture of East Asia, the South Korean culture of ki suryŏn, in general, and GiCheon in particular.

Alchemy, knowledge, and practice East-Asian and European civilizations share ‘operational (external)’ and ‘spiritual (internal)’ alchemical practices and principles. European alchemical knowledge arises from Ancient Greek and Arabic alchemy, which, there is evidence to suggest, developed under Chinese influences (Smith 2014: 126). If the declared endeavour of external alchemy is the creation of an elixir that turns any metal into gold and gives eternal life, internal alchemy achieves perfection and immortality through transformative processes in the body and mind of the adept. In practice, external and internal alchemy often intersect and merge. Alchemical practices are a classic example of technologies of the self in the sense of practices of the self. The technical means alchemists employ to achieve their purposes constitute technologies of the self in the sense of technical utensils. In the alchemical perspective, reality is a chain of transformations. Alchemists attempt to discern the generative and productive principles of nature and create effects in their laboratories by employing the powers that inhere in nature. In internal alchemy, such a laboratory is a body of the alchemist. Alchemists try to imitate in the laboratory (microcosm) the processes which occur in nature (macrocosm), gaining and developing their knowledge of nature by replication. Imitation entails the ability to observe and reproduce; observation and reproduction require self-reflection. In this scheme, imitation itself acquires an epistemological status as the source of knowledge. Imitation is a productive activity, accompanied by beliefs and categories of thought that yield creation. The process of imitating nature itself constitutes a type of cognition (Smith 2002: 9-25, 121, 142). To imitate nature successfully, a bodily, experiential engagement with it is required. This engagement develops deep mastery of the behaviour of materials, such as carpenters use when they choose, cut, and prepare wood panels, or by which the miner knows their mine. This bodily involvement with matter, which is not dead, but alive and active, also shapes the body and mind of the alchemist (Smith 2002: 86, 98, 114, 117). In internal alchemy, the

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materials to be perceived and grasped are the ‘self’ of the adept, continuously shaped and re-shaped in an alchemical process. Disciples effect bodily imitation of their master through total immersion and deep emotional identification (Bourdieu 1980: 123). In the Aristotelian scheme of knowledge popular in Europe up to the seventeenth century, theory was separate from practice. Theory (episteme (ἐπιστήμη) or scientia) was a knowledge based on the logical syllogism and geometrical demonstration. Praxis (πρᾶξις), on the other hand, was studied through gradual accumulation of particular, concrete experience; it could not be formed into a deductive system, and as such was not as certain as theory. The other type of practice constituted techne involving bodily labour. Techne (τέχνη) is an uncertain knowledge of how to make things or produce effects, traditionally practiced by animals, slaves, and craftspeople. It was the only area of knowledge that was productive. However, by the late seventeenth century, the age when the ‘new scientific method’ was born, the picture changed completely. When Francis Bacon called, in 1620, for a ‘New Philosophy or Active Science’, for him this phrase was a contradiction in terms. ‘Science’, until then, was by definition contemplative and theoretical, not active (Smith 2002: 18-19). In the later seventeenth century, the ancient scheme was turned upsidedown, and the production of effects and real things came to prove the certainty of theory. A completely new model of scientific knowledge emerged which demanded that anyone learned in the sciences should leave the library and go to the laboratory or the field to accumulate knowledge by new methods in new places. This is how the three areas of knowledge, episteme, praxis, and techne, separate in the Aristotelian scheme, now connected together in an entirely new way. The emergence of a new philosophy – what eventually came to be called ‘science’ – represented a transformation in attitudes toward nature and toward the material world, involving a whole new set of beliefs and practices. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the pursuit of knowledge became active and began to involve the body: one had to observe, record, and engage bodily with nature. Eventually, this brought about the institutionalization of the new philosophy, and the new method of pursuing knowledge became a part of the habitus of mind and action in European scholarly culture (Smith 2002: 18-19). In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, and in East Asia, metallurgy, chemistry, medicine, and the sciences of matter and art were intimately related to alchemical theory and practice. Naturalistic art, for example, was tied to the process of nature rather than simply a representation of nature, its powers of generation and transformation. Artisans, craftsmen, and,

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in Europe, ‘new philosophers’ worked with the materials of nature and struggled to manipulate them in order to produce tangible outcomes. The alchemists strove to discover vital cosmologic and cosmogonic principles through which they hoped to effect transformations in matter as well as heal disease and prolong life. Alchemical theory was a description and explanation of the transformations that life and matter underwent, in particular, those of origination and creation (Smith 2002: 17; Smith 2014; Daeyeol 2000: 14, 58). In fact, the connection between alchemy and modern Western science is so deep that scholar and practicing Daoist Michael Winn goes as far as to call Western science ‘a laboratory branch of external alchemy’ (Winn 2009: 188). In our times, alchemical concepts and principles are re-emerging in the Western consciousness and merging with practices of the self exported westwards from East Asia. GiCheon from South Korea is one example of such a practice. As a part of contemporary culture, DVDs produced for the advertisement of GiCheon in the global modern era already represent a merging of the cultures of East and West. They express ancient East Asian ideas of immortality in the language of a new technological era, and the process by which old ideas transform and take new shapes is giving rise to new articulations.

The DVDs This section studies the two layers of knowledge production involved in the alchemical process of GiCheon. The first is the alchemical operation in the body and mind of the adept themselves, the second, its visual representation on the screen. But the two are connected: visual images narrate the alchemical process inside the self. Images from the DVDs, shaped by GiCheon theory and practice, constitute a media of knowledge transmission from the makers to the viewers. The makers made the DVDs for the purpose of their being studied, followed, and actively imitated by the viewer. Self-conscious observation and the reproduction of bodily techniques in GiCheon internal alchemy have the purpose of enhancing physical, emotional, intellectual, and moral life. The viewer imitates the bodily stances demonstrated in the DVD. This is a technology of the self, actualized with the help of a DVD as a technical utensil. Bodily imitation and refinement are creative practices of learning about oneself. In order to imitate the master, the disciples have to understand how their bodies operate, to learn by trial and error what exactly should be done to achieve a desired effect. Learning my body involves observing

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the bodies of others and tracing bodily engagement with the world. The engagement with my body and learning the bodily engagement with the world brings empathy towards my body and towards the world. The alchemical unity of the self and the cosmos is thus achieved not only on the level of intellectual understanding, but on the plane of physical experience and emotional concern. I will presently discuss the format and contents of the DVDs, focusing on the alchemical iconography of water, wood, and stone. I approach the general concepts of water, wood, and stone as wider themes of a secondary level of meaning, in the terminology of Erwin Panofsky. These themes are comprised of particular motifs or images which exist on a primary level of meaning. The concrete representations on the screen are such motifs or images; the general ideas they carry and embody are the themes on the secondary level of meaning. In 2002 Kim Sang-hwan, an owner of Turtle Press and a professional maker of DVDs on Korean martial arts, contacted GiCheon grandmaster Lee Sang-wŏn and informed him that he would like to shoot a commercial DVD on GiCheon in Korea. Lee Sang-wŏn, a Chairman of Kich’ŏn chungan hyŏphoe (기천중앙협회 Kich’ŏn Central Association) since 1998, had experienced many difficulties in managing the organization. By 2002 he was close to realizing that his attempt to ‘unite all GiCheon leaders under one banner’ was failing. In May 2002, Lee Sang-wŏn called his major followers to Bucheon City for a meeting, where he announced the foundation of a new organization, Kich’ŏn Sangmuwŏn (기천상무원), and distributed new titles to his disciples. He also informed them that Kim Sang-hwan was coming to Korea to shoot a film on GiCheon. Lee Sang-wŏn put together a group of seven or eight disciples, and trained them for four or five weeks as preparation for shooting the movie. In that same month, May 2002, Kim Sang-hwan also spent a weekend shooting the film at GiCheon Mountain Center at Munmak. Kim Sang-hwan was not a practitioner of GiCheon; in order to facilitate his understanding of its theory and practice, teachers and adepts shared with him their writings, diaries, and other records. The DVD ‘Ki – The Science of Internal Energy’ was released in 2004. Kim Sang-hwan was a producer and a director of the film, but grandmaster Lee Sang-wŏn appears on the cover as an author. Lee Ki-t’ae, a disciple of grandmaster Lee Sang-wŏn, inspired by the example of Kim Sang-hwan, recorded video materials in June 2002, which were released immediately as ‘GiCheon Instructional DVD, Volume One’. ‘Ki – The Science of Internal Energy’ opens with the scene of Korean mountains covered with green trees, and a flowering garden in the foreground. We are immediately introduced to a GiCheon adept from the United Kingdom

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stating (in English), ‘It’s amazing! I didn’t think, you know, places like these, up in the mountains […] still existed!’. The proceeding scene is GiCheon practice in a mountain stream at Munmak. Korean and American students train in the water, a young American woman describes her bodily experience. Then the camera shows the trainees practicing inside the Munmak studio. A big drum (to the right) and GiCheon iconography (photographs of six basic positions and calligraphy) on the wall decorate the room which is arranged in the traditional Korean style. The cadres of the DVD continue to the strains of running water. The camera returns to the mountain stream again and again; the students share their GiCheon experiences against a background of water, green trees, grass, and stone. The stones pave the ground; the students sit on stone stairs at the entrance to wooden houses, under wooden pillars. The instructors beat the students on the back and on the legs with a wooden stick, to stimulate the flow of ki. These three elements – water, wood, and stone – sometimes in their civilized guise as parts of built environment, but more often in their original form, as nature elements, constitute the setting for the narration, a background against which the GiCheon story unfolds. The music accompanying the DVD (by Kim) is often mysterious, with a flavour of Orientalism, creating an atmosphere of secret teaching. Indeed, the word ‘mysterious’ is repeated multiple times throughout the storytelling. If we compare this to ‘GiCheon Instructional DVD, Volume One’, shot by Lee, different tactics are employed: the music is contemplative, trying to depict GiCheon practice in the context of the cosmic.5 Kim’s narration centres on the geographical location of Munmak: the camera and the viewer are now on a train, fields and mountains flash by, then we see ourselves speeding past water and the narrator asks, ‘What brings people from all over the world to this remote mountain hermitage in Korea?’. The romanticization of Munmak Mountains Center and the subsequent exoticization of GiCheon are obvious. The themes of water, wood, and stone represent ‘wholesome nature’ contrasted with ‘corrupt civilization’. The Instructional DVD by Lee, on the other hand, focuses on a practical goal of teaching correct GiCheon techniques, trying to represent human and nature as one. 5 ‘Korean music for meditation’ (명상 국악) used by Lee as background music is produced by modern composers on the basis of traditional music. Sometimes it is termed ‘meditation music’ (명상음악). This term is utilized in contemporary scholarly discourse in Korea (see for example Yun Sŏn-hŭi 1995). In articles dedicated to this type of music Korean researches state that music is efficient for calming the mind and facilitating the transformation of mind and body. Music can help us to grow strength to adapt to difficult surrounding and awakens the natural ability for self-healing (Song Ju-jin 2013: 3344).

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Remarkably, people discussing GiCheon in Kim’s DVD are chiefly Europeans and Americans, except Grandmaster Lee Sang-wŏn. Their voices are a primer in introducing GiCheon to the West. While the Grandmaster and the English speakers share their opinions with the viewer, a group of Korean males in black-and-white uniforms silently perform dynamic stances in the studio, they also do this outside under the trees. Later on in the film, Korean adepts gain a voice and relate their ideas on GiCheon through an interpreter. However, they are not ordinary practitioners; master Lee Ki-t’ae and Chŏn Sang-mo (a physics student at Seoul National University) have higher positions in the GiCheon hierarchy. They are the only ones who are allowed to talk about GiCheon after the Grandmaster and English-speakers. When it comes to ‘GiCheon Instructional DVD, Volume One’ by Lee, there is no dialogue at all, only a musical soundtrack. The English language, though not audible, is present in the form of succinct subtitles. Unlike the Turtle Press DVD which explicitly targets an English-speaking audience, the Instructional DVD can be used by the speaker of any language who can read English, and even this is not mandatory. Both DVDs originally targeted foreign, non-Korean audiences, but over the years they also became popular with Korean GiCheon practitioners. The DVD by Lee Ki-t’ae opens with a scene of running water. The viewer faces the running stream, which is coming down between two rocky slopes, splashing into a little lake at the bottom of the rocks, a basin formed and bordered by large stones. The viewer sees the stream as if from the middle of the lake. As a viewer, the stream runs directly toward me, and into me. The slopes are covered with greenery, tree branches tower over the water, the passage is lit by the sun but there is a moderate degree of shade. The camera gets closer to a cascading mini-waterfall. Water gushes over the stones in a mountain stream, splashing and spattering. This visual narrative focuses on the live, dynamic, crude but graceful vigour of the water. The camera moves along the stream following the direction of the flow. Then we see the current circulating in a little basin, contouring the protruding boulders, which nevertheless show the signs of being rounded and eaten away by the water. Turning for a moment to the theory of GiCheon, we could decode the visual message of the first few cadres as following.6 In GiCheon, a human 6 Panofsky notes that the familiarity with the cultural context is vital for understanding the work of art. This cultural context is often transmitted orally (1972 [1939]: 11). A newly invented tradition of GiCheon is also often transmitted orally, it also forms a part of greater East-Asian culture in general.

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being is compared to a lake which is connected to other lakes by routes or channels. A certain amount of water (ki-life energy, manifesting as blood and lymph, awareness, consciousness, sensibility, and other kinds of information) circulates within the lake, new water constantly comes in, and some water goes away. As the new ‘water’ – food, sensations, experiences, perceived words and actions of others etc. – come in, there is a constant need to ‘purify’ the water. There will always be ‘bad water’ left and some stagnation cannot be avoided. But the relative amount of ‘bad and stagnant water’ can be reduced, in an attempt to achieve ‘better circulation’, the goal of GiCheon internal alchemy. GiCheon stances are supposed to facilitate the smooth passage of information through the body and mind-heart – food and liquids to be absorbed easily, sweat and excrement leave the body comfortably, thoughts and emotions to be perceived and realized efficiently, words are said and actions performed with greater straightforwardness and simplicity. In GiCheon internal alchemy this flow of information is addressed as ki flow and metaphorically compared to circulation of water, visually represented in the first twenty-six seconds of the DVD. If the viewer is indeed such a lake, seeing her- or himself opening toward GiCheon knowledge and practice by engaging in watching the DVD, then the stream dashing toward them and into them is a symbolic representation of GiCheon itself, approaching and coming into their being. The camera following the flow is an allegory of spiritual progress along the path. The circulation of the water in the little basin on the screen connotes the circulation of ki in the body, mind, and social surroundings of the adept. The boulders worn down by the water are a metaphorical portrayal of the obstacles to inner progress, which are dealt with – the water outlines the stones, co-exists with them. The big stones do not stop the current, but instead shape its course. The mountain stream embodies a very wide range of meanings, and I am touching only upon the most obvious. Within a very short time, a few seconds at most, the camera moves from the small waterfall towards the stone basin. This is a separate section of the stream, with a clearly marked beginning and end. We can interpret is as a connotation of a short human life. Every thing has a beginning and an end, and every form will be ‘unformed’ in the course of time. The film shows clearly that the stream was there before the waterfall, and the water does not just disappear after it reaches the basin. But the before and the after are not relevant for the visual narrative. The camera focuses on this portion of the stream only. The mountain stream depicted in the DVD by Lee and discussed above is not just random. This is the stream near the Munmak GiCheon Mountains

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Center, where the ‘Ki – The Science of Internal Energy’ was shot by Kim in May 2002. Providing a link between the two DVDs, this stream is an important site of GiCheon practice, where static positions of training are conducted in cold water, both in summer and winter. One of the central elements of the visual strategy employed in ‘Ki – The Science of Internal Energy’ by Kim is a repeated depiction of Munmak stream which anchors this icon in the consciousness and subconscious of the viewer. This is definitely an important motif which, in the terminology of Erwin Panofsky, relates to the primary level of meaning. The stream appears in the film many times, at vital narrative points. ‘GiCheon Instructional DVD, Volume One’ by Lee continues this visual genealogy of Munmak mountain stream. This multiple appearance of the motif can be defined as a theme of secondary level of meaning, in the language of Panofsky. The icon of streaming water is further appropriated and re-signified by the DVD makers to indicate something very particular: the practice of GiCheon. Here the water stream acquires an additional symbolic meaning, approachable and identifiable by interpretation. The way is now paved to reach an intrinsic and ultimate meaning. The first twenty-six seconds of ‘GiCheon Instructional DVD, Volume One’ by Lee shows the Munmak stream, then moves to a viewer opening their eyes, ears, and heart. The makers hope that this DVD will modify the flow of their life. At the twenty-seventh second, the arches of rushing water turn into the smooth slopes of Korean mountains covered with trees. The scene changes, mountains and trees are bordered by multi-coloured wooden pavilions built in traditional Korean style, Buddhist pagodas, bells, and a Buddhist monk playing a big drum in one of the pavilions. The visual strategy put to use here reverberates with the scheme employed in shooting the water stream. First, the whole stream is shot from a larger perspective, then the camera approaches the water and shows it from a closer perspective. Similarly, first the Buddhist temple is introduced, then the camera comes nearer, enters the temple, and we observe a Buddhist monk playing the drum. In a sense, the progress from a natural mountainous panorama toward wooden buildings, metal structures, to the display of humans culturally engaged, is significant. This is the advancement from nature to culture, within which nature is not discounted but continues to coexist with culture harmoniously. This represents typical of the East Asian worldview usually categorized as Daoist. One scene in particular presents the roof of the wooden pavilion coloured red and green against the background of trees with red and green leaves: culture and nature are not contradictory, but complementary; they echo and support each other. Additionally, images of

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water, mountains, trees, wooden and metal structures, and humans change from one to the other to the sounds of ‘Korean meditation music’ which connotes alchemical transformation and the everlasting transmutation of life. Here, the self in the process of transformation is not the individual self of a practitioner but a larger cosmic self which includes the universe. In the DVD by Kim Sang-hwan, nature (represented by mountains) and culture (represented by built environment) come into various types of relationships. One of them is a relationship of contrast: pure nature versus corrupted culture. Another way in which nature and culture relate to each other in the DVD is alternation: one moment the camera shows students practicing outside in the stream, the other moment they are shown practicing inside the studio; one moment the Grandmaster Lee Sang-wŏn talks about GiCheon by the water, the next moment, by the table inside the building. Often nature and culture are shown as complementing each other: half of the screen is occupied by the built environment, another half, by a green mountain; the student is training against the background of houses and mountains. The DVD by Lee repeats these visual strategies, but adds additional ones, which connect directly to the alchemical transformation of the self. These are the relationships of nature and culture mirroring each other, talking to each other, and merging with each other. The alchemical transformation occurs not only in the human body – a microcosm, but also in the body of the cosmos – a macrocosm. The film’s introductory themes produce a rhetorical field bringing together water, wood, and stone, Korean mountains and nature, Korean traditional architecture, Buddhist symbols, drum-playing, and GiCheon, in the time span of 63 seconds. Through these themes, a wide range of meanings is attributed to GiCheon. Besides an obvious connection to mountainous immortality, and the invigorating, cleansing, and penetrating quality of water, the visual narrative claims an ‘ancient and traditional’ status for GiCheon, placing it in the same line with Korean Buddhism and Korean architecture. The bells, the drums, and the drum-playing hint at an artistic, creative element to GiCheon, tying it to notions of awakening and self-actualization. Mountain worship is an ancient cult in Korea that is still vibrantly alive today (Mason 1999). The notion of a mountain is intimately connected to the idea of sinsŏn (神仙 divine mountain immortals) within which GiCheon art allegedly originated (Kim Hŭi-sang, Kich‘ŏnmun Ponmun 2000: 13, 23, 28-32). GiCheon instructors and the adepts of older generations identify GiCheon as techniques of immortality, sŏnpŏp (仙法), another name for internal alchemy (Ten 2017: 211-221). Detailed explorations of GiCheon practice and theory in this perspective is beyond the scope of the present article, but this aspect is vital for grasping the importance of mountains and the

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mountainous in GiCheon. It constitutes a part of the cultural background of which Panofsky speaks (2012: 470-471), the understanding of which is vital for understanding the work of art. In employing his visual strategy, Lee Ki-t’ae follows Kim Sang-hwan. The DVD by Turtle Press also starts with a scene of mountains, a mountain stream, wooden pavilions, and practicing disciples. But the first twenty-three seconds of the DVD by Lee Ki-t’ae are more beautiful, artistic, and elaborate. It is a real visual poem, where each scene flows smoothly into the next to the sound of music. The figurative representation of the stream, with the camera moving along the flow, is also something Lee Ki-t’ae brought in. Kim Sanghwan leaves the camera fixed on the stream – or mountains, concentrating on the people in the water, their practices, and facial expressions. The DVD by Lee Ki-t’ae shows three buttons: Play, Training, and Bonus Features. Clicking on Play we observe the scenery of Mount Paektu and read about the encounter of Bodhidharma with the GiCheon Grandmaster named Woman of Heaven, related in the contemporary legend of GiCheon.7 The uninitiated viewer does not know that the presenter in the centre is Mr. Pak, a ‘fan’ of Lee Ki-t’ae. Immediately afterwards, we are in a park in contemporary Seoul. The man in white short and black trousers demonstrates Wŏnbanjang (원반장) – the first stance of GiCheon. To the sounds of Korean meditative music, Mr. Pak performs a circular movement that involves both arms. The text below reads ‘Shaping the circle of TaeGeuk (Tae: cosmic, Geuk: ultimate)’. Taegŭk (大極 Chinese taiji, Great Ultimate) is a concept from East Asian philosophy, indicating the relationship between ŭm (陰 Chinese yin) and yang (陽). Mr. Pak is seen in the centre of the screen, against a background of grass and trees. Mr. Pak performs the positions, the subtitles explain and instruct, the camera moves to offer a slightly closer view from a different angle. Mr. Pak is always depicted next to a large tree. Large branches stretch over his head. Lee Ki-t’ae himself comes into the picture to demonstrate more complex GiCheon stances, inevitably in the same park under the same tree. And then there are the two of them, practicing together near a small stone pagoda. Then we see Mr. Pak practicing in the water in a familiar Munmak mountain stream, introduced at the beginning of the visual narrative. The water comes up to his waist and he is surrounded by stones. East Asian alchemy views the body of the adept as a representation of the cosmos. The adept embodies the cosmos, and the changes on the micro-level (in the body) are enacted on the macro-level (in the cosmos) as the body of 7

For more detail see Ten and Winstanley-Chesters 2012.

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the adept is the universe itself. In wŏnbanjang performed in the studio, the teachers instruct the students to ‘imagine that your arms reach till the end of the universe’. The right arm is ascending, while the left arm is descending. Performing this circular movement of ŭm and yang, the adept becomes the generator that moves the universe, their action affects cosmic circulation and transformation. Instructors repeat that the ‘left and right arms are like day and night, like sun and moon’. The visual narrative of the Instructional DVD by Lee is set within a multiple of metaphors: water, wood, and stone that surround, support, and nourish the adept in the middle. There is no analytic division, no gap between me and the world, so water, wood, and stone are me, and I am them. In nature, water, wood, and stone transform, and so does the human body: the act of practice is a conscious and directed attempt at alchemical transformation. But the body of the adept does not exist in a vacuum – indeed, it is always present somewhere. Where? In the Instructional DVD the trainee practices in the open air. They ‘talk’ to water, wood, and stone; transforms them with their presence, correlates to them, communicates with them. Here water, wood, and stone are symbolic representations of the body of the adept: stones are bones; trunk, branches, leaves, and roots are organs and soft tissues; water is blood and other liquids in the body. Water, wood, and stone are symbolic manifestations not only of the physical body of the adept, but also of his ‘cosmic body’, nature, which surrounds, contains, supports, nourishes, and is nourished by the physical body. The magical ability, the spiritual power, the ki of the adept is growing, and in this process, after surpassing the step of being nourished by water, wood, and stone, of being carried by them, the adept starts to nourish the cosmos around, to carry and embody it. This is one of the reasons why the body is represented as a central part of the scenery, a carrying signal that effects the cosmic transmutation, a key to the alchemical metamorphosis, a central pillar that supports creation. Water, wood, and stone set the practitioner in a frame; they are like a precious jewel in a royal crown surrounded by lesser gems. And still, they bear the most intimate connection with these – they are of the same nature, water, wood, and stone are parts, companions, and followers of the adept, they are each other. And the adept is silent – just like the water, wood, and stone. They are also his teachers. The adept has to be silent, like trees and leaves, but unquestionably alive and present, their movements must be smooth and natural, like the flow of water, but also defined and powerful, they should be stable as a mountain, and if needed, hard like stone. This is a visual embodiment of an alchemical process of transmutation, an application of a vital principle through which alchemy effects transformation of matter as well as heals disease and prolongs life.

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Conclusion The concept of technologies of the self has a number of meanings: one meaning includes practices of the self, another meaning is technical utensils employed in the process of self-transformation. The GiCheon discipline is a technology of the self in the first meaning, a practice directed at selfcultivation. Its purpose, at least theoretically, is achieving immortality. The two DVDs discussed in the present chapter are used as technical utensils supporting the transformation of the self, the technology of the self in a second meaning. The DVDs serve this purpose by utilizing the imagery of water, wood, and stone that I have unpacked in this chapter. I attempted to uncover an intrinsic ultimate meaning in the DVDs, viewing them as works of art. For this purpose, a number of interpretational tools developed by Erwin Panofsky were utilized. The DVDs show training taking place in the mountains – a motif hinting at traditional mountains worship and technics of immortality – or on the stone-laid Hangang riverbank, facing skyscrapers. Practitioners lie on the grass placing a stone on the belly to regulate breathing; push an imaginary mountain to awaken inner power, tie a heavy stone to the leg to increase abdominal power in performing particular stances. The water images include those of practice by the waterfall and in the water. The adepts practice under and amidst trees, hitting tree trunks to strengthen the arms or being hit by the teacher with a wooden stick, for the purpose of intensifying energy flow. In both DVDs the body of the practitioner is set against a frame of water, wood, and stone. Their concrete representation on the screen I interpreted as motifs of a primary level of meaning in the terminology of Panofsky. Summarizing the general themes represented by water, wood, and stone I touched upon the second level of meaning. Water, wood, and stone become the active participants in the complex process of alchemical transformation of the self. This is a third level of meaning; the one Panofsky calls the ultimate intrinsic meaning. The eff icacy of iconography depends on historical precedent. The visual rhetoric of the two DVDs I have discussed relies on known patterns, references, and shared narratives. Thousands of years of imagining water, wood, and stone as important symbols in East Asian culture preceded their appropriation for GiCheon, setting the stage for various roles these symbols play. The first DVD by Kim has more of an introductory nature. We saw that it focused on representing GiCheon as ‘exotic and mysterious’, pertaining rather to tradition than to modernity, rather to pure mountains than to corrupt civilization. These are the ‘GiCheon self’ and ‘Korean self’

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constructed by Kim. Kim’s narrative is fixed on English speakers, for Kim, ‘international self’ is identical with an English-speaking world. Lee, on the other hand, attempts to transcend geographical space. Despite English subtitles, no one talks in his DVD, and in relying mainly on visual rhetoric it reaches across language barriers. Lee attempts to portray ‘GiCheon self’ and ‘Korean self’ as parts of humanity in general, not connected to particular geographical space. Nature and culture, tradition and modernity are portrayed as merging, thus strengthening this ‘neutral’ aspect. Here Lee touches upon the very basics of East Asian culture, revealing its archaic layers. An alchemical theme that connects the body with water, wood, and stone starts with the DVD by Kim but comes to a completion in the DVD by Lee. The elements of water, wood, and stone show a few narrational themes related to the making of the DVD and the process of crafting the self in GiCheon. Water signifies life in general, human life in particular, and the flow of information in the mind-body. Images of water also constitute the glue that binds the structure together. In the DVD ‘Ki – The Science of Internal Energy’ by Kim, scenes of streaming water connect the episodes with each other. The scene of the Munmak mountain stream connects the DVD by Kim with that of Lee. In Kim’s DVD the scene of the car driving through the water to get to Munmak shows water as a carrier – it carries a car with the camera crew. Water flows and carries information. Water is a symbol of the essence, but it also flows and connects. As demonstrated in the DVDs, stones are used in GiCheon practice as utensils. A practitioner lies on their back, a heavy stone is placed on their stomach to reveal the breathing pattern. In practicing moving stances, a boulder is tied to the leg to strengthen abdominal power. Rocks fringe the stream, containing, limiting but also supporting and directing the current. Protruding boulders in the middle of the stream hinder the flow, but also shape its course. Without rocks and stones guiding and containing the water, the mountain stream would not exist. Stone is that by which the stream comes into being. A mountain lake, at the side of which Bodhidharma met a Woman of Heaven, is shot in the Instructional DVD as being surrounded by tall rocky mountains. Stones pave the roads and the built walls at the Munmak Mountains Center. In both DVDs wood plays a role similar to stone; wooden buildings house Munmak inhabitants and guests, wooden pavilions form Buddhism temples. However, wood has an additional role to play. In the instructional DVD by Lee the demonstrator trains in the park, always under the tree. I propose

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that the tree here is a metaphor for the body of the adept, and as such, can stand in for the adept themselves. In Confucian cosmology, so often evoked by GiCheon practitioners when they relate their experience in the interviews (Ten 2017), the principle of Heaven, Earth, and Human (天地人 ch’ŏn chi in (Korean) and tian di ren (Chinese)), is one of the basics. Here the Korean (in 人 – which is known as ren in Chinese), usually translated as ‘human’, indicates not just humans, but all things and beings filling the space between heaven and earth. In GiCheon sword art, a wooden sword is an extension of an arm. Movements performed by the arm in empty-hand combat are, in sword art, executed by the sword. When an instructor beats a student on the back with a wooden stick to decrease tension in the muscles, the wooden stick actually becomes the hand. The teacher sometimes hits the student on the back with the edge of his hand – but that is not advisable, as the teacher will lose too much of their ki (energy), which it then transmitted to the student. Even the scene with the hitting of the tree trunks reminds us of human bodies personified by trees – and here the tree comes to stand in for living opponents. I have touched on some possible interpretations and metaphors embodied by water, wood, and stone, the number of which is of course undetermined and indeterminable. The alchemical perspective chosen for the present analysis of two GiCheon DVDs demonstrates the deep inner connection between these three symbols. All of them relate to the body and all of them manifest the body, but I have shown an additional way of understanding water as symbolizing an essence as well as the function of carriage; stone as a symbolizing utensil and the function of containing; wood (or trees) as symbolizing humanity. Together they form an allegory for alchemical practice: the alchemist brewing in the cauldron (utensil) the magical essence or elixir that carries immortality. This chapter examined symbolism in a visual sense, as images that represent something other than themselves, such as ideas, concepts, and actions. Such symbolism constitutes a technology of the self, but this is also a study in the philosophy of art and visual culture. I have focused on the deployment of water, wood, and stone to see how alchemical processes operate and become visible through these visual icons. GiCheon, and its representation in these DVDs, is also an example of a constructed, newly invented South Korean tradition which is still far from completion. The chain of GiCheon DVDs, as well as other GiCheon-related material, reminds us of alchemical transmutation, a process in which the ‘GiCheon Instructional DVD, Volume One’ will not be the last link.

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Bibliography Baker, Don. 2007. ‘Internal Alchemy in the Dahn World School’ in Religions of Korea in Practice, edited by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. 508-513. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1980. Le sens pratique [The Logic of Practice]. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. Brown, Rebecca. 2010. Gandhi’s Spinning Wheel and the Making of India. Abingdon: Routledge. Dorrestijn, Steven. 2012. The Design of Our Own Lives: Technical Mediation and Subjectivation after Foucault. Ph.D. thesis. Enschede: University of Twente. Foucault, Michel. 2001. L’Hermeneutique du sujet: Cours au Collège de France (19811982) [Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France (1981-1982)]. Paris: Gallimard. Foucault, Michel. 1988. ‘Technologies of the Self’ in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, edited by Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton. 16-49. London: Tavistock Publications. Kim, Daeyeol. 2012. Symbolisme de la force vitale en Chine ancienne: Modèles et significations dans l’alchimie taoïste opératoire (études des pratiques alchimiques du Baopuzi neipian 抱朴子内篇 (4e siècle après J.-C. en Chine)) [Symbolism and vital force (qi) in Ancient China, etc.]. Ph.D. thésis. Ecole doctorale d’Histoire des religions et anthropologie religieuse. Paris : Université de Paris-Sorbonne. Kim, Hŭi-sang, and Kich‘ŏnmun, Ponmun, eds. 2000. Kich‘ŏn. Seoul: Ch‘orokpaemaejiksŭ. Mason, David. 1999. Spirit of the Mountains: Korea’s San-Shin and Traditions of Mountain-Worship. Seoul: Hollym. Pak, Mi-suk (박미숙) et al. 2003. ‘Ki suryŏn i sŭt’ŭresŭ panŭng e mich’i nŭn yŏnghyang’ (기(氣)수련이 스트레스 반응에 미치는 영향) [Effects of ki suryŏn on stress management] in Han’guk sŭp’och’ŭ simni hakhoeji (한국스포츠심리 학회지) [Korean Journal of Sport Psychology] 14(3): 101-109. Palmer, David A. 2007. Qigong fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China. New York: Columbia University Press. Panofsky, Erwin, Elsner, Jaś, and Lorenz, Katharina. 2012 [1932]. ‘On the Problem of Describing and Interpreting Works of the Visual Arts’, Critical Inquiry, 38(3) (spring 2012): 467-482. Originally published as ‘Zum Problem der Beschreibung und Inhaltsdeutung von Werken der bildenden Kunst’ by Erwin Panofsky Logos 21 (1932): 103-19. Panofsky, Erwin. 1960. Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.

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Panofsky, Erwin. 1972 [1939]. Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance. New York: Harper & Row. Smith, Pamela. 2014. ‘Knowledge in Motion’ in Cultures in Motion, edited by D. Rodgers, B. Raman, and H. Reimitz. 109-133. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Smith, Pamela. 2002. The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in Scientific Revolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Song Su-jin (송수진). 2013. ‘Synchronicity hyŏndae ŭmak myŏngsang ŭl chŏkyonghan kyosa yŏn’su p’ǔrogǔraem i kyosa hyonŭnggam kwa chukwanchŏk salm ŭi chir e michi nŭn yŏnghyang’ (Synchronicity 현대 음악명상을 적용한 교 사연수 프로그램이 교사효능감과 주관적 삶의 질에 미치는 영향) [The effects of training programs for teachers utilizing the synchronicity contemporary meditation music on subjective quality of life and efficacy of teachers], Korean Journal of Counselling (상담학연구), 14(6): 3341-3364. Ten, Victoria. 2017. Body and Ki in Gicheon: Practices of Self-Cultivation in Contemporary Korea. Ph.D. thesis. Leiden: Leiden University. Ten, Victoria, and Winstanley-Chesters, Robert. 2016. ‘New Goddesses at Paektu Mountain: Two Contemporary Korean Myths’ in S/N Korean Humanities, 2(1): 151-179. Ten, Victoria. 2015. ‘Technologies of Self in Contemporary Korea: The Notion of Suryŏn (修練) in GiCheon (氣天)’ in Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies (BAKS papers), 16: 76-96. Ten, Victoria. 2014. ‘Encoding Visual Imagery of Ki Suryŏn Exported to the West’ in International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) Newsletter, 70 (winter): 8-9. U, Hye-ran (우혜란). 2006. ‘Tong side Han’guk ŭi ki suryŏn munhwa wa musok’ (동 시대 한국의 기수련 문화와 무속) [Contemporary Korean ki suryŏn culture and shamanism] in Chongkyo yŏn’gu (종교연구) [Korean Study of Religion], 9: 71-113. Van der Veer, Peter. 2007. ‘Global Breathing: Religious Utopias in India and China’, Anthropological Theory, 7(3): 315-329. Winn, Michael. 2009. ‘Daoist Internal Alchemy in the West’ in Internal Alchemy: Self, Society, and the Quest for Immortality, edited by Livia Kohn and Robin Wang. 179-202. Dunedin: Three Pines Press. Yun Sŏn-hŭi (윤선희). 1995. ‘Saeroun ŭmak ch’iryo sudan ŭrosŏ tongyang sasang e kŭngǒhan myŏngsang ŭmak ŭi iyong kanŭngsŏng e kwanhan yŏn’gu’ (새로운 음 악치료 수단으로서 동양 사상에 근거한 명상음악의 이용 가능성에 관한 연 구) [Research on the possibility to use meditation music based on Asian tradition as a new method of music healing] in Kongju chǒnmun taehak nonmunjip (공 주전문대학논문집) [Kongju National University, Essays Collection]. Kongju: Kongju National University.

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Discography Lee, Ki-t’ae. 2002. ‘GiCheon Instructional, Volume One’. Seoul: Kich’ŏn Sangmuwŏn (기천상무원). Lee, Sang-wŏn, and Kim, Sang-hwan. 2004. ‘Ki – The Science of Internal Energy’. Wethersfield, CT: Turtle Press.

About the author Victoria Ten (Yeonhwa Jeon) was born in Leningrad, Soviet Union. She holds an LL.B. from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where she worked as a lawyer at the Ministry of Justice. In 2010 she received an M.A. in Korean Philosophy at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea. The subject of her M.A. thesis was the philosophy of a Korean scholar Hwadam Sŏ Kyŏng-dŏk (花潭 徐敬德 1489-1546). In 2017 Victoria received her Ph.D. from LIAS, Leiden University, the Netherlands. The title of her Ph.D. thesis is ‘Body and Ki in GiCheon (氣天): Practices of Self-cultivation in Contemporary Korea’. She published a number of articles on ki suryŏn and GiCheon, and has been a GiCheon teacher for nearly two decades. Her books, New Goddesses on Mount Paektu: Gender, Myth and Transformation in Korean Landscapes and Mountain Culture in Korea are due to be published in 2020 by Lexington Press (Rowman and Littlefield), co-authored with Robert Winstanley-Chesters, David Mason, and Natalya Chesnokova. Email: [email protected]

4

The Relationship between Architecture and Ritual in the Hindu Crematorium Srivalli Pradeepthi Ikkurthy

Abstract Hindu philosophy sees death as part of the cycle of life, and celebrates it. Despite this, crematoria and cemeteries have been largely ignored in architectural treatises in India. Funerary spaces are influenced by three centuries-old layers: religion, region, and time. This paper seeks to understand the architectural variation in funerary space by focussing on region (context) and time (temporal and/or political impact) to see how they influence form and function. By comparing examples from Hyderabad and Varanasi the paper lays out a theoretical framework for both rituals (based on scriptures) and the spaces in which they are enacted, so that these ancient traditions, and their architectural articulations, can be passed on for the future. Keywords: antyesti (vUR;sfLr funeral rites), Hindu rituals, cremation, urbanization, architecture types

Transition: An Introduction Michel Foucault says that ‘[t]he history of a living being was that being itself, within the whole semantic network that connected it to the world. The division, so evident to us, between what we see, what others have observed and handed down, and what others imagine or naively believe, the great tripartition, apparently so simple and so immediate, into observation, document, and fable, did not exist’ (Foucault 2002: 140). This is a powerful statement, but we may well ask why these things did not exist? Foucault

Bracken, Gregory (ed.), Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984721_ch04

90 Srivalli Pr adeepthi Ikkurthy Figure 4.1  Shodasha Samskara

gives us an answer: they do not exist because the ‘signs were then part of things themselves’ (Foucault 2002: 140). In Hindu philosophy, life’s purpose is fulfilled by going through the sixteen phases called shodasha samskara (Ó¨nÓ laLdkjk the sixteen sacraments) (see Figure 4.1)1. To attain moksha (eksÕ), a liberation from the endless cycle of life and death, is life’s purpose. The aim is to end the cycle and reach the ultimate self; to become part of the supreme. Of the sixteen sacraments, the final one is the funeral ritual called antyesti (vUR;sfLr). Ancient Indian scriptures show one how to lead a peaceful life, and a spiritual life, in preparation for the afterlife. The cycle of birth and death is not to be ignored; on the contrary, it is to be celebrated, with a flourish equal to the other sacraments and elaborate rituals preceding and succeeding death. Hinduism considers the cycle of life and death as a natural occurrence, symbolically forming a passage for re-birth and an eventual re-death of being. It is a process or an opportunity for the self to attain perfection and become part of the supreme self, known as the brahman (czãku). The funeral rite, antyesti, consists of five major stages: the preparation of the body, the cremation process, rites of mourning, purification of family 1 Whenever there is a mention of death, or the rituals, ceremonies, or philosophy associated with death, these are assumed to relate to Hinduism, unless otherwise stated.

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members, and a remembrance or mourning period. Significance is given to the process and its accompanying and somewhat elaborate rites rather than to the actual occurrence of death. Death is signified by various rituals, including yoga (;¨x) and yagna (;K), in an attempt to make it acceptable or appear detached. All the steps for the funerary process are laid out in a predetermined fashion as rituals and ceremonies. These may seem ephemeral and as having no significance for the glorification of the rituals, yet in their eternal aspect they nevertheless find expression in actual physical space. These can be hard to notice because it is only through fables that one can still sense the presence of these old signs. In Hinduism, it is through ancient scriptures, which are essentially fables and stories, that these signs can be seen and read. This paper attempts to understand the elaboration of funerary rituals, as well as their specifications laid out as an organized system to ease the pain and fear of death. Yet in this we find a paradox: the rituals seem too detailed, hence raising a question about whether this attempt at sudden emotional detachment at death is an elimination of our animality or is it moving us towards an acceptance of death and hence removing all emotional turmoil. Is this a good thing? Because, as we have seen, is not death an evident fact? And, at least for Hindus, as we have also seen, is it not also an integral part of living? Hence the paradoxical nature of this enquiry into the architectural edifices of the death rites, and the posing of the question of whether these functions are not a reflection of a celebration but, quite possibly, its opposite? The final rites or antyesti (vUR;sfLr) (see Figure 4.2) are arranged in an elaborate manner so that the spirit of the dead can transcend smoothly and unhindered to the next phase of reincarnation. This has an impact on the location and orientation of the cremation grounds, which are usually located on the periphery of any settlement. These settlements have today grown into metropolises. We now have urban fabric that was not conceived of in ancient eras when these places were first laid out. In recent years, given Indian cities’ over-population and congestion, it has become imperative to look at these spaces of death as they are increasingly finding themselves engulfed by ever-expanding cities, while pressure for land means they might eventually get built on. A methodical approach towards the cases under consideration here, as well as a relevant literature study, will reveal the connection of both the self and the extended ‘self’ of architecture in these spaces. It is important to highlight how these spaces have metamorphosed from basic wooden columned pyres and pavilions into elaborate and labyrinthine spaces with equally elaborate functions. These considerations may also be important

92 Srivalli Pr adeepthi Ikkurthy Figure 4.2  Antyesti

because they might also have a semantic role to play in city-planning. This study is an attempt at gathering all relevant data together, something that has never before been attempted. By taking an architectural point of view and combining it with a study of historical impact and social changes over a period of time, we will be able to see how the aesthetics of these space have changed, especially with regard to functionality. These gloomy places (not only gloomy due to their function but also because of the rundown state of the spaces themselves) have always been regarded as morbid. Now, after having been neglected for so long, they are slowly receiving yet another stigma: the idea that death will follow you to your home if you go to those places. As a result, they are uncared for and tend to become the most neglected parts of a town or city, which in turn reduces their desirability still further. This research will enable an understanding of the architecture of funerary spaces, influenced as it is by the layers of region and time that have directed their form and function.

Self versus atman The notion of self ( jiva tho) in Hindu philosophy is a struggle between the finite and the infinite. Finite things are objects, and tangible; the infinite

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is absolute, the state of being everything and nothing at the same time, of belonging to everything and nothing. Jiva is, literally, that which breathes, from jiva ‘to breathe.’ It referred originally to the biological aspect of human nature which exists throughout life, in waking, dreaming, and sleeping. It is this ever-living and seeking soul which reaps the fruits of deeds and survives the death of the physical body. To bridge the confusion of turning a tangible entity to an intangible one, certain rituals and rites, some with elaborate and complex forms, were introduced. It seems almost to hint at an unquestioned obedience, yet the notion of self, which is the physical body to the atman (ÁRek essence or principle of life)2 . This is essential to living and is where, eventually, the body can become part of the brahman (czãku) and be related to something higher. This is clearly related to the belief that one’s life determines one’s afterlife. According to P.T. Srinivas Iyengar, ‘[At] Death the man is believed to be sundered into “three separate parts”; one was burnt and its remains buried to “sink downward” in the earth; another went “yonder”, to the sun, the wind, etc.; the third unborn (aja vt) part went further, beyond the first heaven which is watery (udanvati mnUofr), beyond the second heaven, starry (pilumati fiyqefr), onto the third, the fore-heaven (pradyaus ç|kSl) in which the fathers dwelt’ (Iyengar 2008: 100). Death seen as a passing phase, even if it is the final sacrament for a particular body, with the atman moving on to another, higher being? That is one way of looking at it; we cannot know for sure whether it is accurate. Two opposing views seem to have occurred in the spaces of death in Hinduism. One takes the direction established from the scriptures with seeking solace, moksha is relief from this never-ending cycle of life and death. The other is a journey of practicality noticed from the way reality has differed itself from the scriptural rituals and ceremonies, thereby creating a path of its own, yet parallel to them.

Self-destruction versus non-destruction of self Beauty, according to Edmund Burke, is ‘that quality or those qualities in bodies by which they cause love, or some passion similar to it’ (Burke 2008: 91). If beauty has to do with the love- and passion-causing qualities, then qualities defining sadness and utmost sorrow can also be called beautiful 2 See the Glossary at end of this chapter for an explanation of some of the more important Hindu terms.

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since these emotions also deal with the profound sadness caused by death. Are death rituals for the bereaved? or for the one who has died? If they are for the people who are left behind then they follow the sacrament dutifully, in the fear that death might take them too, or that those they have lost might come back to haunt them. Conversely, if they are for the one who has passed away, to make for a smooth transition and something to look forward to (e.g., reunion with forefathers and, eventually, the brahman) then the rituals and rites are elaborately laid out in order to disconnect the living from the dead. In scriptures such as the Vedas and Upanishads, which are, to this day, ardently followed in an attempt to attain moksha (eksÕ liberation from the endless cycle of re-birth), then death has an equal importance to birth. This paper identifies six factors to elucidate the architecture of the Hindu crematorium. These are: 1) treatises, 2) region, 3) time, 4) neighbourhood, 5) architecture, and 6) meaning. Each of these factors is unique, and each affects and impacts the others. The relationship between them (and their sub-factors) are seen as dynamic, having in some cases a distinct cause-andeffect dynamic. Each shall be dealt with briefly here. Wider considerations, such as economics, politics, society, etc., have been omitted from this discussion as they fall outside the purview of the discussion and would act as an unnecessary distraction from the attempt to establish a link between what we might call ‘written’ architecture and ‘real’ architecture. 1) Treatises Several ancient Hindu treatises have made specifications about ways of life, the gods, architecture, health, politics, and so on. The Vedas, Upanishads, and the rest comprise ritual sequences to be followed for different occasions, such as ceremonies, etc. Few are specif ic to architecture or town-planning, although the Manasara series, Samarangana Sutradhara, and the Mayamatam each describe the architecture of place, house, and then relate them to social hierarchy. Very few contain layouts of settlement planning or town-planning or mention the location of cremation grounds. And very few describe the plots themselves. In the scriptures it is specified that cremation along a river, or towards the north-east of a settlement, are both sacred, and if the rituals are rigorously followed in either of these places then mukti (eqfDr) is inevitable. 2) Region This factor comprises all the physical characteristics that are unique to a region – its topography, water, prevailing winds, etc. Some ancient town plans have specific variations based on the settlements’ location, for example,

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Varanasi is located on the north-west bank of the Ganges, so is not affected by the cremation ghats (?kkV) on the river. If it had been located to the south-east of the river then the prevailing winds would have brought odour and debris associated with cremation into the settlement. This is why it is important to locate the cremation grounds correctly in relation to a settlement. 3) Time This paper takes as its time frame the period since the 1990s, India’s late independence period, to look at what has happened to the architecture of the crematorium. Earlier periods of crematoria architecture are either too ancient or were insufficiently (and inefficiently) documented and explained. This late post-independence time period cover three sub-phases: 1) economic liberalization, 2) privatization, and 3) globalization. Economic liberalization started after 1991, when India’s economy was opened up to accommodate and welcome foreign investors and steps were taken to regulate taxes, which had become inflated. This was when what was known as the License or Permit Raj was abolished. Because of this new economic regime, industries had less difficulty in establishing themselves around the peripheries of settlements to be closer to raw materials and manpower. This slowly changed the dynamics of these settlements, preparing them, eventually, for more urban scenarios. Privatization was also letting private parties become more involved in businesses and services, with opportunities for overseas trade increasingly opening doors even further for employment and the economy. Furthermore, globalization was helping bring in foreign-technology agreements and investment. Industrial licensing was deregulated, also playing a role in allowing cities to expand in size and scale, engulfing the smaller settlements around them. Cities often became an agglomeration of several smaller settlements. This led to funerary grounds finding themselves located within the expanding cities, no longer in the prescribed peripheral locations stipulated in the scriptures, and also needed in practice. 4) Neighbourhood To understand the expansion of settlements that have now become parts of cities or cities themselves, the neighbourhood factor looks at the historio­ graphy and growth patterns of these. The British Raj introduced an industrial dependence unknown to feudal India; post-independence, this was opened up via the economic liberalization mentioned above. Foreign investment has had a direct impact on both cities and construction technology. Rapid urbanization has caused a spatial crisis in the city’s core, where expansion has been occurring based on the needs of employment and without any

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planning, leading to an almost viral growth of towns and cities. Expansion has begun to include the earlier crematoria located on the periphery of settlements. Many settlements, in turn, have became one large whole, bringing numerous funerary grounds together, some of which even end up being at the centre of a new city. This is why the location of these spaces become redundant in today’s context in comparision to what was pointed out by Prasanna Kumar Acharya when he talks about the Temple of Kali: ‘It should be at a distance of one or two miles away from the village, where either towards the east of the north should be situated the dwellings of the undertakers (chandalas p.Mky); and to the north (of this part) should be the cremation grounds’ (Acharya 1994: 78). 5) Architecture The architecture as form, function, material, and technology are used to help establish the time period of the building, through its style, and the impact on the functions of the crematory spaces. In the older crematoria one notices the conjunction of several functions in a single space (or sometimes two spaces). Variations start showing the signs of the influence of modernizing approaches, such as the separation of functions and the distribution of the crowds based on those functions. The architectural factors of function, form, material, and technology help in determining the character of the space in relation to time. For this study, two specific functions were analysed: pyres and waiting areas. Pyres are pavilions where a pyre-bed sits under a sheltering structure, which has some form of an opening in its ceiling to act as a vent. Waiting halls shelter people from the elements and are necessary because it is customary for the bereaved to wait for a certain period of time before leaving, then they will make ablutions. The necessity of subdividing architectural elements using modern terminology makes it easier to handle the vast categories and missing links of earlier variants. They also reinforce how accepted the approach to funerary rituals has been, and what importance they have had. Their impact on society in different eras would be interesting to explore but falls beyond the scope of this paper, but it might be worthy of future research because it raises several interesting questions about society, its structure and politics. 6) Meaning The structural part of theology – its signs and symbols – can bring out facets of meaning that are sometimes very deep and which have hitherto been under-explored. The role of death in Hinduism was converted into rituals and offerings, hence there is a deep meaning to the cremation, something

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that has been unceremoniously forgotten in recent times. Instead of it being a ritual to be followed annually as a way of soothing loss and respecting the memory of departed family members, slowly these rituals have been forgotten. These cemetery and crematoria spaces have been turning into slums and ghettos – something which is also having an effect on the city fabric. The location of the cremation grounds and cemeteries was, as we have seen, at the periphery of settlements, now, due to rapid urbanization, these pockets of ritual calm have shifted to the core of new urban areas. This raises the question about their societal and, indeed, aesthetic impacts on the city, especially the consideration of how they can be dealt with without altering or destroying their character? Perhaps modernization is the solution; perhaps it will be possible to create a new architectural typology for these sacred spaces? This is something we look at in the next section, when we examine the cities of Varanasi and Hyderabad, along with some notes on crematories, old and new, from some other cities, including Patna, Maheshwar, Ujjain, Chennai, and Bengaluru, in an attempt to find a temporal-based pattern for the typology.

Varanasi and Hyderabad Varanasi and Hyderabad are two cities set apart by time, growth, and prominence. They have been chosen to help our understanding of ancient forms of funerary spaces as well as to see how generic city growth has influenced the typology. By applying the six factors described above (which could also be applied to any Indian city) we begin to understand the present state of crematoria as well as their previous influences. One of the first things we need to look at is location, which, as we have seen, is quite specific as to layout and topography (and which will have hygiene and safety concerns for the nearby urban populations as the settlements have grown and engulfed these ritual spaces). Water bodies, and especially their banks, have long played an important role in the locating of ritual crematoria. And while this study does not cover this relationship in any great detail, it is important to point out the vital role that water plays in cremation, both symbolically and practically. Varanasi, also known as Benaras or Kasi, is an ancient and holy city for Hindus. It is considered the holiest place to die, and to immerse oneself in the river Ganges is to be liberated from the complexities of life and death, and hence attain moksha. The city is mentioned in the ancient Vedas and Upanishads and is usually referred to in relation to final rites or the cleansing

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of one’s sins in preparation for eventual moksha. Varanasi and its ghats (?kkV river banks) are where bodies are cremated. There are two locations along the banks of the Ganges that are specifically used for these funerary rites: the Manikarnika and Harishchandra ghats. A cremation which occurs in either of these two locations will be very basic and almost primitive in approach: a body is dipped in the holy waters, laid aside for a while, until it dries naturally, before being moved to a pyre where it is laid out on a bed of logs specific to its shape and size, then the pyre is lit. Mourners wait along the steps of the river bank, and then, without looking back, they go and take a dip in the holy waters to wash away the presence of death. The term ‘primitive’ has been used, not as a comparison to modern ways of cremation, but as a reference to the elemental aspects of any cremation that consists simply of wood and fire. In smaller settlements across India this is the way a body is cremated. In the case of Varanasi, it helps us to understand the form of the funerary space, where all the rituals and functions pertaining to the funeral rites take place in one space, an open pavilion or shelter. The distinctive relationship of the ritual to its space, sets it apart from the rest of the shodasha samskara (Ó¨nÓ laLdkjk). The pavilion typology has existed since ancient times – both as a shelter and as a pyre, especially for the elite, as Acharya tells us, ‘pavilions should be built for residential purposes of all, and for the purpose of sacrifice; for the coronation of kings […] for the self-immolation of a faithful wife; for the funerary purposes’ (Acharya 1994: 340). Hence, the presence of pavilions as shelters for pyres is seen around settlements in various different shapes and forms that have evolved over the years, with anything from squares and rectangles to more complex polygonal forms. In the cases of Hyderabad, which is a generic Indian city, with both industrialization and globalization creating an impact on its urbanization, its pattern of growth can help us understand the impact of this urbanization on pre-existing crematoria, and also on new ones. The older ones are toward the centre of the settlement, for the reasons of urban growth we have already seen. Cases from Hyderabad reveal that crematoria, whether located towards the centre or on the periphery, have spatial similarities based on the formal underpinnings of the ancient rituals, as well as on more recent concerns, such as technological and economic availability.

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Figure 4.3  Growth patterns: Varanasi and Hyderabad

Pyre typology From the primitive typology of erecting a makeshift pyre out of logs to the present form of the sheltered pyre, one can notice a clear evolution based on function and, to some extent, grandeur. In the scriptures and treatises, only subtle hints of how the funerary spaces should be built and laid out can be traced; there is no solid formulation for these. For example, in the Manasara it states, ‘the sakala (ldy) plan is recommended (for building) for the worships of gods, and preceptors, for sacrifices with fire, for the seat (i.e., the sitting room) and daily dinner of sages, and for the usual ancestral worship (for example, Sraddha, etc.) (Acharya 1994: 35). There is a mention of pavilions for funeral rites in the Rauravagama, where it is stated that ‘it is a large square pavilion […] constructed at the cremation ground (smasana Lelku) when the body is carried there’ and that ‘[t]here is a fire pit at the centre of the edifice as well as two altars (vedi osfn or vedika osfnd) placed in the north-west and the north-east […] the site of the funeral pyre (citasthana fprLFku) is to be found to the south-east of the fire pit (Dagens 1984: 122). Figure 4.4 (a pyre typology diagram) helps bring some clarity to how the present forms of funeral pyres can be traced back to their primitive origins, like the simple funeral pyre-bed, and combined with four distinct architectural aspects, such as function, material, technology, and form. Shape was determined by functionality and, furthermore, was based on the number of people it would shelter, as well as available technology and materials. The pavilion shape could be square, rectangular, or polygon. In

100 Srivalli Pr adeepthi Ikkurthy Figure 4.4  Pyre typology diagram

most cases, materials and technology determined whether its shape would be larger to accommodate at least four people under it or just the dead body. Single pavilions would have one pyre, with stone carvings and embellishments to give it a ritualistic touch. Since the advent of the post-liberalization era and the globalization mentioned earlier, construction technology in India has been revolutionized. Materials such as precast concrete, with its tensile applications, became particularly noticeable in the latter part of the twentieth century. Concrete, brick, and even steel are the variations that come out of these new developments. For ease of construction, easily multiplied modules (see Figure 4.5) were created using simple forms; some with two columns, some with four. These modules can also act as extensions to the pyre, usually as small in length and breadth as the size of the human body. Due to the numbers of cremations, which has been rising in recent decades with the rise in India’s population, there has been an increased need for technologically inspired solutions for the quick and easy erection of these structures. Later on, steel came to be used for even quicker erection, leading to an industrial-looking open-shed form with larger spans that could accommodate as many as twenty or thirty pyre-beds. Newer typologies have led to a more modern approach, with each function having a specific space and form allocated to it. The functional distribution of spaces created a sort of clarity, with the unforeseen expansion required

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Figure 4.5  Pyres: generic

due to the increase in the number of spaces required (although smaller they were more numerous) compared to the earlier situation where one space catered for several functions. Transparency in function also allowed the crowds to distribute themselves through these spaces according to their requirements: spaces such as the ceremonial yards, waiting halls, and the pyres themselves, and so on. These funerary complexes were, more usually than not, organic in their growth pattern, with spaces and pavilions added as and when required. In the case of short notice, multiple pyres could be erected to accommodate several pyres in a series. This obviously had an impact on the form, which eventually became a generic typology, with only slight variations on the ventilated roofs or on their structural systems, which tended to become simpler over time. Forms using brick and cement or concrete were slipped in under the large-span industrial shed-like structures built from steel. Technology allowed these new larger spans, which could in turn accommodate larger numbers of people. The three-dimensional forms of these pavilions were aesthetically elaborated following the styles of temple architecture (see Figure 4.6) – these, however, were few in number and only for the elite. Bare pyres, erected for mere functionality and with speed in order to cater for large numbers, did not take aesthetic considerations into account. Further transformation of funeral pyres can be seen in the post-privatization period, when the social structure and economic conditions made further changes in India. Lifestyle choices seeped further into deeper sections of the culture – including cremation. In this changed atmosphere it was realized that designing and building edifices would be more appreciated than leaving things to develop in an unplanned way, as had been the case more recently. Municipalities have engaged in the modernization of pyres, by electrifying them. They have also tried to beautify the spaces by landscaping them, thereby showing the people who visit that these developments are now seen as being part of the city. Hence, architecture plays a role in these ‘aesthetics’, as it tries to correct the ugliness that had signified these spaces more recently. In order

102 Srivalli Pr adeepthi Ikkurthy Figure 4.6  Pyres: looking behind

Figure 4.7  Pyres: looking beyond – Mahaprasthanam and Vaikuntha Dwaram

to take aesthetics into account it was necessary to look to earlier eras (see Figure 4.6), where we can see evidence that the temple forms of the past, including their regional variations, were acting as an inspiration; or looking beyond them (see Figure 4.7) to see something not usually conceived of in these spaces: a Modern approach of Mahaprasthanam and Vaikuntha Dwaram crematoria projects from the office of Design Architecture Studios (India) suited to modern times where personal privacy is a focus and the distribution of functions is provided by provision of separate spaces for each unique task. The Modernity of this can be seen by the stark, bare brutalist walls that are true to the function and form of cubes.

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Waiting area According to the rituals and the sacrament scriptures, the people who accompany the deceased have to remain in place for a certain amount of time while the priest chants. The chant includes the phrases ‘burn him not up; nor quite consume him; let not his body or his skin be scattered’ and ‘when thou hast matured him then send him on his way unto the Fathers’. The mourners stay on until they are asked to leave by the priest. For this brief period, the assembly requires an area to wait in. Even among old edifices one can notice that some spaces are specifically intended to be used as waiting areas (see Figure 4.8); places where all the mourners can gather and support each other in their loss. The earliest such spaces were under trees or along the banks of rivers, where the pyre was traditionally lit. These spaces are set away from the funerary pyre areas. Once the need for waiting was noticed, then two distinct typologies developed (see Figure 4.9): a ‘pavilion’ form, with a roof supported by columns and open on all sides; and a ‘gallery’ form, where the waiting area is elevated and descends towards the pyres sheltered by a roof. It could be argued that that the pavilion and the gallery are direct descendants of waiting areas under trees along the sloping bank of a river or water body. The typologies undergo a similar categorization as the pyres, in terms of function, materials, technology, and so on, sub-factors that provide an architectural understanding of what the role of this space was in the cremation ground. Based on numbers and the available space, these waiting areas were either large or small, common or private, secluded or open.

Hinduism’s final sacramental space Rajbali Pandey applies logical reasoning to the understanding of the funeral sacrament in Hinduism. Spiritualism is a chief feature of Hinduism and every phase of Hindu religion is tinctured with it. The general outlook of the Hindus transformed the samskaras into a spiritual sadhana […] samskaras served a mean (a signification) between the ascetic and the materialistic conception of the body. The advocates of the first school try to worship the spirit while discarding the body – an absurd procedure in the world of elements. The upholders of the second view do not go beyond the body and deny the spiritual aspect of man’s life, and therefore they are deprived of that peace and joy that are nestled in the calm recesses of the spirit (Pandey 2013: 34).

104 Srivalli Pr adeepthi Ikkurthy Figure 4.8  Waiting area: typology diagram

Figure 4.9  Waiting area: gallery and pavilion forms

Does a conflict arise between the jiva and atman in seeking the brahman? And could these rifts be the basis for cremation grounds’ total lack of interest in architecture, since one has to come back to life over and over again until perfection is reached, meaning that it does not matter how or where one dies as long as the rituals are followed and the place is holy? It is evident from the cases and experiences of these complexes that funerary grounds were never intended to be as celebrated in the same way as the rest of the shodasha samskara. The funeral sacrament was merely related to an appropriate respect (the outcome of an earlier fear factor

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reinforced by a priestly clan about the never-ending cycle of life and death), an attitude of accepted knowledge passed down through generations which did not f ind a need to be recorded, and this led to a disjunction from the rest of the sacraments, something that is reflected in the earlier lack of interest in the architecture of these spaces. There has been quite a different attitude to this since the start of the twentieth century (see factor 3) Time above) where the reflection of emotion in space felt to be at rest may make one want to revisit that space more often, but it is always the performance of the sacrament that is of the utmost importance: the rites, rituals, ceremonies, and observations have to be diligently followed under the direction of a priest, so why then was so little importance placed on antyesti (vUR;sfLr)? It is one of the primary sacraments, after all. It was meant to resemble Hindu temple architecture but, shockingly, it did not seem to matter if the place had any ‘presence’ or architectural worth. This may have been influenced by the emotional detachment expected from scriptures (since death is just a passing phase), therefore the place was never elaborated. The role of the brahman (priest) paves a direct path to reaching the spirit, and this has led to the signif ied changing place with the signif ier – where the rites have come to dominate over the occurrence of death itself. When one starts to question this, unless an example is given to an audience, they cannot see the reality or come to terms with its possibilities. The cases of the funerary pyres looking beyond and behind are examples of existing possibilities. Explorations to understand the architecture of death in Hinduism has to take account of the philosophy of Hinduism itself, which is all about acceptance and change, accommodation and adaptability. These cases are not considered final, neither can they be considered as ‘high’ in style. Earlier examples are the outcome of a ‘quick fix’, later ones, even though well-designed and well-planned, lack the authenticity that is to be expected in Hinduism’s final sacramental space.

Glossary Antyesti (vUR;sfLr) Death ritual and funeral rites performed in the first thirteen (or eleven) days following death, and marking the last samskara (laLdkjk) of a twice born (i.e., a person who has undergone the sacred thread ceremony of Aryans, Brahmins, etc.) (Johnson 2009: 21, 112). Atman (vkReu)Essence or principle of life. The term derives from an (vu to breathe) and at (vr to move); it is also related to va (o to blow). The term

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came to be used in a metaphysical sense to denote an individuated notion of reality, distinguishing it from the empirical self ( jiva tho), which was regarded merely as the sum of sense faculties. It is possible to equate ‘soul’ with the empirical self, but it is incorrect to define atman as soul (Stutley 2003: 31). Brahma (czãku)All-pervading, self-existent power; can also mean growth or development. In later literature, brahma is equated with cosmic unity, a notion rooted in the age-old problem of humanity’s relation to the supramundane environment (Stutley 2003: 31). Ghat (?kkV)A flight of steps leading to a river or a tank, which not only serves as a landing place but allows access for rituals, such as a bathing. The ghats leading into the river Ganges at Varanasi are thought to be particularly sacred. These include the two cremation grounds, or ‘burning ghats’, Harishchandra and Manikarnika (Johnson 2009: 128). Moksa (eksÕ)Release. Both moksa and mukti (eqf Dr) are derived from moks (eksDl ‘to free one’s self’ or ‘to shake off’ (see also mukti). Mrtyu (e R` ;q)Death or the personification of death. References to death in early Vedic literature make it clear that life after death was envisaged as a repetition of life on earth with ‘the whole body and all its members’ being restored and capable of enjoying all the pleasures of mortal life (Stutley 2003:194). Mukti (eqfDr)Release. Both moksa and mukti are derived from moks,’ to free one’s self’ or ‘to shake off’ (see also moksa). Samskara (laLdkjk)Sanskrit term commonly translated as consecration or sacrament and applied to rituals observed during any of the transitory phases of Hindu life. These are garbhadhana (xHkkZ/kku impregnation), pumsavana (iqla ou a ritual to ensure the birth of a name-bearer), simanta (lheu~r a ritual symbolizing birth), jatakarman (tkrdeZu~ rites associated with childbirth), namakarana (ukeldj.k child-naming ceremony), nish-kramana (fu'k -Øeku when a child is taken outdoors for the f irst time), anna-prasana (vé -izklu the f irst time a child is fed solid food), karna-vedha (d.kZ -os/k ear piercing), chuda-karna (pwMk -d.kZ tonsure), vidyarambha (fo|kjEHk) and vedarambha (os n kjEHk) (rituals associated with education), upanayana (miu;u when being invested with a sacred thread for higher education), kesanta (dslkUr first shave, symbolizing the start of sexual life), samavartana (leorZu return home after completion of studies), vivaha (fookg) and sampana (lEiu) (the sacrament of marriage and its due consummation), antyesti (funeral rites, including obsequies and sraddha (Jk)) rites performed as homage to departed ancestors) (Walker 1983: 315, 316, 427).

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Bibliography Acharya, Prasanna Kumar. 1994. Architecture of Manasara, in Manasara Series, Vol. IV. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. Bhuvan Indian Geo-platform of ISRO. 2018. Urban Growth Maps (Varanasi and Hyderabad), retrieved on 7 February 2018 from http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in Burke, Edmund. 2008 [1757]. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful. London: Routledge Classics. Dagens, Bruno. 1984. Architecture in the Ajitagama and the Rauravagama: A Study of Two South Indian Texts. New Delhi: Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Scientific Research. Foucault, Michel. 2009 [1970]. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Routledge Classics. Johnson, W.J. 2009. A Dictionary of Hinduism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pandey, Rajbali. 2013. Hindu Samskaras: Socio-Religious Study of the Hindu Sacraments. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Sarvepalli, Radhakrishnan. 2008. Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sarvepalli, Radhakrishnan. 2016. The Principal Upanisads. Noida: Harper Collins Publishers. Srinivas Iyengar, P.T. 2008. Life in Ancient India in the Age of the Mantras. Chennai: Asian Educational Services. Stutley, Margaret, and Stutley, James. 2003. A Dictionary of Hinduism: Its Mythology, Folklore and Development, 1500 BC-AD 1500. New Delhi: Munshirm Manoharlal Publishers. Walker, Benjamin. 1983. Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism, Vol. 2. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. Wikins, W.J. 2016. Hindu Mythology. New Delhi: Rupa Publications India.

About the author Srivalli Pradeepthi Ikkurthy acquired her Masters in Histories and Theories of Architecture from Architectural Association School of Architecture London, United Kingdom in 2010. She is presently practicing critical writing at the firm she founded – DA STUDIOS, Hyderabad, while engaging in a lecture series on Architecture History and Theory in a number of wellreputed architectural schools in India. She is also independently researching death in Hinduism and its impact on modern Indian funereal architecture. Her other ongoing research work includes an epistemological enquiry

108 Srivalli Pr adeepthi Ikkurthy

into the role of water in ancient Hindu sacred spaces. Her latest Hindu crematorium, Mahaprasthanam, won a national design award – the AYA JK Cement Award. Email: [email protected] Website: http://.DA-STUDIOS.com

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New Bodies in Cities Contested Technologies of the Self in Urban India Rachana Johri Abstract Globalizing cities in India offer the promise of escape from caste- and gender-based identities, but those who make the journey often encounter difficulties, including the fragmentation of their home experience, and even violence once they get to the city. Lower-middle-class girls are seen as a challenge to ideals of chaste Indian womanhood, while Dalit boys and girls are challenging dominant ideals in Brahmanical India by questioning the nation state and its inherited ideals, including the caste system. This paper draws on cinematic and lived narratives to argue that cities in India are characterized by highly contested spaces, bodily practices, and technologies of the self, where the body of the city, and bodies in the city, are the lived realities of these tense negotiations. Keywords: India, caste, gender, cities

Introduction In India, cities themselves, their inhabitants, and the discourses around them seem to have seen a major shift in the last few decades. This period is marked by a simultaneous globalization of cities with the movement of large segments of populations from rural areas and small towns to large cities. Amongst those who enter these cities are both the Dalits (once described as ‘untouchables’) and women. In the writing that follows I will reflect upon the question of death in the city, both cinematic and lived, that have captured the Indian imagination in the last few years. Deaths and suicides are an increasingly familiar aspect of everyday life and are by no means restricted to the city. Yet, the deaths I explore in this paper are symptomatic of the

Bracken, Gregory (ed.), Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984721_ch05

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fragmented urban spaces into which many thousands of people arrive on a daily basis attempting to find not only a better life but also the possibilities of alternative subjectivities. My concern in this chapter is to arrive at some analysis of the possibilities of the care of the self that is available to these new users of urban spaces. In order to do so I will first ask in what ways have cities in India changed in the period that corresponds to the phase of liberalization and globalization – the period of the three decades or so since 1990. Using some examples from the media, I will then attempt to depict the space of the city and its relationship with older Indian identities to argue for the differences in the imagination of the possibilities of the care of the self in these contexts. Finally, I will argue that the cities of India are characterized by the highly contested nature of physical spaces, bodily practices, and technologies of the self. Both the body of the city and bodies in the city are lived realities of these tense negotiations. While cities do afford the possibilities offered by these identities, it is often within a context of violence and/or loss.

Cities in contemporary India Writing about Indian cities, Partha Chatterjee emphasizes the significance of ‘the place of the city in the modern Indian imagination’ (Chatterjee 2004: 140). As colonial creations, cities had initially failed to evoke the experience of ‘home’ for many of their residents. Unlike villages and smaller towns, they signif ied places of illegality, corruption, and danger. This remained even after the changes in the economic landscape resulted in greater mobility and the nuclearization of families. Consequently, while the home symbolized safety, the urban spaces outside the home appeared to be threatening to the family. The emergence of cities within the colonial worldview also implied that there was no organic vision of an Indian city. Nevertheless, by the 1970s, Indian cities had industrialized and expanded and had brought with them a ‘political society’ that lived through the violation of civic norms. However, until the period of the 1980s there was relatively little intervention to create the ‘worlding cities’ (Roy 2014) that were to emerge shortly thereafter. The most recent reinvention of the urban in India began about three decades ago when the arrival of global capital accompanied by new media led to the circulation of visual images of ‘global cities’. Soon the images became a significant part of the reality of cities, with wide-open roads, flyovers, skyscrapers, new malls, gated communities, private hospitals, and even universities. Cities in India,

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while still characterized by segregation along economic lines, now boasted expensive cafes and restaurants, centres for art and the consumption of a variety of goods and products. The state has visualized Indian cities in neoliberal India as engines of national growth where land allocation is determined largely by the perceived flow of global investment. However, despite the emergence of a global culture with the accompanying landscape, these urban spaces have remained deeply fragmented. There have been series of displacements in many metropolitan cities. Malls and flyovers provide the facade behind which slums exist. In addition, large resettlement and unauthorized settlements housing large majorities of the residents of these cities create its borders. As Arjun Appadurai (2001) writes, cities and their citizens in India are now in a new pattern of relationships such that the metropolitan centres of the global south operate with others in the North while the poorer citizens within them compete for ways of finding space.

Young migrants in cities India has experienced a period of rapid migration since the early years of the twenty-first century. This has been accompanied by a marked increase in the number of young people in India who migrate. Approximately 92 million of them did so, moving from their original place of residence to a new part of the country in this time period (Rajan 2013). Many of the lower-middle-class migrants come to urban centres in search of jobs in the service sector. In such a context, cities become host to a large number of aspirational youths with relatively low salaries. The search for a better education is another, albeit relatively unnoticed, aspect of internal migration. Many Indian universities are located in urban areas, attracting young people with the desire to create alternative lives for themselves through education, whether by becoming part of the market, or by acquiring the resources through which they can engage in self-transformation processes. The cities these young people inhabit may be thought of as fragmented spaces with porous borders. They seem to be marked by spatial and social heterogeneity, contesting worldviews, and consequent conflict. Yet cities also seem to offer a promise of an alternative life to those who are caught in locations whose identity seems to be immutable. The question of what constitutes the legitimate city, who belongs to it, and who shapes it, is a part of what AbdouMaliq Simone would refer to as the ‘messy relationship between the modernity of the urban and the only partially wanted members

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who intersect it’ (Simone 2011: 365). Like other cities in the Global South, in India ‘places, people, and times have their definitions. Sometimes these definitions are malleable; sometimes they are worn down by the wear and tear of always having to articulate themselves in a crowded field of competing claims’ (Simone 2011: 365).

The city and the care of the self The city, according to Robert Park is ‘man’s most consistent and on the whole, his most successful attempt to remake the world he lives in more after his heart’s desire. But, if the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself’ (Park cited in Harvey 2012: 3). If the making of the city is itself a projection of the self, contemporary cities, made and unmade daily, are of necessity a contested site. A significant question, then, is for whom does the Indian city provide the possibility of the care of the self? Are changes that the city can afford to a person’s life something that can signify an ethical care of the self as understood by Michel Foucault? This is a difficult question to answer. Foucault defines the care of the self as involving ‘an exercise of the self on the self by which one attempts to develop and transform oneself’ (Foucault cited in Rabinow 1997: 282). It involves an attentive relationship to the self that includes knowledge of the self and techniques of transformation. Foucault describes the care of the self as historically specific, yet requiring an exercise of the self in which ‘extreme attention to what is real is confronted with the practice of a liberty that simultaneously respects this reality and violates it (Foucault cited in Rabinow 1997: xxxii). A critical task in imagining the possibility of an ethics of care in Indian cities is to open out what this may entail for a resident who occupies the margins of the city. The act of caring for the self emerges in this encounter of asking who they are. This requires an extreme preoccupation with the real world and their location within it. This preoccupation requires experience of the processes of normalization through which they have been constituted as a subject. ‘Care of the self includes the knowledge of those rules of conduct that act as prescriptions’ (Foucault cited in Rabinow 1997: 285). Foucault writes that ‘the concern for the self always refers to an active political and erotic state’ that is concerned with taking pains (Foucault cited in Rabinow 1997: 230). Philosophy is ‘the

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form of thought that asks what it is that enables the subject to have access to the truth’. Spirituality, then, would be ‘the search, practice and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth’ (Foucault cited in Gros 1997: 15). This is never given by right; the ethical subject must be substantially changed by the work of the care of the self. This may be through love, work, or politics but regardless of which it is, the process is enlightening. From a phenomenological perspective, each act of making or unmaking the city is in itself a care of the self. As several scholars working on cities in India have pointed out, even those at the margins exercise some agency over the city (Govinda 2013). For those who seek work, cities open up the possibility of close proximity with the elite, even if in subordinate positions, with opportunities to acquire new embodiments and styles. The possibility of the care of the self does involve a measure of freedom from domination, and ethnographic evidence and observations suggest that cities in India do provide some measure of that freedom. My own life as a feminist researcher in Delhi over the last 30 years has included observations and interactions with many entrants to the city (Menon and Johri 2017). Despite some nostalgia for homes in the villages, women, whether mothers of daughters in slums or young workers in malls, spoke of their preference for cities. Cities are difficult but allow for encounters with others who are radically different. The very extent of difference of those you encounter creates the possibility of self-examination and transformation. Cities provide education in both the formal and the informal domains. However, Foucault, after a series of elaborate explorations in writing about the care of the self, fundamentally sought to provide a critical alternative to the centrality of the ancient dictum ‘know thyself’. The reference implies both the rational self and the self as constituted through law. The Indian city is imagined as a place of plenty, both in material and spiritual terms, yet it becomes a space ‘replete with violence of the imagination where hopes, fears, aspirations and dreams are shaped by the inability of past knowledge and affiliations and future promises and trajectories of livelihood formation to provide adequate maps for how individuals can lead viable lives’ (Simone 2016: 6). I see the question of past knowledge as a condition that dominates and marks the lives of many Indians who enter cities, especially those seeking to escape these conditions, in particular women and Dalits, and ask whether the transformations of the self made possible in India are equitable with a Foucauldian ethics of care.

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The care of the self in Indian philosophy Michel Foucault’s entire preoccupation with the care of the self is in the context of an analysis of the modern West and its preoccupation with the knowledge of the self. In Technologies of the Self (1997), Foucault emphasizes the care of the self as the intersection of the political, philosophical, and erotic. The political as the care of the self is particularly relevant in the Indian context. For the Ancient Greeks, the care of the self was ethical in itself but with a necessary condition of freedom attached to it (for more on this see Gregory Bracken’s Chapter 1, ‘Citizenship and the Good Life’ in Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West of this series). However, this is not an isolated selfhood. Despite the ontological priority of the care of the self over the relationship with others, Foucault notes that the care of the self requires the presence of others. The ability to care for the self requires both a friendly honest interlocutor for oneself and others to whom one is responsible. A city where everyone took care of oneself would be a well-functioning city. Indian philosophies are replete with questions of selfhood, self-knowledge, and self-transformation. Much of the essence of spiritual quests emerging from premodern India were characterized by what Jonardon Ganeri would call the ‘concealed art of the soul’ (Ganeri 2007) significantly, why so much of early Indian philosophy involves the positing of a hidden and difficult-to-access soul. Much like Foucault, Ganeri sees a protreptic device involved here, the inability to find an easy answer to the question of the essence of the human soul requires a long and painful engagement that itself becomes the source of the answer. Ganeri convincingly writes that partial truths, lies, and deceptions are part of the apparatus employed by ancient sages in their discourses with pupils. The purpose is to initiate a process of self-work, that of rethinking the position from which they began. Their protreptic value notwithstanding, many of the Hindu scriptures limited the access of knowledge for women, lower castes, and Dalits and negotiating the relationship to these has assumed one form of the care of the self for people at the margins of society in contemporary India.

Caste and patriarchy in Hindu India My attempt in this paper is to consider subjectivity that is placed outside the dominant worldview of the Hindu civilization and its search to find new meaning through its travels to the city. In taking this route, I am placing

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women, along with those excluded by the caste system, in a somewhat problematic position. The diversity in the identity locations of women are perhaps far greater than in the case of Dalits. Moreover, women have a symbolic space in Hindu representation, particularly as goddesses that, although problematic, is not comparable to the epistemic violence of the Dalit non-subject in the Indian context. Nevertheless, both identities have been discussed in texts such as the Manusmriti (Doniger and Smith 1991) in terms of their spatial boundedness, leading even B.R. Ambedkar to write of both as unfree. The eminent psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar defines the Indian worldview as resting on the trinity of moksha e¨Õ, karma deZ, and dharma ÌeZ (concepts we have seen examined in the previous chapter, ‘The Relationship between Architecture and Ritual in the Hindu Crematorium’ by Srivalli Pradeepthi Ikkurthy). The first of these, moksha, is the seeking of release from the world through self-realization. This transcendence may be imagined as a merger with the ultimate reality and a concomitant freedom from the cycle of rebirth. Dharma, the second aspect of this composite is ‘moral duty, right action, conformity with the truth of things’ (Kakar and Kakar 2009: 185). The pursuit of moksha is largely possible for one who acts within the code of dharma. Although prescribing right action, Kakar suggests that there is a fundamental distinction in the Hindu conceptualization of dharma. The Hindu conception is marked by a relativism that prevents any universalization of dharma. The rightness of a specific action is determined by four quadrants, des (n¨Ó space), kala (dky time), guna (xqÆ properties), and srama (Je labour). Karma refers to the cycles of birth and death that are determined by the adherence to dharma and hence the possibility of moksha (Kakar and Kakar 2009). In his many writings, starting from The Inner World (1978), Sudhir Kakar has painted a picture of an unconscious freed from its mire in Western mythology. Amrita Narayanan (2014) reinterpreting his work from a feminist perspective has also elaborated upon the rethinking of the Indian woman his work enables. The two major institutions that determine identity in the Indian context are the family and caste (Kakar and Kakar 2009). While loyalty to the family and its elders has traditionally determined both sexuality and occupation for many Indians, the hold of familial ideology is followed by that of caste. The varna oÆZ system that has an unfortunately long history in Hindu India was codified in the Manusmriti, widely read as a deeply patriarchal and discriminatory text. Texts such as the Manusmriti promulgate a dharmic order, a codification that locates the Brahmin as the ‘paradigmatic human being’ (Doniger and Smith 1991: xxiii). The Manusmriti effectively established

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the equation between Brahmanical authority and Vedic authority. The term dharma has specific significance here in relation to the question of lawfully given identities. Dharma, a context-sensitive moral action that liberates the self from an overpowering guilt-inducing conscience also limits the possibility of self-care for those defined entirely in terms of pre-given locations. Uma Chakravarty (2003) was one of the first scholars to point to the paradox that the systems of caste and patriarchy had rarely been taken up together. Caste ideology is deeply humiliating and dehumanizing, presenting members of the same race in a system of ‘graded inequality’ (Ambedkar 2009: 164) such that those at the top, the Brahmins, evoked the greatest reverence while those at the bottom, the avarna voÆZ, the greatest contempt. The rigid patriarchal codes that regulate both women’s space and sexuality in the name of family honour act as a means of maintaining caste purity. A question one may ask is whether the care of the self was a possibility allowed to lower castes and to women? The story of Eklavya from the Mahabharata depicts the insidious linkage between the ideology of caste and that of dharma. A lower-caste boy, Eklavya, approaches the renowned guru of the period, Dronacharya, requesting his tutelage. The guru, who is also training the princes of the region, refuses Eklavya on the grounds of his caste. Significantly, Dronacharya’s other disciples include Arjuna, widely recognized as the best archer of the region but also possessive about this status and unwilling to share it. The legend speaks of Eklavya hiding in a space in the forest where he creates a figure of mud to represent Dronacharya and practices archery with rigour. Dronacharya accidentally discovers this and realizing that the lower-caste boy might defeat his disciple, Arjuna, asks him to pay his fees. When Eklavya agrees, Dronacharya asks the boy for his thumb which Eklavya readily cuts off for him, giving away in the process the gift that he had so arduously nurtured. In upper-caste renderings, Eklavya epitomizes the virtuous disciple who performs his duty without flinching. Contemporary Dalit interpretations regard this as an example of the violent and restrictive subjugation of lower castes (Narayan 2006). As Uma Chakravarty shows, there were always pockets of resistance by both women and lower castes. The violent responses to these account for the fact that the system of caste remained in place. Buddhist rendering of dharma as dhamma ÌEe was one major reworking that was, in all probability, anti-Brahmanical in nature. The later Bhakti movements also epitomized a critique of caste. Women participated actively in both Buddhist and Bhakti traditions.

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It was towards the last part of the British colonial phase that significant changes came about through the emergence of assertions by members of the lower castes such as Jyotiba Phule. Somewhat later B.R. Ambedkar initiated his trenchant critique of Hindu society, describing it as devoid of humanity and deeply flawed in the very myth of its origins. He wrote, ‘Hindu Law is the law […] made by touchables. The untouchables had nothing to do except to obey it and respect it’ (Ambedkar cited by Guru 2002: 41). Gopal Guru points out that Ambedkar demonstrated that the concept of justice in India had three characteristics. It gave preference to hierarchy over equality, emphasized traditional rights and duties, and had different significance for people across the system of caste. As India approached independence and created a new constitution, many of these issues became the subject of debate and were ensconced as new sets of rights for the disenfranchized groups. The post-independence period has seen significant changes in the rights of both women and the Dalits. Meanwhile, the impact of neoliberalism on the marginal groups has remained highly contested (Shills 2014). Nigam (2011) points out with some regret that a section of the traditionally oppressed have swung entirely in the direction of capitalist neoliberalism, seeing this as an opportunity for freedom from the burden of their older identities.

Modernity The question with regard to the ethics of care in India is clearly not about the non-existence of such possibilities. Nevertheless, there seem to be two concerns in directly applying Michel Foucault’s thought to India. In the first place, the ontological self here has moved along different trajectories. To the extent that the distinction between the phenomenological and the ultimate have had a marked place in several versions of Hindu thought, the work of the care of the self has in most renderings implied stepping away from experiencing the material self to a search for moksha (Ganeri 2007). Nonetheless, in India many could not access this privilege. The position of women and lower castes have always been fraught in the Hindu texts, depicting both their capability in pursuing spiritual and intellectual tasks and the limited access they could have to these. Significantly, Buddhist thought has become one of the spaces sought after by Dalits, particularly after B.R. Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism shortly before his death. A greater difficulty arises in relation to Foucault’s critique of the centrality of the ethics of knowing through doubt that was set up as the fundamental fulcrum of Western modernity. This modernity has had a different trajectory

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in a world that has attained it through colonization. A. Raghuramaraju (2011) sees this as the central distinction that has remained inadequately theorized in the Indian context where premodernity exists along with modernity. Interestingly, Raghumramaraju also cites the work of Giddens, Bordo, and Foucault himself in this context, all of whom are seeking ways to imagine the lost premodern. Foucault, in this rendering, develops the idea of a counter-modernity in response to this difficulty. Yet in India, the coexistence of the premodern with the modern also requires a rethinking of the question of the care of the self. Raghuramaraju points to a need to think through the distinction made by Ambedkar. In asking Dalits to leave Hinduism, he asks them to reject an ethics that serves as a vehicle of their domination. At the same time, in returning to Buddhism, he seems to want to create a relationship with Indian premodernity. The central question of this paper is what the city offers to those who have been designated as outsiders. Although it would be an oversimplification to locate all women and the lower castes within one framing, cities do suggest the possibility of freedom to both groups. The category of women is of course particularly problematic in a context where they are deeply divided along the lines of community and caste identities. Nevertheless, phenomenologically, both have been traditionally defined as being located within specific spaces. Violence, including rape and death, are not unusual for both when they seem to exceed the space they are expected to occupy. It is in that sense that cities may offer to both an imagination of the possibility of love and work that Sigmund Freud as well as Michel Foucault saw as the domain of individuation.

Village/city The village and the city have come to occupy a place of opposition in postcolonial India, particularly in the writings of Ambedkar and Gandhi. Villages, with their lack of anonymity and clarity of caste and community boundaries, could be particularly violent. It is interesting to note that when Ambedkar writes about Dalits in villages, he refers to the problem of a lack of subjectivity. Ambedkar wrote that Hindus enslave Dalits. They cannot sit on chairs or eat the way they want, they cannot wear clean clothes, dress well, or wear ornaments. Their access to resources is restricted, as is their right to space (Ambedkar 2009). The flight to the city has been a means of survival for the Dalits. Yet, the reality is more complex in cities. While violence against women, particularly in the form of sexual harassment, is rampant,

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it is difficult to sustain a consciously articulated belief in untouchability in an ethos of liberalism. ‘It is an almost outdated moral value to hold that inequality is desirable or is the consequence of one’s karma of the previous incarnation. Even the most orthodox hesitate; at least publicly, to justify inequality […] But there is always a gap between moral values and practices […] the middle class among the upper and middle castes […] has not yet shed off stereotypes against Dalits’ (Shah 2002: 92). The reasons, however, may have shifted from the moral to the material with the upper castes experiencing the increasing presence of others as economic competition. A somewhat more complex rendering is offered by Guru in The Cracked Mirror (Guru and Sarukkai 2012). Here Guru contends that the requirements of political modernity have resulted in casteism going below the surface. Unlike villages, where it is overtly visible at the phenomenological level, an archaeological analysis would be required to uncover casteism in cities.

Death in the city Earlier in this paper I made the claim that the neoliberal city offers the possibility of self-transformation, perhaps even the possibility of a philosophizing selfhood. In foregrounding this section on deaths in the city, whether real or cinematically imagined, I ask if an ethics of care is sustainable in a space of such sharp competition, both economic and symbolic? In considering this question from the perspective of women first, I will turn to the event of 16 December 2012, when Jyoti Singh, a young student of physiotherapy, was brutally raped. A first-generation educated daughter of her family, Jyoti was raped in a moving bus as she was returning from watching The Life of Pi with a male friend. Rape is not an uncommon event in India and there have been numerous cases in the country’s metropolitan cities, both before and since this event, however, it is significant that Jyoti’s parents had moved with their children from a village in northern India largely to provide them with education. Jyoti was training to be a physiotherapist and had clearly transformed herself into a middle-class young woman, interested in watching a famous English-language film and choosing to see it with a young male friend. The fact that Jyoti was raped and injured to such an extent that she ultimately died is not, sadly, exceptional. Her death is, however, significant in several ways. First, the event provoked a degree of wrath in Delhi and across many parts of India that was unprecedented. Although seriously injured, she remained conscious for several days before finally succumbing to her injuries. In this period, she testified against the

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men who raped her, challenging the discourse of the raped woman as a victim. Second, unlike many young women in India, Jyoti seemed to have been fortunate to face limited resistance from her family. In addition, Jyoti’s rape evoked massive, unprecedented protests across Delhi and India and received extensive media coverage, both nationally and internationally. No reason could be found for such violence beyond the fact of Jyoti choosing to care for herself, claiming public space, crossing and ‘violating’ the boundaries that have long characterized the normative expectations from women in patriarchal India and intersecting entirely accidentally with a group of young men with their own deeply patriarchal yet more marginal relationship with the urban. In the narratives that have emerged around her, Jyoti, who was popularly called Nirbhaya, or ‘the fearless one’ became the voice for the many young women who seek new identities in cities. In the aftermath, her family continued the fight for justice (albeit demanding the highly regressive death penalty for the rapists) and the State constituted a Judicial Commission (Justice Verma Committee) to draft new legislation on the question of rape. Media reporting suggests that more women now report rape. Such transformations seem to be a questioning of the ideal of the primarily domestic space of the woman in India. They symbolize minor yet significant moves towards the constitution of an ethical city with the possibilities of a care of the self. An equally disturbing narrative, this time cinematic, emerges in the recent Marathi film Sairat (translated as ‘the unrestrained’). The film provides a meaningful entry to this paper by bringing together the question of caste, gender, and (metaphorically) the question of the city. Significantly, the film was a success, despite being outside the formulaic renderings that usually earn well in India. Nagaraj Manjule, the film’s director, had earlier made Fandry, another film about caste. Sairat is about the love between a lower-caste boy (Parshya) and the upper-caste daughter (Archi) of a landlord. Although both are college-going and adult, such love is seen to be deeply transgressive in the village where they reside. Unsurprisingly, the couple face repeated violence until they run away to the city of Hyderabad. The city is violent too. There is difficulty in finding a place to stay; Archi faces a sexual assault in a deserted street. The move to the city is not easy and Archi misses her family. Yet the couple works hard, marries, and a child is born. Towards the end they seem to be on the verge of success, contemplating the purchase of a flat, when Archi calls her mother again. Archi has violated caste norms and the worldview of the village family is unforgiving. For a while it seems like the families are heading towards reconciliation. Archi invites her brother home. Her brother does visit but hacks them to death.

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The young son who was away at the time walks back to see his dead parents. The film ends. In Sairat, the city does provide a temporary home for the couple. The film depicts the gradual settling of the couple in the city and a son is born. Tragically, the violence of the village pursues them. The transgression of loving, particularly across the spectrum of caste, is almost normatively punished with violence. In the film, even the venerated status of being a mother to a son, does not provide protection to Archi. Nagaraj, the director of the film, subtly critiques the binary between the village and the city and reinstates the village in the city. The debate between Gandhi and Ambedkar is resurrected in the process. Paradoxically, Hyderabad, the city to which Parshya and Archi move to find space for a love that can only be seen as illicit and out of bounds, is a city known for technological development and the seat of several centres of higher education. The same city also houses the Central University of Hyderabad, where Rohith Vemula, a Dalit scholar, took his life in 2016. Rohith had joined as a master’s student in science, apparently with the vision of being a technocrat who wanted to change the world through science. Although Rohith apparently began his life at the University as an apolitical student, he gradually became more deeply involved in student politics. A voracious reader, especially of Ambedkar, Rohith became a student leader of an Ambedkarite group. Meanwhile, his research interest had shifted to the intersection of social and natural sciences. His suicide came after a suspension from the University that also resulted in the withdrawal of financial support and the chance to continue his research. Rohith’s suicide led to student protests throughout the country. The poignant suicide note he left behind, is the work of a scholar-poet, reflecting both his concern for the care of the self and his anxiety that this was doomed. ‘I always wanted to be a writer of Science, like Carl Sagan. The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was man treated as a mind’ (Vemula 2017). Amongst the Facebook posts associated with him was a quote from Christopher Hitchens, ‘never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity’, as well as a comment on the gang rape in Delhi mentioned above. Michel Foucault says, ‘inside a culture strongly stamped by traditionality, by the recognized value of the already said, by the recurrence of discourse’ (Foucault cited in Rabinow 1997: 211), a new ethic emerged that involved the care of the self. The care of the self entails the often painful and risky exercises that are critically applied to the self. It requires the process of

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attending to one’s thoughts and of ‘retiring into oneself, reaching oneself’ (Foucault cited in Rabinow 1997: 274), reading, writing with reflexivity, ‘taking pains over oneself’ (Foucault cited in Rabinow 1997: 230), the word ‘pains’ signifying both exercise, repetition, and risking certain well-understood ways of knowing oneself. Foucault’s depiction of the care of the self resonates with an imagination of Rohith Vermula and others in similar locations. Yet, it was this very transformed self that came under attack. Rohith’s death has brought the question of caste to the centre of concern in the sphere of higher education. These questions shine a much-needed light on difficult issues, including those of epistemology and the validity of epistemological claims that disregard the question of caste.

Towards a conclusion The refashioning of the self is pervasive across urban India. It is visible in the aesthetic makeovers of lower-middle-class bodies, in their desire to acquire English and the knowledge necessary for assimilation into the upper class. Foucault posits the care of the self against the dictum of knowing oneself. To know oneself is to take upon oneself the identity given by the particularities of the law. In India, the traditional description of the self was through dharma. To be a woman, lower-caste, lower-class, with all the implied intersectionality, was to be constrained within spatial and other hierarchies. Both women and other less privileged members of Indian society have found modernity, enabling them by making a transition from a dharmic location that, despite its context sensitivity, also ties them to specific identity positions. They have chosen to claim new spaces, form ties of love that transcend the scriptural moralities, and have written poems, sung songs, made f ilms, and written theory. They have attempted to cross over from the domination of selfhood def ined through community-based identities but often left without the affective ties that the earlier worlds provided. The cities that seem to represent the ethics of modern democracy are fraught with the violence of those who are forced to give up their identity-based power. Will an Indian modernity that keeps the premodern alive be required for a deeper transformation of the self? Can cities provide the care of the self without taking along the village? Will an ethics of care in India require a rethinking of care that is neither located in frozen communities nor in isolated individuals? The questions raised by these deaths in the city, as seen above, would seem to suggest this.

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Bibliography Ambedkar, Bhim Rao. 2009 [1945]. A False Charge. Are Untouchables Tools of the British? Delhi: Gautam Book Centre. Appadurai, Arjun. 2001. ‘Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics’ in Environment and Urbanization, 13(2) retrieved on 30 July 2017 from https://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/drivers_urb…/IIED_appadurai_demo.pdf Chakravarty, Uma. 2003. Gendering Caste. Calcutta: Stree. Chatterjee, Partha. 2004. ‘Are Indian Cities Becoming Bourgeoise?’ in The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on popular politics in most of the world. 131-147. Delhi: Permanent Black. Doniger, Wendy, and Smith, Brian, K. 1991. The Laws of Manu: With an Introduction and Notes. New Delhi: Penguin. Foucault, Michel. 1982. ‘The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981-82 (translated by Graham Burchell) in The Hermeneutics of the Subject, edited by Frederic Gros. New York: Palgrave. Foucault, Michel. 1997 [1984]. ‘Technologies of the Self’ in Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Vol.1, edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: The New Press. Foucault, Michel. 1997 [1984]. ‘Self Writing’ in Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Vol.1, edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: The New Press. Foucault, Michel. 1997 [1984]. ‘On the genealogy of ethics: An overview of work in progress’ in Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth, Vol.1, edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: The New Press. Ganeri, J. 2007. The Concealed Art of the Soul: Theories of Self and Practice of Truth in Indian ethics and Epistemology. New York: Oxford University Press. Guru, Gopal. 2002. ‘Ambedkar’s Idea of Social Justice’ in Dalits and the State, edited by Ghanshyam Shah. 83-107. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. Guru, Gopal. 2012. ‘The Archeology of Untouchability’ in The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory, edited by Gopal Guru and Sundar Sarukkai. 200-202. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Harvey, David. 2012. Rebel Cities. London: Verso. Kakar, Sudhir. 1978. The Inner World: A Psycho-analytic Study of Childhood and Society in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kakar, Sudhir, and Kakarina, Katha. 2009. ‘The Indian Mind’ in The Indians: Portrait of a People. 180-203. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Menon, Krishna, and Johri, Rachana. 2017. ‘In the Middle: Mediating the Mall, Home and the World Outside’ in Locating Gender in the New Middle Class in India, edited by Manjeet Bhatia. 149-167. Shimla: IIAS.

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Narayan, Badri. 2006. Women Heroes and Dalit Assertion in North India: Culture, Identity and Politics. New Delhi: Sage Publications Ltd. Nigam, Aditya. 2011. Desire Named Development. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Rabinow, Paul. 1997. ‘Introduction: The history of systems of thought’ in Ethics, Subjectivity, and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Vol. 1, edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: The New Press. Rabinow, Paul, ed. 1997 [1984]. Ethics, Subjectivity, and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Vol. 1. New York: The New Press. Raguramaraju, A. 2011. Modernity in Indian Social Theory. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Rajan, S. Irudaya. 2013. Internal Migration and Youth in India: Main Features, Trends and Emerging challenges. New Delhi: UNESCO. Roy, Ananya. 2014. ‘Worlding the South: Toward a Post-colonial Urban Theory’ in The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South retrieved on 9 December 2018 from https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203387832.ch3 Shah, Ghanshyam. 2002. ‘Dalits and the State: An Overview’ in Dalits and the State, edited by Ghanshyam Shah. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. Simone, AbdouMaliq. 2011. ‘The Politics of Urban Intersection: Materials, Affect, Bodies’ in The New Blackwell Companion to the City, edited by Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. 357-366. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Simone, AbdouMaliq. 2016. ‘City of Potentialities: An Introduction; in Theory Culture and Society, 33(7-8): 5-29. Still, Clarinda, ed. 2014. Dalits in Neoliberal India: Mobility or Marginalization? New Delhi: Routledge. Thorat, Sukhdeo, and Kumar, Narender, eds. 2008. B.R. Ambedkar: Perspectives on Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policies. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Vemula, Rohit. 2017. Suicide Note retrieved on 2 December 2018 from https://thewire. in/politics/rohith-vemula-letter-a-powerful-indictment-of-social-prejudices

Filmography Sairat. 2016. Directed by Nagaraj Manjule. India: Aatpat Productions, Zee Studio, and Essel Vision Productions.

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About the author Rachana Johri is a Professor at the School of Human Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi. Prior to this she taught Psychology at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. At Ambedkar University she teaches Psychology, Psychosocial Studies, and Gender Studies. Her interest in the intersection of psychology, gender, and culture is reflected in her doctoral work on the cultural conceptualization of maternal attachment for daughters in the context of the prevailing culture of son preference in India. Within the domain of gender, she has written on the problematic constructions of motherhood in psychology and psychoanalysis; violence against women; women and mental health, and gender and disability. Along with the other faculty members at Ambedkar University, Delhi, she is involved with developing the perspectives of critical psychology and psychosocial studies as distinct from mainstream psychology. In the past few years her interest has turned to urban spaces in the rapidly globalizing context of India. As a part of this she is currently involved in researching the lives of women workers in malls. This ongoing research explores the emergence of new subjectivities engaged in the metaphorical border crossing between the world of malls and the world outside. Her recent publications include two co-authored papers. Email: [email protected]

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Family, Everyday Life, and the Making-up of Society A Case Study in Yokohama’s Chinatown Wong Yee Lam Elim

Abstract Home in Chinese ( jia 家), means more than just a living space for human beings, it is where a family belongs. This chapter examines how ‘families’ of Overseas Chinese, who started coming to Yokohama from 1860 onwards, created living space in the city, and how their jia became core components of its Chinatown. This paper introduces the connection between families, everyday life, and the making-up of an Overseas Chinese society in Japan. By taking the Cantonese Xie family as a case study, it shows how the life experiences of three generations, and their family restaurant, Shatenki, have played an important leadership role, and how the family’s active participation in Chinese culture-related activities demonstrates that jia has contributed to the development of Yokohama’s Chinatown. Keywords: Overseas Chinese, migrants, family, Japan, Yokohama’s Chinatown

Introduction Every city and community is made up of many homes. For the Chinese, the concept of home, or jia (家), means more than the physical living space for individuals to live out their lives, jia is an emotional sphere for the family to build up their relationships. Moreover, jia has a special meaning to Overseas Chinese, those who have left their hometowns to start a new life in a foreign country because of the better opportunities the foreign country afforded for creating a new life, a new home, where the family members could consolidate

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themselves based on their ethnic identity, was a place to foster a new sense of belonging in their new city/community. This chapter examines how ‘families’ of Overseas Chinese have created a living society for themselves in Yokohama, Japan. When the first group of Chinese men arrived in the seaport of Yokohama, along with Western traders, in 1860, they needed to make a living, but after that the most important task for them was to bring over their families to Japan. These new jia became the core components for the making of Yokohama’s Chinatown in its early years. Now, after more than 150 years, the ‘homes’ that started and supported this Chinatown have become a popular tourist sightseeing spot in Japan. This chapter examines the making of the Overseas Chinese community. It utilizes a particular family as a case study in discussing the contribution jia has made in sustaining Yokohama’s Chinatown. The first generation of the Xie family arrived in Yokohama in the early 1920s. Upon arrival, the pioneer of the Xies established his family in Chinatown, and started a Chinese restaurant that would support its financial needs. The restaurant, Shatenki, is now viewed by family members as a family treasure rather than a mere business. Shatenki provides authentic Cantonese cuisine as well as the feeling of a home. Nevertheless, the Xie family members encourage active participation in Chinese culture-related events as a medium to transmit their ethnic identity – an essential element in upholding Chinatown’s sense of community. The Xies’ Cantonese restaurant has played a leading role in ethnic Chinese associations taken up by first- and second-generation Chinese, whose active participation in Chinese culture-related activities demonstrates the Xie family as one important example of jia that contributes to the development of Yokohama’s Chinatown. This chapter aims to indicate the close relationship between family, everyday life, and the making-up of an Overseas Chinese community.

Theoretical framework, methodology, and literature review To understand the homes of Overseas Chinese in Japan, it is essential to learn how scholars define the idea of home. Bammer (1992) suggests this idea carries meanings that are subject to social, cultural, economic, and political changes and which have radically been redefined. In this way, ‘home’ has various meanings and perceptions to Overseas Chinese which are different from their peers in mainland China because Chinese migrants experience different social, cultural, economic, and political changes in their host country. For those in Yokohama’s Chinatown, ‘homes’ are the homes of Yokohama’s Chinatown.

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When Yokohama port was opened in 1859, the first groups of Chinese migrants began to arrive alongside Western traders and officials and continued to do so through the early 1860s. Besides making their life possible in the new foreign land, the next mission for these Chinese men was to bring their families over from China, or to establish a family in Japan, because ‘home is a place where personal and social meaning are grounded’ (Papastergiadis 1998). Having a ‘family’ in the ‘community’ formulates a sense of belonging to a ‘home’ among Chinese migrants. Chen (2008: 246) considers the term ‘family’ as acting as a moral compass to migrants. Family, from Chen’s perspective (2008), is a strong medium that ties its members together and helps them resist the unknown environment in their host country. As an ideology, family, or home, is a spiritual support to the migrants in their migration experience. The term can also mean ‘community’. To the Overseas Chinese migrants, Yokohama’s Chinatown is their home. They view collectivism as an essential element in building up and consolidating the Overseas Chinese community. Hence, they set up Overseas Chinese associations and organizations (based on origin, occupation, and interests). They do this in order to provide mutual support to their peers. Nevertheless, the use of Chinese culture is a channel to link the migrants to each other, and to their erstwhile ‘home’ at China. This article on the Xie family demonstrates how one family in Yokohama’s Chinatown has preserved and promoted their ethnic identity within the family through their active participation in Overseas Chinese associations and folklore practices over six decades. This research is a cross-disciplinary project based on historical and anthropological frameworks, the two major disciplines of migration studies. As suggested by Brettell and Hollifield (2000: 4), ‘historians tend to focus more on individual migrants as agents’ which they show as being ‘less concerned with explaining how social structures influence and constrain behaviour’. Xie Tian and his son Xie Chengfa, as well as the Chinese restaurant Shatenki, are my agents. They are the lens through which we can investigate how migrant families support the entire Overseas Chinese community in Yokohama. In the process of preparing this research, I realized that the anthropological research framework could contribute to the study of Yokohama’s Chinatown. Anthropologists, among others, have shown great interest in studying migration, family, kinship, generational issues, and language among a group of people as a way to maintain, construct, and reproduce ethnic identities which are also encouraged in anthropological studies on the migration sector (Vertovec 2010: 3). The search for meaning in the experience of being a migrant family in Yokohama’s Chinatown is the goal of this research project. To achieve this

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aim I rely on oral interviews conducted by traditional methods. I arranged over 60 face-to-face interviews in Yokohama’s Chinatown between 2011 to 2017. Among the informants, there were males and females, old and new migrants, ethnic Chinese and Japanese, with an age range of 30 to 85. I recorded and transcribed all the interviews with the consent of all informants. For the interview structure I used the semi-structured in-depth interview approach with most of my informants, as well as some free-flow interviews with some of the older informants, since they felt it easier to talk about their life experience without focusing too much on pre-set questions. Most of the informants eventually became my friends. They were willing to devote so much of their personal time to dining with me whenever I was in Japan as well as share their personal matters with me. This trusting relationship between my informants and myself has allowed me the opportunity to interview most of them at least twice over a four-year period. The practice of oral history is also agreed upon by anthropologists as being important because people have ‘long turned to oral history or life history to document [their] lives’ (Kim 2005: xxi). In this way, it can be seen that both historians and anthropologists are concerned with the daily lives of migrants. The daily experience allows the migrants to get in touch with their ethnic identity through traditional constructs and traditional activities organized in their community. Yokohama’s Chinatown is the best-established Chinatown in Japan, and has, relatively, a more vigorous tradition of hosting activities than other Chinatowns. Yokohama’s Chinatown has preserved a large number of Overseas Chinese associations, including hometown associations. This favourable environment enabled me to participate in the everyday life that migrants experience, meaning that one essential methodology of anthropological research – participant observation – was particularly well suited and applicable to such a favourable setting. Overseas Chinese studies began in Japan in the 1920s but only became a popular academic subfield after the 1980s, when large numbers of new migrants began to arrive in Japan from mainland China and Taiwan. Currently, the literature on Overseas Chinese in Japan can be divided into three major categories: 1) general histories of Chinese migrants in Japan; 2) Overseas Chinese education; and 3) identity issues of ethnic Chinese. Among these three areas, Yokohama’s Chinatown is one of the most studied because of its importance. Why is Yokohama’s Chinatown so special that it attracts such a lot of scholarly attention? The reason is partly because it remains the largest Chinatown in Japan. Most ethnic Chinese associations in Japan are located here, as well as a large number of traditional Chinese outlets, including shops and restaurants. The total amount of literature on

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Yokohama’s Chinatown is considerably larger than that of the relatively large Chinatowns in Kobe and Nagasaki, and even more so when compared to other Overseas Chinese communities in Japan. Furthermore, older Overseas Chinese in Yokohama’s Chinatown are willing to share their life experiences as Chinese migrants to Japan. Some existing literature, such as Murakami’s Yokohama Chūkagai deki kakyoden (A biography of Overseas Chinese in Yokohama Chinatown (1997)) and Yokohama Kakyo no kioku: Yokohama kakyo koujyurekishi kirokushu (The memories of Yokohama Overseas Chinese: The collection of oral history of Yokohama Overseas Chinese (2010)) published by Chinese migrants in Yokohama’s Chinatown provide important primary sources. Besides these collective oral histories, some of the more vocal older Overseas Chinese also publish their own biographies. Among these is one of the most remarkable, written by the Chairperson of the Yokohama Chinatown Developmental Association, Hayashi Keisei: Naze, Yokohama Chūkagai ni hito ga atsumaru noka (Why do people gather in Yokohama Chinatown (2010)), in which Hayashi shares his insights as a leader in Yokohama’s Chinatown for more than 20 years, as well as his views on the relationship between old and new Chinese migrants in the community. All these permanent sources have yet to be used as first-hand data in investigating the everyday life of Overseas Chinese in Japan. This chapter utilizes the life experiences and the narratives of insiders in Yokohama’s Chinatown collected from oral interviews to investigate how families play a role in making up the Overseas Chinese community here. This is the first English-language writing on the relationship between family, identity, and community-building through a case study of an Overseas Chinese family and their life experiences as leaders in the community while, at the same time, also being Chinese cultural performers.

Family and business The case study used in this chapter – the Xie family – settled down in Chinatown in the 1920s. Six decades after the first Cantonese migrant arrived in Yokohama, Xie Tian moved to the city from Foshan in China. With the help of earlier migrants who came from the same hometown, Xie settled down with a job in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. A decade later, Xie married a woman from Guangdong, raised three children and, eventually, opened his small Chinese restaurant, Shatenki, so that he would have something to pass on to his children. What is special about the Xies

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is their prominent involvement in their community’s affairs. Xie Tian, the first of the Xies, became a role model for the rest of his family through his participation in Yokohama Chinatown activities. He became well-known in the Overseas Chinese community because of his role in the lion dance performance and other community services over the years. His son, Xie Chengfa, inherited not only the family business but his father’s interest in Cantonese culture. For decades, Chengfa showed his devotion to Chinese religious activities and community building within Chinatown and did much to foster cooperation among all Overseas Chinese. This eventually led to his being elected chairperson of the biggest Overseas Chinese association in Yokohama’s Chinatown. Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, third-generation Xie Minghua also takes part in teaching lion-dance at the local Chinese school. He is also now in charge of the family business, since his father stepped back from running the restaurant to allow time for a more active role in community affairs. Minghua’s two sons, both still at school, are well-prepared to inherit both the Chinese restaurant business as well as Chinese cultural training. The legacy of the Xies is not merely as a family business but a passing on of family tradition from generation to generation. The Xies have formulated ways for a family to learn about their Cantonese cultural roots. This chapter focuses on the background of the Xie family and the start of their Cantonese restaurant Shatenki. It also aims at illustrating one experience of Cantonese migration to Yokohama’s Chinatown. The family story is divided into two parts: 1) family business and 2) family affairs. By using the lens of the ‘family’, it will be possible to show continuity and consistency in ethnic Chinese identity construction within a group of Overseas Chinese. Moreover, looking at different generations can lead to a better understanding of the important role family plays in bringing all of its members together.

The Xie family Xie Tian was born in Foshan in 1910. Foshan is in Guangdong province and is famous as the birthplace of Cantonese opera and also of the southern lion dance. Due to the instability of the political situation in China in the 1920s, Xie Tian and some others from his hometown decided to leave for Japan to seek better job opportunities. Upon arrival in Japan, Xie Tian worked at a Chinese restaurant in Yokohama’s Chinatown. He was a junior chef until the outbreak of World War II. Xie Tian spent his first three decades

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in Japan building his career; the role of family was less important to him at this period. The year 1951 was most important for the Xies because this was the year Xie Tian made two of the most important decisions in his life: 1) to establish a family and 2) to open his own Cantonese restaurant. Although the establishment of the Shatenki did not bring much fortune to the family in the first decade: My father and mother were always busy. They worked from day and night on weekdays and weekends. They worked nonstop. Shatenki was not popular among customers in the first ten years after its opening. It was because of the Japanese’s eating habit. The Japanese eat congee only when they are sick. They do not usually eat congee like we Cantonese do. We Cantonese eat congee almost every day. We eat as breakfast. So the Japanese customers did not come [to Shatenki]. My father had to think of an alternative plan in order to maintain the business. He started to cook ramen, fried rice, whatever the customers ordered. Yes, ramen! He even cooks ramen in Shatenki. He cooked with any ingredient he had in the restaurant. Later, when the Japanese customers heard about Shatenki’s new dishes other than congee, they came more often. My father worked hard for decades, and business began to get better after being featured on several newspapers and TV programs (Xie 2014).

Shatenki is a family business that is run by the Xie family. Family restaurants are often passed on from generation to generation in Yokohama’s Chinatown. In the second generation of the Xie family is Xie Chengfa, who was born in 1953, two years after the opening of Shatenki. This was also a time when Shatenki was less popular locally than it is now. At a very young age, Chengfa helped out in the restaurant, along with his parents and sisters: My first time to help my father out was in kindergarten. What did I do? Dish washing. My father used to say to me that, ‘today is very busy, you come over and help with dish washing’ [laughter]. When I was in primary school, I made a bit complaint on it [laughter]. Every night my father cooked us dinner, and I did not like [my father’s cooking]. I liked meat a lot, and my father often cooked the vegetable. My father asked me why didn’t I eat and I said to him, ‘sorry but I do not like this vegetable’. My father was angry and said, ‘Okay, just don’t eat! Father works so hard and cooks for the family, and you do not appreciate’. He asked me to cook for myself [laughter]. This was how I started to learn cooking, and the easiest way to start with was egg [laughter]. This is my childhood (Xie 2014).

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Chengfa claims that he did not have much time to hang out with his friends since he had to work most weekends. ‘I wanted to [hang out with classmates], but the restaurant was too busy. I worked on weekends, but sometimes I just told my father that I have to have fun with friends and my father got angry with me [laughter]’ said Chengfa (Xie 2014). As the first generation and founder of Shatenki, Xie Tian had never thought of hiring non-family member to work in the restaurant. To him, Shatenki represented the Xie family, a place which marked the beginning of his family in the new foreign land to which he had migrated, as well as the only financial resource to maintain it (Xie 2014). This explains why Xie Tian needed Chengfa to start observing the work at the restaurant from the age of three: My father told me, ‘usually chefs do not teach’. You have to observe and learn by observation. If you work in other places, the chefs in there will not teach, even the famous one. So, I have to observe under the supervision of my father. I did not start cooking at Shatenki until I was 18 years old (Xie 2014).

The inheritance of a family business is not without challenges. Indeed, a lack of interest in continuing such family businesses is becoming a critical situation among the older generations of Overseas Chinese family-owned restaurants. The well-educated new generations in old Overseas Chinese families see no value in such work, neither do they have much interest in operating a family business since they can make money more easily in places like Tokyo. More than 20 Chinese restaurants owned by the old Overseas Chinese families have closed down in the last ten years or so. Even Shatenki was no exemption because the second-generation Chengfa once doubted his own interest in operating the restaurant: When I was a kid, I always saw my parents worked so hard, especially on the weekends. My father told me that I have to work as hard as he did, or even harder. Therefore, since I was a student in secondary school, I did not want to work in the family business. I worked as a part-time worker in other places. My classmate worked at a tuna fish market, and I followed him. I escaped from working at my family’s restaurant. Also, I like motorbike and I am interested in machines. I wanted to work in that field. I did not want to stay at Shatenki like my father did (Xie 2014).

Seeing the hardships involved in operating a Chinese restaurant, Chengfa was also tired of helping his father when not in high school. He knew that he

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was going to be the inheritor of the place but he could not face the fact that Shatenki was going to be the only place he could stay for his life. The Xies, however, were a family with pride in their Cantonese origin and Xie Tian disapproved of Chengfa’s idea of working as a salaryman simply because the job enabled him to meet his friends during the weekends. He insisted on teaching Chengfa the skills required to cook Cantonese-style congee (Hengbin Shanshou Zhonghua xuexiao bainian xiaozhi bianjiweiyuanhui 2004: 477). Nowadays, the Xies’ family business is taken care of by its third generation, and Shatenki is one of the few Chinese restaurants in Yokohama’s Chinatown still operated by the same old Overseas Chinese family. The family business enabled the Xie family to settle down in Yokohama’s Chinatown. However, Xie Tian did not plan to stay in Japan for his entire life. Similar to the Chinese idiom that ‘fallen leaves return to the roots’, it is normal for the first generation to return to their hometown, and Xie Tian was no exception. He had always been preparing his children to return to Guangdong province in China. For example, Xie Tian sent his son to the Overseas Chinese school in Yokohama’s Chinatown, the Yamate Chinese School (YYCS), to learn the Chinese language and Chinese culture. YYCS is the only mainland Chinese-operated school that caters to ethnic Chinese students in the city. Besides regular lessons, such as English, mathematics, Japanese, and humanities- and science-related subjects, YYCS teaches the Chinese language, as well as the country’s culture and history. The second-generation Xie Chengfa graduated from YYCS in 1967. Chengfa gained his Mandarin-speaking ability and knowledge of Chinese history and culture at YYCS. However, Chengfa thinks the Chinese education he received was not enough. He explains: We [students from YYCS] educated in Japan and most knowledge on mainland China was taught by our teachers and fathers. The school never teach enough knowledge on China to the students. I learn 70% of knowledge in Japan and about 20-30% in mainland China. So, we learned a lot from our fathers too. Whenever I encountered something about Chinese language or China I do not understand, I usually ask my father, or read Chinese newspapers (Xie 2015).

Xie Tian spoke mostly Cantonese and Mandarin with his family members, since he had planned to return to China and had no intention of ever learning the Japanese language. Chengfa learned Cantonese from his father, and he learned Mandarin at school, as it was the official Chinese language, as used in YYCS. Besides language, Xie Tian often taught his children, ‘you are an ethnic Chinese, and your hometown Foshan is like this and that…’ (Xie

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2015). This family education had a substantial impact on Chengfa. After graduating from the Overseas Chinese school, ethnic Chinese individuals usually have less chance of learning more Chinese language and culture. Chengfa experienced his Chinese education at YYCS for nine years, and he has always felt thankful for his father’s decision. Now that Chengfa has become a decision maker in Yokohama’s Chinatown, he places Overseas Chinese education as a high priority in the agenda for community affairs. He trusts that only by maintaining the Chinese school can Overseas Chinese education continue its role in being a bridge between the younger generations and a knowledge of the Chinese language, culture, and history. Minghua, the third generation of the Xies to live in Yokohama’s Chinatown, followed the same path as his father. Before entering the kindergarten division in YYCS, Chengfa sent his son to an Overseas Chinese-operated nursery, the Xiao Hung Nursery. Now the fourth generation of Xies is also studying at YYCS. The Xie family members received an Overseas Chinese education, learnt the Chinese language, and all about history and culture, and they still take part in a wide variety of activities in Chinatown. Chengfa explains his feeling about seeing his son and grandsons graduating from YYCS: I am glad that they [Minghua and Chengfa’s two grandsons] graduated from YYCS. I do. Family cannot teach them much [knowledge on China] but the school can. When I see them building up interest in Chinese culture, I feel extremely happy. Because I can see them constructing Overseas Chinese identity in their hearts. In the past, I did not understand my father. Now, I fully understand, and I am doing the same to my son and grandsons. I want them to build up a strong sense of being ethnic Chinese in Yokohama Chinatown (Xie 2015).

Sending younger generations to Overseas Chinese schools is not enough for the Xies. Both Xie Tian and Chengfa have been contributing to the development of YYCS since the 1960s. Both father and son believe that only by Overseas Chinese education can the local culture be passed on and maintained in the Overseas Chinese community.

Family and Overseas Chinese associations Based on my fieldwork experiences in Yokohama’s Chinatown I believe that the key component in consolidating the ethnic Chinese identity here is not

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only the establishment of the Overseas Chinese associations but also the people who were and are involved in promoting ethnic Chinese identity in this part of Yokohama. My research aims at continuing the discussion on ethnic Chinese associations by indicating the strong linkages between them and Chinese families in Yokohama’s Chinatown. These family members are the pillars of the Overseas Chinese associations. I emphasize again the importance of family here. The influence family members have in promoting ethnic Chinese traditions is helped when more families join these ethnic Chinese associations. For example, the Xies, father and son, constantly encourage each other to participate in the association and this consolidates their sense of being ethnic Chinese together. They share collective memories and experiences and use this to uphold the ethnic Chinese identity within their family. My case study of the Xie family, and their participation in their clan association, serves as an example to indicate how an active engagement of first-generation Chinese has a prominent influence on the second and the third generations in a family, which, in turn, allows them to establish a strong sense of ethnic Chinese idenitiy. It was a number of Cantonese residents from Gaoming and Gaoyao who established the Yaoming Hometown Association (YMH) in 1917. Migrants from Heshan were not included in this Association until the end of World War II. The split between the pro-People’s Republic of China and proRepublic of China (Taiwan) groups in the community was a watershed in the developmental history of the Association. Before 1951, it served as an administrative-oriented organization for Cantonese migrants from Gaoming and Gaoyao. Later, after the arrival and acceptance of migrants from Heshan, the YMH turned into a well-organized hometown association with the set-up of regulations and a management board. Xie Tian, as a Cantonese migrant from Foshan, was one of the founding members of the YMH and was actively involved in the preparations for the inclusion of Foshan in the Yaoming Hometown Association after World War II. From the very beginning of Xie Tian’s involvement, to the participation of his son, Chengfa, the Xies can be seen as a significant example showing how the Cantonese encourage active involvement in association affairs from generation to generation. Sadly for those interested in researching these sorts of associations, records are scarce. Not only did the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroy much data, but early committee members did not keep much in the way of written records. There is one volume of newsletters left in the YMH (Takeyoshi 2007). In order to learn about the early development of the YMH, I relied on published memoirs as well as my own oral interviews in seeking to understand the involvement of the Xie family in the YHM and the wider Chinatown in Yokohama.

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The Association was destroyed during World War II and was re-established in 1952. In that same year, the first committee board was formed, consisting of three members. However, their duties were shared by some other founding members of YMH, including Xie Tian. Until the election of the fourth committee board in 1955, Xie Tian undertook some duties of chairperson and also managed the affairs of YMH, along with the rest of the founding members. In 1955, a small number of other members were appointed, with new titles, and Xie Tian was elected head of the welfare division. While in charge of this, according to Xia (2015), his role was to organize activities for the members. Between 1955 and 1993, Xie Tian was on the committee board, for a total of 38 years (he passed away in 1994). The actual activities organized by the early welfare division as yet remain unclear, due to the lack of written resources, but Xia has left some clues about what the members did in the Association: The association [YMH] acted as a gathering place for the members instead of a formal administrative association in the early period. Since the Cantonese residents [in Yokohama Chinatown] like gambling, playing card games and mahjong, the members came every day to play mahjong after a long working day. It was a usual practice in the Chinatown. The Chinese migrants tended to go back to the hometown association they belonged to for entertainment (Guangdong Yaominghe Hometown Association 2004: 52).

In its formative period, the YMH was seen as a place for entertainment and for gatherings of its members. The function of the hometown association became an important part of the daily lives of Cantonese residents. The first written records on YMH members’ activities did not appear until 1973. In May 1973, YMH members joined a local travel activity at Izu Fujimi Land (Guangdong Yaominghe Hometown Association 2004: 3). Starting from August that same year, the committee board decided to publish a newsletter for the members, to provide a channel for communication and information exchange among them. Furthermore, the board started to organize gatherings for the younger members, which revealed the determination of the YMH to provide entertainment opportunities for its members and its awareness of its position in bringing Cantonese residents from Gaoming, Gaoyao, and Heshan together. The strong linkages among family members is also one of the most important and obvious characteristics of the YMH. Applications for YMH membership are strongly influenced by family ties because it is a common practice for a father to sign his children up for membership. Xia Dongkai

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and Xie Chengfa became members the in YMH because they were signed up by their fathers. As Xia explains: My dad signed me up at the YMH. It was common for a father to make the decision for their children in Cantonese family. Although YMH welcomes Overseas Chinese who are over 18 years old to join as a member, I followed my father to participate in the annual Chinese New Year celebration every year. I started to take part in the association when I turned 18 years old. Every dad signed up for their children, and so did Xie Tian. He also signed up for Chengfa (Xie 2015).

The founding members valued the participation of their children in hometown associations because, according to Xia (2015), ‘only by staying with people from the same hometown can a sense of belonging to the place [hometown] be built up.’ Xie Tian was elected vice-chairperson in 1977, but he had already signed Chengfa up for membership before he had even turned 18 because he wanted his son to become involved in the hometown association. Xia (2015) describes Xie Tian as someone ‘who devoted his life to YMH’. As the son of a member who spent his life in the hometown association, Chengfa was willing to take up a management role in the YMH by being elected as a committee members in 1985. As a hometown association in Yokohama’s Chinatown, the YMH positions itself as an association that is not only for leisure but also for cultural transmission and the maintenance of ethnic Chinese identity among its members. In Xie’s belief, the formation of ethnic Chinese identity can be done not only in Overseas Chinese educational institutions but also through personal experience and observation: I am concerned about education. If you do not study in an Overseas Chinese school, you cannot learn about being Chinese in the Chinatown. But more important is to see and experience your homeland by yourself. Visit China is extremely important. The YMH organizes trips to Gaoming, Gaoyao, Heshan as well as Guangzhou frequently. These [visits to mainland China] are precious opportunities for our members to learn about their ethnic Chinese identity (Xie 2015).

The YMH organized its first trip to Guangdong province in 1978. The visit was led by Xie Tian and his fellow committee members, and a total of 34 YMH members returned with them to mainland China. During this period, when Xie Tian was on the committee board, three visits to Guangdong

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province were organized, the first, as we have just seen, took place in 1978, the other two in 1980 and 1991 respectively. In 1985, Xie Chengfa, who was only in his early 30s, joined the committee board of the YMH. By the time Chengfa was elected, his father, Xie Tian, had already stepped down from the vice-chairperson position and had become a permanent advisor to the Association. It was the first time a father and son had worked together for associational affairs. The two not only worked hand-in-hand but Chengfa also inherited his father’s former role in the welfare division. He also decided to join the first hometown visit made by the younger members because of his father. In an interview, Chengfa (2015) explained that ‘I saw my father’s active involvement in the Association [YMH] and I was always wondering what he did in there. He told me that I should learn more about our hometown, so I joined [the visit].’ Twelve members participated in the visit, including the father and two of his sons from the Lu family.1 Although Xie Tian did not accompany Chengfa on the visit, since he was already by that time over 70 years old and ill, nevertheless, the hometown visit was viewed as a family educational opportunity, whereby one generation could introduce their hometown to the next. Although it was not the first time for Chengfa to visit his hometown of Foshan, he viewed the visit a valuable one in his life: I am thankful to go to that visit. I enjoyed spending time with my fellow members, and we experienced a lot from the meaningful visits. It was like seeing the new face of my hometown. I can understand why my father signed me up for the membership and encouraged me to participate in the Association. And I want my son to have the same experience as us [Xie Tian and Xie Chengfa] (Xie 2015).

After Chengfa’s return from Foshan, he devoted more time and effort to the YMH. Until today, Chengfa remains an active committee member of the association and, as of 2017, was again elected to be a committee member (on 13 January 2017), although he is almost totally occupied by his duties as the chairperson of the YOCA (Yokohama Overseas Chinese Association). The YMH organizes hometown visit for all members every two to four years. In 2015, the committee board decided to visit Guangzhou for a few days before heading to Guilin for leisure (Xia 2015). Xia (2015) believes that the hometown visits should and will continue, as many of their members agree that these visits help their next generations learn more about their hometowns, and this is an important and necessary element in consolidating their ethnic Chinese identity. 1

The Lu’s owns two Cantonese restaurants in Yokohama’s Chinatown.

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Family and traditional folklore – the inheritance of the lion dance The lion is seen as a divine animal in Chinese society. It brings protection and blessing to a community. It was first used as a religious symbol at the imperial court of the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), later on it appeared in more ordinary Chinese arts and culture. The lion dance is a form of Chinese cultural practice that developed out of the lion culture, as the animal was believed to have the ability to bring good fortune and to drive away evil spirits. The practice is regarded as a cultural performance, or a kind of martial art, and the lion dance is an essential element in most of the important Chinese festivals, for example, the Lunar New Year. The lion dance has a long history in Yokohama’s Chinatown. Cantonese residents, who were the majority of the population of Overseas Chinese in the 1860s, brought this cultural practice to Yokohama. Similar to the worship of Guandi2, they believed that the practice could bring protection in an unknown foreign land. The Cantonese combined these two traditions, forming the prototype for a celebration of the birth of Guandi. Today, the lion dance in Yokohama’s Chinatown is symbolic of the Overseas Chinese community. And this is not only restricted to Chinese festivals, as the lion-dance performance can be seen in local activities throughout the city of Yokohama, and there are at least three teams that actively transmit this culture to the younger generation in Chinatown. The lion dance in Yokohama’s Chinatown is the soul that brings Chinese migrants together while simultaneously breaking through national and political borders. Until the end of World War II, the volunteers performed the lion-dance performance in the Cantonese community but there were no systematic team arrangements. In the beginning, interested participants gathered for events and each team disbanded after each performance. The first organization to start recruitment for a regular lion-dance team was the Yokohama Youth Association in 1946. As most of the dance equipment was destroyed during the War, the team received essential supplies from Hong Kong sailors in the late 1940s. The lion-dance performance once again enlivened Chinese festivals through the involvement of active participants, including Xie Tian, who happened to come from one of the two major birthplaces of the southern-style lion dance in mainland China. Therefore, Xie learned about lion-dance performances when he was young. He continued to participate in the lion-dance team in Japan along with peers from Foshan, making him 2 Guandi is the Chinese god of war. He was the Chinese general Guan Yu who became a Chinese deity after his death.

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one of the permanent members of the lion-dance team in the Yokohama Youth Association. Unfortunately, the Association was disbanded in 1966 due to a lack of younger members, and all of the equipment used by the liondance team was given to the two Overseas Chinese schools in Yokohama’s Chinatown. Both Xie Tian, Xie Chengfa, Chengfa’s son Minghua, and Minghua’s two sons are active lion-dance performers, and the Xie family is the only Chinese family in Yokohama’s Chinatown to have continued this Cantonese culture of the lion dance through four generations. As mentioned earlier, Xie Tian perform the lion dance as a member of the Yokohama Youth Association after 1946, and, being inspired by his father, Chengfa became interested in the Chinese lion culture while in primary school: When I was young, whenever there was [Chinese] festival, I chased along the lions in the Chinatown for the whole day. It was during the time with no television, my friends and I went out to the street and spent the day with the lions. When I was in grade 4 or 5 in elementary school, my father brought the lion dance equipment for kid from Hong Kong for me. My father first demonstrated to dance move to me, then I followed. It was a fun memory to me (Tousai 2007).

Chengfa spent his childhood with the lion dance as he participated with his father in most of the Chinese festivals in Chinatown. In fact, father and son built up a tacit understanding in performing the lion dance, and Chengfa’s mother claimed that her son danced the best when accompanied by his father’s drum performance (Tousai 2007). Chengfa learned the lion dance not only from his father but also at school as a lion-dance team member. After graduating from YYCS, he became one of the advisors to the lion-dance team in the school. Based on his Foshan origins, however, Chengfa aimed at not only introducing the southern-style lion dance to the younger generation, he was also interested in teaching the northern-style lion dance in Chinatown as well. He explained: I am very interested in lion dance. Although I do not perform lion dance now, as I am old [laughter], I enjoyed a lot by teaching the young Chinese migrants. They are the future of the [lion dance] culture. And I like to teach them all about lion dance. I learned the northern-style [lion dance] as well so that I can introduce it to the students (Xie 2015).

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Chengfa dedicated his own time to visiting Shanghai so that he could learn the northern-style lion dance from the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe in the 1980s (Wang 2001: 237). Although most of the performances are still in the southern style, Chengfa is regarded by Cantonese migrants in Yokohama’s Chinatown as the leader in reviving lion-dance culture. Nevertheless, since Chengfa started participating in the management board of the Temple of Guandi in the 1990s, he aimed at enhancing the skills of the lion-dance teams so that there could be better performances for the celebration of the birth of Guandi. As a result, the lion-dance teams participated in the Lion Dance Championships in Malaysia in 1990 and 1994 and gained experience by communicating with other lion-dance teams from all over the world (Zhang 2008: 81). Zhang (2008: 91) considers the fact that the Yokohama Chinatown’s Overseas Chinese met other lion-dance teams as a big factor in keeping the lion-dance culture vibrant for new younger generations of Overseas Chinese in Yokohama’s Chinatown. There is no doubt that these other competitors taught new skills and techniques to the students from Yokohama’s Chinatown. However, the role of the older Chinese migrants should not be neglected. Chengfa has not withdrawn from being an advisor to the lion-dance team at YYCS, even with his busy schedule at Shatenki and the Overseas Chinese associations. Chengfa and his Cantonese peers took up the role in managing the lion-dance activities in the celebration of the birth of Guandi since the 1990s. As a lion-dance trainer, Chengfa regards Chinese culture as an opportunity to enhance the awareness of ethnic Chinese identity among Overseas Chinese. The Xies’ understanding of the importance of family education in consolidating the sense of Overseas Chinese identity among its family members is something that Chengfa has encouraged in the third and fourth generations of the family, who have also gone on to take up the lion dance at school. To Zhang (2008), the young Overseas Chinese students from the two Chinese schools in Yokohama’s Chinatown are the main inheritors of the lion-dance culture. However, based on my own observations in Chinatown, the role of family education for the younger generations of Overseas Chinese families in the community should not be overlooked. Being born into a family in which the first two generations were leaders in lion-dance performance in the community, the third generation of Xies, as exemplified by Xie Minghua, learned about local Chinese culture at home. Before joining the lion-dance team in Yokohama’s Chinatown, Minghua did not know of his father’s popularity within the Overseas Chinese community. His father was ‘an uncle who loves festivals’, from Minghua’s perspective,

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until he became involved in the world of lion dance (Tousai 2007). ‘My father is the charisma of Yokohama Chinatown. He is the big name in all the Chinese festivals in the community. That is not easy!’ claimed Minghua (Tousai 2007). Minghua’s experience is an example that shows how the younger generations of Overseas Chinese families create inheritors for things like the lion-dance culture. Besides the annual festivals Minghua attended, he also learned about the lion dance from Chengfa at home and in school: When I was in grade 1 in secondary school, my father came to the school [YYCS] to do a lion dance demonstration. His dance moves were wonderful! He is the lion dance teacher to me at home and school (Tousai 2007).

Influenced by his grandfather and father, Minghua joined the lion-dance team at the YYCS and attended the 1990 Lion Dance Championship in Malaysia with his father. The high quality of the lion-dance performances by teams from all over the world widened Minghua’s horizons, and he considers this event ‘the watershed of lion dance in Yokohama Chinatown’ (Tousai 2007). Minghua saw the urgent need for reforming the lion-dance team in Chinatown because he understood that not all of the members had watched lion-dance performances in China. He knew that it was essential to build up a favourable environment for youths in Yokohama’s Chinatown so that they can learn and experience lion-dance culture for themselves. After several overseas trips and exchanges with lion-dance performers in other Overseas Chinese communities, Chengfa set up a new lion-dance team in 2003 that targeted any alumni of the YYCS who wanted to continue partaking in Chinese culture after their graduation. After Chengfa had stepped down from his leadership role in the new lion-dance team in 2006, a third generation of the Xies became the leader of that team. This father-to-son succession in Cantonese culture has gained popularity in Yokohama’s Chinatown, and now the Xies are well-known among Overseas Chinese residents in the community as the ‘family of the lion dance’. Nevertheless, the handing down of lion-dance culture does not stop at the third generation. In 2006, Minghua’s older son made his debut in the YYCS alumni lion-dance team, which marked the first time in Yokohama’s Chinatown that three generations from the same Overseas Chinese family had participated in lion-dance performances. There are two functions of the lion dance, as suggested by the Xies: through the promotion of ‘cooperation’ and the sharing of ‘a sense of belonging’, the lion dance is indeed a good way of transmitting ethnic Chinese identity within the community.

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Today, the lion dance serves its purpose not only for a religious function in the celebration of the birth of Guandi, or other Chinese festivals, but also contains a strong social function in Chinatown. The participants of the lion dance agree that this performance of Chinese culture helps them build a sense of belonging to the community and their Chinese roots. Arisawa (2012) has written an article explaining how the younger generation connects to the Overseas Chinese community and formulates an Overseas Chinese identity by participating in the lion-dance team. This subject matter has also attracted media attention, with The Japan Times (1981) giving credit to the lion-dance organizers in Yokohama’s Chinatown for promoting a strong sense of community and Chinese identity. During the process of promoting community unity the lion dance simultaneously preserves local Chinese culture. The lion dance also serves as a blessing on Cantonese society, and nowadays the lion-dance team often performs at wedding banquets in Chinatown.

Conclusion This chapter investigated the everyday life of Overseas Chinese migrants in Yokohama’s Chinatown through the concept of family. Chinese residents migrated to the seaport of Yokohama from the 1860s. From an economic aspect, they set up different kinds of businesses to sustain their financial needs in the new foreign land, while on the social aspect they were concerned with fostering their social life by establishing hometown associations and other self-administrated organizations to maintain the social order of the Overseas Chinese community. This article discusses four aspects of the Chinese migrants’ everyday lives as they go to make up Yokohama’s Chinatown. Investigating the Xie family as a case study proves that education plays an important role in consolidating ethnic identity. From the second generation, all Xie family members have studied at Overseas Chineseoperated educational institutions, from kindergarten to junior high school, where they learned the Chinese language and culture along with their peers. The continuous financial support to the YYCS teaches the members of the Xie family the importance of maintaining ethnic Chinese identity for younger generations. Also, we saw how the Cantonese restaurant Shatenki preserves not only Cantonese cuisine but is also where the Xie family members learnt about the meaning of family traditions and inheritance. A family business is an important opportunity to preserve ethnic identity. Shatenki gave a chance

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to the members of the Xie family to learn about their hometown culture. And we saw examples of how the family restaurant has inspired the second generation in its cultural roots. Xie Tian’s idea was to introduce Cantonese cuisine to Japan as a way of teaching his own children a precious lesson: uphold your culture through the family business. When Chengfa took on a leadership role in Yokohama’s Chinatown, he started to realize the impact family education and the Shatenki restaurant had in building his interest in ethnic-identity maintenance and promotion in the community. Meanwhile, the associational life of Cantonese migrants allowed them to take up important positions in Yokohama’s Chinatown because these Cantonese-oriented associations played, and still play, an active role in promoting their own culture and building up friendships with their host society. Take the YMH and YOCA as examples, Xie Chengfa, the second generation of the Xies, is in an important decision-making position as committee member of both associations. Their activities can help cultivate identity formation among members who create a ‘we-group’ feeling for the Overseas Chinese community. YOCA, for instance, is active in providing opportunities for Overseas Chinese to communicate with local Japanese residents. And the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration is nowadays seen as a window to showcase Overseas Chinese culture while at the same time allow Japanese residents to join in the community-wide events with their Chinese migrant neighbours. Last but not least, folklore practices help maintain participants’ sense of belonging and lead to a better understanding of the culture of the community. Being the only Cantonese family in which all four generations are lion-dance performers in Yokohama’s Chinatown has meant that the Xie family members uphold and transmit their sense of unity through their folk culture. The first generation practiced Cantonese folklore upon arrival in Yokohama. These performances to celebrate of birth of Guandi inspired the Chinese migrants to learn more about the own traditional culture practices, and this included Xie Tian’s son Chengfa, who devotes personal time to practicing and performing the lion dance in the community. When Minghua recently inherited the position of lion-dance coach from his father Chengfa, the third and fourth generations of Xies are continuing their grandfather’s desire for local culture transmission within the Overseas Chinese community. The folklore performances allow participants to get involved in the community through Chinese festivals and community-wide events. Being part of a group and having the identity of being ethnic Chinese are, therefore, formulated among participants. Their determination to

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preserve their cultural traditions, as well as their devotion to their community, encourages them to continue to manage the affairs of Yokohama’s Chinatown, as they have done for generations. Today, despite an increasing number of new Overseas Chinese (who have arrived in Japan from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan since the 1980s) there are fewer Chinese families in Yokohama’s Chinatown still actively managing Chinese restaurants, associations, and communitywide activities. One of the major challenges for Yokohama’s Chinatown in the future will be to ensure the continued existence of their local ethnic culture, and the inclusion of newcomers and locals. As issues may vary from generation to generation, younger Chinese migrants may have less interest in inheriting a family business, or in being involved in an Overseas Chinese association, or in temple affairs, hence we see the closing down of many Chinese restaurants and the decline of Overseas Chinese associations in Chinatown. Meanwhile, it is time for the original older Overseas Chinese-dominated YOCA to invite both old and new to get involved in and develop their affairs because they are the future consumers of Yokohama Chinatown’s treasures.

Bibliography Anonymous. 2017. ‘Yokohama Chūkagai de niihao! Yukari’ [Hello Yokohama Chinatown! Yukari], Tousai Vol. 64 (August) retrieved on 21 May 2017 from http://www.oisii-net.co.jp/tousai/0708/0708.html. Arisawa, Shiho. 2012. ‘Lion Dance in Yokohama Chinatown: A Study of Identity Expression and Community Building’, Journal of Overseas Chinese Studies, Takushoku University 1: 130-150. Bammer, Angelika. 1992. Question of Home – New Formation. London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd. Brettell, Caroline B and Hollifield, James F. 2000. ‘Migration Theory: Talking across Disciplines’, Migration Theory: Talking across Disciplines, edited by Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield. New York: Routledge. Chen Guofen. 2008. Piao Liu [Drifting]. Hong Kong: Chung Hwa Book Co. Den, H. 1981. ‘Yokohama’s Chinese Community in Action: Chinatown preserves with heritage with dragon, lion dances’, The Japan Times, 1 May: 8. Guangdong Yaominghe Hometown Association. 2002. Guangdong Yaominghe Hometown Association 50th Anniversary Establishment Publication (1952-2002). Yokohama: Guangdong Yaominghe Hometown Association.

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Hayashi Keisei. 2010. Naze, Yokohama Chūkagai ni hito ga atsumaru noka (Why do people gather in Yokohama Chinatown. Tokyo: Shōdenshā. Hengbin Shanshou Zhonghua Xuexiao Bainian Xiaozhi Bianjiweiyuanhui. 2004. Hengbin Shanshou Zhonghua Xuexiao Bainian Xiaozhi, 1898-2004 [The Hundred Years of History of Yokohama Yamate Chinese School, 1898-2004]. Yokohama: Yokohama Overseas Chinese School. Kim, Jackie J. 2005. Hidden Treasures: Lives of First-Generation Korean Women in Japan . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Murakami Ryoichi. 1997. Yokohama chūkagai deki kakyōden [A biography of Overseas Chinese in Yokohama Chinatown]. Tokyo: Shinbusha. Papastergiadis, Nikos. 1998. Dialogues in the diasporas: essays and conversations on cultural identity. London: Rivers Oram. Saika, Takeyoshi. 2007. ‘On ‘The Cantonese Yaominghe Same Village Association’’, Language and culture bulletin of the Graduate School of Foreign Languages Kanagawa University 13: 121-143. Vertovec, Steven, ‘Introduction: New directions in the anthropology of migration and multiculturalism, Anthropology of Migration and Multiculturalism: New Directions, edited by Steven Vertovec. London and New York: Routledge. Wang Wei. 2001. Nihon Kakyō ni okeru dentō no saihen to asunisiti: saiji to genon wo chushinni [Reconstruction and Ethnicity of Tradition among Overseas Chinese in Japan: Ritual and Entertainment]. Tokyo: Fukyōsha. Xia Dongkai. Interview by Yee Lam Elim Wong, 4 August 2015. Xie Chengfa. Interview by Yee Lam Elim Wong, 6 December 2014. Xie Chengfa. Interview by Yee Lam Elim Wong, 4 August 2015. Yokohama Overseas Chinese Association. 2017. ‘Guangdong Yaominghe Hometown Association The Reappointment of Chairperson Lu’, Yokohama Overseas Chinese Association Newsletter (February) retrieved on 23 February 2017 from http:// www.yokohama-chinese.gr.jp/yc/tx17-2.html#a7. Zhonghua Huiguan and Yokohama Archives of History. 2010. Yokohama Kakyō no Kioku: Yokohama Kakyō Koujyurekishi Kirokushu [The memories of Yokohama Overseas Chinese: The collection of oral history of Yokohama Overseas Chinese]. Yokohama: Zhonghua Huiguan. Zhu Huiling. 2005. Kajin sekai ga wakaru hon: Chūkoku kara sekai he hirogaru nettowa-ku no rekishi, sekai, bunka [Understanding the ethnic Chinese society: The wide network of history, society and cultural from China to the world]. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Zhu Huiling. 1995. Kakyō sekai no henmō to sono shōrai [The change and future of Overseas Chinese society]. Kawaguchi-shi: Nihon Kyōhōsha.

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About the author Elim Wong received her Ph.D. in Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is interested in Chinese diaspora and transnational communities, mainly focusing on Japan, and the development of popular culture in East Asia. She received historical and anthropological training in her Ph.D. studies, and she is interested in conducting oral history and participant observation in her research. Email: [email protected]

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Mental Health Scenario of Asian Americans Social and Environmental Determinants of their Well-being and Service Utilization Susheelabai R. Srinivasa and Sudershan Pasupuleti

Abstract This chapter discusses the mental health of Asian Americans, highlighting their growing needs as well as policy-making challenges. There is a stereotypical view of this segment of the U.S. population as being a ‘model minority’. However, they are under-represented in mental-health service utilization due to fear of stigmatization, and, when provided, these services are often culturally insensitive. This paper argues for a more comprehensive approach to Asian Americans’ health issues so that concerns and challenges can be addressed. It also presents sociocultural, institutional, and environmental factors that affect the under-reporting and under-utilization patterns of mental-health services among Asian Americans. The growing incidence of mental-health problems and underutilization are imminent risk factors for the psychological well-being of Asian Americans in the United States. Keywords: Asian Americans, mental health, determinants of mental health, service utilization

Introduction This chapter attempts to portray the mental-health situation of Asian Americans in the United States. It also addresses sociocultural, institutional, and environmental determinants of mental health that are affecting the under-utilization of mental-health services and the under-reporting of the

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mental illnesses in this ethnic population. The majority of Asian Americans live in urban areas, i.e., places with a population of 50,000 or more, and urban clusters with a population of between anything from 2,500 to 50,000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). And more than 50 percent of Asian Americans live in major cosmopolitan cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. Urban areas have more employment and livelihood opportunities but life can be more challenging in them, with stress having implications for health. Immigrants who migrate to the U.S. settle in big cities because of employment opportunities, and nearly 250 million people (or approximately 80 percent of the population) live in urban areas. Between 2000 and 2010, there has been a nearly 10 percent growth in the urban population and that has placed increasing demands on facilities, services, and employment in cities. This article will discuss the mental-health situation of Asian Americans. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) defines, ‘[m]ental illnesses as health conditions that encompass changes in thinking, emotion or behaviour (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses are associated with distress and/or problems in functioning in work, family and social activities’ (APA 2016). A range of mental-health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, autism spectrum disorders, addiction and substance disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, or schizophrenia arise in a person because of disturbed thoughts, feelings, emotions, and/or behaviours. These conditions may affect the person for a short or a long time period (Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2017). According to the United States 2017 Census, Asian Americans constitute nearly 6 percent of the 325 million total population of the United States (something in excess of 20 million people) (the United States Census Bureau 2010). In the United States, it is estimated that over 18 percent of adults have reported some form of mental illness. While just over 4 percent (i.e., 1 in 24) suffer from serious mental illness, while 8.5 percent (1 in 12 adults) have a history of substance-use disorder (American Psychiatric Association 2018). Those who suffer from serious mental illnesses find their social functionality impaired. Among minority populations, African Americans and Hispanic ethnic groups have the largest numbers, with 13.3 percent and 17.2 percent respectively. The smaller percentage of Asian Americans often receive scant attention or resources and their needs are not addressed adequately in policy-making and programme-development considerations. In addition, other racial and ethnic groups have more organizational infrastructures and advocacy experience with access to public representatives to advocate for their needs and interests. Though the Asian American group is one of the

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fastest growing minorities in the United States, they are under-represented in service utilization and currently receive fewer resources. This is causing health disparities, including in mental health, due to a number of factors, such as lack of awareness, cultural barriers, cultural insensitivity in providers, and the stigma attached to mental health in Asian ethnic cultures. Recognition of mental-health issues, and the appropriate utilization of services, can improve health, life expectancy, and well-being. Mental health is embedded in emotional health, which is in turn rooted in social relationships, support, and life satisfaction. Social distress due to discrimination and prejudice could threaten the emotional health of people. Stereotypical branding of Asian Americans as a ‘model minority’ also acts as a stress factor and alienates them from mainstream American society (Miller, Yang, Farrell and Lin 2011). The mainstream perception and branding of all Asian Americans as one ethnic group camouflages issues of mental health and utilization patterns among different sub-groups. Chinese, Indian, and Filipino ethnic groups are the largest groups, constituting 24 percent, 20 percent, and 19 percent of the U.S. minority population respectively. Consequently, there has been a lack of study on mental-health issues and utilization concerns for the rest of the 43 different ethnic groups within the Asian American population. Nearly 60 percent of Asian Americans are first-generation and foreign-born and are deeply connected with their cultural roots in their native countries. Mental-health issues are also under-reported due to cultural taboos in their respective cultures, and stereotypes about mental health among Asian-origin ethnic groups. Cultural factors and limitations in acculturation create gaps in culturally sensitive services and in the utilization of mental-health services (Leong, Kim and Gupta 2011; Sue and Sue 2008). The ‘model minority’ image is also a barrier in help-seeking behaviour and the utilization of mental-health services (Leong, Kim and Gupta 2011). Perpetuation of racial hierarchy and discrimination is a huge social stressor for Asian Americans and is affecting their well-being (Li 2009). Migration from one part of the world to another leads to a disconnection with family and once familiar environments, resulting in environmental stress and a lack of social support, placing emotional well-being at risk. On the other hand, the expectation of success due to the image of the model minority is likely to create a fear of failure and increase stress among Asian-origin ethnic groups, who also tend to maintain their cultures and uniqueness in American society, often resulting in differentiation and even discrimination. Asian Americans often talk about a ‘glass- ceiling’ experience, discovering invisible barriers to reaching their full potential. These pressures can prove to

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be very challenging and stressful and have implications for Asian Americans’ mental health and well-being since they find themselves as an underserved sub-population in acculturation frameworks. Research on Asian Americans has clearly established a link between acculturation experiences and mental health which significantly impact help-seeking behaviours (Kim and Omizo 2003; Wang and Mallinckrodt 2006). Acculturation is no longer seen as a linear process as it involves bidirectional changes in cognitions, attitudes, and behaviours. A bilinear model of acculturation is accepted as being empirically superior in current literature. This means that an ethnic group adheres to its original culture (enculturation) and embraces new culture (acculturation) not necessarily at the expense of the former. In other words, adherence to a new culture does not necessarily result in a decrease in the practices of the original culture, hence it is a multidimensional and interactive construct as it creates blended and expanded cultural horizons for an ethnic group at their own comfort level (Chun, Organista and Marin 2003; Kim 2007; Miller 2007 and Ryder et al. 2000). Past studies tended to use unilinear frameworks of acculturation or enculturation in examining mental health among immigrants in general and Asian Americans in particular. An acculturation gap was found to be associated with poor mental-health outcomes (e.g., depression and anxiety) among Korean and Asian Indian adolescents and young adults (Lee, Su and Yoshida 2005; Thomas and Choi 2006). Cultural adaptation leads to more distance from one’s own original culture, which creates more psychological distress and poorer mental-health outcomes for Asian Americans, whereas enculturation helps in their well-being and causes less psychological distress. The model minority image creates pressure and a dissonance which causes a distancing from the original culture, which in turn leads to more mental-health issues. Younger Asian Americans who embrace the more dominant American culture find that their mental health issues, as well as the number of them, are comparable to other ethnic groups. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2017) reports a startling revelation that about 50 percent of the population of the United States has or will experience some form of mental-health disorder during their lifetime. In the United States, one in six adults suffer from some form of mental illness, accounting for 18.3 percent (44.7 million) of the population according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 2016 Report. Mental illnesses are classified into two major clusters, such as Any Mental Illness (AMI) and Serious Mental Illness (SMI). Any Mental Illness can be assessed based on symptoms, from no impairment to severe impairment,

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with mild, moderate, and severe classifications. Prevalence of AMI and SMI are different among different ethnic groups. The incidence of AMI in Asian Americans is 14.5 percent, which is twice as high as average in the U.S. population, whereas in other minority groups the prevalence rates are 18.6 percent and 16.6 percent (in African Americans and Hispanics respectively). Their prevalence rates are closer to their proportion of the U.S. population. Among the majority white (i.e., white alone) population, AMI is prevalent in 19.3 percent, whereas they constitute 61.7 percent of the population. As regards SMI, 2.5 percent of Asian American adults experience SMI, compared to 3.6 percent in Hispanic and 3.1 percent in African American adults (which compares to their proportion in the total population). SMI, on the other hand, is prevalent in 4.8 percent of white adults (National Institute of Mental Health, 2016). As regards SMI, the proportion of Asian American adults is higher compared to other ethnic groups. Table 7.1 presents the distribution prevalence of Any Mental Illness and Serious Mental Illness among the different ethnic groups. Table 7.1  Distribution of mental illness among different ethnic groups Demographic variable subgroups

Percentage of Any Mental Illness (AMI)

Percentage of Serious Mental Illness (SMI)

Common mentalhealth problem Depression

Percentage of diagnosed adults who utilized mental-health services

Major depressiveepisode treatment (6.7%, or nearly 16.3 million have major depression)

Gender Male Age

35.8

4.0

 4.8

33.9

35.8

Female

54.5

5.3

 8.5

48.8

51.5

10-25 Years

25.8

5.9

14.0

35.1

17.7

26-49 Years

18.3

5.7

 7.4

43.1

33.0

50 + years

11.3

2.7

 4.8

46.8

42.2

16.6

3.6

 5.6

31.0

36.1

19.3

4.8

 7.4

48.7

54.1

Black

18.6

3.1

 5.0

29.3

41.6

Asians

14.5

2.0

 3.9

21.6

20.0%

AI/AN

28.3

4.9

 8.7

37.1

20.0%

Total

14.3 (18.07%) 4.2

 6.7

43.1

47.5

Ethnic- Hispanic ity White

Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2017

Asian American adolescents experience depression just like white Americans, with comparable rates of prevalence, whereas other minority adolescents experience less depression. Adequate attention is not being paid to this, even though the numbers are alarming. Table 7.2 presents the figures for depression among different racial/ethnic adolescents according to gender and age.

156 Susheel abai R. Srinivasa and Sudershan Pasupuleti Table 7.2 Depression among different racial/ethnic adolescents, gender, and ages Demographic

Categories

Percentage

Sex

Male Female 12 Years 13 Years 14 Years 15 Years 16 Years 17 Years Hispanic White Black Asian Native American/Alaskan Native

 6.4 19.4  5.0  9.4 12.7 13.9 17.4 17 12.7 13.8  9.1 11.9 11.5

Age

Race/Ethnicity

Whole adolescent population in the U. S.

12.8

Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2017

Sue, Saad, Chu (2012), based on the 2010 National Survey for Drug Use and Health [NSDUH] (SAMSHA 2012), claimed that Asian Americans’ numbers were low on illicit drug use, tobacco use, and substance use. Seven percent of the Chinese population suffered from neurasthenia and symptoms such as weakness, fatigue, and exhaustion. According to the Department of Health and Human Services (2001), other problems encountered by Asian Americans were depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anorexia, and culture-bound syndrome. Based on the data of the Asian American Health Initiative (2005), around two million Asian Americans in the age group 18-64 were uninsured at some point in the previous year. The number of uninsured persons varied in different Asian American ethnic groups, ranging from 55 percent for Korean Americans, 37 percent for Vietnamese, 18 percent for Asian Indians, 16 percent for Chinese, 15 percent for Filipinos, and 4 percent for Japanese. Health disparities among Asian Americans are clearly identified by the Asian American Health Initiative study (2005). For Asian Americans, cancer and cardiovascular disease emerged as two major causes of death. Higher incidence of Hepatitis B and a higher risk of tuberculosis were also widely prevalent among Asian Americans. Asian women were found to be at high risk for osteoporosis. General health conditions, especially chronic conditions, are correlated with mental-health disorders as these conditions are often interdependent. For example, patients with chronic health conditions are more likely to develop depression disorder.

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There is a widespread underutilization of mental-health services among Asian Americans. Lower service utilization rates were reported among Asian Americans, with 4.9 percent for Any Mental Illness (AMI) treatment, 2.5 percent for outpatient services, 0.6 percent for inpatient services, and 3.1 percent for prescription medication. However, the service-utilization patterns were higher in other racial and ethnic groups in the above four areas. The Asian Americans who were diagnosed with AMI and SMI appeared not to have sought treatment or used prescriptions. These patterns of service utilization present a dormant risk for their psychological well-being and longevity (Hwang and Ting 2008). One striking revelation is that older Asian women are at highest risk of suicide among all ethnic groups, and studies report higher percentages of older women with suicidal ideation compared to the national average of 3.9 percent. Contrary to the popular myth of being a model minority, a higher proportion of Asian Americans reported barriers to service utilization, such as cost/insurance (48.7 percent), low perceived need (31.9 percent), prejudice and discrimination (26.5 percent), structural barriers (39.7 percent), and indifference to the benefits of mental-health services (12.9 percent). Another barrier often discussed is the cultural competence of the providers of mentalhealth services. Many Asian American groups are not fully convinced of the cultural competency of these providers, who also have a lack of appreciation for native, complementary methods of treatment/healing. This insensitivity is related to apathy and a lack of trust in the U.S. healthcare system. Response patterns suggest a number of barriers in the service utilization among Asian Americans that need to be addressed to promote their well-being (NIMH 2016).

Environmental and social determinants of mental health among Asian Americans Social determinants of health are also the determinants of mental health, as these factors interact and interplay in the realm of an individual’s health and mental health. These include immigration and acculturation, myths and stigmatization, poverty and lack of insurance, adequate housing, safe neighbourhoods, equitable jobs and wages, quality education, inclusiveness and community participation, social support systems, and equity in access to quality healthcare (Center for Disease Control and Prevention 1999). Any discussion of the social determinants of mental health among Asian Americans needs to take into account historical factors and immigration. Although a plethora of factors can be attributed to mental-health, a select number of important factors are discussed hereunder:

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Asian American ethnic groups: historical stressors The migration of Asians to the United States comprises both forced and voluntary movements of people. After 1865, ethnic groups of Asian origin (mainly from China and Japan) came to the U.S. This wave of immigration ended in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. People also came from Latin America and other parts of Asia. In the last few decades, the United States has witnessed a significant increase in immigrants from all over Asia, representing the rich diversity of many Asian countries. Large numbers came from China, India, and the Philippines. In addition, people from Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand were other significant groups among the Asian immigrants. Asian American settlements sprang up on the West and East coasts of America, and a few other states like Texas and Illinois. 40 percent of immigrants made California and New York their home. In the recent past, large numbers of immigrants settled in the Midwest and Southeast regions (Chang-Muy and Congress 2016; Balgopal 2000). During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Chinese immigrants came to the United States primarily to work on railroad construction and as agricultural laborers. Nativist groups targeted these Chinese labourers and other immigrants. For example, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a piece of clearly discriminatory legislation because it led to new immigrants not having a fair chance in employment. Chinese and Japanese immigrant workers were employed in the U.S. since they were cheap labour at that time. Immigrants in past centuries faced a unique set of challenges and became the target of discrimination by nativist groups who felt their economic status and ‘racial purity’ would be compromised by the new immigrants (Hing 1993). The often traumatic experiences of Asian Americans presented imminent risk factors for their well-being and health, including mental health. Stereotypes and discrimination Immigrants faced more challenges than simply migrating to a new country. Once they started living in the new country, they faced many stressors in trying to adapt to its new culture and new civic laws. First, they faced conflict with the mainstream culture. Often, immigrants faced stereotypical views about their culture. Stereotypes create immense pressure and stress, resulting in harmful effects on well-being. Racial discrimination and prejudice towards immigrants were also traumatic for Asian Americans. They are discriminated against for their language, accent, and appearance by the mainstream (Chu and Sue 2011). Asian Americans are the so-called

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‘model minority’ because they are usually highly educated, have higher socio-economic status, and are well adapted to the U.S. environment. Even positive stereotypes like the ‘model minority’ can be a threat to well-being because of the high standards expected of such a model minority. Often, in order to try to assimilate, immigrants sacrifice their culture and heritage, which can create a dissonance in their identity and thinking, and disturb their psychological well-being and tranquillity. They also experience dissonance and conflict in trying to balance two cultures. These stressors are risk factors for emotional and mental well-being and health. Stigmatization Mental-health issues have been viewed as undesirable in society which has led to a social stigma in immigrants’ native countries. This often compels people to deny the presence of mental-health symptoms based on cultural beliefs. In addition, Asian Americans tend to view emotional issues as personal problems and do not like to discuss them or seek help, unlike mainstream American society. Healthcare providers expect patients and clients to report their problems during their interactions. Often there is not enough privacy when such questions are being asked by the providers. Non-acceptance of mental-health problems and a lack of cultural sensitivity on the part of the providers present challenges in diagnosing such problems. Cultural taboos (stigma) attached to mental-health disorders prevent Asian Americans from sharing with healthcare providers (Leong and Lau 2001; Zhang, Snowden and Sue 1998). This is a new country where model minority expectations keep them suffering mental-health problems in silence. Asian American ethnic groups are experiencing many social problems, just like other ethnic groups, such as poverty, domestic violence, divorce, deviance, and crime (Sue and Morshima 1982). Despite pressing conditions, lower levels of mental-health service utilization are a big concern. Lack of awareness about the availability of healthcare services, or a familiarity with the healthcare system, cultural sensitivity and competence in healthcare providers, as well as linguistic and cultural barriers are among the major challenges Asian Americans face in their adopted country. Living preferences and conditions Observations and research regarding housing preferences among Asian Americans and Hispanic/Latino immigrants in the United States were conducted based on a number of factors. Variables such as education and

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income showed an inverse relationship. First-generation Asian Americans co-resided with family members, whereas the second generation preferred to live on their own (Wu, Sha, Tidwell 2016). However, income patterns were a huge deciding factor in the settlement of immigrants in certain neighbourhoods, cities, and regions in the United States. This led to unique identities in cities, sub-divisions, and neighbourhoods with the settlement of Asian immigrants in certain locations of the United States. Other factors that affected co-residing were age, gender, geographic location, local and contextual effects, education, employment, and income. Co-residence promoted intergenerational support within families, which is a way of life in the immigrants’ home countries, and sometimes continued in the host country. According to Wu, Sha, Tidwell (2016), immigration has influenced the housing market in the United States as Asians contribute to the economy by becoming homeowners and by living with their family members. Family members respect mutual obligations because of strong family and cultural values. The habit of co-residing within the first generation was still prevalent, even among adult children. Median family income was around $54,914.00. Higher education and income encourage second-generation family members to live independently. According to the World Health Organization (2014), health and well-being can be a reality when the socio-economic and physical environment promote conducive and harmonious living for individuals in a family, neighbourhood, and larger social environment. When physical and environmental conditions are improved, the results are a reduction in social inequality and social stressors. This will nurture a healthy environment for people and, at the same time, provide enabling conditions for mentally ill people to recover because this kind of environment provides social support and social connections that will provide a safety net when faced with adversity. Employment and occupational patterns Asian American immigrants experience subtle discrimination and a glass ceiling in employment situations, despite the dubious distinction of being a model minority. Asian languages and accents are subject to ridicule in the mainstream. Due to this, they are subservient and passive and avoid conflict at work in order to climb the career ladder. They may face barriers, such as invisible ‘bamboo’ or glass ceilings. Nearly 31 percent of Asian Americans reported experiences of discrimination at the workplace (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 2007). Data gathered from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported that 2 percent of

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all charges and 3.26 percent of discrimination cases occurred in the federal sector. It should be mentioned that not all incidences of discrimination are reported, and, thus, an accurate picture is impossible to measure. Therefore, despite their high educational qualifications and skills, Asian Americans are not paid or promoted on a par with their white counterparts due to the glass ceiling and invisible discrimination. An example of such discrimination is the Chinese ethnic group, who were the earliest to arrive in America (working as contract laborers in sugarcane plantations) and so faced these challenges early on. Though they were hard-working people they had to settle for lower wages. This made many of them become entrepreneurs and self-employed, setting up businesses which employed family members as cheap labour (something we also saw highlighted in the last chapter with Wong Yee Lam Elim’s investigations into Overseas Chinese in Yokohama’s Chinatown). They worked in jobs that did not require formal education, training, experience, or large sums spent on education. The conditions that Asian Americans experienced have a potential for unease and stress and have adverse implications on their health and well-being (Sanders-Thompson, Noel and Campbell, 2004). Educational status of Asian Americans Asian Americans aged 25 year or older account for 13.5 million (of the 212 million in this age group in the U.S.). Of these, 89 percent have graduated with a high-school diploma, 70 percent with a college qualification, 60.4 percent with an associate degree, 53.9 percent with bachelor’s degree, and 21.4 percent with an advanced degree. While in the rest of the population, 88.4 percent graduated with a high-school diploma, 58.9 percent with some college qualif ication, 42.3 percent with an associate degree, and 32.5 percent with a bachelor’s degree, and 12 percent with an advanced degree (U.S. Census, 2015). Education can empower people and help them access information and improve their quality of life. It creates social awareness and opens up an array of opportunities to choose careers and a life course. Hence, education contributes to changes in the individuals, families, and communities that make up the social environment where systemic barriers and social determinants exist for health and mental health. People can access healthcare services and take care of their own healthcare needs, and thus reduce inequality and health disparities. Research shows that better health outcomes are associated with college education and an increase in awareness with more control over lifestyle factors.

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Health status and health insurance More than 10 percent of Asian Americans live below the poverty line, which is higher than the non-Hispanic white population, but lower than other minorities, such as African Americans and Hispanics. Notwithstanding the myth of the ‘model minority’, 13 percent of Asian Americans lack health insurance and access to healthcare services, including mental health (Zong and Batalova 2016). According to Kim and Keefe (2010), Asian Americans who come from poorer family backgrounds in their country of origin have more health issues after staying in the United States for a long time. Many stated a diminished health status resembling other ethnic groups. Cultural strengths and positive health aspects are undermined with longer residence and become matched with the rest of the population in health and disease scenarios. It is common to see characteristics such as poorer health, falling ill, and being more frequently hospitalized, just like in any other ethnic group (Frisbie et al. 2001). Undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive healthcare benefits. Only documented Asian immigrants have healthcare insurance and receive healthcare. Asian American immigrants’ healthcare needs were not fully met and, hence, an accurate, comprehensive picture of mental healthcare was not documented or projected for the future. Additionally, Asian Americans find many barriers to accessing healthcare services, such as language and culture, health insurance, health literacy, and immigrant status. Experts on the Asian American population recommend recognizing them as a distinct ethnic group with unique healthcare needs. At the macro level, policy-making sees the needs of this group being overlooked and inadequately addressed. In short, unsuccessful, unemployed, and unhealthy immigrants were unwelcome in the United States because they are deemed to be less productive and beneficial to the economy. Economically successful individuals are preferred because of their contribution to the economy (Uretsky and Mathiesen 2007). A fear of failure dominates immigrants’ thinking, and that becomes a stressor in itself. Mental health and indicators of mental health In 1947, the World Health Organization defined health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing’ (WHO 1947). Mental health is approached from the treatment perspective rather than prevention. It is a comprehensive and multi-dimensional concept with bio-psychosocial and spiritual components. Mental-health experts recommend including the

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following indicators of mental health, such as emotional, psychological, and social well-being. ‘Emotional health is a state of positive psychological functioning. It can be thought of as an extension of mental health; it’s the “optimal functioning” end of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that make up both our inner and outer worlds. It includes an overall experience of wellness in what we think, feel, and do through both the highs and lows of life’, according to Croft (2016). Mental health problems among Asian Americans The results of a National Latino and Asian American study revealed that Asian Americans experienced 17.3 percent overall lifetime mental illness prevalence and a 9.19 percent 12-month prevalence of any psychiatric disorder (Takeuchi et al. 2007). These prevalence rates are comparable to those among non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics, and African Americans. Binge eating and anorexia nervosa are prevalent in 4.35 percent and in 0.08 respectively. Research showed significant differences among various sub-groups in Asian Americans. For example, Southeast Asians reported higher incidences of drug use than East and South Asians, and there was a higher suicide rate among elderly women and greater posttraumatic stress disorder in Southeast Asians, as reported in this study (Department of Health and Human Services 2001; O’Hare and Tran 1998). One of the concerns is to find a culturally appropriate and valid assessment of symptoms to determine mental-health disorders conclusively within the context of different cultural populations. A lack of awareness of mental-health disorders leads to them often being presented as physical health problems. This presents challenges in determining mental-health issues and results in under reporting and in documentation. Because of these patterns, researchers questioned the low prevalence rates. Providers of healthcare and mental-health services are not culturally competent due to the vast diversity within the Asian population. Added to this is the problem of lower rates of help-seeking and service utilization among them (Sue, Saad and Chu 2012). This is also due to a lack of familiarity with the healthcare system or an awareness of the services available. Social and cultural factors, poverty, and generational status are vital factors that contribute to the under reporting and under utilization of mental-health services. Furthermore, linguistic barriers deter utilization of mental-health services among the majority of Asian Americans due to their limited English skills. For the Asian American immigrant community there have been several causal factors for mental-health issues, such as fear of deprivation, unemployment,

164 Susheel abai R. Srinivasa and Sudershan Pasupuleti

trauma, or unfair treatment due to religious, ethnic, or political differences (Hus et al. 2004). At the same time, they experienced/experience a loss of social and emotional support due to migration and the fact that they have left their families behind. As a result, they try to seek support from social networks – friends, family members, and religious community members.

Utilization of mental health services by Asian Americans When compared to other ethnic groups, Asian Americans underutilize mental-health services. Factors such as the relatively small proportion of Asian Americans in the U.S. population, cultural systems, and the healthcare system itself are presenting barriers to access to mental-health services. However, less use of a service is not indicative of less need for it, as epidemiological studies have pointed out, there are elevated rates of certain clinical problems in some Asian American subgroups (e.g., PTSD in Southeast Asians and suicide in elderly Asian women), and similar or lower overall prevalence rates of mental-health disorders when compared to the rest of the U.S. population. Due to barriers like access to mental-health services, fear of utilization caused by stigma, and lack of knowledge of existing mental-health treatments, Asian Americans do not utilize services even when the need exists. Another reason for this underutilization is that these services were inappropriate for and insensitive to their needs. Particularly, those with moderate or mild mental-health needs, who were less likely to receive the type of mental healthcare they needed, even though, by not receiving these services they can lower their quality of life. The stigma against mental illness, the lack of culture-specific help-seeking behaviours, and the lack of acceptance of American healthcare approaches are barriers to the utilization of mental-health services. An important concern is the fact that health providers do not integrate traditional and/ or complimentary healing methods (Sorking, Nguyen, Ngo-Metzger 2011). Older people experience structural barriers in accessing health services. Western models are suggested for dosage of medications, which may not be appropriate for Asian American body weight and metabolism. The study also revealed that people with severe mental-health problems are not utilizing mental-health services. Destigmatization of mental-health issues might occur slowly, if awareness among people is raised, and for this, mental-health topics and issues need to be discussed in public forums. Through awareness and health education this goal can be achieved. Nagayama Hall and Yee (2012) have researched the United States Mental Health Policy, with a focussed

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analysis of U.S. federal mental-health policies concerning Asian Americans. Their research is based on secondary data, based on Healthcare Reform and federal mental-health care policies. Their findings indicate that a shift is needed in the thinking about the problems that arise due to mental-health disorders, where brain and biological diseases, rather than psychological diseases, could be used as a means of destigmatization. Clough, Lee, and Chae (2012) conducted a study on the barriers to health care among Asian immigrants. They also identified how Asian Americans can be helped to access healthcare services and overcome those barriers. Barriers including linguistic discordance between caregivers and Asian American immigrant patients, a changing dynamic in the doctor-patient relationship, and patients’ health-related beliefs. Some patients need interpreters to help them access healthcare services and to continue follow-up treatment. Furthermore, in the U.S., the doctor-patient approach has shifted from a paternalistic approach on the part of the doctor to a consumer-driven, egalitarian approach in which the consumer makes their own medical decisions. This contrasts with the Asian culture, where patients are more familiar with a hierarchical relationship between doctor and patient. Their study utilized traditional methods, such as examining databases to conduct initial reviews using keywords to search for specific themes, for example, linguistic discordance, doctor-patient relationship, patient’s health beliefs, etc. Some relevant facts that emerged include the discovery that 20.8 percent of Asian immigrants are uninsured. This includes 27 percent of non-citizens, according to the U.S. Census reports (2011). Asian immigrants are three times more likely to be uninsured than those who are born in the United States. As a result, uninsured children are eight times more likely to go without healthcare insurance. The latest research findings match those of previous research. Asian Americans are underrepresented in the service utilization of the mentalhealth system (Chen, Sullivan, Lu, and Shibusawa 2003; Chow and Wyatt 2003; Hu, Snowden, Jerel, and Nguyen 1991; Leong 1994). There are varied rates of utilization among Asian Americans, for example, more elderly Vietnamese make use of mental-health services when compared to other Asian sub-groups, such as Southeast Asians, East Asians, and South Asians. Age differences are also a factor in the use of mental-health services. The Chinese and Vietnamese do not access mental-health services generally, only in extreme situations (Nguyen and Anderson 2005; Ying and Miller 1992). Although healthcare reforms made provision for greater access to healthcare services, they did not make any special provision for this particular population.

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Cultural beliefs and treatment approaches Cultures define, assess, and approach the treatment of mental-health problems according to their beliefs and values. Western approaches about feeling ‘good’ and looking happy are considered good indicators of mental health. Whereas immigrants view mental health as a much larger concept. They are looking for a cure to fix their symptoms and seek solutions to their problems. Asian American immigrants do not believe in the interrogative approach (whereby a patient and counsellor work together to design treatment and solutions) because they do not think it conducive to healing; they expect the counsellor’s knowledge, wisdom, and expertise to guide them in resolving their issues. Berte (2016) elaborated on the cultural perspective of Asian Americans by incorporating two approaches to mental health. The first says that the goal of individual development is achieved when one completely surrenders to God’s will and endures hardship without complaints. While the second approach says that an individual’s developmental goals are achieved by a person attempting to strike a balance between the biological and spiritual dichotomies in the body, mind, and soul, to achieve unification. Berte (2016) also said that immigrant clients would approach help with the expectation that the practitioner would dispense wisdom and expertise. The practitioner must approach immigrant clients with an open mind to the type of assistance the client needs and expects. While from a practitioner’s stand point, it is a combination of knowledge, skill, and values that helps the practitioner formulate need-based interventions, and at times the practitioner’s beliefs have to be set aside so that he or she can approach the client’s symptoms and problems from a mindset where the client’s cultural beliefs and perspectives are valuable, in order to elicit acceptance of the interventions and be successful in helping them. Positive mental health and wellness allow people to realize their full potential, cope with the stresses of life, work productively, and make meaningful contributions to their communities. Positive mental health can be maintained by getting professional help, staying connected with others, adopting positive approaches, staying physically active, helping others, getting enough sleep, and developing positive coping skills.

Conclusion Notwithstanding the model minority image, in the United States Asian Americans have signifcant mental-health issues. The proportion of Asian

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Americans affected by various mental-health disorders and conditions is increasing, as are the numbers for mental-health problems, substance use, and suicide among older and younger Asian populations. Stereotypes that see Asian Americans as better off, even in the health and mentalhealth domains, still dominate and obscure thinking at policy-making and programme-planning level. Lack of adequate information about diversity among this segment of the U.S. population is another factor in the lack of policy attention or culturally sensitive care being given to increasing numbers of Asian Americans with mental-health concerns. Complex issues of migration and adaptation (with problems of multidimensional acculturation and enculturation processes) have led to misinterpretations of the mental-health reality for Asian Americans and ethnic minorities. Cultural and linguistic barriers, as well as the insensitivity of providers, has often led to an underreporting of mental-health problems and an underutilization of mental-health services. Untreated mental-health issues present dormant risks for higher suicide rates among older Asian American women as well as the younger population. Consequently, psychological well-being and longevity could be affected in this ethnic minority in the long term. The authors of this chapter advocate for a comprehensive approach to the mental-health situation of Asian Americans due to the complexities involved in the incidence of mental-health problems and the utilization, or under utilization, of services.

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Lui, C.H., Murakami, J., Eap, S. and Hall, G.C.N. 2009. ‘Who are Asians? An Overview of history, immigrant’s history, immigration, and communities’, Asian American Psychology: Current Perspectives, edited by N. Tewari and A. Alvarez. 1-29. New York: Erlbaum. Miller, M.J. 2007. ‘A bilinear multidimensional measurement model of Asian American acculturation and enculturation: Implications for counseling interventions’, Journal of Counseling Psychology 54(2): 118-131, retrieved on 2 February from http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.54.2.118 Miller, M.J., Yang, M., Farrell, M., Lin, J. and Li, L. 2011. ‘Racial and cultural factors affecting the mental health of Asian Americans’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 81(4): 489-497. Nagayama Hall, G.C. and Yee, A. 2012. ‘U.S. Mental Health Policy: Addressing the Neglect of Asian Americans’, Asian American Journal of Psychology 3(3): 181-193. National Institute of Mental Health. 2016, retrieved on 2 February from https:// www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml Nguyen, Q.C. and Anderson, L.P. 2005. ‘Vietnamese Americans’ attitudes toward seeking mental health services: relation to cultural variables’, Journal of Community Psychology 33: 213-231. Ryan and Bauman. 2015. ‘Educational attainment in the United States’, Population Characteristics Current Population Reports: 520-578. Ryder, A.G., Alden, L.E. and Paulhus, D.L. 2000. ‘Is acculturation unidimensional or bidimensional? A head-to-head comparison in the prediction of personality, self-identity, and adjustment’, Journal of Social Psychology 79: 49-65. Sanders-Thompson, V.L., Noel, J.G. and Campbell, J. 2004. ‘Stigmatization, discrimination, and mental health: The impact of multiple identity status’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 74(4): 529-544, retrieved on 2 February from http:// dx.doi.org/10.1037/0002-9432.74.4.529 Soring, H., Nguyen, H., Ngo-Metzger, Quyen. 2011. ‘Assessing the Mental Health Needs and Barriers to Care among a Diverse Sample of Asian American Older Adults’, Journal of General Internal Medicine 26(6): 595-602. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 2014. ‘Behavioral Health Barometer’, HHS Publication No. SMA-15-4895. Rockville, MD: Department of Health and Human Services. Sue, S. and Morishima, J. 1982. The Mental Health of Asian Americans. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Sue, S., Nakamura, Y.C., Chung, C. R. and Bradbury, Y.C. 1994. ‘Mental health research on Asian Americans’, Journal of Community Psychology 22: 61-67. Sue, W.D. 1994. ‘Asian-American mental health and help-seeking behaviour: Comment on Solberg et al. (1994), Tata and Leong (1994), and Lin (1994)’, Journal of Counseling Psychology 41(3): 292-295.

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Thomas and Choi. 2006. ‘Acculturative Stress and Social Support among Korean and Indian Immigrant Adolescents in the United States’, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare (June) Vol. XXXIII, Number 2. United States Census Bureau. 2010. Census Report, retrieved on 2 February from www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library Uretsky, M.C. and Mathiesen, S.G. 2007. ‘The effects of years lived in the United States on the general health status of California’s foreign-born populations’, Journal of Immigrant Health 9: 125-136. U.S. Bureau Census. 2010. Retrieved on 2 February from https://www.census. gov/2010census/data/ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2019. Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: Department of Health and Human Services. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 2007. Asian American and Pacific Islander Work group report to chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, retrieved on 30 January 2019 from file:///Users/yxa582/Desktop/ Asianpercent20Americanpercent20andpercent20Pacificpercent20Islanderpercent20Workpercent20Grouppercent20Report.webarchive Wang, C.D. and Mallinckrodt, B. 2006. ‘Acculturation, attachment, and psychosocial adjustment of Chinese/Taiwanese international students’, Journal of Counseling Psychology 53(4), 422-433, retrieved on 2 February from http://dx.doi. org/10.1037/0022/0167.53.4.422. Wing, Sue D. 2008. Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Wooksoo. K. and Robert. H. 2010. ‘Barriers to Healthcare Among Asian Americans, Social Work in Public Health 25:3-4, 286-295. World Health Organization. 1947. ‘The Constitution of the World Health Organization’, WHO Chronicle 1. World Health Organization. 2001. Strengthening Mental Health Promotion (fact sheet number 220). Geneva: World Health Organization. Wu, Y., Sah, V. and Tidwell, A. 2016. ‘Housing Preferences of Asian and Hispanic/ Latin Immigrants in the United States: A Melting Pot or Salad Bowl?’ Real Estate Economics, retrieved on 2 February from http://doi:10.1111/1540-6229.12178 Zhang, A.Y., Snowden, L.R. and Sue, S. 1998. ‘Differences between Asian and White Americans’ help seeking and utilization patterns in the Los Angeles area’, Journal of Community Psychology 26(4): 317-326. Zhang, W., Ta, M.V. 2009. ‘Social connections, immigration-related factors, and self-rated physical and mental health among Asian American’, Social Science and Medicine 68: 2104-2112.

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About the authors Susheelabai R. Srinivasa is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Work of the University of Rio Grande Valley (Texas, USA). Earlier, she worked as a Lecturer at the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas-Pan American for a year. As a practitioner, she served for nearly 20 years in different settings, both in India and in the United States. Her research interests include stress among students, math and test anxiety in students, school adaptation and behavioural issues, eating habits and disorders, and mental-health issues of Asians. She holds a Bachelor of Social Work from the College of Social Work (India) and a Master of Social Work from Sri Padmavathi Women’s University, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Osmania University (India), and an M.B.A. from Lourdes University (USA). Dr. Srinivasa is also trained and certified in Hypnotherapy. Email: [email protected] Sudershan Pasupuleti is currently a Professor at the Social Work Department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Recently Dr. Pasupuleti served as Undergraduate Program Director and Professor at the University of Toledo. He has nearly 30 years experience in teaching, research, practice, and consulting for working with large systems (communities and organizations), including 12 years of administrative experience. Dr. Pasupuleti has 35 peerreviewed journal articles/book chapters and a book to his credit, in addition to more than 70 professional presentations at regional, state, national, and international conferences. Dr. Pasupuleti received the Outstanding Researcher Award in 2010 from the UT Judith Herb College of Education, and the Health Science and Human Service and University of Toledo Award for his Outstanding Contribution for Outreach and Community Engagement in 2012. More recently he was awarded Shining Star of the Month for his work in the Inter-Professional Education Team during 2013-2014 at the University of Toledo. Dr. Pasupuleti served as member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Community Practice and as Special Editor for its special edition on service learning (2009-2012). He was also Special Editor for the Journal of Social Development Issues (2012-2013). Dr. Pasupuleti currently serves as Editor for the International Journal of Social Perspectives, is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Social Science Research and an Editorial member of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and the Journal of Practicing Social Change. Email: [email protected]

8

‘Care of the Self’ and Discipline in Smart Cities Sensors in Singapore Joost Alleblas and Steven Dorrestijn

Abstract What is the meaning of the ‘care of the self’ in Sensor Societies such as Singapore, where discipline and control seem to come first? Assessing sensoring and behaviour control in Smart Cities, Michel Foucault’s pivotal work on surveillance and power is still highly relevant. Applying this work on surveillance studies also needs to take into consideration Foucault’s later work on the care of the self, as well as revisit his work on power. This amounts to a framework of surveillance pulled apart and inside-out: from top-down hierarchical surveillance to lateral surveillance among people, and even to self-surveillance. Interwoven with this theoretical development is a reportage about the experience of walking the streets of Singapore with an eye to emerging forms of self-care in this situation of ubiquitous surveillance. Keywords: Singapore, Sensor Society, self-care, Foucault, surveillance theory

Introduction This text discusses the value of Michel Foucault’s work for a contemporary ethics of technology, especially focusing on surveillance and behaviour control. In our era of smart and connected technologies, the character of what used to be called surveillance is changing. Whereas power relations between citizens and the state used to be a principal concern, nowadays GAFAMA (as French futurologist and technology critic Joël de Rosnay refers

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to the Internet giants Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Ali Baba), may have a bigger controlling impact on our lives than the state. Moreover, people record and share pictures and data about and among each other just as much. The emblematic technology associated with surveillance during the past decades was the camera (CCTV). In the smart world the sensor may take over this pivotal role. For a case study we refer to Singapore as a forerunner of what we label a Sensor Society. Singapore is a frontrunner in developing an urban Sensor Society in which movement, access, and interaction are mediated and controlled by sensors. Passes, chips, and biometric data determine who moves when in the city, determine who is admitted to enjoy its functions and benef its, and determine who delivers a viable contribution to the city. Current trends and developments in urbanism, which fall under the label of Smart City, have created a tension between discipline and self-care. In this chapter we develop a critique of the Sensor Society that acknowledges both the disciplinary tendencies and (emerging) forms of self-care. What is the meaning of the ‘care of the self’ in Sensor Societies such as Singapore, where discipline and control seem to come first? Our approach addresses research questions related to how self-care and discipline apply in a Smart City and elaborates the work of Michel Foucault (1926-1984). This is appropriate for a number of reasons. Firstly, Foucault is an important thinker on the care of the self (and therefore, obviously, his work is a recurrent reference in this collection on the care of the self and the city). However, Foucault was even better known for his work on ‘disciplinary power’, which is a key reference in surveillance studies, and continues to be relevant with the advent of today’s Smart Cities. This makes his work the perfect starting point for research into control and care of the self in Singapore. This starting point benefits from using Foucault’s work in assessing the impact of technology, particularly his work on disciplinary power and surveillance, including of course his famous discussion of the Panopticon. However, his later work on ethics as care of the self is a fascinating and essential supplement for understanding how humans conduct their lives through critical engagement with external conditions (see also Dorrestijn 2012a; 2012b). The notion of ‘the government of ourselves and others’ from Foucault’s last lectures (2011; 2012), indicates his concerns for practices of power and of an ethical self-care. A twofold approach encompassing disciplinary power and self-care will be very useful in assessing the ambivalent impact of technology on our

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culture, i.e., both in empowerment and suppression. This recombination of power and self-care extends and augments the relevance of Foucault’s work for assessing technologies and issues of surveillance and power in the light of contemporary technical and societal developments. As a result, our critical attention should extend from privacy and surveillance to networktechnology-driven sensoring-governing relationships between people and with commercial parties as much as with the state. This text will deliver an ethical discussion of the Sensor Society, with a focus on Foucault’s thought. We are aware that a more complete discussion would have to take into account different approaches to the ‘good life’, ‘autonomy’, and ‘authenticity’ that colour Western and Eastern ethics to really apprehend the acceptance and functioning of sensoring in Singapore, but falls somewhat outside of this paper’s discussion. Another interesting topic that we cannot cover due to space constraints is the relationship between Foucault’s take on the care of the self and the Asian traditions of practices of the self (which can be seen elsewhere in this book, and in Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West). There is certainly a link between the practices of the self in Asian philosophy and the premodern tradition in the West, which is Foucault was seeking to revive. In the following text, we have chosen another approach. In 2016 one of the authors, Joost Alleblas, made a study trip with students and staff to Singapore. As a result of this, we will juxtapose two forms of text: 1) the impressions of being in Singapore and walking its streets, and 2) a critical analysis of sensors from within a certain tradition in surveillance studies that tries to preserve the best of Foucault, while acknowledging that both disciplining and surveillance have changed with the advent of ubiquitous, dispersed, and more sophisticated surveillance technologies.

Surveillance pulled apart and inside-out In Western thinking during the twentieth century, universal and totalizing narratives as well as the over-regulative government, were met with criticism. Michel Foucault contributes to this line of thinking with his concept of ‘disciplinary power’. In his later works he tries to revive the ancient classical notion of the ‘care of the self’ for contemporary usage. Foucault aimed at reclaiming territory for the perspective of self-care and individual political agency and reducing the importance of disciplinary power and expert-knowledge.

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The Panopticon was a plan drafted by the philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham for a circular prison (c.1790)1. In this building all the prisoners were to be held in a separate cell and could be continuously inspected from a central watch tower, which caused them to behave in accordance with what the gaze expects from them: obedience of the law. What is for Bentham a utopian plan is discussed by Foucault, rather, as being a dystopian nightmare. It is because of Foucault’s critical analysis that the Panopticon counts today as a symbol of the demise of privacy in our society full of surveillance cameras and data collection. Foucault’s Panopticon analysis has become a foundational text for Surveillance Studies, the research field specializing in questions concerning camera surveillance, data collection and storage, and today’s mobile and online technologies (Lyon 2007; Galič et al., 2017). Still, within Surveillance Studies, as well as from the side of critical thinking about technology more broadly, Foucault’s work has become challenged. It is true that the Panopticon has rapidly become an emblematic model for modern society as a disciplinary apparatus, which moulds people into obedient and economically useful individuals, but the question has risen to what extent the Panopticon still is (or ever was) the most fitting model for understanding the linkage and co-evolution of technology, surveillance, and power. For one, Gilles Deleuze (1992) argued that we no longer live in a ‘disciplinary society’ but in a ‘society of control’: individuals are not being disciplined, rather populations are being controlled. This has become an oft-repeated critique on Foucault’s approach to surveillance. A more recent critique holds that while the Panopticon, framed as an all-encompassing apparatus, powerfully supports radical social critique, it covers up the interactive and participatory elements of people’s engagement in society (Galič et al., 2017). According to Anne Brunon-Ernst (2013) the Panopticon is not outdated, but we have to return to Bentham for a richer picture because Foucault’s rendering was too narrow. With Foucault’s later work now better edited and published we know that he actually extensively considered transformations of power arrangements, and that he himself anticipated the society of control that Deleuze envisioned. Moreover, participatory elements were already fully anticipated in Bentham’s original Panopticon plans and also in Foucault’s rediscovery and critical assessment of these ideas. The Panopticon remains an extremely 1 The ‘Panopticon Writings’ have been published in the collective works Bentham 1843, Vol. XIII. See Bentham (2002) for a concise version that was edited in French in 1791. See Bentham (2005) for a contemporary English selection.

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rich concept and attains new relevance in our world, which is full of smart technologies. We will show how a narrow conception of the Panopticon and surveillance may be stretched out and pulled inside-out. With stretching out we mean that next to ‘hierarchical surveillance’ the Panopticon plans also already included ‘lateral surveillance’ and ‘self-surveillance’. With pulling inside-out we mean that this stretching out of surveillance can and should be combined with Foucault’s perspective on the relation of disciplinary power to the care of the self.

Singapore Sensor City: an impression Walking the streets of Singapore, as we did in October 2016, might feel like walking in the fully automated Sensor City of the future – as a Dutch magazine would have it (De Groene Amsterdammer, 2014). The city is clean, efficient, and safe. Crime figures are among the lowest in the world, the city is free of graffiti, drug abuse, mostly free of the diseases found in neighbouring countries (Singapore sits in the tropics, one degree north of the equator), and has recovered rapidly from the financial crisis of the past decade. It is a financial success story and an experimental zone, a meritocracy and a new hybrid between technology, capitalism, and behavioural tinkering. Economic progress, ethnic harmony, and security form the backbone of Singapore’s success, and technology helps it to advance these centrepieces. Walking the streets of Singapore, we were captivated by the functional, efficient organization of city life. Automation means speed, effortless transition from home to workspace, street to building, workspace to mall. One moves between these instances of city life and believes one is watching the future – and being watched by the future – a flâneur once more, admiring the fruit of late (techno)capitalism. A strange experience, as Daniel Goh (2014) emphasized; walking in Singapore is not so much meaningful as it is an incidental and efficient movement between home, train, work, and mall. Meaningless, that is; our awe and wonder did not connect to the story of human struggle that Singaporeans tell themselves (from swamp to metropole in a matter of mere decades) but rather to the absence of traces of this struggle in this vision of a city. Singapore, as a city-state, has three necessary characteristics that would justify far-going experimentation with sensors and surveillance. First of all, Singapore is a de facto one-party state, governed since 1959 by the People’s Action Party (PAP). Secondly, the existing meritocratic narrative that justifies both this experimentation and its disciplinary policies, is built

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around the need to survive as a small state with no natural resources, in a region that is often in economic and political turmoil and transition, a region that is dynamic and competitive. We encountered this narrative in our talks with officials from the Singapore University of Technology and Design: Singapore has nowhere to go, and has to navigate the divide between individual desires and collective needs. Singapore is highly dependent on attracting foreign capital and needs to present a good (that is: trustworthy) climate for such investments. Thirdly, and this is to some extent speculative, a majority of Singaporeans seem to share the assumption that big problems are not best served by a democracy but rather by the ideology of the PAP, if we extrapolate from 50 years of free and fair election results. That is, the narrative and the policies, institutions, and regulations that are supported by it, form a structural background to how this society, and its electorate, sees itself (for further discussion of this political image, see Hwee, 2006; Heng, 1997; Barr, 2012; Goh, 2014; Hill and Lian, 2013; Mauzy and Milne, 2002). These three characteristics together form the frame in which measures to control, organize, and protect civilian life are evaluated, made sense of, and accepted. The walk through the city is captured in its entirety by CCTV. In housing blocks alone, 52,000 cameras have been installed since 2012, presumably against ‘loan sharks’ (Heng 2016). Over 600 CCTV cameras cover the roads in Singapore. The Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) surveillance system has a camera in every train, train station, and train depot (Yeo 2008). Each bus has at least five CCTV cameras, depending on whether it is a single- or a double-decker (Tan 2006). Equipped with face-recognition software, the system integrating the camera footage can trace and follow citizens through the city effortlessly. To provide an example: on 4 March 2015, two Germans were arrested for spray-painting an MRT-train in Singapore (Chong 2015). They were traced through CCTV back to their hotel (which they had already left). Although having already left the country, they were followed to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, where they were arrested and extradited to Singapore. They were sentenced to nine months each and three strokes of the cane. (Several Singaporeans we met, officially, and in the shopping malls we often went to to escape the equatorial heat, proudly shared stories like these, highlighting the efficiency of the police.) Furthermore, as Jiow and Morales (2015) argue, citizens also play a role in capturing incidents of daily life on their smart phones and sharing these via online media. They thus provide lateral surveillance: the surveillance of citizens by citizens. This lateral form of surveillance is ubiquitous: especially when riding the metro one realizes that those fellow-travellers, watching

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their mobile screens, could easily point it toward you, the person not completely familiar with the rituals and vices of Singapore’s metro transport system, despite the many signs, telling you how not to sit, where not to sit, and which items not to consume. Jiow and Morales (2015) conclude ‘that fear of publicity has statistically significant impact on the respondents’ social behaviours across all domains and in general’ (Jiow and Morales 2015). Indeed, the need to be guided through the customs, practices, and rituals of city life at first feels welcome. As if the manual for blending-in is posted on the outside of all public objects and does not depend upon a long process of potentially embarrassing or even shameful trial and error. In all public spaces that one walks through one is pointed out how to stand, and where to stand. This includes painted footprints on escalators, lines drawn to indicate where to wait for the driverless metro or where to wait in line for metro tickets. You must not lean on pillars, or crowd the control barriers or park fences. Indications of proper behaviour are abundant in signs in the metro. The state decides where you should stand in public spaces in order not to bother others. This is, then, a city that is not so much produced by capital, as Walter Benjamin describes nineteenth-century Paris, but a city concocted by a patriarchal meritocracy that manages it as a company (or even a well-run school), taking away individual decisions about proper conduct in public spaces and taking away the production of such decisions and mores in the everyday behaviour and confrontation of fellow citizens. Instead, such decisions have been delegated to sensors, signs, policing, and an extensive CCTV network. Coming from Amsterdam and Berlin, in the end one feels a bit stupid throughout, almost like being a child once again. And it does not end here. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced on 20 August 2017 that the different sensor systems, such as the CCTV network, would merge into ‘an integrated national sensor network’ (Lee 2017). He added, We are making every lamppost a smart lamppost, meaning it can mount different types of sensors, on any of the lampposts. We are installing more CCTV cameras in public spaces. We are combining inputs from different sources: the police, the LTA [Land Transport Authority], hotels and commercial buildings, even hand phones which are effectively sensors on the ground. And we are learning to analyse this combined data, for instance artif icial intelligence, to automatically flag when something unusual is happening. So, if I have 10,000 cameras, I don’t need 1,000 people watching those cameras, I just need maybe 10 people […] Each person can watch 1,000 cameras and if the AI detects that

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something funny is happening, it will pop up and the man can pay attention and the response can be directed […] So, one day we have an incident, like the Boston bombings, then the home team can assess the situation quickly and respond promptly, or even pre-empt it from happening […] (Lee 2017).

This has been quoted at length here to show that a (benevolent) patriarchal state, using signage to indicate appropriate behaviour is starting to frame itself as a (benevolent) police state, in the end pre-emptively sensing bombings through an AI system that is ‘monitored’ by a mere 10 people. It professes a desire, furthermore, to change the entire city-state, the whole of city life, into data. Every lamppost needs to be (possibly) converted into a sensing entity, registering a whole range of different micro-events; every mobile phone needs to be scanned for possible useful data. The fact that this AI system needs to be self-learning to cope with clean and dirty data, to lay connections between vast ranges of data to expose the terrorists, are issues that we want to address further in connection with the effects of multiple forms of surveillance on city life in Singapore.

Disciplinary power In Discipline and Punish (Foucault 1977), Michel Foucault describes how modern society is characterized by ever more institutions with specific procedures which every individual must learn to follow. Under the guise of advances in knowledge and efficiency, everybody has to go through the levels at school, adapt to the rhythm of machines and strict working hours in factories, and undergo treatment procedures in hospital. The advantages are hard to deny. Who would not want to cultivate oneself by education? And many people have such serious medical conditions that they would not have survived without modern hospital care. But do we also see the price of this progress? Foucault compares the divisions, rankings, and procedures that have come to structure all activities in modern life with the discipline in the military. Each of us becomes disciplined: our body, behaviours, and ways of thinking are shaped by exercises. In modern democratic societies people have gained freedom in the sense that they have more civil rights. However, Foucault points out that this has been accompanied by a huge increase in interference with the details of our everyday life. For Foucault, this amasses a new form of power, not of a human ruler who dominates us, but an ‘anonymous’ power

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that ‘disciplines’: each of us becomes adapted and trained to function well in modern society. This modern society is a society full of tools, devices, and systems. To live in a way well-adapted to this society means that one also must learn to use and embody all those things, some highly technical, others less so. Foucault brings this to the fore by watching how soldiers are disciplined to all march in exactly the same way, to carry their weapons and shoot: soldier and gun are forged into a single hybrid unity. Comparable, though less coercive, is the process of learning to write at school (when many left-handed people were forced to write with their right hand – as the editor of this volume was obliged to do in Ireland in the early 1970s). It is soon forgotten afterwards, but it takes a lot of practice to hold a pen (especially if it is the ‘wrong’ hand), and then to learn to draw big and small loops, before we can finally smoothly write down our thoughts. Technology plays an important part in Foucault’s analysis, and the most famous and remarkable example of this is the technology to which we now turn: the Panopticon.

The Panopticon Jeremy Bentham presented his Panopticon plan as a model for an inspection house designed to effectively watch over a large number of people. The design consisted of a ring of cells, six floors high, built around a central watchtower. On the inside, directed towards this tower, the cells would be largely open; only a light iron grating was planned. The central watchtower itself would be covered with a transparent curtain ‘that allows the gaze of the inspector to pierce into the cells, and that prevents him from being seen’ (Bentham 2002: 12-13; cf. Bentham 1843, IV: 44). This is the essential architectural feature that generates a specific power relation between watcher and watched. Thus, a ‘simple architectural invention’ (Bentham 1843, IV: 39; cf. Bentham 2002: 11) makes possible efficient surveillance and control of people in prisons, asylums, schools, and ultimately society at large. It is important to note, however, that the submission of the prisoners to the guards by means of power inequality is not the ultimate goal. Bentham envisions that the inspectors themselves could also be put under surveillance. In the end there would be hardly any inequality, because sub-inspectors will be inspected by chief inspectors, who would in their turn be inspected too (Bentham 2002, 15; cf. Bentham 1843, IV, 46). Ultimately, when everybody can see everybody else, a separate guard would no longer be needed. Power inequalities disappear.

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Or power is even dissolved altogether, as people will voluntarily behave correctly. Bentham believed that continuous surveillance would help to shape our moral conscience to perfection: ‘Being constantly under the eyes of an inspector, is in fact losing the power to do evil, and almost the thought of wanting to do it’ (Bentham 2002: 14). Bentham is also the father of the utilitarian doctrine in ethics according to which an action is good if it results in an increase of happiness for the actor and others. In an ideal world – a panoptic world, Bentham believed – everyone would always immediately experience the right consequences of any action, and people would correct themselves and behave according to the principle of maximizing happiness.

Surveillance multiple The Panopticon should not be seen as outdated because it forecloses the more participatory elements of surveillance that come to the fore with the digital, smart, and mobile devices of today. Bentham’s original plan already foresaw an evolution in this direction. Indeed, hierarchical surveillance, with a guard looking over imprisoned subjects, is the basic figure of the Panopticon. But it is also part of the original plan that surveillance should finally be distributed, rendering a participatory form of surveillance or what we refer to as ‘lateral surveillance’. Moreover, Bentham view on the moral effects of ubiquitous surveillance also points in the direction of yet a third dimension, namely of what we refer to as ‘self-surveillance’. All of these aspects of Bentham’s Panopticon plans are taken up by Foucault, but in a suspicious rather than enthusiastic vein. Firstly, Foucault was as impressed as Bentham about the massive hierarchical power effect an architectural design can have. Secondly, Foucault also reports the idea that a guard becomes ultimately unnecessary when a totally transparent society of people inspects and correct each other (lateral surveillance). Thirdly, Foucault considers how surveillance is internalized by people and thus develops into self-surveillance. While Bentham’s dream is a transparent society which elevates people’s morality, Foucault foresees ‘panopticism’ (1977: 208): indeed, a dispersion of surveillance throughout society, but in the form of disciplinary power which turns people into docile bodies instead of free moral subjects. Although the more participatory dimensions of surveillance are present in Foucault’s analysis of the Panopticon, his overall evaluation of the actual implementation of surveillance is rather gloomy in Discipline and Punish. Foucault mostly saw hierarchical disciplinary power as subjecting people. After a

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further investigation of surveillance in Singapore we will turn to Foucault’s later work on the ‘care of the self’. There we can find suggestions for how the hierarchical power perspective of panopticism can be complemented with the perspectives of individual people.

Surveillance in Singapore Above, we have allowed for three forms of surveillance: 1) hierarchical (big) data surveillance of corporations and governments, and the synoptic surveillance of the few by the many (Elmer 2003); 2) lateral surveillance between citizens; and finally; 3) self-surveillance of the citizen of himor herself. These forms merge into one another: lateral surveillance can become part of hierarchical surveillance, as laterally captured data is available to corporations and governments, and extensive collaboration exists between national security agencies and GAFAMA. Both these forms of surveillance, furthermore, deliver incentives for the individual to surveil him- or herself accordingly, what we could call ‘self-censoring’. Vice versa, fitness apps stimulate one to share data of one’s morning run, effectively creating lateral surveillance (an audience) for one’s achievements in the hope of more motivation (group pressure), but this is data that could be bought by insurance companies, one’s employer, etc. The Quantified Self Movement (QSM) seems to come closest to a ‘pure’ form of self-sensoring (without censoring), in the sense that one chooses the bodily functions and mental states about which one wants to store data and analyse (Sharon and Zandbergen 2015; Lupton 2012). However, the QSM seems an anomaly in data capture and storage, most citizens are not aware of controlling the data they share and the data they use to improve their or others’ vision of the good life. The aforementioned three forms of surveillance, hierarchical, lateral, and individual (self), abound in Singapore. One knows and realizes that one is being watched constantly. Complete visibility is not, however, accompanied by complete transparency, one knows and sees that one is always watched (except in one’s hotel room, where CCTV is assumed to be replaced by less visible forms of, for instance, cell-phone surveillance). What is being monitored and in which way(s) one’s ‘data double’ (Lyon, 2007; Lupton, 2012) is stored, assessed, and analysed is not apparent. Indeed, one does not even know one’s data double; the mirror subject that emerges out of the data-capturing techniques, a complete virtual subject (Elmer 2003) that is, like Gogol’s nose, however (more) actively participating in the reconstruction

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of civil society. Furthermore, given the futility of talking about privacy in a Sensor Society such as Singapore, one can only hope that one’s data double is a useless mismatch, a Wolperdinger, a mess of unprofitable data. There is little sense in trying to mould this mirror subject to our own sense of self, although several artists have recently tried to intervene in the process of this creation of mirror subjects. Justine Gangneux, for instance, focuses on the artistic challenges of surveillance processes. She sees people engaging with surveillance in their everyday life ‘altering, noticing, playing, appropriating, questioning, and/or complying with it’ (Gangneux 2014: 443). These different approaches can take the form of (ironic) resistance. Examples of this are Adam Harvey’s CV Dazzle (2010), in which he camouflages his model to con face detection software. In Evidence Locker (2004) by Jill Magid, the artist, dressed in a red trench coat, asks Citywatch, the company in charge of Liverpool’s surveillance, to guide her through the city with her eyes closed, directed by the ‘eyes’ of the CCTV system. In Tracking Transience (2002-ongoing) Hasan Elahi, after being detained in Detroit for alleged terrorist activities (and cleared of these suspicions), started tracking his every movement and sharing this online. Hito Steyerl (2013) has developed five instructional videos on how not to be seen in a world full of surveillance systems. This list continues, as artists play with surveillance, decorate the cameras, show how the system can be destroyed, made useless, how the watchers become the watched, etc. It is perhaps significant that we found no such irony or play in Singapore. At the same time, it is too easy to immediately discredit the technological design of public interaction. As strangers in a foreign city, we often felt the pressure to conform, to tune in, to blend in. The ubiquity of sensortechnology is something one might experience as an extra restriction on personal freedom (a form of social claustrophobia) and as a force of disciplinary power that lays extra stress on conformism. Often these forms of power justify themselves, since we do not know what is left of the sensitivity to the needs of others in the public sphere, not if we can let go and leave decisions, and the behaviour that results from them, to the flux of interactions between individuals. Secondly, if disciplining is transferred to the realm of technology, the normativity inherent in this transference becomes invisible and irreversible. The technology appears value-free, translated to terms that fit technological power: efficiency, certainty, and infallibility. This is how a foreign wanderer understands Singapore at first, as a city-state afraid to let go and a city-state that more and more relies on technology and technocratic language to overcome its fear that what lies underneath is chaos, violence, and (economic) destruction (this fear of chaos

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in particular is characteristic of the paternalistic mindset in Singapore, founded as it is on Confucian principles). One of the popular doomsayers about the possibility of solving all social issues with technology, Evgeny Morozow, talks about ‘solutionism’ (Morozow 2013). Solutionism is the idea that technology makes it easier for people to connect, to bring together demand and supply, to make them better versions of themselves. At the same time, however, technology is used to keep people apart. This is one way of looking at the Sensor City; a system based on biometric information that regulates the inclusion and exclusion of individuals in different social, economic, and political strata of the city. It diminishes the interaction of individuals and the social dynamics that seem to have defined city life. Sensors decide who has access to certain districts, services, buildings. Contact with persons that are not on the same access level is avoided, the city is frictionlessly adapted to the status of its inhabitants. The city is, furthermore, divided into zones of access, as happened after the siege of Fallujah in 2004 (Graham 2012) but also during the Nuclear Summit in The Hague a decade later. For every zone, except the lowest, one needs a clearance. And technology enables this zonification of the city. But Singapore is also a city that enables its citizens to walk its streets safely. As one blogger noted, there is no better city to leave your laptop unattended on a café table (Kwann 2012). Citizens are able to live a productive, healthy, and safe life in a booming economy, because they are willing to share their data and often consciously do so. They stream, store, and capture data knowing that this data is being monitored by others. They have traded parts of their privacy and now reap the rewards of this trade. In this perspective, technology is offering a helping hand, travel time is reduced, the temperature inside buildings is low (something of particular importance for productivity – both as worker and consumer – given the climate), the city is clean, the occurrence of tropical disease is kept to a minimum, and so on, because people have accepted the price they pay for these benefits. A belief in and focus on technological progress in exchange for privacy, one could say, has made Singapore what it is. To extend such a belief to all realms of society is questionable. Secondly, that other, more dynamic and open social problems are delegated to technology as well, rephrased to fit the narrative of interlinking technological and economic progress, is troublesome, since it provides Singaporeans little possibility of opting-out and switching off. This leads us to one further point; when opting-out is no longer possible, a subscription one cannot cancel, resignation without resistance seems the only viable coping strategy for civilians. In our street interviews and small talks with shopowners, this

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strategy abounded. Our conversations often dwelled upon happiness. No one told us they were happy; life was hard but safe. The pressure to perform, under the watchful eye of the government, led to stress, but allowed for little room to vent it. And those we spoke to accepted this.

Power transformations The dilemmas posed by Singapore can be elaborated through the later work of Michel Foucault. In the years after Discipline and Punish was published he was working on a never-completed multi-volume history of sexuality. In this, Foucault broadened his scope from disciplinary power to the theme of government techniques and practices more generally. He considered, for example, how disciplinary power (shaping the individual’s behaviour) over time evolved into bio-politics: the government of populations with new techniques such as statistics. This compares with Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the society of control. Foucault explored how discipline had a precursor in ‘pastoral power’, the guidance of church members or citizens by pastors or monarchs according to the model of the caring shepherd. Quite surprisingly for many, Foucault’s last books, from 1984, appeared to be about the care of the self in Greek and Roman culture. This meant a remarkable shift of attention from the government of others to the government of oneself. In his lectures from 1980 we can see how the ‘inside’ of power relations, the perspective of the self, is coming to the fore: Governing people is not a way to force people to do what the governor wants; it is always a versatile equilibrium, with complementarity and conflicts between techniques which assure coercion and processes through which the self is constructed or modified by oneself (Foucault 1999: 162).

In his work on disciplinary power, the perspective of the people under this power was largely absent. Now Foucault came to recognize and value that the self is not only produced by governing techniques, that are, imposed on individuals by way of disciplinary practices, but that the ways of coping with influencing circumstances by techniques of self-governing and self-discipline are equally important. In short, having studied the field of government by taking as my point of departure techniques of domination, I would like in years to come to study government […] starting from techniques of the self (Foucault 1999: 163).

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Foucault comes to understand power as strategic relations between people, as games of governing and being governed. A critique of power should not consider power simply as repression. Power is not the adversary of the ‘self’, and it can never be altogether overcome. Every instance of subjectivity is entangled in relations of dependency and government, and thus related to power. Instead of a pre-existing universal self that could be affected and repressed by power, Foucault suggests that ‘the self is nothing other than the historical correlation of the technology built in our history’ (Foucault 1999: 181).

Care of the self The care of the self is complementary to Michel Foucault’s study of power: the ‘inside’ perspective on how people govern themselves and cope with external influences is added to the ‘outside’ perspective of power. This also means that power is no longer the opposite of ethics. In the sense of a discontent with existing power structures, there was always an underlying ethical dimension to Foucault’s work. But on the surface, the emphasis on power was in opposition to Enlightenment ideals and modern ethical theories, such as Jeremy Bentham’s. In ancient ethics, the emphasis was less on codes and their theoretical foundation, and more on individual people’s ethical practices (Foucault 1992: 30). Foucault thinks that there was an awareness of ‘subjectivation’, meaning an active stance towards the formation and transformation of oneself through one’s activities and engagement with others and circumstances (something that is explored in Chapter 1 of Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West, ‘Citizenship and the Good Life’ by Gregory Bracken). This focus on subjectivation was lost in modern ethical theories, according to Foucault. Modern ethics puts forward universally binding principles, accompanied by a belief in the human beings as a free and rational subject who is thus able to respond to the vocation of the moral principles. The problem of human freedom in relationship to both moral laws and determinations in physical reality is explicitly considered in the ethics of Immanuel Kant. In Bentham’s work there is, with hindsight, a strange naiveté about the paradoxes of human freedom. Is it logical that the Panopticon, by its deterministic effects, sets people free to act fully in accordance with the rational principle of maximizing happiness? Foucault criticises modern Western thought for its focus on a given free and rational subject. First, he revealed how power produces modes of being of human subjects; later on

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he proposes a broad meaning of ethics that is precisely about this formation of subjects. Foucault mostly wrote about the care of the self in the context of a research into sexual ethics and practices in ancient times (Foucault 1992: 1990). His historiography covers behaviours and customs with regard to things like personal hygiene, as well as sex and love. Practices that he brings to the fore as contributing to self-transformation are, for example, meditation, consultation with mentors, and confession (in later Christian times). A topic that Foucault also discussed, apart from the history of sexuality, is writing as a self-practice. He analyses how the practice of writing letters and, later, diaries accompanies and perhaps promotes the development of a more intense sense of self (Foucault 2000a). In a late article that links his interest in the ancient care of the self to his earlier studies of modern society, Foucault mentions political activism and modern art as examples of self-transformative practices today (Foucault 2000b). Critical philosophy and ethics should include these practices so that philosophy becomes a way of living again instead of a theoretical discourse only, and this is one of the key themes to emerge from this book (and its companion, Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West): the importance of the care of the self.

Technical mediation and subjectivation Michel Foucault did not himself connect his earlier researches on surveillance and the Panopticon to his later work on the care of the self, although this does seem relevant for contemporary ethics around the themes of surveillance and smart technology. Surveillance studies, as has been said, has remained focussed on Foucault’s work on power, but some scholars have begun exploring how the care of the self and technology can be recombined. The anthropologist Jean-Pierre Warnier (2001) was a pioneer in this respect. He proposed using Foucault’s later work to develop a ‘praxeological approach to subjectivation in a material world’, by which he meant the ethnographic study of people’s practices of dealing with technical products in all areas of life and bringing to the fore the contribution to self-formation. Warnier noted that, ‘as a historian and a philosopher, Foucault has never been concerned with making explicit what could be an ethnography of the techniques of the self’. He adds: ‘Foucault never concerned himself with providing a detailed analysis of the processes by which the material contraptions […] reach the subjects and act upon them’ (Warnier 2001: 12).

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This is true for Foucault’s later work on the care of the self, but Foucault’s account of being trained in the use of pencils and rifles in Discipline and Punish is already very close to the ethnographic approach Warnier promotes. All that is necessary is to pull the earlier analysis inside-out: consider the impact of technology from the perspective of, not only the government of others, but also of the self. Exploring and extending Foucault’s contribution to the philosophy of technology leads to a framework of technical mediation and subjectivation (Dorrestijn 2012). In the philosophy of technology, ‘technical mediation’ refers to the impact of technology on the human way of living, as well as, on a deeper level, to the interdependence and hybridity of humans and technology. Subjectivation is Foucault’s notion for understanding that the self is not given once and for all, but emerges. The human being as a subject exists in the end in the performance of the care of the self. Freedom, according to Foucault, exists in the exercise of freedom (Foucault 2000c), much like the active role required for good citizenship as outlined by Gregory Bracken’s Chapter 1 of Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West. Liberation from a dominating power can be one step in the process, but it is not the fulfilment. There will always be further powers, such as impacts of technology, in our case. Freedom is therefore not the absence of influences, but rather the ongoing exercise of actively coping with the impacts of technology. Bringing to the fore and raising awareness for the significance of practices of integrating new technology in our lives is an important element of this approach. Finally, an ethics after Foucault is not compelling but rather characterized as an art of living.

Care of the self and surveillance in the smart city era In this chapter we worked towards a theoretical framework for studying surveillance and the care of the self in Singapore. We built on the work of Michel Foucault, because his work is both influential in surveillance studies, as well as in the revival of ethics as care of the self. We found that the Panopticon plan as a referential example remains full of inspiration for the study of surveillance. New technological developments, such as smart technology and sensors, bring sometimes neglected elements of the Panopticon to the fore. We have shown that there are and have always been multiple dimensions in the Panopticon plan. It was not conceived simply as a repressive apparatus, but included participatory elements from the very start. We think we can bring this to the fore by, firstly, distinguishing

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different dimensions of surveillance: hierarchical surveillance; lateral surveillance; self-surveillance. Next, we elaborated a more participatory account of subjectivation in relation to technology and surveillance. The structure of the Panopticon design and plans do not foreclose a more participatory perspective, but both Bentham’s and Foucault’s approaches rendered it marginal. Following Bentham’s modernistic belief in rationality, the ubiquitous visibility in a panoptic society elevates people’s utilitarian moral tempering, and Bentham considered that our true and perfect self. Hierarchical and lateral surveillance would sublimate into self-surveillance. For Foucault, the actual implementation of surveillance measures leads to disciplinary power that produces docile bodies. Self-surveillance and lateral surveillance are subsumed by hierarchical surveillance. The later work of Foucault on the care of the self helps, however, to correct for this one-sided view and allows us to see that people may in an affirmative way contribute to their subjectivation, instead of only suffering as victims of power. This does not mean that the hierarchical-power perspective loses relevance. With regard to current developments in smart technology, this dimension seems to become, again, highly relevant today. Our case study of Singapore exemplifies the need for active subjectivation practices amongst citizens, although little room exists for the experimentation with such practices here. Characteristic of smart technology is the use of all kinds of sensors and algorithms to profile people and tailor services. People usually have little insight into the data gathered and the decision-making algorithms that lead to the services and recommendations they are offered on the basis of these data. Thus, there is a further shift from surveillance and punishment, in which people are consciously involved in sensoring and influencing without their even being aware of it. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, we have not touched upon an interesting paradox: on the one hand, Foucault’s care of the self vis-à-vis the Asian traditions of practices of the self can be seen as premodern traditions that Foucault wants to revive in the West. On the other hand, the enthusiasm for technology in Asian societies such as Singapore can be assessed as a form of hypermodernism, to which Foucault’s critique of modernism would still very much apply. This paradox, the fragile coexistence of both premodern traditions and the hypermodern, mediate relationships between the self and others in all four of the Asian Tigers (Singapore, Hong-Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea), and this is something that merits much more elaboration and scrutiny.

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About the authors Joost Alleblas is a PhD candidate at TU Delft’s Department of Values, Technology and Innovation. His focus lies on the responsible design of socio-technical systems. He is currently working on the ERC-funded Design for Changing Values project (valuechange.eu). Email: [email protected] Steven Dorrestijn is Professor of Applied Research focusing on the Impacts and Ethics of Technology at Saxion University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool) in Deventer and Enschede, the Netherlands. Email: [email protected]

Afterword The Right to the City Gregory Bracken The papers in this book have been written, as we have seen, by researchers who come from a wide variety of different academic backgrounds, from architecture and urbanism, to anthropology, social science, psychology, and gender studies, as well as history and philosophy. They also represent a range of different experience levels, from young PhD candidates to wellestablished academics. Yet one thing unites them all, and their papers, and that is what we can call a people-centred approach. The trans- and multidisciplinary approaches that can be seen in many of these papers shed valuable new light on what are sometimes quite old problems, they can also lead to fresh perspectives in thinking of ways of dealing with them, which is entirely in keeping with the previous book, Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self. Yet if there is one thing that all of these investigations can tell us, it is the fact that cities are not simply buildings and spaces between them, cities are people and their networks of interaction. This book was always intended to be a follow-on to Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West, to continue the exploration of how people interact in a city, because what they do, and where, and how, determines how a city will operate, and also what it is like to live there. Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West had a number of papers that looked at the past, while this book, Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West, focuses on the present. Chapters 1 to 5 looked at how people live while at home. We saw Martin Minost’s examination of Thames Town, Songjiang as an example of a new kind of residential habit in urban China. His anthropological reading of spaces that have previously been severely criticized by architects and urbanists questions the too-Western understanding of authenticity to show how, by judicial borrowing from Western architectural styles, the resulting hybrid domestic

Bracken, Gregory (ed.), Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984721_after

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spaces show a new confidence in China’s city-dwellers. A confidence in their own culture that can also, perhaps, give us a glimpse of a new urban future in Asia where globalization is not necessarily Westernization. Chapters 2 and 3 examined some traditional Korean practices, including those of the jimjilbang (찜질방) or bathhouse and GiCheon (氣天), a branch of the ki suryŏn method of mind and body cultivation. By using texts and videos, as well as spatial analysis, these two papers broaden the scope of what research materials to use in investigating the spatial articulation of these traditions and practices. The next two chapters, Chapter 4 and 5, moved to India, highlighting some of the problematic aspects of care of the self in that country’s cities today, where contemporary practices that have ancient roots, such as Hindu death rituals, are being affected by sprawl and urbanization, and where the flight to the city does not necessarily mean freedom for those trapped in ancient and insidious village practices, where lower-caste people and women are made to suffer, sometimes with terrible consequences. Some practices of the care of the self can be enriching and enabling when going abroad, while others remain problematic. Chapter 6 highlights the success of the Overseas Chinese diaspora in making a new life for its members in Yokohama, Japan, while Chapter 7 takes a look at a group that is usually thought of as unproblematic in the Western world: Asian-Americans, whose mental health issues, and their reluctance to make use of mental health facilities, are storing up problems for what is usually considered a ‘model minority’. The book’s final chapter, Chapter 8, looks at Singapore’s role in developing a new type of society, one that uses sensors to control movement, access, and interaction in the city. Is this going to be a Brave New World? Are we going to blindly follow technology wherever it leads us? Asian cities such as Singapore are certainly showing the way, with electronic road-pricing and the plan to turn every lamppost into a sort of sensor to monitor citizens’ movements. But we must be careful, technology is a useful tool, yet we must never lose sight of the fact that is a tool, nothing more. Technology is there to be made use of, not enable us to abdicate our responsibilities to live as actively engaged citizens. Chapter 8 raises some important issues about citizenship in the future. As cities become ‘smarter’ and decisions are increasingly taken out of the hands of individuals, thanks to sensors and algorithms, what role will human agency still have in the running of our affairs? This may seem a little alarmist, but we must stop and think before we allow ourselves to sleepwalk too far down a road from which it may not be possible to return up.

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Human agency in the city The question of what role human agency has in the city, especially so-called ‘smart’ cities, is of the first importance. These concerns, as mentioned in the Introduction, also echo the concerns of Chapter 1, ‘Citizenship and the Good Life’ in Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self. This is where I showed the importance, at least in the ancient world, of civic engagement, where to be a proper citizen one had to be an engaged one. How engaged can we be when sensors deny us access to places? Maybe they have good reason to, maybe we have not paid the correct fee to enter the Central Business District, or maybe it is for non-payment of parking fines, but what if it is because the car you are driving is considered too dirty and will pollute the streets, or your profile does not allow you to enter certain places because you are not considered rich enough? And what if there is a mistake, they mis-match your profile to that of a terrorist or a paedophile through racial profiling or typographical errors? What role can the state have in addressing stigmas and exclusions if they once let them out of their hands, especially if they let themselves be guided by increasingly powerful transnational corporations – the instruments of advanced capitalism run by what Saskia Sassen calls predatory elites (Sassen 2014)? This is the GAFAMA of Joël de Rosnay (companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Ali Baba as highlighted by Joost Alleblas and Steven Dorrestijn in their chapter in this book). These are bodies that are growing ever more powerful and soon may be able to simply ignore states’ concerns over their activities (some of them have already shown how creative they can be when it comes to avoiding state taxes, exacerbating the expulsions highlighted by Sassen (2014)). Large transnational companies in an increasingly globalized economy are becoming more influential than some nation-states. But what about the technology they rely on, especially when it comes to privacy issues? or surveillance and control? Who is answerable for its excesses? Who gets to decide on these things any more? An algorithm busy deciding whether you are worthy to enter the city or not? Is this simple policing or could it be leading to something more sinister? The questions raised by this book’s last chapter are far-reaching in their implications and will form the point to departure for further researches into these important matters. So important, in fact, that it means nothing more or less than our very right to the city. We are beginning to see some rather worrying trends in Singapore, as highlighted by Alleblas and Dorrestijn. A city where smart technology can follow its citizens anywhere; a city

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where there is such a high technological penetration that there is lateral surveillance everywhere – anyone with a camera phone can watch and film anyone else, leading to a new sort of Panopticon, one that comes from everywhere and goes to everything and everyone. In a benevolent, democratic, and paternalistic state like Singapore this may not yet be a worry, but is Singapore the best place to be allowing these sorts of models to develop? And could we prevent them from doing so even if we wanted to? Singapore is a city notorious for its lack of freedom of expression (it famously has a Speakers’ Corner where one ever wants to speak). Singapore is like a well-run private school, but even if it continues to be well-run, and democratic, what about the precedents they are setting? What about the technologies they are developing for surveillance and control? These techniques and precedents can be used elsewhere, misused and abused elsewhere, in societies that are less responsible and less democratic. Societies that are less benevolent, societies that can take what is developing here and twist it to more nefarious ends. Alleblas and Dorrestijn already warn us that Singaporeans have little or no option of switching off, and it is their thoughtful and timely essay that makes us realize that what is going on there could spread. If we are not careful, we will not even know what we have lost until it is too late. (For a glimpse of where this might be going, readers could take a look at New Songdo in South Korea, an urban development that is examined in detail in the books Ideas of the City in an Asian Setting (Bekkering, Esposito and Goldblum 2019) and Asian Cities: Colonial to Global (Bracken 2015).) What we need now, more than ever, is human agency in the city. We cannot abdicate our involvement as citizens to others, and certainly not to machines or algorithms. This is something that can be illustrated by satellite-navigation systems in cars, where drivers can enjoy the convenience of following a route but should not abdicate all intelligence, judgement, or common sense – just because the machine tells you to take a certain route you do not have to follow it blindly, you still have to decide if it is a good route or not; you have to use your own judgement and experience as a driver if you are to avoid inconvenience or even, in some cases, danger. (Of course, once self-driving cars become the norm, which may be sooner than we think, this may not even be an option.) This taking of responsibility, of being actively engaged, has been the main focus of the entire Care of the Self project, with its two related books. Active democracy, active society, and the practices of citizenship have been the point of departure for these explorations, and will remain important issues for much future research.

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Just as we saw with Cicero and Confucius in Chapter 1 of Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West, we need to understand the past in order to inform ourselves about the present, and to plan for the future in a realistic and practical way. We need to think for ourselves. We must decide what can and cannot go on in a city, we cannot abdicate responsibility for the sake of convenience. This is exactly what Immanuel Kant enjoined us to do when he wrote ‘Sapare aude!’ (which can loosely be translated as ‘Dare to think!’ and was his answer to the question ‘What is Enlightenment?’). The Enlightenment was the Age of Reason, or, in other words, the age of thinking. We need now to think for ourselves or we may end up living in a Brave New World of curbs and limitations, a world in which we are no longer allowed to think, and that would be a very poor place indeed. Miranda, in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, wonders at the ‘brave new world’ she discovers at the end of the play, one ‘that has such people in’t’, ‘such goodly creatures’, as she calls them. We are those people, those ‘goodly creatures’. Humanity must dare to think for itself before we abdicate what it is that makes us human to systems that we are lazily beginning to allow to think for us. And that, in short, is what these two books have been all about: helping people to think. To think, with the practical aim of allowing people to lead flourishing lives, because as Aristotle points out (as quoted in Chapter 1 of Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West): the polis may have come ‘into being in order to foster life but exists for the purpose of promoting good living’ (Aristotle quoted in Giesecke 2007: 34). We all have the right to live well in the city, to f lourish, but we also have the responsibility to engage ourselves in the active practices of citizenship, and we best do this by taking care of the self.

Bibliography Bekkering, Henco, Esposito, Adèle and Goldblum, Charles (eds.). 2019. Ideas of the City in an Asian Setting. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Bracken, Gregory. 2019. ‘Citizenship and the Good Life’ in Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self, Vol. I, edited by Gregory Bracken. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Bracken, Gregory (ed.). 2019. Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self, Vol. I. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

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Bracken, Gregory (ed.). 2015. Asian Cities: Colonial to Global. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Giesecke, Annette Lucia. 2007. The Epic City: Urbanism, Utopia, and the Garden in Ancient Greece and Rome. Washington DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. Kant, Immanuel. 2009 [1784]. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? London: Penguin Books. Sassen, Saskia. 2014. Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Cambridge MA: Belknap Press. Shakespeare, William. 2018 [1623]. The Tempest, retrieved on 30 March 2018 from http://shakespeare.mit.edu/tempest/full.html

About the author Gregory Bracken is an Assistant Professor of Spatial Planning and Strategy at TU Delft and one of the co-founders of Footprint, the e-journal dedicated to architecture theory. From 2009-2015 he was a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) Leiden where he set up (with Dr. Manon Ossewijer) the Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) with a €1.2 million grant from Marie Curie Actions. While there he also established the annual IIAS-TU Delft conference series, the events that engendered this series of books, which includes Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self (Amsterdam University Press, 2019). Other publications include Asian Cities: Colonial to Global (Amsterdam University Press, 2015), The Shanghai Alleyway House: A Vanishing Urban Vernacular (Routledge 2013, translated into Chinese 2015), and Aspects of Urbanization in China: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou (Amsterdam University Press, 2012). Email: [email protected]

Index abstinence 68 academia 43, 69 acculturation 12, 21, 30, 153-154, 157, 167; see also enculturation bilinear model of 154 unilinear frameworks of 154 addiction 152 aesthetics 50, 92, 101-102 afterlife 90, 93 agency 53, 62 human 7, 11, 196, 197-198 over the city 113 political 175 Agnew, John A. 44 agricultural laborers (US) 158 AI 180 Aja 93 alchemical European alchemical knowledge 72 Iconography 75 practice 13, 72, 85 theory 73-74 transformation of the self 71, 80, 83 unity of self and cosmos 75 alchemist 72, 74, 85 alchemy Arabic 72 East Asian 81 external 72, 74 internal 67, 72, 74, 78, 80 algorithms 11, 190, 196, 198 Ali Baba 174, 197 alienation 50, 60 Alleblas, Joost 175, 197-198 altars 99 alternative lives 111 medicine 69 subjectivities 110 Amazon 174, 197 Ambedkar, B.R. 115, 117-118, 121 America/American 10, 77, 158, 161 African Americans 152, 155, 162-163 American Psychiatric Association 152 Asian Americans see Asian Americans culture 154 healthcare 164 North 55 researchers 19 society 153, 159 students 76 women 76 Amsterdam 179

Amsterdam University Press 63 amusement park 51 ancestral worship (India) 99 ancestors homage to departed 106 Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West (Bracken) 9-11, 24, 37, 114, 175, 187-189, 195, 197, 199 Ancient Greek culture see culture Ancient Roman culture see Culture animals 27, 73 anna-prasana 106 anorexia 156, 163 anthropological background 11 frameworks 129 reading of space 195 research 129-130 study 35, 69 anthropologist 11, 19, 29, 37, 129-130, 188 anthropology 10, 195 Anting 22 antyesti 90-92, 105-106 anxiety 121, 152, 154 Western 37 apartheid see South Africa Appadurai, Arjun 111 Apple 174, 197 architects 11, 19, 61, 195 British 24 Italian 22 architecture/architectural 10, 17, 20, 24, 27, 29, 33, 70, 91, 94, 96, 101, 104-105, 195 and Hindu ritual (India) 89-105 and urban models 18 architectural treatises (India) 13 architecture without architects 61 aspects 99 Biennial of Venice (2004) 59 British 20-22, 24, 27, 29, 33 concepts 55 design 182 edifices of death rites (India) 91 elements 96 European and North American ideas of 55 factors 96 feature 181 foreign (in China) 18, 21, 29, 35 invention 181 Korean 80 manifestation 62 of crematoria (India) 95 of funerary spaces (India) 92

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point of view 92 style 11-12, 22, 24, 27, 195 temple (India) 101, 105 typology 97 understanding 103 Western 18-19, 23 worth 105 Aristotle 199 Arjuna (Indian legend) 116 art 68, 73 academic discourse of 70 and craft 70 centres for 111 concealed art of the soul (Ganeri) 114 European 70 GiCheon see GiCheon martial 141 modern 188 naturalistic 73 of living 189 philosophy of 85 products of 71 sword 69, 85 visual 70 work of 71, 77, 81, 83 artisans 73 artistic achievement 71 challenges 184 artwork 70-71 aryans 105 Asia/Asian 10, 69, 158 Asian American Health Initiative 156 Asian Americans see Asian Americans Asian Cities: Colonial to Global 198 Asian Tigers 190 culture 165 East Asia/Asians 70, 72-74, 165 East Asian civilization 72 East Asian culture 71, 77, 83-84 East Asian ideas of immortality 74 East Asian philosophy 81 East Asian worldview 79 ethnic culture 153 ethnic groups 153, 158 immigrants (US) 158, 160, 162, 165 Indian adolescents (US) 154 Indians (US) 156 languages 160 migration to US 158 philosophy 175 population (US) 163, 167 society 190 South Asia see South Asia Southeast Asia see Southeast Asia sub-groups (US) 165 traditions 69, 175, 190 urban future 12 women (US) 156-157, 164

Asian Americans 14, 69, 151-167, 196 adolescents 154-156 body weight 164 expectations 159 glass-ceiling 153 help-seeking behaviour 153-154, 164 immigrant patients 165 mental-health situation of 151-152, 167; see also mental health metabolism 164 one of the fastest growing minorities in the US 153 poverty line 162 social stress 153, 162 under-represented in mental-health service utilization 153 underutilization of mental-health services 157, 167; see also mental health asylums 19, 181 Atkins, W.S. 22-23 atman 92-93, 104-106 authenticity 51-52, 195 concept of 36-37 exotic 51 in ethics 175 lack of 105 Western concept of 11, 21-22, 36 autism 152 auto-ethnographical methodology 68 automation 177 autonomy (in ethics) 175 avarna 116 avatars 69 of globalization 36 bachelor’s degree 161 Bacon, Francis 73 Badehaus see jimjilbang bamboo ceiling 160 Bammer, Angelika 128 bang 42, 53-54, 59-62, 64 Bangkok 178 banyas 58 barbershop 58 bathhouse see jimjilbang baths 52, 57-59 Japanese 59 Korean 59 bathtubs 58 Baudrillard, Jean 51 beauty 93 behaviour control 173 behavioural tinkering (Singapore) 177 Beijing Ethnic Culture Park 29 Olympic Games 24 beliefs 50, 72-73, 166 cultural 159, 166 health-related 165

Index

Benaras see Varanasi Bengaluru 97 Benjamin, Walter 179 Bentham, Jeremy 176, 181-182, 190 Panopticon see Panopticon Berlin 179 Bhabha, Homi K. 60 bhakti movements 116 big data see data binge eating 163 biometric data 15, 174, 185 bipolar disorder 152 birth cycle of birth and death 13, 90 rebirth 94, 115 blogger 185 blogs 42, 53 Bodhidharma 81, 84 body/bodily as representation of the cosmos 81 culture of 69 imitation and refinement 74 practices 13, 110 Bond, James (statue, Thames Town, Songjiang) 27 Borgmann, Katharina M. 24 Bourdieu, Pierre 35 Bracken, Gregory 37, 114, 187, 189 brahma 106 brahman 90, 93-94, 104-105 Brahmanical authority 116 Brettell, Caroline B. 129 Brick 24, 100-101 British architectural style (China) 12, 17-18, 20-22, 23-27, 29-30, 33, 35 celebrities 27 colonial phase (India) 117 décor (China) 27 history 27 Raj (India) 95 troops (China) 18 way of life 29 Bristol Christ Church of Clifton 24 Brown, Rebecca 70 Buddhist/Buddhism 117-118 Korean 80 monks 79 pagodas 79 rendering of dharma 116 symbols 80 temples 79, 84 thought 117 traditions 116 Burke, Edmund 93 cafes/cafeterias 52, 111 California 158

203 Cambodia 158 cameras 76-81, 84, 174, 178 CCTV 174 footage 178 phone 198 surveillance 176 cancer 156 cane, the (punishment, Singapore) 178 Cantonese 133, 135, 137-139, 141, 143, 145-146 Cantonese-style congee 135 community (Japan) 141 cuisine 128, 145 culture 132, 142, 144 folklore 146 migrants (Japan) 131-132, 137, 143, 146 opera 132 restaurant 128, 132-133, 140, 145 society 145 capital, foreign (Singapore) 178 capitalism 177 advanced 197 consequences of 36 neo-capitalism 36 predatory elites of 197 (techno)capitalism 177 cardiovascular disease 156 care see healthcare care of the self 9-10, 13, 15, 68, 110, 112-118, 120122, 173-190, 196, 198-199; see also self-care caregivers 165 carpenters 72 cars satellite-navigation systems in 198 self-driving 198 Cartesian moment 68 caste 114-122 caste-based identity 13 casteism 119 critique of 116 ideology 116 lower-caste 196 purity 116 Catherine II 18 CCTV see cameras cemeteries 13, 19, 97 Center for Disease Control and Prevention (US) see disease Central Business District 197 Chakravarty, Uma 116 chandalas 96 Chatterjee, Partha 110 Chelsea Garden (Thames Town, Songjiang) 25 chemistry 73 Chen, Guofen 129 Chenjia 22 Chennai 97 Chicago 152 child-naming ceremony (India) 106 childbirth 106

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Contempor ary Pr ac tices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

China/Chinese Chinese Communist Party 18 Chinese-style furniture 31 Communist revolution 18 copycat culture in 18 cultural background 21 cultural performers (Japan) 131 culture 27, 31, 36 culture (Japan) 128-129, 135-136, 143-146 enrichment of society 21 ethnic Chinese (Japan) 128, 130, 132, 135-137, 139-140, 143-146 forced opening of 18 foreign settlements 18, 20, 23 gradual liberalization 21 history 27 immigrants to US 158 imperial court of the Han dynasty 141 Lunar New Year 141, 146 modern aspirations 18 overseas Chinese 9, 14, 127-132, 134-137, 139, 141-147, 161, 196 People’s Republic of 137 society 18-20 urban 195 Western architectural models/styles 18, 195 Western-style areas 19, 21 Western-style clothes 29 Western-style constructions 18 Western-style neighbourhoods 18 Westernization of 20, 29, 33 Westernization of daily life 20, 29 Chinese Exclusion Act (US) 158 chips (microchips) 174 Choi, Jaz Hee-jeong 42, 61-63 chongyang meiwai 20 Christian practices 68 times 188 chuda-karna 106 Church Street (Thames Town, Songjiang) 27 Churchill, Winston (statue, Thames Town, Songjiang) 27 Cicero 9, 199 citasthana 99 citizens 19, 111, 173, 178-179, 183, 185-186, 190, 196-198 good citizen 9, 11, 197 non-citizens 165 self-surveillance 183 citizenship 196 good 189 practices of 10, 198-199 right to 10 ‘Citizenship and the Good Life’ (Bracken) 9, 197 city/cities as colonial creations (India) 110 city-planning (India) 92 contemporary 112

development (India) 121 freedom of 9 human agency in 197-198 legitimate 111 modernist 61 overcrowding in 22 postmodern 61 right to 195-196 city-state (Singapore) 177, 180, 184 city, zonification of 185 Citywatch 184 civic engagement 197 laws (US) 158 norms (violation of) 110 civil rights 180 civilization 69 corrupt 76, 83 East-Asian, European 72 Hindu see Hindu college education (US) 161 qualifications (US) 161 colonial British colonial phase (India) 117 creations (India) 110 powers (China) 18 worldview 110 colonization (India) 118 auto-colonization (China) 23 community 9 community-based identities (India) 122 for Asian Americans 157, 163-164 for Chinese in Japan 14, 127-132, 136-137, 141, 143-147 in India 118 in Korea 52, 71 companies 197 insurance 183 private (China) 25 subcontracting (China) 24 transnational 197 compress 53-54; see also poultice computer 69 concrete 24, 100-101 precast 100 conduct 68 how humans conduct their lives 174 proper conduct in public spaces 179 rules of 112 confession 188 Confucius 9, 199 Confucian cosmology 85 principles (Singapore) 185 constructivism 43 consumers 30, 147 coronation of kings (India) 98 corporations 183 transnational 197

205

Index

corruption 110 cosmologic principles 74 cosmogonic principles 74 counter-modernity 118 crafts 70 craftsmen 73 craftspeople 73 creative practices 74 cremation 94-98, 100-101, 103-104 ghats 95 grounds 91, 94-97, 99, 106 location and orientation of 91 process 90 Cresswell, Tim 43-44, 47 crime 159 figures 177 Crimea 18 culture/cultural 12-13, 18, 21, 35, 37, 50, 52, 58, 64, 72, 79-80, 84, 101, 121, 128, 146, 153-154, 158-159, 162, 166, 175, 196 adaptation 154 American 154 Ancient Greek and Roman 68, 186 Asian 153, 165 background 21, 31, 51, 54, 70, 81 bang (Korea) 61-62 barriers 53, 159, 167 beliefs 159, 166 belonging 19 British 27 Cantonese 132, 142, 144 Chinese 20, 27, 31, 36, 128-129, 135-136, 141-146; see also China community 71 competence 157 conditioning 70 confusion 19 contemporary 52, 74 context 77 copycat 18, 21 cross-cultural representations 11 collective tendencies 62 culture-bound syndrome 156 culture-specific help-seeking behaviour 164 culturally appropriate 163 culturally competent 163 culturally different 33 culturally engaged 79 culturally marked 35 culturally sensitive 153, 167 difference 48 East Asian 71-72, 77, 83-84; see also Asia ethnic 147 European scholarly 73 factors 153, 163 figures 27 folk 146 global 111 habits 30

horizons 154 identity 14, 19, 21 insensitivity 153 knowledge 58 Korean 45, 52, 54, 58-59, 72 level 33 lion dance 142-144 loss 20 mass 36 meaning 12, 64 mind-body 70 of East and West 74 of the body 69 performance 141 performers 131 perspective 166 populations 163 practice 141 references 30 research 61 roots 132, 146, 153 sensitivity 159 shift 33 socio-cultural networks 60 strengths 162 studies 12 symbolism in East Asian 72 systems 164 taboos 153, 159 theory 43 traditions 147 training 132 transmission 139 values 160 visual 85 Western 60 CV Dazzle 184 dalits 13, 109, 113-119, 121 danger 110, 198 data 179-180, 183-185, 190 big 183 biometric 15, 174 capture 183 collection 176 database 165 double 183-184 storage 176, 183 Davis, Mike 19 dead spirit of the 91 death 93, 97 acceptance of 91 as a passing phase of life (Hindu) 13 causes of (US) 156 cycles of birth and death (Hindu) 13, 90, 105, 115 fear of 91 penalty (India) 120 personification of (Hindu) 106

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Contempor ary Pr ac tices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

re-death (Hindu) 90 rites/rituals (Hindu) 91, 94, 105, 196 role in Hinduism 96 spaces of (in Hinduism) 91, 93 wash away presence of 98 deductive system 73 Deleuze, Gilles 176, 186 Delhi 113, 119-121 democracy 178 active 198 modern 122 den Hartog, Harry 19 depression 152, 154-156 Department of Health and Human Services (US) 156, 163 de Rosnay, Joël 173, 197 des 115 design architectural see architecture Design Architecture Studios (India) 102 Detroit 184 deviance 159 deviant behavior 60 dhamma see dharma dharma 115-116, 122 dharmic order 115 diming see yang diming discipline/disciplines 10, 69, 129, 174, 181, 186 disciplinary policies 177 disciplinary power (Foucault) 174-177, 180, 182, 184, 186, 190 disciplinary practices 186 disciplinary tendencies 15, 174 GiCheon 83 in the military 180 mind-body 70 self-discipline 186 Discipline and Punish (Foucault) 180, 182, 186, 189 discrimination 153, 157-158, 160-161 disease 74, 82, 162, 177 biological 165 cardiovascular 156 Center for Disease Control and Prevention (US) 152, 154, 157 psychological 165 tropical 185 divine mountain immortals (Korea) 80 divorce 159 domestic violence 159 domestication 55, 64 Dorrestijn, Steven 174, 197-198 Dragon Hill Spa (Seoul) 50-51 Dronacharya 116 drug abuse 177 National Survey for Drug Use and Health (US) 156 use 156, 163

Dubai 36 Durkheim, Emile 60 DVDs 12-13, 61, 67-85 eating disorders 152 economy/economics 94, 160, 162 booming (Singapore) 185 changes (for Chinese in Japan) 128 competition (India) 119 conditions (India) 101 context 20, 30 destruction 184 economically useful individuals 176 globalized 197 India 95 landscape (India) 110 liberalization (India) 95 progress 177, 185 segregation (India) 111 socio-economic conditions (China) 18 socio-economic environment (US) 160 status (US) 158-159 turmoil (Asia) 178 education 29, 106, 111, 113, 119, 145, 157, 159-161, 180 Chinese (Japan) 135-136, 139, 143, 146 college (US) 161; see also college formal 161 health (US) 164 higher 121-122, 160 Overseas Chinese 130 Edwardian period 24 Einstein, Albert 43 Eklavya 116 Elahi, Hasan 184 elderly Asian women (US) 164 Vietnamese (US) 165 women 163 elders (India) 115 elites in India 98, 101, 113 international 35 predatory (Sassen) 197 elixir 72, 85 empowerment 175 enculturation 154, 167; see also acculturation Enlightenment 187, 199; see also Reason; see also Thinking Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (US) 160 equality (India) 117 episteme see theory ethics/ethical 118, 122, 182, 187-188 ancient 187 contemporary 188 city 120 Eastern 175 Foucault 113, 174, 189

207

Index

Kant 187 meaning of 188 modern 187 of care (India) 112, 117, 119 of technology 15, 173 practices 187 revival of 189 self-care 174 sexual 188 subject 113 theories 187 Western 175 ethnic Asian Americans see Asian Americans baths (Korea) 57-58 groups (US) 152-159, 161-162, 164, 167 harmony (Singapore) 177 homogeneity (Korea) 60 identity (Chinese in Japan) 128-130, 132, 135-137, 139-140, 143-147 minorities (China) 30 ethnography 21, 188 auto-ethnographic methodology 68 ethnographic approach 70, 189 ethnographic evidence 113 ethnographic study 188 etymology 54 Europe/European 69, 73-74, 77 alchemical knowledge 72 art 70 civilization 72 cultural background 31 ideas of socializing 55 replicas of palaces and landscapes in China 17-18 scholarly culture 73 sixteenth- and seventeenth-century 73 style 31 everyday life 14, 109, 128, 130-131, 145, 180, 184 Evidence Locker (Magid) 184 evil 182 spirits 141 fables 91 Facebook 121, 174, 197 face-recognition software 178 Fallujah, siege of 185 family 14, 31, 33, 50, 63, 90, 97, 115-116, 119-120, 127-129, 131-147, 152-153, 160-162, 164 Fandry 120 Faust 68 feminist critique 70 perspective (India) 115 Fengchen 22 Fengjing 22 fengshui 31 Filipinos (US) 156 flaneur 177

folklore Chinese 129, 141, 146 fortune, good 141 Foshan 131-132, 135, 137, 140-142 Foucault, Michel 68, 89-90, 118, 121, 174 care of the self 112-114, 122, 188 critique of modern Western thought 187 critique of structuralism 9 disciplinary power 174 discipline 186 Discipline and Punish 180, 186 docile bodies 182, 190 ethics 189 freedom 189 governing people 186 governing the self 186 heterotopian spaces 19, 36 history of sexuality 188 individual ethical practices 187 modern society 181 Panopticon 176, 182, 188 pastoral power 186 practices of the self 175, 190 self-transformative practices 188 subjectivation 187 surveillance 188, 190 techniques of the self 188 technologies of the self 68 the self 187 freedom condition of 114 feeling of 64 from cycle of rebirth (India) 115 human 187 in democratic societies 180 in Foucault see Foucault in the city (India) 196 lack of (Singapore) 198 measure of 113 of the city 9 opportunity for (India) 117 personal 184 possibility of (India) 118 French troops (China) 18 Freud, Sigmund 118 Foth, Markus 42, 61-63 funeral/funerary complexes 101 grounds 95-96, 104 process 91 pyres 99, 101, 103, 105 ritual/rite 90-91, 96, 98-99, 105, 106 sacrament 103-104 spaces 13, 92, 97-99 GAFAMA 173, 183, 197 Gangneux, Justine 184 gambling 138 Ganeri, Jonardon 114

208 

Contempor ary Pr ac tices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

Gandhi 70, 118, 121 Ganges 95, 97-98, 106 Gaojiao 22 Gaoming 137-139 Gaoyao 137-139 garbhadhana 106 gated communities (India) 110 gender 13, 54, 59, 64, 120, 155, 160 gender-based identities 13 studies 10, 195 generational issues 129 status 163 geocriticism/geocritical 42-45, 47 analysis 12, 42, 44, 46, 53 Westphal’s 12, 42-44, 47 Germany 41, 48-49 ghats see cremation ghettos (India) 97 GiCheon 12-13, 67-85, 196 Giddens, Anthony 118 global capital 110 cities 110 conceptualizations of space 12 culture 111 investment 111 modern era 74 south 111-112 Globalist, The 18 globalization 12, 36, 95, 98, 100, 109-110, 196 gods (India) 94, 99 goddesses (Hindu) 115 Goh, Daniel 177 good life, the 35, 175, 183 Google 174, 197 gothic-revival style 24 governing people 186 self-governing 186 techniques 186 government 187 of oneself 174, 186 of others 174, 186, 189 over-regulative 175 practices 186 techniques 186 Great Kanto Earthquake 137 Greek/Greeks alchemy 72 Ancient 114 culture 68, 186 Greenspan, Anna 18 Guandi 141, 143, 145-146 Guangdong 131-132, 135, 139 Guilin 140 Gun 181 guna 115 guru 116

Guru, Gopal 117, 119 gyms 52, 55, 59 Hague, The 185 hammam 58 Hampton Gardens (Thames Town, Songjiang) 25 Han dynasty 141 Handler, Richard 37 happiness 68, 182, 186-187 haptic geographies 56 hardship 68, 134, 166 Harishchandra ghat (Varanasi) 98 Harry Street (Thames Town, Songjiang) 27 Harvey, Adam 184 Hayashi Keisei 131 healing 166 methods of 157, 164 self-healing 76 health bettering of (US) 64 care (US) 165 chronic conditions (US) 156 club (Korea) 55 disparities (US) 153 emotional (US) 153, 159, 163 general conditions (US) 152, 156 health-related beliefs (US) 165 healthcare (US) 157, 159, 161-165 insurance (US) 157, 162, 165 linguistic barriers to mental-health services (US) 163, 167 mental-health (US) 151-157, 159, 162-167 Hearn, Greg 42, 61-63 heating, underfloor 55; see also ondol Hebin Apartments (Thames Town, Songjiang) 25 Heshan 137-139 Hepatitis B 156 heterotopia see Foucault Hindu/Hinduism 90-91, 93, 96-97, 103, 105, 115, 118 civilization 114 crematorium 13, 94, 115 death rituals 196 law 117 phases of Hindu life 106 philosophy 13, 90, 92 scriptures 114 society 117 temple architecture 105 texts 117 thought 117 treatises 94 Hispanics (US) 152, 155-156, 159, 162-163 history 10, 195 British see British Chinese see China local (China) 35

209

Index

of sexuality see Foucault oral (Chinese in Japan) 130-131 Hitchens, Christopher 121 home Chinese concept of 14, 127, 129; see also Jia experiences of (India) 110 the idea of 128 Hong Kong 141-142, 147, 190 hospitals modern care in 180 private (India) 110 treatment in 180 hot spring (Korea) 55, 59 hotel 55, 59, 178-179, 183 housing adequate (US) 157 blocks (Singapore) 178 British-style (China) 20, 29 in China 25, 29, 35 market (US) 160 preferences (US) 159 Houston 152 hukou 35 human 85 agency 9, 11, 196-199 and nature 76 beings 14, 70-71, 76, 115, 187, 189 body 80, 82, 85, 100 freedom 187 humanity 9, 69, 84-85, 117, 199 life 78, 84 nature 93 ruler 180 soul 114 space 47 struggle 177 subjects 187 way of living 189 humanity 9, 69, 84-85, 117, 199 Hyderabad 13, 97-99, 120-121 Central University of Hyderabad 121 hygiene 97, 188 hypermodernism (Asia) 190 iconography 13, 68, 70, 75-76, 83 Ideas of the City in an Asian Setting (Bekkering et al.) 198 illegality 110 Illinois 158 imagery visual 70 imitation 11, 72-74 immigrants (US) 152, 154, 158-160, 162, 165-166 immortality 68, 80, 83, 85 East Asian ideas of 74 inclusiveness 157 India/Indian British colonial see British British Raj see British

city/cities 92, 96-98, 101, 109-114, 118-122 colonial worldview 110 concept of justice in 117 constitution 117 disenfranchized groups 117 feudal 95 globalization 95, 98, 100, 109-110 Hindu see Hindu identities 110, 115-118, 120, 122 industrial licensing deregulation 95 late/post-independence period 95, 117 liberalization 95, 100, 110 License or Permit Raj 85 marginal groups 117 national growth 111 neoliberalism 111, 117, 119 over-population 91 population 100 post-independence 95, 117 premodern/premodernity 114, 118, 122 privatization 95, 101 rape 118-121 society 94, 96, 110, 114, 122 urban 122 urbanization 13, 95, 97-98 women 109, 113-120, 122 worldview 114-115, 120 individuation 118 inequality 119, 181 graded (Ambedkar) 116 reduce (US) 161 social (US) 160 ink-brush 69 inpatient services (US) 157 Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation (Australia) 61 intertextuality 43-44 Internet 174 intellectual life 74 tasks 117 transformation 68 Western 68 Ireland 181 Itaewon (Seoul) 50 Izu Fujimi Land 138 Japan/Japanese bath 59 culture 59 eating habits 133 immigrant workers (US) 158 in US 156 language 135 onsen 58 jatakarman 106 jazz dance 57 Jesuit missionaries (China) 17 jia see home

210 

Contempor ary Pr ac tices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

jimjil 53-54, 61 jimjilbang 12, 41-42, 44-45, 50-58, 62-64, 196 jiva 92-93, 104, 106 jobs India 111 US 157, 161 Joseon dynasty 52-53 Judicial Commission see Justice Verma Committee Justice Verma Committee (India) 120 Kakar, Sudhir 115 kala 115 Kant, Emmanuel 187, 199 karaokebar 60 Karma 115, 119 karna-vedha 106 Kasi see Varanasi Kensington Garden (Thames Town, Songjiang) 25 kesanta 106 ki flow of 76, 78 ki suryŏn 12-13, 68-69, 71, 196 life energy 68, 75, 78, 82, 85 Kich’ŏn Central Association (Korea) 75 Kim Hyŏnt’ae 69 Kim Sang-hwan 71, 75-76, 79-81, 83-84 Kim Sung Hong 59-62 Kim W. 162 kinship 129 kitsch 36-37 ‘Know thyself’ 113 knowledge advances in 180 alchemical 72 and cultural conditioning 70 Aristotelian 73 construction of 43 cultural 58 embodied 13 forms of 43 pursuit of 73 scientific 68, 73 self-knowledge 114 transmission 74 Kobe 131 Korea/Korean 45-46, 51-52, 54, 59, 61, 71, 75-76, 85 architecture see architecture bang 60-61 bathhouse see jimjilbang Buddhism see Buddhism cities 60 contemporary 13 culture 45, 52, 54, 58-59 GiCheon see GiCheon in US 154, 158 jimjil see jimjil

jimjilbang see jimjilbang ki suryŏn see ki suryŏn Korean-Americans 46, 156 Korean-style sauna see jimjilbang martial arts 75 meditation 80 mountain worship in 80 music 76, 80-81 National Museum of 50 North Korea see North Korea people 60 self 71, 83-84 sikyhe see sikyhe society 52 South 41, 55, 59, 63, 68-69, 74, 85, 190, 198 South Korean Pavilion, Architecture Biennial Venice (2004) 59 style 76, 79 urban landscape 60 War Memorial of 50 women 41, 52 Kristeva, Julia 47, 64 Kuala Lumpur 178 Kumar Acharya, Prasanna 96, 98 Lady Diana (statue, Thames Town, Songjiang) 27 Laos 158 Las Vegas 36 Latin America 158 law (India) 113, 117, 122 civic (US) 158 Hindu 117 moral 187 obedience of 176 Lee Hsien Loong 179 Lee Ki-t’ae 69, 71, 75, 77, 81 Lee Sang-wŏn 69, 75, 77, 80 Leeds Gardens (Thames Town, Songjiang) 25 Lefebvre, Henri 36, 43, 49 left-handed people 181 Leiden 11 University 69 Li Liguo 20 Li Shiqiao 37 Li Xiangning 19 Libraries 73 life after death 106 alternative 111 and death 13 better (China) 22, 33, 35, (India) 110 British way of (China) 29 city 177, 179-180, 185 civilian 178 complexities of 97 cycle of (India) 90, 93, 105 daily (China) 19-21, 29, 31, 33, 35, 178 desirable way of 11

Index

energy see ki essence of 105 eternal 72 everyday 14, 109, 128, 130, 145, 180, 184 expectancy (US) 153 experience 70, 130-131 flow of 79 good 175, 183 Hindu see Hindu human 78, 84 man’s 103 meaning of 64 modern 180 moral 74 mortal 106 phase of 13 principle of 105 prolong 74, 82 quality of (US) 161, 164 real 14 safe 185 satisfaction (US) 153 sexual 106 social 56, 145 spiritual (India) 90 stable (Korea) 57 stresses of (US) 166 transmutation of 80 urban (Korea) 60 way of (India) 94, (US) 160 Western intellectual 68 Western way of (China) 12, 20, 27 writing 42 lion dance 132, 141-146 Lingang 22 literary studies 12, 42-44, 47, 49-50, 52, 56, 63-64 Liverpool 184 loan sharks (Singapore) 178 longevity 157, 167 Lord Byron (statue, Thames Town, Songjiang) 27 Los Angeles 152 love 93, 113, 118, 120-122, 188 lower classes 122 Lu family 140 Luodian 22 Magid, Jill 184 Mahaprasthanam crematorium 102 Maheshwar 97 malls 19, 110-111, 113, 178 Mandarin (langauge) 135 Manasara 94, 99 Manikarnika ghat (Varanasi) 98, 106 Manusmriti 115 Maoist principles 18 marriage 106 massage 52, 55

211 Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore) 178 martial arts 75, 141 Mayamatam 94 media 20, 61-62, 71, 74, 110, 120, 145, 178 medication 157, 164 medicine 73 alternative 69 meditation 76, 80, 188 mental health (US) Asian Americans under-represented in mental-health service utilization 153 destigmatization 165 disorders 152, 156, 159, 163-165, 167 environmental determinants of 14, 151 issues under-reported 153 stigma attached to 153, 159 stigmatization of 157, 159, 164 under-utilization of mental-health services 14, 151 Western approaches to 166 mental illness (US) 152, 154-155, 163-164 Any Mental Illness (US) 154-155, 157 Serious Mental Illness (US) 152, 154-155 under-reporting of (US) 14, 151 meritocracy (Singapore) 177, 179 metallurgy 73 metro (Singapore) 178-197 metropolises (India) 91 middle class (India) 119, (China) 29 lower middle class (India) 111, 122 upper middle class (China) 25 Midwest (US) 158 migrants Chinese in Japan 128-132, 137-138, 141-143, 146-147 in India 111 military 180 mind-body cultivation 67, 70, 84 MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 63 mobile devices 182 phones 61, 180 mobility social (China) 29, 35 model minority Asian Americans as 14, 153-154, 157, 159-160, 162, 166, 196 modernity in India 102, 111, 117-119, 122 in Korea 69, 83-84 mogyoktang 45-46; see also jimjilbang moksha 90, 93-94, 97-98, 115, 117 monks (Buddhist) 79 Monk, Daniel 19 moral/morality 119, 122, 182 action 116 compass 129 conscience 182

212 

Contempor ary Pr ac tices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

duty 115 laws 187 life 74 principles 187 subjects 182 tempering 190 transformation 68 value 119 mountain divine mountain immortals (Korea) 80 worship (Korea) 80 Morozow, Evgeny 185 mourning (India) 90-91 mukti 94, 106 multifocalization 42-44 Munmak (Korea) 75-76, 78-79, 81, 84 Munmak Mountains Center 75-76, 84; see also GiCheon Mountain Center stream 78-79, 81, 84 studio 76 Murakami, Ryoichi 131 music 76, 80-81 naegmyŏn 57 Nagasaki 131 namakarana 106 Narayanan, Amrita 115 narratives 12-13, 43-44, 64, 68, 83, 120, 131, 175 National Institute of Mental Health (US) 154-155 National Latino and Asian American study 163 National Museum of Korea 50 nationalist discourse (China) 18 discourse (Korea) 69 movements (Korea) 70 nativist groups (US) 158 nature 72-74, 76, 79-80, 82, 84, 93 naze, Yokohama Chūkagai ni hito ga atsumaru noka (Hayashi Keisei) 131 neighbourhoods 11-12, 18, 20-22, 24-25, 27, 29, 33, 35, 94-95, 157, 160 neo-capitalism 36 neoclassical style 24 neoliberal/neoliberalism 19, 36, 111, 117, 119 neoliberalization 19 New Academic scepticism 9 New Songdo (Korea) 198 New York 152, 158 New York magazine 57 Ningbo 18 Nirbhaya 120 nish-kramana 106 noodle place see naegmyŏn normalization 112 nostalgia 23, 113 Nottingham Greenland (Thames Town, Songjiang) 25 Nuclear Summit (The Hague, 2014) 185

obsessive-compulsive disorder 152 occult, the 68 occultism 68 Oedipus 56 ondol 55 One City, Nine Towns see Shanghai onsen 58 Opium Wars 18 Orientalism 76 osteoporosis 156 outpatient services (US) 157 Overseas Chinese 9, 14, 127-132, 134-137, 139-147, 161, 196 Oxford Street (Thames Town, Songjiang) 27 paedophiles 197 Pandey, Rajbali 103 Patna 97 Panofsky, Erwin 68, 70-72, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83 Panopticon/Panopticism (Foucault) 174, 176-177, 182-183, 187-190, 198 Paris 179 patriarchy (India) 114, 116 Park, Robert 112 parking fines 197 People’s Action Party see Singapore People’s Republic of China see China perfection 68-69, 72, 90, 104, 182 phenomenology/phenomenological 113, 117-119 Philippines, the 158 philosophy 9-10, 15, 73, 112, 195 Asian see Asia Cicero’s see Cicero Confucius’ see Confucius critical 188 East Asian see Asia Hindu see Hindu Indian see India New (Bacon) 73 of art 85 of death 90 of technology 189 Phule, Jyotiba 117 pilumati 93 place and space 43-44, 49-50 and time 55 architecture of 94 character of 51 conceptualization of 64 creation of 44, 52 geocritical approach to 12 holy 104 home as 129 making 49, 61-62, 64 material aspect of 27 meaning of 46-47, 54 names 20

213

Index

of change 57 of image consumption 36 of opposition 118 of plenty 113 perception of 54 production of 61 writing about 44 police 178-180 politics/political activism 188 agency 175 bio-politics see Foucault borders 141 changes (Japan) 128 in India 94, 96, 113-114 modernity (India) 119 situation (China in 1920s) 132 society (India) 110 state (India) 112 strata of the city (Singapore) 185 student (India) 121 turmoil (Singapore) 178 polysensoriality 43-44, 46, 49 position mobile technology 61 postmodern/postmodernism 9 city see city era 19 society 21-22 theory 43 poststructuralism 9 post-traumatic stress disorder 152, 156 Potemkin Village 18 Potter, Harry (statue, Thames Town, Songjiang) 27 poverty (US) 157, 159, 162-163 Pow Choon-Piew 29 power disciplinary see Foucault dominating 189 forms of 184 Foucault’s work on see Foucault hierarchical 183, 190 identity-based 122 inner 83 pastoral see Foucault relations 173, 186 space and 44 spiritual 82 structures 64, 187 surveillance and 175-176 technology and 176, 184 transformations of 176 victims of 190 pradyaus 93 praxis 73 prejudice 153, 157-158 prescription medication (US) 157 priest 103, 105 Prince Street (Thames Town, Songjiang) 27

prison 176, 181-182; see also Panopticon prisoners 176, 181 privacy 48, 60, 102, 159, 175-176, 184-185, 197 protreptic device 114 psyche 56 public and private 60-61, 64 baths see baths debate (China) 20 forum (US) 164 interaction 184 public-private dichotomy (Korea) 64 representatives (US) 152 space 179, (China) 20, 27, (Korea) 5556, (India) 120, (Singapore) 179 sphere 184 ,(Korea) 54, 63 Pujiang 22 pumsavana 106 punishment 190 purity 68 caste 116 racial 158 pyre/pyre-bed 91, 96, 98-103, 105 Qianlong Emperor 17 qigong 13, 69 Queensland University of Technology, Australia 61 racial discrimination (US) 158 groups (US) 152, 157 hierarchy (US) 153 profiling 197 purity (US) 158 Raghuramaraju, A. 118 railroad construction (US) 158 rape (India) 14, 118-121 Rauravagama 99 real-estate agency 27, 29, 31 Reason, Age of 199; see also Enlightenment rebirth 90, 94, 115 reincarnation 91 religion/religious 13, 68, 71, 103, 132, 141, 145, 164 Republic of China see Taiwan restaurants 27, 35, 52, 60, 111, 128-135, 140, 145-147 Ren Hai 29 rituals 50, 90-91, 93-94, 96-98, 103-106, 179, 196 Roman, Ancient see culture Rowland Heights (Thames Town, Songjiang) 25 ruler, human 180 sacraments 90, 105 sacred thread ceremony 105 safety 97, 110 Sagan, Carl 121 Said, Edward 37

214 

Contempor ary Pr ac tices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

Sairat (Manjule) 120-121 Sakala 99 Samarangana Sutradhara 94 samavartana 106 sampana 106 samskara 90, 98, 104-106 Sapare aude (Kant) 199 Sassen, Saskia 197 sauna 41, 45, 48, 51, 53-55, 57-59, 61; see also Jimjilbang science 10, 69, 73-74, 121, 135, 195 Ki – The Science of Internal Energy 71, 75, 79, 84 Western see West schizophrenia 152 scientia see theory Scott, Giles Gilbert 27 scriptures Indian 90-91, 93-95, 99, 103, 105, 114 security 56, 177 national security agencies 183 segregation economic (India) 11 Sejong Sillok 52-53 self ethnography of the techniques of 188 extended 91 formation of 68 knowledge of 112, 114 non-destruction of 93 ontological 117 practices of 10, 13, 68-69, 72, 74, 83, 175, 190, 196 self-actualization 80 self-care 15, 68, 116, 174-175 self-cultivation 13, 69 self-destruction 93 self-formation 188 selfhood 114, 119, 122 self-immolation 98 self-knowledge 114 self-reliance 29 self-transformation/transformative 83, 111, 114, 119, 188 self-work 114 supreme 90 technologies of 13, 68-69, 71-72, 83, 110, 114 semantics 54 Sensor Society see Singapore sensors 174-175, 177, 179, 185, 189-190, 196-197 Seoul 50-51, 62, 81 National University 77 service sector (India) 111 sex/sexual 188 assault 120 ethics 188 harassment 118 life 106 sexuality 115-116 history of see Foucault

Shakespeare, William (statue, Thames Town, Songjiang) 27 Shanghai 11, 20, 22, 25, 45, 143 city centre 22, 33, 35 colonial past 24 foreign settlements 20, 24 Greater Municipality 22 nostalgia 23 old 23 One City, Nine Towns 19 Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe 143 Shanghai Songjiang New City Development and Construction Company 24 suburban 22-23 Treaty Port 18 World Expo 24 Shatenki 128-129, 131-135, 143, 145-146 shodasha samskara see samskara shopping malls 19, 178 sikyhe 51 simanta 106 Simone, AbdouMaliq 111 Singapore 14, 174-175, 177-180, 183-186, 189-190, 196-198 Asian Tiger 190 paternalistic 185, 198 People’s Action Party see People’s Action Party Sensor Society 15, 174, 177, 184 Singapore University of Technology 178 Singaporeans 177-178, 185, 198 surveillance in 183 Singh, Jyoti 119 sinsŏn 80 skyscrapers 83, 110 slaves 73 slums (India) 97, 111, 113 Smart City 15, 174, 189 smart phones 178 smasana 99 Smith, Pamela 70 Sneep, Deirdre 24 social activities 62, 152 aspirations 21 awareness 161 behaviour 19, 35, 179 changes 92, 128 claustrophobia 184 connections 160 construction 62 critique 176 determinants 157, 161 distress 153 dynamics 185 environment 160-161 factors 163 function 145, 152 habits 30 heterogeneity 111

215

Index

hierarchy 94 inequality 160 interaction 50 life 56, 145 logic 33 meaning 129 mobility 29, 35 networks 35, 164 order 145 practices 10, 49 problems 159, 185 processes 21 production 12, 62 reconfigurations 33 reform 176 relations 49, 64, 153 representation 35 science 10, 14, 121, 195 significance 52 space 61 status 29 stigma 159 stressor 160 strata 185 structure 101, 129 support 153, 157, 160, 164 surroundings 78 techno-social 62-63 transformations 12 wellbeing 162-163 work 14 society/societal 9, 94, 176, 181 active 198 American see America Chinese see China civil 184 developing 14 developments 175 disciplinary see Foucault engagement in 176 enrichment of 21 heterotopia in 19 impacts 97 Indian see India Korean see Korea modern 176, 180-181, 188 new type of 196 of control (Deleuze) 176, 186 panoptic see Foucault realms of 185 sensor see Sensor Society space within 30 spatial organization of 18 surveillance in 182 transparent 182 sociologists 19 software 178 face detection 184 Soho Street (Thames Town, Songjiang) 27

Soja, Edward 43 soldiers 181 solutionism (Morozow) 185 Songjiang 11-12, 17, 20, 22, 24-25, 35-36, 195 Sorkin, Michael 19 South Asia/Asians 165 Southeast Asia/Asians 163-165 South Korean see Korea/Korean Soviet model of society 18 space/spatial and social practices 49 collective spatial sharing 62 contested 13, 19, 110, 112, 117 de-territorialization of 43 Henri Lefebvre’s concept of 49 heterotopian type of 20 marginalized 19 multiple perceptions of 47, 64 of death in Hinduism see Hindu of sensory immediacy 47 Soviet model of 18; see also society spatial complexities 43 spas 50-51 Speakers’ Corner see Singapore spiritual components 162 dichotomies 166 life 90, 103 power 82 practices 72 progress 78 quests 114 tasks 117 terms 113 sadhana 103 support 129 spirituality 113 sraddha 106 srama 115 Srinivas Iyengar, P.T. 93 stratigraphy 43-44 steel 100-101 Steyerl, Hito 184 stone 13, 71-72, 75-76, 78, 80-85, 100 Structuralism 9 student/students politics 121 protests 121 subjectivity 114, 118, 187 Western 68 subjects formation of 188 free moral 182 human 187 subjectivation 188-190 substance abuse 152, 155-156, 167 suicide 14, 121, 157, 163-164, 167 Sun Hong Kim 62 Sung Hong Kim 59

216 

Contempor ary Pr ac tices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

suppression 175 survival 118 surveillance cameras 176, 178-179, 184 hierarchical 177, 182-183, 190 lateral 177-178, 182-183, 190, 198 of citizens 178 self-surveillance 177, 182-183, 190 studies 174-176, 188-189 systems 184 technologies 175 swimming pools 51-52 Taiwan 130, 137, 147, 190 tax 95, 197 techne 73 technology/technical 96, 99-101, 103, 176, 184-187, 196-197 and care of the self 188 and surveillance 174, 176, 190 construction 95, 100 enthusiasm for 190 ethics of 15, 173 humans and 189 impact of 174, 189 in Foucault 181 information 61 mediation (Dorrestijn) 188-189 mobile 61 of the self see Foucault philosophy of 15, 189 smart 188-190, 197 tools 13, 69 utensils 69, 71-72, 83 Technologies of the Self (Foucault) 114 television/TV 48, 55, 69, 133, 142 Temple of Guandi (India) 143 Temple of Kali (India) 96 temple affairs (China) 147 architecture (India) 101, 105 Buddhist (Korea) 79 forms (India) 102 terrorists 180, 184, 197 Texas 158 Thailand 158 Thames Town (Songjiang) 11-12, 17-37, 195 The Cracked Mirror (Guru et al.) 119 The Inner World (Kakar) 115 The Japan Times 145 The Life of Pi (Ang Lee) 119 The Tempest (Shakespeare) 199 theme parks 19, 21, 36 theory of sovereignty see Agamben Thinking, Age of 199; see also Enlightenment; see also Reason thought Buddhist see Buddhist categories of 72 form of 113

Foucault’s see Foucault Hindu see Hindu Western see West Tianjin 18 tobacco 156 Tokyo 134 Tongji University 19 tonsure 106 town-planning 94 Tracking Transience (Elahi) 184 transnational companies see companies corporations see corporations Treaty Port (China) 18 tuberculosis (US) 156 Tudor period 24 style 29 Turtle Press (Korea) 71, 75, 77, 81 TV see television udanvati 93 Ujjain 97 undertakers 96 unemployment (US) 163 United States 14, 31, 151-154, 158-160, 162, 164-166 United States Census (2017) 152 United States Mental Health Policy 164 universities 110-111 untouchables see dalits Upanishads 94, 97 urban areas 18, 97, 111, 152 behaviour 36 centres 111 China see China clusters 152 constructions 20 design 22, 24 development 23, 36, 198 environment 10, 13, 61 fabric 91 form 24 furniture 27 future (Asia) 12, 196 growth 98 India see India identity 19 landscape 60 life 60 models 18 modernity of 111 objects 19, 21 places 20 planning 22 population 22, 97, 152 productions (China) 37 rural-urban migration 13 scenarios 95

217

Index

sensors see sensor space 20, 27, 60, 110-111 studies 42 theming 27 transformations 12 turn 10 urbanists 11, 19, 195 urbanization 10, 13, 95, 97-98, 196 utopia/utopias 21-22, 35-36 Vaikuntha Dwaram crematorium 102 Varanasi 13, 95, 97-99, 106 varna 115 vedarambha 106 Vedas 94, 97 vedi 99 Vedic authority 116 literature 106 vedika 99 Vemula, Rohith 121 Victorian period 24 style 25 videos 13, 69, 184, 196 vidyarambha 106 Vietnam/Vietnamese 158 in US 156, 165 village/villages 9, 14, 61, 196 in India 118-122 violence 110, 113, 115, 118, 120-122, 159, 184 visual 53, 60 arts 68, 70 culture 85 effects 46 embodiment 82 genealogy 79 iconography 13, 70, 72, 85 imagery 70, 74, 110 message 77 narrative 70, 77-78, 80-82 non-visual senses 46 poem 81 representations 12, 74 rhetoric 71, 83-84 sense 85 strategy 79-81 symbolism 67, 70 technologies 71 vivaha 106 voyeurism 60 Walker, Chad 53 Warnier, Jean-Pierre 188-189 water 71-72, 75-85, 94, 97, 103 weapons 181 websites 13, 69-70 welfare 138, 140 well-being 14, 153-154, 157-163, 167

West/Western consciousness 74 Mansions see xiyang lou modernity 117 mythology 115 postmodern societies 21 premodern tradition in 175, 190 science 69, 74 thinking 175 traders (in Japan) 128-129 world as utopia 17-37 West-Pavlov, Russell 42, 47 Westphal, Bertrand 42-47, 56 Windsor Island (Thames Town, Songjiang) 25 Winn, Michael 74 wisdom 9, 68, 166 wolperdinger 184 Woman of Heaven 81, 84 women 13, 196 Asian (US) 15-157 elderly (US) 157, 163, 167 Indian 109, 113-114, 120, 122 Korean 41, 52 wood 13, 71-72, 75-76, 80, 82-85 World Cup 54 World Health Organization 160, 162 World Trade Organization 24 World War II 132, 137-138, 141 worlding cities 110 worldview 71, 79, 110, 114-115, 120 writing 42, 44, 70, 122, 131, 188 as a self-practice 188 Xia Dongkai 138 Xie Chengfa 129, 132-137, 139-140, 142-144, 146 Xie family 128-146 Xie Minghua 132, 136, 142-144, 146 Xie Tian 129, 131-142, 146 xiyang lou 17-18 Xue Qiuli 20 yagna 91 Yamate Chinese School 135 yang diming 20 Yaoming Hometown Association 137 yicheng, liangmao see Songjiang yin and yang 81 yoga 13, 57, 69, 91 Yokohama 14, 127-147 Yokohama Chūkagai deki kakyoden (Murakami) 131 Yokohama Kakyo no kioku: Yokohama kakyo koujyurekishi kirokushu (Murakami) 131 Yongsan Family Park (Seoul) 50 Yongsan Station (Seoul) 50 Yuanmingyuan 17 Zhou Minghao 20 Zhujiajiao 22

Publications

Norman Vasu, Yeap Su Yin and Chan Wen Ling (eds): Immigration in Singapore 2014, ISBN 978 90 8964 665 1

Gregory Bracken (ed.): Asian Cities. Colonial to Global 2015, ISBN 978 90 8964 931 7

Lena Scheen: Shanghai Literary Imaginings. A City in Transformation 2015, ISBN 978 90 8964 587 6

Anila Naeem: Urban Traditions and Historic Environments in Sindh. A Fading Legacy of Shikarpoor, Historic City 2017, ISBN 978 94 6298 159 1

Siddhartha Sen: Colonizing, Decolonizing, and Globalizing Kolkata. From a Colonial to a Post-Marxist City 2017, ISBN 978 94 6298 111 9

Adele Esposito: Urban Development in the Margins of a World Heritage Site. In the hadows of Angkor 2018, ISBN 978 94 6298 368 7

Yves Cabannes, Mike Douglass and Rita Padawangi (eds): Cities in Asia by and for the People 2018, ISBN 978 94 6298 522 3

Minna Valjakka and Meiqin Wang (eds): Visual Arts, Representations and Interventions in Contemporary China. Urbanized Interface 2018, ISBN 978 94 6298 223 9

Gregory Bracken (ed.): Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West. Care of the Self 2019, ISBN 978 94 6298 694 7

Henco Bekkering, Adèle Esposito and Charles Goldblum (eds): Ideas of the City in Asian Settings 2019, ISBN 978 94 6298 561 2

Gregory Bracken, Paul Rabé, R. Parthasarathy, Neha Sami and Bing Zhang (eds): Future Challenges of Cities in Asia 2019, ISBN 978 94 6372 881 2

K.C. Ho: Neighbourhoods for the City in Pacific Asia 2020, ISBN 978 94 6298 388 5

Simone Shu-Yeng Chung and Mike Douglass (eds): The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore 2020, ISBN 978 94 6372 950 5