Literary Sinitic (written Chinese, hereafter Sinitic) functioned as a ‘scripta franca’ in sinogra... more Literary Sinitic (written Chinese, hereafter Sinitic) functioned as a ‘scripta franca’ in sinographic East Asia, which broadly comprises China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea, and Vietnam today. It was widely used by East Asian literati to facilitate cross-border communication interactively face-to-face. This lingua-cultural practice is generally known asbĭtán筆談, literally ‘brushtalk’ or ‘brush conversation’. While brushtalk as a substitute for speech to conduct ‘silent conversation’ has been reported since the Sui dynasty (581–619), in this paper brushtalk data will be drawn from sources involving transcultural, cross-border communication from late Ming dynasty (1368–1644) until the 1900s. Brushtalk occurred in four recurrent contexts, comprising both interactional and transactional communication: official brushtalk (公務筆談), poetic brushtalk (詩文筆談), travelogue brushtalk (遊歷筆談), and drifting brushtalk (漂流筆談). For want of space, we will exemplify brushtalk using selected examples ...
ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip s... more ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip setting in order to address history and culture learning goals and enhance the learning experience for university students. The activity supplements the instruction of two tertiary courses focused on history and cultural conservation, with a goal to addressing relevant content learning objectives as well as boosting students’ authentic enquiry, active observation, and a sense of belonging to a real-world local community. The navigation of the field trip environment is supported by three main components: 1) Interactive map with all relevant cultural and historical locations marked as clickable destinations bringing up basic facts; 2) Learning content and knowledge quizzes hidden behind trigger images in each location, displayed as digital overlays via Aurasma, an AR development platform; 3) Learning profile visualising students’ progress by rewarding them with digital tokens. The article p...
ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip s... more ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip setting in order to address history and culture learning goals and enhance the learning experience for university students. The activity supplements the instruction of two tertiary courses focused on history and cultural conservation, with a goal to addressing relevant content learning objectives as well as boosting students’ authentic enquiry, active observation, and a sense of belonging to a real-world local community. The navigation of the field trip environment is supported by three main components: 1) Interactive map with all relevant cultural and historical locations marked as clickable destinations bringing up basic facts; 2) Learning content and knowledge quizzes hidden behind trigger images in each location, displayed as digital overlays via Aurasma, an AR development platform; 3) Learning profile visualising students’ progress by rewarding them with digital tokens. The article p...
Anime-style films have been produced within East Asia for many years by relying on a cross-border... more Anime-style films have been produced within East Asia for many years by relying on a cross-border production network dominated by studios in Japan. In this production model, Japanese studios provide source material and creative development, while manual work is outsourced to animators in neighboring countries. With China’s growing influence within the region’s creative economy, however, more transnationally co-produced animations are based on Chinese source material, offering a promise of enhanced cultural exchange while challenging received frameworks of knowledge and production in the region’s animation industry. This article examines how Japanese animation studios construct China as a nostalgic place by analyzing the use of nostalgia-driven narrative conventions in Flavors of Youth, a 2018 Sino-Japanese co-produced animation. The screen imaginaries yielded by such co-operative productions are contained within a familiar convention couched in an artistic language influenced by Japan’s centrality in the anime production network. This results in a visual rhetoric that transforms the uneven landscape of China’s transitions into a homogenous animation product. By outlining the theoretical terms of nostalgic representation expressed as sentiment: nostalgia as mood, and style: nostalgia as mode, we examine the way Flavors of Youth frames the interplay of the two nostalgic methods as a metacommentary on China’s modernization process vis-à-vis Japan. The creative process involved in reconfiguring China’s developmental transitions through anime conventions of ‘nostalgia machines’ creates a friction between the parasitic nostalgic form and the cultural host it attaches itself to, collapsing the film’s potential for reflection on the contemporary realities of a shared Asian experience. We argue that the transnationally constructed, disembedded—and therefore artificial—nostalgia found in the film is a symptom of Japan’s continuing ambivalence towards China manifested in the anime industry’s overreliance on codified styles over shared engagement with the alternative cultural contexts of its Asian neighbors. Keywords: China, Japan, animation, nostalgia, transnational co-production, Makoto Shinkai
Aoyama, Reijiro, and Royce Ng. "Artificial flavors: nostalgia and the shifting landscapes of production in Sino-Japanese animation." Cultural Studies (2022): 1-28., 2022
Anime-style films have been produced within East Asia for many years by relying on a cross-border... more Anime-style films have been produced within East Asia for many years by relying on a cross-border production network dominated by studios in Japan. In this production model, Japanese studios provide source material and creative development, while manual work is outsourced to animators in neighboring countries. With China’s growing influence within the region’s creative economy, however, more transnationally co-produced animations are based on Chinese source material, offering a promise of enhanced cultural exchange while challenging received frameworks of knowledge and production in the region’s animation industry. This article examines how Japanese animation studios construct China as a nostalgic place by analyzing the use of nostalgia-driven narrative conventions in Flavors of Youth, a 2018 Sino-Japanese co-produced animation. The screen imaginaries yielded by such co-operative productions are contained within a familiar convention couched in an artistic language influenced by Japan’s centrality in the anime production network. This results in a visual rhetoric that transforms the uneven landscape of China’s transitions into a homogenous animation product. By outlining the theoretical terms of nostalgic representation expressed as sentiment: nostalgia as mood, and style: nostalgia as mode, we examine the way Flavors of Youth frames the interplay of the two nostalgic methods as a metacommentary on China’s modernization process vis-à-vis Japan. The creative process involved in reconfiguring China’s developmental transitions through anime conventions of ‘nostalgia machines’ creates a friction between the parasitic nostalgic form and the cultural host it attaches itself to, collapsing the film’s potential for reflection on the contemporary realities of a shared Asian experience. We argue that the transnationally constructed, disembedded—and therefore artificial—nostalgia found in the film is a symptom of Japan’s continuing ambivalence towards China manifested in the anime industry’s overreliance on codified styles over shared engagement with the alternative cultural contexts of its Asian neighbors.
Aoyama, R. (2019). East Asian Transnational Identity: An Anthropological Study of Contemporary Japanese Migrant Communities in Urban China (东亚跨国自我认同:当代在华日本人社会的人类学研究). Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 295 pages. ISBN 978-7-309-14230-3, 2019
The first book-length ethnographic study of contemporary Japanese communities in China’s major ci... more The first book-length ethnographic study of contemporary Japanese communities in China’s major cities. An examination of the Japanese communities in urban China from past to present and the impact of migration on the cultural practices and identify of contemporary Japanese migrants. The book examines the relationship between consumption and identity within lifestyle migration through the analysis of migrant narratives about the pursuit of independence, self-realization, leisure and mobility. The study explores the multiplicity of Japanese migrant lifestyles and identities, and the possibility of and challenges to developing transnational East Asian identify among the Japanese migrant community.
Aoyama, R. (2017). Japanese Service Professionals in Global Asian Cities: An Anthropological Examination of Work and Craftsmanship (世界に広がる日本の職人―アジアでうけるサービス―). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 248 pages. ISBN 978-4-480-06983-2, 2017
The first book-length contemporary anthropological investigation into cultural practices and atti... more The first book-length contemporary anthropological investigation into cultural practices and attitudes to work in Japanese service industry in Asia. Received positive press coverage in Toyo Keizai, an acclaimed economic journal, and major Japanese newspapers, including Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun. An examination of Japanese service professionals’ role as participants, producers, and subjects of the local consumer culture in four global Asian cities: Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, and Bangkok. The book concentrates on the cultural dimension of the Japanese commercial activities and topics from the field of anthropology of work and craftsmanship.
In Li, C. S. D., Aoyama, R. & Wong, T.S., eds., Brush Conversation in the Sinographic Cosmopolis: Interactional Cross-border Communication Using Literary Sinitic in Early Modern East Asia. Routledge: London., 2022
Written characters are not mere tools of communication and their value has been aesthetically app... more Written characters are not mere tools of communication and their value has been aesthetically appreciated in the art form of calligraphy in many locales throughout history. Depending on whether characters are phonographic or logographic, however, the sorts of values and functions attached to the characters' written forms differ fundamentally. Focusing on cross-border interactions of historical figures from China, Vietnam and Japan in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century, this chapter explores the manners in which actors involved in these encounters assigned socio-cultural values to Chinese characters, or sinograms, that transcended their linguistic functions, and how they made the most of Sinitic writing as a resource for establishing rapport with foreigners in transcultural scenarios. Thanks to their rich potential to convey both linguistic and cultural meanings, sinograms and Sinitic writing in general allowed strangers who did not share a spoken language to forge meaningful relationships centered on interactive, faceto-face inscribing of Chinese characters, furthering their embeddedness in the literary and cultural tradition of Sinographic East Asia.
China and Asia, 2(2), pp. 234-269. ISSN 2589-4641., 2021
Drawing on Chinese-Japanese transnational and transcultural interaction in the mid-nineteenth cen... more Drawing on Chinese-Japanese transnational and transcultural interaction in the mid-nineteenth century, this article illustrates how Sinitic brushtalk functioned as an effective modality of communication between Chinese and Japanese literati who did not have a shared spoken language. The illustrations are adapted from personal diary-like travelogues of Japanese travelers to Shanghai on board the Senzaimaru in 1862 and participants in the Japanese mission to the United States in 1860. The recollection of the brushtalkers with their Chinese interlocutors whom they met on the way, including those during their return journey from the US while calling at trading ports like Batavia and Hong Kong, provides elaborate details on how writing-mediated improvisation using brush, ink, and paper allowed Japanese travelers with literacy in Sinitic to engage in “silent conversation” with their literate Chinese counterparts. A third historical context where Sinitic brushtalk was put to meaningful use was US–Japanese negotiations during Commodore Perry’s naval expedition to Edo Bay in 1854, where Luo Sen, bilingual in Chinese (spoken Cantonese) and English, was hired to perform the role of secretary. Throughout the negotiations, Luo was able to perform his duties admirably in part by impressing the Japanese side with his fine brushtalk improvisations. While misunderstanding and miscommunication could not be entirely avoided, the article concludes that until the early 1900s writing-mediated interaction through Sinitic brushtalk in face-to-face encounters functioned adequately and effectively as a scripta franca between literate Japanese and their Chinese “silent conversation” partners both within and beyond Sinographic East Asia. Such a unique modality of communication remained vibrant until the advent of nationalism and the vernacularization of East Asian national languages at the turn of the century.
In Li, C. S. D., Aoyama, R. & Wong, T.S., eds., Brush Conversation in the Sinographic Cosmopolis: Interactional Cross-border Communication Using Literary Sinitic in Early Modern East Asia. Routledge: London., 2022
The year 1862 marked the maiden voyage by 51 Japanese passengers to Shanghai after Chinese-Japane... more The year 1862 marked the maiden voyage by 51 Japanese passengers to Shanghai after Chinese-Japanese official contact was suspended for over 220 years. After that two-month visit, some of the samurais wrote up their insightful observations and detailed recollections in the form of travelogues or diary accounts. A total of 17 texts were produced. Among the rich details gauged through their lens was a rich variety of anecdotes involving brush-talkingusing brush, ink and paper-when they were engaged in communication with Chinese street vendors and shopkeepers, but also acquaintances and friends they made. Verbatim records supplemented with recollection of the words improvised during brushed encounters afford us a glimpse into patterned writing-mediated communication between Chinese and Japanese people interactively face-to-face, despite the absence of a shared spoken language. This seems unparalleled in other ancient cultures, thanks to phonetic inter-subjectivity of written Chinese, a morphographic, non-alphabetic script. Meaning is conveyed morphographically without either side having to know or ask: 'How do you say this in your language?' The Senzaimaru travelers' collective experiences suggest that brush-talk was a viable modality of transcultural, cross-border communication between Chinese and Japanese literati of Classical Chinese (wenyan 文言) or Literary Sinitic in early modern East Asia.
In Li, C. S. D., Aoyama, R. & Wong, T.S., eds., Brush Conversation in the Sinographic Cosmopolis: Interactional Cross-border Communication Using Literary Sinitic in Early Modern East Asia. Routledge: London., 2022
The adjacent polities China, Japan and Korea have long coastlines. Their coastal regions are vuln... more The adjacent polities China, Japan and Korea have long coastlines. Their coastal regions are vulnerable to stormy weathers and ferocious typhoons especially in summer. Plenty of shipwreck incidents were recorded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Written by local maritime officials in Sinitic, such records often contain verbatim transcripts of brush conversations with distressed seafarers with whom no shared spoken language could be found. That notwithstanding, transcultural communication was made possible by the use of writing-mediated Sinitic brush-talk 漢文筆談, giving specific answers to wh-questions like who, what, why and how (many/much). For serious shipwreck incidents, detailed and formal reports plus proposed action were required and addressed to a senior scholar-official or, in some cases, the Emperor (in Qing China) for approval. By contrast, reports meant for local archiving purpose would be less formal and loosely structured. In terms of lexico-grammatical resources, 'drifting brush-talk' 漂流筆談 records were typically characterized by an admixture of written and vernacular elements. This chapter exemplifies some of these published records in Japan and Korea. Content analysis shows that, where interpreting service was unavailable, the seafarers' stories and perspectives depended heavily on the literacy level of the seafarer(s) engaged in brush(-assisted) conversation.
In Sato, S. & Murata, A., eds., Language Education of the Past, Present and Future from the Sociological and Anthropological Perspectives, (人類学社会学的視点からみた過去、現在、未来のことばの教育), pp. 211-245. Tokyo: Sangensha. ISBN 978-4-883-03472-7., 2018
拡張現実（AR）を活用した英語での学習
学習者の日常を拡げ母語と指導言語の溝を埋める本章は講義の指導言語が英語に統一されることで学習者が抱えてしまう課題を指摘し、その課題を拡張現実技術（AR） ... more 拡張現実（AR）を活用した英語での学習 学習者の日常を拡げ母語と指導言語の溝を埋める本章は講義の指導言語が英語に統一されることで学習者が抱えてしまう課題を指摘し、その課題を拡張現実技術（AR） を使うことによって乗り越えられるか探る。ARはAugmented Reality の略であり、人が知覚する環境をコンピュータで拡張する技術や、拡張された現実環境それ自体を意味する。この技術を使うと、私たちの周りの建物や人々に関する詳細な情報を可視化することができる。たとえばスマートフォンをかざして目の前の建物を見ると、建築家の名前、竣工年度、建築様式などのデータが建物の上に表示される。私たちは自分の身の周りにある物や身近にいる人々に関する情報に気が付くことなく過ごしている。目の前にある机を誰が設計したのか、どこで生産されたのかを知らずに生活している。話している相手が何に興味を持っているか気が付かないまま別れてしまう。ARを使い周辺環境に潜む情報を視覚化することによって、学習者自身が住んでいる地域や周りの人々について学習する機会を得ることができる。本章では香港の学習者にARを体験してもらい、彼女ら彼らの通学路を拡張し教室に変容させ、スマートフォンを教科書に変えることによって、学習者の日常体験と大学で学ぶ学術的知識を結びつけられるか考察する。
April 22, 2017, “Using Augmented Reality and Gamification to Make History Field Trips More Engaging for University Students,” at the 6th International Conference on Language, Education, Humanities and Innovation 2017, The Interdisciplinary Circle of Science, Arts and Innovation, Singapore.
ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip s... more ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip setting in order to address history and culture learning goals and enhance the learning experience for university students. The activity supplements the instruction of two tertiary courses focused on history and cultural conservation, with a goal to addressing relevant content learning objectives as well as boosting students' authentic enquiry, active observation, and a sense of belonging to a realworld local community. The navigation of the field trip environment is supported by three main components: 1) Interactive map with all relevant cultural and historical locations marked as clickable destinations bringing up basic facts; 2) Learning content and knowledge quizzes hidden behind trigger images in each location, displayed as digital overlays via Aurasma, an AR development platform; 3) Learning profile visualising students' progress by rewarding them with digital tokens. The article presents preliminary data from prototype development. Software prototyping and focus group methodologies were employed to gather feedback from students and teachers. The findings support the view that AR has a positive effect on students' motivation and engagement. While the affordances of mobile technology and AR platforms are helping to make AR an increasingly achievable tool in teaching and learning, the challenge of designing and implementing the overall AR experience remains significant at all levels: designers, teachers, and students. Cultural challenge of overcoming students' scepticism over the usefulness of AR for their studies, and the managerial challenge of designing, integrating and managing the AR experience are discussed. To identify the impact of this project and explore its effectiveness for enhancing student learning experience an evaluation will be carried out after project implementation.
Literary Sinitic (written Chinese, hereafter Sinitic) functioned as a ‘scripta franca’ in sinogra... more Literary Sinitic (written Chinese, hereafter Sinitic) functioned as a ‘scripta franca’ in sinographic East Asia, which broadly comprises China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea, and Vietnam today. It was widely used by East Asian literati to facilitate cross-border communication interactively face-to-face. This lingua-cultural practice is generally known asbĭtán筆談, literally ‘brushtalk’ or ‘brush conversation’. While brushtalk as a substitute for speech to conduct ‘silent conversation’ has been reported since the Sui dynasty (581–619), in this paper brushtalk data will be drawn from sources involving transcultural, cross-border communication from late Ming dynasty (1368–1644) until the 1900s. Brushtalk occurred in four recurrent contexts, comprising both interactional and transactional communication: official brushtalk (公務筆談), poetic brushtalk (詩文筆談), travelogue brushtalk (遊歷筆談), and drifting brushtalk (漂流筆談). For want of space, we will exemplify brushtalk using selected examples ...
ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip s... more ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip setting in order to address history and culture learning goals and enhance the learning experience for university students. The activity supplements the instruction of two tertiary courses focused on history and cultural conservation, with a goal to addressing relevant content learning objectives as well as boosting students’ authentic enquiry, active observation, and a sense of belonging to a real-world local community. The navigation of the field trip environment is supported by three main components: 1) Interactive map with all relevant cultural and historical locations marked as clickable destinations bringing up basic facts; 2) Learning content and knowledge quizzes hidden behind trigger images in each location, displayed as digital overlays via Aurasma, an AR development platform; 3) Learning profile visualising students’ progress by rewarding them with digital tokens. The article p...
ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip s... more ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip setting in order to address history and culture learning goals and enhance the learning experience for university students. The activity supplements the instruction of two tertiary courses focused on history and cultural conservation, with a goal to addressing relevant content learning objectives as well as boosting students’ authentic enquiry, active observation, and a sense of belonging to a real-world local community. The navigation of the field trip environment is supported by three main components: 1) Interactive map with all relevant cultural and historical locations marked as clickable destinations bringing up basic facts; 2) Learning content and knowledge quizzes hidden behind trigger images in each location, displayed as digital overlays via Aurasma, an AR development platform; 3) Learning profile visualising students’ progress by rewarding them with digital tokens. The article p...
Anime-style films have been produced within East Asia for many years by relying on a cross-border... more Anime-style films have been produced within East Asia for many years by relying on a cross-border production network dominated by studios in Japan. In this production model, Japanese studios provide source material and creative development, while manual work is outsourced to animators in neighboring countries. With China’s growing influence within the region’s creative economy, however, more transnationally co-produced animations are based on Chinese source material, offering a promise of enhanced cultural exchange while challenging received frameworks of knowledge and production in the region’s animation industry. This article examines how Japanese animation studios construct China as a nostalgic place by analyzing the use of nostalgia-driven narrative conventions in Flavors of Youth, a 2018 Sino-Japanese co-produced animation. The screen imaginaries yielded by such co-operative productions are contained within a familiar convention couched in an artistic language influenced by Japan’s centrality in the anime production network. This results in a visual rhetoric that transforms the uneven landscape of China’s transitions into a homogenous animation product. By outlining the theoretical terms of nostalgic representation expressed as sentiment: nostalgia as mood, and style: nostalgia as mode, we examine the way Flavors of Youth frames the interplay of the two nostalgic methods as a metacommentary on China’s modernization process vis-à-vis Japan. The creative process involved in reconfiguring China’s developmental transitions through anime conventions of ‘nostalgia machines’ creates a friction between the parasitic nostalgic form and the cultural host it attaches itself to, collapsing the film’s potential for reflection on the contemporary realities of a shared Asian experience. We argue that the transnationally constructed, disembedded—and therefore artificial—nostalgia found in the film is a symptom of Japan’s continuing ambivalence towards China manifested in the anime industry’s overreliance on codified styles over shared engagement with the alternative cultural contexts of its Asian neighbors. Keywords: China, Japan, animation, nostalgia, transnational co-production, Makoto Shinkai
Aoyama, Reijiro, and Royce Ng. "Artificial flavors: nostalgia and the shifting landscapes of production in Sino-Japanese animation." Cultural Studies (2022): 1-28., 2022
Anime-style films have been produced within East Asia for many years by relying on a cross-border... more Anime-style films have been produced within East Asia for many years by relying on a cross-border production network dominated by studios in Japan. In this production model, Japanese studios provide source material and creative development, while manual work is outsourced to animators in neighboring countries. With China’s growing influence within the region’s creative economy, however, more transnationally co-produced animations are based on Chinese source material, offering a promise of enhanced cultural exchange while challenging received frameworks of knowledge and production in the region’s animation industry. This article examines how Japanese animation studios construct China as a nostalgic place by analyzing the use of nostalgia-driven narrative conventions in Flavors of Youth, a 2018 Sino-Japanese co-produced animation. The screen imaginaries yielded by such co-operative productions are contained within a familiar convention couched in an artistic language influenced by Japan’s centrality in the anime production network. This results in a visual rhetoric that transforms the uneven landscape of China’s transitions into a homogenous animation product. By outlining the theoretical terms of nostalgic representation expressed as sentiment: nostalgia as mood, and style: nostalgia as mode, we examine the way Flavors of Youth frames the interplay of the two nostalgic methods as a metacommentary on China’s modernization process vis-à-vis Japan. The creative process involved in reconfiguring China’s developmental transitions through anime conventions of ‘nostalgia machines’ creates a friction between the parasitic nostalgic form and the cultural host it attaches itself to, collapsing the film’s potential for reflection on the contemporary realities of a shared Asian experience. We argue that the transnationally constructed, disembedded—and therefore artificial—nostalgia found in the film is a symptom of Japan’s continuing ambivalence towards China manifested in the anime industry’s overreliance on codified styles over shared engagement with the alternative cultural contexts of its Asian neighbors.
Aoyama, R. (2019). East Asian Transnational Identity: An Anthropological Study of Contemporary Japanese Migrant Communities in Urban China (东亚跨国自我认同:当代在华日本人社会的人类学研究). Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 295 pages. ISBN 978-7-309-14230-3, 2019
The first book-length ethnographic study of contemporary Japanese communities in China’s major ci... more The first book-length ethnographic study of contemporary Japanese communities in China’s major cities. An examination of the Japanese communities in urban China from past to present and the impact of migration on the cultural practices and identify of contemporary Japanese migrants. The book examines the relationship between consumption and identity within lifestyle migration through the analysis of migrant narratives about the pursuit of independence, self-realization, leisure and mobility. The study explores the multiplicity of Japanese migrant lifestyles and identities, and the possibility of and challenges to developing transnational East Asian identify among the Japanese migrant community.
Aoyama, R. (2017). Japanese Service Professionals in Global Asian Cities: An Anthropological Examination of Work and Craftsmanship (世界に広がる日本の職人―アジアでうけるサービス―). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 248 pages. ISBN 978-4-480-06983-2, 2017
The first book-length contemporary anthropological investigation into cultural practices and atti... more The first book-length contemporary anthropological investigation into cultural practices and attitudes to work in Japanese service industry in Asia. Received positive press coverage in Toyo Keizai, an acclaimed economic journal, and major Japanese newspapers, including Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun. An examination of Japanese service professionals’ role as participants, producers, and subjects of the local consumer culture in four global Asian cities: Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, and Bangkok. The book concentrates on the cultural dimension of the Japanese commercial activities and topics from the field of anthropology of work and craftsmanship.
In Li, C. S. D., Aoyama, R. & Wong, T.S., eds., Brush Conversation in the Sinographic Cosmopolis: Interactional Cross-border Communication Using Literary Sinitic in Early Modern East Asia. Routledge: London., 2022
Written characters are not mere tools of communication and their value has been aesthetically app... more Written characters are not mere tools of communication and their value has been aesthetically appreciated in the art form of calligraphy in many locales throughout history. Depending on whether characters are phonographic or logographic, however, the sorts of values and functions attached to the characters' written forms differ fundamentally. Focusing on cross-border interactions of historical figures from China, Vietnam and Japan in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century, this chapter explores the manners in which actors involved in these encounters assigned socio-cultural values to Chinese characters, or sinograms, that transcended their linguistic functions, and how they made the most of Sinitic writing as a resource for establishing rapport with foreigners in transcultural scenarios. Thanks to their rich potential to convey both linguistic and cultural meanings, sinograms and Sinitic writing in general allowed strangers who did not share a spoken language to forge meaningful relationships centered on interactive, faceto-face inscribing of Chinese characters, furthering their embeddedness in the literary and cultural tradition of Sinographic East Asia.
China and Asia, 2(2), pp. 234-269. ISSN 2589-4641., 2021
Drawing on Chinese-Japanese transnational and transcultural interaction in the mid-nineteenth cen... more Drawing on Chinese-Japanese transnational and transcultural interaction in the mid-nineteenth century, this article illustrates how Sinitic brushtalk functioned as an effective modality of communication between Chinese and Japanese literati who did not have a shared spoken language. The illustrations are adapted from personal diary-like travelogues of Japanese travelers to Shanghai on board the Senzaimaru in 1862 and participants in the Japanese mission to the United States in 1860. The recollection of the brushtalkers with their Chinese interlocutors whom they met on the way, including those during their return journey from the US while calling at trading ports like Batavia and Hong Kong, provides elaborate details on how writing-mediated improvisation using brush, ink, and paper allowed Japanese travelers with literacy in Sinitic to engage in “silent conversation” with their literate Chinese counterparts. A third historical context where Sinitic brushtalk was put to meaningful use was US–Japanese negotiations during Commodore Perry’s naval expedition to Edo Bay in 1854, where Luo Sen, bilingual in Chinese (spoken Cantonese) and English, was hired to perform the role of secretary. Throughout the negotiations, Luo was able to perform his duties admirably in part by impressing the Japanese side with his fine brushtalk improvisations. While misunderstanding and miscommunication could not be entirely avoided, the article concludes that until the early 1900s writing-mediated interaction through Sinitic brushtalk in face-to-face encounters functioned adequately and effectively as a scripta franca between literate Japanese and their Chinese “silent conversation” partners both within and beyond Sinographic East Asia. Such a unique modality of communication remained vibrant until the advent of nationalism and the vernacularization of East Asian national languages at the turn of the century.
In Li, C. S. D., Aoyama, R. & Wong, T.S., eds., Brush Conversation in the Sinographic Cosmopolis: Interactional Cross-border Communication Using Literary Sinitic in Early Modern East Asia. Routledge: London., 2022
The year 1862 marked the maiden voyage by 51 Japanese passengers to Shanghai after Chinese-Japane... more The year 1862 marked the maiden voyage by 51 Japanese passengers to Shanghai after Chinese-Japanese official contact was suspended for over 220 years. After that two-month visit, some of the samurais wrote up their insightful observations and detailed recollections in the form of travelogues or diary accounts. A total of 17 texts were produced. Among the rich details gauged through their lens was a rich variety of anecdotes involving brush-talkingusing brush, ink and paper-when they were engaged in communication with Chinese street vendors and shopkeepers, but also acquaintances and friends they made. Verbatim records supplemented with recollection of the words improvised during brushed encounters afford us a glimpse into patterned writing-mediated communication between Chinese and Japanese people interactively face-to-face, despite the absence of a shared spoken language. This seems unparalleled in other ancient cultures, thanks to phonetic inter-subjectivity of written Chinese, a morphographic, non-alphabetic script. Meaning is conveyed morphographically without either side having to know or ask: 'How do you say this in your language?' The Senzaimaru travelers' collective experiences suggest that brush-talk was a viable modality of transcultural, cross-border communication between Chinese and Japanese literati of Classical Chinese (wenyan 文言) or Literary Sinitic in early modern East Asia.
In Li, C. S. D., Aoyama, R. & Wong, T.S., eds., Brush Conversation in the Sinographic Cosmopolis: Interactional Cross-border Communication Using Literary Sinitic in Early Modern East Asia. Routledge: London., 2022
The adjacent polities China, Japan and Korea have long coastlines. Their coastal regions are vuln... more The adjacent polities China, Japan and Korea have long coastlines. Their coastal regions are vulnerable to stormy weathers and ferocious typhoons especially in summer. Plenty of shipwreck incidents were recorded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Written by local maritime officials in Sinitic, such records often contain verbatim transcripts of brush conversations with distressed seafarers with whom no shared spoken language could be found. That notwithstanding, transcultural communication was made possible by the use of writing-mediated Sinitic brush-talk 漢文筆談, giving specific answers to wh-questions like who, what, why and how (many/much). For serious shipwreck incidents, detailed and formal reports plus proposed action were required and addressed to a senior scholar-official or, in some cases, the Emperor (in Qing China) for approval. By contrast, reports meant for local archiving purpose would be less formal and loosely structured. In terms of lexico-grammatical resources, 'drifting brush-talk' 漂流筆談 records were typically characterized by an admixture of written and vernacular elements. This chapter exemplifies some of these published records in Japan and Korea. Content analysis shows that, where interpreting service was unavailable, the seafarers' stories and perspectives depended heavily on the literacy level of the seafarer(s) engaged in brush(-assisted) conversation.
In Sato, S. & Murata, A., eds., Language Education of the Past, Present and Future from the Sociological and Anthropological Perspectives, (人類学社会学的視点からみた過去、現在、未来のことばの教育), pp. 211-245. Tokyo: Sangensha. ISBN 978-4-883-03472-7., 2018
拡張現実（AR）を活用した英語での学習
学習者の日常を拡げ母語と指導言語の溝を埋める本章は講義の指導言語が英語に統一されることで学習者が抱えてしまう課題を指摘し、その課題を拡張現実技術（AR） ... more 拡張現実（AR）を活用した英語での学習 学習者の日常を拡げ母語と指導言語の溝を埋める本章は講義の指導言語が英語に統一されることで学習者が抱えてしまう課題を指摘し、その課題を拡張現実技術（AR） を使うことによって乗り越えられるか探る。ARはAugmented Reality の略であり、人が知覚する環境をコンピュータで拡張する技術や、拡張された現実環境それ自体を意味する。この技術を使うと、私たちの周りの建物や人々に関する詳細な情報を可視化することができる。たとえばスマートフォンをかざして目の前の建物を見ると、建築家の名前、竣工年度、建築様式などのデータが建物の上に表示される。私たちは自分の身の周りにある物や身近にいる人々に関する情報に気が付くことなく過ごしている。目の前にある机を誰が設計したのか、どこで生産されたのかを知らずに生活している。話している相手が何に興味を持っているか気が付かないまま別れてしまう。ARを使い周辺環境に潜む情報を視覚化することによって、学習者自身が住んでいる地域や周りの人々について学習する機会を得ることができる。本章では香港の学習者にARを体験してもらい、彼女ら彼らの通学路を拡張し教室に変容させ、スマートフォンを教科書に変えることによって、学習者の日常体験と大学で学ぶ学術的知識を結びつけられるか考察する。
April 22, 2017, “Using Augmented Reality and Gamification to Make History Field Trips More Engaging for University Students,” at the 6th International Conference on Language, Education, Humanities and Innovation 2017, The Interdisciplinary Circle of Science, Arts and Innovation, Singapore.
ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip s... more ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip setting in order to address history and culture learning goals and enhance the learning experience for university students. The activity supplements the instruction of two tertiary courses focused on history and cultural conservation, with a goal to addressing relevant content learning objectives as well as boosting students' authentic enquiry, active observation, and a sense of belonging to a realworld local community. The navigation of the field trip environment is supported by three main components: 1) Interactive map with all relevant cultural and historical locations marked as clickable destinations bringing up basic facts; 2) Learning content and knowledge quizzes hidden behind trigger images in each location, displayed as digital overlays via Aurasma, an AR development platform; 3) Learning profile visualising students' progress by rewarding them with digital tokens. The article presents preliminary data from prototype development. Software prototyping and focus group methodologies were employed to gather feedback from students and teachers. The findings support the view that AR has a positive effect on students' motivation and engagement. While the affordances of mobile technology and AR platforms are helping to make AR an increasingly achievable tool in teaching and learning, the challenge of designing and implementing the overall AR experience remains significant at all levels: designers, teachers, and students. Cultural challenge of overcoming students' scepticism over the usefulness of AR for their studies, and the managerial challenge of designing, integrating and managing the AR experience are discussed. To identify the impact of this project and explore its effectiveness for enhancing student learning experience an evaluation will be carried out after project implementation.
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Papers by Reijiro Aoyama
By outlining the theoretical terms of nostalgic representation expressed as sentiment: nostalgia as mood, and style: nostalgia as mode, we examine the way Flavors of Youth frames the interplay of the two nostalgic methods as a metacommentary on China’s modernization process vis-à-vis Japan. The creative process involved in reconfiguring China’s developmental transitions through anime conventions of ‘nostalgia machines’ creates a friction between the parasitic nostalgic form and the cultural host it attaches itself to, collapsing the film’s potential for reflection on the contemporary realities of a shared Asian experience. We argue that the transnationally constructed, disembedded—and therefore artificial—nostalgia found in the film is a symptom of Japan’s continuing ambivalence towards China manifested in the anime industry’s overreliance on codified styles over shared engagement with the alternative cultural contexts of its Asian neighbors.
Keywords: China, Japan, animation, nostalgia, transnational co-production, Makoto Shinkai
学習者の日常を拡げ母語と指導言語の溝を埋める本章は講義の指導言語が英語に統一されることで学習者が抱えてしまう課題を指摘し、その課題を拡張現実技術（AR） を使うことによって乗り越えられるか探る。ARはAugmented Reality の略であり、人が知覚する環境をコンピュータで拡張する技術や、拡張された現実環境それ自体を意味する。この技術を使うと、私たちの周りの建物や人々に関する詳細な情報を可視化することができる。たとえばスマートフォンをかざして目の前の建物を見ると、建築家の名前、竣工年度、建築様式などのデータが建物の上に表示される。私たちは自分の身の周りにある物や身近にいる人々に関する情報に気が付くことなく過ごしている。目の前にある机を誰が設計したのか、どこで生産されたのかを知らずに生活している。話している相手が何に興味を持っているか気が付かないまま別れてしまう。ARを使い周辺環境に潜む情報を視覚化することによって、学習者自身が住んでいる地域や周りの人々について学習する機会を得ることができる。本章では香港の学習者にARを体験してもらい、彼女ら彼らの通学路を拡張し教室に変容させ、スマートフォンを教科書に変えることによって、学習者の日常体験と大学で学ぶ学術的知識を結びつけられるか考察する。
香港の日本語教育はこの40 年間、学習者、教師、教育機関ともに大きな変化を遂げた。1970 年代の学習者は日系企業で日本語を話す必要に迫られ学び始めたが、現在は趣味のため教養のため日本語を選択している。一方、教師は日本語教育学の訓練を受けた専門的教員が増加し、多くの教育機関で日本語課程が正式に開講されるようになった。香港の日本語教育は1970 年代の草創期から1980 年～2000 年代の成長期を経て、現在の成熟期に達したと言える。一方、教室で日本語を習う学習者が、香港で実際に日本語を使い生活する日本語コミュニティの人々と交流する機会は限られている。本稿では、香港の日本語コミュニティと学習者を結びつけるために拡張現実という技術がどのように応用できるかを考える。まず拡張現実がいかに教育に活用されているか紹介し、この技術を用いて香港の日本語コミュニティを拡張し、日本語を日常的に使う人々と学習者を結び付ける方法を提示する。学習者が現実の場面でどのように日本語が使われているかを自律的に発見し、香港と日本の歴史文化的繋がりを探索できる可能性を考察する｡
By outlining the theoretical terms of nostalgic representation expressed as sentiment: nostalgia as mood, and style: nostalgia as mode, we examine the way Flavors of Youth frames the interplay of the two nostalgic methods as a metacommentary on China’s modernization process vis-à-vis Japan. The creative process involved in reconfiguring China’s developmental transitions through anime conventions of ‘nostalgia machines’ creates a friction between the parasitic nostalgic form and the cultural host it attaches itself to, collapsing the film’s potential for reflection on the contemporary realities of a shared Asian experience. We argue that the transnationally constructed, disembedded—and therefore artificial—nostalgia found in the film is a symptom of Japan’s continuing ambivalence towards China manifested in the anime industry’s overreliance on codified styles over shared engagement with the alternative cultural contexts of its Asian neighbors.
Keywords: China, Japan, animation, nostalgia, transnational co-production, Makoto Shinkai
学習者の日常を拡げ母語と指導言語の溝を埋める本章は講義の指導言語が英語に統一されることで学習者が抱えてしまう課題を指摘し、その課題を拡張現実技術（AR） を使うことによって乗り越えられるか探る。ARはAugmented Reality の略であり、人が知覚する環境をコンピュータで拡張する技術や、拡張された現実環境それ自体を意味する。この技術を使うと、私たちの周りの建物や人々に関する詳細な情報を可視化することができる。たとえばスマートフォンをかざして目の前の建物を見ると、建築家の名前、竣工年度、建築様式などのデータが建物の上に表示される。私たちは自分の身の周りにある物や身近にいる人々に関する情報に気が付くことなく過ごしている。目の前にある机を誰が設計したのか、どこで生産されたのかを知らずに生活している。話している相手が何に興味を持っているか気が付かないまま別れてしまう。ARを使い周辺環境に潜む情報を視覚化することによって、学習者自身が住んでいる地域や周りの人々について学習する機会を得ることができる。本章では香港の学習者にARを体験してもらい、彼女ら彼らの通学路を拡張し教室に変容させ、スマートフォンを教科書に変えることによって、学習者の日常体験と大学で学ぶ学術的知識を結びつけられるか考察する。
香港の日本語教育はこの40 年間、学習者、教師、教育機関ともに大きな変化を遂げた。1970 年代の学習者は日系企業で日本語を話す必要に迫られ学び始めたが、現在は趣味のため教養のため日本語を選択している。一方、教師は日本語教育学の訓練を受けた専門的教員が増加し、多くの教育機関で日本語課程が正式に開講されるようになった。香港の日本語教育は1970 年代の草創期から1980 年～2000 年代の成長期を経て、現在の成熟期に達したと言える。一方、教室で日本語を習う学習者が、香港で実際に日本語を使い生活する日本語コミュニティの人々と交流する機会は限られている。本稿では、香港の日本語コミュニティと学習者を結びつけるために拡張現実という技術がどのように応用できるかを考える。まず拡張現実がいかに教育に活用されているか紹介し、この技術を用いて香港の日本語コミュニティを拡張し、日本語を日常的に使う人々と学習者を結び付ける方法を提示する。学習者が現実の場面でどのように日本語が使われているかを自律的に発見し、香港と日本の歴史文化的繋がりを探索できる可能性を考察する｡