Videos by Juni Yeung
Conference Presentations by Juni Yeung
The qin’s traditional tuning system is based on the Chinese sanfen sunyi cycle of fifths, allowin... more The qin’s traditional tuning system is based on the Chinese sanfen sunyi cycle of fifths, allowing for five open tones and six harmonics; this can be stretched one more each when using external tuning. While this has been sufficient for traditional repertoire, its technical limits expose its shortcomings when dealing with tones outside of this gamut, to which only can be compensated by microtonal handling through sliding and stopped notes.
Subsequent attempts in innovating the instrument failed to address this issue, or were stopped by conservative voices of the scholar-literati class. The 21st century saw a resurgence in the interest in the qin for its adaptation to play modern genres. However, the shortcomings once again highlighted the divide between new composers and traditional players and listeners demanding the full-range of open, harmonic, and pressed timbres.
This paper attempts a systematic investigation to the various implications to expanding the qin’s interface from a pentatonic to a heptatonic system, as well as the nine-stringed instrument that will be necessary to facilitate its full implementation. An expanded heptatonic tuning system that maintains the qin’s modal principles would not only help future composers to work in a familiar environment with more obvious equivalence in translation between musicality and performance tenability, but also bridge a thousand-year old rift between indigenous and medieval cosmopolitan streams of Chinese musical vocabulary and structural differences of understanding.
"Ming Loyalism" stands out from other traditional ideologies of Chinese dissent for it bundles i... more "Ming Loyalism" stands out from other traditional ideologies of Chinese dissent for it bundles ideologies in numerous distinct and separate fields. Calling for actual revival of the old dynasty seemed increasingly anachronistic as times progressed in the way of Republican-style governments, but the spirit and abstract concept of "Repel the Qing and Restore the Ming" continues to reverberate amongst the youth of the 21st Century. This paper will identify Ming Loyalism as a contender in alternative expressions of contemporary Chinese nationalism. The author draws on the plethora of its manifestations in the Chinese mass-market: texts and images in fictional and non-fictional literature, online games and multimedia, and even fashion to argue that Internet and social media instigated the next evolution of Chinese nationalism-as a popular mass culture. The focus of this new 'traditionalism' is celebratory and pragmatically business-minded: Gaining 'market share' of Chinese minds and searching for innovative ways to integrate ethnic ideology into a modern consumer lifestyle may be the next phase of expressing patriotic pride.
As global capitalist consumerism pervades our methods and choices in this global information age,... more As global capitalist consumerism pervades our methods and choices in this global information age, we need to review the pedagogy and information presented to students in the 21st century. As lamented by Tam and Nan (in Lau, 2010) and more optimistically observed in Burgin's (2017) field studies, guqin instruction as a traded commodity and regulated by modern institutions has all but replaced traditional magi-magister immersion education methods, and an increasingly standardized and 'mechanized' modern pedagogy removes all but a façade of a preserved tradition. This paper criticizes and diverges from this viewpoint that rather than the modern guqin 'industry' destroying tradition, the quality and content of this 'industry's' uniform production fall short to the demands and expectations of a personalized, pluralized digital modernity and its consumption habits, material and intellectual. This paper will attempt to:
1. Provide a critique of both the modern Chinese musical pedagogy in conservatory and commercial environments, as well as the imagination of the “traditional magi-magister” counterpoint as an extension of an Orientalist approach.
2. Provide observations and comparisons of qin learning patterns amongst students of Canadian and Chinese education background, based on teaching experiences in Toronto, Canada from 2005 to 2018, and
3. Provide suggestions towards building a China-centered, holistic approach to guqin curricula, particularly with more focus to integrating musicology and its historical development to its practical application in performance and pedagogy.
Talks by Juni Yeung
Hong Kong's diverse mix of cultures is due to its history as a gateway into southern Chinese trad... more Hong Kong's diverse mix of cultures is due to its history as a gateway into southern Chinese trade and the legacy of the former British Empire. The White Russians, seeking refuge in Shanghai then Hong Kong, provided an accessible gateway for the local Chinese population to adopt "Western" food such as beef stroganoff and borscht soup along with dining practices.
Accounts of those recipes adapting to local ingredients and kitchens have largely been oral or visual in field studies, but Chan Wing's cookbook, "Thirty Years in the Kitchen" provides not only taught cooks and amateur gourmands to reproduce restaurant-class cuisine, but textual evidence demonstrating the thought process in how a Ukrainian beet soup transforms into a whole genre of foods, acting from base sauce to stewing agent, in the Fragrant Harbor of the booming 1960’s. Juni Yeung will act as your guide for your eyes, ears, and tastebuds on this journey, in hopes of enticing more to explore the missing links of then and now.
Papers by Juni Yeung
"Ming Loyalism" stands out from other traditional ideologies of Chinese dissent for it bundles id... more "Ming Loyalism" stands out from other traditional ideologies of Chinese dissent for it bundles ideologies in numerous distinct and separate fields. Calling for actual revival of the old dynasty seemed increasingly anachronistic as times progressed in the way of Republican-style governments, but the spirit and abstract concept of "Repel the Qing and Restore the Ming" continues to reverberate amongst the youth of the 21st Century. This paper will identify Ming Loyalism as a contender in alternative expressions of contemporary Chinese nationalism. The author draws on the plethora of its manifestations in the Chinese mass-market: texts and images in fictional and non-fictional literature, online games and multimedia, and even fashion to argue that Internet and social media instigated the next evolution of Chinese nationalism-as a popular mass culture. The focus of this new 'traditionalism' is celebratory and pragmatically business-minded: Gaining 'market share' of Chinese minds and searching for innovative ways to integrate ethnic ideology into a modern consumer lifestyle may be the next phase of expressing patriotic pride.
The Han Dress Revival Movement, or Hanfu Movement for short, strives for restoring widespread acc... more The Han Dress Revival Movement, or Hanfu Movement for short, strives for restoring widespread acceptance and practice of wearing traditional Han Chinese dress that was banned prior to the Manchu Qing dynasty in 1644 and later averted due to Westernization in the 20th Century. With Chinese understanding of the clothing at a blank slate after three and a half centuries of disuse, adapting the dress into modernity and daily life sparked heated controversy. Parties defending designs from certain periods ("dynasties") clashed with each other as well as the moderates who suggested magnanimous acceptance of all period designs. More influential than verbal (or textual) debate was demonstration: Each faction rallied support through presenting modern replicas of such period designs, made publicly accessible as commercially available products for purchase. The earliest group to capitalize on this advantage was the Ming subgroup, who marketed replica Ming-era (1368-1644) garb as high-end products, and soon gained popularity and acclaim as the "most historically informed" design. With synthetic materials and mechanized weaving and sewing, what material and design contexts are different with modern "Ming-style" clothing with actual specimens from the historical era? What elements or sum of contexts constitute a qualifying "Ming" piece and how much personal liberty can be taken? What can the evolution from early 21st Century hanfu, extrapolated from Chinese opera costume and paintings, to the Ming-style prevalent present say for fashion development of traditional dress? How has the rediscovery of Ming fashion aesthetics contributed to the understanding of Han clothing itself? This paper attempts to draw together contemporary theories of fashion, social media usage and business to witness an internal evolution of the hanfu subculture, in turn speculate on Chinese perspectives towards dress, selectiveness on the perception of history and heritage, and defining boundaries on innovation within its tradition.
Images act as the animator to an object into culture: The modern Han dress or Hanfu Movement prom... more Images act as the animator to an object into culture: The modern Han dress or Hanfu Movement promulgated primarily through images and multimedia on the internet in its first decade (2003-2013). Images served both for and against the movement through its interpretation, whereas Han proponents appealed to the pathos for redrawing the definitions and boundaries of the Han and Chinese nation, while detractors captured the bathos of the ethnic as the exotic and anachronistic. Through the crystal-clear focus of high-definition studio portraits on intricately embroidered, well-tailored specimens, however, introduced capitalistic desire into the gaze and broke past the nationalist quagmire and digressed the topic into the realm of commodification, thereby somewhat intentionally establishing the once historical clothing firmly into the realm of modernity.
What's in a dress? Roland Barthes contemplates that a dress 'exists' in three forms: The actual o... more What's in a dress? Roland Barthes contemplates that a dress 'exists' in three forms: The actual object, its image or graphical depictions, and textual representation and description. In restoring a dress tradition by referencing over three millennia of historical evidence and terms, the Hanfu (Han Chinese traditional clothing) Movement was caught in an etymological and taxonomical quagmire over what periodic terms should be the standard in the 21 st Century present, if said clothing can still be considered a part within the Han fashion system itself. Insisting on the Confucian adage "If the names are not proper[ly sorted], then speech cannot be fluent," the movement's fierce rejection of dynastic labeling of the clothes' nomenclature and unveiled a complex interplay between the academic interests of archaeological (re)discovery, hiding and/or outwardly displaying the clothing as a symbol of difference and non-conformity, and competing bundled forms of aesthetic and patriotic forms. This paper will highlight how the reconfiguration and re-imagination of hanfu from historical costume to 'national dress' to ethnic clothing provides a concrete expression of 'indigenous modernity' suggested by Chen Kuan-Hsing and other postmodern scholars, and the success of this transition depended in the realpolitik between its supporters and detractors in the market of immaterial ideas and material objects.
Teaching Documents by Juni Yeung
Drafts by Juni Yeung
MA Thesis submitted to University of Toronto Department of History, 2018.
This essay is original... more MA Thesis submitted to University of Toronto Department of History, 2018.
This essay is originally part of a bigger research project, covering the Han Dress or Hanfu Movement outside of the People's Republic of China, and its impact on ethnic and national identity politics in Malaysia and Hong Kong.
Uploads
Videos by Juni Yeung
https://www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/events/25aug2018-the-guqin-art-and-its-revival-in-the-21st-century-conference.html
https://torguqin.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/hart-house-northshore-lecture/
Conference Presentations by Juni Yeung
Subsequent attempts in innovating the instrument failed to address this issue, or were stopped by conservative voices of the scholar-literati class. The 21st century saw a resurgence in the interest in the qin for its adaptation to play modern genres. However, the shortcomings once again highlighted the divide between new composers and traditional players and listeners demanding the full-range of open, harmonic, and pressed timbres.
This paper attempts a systematic investigation to the various implications to expanding the qin’s interface from a pentatonic to a heptatonic system, as well as the nine-stringed instrument that will be necessary to facilitate its full implementation. An expanded heptatonic tuning system that maintains the qin’s modal principles would not only help future composers to work in a familiar environment with more obvious equivalence in translation between musicality and performance tenability, but also bridge a thousand-year old rift between indigenous and medieval cosmopolitan streams of Chinese musical vocabulary and structural differences of understanding.
1. Provide a critique of both the modern Chinese musical pedagogy in conservatory and commercial environments, as well as the imagination of the “traditional magi-magister” counterpoint as an extension of an Orientalist approach.
2. Provide observations and comparisons of qin learning patterns amongst students of Canadian and Chinese education background, based on teaching experiences in Toronto, Canada from 2005 to 2018, and
3. Provide suggestions towards building a China-centered, holistic approach to guqin curricula, particularly with more focus to integrating musicology and its historical development to its practical application in performance and pedagogy.
Talks by Juni Yeung
Accounts of those recipes adapting to local ingredients and kitchens have largely been oral or visual in field studies, but Chan Wing's cookbook, "Thirty Years in the Kitchen" provides not only taught cooks and amateur gourmands to reproduce restaurant-class cuisine, but textual evidence demonstrating the thought process in how a Ukrainian beet soup transforms into a whole genre of foods, acting from base sauce to stewing agent, in the Fragrant Harbor of the booming 1960’s. Juni Yeung will act as your guide for your eyes, ears, and tastebuds on this journey, in hopes of enticing more to explore the missing links of then and now.
Papers by Juni Yeung
Teaching Documents by Juni Yeung
Drafts by Juni Yeung
This essay is originally part of a bigger research project, covering the Han Dress or Hanfu Movement outside of the People's Republic of China, and its impact on ethnic and national identity politics in Malaysia and Hong Kong.
https://www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/events/25aug2018-the-guqin-art-and-its-revival-in-the-21st-century-conference.html
https://torguqin.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/hart-house-northshore-lecture/
Subsequent attempts in innovating the instrument failed to address this issue, or were stopped by conservative voices of the scholar-literati class. The 21st century saw a resurgence in the interest in the qin for its adaptation to play modern genres. However, the shortcomings once again highlighted the divide between new composers and traditional players and listeners demanding the full-range of open, harmonic, and pressed timbres.
This paper attempts a systematic investigation to the various implications to expanding the qin’s interface from a pentatonic to a heptatonic system, as well as the nine-stringed instrument that will be necessary to facilitate its full implementation. An expanded heptatonic tuning system that maintains the qin’s modal principles would not only help future composers to work in a familiar environment with more obvious equivalence in translation between musicality and performance tenability, but also bridge a thousand-year old rift between indigenous and medieval cosmopolitan streams of Chinese musical vocabulary and structural differences of understanding.
1. Provide a critique of both the modern Chinese musical pedagogy in conservatory and commercial environments, as well as the imagination of the “traditional magi-magister” counterpoint as an extension of an Orientalist approach.
2. Provide observations and comparisons of qin learning patterns amongst students of Canadian and Chinese education background, based on teaching experiences in Toronto, Canada from 2005 to 2018, and
3. Provide suggestions towards building a China-centered, holistic approach to guqin curricula, particularly with more focus to integrating musicology and its historical development to its practical application in performance and pedagogy.
Accounts of those recipes adapting to local ingredients and kitchens have largely been oral or visual in field studies, but Chan Wing's cookbook, "Thirty Years in the Kitchen" provides not only taught cooks and amateur gourmands to reproduce restaurant-class cuisine, but textual evidence demonstrating the thought process in how a Ukrainian beet soup transforms into a whole genre of foods, acting from base sauce to stewing agent, in the Fragrant Harbor of the booming 1960’s. Juni Yeung will act as your guide for your eyes, ears, and tastebuds on this journey, in hopes of enticing more to explore the missing links of then and now.
This essay is originally part of a bigger research project, covering the Han Dress or Hanfu Movement outside of the People's Republic of China, and its impact on ethnic and national identity politics in Malaysia and Hong Kong.