A detailed account of the cultural history of the Chinese diaspora, with a focus on the performers and audiences who were involved in the making of Chinese performing cultures in Southeast Asia.
Focusing on five different kinds of theatre troupes from China and their respective travels in Singapore, Bangkok, Malaya and Hong Kong, Zhang examines their different travelling experiences and divergent cultural practices. She thus sheds light on how transnational mobility was embodied, practised and circumscribed in the course of troupes' travelling, sojourning and interacting with diasporic communities. These troupes communicated diverse discourses and ideologies influenced by different social political movements in China, and these meanings were further altered by transmission.
By unpacking multiple ways of performing Chineseness that was determined by changing time-space constructions, this volume provides valuable insight for scholars of the Chinese Diaspora, Transnational History and Performing Arts in Asia.
Focusing on five different kinds of theatre troupes from China and their respective travels in Singapore, Bangkok, Malaya and Hong Kong, Zhang examines their different travelling experiences and divergent cultural practices. She thus sheds light on how transnational mobility was embodied, practised and circumscribed in the course of troupes' travelling, sojourning and interacting with diasporic communities. These troupes communicated diverse discourses and ideologies influenced by different social political movements in China, and these meanings were further altered by transmission.
By unpacking multiple ways of performing Chineseness that was determined by changing time-space constructions, this volume provides valuable insight for scholars of the Chinese Diaspora, Transnational History and Performing Arts in Asia.
"This exciting new book by Beiyu Zhang offers a vivid and deeply historicized account of Chinese performing arts in Southeast Asia...This is an outstanding study that is well informed by the secondary scholarship in both English and chinese and is strongly grounded in original research using historical newspapers, periodicals and unpublished documentary sources...Beiyu Zhang's book makes an enormous and very welcome contribution to the field of Chinese and Sinophone peformance studies. It is a must-read for all those interested in the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia." - Emily Wilcox, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, William & Mary in SOJOURN the Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asai Vol 37 No.2 [2022]