Harry Chen

103122003
Hans Huang
Introduction to Culture Studies
In the beginning of Chapter 5, Chen points out the problems of
eastern scholars long practices of focusing on West and ignoring
Asia from the impact of leaving Asia for America. As Chen points
out that though most intellectuals in Asia had multiple direct links to
North America and Europe, they had few contacts among
themselves. Then he calls on us to use Asia as a method to
associate with other Asian societies and deal with the problems
similar to its own. Further, Chen uses Halls observation that West
serves as a framework to categorize different societies and their
characteristics. West is a structure of knowledge a series of images
that form a system of representation that connects with other
concepts (West versus non West). Even though it sums up the
functions of the West within the geographical space of the West, its
hard to explain that the West as the object of both desire and
resentment in the third world. This fatal attraction or distraction has
become the backbone of third world nationalism and framed as a
dichotomy (the East /China/Japan versus the West). Then after he
puts forward the problems of this West-Asia dichotomy, he questions
that what is the subject of nationalist discourse, if not the West? In
order to find out the answer, Chen examines Sakais analysis on
Habermas to disrupt the Other by deconstructing it. By examining it,
he found out that the complicity between universalism and
particularism is a result of colonial practices. Therefore, if the
universalism of the West cannot hold, the particularism of the theory
of japaneseness also collapses. The implication is that all anticolonial nationalist discourses that take western imperialism as the
Other cannot stand. Another way to tackle down the question is to
de-universalizing, provincialise, or regionalize the West. Although
the West has been influential and indeed become part of cultural
resource of Asia; it, however, cannot claim universality. Further, by
going through the dialogue with Chatterjee, he found out that since
each societies has their own history of development and
characteristic, it would be problematic to examine it by exclusively
using western theory. Chen then uses the idea of Minjian as an
example to elucidate the differences between societies of the West
and Taiwan. As he states, Minjian is a more compassionate and
sympathetic social forces without being wholly governed by the law.
It creates lots of political agencies throughout the process of
Taiwans modernization. At the end of Chens article, he reminds us
that the Asian studies in Taiwan should be as much about Taiwan as
about Asia, and Americas Asia studies should also be America
studies. By only doing so, we can arrive at different understanding
of the self, the Other, and the world history.

In the epilogue, Chen ends this book with a self-critique and

brings up the problems of Chinese(Han) racism. By going through
Maram Epsteins essay, he points out that the racism toward other
ethnic has long existed. In the novel Yesou Puyan, the main
character depicts all the non-Han ethnicities as monsters or animals
and sees them as inferior creature. While reading Epsteins essay,
Chen finds out there are generally three psychic strategies and
discourse for dealing the Other. First strategy is to demonize the
unfamiliar objects. Second is to animalize the Other. Third is to
differentiate outsider through even finer distinctions, thereby
producing additional sets of hierarchies. To further explain the
Chinese and Han system, Chen uses Liu Jen-pengs essay to closely
examine the hierarchy and public arena within the society. By
applying Lius theory of the subject, shadow of the subject and
penumbra, we can more easily to examine the identity politics. In
Chens example, if the structure is a heterosexual patriarchy,
where the subject is a male, and the shadow is a feminist, then the
penumbra is a lesbian group, which cannot be properly presented
except by masquerading as a cluster of feminist. In this example,
we can clearly see the unutterablilty of the lesbian groups cannot
represent themselves without hiding or attaching on the feminist
groups.