Academic literature on the topic 'A Ballarat Chinese Family Biography'

The article is dedicated the certain aspects of the biography of Thaksin Shinawatra – a former Prime-Minister of Thailand (2001–2006) and one of the wealthiest businessmen in the history of Thailand are described. The history of his family is told from the moment of the arrival of his great-grandfather from China to Thailand, up to the moment when Thaksin was forced to step down from office as a result of the coup d’etat in 2006.

The author recalls the outstanding Russian sinologist Vadim L’vovich Sichev (1940–2019): He narrates the scientist’s biography and names his main academic works. Vadim L. Sichev was born in the family of famous soviet artist Lev P. Sichev. After graduation from the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Lomonosov Moscow State University, he worked in the State Museum of Oriental Art for a long time. The main areas of his scientific research were the study of Chinese costume and Chinese classical painting. Vadim L. Sichev has published a large number of books and academic articles. The most famous works of the scholar are “Chinese Costume: Symbolism, History, Interpretation in Literature and Art” (1975, co-written with his farther Lev P. Sichev), “Chinese Classical Paintings in the Collection of State Museum of Oriental Art” (2016), “Modern Chinese Prints in the Collection of State Museum of Oriental Art” (2016). The article contains reflections about the creative method and research principles of Vadim L. Sichev.

There are few resources amongst contemporary Chinese literary criticism that manage to weave such insightful literary readings and incisive historical research as Kristin Stapleton’s Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family. The book accomplishes three feats, as set out by Stapleton in her introductory chapter, simultaneously incorporating a history of twentieth-century Chengdu (and its relevance to the developments in China during this period, more broadly) alongside the author’s biography of Ba Jin’s formative years in the city and the historiographical context of his novel Family. Such an undertaking by a less skilled author would have, perhaps, produced a work which simplifies the rich historical underpinnings of Ba Jin’s Family to supplementary readings of the novel, coupled with incidental evidence of the political and social machinations of the city in which its author grew up. Not so under Stapleton’s careful guidance. By reading the social and economic development of early twentieth-century Chengdu as much as its fictional counterpart in Ba Jin’s Turbulent Stream trilogy, Stapleton provides a perceptive reading of Family which invites the reader to consider how fiction can enrich and enliven our understanding of history.

The article reveals previously unknown facts about the sinologist Sergei Alexandrovich Polevoy (1886—1971), who became famous due to his scientific, pedagogical and social activities in China. Being a native of dynasty that gave the world talented literary critics, writers and journalists, Polevoy from his youth was passionate about literature and collecting books alongside learning about China. His first academic work, prepared as a graduation paper at the Oriental Institute (Vladivostok), was devoted to periodicals in China; and his unique library composed of literature in many languages originated from the books on Oriental studies and linguistics. Living in China since 1917, Polevoy was a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin (since 1918) and then Peking University (since 1921), where he taught Chinese students the Russian language and literature. Using the introduction to Russian culture and literature as a new method of teaching, he brought up some famous Chinese writers and translators. His bookstore, opened in Beijing and having contacts with the International Book Company in Moscow, became a cultural bridge between Russia and China. Using the bookstore, Polevoy supplied Chinese students with textbooks and Russian classical literature, replenished the department of Slavic literature at the Beijing National Library, distributed Marxist literature and helped Chinese communist leaders establish contacts with the USSR. The authors also report the facts on the biography of Polevoyʼs son, Leonid, thanks to whom the Oriental Institute of the Far Eastern Federal University (Vladivostok) received the manuscript of S. Polevoy’s English-Chinese dictionary and his other materials on oriental studies. Leonid also presented his father’s book collection to Irkutsk, and these books served as the basis of the Humanitarian Centre — Library named after the Polevoys’ family. The article is based on materials from the Polevoys’ family archives and other private collections abroad.

AbstractThe Zhu Maichen story originates as a case of ‘female-initiated divorce' in an ancient Chinese biography, before later becoming a familiar late imperial narrative. In the last hundred years, it has featured as a prominent part of the narrative heritage available for operatic reworking. The absence of a canonical authorial version gives more space for playwrights and performers to incorporate their current perspectives of gender and sexuality into various renditions. We have seen a continuance of older patterns where the wife is demonised for her desire to divorce, as well as productions tending to reconsider the travails of the wife. The Hokkien-language genre liyuanxi draws on local narrative versions to arrive at a happy ending, enabling Zhu to remarry his wife, while a new jingju (Beijing opera) version at the turn of century even enables the disillusioned wife to liberate herself from the hypocritic Confucian family. Yet in liyuanxi the wife is taken back, having retained chastity during their parting, while in jingju the wife's materialistic motivations led to criticism in the press. The female-initiated divorce thus provides no escape for Zhu Maichen's wife, who is condemned even when tragedy is averted or the narrative’s patriarchal morality subverted.

Background. The little-known pages of the work of an outstanding Chinese composer are presented. The genesis of chamber-vocal style is explored on the example of early chamber and vocal creativity of the 1940s. This is the stage in the formation of the musical language of the composer, which coincides with the “experimental” period of the formation of Chinese chamber vocal music of the twentieth century. Zhu Jiangier became one of the pioneers in the attempts of creative synthesis of national and European musical experience. Specificity of musical content and features of the intonational language, form, texture of the piano accompaniment of the cycle or. 1 (1940–1944) and two songs created in 1944 are considered. The characterization of the composer’s early song creativity, features inherent in his style, is generalized. It is proved that the earliest period of creativity, in particular, the sphere of chamber vocal music, which formed the personality of Zhu Jiangera style. Objectives. The purpose of this article is to consider and study the early period of the chamber-vocal creativity of Zhu Jian’er, the formation of his talent in his young years. The section of the creative biography of the composer, connected with the 1940s, has been least studied by researchers. At the same time, it was he who laid and formed the foundations of Zhu Jianar’s compositional personality in the field of vocal music. Methods. The methods of research are based on the scientific approaches necessary for the disclosure of the topic. The methodology is based on an integrated approach that combines the principle of musical-theoretical, musical-historical and executive analysis. Results. The specifics of the musical content, peculiarities of the intonational language, the composition form and texture of the piano accompaniment of the vocal cycle op. 1 (1940–1944) and two songs created in 1944 are considered. The subject content of the cycle songs covered a wide range of musical images. The central place in the songs is devoted to philosophical reflections on the meaning of life, the theme of love for the homeland, everyday sketches, and landscape and love lyrics, separation. The general composition of the first opus is of considerable interest – the first play is divided into four parts, which allows one to speak of such a structural phenomenon as a cycle in a cycle. There is clearly felt the influence of Western European compositional technology. At the same time, the song has features of traditional Chinese music, which is due, above all, to the elements of pentatonic in the melody of the vocal part of the work. The first song of op. 1 No. 1 “Memory” is a mini-cycle consisting of four parts. Poetic text determines the detailed nature of the musical composition with a pronounced ballad color and complex drama, the structure of the song is based on the principle of end-to-end development, the change of emotional mood occurs in one breath. Already on this composition it is clear that at the very beginning of his work Zhu Jian’er had the skill of a versatile depiction of inner experiences and difficulties encountered in the life of the hero. The second number or. 1 No. 2 “Waves washing sand” – imbued with a lyrical and philosophical mood. In the musical-figurative sphere, the landscape poetry occupies a central place with philosophical overtones, symbolically revealing the images of waves on the sand, characterizing the lyrical experiences of the hero and his sadness. op. 1 No. 3 “Lullaby” – the lyrical center of the cycle, a song of meditation with a predominant shade of sadness and philosophical overtones – the theme of enlightenment, the general meaningful canvas corresponds to the genre of lullabies, the appeal to the child, full of tender feelings. The fourth song Or. 1 No. 4 “I want to return to my homeland”, serves as a kind of finale. The basis of the song is the topic of separation, which is very popular in the songwriting of Chinese composers. The content of the song is symbolic: it is not only dreams of a distant friend, family and friends, but also a reflection of emotional feelings of separation from the motherland. Songs “Spring, when you return” and “Dream” were created by the composer in 1944, are devoted to events from the life of the composer. Zhu Jian’er saturates the musical fabric of the song with unstable harmonies, offers a more complex texture solution to the piano part (alternating polyphonic and homophonic-harmonious presentation) and gives it greater independence as an independent layer of musical tissue. The vocal melody also acquires a new look. An arioso-declamatory by nature, it embodies all the nuances of a poetic text that is pronounced with a special sentimental feeling (“Spring, when you return”) or a joyful hope (“Dream”). The analysis completes the generalized characterization of the composer’s early song-writing, in which the inherent features are distinguished. The skill and artistic significance of his songs testify to the fact that Zhu Jian’er succeeded in original compositions with vivid national characteristics. In the early chamber-vocal works of Zhu Jian’er, musical embodiment was achieved both in luminous, lyrical, and sad, even grim character themes related to the reflection of deep emotional, indeed – philosophical aspects of being revealed through a change of experiences. The theme of many songs is associated with the embodiment of the thoughts and feelings of a person, with the chanting of a beautiful nature. Conclusions. The least studied early period of creativity, in particular, the sphere of chamber-vocal music formed the individuality of the compositional style of Zhu Jian’er. Zhu Jian’er’s songs are characterized by vivid musical images and colorful writing, vividly representing the individuality of the composer’s musical language. These works alone allow us to say that in his early years the composer Zhu Jian’er was a high-level musician.

In recent years, significant numbers of young middle-class Chinese women have moved abroad to construct an individual ‘biography’ beyond the unequal gendered expectations of the post-reform context. This article reports on a 2019 qualitative study combining interviews and visual analysis of WeChat and Instagram posts to consider how young Chinese women temporarily living in Australia maintain relationships with upper middle class family who have supported their daughters’ overseas ventures. In the wake of sweeping privatization which has encouraged parents to invest in their only children as their ‘only hopes’, online media has allowed parents to be ‘pervasively present’ for distant daughters in these transnational movements. We document participants’ curated self-branding for family on WeChat as a means of managing and negotiating this sometimes interventionist presence. Our participants’ practices reveal a complex juggling act: managing individual desires to optimize the overseas experience but carefully modulating such experience for the parental audience. Post-pandemic follow-up interviews in 2022 also suggest complications in the use of transnational mobility to extend the possibilities of flourishing, with parental pressure to return to a more proximate zone of surveillance in China. Such practices indicate the gendered contradictions young women face: pushed but also desiring to succeed individually in an unequal marketplace, while being further tethered to the family unit.

As never before, women are rightfully in positions of political power, and into the maelstrom of mass media challenges to their fashions and their right to govern. Fraught narratives surround the clothing of women in leadership in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, and Indonesia. There is an enduring relationship between women and dress which needs to be examined in regard to how clothing choices inform and articulate the ways in which women remain represented as either suitable or not for public office, how they may be lauded or damned when they are in power. In Women and Power: The Politics of Dress it is argued by several authors that political dress for women in the Asia-Pacific expresses a complex set of political and cultural legacies as it impacts their style of government and appearance. Cultural legacies are, in some cases, determined by choice or rejection of ethnic clothing of the past. When Myanmar leader Aung San Sui-Kyi chose to wear versions of her native costume, she offered the physical appearance of her commitment to government by the people, rather than the military (124). She was deposed from office and imprisoned after a military coup in 2021, and Myanmar currently remains under military rule. Interesting examples of ‘native costume’ in politics include: the former ‘first lady’ of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, and her use of the classic Filipina ‘butterfly dress’ (122), and former Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam’s adoption of the ancient Chinese ‘qipao’ or ‘cheong sam’ (129). Other legacies include the very strict set of attire worn by brides entering the Japanese royal family, and further honorifics as exemplified by the wedding clothes of Princess-by-marriage Masako and her subsequent rise to Empress of Japan (63-72). Contrary to country- and cultural-specific clothing for much of Asia, political dress for women includes the overwhelming impact of western culture on garments through mass media, such as television and films, and more recently, the socials. (130). Theories regarding political attire of non-Western women in leadership risk the notion of ‘stereotyping’ through the Western view of the ‘exoticism’ of women through ‘Oriental costuming’ (121). As noted above, there is a legitimate option for Asian women to select their garments to express both cultural traditions alongside their employment of Westernised or popular fashion, or even haute couture. For instance, more Avant Garde designer clothing was important to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and others (128). Further, clothing worn by women in politics offers the opportunity to express not only the political aspirations of their country and its role in global negotiations. Women politicians' use of distinctive country-based designers in India, Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia, and China (PRC) when on the global stage has been defined as ‘sartorial diplomacy’ (13). Promoting the fashion of one’s native country has also been defined as ‘soft power’ (13). Likewise, the use of ‘native’ or country-centric costume has offered women in leadership to mix a national form of identify politics as befits their nation’s goals (13). Finally, meeting nationalistic goals within the bounds of a culturally-based sense of women’s proper roles in society, i.e. placing family and children first can be challenging, if not impossible, with their own wishes to display their own identity through the adoption of contemporary fashion. Finally, how women leaders dress is subject to critical commentary through mass media and the socials, where appearance takes on a disproportionate level of importance (16). Women who rise to political prominence will need to continue to ‘call out’ inappropriate commentary on their attire that undermines their authority to govern their countries as men have done without question. Excerpted from the following: Denise N. Rall (ed.). Fashion, Women and Power: The Politics of Dress. Bristol: Intellect / Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2022. Author Biography Denise N. Rall, Adjunct Fellow – Research [pending], in Humanities & Social Sciences, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW, was awarded her PhD in 2007. Since 2008, Denise relocated her academic and artistic interests to fashion and textiles through a critical lens to view the sociology of clothing and its role in society. Latest book: Fashion, Women & Power: The Politics of Dress published in 2022.

I have decided to launch a campaign against the skyscraper, that hideous, mediocre form of architecture…. Today we only have an empty version of it, only competing in height.— Rem Koolhaas, “Kool Enough for Beijing?”Figure 1: The CCTV Headquarters—A Courtyard in the Air. Cher Coad, 2020.Introduction: An Anomaly within an Anomaly Construction of Beijing’s China Central Television Headquarters (henceforth CCTV Headquarters) began in 2004 and the building was officially completed in 2012. It is a project by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) headed by Rem Koolhaas (1944-), who has been called “the coolest, hippest, and most cutting-edge architect on the planet”(“Rem Koolhaas Biography”). The CCTV Headquarters is a distinctive feature of downtown Beijing and is heavily associated in the Western world with 21st-century China. It is often used as the backdrop for reports from the China correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Bill Birtles. The construction of the CCTV Headquarters, however, was very much an international enterprise. Koolhaas himself is Dutch, and the building was one of the first projects the OMA did outside of America after 9/11. As Koolhaas describes it: we had incredible emphasis on New York for five years, and America for five years, and what we decided to do after September 11 when we realized that, you know, things were going to be different in America: [was] to also orient ourselves eastwards [Koolhaas goes on to describe two projects: the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia and the CCTV Headquarters]. (Rem Koolhaas Interview) Problematically, Koolhaas claims that the building we created for CCTV could never have been conceived by the Chinese and could never have been built by Europeans. It is a hybrid by definition. It was also a partnership, not a foreign imposition…. There was a huge Chinese component from the very beginning. We tried to do a building that conveys that it has emerged from the local situation. (Fraioli 117) Our article reinterprets this reading. We suggest that the OMA’s “incredible emphasis” on America—home of the world’s first skyscraper: the Home Insurance Building built in 1885 in Chicago, Illinois—pivotally spills over into its engagement with China. The emergence of the CCTV Headquarters “from the local situation”, such as it is, is more in spite of Koolhaas’s stated “hybrid” approach than because of it, for what’s missing from his analysis of the CCTV Headquarters’ provenance is the siheyuan or classical Chinese courtyard house. We will argue that the CCTV Headquarters is an anomaly within an anomaly in contemporary Beijing’s urban landscape, to the extent that it turns the typologies of both the (vertical, American) skyscraper and the (horizontal, Chinese) siheyuan on a 90 degree angle. The important point to make here, however, is that these two anomalous elements of the building are not of the same order. While the anomalous re-configuration of the skyscraper typology is clearly part of Koolhaas’s architectural manifesto, it is against his architectural intentionality that the CCTV Headquarters sustains the typology of the siheyuan. This bespeaks the persistent and perhaps functional presence of traditional Chinese architecture and urbanism in the building. Koolhaas’s building contains both starkly evident and more secretive anomalies. Ironically then, there is a certain truth in Koolhaas’s words, beneath the critique we made of it above as an example of American-dominated, homogenising globalisation. And the significance of the CCTV Headquarters’ hybridity as both skyscraper and siheyuan can be elaborated through Daniel M. Abramson’s thesis that a consideration of unbuilt architecture has the potential to re-open architecture to its historical conditions. Roberto Schwarz argues that “forms are the abstract of specific social relationships” (53). Drawing on Schwarz’s work and Abramson’s, we conclude that the historical presence—as secretive anomaly—of the siheyuan in the CCTV Headquarters suggests that the building’s formal debt to the siheyuan (more so than to the American skyscraper) may continue to unsettle the “specific social relationship” of Chinese to Western society (Schwarz 53). The site of this unsettlement, we suggest, is data. The CCTV Headquarters might well be the most data-rich site in all of China—it is, after all, a monumental television station. Suggestively, this wealth of airborne data is literally enclosed within the aerial “courtyard”, with its classical Chinese form, of the CCTV Headquarters. This could hardly be irrelevant in the context of the geo-politics of globalised data. The “form of data”, to coin a phrase, radiates through all the social consequences of data flow and usage, and here the form of data is entwined with a form always already saturated with social consequence. The secretive architectural anomaly of Koolhaas’s building is thus a heterotopic space within the broader Western engagement with China, so much of which relates to flows and captures of data. The Ubiquitous Siheyuan or Classical Chinese Courtyard House According to Ying Liu and Adenrele Awotona, “the courtyard house, a residential compound with buildings surrounding a courtyard on four (or sometimes three) sides, has been representative of housing patterns for over one thousand years in China” (248). Liu and Awotona state that “courtyard house patterns could be found in many parts of China, but the most typical forms are those located in the Old City in Beijing, the capital of China for over eight hundred years” (252). In their reading, the siheyuan is a peculiarly elastic architectural typology, whose influence is present as much in the Forbidden City as in the humble family home (252). Prima facie then, it is not surprising that it has also secreted itself within the architectural form of Koolhaas’s creation. It is important to note, however, that while the “most typical forms” of the siheyuan are indeed still to be found in Beijing, the courtyard house is an increasingly uncommon sight in the Chinese capital. An article in the China Daily from 2004 refers to the “few remaining siheyuan” (“Kool Enough for Beijing?”). That said, all is not lost for the siheyuan. Liu and Awotona discuss how the classical form of the courtyard house has been modified to more effectively house current residents in the older parts of Beijing while protecting “the horizontal planning feature of traditional Beijing” (254). “Basic design principles” (255) of the siheyuan have supported “a transition from the traditional single-household courtyard housing form to a contemporary multi-household courtyard housing form” (254). In this process, approaches of “urban renewal [involving] demolition” and “preservation, renovation and rebuilding” have been taken (255). Donia Zhang extends the work of Liu and Awotona in the elaboration of her thesis that “Chinese-Americans interested in building Chinese-style courtyard houses in America are keen to learn about their architectural heritage” (47). Zhang’s article concludes with an illustration that shows how the siheyuan may be merged with the typical American suburban dwelling (66). The final thing to emphasise about the siheyuan is what Liu and Awotona describe as its “special introverted quality” (249). The form is saturated with social consequence by virtue of its philosophical undergirding. The coincidence of philosophies of Daoism (including feng-shui) and Confucianism in the architecture and spatiality of the classical Chinese courtyard house makes it an exceedingly odd anomaly of passivity and power (250-51). The courtyard itself has a highly charged role in the management of family, social and cultural life, which, we suggest, survives its transposition into novel architectural environments. Figure 2: The CCTV Headquarters—Looking Up at “The Overhang”. Cher Coad, 2020. The CCTV Headquarters: A New Type of Skyscraper? Rem Koolhaas is not the only architect to interrogate the standard skyscraper typology. In his essay from 1999, “The Architecture of the Future”, Norman Foster argues that “the world’s increasing ecological crisis” (278) is in part a function of “unchecked urban sprawl” (279). A new type of skyscraper, he suggests, might at least ameliorate the sprawl of our cities: the Millennium Tower that we have proposed in Tokyo takes a traditional horizontal city quarter—housing, shops, restaurants, cinemas, museums, sporting facilities, green spaces and public transport networks—and turns it on its side to create a super-tall building with a multiplicity of uses … . It would create a virtually self-sufficient, fully self-sustaining community in the sky. (279) Koolhaas follows suit, arguing that “the actual point of the skyscraper—to increase worker density—has been lost. Skyscrapers are now only momentary points of high density spaced so far apart that they don’t actually increase density at all” (“Kool Enough for Beijing?”). Foster’s solution to urban sprawl is to make the horizontal (an urban segment) vertical; Koolhaas’s is to make the vertical horizontal: “we’ve [OMA] come up with two types: a very low-rise series of buildings, or a single, condensed hyperbuilding. What we’re doing with CCTV is a prototype of the hyperbuilding” (“Kool Enough for Beijing?”). Interestingly, the “low-rise” type mentioned here brings to mind the siheyuan—textual evidence, perhaps, that the siheyuan is always already a silent fellow traveller of the CCTV Headquarters project. The CCTV Headquarters is, even at over 200 metres tall itself, an anomaly of horizontalism amidst Beijing’s pervasive skyscraper verticality. As Paul Goldberger reports, “some Beijingers have taken to calling it Big Shorts”, which again evokes horizontality. This is its most obvious anomaly, and a somewhat melancholy reminder of “the horizontal planning feature of traditional Beijing” now mutilated by skyscrapers (Liu and Awotona 254). In the same gesture, however, with which it lays the skyscraper on its side, Koolhaas’s creation raises into the air the shape of the courtyard of a classical Chinese house. To our knowledge, no one has noticed this before, let alone written about it. It is, to be sure, a genuine courtyard shape—not merely an archway or a bridge with unoccupied space between. Pure building entirely surrounds the vertical courtyard shape formed in the air. Most images of the building provide an orientation that maximises the size of its vertical courtyard. To this extent, the (secret) courtyard shape of the building is hidden in plain sight. It is possible, however, to make the courtyard narrow to a mere slit of space, and finally to nothing, by circumnavigating the building. Certain perspectives on the building can even make it look like a more-or-less ordinary skyscraper. But, as a quick google-image search reveals, such views are rare. What seems to make the building special to people is precisely that part of it that is not building. Furthermore, anyone approaching the CCTV Headquarters with the intention of locating a courtyard typology within its form will be disappointed unless they look to its vertical plane. There is no hint of a courtyard at the base of the building. Figure 3: The CCTV Headquarters—View from “The Overhang”. Cher Coad, 2020.Figure 4: The CCTV Headquarters—Looking through the Floor of “The Overhang”. Cher Coad, 2020.Visiting the CCTV Headquarters: A “Special Introverted Quality?” In January 2020, we visited the CCTV Headquarters, ostensibly as audience members for a recording of a science spectacular show. Towards the end of the recording, we were granted a quick tour of the building. It is rare for foreigners to gain access to the sections of the building we visited. Taking the lift about 40 floors up, we arrived at the cantilever level—known informally as “the overhang”. Glass discs in the floor allow one to walk out over nothingness, looking down on ant-like pedestrians. Looking down like this was also to peer into the vacant “courtyard” of the building—into a structure “turned or pushed inward on itself”, which is the anatomical definition of “introverted” (Oxford Languages Dictionary). Workers in the building evinced no great affection for it, and certainly nothing of our wide-eyed wonder. Somebody said, “it’s just a place to work”. One of this article’s authors, Patrick West, seemed to feel the overhang almost imperceptibly vibrating beneath him. (Still, he has also experienced this sensation in conventional skyscrapers.) We were told the rumour that the building has started to tilt over dangerously. Being high in the air, but also high on the air, with nothing but air beneath us, felt edgy—somehow special—our own little world. Koolhaas promotes the CCTV Headquarters as (in paraphrase) “its own city, its own community” (“Kool Enough for Beijing?”). This resonated with us on our visit. Conventional skyscrapers fracture any sense of community through their segregated floor-upon-floor verticality; there is never enough room for a little patch of horizontal urbanism to unroll. Within “the overhang”, the CCTV Headquarters felt unlike a standard skyscraper, as if we were in an urban space magically levitated from the streets below. Sure, we had been told by one of the building’s inhabitants that it was “just a place to work”—but compared to the bleak sterility of most skyscraper work places, it wasn’t that sterile. The phrase Liu and Awotona use of the siheyuan comes to mind here, as we recall our experience; somehow, we had been inside a different type of building, one with its own “special introverted quality” (249). Special, that is, in the sense of containing just so much of horizontal urbanism as allows the building to retain its introverted quality as “its own city” (“Kool Enough for Beijing?”). Figure 5: The CCTV Headquarters—View from “The Overhang”. Cher Coad, 2020.Figure 6: The CCTV Headquarters—Inside “The Overhang”. Cher Coad, 2020. Unbuilt Architecture: The Visionary and the Contingent Within the present that it constitutes, built architecture is surrounded by unbuilt architecture at two interfaces: where the past ends; where the future begins. The soupy mix of urbanism continually spawns myriad architectural possibilities, and any given skyscraper is haunted by all the skyscrapers it might have been. History and the past hang heavily from them. Meanwhile, architectural programme or ambition—such as it is—pulls in the other direction: towards an idealised (if not impossible to practically realise) future. Along these lines, Koolhaas and the OMA are plainly a future-directed, as well as self-aware, architectural unit: at OMA we try to build in the greatest possible tolerance and the least amount of rigidity in terms of embodying one particular moment. We want our buildings to evolve. A building has at least two lives—the one imagined by its maker and the life it lives afterward—and they are never the same. (Fraioli 115) Koolhaas makes the same point even more starkly with regard to the CCTV Headquarters project through his use of the word “prototype”: “what we’re doing with CCTV is a prototype of the hyperbuilding” (“Kool Enough for Beijing?”). At the same time, however, as the presence of the siheyuan within the architecture of the CCTV Headquarters shows, the work of the OMA cannot escape from the superabundance of history, within which, as Roberto Schwarz claims, “forms are the abstract of specific social relationships” (53). Supporting our contentions here, Daniel M. Abramson notes that unbuilt architecture implies two sub-categories … the visionary unbuilt, and the contingent … . Visionary schemes invite a forward glance, down one true, vanguard path to a reformed society and discipline. The contingent unbuilts, conversely, invite a backward glance, along multiple routes history might have gone, each with its own likelihood and validity; no privileged truths. (Abramson)Introducing Abramson’s theory to the example of the CCTV Headquarters, the “visionary unbuilt” lines up with Koolhaas’ thesis that the building is a future-directed “prototype”. while the clearest candidate for the “contingent unbuilt”, we suggest, is the siheyuan. Why? Firstly, the siheyuan is hidden in plain sight, within the framing architecture of the CCTV Headquarters; secondly, it is ubiquitous in Beijing urbanism—little wonder then that it turns up, unannounced, in this Beijing building; thirdly, and related to the second point, the two buildings share a “special introverted quality” (Liu and Awotona 249). “The contingent”, in this case, is the anomaly nestled within the much more blatant “visionary” (or futuristic) anomaly—the hyperbuilding to come—of the Beijing-embedded CCTV Headquarters. Koolhaas’s building’s most fascinating anomaly relates, not to any forecast of the future, but to the subtle persistence of the past—its muted quotation of the ancient siheyuan form. Our article is, in part, a response to Abramson’s invitation to “pursue … the consequences of the unbuilt … [and thus] to open architectural history more fully to history”. We have supplemented Abramson’s idea with Schwarz’s suggestion that “forms are the abstract of specific social relationships” (53). The anomaly of the siheyuan—alongside that of the hyperbuilding—within the CCTV headquarters, opens the building up (paraphrasing Abramson) to a fuller analysis of its historical positioning within Western and Eastern flows of globalisation (or better, as we are about to suggest, of glocalisation). In parallel, its form (paraphrasing Schwarz) abstracts and re-presents this history’s specific social relationships. Figure 7: The CCTV Headquarters—A Courtyard of Data. Cher Coad, 2020.Conclusion: A Courtyard of Data and Tensions of Glocalisation Koolhaas proposes that the CCTV Headquarters was “a partnership, not a foreign imposition” and that the building “emerged from the local situation” (Fraioli 117). To us, this smacks of Pollyanna globalisation. The CCTV Headquarters is, we suggest, more accurately read as an imposition of the American skyscraper typology, albeit in anomalous form. (One might even argue that the building’s horizontal deviation from the vertical norm reinforces that norm.) Still, amidst a thicket of conventionally vertical skyscrapers, the building’s horizontalism does have the anomalous effect of recalling “the horizontal planning feature of traditional Beijing” (Liu and Awotona 254). Buried within its horizontalism, however, lies a more secretive anomaly in the form of a vertical siheyuan. This anomaly, we contend, motivates a terminological shift from “globalisation” to “glocalisation”, for the latter term better captures the notion of a lack of reconciliation between the “global” and the “local” in the building. Koolhaas’s visionary architectural programme explicitly advances anomaly. The CCTV Headquarters radically reworks the skyscraper typology as the prototype of a hyperbuilding defined by horizontalism. Certainly, such horizontalism recalls the horizontal plane of pre-skyscraper Beijing and, if faintly, that plane’s ubiquitous feature: the classical courtyard house. Simultaneously, however, the siheyuan has a direct if secretive presence within the morphology of the CCTV Headquarters, even as any suggestion of a vertical courtyard is strikingly absent from Koolhaas’s vanguard manifesto. To this extent, the hyperbuilding fits within Abramson’s category of “the visionary unbuilt”, while the siheyuan aligns with Abramson’s “contingent unbuilt” descriptor. The latter is the “might have been” that, largely under the pressure of its ubiquity as Beijing vernacular architecture, “very nearly is”. Drawing on Schwarz’s idea that “forms are the abstract of specific social relationships”, we propose that the siheyuan, as anomalous form of the CCTV Headquarters, is a heterotopic space within the hybrid global harmony (to paraphrase Koolhaas) purportedly represented by the building (53). In this space thus formed collides the built-up historical and philosophical social intensity of the classical Chinese courtyard house and the intensities of data flows and captures that help constitute the predominantly capitalist and neo-liberalist “social relationship” of China and the Western world—the world of the skyscraper (Schwarz). Within the siheyuan of the CCTV Headquarters, globalised data is literally enveloped by Daoism and Confucianism; it is saturated with the social consequence of local place. The term “glocalisation” is, we suggest, to be preferred here to “globalisation”, because of how it better reflects such vernacular interruptions to the hegemony of globalised space. Forms delineate social relationships, and data, which both forms and is formed by social relationships, may be formed by architecture as much as anything else within social space. Attention to the unbuilt architectural forms (vanguard and contingent) contained within the CCTV Headquarters reveals layers of anomaly that might, ultimately, point to another form of architecture entirely, in which glocal tensions are not only recognised, but resolved. Here, Abramson’s historical project intersects, in the final analysis, with a worldwide politics. Figure 8: The CCTV Headquarters—A Sound Stage in Action. Cher Coad, 2020. References Abramson, Daniel M. “Stakes of the Unbuilt.” Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative. 20 July 2020. <http://we-aggregate.org/piece/stakes-of-the-unbuilt>.Foster, N. “The Architecture of the Future.” The Architecture Reader: Essential Writings from Vitruvius to the Present. Ed. A. Krista Sykes. New York: George Braziller, 2007: 276-79. Fraioli, Paul. “The Invention and Reinvention of the City: An Interview with Rem Koolhaas.” Journal of International Affairs 65.2 (Spring/Summer 2012): 113-19. Goldberger, Paul. “Forbidden Cities: Beijing’s Great New Architecture Is a Mixed Blessing for the City.” The New Yorker—The Sky Line. 23 June 2008. <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/30/forbidden-cities>.“Kool Enough for Beijing?” China Daily. 2 March 2004. <https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-03/02/content_310800.htm>. Liu, Ying, and Adenrele Awotona. “The Traditional Courtyard House in China: Its Formation and Transition.” Evolving Environmental Ideals—Changing Way of Life, Values and Design Practices: IAPS 14 Conference Proceedings. IAPS. Stockholm, Sweden: Royal Institute of Technology, 1996: 248-60. <https://iaps.architexturez.net/system/files/pdf/1202bm1029.content.pdf>.Oxford Languages Dictionary. “Rem Koolhaas Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. 20 July 2020. <https://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ge-La/Koolhaas-Rem.html>. “Rem Koolhaas Interview.” Manufacturing Intellect. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2003. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW187PwSjY0>.Schwarz, Roberto. Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture. New York: Verso, 1992. Zhang, Donia. “Classical Courtyard Houses of Beijing: Architecture as Cultural Artifact.” Space and Communication 1.1 (Dec. 2015): 47-68.

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 從宗教文學的方法論來説，宗教、文學兩者之間存在三種關係，也即是連結（and）、在内（in）與作爲（as），本文擬綜合運用三種方式，探討其與中國傳統宗教的關係，尤其是道教迄今仍保存“解冤釋結”科，這種儀式實踐均各有其宗教義理的支持，形諸小説文本的叙述結構，實與此一義理結構有微妙的互動。在此以晚明一部小説作爲例證，即孫高亮《于少保萃忠全傳》，該書以明代名臣于謙（1398—1457）作爲主人翁，探討其人生中從結冤、明冤到解冤的曲折過程。由於這個故事觸及人情義理的深刻議題，出版以後即出現不同的版本，後被删節精化，在清代仍廣爲流傳。此一現象非僅關乎版本，也意謂著後人認同其隱含的微意。 冤結的問題意識源流甚早，早在六朝志怪、唐傳奇既已觸及，“冤”報成爲叙事文類中重要的題材，晚明則是以時人時事爲對象，撰寫爲歷史傳記性質的小説，相較之下究竟有何異趣？在此嘗試從宗教觀點切入，圍繞著冤結這個核心理念，探討其諸多面向，到底與社會倫理、法治運作和天理運行有何關聯性？並尋找解冤釋結的可能性，從而證成一種具有宗教感的叙述美學。 本文從“解冤釋結”的觀點考察其叙述結構，發現幾乎三分之二篇幅都在開展“結冤”情節。這種偏向的形成，必須回歸到義理結構的分析，唯有透過“結冤”叙述纔能“表明”、“暴露”冤的真相，將雙方壓抑已久的誤會、委屈、傷害，均一一呈明於天、地、人之間，纔是“釋結”精神的真諦。其次“冤”具有强烈的衝突性，從六朝志怪、唐人傳奇開始，即以公案、復仇或冥報類型表現個人冤結，但明清小説的特色就是同時綜合多種題材、類型，並且藉此强化其“社會性”，就像于謙之冤，不僅是個人際遇問題，更超越了家族榮辱；同時也透過輿論、小説進入公領域，成爲一種公衆議題。而小説的叙述筆法則是不斷强化于謙之“功”，特别是與“爲民申冤”的公案結合，又穿插明代衆多忠而見戮的冤獄故事，以此襯托于謙之“冤”達於極點，而要求明冤、雪冤的社會氛圍，也就超越了階級、身分，從而構成一種正面的社會公義感與時代感染力，最後則必須透過功烈成神的宗教崇拜，化冤氣爲正氣，方能滿足集體的心理需求，展現感動人的文學力量。 In terms of methodology, religious literature can be regarded in a three- dimensional relation — religion and/in/as literature. This article intends to combine these three types of relations to discuss it in the context of traditional Chinese religion, where especially in Taoism the ritual of “redressing injustices” is based on the religious doctrine and forms the narrative structure of numerous novels interacting with it in a subtle way. I take as an example the vengeance in the late Ming novel Complete Biography of the Loyal Junior Guardian Yu by Sun Gaoliang, whose main protagonist is the famous Ming dynasty official Yu Qian (1398-1457) to explore the dramatic turns in his life from the incurrence of injustice to its revealing and redressing. As this story involves the important issue of human relationships and principles, a lot of versions of it appeared as soon as it was published, subsequently abridged and elaborated, it circulated widely in the Qing dynasty. This is not simply a matter of different versions but a question of people recognizing its subtle meaning. The consciousness behind incurring injustices dates far back in time, the stories from the Six Dynasties and the Tang dynasty already mention it, where the response for “injustice” became an important subject-matter in the narrative genre. The late Ming author uses it to confront contemporary issues writing a novel as a historical biography. Between each period? the differences in the representation of injustice. The paper addresses these questions from multiple perspectives taking religion as a starting point and using the idea of incurring injustice to explore the connections between this idea and social ethics, the fate of the state and the implementation of heavenly justice. It also investigates the possibility of redressing injustices, proving the narrative esthetics charged with a sense of religion. Observing the narrative structure from the point of view of redressing injustices, I find out that almost two thirds of the plot is about “incurring injustice”. To understand this bias we have to analyze the structure of the moral principles behind it—only by means of “incurring injustice” can the narrative “indicate”, “expose” its true nature, and bring to light in front of heaven, earth and the people the long suppressed misunderstandings, grievances and harm between the two sides, being the essence of the spirit of “reconciling of injustices”. Furthermore, “injustice” has a strong sense of conflict, starting with the Six Dynasties and the Tang dynasty stories, where individual injustices are shown in the types of detective stories, stories about revenge and retribution from the nether world. However, the Ming-Qing stories are unique because they combine a number of subject-matter and story types to intensify their “social nature”. The injustice in the case of Yu Qian is not only a matter of personal fate but it also exceeds the questions of honor and disgrace of the family clan; moreover, it enters the public sphere and becomes a publicly discussed issue. Throughout the novel Yu Qian’s “accomplishments” are emphasized, they match especially the legal case of “being granted an order of redress on behalf of the people”, and the narrative is interspersed with stories about those unrightfully killed despite their loyalty. All these stories set off the culmination of Yu Qian’s injustice, requires its clarification and avenge, and exceeding class and status, embodies social justice and appeal for its times. Finally, the religious worship toward him as a deity for his strong merits transforms the injustice into righteousness, and only then is it possible to satisfy the requirements of the collective psyche, thus revealing the touching power of the written word.