Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

Powell, Courtney

2022 Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

doi: 10.2478/vjeas-2022-0001

AbstractThis article aims to explore how different Ainu groups have resisted continual control and assimilation by the Japanese government in the late twentieth century. First, it provides a brief analysis of early resistance strategies of ethnic groups to colonial power, contrasting it with contemporary methods of protest in the post-war era. This is to show the different modes of resistance and to analyse why and how they changed over time. The article highlights the period between the 1970s and 1990s, during which violent resistance committed by Japanese progressive activists in the name of Ainu liberation was gradually succeeded by peaceful protest enacted by Ainu themselves, resulting in a movement using artwork in pursuing their political goals. The article argues that this latter kind of resistance represents the core of Ainu activism. I will analyse cultural resistance efforts such as literary publications, commemorative monuments, and educational programmes since the 1970s. Special attention will be given to three children’s books produced by prominent Ainu activist Kayano Shigeru to discuss how the author’s cultural activism during this period shaped Ainu methods of contesting authority through cultural pride and maintenance.

Pech, Matthias

2022 Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

doi: 10.2478/vjeas-2022-0002

AbstractThis paper is about the representation of the Japanese police in three factual television series. In all three series, the audience accompanies police officers during their work and thus gets a close look at the daily work of the Japanese police. However, even if the series try to convey a feeling of authenticity, staging strategies which aim at the entertainment and education of the audience can be clearly identified. I therefore place them in the intermediate area between the genres of reality TV and documentaries. The research method adopted in this study is Werner Faulstich’s qualitative movie analysis, based on his book Grundkurs Filmanalyse (2013), in combination with a descriptive quantitative approach. In the analysis I ask what kinds of messages about the Japanese police are created in the three series under examination. The major findings can be summarised as follows: the comprehensive image created about the Japanese police is positive. The police force is legitimised above all by its professionalism and success in providing assistance to people in need by arresting criminals and proving their guilt, but also by its monopoly position as the sole competent crisis solver.1 This kind of representation does not come as a surprise as such; the paper, however, will show how this overall positive image is created by specific filmic techniques.

Senepin, Camille

2022 Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

doi: 10.2478/vjeas-2022-0003

AbstractIn February 2020, Vietnam closed its borders to prevent the emergence of COVID-19 in the country. Nevertheless, after the appearance of the first large infected cluster in March 2020, the situation gradually deteriorated since July 2020. The Vietnamese government decided to ban gatherings, and therefore certain religious practices. The religions in the country had to adapt their practices to this new situation. In this article, I will explore the situation of the Four Palaces (Tứ Phủ) and its possession ritual (len đồng). After recalling the chronology of the outbreak of COVID-19 in Vietnam, I will highlight how this worship adapted its practices in the north of the country at the beginning of the pandemic and during the Vietnamese lockdowns. Moreover, I will draw a parallel to discuss the ban of the ritual practice during the COVID-19 pandemic and the prohibition of “superstitious practices” that occurred in Vietnam between the late 1950s and the 1990s. The article will stress the importance of social media, in particular Facebook, and their uses by the mediums and followers of the Four Palaces while exploring the discourses that can be seen within the social networks.

Laliberté, André

2022 Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

doi: 10.2478/vjeas-2022-0004

AbstractThroughout the two years of this pandemic, Taiwanese public authorities have obtained cooperation from religious organisations in limiting and mitigating the contagion, and the population was largely spared the influence of conspiracy theories about the virus’ origins. I have found no trace of any significant doomsday theologies among the major religions practiced in Taiwan emerging in the public health emergency caused by COVID-19. What explains this largely cooperative relationship? From the perspective of public policy, why has the government obtained the compliance of most religious actors to its directive and faced little or no opposition coming from them? I use a historical institutionalist approach to argue that decades of toleration from political leaders of all trends towards religions have generated a path dependency of mutual trust and that legacy predates the period of democratisation. The article explores the extent to which this outcome results from three factors: Taiwan’s religious diversity, or the absence of a religious hegemony opposed to the state; pragmatic and flexible theologies; and/or convergence between successive Taiwanese governments’ social policies and the social teachings of religions.

Liu, Yan

2022 Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

doi: 10.2478/vjeas-2022-0005

AbstractThis article introduces the controversy over the naming of COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus” and the related hate crimes in the US. It focuses on a group of Chinese Christians in North America who devote themselves to defending and legitimising the concept of the “Chinese Virus” within various social media. This research analyses the content of the related texts and videos and defines the Christian far-right narrative and reviews the relationship between the Christian far-right narrative, Christian fundamentalism, and Christian nationalism. It explores the frame alignment process of American Christian nationalism and evaluates the frame bridging, amplification, extension, and transformation dynamics of the Chinese Christian far-right narrative. It discusses the similarity between Chinese Christian far-right and religious nationalism in different countries and evaluates the cultural and structural factors that contributed to Christian nationalism with Chinese characteristics. The Chinese Christian far-right narrative tends to adopt a friend/foe binary interpretation of political issues, moralise the goal of nation-building, downplay the democratic process and legal systems, and put religious communitarian values over the secular state’s responsibility to protect human rights. The Christian far-right narrative reflects a religious nationalist sentiment to exclude political, religious, and cultural others, which is fundamentalist theologically, opposing to system politically, anti-secular humanism culturally, and anti-progressive morally.

Kukowka, Stefan

2022 Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

doi: 10.2478/vjeas-2022-0006

AbstractThis case study explores the influence of a global health crisis on contemporary Taiwanese Buddhism. As prevention and control measures of COVID-19 enforced by the Taiwanese government constitute challenges and opportunities for religious actors and practice, the article examines how Hwadzan Pure Land Society (Huazang jing zōng xuehui 華藏淨宗學會) has responded to the pandemic by skilfully utilising digital technology to relocate “communal cultivation” (gongxiū 共 修) and rituals from the physical into the virtual realm. Compared to on-site participation in ritual, live streaming enables the practitioner to tune in simultaneously from every part of the world and even after the event has concluded since all videos are uploaded to YouTube. Whereas on-site participants recite and chant sūtras, bow and prostrate in front of Buddha statues, and make offerings, thus being temporally, spatially, and bodily integrated into each part of a ritual, off-site participants are detached from it in all three aspects. The communal practice viewed on the screen essentially becomes an individual practice in a secular environment far away from the sacralised space and time during the ritual. It is therefore the aim of the article to examine how religious practice and rituals in on-site and off-site settings differ in terms of religious experience.

Hoon, Chang-Yau; Jammes, Jérémy

2022 Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

doi: 10.2478/vjeas-2022-0007

AbstractThe pandemic has been a turning point in the technologies of power deployed by the state to contain and address the COVID-19 crisis. Whereas planning and discussions on the Industrial Revolution 4.0 in the Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam had been ongoing for several years, the pandemic became an unexpected catalyst for the realisation of these digitalisation plans with the launching of a onestop mobile application called BruHealth. This article sheds light on public responses to the COVID- 19 crisis, including the state’s approach in containing the virus and a critical examination on the use of the BruHealth. Upon identifying general patterns and discourses from the data collected intermittently in the period between 2019 and 2022, the article aims to be a contribution to the epistemological debates on the place of technologies in “biopolitics” on the digitalisation of personal experiences and on self-reflexivity in the fieldwork process of collecting and analysing data during the COVID-19 crisis.

Zoehrer, Dominic S.; Pokorny, Lukas K.

2022 Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

doi: 10.2478/vjeas-2022-0008

AbstractThe Universal Peace Federation or UPF is a United Nations-affiliated NGO established in 2005 by Mun Sŏn-myŏng (1920–2012), the founder of the South Korean Unification Movement. Mun deemed the UPF’s formation “the most revolutionary and wondrous event since God’s creation of human-kind,” assigning the organisation a pivotal role in his millenarian project. This article continues the discussion in Pokorny and Zoehrer 2022 (which addressed the context, birth, and millenarian anatomy of the UPF), outlining the history of the UPF with a focus on its changing self-conception, leadership shifts, and global activities. It examines how the UPF has articulated and put into practice its millenarian founding ideal over the course of three stages of its development. Finally, it highlights major external and internal challenges, which not only informed the UPF’s identity-building and public perception but render the organisation systemically vulnerable.