Complete Cantonese (Learn Cantonese with Teach Yourself)

Complete Cantonese (Learn Cantonese with Teach Yourself)
Author: Hugh Baker
Publisher: Teach Yourself
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2012-05-18
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1444134426

Is this the right course for me? This new and improved Edition of Complete Cantonese will take you effortlessly from beginner to confident speaker. Whether you are starting from scratch, or are just out of practice, Complete Cantonese will guarantee success! It is fully updated to make your language experience fun and interactive. You can still rely on the benefits of a top language teacher with years of teaching experience, but now with added learning features within the course and online. The course is structured in thematic units and the emphasis is placed on communication, so that you effortlessly progress from introducing yourself and dealing with everyday situations to using the phone and talking about work. This course uses the widely-accepted Yale Romanisation system and includes a helpful pronunciation guide at the beginning of the textbook. By the end of this course, you will be at Level B2 of the Common European Framework for Languages: can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Learn effortlessly with a new easy-to-read page design and interactive features: Not got much time? One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started Author insights Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience. Grammar tips Easy-to-follow building blocks to give you a clear understanding. Useful vocabulary Easy to find and learn, to build a solid foundation for speaking. Dialogues Read and listen to everyday dialogues to help you speak and understand fast. Pronunciation Don't sound like a tourist! Perfect your pronunciation before you go. Test yourself Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress Extend your knowledge Extra online articles at to give you a richer understanding of the culture and history of China. Try this Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it.

Hong Kong Popular Culture

Hong Kong Popular Culture
Author: Klavier J. Wang
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 539
Release: 2020-01-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9811388172

This book traces the evolution of the Hong Kong’s popular culture, namely film, television and popular music (also known as Cantopop), which is knotted with the city’s geo-political, economic and social transformations. Under various historical contingencies and due to the city’s special geo-politics, these three major popular cultural forms have experienced various worlding processes and have generated border-crossing impact culturally and socially. The worlding processes are greatly associated the city’s nature as a reception and departure port to Sinophone migrants and populations of multiethnic and multicultural. Reaching beyond the “golden age” (1980s) of Hong Kong popular culture and afar from a film-centric cultural narration, this book, delineating from the dawn of the 20th century and following a chronological order, untangles how the nowadays popular “Hong Kong film”, “Hong Kong TV” and “Cantopop” are derived from early-age Sinophone cultural heritage, re-shaped through cross-cultural hybridization and influenced by multiple political forces. Review of archives, existing literatures and corporation documents are supplemented with policy analysis and in-depth interviews to explore the centennial development of Hong Kong popular culture, which is by no means demise but at the juncture of critical transition.

Hong Kong Culture

Hong Kong Culture
Author: Kam Louie
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2010-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9888028413

"Does Hong Kong culture still matter? This informative and interdisciplinary volume proves unmistakably so. It stands as an essential Hong Kong reader, a rich resource not only for those specialized in Hong Kong culture and history but also for students, teachers, and researchers interested in cosmopolitanism, postcolonial conditions, as well as cultural globalization."-Laikwan Pang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong "A very timely, ambitious and fascinating book. The essays are based on solid research, and full of theoretical or analytical insights illustrating the complexity of social and cultural life in Hong Kong. In addition to offering excellent essays on Hong Kong cinema, the book also surveys alternative performance art and documentary, which are undoubtedly the least researched aspects of Hong Kong's cultural scene."-Law Wing Sang, Lingnan University Hong Kong as a world city draws on a rich variety of foundational "texts" in film, fiction, architecture and other forms of visual culture. The city has been a cultural fault-line for centuries ù a translation space where Chinese-ness is interpreted for "Westerners" and Western-ness is translated for Chinese. Though constantly refreshed by its Chinese roots and global influences, this hub of Cantonese culture has flourished along cosmopolitan lines to build a modern, outward-looking character. Successfully managing this perpetual instability helps make Hong Kong a postmodern stepping-stone city, and helps make its citizens such prosperous and durable survivors in the modern world. This volume of essays engages many fields of cultural achievement. Several pieces discuss the tensions of English, closely associated with a colonial past, yet undeniably the key to Hong Kong's future. Hong Kong provides a vital point of contact, where cultures truly meet and a cosmopolitan traveler can feel at home and leave a sturdy mark. Contributors include John Carroll, Carolyn Cartier, David Clarke, Elaine Ho, Douglas Kerr, Michael Ingham, C. J.W.-L. Wee, Chu Yiu-Wai, Gina Marchetti, Esther M.K. Cheung, Pheng Cheah, Chris Berry, and Giorgio Biancorosso. Kam Louie is dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Hong Kong.

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Traditional Chinese Culture

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Traditional Chinese Culture
Author: Sin-wai Chan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 682
Release: 2019-12-06
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1315453479

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Traditional Chinese Culture offers an in-depth discussion of cultural aspects of China from the ancient period to the pre-modern era, lasting over 5,000 years, comprised of 7,000 word pieces by more than 20 world-leading academics and experts. Addressing areas such as China studies, cultural studies, cultural management, and more specific areas – such as religion, opera, Chinese painting, Chinese calligraphy, material culture, performing arts, and visual arts – this encyclopedia covers all major aspects of traditional Chinese culture. The volume is intended to be a detailed reference for graduate students on a variety of courses, and also for undergraduate students on survey courses to Chinese culture.

Cantonese as a Second Language

Cantonese as a Second Language
Author: John C. Wakefield
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2019-04-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1351184237

Cantonese is a language from southern China that is spoken by roughly 70 million people worldwide. It is the language of Hong Kong cinema and has traditionally been the most prominent language spoken in Chinatowns around the world. People choose to learn Cantonese for a variety of social and economic reasons: because it is a heritage language that one’s relatives speak; because it is the language of one’s partner and monolingual in-laws; because it is necessary for living and working in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, or other Cantonese-speaking communities; because it is the bridge to fully appreciating and understanding Cantonese culture; or simply because it is an irresistible challenge. Whatever the motivation, more and more people are choosing to learn Cantonese as an additional language. This book discusses many issues related to both acquiring and teaching Cantonese. If you are a learner of Cantonese, this long overdue volume is essential to understanding both the grammatical and the social issues involved with learning this notoriously difficult language. If you are a teacher, this book will be invaluable to gaining insight into your students’ motivations and needs. And finally, if you are an applied linguist, the unique aspects related to the acquisition of Cantonese offer a fascinating contribution to the literature.

Divine Threads

Divine Threads
Author: April Liu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2019-01-07
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9781773270234

For more than 100 years, Vancouver has been home to a vibrant and thriving Cantonese opera scene. As a performance art carried out by transient troupes, it is an ephemeral medium that rarely leaves a trace in the historic records. However, an extraordinary treasure trove of early 20th-century Cantonese opera costumes, props, and stage dressings made its way to the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC. In the first book-length study of this little known collection, April Liu retraces the arduous journeys of early Cantonese opera troupes who began arriving along the west coast of North America during the mid-19th century. A close examination of the costumes and props reveal the moving songs, stories, performances, and ritual practices of early Chinese migrant communities who struggled to make a home in a foreign and often hostile land.

Culture, Politics and Television in Hong Kong

Culture, Politics and Television in Hong Kong
Author: Eric Kit-wai Ma
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2005-07-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134680228

Ma looks at the ways in which the identity of Hong Kong citizens has changed in the 1990s especially since the handover to China in 1997. This is the first analysis which focuses on the role, in this process, of popular media in general and television in particular. The author specifically analyses at the relationship between television ideologies and cultural identities and explores the role of television in the process of identity formation and maintenance.

Cantonese as Written Language

Cantonese as Written Language
Author: Don Snow
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2004-10-01
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9789622097094

Cantonese is the only dialect of Chinese which has developed a widely known and used written form. It has played a role in publishing in the Guangdong region since the late Ming dynasty when various types of verses using Cantonese were published as mu yu shu (‘wooden fish books’). In the early twentieth century these dialect texts were joined by Cantonese opera scripts, published as popular reading material. However, it was only after the end of the Second World War that written Cantonese came to be widely used in popular newspapers and magazines, advertising, and in the private communications. Cantonese as Written Language examines this development in the broader context of diglossia, and also of the patterns by which spoken vernaculars have developed written forms in other societies. Based on primary source research, including interviews with publishers and writers who played an important role in the growth of written Cantonese, the author argues that this move of Cantonese into the realm of written language is closely associated with Hong Kong's distinct local culture and identity. The growth of the written vernacular also reflects the territory's evolving cultural distinctiveness from mainland China, first as a British colony, and now as a Special Administrative Region of China.

Lost in Transition

Lost in Transition
Author: Yaowei Zhu
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2013-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1438446454

Looks at the fate of Hong Kong’s unique culture since its reversion to China.

Confucian Cultures of Authority

Confucian Cultures of Authority
Author: Peter D. Hershock
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0791481565

This volume examines the values that have historically guided the negotiation of identity, both practical and ideal, in Chinese Confucian culture, considers how these values play into the conception and exercise of authority, and assesses their contemporary relevance in a rapidly globalizing world. Included are essays that explore the rule of ritual in classical Confucian political discourse; parental authority in early medieval tales; authority in writings on women; authority in the great and long-beloved folk novel of China Journey to the West; and the anti-Confucianism of Lu Xun, the twentieth-century writer and reformer. By examining authority in cultural context, these essays shed considerable light on the continuities and contentions underlying the vibrancy of Chinese culture. While of interest to individual scholars and students, the book also exemplifies the merits of a thematic (rather than geographic or area studies) approach to incorporating Asian content throughout the curriculum. This approach provides increased opportunities for cross-cultural comparison and a forum for encouraging values-centered conversation in the classroom.