Taking ideas and frameworks from philosophy, psychology, political science, cultural studies and anthropology, this book tells the larger 'truth' about the Singapore state. This book argues that this strong hegemonic state achieves effective rule not just from repressive policies but also through a combination of efficient government, good standard of living, tough official measures and popular compliance. Souchou Yao looks at the reasons behind the hegemonic ruling, examining key events such as the caning of American teenager Michael Fay, the judicial ruling on fellatio and unnatural sex, and Singapore's 'war on terror' to show the ways in which the State manages these events to ensure the continuance of its power and ideological ethos. Lively, and well-written, this book discusses key subject areas such as: leftist radicalism and communist insurgency nation-building as trauma Western 'yellow culture' and Asian Values judicial caning and the meaning of pain the law and oral sex food and the art of lying cinema as catharsis Singapore after September 11.

The discourse of Confucian Capitalism has been crucial in shaping our understanding of the brilliant economic successes of the Chinese diaspora all over the world. From this perspective, hard work, family values, and communal cohesion, as well as business practices based on sentiment, trust, and social networks, are the legendary means of explaining the wealth and commercial talent of these remarkable people. The book examines the subject of Chinese business' by exposing the enduring myth about the determining effects of these values and practices supposedly derived from Confucianism. Such myth relies on an ahistorical and essentialised notion of Chinese Culture', and brings into focus three sites of controversy: the economically driven Chinese subject, work-place relations characterised by consensus and cultural sharing, and an operating ethos of collectivist, pre-capitalist sociality.
In its interrogation of the discourse of Confucian capitalism, it is the aim of this book to arrive at a critically informed and socially realistic understanding of Chinese business. The author combines abstract analysis with examples from anthropological fieldwork among Chinese traders in Sarawak, East Malaysia. By anchoring theoretical discussion to real case-studies, the multi-disciplinary approach of this book offers a useful insight into Chinese business activities, and contributes to current debates in cultural studies, economic anthropology, the economic performance of overseas Chinese, and neo-Confucian societies more generally.

The discourse of Confucian Capitalism has been crucial in shaping our understanding of the brilliant economic successes of the Chinese diaspora all over the world. From this perspective, hard work, family values, and communal cohesion, as well as business practices based on sentiment, trust, and social networks, are the legendary means of explaining the wealth and commercial talent of these remarkable people. The book examines the subject of Chinese business' by exposing the enduring myth about the determining effects of these values and practices supposedly derived from Confucianism. Such myth relies on an ahistorical and essentialised notion of Chinese Culture', and brings into focus three sites of controversy: the economically driven Chinese subject, work-place relations characterised by consensus and cultural sharing, and an operating ethos of collectivist, pre-capitalist sociality. In its interrogation of the discourse of Confucian capitalism, it is the aim of this book to arrive at a critically informed and socially realistic understanding of Chinese business. The author combines abstract analysis with examples from anthropological fieldwork among Chinese traders in Sarawak, East Malaysia. By anchoring theoretical discussion to real case-studies, the multi-disciplinary approach of this book offers a useful insight into Chinese business activities, and contributes to current debates in cultural studies, economic anthropology, the economic performance of overseas Chinese, and neo-Confucian societies more generally.

Taking ideas and frameworks from philosophy, psychology, political science, cultural studies and anthropology, this book tells the larger 'truth' about the Singapore state. This book argues that this strong hegemonic state achieves effective rule not just from repressive policies but also through a combination of efficient government, good standard of living, tough official measures and popular compliance. Souchou Yao looks at the reasons behind the hegemonic ruling, examining key events such as the caning of American teenager Michael Fay, the judicial ruling on fellatio and unnatural sex, and Singapore's 'war on terror' to show the ways in which the State manages these events to ensure the continuance of its power and ideological ethos. Lively, and well-written, this book discusses key subject areas such as: leftist radicalism and communist insurgency nation-building as trauma Western 'yellow culture' and Asian Values judicial caning and the meaning of pain the law and oral sex food and the art of lying cinema as catharsis Singapore after September 11.

This book tells the story of a Chinese family owned shophouse in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, through the lens of petite capitalism. Neo-Marxist in spirit, literary in tone, it recounts the triumph and despair of a family in its struggles against the financial frailty and structural limitations of a pervasive economic form of the Chinese diaspora: the small family business. The daily realities of the Chinese shophouse are captured by the art of ethnography and the author's own memories. The book examines Chinese petite capitalism afresh by bringing into focus issues not usually covered by writers on the subject-the concept of petite capitalism, the architecture of the Asian shophouse, the Hakka kinship, 'tiger parenting' and Chinese childrearing, the culture of debt, family legacy, and Chinese inheritance. The book reveals the business acumen for which the Chinese diaspora are renowned as part truth and part myth. Schumpeter's 'creative destruction' haunts the small Chinese family business where hard work and individual efforts are helpless against the ever-evolving nature of capitalism.

Malaysia ist eine wohlhabende, sich entwickelnde Nation in Südostasien. Seine Bürger sind mit den Problemen konfrontiert, die das Leben der Menschen überall auf der Welt kennzeichnen. Diese Probleme betreffen die Familie und die wirtschaftliche Sicherheit ebenso wie die existenziellen Entscheidungen, die wir gewöhnlich mit den Bewohnern entwickelter Gesellschaften verbinden. Mit der Kunst der Ethnographie und der kulturellen Analyse des Anthropologen zeigt das Buch, wie gewöhnliche Malaysier mit den Unwägbarkeiten und der Unbeständigkeit ihrer täglichen Existenz umgehen. In einer leicht postkolonialen Geste überträgt Doing Lifework in Malaysia das Werk von Heidegger, Arendt, Camus und Sartre - den Meistern des europäischen Existenzialismus - auf eine Situation, die erkennbar aus der "Dritten Welt" stammt. Das Ergebnis ist eine Reihe eindringlicher und erhellender Essays, die ein breites Spektrum sozialer Akteure abdecken, darunter eine tamilische Hausangestellte, die Filmemacherin Jasmin Ahmed, ein malaiischer Großhändler, der zum Ökologen wurde, eine Gruppe chinesischer Händler im Landesinneren von Sarawak und eine ehemalige kommunistische Aufständische. Diese faszinierende Studie beleuchtet das malaysische Gesellschaftsleben neu und rückt dabei Themen in den Mittelpunkt, die in anderen Berichten normalerweise nicht behandelt werden: Hinduistische Verehrung als Auflehnung gegen die Tradition, Gabentausch und Globalisierung, Rassenneid und Psychoanalyse, Kleinstkapitalismus und Einsamkeit.  

Malaysia is a prosperous, developing nation in Southeast Asia. Its citizens face the problems that beset people’s lives all over the world. These problems are about the family and economic security, as well as the existential choices we customarily associate with the residents of developed societies. Through the anthropologist’s art of ethnography and cultural analysis, the book shows the way ordinary Malaysians manage the contingencies, the chanciness in their daily existence. In a mildly postcolonial gesture, Doing Lifework in Malaysia transports the work of Heidegger, Arendt, Camus, Sartre—masters of European existentialism—to a recognizably ‘Third World’ situation. The result is a series of penetrating and illuminating essays that cover a broad range of social actors, among them a Tamil domestic servant, the film maker Jasmin Ahmed, a Malay corporate wheeler-and-dealer turned ecologist, a group of Chinese traders in the Sarawak interior and a female ex-communist insurgent. As such, this fascinating study examines the Malaysian social life afresh, and in the process brings into focus issues not normally covered in other accounts: Hindu worship as a defiance against tradition, gift exchange and globalization, race envy and psychoanalysis, petite capitalism and solitude.

Malaysia is a prosperous, developing nation in Southeast Asia. Its citizens face the problems that beset people's lives all over the world. These problems are about the family and economic security, as well as the existential choices we customarily associate with the residents of developed societies. Through the anthropologist's art of ethnography and cultural analysis, the book shows the way ordinary Malaysians manage the contingencies, the chanciness in their daily existence. In a mildly postcolonial gesture, Doing Lifework in Malaysia transports the work of Heidegger, Arendt, Camus, Sartre-masters of European existentialism-to a recognizably 'Third World' situation. The result is a series of penetrating and illuminating essays that cover a broad range of social actors, among them a Tamil domestic servant, the film maker Jasmin Ahmed, a Malay corporate wheeler-and-dealer turned ecologist, a group of Chinese traders in the Sarawak interior and a female ex-communist insurgent. As such, this fascinating study examines the Malaysian social life afresh, and in the process brings into focus issues not normally covered in other accounts: Hindu worship as a defiance against tradition, gift exchange and globalization, race envy and psychoanalysis, petite capitalism and solitude.

This book tells the story of a Chinese family owned shophouse in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, through the lens of petite capitalism. Neo-Marxist in spirit, literary in tone, it recounts the triumph and despair of a family in its struggles against the financial frailty and structural limitations of a pervasive economic form of the Chinese diaspora: the small family business. The daily realities of the Chinese shophouse are captured by the art of ethnography and the author's own memories. The book examines Chinese petite capitalism afresh by bringing into focus issues not usually covered by writers on the subject-the concept of petite capitalism, the architecture of the Asian shophouse, the Hakka kinship, 'tiger parenting' and Chinese childrearing, the culture of debt, family legacy, and Chinese inheritance. The book reveals the business acumen for which the Chinese diaspora are renowned as part truth and part myth. Schumpeter's 'creative destruction' haunts the small Chinese family business where hard work and individual efforts are helpless against the ever-evolving nature of capitalism.

Language of Rivers, Silence of Mountains is a brilliant attempt to examine the inner structure of Zen thinking for the Western reader. Written in a simple, accessible style, the book goes to the heart of the paradox of Zen teaching. Its ideas of existence, truth and knowledge lack the precision and depth of Western philosophy, and there are no notions of paradise or hell to console the faithful or forewarn the wicked, yet it has inspired a following all over the world - not only in the East. In the hands of the authors, a Zen practitioner and a cultural anthropologist, the subject is given an intellectual grilling using terms and philosophical references familiar to the Western reader. Language of Rivers, Silence of Mountains is insightful and a joy to read.

One of the first conflicts of the Cold War, the Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and communist insurgents in Malaya from 1948 to 1960. Souchou Yao tells its story in a series of penetrating and illuminating essays that range across a vast canvas. Throughout the book runs a passionate concern for the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women in colonial Malaya. Here, the effect of counterinsurgency measures are captured by the anthropologist's art of ethnography and cultural analysis. Among the vignettes are an ethnographic encounter with a woman ex-guerrilla, and the author's remembrance of his insurgent-cousin killed in a police ambush. As such, this fascinating study examines the Emergency afresh, and in the process brings into focus issues not normally covered in other accounts: nostalgia and failed revolution, socialist fantasy and ethnic relations, and the moral costs of modern counterinsurgency.

Throughout the book runs a passionate concern for the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women in colonial Malaya. Here, the effect of counterinsurgency measures are captured by the anthropologist's art of ethnography and cultural analysis. Among the vignettes are an ethnographic encounter with a woman ex-guerrilla, and the author's remembrance of his insurgent-cousin killed in a police ambush. As such, this fascinating study examines the Emergency afresh, and in the process brings into focus issues not normally covered in other accounts: nostalgia and failed revolution, socialist fantasy and ethnic relations, and the moral costs of modern counterinsurgency.